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25 December 2022 – Christmas Morning
Once upon a time…
When you hear those words you know you are about to hear a story, usually a fairy story, where good finally wins out over evil, and everyone lives happily ever after! So we settle down to listen, or to watch the story unfold, perhaps in a pantomime, and sure enough, after all the twists and turns of the plot, all ends happily.
All of our readings this morning seem to have a similar opening preparing us for a story.
A messenger bringing good news, salvation for all; long ago God spoke to our ancestors, and our gospel could almost be prefaced with ‘Once upon a time,’ as we hear again the well known Christmas story. The setting of the scene with the first census, the reason for Mary and Joseph travelling to Bethlehem, the birth of the expected child, and the angels, the messengers, announcing to shepherds that this child, certainly no ordinary child with such messengers, has been born.
So that’s all okay isn’t it, there may be some twists and turns, but everything will be alright, we can settle down and all will be well.
Well yes…. But there is so much more to this story. This is not just any story, this is God’s story – this is about new beginnings for all, with the promise of something very special, a relationship with God.
Because what is amazing about this story is that God chooses to come to us, to humanity. God, the unknown, chooses to make God known to us.
And even more amazing is that God doesn’t choose the rich and powerful, but the outsiders, the shepherds. God doesn’t arrive in a palace, but a humble stable, and the announcement to the shepherds, not unnaturally, has the effect of great fear and trepidation. This is not the norm, this is not what you expect on a darkened hillside overlooking Bethlehem in winter, or indeed at any time. But then God is not the norm, God is in the unexpected.
Because God is so immense, it can be very difficult for us to put into words our experience of God. It may be a feeling, a sensing of God’s presence, perhaps like Elijah finding God in the silence after the earthquake, fire and wind. It may be we experience God at times of great suffering – physical or emotional – it may be we experience God in prayer or in the realization of how small we are in the universe. But explaining that experience can be nigh impossible because God is so much greater than we can ever imagine.
Yet at Christmas we celebrate that God chose to come amongst us, to be with us, to teach us, to offer us a way of coming closer to God. Jesus, The Word, God made flesh, offers us a new beginning, a new understanding.
This is an opportunity for good to triumph over evil, this is an opportunity for us to live in the knowledge that God is with us, holds us, guides us through all the ups and downs of life.
Fairy stories always end on a high, with the promise that everyone lived happily ever after, they don’t hang around for the arguments the difficulties, because real life is 3 dimensional. There are difficult times as well as good times, and where is Prince Charming when you need him then?!
Life isn’t a fairy story, however much the media, with its emphasis on celebrity, tries to peddle this. Life is multi faceted, if it wasn’t it would be very boring, and God chooses to come and be with us in all of that, the messiness as well as the tidy parts of life. Born not in a palace, but in a stable; worshipped not be those in power, in fact it was those in positions of power who found him such a threat; no he was worshipped by the poor, the outsider, the foreigner.
God offers us so much, but we can ignore it, we can ignore God. We are too busy, we don’t look or listen, we miss God in those around us, we choose to shut God out.
Once upon a time God entered into our humanity, lived amongst us, and promises to return, because the angels brought news of great joy, not just to the shepherds, but to all who are prepared to listen.
Yet God was in the world, and the world came into being through God; yet the world did not know, or chose not to know God. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.
To become children of God, to receive good news of great joy, now that is a real gift worth receiving this Christmas, a real new beginning, with the promise of a wonderful ending.
This Christmas will you let God be with you, and in you, will you welcome a new beginning into your life? Once upon a time…
Happy Christmas.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
24/25 December 2022 – Christmas Night
My song is love unknown, my Saviour’s love to me,
love to the loveless shown, that they might lovely be.
O who am I, that for my sake, my Lord should take frail flesh?
This is one of my favourite Easter hymns, and no the recent bang to my head has not confused me as to which season we are in, because as we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Word made flesh and come amongst us, it is in the knowledge that this frail child will eventually die, for us. The final line of that opening verse says exactly that – O who am I, that for my sake, my Lord should take frail flesh and die?
