Tim Scott

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19 November 2023 – Patronal Festival: Feast of St Edmund (Second Sunday before Advent)

It is good to be back with you at your principal service again. It is a particular pleasure to join you on this special occasion. May I also bring you greetings from all at St Anne’s.

Today is your patronal festival and it makes a change to preach at a patronal festival where the patron saint has some solid history. As you may be aware St Anne is the apocryphal mother of Mary and grandmother of Jesus. There is no mention of her in the New Testament or any other contemporary history, although she is referred to in the gospel of James one of the apocryphal gospels which were not included in the canon, so this is a rare experience for me. Similarly, it makes a change to have a gospel reading more than the two verses we have for our patronal festival, indeed all three readings then total 10 verses. However, when I looked at the readings for today, I did wonder whether this was a change for the better when I realised that the gospel was the section which included “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother,”!

My knowledge of St Edmund was thin, based mainly on childhood learning and the E4 Pilgrimage we had to Bury St Edmunds some years ago, so I have done a little background reading on him, information which you have probably heard many times before. St Edmund was born about 840 and became king of Norfolk in 855, aged about 15 and of Suffolk the following year. Although many facts about him are uncertain he was certainly a Christian. His faith informed his way of ruling; he was unusual for his time, caring for the poor and steadily suppressing wrongdoing. By the late 9th century, the Anglo-Saxons in England were being invaded by the Danes. Edmund repulsed several attacks but eventually was defeated, possibly at Hoxne on the Norfolk/Suffolk border, when they returned in 870 with overwhelming numbers.

The terms which the Danish chief Hingwar forced on him were unacceptable to him because they would mean betraying his Christian faith. He was beaten and flogged: according to tradition calling on Jesus whilst this was happening. He was then tied to a tree and used for archery practice by the soldiers before being beheaded. The cult of Edmund the martyr soon developed, and many legends grew around his memory.

Writing about a century later the Benedictine monk Aelfric of Eynsham in his “The lives of the Saints” described Edmund as follows:

“Blessed Edmund, King of the East Angles, was a wise and honourable man, and by his excellent conduct always gave glory to almighty God. He was humble and devout, and of such steadfast faith that throughout his life he never yielded to any shameful behaviour. He was unswerving in his duties, refusing to compromise his integrity, mindful of the counsel that if you should be made a chief, never exalt yourself, but rather always be among your people as one of them. He was generous to the poor and widows, and like a father gently guided his people towards righteousness, controlling the violent in the land, and allowing people to live securely in the true faith.”

At first sight our gospel this morning is one of the more difficult texts to interpret. By using terms like ‘sons against fathers, daughters against mothers,’ and ‘I have not come to bring peace but a sword’ Jesus is clearly setting out to stir things up in a big way, something he often did!

When thinking about what this might mean we should remember that the New Testament has much to say about caring for each other within the family. I am sure that those who have taken this text as a licence to neglect their own dependents and spend their time “on the Lord’s work” were well wide of the mark. However, they are stern and uncomfortable words which echo down the years into our church today.

Think of St Francis, whose feast we celebrated last month, leaving his comfortable life in a wealthy home, despite his father’s fury, to go and imitate Jesus as best he could by living a simple life, an example which is still followed by thousands today.

We can think also of those who facing terrible dangers for the sake of the gospel have had to send their families to a place of safety while they remain in a place of danger to look after a church because there is no-one else to do it.

In this passage Jesus is not saying that everyone who follows him will find themselves cut off from their family; indeed many of the early apostles were accompanied by their wives as we hear in 1 Corinthians 9. What Jesus is talking about here is priorities, which is made clear in the latter part of the reading. However, he is making some remarkable and quite dramatic claims.

He isn’t saying, as some have tried to suggest, that what matters is following God in your own way. He is saying, loud and clear, that what matters is allegiance to him: allegiance to Jesus must come at the top of every priority list. As the gospel unfolds we see how difficult this was even for those who knew him personally: Judas betrayed him, Peter denied him, and all the rest ran off and hid. But the challenge remains, embracing everything, demanding everything, offering everything, promising everything.

As is often the case in Jesus’ teaching the passage about sons and fathers, mothers and daughters is in fact a quotation from one of the Old Testament prophets, in this case Micah. It is from a passage where Micah predicts the terrible divisions which will occur when God does a new thing. When God acts to rescue people, there will always be some who say they don’t need to be rescued, they are comfortable as they are. To his original hearers this would remind them that their scripture contained warnings of what will happen when God finally acts once and for all to save his people; an event which we know happened through Jesus.

Thus, our gospel this morning is not suggesting that family strife is an integral part of being a Christian, but that this may happen as a result of totally committing ourselves to a life of Christian witness, of putting Jesus first. The story of St Edmund, and many other Christian martyrs, reminds us of just how great a price some are called to pay for their faith. So as we celebrate the patronal festival of this church we are reminded once again by both the story of St Edmund and by our gospel that as Christians we are called to put Christ, and our service of him, at the top of our priority list. We are warned that we will find, as people have done for the last two thousand years, that this is a challenge which is difficult to meet, which may have costs in other areas of our life and which over the centuries has indeed cost many not only their families but their very lives.

Mick Scotchmer

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12 November 2023 – Remembrance Sunday (Third Sunday before Advent)

A new business was opening and one of the owner’s friends decided to send her flowers for the occasion. When they arrived the business woman was shocked to see that the card said ‘Rest in Peace.’ She called the florist to complain. After she had told the florist of the obvious mistake and how angry she was, the florist replied, ‘I’m really sorry for the mistake, but instead of getting angry, perhaps you should consider this. Somewhere there is a funeral taking place today and they have flowers with a note saying ‘Congratulations on your new location.’’

Many people will find this story amusing, while others who have maybe recently lost a loved one may be responding differently.

Death is a subject that many people avoid talking about. For most people the only time they speak about death is when someone they know dies, or when they themselves are faced with a life-threatening illness. But death is a fact of life. It is something we will all go through – we just don’t know when.

Today we are particularly reminded of death – the deaths of many soldiers particularly those from this and many other nations who died in the two World Wars defending our freedom. But we are also reminded of many other people of many nations around the world who are still suffering as a result of war, especially in the present conflict in Gaza. Parents who have lost children, wives who have lost husbands, husbands who have lost wives, children who have lost parents or grandparents, people who have lost brothers, sisters, friends.

But there are other occasions when we are reminded of death – when we, or someone close to us is diagnosed with a very serious or terminal illness. How we respond will depend on our individual personalities. Our own archdeacon, Elwin, is undergoing treatment for Cancer and is at this present time at Barts hospital having a stem cell treatment following a course of chemotherapy. He has been and still is very open about this and shares his journey on Facebook. Many years ago I had a gentleman in my congregation who was diagnosed with prostate cancer he only told a few people and did not want it to be public knowledge.

The experience of a serious illness can bring a fear that death is near. The death or terminal diagnosis of someone close to us evokes many differing emotions. We may feel numb and be unable to feel anything, we may be very sad and tearful, we may feel lonely, empty, have regrets, if they suffered a lot we may be thankful their suffering has ended. We may have a whole mixture of feelings. There may also be many questions.

For the Thessalonians there were questions. The church in Thessalonica was a very young church. As with all the early Christians there was a real and living expectation that Jesus was coming back very soon. In fact, most of the early Christians believed that Jesus would return in their lifetime. They looked forward to his coming and to welcoming him.

But as church members began to die, questions arose. Would those who had died miss out on the second coming? This wonderful event they were looking forward to. Paul seeks to answer their question and in the passage that was read this morning he speaks about what will happen to both those believers who have died and those believers who will be still alive when Jesus returns.

What he tells the Thessalonians is also relevant for us. Nearly two thousand years on we too are looking forward to the return of Jesus. The Thessalonian Christians had come from a pagan background, not Jewish, and the pagan world had no hope of life after death. An inscription on a gravestone of the time says ‘I was not, I became, I am not, I care not.’ For the people around them death brought despair. They had no hope. Paul knows this and tells the Thessalonians that in the face of death they must not be like these people who have no hope.

When the Bible was written, it was written in Greek, and the word that we have for hope has a rather different meaning to the word Paul used. When we talk about hope we usually mean that there is some doubt as to whether or not what we hope for will happen. We look at the sky in the evening and see a few clouds and say ‘I hope it will be fine tomorrow.’, but there is the possibility that it won’t be. We say ‘I hope I get the job I’ve applied for.’ But we can’t be sure.

When Paul uses the word hope here, it is different. What he speaks of as hope is something that is promised and is assured. There is no doubt that Christ will return – we can be sure that he will – the only thing we don’t know is when. And why does knowing that Christ will return give us hope – because if we know him and believe in him, then he has promised that we will be with him for ever. Paul knew this, and he knew the Thessalonians knew this. And here he is showing them (and us) that the person who has lived their life ‘in Christ’ is still ‘in Christ’ even when they die.

Paul promised in Romans 8:38,39 that there is nothing that can separate us from Christ. Once we have become a Christian, once we have been accepted as a child of God, loved and forgiven, then nothing can break that relationship – not even death. In fact, when we die we will be even closer to Jesus than we are now. When we die our bodies decay but our soul goes to be with Jesus. Those who have died will remain with him until the time he returns.

There are at least 5 things in this passage that Paul uses to encourage the Thessalonians and that can also encourage us as we face the death of those close to us and as we think about our own death.

1. The first thing is in (v.14); Jesus has conquered death. He died and rose again. There is no longer any need to fear death (that doesn’t mean that we won’t have a fear of how it will happen, but that is for another day). Jesus is with us in this life, and he is with us in the life to come. Before he died, he told his disciples (John 14) that he was going to prepare a place for them. He died so that when we die, he is there for us. When we know Christ, death is simply passing into his arms.
2. Secondly, (v.16) Jesus is coming back. When we die the Bible says our bodies ‘sleep’, but our soul is with Christ. On the Cross Jesus told the dying thief ‘Today you will be with me in Paradise’ (Lk.23:43). Those who have died in Christ are with him. Although we are sad because our loved ones are no longer with us, we can take comfort in knowing that there are safe in his hands.
3. Thirdly, (v.16,17) that situation will last until the second coming – and when he returns, he will bring all those whose souls are with him. And that will be a very public event. Revelation 1:7 tells us ‘Every eye will see him’.
4. Fourthly (again in v.16,17) there will be resurrection bodies – for the dead first: those who return with Jesus – and then for those who are still alive. Resurrection of the dead will happen, but those who are still alive will not miss out – they too will receive resurrection bodies – bodies that fit us for eternal life. Bodies of the kind Jesus had after the resurrection.
5. Fifthly (end of v.17) from that moment on we will all be with the Lord forever. There will be a huge reunion. We will be united with each other in God’s presence, never to part again.

Why is Paul so concerned to get all these things across to the Thessalonians? This is all part of his helping them to live out their Christian lives. He says this at the beginning of chapter 4 ‘Finally our brothers and sisters, we urge you in the name of Jesus to live in a way that pleases God, as we have taught you. You live this way already, and we encourage you to do so even more.’ (v.1)

The concerns about death threatened to take away their joy and disable their witness. The pagan people around them had no hope, death was final – they didn’t believe there was anything more. To have such a view of death means that there doesn’t seem to be any purpose to life. The Thessalonian Christians had found meaning and purpose in life in Christ and Paul want to make sure they also have hope in death in Christ.

When Paul says he wants to give them hope it is so that they will not be broken by their sadness. He is not saying that it’s wrong to grieve – it is very important to express grief, important for both our physical and mental health. But if there is no hope grief can lead to despair.

We all have to face the death of a loved one, sometimes many times over. People die and we grieve. Facing up to the possibility of our own death is something many people don’t want to talk about or think about. But as we study the Bible we can begin to see that we don’t need to fear death, and that what is to come is better than what is.

I was recently reminded of a section in the book Gulliver’s Travels. In Part III he travels to Lagado and while there visits a scientific academy where he meets a man who has found a way to extract sunshine out of cucumbers. He bottles it and ‘lets it out to warm the air in inclement summers’. These words of Paul in Thessalonians 4 seem to me like that bottled sunshine – we can keep them and get them out when we face sad and distressing times.

They are here to bring us comfort and hope. We need to keep remembering them, but more than that we need to share them. As Paul says ‘So encourage one another with these words.’ We can be encouraged, and encourage one another with these words all the time. Who knows when we will need to draw on their truth – when we will hear of the death of someone close to us, or we ourselves become ill and fearful that our illness may lead to our death.

And as Christians we will look forward to our new location – a place in heaven with our Lord and Saviour free from pain and sickness, worry or sorrow, free to be the people he created us to be in perfect fellowship with God for eternity.

Maria Holmden

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5 November 2023 – All Saints’ Sunday

I have no idea if any of you have been watching the news over the past couple of weeks, but I have to say you would be forgiven for not having looked at the news for the past few days – it has been a cocktail of bloodshed and violence, grief and injustice…

And it is so easy to turn away from the violence and suffering of the world – and sometimes we must for our own mental wellbeing to ensure that we do not get consumed by despair.

And it is easy too I think, and it is understandable for us to look at the world as it is right now and for us to conclude that the world is a place devoid of God – where God is no longer active and in which evil and unchecked power has complete sovereignty.

I was walking with a friend in Victoria Park a week ago who is an atheist (on a good day he’s an agnostic) but yesterday was more of an atheist day…and as is often my way, I tend to speak either from the head or the heart but rarely from the two combined – and he often tries to illicit a response from me in regards to his unbelief in God…but yesterday I shocked him because I said, you know In fact, actually, on the basis of the facts – you look out at the world today – and you look too at the Church – disbelief in God seems quite a sensible life choice…

If you’re looking for evidence of God in the world in the way you might look for evidence of peace in the world – you might not find all that much.

He didn’t really know how to respond to that, but he did say I was putting myself out of a job!

But you see, belief in God is not something that you and I have because believing in God is a calculation that adds up, you and I don’t believe in God because believing in God makes sense, the Saints did not believe in God because believing in God was obvious, it was about trust, and risk, doubt and hope. I believe in God, and perhaps you believe in God, because God’s being has been made known to you in a way that neither you nor I can easily deny, nor explain. And that experience, that feeling of there being something bigger than us cannot be manufactured, it is just pure gift…and it is a gift I wish for every human being.

So much of the hope offered by the Christian revelation, is that this is not all there is – that there will be a resolution of all that the past claims on us – that our real home, our real life, the place in which we belong with the saints, is with God.

Now the news might be the last place either of us would go to see a glimpse of God in the world, today, but even in the midst of the bloodiness of the violence we are seeing I did indeed see God whilst watching the news this past week.

There was a story, which you may have seen, of an elderly Israeli lady 85 years old, who had been kidnapped by Hamas.

The footage shows her being held by her rescuers, and being led into an ambulance to be taken to hospital and eventually home. And as she’s walking two of the men from Hamas, carrying large guns across their bodies and wearing balaclava’s stand on the side letting her go…and she walks past them with her rescuers from the Red Cross, and then suddenly she stops…she takes a few steps back – she reaches out her hand, and puts it into the hand of one of her former captors – and looking him in the eye, hand in hand with him, she says “Shalom! Shalom!”

I have no idea what possessed her to turn back at all. It’s the last thing I think I would have done if I was in her position…but what blew my mind wasn’t just her stopping to turn back – it was her choice of words:

“Shalom! Shalom!” – the English translation is “Peace!, Peace!”

But that doesn’t really do it justice…Shalom is the deep coherence which God gives us inside us…it really means:

harmony, wholeness, completeness, prosperity, welfare and tranquility.

Shalom Aleichem, is literally what Jesus says in the Gospels when he greets his disciples post the crucifixion… ‘peace be with you’ -peace to his closest friends who hurt him, betrayed him, let him down, and who were hiding for fear of their lives… ‘peace be with you’. Shalom.

You can just imagine what that lady’s friends and community thought watching this footage of her release: What on earth are you doing?! Shaking hands with the enemy! They must have been shouting at their TV screens – you are saying “Shalom!” to the enemy…have you lost your mind?

But actually, I found it so powerful – powerful because she entirely disarmed her captors – she rehumanized them despite the evil they had done.

But what was more powerful for me was that she did it so deliberately with a word that is so absent in that war at the moment she spoke ‘Shalom!’ peace into a situation where peace was literally nowhere to be seen.

Shalom is one of the names of God, it’s so sacred that Jewish people will not use the greeting if they see someone they know in a public bathroom for example.

Well, friends, Jesus offers us in the Gospel – a world turned upside down, where shalom is at the heart of all things. Hear again those deeply challenging words of Our Lord from today’s Gospel:

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.’

The world at the moment seems to say, in so many places and ways – ‘I can only live, if you die!’ – the Gospel of Jesus Christ says, ‘I can only live, if you live!’ our life and our death, to quote St Antony of Egypt, is with our neighbour.

Saints are those who show us what our lives can look like when we stake our lives on the promises of God in Jesus Christ.

That Jesus, who on the cross says on behalf of those who cause him agony: ‘Father, forgive them for they know not what they do…’

I feel that in saying Shalom to her captors for the world to see, that released hostage modelled for us – the only way out of this awful and unjust conflict.

Human beings, must see the dignity and worth in the other.

They must come to a point at which they wish the other, peace not harm, wholeness not suffering.

They must risk – turning back, looking each other in the eye, and holding hands…

Journeying towards that future which our very first reading holds out to us – a journey to that time and place where:

‘They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat;
for the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’

The hope that you and I have – hope that peace might reign in our world, hope that we might be saints, hope that we might see again those whom we love but see no longer – the hope we stake our lives upon is not a calculated, evidenced hope – it is simply a trust that Jesus is who he says he is.

And so may the trouble in our world, the grief in our hearts, the suffering in our homes – know the shalom of God which comes to us in Jesus.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Jarel Robinson-Brown

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29 October 2023 – Black History Month (Last Sunday after Trinity)

This passage from Luke [Luke 4.16–21] is sometimes called Jesus’ first sermon – they are certainly the first recorded words of his public ministry and they emerge from his 40 days of wrestling with Satan in the wilderness. The new Exodus is beginning. When Israel is testing in the desert, she fails and abandons the God who saves. Jesus remains steadfast and faithful. In the face of the devil’s taunt, Jesus quotes the book of Deuteronomy – as one commentator says, ‘By citing Deuteronomy, Jesus sets the stage for his first sermon at Nazareth to be heard as the greater law. They are words for the formerly enslaved on the verge of receiving God’s promises.

Those who have selected these readings for Black History Month have chosen wisely – the text gives us rich insight into God’s heart for all peoples, for his rejection of all oppression and prejudice and his call to participate in the justice-seeking work of Christ.

In this month of both celebration and lament, our reading draws our attention to Jesus’ self-understanding, his sense of vocation and his priorities as his public ministry begins. Jesus does not quote exactly from the Book of Isaiah but rather conflates Isaiah 61 and Isaiah 58 – bringing together two elements of the Father’s heart revealed in Christ.

Firstly we note that Jesus preaches the gospel to the poor – and poverty here is broad in its meaning, encompassing all those who experience the sorrow, struggle and heartbreak of rejection or exclusion. In his book, Reading while Black, Esau Macaulley writes: ‘Jesus preaches the gospel to the poor. The brokenhearted are healed and those in bondage are set free. This shows that those whom society has declared secondary receive the priority of the kingdom. In a society where Black lives have been historically undervalued, we can know that we have an advocate in the person of Christ.’ Nothing about the scourge of racism and prejudice, the horrors of slavery or the ongoing systemic discrimination that we see, is a sign of God’s love for his people. In fact, the gospel shows us that the opposite is true – God in Christ rejects the value systems of the world and offers an alternative way of being.

When we read these words again, we can rejoice and celebrate, we can affirm and delight, we can proclaim with confidence that God’s ways are not our ways – God values those whom the world does not treasure.

There is a reminder here too that the good news of Jesus Christ is not offered as some charitable gift to those in need, – this is not pity – but celebration. Jesus takes seriously the spiritual lives of those who have experienced rejection by the world. Good news is freedom from injustice and oppression, but it is also freedom from sin, forgiveness. Healing, wholeness – just as that is offered to all who turn to Christ. Our new testament reading [Galatians 3.26–29] tells us: ‘There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.’

The gospel is good news in that it takes seriously the vocations, the callings, the soul, the heart of every Christin, and especially those who have known marginalisation or prejudice on account of their ethnicity of skin colour. In this Black History Month, the gospel affirms the inherent belovedness of every human being and speaks good news to each person. Perhaps you need to hear or know that afresh today.

The commentator, David Jacobsen, describes this passage as ‘Good news is bad news is good news.’ Perhaps it’s hard to see the bad news here – this passage is beautiful, uplifting, a song of triumph – surely these words are only hope. He elaborates: But when someone announces that you’ve been healed, it presupposes you had something you needed to be healed from. If someone says, “you’re forgiven,” it doesn’t make sense unless you needed something to be forgiven for. Good news is bad news is good news.

We return to the fact that Jesus has used some of Isaiah 58 alongside Isaiah 61 – in this text too is critique, outrage, lament that false religiosity is keeping people poor, obsessed with ritual but not willing to engage in actual change, not breaking the structures of oppression which wound and hurt. There is good news in this text for those who have experienced marginalization but there is bad news for those who are not poor. The year of jubilee announces a redistribution of wealth which is great if you’ve had ancestral lands stolen but not so great for you if you have got rich on the back of someone else’s land.

The good news is a call to repentance and transformation to anyone who has been part of the systems and structures which both Isaiah and Jesus now critique. There is not a private matter, there is something very corporate about the way Jesus speaks – something profoundly challenging to the body and not just to the individual. This Black History Month invites us to both celebrate and to lament. To recognise the places where we need healing – the bad news within the good news. Perhaps for us that might be that we need to be open to learning how we have wittingly or unwittingly colluded with racism – that might be that we need to be more aware of our unconscious biases, or of how our language or assumptions wound or hurt others – or it may be broader than that, that we need to accept that we are part of fragile and broken structures – including in the church and to commit to being part of the change which will see our institutions become more equal and reflective of the diversity of the Kingdom. We cannot get to the fullness of good news without facing first the bad news which opens us up to learning, to challenge and ultimately to healing.

The final invitation I want to issue is to notice something of the way Jesus uses language in our gospel reading. Normally, a Rabbi might read a Torah portion and then sit down to unpick it, dissect it, consider every angle and detail. Jesus reads the scroll, sits down and says, ‘Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’ It is an extraordinary claim. Today – this freedom, emancipation, equality, redemption for all those who long for these things – today it is achieved.

There is a completion in his language and yet. The Greek tense used here implies both that the Scripture has been fulfilled and that is goes on being fulfilled – there is a continuity reality, a living truth. This is not a historical moment to be pickled or preserved – this is a dynamic breaking open of the world and the letting in of a new reality. Luke’s gospel tells us more stories – more ways in which the Gospel keeps on being fulfilled – in the encounter with Zacchaeus, in the healing of the widow’s son, in Christ’s death and resurrection, in the ministry of the early church. It keeps on.

And it keeps on being fulfilled in us. As one commentator says, ‘And so, I think this inaugural sermon of Jesus is ours to preach and ours to finish. Or maybe, not ours to finish, but ours to make sure keeps on happening. Because the good news of the Gospel is never ours to finish, but only ours to keep on preaching.’

As we mark Black History Month, we continue to seek the good news of Jesus Christ for ourselves, for those who have known and experienced oppression, for those who continue to live under the weight of racism and we continue to preach the good news, in the way that we live in celebration of God’s delight in the whole of humanity, in our refusal to collude with racism or hatred, in our participation in the work which seeks to dismantle discrimination and break every yoke, in our willingness to repent, to be humbled and to change.

May we join our voices with Christ’s today and claim our baptismal vocation and commission: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news. Amen.

Vanessa Conant

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22 October 2023 – Twentieth Sunday after Trinity

Homily: Render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s

Money: A necessary part of our lives. There is a story of a man who for a long time had been lonely save for his faithful canine companion. Unfortunately, the dog sadly passed away and so he went to the local vicar and explained his story and how faithful the dog had been to him and how much of A companion he was and he asked if the church would bury his dog. the vicar shook his head. crestfallen he began to walk away, then he stopped for a moment and turned and said to the vicar ‘do you know of anywhere else who would bury my dog for me’ and the vicar said ‘yeah try the Methodists down the road they bury anything’ ‘oh said the man thank you for that, just out of interest I was planning on making a donation to who would ever bury my dog. How much do you think would be about right?’ the Vicar shrugged his shoulders and said ‘no idea’. the man said he was thinking somewhere in the region about 10,000 pounds. There was a brief silence and the vicar said ‘oh I didn’t realise your dog was an Anglican come back in.’

There have been two diametrically opposed interpretations of what Jesus meant when he said give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. The first is probably the one we are most familiar with and that is that we have duties to our society and one of those duties is to pay taxes to government who will hopefully spend the money in part on redistributing wealth and in part on the services we all rely on. I don’t know how many of you have seen Monty Python’s ‘the Life of Brian; but there is that wonderful piece where the rebel leader of the peoples Liberation Front of Judea is holding a pre-rebellion meeting and says to the assembled; ‘What have the Romans ever done for us?’ Of course, he was expecting a kind of angry silence. instead, he got a catalogue of what the Romans had actually done for them through, I might add, their taxes; roads, Vine-culture, law and order and so on. It was a long list and after a brief silence the leader played by John Cleese said, ‘well apart from roads viniculture and so on what have the Romans ever done for us?’ there’s a brief silence and a voice at the back says ‘Aqueducts’. John Cleese’s reply is sadly unrepeatable in church. Of course, we pay our taxes in the vain hope that the government which administers the money, uses it for the benefit of society – whether they do or not is another sermon altogether. This view argues that the followers of Jesus have duties both to God and to the state and part of those duties to the state is to pay taxes. Saint Paul who interestingly was writing about 30 years before Matthew’s gospel was written said we owe duty honour and respect to the emperor which these days would be translated to the government.

The problem with that view is that in a society where wealth is unequal there is always the problem of the government pandering to those who could pay more and therefore have more influence. Let alone the wealthy actually being the government. There is also the problem of unfair taxation on those who can’t afford it. If taxes were lowered across the board then the wealthy would not only survive but they would thrive and the rest of us would go down the plughole. And as we all recall, the last administration which thought that was a good idea lasted less than a lettuce. Also, both this saying and Saint Paul’s writings have often been used to justify the odious sentiment of ‘my country right or wrong’ it is a view that personally I think is despicable.

The alternative view, which has always been there within the Christian tradition from the early christian communities mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, then the Joanine community founded towards the end of the 1st century which was responsible for John’s gospel the letters of John and the Book of Revelation right up to the Christian anarchists of the 20th century such as Dorothy Day founder of the Catholic workers league in America and Jacques Ellul a brilliant French thinker. And that view is that all secular governments are hopelessly corrupted and furthermore if we could live as a Christian community we would not need government at all. Of course, you may well say that that is an absurd idea; why would we ever not need authority surely it is important and necessary? They would argue that it is not you who needs authority, rather, authority needs you, after all if authority goes – you are still here. And there is plenty of evidence in the gospels to support that view; ‘Call no one on earth father because you have one father and he is in heaven’ – you must not lord it over each other as the pagans do, you are all brothers and sisters’. So, this view’s take on Jesus’ saying is that money is irrelevant only God matters so give back to Caesar whatever he wants – just not your obedience, as that cannot be bought with money – and then Caesar might be very wealthy, but he also stands alone.

There is, however, another way of understanding what Jesus meant, which is not really about taxes. Firstly, a bit of background. The unusual alliance in the story of the Pharisees and the Herodians. The Pharisees hated the Romans and despised paying taxes to them as they wanted Rome out of Judea. The Herodians, the party of Herod, were stooges of the Roman emperor. They had nothing in common except an enmity towards Jesus. The question was a trick question. Because if Jesus had answered yes, he would have been siding with Rome. If he had said no, he would be guilty of treason. Hence Jesus’ response of ‘Show me the coin used for the tax and they bought him a denarius and he said to them ‘whose head is this and whose title’ they answered, ‘the emperor’s.’ The only coins allowed for the tax were coins with the emperor’s head and not only his head but the saying inscribed underneath that the emperor was divine. Most people did not want such a coin because it would be blasphemous and idolatrous, accordingly people bought the silver denarius bearing the emperors head with copper coins in order to pay the tax.

I’m wondering if there isn’t another way of interpreting this saying which is very contemporary today. And that is the association of divinity with money. Our economic system has progressed a long way since the time of Jesus. The pursuit of money for its own sake is not new but something human beings since the invention of money have aspired to do. The problem today is that money is no longer simply a means of exchange but a product, in its own right, which can be bought and sold. it can be used to make more money; it doesn’t have to be backed by labour or by the value of the raw materials and the cost of making a product. Interestingly, the Judaism of the time forbade the making of money from money. There are over 70 references in the Old Testament forbidding charging interest on a loan. Interestingly there are only 5 references in the whole Bible which may be about homosexuality, strange how the bigots tend to focus on those.

Today, If a person filled his house with old newspapers sooner or later he or she would be reported to the social services and the hapless hoarder would be carted off for psychiatric treatment. If, however, a person spends their time collecting lots of other kinds of pieces of paper and putting them in the bank he or she would appear on the cover of Forbes magazine, a saint in the cause of the mammon god.

When Jesus said you cannot serve both God and mammon, mammon did not mean money nor the love of money but the substitution of money for God. So what Jesus was arguing against was not that money bore the image of a false god, but that money itself was the false god. And why is that such a contemporary concern? I think the answer is blazingly obvious. The theologian Paul Tillich defined God as ‘that which is our ultimate concern’. If money was not considered to be the most important and ultimate concern, then tell me why the immensely wealthy boards and chairs of companies that exploit the environment are more concerned with profits than the fact that those companies are contributing to the extinction of the human species. Money must be a pretty powerful god to persuade people to worship it knowing that by so doing they are killing life and, of course, themselves.

Now, I am not saying that money should be abolished, at least not overnight, but that money should be used for what it was first invented; a means of exchange and nothing else. Whenever money itself becomes the object of desire and not what it can buy or the good that it can do then it has become a god, a god whose virtues are greed, avarice, exploitation, war – there is a lot of money in the arms trade, crass materialism, inequality, poverty and now threatens our species with extinction. Unlike the true God, the God of and in Jesus Christ whose glory is a person fully alive, who’s tender smile comes to us through nature and through each other, whose will is that all humanity, all life must flourish and whose nature is outpouring love, agape. The choice Jesus explored in his answer to the Pharisees and Herodians is the same choice we are faced with and is not about tax nor whose head is on the currency, but about which God we choose to serve because we cannot serve both and if our species continues to worship the false god then the ominous words of the Cree Inuit people of Canada will come true.

‘Only when the last tree has died, and the last river been poisoned, and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money’.

An ominous note on which to end, maybe, but an important one I think you will agree. Christ came that we may have life and life abundantly. The Christian life is about joy it is about happiness. But not a delusionary joy in escaping the world but the joy of immersing ourselves within this world and doing our level best under God to make it better for all and not a few. Christ prayed and invites us to pray for God’s Kingdom to come on earth a Kingdom where the life and light of God is radiant in all life, a Kingdom liberated from the tyranny of the false god, the hollow idol mammon. Amen.

Jude Bullock

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15 October 2023 – Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity

Today is a very special day for Eaden and her family. I don’t know how long you have been planning this, but I guess quite some time. I guess you spent time thinking about who to invite, and maybe you are having a party or celebration afterwards.

Our gospel reading this morning was a story Jesus told about a very special occasion, a wedding feast. But it is more than just a story, it is another of Jesus’ parables, a story with a message, told during the last week of his
life. And the message of this parable is about the kingdom of heaven. It has two parts. The first is about the wedding feast and the second about a wedding guest and I will look at them separately.

Part One. I expect all of us have, at some time or other, been invited to a wedding. We would have had an invitation and accepted.

If, on the day, we had decided that we couldn’t be bothered to go three things would have resulted:

1. There would have been an empty place at the table
2. Food would have been wasted
3. Those who had invited me would have been hurt and disappointed.

In the time of Jesus things were rather different. In those days when anyone was having a feast they would send out invitations well in advance, telling people the day on which the feast would be happening, but not the time. Those who received an invitation would reply with their acceptance.

When the day of the feast arrived and when everything was ready messengers were sent out to tell each of the guests it was time to come. To accept the invitation beforehand but to refuse it on the day was a huge insult.

In this story the king has sent out the invitations, received acceptances and prepared the necessary amount of food, but when the servants go and say ‘it’s all ready, come now’ the guests ignore them and carry on with what they are doing – some even kill the servants.

As I said at the beginning this is a parable, not a true story. In fact it is a story that would have shocked the people listening to it. It would have been inconceivable for people to behave in this way.

If Jesus were telling it today he might put it this way: ‘King Charles held a banquet and invited the heads of state of the whole of Europe. They all accepted and preparations were made, but on the day when the cars went to the airport to meet the guests, not one of them arrived. This was relayed to the King who said, ‘as you return to the palace pick up all the homeless people, prostitutes and down and outs you pass on the way and bring them here to enjoy the feast. The king in the parable did just that.

Now we have to be careful when we try to interpret parables because sometimes the message isn’t so easily matched to each part, but let’s give it a go:

We can think of the king as representing God, the invited guests as representing the people of Israel (the Jews) and the servants who came to tell them the feast was ready as representing the prophets. Throughout the history of Israel God had invited the people to follow him; that he would be their God and they would be his people. Time and again he sent his prophets to remind them and to call them to come to him, and they refused. Sometimes they even killed those prophets.

So, who are the people who eventually went to the feast? They represent the gentiles, the non-Jewish people. Because the Jews rejected the prophets and then rejected Jesus God would call all sorts of non-Jewish people to follow him. This would have been really shocking to his Jewish listeners. They thought the kingdom of heaven belonged only to them. They couldn’t comprehend that God would ever welcome anyone who wasn’t a Jew.

