St Felix, Rendlesham

Sermon from 6th February 2011, preached at Eyke and Tunstall

2011-02-07T09:43:00.002Z

Readings: Isaiah 58.1-12; Matthew 5.13-20

I was reading through a book of The Times Best Sermons, which might sound like dry reading, except they are the BEST sermons, and the first of them in the book is Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.

The reading today is from almost the beginning of the famous Sermon on the Mount. Jesus went up the mountain and from there spoke to his disciples, and crowds of people gathered to hear him.

The Gospel readings for the next four Sundays continue the teaching Jesus gave the disciples and the people that day on the mountain, so that before Lent we will have heard most of the Sermon on the Mount.

By the time Jesus gave this teaching, he was beginning to gain a reputation throughout Galilee, preaching the good news of the Kingdom and healing those with all kinds of diseases.

And so when he had the crowd there, he taught them just what was meant by ‘the Kingdom of God’. And over the next few weeks we will be reminded of the images Jesus used to help his listeners understand just what he meant. …to help US understand.

These are the workaday people Jesus is talking to, including the disciples.
Not the priests from the temple or the Roman occupying forces, or anybody with any kind of power or influence. And Jesus’ words can be understood as either encouraging or frustrating, or both.

He praises them - “you are the salt of the earth”, but warns them to stay “salty”, or they won’t do any good.
He praises them again - “You are the light of the world”, but warns them, “let your light shine!” Not to gain praise for themselves, but to point others towards God.

We had a holiday in Wales some years ago, and went inside a mountain, into what used to be a slate mine but now there are tourist trips inside it. There is nowhere darker than the inside of a mountain. Imagine being in such darkness, and imagine Jesus as one single bright light in that dark place… Then imagine a million tiny mirrors attached to the walls of the dark place… and how much lighter it would be with mirrors reflecting back the light.
WE are each to be one of those mirrors, reflecting His light.

Jesus reassures the disciples and the crowds that he has not come to abolish the Law, the Law of Moses, that is, or go against the prophets. Quite the opposite - Jesus is the fulfilment of the Law and the prophets.
He has not come to take any of that away, but to add to it. That which went before was incomplete, and Jesus is the missing piece which completes the picture.

In the King James Version of the Bible the verse about the Scripture, verse 18, is translated: “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.”

This is a much more expressive term than the ‘strokes of a letter’ in the translation we’re given on the pew sheets. The jots and tittles were the tiniest marks in the Hebrew alphabet, like accents, showing how words were to be pronounced, and not one of the tiny marks is to be overlooked - Jesus has not come to take away the demands of the Law, but to reinterpret them.

He has a harsh comment about the religious teachers of his day, the scribes and Pharisees, who had a tendency to consider themselves more ‘righteous’ than others. They represent the lowest level of righteousness. Jesus wants his followers to aim higher.
What is righteousness? It is mentioned many times in the Bible. But it is difficult to pin down.
Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians (6.14) tells his congregation there to “put on the breastplate of righteousness”.

It isn’t a new concept: Habakkuk 2.4 states “the righteous will live by his faith”. As opposed to living by trickery and arrogance. The righteous will live by faith.

I trawled the internet to find a definition of righteousness, and one preacher had written, “It is very simple. It just means doing what is right.”

But that is not satisfactory at all. The scribes and the Pharisees did what was right by the Law. They followed it in all its jots and tittles.

The real definition of righteousness is in our OT reading today. The book of Isaiah is one of the longest in the Bible, I think only Psalms is longer.

And the thread running through all of the 66 chapters of Isaiah is a call for justice for those who have nobody to speak for them. Righteous indignation on their behalf, if you like.
Jesus quoted verses from Isaiah chapter 61, the first couple of verses, just a few chapter after the reading today, when he first preached in the synagogue in Nazareth:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.” (Luke 4.18-19)

This was the manifesto for the Messiah foretold by the prophet Isaiah. One full of righteousness - but not the self-righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees - instead a holy righteousness reflecting God’s care for those who have nobody to care for them. The righteousness of attitude towards injustice, that moves someone to look beyond self-serving actions and to act in ways that might not be good for them at all, but do serve the greater good.

And if we do something that might seem odd to our friends and families, because we believe it is the right thing in God’s eyes, how do we deal with the consequences?
Depending on the circles we move in there could be questions, nagging, even ridicule…?? That may be more difficult to deal with than doing the right thing in the first place.
When Paul was telling the Ephesians about the breastplate of righteousness, he wrote: “put on the full armour of God, so that you may be able to stand your ground.”

The breastplate of righteousness may be invisible, but it can still be there. Christians should be used to invisible signs. When we are baptised the sign of the cross is made on our foreheads. It is invisible, but it was made, and its significance is real even without a visible mark.

So is the armour of God. Put it on so we can stand our ground.

What Jesus said was not new.

Isaiah had been writing the same message, centuries before Jesus lived on earth.

What was the reaction of people to what Jesus said?
What is the reaction of people today to what Jesus said?

Much the same, I would guess. Those who were there, those fortunate people who hear the words from Jesus’ own mouth, were spellbound at the time. But how many held to what he said after they had all dispersed?

What Jesus said was not new, but he taught it in a new way. He taught about JOYFUL self-sacrifice for the good of others, and being sure that our daily lives reflect the religion we practise on Sundays.

When we have the nerve to follow in the way Jesus appeals to us, then amazing things can happen.

I have a friend back in Northamptonshire who is a retired schools inspector. While she was still working she had to go to Nepal to inspect a British school there, and made connections with some Nepali Christians there. Later, after returning to the UK she found herself with a burden for the church she had met in Nepal, and this verse from Isaiah was the inspiration for what came next.
Isaiah 58.10: If you spend yourself on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness.

What had impressed her was the way these Christians served each other. There were several orphaned children, and no state support of any kind out there, and the church kept the children, and the congregation, who live on the bread-line anyway, would fast on Sundays and bring the food they would have eaten to the children’s home. That kept the children fed for the week, until the following Sunday. These people were giving the food from their own mouths, not out of cupboards where they had plenty to spare. They gave, literally, of themselves.

Now, about 15 years later, there is a thriving church and a real children’s home, and also provision for widows, who, if they have no children to care for them, have to beg. They beg on the streets of Kathmandu.

These ideals of justice and care are God’s ideals.

If God matters to us, if our faith means anything to us, then we have to take these things seriously.

We are to be salt, not bland. Salt is distinctive. We are to be distinctive.

We are to be light - trustworthy, honest.
Light is stronger than darkness. When the house is in darkness and someone turns on the landing light, the light comes through the crack in the door, not the darkness going out into the light.

Let's not hear these words and then turn from them. Too often the church turns from the challenge of the Sermon on the Mount, for it is challenging, and we sink too easily into conformist respectability. If we’re not careful we become difficult to tell apart from the world. We lose our saltiness. Our light becomes dim even without a bushel to hide it under.

In my trawl through the internet I came upon a story I like very much, which I would like to tell you. It is a very imaginary story about a cave all in darkness. The cave heard the sun calling to it, “Cave, come up here and see the light! Come and see the sunshine!”
The cave said, “What is that - I’ve never heard of light and sunshine.” And he wasn’t sure he wanted to go away from the darkness he knew. But the sun called again, and eventually the cave ventured up and was surprised to see light all around. He said to the sun, “Come down and I’ll show you the darkness.” And the sun went down with him, but when the sun went into the cave, there was no darkness.

If we all put on our lights and venture into the darkness, in faith, there would be no darkness. We are all called to be salt and light. You are salt and light. Let’s have the courage to be salty all week, every day. Let’s have the courage to shine a light for Jesus.
He is the reason we’re here, now.

Thanks be to God.

Sermon for 21st March 2010 Fifth Sunday of Lent

2010-03-22T22:41:00.003Z

Delivered at Eyke and Tunstall

Readings: Phil. 3.4b-14; John 12.1-8

This is the Fifth Sunday of Lent. Next Sunday will be Palm Sunday, and after that the pace hots up as Holy Week rolls on relentlessly towards the Cross on Good Friday.

A good time, then to reflect on Lent so far, the readings we’ve heard and what they mean.

It began with Jesus in the wilderness and the temptations - the way to begin our own time of discipline for Lent. I hope you’ve done better than I have with keeping to whatever you might have adopted as either ‘giving up’ or ‘taking on’ for Lent.