This song is wonderful because it is a love song, of a sort, it is about the love of God for us, God’s creation, and that set me thinking again about how we know, really know, that we are loved.
Because you can’t actually (scientifically) prove you love someone. Yes you can do caring and thoughtful things, to demonstrate that love. You can buy gifts, some valuable, some only the two of you will understand, you can write beautiful words, a poem, or even a love song – but none of these actually proves our love. They are only outward and visible signs of our love.
So how do we know? At the end it is faith and trust – faith and trust that the person professing love really means what they say and do, and that is why if that trust is betrayed we feel so hurt. Why we love one person and not another, is a question that is as old as time itself, but love is essential to our well being.
When we know that we are loved – by parents, the person who we share our life with, we feel secure, confident, valued, and able to face whatever life may throw at us.
Without love we feel incomplete, and no amount of money or success will fill that void, that darkness.
At Christmas we come to celebrate that God loves humanity, us, so much that God came to live amongst us – to show, not prove, to us God’s love and care for us, but the option is still ours to reject that love.
Love incarnate – God made man, God with us, God both fully human and still fully God. Hail the incarnate deity we sing in our carol Hark the Herald Angels, and in order to be incarnate, made man, he had to be God Deity first! We hear the words, we sing the words, but can we understand them, like being born only to die for us, how can we make sense of it all. How can we understand such a great outpouring of love?
In our gospel, John refers to God as The Word, but does that make God any more comprehensible? Because this is not about saying the words and everyone saying, Oh of course we understand, because we don’t.
Christmas is not about the living God coming to say, there, there that’s alright, Christmas is about God shining the light into dark places, and us not necessarily understanding, yet, what it is God is showing us.
The world although waiting for God did not recognise God when God came amongst us. The very world that God had created, did not recognise God, the light of the world, the Word become flesh, who dwelt/lived amongst us. That light of all people, the light that cannot be overcome by the darkness, was not recognized, was not understood.
There is much darkness in our world today, extremist views, terrorism, poverty, war, and yet there is still a beacon of light. God is still with us, God is in the darkness with us, encouraging us to see God, to see an alternative way, a way of peace, justice, mercy and salvation.
But we have to trust in that light, we have to accept God’s love and try to comprehend the darkness.
The Christmas story actually has much that is dark within it. The political intrigue of King Herod – so anxious to keep his throne he would do anything, including killing innocent children, when he heard of the birth of Jesus, a new king who he saw as a threat to his power. Joseph was uncertain what to do when he found out his fiancé was expecting a child that was not his, yet ultimately he stayed with her and the child, Jesus, and they became refugees as they fled from Herod. Joseph trusted in God, and God’s love.
God showed love for us by coming to live with and among us, as one of us, feeling the pain, the sorrow, the joy that we all feel in our daily lives.
We might say God walked backwards to greet us, walking backwards from creation to be with us, and walking backwards gives a completely different perspective; think of the backward facing seat on the bus or train. We see where we have been, but have to trust where we are going because we are not actually looking ahead!
God calls us to walk with God, trusting in God’s love, gaining a different perspective, and ultimately turning to look forwards, having learnt from what was in the past, behind us, as we learn to trust God, and turn to face the future, knowing that we are not alone.
It may at times be difficult to understand, to comprehend what God is doing, and we can feel that we are blundering around in the dark, but wait, listen… God is there in the darkness with us, shining a light and leading us onward.
God is always there for each one of us the loved and the loveless, that each of us might indeed be lovely. God does this because God loves us, no matter who we are. God offers us a different view on life and offers us an opportunity to open our hearts to feel God’s love. Happy Christmas.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
18 December 2022 – Fourth Sunday of Advent
Next Sunday, we will wake to the magic of Christmas Day: to a child born in a manger, to a God-with-us in the here and now, within touching distance, as close as close can be. And all our gaze (like that of the story characters) will be on that God-child and – as we peer into that crib scene – we may sense the mystery that it holds out to us. But that is then, and this is now.