Most, probably all, of us here are not Jewish, so does this story have a message for us? I believe it does. It is a story of people who are invited to follow Jesus and who say they will, but then they don’t. This morning we are baptising Eaden and she is receiving her invitation to follow Jesus. She is too young to understand and that is why she has godparents. Godparents are people who make promises to bring Eaden up to understand what it means to be a Christian, to pray for her, to support her parents, to set her an example and to bring her to church where she can also learn about what it means to be a Christian.

When she gets older and can understand she will be able to make an informed choice as to whether she wants to continue her life as a Christian or to say ‘no’ to the invitation. If she says ‘yes’ then she can do that at a service called Confirmation when she will make the promises for herself that have been made on her behalf today, and in the sense of the parable come to the feast.

So the first part of the story seems quite straightforward. It’s the second part that always used to puzzle me, but then I had an experience that helped me understand.

Part Two: At my previous church we had a preschool. One of the staff, an Indian lady called Nish invited me and the other members of staff (who were from Pakistan) to a Hindu wedding. During the week leading up to the wedding Nish brought in a bag of saris and we all chose one, and Nish helped us to discover how to wear it. On the day, when we arrived at the venue there was a special dressing room where we all dressed in our wedding saris. It was quite an experience and soon everyone there was dressed in their wedding finery. Anyone who had turned up in other clothes would have stood out like a sore thumb. We were part of the celebrations and that could be seen by the clothes we were wearing.

Today, when we go to a wedding the cost is huge – new dress, shoes, handbag, present etc. So going back to our parable, what about the people who actually attended the king’s feast? Surely that kind of person wouldn’t have had time (and may not have had the money) to buy special clothes, so why was the King so angry when one man wasn’t wearing wedding clothes? I used to think he was being unfair – if the man had been brought in from the street corner maybe he couldn’t afford the right clothes.

But then I discovered that the tradition at that time was that the king would have provided wedding clothes – just like Nish provided saris for us, the king would have had a whole pile of wedding clothes which the servants would have given to each guest as they arrived.

The man who was not wearing his wedding clothes must have refused to accept what he was offered. That was a huge insult to the king, and the reason he was thrown out. It wasn’t that he had come wearing the wrong clothes; he had deliberately refused to wear the right ones.

So what does this mean for us? When we are invited to follow Jesus, he offers us new clothes. He dresses us in right standing with God (we call it righteousness). The only way we can be accepted by God is by wearing this righteousness. That doesn’t mean we have to be perfect. In fact the only way we can wear this righteousness is when we recognise that we are not perfect, and that we cannot make ourselves perfect.

When Jesus died on the cross, he died for all people – everyone is invited to receive what he offers and be put right with God through his death on the cross. And that is why we will make the sign of the cross on Eaden’s forehead this morning, as a sign that Jesus died for her. But not everyone accepts the invitation. Accepting it is not only receiving a gift, it also carries responsibilities. When someone accepts Jesus they cannot go on just as they were before they met him.

He expects us to try to live his way. He expects us to keep turning to him for forgiveness and to make sure the spiritual clothes we are wearing are suitable. We will continue to sin, to fall short of what God wants us to be, but we can come back again and again to ask for forgiveness.

I guess it’s a bit like, if we went to a party where the clothes were provided, but the party went on for days and days, we would need to change those clothes for clean identical ones each day so they could be washed.

When we wear the righteousness Jesus provides, when God looks at us, he doesn’t see our sin, he sees the righteousness of Jesus. If we refuse his righteousness then we are refusing the one thing that puts us right with God: the wedding clothes that identify us as his guests.

The bible tells us that God cannot look on sin, which means that we cannot have a relationship with him, but when we are clothed in the forgiveness of Jesus, the righteousness of Jesus, then when God looks at us he sees Jesus, not our sin, and we are able to have a direct relationship with God.

Eaden is fortunate to have loving parents who have started her on a journey where she can learn about the love of God in Jesus Christ. She has a lot of godparents who, with her parents, in a few moments time, will declare their Christian faith and promise to pray for her, to set her an example by the way they live, make sure she learns about what it means to be a Christian (with the help of the church), and in terms of the parable, accept the invitation to the feast on her behalf. As she grows up the time will come when she will need to make the choice for herself. She may choose to accept, or she may choose to reject, but she will do so knowing what is available to her.

Maria Holmden

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8 October 2023 – Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity

I was wondering why this particular passage [Matthew 21:23-end] is set for today and then I thought it was perhaps because it is around the time of harvest and it is a story about farmers. But that could be a red herring because it is a parable. It is not about farmers per se, but is a parable, a story with a deeper, or hidden, meaning which related to the people who were listening to Jesus (and it can speak to us too).

It is important to see today’s reading in its context, in its setting. Matthew Chapter 21 begins with, if you like, the opening scene of the drama that will lead to the crucifixion. The beginning verses (1-11) show Jesus coming to Jerusalem for the last time: his triumphal entry. This and the actions that follow over the next 6 chapters will lead up to the to his death on the cross.

The first action when he arrived in Jerusalem was to enter the Temple and turn over the tables of the money changers. As he did so people were shouting ‘Praise God for the Son of David.’, and that upset the religious leaders, who were already angry with him.

Later Jesus went back to the temple and started to teach the people. While he was doing this the religious leaders came up to him and began to challenge him. You can see their challenge in v.23-27 where they want to know where he has got the authority to do what he was doing. Jesus turns their question back on themselves by asking them where John the Baptist’s authority came from and they cannot answer because if they say it was human, the crowd would turn on them, if they say from heaven then Jesus would ask why they don’t believe, so they say they don’t know. And so Jesus says he will not answer their question.

He then begins to tell parables. Sometimes Jesus’ parables were subtle and he only explained them to his closest disciples. Now, Jesus speaks in very specific and targeted ways. His first parable (28-32) is about two sons: each was asked to go into the vineyard to work, one said he would but didn’t, the other said he wouldn’t but he did. At first it seems a very simple story, but Jesus tells the religious leaders that it means that the Prostitutes and tax collectors will get into the Kingdom of God before they will, because they had taken notice of John the Baptist.

Let me read an extract from a commentary by Judith Dimond. Speaking about the beginning of chapter 21 she says, ‘Gaze on the threatening circle tightening around Jesus that we see in these passages. Jesus has walked into the lion’s den and is challenging the Pharisees and the Temple authorities face to face. Here we are entering the longest week of his life, between Palm Sunday and Easter Day, when he meets with the powerful and privileged and keeps sparking controversy. Like a boxer going every round in the boxing ring, Jesus keeps coming back for more trouble, and every time his opponents think they’d dealt the final knockout blow.” [Judith Dimond: Gazing on the Gospel Year A: Meditations on the Lectionary Readings]

Having hit them twice, Jesus goes in a third time with this parable of the evil farmers. At first it once again seems like a good story. The scene would be very familiar to Jesus’ hearers, both physically and theologically. In the time of Jesus the people would be very familiar with absentee landlords who let out their estates and only took an interest when the rent was due. That might be money, or crops.

Even the actions of the tenants would have been a familiar scenario. With the general unrest many people were discontent and rebellious, so the killing of the servants and even the son were possible scenarios. In those days if a landowner died and no one could be found to inherit it was declared ownerless, and others could claim it. In the parable, maybe the farmers thought that the owner must have died, and so killed the son so that they could claim the inheritance.

When we interpret a parable there is usually one main point and it is not helpful to focus on details. But this parable is different – the details do have meaning.

Throughout their scriptures the Jewish nation was often referred to as the vineyard of God. As we heard this morning in Isaiah 5. And so we can see that in the parable, the vineyard is the nation of Israel, the religious leaders are the evil farmers who were placed to look after the people. The owner of the vineyard is God. The servants represent the prophets sent by God, and often rejected or killed. Lastly, the son is Jesus himself, who they are soon to kill.

The religious leaders seem caught up in the story. When Jesus asks what will happen to the wicked tenant farmers they reply that the landlord will come back and will destroy them and find new tenants to look after his crops.

They have not realised that the message of this parable is the same as the last. They are only too ready to condemn the evil farmers. They believe that they are safe and always acceptable to God – they are Pharisees!, and they believe that the prostitutes and tax collectors are unacceptable to God. When they realise that Jesus is saying the reverse, and that they are the wicked farmers they are appalled and want to arrest him there and then, but at that time there are too many people around who are supporting him.

To arrest Jesus at that moment would incite a riot, in which case the Romans would come and there would be a lot of trouble. But Jesus fate is sealed – the religious leaders are now determined that he must go, and events move on towards their conclusion. Where previously Jesus would slip away to avoid trouble, now he has nothing to lose and continues to confront and criticise the religious leaders, until finally the inevitable happens.

Matthew spends about quarter of his gospel looking at that last week of Jesus’ life. Because of this, when we just pick out a small section we can just think that this is just another parable Jesus told. In one sense it is, but its context is vital. Jesus knew he was going to die – that was his purpose in coming to earth. We start to see this in ch.16:21 Earlier in that chapter Jesus had had a short run-in with the Pharisees and Saducees, but had then left with his disciples and travelled to Caesarea Philippi where there is a turning point and the disciples begin to realise that Jesus is the expected Messiah. Jesus forbids them to tell anyone, but from that point on he begins to teach them that the outcome will be his death.

Let me read v.21 ‘From that point on Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, and that he would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but on the third day he would be raised from the dead.’ The disciples cannot accept this.

In chapter 21, especially the parable we had this morning, we see Jesus actually controlling the moment of his death – provoking the Pharisees, and being willing to face them head on, even though the outcome would be the cross.

But is this parable just the part of the gospel that shows the progress of Jesus to the cross? I believe it has a message for us too. We can see what the parable said to the Pharisees, but does it have something to say to us today? If we think about the problem at the heart of the parable – it was that the tenant farmers had forgotten who the vineyard belonged to. They began by murdering the servants because they wanted to keep the produce all to themselves, but evil leads to more evil and they end up murdering the Son because they want his inheritance. They view the vineyard as belonging to them. They want it all for themselves.

Today, we too work in God’s vineyard as tenants. The vineyard is his Kingdom, and encompasses the church – the people who belong to that Kingdom. But often we think about it as if it were our own, we try and model the church on our own needs and wants. When we look at the multitude of denominations and their particular ‘entry requirements’ we begin to see that human beings are taking control of the kingdom as if we own it. We forget that all we have is given to us by God.

We are but tenant farmers of the vineyard. We are not here to exercise control over others (although we do have a duty to ensure decency and order); we have no right to say who can or cannot have access to the kingdom.

We need to remember that one day the owner will return and we will be held accountable for all we have, or haven’t done. That is true in the church, in our families, in our individual lives.

The landlord trusted the vineyard to his tenant farmers. God entrusts his kingdom to us. Will we give him his share of the crop each harvest? Or will we try and keep it all to ourselves? Will we enter joyfully into the kingdom when he returns, or will we find ourselves pushed aside while those we thought unworthy go ahead of us?

We don’t need to be afraid, because in John 6:37 we have the words of Jesus. He says, ‘Those the father has given me will come to me, and I will never reject them.’ We are all in danger of getting carried away and trying to do things in a selfish way, but if we have genuinely turned to Jesus and are trying to accept his sovereignty in our lives, then even when we make mistakes we will find that we are forgiven and are accepted, and on his return he will welcome us with open arms.

Maria Holmden

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1 October 2023 – Animal Welfare Sunday

We might have expected that the Jesus in the Bible would be a bit preachy, and moralistic, and judgmental, and tut-tutting as he journeyed around, as he realised that (on the whole) humans have very little capacity to think outside of the exclusive self-interest mindframe of “me, mine and my folks.” And admittedly in the gospels, there are times when we do see some of those things from him – and anger, and frustration, and “urgh!”

But a lot of the times, when he is confronted with a situation, rather than being dragged into the detail, and the arguments and counter-arguments on either side, he often just seems to shrug and tell a story. And that happened in our gospel reading today.

To say that it is a short story is a bit of an understatement. (It’s merely 42 words in the original Greek and so it does not allow much room for plot or characterisation or motivation etc.) There is nothing deep or heavy or complex; there are really no layers of meaning to unpackage. This – and the other short succinct stories he uses – are what were known at the time (and we still refer to them) as parables. A story “thrown alongside” (that’s what the word means) to get the heat out of the argument or out of the debate, by providing an (admittedly unrelated) illustration that nevertheless helps to get to the crux of the dispute or the issue.

The parable of the Two Sons from today is just that. It is simply telling us that (quite obviously) “actions speak louder than words” or, rather more to the point, our decisions and behaviour reflect our true values and beliefs. And so, what may have been a bit of a weird choice for a reading – on this Animal Welfare Sunday, during this season of the church’s year when we think of Creation – does speak clearly and simply, but also loudly, into the current situation in which we find ourselves. A situation where we face a Climate crisis, with wildlife in devastating decline, and where leadership has been cowardly in the face of public opinion and irresolute in the desire for political and electoral success.

Over the past weeks, we have been confronted by the urgency of the situation. One in six species are at risk of extinction in Great Britain. If things do not change, we will lose even more of the wildlife that shares this country with us. More will be numbered with those we have already lost: birds like wrynecks and the Kentish Plover, and fish like burbot; insects such as Apple Bumblebees, Cullem’s Bumblebees, Short-haired Bumblebees, the Orange-Spotted Emerald Dragonfly, the Norfolk Damsel Fly, the Blue Stag Beetle, various species of moth and butterfly; even large mammals such as Grey Whales. All once our fellow-creatures here in Britain; all now extinct in this island country.

And, of course, it is not just here in our backyard but across the world. Last month, in the news we learnt of a catastrophic die-off of emperor penguin chicks in the Antarctic, with up to 10,000 young birds estimated to have been killed by melting sea-ice. It has been estimated that currently 15,000 species are now threatened with extinction globally, with scientists reporting that the rate of extinction is hundreds or even thousands of times higher than the natural base rate.

“Actions speak louder than words.” … Our actions disclose our values and beliefs. And yes, for many when confronted by the facts, on seeing the images of the impacts on animals and birds and wildlife and habitats, we are moved, saddened, shocked, alarmed. But often we see and hear that outpoured simply in human terms: worried about how that impacts on us, on our future survival, rebelling against our potential extinction. All about ‘me, mine and my folks.’

Later in the service today when we sing, ‘All things bright and beautiful,’ there is also some of that in its sentiment there. It speaks of our gratitude for the natural resources around us. It is a “soothing” hymn, which views creation very much through a human prism. It focuses on creation as something there for us, whether in terms of its prettifying the world of our existence or in providing for our wants and needs.

The hymn was parodied by Monty Python…

All things dull and ugly,
all creatures short and squat,
all things rude and nasty,
the Lord God made the lot.

Each little snake that poisons,
each little wasp that stings,
he made their brutish venom,
he made their horrid wings.

(All together now…)

… And it continues. The intention was to poke fun at the original’s emphasis on only those things we see as good, in the world around us, from our human perspective. However, creation is more than that. God creates not just us, but God creates all. From our perspective, we may see creation as that which is other than us, around us, there for us. But, instead, from the biblical perspective, we are part of creation.

We can read the Genesis story as if we are the pinnacle, the final end-crowning of creation. However, flip that view on its head, and we are but the Johnny-come-lately fag end of God’s creative work. And that awkward sentence in the story calling on humankind to subdue and rule over the rest may then just be part of the Biblical narrative affirming the small and the weak, that first shall be last and the last shall be first. But creation is not about order and superiority and differentiation. Rather creation speaks of relationship and interconnection. At its heart is the relationship between the Creator and the created; the relationship between creature and fellow creature.

In the story of creation, as each part of creation is made, the creator-God looks on it and it is in God’s sight that every part is seen as good. God is pleased: God loves not just the human but the non-human, not just the cute but the downright unattractive, not just those easy to love but those much more challenging, not just things that live but the inanimate.

All is good not because one part is of benefit or of use to another. The rest of creation is not simply good because of how it supports and sustains us. All is good because the whole of creation is a work of love of a good Creator; the Creator is good, and the work of his creation is good by extension.

That is one of the reasons why we have come here today. We come to bless our pets, not as an extension to any blessing that we may seek for ourselves, not because we own them, or they are our possessions or our property; we bless them for they bless us. They too are part of that goodness of God’s creation. Their love, their affection blesses us. But more than that: they themselves, for no other reason than being themselves, bless us. We are all one creation.

So, what does this blessing mean? What does this blessing require of us? “Actions speak louder than words.” … Our actions disclose our values and beliefs. In our gospel reading, Jesus criticised the pharisees for failing to listen to the warnings that they had received, for not allowing themselves even to consider that they might be wrong, for not stepping outside of the sureties of their own self-contained self-important universe.

The blessing of our pets is no twee affection; it cannot just be contained there. The blessing of our domesticated companion animals is a ‘parable’ of the honour that is due to the whole of creation. We do not live in isolation or above everything else; we do not live only with that which we find pleasing and useful; we live in relationship with the whole world around us.

And what does that relationship mean to us? As we see the damage, destruction and death meted out on God’s creation, what is our response? Handwringing and empty gestures may make us feel as though we are doing something. Carbon offsetting and finding greener alternatives may seem the right thing, but are they rather a conceit to self-absolve ourselves of our responsibilities? It is our lifestyle choices, informed by our human mindframe of “me, mine and my folks,” that we need to challenge. Not to look at ways of how to mitigate our destructive living, but rather to consider how do we change the way we live.

“Actions speak louder than words.” … Our actions disclose our values and beliefs. What are we prepared to sacrifice in our lives, in our lifestyle choices, in our lifestyle expectations and comforts, in order to respect and honour the creator-God, who of his love created not just us but created all?

Colin Setchfield

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24 September 2023 – Harvest Thanksgiving

I used to have dreams where I was in a maths exam: I turned up and (stupid me) I didn’t realise that I had a test and I’m totally unprepared. I had a lot of dreams like that. And this parable from Jesus always reminds me of those dreams. “This very night your life is being demanded of you.” God’s one great big final exam: have we studied, have we remembered? It’s not a comforting thought. In fact, I love the sense of relief when I wake up and find it’s all a dream. Phew! I feel so happy it is just a dream. Thank God it wasn’t real.

And then Jesus says to us: one day – some day – our life is going to be demanded of us. I find it interesting that, when we fear, we often go to the place of our anxiety. What have I done wrong? What if I have been looking at the wrong things? And of course the point of the parable is exactly that. We need to be on guard.

So it seems natural that we approach our lives with God, checking and double checking. Will God catch us out? Will he find us doing things we’re not supposed to? Will he find us storing up treasures?

Hang on! Who here doesn’t have a bank account? Oh! nobody. We are constantly bombarded with messages of how will we get by when we get old, how much we will get in our pension, we are unprepared, playing to our anxieties. But are we doing right by God, or right by the world?

Someone is asking: is Jesus this wise king, the arbiter of this feast? And he suddenly turns the tables, as he often does, and he tells them a story instead. He is not trying to add to our fears but to alleviate them. In fact, just after this parable, he goes on to another familiar passage about not to worry about what to wear. “Consider the lilies of the field:” they toil not, they don’t spin, but look at them, they’re beautiful aren’t they.

God will provide us with every blessing in abundance. And in turn we should share abundantly with others. And in all of this, Jesus is telling us that our life with God isn’t just another round where we have to wonder if we are getting it all right and taking a test. Instead, he is saying most of our anxieties are unfounded, because the only consideration is the Kingdom of God.

And what makes us Christians different from many others isn’t that we don’t have savings accounts. It’s that the true saving in our lives is the salvation of God, who died for love of us. And so our life consists of something more than what we store up on earth. “This very night your life is being demanded of you,” says Jesus. And he knows in saying that he is taking us to our anxieties – unless we can say “I trust in you.” So he tells us not to get too caught up in our anxieties, because there is so much more to do here on earth.

God’s dream for us is to live to discover this. And I love how Jesus puts it in the parable. The rich man in the story is criticised for storing all his treasures, while not being rich towards God.

We are so used to being grateful to God for each way he has blessed us, we can forget this is part of discovering in our lives that we need to be about and that is what we are doing here today that token gesture of being witnesses to God. But this is something we need to do every day. We have to offer up to God: ‘Here am I … Where would you have me go? Who would you have me speak to? How would you like me to live?’

Storing your treasures is fine as far as it goes. But our real value as christians is what we risk in living our faith. For if we are rich towards God, I can tell you, it’s the best life ever. That’s the only riches we need. And not just believing these things, but living them, in our work, our play, our non-working, our rest, our family life, our friendships. And not because we have to; God doesn’t do an ‘or else!’ – otherwise we wake up and find a condemning God (our worst nightmare). God loves and cares for every little detail of our lives.

I find it amazing that God actually cares for us. So when we wake up in the morning, let’s ask ourselves: Is this what God wants us to be? Let’s challenge ourselves every day to look at the things we do in our work, our finances, our families, everything that we do individually and collectively as a church, and ask ourselves are we leading our lives through our faith – living our lives according to our faith. Are we living as if we really believe that God is providing for us and that Jesus is risen for us? So yeah, let’s ask ourselves, is this what God calls us to be. To wake up each day, saying ‘Thank you God. The life I live today I want to live for you, because you died for me, you rose again for me, and I want to be able to serve you the best I can.’

This very day our lives are being demanded of us. This very moment our lives are being demanded of us. Our real life: a life where we live realises nothing is as valuable as the love of God. What do we dream of? What does God dream for us?

Cindy Kent

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17 September 2023 – Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity

This morning’s readings from Paul’s letter to the Romans and Matthew’s Gospel both follow on directly from the corresponding reading last week.

Here in Chapter 14 of his letter to the Romans Paul starts to address tensions between the Jews and Gentiles in the Christian community in Rome. As is so often the case it is helpful to look at what is being said since whilst we do not have tensions between Jewish and Gentile factions in our Christian community today it would be foolish and naïve to suggest that there are not tensions between factions with differing views.

Before looking at the implications of what Paul is saying it is worth looking at what underlies his comments. Today there are an increasing number of people who choose to follow a vegetarian diet. This was also true in the 1^st Century world, but the reasons for it were entirely different. Today the impetus for most people who choose a vegetarian diet is a wish to avoid cruelty to animals and to do good for the environment. However, in the 1^st Century there would be virtually no-one who thought it cruel to slaughter animals for food. In those days, most people lived near to the source of food production both animal and crops and would have no more thought it cruel to slaughter a pig or cow than to pick an olive from a tree. The reason most people in Paul’s day, and certainly the ones addressed in this passage, chose to be vegetarian was because they couldn’t guarantee getting the right sort of meat. Was it pure? Had it been slaughtered in the proper manner? Had it been cooked in the right way; did it comply with the Deuteronomic law?

In 1 Corinthians Paul had addressed the problems of avoiding eating food which had been sacrificed to idols by pagans. In this passage he is talking of devout Jews who were concerned about whether in their part of the city they could get meat which had been properly slaughtered according to the “kosher” laws laid down in the bible and interpreted in Jewish tradition. Unless there was a proper Jewish butcher available it was probably thought safer to avoid meat altogether than to abstain only from pork, which a Jew would anyway even though it was the cheapest and most readily available meat in the world.

Hence the tensions Paul was addressing were not tensions caused by ethical views on meat production, but differences in view between Jewish and gentile Christians and would have been immediately seen as such by the original hearers of this letter.

At this point we might be allowed a wry smile as Paul is here apparently urging us to avoid passing judgement, when at the same time he seems unable to resist characterising those with whom he disagrees as weak in faith!

However, Paul’s irrepressible passion is important as it protects us from thinking he is talking about something trivial. In addressing these issues, he is talking about fundamental doctrinal issues. Issues such as this led to him having serious disputes with James and Peter, issues so serious that many in Rome saw confusion over them as a basis for denial of fellowship.

We can think of issues today which cause such passion that they sometimes serve as a basis for rejecting fellowship: homosexuality, abortion, ordination of women, authority of Scripture, Eucharist. No matter what side they are on Paul is speaking to everyone in the church who allows such a controversy to be the basis for exclusion of fellowship.

Paul is of course not suggesting that we should stop advocating our views. Paul clearly values, and regularly engages in, theological argument. His concern here is the spirit of Christians who are arguing not the correctness of their position.

The frequently misappropriated old saying, “hate the sin, love the sinner,” can easily spring to mind as one reflects on this passage. Not only is it increasingly common to see people hating both the sin and the sinner; it has become all too common for people to regard others as personifications of some particular sin or evil. Indeed, today we see Christians who not only hate the sin and the sinner but are energised by their hate.

As is so often the case when we look into the meaning of a passage it has significance today as much as it did two thousand years ago. We are as likely to enter into judgement of our fellow Christians today as were the original recipients of this letter in 1^st century Rome; and we are as wrong to do so as they were.

This leads neatly into our gospel reading on forgiveness. Last week we looked at the preceding passage giving advice on how to deal with conflict in the Christian community. Today we look at the vital need for forgiveness, both for ourselves and others.

As an aside I find this passage a good example of how ridiculous I find the position of those who see the bible as a rule book in which everything it says is to be taken literally. You can see such a person saying to someone with whom he has a difference, “This is the seventy-seventh” time I have forgiven you. I won’t be able to do so again.”

Clearly this passage and indeed all parables are not intended to be taken literally. When Peter asks his question, he is not attempting to set a limit on forgiveness. Indeed, because seven is a holy number he is probably actually saying “Must I practice perfect forgiveness?” Jesus’ answer is “not seven times, but 77 or possibly 70 times 7” while the exact number is not clear in the Greek, the point of the number is. Your forgiveness must be beyond perfect; it must be beyond counting. Forgiveness becomes an absolute.

Forgiveness being received and given is a fundamental part of our Christian faith. Every time we say the Lord’s Prayer, which we will do in this service, we ask “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.” This is of course the foundation of this morning’s parable, the servant who is the central character has his immense debt remitted, or major sins forgiven, but then fails to remit a small debt, or minor sin, from one of his fellows.

Jesus tells us of the necessity for forgiveness because he knows the effect unforgiveness has on individuals and communities. There are many situations within our society, in the world, in our churches, in our families, and in our workplaces that, which when not dealt with, can sow the seeds of bitterness which can then fester into deep, painful wounds.

To be honest, we often don’t want to forgive someone or ask them for forgiveness even though we know we should. This may be a desire for revenge, or it may be that we want to get back at them. We may want to return the hurt by inverting the Golden Rule and following “Do unto others as they have done to you.”

We must however remember that forgiveness means to release, to let go of the other. It does not mean denying our hurt. When we minimise the hurt, tell ourselves it was not really so bad, we can’t really forgive. Forgiveness is only possible when we acknowledge the negative impact another’s attitudes or actions have had on our lives, for example when children who have been abused by their parents acknowledge what their parents did.

Furthermore, forgiveness is not a matter of putting other people on probation, waiting for them to do something wrong so that we can take it back. Forgiveness is also not an excuse for bad behaviour, and to forgive is not necessarily to forget. Eleanor Roosevelt on finding out about her husband’s infidelity, said to him, “I can forgive but I can never forget.” There are some situations which we should not forget: the holocaust, slavery, ethnic cleansing, exploitation of women or children, a lie told that turned your life upside down, abuse or betrayal.

Today’s readings therefore remind us of two of the fundamentals of our Christian faith; not to pass judgement and the need to forgive and be forgiven. Whilst they are essential and fundamental parts of our faith, they are, as we all know, very difficult for us to achieve. We are therefore reminded of the need to redouble our efforts to do so as part of our daily journey to try to be more like the person we know God wants us to be, something we are, or should be, reminded of as I said earlier every time we say the Lord’s Prayer.

Later in this service we will be baptising Melody into the Christian family and she too will start her daily journey to be more like the person God wants her to be, although for some time yet it will be her parents and godparents and the family of St Edmunds who will help her to understand what this means.

Amen.

Mick Scotchmer

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10 September 2023 – Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity

I have to admit that I don’t really understand people who sit in a concert with the score of the music in their hands, or on their laps, following it as the performers play. I’m aware that those who do so feel it allows them to understand the piece harmonically, that they notice more details within the music that way, rather than if they just settled back to listen and enjoy it.

I have also been in theatres when members of the audience have brought a script of the play with them and followed it, even as the drama unfolded on stage. … It’s just not what I would do, and I don’t understand it. It almost feels as though they sit there checking the performance of the musicians or actors, scrutinising to make sure that no errors or deviations creep in.

You get it in churches, as well, sometimes. Today, if we had the 1662 Book of Common Prayer version of Morning Prayer, the second reading would have been introduced with the words: ‘Here beginneth the fifteenth verse of the eighteenth chapter of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to St. Matthew.’ And prompted by that, in churches of certain traditions, the congregation would scramble for their pew bibles, open them, and (so long as they roughly knew the order of the books of the Bible) would quickly skip through the pages, and then meticulously follow the reading in the book as it was read to them. (Of course, that is only possible because of the chapter and verse references: helping to pinpoint the passage being read.)

The Bible, however, of course, was not written with chapters and verses included. They are not part of the text at all. (If we want to be technical about it, we would call them paratext: added information to help us to use the text.) So, thinking of our readings today, Paul’s letter to the Romans would have been on a number of sheets of papyrus, joined together into a roll, written up by a scribe (in this case we are told by a certain secretary called Tertius), either from dictation or from a rough draft or notes from the apostle himself. And the same would apply to the gospels. Over time, the various scrolls were brought together into codices (a bit like our modern books) with the sheets of papyrus stacked together and bound. The chapters that we are used to in our modern bibles developed much, much later, in the 13^th century, and the verses (that we now use) were first numbered in 1551.

And you are probably sat there questioning, “Colin! actually, so what? Isn’t all this just a little bit anoraky.” And the truth of the matter is: yes! it is. But for today’s readings, that “anorakiness” helps us – particularly – in getting to grips with our gospel reading. ‘Here beginneth the fifteenth verse of the eighteenth chapter of the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ, according to St. Matthew.’ Yes, that helps us to locate the passage, but also it highlights to us that what we heard is an extract, not only of a much larger book, but also of a much larger chapter. Our reading gave us six small verses, taken out of a chapter containing 14 verses before those six and 15 following after them.

Taking those six verses in isolation gives us a slightly skewered reading of the passage. It is a bit weird: with Jesus taking a break from out of his parable-telling, miracle-performing business, and instead entering into ACAS mode: giving advice on conflict and dispute resolution for the early church, by providing a succinct and handy a three-point plan for reconciliation. We have (1) take the culprit to one side privately and tackled them one-to-one face-to-face first, then (2) if (you get no joy) bring some others in as witnesses and tackle again, and then (3) (quite peculiarly, throw confidentiality out of the window and) share with everyone! If the culprit still won’t listen, and reconciliation looks nigh impossible … well, you’ve done everything you could have and it’s then their own lookout.

There is no disguising that is what these few verses are about. And there is good reason for that. In the early Church, the apostles Peter and Paul didn’t see eye to eye, and only came to an uneasy truce by defining their own distinct mission responsibilities, over which the other could just keep-his-nose-out-of-it. The apostles Paul (again) and Barnabas had a falling out, and there’s no record in the Bible of them ever reconciling. James the brother of Jesus became the head of the Church in Jerusalem and yet in the New Testament record, we find Jesus’s family airbrushed out of the record after Jesus’s death. Throughout its history, the Church has been a quarrelling, dysfunctional family, full of troublesome and troublemaking individuals. As one commentator on this gospel once remarked, “Matthew has no romantic illusions about the church. He knows that the church is not all sweet thoughts, endlessly patient saints, and cloudless skies. In his church, people – no matter how committed – are still people, and stormy weather is always a possible forecast” (Thomas G. Long, Westminster Bible Companion Series – Matthew). This small passage reminds us that fallings-out between people do not just affect individual relationships but impacts on the community as a whole, with implications for everyone involved and our mutual belonging.

But are we missing something? Well, yes! we are missing 29 other verses from that chapter. And perhaps, placing this passage back into its wider context may help us see a different perspective. So, what was chopped from this eighteenth chapter this morning? Actually, quite a bit. The chapter begins with a dispute, or at least with the disciples vying for position, asking Jesus a suggestive question (‘Who’s the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?’), apparently assuming the answer would be, ‘Why of course you, that’s one of the perks of being my disciple.’ But of course, he doesn’t. Instead, Jesus parts them and pulls into the midst of them a small child. In the ancient world, children held the lowest status in society. They were seen as subordinate, vulnerable, often conspicuously absent from society physically and from society’s consideration – not seen and not heard. And Jesus challenges them and their assumptions and their goals, by saying that not only won’t they be the greatest, but unless they become like a child surrendering their certainties and securities they wouldn’t even get into the Kingdom.

And Jesus gets on to a bit of a roll. He equates himself to such as one of these juvenile unimportant non-persons: ‘welcoming that is as if welcoming me’. He says to them if you are offended by this lowly outsider, outcast, waif and stray, this pariah, this fugitive, if you sneer with disapproval and refuse to acknowledge them – well tie a millstone around your neck and be drowned. Despise them – reject them: well have a guess what! The angels up in heaven, where you seek to be the greatest, the angels who gaze upon the face of God, they’re not yours – they’re theirs.

And as the disciples still smart from that, he gets back into familiar territory and tells the disciples a parable: the Parable of the Wandering Sheep. A man had a hundred sheep and one goes astray. He still has 99 all safe dutifully remaining on the hillside, with the grass and the security, doing what sheep do, doing what was expected of sheep. And yet that man just leaves the 99, goes off up into the dangerous mountain territory into which the straying sheep was last seen heading off, until he finds it. And in finding it, in being reunited with the sheep that strayed, well! he is filled joy: more joy than in the sheep that had stayed true to their dependence and relationship on him the sheep keeper.

All that is the build-up to our gospel passage from today: how should we – the 99 sheep who feel so smugly justified in being true and faithful – deal with one who has sinned against us, one who has stepped outside of the fold, one who just won’t listen and do what we expect? Yes, there is that three-point plan of action, but concentrate on those and we risk missing two other important points we heard in that passage.