Did anybody actually memorise the verse from Psalm 91 I recommended back then? verse 2: “You are my refuge and my stronghold, my God in whom I put my trust.” Well, there’s still time. He still is our refuge and stronghold, and he’s still there for us to put our trust in him. The Psalm is always worth taking home and reading, even if we don’t have it read in the service. The Psalms are a wonderful resource for us.

Then in week 2 there was the reading about the messy, bloody animal sacrifices when God came down to Abram’s level and sealed an agreement with him in a way Abram could understand. (Genesis 15.1-12, 17-18) And there was Jesus grieving over the state of Jerusalem, which he is surely still doing today. (Luke 13.31-35)

In week 3 we had the parable of the fruitless fig tree, which was given another chance when the gardener pleaded for it. (Luke 13.1-9) But the warning of judgement was there too.

Last week was the holiday from Lent that is Mothering Sunday, but even then, with the story of Moses in the bulrushes, and the Gospel telling of Simeon greeting Mary with her infant son in the Temple, there were hints of danger ahead. The wise old man, Simeon, after a lifetime of obedience to God working and praying in the Temple, knew that all would not go well all the time for the Messiah he recognised in the little baby he held in his arms.

Each week, there has been a contrast of light and shade, and this week is no exception.

Taking the epistle first: the extract from Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Read the rest of the letter; it isn't very long. From the beginning it is clear that Paul loves these people. In some of his other letters to his other churches, he scolds and berates them in no uncertain terms, but not the church at Philippi. He says right at the start: “I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy…” So instead of chiding them, Paul berates himself for his old ways, before he met with Christ and was converted.

He demonstrates that mix of humility and pride that does characterise his writing. Paul is proud of the fact that if anyone wants to get into some kind of macho contest over righteousness in Jewish tradition, he would win.

He’s got it all,

· from circumcision

· to full Jewish identity,

· Benjaminite lineage,

· knowledge and practice of Jewish law,

· training and identity as a Pharisee

· AND a persecutor of the church!

Paul ticks all the boxes!

But Paul’s encounter with Christ has led him to treat that entire heritage as “rubbish”. But the Greek word he uses in the original text is much earthier than that. It means not just rubbish, but dung or excrement. It is hard to overstate just how shocking this choice of words is here, or how offensive it must have been to the original readers, or those who heard the letter read, that Paul could so thoroughly insult and reject his original heritage.

But Paul isn’t worried about that as he writes. He has turned decisively away from every aspect of his former identity and counted it as worthless. He has turned decisively towards a new identity. The one who fiercely persecuted the new Christian church has now come to value a relationship with Christ just as fiercely - this relationship is the entire purpose of his existence.

This complete about-turn is an example of real repentance. This is what the word repentance means: to turn around and take the opposite direction.

Before, his righteousness was of his own doing, by being blameless under the Law: knowing what all the rules were and sticking to them. His pride was in himself. He also knew that the Law made provision for impurities to be cleansed, transgressions forgiven, and therefore righteousness under the Law restored.

But now, having met Jesus and had his eyes quite literally opened to real righteousness, Paul sees that what he thought was righteousness was nothing. The right-ness that comes through faith in Jesus as our Saviour is what Paul now values above all else. He sees now that sharing Jesus’ experiences in life reassures him that he may also share in his experience of death and resurrection and eternal life with God.

Paul surrenders all that he valued before for the sake of his faith in Jesus Christ.

And thinking about lifestyle and the value of things brings us to the Gospel, where we hear about Jesus’ friend, Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, pouring hugely expensive perfume over Jesus’ feet. It would have been customary to wash the feet of a guest, but this was a gesture of enormous extravagance.

Where had Mary got this pure nard from? - an intensely aromatic, thick oil, made from a plant not native to the country (which probably accounted for its outrageous cost).

Was it a jar left over from when her brother Lazarus died? - this man that Jesus had brought alive out of the tomb after he had been dead in there for four days?

Whatever its original purpose, Mary takes a pound –a whole pound – of this thick, sweet stuff and slathers it on Jesus’ feet.

We give our most precious things, whether valuable in monetary or emotional terms, to those we love best, but this was more than that: Mary did this as an act of worship.

And then she wiped his feet with her hair! This was breaking social taboos on a scandalous scale.

A woman’s long, loose hair in mixed company?

And it’s such an intensely intimate and physical act! On her knees on the floor before him, bending low and close.

[Have you ever stroked anybody’s feet with your hair? Neither have I.] And when she’d finished, her hair would be damp and heavy with the scented oil; and Jesus’ feet would be glistening with it, and the smell would fill the whole house. (As the fragrance of the incense is filling the church now…)

Whatever the reactions of the others in the dinner party, Judas is the one recorded as commenting first. He criticises the injustice of the act. Think of the poor who could have been fed for what that perfume cost! (Think of the Haiti relief it could have funded!)

But Jesus interprets what she has done for those at the table: “Leave her alone,” he says. “She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.”

Just as Simeon in the Temple sensed sorrow ahead for the infant Jesus, so Mary senses that there won’t be much more time left with Jesus in his earthly life. She takes her chance and worships him while he is still there.

These contrasts are there for us to ponder:

· Paul’s change of attitude, from being satisfied through his own efforts, to being satisfied only in working for and suffering for and following Jesus.

· The difference in the smells! The dung Paul writes of, which represented his former life without faith in Christ, and the expensive perfume filling the life of those who do follow him.

· The difference in attitude between Judas, who steals the group’s money then lectures about waste, and Mary, who seizes an opportunity to give the best she can to Jesus without counting the cost.

The starkness of Paul’s statements does challenge those who claim to be Christians today. How much of an about face is required of US, for us to fit Christian faith into normal life in western culture? We don’t have to count it all as excrement - do we?. . .which can be confusing.

But if we find ourselves sort of identifying with what Judas said… it WAS a bit of a waste, wasn’t it - ?

Where do WE stand in the giving of ourselves?

Maybe we need to examine our own ethics as Paul did.

But the total giving of self, whether in the way Paul describes in his letter, or in the way Mary demonstrates by her actions, that is something else.

Paul sets out the rationale for Mary’s actions, which are not rational by worldly standards.

But then, Jesus’ actions are not rational either, by worldly standards.

Mary’s gift is lavishly and completely poured out for the One who will make of his own death a gift for the whole world.

The Psalm for today, 126, states it for us: The Lord has done great things for us, and we are glad indeed.

Let us be glad. The Lord has done - and does do - great things for us.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Refs: Textweek, several contributors

Sermon for Mothering Sunday, 14th March 2010

2010-03-20T23:54:00.002Z

Exodus 2.1-10; Luke 2.33-35

Collect for Mothering Sunday:

God of love, passionate and strong,

tender and careful:

watch over us and hold us all the days of our life;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Moses in the bulrushes is one of the first Bible stories I remember hearing. It ranks alongside Daniel in the lions’ den and David and Goliath for drama in the Old Testament.

What a lot of resourceful women looked out for Moses. The extract we’re given today doesn’t say why Moses’ mother did such a strange thing as putting her baby afloat in a basket in the river. She was one of the Hebrew people in slavery in Egypt, and the Hebrews were becoming so numerous that Pharaoh had a cull of these over-fertile slaves, and ordered the baby boys to be killed. They were to be thrown into the Nile. A simple but effective means of keeping their numbers down.

But first the midwives hid the fact that the boys were being born, and then Moses’ mother, when she could no longer conceal him, took this drastic step of floating him in a basket where he would be likely to be found.

And Pharaoh’s daughter surely knew she was going against her father’s orders when she rescued this baby from the river, but she did it anyway.

And then Moses’ sister, Miriam, watching from the river bank, achieved a real coup and fetched her mother to be a wetnurse for the baby, in the employ of Pharaoh’s daughter. So she had her son for some time longer.

Real ingenuity to protect the baby Moses, who would later grow up and lead his people to freedom from slavery.

***

There is a blessing in the Gospel reading, and also a shadow, a warning of tragedy ahead. Simeon warns the young mother, ‘a sword will pierce your own soul.’ Yes, this child was more special than any other child ever born, he would bring change to the whole world, but it would be at a price. Simeon, in the wisdom he had acquired through a long life walking closely with God, had recognised this baby as the Messiah he had longed to see, and he rejoiced at seeing him, but he also glimpsed something of the pain that could not and would not be avoided. And when a child suffers, the mother suffers too, and this is the essence of Simeon’s warning to Mary.