As Advent comes towards its conclusion, in the absence of a child, it is the parents who are pushed centre-stage. Matthew’s telling of the story that we heard today focuses very much on the father. Joseph is the protagonist here: from royal lineage, he is a righteous man, who seeks to do right by (or at least to act leniently with) his betrothed wife, in exploring a quick, quiet divorce (just as much for him as for her), when it is found out that she is pregnant … and not by him. We get an Annunciation – not to the woman but to the husband in a dream, and through this the outcome of the story changes: as she is saved, as is her child.
But that passage today is not where Matthew begins his gospel story. Before this (like some divine ‘Who do you think you are?’), he lists a line of descent, starting with the founding father of the Jewish nation Abraham, down to King David who established a kingdom of Israel, to the deposed King Jeconiah leader of the exiled Jews in Babylon, and then through generations of nobodies (just names in a list with some generations simply skipped) until the pedigree terminates with this Joseph, who we later learn is a builder probably involved in carpentry. It reflects the patriarchal society of the time, full of machismo: father begets son who begets grandson, each child born from the seed of his father. The whole point of such ancient genealogies is to establish connection, authority, legitimacy, inheritance, and pride.
But this lineage is very much a descent: not just a descent through generations across years and centuries, but a descent in status and situation – a descent or slide from the great and important figures of Jewish legend and history, down to the inconsequential and unremembered rank and file of Galilean peasant stock. It is a shift from the expectation of the long-expected royal Messiah to its realisation in a messiah we find in Jesus the Nazorean.
But even more so, Matthew seems to intentionally undermine the genealogy. At certain places, he adds in the names of a few women. Judas begets Phares and Zara “out of Thamar”; Salmon begets Booz “out of Rachab”; Booz begets Obed “out of Ruth,” and David begets Solomon “out of Uriah’s wife”. The selection is not immediately obvious: the Jewish matriarchs – Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah – are passed over without mention, and these four who are named are instead women with indelicate stories relating to sex. And apart from them, no other women are referenced at all, for – as the language in the passage intimates – at the time, women would simply have been viewed as a womb to carry the man’s seed to fruition, until the time came to push the child out.
Except of course, if we look closer, there are not four women listed but rather five. For Matthew’s biggest twist in the genealogy is right at the end, where having plotted the generational links throughout the centuries, he undermines it all by breaking with the pattern of “father begets son”, with the predicament that Jesus was not begotten by Joseph but was simply born out of Joseph’s wife Mary.
This child rather than the Son of David is the son of a country peasant girl with no status or prestige; her pregnancy defining her as an unwed mother, an outsider within her own community, who’s law demanded punishment – even death, denying her any protection other than that which a just husband was prepared to extend.
Matthew’s Messiah is born into shame, is born into danger. Born in an age where rates of maternal and infant mortality were high, where miscarriage was common, where many new-borns wouldn’t survive their first week let alone see their fifth birthday, where – even if the mother survived childbirth – they may still have died from complications after the birth.
But this peasant girl (in all her powerlessness, and lack of backstory and detail and focus), despite the emphasis on Joseph and his male ancestors, surprisingly is pivotal to the whole story – a messy story of jeopardy: worthy of gossip and shrouded in scandal. It is this unlikely character, who (in the terminology of the early church) becomes ‘theotokos’: that is ‘she who gives birth to God.’
When I was younger, I was uncomfortable with hymns and devotions that named Mary as ‘Mother of God’ – and to be honest I still am. I will often just stop singing or taking part, and shuffle uneasily in my seat. But that is what faith does, what faith requires: the taking us out of our comfort zones, needling us, causing outrage, by pushing us on to see truth at a deeper level. The central tenet of our faith is that God is found in flesh, is incarnate in his world in Christ, participating in the human condition, as one of us. And all that comes from not from some glorified heavenly queen but from the physicality, the embodiment, the fleshiness, of this young shamed pregnant girl Mary – not simply a receptacle from which the incarnate God pops out, but a mother who conceives and grows within her and gives birth to the child we claim as Immanuel: ‘God-with-us.’ This is a God who was not only incarnate in the world in which she lived but was also incarnate inside carried and nourished by her through her pregnancy. In her degradation, in her hell, she herself becomes a heaven, a hidden dwelling place of God.