The first one is the last sentence: ‘Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.’ This is said in relation to the acknowledgement that things are not going to be easy. The church is not going to be a utopian community of like-minded, agreeing individuals, with common goals. At times, it will be an uneasy alliance of people with differing opinions, opposing priorities, with people often going off doing their own thing, putting themselves over others, parading their piety to demonstrate how observably spiritual they are. The reality is that the church, the Body of Christ, is made up of people who in every way are every bit as difficult as we are. And yet, in living that, in working through it, Christ says: I am there. Not on one side or on the other but among them.

He is not just there in our unity but in our disputes, as we try to resolve issues by bringing together those who are far apart in terms of relationship and focus; those who have “sinned” against each other, creating a distance, a chasm, between each other. He is there when two people try to resolve their differences; he is there when a third comes to arbitrate; he is there in the mass of people when relationships fail and churches break. He is there in our agreements, he is there where we cannot listen to each other, he is there in our sin.

And the other point in the passage that I want to highlight is when the gospel addresses the situation of when relationships totally break down. “If the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a gentile and a tax collector.” And that, on face value, may first sound like: hold them at arm’s length, view them as beyond the pale, no longer include them as being part of the church. But, surely, it is the opposite of that. Throughout the gospels, the emphasis of Jesus is on the inclusion of the outsider and being opposed to self-righteous judgements. It is interesting that Jesus says treat the offender like a tax collector. Alone among all the gospels, in Matthew’s version, it is the apostle Matthew himself who is named as the tax collector who is called by Jesus. (In the other gospel, it is an otherwise unknown man called Levi.)

Look at that story of the calling of Matthew the tax collector. Look at the way that Jesus relates to him. Though Matthew is caught in flagrante doing what respectable society saw as sinful, when Jesus meets him, Jesus nevertheless invites this tax collector into his crowd. Jesus risks being tainted by association, and Jesus enters into his world, his home, his circle of equally dubious friends, and sits and eats and feasts with them. The emphasis here – as throughout the gospel – is on unity that is based on God’s love rather than on exclusion based on an offender’s perceived sin.

Perhaps the six verses of our gospel reading makes this passage too small, narrowing it to a suggestion that it is about how a church should manage its disciplinary issues, how it should resolve its conflicts. Rather, in context, it reminds us that being church is how we are called to live with the differences, to embrace the other, and to let go of our desires to control and to exclude.

There are many Dot Cottons within the church who can quote chapter and verse, and use it to weaponise the Bible against others, finding the small uncontextualise phrase to suit the prejudice or bigotry that lives in their hearts.

‘Here beginneth the fifteenth verse of the eighteenth chapter of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to St. Matthew.’ Don’t go rushing for your Bibles, or (if you must) don’t follow what is being read to you but read what isn’t. Don’t conform; start somewhere else, start a bit before it. Remember, the word of God is not written in a sentence but is spoken and seen in the wider context of the whole story of the love of God. A love that is never confined nor limited by the narrowness of our vision or by the smallness of the capacity in our hearts for us to love the person who is unlike us.

Colin Setchfield

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3 September 2023 – Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity

This morning I would like to focus on our New Testament reading where I believe Paul is answering the question ‘How should we (as Christians) live in this world?’ He suggests the way forward is to love and trying to outdo others in showing love, and living peaceably with others.

As we look at our world today living peaceably with others is not that much in evidence. We have a major war going on between Russia and Ukraine which affecting the whole world. There have been coups in two African countries in the past month, and there are many other places where unrest is rife. Today if someone doesn’t like something they just dismiss it by calling it fake news or lies.

Living with others, whether in the church or ‘in the world’ is not always easy. We need God’s help. Paul was speaking to the Christians in Rome and spoke of living out our lives in the presence of God and taking that into our relationship with others. In his letter he is speaking about their (and our) relationships to each other as brothers and sisters in God’s family.

First a quick ‘putting it in context’. Our reading was only the second part of Chapter 12, If you have your bible, it may be worth turning to it. In the bit we didn’t read: verses 1-2 were about our relationship with God. Then verses 3-8 were about our relationship with ourselves. Today’s section (verses 9-21) deals with two things 1) our relationships with one another in the church as brothers and sisters in God’s family, and 2) our relationships with our enemies.

1. Our relationships with each other.
In vv.9-13 Paul gives a whole list of instructions, but one seems to override the others and be a driving force behind all of them. He says, ‘Let love be genuine’. Some versions say ‘Love must be completely sincere.’ Or ‘Love each other with genuine affection.’

If you have your bibles open you will see that back in v.4 Paul has spoken of how Christians should work together as a body. Each one of us using our different gifts to the best of the ability God has given us.

In the earlier verses Paul has been speaking about the spiritual gifts – gifts given to us unbidden and unexpectedly, as God wills, not as we desire. Jeremiah was given the gift of prophecy – he didn’t want it, and it caused him suffering, but God had given it to him and God provided all he needed to be an effective prophet. Jeremiah had to do some strange things, not because God wanted to humiliate him, not to amuse the people, but to exhibit God’s will for his people and encourage them to respond.

And so, in this letter, Paul is speaking of the context in which the Roman Christians (and us today) should use the gifts God has given. His emphasis is on our attitude to the gifts, because it is possible to use spiritual gifts in an unspiritual way.

When he wrote to the church in Corinth, (1 Corinthians ch 13, that great chapter on love) Paul very strongly made the point that any spiritual gift used without love is empty and meaningless. If we were to continue to use his picture of the church as a body, we could say that love is the circulatory system: the blood that circulates through the body of the church keeping it alive and healthy. Love enables all the members of the church to function together in a healthy and harmonious way.

There are many kinds of love in this world, so what kind is Paul speaking of here? He is talking of love that is completely sincere. Not selfish love – which is out to get a return for what it gives. It is the kind of love that seeks to do what is best for others. The kind of love that will give without any thought of receiving anything in return. The kind of love that exists in a good family between brothers and sisters.

Because human nature naturally tends to the side of selfishness Paul gives some examples of how this would work out in practice, including: Work hard and don’t be lazy; be patient in your troubles; pray at all times; share your belongings with your needy fellow Christians.

Such love can be very hard (although I have met a few people who have the gift of generosity and for whom this kind of love seems to come naturally), but for most of us such self-giving love can be very hard. Our natural inclination is usually to look out for ourselves and to look for ‘what’s in it for me’ when asked to do things.

If it is hard to show love in a setting where we are with other people who are supposed to be showing love to us, how much harder it is to relate to and show love to people who are our enemies. But Paul never shies away from the difficult areas, and so from v.17 he addresses the issue of:

2. Relationships with our enemies
As I started to read these verses, the news on the TV and radio was of the death in a plane crash of the man who led the uprising in Russia against President Putin, and the speculation that this was a revenge attack by (or on the orders of) President Putin. In many areas of life, we see people taking revenge on those they regard as their enemies sometimes in very violent ways.

As Christians, whenever we seek to serve God we will meet opposition, we will have enemies. This is not unique to us. Jesus had enemies, many people who tried to oppose him. Paul and the other apostles had enemies. Jesus warned his disciples that this would be so. Yet his instructions elsewhere were, ‘love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.’

When we try and tell others about Jesus and what he has done, people often react against us. This is called ‘the offense of the Cross.’ People take offence at the message we bring and may be unkind to us. When this happens, we are told we should continue to show love to them and to pray for them. We are also told that it shouldn’t stop us continuing to tell others about Jesus.

However, sadly, there are some Christians who have enemies, not because of their message but because of the way they express it. Unfortunately, they lack love and patience; when someone upsets them, they seek revenge. That is not what we are called to do. God is the only one who has the right to vengeance. He sees the whole situation. We only see things from our own perspective.

We are called to show love in all situations. That may mean that we have to face verbal abuse; it may mean, in some countries, facing imprisonment and beating. But through it all we are to not only not retaliate, but we are actively to show love. That is very hard.

I have tried to think of an example of how we can put Paul’s message into practice and as a new school term is about to start, I want to present a scenario: A child comes home from school with their clothes torn and blood on their shirt saying they have been bullied. What should the parent say to that child? Should they say, ‘I’ll enrol you in boxing classes so that you can learn to fight back and stand up for yourself? Or should they say ‘let’s just pray about it and leave it to God.’? I have deliberately presented a very polarised choice, a very hard choice, but actually I don’t believe the choice is quite so stark. Can I suggest that in such an instance, perhaps it is the parent who needs to hear the message of Paul and Jesus, not the child. I have known instances where the problems between children at school have led to parents fighting each other, or one parent who believed his child was being bullied, smashing up the car he believed to belong to the parent of the child who was allegedly doing the bullying – but it was the wrong car!

When we take matters into our own hands, things escalate. As I have said, I suggest that in the instance of a child being bullied, the message is for the parent. Not to ignore what has happened nor to take matters into their own hands, but to take up the matter with the child’s teacher and the school. To pray about it, to pray for the other family, to pray for, encourage and support their own child and to ensure that the matter is fully investigated and dealt with by the school.

God is our heavenly parent. We take our grievances to him and he will sort it out. As adults we can put Paul’s words into action in our lives, and trust that he will give us the strength to face the persecution and he will change things. To illustrate this I would like to end with a story I read recently about a soldier in America.

A young man called Sweat, who was from a little backwoods’ town in Tennessee, was drafted into the army. “We were all scared, and scared to admit it,” writes Sweat’s bunk mate. “The first day was designed to scare us silly: physicals, meeting our sergeant, learning that all the things we did were wrong. That night we were scared at lights out. And there was this noise, we all listened, it was Sweat saying his prayers, on his knees, by the bunk. And we all laughed, and made jokes, and teased him that night.

But he continued the next night, and there were fewer laughs, and fewer catcalls. The third night there was only one comment. The fourth night we all waited for Sweat’s prayer, when it was over someone said, amen. It became our ritual, every night. Sweat’s prayer became our prayer. One man won us over by doing what was right. After 12 weeks we had to vote on best cadet. Sweat wasn’t a very good soldier; he wasn’t strong or all that bright—but when we voted he was elected unanimously—and to this day I don’t think our sergeant knows why. But we will never forget that he was the most courageous of us all.”

And so I close with the final verse of our reading, v.21 ‘Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.’

PRAYER: Lord, help us to trust that you are with us in all circumstances. When we face people and situations that seem to be against us, help us to pause and hand the situation to you. Give us wisdom in how to react and help us not to respond with vengeance or in anger, but to seek your way of love. Amen.

Maria Holmden

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27 August 2023 – Twelfth Sunday after Trinity

This short passage from Matthew [Matthew 16.13-20] may sound familiar to us. Jesus asks his disciples if they know who he is, and he offers Peter what appears to be a blessing of leadership and authority. It is a short familiar passage …. But it is also very strange.

The first question he asks his disciples is reasonable enough. It’s a theological question like any teacher might ask their students: ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ The disciples answer with John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or a prophet. Each of these names represent someone in the Hebrew tradition who challenged the religious and political authorities of their age in the name of divine justice and they suffered greatly for it.

The literary device of the gospel means that simply by naming John, Elijah and Jeremiah in this passage we associate their character and experiences with Jesus.

But the next question – ‘who do you say that I am?’ – that’s still a very strange question, even if we can anticipate where Jesus is going from the beginning.

He’s not asking what the disciples think of him. He’s not asking if they understand his mission or what he’s trying to do. He asks them ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Have you ever asked anybody this question? Has anybody ever asked you this question? I don’t think I’ve ever asked or been asked this question. I’ve asked someone, what do you say that I do, but that’s very different.

Who do you say that I am?

The first question was academic or maybe a matter of reporting something out there. What do people say about ‘x’? or What’s your thought on this topic? Etc. You can answer without having any skin in the game, as they say.

But when Jesus pivots and asks ‘who do you say I am?’ Now everything theoretical vanishes and the ‘maybe this, or maybe that’ kind of political neutrality just cannot hold. A decision is required, an actual position must be taken and it will actually matter for your life one way or another.

The fact that, in the text, Peter answers so quickly actually does a disservice to the spiritual magnitude of the question.

After Jesus asks, ‘who do you say that I am?’ there should really be two or three blank pages before we see Peter’s reply.

Two thousand years of Christianity make it difficult for us to understand what it must have been like to actually be a contemporary with Jesus and to be faced with this question of who Jesus is. And yet, the question is also a challenge for us here today.

We might say, if only I would have been a witness to Jesus’s miraculous acts, if only I could hear him speak – I would surely believe. But it’s not so simple. Just think of how you would react today if someone came along with similar claims and actions. Would you not suspect trickery? Would you not wonder if the person was drawing too much attention to themselves? Even if you wanted to follow would you not worry that you were being duped and fear being seen as naïve? Would you not think that their politics tactics are a bit too activist and sensational and too divisive to be practical? From a religious perspective, even if you sympathised with some of their concerns, would you not distrust their commitment to the faith because they are constantly undermining the traditions and the institutions that have helped you remain free and distinct?

With all of this floating in their heads, the disciples took the leap to follow Jesus and he asks them this question (and of course, he asks us too).

That question can be restated in two very different ways. It can be rephrased as, ‘who am I to you?’ In this case, it becomes a question about how I understand who Jesus is and how I relate to him.

The question can also suggest, ‘In public, and speaking to others, who do you say that I am?’

There is a private and public way of understanding this question, and it’s this public way that I invite us to reflect on. Jesus is forcing the disciples to acknowledge that following him and continuing his ministry involves social risk precisely because it is active and transformational.

Now we come to Peter’s response. He immediately replies, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’

Well done, Peter. We can imagine him with a barely restrained proud smile as Jesus affirms his faith. But then I imagine the smile fade as Peter hears what responsibility comes with his faith. And I wonder if he’s so sure he understands what he’s said.

Peter has done this before, make a quick response of faith then lose heart. Just a few passages before this he came out of the boat in the storm toward Jesus, then gets scared and starts to sink. Here again he answers quickly with faith, but what comes next?

Jesus knows that his disciples believe his divinity. They’ve heard his teachings, seen his interactions, experienced him calm storms and feed multitudes. They know up here (in their heads), but they are still learning what it means down here (in their hearts) that Jesus is the Son of the living God and what it means to follow him. So he’s not testing their belief with this question, he’s testing their practice.

Who do you say that I am? Can be rephrased as ‘how will your life demonstrate who I am?’

In the chapter that follows this one Jesus tells the disciples that he will suffer social and political violence. Peter tells Jesus this cannot be, and Jesus rebukes him. Then the transfiguration story takes place in Matthew and again Peter must hear that faith will involve hardship, carrying one’s cross.

The point here is that if we know that Jesus is the Son of the living God then we are compelled to act in accordance with his life and to serve his purpose.

We don’t just believe in statements. We don’t just have faith – what some call, blind faith – No, we PRACTISE faith. And Jesus shows us that that involves a public life of loving our neighbours whether they are easy to love or not; it involves attending to the spiritual and material needs of the most neglected with the same heart we attend to the respected and admired people; it means calling attention to injustices of irresponsible power; it means critically reminding our own religious tradition when it strays from mercy and openness. It means seeking first the Kingdom God because we know that it is for the good of all, even when it feels like we may have to restrict our own desire for greatness and comfort.

Sometimes this mission will involve only discomfort and hard work, sometimes it will require genuine suffering and hardship.

Sometimes we ask, why does God want us to suffer, why does faith have to involve suffering? It’s not that God wants us to suffer or that suffering is God’s way of testing if we really truly love Him – it’s that God wants us to seek justice and reconciliation and love for all people. And to live for justice and love will put you at odds with people who are self-serving and who seek power, wealth, and advantage.

I have a tattoo of a plough to remind me that following Jesus involves effort for a good result. The plough signifies the effort and resistance required before a harvest can be gathered. The African American anti-slavery activist Frederic Douglas once said, ‘to expect freedom without struggle is like wanting to enjoy the harvest without first ploughing the field.’ With Christ we can expect a bountiful harvest, but we must be prepared to do the ploughing work of faith too.

The benefits and the challenges that come with knowing who Jesus is and following his mission is something we learn over the course of our lives. So, yes, Peter answers but he is still learning throughout the gospel, after Jesus has left them, and throughout his life of evangelism, what it truly means to be a disciple of Christ.

We should take heart and confidence in our own path of discovery. Being confronted with this question of who Jesus is is big, but we also discover the meaning of our answer as we live our lives in faith in our communities – building up others and being built up by others.

The secret to recognizing Jesus in his divine glory is not that we first weigh the evidence, then become aware of who he is, then do what he says. No, the trajectory is more like this: we answer a call to love and serve from one so deeply connected to God and as we love and serve and follow Jesus and trust in his divinity we come to recognize more deeply and fully that he is God incarnate.

On this 12th Sunday of Trinity we raise our thanks and our wonder that…
It is by being a disciple that we can recognize Christ in his glory.

Amen

David Lappano

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20 August July 2023 – Eleventh Sunday after Trinity

When we read the Bible we often only look at short pieces, and in isolation. We think that the Bible is contradictory, and sometimes it is!, but above all the Bible has one message that holds it all together and that is God’s love for his people. Today we have three readings that at a first glance seem unrelated, but as we explore them we find that same truth about God, expressed differently in different contexts.

First, in our Old Testament reading we see God’s ‘chosen people’, the nation of Israel. God had chosen them and showed them the way he wanted them to live, by giving them laws and providing leaders. He promised that he would care for them and lead them as long as they followed his guidance. He told them he had chosen them because they would be the channel whereby all nations would come to know God’s love, although they forgot that bit.

Over the years people from other nations became part of their society for many reasons, although often because they were captured as prisoners during times of war and brought back to be servants.

These words were spoken when the people of Israel were in exile in Babylon. They had been taken into exile as a punishment for not living God’s way. The use of sabbath observance as a measure of whether someone was a follower of God was significant in this context. Other nations (Babylonians, Canaanites Egyptians, Greeks, Persians) never allowed their people to take off one day in seven as a day of rest. Therefore, a non-Jew who re-organised their life to follow God’s ways, including observation of the Sabbath, would have been clearly identifying themselves as Jewish, although the Jewish people around them were not accepting them. This also applied to those with a physical or mental disability.

In our first reading, Isaiah 56 we see God taking a different view, setting forward HIS standards for his people. In v.3 God speaks to these foreigners and eunuchs, telling them to see themselves as God sees them. That they are full and valued members of God’s people. When everyone else around you is telling you that you are worthless, it is very hard to see yourself in any other way. But God says, ‘try and see yourself as I see you. Listen to my word and see that I love you and you are as valuable to me as these other people think they are.’

God says ‘those who come to me and worship and serve me (whatever discrimination you face, however worthless others have made you feel, whatever rules have made you feel excluded) you will be given a place in my family …. you will not be cut off, your offerings will be accepted, you will be welcomed into my house of prayer… for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples…. And I will bring others too, besides my people Israel.’

A promise that was brought to fullness in the creation of the church through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It might seem that as the church was formed with people from every other nation, that God had given up on the Israelites, the Jewish nation. But God has not! Paul addresses this in our New Testament reading from Romans 11. God still loves and accepts Jewish people who turn to him in faith, and they will hear this message through us. Just as we are part of the church because of them, they will become part of the church through us.

Now with all of this we might expect to read that Jesus showed complete acceptance for all people, and mostly in the gospels that is exactly what we see him doing. But apparently not in Matthew 15!

Our Gospel reading today had some real surprises in it. We may even be shocked at the way Jesus appears to treat this foreign woman who comes to him in a time of need. Maybe to us his words seem almost ungodly. Perhaps we feel disappointed that this story is even included in the bible. Isn’t Jesus supposed to show God’s love and compassion? Didn’t I start by saying I was going to show how there was consistency through our three readings. Well, let’s examine this story step by step.

First of all: the woman asks Jesus to help her cope with her severely disabled daughter, and he doesn’t even answer! Why would he ignore her? Isn’t that very rude?

Secondly, when she keeps on asking him for help he tells her he can’t help her because there are other people (his own, Jewish, people) he has come to help. That almost sounds as if Jesus is being racist. Is that what is going on here?

Thirdly, when she still keeps asking, he almost seems to insult her. He says,’ it isn’t right to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ That sounds like Jesus is calling the woman a dog. Is he being abusive?

But as we explore it and by the end of the story we see that Jesus is not being rude, or racist, or abusive.

When the woman first asks for help Jesus knows she is not asking the right question. When Jesus says his first priority is to the Jewish people, he is simply stating a fact from Scripture. We know from the end of this story and from other stories in the gospels that Jesus does not discriminate between people of different races (although the rest of the Jewish people did at that time). Jesus is just saying what the woman would have expected him to say, but to us, today, it sounds shocking.

Jesus is not calling the woman a dog. The word in the original language means ‘pet dog’, and what he is saying is, ‘a caring parent wouldn’t take their children’s food off their plates and give it to their pet dogs.’

When he says that it is then that the woman shows that she understands that Jesus has a responsibility to give most of his time and ministry to the Jewish people, but she is just asking, that as he passes through her country, maybe he could just spare her a little bit of his blessing. Just like when little bits of food fall off the table from the children’s plates the pet dogs are allowed to go under the table and eat up the bits. She is not asking for a major miracle, just some help to cope.

I think that Jesus knew that this woman needed to be challenged. She needed to be made stronger, not just in order to be able to cope with her daughter, but also to be strengthened in her faith. And when she has taken that step (which is in fact the answer to her request) then, Jesus actually gives her a major miracle: he heals her daughter – all way more than she had asked for or expected in the first place.

God meets each person where they are and according to their needs. It may not be how we expect, it may sometimes seem that he is not listening or that he has rejected us, but he knows us even better than we know ourselves and if we let him, he will answer our prayers, often in a much more amazing way than we would ever have dared ask for!

God is a God of consistency. Who he was in the Old Testament, he revealed in the person of Jesus in the New Testament. He is the same yesterday to day and forever. He loves all people and accepts all who turn to him, and he wants us to do the same. There have been times when the church has failed, but that should only spur us on to do better.

Maria Holmden

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13 August 2023 – Tenth Sunday after Trinity

For a people with a particular fear of large open bodies of water, it is always surprising the number of stories involving the sea or a lake that the Jews of the Old and New Testament times included in their scriptures. And, of course, these are not stories full of happy families, frolicking on a sandy beach, with buckets and spades, laughing over a game of swing-ball and paddling in the shallows. No, of course not! These are stories of enslaved migrants fleeing their servitude, by confronting their fears and crossing a temporary dry land bridge of mud flats, while the waters of the sea (driven back) hang either side of them, potentially ready to rush back to engulf them at any time. These are stories of runaway prophets, who foolishly board a boat and then – too late – realise, during a petrifying sea storm which ensues, the debacle they find themselves in: where things would only get worse, as they shrug and get thrown overboard, and (as if that wasn’t bad enough), even worse still, by being swallowed whole by a giant fish. These are stories of Hebrew landlubbers having to live begrudgingly as neighbours with the annoyingly-successful seafaring Philistines, … and hating it very much.

So, it is probably not so surprising that, when telling their story of how everything came to be, the good dry land that God pulled out of the chaotic watery danger of the primeval pre-Creation ocean, is the good dry land from which God makes them. And the horrible watery deeps that remained lying beyond the good safe land, full of its scary Leviathan monsters, is good … but not necessarily good for them. They presume all will be resolved in the end: for in the Bible’s final outing, in the book of Revelation, in their vision of the New Heaven and the New Earth, one key expectation is that this new creation would definitely improve on the old one, for this time, “There was no more sea.”

In the gospel stories, Jesus shows a strange approach in selecting his disciples – mixing tax collectors with political agitants and terrorist dagger-men, with workers in labour-intensive industries. And this last category perhaps exposed them to the greatest danger – for these (Simon, Andrew, James and John) were fishermen. They who needed brute strength to stand on the shoreline and toss their heavy weighted nets into the water or (more worryingly so) needing the courage to board boats and leave the safety of dry land, in order to drop those same heavy nets into the dark and dangerous waters of the sea.

Of course, with all those fisher-disciples in tow, boats and sea-travel were not avoidable in the travelling adventures of Jesus and the Twelve. Back in February last year, one of my preaching sessions was on a Sunday when we considered Luke’s telling of the calming of the storm on the lake. In that story, Jesus and co had decide to pile into a boat and head across the Sea of Galilee to the other side of the lake to the country of the Gadarenes. Evidently, not having first checked with the shipping forecast, they head out, with Jesus napping, until midway across they are hit by a sea-storm.

Today’s gospel reading is remarkably similar, leaving us to suspect it is either a retelling of the same story or that the disciples really weren’t that adept as sailors and never learned from their past misfortunes and blunders. Of course, if that was the case, Jesus was much more on the ball. Rather than heading below deck to snooze, this time he bundles the disciples off into the boat, but quite sensibly finds some other things to do – saying a dismissal, having a bit of a pray – to excuse himself from travelling with them. Perhaps on the top of the mountain where he was praying, he could see the dark storm-clouds gathering over the water below and the small boat making its way across precariously, as the water began its dangerous rocking once again.

It was the fourth watch of the night – that would be between 3 and 6 o’clock in the morning. So, our translation today saying, “early in the morning,” may not quite give the right impression. It was dark, in the hours before dawn, and the boat was far from land and being heavily battered, tossed (or to use the translation of the actual Greek word: ‘tormented’) by the waves. And it is then that Jesus goes to them. In their darkest, most dangerous hour, Jesus walks through the billowing wind, battling against the churned-up waters, blinded by the spray and foam being blown in dense white streaks. As the boat is repeatedly lost from view and reappears, he walks the hated watery danger that every Jew feared.

The visibility of him would also have been affected. To them, he appeared as a phantom, a ghost, approaching the frightened sailors: his outstretched arms as if perhaps to snatch them, when the last fatal surge hit: to pull them beneath, as they succumbed to being drowned at sea. But that’s not what happens. Amid their fear, it is the reassuring voice of Jesus that is heard, saying, ‘Have courage. Do not fear. I am.’

Their boat is in danger, but Jesus is in danger even more so: stood there in no vessel, danger all around and about him. And then we get that weird part of the story, when Simon Peter fearful of the danger of being in that buffeted boat, shouts out to Jesus: ‘If that is you, order me to come towards you, to that greater danger in which you stand. Order me to leave my boat and come to you out on to the waters.’ And he steps down from the boat, and treads out into the danger, to walk and stand where Jesus is.

And that is, of course, really risky. Nothing had changed just because Jesus was there. The winds were still boisterous, his fears were still real, the danger was still present, as Peter sinks into the dark sea. And battling that turbulent watery landscape, buffeted by the elements, Jesus reaches out his hand … and catches Peter, as he sinks into the dark life-extinguishing abyss.

Now of course, in all that, I’ve simply glossed over the ‘elephant in the room’ that, actually, people don’t tend to walk on water … unless you are possibly the magician Dynamo. (Even then, I imagine his stroll, across the Thames back in 2011, might have been with the assistance of something like plexiglass and a number of well-placed stooges to make it seem real.) But in terms of our gospel reading, the church will speak of Jesus and Peter doing what no-one else can possibly do as a ‘miracle,’ a supernatural divine intervention, a “violation of the laws of nature” (as the 18th-century Scottish philosopher David Hume would have defined it).

The word ‘miracle’ comes from the Latin word ‘mirari’ meaning ‘to wonder’. And that is what they are there for – to make us wonder. Not to wonder how the impossible apparently overlooked its impossibility briefly on one occasion. But to wonder how that miracle works out in our lives, in our calling to be followers of Christ.

The ancient Hebrews’ focus on the safety of the dry land – on which they lived, and from which they were made, and to which they returned at due length – is understandable. That desire to be ‘safe’ is not peculiar to them or to their situation or to their time. It is a natural need of everyone. Keeping safe is the most basic driver of our evolution: keep safe and live, act safe and survive.

The miracle of this story, the wonder of it, is that Christ – that God – stands in the place of danger. He does not stand aloof and plucks his faithful out of the harsh realities which they inhabit and in which they find themselves. Instead, he watches them as they sail off into the danger and follows them into it. Rather than magicking it away, he encourages them to stand where God stands and to face and confront the danger.

As he sinks, the word on Peter’s lips is σῴζω (sōzō): keep me safe. I am not sure if this story gives us reassurance that God will keep us safe, if by that we mean ‘keep me uninjured.’ But if we mean, ‘watch over me:’ the safety that God will give is the closeness of his presence, a presence that follows us and is with us, close enough to grab hold and manhandle us firmly into his loving embrace.

God calls us to walk on water. We are called to step out in faith, and to challenge what others claim as being impossible. And that on one level is not safe. It is never safe. We can huddle in our boats on the lake, looking out at Jesus beckoning us on to the waves, and think, “Nah! No thank you, where I am is safer than where you are.” But we will totally ignore or fail to recognise that our small boat is itself a dangerous place to be.

In the stained-glass window behind the votive candle stand, by the War Shrine in our church, there is depicted ‘Three Maritime Episodes from the Gospels.’ One of these, in the light-hand light, is the story of Jesus Walking on the Water. These are war-damaged memorials that were blown out of the church during the Blitz. When restoring them, the artist had to mix and match bits of glass from more than just those three panels to fill gaps and missing pieces. If you look in the Jesus-walking-on-the-water panel carefully, you may spot something that would otherwise go overlooked. There you have Jesus standing on the sea; there you have Peter beginning to sink; and there you have the disciples in the boat. But one of those disciples (you will notice) is actually a Jesus from another lost window, repurposed as a disciple, with his halo cross replaced by a plain halo.

Not that it is intended as such, but that picture makes me think of how sometimes we sit in our little boats assuming that is where Jesus also sits. But if we look out beyond our position, beyond our church, beyond our assumptions, beyond our prejudices, we will find that actually Jesus stands in the place we consider dangerous, the place we view beyond the pale, the place where we deny where the love and grace of God operates.

What are the small boats in which we sit, feeling ourselves safe in their confined and sure constraints? What are the small boats from which Christ beckons us to leave?

We will be challenged to keep the church safe from the danger of division and schism and to look to the safety of compromise. And we firmly sit in our little boat, in order to keep us in bed with fellow Christians with whom we disagree, and to keep others out of the beds of those they love and to deny them the love of God.

We will be challenged to keep the church safe from the danger of appearing political and to look to the safety of focusing instead on issues of personal morality. And (failing to see the irony) we sit firmly in our little boat, in order to retain an influence on decision-making but failing to challenge when governments shore up their political and public support, by sacrificing and scapegoating the vulnerable, the poor, and the stranger.

The peril we face lies not in walking towards Christ in the danger where he stands. The peril we face is bobbing around in our own small little boats, in a mistaken presumption of safety: of not trusting in God to step out and to walk on the waves.

Colin Setchfield

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6 August July 2023 – The Transfiguration of Our Lord

Once again everyone, a very good morning to you all. I feel a sense of privilege to be leading and serving you today on this special day of worship as we mark The Transfiguration; a very significant and important stage in Jesus’s life where he experienced a defining moment, a unique and mysterious interaction with God, his Father. And we must note here, it happened prior to his suffering on the cross.

My sermon is taken from the gospel reading in Luke 9. 35-36 ‘This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him! When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen’. God had spoken to Jesus from the cloud giving clear instructions for us to listen to him. If I ended my sermon here the message would be a clear and succinct. The instruction from God is to listen to Jesus. We are to trust that Jesus came purely for us to follow him, and he was sent by the master himself, his Father, the same God we serve today.

As Christians we celebrate this day, and it is important for us to ponder over the message to seek a deeper meaning to better understand the truth. We are to connect on a deeper level, spiritually. When God spoke to Jesus they were connecting, in truth and in spirit. God spoke to Jesus and told him he was a Chosen one, chosen for a purpose, and his mission was to make others listen to him, to listen to what God was calling him to tell us about Him, and the purpose of our calling. This is another clear instruction. However, The Transfiguration is mysterious and rich in meaning, it is like food, given to nourish our hearts and minds towards believing more in Jesus, each time we hear it.

Although we were not present to witness The Transfiguration, like Peter, John, and James, we can imagine how it took place because the description of it is vivid. The emphasis on listening to Jesus is crucial. If you can imagine, a set of jurors summoned to serve on a case. They are instructed to listen and speculate from the evidence given, explore what they hear, and decide from this, what is truth. The judge is relying on these people to be open and honest; to discern from the lies the truth. Remember someone’s life or even many lives depend on their decisions. The emphasis is on listening and hearing the truth. As Christians, people of God we are called to serve God, to develop an open, honest, and compassionate heart through listening to God’s Word. He makes all the decisions about our lives. My question to you this morning is, ‘How do you discern amid the crowd of voices hustling and bustling around you, which one to listen to? How do you discern you are listening to God’s voice?’

The word “transfiguration” comes from the Latin roots trans- (“across”) and figura (“form, shape”). It signifies a change of form or appearance. When Jesus went to the top of the mountain to pray, while he was praying his appearance changed and his clothes became dazzling white. He radiated a glow which caused a stir in others. Peter, John, and James were present at the mountain top, whom Jesus took along, despite them feeling drowsy from sleep they saw this glory. They witnessed Jesus talking to two men, Moses, and Elijah. They were talking to Jesus about his future, what he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem. This was a defining moment. Peter appeared to be overcome and whilst talking to Jesus about making three dwellings, one for Jesus, one for Moses and one for Elijah a cloud overshadowed them all. They were terrified. After God spoke the cloud lifted and Jesus was alone. Peter, John, and James were stunned and told no one what they had seen. This is the evidence we need to know it is only Jesus we are to listen to, and like many others who came before him and spoke, we all should speak of what Jesus told us too. The apostles didn’t speak of seeing God in body, they spoke of seeing the presence of Moses and Elijah. This is important because like Jesus they were Chosen Ones too, people chosen by God to speak to the people they were called to serve. They were also witnesses of the truth. They were evidence of God calling His Chosen ones, people to help people. In the moment of Jesus’s transfiguration Moses and Elijah were helping Jesus. In other words, they were preparing him for his suffering. And they would have been encourager too because here they were standing before him, having survived their own sufferings. Strong and faithful men to God, all three standing together. It was the faithful meeting the faithful and demonstrating to us what it is to be prepared to suffer, to stand together in faith knowing we can get through it together, as God willed it. Our forefathers were examples of this, for when we come together in our suffering God causes amazing things to happen, especially when we encourage and help each other.