Moses was saved from death at the hand of Pharaoh by his quick-witted mother and sister, and subsequently led the Hebrews to freedom out of slavery in Egypt.

Well over a thousand years later Jesus was saved, in the first instance, from death at the hand of Herod when he had all the baby boys in Judea killed because he wanted to kill this new King of the Jews the wise men had talked of. His earthly father, Joseph, whom God trusted to bring up his Son, had a dream in which God warned him of the danger to Jesus, and Joseph took his family away to safety into Egypt, which seems ironic. The place of slavery for the Jews in former times became the place of safety for the infant Messiah.

The parents of both Moses and Jesus went to great lengths and ran great risks themselves to protect their children.

There is something divine happening here.

This is a model of God’s love and care for us. Mothering Sunday may be a difficult day for many people, whose relationship with their own mother has been interrupted or damaged in one way or another. This is a different kind of pain, and one which can be so difficult to overcome. And if God is our heavenly Mother as well as our heavenly Father, a parental relationship which falls a long way short of the ideal can damage our relationship with God.

But it needn’t.

If we are very fortunate we have earthly parents who love us completely, so understanding the love and care God has for us probably comes fairly easily. But if we are less fortunate, understanding that God is the heavenly parent who loves us completely might be difficult to grasp. But that is the truth. That is a part of the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We might say: if God is such a good parent, how could he allow his own Son to die such a terrible death? The thing is, Jesus is one with God. He is the human face of God himself, wholly human and at the same time wholly divine. God himself was nailed to the cross on that first Good Friday, in the person of Jesus Christ.

It isn’t that God loved Jesus less, but that he loves us more than he loves himself.

And he wants to be part of our lives. He wants to share the happy, joyful times, like today, when we give thanks for Anna together with her family - that’s lovely!

But he also wants to share in our darker times, supporting us to bear painful experiences.

And that same something divine happens whenever we manage to suffer alongside someone else in their darkest times, and when people manage to think of others in spite of their own pain.

Who give comfort where comfort is needed, and who suffer with us and for us when we suffer.

Sure, loving means sharing life’s joys, but that is the easy, happy part of loving.

But sharing the suffering, being there for each other through sad times, through difficult times, is the other side of loving, and it is costly.
And sometimes there isn’t anything we can do for each other but be sad together.

That is what God does too. Jesus didn’t come to make everything fine and to take away all the bad things that happen, but he came to be with us always. Just like a loving parent who cannot always make everything right, he stays with us, all the way, all the time, to the very end. He was faithful to the very end, on the cross.

And the strange paradox of the cross is that that instrument of torture and death became the Good News of salvation to all the ends of the earth, because through that cross Jesus put us right with God.

Moses saved his people from slavery. Jesus saves his people, he saves US, from sin. He frees us from the consequences of sin. The wages of sin is death, and we are free.

This is the Gospel, the Good News. Believing this Good News means we are right with God. That we turn to him in faith.

We ARE right with God. Not by OUR actions, but by HIS.

Are we right with each other?

Are we right with the people we care for and who care for us?

If we know we are not right with them, is there anything we can do about that?

Maybe… maybe not. Sometimes just wanting to be right with someone isn’t enough. But trying to make it right might be worth a go, even though it may be costly. And sometimes all we can do for someone is pray for them. And that is always worth doing.

There is something here we can do for people we ARE in touch with, to show our love and appreciation:

The beautiful posies we traditionally have for Mothering Sunday are here ready, and I’d like to invite everyone who would like to, take one, to give to someone who mothers YOU, in whatever way.

It might BE your Mum!

Or someone else… it might even be a MAN!

Someone who looks out for you, who cares for you, and who you would like to show that their care is important to you, and that you care for them too.

Sermon for Sunday 7th March 2010

2010-03-20T23:40:00.002Z

Third Sunday of Lent, Year C

Isaiah 55.1-9; Psalm, 63.1-8; Luke 13.1-9

Do you remember when we all had black and white televisions? And when there were only two channels? I remember our neighbours got BBC2 before we did, and going over the road to watch the Six Wives of Henry VIII.

And football teams had to coordinate their strips, to make sure they looked different in the black and white. But it was good, and we watched it and enjoyed it. Even snooker!

I’ll come back to that.

Let’s consider these readings.

We have a wonderfully lyrical passage from Isaiah, and a beautiful Psalm, and then the Gospel reading, which today sounds a warning note.

In all the readings, though, ‘life’ is something other than just the physical, but not less than the physical, either.

If we take the Psalm first, which is attributed to David the King, the intimate relationship between God and his faithful ones is expressed so beautifully:

that God refreshes those who seek him and contentment and rejoicing are the response from those who love God and give him his rightful place in their lives. But… and there is a ‘but’.

The lovely Psalm, in the extract on the pew sheets, stops at verse 8. This is not the end of the Psalm. It continues:

They who seek my life will be destroyed;

they will go down to the depths of the earth.

They will be given over to the sword

and become food for jackals.

But the King will rejoice in God;

all who swear by God’s name will praise him,

while the mouths of liars will be silenced.

(vv.9-11, NIV)

A different tone altogether.

The serene and gentle picture of the poet’s relationship with God, with his thirst quenched and comfort and reassurance under the shadow of the wings of God - all this is overshadowed by the thought of those who want the poet’s death. And he calls down curses upon them.

The colour has gone, and the picture has changed into harsh black and white.

Through his prophet Isaiah, God issues an open invitation to everyone: ‘Come’. Just come.

That is the only requirement. The forgiveness and cleansing and feeding are there for the taking. Come!

Isaiah is the longest of the prophetic books in the Bible, and many of his writings are well-known. The famous ‘Suffering Servant’ chapters which foretell the passion and crucifixion of the coming Messiah, our Lord Jesus, (ch 53 v 4: He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows…; v 7: he was led like a lamb to the slaughter… and so on), come just before this passage, which tells of the time AFTER the sorrow and the suffering, when salvation has been won for us.

This is what all the suffering was for: so that we might come freely to the feast laid on for us by our Father God who loves us so much. “ ‘My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways,’ says the Lord.”

And so Jesus teaches us, that we may try and grasp what God is saying to us, even though our thoughts and our ways are so limited compared to all that God wants us to understand.

Jesus often used parables to try and explain an aspect of God to his listeners, and therefore to us. This one, about the unfruitful fig-tree, sounds a warning.

There are some interesting facts to notice about the cultivation of figs, which Jesus’ original listeners would have known. In Palestine, vineyards and vegetable gardens are generally planted with fruit trees, including figs, and the first three years of a fig tree’s growth were allowed to elapse before its fruit was deemed to be clean. So six years had already passed since it was planted - so it was hopelessly fruitless. A fig-tree absorbs a particularly large amount of nourishment from the soil, and so deprives the surrounding vines. Also, manuring a vineyard or a fig tree is not mentioned anywhere in the OT, and in any case, the fig tree would not normally need such extra care.

So what the gardener is suggesting is going above and beyond the usual care for a fig tree.

There was a old folk tale in the Bible lands, which would have been familiar to Jesus and everyone else, and in this story are the words:

“My son, you are like a tree which yielded no fruit, although it stood by the water, and its owner was forced to cut it down. And it said to him, ‘Transplant me, and if even then I bear no fruit, cut me down.’ But its owner said to it, ‘When you stood by the water you bore no fruit, how then will you bear fruit if you stand in another place?’ ” Jesus makes use of this folk tale, but gives it another ending: the request is not refused, but granted.

The gardener is a figure added to the original story, the intercessor for the tree. This could be understood to represent Jesus himself, pleading for the unfruitful one to be given another chance.

But the point Jesus is making in the comments leading into the parable of the unproductive fig tree challenges our notions of pride and spiritual privilege.

That ‘being good’ can earn us privileges with God.

The people who told Jesus about a strange incident involving blood and polluted sacrifices at the hands of Pilate might have been trying to provoke Jesus into some kind of violent reaction. (This isn’t written about in any of the other Gospels.)

The people being killed, whether deliberately or accidentally, were not necessarily deserving or undeserving. Bad things do happen to good people, and the reverse happens too. We know this. We’ve all seen it.