The story of Christmas that we will hear next week gives us a new model of power. In it, God’s power will lead to God becoming vulnerable, becoming small, weak and dependent: dependent on others who themselves are also underprivileged, needy and powerless. A God whose incarnation is as fragile as the lives of any other poor child born at that time, susceptible to the ‘changes and chances of this fleeting world,’ exposed to the risks of poverty and disease, where the perils and dangers of everyday existence stack the odds against his survival.
The American writer James Baldwin wrote that we cannot risk love without risking humiliation. This is what we find in the incarnation, and this is what we and the church are called to follow. The child that is born to Mary is born into her poverty and uncertainty and shame, for God’s power always was and always is for the least, the last and the lost.
Colin Setchfield
11 December 2022 – Third Sunday of Advent
Advent is one of my favourite times of the Church Year. It is the start of the Church calendar and is a time for preparation and expectation – the now and the not yet, the very essence of our Christian faith where we wait in hope.
The problem is that for many this is just the last hectic weeks before Christmas, indeed Bishop Guli last week touched on this in her sermon. Because if we see this as a period to be ‘got through’ we ignore the now as we look to what is coming, the not yet, and in doing that we lose the opportunity for reflection and preparation, the opportunity to be, as the modern parlance has it, in the moment.
Our Isaiah reading seems to encourage that looking to the future rather than the now, but in doing so it is offering hope for the present time. Isaiah was prophesying to a people living through difficult and dark times and they needed some reason to keep going, they needed hope. And in many ways that is where we are too in a dark season of the year and with ever increasing dark and difficult news around us.
After the difficulties of the pandemic, with its restrictions, fear and loss we could be forgiven for wanting life to go back to how it was, but that was not going to happen, and actually was that really such a good time anyway? The last few years have taken a toll on our wellbeing – mental and physical, and our economy. Added to that has been the war in Ukraine, unrest in so many other parts of the world, the effects of climate change and all the hopes of returning to life as we knew it have changed. And change brings its own fears and expectations.
This year many are concerned about the cost of living, food and energy, and even many of the Christmas adverts are recognising this as they focus less on excess, and more on care and kindness to others.
I spoke of Advent being a season for reflection and also the now, the present, and I said that because it is where we are in our lives, that will enable us to look at where we want to be. Be patient, show endurance was the encouragement thousands of years ago and still today. Those seeking out Jesus from John the Baptist wanted signs, they wanted confirmation of the direction to take. The reply they get is to look at what is happening around them. And then Jesus asks the crowd, what did you come out to see? John was a messenger, a foreteller of what was to come, and Jesus encourages them all to look deeper, no easy answers just look. And for us too now is the time to be watchful and alert to what God may be doing both in our world and in us.
So Advent is a time of expectation and preparation, but it can also feel more like a time of disappointed hopes as we worry about finances and our world today. We may look back and regret opportunities missed or lost, and it may also be a time of thinking of other losses in our life with loved ones no longer with us, or of broken relationships. As I said we are in the darkest time of the year, with short hours of daylight and the colder weather so the Advent themes of light and hope may seem far way. But in all this is God’s message, sent to Mary via the angel Gabriel shown so wonderfully in our mosaic, and in God ‘s coming amongst us. Do not fear.
Not easy I hear you say, and I agree. I am one who plans, which means I tend to look for what might go amiss and what do I need to put in place to mitigate that? Well a road traffic accident was certainly not in any of my plans or contingencies! Yet I am also a reflector, and thinking about what has gone before, what have I learnt, what can I actually influence and change, and in that there is hope, because in all we do, we do not do it alone. As Christians we believe that God is with us, not just at Christmas, but in all we do. God walks with us yesterday, today and tomorrow, and in that is hope.
It does not mean that life will not have its’ challenges, it does not mean that we will find some changes easy, it does not mean we will not face loss or worry or sadness. But it does mean we can have hope. Hope in even the darkest times that we are not alone, God, Emmanuel will be with us, guiding us towards the light.
Advent is not a time to be got through, and neither is life, because neither is about just surviving, both are about living. Living with our fears, recognising them and seeking help when we need to; in prayer, in talking to, and sharing with others, it is amazing how speaking of our fears and bringing them out of the darkness into the light, can help and often be the first step in turning that fear into challenge and eventually hope. Overall be kind to yourself, and those around you.