The Transfiguration is a demonstration of a spiritual shift, a process of letting God have His way, for him to cover us in our darkest times until he decides to lift the cloud. Jesus went to the mountain to pray; to be with his Father because he knew he help from him. We should feel encouraged by this knowing that when we are in our hard times God will never leave us alone to suffer. When Jesus came down from the mountain, God’s voice was firmly in his mind. He was carrying the message from God and the encouragement from the saints before him. He was now walking by faith not by sight (2 Corinthians 5.7). They were no longer to seen but spiritually present. The second Peter New Testament reading today was Peter’s witness to Christ’s glory, ‘You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts’ (2 Peter 1.19). When we are attentive to Jesus our hearts will be moved spiritually, as his was moved by God.

If I may, I would like to share with you something I heard in this church at Lesley’s farewelling service in April. Amid many thoughtful words and voices shared that day Lesley was expressing how much she was going to miss you all. And then she referred to the drug addicts in the courtyard. It sounded like their presence had caused some kind of stir, nuisance. When I heard this, it felt like a cloud had descended upon me and I was deeply concerned because I know the same problem is happening throughout the deanery for many parish priests, county line drugs, street violence and numerous deaths of young people. It is also a grave concern for parents, schools, young children, and of course local people, including us in church. Despite it being a day of celebrations, Lesley’s words reminded me there were people far from celebrating. There were people lost, still living in darkness, not just in the courtyards but for all kinds of reasons, possibly related to drugs, literally on the doorsteps of our churches, where God can be found, yet far from their ears to hear. If Jesus is telling us to love our brothers and sisters, our neighbours, to be an encourager and blessing to one another, then this is clearly a problem I couldn’t ignore, and clearly one Lesley found difficult to ignore too. It is very challenging to think about these issues because no one appears to have the answers to solving the increasing drugs problems and issues arising from it plaguing our streets, and affecting are lives. But we cannot ignore or avoid it when it is staring us in the face. Jesus couldn’t turn away when he heard the leper beg to be cleaned (Matthew 8.1-3). And the parable of the Good Samaritan is also a perfect example of what Jesus told Christians to be like, not turn away from someone in trouble. Hard as it maybe we cannot ignore, at the very least we must pray. Moses didn’t turn away from leading the troubled people of Israel out of captivity and Elijah didn’t turn away from speaking to the troubled minds about changing their evil ways before evil fell on them. ‘No prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God’ (2 Peter 1.21). We cannot turn away from Jesus’ teachings when we find it too difficult to hear because we will fail to hear God’s voice. Jesus teaches us to face reality and stand up for those shunned by society, for we were the people in darkness he shone a light on. Until we found Jesus we were lost too.

The Transfiguration may be a scene we can only imagine but we can be witnesses and examples of Jesus who showed us what he went through. The moment was temporary, but the memory should be permanent for us to remember Jesus. We are afforded God’s grace when we have Jesus to strengthen our faith, to understand, stand up to, and face up to our suffering even when feel overwhelmed by it. Jesus suffered for our lives to change but fortunately we can still celebrate his life, the suffering he bore for us.

I pray today we will hear God’s voice, for we have evidence of knowing The Transfiguration, to believe Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and we can only connect to God through listening to him. In these changing and difficult times, we must be prepared to change and put our trust Jesus, for God the Father is in control. In our suffering let us stand firm together. Amen.

Eileen Rose

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30 July 2023 – Eighth Sunday after Trinity

Once again everyone, a very good morning to you. It is a pleasure for me to be here and lead worship for you all today. I know the church is in a period of interregnum and pray that the words you have been receiving during these past months is enabling you to feel some stability and hope for the future, hence why I have chosen these encouraging words from the scripture in today’s New Testament reading, taken from Paul’s letter to the Romans (8.28) ‘We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.’ In fact, this scripture happens to be one of my favourites because it brings into context how we must live as Christians, in the hope of knowing that when we love God, we should believe He is working out all things for the good in our individual lives and for the Church. We are all called according to his purpose and the work for us as Christians is to work out what God’s purpose is for us as we live out His mission. His mission being for all His children, us, to repent and walk in the path of Jesus to be with Hm in the Kingdom. Therefore, this is my question to you today. Have you, or are you, living your life working out the purpose God has called you to do? Are you working for the love of God or are you working for yourself?

It is times like these when we are living in challenging moments, we must be prepared to ask ourselves challenging questions. The scriptures we heard today have many questions. In the Old Testament in 1Kings reading God appeared to Solomon in a dream by night and said, ‘Ask what I should give you’. The gospel reading in Matthew raises questions in the form of parables where at the end Jesus said to the crowd, ‘Have you understood all of this?’. And of course, Paul’s letter to the Romans Paul questions the people ‘Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?’. And I would add to that, interregnum, because sometimes missing a leader to steer us towards God can separate us from Him. At least one of these questions may bear some relevance, if not ask God, ‘What is my purpose for you?’

When we are in a state of waiting and uncertainty, not knowing what the future will bring it is a time of discernment, to think about what God is saying in the moment about how we are living, coping, and preparing for what is to come. However, we can only do that to a certain extent as we cannot know what the result will be. Sometimes we try to predict but need to be aware of the risks we may fall short of seeing. The words of the Bible are helpful because they give us helpful stories and parables to show us, we are only treading on grounds where these paths have already been walked. In Romans, Paul had made it his mission to visit the churches in the hope of encouraging them to live good as Christians after Jesus Christ had been crucified, to not give up just because Jesus was gone.

Today we may be living in a new era, dare I say post pandemic, a period of deep uncertainty and unnumbered deaths, many of which shocked us to the core, often leaving us to question what the purpose of all of this is. Our loved ones separated from us, what good can come from this? Paul tells the Romans, ‘The Spirit helps us in our weaknesses’, that the ‘very Spirit intercedes’ (Romans 8.26) The King James version says, ‘the Spirit itself maketh intercession’, in other words the Spirit is praying, that even though Jesus is not here in body his Spirit lives on to work and pray on our behalf. Therefore, we are living and repeating patterns of lives that have gone before us, hence God’s words teach us to either follow in the footsteps of Jesus or prevent following in the footsteps of man, because he doesn’t want us to repeat the atrocities of yesteryears by living in condemnation and not with Him. Sadly, in this life, as we look around us, we can see the short falls of living according to God’s Word, as many are still suffering. I think it is fair to say we do aim to pray in good faith, and I think it is fair to say we can feel stronger through prayer. Nevertheless, we continue to struggle when we think the fruits of our prayers is making little difference.

I have been working as a psychotherapist for over thirty years and I love my job. I love helping people to work out how they could change their lives just by understanding their story. The important part of therapy is to change by being helped by the helper, to develop a better understanding, or as they say be a better version of yourself, know who you are and why you need help to feel better. Put like this it appears simple but often people think of their lives as being complex, which can prevent them from talking about themselves because they fear being misunderstood. It is important to remember we all have a beginning, and we will all have an end. We may not have had much control over our beginnings and the same could be said for the ending. However, we do have a middle, the lives we are living now, today, where we can allow the Spirit to help us create a life story, according to God’s will.

Sometimes we need to check whether we are still living in the past, struggling to move forward or in fear of the future, still struggling to move forward. In this state of mind, it will interfere with us living in the moment with God because it prevents us from allowing God to move towards what He is calling us to be. It may appear on the surface we are changing but are we changing from the inside also. As Romans (8.27) says. ‘And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit…’. God reaches us at a deeper level, He searches our hearts and change us, and if we are connected to the Spirit (with Christ), who is interceding for the saints according to the will of God, we too are allowing ourselves to be in union with them, them being The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: The Trinity.

Solomon, a saint of old was called for God’s purpose when he was only a little child. He had no say of where his life was going. He must have been a very anxious child because he was questioning in the dream when God appeared to him, why was he called. Sleep deprivation is one of the most common problem people suffer with, and often it is because when we are worried about something we have poor sleep. Solomon was woken from sleep by God asking him a question, ‘Ask what I should give you,’. Solomon spoke of his father David, telling God what he saw God had done for his father, who had been a servant of God. He was saying he admired how God had treated his father who walked before God in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart towards Him, and in turn God had kept for his father a great and steadfast love. And now God was making him a servant king in place of his father. Solomon was anxious. He made it clear he had no idea how he was going to proceed with this massive role, anxious about filling his father’s shoe. He was just a small person chosen to serve among many, too much for him to fathom. Solomon asked God for an ‘understanding mind to govern…to be able to discern between good and evil’. (1 Kings 3.9) The King James Version says, ‘an understanding heart to judge thy people’. God was pleased with Solomon’s reply because he never asked for long life or riches or even for the life of his enemies. He asked for himself to be understanding towards others and God gave him a ‘wise and discerning mind’, that there will be no other person like him. When Solomon brought his concerns to God, after the loss of his father, his heart opened more to God, and he was given what he needed to fulfil the purpose God called him to do. It was a simple request which spoke volumes to God who gave him the confidence to fill a big job ahead of his life. Solomon may have been stuck in his anxiety and fear had he not opened his heart to God in an honest and open manner.

It is then the case that when we hear the parables in the gospel reading (Matthew 13.31, 32), the mustard seed for example that grows into the greatest of shrubs and become a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches, it makes sense. Solomon like many of us are like mustard seed, small, tiny, feeling insignificant, as if we cannot make a difference in our lives or in the lives of others. It feels like too much for us to imagine. We can hear the word of God through the stories and parables of Jesus to learn how we can connect our hearts with God, through the Spirit God gave us for guidance. We can grow, we can change, we can have a better and understanding heart towards one another, and that way we will encourage others to come and nest in our churches, to discern together in the love of Christ how to move forward to the Kingdom of God.

Once again, I will leave these encouraging words from Paul to the Romans (8.28) which was true then as it is today, for Paul himself grew in confidence by changing his heart from showing hatred and evil towards others to becoming a devoted follower of Christ, and devoted lover of God, he said, ‘We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.’ And if we are to believe this, truly believe this, then let us all connect in the Spirit in one prayer, to ask God for discerning minds, to understand and love one another from the heart where He can meet us and answer our prayers. Amen.

Eileen Rose

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23 July 2023 – Seventh Sunday after Trinity

In watching the news on television, you don’t need me to tell you that the world is in a mess. Everywhere there is good but also there is evil. Matthew records one of Jesus’ parables, reminding us that the world is like a field of wheat. But – it is also full of weeds!

Surprisingly, Matthew is the only evangelist to record this parable. It’s not in any of the other four gospels. In this parable, Jesus spends time explaining this dichotomy of having good and evil side by side. He tells us that the enemy has put weeds – sin – among the wheat. And they are part of what it means to be part of our world. This is how it will be until all is finally sorted out at the end of time.

Despite this contradiction, we do know very, very well from personal experience and what we’ve seen and what we feel, we know that God loves us and cares for all of his creation. The question then asked is if God is so powerful and all-loving, why doesn’t he get rid of the weeds. Why tempt us?

Now this parable is very difficult to understand. When we think about it even Jesus’ own disciples (when they heard it first) weren’t quite sure; and they asked him in private afterwards what he meant by this analogy between good and evil. So, he explained that one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. Is that Jesus himself? Who is the Son of Man? The field is the world. And the good seed is the seed of the Kingdom – the Kingdom of God. But the weeds are the sons of the evil one – and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age. And the harvesters are angels. The Son of Man will send his angels to weed out everything that causes sin and evil. And those that are will be thrown into the furnace, and the good seed gathered into barns.

What is the point of the parable of the sower? Think about it: it really does end on a positive and happy note. In spite of all the obvious rough starts, there will be a good crop. And let us pray to be included in that.

In encouragement and the need to spread this to everyone, it falls on to the disciples and those who are concerned about the Kingdom. Their work and Jesus’ own work will not be wasted – it must not be wasted. Matthew then ties this to what has gone before by stressing the understanding of the word.

The Kingdom of the Son of Man is perfect, in the sense that all evil and those who do evil are removed. But then the question is could this be the whole world, or the church, or is ever the centre of the world? And just to unpack a little bit further, the main question is to remind us of the seriousness of anything that leads us or others into doing wrong or sin.

Sin is within a person, but it is not part of the whole person. It may come from the human heart. We don’t know but we pray that it doesn’t develop and we are aware of keeping God’s commandments and what he would like us to do.

The idea of the angels removing all the evil doers and throwing them into the fire reminds us of the ways this was used throughout Christian history to route out bad seeds which would damage the whole. And somehow even today, in many congregations there were or are the zealots, who do not agree with accepted interpretations of churches or liturgical practice. It is something we need to think about. Where is this coming from? Think of the good seed and the bad seed, and which is it. It is something to be keeping an eye on. We need to be careful.

More disturbing are those who look at other faiths and declare them to be on route to eternal damnation. Now that is truly frightening. This sort of thinking does serious damage to the church and its mission.

But what often cheers me up, in this parable, is that God will send his angels – the angels come from God – and they are the messengers from God. Somehow that gives a lot of reassurance. As long as we do what God wants us to do then hopefully we may be tempted but we will have the strength to resist temptation.

Maybe we should not be too literal about the interpretation. We know that weeds do not become wheat, but Matthew’s story holds out hope that the sinner will repent.

Diana Kennedy

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16 July 2023 – Sixth Sunday after Trinity

Why do people respond so differently to Jesus? Why do some people hearing about Jesus get really excited, while others aren’t bothered and still others are really turned off or even angry?

Why is God’s kingdom seemingly growing so quickly in Africa, Asia and South America, but so slowly in Europe, England and North-East London? Why the mixed bag of responses?

And it’s a big question for Matthew, because alongside Jesus miraculously fulfilling numerous Old Testament promises… and being followed by massive crowds… in Chapters 11-12, Jesus had faced significant opposition from the religious hierarchy and even from His earthly family.

So, why did so few end up believing? Well, that’s why Jesus told this parable [of the Sower]…

My Granddad was a farmer. I was a toddler when he retired… but apparently, I loved sitting on the family tractor. Nowadays some new tractors cost even more than 3-bedroom houses in Chingford! On-board GPS systems map field contours and drill, plant and fertilise seeds with less than 1-inch overlap! That’s precision drilling!

But, in Jesus’ day, farmers used ‘the broadcast method…’ scattering loads of seed with little certainty about where it fell.

So, first Jesus teaches God’s kingdom grows through widespread broadcast… so make sure you listen…

This fits Jesus’ own ministry pattern… God’s kingdom grows when God’s word is broadcast widely. Widespread broadcast led to massive growth. That’s why one of St John’s (aspirational) values is “sharing the good news of Jesus with everyone, everywhere.”

But Jesus made clear to His disciples that alongside kingdom growth, there would be plenty of seemingly wasted sowing… some seeds fall on the path, on rocky ground and among thorns… and only some on good soil.

Business-minded people, might suggest we work harder to reduce wastage… But widespread broadcast is God’s chosen method for Kingdom Growth. So, if you want to see St Edmunds growing, during the interregnum and beyond, Jesus says broadcast His kingdom message widely.

But the ‘wasted’ seed means, if we are sharing Jesus, we need not be discouraged if God’s kingdom doesn’t grow as quickly as we’d like… We shouldn’t be surprised when not everyone believes. Jesus concludes His parable by inviting all who hear (including us) to change… “whoever has ears, let them hear.”

And that’s because secondly, God’s kingdom grows as God reveals Himself… so make sure you listen humbly.

Between Jesus publicly telling His parable to massive crowds and Jesus privately explaining the parable to His disciples, the lectionary misses out Jesus explaining to His disciples why He spoke in parables.

In Sunday School I remember being taught parables are ‘simple stories anyone could understand…’ but without Jesus’ explanation, do you honestly think you’d get it?

But Jesus says he uses parables because the knowledge of the secrets of God’s heavenly kingdom has been given to some… but not to everyone… Some people see but don’t see, and hear but don’t hear or understand. But, he tells His disciples, “Blessed are your eyes because they see and your ears for they hear.”

When I first heard Jesus’ explanation of why he spoke in parables it blew my mind… it turned upside down what I thought of Jesus. Jesus is saying we can’t work God out for ourselves… only those Jesus generously gives insight to, understand the secrets of God’s kingdom.

Friends, before God, we’re a bit like a pet goldfish swimming around in a tank… without the intellect, imagination or even the capacity to work out almost anything about what our master is like…

For a pet goldfish to understand their owner, the owner would somehow need to enter the goldfish tank, become a goldfish and communicate goldfish to goldfish.

But, even then, the pet goldfish, might swim away, hide behind the rocky arch you had put into his tank and ignore you… and so remaining totally ignorant of you.

Similarly, God’s kingdom only comes as God in His extraordinary kindness, enters our world as a human and reveals Himself, human to human as, Jesus Christ summons us and gives us ears to hear…

And it’s only as we respond humbly to that summons that we can ever understand anything about God.

So, we might share the good news of Jesus with hundreds of people… but we shouldn’t be surprised when many remain spiritually blind and deaf to Jesus. Only God gives people ears to truly hear… and only as we respond humbly, can we ever understand anything about God.

And then, thirdly, God’s kingdom grows through deliberate decisions… so make sure keep on listening with understanding…

In the parable, the seed is the good news about God’s kingdom… and the 4 types of soil represent 4 types of listener.

Notice, everyone hears… but for different reasons many stop listening…

First, like seed on the path, some are snatched away and swallowed by Satan’s swallows.

“When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart.

It’s hard to imagine Satan at work… even as people hear the message in church, but he can be… snatching God’s word away from hearts that don’t understand… 19th Century Bishop JC Ryle wrote, “Let us beware of the devil, we shall always find him at church.”

Over the years, I’ve invited several friends and family members to church…

• Once, less than 2 minutes into the sermon, one guest’s Bible hit the floor… crash. They’d fallen asleep.
• Another guest spent the service on their phone playing games or texting.
• Another guest seemingly paid careful attention, but afterwards their main comments were about the preacher looking older…

Coming to Church is dangerous… every time we meet, Satan’s working in some…

Second, like seed on rocky ground, some get scorched and wither from rootless enthusiasm

I’m honestly not sure I’ve seen many fall away due to persecution in England. Christian persecution is much more prevalent in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the Middle East, Asia and parts of Africa.

But I remember seeing 1 teenager girl being bullied mercilessly for her enthusiasm about Jesus… tragically, she soon stopped.

But, I’ve seen many who have responded enthusiastically, but stopped after being tested against the standard of God’s word…

• people who couldn’t accept the Bible’s clear teaching about the uniqueness of Jesus… the reality of heaven and hell… the challenge to forgive everyone who sins against us… or Jesus’ call to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him.

Beware rootless enthusiasm…

Third, like seed among thorns, some get throttled by thorns.

Today, cares of the world might include: the cost of living crisis, mortgage rates, children’s education, health, relationships.

In and of themselves, there’s nothing wrong with many of these things… but they can easily overwhelm us and distract us from sharing God’s kingdom message…

And the alluring lure of wealth… chasing careers, social advancement, a better house, faster car…
Whatever it is, these cares and capital concerns all too easily choke God’s word and capture our hearts making us unfruitful.

Friends, when did you last engage in some personal spiritual weeding? When did you last identify and seek to root out your most captivating worldly cares or wage war on worldly wealth to engage in really fruitful Christian service, by loving and serving people practically, or especially, sharing Jesus with others?

It maybe only a handful respond… But ultimately, Jesus’ parable is one of growth… because

Fourthly, good soil yields stunning growth.

“Like seed on good soil, some heard God’s word, understand it and bear fruit and yields, a hundredfold, sixty or thirty time what was sown.”

Friends, if we’re followers of Jesus, and God has given us the gift of understanding so we know the secrets of His kingdom, we won’t be able to help but bear fruit… When good soil people hear God’s word,

• they do not forget what they’ve heard,
• they ponder what it means and how it will impact their lives until in the power of the Holy Spirit, they understand what it means and put it into practice.

And wonderfully, despite some indifferent, shallow and fruitless responses, in the end, there is a harvest. As we heard from Isaiah, God’s word will not return to Him empty. It will accomplish the purpose for which He sent it. Despite the devil’s best efforts and fallible human responses, in the end, God’s will prevails… not always in the way we expect… but as God’s good news about Jesus is broadcast widely, God’s kingdom grows tremendously.

Kieran Bush

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9 July 2023 – Dedication Festival

Not available

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2 July 2023 – Fourth Sunday after Trinity

FOR THE CHILDREN (but adults can listen too!)

Ask children to come forward.

Do you like stories? What is your favourite story? What do you like about it? I like stories that have a surprise at the end, and I’d like to share one of those stories with you this morning “Eat Pete”.

If you know this story please don’t tell anyone how it ends until I have finished!

Read story (Eat Pete, by Michael Rex and printed by Nancy Paulsen Books)

There were surprises all the way through that story, we thought the monster would eat Pete, but he didn’t, then he did eat him, but spat him out and they became friends.

Jesus told lots of stories do you know what we call them? Parables. Stories that are not necessarily true, but which have a message in them. The story of Eat Pete was a bit like a parable – it tells us that sometimes the things we are frightened of may not be as bad as we think they are.

In the story Jesus told in our Gospel reading the people expected that it would end with a Jewish man coming along to help the injured Jewish man. But instead the person who helped was someone that they would never have expected to help. He was a Samaritan – someone the Jews didn’t like and were usually horrid to, but the Samaritan was kind to the injured man. Jesus told the story to remind us that we need to be kind to everyone. Even people who we don’t like!

Debbie has some things for you to do while I carry on talking to the adults – you can listen in if you want to. Or maybe you would like to write your own story with a message – a parable.

FOR THE ADULTS

Today we are very fortunate to live in an age where we have access to books, to television, theatre, cinema, the internet, etc and can read or listen to stories whenever we want to.

Jesus did a lot of his teaching by telling stories to people, and our Bible reading was one of those occasions. Jesus was a master story teller.

What makes a good story? I have four thoughts, you may have others: 1. The subject matter; 2. if it has a twist, or surprise, or tensions; 3. if it touches our emotions; 4. if it demands a response

The story of the Good Samaritan exemplifies many elements of a good story:

1. The subject matter is significant

The issue that lies behind the story is ‘eternal life’. The expert in religious law wanted to have a theological discussion with Jesus. However, Jesus knows that there is a practical application that is much better communicated through a story that just simply saying ‘you have to do this or that.’

Maybe this is something we need to think about when we are talking to other people about Jesus. It may be true to say ‘Jesus can change your life.’ But it will have much more for the other person if you can tell the story of how Jesus changed your life.’

2. A good story has an element of surprise, and some tension

Many TV programmes, especially ‘soaps’ use this element of surprise and tension to keep viewers ‘hooked. A granddaughter of a friend is an actress and she is in Eastenders at the moment, so I am watching every episode. Her character, Gina and her sister, have had some news that their mother wasn’t who she said she was but no-one has any idea who she really was. They haven’t seen their mother for many years and she has never been in touch since leaving one day.

The viewers have been given an insight in a recent episode where we saw a character, Cindy, who many many years ago had been put in prison for shooting her husband Ian, back with Ian and living a good life in Spain. The whole episode seemed out of context and was a puzzle until we discovered that while in prison she had taken on the persona of Rose Knight, mother of Gina and her sister.

Will Cindy and Ian appear in the Square and will Gina and her sister be reunited with their mother? Will they reject her? What will Ian’s family feel about him coming back with the woman who shot him? You will have to watch and wait to see! It keeps the viewers hooked!

As Jesus told his story, and the religious leaders passed by on the other side the listeners would have felt the tension mounting, and they would have been expecting that an ordinary Jewish man would come along and be the hero. But this story has a real ‘twist in the tail.’ No one listening to the story expected the ending they received. Because the very last person they would have expected to be brought into the story, let alone become the hero, was a Samaritan.

When we are looking at what God is doing in our lives or the lives of our community, do we believe God can only work through Christians? If we listen to the stories of the lives of our neighbours and friends who don’t come to church we may be surprised to glimpse God at work in their lives, even if they don’t recognise him.

3. We find ourselves being drawn into the action in a good story.

The kinds of emotions that Jesus’ listeners would have felt might have been sadness at the plight of the man (they knew that road and they knew its dangers); indignation as the religious leaders passed by and did nothing; surprise; compassion for the man; maybe mixed relief and anger as they were pleased the man was helped, but appalled by who did the helping.

When we share our stories of faith with others hopefully they will be able to identify with us in the difficulties that led us to Christ. Maybe they will be able to see that he can be a solution to their problems too.

4. last, but not least, a good story demands a response

Jesus told the story in response to the question, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ and Jesus ends by asking which of these three (priest, Levite or Samaritan) was the man’s neighbour? But there is another question that arises from this story, and applies to us today, which is, ‘Who can I be a good neighbour to?’

Through the story Jesus shows us that knowing the rules of behaviour towards one another is not enough – we need to know how to apply them, even in unexpected situations.

All of those who came across the man who had been robbed weren’t expecting to see him. They had to make an instant decision as to their response. We can be quick to judge them, but that is not what this parable is about. If the priest and the Levite hadn’t passed by then the Samaritan would not have had the opportunity to show his care and compassion. But also, the story wouldn’t have had the same impact.

When Jesus then asked ‘Which of these was a neighbour to the man attacked by bandits?’ If the reply would have been ‘the priest’ or ‘the Levite’. Jesus could not have said ‘go and do the same’ because they would have actually made themselves unclean by touching the man, and Jesus would have been open to the accusation that he was being disrespectful to the religious leaders.

Jesus actually turned the situation the other way around. In terms of Jewish religious law the Jewish man who had been attacked was made ritually unclean by accepting help from the Samaritan, but he accepted the help. Jesus is showing very clearly that there is a huge difference between knowing the law, following the rules, and acting out the principles within the rules.

I leave you with a scenario to think about – if are on your way to church and come across someone in need, maybe someone who has taken a bad fall. There is no one else around and clearly the person needs support and assistance. You know that you are on serving duty or leading the intercessions and to stop and help would mean you would probably miss church. What would you do? Something to reflect on over tea or coffee after the service, or maybe think about during the coming week.

PRAYER:

Thank you Lord Jesus that you have given us so many stories with a message, thank you that you did not always follow the letter of the law, but you did always act within the spirit of the law and in the best interests of those you were helping. Please help us to recognise who our neighbour is and how we can do the right thing so that your love may be revealed in every situation. Amen.

Maria Holmden

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25 June 2023 – Third Sunday after Trinity

I want to concentrate on our New Testament reading, that passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans chapter 6. As with many of our lectionary readings, this suffers from being just part of a longer section, and of course, we don’t have in front of us what comes before and what comes afterwards.

But what Paul is saying here follows on from one of those questions that many Christians grapple with: if it is good that God forgives me when I sin, should I carry on sinning so that God can forgive me even more? Paul says, ‘Certainly not!’ We have died to sin – how then can we go on living in it?’ And then he proceeds to answer this question in the passage we have in front of us.

This is a dilemma we all face. Jesus died for us, so that we can be forgiven. We are told that when we come to him in repentance and faith and accept that he died in our place, we are forgiven and given a new start – a clean slate, new life. Jesus overcame sin and death on the cross and that victory is ours when we trust in him. And yet we know that we continue to sin. How then can we live out this new life? How can we be the kind of people God wants us to be – the kind of people he says he makes us in Jesus?

Paul’s answer here is – reflect on your baptism. Think about what baptism means. Then live it out in your life! Now the first thing we need to realise is that Paul is taking about the spiritual reality of baptism. Not just the baptism we see with water, but what that water baptism represents in the spiritual realm.

In 1 Corinthians 12:13 Paul says ‘In the same way, all of us, whether Jews or Gentiles, slaves or free, have been baptised into one body by the same Spirit, and we have all been given the same Spirit to drink.’ He is speaking of the spiritual reality. What happens when the Holy Spirit unites the believer with Jesus as a member of the body of Christ. The baptism of the Holy Spirit, which makes us one with Jesus, and which happens for every believer the moment they turn to Jesus Christ.

That is the true spiritual baptism, and it is represented or symbolised, in our physical baptism, and this is particularly clear to see in baptism by immersion. Going under the water represents dying to sin, coming up out of the water represents rising to new life. But the spiritual action is equally valid for other forms of baptism.

When we are united with Jesus we are united in an unbreakable spiritual bond. That bond is so real and complete that we are considered both to have died with Christ and to have been raised with him. We need to grasp and take hold of the fact that this baptism (our union with Christ) happened at a particular moment in time and was final. It was a burial. Our life of sin died on the cross with Jesus, and was buried in his burial.

And because we are united with Christ in his death, we are also united with him in his resurrection. We are raised to new life. we have a new and sinless life.

But hold on – I know that my life is not like that! I still sin, and not just on the odd occasion, but all the time. And I know that others do too. Does that mean Paul’s got it wrong?

Not at all. Paul is telling us what is the reality of the situation we are in. We ARE cleansed and forgiven. The problem is that we still live in the world, we are still open to the influences of sin. It is a bit like when someone moves from one country to another. E.g. If an American moved to England and took on British citizenship he or she would be a British citizen. But it would be up to them as to how they lived out their life.

As an American visitor they would have needed a permit to work. As a British citizen they would have the right to seek employment without a permit. But if all the time they say, ‘I can’t look for work because I haven’t a permit’ then they are missing out on what is theirs by right. If they continue to use American words for everyday items eg they talk about the sidewalk, faucets, elevators and the like, they are going to find life more difficult because other people may not understand them. And if they try to get to New York by going up the M1 they will not succeed. In order to live a full life in Britain, they have to accept they are a British citizen, and have to act accordingly.

That may all sound really silly. But often as Christians we live our new life in God’s kingdom as if we were still living in our old life of sin and death. We fail to see the fullness of what it means to be baptised into union with Christ.

Sometimes we say ‘If Jesus were here, what would he do?’ That is a nonsense statement. He IS here. Jesus is in you, he is in me. We need to accept and act out the reality.

So what does that mean in practise?

When we are tempted to sin we need to face it in the knowledge that we are in Christ. Not to say ‘I’ve done this lots of times before, I can’t help myself, I’ll do it again, one more time won’t make any difference.’ But rather to say ‘I am a new person in Christ. I am clean and free from sin in Jesus Christ. I want to stay clean. I don’t have to commit this sin. I have a choice.’

It’s rather like if you are wearing a new shirt or a new dress. You take a lot of care not to spoil it. It’s very different when you are wearing your old working clothes – you don’t mind if they get dirty or if you spill something on them.

When we are baptised into union with Christ it is as if we are given a brand-new life to wear. A life completely unspoilt. A new beginning, a fresh start. All the dirt of sin has gone. God says he will not remember it – and we have no right to remember it either. The problem is that often we live as if we were wearing our old sinful life. We don’t take time to remind ourselves of exactly where we stand in Christ.

You may be saying, but it’s too late. You may be feeling: I’ve been a Christian for donkey’s years. That clean new life God gave me when I first turned to Christ has long since been spoiled by sin. It is like a shirt or a dress that I have had for a long time – getting a bit threadbare and faded. Lots of sins have stained it and although I come to Christ and confess and he forgives me, there still seem to be the marks of those stains. I can see them every time I look at myself.

Paul is saying. STOP. Look again. The new life we have in Christ is for ever. You have no right to think of yourself like that. That is not the real picture. The reality is that you are in Christ, that you have died to sin with him, and have been raised with him to new life. In the last verse Paul says, ‘… you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God, in Christ Jesus.’

The new life Christ has given us is indestructible. It is stain resistant. When we do fail and do sin, those sins cannot damage our new life. We do need to come to God through Jesus and confess them and have them removed, but it’s rather like if you spill coffee on a worktop. If it’s left it leaves a stain, but as soon as you wipe it with a damp cloth, it’s gone.

In our old lives before we came to Christ we were slaves to sin. Sin was our master. When we were united with Christ we got a new master. When faced with commands from the old master our response should be one of faith in Christ Jesus. To positively step out to do what is right in the confidence that God is with us and will strengthen and enable us.

An American preacher called Donald Grey Barnhouse used the following illustration:

There was a crew on ship where the captain went mad. He was replaced mid-voyage by the first mate. Now the old captain was still on board, but he no longer had any authority. The new captain was the one to be obeyed. Barnhouse suggested that the crew might well find itself jumping to obey when the old captain shouted out his orders. But what the crew had to do was to keep reminding themselves that the old captain did not need to be obeyed any longer. They had to learn to respond to the voice of the new captain.’

And so it is with us. Our old nature, the sinful nature, keeps shouting out orders. But we have to keep reminding ourselves that it no longer has any authority over us. We can choose to obey it, but we do not have to, in fact, we ought not. We need to listen for the voice of our new captain – Jesus, and choose to obey him.

God does not remove the temptation to sin. Nor does he take away from us the responsibility for our actions. What he does do is to change our situation, by uniting us with Christ. He tells us it is different, but we are the ones who have to choose to act upon it.

The way we will be able to do that is if we keep our eyes on the real and true picture of what we are in Christ. And then live out our lives as if it is true.

Maria Holmden

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18 June 2023 – Second Sunday after Trinity

Our Old Testament reading today comes at the point in the Exodus story when the children of Israel have come to the foot of Mount Sinai from Rephidim. Rephidim was the place where the Israelites, suffering from a lack of water, questioned both God and Moses, and the place where they received a divine response to those questions. At Rephidim the people wondered if God knew what God was doing and if they could trust the leadership of Moses. At Rephidim God provided water for an easily disgruntled congregation.