Whatever reaction they had been expecting, Jesus tells them to repent or perish. The decision facing them is as stark as that.

“Don’t put off life-changing decisions,” Jesus urges them, “because you may never have the chance again.”

Even with the fig tree and the extra manure and extra time given, its time of judgement would come, if not sooner, then later. And so will ours.

Everyone who comes across Jesus and recognises that he has something that can’t be found anywhere else, comes to a crisis point, a point at which they have to take decisions.

Are we in a great rush, or can we take our time?

But what is on offer is the generous mercy of God. Why wait? Why procrastinate over such an offer?

Well, turning to God does mean a lifetime’s discipline, learning his nature and his will, patiently and humbly, over and over again. That might be a reason! But turning to him makes life so much richer in so many ways. It is like the difference between watching snooker in black and white and watching it in colour!

Repent or perish. That’s the choice.

Turn to Jesus, learn his ways, which are so much higher than our ways.

Turn to God; seek him eagerly; cling to him with all your heart and soul.

And may each one of US bear good fruit.

Amen.

Refs:

Joachim Jeremias: The Parables of Jesus

Martin Warner CT 5^th March 2010

Jane Williams: Lectionary Reflections Year C

The New Jerome Biblical Commentary

Sunday 28th February 2010, Second of Lent Genesis 15.1-12, 17-18 Luke 13.31-35

2010-02-28T16:48:00.001Z

Each week I read through the set lectionary readings for Sunday, and see which ones ‘speak’ to me before deciding which ones to preach on. And the Old Testament reading today made me sit up and wonder whether I was up to tackling it. So here goes…

This passage from Genesis is one of the classic blood & gore ceremonies of the ancient world. They probably still take place in some parts of the world, but here, in the UK in the 21^st century it all seems rather messy, cutting animal carcasses in half and laying the parts out on the ground.

What was all that about?

Let’s put this episode into the context of Abram’s life so far.

(And so far, he was still Abram; the issue of circumcision was still in the future, and that was when God changed Abram’s name to Abraham.)

This is the thing: Abram was the one chosen by God, and he was also the one who listened when God spoke to him. Ten generations previously, Noah had been alone in listening to God, and now only Abram was listening. And, like Noah, not just listening, but obeying.

He was married to Sarai and the two had followed a journey as God had revealed it to Abram.

They had travelled to Canaan, and to Egypt, and from one end to the other of the country we call Israel or Palestine, all because the Lord spoke to Abram and told him to go there.

And during all the years of their travelling both Abram and Sarai longed for a child, a son, and there was none.

Abram had doubts. God had promised him a son, an heir. Having no son, in his culture, was like a sentence to eternal death.

Eternal life, in the ancient Hebrew culture, was through a man’s children, and specifically through sons. They would carry on his line. Sons represented the future, a continuation of himself.

Abram was honest about his doubts. And he told God about how he felt. In fact he had a real whinge. He didn’t pretend to believe in the face of his real doubts; he told it to the Lord like he felt it. “O Lord God, what will you give me? … You have given me no offspring…”

And yet, when the Lord shows him the stars in the sky and tells him his descendants will be as numerous as those stars, Abram believes. He really believes. And the Lord, who knows all the secrets of Abram’s heart, knows he believes, and “the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.”

At this point in Abram’s journey he has just had an encounter with Melchizedek, the priest and king, who had wanted to honour Abram, but Abram had scrupulously avoided taking anything from him, because he served God only. He could have taken advantage of the situation and profited from the priest-king, but the spiritual power of Melchizedek had impressed Abram, and they treated each other with due respect.

This, then, after what might have been a test of honesty, is the point at which, with belief in his heart, Abram asks the Lord for a sign: “How shall I know that I shall possess all this land?” And God gives him a sign, following the rituals Abram would have recognised. The Lord almighty, Creator of all that is, visible and invisible, stooped to follow human rules and rituals to give his beloved Abram the sign he craved, in the blood and entrails of the sacrificial animals.

That this was a serious covenant ceremony is borne out elsewhere in the Old Testament, AND the penalty should the covenant be broken. Jeremiah 34.18: The men who have violated my covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before me, I will treat like the calf they cut in two and then walked between its pieces.

A strong warning, and confirmation of the binding nature of this covenant. It is a vow to the death.

And it is God who takes the oath. Abram provides the animals for sacrifice and prepares them, and protects them from scavenging birds, but it is God who takes the smoking fire-pot and the flaming torch and passes between the pieces of the animals. It is the Lord himself who made the covenant with Abram, not the other way round.

(It is a kind of preview of the pillar of fire by night and the pillar of cloud by day that guided Moses and the Children of Israel after their exodus from Egypt.)

And in this way, God made his covenant promise to Abram, that he would be a father to millions.

And this was AFTER Abram had taken the Lord at his word, and believed. It was after he had accepted what the Lord said, that he was given this dramatic sign of God’s faithfulness. The Lord was showing him, in terms he could understand, just how seriously he, the Lord, took his own promise.

Last week, in the Gospel reading with Jesus in the wilderness facing temptations, we heard how it was AFTER Jesus had held on and been faithful to his purpose in the desert, THAT was when angels attended him.

God will stretch us, sometimes to the limit, but he will not leave us and he is faithful. And if we can believe that, and if we can hold on too, it will be reckoned to US, even to US, as righteousness.

And God stretches himself, too. Just what it cost him to keep not only the letter but the spirit of these ancient promises to his people is spelled out in the Gospel reading from Luke.

Jesus is under threat, and is aware of the danger in going to Jerusalem, and is heading there in certain knowledge that he will die there, and yet he brushes away warnings about Herod and weeps instead over Jerusalem.

What a lovely image he uses to express his desire to bring the holy city back to God: the mother hen gathering her chicks protectively under her wings, clucking and fussing over them like hens do, worrying if any of them stray away from the safety of the wings circling them.

Such a different image from the OT speaking of eagles’ wings soaring high.

The mother hen is on the ground with the chicks, and she is vulnerable too, because in protecting her chicks she leaves herself open to attack, because she won’t run away.

The line calling Herod “that fox” is an expression well-preserved by Luke.

There was a contemporary saying “Be a tail to lions and not a head to foxes”, which might even have been in Jesus’ mind when he said it. In that saying, the lion stands for nobility worth following, in preference to being manipulated as a mouthpiece for the untrustworthy fox. Herod was sly and cunning and not to be trusted. Jesus was wholly to be trusted to continue the path ordained for him to the bitter end. A vow to the death.

Abram asked and asked for what he wanted, and trusted even in the face of years of disappointment. It was to be many more years before his wife bore Isaac. Abram was not perfect, but God values faith rather than moral perfection

And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.

God had said to Abram, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield”. And Abram DID believe.

How do we believe?

How confident are WE to put into practice what we learn of God, what we learn of Jesus, what we learn of how God asks us to live?

And if we sometimes have doubts, do we acknowledge them before God, or do we try and pretend we feel as holy as we think we should?

We might sometimes kid others, but we won’t kid God.

How honest are we about the way we live out the rest of the week what we say we believe on Sunday?

How honest are we about our giving, our tithing?

How honest are we about our FORgiving?

About our learning to love those we find difficult?

Those who seem to go out of their way to trip us up rather than offer a helping hand.

We can take a useful leaf out of Abram’s book, and be truly honest with God, even if that means complaining to him as Abram did. God will honour our honesty over any false piety we might offer him.

Honest faith holds an inkling of doubt. The Lord knows how hard it can be for us to hold the faith. But he asks us to do it anyway.

Believe, and be faithful, and wait upon the Lord.

What a hard thing to do.

[Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord.]

We ask for strength to wait and trust.

And to remember that the faithful path isn’t always the safe one.

Blessed IS the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

Amen.

References:

Martin Warner, Church Times 26 Feb 2010

Jane Williams, Lectionary Reflections Year C

H. Clay Trumbull, The Blood Covenant

Textweek.com

Sermon preached on the first Sunday of Lent, 21st February 2010

2010-02-22T12:43:00.002Z

Psalm 91.1-2, 9-16

Romans 10.8b-13

Luke 4.1-13

This gospel reading is well-known, and it is a traditional beginning to Lent. Jesus has just had the spiritual high point of his baptism by John the Baptist in the River Jordan, when the voice of God was heard by all who were there on the riverbank: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

And the Holy Spirit appeared too, as a dove, and alighted upon him. A moment of wonder to the crowds, and who knows how wonderful for Jesus himself?

And this before he had begun his mission among people! Until then he had been a carpenter in Nazareth.

But before the work of God that Jesus was born for could begin properly, Jesus submitted to a physical and spiritual discipline. Fasting AND praying.

It was a rigorous test by anybody’s standards, and he was tempted in three potential areas of weakness:

· The first: physical hunger - Jesus was fully human, and was as hungry after forty days without eating as any of us would be. He was tempted to break the fast by using divine power to made bread from the stones. He could have done this… but he didn’t. He chose to bear the hunger.

· The second: ambition - the temptation to distance himself from his place within an equal trinity to become Lord of everything on earth. Power is an attractive bait.

· The third: glory - at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus was tempted to show the world just who he was by giving a miraculous show from the top of the temple. It would be the ultimate showing-off. After that, who could doubt him? Even those not present at the river to see the dove and hear the voice would have to believe in him.

There are some interesting points to note in this passage. We’re told that Jesus was led BY THE SPIRIT into the desert. This same Holy Spirit who, with God the Father, had affirmed Jesus so spectacularly so recently.

But now the Son was led to the desert, where he would be tested by himself, without the overt support of the Father and the Spirit.

And before the end of the testing Jesus had to grapple with the Devil. And if we have a look at the account of the same wilderness experience as recorded by Matthew, it was AFTER Jesus had succeeded in resisting all the devil’s ploys that angels came attended him. The temptations were faced in his human strength, not divine.

It is also a bit chilling to notice that when the devil did leave, Luke says, it was until an opportune time. Which suggests the devil returned at a later date.

It is chilling, but also sort of encouraging. Because this is what we should expect ourselves if we are serious about growing in our faith.

If we submit to a discipline for Lent, or at any other time, we should expect to be tempted to abandon it, or modify it if it gets difficult. (And it will get difficult.)

We have Jesus’ example to follow. Jesus fought the devil with words of Scripture: “It is written…” he said, repeatedly.

Where is it written?

In the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible.

· Man does not live by bread alone: Deuteronomy 8.3

· Worship the Lord your God and serve him only: Deuteronomy 6.13

· Do not put the Lord your God to the test: Deuteronomy 6.16

But the devil knows Scripture too. The verses he quotes to tempt Jesus to prove his divinity are straight out of Psalm 91 (vv. 11 & 12). The devil knows where to strike us, all right.

But every time the devil offered him more - more bread, more power, more protection - Jesus turned him down. He says No to the bread, no to the kingdoms, no to the angelic bodyguards.

So by the end of the episode, the devil still has all his bribes in his bag and Jesus is free to go. And then angels came and attended him.

When it's our turn, none of us is going to get the Son of God test. We're likely to get the standard Adam and Eve test, which means that the devil won't need much more than an all-you-can-eat buffet and a tax refund to have us dancing to his tune.

But what about the wilderness? Where is OUR wilderness?

We might already, every one of us, have had a wilderness experience.

· It might have been in a hospital waiting room,

· or a cheap bed and breakfast somewhere after losing the house we lived in,

· or the car park where you couldn’t find your car on the day you lost your job.

· It might have been a kind of desert within our own self, begging for a word from God and hearing nothing.

Abandonment.

How do we cope with these wilderness times?

We can try and do it as Jesus did. He counteracted every enticement of the devil with words of Scripture.

In the reading from the letter of Paul to the Romans, which we had this morning, he recommends this, too. “What does scripture say?” he asks. “ ‘The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart.’ ”

And Paul, too, is quoting the Old Testament, from Deuteronomy again, chapter 30, verse 14. In context, from verse 11, it reads:

Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, "Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, "Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.

This is the OLD Testament! Sounding very like the NEW Testament!

We NEED words of Scripture to have at hand, as weapons for when temptation strikes us. And we need them before we know we need them, like a smoke alarm. We don’t wait until the house is on fire to go and buy one. We have one fitted in case, to protect us, so we have a better chance when danger strikes.

We also need to remember the TWO threads to Jesus’ experience in the desert. there was fasting AND there was prayer.

The prayer, and Scripture, enabled Jesus to be strong at a time when his body was weak. We can think of our own soul, our spirit, as a muscle which needs exercise to be strong, like any other muscle.

The devil knows our weak spots and that is where he will attack us. But if our spiritual muscle is kept toned and exercised then we will be better able to resist and stay true to our resolve and to Jesus’ teachings.

This is why the giving up whatever is our particular pleasure during Lent is only any good to us if it is also accompanied by prayer. And we should expect to meet the devil, too. He will not like Christians making a better effort to follow Christ. He will put a spanner in our works if we let him.

Take home your pew sheet with the Bible readings on it. Read them at home. And say the prayers. And if you would like a suggestion for a verse to memorise as a weapon, try verse 2 from Psalm 91: You are my refuge and my stronghold, my God in whom I put my trust. That’s this week’s homework!

Forewarned is forearmed! Let’s be ready!

Let’s pray: Lord, you are my refuge and my stronghold, my God in whom I put my trust.

Amen.

Sermon preached at a service of Baptism within Morning Prayer at the Church of St Gregory the Great, Rendlesham

2010-02-14T21:09:00.003Z

Luke 9.28-36

Let’s begin with the date: 14^th February - St Valentine’s Day.

All over the country today are people opening cards of varying degrees of tackiness…

“Roses are red, violets are blue;

the cabbage is green, and so are you - !”

Yes, it’s another consumerfest, but with its beginnings in something holy, like so many other festivals that have been corrupted.

Depending on which sources you read, there were two or three saints called Valentine, and they all died for love, but it wasn’t romantic love they died for, but love of Jesus Christ. Sainthood is usually hard-won, and Valentine, whichever Valentine, was no exception.

This is not the kind of result of living in faith any of us hope to have to suffer, and it certainly isn’t part of our hopes and prayers for our new young Christian, George.

But it is right to think about what difference living by faith makes in our lives.

Because living by faith in Jesus, as his disciples, SHOULD make a difference. If it doesn’t make a difference, and if it doesn’t pinch sometimes, then we have to ask if we’re doing it right.

Let’s think about this reading: this episode on the mountain when Peter, James and John were blessed by seeing Jesus in his glory, and Moses and Elijah with him.

We understand Moses to represent the Law, the Commandments brought down from that other mountain to the Children of Israel; and Elijah representing the prophets, who speak for God, and told of the coming Messiah, the Saviour.

We’re told the disciples were weighed down with sleep, but they stayed awake anyway, and were rewarded with this extraordinary sight, when Jesus’ appearance changed so dramatically, and the two giants of the Hebrew faith appeared.

In the OT reading for today (on the pew sheet) there is the telling of the time Moses came down from Mount Sinai, and because he had been talking with God, his face shone, and he had to wear a veil because the others couldn’t look at him, his face was shining so brightly. From that time, Moses had to cover his face in front of his own people, and only be uncovered before God.

He was, in some way, separated from the rest of the people.

We might think that doesn’t apply to us - people don’t have such a glow about them nowadays that they have to veil their faces, but that is a cause for concern.

Many of us might, without knowing it, be putting on a veil ourselves, to avoid coming into contact with the glory of God, because before him who can stand?

How many of us can honestly say we have moved from "glory to glory" over this past year? (I’m not sure I can.)

On Wednesday we move into the season of Lent. This Lenten season is an opportunity to "turn to the Lord" and practice spiritual disciplines that will "renew our minds" so that we can come to Easter with veils removed and renewed hope ahead.

Let’s notice how this vision came to the disciples: they weren’t being busy and scurrying around building the kingdom, they were just out with their friend Jesus, up the mountain, and not doing anything much. They were watching Jesus pray - just accompanying him in his meeting with God.

Just as with someone we love, words aren’t always necessary, our relationship with God grows in the space we make for him. Peter, John and James just waited for Jesus, and what a revelation of God they had in that slack moment. It gives a whole new meaning to the thought that where two or three are gathered, there is the Lord with us.

This thought can be translated into the life of the church: how might our churches be different if we learnt to accept the reality of God’s presence with us, as much at a rural church service, with a handful of a congregation, as at a service with many dozens or hundreds present?