The body of this morning’s reading on the face of it deals with the subject of election. The children of Israel are told that they are God’s chosen people and have a special designation from God. This suggestion of predestination is a subject which has always provoked theological controversy. Today, any suggestion that a particular group has a special designation from God and as a result can expect special privileges quite rightly unsettles those who are working to create tolerance and mutual understanding; as indeed it should. But we must remember that the Old Testament was written many thousands of years ago and for a very different cultural situation. If we do this and then look at the underlying message of the text it, possibly surprisingly, carries a message which is relevant to informing our present situation.

Rephidim was a place of both pain and provision. The people were called to move beyond both the memory of the pain and the security of the provision. They were to move on to new experiences, new challenges and new revelation. They were to move forward carrying with them the lessons of history, the lessons of Rephidim. In their life as the people of God they would be asked to remember these lessons. So today we should ask ourselves is there a Rephidim in our story? Have we the opportunity to apply these lessons to new situations?

In our text God uses the imagery of the eagle, telling Moses “I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you unto myself”. The image of God as an eagle carrying us is a stirring image. It suggests that it is God’s initiative that is all important; that God having chosen us as his people is all important. That message surely is still relevant to us today. As Christians we have our redemption only through God’s freely given grace of which we are unworthy. To use the words of John’s gospel “You did not choose me, but I chose you.” The text then goes on to say, “And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last” and “I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another”. As Christians it is our duty to work for the development of God’s kingdom here on earth.

To pick up on the words of this text surely it is a meaningful exercise for us to reflect on our history and to consider how God bearing us on eagle’s wings can propel us forward.

And so, to look at this morning’s gospel reading.

Jesus makes it look easy. He goes to all the cities, preaches in all the synagogues, and cures every single ailment. No distance is too great, no audience too sceptical, no disease too severe. Jesus gets it done. When he commissions his disciples to carry out his ministry, things get much more difficult. For anyone setting off on a new task, or coming to terms with a new reality, these verses offer a sobering assessment of what lies ahead for those of us who follow in Jesus’ footsteps. The divine mission Christ gives is to be applied to this world, with its political reality, its social divisions, and its systemic disorder. Despite the challenges, despite the questionable likelihood of success, despite our inevitable difficulty in accomplishing what he could do far more easily than we, Christ confidently sends us out. This text forces us therefore to acknowledge the gap between the ideal and the reality, and then to take a major leap of faith in our own discipleship.

Just as the disciples were sent out in Israel, the followers of Jesus to this day continue to be challenged to take little more than faith out into this world and get Christ’s work done. It is a world that requires much faith, and many of us may wonder if we have enough to accomplish what is required. As Jesus makes the distinction between Gentiles and those in the house of Israel, we are reminded of the ongoing political divisions and cultural rifts in our world, in our nation, even within the church.

However, we must acknowledge that throughout history, amazing things—seemingly impossible things—have been done and continue to be done through ordinary members of the church. Jesus’ words have encouraged and motivated far more than the twelve disciples listed in these verses. Due in part to the efforts made by faithful Christians, diseases thought to be incurable have been eradicated, unjust laws have been overturned, and individuals who thought some doors would never open have seen them swing wide. It is Christ who enables us to do what we could not do on our own. This passage leaves as a mystery why Christ includes us in his mission and how exactly we meet success through him, but the faithful do achieve miraculous things. Perhaps it is because Jesus continues to have compassion on shepherdless sheep.

In the world in which we live today carrying Christ’s mission forward, is a challenging and daunting task. Today’s world is still far from Christ’s ideal. Humanity continues to work hard to destroy the world God has created through climate change, by constantly and selfishly doing what is for the benefit of the individual and not for the community or the planet. God is the creator of all things and since creation has entrusted nature to the care of humankind. Surely, we cannot therefore be carrying Christ’s mission forward, as we are called to do, if we persist in damaging that creation and fail to speak out against those who are destroying it and then seek ways to make the changes which are needed happen.

At the individual level society many communities, including in this country, are still beset by racism and other forms of discrimination. In the press we get a constant stream of reports of organisations in this country which are bedevilled by institutional racism. Whilst there will always be a tendency for the press to sensationalise such issues there can be no doubt that such racism does still exist. Racism is abhorrent and clearly not in any way to be tolerated. It is also clearly not in accord with the command in today’s gospel to “Go and make disciples of all nations”. This is something on which we as Christians are called to make a firm and determined stand, to which we should be unwavering in our commitment. It is also a problem which we as individuals can directly do something about, we cannot offer the excuse that it is too great a problem for us to have an effect. In a wider context we must also remember that discrimination in any form, be it by race, gender ethnicity, sexual orientation or any other means is equally abhorrent and cannot in any way be tolerated by us as Christians.

Humanity can also still seek to get what it wants in the most brutal way in warfare, something which continues to be displayed graphically and horrifically in the Ukraine and other areas of conflict in the world.

These are just some of the issues facing society today which must be tackled before the world is as Jesus would wish it to be, or as indeed we would wish it to be. I am sure we could all identify many more. Faced with such enormous issues it is easy to retreat and decide we can do nothing. But if those eleven ordinary men to whom Jesus gave his final commission to go and make disciples of all nations had done so we would not be here today.

So, our readings today remind us that to advance Christ’s kingdom we need God’s guidance and that as we do advance it, we will be supported by him. Relying on that guidance and support I am convinced that as a church we can thrive and that we both as a church and as individuals we can make a real difference in taking a stand against the self interest which seems all-pervasive in 21^st Century society and discrimination in all its forms. As individuals we may only be able to take small steps, but small steps from many people will make a real difference. As Neil Armstrong said over 50 years ago as he stepped onto the moon “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Amen

Mick Scotchmer

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11 June 2023 – First Sunday after Trinity

Over the past week I seem to have been bombarded with emails from Superdrug offering me free gifts. On Wednesday there were pictures of 6 cosmetic items, each labelled ‘free’ with their prices. There was a banner headline: GET YOUR FREE GIFT FROM OUR TOP COSMENTIC BRANDS, then in smaller writing below the glossy pictures it said, To redeem your FREE product, simply head over to our website and take a look at our wide range of incredible offers, we’re sure something will catch your eye. Then in even smaller writing it said, Your free product will then be automatically added at checkout when you spend this much on this, or that much on that. And what was implicit, although not stated, was that in order for this offer to be valid you must have a Superdrug loyalty card.

If we see a ‘free’ offer, it usually isn’t really free, there are always something you have to do or something you have to buy.

In our New Testament reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans Paul speaks of God offering a free gift: the gift of righteousness. That’s not a word we tend to use very much in everyday speech today, but it involves the idea of human beings being put right with God, not because we are better than anyone else, but because of what Jesus has done for us. It also involves the idea of God coming alongside us in our everyday lives through his Holy Spirit and helping us to become the kind of people he created us to be.

We saw an example of this in our Gospel reading with Matthew the tax collector. Now today, although we don’t like paying taxes and may get a bit annoyed when we receive a tax bill, we don’t generally think of tax collectors as particular sinners do we? In Jesus’ day it was very different. Tax collectors were the most hated people in Israel. This is because they were corrupt and worked closely with the occupying Roman forces.

Like most of the then known world, Israel had been invaded by the Romans who imposed very heavy taxes. They ‘employed’ local Jewish people to collect these taxes and allowed them to add on as much commission as they wanted. As a result, they were not only regarded as traitors, but also as thieves as their charges were always exorbitant. As a tax collector Matthew would have had a large income, so what was it that made him give up his livelihood and therefore his financial security, and go and follow Jesus?

We don’t know if Matthew had met Jesus before, but it is likely that he had seen him in action as the bible tells us that just before Jesus called Matthew he had healed a paralysed man. Even if Matthew hadn’t seen it happen, I am sure he would have heard the crowds talking about it.

Was that enough to persuade him to give up his income and follow Jesus? I think one of the reasons he responded to Jesus may have been that he felt Jesus accepted him as he was (most other people rejected and hated him), and also Jesus enabled him to have a new start. In Luke’s gospel he is called Levi, maybe Jesus also gave him a new name. Luke also tells us that he left everything to follow Jesus.

Matthew knew he had done wrong, he knew he was hated, and Jesus gave him a way to change. A way to live an honest life and above all a way to have a relationship with God. To use the word we had in the Romans reading – he offered him the opportunity to be made righteous. It is highly likely that the Matthew who wrote the gospel of Matthew is the same man we are talking about here. Some people say that when Matthew left his job, he took his pen with him! Now we call him Saint Matthew.

Perhaps this morning some of us are feeling a bit like Matthew. Perhaps we have things in our life which we know are wrong. Things which may be giving us sleepless nights, possibly worry and maybe a fear of being found out. Perhaps some of us are trying to change – trying to be a better person, but it isn’t working, in fact it seems impossible. The good news is that Jesus is speaking to us just as he was speaking to Matthew, and just as he was speaking to the Romans through Paul.

As I was thinking about this, the situation of Philip Schofield was in the news. I don’t want to say very much about it other than here was a man who had done something very wrong and then lied about it, but somehow he couldn’t carry on with the lie, he was compelled to confess and face the consequences. I don’t know why he did, and I don’t know whether he has a faith. If he doesn’t, I pray that somehow he will hear the good news that Jesus accepts him and can forgive him and give him a new start, maybe not in television, but a new and worthwhile life.

God offers everyone his righteousness – and it is a free gift. We don’t have to buy anything to receive it, we don’t have to follow a set of rules or instructions, all we need to do is accept it. The word the bible uses for this is ‘faith’. When we have faith that what God offers us is just there for us, and we accept it, it is ours. If Matthew hadn’t got up and followed Jesus he would have remained a tax collector, hated by everyone and an outcast of society. He believed, he had faith and he acted upon it and in return he received the free gift of a new start, a new life.

Rather like when we get on a train, we have faith that the driver knows where he or she is going and that they will stop at the stations. In fact, we don’t usually give much thought to it – we just get on and expect to arrive. That’s faith.

In terms of our relationship with God, all we need is faith. Our response to what God offers us in Jesus should be faith. By faith we step into God’s promise of righteousness, and we continue to travel through life expecting that he is with us on our journey, leading and guiding us all the way.

Many people find this quite hard to grasp. In human terms nothing is free. There is always the small print, the various things you have to do, or the price you have to pay for the so-called ‘free gift’. With God that is not so. What you see is what you get. There is no price to pay. Or rather we have no need to pay the price because Jesus already paid it.

However, we live in a human society and so even in the church we place rules and regulations on people which get mixed up with what the Bible tells us. The Bible says that we are made righteous, or put right with God, through faith and that’s all we need. The church says ‘you can only be a member if you are baptised.’ Now clearly baptism is important and the bible tells us that we should be baptised. Also, we need a way of distinguishing who is a member for practical purposes. But we need to make sure that we don’t confuse the act of baptism, or the questions of legal membership of the organisation we call church, with being put right with God. We don’t have to do anything to earn God’s righteousness – God gives it freely to anyone who responds to his invitation.

In his letter to the Romans Paul gives the example of Abraham. God gave him a promise that his descendants would become a great nation if he left his home and travelled to a brand-new country. There was no way that Abraham could see that promise fulfilled, but he had faith and he trusted.

In the second half of our gospel reading, we saw two other people who placed their faith in Jesus – the leader of the synagogue whose daughter had died, and the woman who had been haemorrhaging for twelve years. The synagogue leader in a very public and direct way, asking Jesus to help him. The woman in a very secret and quiet way, just touching the edge of Jesus’ cloak, hoping that no-one would notice. And Jesus responds immediately and positively to both.

Jesus brings life to the child, and so a new start for that family. He brings healing to the woman. She, like Matthew would have been regarded as unclean, an outcast from society. In Jesus she was made whole and was given a new start in life.

Today Jesus offers each one of us an opportunity to accept his free gift of righteousness; a new start, forgiveness for the past and a hope for the future. Like Matthew it costs us nothing, and yet it costs us everything. The offer is there for everyone, no matter how bad we think we are, no matter what we might have done in the past. All we have to do is accept it and God will do the rest.

Maria Holmden

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4 June 2023 – Trinity Sunday

Today is Trinity Sunday. The day in the Church’s year when we specifically think about the fact that we worship one God, but we call God Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Three persons, yet one God. Most of the time we don’t stop to consider what his means because we are so used to addressing God in this way, but other faiths are very puzzled by it and some think that we worship three gods.

This morning I am going to try and look at this, but will say at the outset that this is something Christians have tried to explain ever since Jesus ascended – over 2000 years ago – and no-one has ever really succeeded. However, if we could put this truth into a something we could define in a single paragraph, or draw on a page, then we would be limiting God and would not be truly representing God.

One of the things that makes God, God is that He is above and beyond the extent of the minds of human beings. And will always be bigger and more complex than we could ever imagine. But this is why he came into the world in Jesus Christ, so that we could start to have an idea of who God is and begin to get an understanding of the way God wants us to live. And then, after his death, resurrection and ascension, Jesus wasn’t physically here anymore (and even when he had been he could only be in once place at a time). And so, God as Holy Spirit came into the world by entering the lives of those who follow Jesus, and empowering them to live as He lived.

All this is part of our experience as Christians and through it all we don’t often stop to think about the exact relationship between the three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And sometimes, if we try, we get even more confused! Please don’t think that I am going to make it all crystal clear this morning – I am not, because I can’t! But I am going to try and share some thoughts that might help.

The first thing we need to realise is that the word ‘Trinity’ is not found in the Bible. This is because that word did not enter Christian language until about 3^rd century AD. A man called Tertullian was the first to use the term to name what people had been trying to describe God as. It is very clear throughout the New Testament that God is described as ‘The Father’. But it is also clear that Jesus is God and the Holy Spirit is The Spirit of God. Three recognisable persons and yet we say we worship one God. Jesus himself said ‘I and the Father are one’ (John 10:30). What makes it extra complicated is that most of the time the Bible talks about the three persons, sometimes in the same passage (as in our New Testament and Gospel readings this morning) but often separately.

Sometimes, especially if there are children present, I try and use simple pictures (or practical activities) to show things that can exist in three different ways, but remain the same thing. For example, water which can be a liquid, a gas (cloud/mist/fog) or a solid (ice), but is still the same thing H₂O. The problem with this is that an amount of water can only be one thing at a time, whereas God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit at the same time.

Another image I have found helpful is the sun. This can be experienced as the physical object at the centre of our solar system which we can sometimes see in the sky, but is often hidden by the clouds; the light which comes from the sun, and the heat that comes from the sun. None can exist without the other, but all can be identified and experienced separately. Although that may be a helpful image, God is far more complex than that.

In our New Testament and Gospel readings all three persons of the Trinity are mentioned together and so I would like to explore why this is. Each person, Father, Son and Holy Spirit has a particular role in our relationship to the whole of God and I will briefly outline what these roles are (again, this will be inadequate as God is far bigger that I could ever imagine):

The Father – the term Father is describing God as Parent and Creator. As our Old Testament reading outlined God loves his creation and knows everything about it. He is eternal, everlasting, and unlike a human parent he has endless energy and understanding. He wants to empower us and give us strength to walk in his ways. He loves us and wants us to know him and look to him when we feel weak and distressed.

But, like Jacob, who went his own way, stole his brother’s birthright and his Dad’s special blessing, and then felt that God wasn’t listening to him, and like the nation of Israel who went their own way and then felt God wasn’t listening, we too go our own way and end up in trouble and blame God. The bible calls this sin and because God is a just God there is punishment for sin. In Ezekiel it says ‘the soul that sins, it shall die’. But God did not want that and so he came into the world in Jesus.

The Son: in some miraculous way Jesus was fully human but fully God at the same time. Because of this he was the only perfect human being that ever lived, and the only one who could die and pay the price for sin, enabling us to be forgiven and to have a restored relationship with our Creator. We call this grace. The free gift of God. He didn’t have to do it, but he did it because he loves us. After his resurrection Jesus made many appearances to his disciples (like the one on our gospel reading) but he could only be in one place at one time. When he ascended and returned to the Father, he opened a door to the heart of God. And sent the Holy Spirit to be the channel.

The Holy Spirit: God comes to each person who accepts and follows Jesus Christ by coming to fill our lives, to take residence in our heart and link us to God in a very real way. The Holy Spirit is the way God leads and guides us in our daily life; the way he imparts his strength and his peace into our hearts.

As we look at the great commission in our Gospel reading, we see that Jesus says the three persons of the Trinity must play a part in making disciples. When a person is baptised, they must be baptised into the fullness of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

In our reading from Corinthians, we had Paul’s final greeting at the end of his second letter to the Christians in Corinth which again expresses the fullness and trinitarian nature of God:

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ – that free gift of forgiveness, even though we don’t deserve it, but given because God loves us so much and, amazingly, accessible each time we fall away and return, without condemnation or rejection.

The love of God (the Father) – we are his creation and his children, dearly loved, which led him to sacrifice his Son so we could be restored to that loving and perfect relationship he intended when he created us.

The communion/fellowship of the Holy Spirit – that indwelling presence in our lives that enables us to feel close to God, that opens our minds to the truths of God as we read the bible, and that brings us closer to each other. That unites us, not just as members of this church but as members of the church universal those living and those already in heaven.

I still can’t give you a picture of how God is three persons yet one God, although I am sure many scholars will continue to try, but for me, knowing that God (as Father and Creator) loves me, in Jesus he died and rose again to bring me back into that loving relationship with him, and gives me his Holy Spirit to help me live out my life day by day, and all three are needed for the one purpose, and all three identify as one God, is enough.

Maria Holmden

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28 May 2023 – Whitsunday / Pentecost

At Pentecost, our focus is often on today’s story from Acts: telling of the Holy Spirit being sent to empower the disciples to move forward with the mission that the risen Christ had entrusted to them. And that is quite understandable; it is a good story. You can picture it in your mind’s eye: half-way down the street and much to the annoyance of the neighbours, and the good folk of Jerusalem minding their own business, it was all kicking off in the house, where earlier they had seen a crowd of likely good-for-nothings and delusional radicals gathering. With bangings and crashings, flickerings and flashings, shouting and ravings, you can perhaps understand the confused bewilderment of those passing by, as they tutted and moved on, or as they strained their ears to hear what the commotion was about. In this telling, the Holy Spirit comes with noise and drama, wind and flame, with power and danger. So, who wouldn’t focus on this story today?!

Well! … hello.

In our readings today, there were, actually, two – quite different – stories of the sending of the Holy Spirit to the disciples. But with all the attention and furore on the Acts account, we may not have noticed that in our gospel reading, John presented us with something quite markedly dissimilar.

In John’s gospel, it isn’t Pentecost – it isn’t 50 days after Passover nor 50 days after the Resurrection. No, in John’s gospel we are taken back to that first day of the week, in which a tomb in a garden grove had been found empty, and the weeping Magdalene mistakes the risen Christ as the garden-keeper. This is that day of new beginnings, when a sepulchral stone is rolled back to reveal that death itself has been defeated, and yet also when disciples see but do not understand. This is the closing of that day, as shadows fall and the evening comes; and those bereaved, confused and frightened souls – have shut themselves away from the world and the from events of recent days, away from those who had called for the death of their Master and friend, away from the rumours that the same Master they had failed had returned; barring the doors to keep danger at bay: shut in together in an unresolved dis-peace.

And the risen Christ comes and stands with them, in the midst of all those fears and insecurities, and he speaks the word ‘Peace.’ A peace, which joins together, and makes whole, the fractured and damaged individuals and relationships present in that room, bringing an “untroubled and undisturbed wellbeing” into existence. A peace given by one still bearing the scars of violence and rejection, whose body had been broken on the cross. He shows them his hands and his side, and he breathes out the Spirit upon them.

The driving wind of the Holy Spirit of Acts is somewhat tempered in John’s account: it is a gentle breath, fragile but life giving, exhaled on to those in hiding in that room, those struggling with shame and guilt. This account is much more intimate and personal. Rather than excitedly whipping them into evangelistic fervour, they are met and rooted by this Holy Spirit within their “ordinary, painful and messy lives.” And the Spirit comes – to those broken men and women, living in their broken world, with broken dreams and broken lives – equipping them with a sacrificial ministry to forgive: not only themselves but forgiving others. As the risen Christ says, after breathing the Holy Spirit on them, “If you forgive any man’s sins, they stand forgiven; if you pronounce them unforgiven, unforgiven they remain” (John 20.23 NEB).

The Holy Spirit in John’s Gospel is often seen as a Comforter – a word that we find in various Whitsun hymns (‘O King enthroned on high, thou Comforter divine’ or in our Offertory hymn today ‘O Comforter, draw near, within my heart appear’). In our modern world, when we hear the word ‘comfort,’ we associate it with relaxation and physical ease: a snug pair of slippers, or a comfy armchair into which we sink after a long day in the office. But ‘comfort’ is less to do with cushioning ourselves against the disappointing and confining aspects of our lives, and more to do with finding consolation when we stand in the cold and shuffle in the discomfort that surrounds us.

The word ‘Comforter’ as it is applied to the Holy Spirit in John’s Gospel is a translation of the Greek term ‘paraclete.’ A paraclete is a person who comes to the aid of another in trouble. It’s a term that was used of someone who was called to stand alongside an accused in court: to support them, to console them, to be a voice for them, to act as a go-between. Back in 2021, in his Pentecost homily, the current Pope – Pope Francis – took this concept of the Holy Spirit as the Paraclete, and he suggested that, if we took it seriously, it required us to “Live in the present” – not the past, not the future. He said, we can’t afford to be “paralysed by rancour or memories of the past, or by uncertainty or fear about the future.” To stand alongside another, you need to stand alongside them now, in the situation in which they are presently immersed, in the murky complexities of the reality that is.

That is the type of God that God the Holy Spirit is: a God that is alongside us. “The Holy Spirit was and is God’s way of being with us and for us and in us, in our deepest griefs as well as in our joys, in our toughest challenges as well as in our triumphs [Ally Barrett].” And this Paraclete-God calls us in turn to also be paracletes ourselves, to others. As Pope Francis continues: we are called “to embody the comfort [that the Spirit] brings … not by making great speeches [but with] closeness, compassion and tenderness.”

In Acts, the Spirit empowers and emboldens the disciples to look to the future and to go out to convert and to conquer the world. And whoever stands in the pulpit next year may wish to explore that theme. But today, for now, embracing the present, perhaps let us allow the Spirit (that is spoken of in John) to be breathed into our lives; to understand how that the single word of Christ’s peace and its gift of forgiveness and wholeness, may in truth speak deeper and more authentically than the overabundance of words by which we feel the world will be won for Christ.

Colin Setchfield

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21 May 2023 – Seventh Sunday of Easter
(Sunday after Ascension)

A few weeks ago thousands of people ran the London Marathon. Each of them had been preparing for it for many weeks, months, maybe years. No one would have made the decision to run when they got up that morning: Oh! It’s a lovely day, I’ve got nothing better to do so I think I’ll go and run the marathon.’

Not only did each runner have to be booked in far in advance, they would have had to train every day, and on the day they would have received certain essential things to equip them. Each person was given a number so they could be identified, a small sensor to fit to their shoe so they could be timed and a bag to put all their belongings in while they did the run. Anyone turning up on the day who didn’t. have those things would not have been allowed to run. Anyone who had not trained would not have finished the race – in fact, they probably wouldn’t have got very far from the start!

Today is the Sunday after the Ascension and in our first bible reading, just before Jesus left his disciples (now known as apostles because they had seen the risen Jesus), he gave them a task: ‘you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’

Immediately after the crucifixion they had hidden in a locked room, afraid of what might happen to them. When the risen Jesus appeared to them they were very frightened. Yet here, just a short time later they have come to realise that Jesus really is a live and if we had read the first few verses of Act chapter 1 we would have seen that Jesus had been teaching them and preparing them for this time when he would leave them again.

The first two chapters of Acts show us how the apostles changed from being a group of frightened men hiding away for fear that anyone might find out they were followers of Jesus, into a team of confident and powerful evangelists who were not afraid to speak about what they believed, even if it led to beating, imprisonment and even death. For us, today, it can sometimes seem hard to share our faith with those around us. In church, surrounded by other Christians we speak more easily about Jesus and what he has done for us. When we are going about our daily business at home, at work, at the gym, in Sainsbury’s surrounded by people who are not Christians we may be anxious about how people will react if we speak about Jesus. The apostles were transformed – we can be too! But how?

Let’s look at what changed them:

1. They were given proof
2. They were given a task
3. They were promised power
4. They were promised that Jesus would return

1. They were given proof
I’ve already mentioned how the disciples/apostles reacted when Jesus appeared to them straight after the resurrection: they were frightened and thought he was a ghost. In Luke 24 we are told that Jesus let them touch him; he ate food in front of them and he taught them from scripture. Now if that had been the only occasion when they saw him, over time they might have begun to think they had been dreaming, or they had imagined it.

But the first few verses of Acts 1 tell us that Jesus appeared to his apostles many times and did things that proved beyond doubt that he was truly alive. Jesus was aware that once he left them they wouldn’t be able to ask him questions and so he used the time to teach them everything they needed.

2. They were given a task
It was only when the apostles had the proof and really believed that Jesus was alive that he was able to give them the final details of the task he was giving to them: first of all to witness in Jerusalem (where they were), then all over Judea (the southern part of Israel which surrounded Jerusalem), then Samaria (the northern part of Israel) and then to the rest of the world.

What about us? We don’t have Jesus with us in physical form. No, but we do have access to proof that he is alive. And it’s here in the Bible. Eyewitness accounts that we read in the gospels and in Acts. But we can also know Jesus us alive from our personal experience, which will reflect what we read in the bible. But was that enough?

The proof that Jesus was really alive was not enough for the apostles to complete their task. Jesus knew they would also need the power of the Holy Spirit.

3. The power of the Holy Spirit
Jesus told the disciples to WAIT. If they had gone rushing headlong into telling others about Jesus before they had the Holy Spirit, then at the first sign of opposition they would have run away (as they did when Jesus was arrested)

They needed time to reflect upon all that he had told then, and to wait in quiet prayerfulness until what he had promised came to pass. They didn’t know exactly when or how it would happen. All they could do was follow Jesus’ instructions and wait in Jerusalem. They needed to learn to become completely reliant on God.

We too need to learn to become reliant on God. We too need to spend time in quietness waiting for his empowering before we act. We need to read the bible and learn about the things God would want us to do, but the Word alone is not enough. We also need to the empowering of the Holy Spirit.

We must be careful though. The power is given for a reason: to enable us to witness effectively. It is not given as an end in itself. The Greek word for power is dunamis – from which we get the word dynamite! The Holy Spirit has real power – the same power that raised Jesus from the dead – and God makes it available to those who follow Jesus. There is an old saying which was around a lot when I was a teenager: ‘Word only – we slow up; Spirit only – we blow up; Word and Spirit together – we grow up.’

We need to have a balance in our lives. We need the proof of Jesus’ resurrection which we find in scripture together with his teaching, AND alongside we need the power of the Holy Spirit.

That power didn’t come to the apostles until Jesus had once more stepped out of their sight. Just as we can’t see Jesus physically today, from the time of the Ascension the apostles couldn’t either – for the major part of their ministries the apostles were in the same position as we are.

When Jesus left them for the second time the they could have been very upset, but they weren’t. Why? We come to the fourth thing they were given:

4. A promise that he would return
Jesus had only been back with them for 40 days. But when he left they had the promise that he had not left for good – one day he would come back. He didn’t return in their lifetime, but the promise still holds true today. One day Jesus is coming back. The apostles held onto that promise and it gave them strength to face the future.

Their experiences enabled them to give others hope and faith. We see this in the letter of Peter read as our second reading. It is full of promise and hope that no matter how bad things seem to be, God will restore, support, strengthen and establish his people. Peter knew this to be true because of his experiences after the resurrection, at Pentecost and as a missionary filled with the power of the Holy Spirit.

For us today:
If we are to be witnesses for Jesus Christ we must first make sure we know why we believe and the truth of his resurrection which we find in scripture, we must be aware of the task he is giving us. It is not to go to Jerusalem or Judea or Samaria. For us it is to be his witnesses in Chingford, in the whole of Waltham Forest, in London and then to the ends of the earth.

We can only do this when we he empowers us with his Holy Spirit and when we hold on to the promise that one day he will return. The other thing that will help us is the knowledge that Jesus himself is interceding for us. As we heard in our Gospel reading he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane for his disciples. Later in that prayer he would go on to pray for all who come to believe through their witness. He prays for us.

But in addition to all this, he has not left us alone; as well as giving us his Holy Spirit, he gives us each other, the Church. We can encourage and support one another as we live out our daily lives as his witnesses wherever we are.

And that is also true for the interregnum, you need work together, support one another and allow the Holy Spirit to strengthen and empower you for all that lies ahead. Amen.

Maria Holmden

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14 May 2023 – Sixth Sunday of Easter

I went to Chase Lane Junior School when I was young. I’m not sure if Jackie Brock – or (as we are reminiscing) Jackie Pettafor – who was in my year, remembers but I think, on one occasion, we were taken out of school to a book fair (either that or the book fair came to the school; it may have been even more than the once). There were books and books and more books: I loved books (well some books) and was very much in my element. And any of them could be ours. All we needed to do was pick one, take it to the person in charge who wrote out a chitty and the book was handed to the school until our parents had paid. And then the books were ours.

Roald Dahl’s works were a popular choice; but not for me. The book I selected was Tales of the Greek Heroes by Roger Lancelyn Green. It was an easy read, introducing me to these ancient epic adventures of courageous heroes and envious gods, stories of vengeance and love, which captivated me for years. Everything that is – whether in terms of objects or places or living things or natural phenomena, aspects of our human condition or even abstract concepts such as love and indignation and persuasion and rage – were all seemingly represented within the multiplicity of gods and goddesses, in the stories and theatre of the ancient Greek religion. These deities meddled and cheated and were capricious and dangerous, with their buff bodies and dubious morals, and stood in marked contrast to the perfect and righteous God of my Sunday School lessons: a long-bearded old grandfather-type figure, whose penchant often seemed to be constantly thinking up rules against anything remotely fun.

In our reading today, from Acts, Paul is midway through his second missionary journey. He had just been ejected from Beroea, and we find him sulking in Athens, waiting for things to cool off and for his companions Silas and Timothy (who had managed to remain behind) to catch up with him. Paul, however, was nothing like the younger me, in being enthralled by these many gods and their stories. Rather, he was exasperated and incited to see how the city was so full of idols. And, as so often with Paul, who seems to be unable not to be ironic and argumentative and “bitterly polemic,” controversy erupts. He goes into synagogues and disputes with the Jews there, and disputes with the sebomenoi “the God-fearers” (a group of gentiles sympathetic to the one-god belief of the Jews – though not really converts as such). And not content with that, he goes off to the agora (the central public meeting space of the Athenian free city, a large marketplace) and, there, disputes with its intelligentsia – with the scholars and philosophers of the day. And that’s where our story today starts.

We find Paul hoicked off to the Areopagus, where Athens’ judicial council met to try serious cases, such as murder and (more pertinent to Paul) bad-mouthing the gods. We can look on this account simply as the reporting of a particular incident during Paul’s travels. However, what we have in this passage from Acts speaks of one of the many impacts of the growth of the early Christian community, following the blow-up among the apostles (particularly between Peter and Paul) over the question about opening up Christianity beyond its original Jewish base to the whole gentile world. As the church moved and became established in the wider Graeco-Roman world, so it encountered other groups, with other ideas, with other belief systems. And it wasn’t always just a matter of a clash: for, at times, they would find points on which they agreed, at times they would imitate their style or form, and (yes) sometimes they would engage in controversy.

And yet despite all the controversy, in this passage, we find Paul engaging with his non-Jewish, non-Christian audience. His message is distinctly Christian – for he preaches the resurrection; but he doesn’t simply quote Jewish scripture to them. Rather he echoes the prophets and philosophers of the Greek religion. Look at the passage and you’ll see parts in inverted commas: “in him we live and move, in him we exist:” that is the philosopher Epimenides. “We are also his offspring” is from a poem by Aratus. And across this passage here, the author of Acts paints Paul almost in the tradition of Socrates, the Father of Greek philosophy, in how he engages and in how he speaks. There is no issue here in using non-Christian texts and ideas to get the message across, in order to get an interfaith dialogue going.

Often in history and even today, we hear the church speaking in ways that isolate it or insulate it from the culture in which it exists. We can become inward looking, self absorbed, and (worse still) self important. There is the tendency to view God as our possession, to view ourselves as the custodians of God and of God’s truth. We place God in a box and carry him about, as we wander the wildernesses of lives; we hide God behind our temple-curtains, to keep him at arm’s-length from the undeserving. And yet all those attempts to restrict or limit God ultimately fail.

The Greeks created a whole of pantheon of deities – gods and goddess, demigods and heroes, tutelary spirits and personifications of nature – and yet even those were insufficient: the divine was beyond what they could experience or imagine or number. In addressing the council, Paul highlighted that Athens’ altar to an Unknown God exposed the limitations of their religion and highlighted the ignorance of their understanding of God. Rather than seeking to capture and define God, to compartmentalise God, Paul preaches that God is always more than what we can visualise.

The whole of the cosmos, the system of which we are but a part – the earth, the heavens, everything-anything we can see or know or guess – are all smaller than God, for God created all. And therefore everything-anything we create in our minds, with our hands, is always too small for God. Nothing that God has made can claim God as its own.

Paul’s sermon is not only a wake-up call for those to whom he addresses in the Areopagus: it is a wake-up call to all religious people. God is revealed and can be known to his creation … but cannot be owned by it. Fundamentalism in religion is always a late development and yet claims it is the champion of true faith, that it upholds the will of God, that it is pure from contamination of the world and society in which we live. But always beware of the fundamentalist who is sure that they know everything about God, for rather they have simply limited him and formed God into an idol of their own devising. God is always greater than anything we think, or read, or know.