We don’t have to fill Lent, or our lives, with hype, or forced emotion or activity. All we need to do is to give God and each other space.

We don't so much build the kingdom of God: we are the kingdom of God. Just as WE ARE the church. Christ in us, the hope of glory. Is that a tall order? Yes! It takes working at.

Let’s remember: nothing changed for Jesus in that mountaintop experience; the disciples just saw him for who he was for the first time. And to start with, it just changed what they thought he could and should do. They wanted him to act like they wanted the long-awaited Messiah to act, confront the Romans and the religious leaders and establish the reign of God.

As things turned out, Jesus simply lived the reality of God's kingdom. He didn't try to make anything happen or force or manipulate this outcome or that outcome. He simply was honestly and unashamedly himself, the obedient Son of the Father.

This is why we bring our children to be baptised in his name.

This is a happy day for George and his family. If we’re fortunate, God sends a lot of happy days into our life. The day that we meet Jesus is the happiest day of our life, - for George we pray that he will grow into a living faith of his own, and that will be his happiest day - but it isn't a stopping place -- it is a starting point for a journey that leads to eternal life in heaven with Him.

This is why, if anybody here is not already baptised or confirmed, it is something you might give serious thought to.

St Valentine died for love of Jesus, but then, Jesus died for love of you and me. Nobody loves us more than Jesus, and that is why saints like Valentine died for him, and why people like us aspire to live for him.

And God is there for us to lay our burdens before him, and our difficulties.

Thanks be to God.

Thanks to Textweek, and to comments from the Facebook group The Text This Week - thank you all.

ps. I invited everyone to write on a heart-shaped post-it the name of a person or an issue they find difficult to love, as Jesus teaches we should love our enemies, and if we take our discipleship seriously, then we need to work at loving our enemies. Then we gathered the paper hearts and stuck them on to a very large heart and laid it at the altar, asking God to help us love our enemies. Afterwards, removing the post-its, I noticed someone had written ‘The French’. For the minister to be doubled up laughing in front of the altar is probably a breach of church etiquette…

Sermon from last Sunday

2010-02-09T21:39:00.010Z

7^th Feb 2010 - Sermon preached at Eyke & Tunstall

Readings for 2nd Sunday before Lent: Genesis 2.4b-9, 15-25; Revelation 4; Luke 8.22-25

We’ve been planning a holiday for after Easter: it’s an exciting trip. We’re going to visit our son, Robert, who is out in

South Korea

working there. It’s exciting, and it’s a very long way… about 12 hours in the air, non-stop.

We did this once before, a couple of years ago, and we usually take holidays in the

, so this is quite an adventure for us. But a lot of people fly often, and for them it’s an everyday event.

Back when air travel was new to the general public, in the ’50s and ’60s, I’ve read that people would actually dress up to go and take a flight; men would wear suits and ties, women would wear smart dresses, and they would wear something like their Sunday best, because it was so special to fly in an aeroplane. (people in the congregation nodded at this, remembering)

And people would really want to sit by the window, and would exclaim about looking down on the clouds, and seeing the wing of the aircraft - “Oh, wow, the wing!” But today people very often don’t want the window seat. They prefer the aisle where there’s more leg room. Instead of oohs and aahs on the plane, there is the tap, tap of laptop computers. (Our organist, Richard, nodded a trifle wryly at this - he organises pilgrimages among other frequent trips. I'm not bitter.)

I wonder sometimes if we don’t come to worship like sophisticated travellers, walking into the service rather blasé about it, because we’ve done this so many times, and got used to it. We don’t usually come in expectant wonder, or in anticipation of something awesome.

John, the visionary writer of the Book of Revelation, paints a picture of worship that is full of wonder and awe. John describes being caught up as if through a doorway to heaven, and finds himself in the middle of an almighty cosmic worship service.

But the descriptions mystify us as much as clarify what is going on in the heavenly court.

What is seen there is beyond our imagining, and it is the lot of the visionary to try to describe that which is beyond description, because it is beyond any earthly experience.

The images in the mind of the writer are those of jewels and the rainbow: brightness and glorious light.

The creatures around the throne don’t fit into any ordinary earthly categories, but the 24 elders who sit around the indescribable throne are recognizably human, and the worship that they and the strange creatures offer can be put into words, so we the readers can share in that, at least: Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the Almighty.

Hallowed be thy name, we pray - we pray at nearly every church service, and probably most of us every other day besides.

This expression “thy name” was one the Jewish people would use to avoid saying the name of the most high God, which was so holy it was not even to be uttered in worship.

In the Bible God is not simply holy. God is called holy, holy, holy.

(We sang this in both churches during the service: at Eyke the very traditional Holy, holy, holy! Lord God almighty! Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee; and at Tunstall, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord, holy is the Lord God almighty, who was, and is, and is to come, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord. I love Revelation.)

Holy to the power three. Holy cubed.

That's because in the Hebrew language, emphasis comes through repetition. When Jesus wanted his hearers to pay close attention, he would say, "Truly, I tell you”, or “Verily, I say unto you." And if he was saying something of ultimate importance, he said, "Truly, truly” (or “Verily, verily.") So, God is holy, holy, holy.

To hallow means to set aside as special or holy. It has to do with reverence, awe and wonder.

The holiness of God should leave us awestruck, and maybe give us goosepimples as we contemplate the majesty of God.

The famous Christian writer, C.S. Lewis, wrote, "A human in the presence of God is going to feel one of two ways. Either you feel like a small, dirty object, or you lose thought of yourself altogether."

And then he said, "The latter is by far preferable."

That's the problem that many of us mainstream churchgoers have -- somehow getting outside ourselves - losing ourselves - in worship and connecting with the wonder of the presence of God.

This connection with the presence of God takes us back to the reading from Genesis.

In Genesis 2 we have the second story of how God made people.

In Genesis 1, God makes humanity as the culmination of his labours, a kind of completion.

Genesis 2 also has humanity as central, but here, man is made first, and everything else is then made to keep him company. As God makes all the living creatures he brings them to Adam to see what he will call them. This picture of God and Adam playing together sets the tone of this stage of the story. There is an unimaginable closeness between God and the man that he has made from nothing.

Here, we the readers know what is ahead: the temptation, the Fall, the distance, the rift opened between God and his creation. But for this reading, all we see is the peace and closeness that exist between God, Adam and Eve. Notice that they do not need, explicitly, to worship God here in Eden. They just need to live with him.

They live alongside God.

The thought of that scene in the garden is a vision of awe and wonder even greater than that painted by Revelation, but in a way that is altogether more intimate and almost homely, rather than the majestic images in Revelation. The lightning and thunder and flaming torches are absent; the beauty of the scene is in the perfection of the garden and the closeness of God, and his deep care for the creatures he has made.

So between Genesis and Revelation, a distance has opened up between God and his human beings. The familiarity and ease of the relationship between God and Adam is replaced by the awe and wonder of knowing just how far above us is the God who made us.

That distance might seem unbridgeable. But it isn’t. What makes the bridging possible is Jesus. In the episode from Jesus’ life we read from Luke’s Gospel, we see the Son acting like the Creator, bringing order out of chaos, commanding the waters. The human Jesus holds together the Creator and the creation as he stands in the boat and stills the storm.

It is Jesus, too, who gave us the link between our humanity and eternity, and gave us an earthly means of celebrating a heavenly reality. He took bread and wine and blessed them, and made them holy, set apart for a special purpose, and commanded us to do the same. And in eating and drinking these holy things, by taking them into our own physical bodies, we somehow absorb something of Jesus himself. That is the mystery.

Remember the plane trip? The wonder of looking out at the tops of the clouds, and at the wings that miraculously keep us airborne, not wonderful any more because we get used to it. Let’s not get so used to our worship that we forget to wonder about what it all means. Earth and heaven meeting.

I found another Facebook link this week: Worship… is where life meets ultimate reality… A place where we sense eternal Significance and realize that we were created to “Live our lives to the full… in the presence of the God who loves us more than we could ever imagine!

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Grateful acknowledgement to Sally Coleman for the image from her blog; to the Textweek website for inspiration; and to 'Lectionary Reflections' by Jane Williams for even more inspiration. Thank you all for helping me feed my flocks.

Happy New Year

2010-01-03T14:08:00.003Z

Happy New Year, blog-watchers; may God bless you richly this year, and in all things may His will be done.

Before coming to Suffolk, in my last post as curate in a church which was both Anglican and Methodist, I was an Authorised Methodist Minister, and so led services last New Year following the Methodist Covenant Service. Nowadays I am minister in a single tradition only, Anglican, but all the experience I have gained in many different parts of the one Body of Christ, the Church, over many years informs my theology and practice still. And so, in this morning's services in Eyke and Rendlesham St Felix, the Methodist Covenant Prayer seemed right to say. Right, but difficult to say, too, as it is very profound and reaches deep inside the soul. It is a prayer of total self-giving. A weapon borrowed from our Methodist brothers and sisters to make the devil tremble And it makes me tremble too.

Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry for help come to you. Psalm 102.1

I am no longer my own but yours.

Put me to what you will,
rank me with whom you will;
put me to doing,
put me to suffering;
let me be employed for you,
or laid aside for you,
exalted for you,
or brought low for you;
let me be full,
let me be empty,
let me have all things,
let me have nothing:
I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things
to your pleasure and disposal.
And now, glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are mine and I am yours.

So be it.

And the covenant now made on earth,

let it be satisfied in heaven.

Amen.

Amen, amen. To His name be the praise and the glory.

Mary, did you know?

2009-12-17T17:13:00.002Z

This week at the Advent course we looked at Mary. Quite literally "looked" at her, using images rather than passages of Scripture, some of the images very traditional, and others.... well, maybe a bit surprising.

We also listened to the track "Mary, did you know?" and tried to absorb the enormity of the Incarnation, that very closeness of a loving mother and baby being the image of the closeness God desires between God and humankind.

"Mary did you know...

...that your Baby Boy has walked where angels trod?

When you kiss your little Baby you kissed the face of God?"

Kiss the face of God... wow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1oHJR2g7Tw&feature=related

New Bibles

2009-12-17T07:09:00.002Z

One of the recurring comments during The Bible Aloud at St Felix last month was that the print in our pew Bibles is too small for people to read aloud fluently. So we have bought a new large-print Bible (NIV) for the lectern, and 20 more pew Bibles, as there is only one per pew at the moment. There was a special offer on pew Bibles at Eden online, so we went for it. They will be dedicated on Sunday, and bear a label commemorating The Bible Aloud and verses from 2 Timothy which seem appropriate:

“All Scripture is God-breathed

and is useful for teaching,

rebuking, correcting and training

in righteousness,

so that the man and woman of God

may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

2 Timothy 3.16&17

Amen. So be it.

Carol Services and all Christmas Services

2009-12-14T09:46:00.022Z

The Carol Services in this cluster of parishes has begun!

Yesterday the Church of John the Baptist at Wantisden was filled with people wearing extra jumpers who had come to sing the first Carols of Christmas by candlelight. The warm clothing was the keep out the cold (no heating), and the candles and torches to see clearly as the afternoon light faded outside (no electric lights either).

We heard the events of the Incarnation in the words of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and then the fantastic Mystery contained in John's Gospel:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning..."

O Glory!! And I get to read that bit! Yes! What kind of privilege is that?!!

And if you missed that one, catch another Carol opportunity at one of the following:

Sunday 20th December,
10.30am St Felix Rendlesham
- the Family Service will involve unfolding the Christmas story, creating the Crib in the church and singing Carols
6.30pm St Gregory Rendlesham
- Traditional Carol Service with the choir of St Mary-le-Tower Ipswich
Wednesday 23rd December, 6.30pm
- Carols in the Square in Rendlesham, outside Costcutters, with season refreshments afterwards in the Community Centre
Thursday 24th December, CHRISTMAS EVE:
4.30pm St Felix
- Christingle Service with JOY balloons: a service to which the younger members of our community can bring their adults, and for all the young at heart
5pm All Saints Eyke
- Crib Service, creating the Crib in the church, for all ages
6.30pm St Michael & All Angels Tunstall
- Traditional Service of Lessons & Carols
11.30pm St Gregory Rendlesham
- The first Holy Communion of Christmas Day
CHRISTMAS DAY
- 9am Holy Communion at All Saints Eyke
- 10am Holy Communion at St Felix Rendlesham
- 11am Holy Communion at St Michael & All Angels Tunstall

O come, all ye faithful!
Come and adore Him!

Christmas Lights not just festive lights!

2009-12-13T00:37:00.012Z

I like having Friday’s off work; my wife has most Fridays off, so we can spend the day together, :-)

She has often has to work Saturdays :-(

I also really like Christmas lights, and this year we bought some Christian Christmas lights. Over our front door we now have an LED rope light in the shape of Joseph, Mary and Baby Jesus, above that (on the roof) we have a star. It was fun getting that up there! I don’t have a roof ladder, or even a ladder that reaches the gutters. My plan was to throw a rope over the roof, tie it to my star and pull it up, however, without being sexist, I throw like a girl! After a few feeble attempts, with rope with a stone tied in it, I went for some wool with an old loo chain pull tied in it (don't ask why I had one of those spare).
After getting it stuck in the gutter a few times and nearly smashing a window (good throw but the wool caught in my fingers Doh!), I eventually got the wool over the roof.
New problem: how to get loo chain and wool down the other side! It had stopped a few tiles up from the gutter, out of sight and reach when at the top of the ladder; anyway long story short…, eventually got to it, then tied my rope to the wool, back round the front pull wool, but not hard, paranoid about breaking it and having to start again! But where the wool was tied to the rope, it kept catching on the tiles. Tie rope to door handle so wool under tension, run to back of house (OK walk to back of house), jiggle rope to free it, run walk back round to front, repeat process a dozen times or more! Tie star to rope and go to back of house, pull on rope, yes! Oh, stuck again! Star dangling over gutter, push it up a bit and hope I can pull the rest up. Star now on roof.

The Bible says the star was over the manger; hmmm, I could forgive any visitors to my illuminated scene from going next door. I’d really like the star to be aligned with the crib and the Baby, after all it was His birth the star was proclaiming. Still for now it’s just up there, and I have my Christ mas lights up.

Say Bar Humbug if you like, but I’ve never been a Father Christmas fan; to me it associates a lie with a truth that so many people also call a lie. When a child learns that there is no Father Christmas, it’s just something parents / adults made up, surely, at least subconsciously, the story of Jesus and the manger and the virgin birth are tainted by our lies.

Well I hope you enjoy this time of celebrating the birth of baby, who, at his death, was named in three languages, ‘King of the Jews’.
Happy Birthday Jesus, Happy Christ Mas.

Tempus fugit

2009-12-08T00:53:00.000Z

Boy, how time flies.

It's amazing it's been 10 days since we finished Bible Aloud, and it's been a busy week. Sunday was our 'offical end' as we read the last chapter of Revelation.

Tuesday we started our Advent Series, Rev Janice is running two courses, one in the day time, and one in the evening. Good numbers attended both sessions; in the evening we broke into 6 groups, to discus various bits of the book Isaiah, it went very well. Looking forward to the other 3 weeks.

Thursday we had House Group at our house, as our usual hosts were at their childrens school, as usual a very pleasant evening, thanks Nat.

Friday, day off work, as was the wife, so we had a pleasant day in Woodbridge, and coffee at the garden centre, I even managed to finish putting the bolts and locks on my shed.

Followed buy a great weekend with our two youngest Grandchildren (and their parents) round for the weekend.

The Bible Aloud follow-up

2009-12-07T23:52:00.002Z

During the planning of The Bible Aloud, we wondered how we should follow-through, rather than just read the whole Bible and feel jolly pleased with ourselves, and leave it at that. And we thought some kind of follow-up would be a Good Idea ("...first the blade, and then the ear, then the full corn shall appear...").

So an Advent course is running every Tuesday until Christmas, at 11am-12.30pm in the vicarage, and the same material again in the church, 7.30pm-9pm. Everyone welcome! Bring an open mind and an open Bible, because together we are exploring the meaning of Advent, that expectant pause before Christmas.

The first session was last week, but each session stands alone, so come when you can, even if you missed it last week.

"Lo, he comes with clouds descending!"