Colin Setchfield

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7 May 2023 – Fifth Sunday of Easter

FOR CHILDREN:

The twins Simon and Sarah were very excited. They had all got up very, very early and Dad had given them breakfast while Mum had made sandwiches for a picnic. It was the day of the Coronation and they were going up to London to watch. Mum said ‘you must be very careful and stay with me and Dad. There will be thousands of people and it will be very easy to get lost.’ Soon they were on the train and heading towards Buckingham Palace and when they got out of the tube station they were surrounded by lots of people all going in the same direction and Simon and Sarah held tight to their parents hands.

The Mall was packed, but some very kind people allowed Simon and Sarah to go right to the front so they could see. For a while the children kept checking back to make sure they could see their parents, but as the procession began they got so caught up in waiving their the flags, and watching the soldiers, the horses, the bands and then the wonderful gold coach with the king and queen with their beautiful glittering crowns. As they watched they started to push along in front of the crowd so they could try and get a better look, but the coach was going too fast and so they stopped and watched some more of the parade.

When it finished, they looked back for their parents, but all they could see where dozens of people they didn’t know. They got very frightened, and started to cry. A policeman who was standing in front saw this and came over and asked what was wrong. “We can’t see our Mum and Dad. They were behind us but we are too small to see over the people.’

The policeman said, ‘Don’t Worry, I will help you.’ He picked up Simon and put him on his shoulders and said ‘now look can you see them?’ Simon looked around and suddenly spotted his parents looking very anxious and turning their heads this way and that way, clearly looking for the children. Suddenly Mum saw Simon high above the crowd and started to wave.’ “There’s Mum’ cried Simon, pointing . ‘OK hold tight.’ said the policeman. And taking Sarah’s hand and with Simon still on his shoulders, he made his way through the crowd towards Simon and Sarah’s parents, who were also trying to get through the crowd to reach them. Then there were big hugs all round and everyone was happy.

That night, when they were going to bed, Dad told the children the same bible story we had as our gospel reading, where Jesus said, ‘I am the Way, the truth and the life.’ ‘That policeman was a bit like Jesus. Said Dad. ‘He was the way to bring you back to us when you got lost. When we follow Jesus, when we let him guide us he shows us the way to get back to God. He takes us back to God’ ‘How do we follow Jesus said Sarah. ‘When we read our bibles and listen to what Jesus says there, if we do what he says then we are following him.’’ “And we can pray and ask him to help us” said Simon, ‘Yes, said Dad. ‘let’s ask Jesus to help us to follow him each day and let’s say thank you for the policeman who acted like the way for us today.’ And that’s what they did.

ADULTS:

Last weekend I booked to go on a walking tour of White City. It seemed a really simple journey – go to Leytonstone and get the Central Line all the way. I took a book and prepared for some good reading time. Imagine my disappointment when I got to the station only to find it closed. There was ‘planned engineering work’. There was no-one around to ask, so I turned my phone. Soon it gave me directions: take W15 bus to the Town Hall, then get a 97 bus to Stratford, and get the Elizabeth Line to Tottenham Court Road, then the Central line to White City.

My simple journey had become much more complex and my idea of uninterrupted reading went out of the window. But my phone showed me the way. All I had to do was follow.

I telling you this because it seems to me like a parable of what Jesus was saying in our Gospel reading. He said ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life’. As long as I followed the directions and as long as I believed they were the truth, it would lead me to a great afternoon of walking around White City, learning about the past and seeing the new developments. And it did, and I really enjoyed it.

This is a passage that is often read at funerals as we think of Jesus preparing a place for us in heaven when we die, but actually once we follow Jesus we begin to experience heaven in the here and now. Not a place where everything is perfect and there is no more sin or sickness or sorrow – that will come, and we do have to wait for that until we die, but Jesus didn’t only say ‘I am the way’ he also said ‘I am the truth and the life’. When we follow him he changes our life.

Bad things will still happen, but how we handle them will be different. If we look at the reading from Acts, Stephen was a great follower of Jesus. He had been specially chosen by the apostles because of his faith. Acts 6 says he was a man full of God’s grace, full of the holy Spirit and power. He performed many miracles, but some people hated him and told lies about him and he was arrested. When he spoke against them he was condemned to death.

Did God rescue him? No. But God showed him a wonderful vision. Even though he died in a terrible way, he did so confident of the place that Jesus had prepared for him. And at the time someone was watching – a young man called Saul. It struck me as I read it that maybe at this point Saul was just a teenager, he had to look after the coats while the ‘men’ got on with the business on hand.

At the point he watched the stoning of Stephen, Saul was lost. He didn’t realise it. It was only when he met Jesus on the road to Damascus and allowed him to take his hand and guide him that he not only found his way back to God, but he was given the strength, knowledge and ability (as well as a new name, Paul) and was able to share this with others and began to build the church. Not lots of buildings, but lots of groups of people who became followers of Jesus and met together in each other’s homes.

In fact, in those days the believers were not called Christians, they were called followers of The Way. As each group of people met together in their homes, Paul, and other apostles met with them and shared all they knew about Jesus so that they too could grow in the knowledge, strength and ability to share the Good News with others. And so the church grew and spread around the world. And Paul kept in touch to make sure they didn’t go astray, either by visiting them or writing letters to them

Another apostle who, like Paul, started churches and kept in touch with them was Peter. And we had part of one of Peter’s letters read to us this morning. He wrote this to Christians who had been scattered because of persecution and were living in exile. And Peter is encouraging them and describing the life that Jesus has called them to live. And not only them, but this also applies to all who follow Jesus the Way, the Truth and the Life today.

As a church you are moving into a new phase. Leslie has retired and you are now in a time of waiting to see who will be appointed as your new vicar. That can be a bit unsettling, but I know you have some great churchwardens and others who will keep things going. But Peter’s words show us that the church is not just the leaders. Everyone has a part to play.

Peter uses some very strong images of how God sees the people n his Church. Living Stones, a royal priesthood (that means everyone, not just the vicar!!), a holy nation, God’s own people. Everyone is vitally important and everyone has a part to play. Some people’s roles are very visible: there are many photos and names at the beginning of your magazine, but there are lots of other roles that are not mentioned. You may be a tea maker, a faithful person of prayer, someone who gives generously, a person who shares the love of Jesus with your neighbour, a listening ear, – I could go on… Each one is important and necessary for the functioning of the church.

As living stones we are called to grow together, using the different gifts and abilities we have been given to build each other up, and draw others to follow Jesus and become part of the church. Some people see the building as the church, but in reality it is just a place where the church meets. The true church is the people. We are the church whenever, and wherever we meet. Each member has a priestly ministry to bring others to God by the way we live and the words we speak.

As you go forward into the interregnum and as you follow Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life he will lead you and give you all that you need to carry on. It may not always be easy, but he will always be there to guide you.

Maria Holmden

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30 April 2023 – Fourth Sunday of Easter / Lesley’s Farewelling

In the Bible there are many references to sheep and shepherds. In the Old Testament the relationship between God and God’s people is often that of a shepherd and his flock. Sometimes the care of the sheep is entrusted to others, such as Moses and the genuine prophets, who tend the sheep with care, others come only to plunder and are portrayed as bad shepherds or leaders.

In Ezekiel this comes to a head, and we hear that God will search for God’s sheep and gather them from where they have been scattered for lack of trustworthy leaders. In today’s gospel it is clear that this prophecy is now being fulfilled in Jesus, who has been sent by God to gather the sheep. In our gospel the picture is of many flocks sheltered for the night, and in the morning each shepherd collects his own flock by calling out their names. Jesus calls his followers by name, and it is a turning point in their lives. Jesus offers them, and us, a new life, as we are called by name, and is prepared to give his own life to make that happen.

The idea of a shepherd caring for his sheep is therefore one well understood by Jesus’ listeners, but also a difficult one as it is about love and care, a relationship, not rules, or laws.

Like Moses, some of the other great patriarchs owned and cared for large numbers of sheep, Abraham and Jacob come to mind, but the role of shepherds is also seen as unworthy. When Joseph brings his father Jacob and his brothers to Egypt, he specifically tells them to say that they have been keepers of livestock, rather than shepherds, so that they can settle in the land, as the latter were abhorrent to the Egyptians. (Gen.46.34)

Jesus throughout his ministry often refers to himself as a shepherd, harking back to that Old Testament relationship of God and God’s people; the one who looks after his flock, and yet as I have said, shepherds were not well thought of as a profession. They were necessary to keep the flock safe from wild animals, but they lived outside society, alone on the hills with their sheep. Was Jesus perhaps using this as an analogy not just with God’s relationship, but because he was so often outside the mainstream, on the margins with the poor and the excluded?

Yet the message today is that it is he, as the shepherd who knows his sheep, who will keep them safe, and give them life. He is talking to all who feel that they are outsiders, but warning others who want to mislead, that he is the one who will truly care, and indeed will give his life for them. No wonder the chief priests found him challenging. And later he will pass that task of caring for God’s flock to his followers, those whom he has called and redeemed, his disciples then and today.

When looking at the readings for today I was struck by another shepherd text that occurs later in John’s gospel. It is the text I chose for my licensing service in June 2008 of ‘Tend my sheep.’ This text occurs when Jesus meets some of the disciples after his resurrection. During this meeting he very particularly takes time to be with Simon Peter, to forgive him for denying Jesus on the night before his crucifixion, to ask him again to follow him and also he gives Peter a task, to take care of his followers. Jesus is entrusting Peter with his flock, and it was for that reason that I choose that particular reading. Jesus entrusts his followers with his flock, and that is also given to all of us as God’s Church. We are all called to serve in many ways, both as ordained and as non-ordained, in tending God’s flock. ‘Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.’ God says in Isaiah, and that is our starting point both for our relationship with God, and for our vocation in living our lives. Jesus the Good Shepherd has called us, and we know his voice and we answer His call.

For me that calling has been to be here as a parish priest, and in that ministry I have been privileged to walk with you, through joys, sadness, challenges and surprises. To be alongside you at the most difficult, and at the best times of life, is indeed a privilege, and I thank you for allowing me to be there.

There is always more to do for God’s Kingdom, and the time is right for someone new to take that on, to tend God ‘s sheep here at St Edmund’s. So I would like to leave you with the words of Oscar Romereo, a South American priest, and martyr, who’s words have always been ones that spoke to me about parish ministry, and I hope speak to you too about the ministry we all share.

It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
     it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction of the
     magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.

Nothing we do is complete,
     which is another way of saying that
     the kingdom always lies beyond us.
     No statement says all that can be said
     No prayer fully expresses our faith.
     No confession brings perfection
     No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
     No programme accomplishes the church’s mission.
     No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
     We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
     We water the seeds already planted, knowing that they
     hold future promise.
     We lay foundations that will need further development.
     We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond
     our capabilities.

We cannot do everything,
and there is a sense of liberation in realising that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it well
It may be incomplete,
     but it is a beginning,
     a step along the way,
     an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter.

We may never see the end results,
     but that is the difference between
     the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders,
     ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future that is not our own.

Amen.

Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)

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23 April 2023 – Third Sunday of Easter

Our Gospel reading is one of the stories I love. Jesus was with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus but for most of the time they didn’t recognise him. He was hidden in plain sight.

There are lots of things around us today are hidden in plain sight. Things we see, but in another way we don’t see. Picture of Amazon smile. Do you recognise this logo? – Yes, its Amazon. But have you ever realised that the arrow is not just a smile, nor is it just to show that they deliver items, it actually is a hidden message saying that they sell everything from A-Z. I could see the arrow, but until it was pointed out to me I didn’t see the message.

What about the disciples? Why didn’t they recognise Jesus even though he was with them? I wonder if they were even looking at Jesus? Were they walking along with their heads down? Sometimes walking along a dusty track you need to look down to check that you are not going to trip over stones. Maybe they were so grief stricken that they didn’t look up in case their tears were seen. Were their eyes blinded by the setting sun? Did they look at Jesus but not recognise him because they were not expecting to see him? Or did Jesus in some way look a bit different?

I was reminded of a time in my 30s when I decided to change my appearance. I have worn glasses since the age of 8, and from my teens I had long hair. Without telling anyone, I arranged with my optician to change to contact lenses, and the day I got them, I made an appointment at my hairdresser to have my hair cut into a short bob.

That evening at church we had a fellowship meeting in the church hall. There were quite a lot of us and the chairs were arranged in two rows in a semi circle. As I sat in the front row I could hear a friend sitting behind me say to the person sitting next to her, ‘who is that in front of us?’ The reply was ‘I don’t know I haven’t seen her before.’ To quote from the Miranda sitcom it was ‘such fun’.

I let them speculate for a while then I turned around and spoke to them and they were quite shocked. About 6 months later at the church bazaar the mother of another friend (who had been to church occasionally) said she hadn’t recognised me and had been wondering why she hadn’t seen me for such a long time!

I don’t know whether Jesus’ appearance was very different. But what I do know is that he had a resurrection body. He was the same person, but it may have been that his outward appearance was slightly different. His resurrection body was definitely human. He had arms, legs, a mouth, eyes etc. He could speak, walk, eat fish and bread and do lots of things that human beings can do. But at the same time he was able to do some things we can’t. When the disciples recognised him – he vanished.

On another occasion he appeared in a room even though the doors were locked. And like my new haircut often we only see what we are expecting to see, or like the Amazon logo we don’t see something that is actually visible all the time. Maybe when Jesus rose from the dead there was something a little different about the way he looked.

Certainly, the last time the two disciples had seen Jesus he would have been tired, dirty, covered in blood, his face would have been drawn with pain and agony as he hung on the cross. They had no expectation of seeing him again – they believed he was dead and gone. But even if they had been expecting to see him, they would probably not have expected to see a strong, clean and healthy Jesus.

The man walking along the road with them was strong, relaxed and confident. But he can’t have been totally different as they did eventually recognise him.

You were each give a paper when you arrived. It is a copy of a painting by a very famous artist, Caravaggio. He lived in the 17th century and painted many amazing biblical scenes, and this painting is entitled ‘Supper in Emmaus.’

He has painted Jesus in a very different way from how we usually see him depicted. He doesn’t have a beard. There are many external features that we can change to make ourselves look different on the outside, but we still remain the same person. When I cut my hair and put in contact lenses, I looked very different, but when my friends really looked at me, they realised it was still me!

Jesus might have looked a bit different, but when the two disciples really looked at him and when he did something that sparked a familiar memory, they suddenly realised who he was. But then he disappeared!

Some people might think the disciples were hallucinating, but this encounter had changed them – it was real!. They ran all the way back to Jerusalem (a journey of about 4 miles) and they couldn’t wait to tell the other disciples. When they got there they found that the others had had a similar experience.

When we experience Jesus in our lives, later we can look back and wonder if it was real – but as we tell other people about it we find that others too have had similar and very real experiences of Jesus in their lives. We may not see him physically, but we may sense him with us. Maybe he does something in our lives- answers a prayer, guides us in a big decision, causes circumstances to come together for our benefit.

The two disciples began their walk feeling sad and dispirited, maybe also afraid. It seemed like the end of their hopes and dreams, not only for themselves but also for their nation.

You may have had such an experience. Maybe after the death of someone close to you. Maybe if you are separated from members of your family. Maybe you are struggling because of the present economic crisis and the cost of heating and rising cost of food. Maybe you are feeling fearful for what the future might hold, or awaiting results of a medical test.

This morning we may be feeling like those disciples as they set off to walk to Emmaus- sad and dispirited, as if there is no future because our hopes and dreams have come to an end. But Jesus is walking beside us, even though we can’t see him, – or maybe we just don’t recognise him. But we need to remember that He has the future in his hands; he has overcome all obstacles, even the biggest one – death itself. When the time is right, and probably when we least expect it, he will reveal his presence – we need to be ready to recognise him in whatever guise he shows himself.

Last week I was speaking to a woman who had been out of work but had just started a job in a coffee shop and felt the presence of Jesus had helped her to settle in quickly and she was full of joy. From despair, God had brought hope. In sharing her story she also gave hope to others in the congregation that morning.

In our Gospel reading, it was when the disciples invited this stranger to stay, and in the sharing of a very ordinary and basic meal that Jesus revealed himself to them. Not in a flash of light or a big bang, but simply their eyes were opened. At that moment he vanished, but that didn’t matter. Suddenly they were different people. They had an inner assurance. Their lives would never be the same again.

And they couldn’t wait to share the news. I don’t know whether they even stopped to finish their meal! They had left Jerusalem walking slowly with their heads down, not believing the reports that others had told them. Now they knew for themselves that it was true and they literally ran as fast as they could, with great excitement to tell the other disciples what had happened.

The ultimate way in which Jesus brings hope to us is that the promise of the resurrection appearances of Jesus show us that death is not the end. We may be parted from our loved ones here on earth and we may feel very sad, lonely and hopeless. Those feelings are a normal human reaction and everyone has them, but the story of the Emmaus Road (and indeed the rest of the Easter story and the whole of the New Testament) gives us hope.

Hope that through the darkness of grief, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Jesus is walking with us through grief, through pain, through the fear of illness, through the fear of losing jobs and income, through the fear that life will never be the same again, through all the difficulties of rising prices; and there will come a time when we will recognise him and our hearts will once again be filled with joy.

That doesn’t mean that we will never experience the difficulties we fear. The disciples went on to face even greater difficulties, but because they did so with Jesus they did so with confidence and they were able to bring about transformation to the lives of many others.

So, we need to remember that when we can’t see Jesus it doesn’t mean he isn’t there! He is with us, hidden in plain sight in the ordinary and everyday things of life. We just need to invite him to join us and wait for him to reveal himself to us.

Maria Holmden

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16 April 2023 – Second Sunday of Easter

The Doubter’s Faith

Hope is central to the Easter message: something that was highlighted by Lesley last week. And yet, here we are a week later, on the Octave of Easter, the eighth day of Eastertide, and a key theme of today’s gospel reading is doubt and questioning, as we hear the story of what was called – in the past and in classical art – The Incredulity of St Thomas. It is the story of how one sceptical disciple, absent at the first appearance of the risen Christ to his followers, seemingly dismisses their account of what they had experienced, unable or unwilling to believe what they reported: assuming it was simply the wishful thinking, of minds bereft of the person in whom they had placed all their hopes. And we hear the words of Thomas, not only saying ‘I need to see it myself’ – to see the ‘print of the nails’ – but he goes further ‘I need to feel it myself’ – to ‘prod my finger into his flesh, into the wounds of the nails’, and – what is a quite visceral image – to ‘thrust my hand into the gaping gash’ that the spear tore open, as Christ hanged on his cross. And, on the basis of this story (the blotting of his copybook), Thomas becomes to succeeding generations ‘Doubting Thomas.’

That epithet ‘Doubting’ Thomas isn’t particularly fair, as if we look closer at the resurrection stories in all four gospels, we find that wariness to believe in most of the disciples, when they are confronted with reports of the resurrection. In Matthew’s gospel, when the disciples actually see the risen Christ, yes! they fall prostrate in front of him but nevertheless it is recorded that “some of them were doubtful.” In some versions of Mark’s gospel, when the disciples are told by Mary the Magdalene that Jesus was alive, their reaction was that “they did not believe” and similarly neither did they believe the two to whom the risen Christ had appeared in a different guise as they walked into the country. And Luke’s gospel goes on to state that the disciples’ unwillingness to believe the resurrection witnesses was because they found it all “a nonsense” and that it was just too good to be true. And honestly, perhaps that is not so surprising, for as one bishop once put it, “People didn’t ordinarily rise from the dead then any more than they do now.”

So why does John’s gospel zero in on Thomas, in recounting the disciples’ prudence in relation to these post-crucifixion experiences? What is it about him in particular? In the three other gospels, Thomas is simply a name that appears in the few lists we have of the early followers of Jesus, where the number of them – twelve – seems to have been more readily remembered by the early church rather than necessarily what they were called (particularly for those who appear further down the list). But it is in John’s gospel, where Thomas steps out of the shadows briefly to take on a bit part in the gospel story rather than just being a non-speaking extra.

For John, the raising of Lazarus is a pivotal event leading up to Jesus’s crucifixion. There had previously been attempts to stone Jesus while he was in Jerusalem during the winter festival of Lights, but later the death of his friend causes him to turn around and head back towards danger. The other disciples counselled Jesus against this, telling him that (if Lazarus had fallen asleep) he would recover, but Thomas – showing resolve and courage – disputed with them and urged them, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’

And again, it is Thomas’s voice we hear on the eve of the crucifixion, as treachery leads to betrayal, and Jesus (realising the end was imminent) warns the disciples that the next stage of the journey was one he will make alone. But he promises them that he is leaving to prepare a place for them so that, ultimately, they will be with him. Calling them back into the reality of the situation, Jesus says, “My way there is known to you.” And it is then that, out of them all, Thomas admits to not understanding, to not being aware of this going away to which his Master refers, to not knowing the way, and not being able to fathom out where they were even being asked to go.

These words of Thomas seem to suggest a disciple who is keen to act, keen to know, keen to understand, and willing to voice his difficulties in clearly understanding what is required of him. He doubts. He disbelieves. But the doubt he articulates in today’s gospel is not a doubt about Christ but a doubt about the reliability of his fellow disciples; he is not satisfied in basing his faith on second-hand reports. It is Christ that he needs to see, to touch and to feel, in order to understand and experience the resurrection. “He is not converted through some gradual process of indoctrination or by theological sleight-of-hand” – he is converted through experience and meeting. And that doubt leads to the profession of Christ as his Lord and his Master.

This story reminds us that faith does not preclude doubt. Faith allows for freedom to question and to wonder … to be incredulous. For often it is through that engagement how faith is born and grows. That is certainly the case for me. Over the past year, PCC members have been sharing their personal stories at meetings as a way of getting to know each other better. So some of you will already know that my faith and belief is shaped by the approach of Peter Boyce – the then Head of Sixth Form up at Nevin Drive – who encouraged the two of us who were taking A-level Religious Studies back in the early 1980s to: question everything; to take nothing at face value; to sacrifice those sacred cows; and not to believe anything is necessarily true just because that’s what has always been told you. And that has kept with me, through my later theological study, my general approach to life and specifically to my church life, and to also in what I’m doing now as a preacher stood in this pulpit. Unlike Lewis Carroll’s White Queen in Through the looking glass, believing “as many as six impossible things before breakfast” is not a skill that I have.

“Doubt is not the opposite of faith.” According to the Christian philosopher Paul Tillich it is rather “one element of faith.” The American novelist Anne Lamott goes further when she says, “The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.”

But often doubt is seen as uncomfortably challenging by some churches, who feel that – rather than being part of the journey in understanding faith – it is the polar opposite, that it is harmful and something to be avoided. Increasingly, we hear certain sections of the church boasting as being “Bible-believing churches,” implying that – unless scripture is interpreted the way that they interpret scripture – other churches and christians are no respecter of scripture at all. Of course, this is a nonsense, particularly within the context of the Church of England, where Anglican authority is based on scripture, reason and tradition together: with none of those three alone providing complete truth or certainty without the checks and balances of the others.

In today’s Gospel reading, we hear doubt expressed in Thomas’s words, and faith expressed in the others witnessing to their experience of the risen Christ. Yet conversely, we see doubt in the eleven others’ actions, fearfully barricaded in a room, timid and scared to go out into the world. And (even after their Jesus experience on that first Sunday), exasperatedly, they are still hidden there a whole week later, despite Christ having commissioned them to be sent out of that confined and confining upper room. And perhaps we see faith in Thomas’s actions, in not being there: being out in the world already, with faith to move forward, not allowing Good Friday to stymie both life and mission continuing to carry on.

Faith is not just waiting upon the Lord and having a strong unswerving belief, but faith is also stepping out to meet him in the world beyond the locked doors of our certainties. It is finding our doubts are as nothing more than stepping stones on an adventurous journey of faith.

And that is where I would have normally ended my sermon. But as this is my last sermon for a while (I’m stepping back from preaching during the Clergy Vacancy so we can hear from the visiting clergy), I thought I’d add a postscript. So …

Thomas needs a little rehabilitation – to be exonerated from the negativity we may associate with that charge of being a doubter. Looking again at that reading, when Thomas is introduced, it is as (to use the King James version) ‘Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus.’ In our version, Didymus is translated from that Greek name into its English equivalent ‘the Twin:’ Thomas the Twin. I’m not sure if that is helpful or not so helpful, particularly if we translate the term ‘twin’ back into Aramaic – the language Jesus would have spoken. For if we do, we get (surprisingly or unsurprisingly) ‘Thomas’: so that is The Twin called the twin. We don’t know if Thomas is his name, a description or a title, we don’t know of whom he was the twin, whether in reality or simply in likeness or resemblance or character. (In some writings in the early Church, his actual name is given as Judas – one of the brothers of Jesus.) But whoever he was, we know, in this disciple, we can find a ‘faith-twin,’ someone who gives us confidence in our times of doubt. For here in Thomas, we have a person who stands with us, allowing us to own our doubts and not to be ashamed or frightened of them. This ‘faith-twin’ is not someone on the fringe but a person who was among Jesus’s closest friends: who nevertheless doubts, but yet whose doubts never removes him from the love of Christ. For this is a Christ who loves us so much that – rather than pushing us away when we doubt – instead draws us closer in, to touch, to feel, the heartbeat of his accepting love. To borrow words from the poet Kahlil Gibran, perhaps what we may find in this story is none other that “Doubt is [simply] the twin brother of faith.”

Colin Setchfield

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9 April 2023 – Easter Day

Our sermons during Lent have focused on the theme of hope. This has partly been because at this time of conflict, rising costs and general negativity, that message is important and much needed, it always is at times of change and uncertainty; but also because as we come to Easter, the culmination of Holy Week, hope is the main message of our faith.

Easter is hope fulfilled. On that first Easter it seemed that all hope had gone. Jesus’ ministry had ended in failure, as his life ebbed away on the cross. And yet, and yet, is there still hope?

As Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary approached the tomb, all was quiet, the first light of dawn was approaching, and in their pain and sorrow they are drawn to the place where Jesus’ body lay.

Matthew’s account does not actually tell us why they have come; there is no mention of anointing the body, in this telling of the story they had seen it wrapped and placed in the tomb by Joseph of Arimathea. They knew this was the end, but they were drawn to the place where he lay. As they had been with him as he died that painful and public death, with him as he was laid to rest, so they come to be with him at this place of peace, to finally mourn and perhaps reflect on what had taken place.

And suddenly; those words imply a real jolt in the peaceful scene, in an instant all changes. There is a great earthquake, and the tomb, sealed so that no one could enter and disturb, or remove, the body, is rolled away by an angel, God’s messenger. The guards, placed there by Pilate, at the behest of the chief priests, are not unnaturally terrified, and cannot move; and yet, and yet, hope is stirring.

The angel recognises the women’s fear, calms them and says, ‘Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.’

So, despite of all the precautions by the chief priests to ensure that Jesus’ prophecy could not come true, it has – hope is reignited. The women look; but the message is not yet complete. They are told to go and tell Jesus’ followers the good news, that he is alive and is going ahead to meet with them. And as they turn to go and witness to this amazing and joyous turn of events, as if to underline the reborn hope, Jesus meets them. He also tells them not to be afraid and exhorts them to go and tell the disciples to go to Galilee, where they will see him. The witness to new life in Christ has begun, and yet, and yet, can they really hope?

If we read on, some of the guards recover from their astonishment, and go and tell the chief priests, the very people who had engaged them to ensure that the tomb was not disturbed, that the body had not only gone, but that Jesus had indeed risen from the dead. They had failed in the duty given to them, yet they go, perhaps to save themselves, perhaps so amazed, to tell of this train of events. They are bribed to say that the disciples stole the body, and so they tell this tale, it protects their failure after all, but it is too late. The witness to the good news that is Jesus, risen and alive, is already out.

On that first Easter morning, God could have chosen many ways to make known this miraculous and hope filled news. It could have been shouted from the roof tops, in the same way that Jesus had been greeted on entering the city on Palm Sunday. Jesus could have appeared alive in the midst of the crowds, those same crowds who only days before, had shouted ‘crucify him!’ And yet, and yet… God chose ordinary women, one of the lowest sections of society, to be the first witnesses to this new hope, this new life, and that in itself speaks of hope, hope for a new way of life, where all are equal and all are valued.

Whichever of the four gospel accounts we read, the details of why the women went to the tomb may vary, but in all of them, it is the ordinary people with their own personal stories of what God had done in their lives, who are chosen to speak of this wonderful and life changing, life affirming, news.

And God continues to use ordinary people, like you and me, to share the gospel, of Jesus Christ, to share the good news of God’s love for all. God shows no partiality, as Peter discovered very early on in his evangelism, and as we are called to discover anew today.

We are, like the women at the tomb, like the disciples in the upper room, called to bear witness to the hope that is Jesus Christ, risen and alive.

It was not an easy task two thousand years ago, there is still no guarantee that our experience of witness will be any easier, and yet, and yet… we can speak of hope in a world which is searching for such good news.

The hope, and joy that was Easter then, is ours still today, and as we engage in our daily lives with those around us, we are called to share that offer of new life in the risen Christ with all. Do not be afraid, go and share because God is with us, and God is going ahead of, and with us.

Alleluia he is risen, He is risen indeed; there is hope. Alleluia.

Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)

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6 April 2023 – Maundy Thursday

Caring and service roles are some of the poorest paid yet are also some of the most important and labour intensive. They tend to be seen as lowly and demeaning, service, care of others is not given a high priority, unless of course you are waiting on a telephone, with the constant electronic voice assuring us that service is important to them! Clearly it is not or we would not be waiting in a long queue!

Service, care of others, is not given a respected place in our society, indeed it rarely has ever been seen as important, although it is essential.

If you have been on a long walk, especially on a hot day, washing of dusty and dirty feet is very restorative, yet is so often seen as a lowly and demeaning service. When Jesus offers to wash the feet of his disciples, they feel uncomfortable, and not, I would suggest, because of the state of their feet. He is their leader, this is not what leaders do.

No, says Peter, this isn’t your role; yes it is says Jesus – you still haven’t got it have you? I have come to serve and that is what I ask of you as my disciples.

This morning, I along with hundreds of other lay ministers and clergy, attended the Chrism Mass in Chelmsford Cathedral. At this service the oils used for baptism, confirmation, ordination and healing are blessed and distributed, but this is also when we renew our ordination vows.

We are invited to dedicate ourselves afresh to God’s service, and God’s people – recalling that same new commandment Jesus gave to his disciples at his last Supper, and which we recalled tonight in our Agape meal. He prayed that they should love one another, and that they might be one. In the service this morning we were asked to commit ourselves to serve, not to be served, to watch over and care for God’s people as well as proclaim the good news of Jesus and minister his holy sacraments. It always is a timely reminder of our true calling.

The bishop invites us to renew our commitment, and in turn the bishops are invited, not by another ordained minister, but by a young person to renew their vows. That same young person then prays for us all.

But the importance is that we are all called to serve, lay and ordained, because this is the great mandatum/commandment that Jesus gives us all.

Peter was wrong, indeed society is wrong, service is not demeaning, service is what God calls us to, not power, and service not because we have to, but because we want to.

As I washed your hands this evening – a practical solution to the foot washing, especially before we eat, I always find it a most special and gentle moment, I hope you do too, as it confirms again that we are all one in Christ. Amen.

Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)

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5 April 2023 – Wednesday in Holy Week

Many of us will be familiar with Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper. In his depiction, our eyes are drawn to Our Lord who is seated in the middle on one side of a very long table. To his left and to his right are seated the apostles, six on either side. A rather formal setting of the Last Supper, painted so as to easily identify Jesus and perhaps name the apostles.

Reading St John’s Gospel, we are presented with a more informal setting. Jesus appears to be surrounded by the apostles as there is mention of them reclining. I would like us to use our senses of sight and hearing to imagine being there. What sounds do you hear? What sights can you see? More importantly, how does it feel being so close to Jesus? I would like to imagine that I could hear the comfortable chatter of friend’s together, possibly recounting the day’s events. I would like to imagine the atmosphere to be relaxed, informal and occasionally hear the gentle peals of laughter amongst the gathered. We will stay here for a while but we know things are about to change.

‘Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified, “Very truly I tell you, one of you is going to betray me.”

Troubled In Spirit. Jesus has told us he is about to be betrayed, someone is about violate his trust. Has the atmosphere changed? Is there stunned silence amongst the assembled?

Jesus is asked ‘Who is it?’

“It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” Then, dipping the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. ²⁷ As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him.

Satan entered into him. These are chilling words. In fact I find that to be an alarming phrase. But why do I feel this way? Satan is still around us. As we look around the world there is greed, inequality, betrayal. Globally – wars, Climate change – greed, individually – the harsh word, selfishness?

But we must return to the Gospel. Jesus knows what is about to happen and what he will have to endure for us. Do we say anything? Or do we just look away?

So Jesus told him, “What you are about to do, do quickly.” ²⁸ Now none of those reclining at the table knew for what purpose He had said this to him.

We know why Jesus said these words. We know how this story ends. We know that Jesus died for our sins.

During this period of Lent, many of us will have abstained/fasted given up something we enjoy doing or having. Some of us might have done something extra such as giving of ourselves whether time or money. I find giving up my time or money far easier than ‘depriving’ myself of what I see as my own personal pleasure. We give a little more to charity, recycle more or even increase our giving at church. Most years, I try with some form of abstinence, but being human (my excuse!) success can be elusive.

But why as Christians do we do this you might ask? What do we hope to gain? In our small way, it is a sign of sacrifice, testing our self-discipline. Recently, I read an article which said, and I paraphrase, ‘we ask God to forgive us, not because we are weak, but to walk in confidence, knowing that Jesus suffered for us. This cycle of repentance is ongoing until we sin no more’.

As a child, my mother would often say ‘we can give without love, but we cannot love without giving’. It is as an adult, that I truly understand what this means. If we love someone we cannot help but want to shower them with all our love. Love never fails.

The Easter story is sometimes referred to as the greatest love story ever told. This is because it is the story of Jesus loving us so much that he suffered death upon a cross, giving his life for us. He loves us so much.