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

Bible Aloud Completed

2009-11-27T00:42:00.004Z

Tonight we completed reading the whole Bible out loud at St Felix. We had to fit it around the existing church commitments; African Drumming, Women’s Institute, Wriggly Worship and of course Sunday morning Services. Yes you did read that right African Drumming, a small group of enthusiasts are learning to enjoy African Drumming on Monday evenings, in the church hall, apparently the acoustics are really good, and it’s very therapeutic! They’ve been at it for a year, but newcomers are welcome; 7:30 to 9pm pay as you go!

We started two weeks ago after the Sunday service, and we will read the last chapter this coming Sunday which is the first in Advent; the first of the four Sundays before Christmas. As an added celebration we are having a ‘bring and share’ lunch, after the service. Food is an important part of Christianity, Jesus performed many miracles at meals; the first miracle was the turning of the water into the finest wine at a wedding feast.

Thanks to Rachel for championing this project, and to Sarah for making sure everybody knew what they were going to read and when, and of course a big THANK YOU to all those who read, especially those who don’t regularly attend St Felix.

If you want to read the whole Bible in your church, our pdf timetable is a good starting point. I used Excel to create our timetables, and automate the generation of the reading list. We plan to do this again next year so I’m going to create a flexible version, that can cope with variable start and stop times; so if you’re interested keep your eye on this blog or St Felix web site.

Bible Aloud end of week 1

2009-11-21T20:34:00.011Z

Well a whole week has gone by and, as far as I know, everyone turned up when they were suppossed to! Everyone I've spoken to has said what a worthwhile event it has been, and there's talk of doing it again next year!
By setting it so each slot should be no more than 15 minutes reading there are 354 slots; one person has requested the reading list so she can use it to read through the Bible in a year. Which I think is a great idea. Most people can manage to find a spare 15 minutes each day. And with only 354 readings, you can even afford to miss a few days, and still get through it in a year. For those who like reading I'm going to work out a reading plan based upon 30 mins and 1 hour at a time. Imagine what reading the whole Bible through every 3 months would do for your relationship with God. This event is not just about reading for the sake of reading, it's about proclaiming God's word in God's house. His word is vibrant and practical, I was listening to Rachel reading from Leviticus 14 where it talks about 'infectious skin diseases' and isolating a person for seven days, it goes on to talk about bodily discharges, and washing even the clothes and things a person sat on, and breaking pots etc that were touched. This is approx 14 hundred years BC; and yet when I look in Wikipedia I find the contagious nature of infectious wasn't discovered until more than a thousand years AD

Abū Alī ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) discovered the contagious nature of infectious diseases in the early 11th century. He introduced quarantine as a means of limiting the spread of contagious and infectious diseases in The Canon of Medicine, circa 1020. He also stated that bodily secretion is contaminated by foul foreign earthly bodies before being infected, but he did not view them as primary causes of disease.

When the Black Death bubonic plague reached al-Andalus in the 14th century, Ibn Khatima and Ibn al-Khatib hypothesized that infectious diseases are caused by "contagious entities" which enter the human body. Such ideas became more popular in Europe during the Renaissance, particularly through the writing of the Italian monk Girolamo Fracastoro.

Such things make you wonder, should we pay more attention to God's commands and Laws?

Bible Alound

2009-11-15T16:31:00.000Z

It's started!!!!
After a great service, and a fabolous puppet show Rev Janice rushed the end of this morning service. In her excitment she nearly forgot the words of the blessing!
But at 12 O'clock today Rev Janice started at Genesis 1v1 and Rachel will finish todays session, reading Leviticus 11 to 13 at 8:45 to 9pm. Then day one will be over. My first session is 7:15 tonight, it'll be interesting to see how many people are there!

Bible Aloud

2009-11-11T22:27:00.001Z

Our Marathon Bible Reading is drawing closer, we have just 6 slots left to fill, and I know they will soon be taken, and not by Rev. Janice. These last few days have been a real team effort, drawing on our different skills, and availability; Rachel (who initially had the vision to do this), has been 'doing the rounds' encouraging people from the other local churches to join with us. Rachel was passing on names and times, to me to add to my spreadsheet; but having just moved house, she temporarily has other pressing demands upon her time. To make life easier I automated combining the plan based upon times and the contacts sheet, into a list based upon names; which Sarah has taken and used to mail merge into emails and letters, so everyone should soon know exactly what they are reading and when. Matthew created our Bible Aloud logos and manages the church web site, created a Briefing Sheet, so now we everyone doing a reading know exactly what is expected of them. It promises to be a great two weeks, and if you can make the time, we will be thrilled to see you, and read to you. The readings (except Psalm 119!) should take less then 15 minutes, each session starts on the quarter hour, feel free to come and go as your schedule allows. If you want to know what's being read when then this pdf has the answers.

Thanks Tony

2009-11-09T20:16:00.001Z

I’d just settled in to work, sorting out a new starter, and I get a phone call, “Help the car won’t start”, I’m 15 miles away, what am I supposed to do? We have one of those portable car emergency batteries indoors, but since we moved I’m not sure where the charger for it is and it was only only half charged. Anyway once, under instruction, my wife had managed to open the bonnet, and connected the portable battery, she was sorted, I wish! As half expected, it made no difference.

Fortunately I have a copy of our Church Directory on my work PC, we do have a paper copy somewhere at home, but the important word here is ‘somewhere’, so needless to say my wife couldn’t find it. But a few calls later, and a night in shining armour turns up, with some jump leads, he had turned his garage out to find them.

Thanks Tony, much appreciated, mate.

p.s.
it turns out the battery was dying, but now we have a new one J

Moving

2009-11-08T17:35:00.000Z

Yesterday 27 people moved house!
More precisely 27 people helped one family move house.
In a massive family effort in one morning we moved Rachel from out in the sticks into the heart of Rendlesham. There had obviously been plenty of prior work, as one couple were storing 30 boxes of stuff in their house, waiting for us to move all Rachel's furniture etc over; and sorting that lot took the rest of the afternoon.

Many thanks were expressed by Rachel during this mornings service, for everyone's hard work.

St Felix is a family church and when a family member asks for help, or obviously needs it; if other family members can meet those needs, then they do. As well as physically moving stuff, some helped with the cleaning, some provided food (the spicy apple chutney was a real treat), and tea makers are always welcome!

In the Bible it says the early Christians were known for their love one for another, hopefully, in that respect, St Felix is like the early church. You're welcome to come and find out for yourself.

Bible Aloud

2009-11-04T21:24:00.000Z

We're making great progress in filling all 354 slots for our marathon 88 1/2 hour reading of the whole Bible. We start at midday, straight after the mornig Service, on the 15th November, and allowing for existing church events, (and sleeping!) we will carry on until 9pm on Thursday the 26th. With the very last chapter of Revelations being repeated during the following Sundays service; which just happens to be the first Sunday in Advent.

Over 90% of the slots have been filled, just 33 left of which Rev Janice Leaver is able to do all but 4. There are many reasons for this project and one of them is to encourage us 'non professional Christians' to read more of the Bible ourselves.

The actual reading times are available via this pdf

St Felix, Rendlesham

Sermon from 6th February 2011, preached at Eyke and Tunstall

Sermon for 21st March 2010 Fifth Sunday of Lent

Sermon for Mothering Sunday, 14th March 2010

Sermon for Sunday 7th March 2010

Sunday 28th February 2010, Second of Lent Genesis 15.1-12, 17-18 Luke 13.31-35

Sermon preached on the first Sunday of Lent, 21st February 2010

Sermon preached at a service of Baptism within Morning Prayer at the Church of St Gregory the Great, Rendlesham

Sermon from last Sunday

Happy New Year

Mary, did you know?

New Bibles

Carol Services and all Christmas Services

Sunday 20th December,10.30am St Felix Rendlesham

6.30pm St Gregory Rendlesham

Wednesday 23rd December, 6.30pm

Thursday 24th December, CHRISTMAS EVE:4.30pm St Felix

5pm All Saints Eyke

6.30pm St Michael & All Angels Tunstall

11.30pm St Gregory Rendlesham

CHRISTMAS DAY

Christmas Lights not just festive lights!

Tempus fugit

The Bible Aloud follow-up

Bible Aloud Completed

Bible Aloud end of week 1

Bible Alound

Bible Aloud

Thanks Tony

Moving

Bible Aloud

Sunday 20th December,
10.30am St Felix Rendlesham

Thursday 24th December, CHRISTMAS EVE:
4.30pm St Felix