Samuel Crossman, a 17^th Century clergyman, wrote the hymn, My Song is Love Unknown. In it he is trying to understand in an almost ironic way, why Jesus had been put to death by humankind. In verse 4 of his hymn he asks ‘Why, what hath my Lord done? What makes this rage and spite?’

In the end he concedes with these words: –

Here might I stay and sing:
No story so divine;
Never was love, dear King,
Never was grief like Thine!
This is my friend,
In Whose sweet praise
I all my days
Could gladly spend

Amen.

Catherine Greenidge

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4 April 2023 – Tuesday in Holy Week

The man who loves himself is lost,
but he who hates himself in this world will be kept safe for eternal life.

Making our way through Holy Week, we are already at Tuesday – and Friday is, all the while, getting closer. Yet on some levels, we’re still at the beginning of that fateful journey to the cross. Our gospel today is still firmly stuck in the events of Palm Sunday, and in John’s recounting of it.

Huge crowds had arrived in Jerusalem for the festival of Passover, when word gets round that Jesus was making his way up to the city. Collecting palm fronds (symbolic of victory and triumph), the mob leaves Jerusalem, in order to encounter him as he journeys up. And as he approaches, they scream out (that is the word that is used, like the cawing of a crow – inarticulate and full of intense emotion): ‘hosanna’ – ‘oh save now’, and calling down blessings from heaven on this Jesus, who was coming in God’s name, as King of Israel. And in this clamour and baying all around him, Jesus finds a little foal, goes over and – imitating a messianic prophecy of Zechariah – sits on it. And the crowd goes mental. In that melee and the building excitement, people push through, wanting not only to be there and to experience it – but to actually get close enough to see him: pleading with his disciples in the heaving mass to make it happen.

However, this is just a temporary triumph. In the other gospels, on entering the city, the temple is stormed and its functioning is disrupted by an indignant Christ, whose actions are seen as a challenge to the religious authorities of the time. But in John’s Gospel, all that happened at the start of his ministry. Instead, here a melancholy descends, and Jesus reflects on the inevitability of his own death and warns that his followers will also need to follow him in walking that same path. He goes into hiding, and – despite the signs he performs – people stop believing in him. In John’s gospel, when we see him next, it will be Thursday: not a ‘Da Vinci’ Christ, flanked by his disciples, presiding at table instituting a Eucharistic feast, but a man on his knees, humbled like a slave, cleaning the feet of those among whom treachery lurks, cleaning the feet of those who will betray and disown him, cleaning the feet of those who are called to walk in his steps to their deaths.

But for those clamouring in the crowd to see him, they need to wait. He remains hidden and only appears again in public on that Friday … and, then, nailed to a cross: a scarecrow figure silencing the crow-cawing of their earlier Hosannas. There in that raw and hideous display, (as Rowan Williams puts it) they are confronted with what “a complete letting-go of the self in love, might look like” – a love with no conditions that continues “through and beyond” death. A love that glorifies God – who is truly glorified when our lives that we have hated and not loved are saved.

The man who loves himself is lost,
but he who hates himself in this world will be kept safe for eternal life.

Colin Setchfield

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3 April 2023 – Monday in Holy Week

Imagine you are walking through a garden of freshly cut grass, how does that make you feel, what does it make you think of?

Now of course if you are a hay fever sufferer it probably sends you running in the opposite direction, eyes streaming and handkerchief to your nose! At theological college I arranged a Prayer walk through the grounds of the college one evening, thinking it would be a peaceful end to the day. For most it was, but for those allergic to the pollen it was anything but. A useful lesson to take into account things outside one’s own experience.

Our olfactory sense, our sense of smell, can differentiate between sweet, sour, musty and downright unpleasant, and too much of any of them can completely overwhelm us. At the Court of Versailles they had the perfume of the day, so that the various heady smells, themselves designed to hide other less pleasant bodily odours, did not clash, giving complete sensory overload. I recall at one point in the 1980s restaurants banned a particular perfume, because it was so strong and cloying that it overpowered the food!

Smells speak to our emotions and our feelings they evoke memories of people and places. Fragrance trends in perfume are about how they make us truly feel, hence the warmer and heavier scents for the winter months and higher floral notes for the spring and summer. Fragrances are a reflection of our emotions and who we are, and for me one of the real difficulties of my head injury has been the loss of the sense of smell. The fresh grass, the smell of earth after rain, to say nothing of the taste of food, has been a real loss.

We are told in our gospel tonight that the perfume Mary used to anoint Jesus was a costly perfume made of pure nard. Nard is a heavy, sweet, woody, spicy animal odour, somewhat musty and musky, so a pound of this would most certainly have filled the whole house and made a real statement! It is still used today as a relaxing and soothing oil for the skin and mind; used as a sedative and for calming, a natural agent to relieve stress. The smell lasts for a considerable time, days indeed, and like frankincense and myrhh, which also have heavy accents, would have made a real impact.

Whilst a heavy perfume we are led to believe the smell would not have been unpleasant, unlike the smell of blood and burnt animal flesh used in the offerings to atone for the sins of the people in the Temple.

Jesus, unlike those offerings made on a regular basis for the people’s sins, is offering himself once, and whilst the stench of those offerings would have been strong, the perfume used to anoint him will linger only until he rises from the dead on the third day and puts away the smell of death.

Jesus knows this when he admonishes Judas for protesting at the seeming waste of this costly item, Jesus is here for a purpose, God’s purpose, and it is costly, and that time, as he knows, is fast approaching. Amen.

Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)

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2 April 2023 – Palm Sunday

No sermon

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26 March 2023 – Fifth Sunday of Lent (Passion Sunday)

Last week on Mothering Sunday, there was a temporary break from the austerity and rigours of this Church season of Lent. But it didn’t last long. In the York Rite of the mediaeval English Church, the antiphon that would have been sung at Compline (the final prayers before bedtime) last Sunday was ‘In the midst of life we are in death.’ And as we continue moving through Lent, “the atmosphere of the season darkens” (as the Church of England puts it). On this Fifth Sunday in Lent we enter a kind of sub-season called Passiontide, as we “begin to anticipate the story of Christ’s suffering and death.” The events and issues causing Christ’s crucifixion did not start in those final days of his life – but had been building for some time before that. Passiontide provided space to consider the meaning and significance of Christ’s death before we are overwhelmed by the quick moving story of Holy Week as the wheel of history turns. The change is emphasised in how our church is dressed, with crosses and images veiled, and the striking and inspirational ‘The Folly of God’ Stations of the Cross posters by Sieger Köder placed around the walls of the church. (Köder was a contemporary German artist, who had been imprisoned in a Prisoner of War of camp in the Second World War, and later had been ordained a priest before his death at the age of 90 in 2015.)

In Chelmsford, there is a Catholic religious order of the Canonesses of the Holy Sepulchre. They define themselves as “women of the gospel searching for new and inclusive ways of living community with Resurrection hope.” A couple of years back, one of the Canonesses, Sister Moira, led a Lenten reflection of Köder’s Stations of the Cross. She spoke of how in the world that the artist depicts everyone finds a place. As she says, “at times the figures are warm and humorous – at times those figures who represent the crippling institution are shown as harsh and merciless” and we – at different times – will espy ourselves in the characters he paints: in “the harsh and the cruel alongside the tender and loveable.”

The Way of the Cross – using Stations such as these – was part of the devotions of Passiontide. It provided a way for people to absorb themselves, through art and imagery, movement and storytelling, in a journey allowing them, allowing us, to glimpse at the mystery of Christ’s Passion, at this folly of the Death of God. They will be up for a couple of weeks so do use them or come to the 11 o’clock service on Good Friday as we make that journey, that pilgrimage, together: approaching, and stopping, and moving past each station in turn, as we try to understand that story and, in turn, understand ourselves and our humanity, and feel the love of God and the redemption and restoration which that offers to us and to every part of creation.

As we step out on this Passiontide journey to Good Friday and the cross, it is perhaps not so surprising that, in considering Jesus’s approaching death, our readings today force us to confront our own mortality as well and to look death straight in the eye. (That’s if death had an eye to look straight into!) Our Old Testament reading and that from the Gospel are probably quite familiar to us. I would imagine it might be the old spiritual song ‘Dem Bones,’ which we hear in our minds as we heard the recounting of Ezekiel’s vision of the Valley of Dry Bones. (I always associate the song with the surreal sequence in the BBC’s 1986 adaptation of Dennis Potter’s ‘The Singing Detective,’ where the character played by Michael Gambon, while lying in a hospital bed suffering with lesions and sores all over his body, hallucinates: seeing the medical professions at the foot of the bed miming and dancing to the song… If you don’t know it, Google it.)

Though Ezekiel’s vision speaks of the restoration of the Jewish captive exiles in Babylon and the rebirth of Israel (all quite positive), the imagery is quite ‘nightmaresque.’ It is a parched valley, remote and barren, littered full of old dry bones that had lain there for some time – years, for the soft tissue to have decomposed and weathered away, and dried out from the fatty interior of the bones devoured by the feasting of micro-organisms and insects. And that’s even before the main action of these bones gravitationally dragging themselves together across this chilling landscape and re-enfleshing themselves into an army of revenants waiting to be revived by the living breath of God.

But this valley resonates with other descriptions in the Bible, particularly in confronting the realities of our lives and the death that awaits all of us. It is a graphic portrayal of the valley – the ravine – of the shadow-of-death of which we hear in Psalm 23, where the reassurance is given that even when we forced to enter it, the God who-shepherds-us shepherds us even there, he enters himself into the valley, accompanies us into that dark ravine, providing a comfort that the God-who-protects and fights and saves is lost with us in its pitch darkness, and despite the stillness is yet able to walk and guide and navigate us through.

The passage from John’s gospel also does not shy away from the uncomfortable realities of death. The rather demure “there is a stench,” in the version we heard read today, would jolt us more harshly in the King James’s version’s renditioning of it: “he stinketh”. And in Mary’s accusation – “if you had been here, my brother would not be dead” (or to slightly paraphrase it – and apologies for my slightly vulgar slang: “If you had only bothered your arse when you were first told he was dying, perhaps we might not now be in this situation?”) – we can hear the same painful cry of all bereaved: “Why?” “Where was God?”

Recently, death, my dying and my grave has been somewhat at the front of my mind. With the sale of the Claverhambury Pet Cemetery in Waltham Abbey in 2021 and subsequent clearance of graves towards the end of Summer last year, much of my time has been, first, taken up with arranging for the exhumation of my family’s pets’ remains, and then finding a suitable new resting place. In order to safeguard against similar circumstances occurring again, in April, they will be reinterred in a natural burial meadow in Buckinghamshire, joined there ultimately in due course by my current pets and also by me. It will be as the book of Ecclesiastes reminds us: “Man is a creature of chance and the beasts are creatures of chance, and one mischance awaits them all … All go to the same place: all came from the dust, and to the dust all return” (Ecclesiastes 3.19,20 NEB).

Now of course, all this focus on the reality and inevitability of death can become a bit terribly morbid. For some, the stories of the reversal of death – be that of the revival of the long dead in that arid valley or of a recent corpse (bloated and decomposing) being called from its grave – may reassure. But the real comfort lies, rather, in the presence of God’s Spirit, in the presence of Christ, in those passages, in the dark times. And Passiontide in bringing together our mortality and the death of Christ speaks strongly of that. We think in terms of the Stations of the Cross as us walking in the footsteps of Christ recalling his story, but on another level that Way of the Cross perhaps is more God walking in the footsteps of humankind sharing our journey. God incarnate shares in our life so that we may share in the “very life of God.”

Today is Passion Sunday: ‘passion’ meaning ‘to suffer.’ Often that word gets all mixed up with meekness and submission but, actually, it is a strong word – suffer ‘sub’ ‘fero:’ ‘I carry’ ‘under’ or ‘I bear’ ‘up.’ Whatever weighs on me, whatever squashes down on me, I nevertheless bear it – I undergo it, I endure it, I suffer it. As we move forward towards Good Friday, through this Passiontide, Christ suffers misunderstanding, rejection and (as in the words of the Creed) he suffers death. He shares and walks with us in our journeys through life, to death and the grave. But yet, even in its dour foreboding, Passion Sunday reminds us that the love of God is a passionate love that longs to be with us, to walk with us in the darkest valley, and to stand with us at the mouth of the grave. It is a love full of passion which (to quote Jarel the curate where I work) “will lead us, and crucify us, and turn us to dust, and bring us to life.” This is the Way of the Cross, here starts our journey walking with God as God walks with us towards his – to our – Good Friday.

Colin Setchfield

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19 March 2023 – Mothering Sunday

Our sermon today was an interactive one with the children.

The children and I made a basket with our hands and then asked the adults to do the same.

As I wove the children together with a long cloth, we underlined that this is about being joined together, as when we are joined together, we can do more.

In our hand basket our hands were linked, and that means they can support, they can lift, and they can carry.

Woven together we can be strong – we can support, we are a community. When as individuals we are woven together to make the basket, we are one. As Christians we are one body because we all share in one bread – Jesus Christ, and that is what we celebrate each week in our sharing of Holy Communion.

The basket, woven together, can hold items and holding is also a symbol of God’s loving embrace. God’s motherly love that holds all in joy and sadness.

Moses’ mother put her son in a basket and entrusted him to the river and ultimately to God’s care.

Jesus, as he died, entrusted his friend and his mother to one another. He knew that together they would support one another, and he also recognized that we are all sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers in our Christian lives. Love holds no boundaries, as we are woven into one in God.

With all our Bible families today there was sadness and pain, as well as joy, Moses’ mother had to give him up in order to save his life, but had the joy then of acting as his nurse for his adopted parent. Jesus’ mother saw him grow to be a man teaching and healing but knew from the earliest days that she would also suffer pain because of who he was. And that is just like our families, we all have our difficulties and our joys, but together, and as a church family too we are stronger.

But above all our baskets today remind us that God is always with us, woven into our lives, when we invite God into our lives. Amen.

Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)

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12 March 2023 – Third Sunday of Lent

Hope in the Now

This Lent, the theme of our sermons is ‘Hope.’ It’s a word we use in everyday life – sometimes too often. How many times have you used the phrase “Hope you are well” in an email or text, just as a stock phrase? Its frequency of use can make it seem a little meaningless or insincere: just an empty pleasantry.

Sometimes ‘hope’ is reduced simply to wishful thinking – “I hope I get a Pokémon Squirtle for my birthday” (or the latest Lego Star Wars set or whatever the must-have toy is these days). There is an episode of Friends where the character Monica disappointedly confronts Rachel about her not inviting Monica to her wedding, to which Rachel responds, “I was kinda hoping that wouldn’t be an issue.”

But as psychologists would tell us, “Hope is not wishful thinking, optimism, or ‘positive thinking’. Hope is a realistic, yet forward-looking set of beliefs that drives our efforts to bring about a better future.”

And that is not just a secular understanding of ‘Hope;’ this is intrinsic to religion’s understanding of it. In his first epistle to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul names three theological virtues of faith, hope and charity (or love, as it is usually translated these days) and he states that these three last forever. There, the word for hope is elpis: expectation or anticipation of what is certain and sure, and the welcoming of that. Hope is not a dream, it is not ‘pie in the sky,’ there is a surety about it, it is a confidence in God. It is less to do with future outcomes and more about current action and purpose.

We find that understanding across religious traditions. The mediaeval Islamic spiritual writer Ibn al-Qayyim contrasted true hope and tamanni (wishfulness) in these words, “The difference between [hope] and merely wishful thinking is that mere wishful thinking involves laziness wherein the person neither exerts himself, nor strives [to achieve for that what he wishes]. Hope, however, entails striving, exertion and beautiful reliance. The first is like the one who wishes that the earth would plant and sow its own seeds for him. The second is like the one who [actually] tills the soil, plants the seed and then hopes that crops will grow.”

‘Hope’ is quite pertinent for us now in our current circumstances. In 50-days’ time from today, our parish enters an interregnum – a Clergy Vacancy – after Lesley’s retirement the day before. We will find ourselves in a period of uncertainty, without a leader. Often in times of challenge and insecurity, church members actually step up to the mark, and – even without a leader in place – parishes can flourish. Initially, there will be some excitement about our next appointment and enthusiasm for keeping things going. But vacancies tend to last longer than people assume or remember. Lesley was inducted Vicar here on 24 June 2008, exactly a year to the day when we bade farewell to our previous Vicar Fr Christopher. The gap between him and his predecessor was also about a year, though the uncertainty continued much longer, until Christopher was fully appointed Vicar four-and-a-half years after Fr Eric had left. The longer a parish goes without a leader, there is the potential for church members to waver, for tensions to begin to find expression, and for the long slog to begin to feel dispiriting. But things do get better, and hope is key to that.

In our reading from Romans today, we heard Paul say, “we boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that he has given us.” He is not saying that suffering brings opportunities to rejoice or to boast but rather that we should rejoice, we should boast, we should endure, in the midst of hardship and difficulty.

The question therefore is what is our hope – and, importantly, how does that hope demonstrate itself, now, here in the present: in the ways we think, in the ways we act, in the ways we are?

The focus of Paul’s correspondence with the church in Corinth is firmly on the community of which we are but a part and not on an individual self-absorbing spirituality. (You will recall that it is in 1 Corinthians that Paul refers to the church as a body of interrelated parts, each distinct, and yet each important to the whole.) We often speak of the church as a family, as a community, based on relationship and mutuality. And this fits with Paul reminding us that the church is intended to be a foretaste or a parable or a working out of the Kingdom of God – the display of God’s promises – in the present. But Paul also challenges us that if that is what the church is, it needs to start acting that way. So, the question for ourselves is do we always follow through with those analogies of the church being a family, a community?

Within our families, within our communities, the various members are all different – different things make them tick, they act differently, think differently, see things differently, understand things differently. And yet being a member of a family or a member of a community means that each individual affects and impacts on everyone else. Families and communities thrive when there is respect, tolerance, where members are listened to, where grace is extended, where mutual support is offered rather than individual needs and interests prioritised.

As we face and start to move into uncertain times, it is good for us – as this church family, as this church community, as individual members of that interrelated Body of Christ – to look at how do we mirror all that in our lives and priorities? How do we live out and demonstrate our hope in the here and now? How do we work and give of ourselves generously as an expression of our gratitude to a generous, loving and giving God?

Asking members to consider their commitment to their church is often side-stepped in mainstream churches, as they feel uncomfortable with the subject and, particularly when it comes to finances, the whole subject of money and giving becomes almost taboo. There are other churches, however, who actively preach a prosperity gospel – a gospel of success – that somehow in giving (and in giving extraordinarily) to the church, in the long term individuals will also increase their own personal material wealth. “God loves a cheerful giver,” as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians, seems to be exploited as a way to make certain churches and certain church leaders rich at the expense of the poor and by corrupting the whole ethos of Christian teaching. That is not what Christian generosity is about.

Many years back, when I worked for National Statistics, there was one guy in the team I managed (who had lived in one of the high-rises on the old Chingford Hall Estate). One day he shared with us how he was struggling because his wife had gone to a service at their church, and – even though she had felt compelled to give beyond her means in the various collections taken – she had also been pressurised into agreeing to pay to carpet the church as that was what God required. I was shocked and angry that a church could ignore the real needs and struggles of its members and ride roughshod over those in its self-interested greed. That had nothing to do with the call to Christian generosity.

Some years later, in another team I managed, it bemused some others how within that team there were two church-goers – myself and a friend called Anne – who were totally unlike each other in portraying what it was to be Christian. Anne was a member of a Pentecostal church, who (despite our friendship) could never understand how I – as a liberal Christian – squared my faith with my immoral lifestyle choices (as she saw it) and my dubious reading of scripture and questioning of basic beliefs. Aiming to do something to put me back on the right path, in 2000 she invited me to one of her church’s International Gathering of Champions conferences at the London Arena. Wanting to show support for my friend – and always up for a challenge – I agreed. It was awful! – the whole emphasis was on wealth creation, with talks punctuated by repeated collections. Anne had brought with her a wad of notes in her bag but I could see that, after a while, she was struggling with the amount being asked from those there. I snapped when she felt she also needed to give on behalf of me as I refused to kowtow to the demands. That had nothing to do with the call to Christian generosity; in fact to me that had nothing to do with the Christian faith at all, as I know it.

Generosity however is part of the Christian calling, it is part of working out and working towards our hope here in the present; because being ‘Christian’, being ‘Church’, is about being more than just myself as an individual. It is about family, it is about community, it is about doing our part in building up the whole. But generosity is always proportionate. We’ve been hearing some of what Paul has said on the issue; let’s take another bit from his second letter to the Corinthians: ‘Provided there is an eager desire to give, God accepts what a [person] has; he does not ask for what he has not. There is no question of relieving others at the cost of hardship to yourselves; it is a question of equality.’

You will know from appeals during this past year, as a parish we are beginning to struggle financially. We had the issue of the closure of our branch bank, which pressured us to ask everyone to look at how they give. This year, we face a more difficult issue with regard to the ‘Family Purse:’ our share in contributing towards some of the cost in providing for the mission and ministry of the church in this area, and (more pertinently considering our current situation) being able to pay for a priest to act as Vicar of this community. We always struggle, but we always pay, we work in order to realise our hope. In 2023 though, St Edmund’s contribution has risen by an additional £10,000, and that is a real challenge. It is a real challenge normally, but it is a particular challenge when we say farewell to those who have served and given well in the past – those who have led us, those who have worked with us, those who have supported us. And the magnitude of the challenge can lead to hope being lost, but that does not necessarily have to be the case.

As we step forward into an unknown, insecure tomorrow, the question for all of us, for each of us, is what is our hope for the future? How do we live that hope now? How does that affect what we do, how we act, how we build up, how we change? It is about generously giving of ourselves – in our time, in our talents, and in our treasures. Whatever is our hope – the hope of a new Vicar, the hope of a strong future Christian presence here, the hope of this sacred space continuing to meet the spiritual and actual needs of the people of this community – it cannot simply be just some wishful thinking. It rests in our hands, in our minds, and in our hearts; it is made real by our work, by our purpose, by our actions.

In what you give, in how you give, are you living the hope you have? Are you living as a church that is family, as a church that is community? Or – rather than a yearning desire to be together – do we simply attend whenever we get the itch to go? Rather than making a regular contribution and support this community of faith, do we pay our entrance fee as if it was simply a trip out? Rather than active involvement, do we passively rest in the wishfulness of all will well … somehow.

What is our hope? How do we make it real now? God knows! but hopefully so might you and I.

Colin Setchfield

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5 March 2023 – Second Sunday of Lent

Risk and a leap of faith

Children are notorious risk takers, watch any toddler, lurching from one foot to another, followed by the sudden sitting down as they lose their balance; or bumping into something, only to get up and do the same thing again, and you will know what I mean.

Taking risks is part of how we learn, the importance is in managing the risk, both on behalf of those too young, or unable, to manage the risk for themselves, or for oneself as we recognise different risk factors.

Life is a risk, and we have to take risks in life. Some, as I say, we can evaluate and decide if the risk is worth taking, some involve others also having a responsibility in mitigating the risk and some are imposed on us and may well prove particularly challenging or indeed unwelcome.

It can take confidence or a leap of faith, in one way or another, to take a risk, and today we hear about who, and what, is important at such a time.

First we heard about Abram, called by God, at 75 years of age, to leave country, family and home to travel to an unknown land and future. He is promised that God will be with him, and that he is destined for great things as his only enticement. Now some might decide, not really, life is comfortable as it is, do I need all this change? But no, Abram, we are told, ‘went, as the Lord had told him.’ Was it the promise of greatness? Maybe. Risky? Certainly. A difficult choice? It seems not, Abram takes that leap of faith with his nephew and wife, also no young woman, and with his possessions and household moves as God directed. Was it in the hope of a better life? Certainly, it was with that promise of greatness, but nevertheless it was a risk, and they faced many challenges before the promises were fulfilled. Abram’s faith would certainly be tested, and yet he did keep faith, as Paul recounts in his letter to the Romans.

It was Abram’s faith in God’s promises, not his own actions or work that led to success; when Abraham, as he had become, and his wife Sarah attempted to bring God’s promises into being through their own actions, rather than wait for God, that they failed. It is a timely reminder that we succeed only in God’s grace. God freely offers us a relationship with God, but the choice is ours. Yet if we think we succeed by our own efforts alone, we may well, like Abraham and Sarah, be sadly disappointed.

The psalmist recalls that it is in God that we have the assurance of God’s protection. ‘From where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord… The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and for evermore.’ That is something to return to when we feel that we cannot face the challenges before us; to have hope knowing that we do not act alone. As I said we act in God’s grace, one of the values and themes we are exploring in our Lent course, Travelling Well Together.

Nicodemus comes to Jesus seeking answers, and as a Pharisee struggling because his reliance is on the Law, on works, rather than what the Law underpins. You need to be born again, to move away from this strict adherence to the outward appearance of the letter of the Law and understand what it means says Jesus. And what it means is trust in God’s love and care. If you don’t believe in earthly things, how can you take that leap of faith and believe in heavenly things says Jesus.

God sent the Son to save, not to condemn, as indeed the Pharisees did so often when trying to trip Jesus up, often using the Law as the basis for their actions. God in love sent God’s Son to save all who want, in hope and love, in awareness of God’s grace, to make that leap of faith.

So, when do we acknowledge that wish, that desire, to make that commitment of faith? Well, we declare our faith in the Creed, our statement of belief, but it is at our Baptism that we, or others on our behalf, first express that wish, and we are renewed by water and the Spirit. At Confirmation we literally confirm that hope, and each time we restate our belief in God or receive communion, we take within ourselves that visible sign of our inward hope in God.

Faith does not take away the fear of change or the risks we face in life. Faith does not mean that we won’t face challenges. What faith does give us is hope, hope that we don’t face life alone, that we have God with us, that we do not act in our own strength, but in the strength of one who is comforting, guiding and listening. God, Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer.

‘I lift my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.’ And in that is new life. Amen.

Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)

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26 February 2023 – First Sunday of Lent

Are you an optimist or a pessimist?

Do you think all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well, as Julian of Norwich put it, and she had a lot of challenges to contend with, which could have dented that hope? Or are you an Eeyore? Negative and pessimistic – it won’t work, nobody listens to me!

Well, I suspect we can all be a little of both at times, and certainly when we have negative thoughts it is good to have others around us to lift our spirits, after all Eeyore had Winnie the Pooh and the rest of the (fictional) gang.

Julian of Norwich on the other hand had her faith in God, and that sustained her during good and difficult times.

Our theme this Lent is hope, a fundamental of Christian faith, and I would suggest that hope, the expectation of a positive outcome, is very much needed at present. We have come out of a pandemic and all that did to our hopes and anxiety levels, to a war in Europe; cost of living concerns; the recent earthquake in Turkey and Syria, to say nothing of constant negative news, and is it any wonder that hope and joy are in short supply. Whilst stress and anxiety levels are through the roof for so many, hope is needed, joy is needed!

Sadly, a statistic I heard recently was that 42% of people cannot remember the last time they laughed out loud, and as I have just said there is not a lot to laugh about in the news at present. Yet when we look we can find hope, we can find joy, and yes there are things to make us laugh too – internally and right out loud, but it is not always easy to find those positive aspects.

So, for a moment let’s think about something that brought you a moment of joy or brought a smile to your face. It does not have to be a big thing; for me it is the snowdrops in the garden, the sun catching the red and orange branches of the shrubs. It is singing a favourite song or hymn, our recent Songs of Praise was all about joy and being uplifted by our praise; and it is the moment I laugh at myself for doing something stupid, like going into a room and completing forgetting why I have gone there! And laughter can dissipate that feeling of annoyance at our own stupidity too.

In the Bible there are so many references to hope, as I said it is a basic tenet of our faith. ‘Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint,’ says the prophet, Isaiah. Paul regularly in his letters to the early churches around the Mediterranean is encouraging them to hope. ‘May the God of all hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”’(Romans 15.13) And in Hebrews there are frequent references to hope, through confidence that God is with us, always. The message of hope a demonstration of God’s love now and always.

Our readings today are about temptations, temptations we all face – to be powerful, to be in control, and yet the most powerful thing we can do, is to let go of power.

In the wilderness Jesus recognises that the power is not with the tempter, but within himself, to let go of the need to control, and leave all with God. On the cross he does this again as he puts his life into God’s hands – into your hands I commend my spirit.

God’s power is not that of earthly rulers, God’s power is in love, hope and joy. ‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit;’ Paul tells the Romans, and that was the hope that enabled Julian of Norwich to have hope when her life would have said otherwise. All manner of things will be well.

Hope, we are told in the secular world, is based on goal orientated thoughts, strategies to achieve those goals and the motivation to spend effort to achieve them. Well, we can certainly see those strands at work in the temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and Jesus in the wilderness.

Adam and Eve make the mistake of accepting the temptation in their thirst for knowledge, which is power. Jesus knows that these temptations are not the truth and will not bring the promised power, because only God can provide that through hope, which then brings us confidence, joy, peace, power and love.

Power is a constant temptation in life, yet true power is not about oneself, but about selflessness. This Lent let us reflect on what can encourage hope and joy in our lives, and those around us, in a world so in need, but looking in the wrong direction for the hope that brings life and joy, That hope is not strength and power but love. Amen.

Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)

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22 February 2023 – Ash Wednesday

When preparing candidates for Confirmation, at first glance it seems there is very little one should know and understand. The Creed, the 10 Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer, that all seem quite straightforward, but let’s unpack that a little.

The Creed, our statement of faith, the 10 Commandments basic rules for life and living in community and the Lord’s Prayer, which covers the fundamentals of our prayer life, adoration, confession, thanksgiving and supplication, simple right?

Well not quite, as each of these once we start to delve into them, requires a lot more than it may at first appear. Our statement of faith, in God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Trinity is the basis of what we believe as Christians, and yet how long it took to agree and still today causes division; and how often do we really think about, or really understand, what we believe?

The 10 Commandments, given to Moses for a people, chosen by God, coming to terms with being a community and needing to understand what that means for living together as God’s Chosen People. And importantly how their relationship with the one God was to be lived out, a relationship they found difficult to maintain and regularly broke.

The Lord’s Prayer, the universal prayer that encapsulates all we need to say to God, and yet we often over complicate our prayers. God does not need clever words, or phrases, God does not need long involved prayers, God asks only that our heart is in what we offer, and that we truly want to have a relationship with God; not for own selfish needs, but because we want to love and be loved by God.

So, as I say when we really start to think about this, the Creed, the Commandments and our prayers, then it is not a small or simple thing that we are entering into.

We are asked to commit ourselves, and our lives, to God, and being the imperfect beings that we are, we sometimes get it wrong. We then need to refocus, to turn around and look at what our faith means to us, or as Paul puts it, be reconciled to God – and in that to recognise that whilst we may have nothing, in God we have everything. It is never too late to return to the Lord, and God has infinite patience as God calls us to repentance and prayer.

Today we start that period in the Church’s year where that is our focus, a time to reflect on our faith and what it means to us; and a time to think again about those areas where we may need to reconnect with God.

Our faith is not a static thing; when we are confirmed we are, as the word suggests, confirming the promises made, often on our behalf as we were too young, at our baptism. The promises to turn away from wrongdoing and follow Christ. Not promises to be perfect, but to recognise our shortcomings and learn when we get things wrong and try again

As we receive the ashes tonight, the words are a reminder of those promises – turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.

God hates nothing that God has made and forgives the sins of all those who recognise their unworthiness, so that we might indeed close the spaces between ourselves and God, believing that we are embraced by a goodness and love which is within and beyond ourselves. So let’s prepare for Lent and ultimately Easter. Amen.

Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)

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19 February 2023 – Sunday next before Lent

There are many reasons to go up a mountain. For some, it may be the benefits to health, fitness and well-being. Particularly when we climb mountains, it builds strength and endurance, as (the higher you ascend) the altitude trains your lungs to become stronger. Though it didn’t quite feel exactly like that, when (years ago) I walked the Atlas mountains. With the thinness of the air, as I neared the summit on the final ascent of Mount Toubkal (the highest peak in northern Africa), my lungs – though perhaps being given a fabulous workout – were working harder and harder to get oxygen into my bloodstream. And within touching distance of the summit, the final yards seemed just one step too many. But with resolve and a bit of clambering almost on all fours up the loose scree, I got there.

The air definitely was thin, but I’m not sure if (then or now) I felt that the mountain top was (what is often called) a ‘thin place’ – supposedly where the boundary between heaven and earth is narrow, allowing us to sense divinity and to experience God more readily. In Greek mythology, the Titan Atlas may have shouldered the celestial sphere, holding up the sky; for me however – stood on top of the Atlas mountains – the sky was still far off, but (then again) as I scanned across the mountainous range … so was everything else. Perhaps it was just me: our readings today certainly suggest that mountaintops are the must go-to places in order to encounter God. Hadn’t Moses found Yahweh lurking at the top of Mount Sinai, ready to tutor him into the niceties of the new religion, and that was only 55% of the size of Toubkal. And for pity’s sake, Mount Tabor (supposedly the site of today’s Transfiguration story) – just 575 metres – is teeny by comparison to Toubkal’s 4,167. You’ll even recall from last week that, after having a surreptitious ciggie, the young Jude Bullock had a religious experience lying on the hillsides of Dunstable Downs (of all places).

But distance and scale aren’t really the factor here, perhaps it is more about being in the moment. And we need to think about what that moment is. Our gospel recounted the Transfiguration story: but reading that passage alone in isolation to the wider story, provides us with little context. If the reading had taken in the previous chapter of the gospel, we will have seen that things were beginning to change. The heady early days of Jesus’s ministry had given way to danger. The religious leaders of the time are beginning to feel that this Galilean was not quite the type of Messiah they wanted – not that (contrary to what we might think) many of them were expecting or wanting a Messiah. And increasingly, they are trying to trip him up, undermining confidence in him and his claims. And as Jesus begins to drop heavy hints that (actually) things aren’t perhaps going the way that his disciples expected or would have liked, there seems to be some confusion in the ranks about exactly what his ministry is all about, after all.

It’s in this context that Jesus takes his inner circle of disciples and hikes them up a tall mountain. (Though – and just making the point again – not as big as the mountain that I hiked up!) And there this strange experience occurs – Jesus is transfigured, his appearance – his form – changes, witnessed by these three disciples. Jesus’s face shines like the sun, his clothes are dazzling white. It’s the imagery that we associate with the Resurrection. And for the disciples, this is so much more reassuring than the worrying talk from Jesus before: of his suffering and death; his lashing out at Peter accusing him of being Satan; forewarning his followers that actually it is not just him who will end up dead but they also need to be prepared to take up crosses themselves and to be lost.

This vision of light and heavenliness is just the tonic, even though the experience brings feelings of terror and confusion. And Peter seemingly wants to keep in this moment. “How good is it that we are here!” and recommends that he makes some shelters. Perhaps he feels that staying on top of the mountain, extending that experience beyond the moment, to linger in it, to hide in that sacred space, is preferable as it means they could avoid the difficulties below and the problems they faced.

But that is not what is on offer.

There is that bit in the story where Moses and Elijah appear and start having a conversation with this transfigured Jesus. (Not that we learn what they are having a chat about.) What are they doing there? The church has always taught their presence represents the Law and the Prophets, but that isn’t said in the passage. These two key figures from the Jewish religion, both ended their lives in a mystery. Moses ascended Mount Nebo unaccompanied, and there he died alone and unseen (according to Jewish tradition: by the mouth of the Lord, by a divine kiss). And was buried by God in an unknown grave. And Elijah, well! he is swept up to heaven in a whirlwind. Both snatched by God and removed from the scene. Maybe this is what the disciples assumed would occur at the conclusion of this transfiguration: that God would take Jesus to be with him protected from harm.

But that is not what happens. As Peter excitedly starts making plans to keep this religious experience happening, he is interrupted mid-flow. They are overshadowed, the light fades, and a voice from heaven repeats that message from right at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry – at his baptism – “This is my Son, my Beloved” and then instructs the disciples, “Listen to him.”

Now of course, in the story, up until then, Jesus was having a natter with Moses and Elijah and hadn’t said anything at all to the disciples there. The last time he had addressed them was down below, off the mountain, where he had spoken of his cross and their crosses, of suffering and of death. And with that, the religious experience dissolves, and a non-transfigured Jesus comes up to them, touches them, tells them to get up, and takes them back down the mountain.

Jesus is not snatched out of danger into safety. He does not depart with Moses and Elijah, wherever they have popped off to. He returns to the plain, he returns to his mission, to his ministry, to his life, to his death.

That hope of Peter on the mountaintop is understandable. We want to be in a safe place, we want to be bathe in the heavenly light of God, we want good times to continue, we want people we love not to die, we want darkness and feelings of sadness to be confined to the past. We can climb our mountains, and feel safe and secure in the moment; we can retreat into prayer and spirituality; we can have a lovely reassuring chat; we can pause our lives and put them on ‘stand-by’ or re-boot the system – but at some point you need to come down from the mountain.

Religious experiences like transfigurations are of the moment, they may bring hope, reassurance and strength, but they go away. As much as we wish to hold on to them, they are fleeting. Things go back to normal, life resumes, that’s what happens, that’s what needs to happen. And when that moment ends (to quote David Martin, a sociologist of religion and priest in the Church of England) “redemption remains, to be worked out on the plane of everyday existence, problems and difficulties that will not go away, satisfactions and heartaches, taken-for granted familiarities and special times of mutual recognition, expectations and uncertainties, temptations, times of trial and moments of dereliction.” The “plain of everyday existence” is where we are called to live because that is also where God is.

We may seek to tarry in the moment, waiting to be consumed by God’s love – as with Moses on his mountain, as with Elijah swept up into heaven. However, the reality of Christ’s Transfiguration instead is that: love moves him and us to leave the rarefied air of the mountaintop and to come back down once more to the dangerous business of living and on to the road to the cross.

Colin Setchfield

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12 February 2023 – Second Sunday before Lent

Years ago, in my teens, my family would, when the weather was ok, take my fairly unwilling grandma up to Dunstable Downs on Saturdays. I had just discovered the joys of smoking so at the first opportunity I would potter off on a walk, long enough to be out of sight of parents and light up a Players no.6 — the enduring symbol of the early 70’s. Lying down on the side of the downs staring up at the sky a feeling swept over and through me – as though there was no place where I ended and the rest of the world began. Further more the distance between me and everything else, the demarcations between objects, melted and I felt a part of all things which had become one thing. The experience was unimaginably blissful. I have no idea how long it lasted – somewhere between a second and infinity, before everything came back to being separate.

I didn’t mention this experience to anyone for a decade. I thought something had misfired in my brain, and that I was just weird (what teenager does not think they are weird?). What was really interesting is that I didn’t once in that decade think it was anything to do with faith or religion even though I had become a Christian the year before and a Catholic during Easter of ’73. It was only later when sent off to study philosophy and theology, I realized that this experience was not particularly unusual – what has surprised me however is that it not only has stayed with me but shaped and influenced a great deal of my subsequent thinking…

I mention this little bit of personal experience because today’s readings are surprisingly uniformly about the world in which we live. And by that I do not just mean the human world but the world in which our species has evolved. We had the first account of creation from Genesis, the second account begins just after today’s reading ends. We have heard Paul’s words of creation groaning in labour pains and that beautiful passage from Matthew: consider the Lilies of the field.

I think that part of the reason why I didn’t connect Dunstable Downs with my faith is because my faith was rooted at the time in the unseen, the above and transcendent, involved from on high in human affairs. Nature, if you like was the backdrop, the stage for the human drama. The mere scenery for the fall, redemption and the departure lounge for the human family, while we wait to go somewhere better. I never at any time took the creation story as anything other than metaphorical, one of the advantages of having an atheist professor of physics for a dad. It is worth bearing in mind, that the model of the cosmos the authors of Genesis were working with was much smaller and cuddly than our present understanding of an infinite expanding universe, where our planet, and not just our planet – this solar system and this galaxy of 100 billion stars is no more that one grain of sand on an unimaginably long cosmic shore.

Roll on half a century – I know where has the time gone? – and I find that my faith has evolved – as all things do – to be almost the complete reverse of how I understood faith in my teens. I guess like lot of us I had bought into the myth that we are somehow visiting the planet, just passing through. Uniquely, amongst the other animals, we possessed something that was not of earthly origin – the soul, call it what you like, but that sense of being the subject and everything else being object suggested that we were different from everything we observed. I now realise that not only is that not true, if anything human consciousness is the universe thinking about itself, it is also a very damaging belief to hold because it reduces creation to a second best. In fact it is precisely because of that separation between us and nature that as a species we have felt it was ok to destroy it for our temporary benefit.

Interestingly the Biblical witness tends to support a view of God within nature and the cosmos rather than simply beyond it all looking down. Take the first reading from Genesis: We are told as a matter of doctrine that God created from nothing: creatio ex nihilo. I would suggest you look at the first reading verses 1-9, in particular vs 1-2. And you find that God creates from a formless void and the deep which was understood as water. If you picture in your mind and visualise what the authorship is saying you have the deep, God breathes over the deep – where else is wind going to come from? Breath btw is synonymous with life in the Old Testament. God separates the waters – he puts his hands into the deep separating the waters below from the sky and clouds, then he separates the waters on the earth to create the land. So, while god’s metaphoric hands are immersed in creation you have the possibility of harmonious and ordered life.

Question – see who knows their Bible – what is the next big story in Genesis after the expulsion from the garden of Eden? Yup its Noah and the flood. God, if you like folds his arms in protest at human behaviour and of course nature returns to the chaos from which it was formed. All through the Bible both old and New Testament water, controlled and calm water symbolizes the presence of God, uncontrolled water, storms and floods symbolizes chaos. Think Jonah, think the parting of the red sea, think Jesus calming the storm and walking on the water. In John’s gospel water turns up in every chapter bar 3 yet no one drinks any. In Genesis the human family emerge from the presence of God within nature.

To put it in a more contemporary way – There cannot be somewhere where God is not. God is both perfect and omnipresent. If there was somewhere where God is not then God could be neither perfect nor omnipresent and therefore not God.

What that means is that everything we are, everything we have evolved from and within, every creature, every blade of grass, every fizzing quantum particle, is charged with the grandeur of God. As that early 20th century mystic Simone Weil put it: ‘The beauty of the world is the tender smile of Christ coming through matter.’ It is hardly surprising that the great theologian and martyr of the 20th century, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, described the modern spiritual quest as to seek ‘the God beyond in the midst of the world.’

Which brings us, admittedly through a somewhat circuitous route to today’s gospel. And its appeal to learn from nature and live simpler lives. How prophetic those words now seem as we face the very real possibility of an extinction event we, through our greed and ignorance, have caused. As Chief Seattle is reputed to have said: ‘We are but one strand in the web of life, what we do to the world we do to ourselves. The world does not belong to us, we belong to the world.’

There is no ethical question or subject which matters more than the climate crisis. Because all other ethical questions, indeed all possible questions period, are predicated on there being a world and humanity to ask them. While I have considerable respect for our brothers and sisters in purple, I cannot help but ask why so many synodical hours and so much ink has been wasted on an issue over which the rest of society has long since made up its collective mind. And then to come up with a sticking plaster solution – I refer of course to same-sex blessing but not marriage – as solutions go, this is a particularly Anglican one, since it satisfies absolutely no one. Especially since we all know that full inclusion and full equality in marriage and everything else will be the end result at some point. I really do not understand what the point is in trying to pacify a section of the church who will be persuaded by neither reason, nor scholarship, nor compassion nor common sense. I wonder how many equivalent hours have been spent reflecting on finding ways to counter the obsessive greed which is destroying the very conditions for life. Perhaps they and we should spend a bit more time considering the lilies of the field rather than trying to determine who you are allowed to publicly commit in love to.

Maybe today’s readings are a timely invitation to fall in love again with God. But the not other worldly distant figure living somewhere beyond our ability to imagine, but the God active, living and working within the world we experience. The only God we can know anything about. The god who is suffering because of human greed, selfishness and stupidity. Later on in this service we will pray the Lord’s prayer – consider its words: Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, ON EARTH as it is in heaven. This is the location of the kingdom. Where there is more than enough for every creature, including us, who have come to life through the processes of evolution. This is the place so loved by the God present within it, that the creator became the created in Jesus of Nazareth.

Barak Obama once said. ‘We are the first generation to feel the impact of climate change. We are also the last generation who can do anything about it’. So let us live simply so that others may simply live. Let us seek the kingdom where it is to be found in the here and now in each other and the world in which we live and in which we have evolved.

Am going to finish with a poem by the Jesuit poet, Gerald Manley Hopkins. His use of language is not easy, but it expresses everything I have been trying to say:

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Jude Bullock (Vicar of Saint Anne, Chingford)

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5 February 2023 – Third Sunday before Lent

Salt & Light

(Interactive sermon with input from the children in church)

What do we use salt for?
(Preserving, curing, bringing out flavour)

How much should we use
(A cupful, a teaspoon, a pinch?)

Well too much and it overpowers, too little it has no effect.

Where is it best to place a light?
(Where it can be seen and throw the best illumination)

So not under this wheat or a basket? No, no use at all, but of course light is powerful, yet needs to be directed, If we shine it in our eyes it dazzles, and if it is too weak it is no use, rather like under that basket.

So, what did Jesus mean when he said that we are salt and light?

This saying comes in that great swathe of teaching called the Sermon on the Mount. Literally Jesus had gone away from the crowds following him to a mountain with his disciples, his followers, to teach them. In this teaching he covers many subjects and the essence is that his teaching is about truly living out their, and our, relationship with God.

He has just spoken of who will be blessed and why, the meek, the merciful, those who act for others, but this all comes with a warning that this will not be easy, as others will reject this teaching and them.

So, he says, you are called to be salt and light, to use a variety of ways to show God’s way of life and all that God offers. As salt to bring out the best in others. As we have seen earlier with the measure of salt, that means not overpowering others, but working with them. Listening before we offer a view; giving space and quiet for that listening to take place, and offering loving service to bring out the flavour, the very best in one another.

Again with the light, don’t hide your light, but equally don’t try to blind others with your natural brilliance. God’s light is not flashy, but illuminating, helping us and others to see better. With light, just as we think about what works in our homes and workplaces, we need to think about what works in helping ourselves and others to understand God.

Some lights, such as fluorescent light is harsh and garish, and although necessary in areas where good light is required, such as a bathroom or office, a gentle light rather than such a strident radiance is more conducive to relaxation and reflection.

And as disciples we are called, just like those early followers to think about how to shine a light into the dark, to bring clarity and comfort, as well as to show areas which need changing.

So just as we need to use salt in a way that brings out the best flavour and light to bring clarity, we too are called to enhance, encourage, care and illuminate both in our own lives, and in those we come into contact with. Amen.

Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)

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ARCHIVE
JANUARY 2023: 29-JAN, 22-JAN, 15-JAN, 08-JAN, 01-JAN
PREVIOUS YEARS: 2022, 2021, 2020

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29 January 2023 – The Presentation of Christ in the Temple (Candlemas)

Christmas feels like a long time ago, and that’s because it was. It was 35 days ago when we were waking up to presents, manic food prep, and the story of a baby born in a manger. And after the excitement of Christmas with all its feelings of joy, warmth and nostalgia, these subsequent months of January and February always feel a bit of a downer – dispiriting, sometimes downright depressing: dead months with not much happening of note (unless there’s a birthday or something else that we can hang a bit of celebration on). In early mediaeval times, there was a period referred to as ‘after Yule’ when – following the festivities of Christmas – the celebration seemingly slowly died, as the cut greenery (decoration symbolising life and rebirth and renewal) itself dried out and crisped in the warmth of the indoor heat, until around Candlemas Eve (if not before) the only option was to acknowledge that it was time for it all to come down (“down with the rosemary and bay, down with mistletoe” as the poet Robert Herrick wrote much later in the 17th century) and the final vestiges of Christmas died in the embers of a bonfire.

In reality, January and February are Johnny-come-lately months, they only first appear about 700 years before Jesus’s birth. Before that time, the Roman calendar began with March the first month of the year and continued till the end of December, each month full of various activity relating to warfare and agriculture and family celebrations. But then as December came to an end, there weren’t any named months as such that followed it – just a period of Winter, a slack time of not much happening, particularly in terms of work, until everything kicked off again with March.

And that is very much the context of our festival of Candlemas. Since the true ending of Christmas on its twelfth night, many weeks back, we have been in Sundays after Epiphany: Sundays after the Christ-birth event, Sundays in which we have been encouraged to explore how, in the silent mainly unrecorded early life of Jesus, when we might assume nothing much was happening, God is manifested. In this quiet, inconspicuous Jesus – God is palpable, God can be touched, God can be felt.

That English word ‘manifest’ is likely formed from two words meaning to strike with the hand. In these past drowsy weeks post-Christmas, Epiphany slaps us into a realisation of what has actually happened, what is actually happening. The God-with-us – incarnate in our lives and in the world – isn’t always there with fanfares, accompanied by news headlines, nor with stirred emotions and moving sensations. God is there in the everyday, mundane, unsensational times, when nothing seems to be happening, when things seem to be decaying and dead.

And we get a sense of that in our gospel story today. After a long gap since Christmas, baby Jesus has been brought out again for yet another outing. All this while, his mother’s life has been disrupted. For, though childbearing and motherhood were important and respectable in Biblical times, childbirth itself rendered the mother ritually impure in the eyes of her religion and society. For the first week after the child’s birth, her Jewish faith defined her as ceremonially unclean, and she would be effectively confined to home: isolated. And then for a month afterwards (as if any post-natal bleeding or postpartum discharge was contagious) she was denied the comforts of her religion – not being allowed to go to the Temple nor even to touch anything that might be viewed as sacred. After childbirth – after Christmas – Mary’s life would have been somewhat January/February-ish.

But that was potentially changing: for now, in the story, after 40 days, she and her husband and this baby, arrive at the Temple from which she had – up-until-now – been barred. This girl labelled as unclean by her religion comes to the heart of that religion for it to turn that exclusion around – to declare her pure, acceptable: a person who could stand in the holy place, touch holy things, and – as a loved child of God – herself to be holy.

However, there is something particularly strange about this Temple scene. It is rather empty. The Jerusalem Temple was a busy location with its various courts; that which Mary – as a woman could enter – would probably be the size of Memorial Park (just down the road). And yet in the story, there is a distinct lack of people. Where are the priests? Where are the levites – those who sang and played music and guarded the Temple and portered objects? Where are the other people who had come to be in the Temple?

It’s almost as though it’s Christmas again. For back then, when the busy heaving Bethlehem streets and houses were crammed full, this holy/unholy family – Joseph, Mary, and baby – are invisible to, unseen by, hidden away from, that city’s population, so swollen by returning émigrés. Those invited to espy this hidden family – whether herdsmen reeking of their sheep, or dubious travellers dabbling in astrology and magic – are those who themselves are overlooked, excluded, outsiders, who are equally invisible to the masses.

And just like as in crowded Bethlehem, the small family in the crowded temple – (stood there, with their two little baby squab pigeons, indicating they were too poor to make any substantial sacrifice) – were probably overlooked and were likely to have left mainly unnoticed. Except that they are seen. But in the story that is not by the priests nor by the temple officials, but instead by two elderly individuals stuck in their own January-February moments. One: an elderly widow in her 80s, whose life turned to winter at an early age when she lost her husband and means of support after only a short marriage, and who was seemingly destitute, spending day and night in the temple, with no home to return to. The other: one whose life was enslaved to a frustrated and unrealised hope for better times, for justice, for the consolation of Israel.

In this scene, populated by these figures from the world’s underclass – the struggling poor family; the homeless widow; the elderly man who lived long but still not long enough wearied with unfulfilled expectations and longing for death: we nevertheless see the flicker of light in the wintry darkness of their January-February shiftlessness and stagnancy. Just as now when we see the days lengthening and the earth gradually warming, so in this late echo of Christmas the potentiality for newness and realised hope is presented – and presented in this infant baby.

This is the message of Candlemas: that God is there, in our grey winter, whose power is contained in the weakness of a small dependent child, protectively held in the arms of his parents and of a stranger. A child physically not able to do anything other than to be there, to be incarnate in that wintry experience. Where the metric for success is not based on numbers or accomplishments or achievements. Where light is not necessarily a welcomed friend but rather a troublemaker, exposing the deepest secrets and laying bare the duplicity of those who feel righteous.

Candlemas cautions us that God’s reign of justice and peace starts in our bleak January/February limbos, that – in the dark and in our failures and unfulfillments – God is on the move, among the poor, the insignificant and the excluded of our divided world, and that is where God will be found. Unless we stand there among them, we will – like the crowds in Bethlehem and in the Temple – miss him in all our busyness and our piety.

Colin Setchfield

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22 January 2023 – Covenant Service (preached at joint service at South Chingford Methodist Church)

At this time in the Church’s year, we are encouraged to think of our belonging, our promises to God. Today we share the Covenant service, in previous weeks at St Edmund’s we have recalled the Circumcision of Christ and that sign of belonging to God, the Baptism of Christ and our own belonging through our baptism and the past week has been the week of Prayer for Christian Unity

We each have our own different perspectives, after all the eye does not have the same function as the hand, but at our core is serving that one body, coming together for our belief in one God, Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer, and it is important that we recall what draws us together, rather than what pulls us apart. Together we stand, divided we fall, and that has never been more true in the world today. Don’t conform to the world, be transformed says Paul to the Romans, and so wanting to fit in and not be seen as different is not new, or a modern invention.

Today we have come together to specifically think of our relationship with God, the God who is always there for us, creating us, supporting us and nurturing us. This is an opportunity to think about how we can nurture our relationship with God, through Jesus who strengthens and leads us.

Throughout scripture we hear of God offering that relationship, renewing the covenant with God’s Chosen People many times. After they have been in the wilderness for 40 years. God has kept God’s promise, now the people are reminded and encouraged to keep theirs, not only for themselves but for future generations. As we know they failed time and again, yet still there is the promise of a new start, although as Jeremiah tells them, this new Covenant will not be like the ones made before, which they broke, this one will be in their hearts and all will know God.

In the institution of the Lord’s Supper we are reminded that this new Covenant is through God ‘s own Son, Christ’s body and blood were given and poured out for many – all are invited and all are welcome.

Each time we share in the thanksgiving, which is the Lord’s Supper, we recall again the great gift God gave to us, the gift of love and the opportunity to love and be loved. God showed us that love by sending Jesus to live and be with us. We are still in Epiphany the season of showing, it’s what the word means, so what better time for us to be thinking anew about how we show our love for God. Jesus was shown to the shepherds and the Wise Men, to the poor and the rich, the familiar and the stranger. They reacted with awe and wonder and went and told others of what they had seen, they showed God to the world.

And throughout history God has offered all of this but humanity can choose to accept, or not, the offer of love, welcome, inclusion and the opportunity to become the person that God sees, and to fulfil our full potential.

As disciples we are called to love and serve God, not just in words, but in actions. Our words are only meaningful and worthy of being offered to God when we intend to live our lives as Jesus calls us to, to be transformed and not to conform, and to be the special individuals we are called to be, and that is what we promise in the Covenant Prayer which we will share together shortly.

This prayer recognise that God is there when we seek God, and when we don’t; when we wander away, and when we return. God is there for all seasons and all times in our lives ‘you are mine, and I am yours’ is a powerful statement of our intentions, our faith and our belonging.

So as we say these words let us be open to all that God is, and can, do in us; to all that God may ask of us, even when that takes us beyond what we know and expect; because when we turn to God and offer ourselves, we are no longer our own, but God’s, and that is a wonderful place of belonging. Amen.

Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)

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15 January 2023 – The Second Sunday of Epiphany

As we begin a new year many people try and make a new start – resolutions to have a tidier house, join a gym, get fitter, eat less sweets …. All in the hope that things will change and life will be better. Our gospel reading this morning was about some people who met Jesus and although they didn’t realise it at that moment, would find that their lives would never be the same again.

In the old days people were often called by the job they did: Dave the butcher, Jack the milk, Pete the plumber. Throughout the Bible Jesus is given many names. Today we are thinking about just one. In our reading John the Baptist calls Jesus ‘The Lamb of God’. It is a name that is particular to Jesus and which also has meaning for us today because it expresses what he came to do. Whether or not the people of John’s Day fully understood it or not we don’t know – I think it is unlikely that they did.

When John calls Jesus the Lamb of God, he also adds, ‘who takes away the sin of the world!’ At that time Jesus had not yet begun his ministry, let alone died for the sins of the world, and so it seems unlikely that John would have had a full picture of what this was really to mean. But we know from other parts of the Bible that God often enables people to speak prophetically, or to do things that are a picture of something that is to happen in the future, even if they are not consciously aware of the link.

The actual baptism of Jesus is not described in John’s gospel, but the implication from this passage is that John had recently baptised Jesus, and it was then that John recognised Jesus for who he really was – the Messiah. That’s when he knew Jesus was ’the Lamb of God’.

But did the baptism itself have anything to do with Jesus being ‘the Lamb of God’? I think it does. In those days baptism was by immersion. The picture that is evoked for us who know the whole story, is that Jesus’ baptism was symbolic of his death on the cross in the immersion, and of his rising to life as he came up out of the water. The purpose of his death was to take away the sin of the world. So it is no accident that John calls Jesus ‘the Lamb of God’ because of his baptism.

But why ‘Lamb’? Lambs were sacrificed on a regular basis in Israel. Not only did each family sacrifice a lamb at each Passover, but every day two unblemished lambs were sacrificed in the temple for forgiveness of sins. One in the morning and one in the evening. These were lambs brought by human beings to human beings to be sacrificed for the sins of the people of Israel, but these lambs in themselves actually had no power to take away sin, and the people who sacrificed them were themselves in need of forgiveness.

The Lamb of God, pure and sinless, was given by God to human beings, to be sacrificed for the sin of the whole world. He alone had the power to take away sin. Not just on one occasion, but for all time. The forgiveness he won was for all human beings without distinction. It is available to anyone who wants it. But it is not available automatically to everyone. As John says in ch.1:12 whoever receives him and believes in him, they are the ones who are given the right to become God’s children.

When John speaks of ‘the sin of the world’ he is actually talking about the sin of each individual person. It is only when we as individuals turn to him, and confess our sin and ask him to forgive us that we can receive what he has to offer. That he will take away our sin and make us clean. And that is available to all people of all races and cultures, all sizes and shapes, all temperaments and personalities.

John may not have fully understand that Jesus was God at that point, but he did recognise that he was the long-promised Messiah, the one God was sending to save his people.

John had been preparing the way for Jesus and now he tells his own disciples that they must follow Jesus instead. Why? Because only Jesus can offer a truly new start. John’s baptism washed the outside of the body, Jesus offers baptism with the Holy Spirit which washes the soul and spirit, our very heart.

The picture John uses would have been very significant for the Jewish people around him: The Lamb of God. It would have spoken to them of at least four things. 

1. The Passover – the time in their history when God rescued them from slavery in Egypt and from the angel of death. A time when they slaughtered a lamb and painted the blood on their doorpost. When the angel of death passed over and saw the blood they were kept safe. It was such a significant event that it is celebrated by Jewish people every year, even to the present day.
2. The daily sacrificing of a lamb in the Temple, night and morning to symbolise God’s forgiveness of the sins of the people.
3. In both Isaiah and Jeremiah there are pictures of a lamb led to the slaughter. These pictures pointed to someone who by his suffering and sacrifice would redeem his people. Maybe John is saying here – ‘the one who will do this is here’. The people didn’t fully grasp this until after the Resurrection.
4. When the 400 years of silence occurred – the 400 years between the Old and New Testament when there were no prophetic messages, Israel went through great struggles. It was called the time of the Maccabees. The symbol of their leader, Judas Maccabaeus, was of a horned lamb. The symbol stood for the conquering champion of God.

This image, the Lamb of God, would have spoken powerfully to those who were looking for the coming of the Messiah. Particularly to John’s own disciples. When John was with two of his disciples and saw Jesus walking by and said, ‘Look! There is the Lamb of God.’ his disciples left and went to follow Jesus. From that moment their lives were never the same.

As we look around our nation we can see that it is not that
different from the Israel of John the Baptist. There is injustice for many at the poorer end of our society. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Many people are waiting for someone to save them, to restore greatness to our nation, but they want to do it in their own human strength. The lesson of history, and of the Bible, is that human beings cannot save themselves. This has been proven time and time again. Great Empires rise but they also fall. People turn their back on God at their peril.

The message of the Bible, the message of John the Baptist: the Christian message, is that there is only one kingdom that will not fall – the Kingdom of God. There is only one way that the human heart can change (and therefore human lives be changed) and that is the way that God himself provided. Through the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ.

No matter how badly we have behaved, no matter what difficulties we find ourselves in, no matter how impossible our circumstances, there is someone who can save us. Someone who can give us a new start.

The Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. He offers us four things:

1. As the equivalent of the Passover Lamb he offers us eternal life. We no longer need to fear death.
2. As the once and for all sacrificial lamb he offers forgiveness of our sins, of all that makes us feel unclean and unworthy.
3. As the one who went to suffer and die willingly for us he offers a new start, we call it redemption. We can have a restored relationship with God.
4. As the equivalent of the horned lamb he stands in heaven as the conquering champion of God, who is God and who holds all power and authority and one day will return showing that power, and everyone in the world will see him and recognise him and bow before him.

This is our God – a God who can offer us a new start no matter how far we have fallen away; a God who can offer us new hope no matter how deep our despair; a God who can offer us forgiveness no matter how badly we have behaved; and a God who will never leave or forsake us no matter what our circumstances.

As the disciples followed Jesus they did not find they had easy lives – in many ways their lives got harder, but eventually they learned that Jesus would never let them down, and when they were empowered by the Holy Spirit they were able to face anything. As we walk through this new year, we face many challenges: the rising cost of living, energy prices, strikes, maybe the loss of a loved one….., each one of us will have our own issues. But one thing we can be sure of is that Jesus will never leave us, he will support us and he has given us the church – each other. We are his hands and feet in the world and as we work together we will feel his love carrying us through and we will also be a blessing to the world and we will have the opportunity and the privilege to introduce others to Jesus, the Lamb of God.

Maria Holmden

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8 January 2023 – The Epiphany

“Arise, shine for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples: but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.”

A message of hope, of light after dark in dark times is the message in our Old Testament reading from Isaiah, and it is a message that is needed as much today as it has ever been, in a world of darkness on so many levels. And that darkness can be so all encompassing that we no longer are surprised or astonished at what is happening, we become almost immune to the reality, perhaps as a way to protect ourselves, or perhaps because we feel we cannot make a difference.

Yet life is about being surprised and astonished, when we no longer have that then we are not truly living. It is when we are caught by surprise and astonished that we are enabled to see things in a new way, a new light. It is about looking for new challenges, and ways to face them, and in all this to be truly alive.

The Wise Men set out following a star to an unknown destination. Although as they were looking for the king of the Jews from their reading of this star, one assumes they had some idea of the direction to go and could plot the course of the bright star they had seen. Otherwise when a cloudy night occurred they would have been completely lost! It was a new challenge, it surprised and astonished them, they consulted what they already knew, their charts, their ancient writings and put their trust in them, but all did not go to plan. They arrived at the wrong destination, they spoke to completely the wrong person about their journey and had to regroup and refocus.

And isn’t that like our journey through life at times? We set out with good intentions, we follow the guidelines, but sometimes the journey, just like it was for the Wise Men, becomes difficult, and we get lost, or give up.

Being lost and alone is a fear for many of us in many aspects of our lives. How will I find my way to a particular place, do I trust the modern equivalent of the star, the sat nav? If not what do I put my trust in?

Is my life going in the right direction especially when everything that is familiar has gone, no landmarks, no directions? How do I know if I am making the right decision?

How will we face a certain situation when we feel we have no one to turn to, and that loss of direction can be both physically, emotionally or spiritually? Where and to whom do we turn, who do we have faith in?

The Wise Men had a long arduous journey across mountains and deserts, and at times they probably questioned why on earth they had ever started this journey. But travelling together they could encourage one another they were not alone. I am constantly amazed, indeed astonished at individuals who choose to take perilous journeys, often without back up, across oceans or ice caps, what drives them to such challenges, and alone?
And what of our faith journey? What happens when we feel a loss of direction or that we are alone on that journey? Well the important thing here is that as Christians we can journey together, ours is a faith of community, and when we journey with others there is relationship, a community that is there for us.

We are creatures made for relationship – with God and with one another. That does not mean we won’t get lost or feel alone, but it does offer us a way forward, a light in the darkness. “Lift up your eyes and look around:… you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice.” We can thrill and rejoice as we see new things, new ways of being in our lives, and with God.

God calls us to His light, so that we can see a way forward, not always immediately, not necessarily clearly or as we envisaged, but God is there when we get lost, and God never stops searching for us.

And when we continue our journey we can offer our gifts to God to use – our skills and most of all ourselves. We will no doubt surprise ourselves at times, we may even astonish ourselves in quite what we are capable of, with God’s help.

Yes this world is dark at times, and will continue to be so when we don’t work together for the good of each other, but there is always the potential for hope and therefore light to shine into those dark places.

God came to dwell amongst us, to bring light into this world, it is what we have just celebrated at Christmas, because the light continues to shine in the darkness and the darkness did not, will not overcome it. Amen.

Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)

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1 January 2023 – The Circumcision of Christ

Today we celebrate the new year, Happy New Year, and the Circumcision of Christ, that ritual for young Jewish boys eight days after their birth. A ritual that says they are cleansed and purified and is an outward sign of belonging to God.

God made a Covenant with the people of Israel starting with Abraham, calling them to be God’s Chosen People, a holy nation, and circumcision was the outward sign of that Covenant.

This covenant, or promise, which was based on God’s Law was renewed in Jesus in his life, work, death and resurrection, and in this Covenant God promises us new life in Christ, not just for a few, but for all. And we promise to live not for ourselves but for God, and much of this we recall when we share with our Methodist friends in the Covenant Service later this month, a service which is an integral part of their Church Year.

For us we also recall that covenant today in the liturgy for the Circumcision of Christ, and perhaps new year is a particularly good time to do so as we reflect on the past year and look ahead to the coming year.

We may choose to use this time to make plans, even resolutions about our life, or we may choose not to set ourselves goals which we fail to realise, and then feel guilty about, but instead to reflect on what is important in our lives. As a result of those reflections there may be things that we want to change in how we live our daily lives, or in what our objectives are, not just for this year, but for the longer term, and changes can be good, if not always comfortable or easy.

When God first called Abraham, or Abram as he then was, God called him to leave all that he knew, and he was not a young man. God promised that Abraham would be a father of nations, but God also required him to have faith and trust in God. Faith, trust that God would be there and guide and lead him in all that God asked. Abraham did waver at times, he did not always get it right, and he sometimes decided to go his own way because God did not seem to be delivering. Yet God didn’t lose faith in him, gently bringing Abraham back on track and reminding him that God had made a promise, and that promise would be kept.

The same promise that God gives to each of us, yesterday, today and always. A promise not based on the Law, but on faith, trust and love, a promise to all who want to listen. We may not always listen, or indeed heed what God is saying, but unlike those New Year resolutions we make, fail to keep, and then feel bad about, God encourages us to try again – to recognise when we get things wrong, to learn from our mistakes and focus anew.

Circumcision is a sign of belonging, but also of cleansing and purifying, a new beginning. New Year is also an opportunity to reflect and think again about what nourishes us in our lives, and what drains us. It is a chance to decide that the latter is not what we need in our lives and to start anew, to cleanse ourselves and renew ourselves in our daily lives and also in our relationship with God. Now that is not a bad resolution to make as we begin 2023. Amen.

Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)

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