Living with expectation, preparing yes, but also recognising our hopes and fears are a challenge, but that with God alongside us, challenges we can rise to. And as we come to Christmas we can celebrate again that the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight. Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
4 December 2022 – Second Sunday of Advent
God of the wilderness and God on the margins
So, how are your preparations going for Christmas? Have you ordered the Turkey, wrapped the presents, invited the relatives and done all the other things that are on your to do list and should have been ticked off by now? Or are you just caught in a wave of anxiety about all the uncertainties still surrounding us this year which are leaving you paralysed – a kind of panicked inactivity, fuelled by worry about the cost of living crisis? Well, just as you might find yourself sliding ever deeper into the relentless drive or the overwhelming anxiety, bam, John the Baptist comes crashing onto the scene – as he does each year – with his heartfelt cry to get our priorities right. To help us recognise not only that the commercial and external trappings of Christmas are not what it’s all about, but also to remind us to stop, pause and dwell in the present moment without undue worry about what the future may or may not bring. To use well this period of waiting in darkness before the light of Christmas dawns, to use it wisely, not just as a necessary evil which has to be got through before the day itself. John confronts us, commands our attention and demands a response. Are you ready to receive the Christ child, have you re-examined your lives, your values and your priorities?
Did you know that, other than Jesus himself, John the Baptist is probably the most preached about biblical figure? Two of the Sundays in Advent are dedicated to him (I’ve never quite understood that), then there’s the commemoration of his birth on June 24 th and at least one or two other occasions in the year when the bible readings relate to his life and ministry. So he’s an important figure in the life of the church. But when you stop to think about it he’s actually quite an unlikely character – someone you wouldn’t necessarily imagine God using in such a significant way. John the Baptist sounds like a bit of an outsider, a wilderness dweller who lived apart from others, survived on locusts and wild honey and was probably a touch eccentric to say the least. He is considered a great prophet today but actually he was just an ordinary guy, possibly what some might call a little odd, perhaps even a misfit. So, the choice of John as messenger, as the one who would prepare the way of the Lord, is a tad surprising. And we can’t help but notice that the task wasn’t entrusted to an emperor or governor or even a figure from the religious authorities. It was given instead to an outsider, and it came from the wilderness – an uncultivated, neglected and abandoned place on the margins.
But John didn’t let that stop him. He shouldered the responsibility well. He knew what God’s call on his life was – unflinchingly and confidently he followed that call and fulfilled his responsibility – playing his part in the story of God’s relationship with humanity.
Where, I wonder, do you as a church community, here at St. Edmund’s Chingford, feel in relation to what might be described as the seats of power today? Do you feel central within the wider community in which you reside? Do you feel you have any influence in local politics? Do you feel like a significant voice in the diocese of Chelmsford? Do you feel central or marginal? Are you amongst the elite or a small voice in the wilderness?
Well, I can’t answer that question for you, and perhaps there will be differences of opinion amongst you. It might be an interesting discussion to have. So I can’t provide an answer but what I can say is that the God who called John the Baptist and who calls us today, is not partial to wealth or worldly success; God is not swayed by human power and influence; God is not impressed by the size of a church congregation nor by the status of individuals within it. God is not the God of the centre but the one who resides on the margins. God’s only interest is in our faithfulness, our obedience and our commitment to participate and play our part to the best of our ability.
The call of God, through the cry of John the Baptist, is a call to everyone and each of us has a part to play in building the kingdom here on earth as it one day will be in heaven. We are all partners in spreading the good news – we are all called to be salt and light, some in smaller and some in larger ways, but all equally important.
In words from Paul’s letter to the Philippians from our second reading this morning, “we are all partners in spreading the good news” (NIV). The call is to refocus our lives on the example of the Christ child soon to come amongst us again, to recommit ourselves to the service of God and God’s people.
We are not to worry about what others are doing that may or may not seem more impressive or noticeable or valuable. We are to cling on with conviction to the claim on our lives, be it in the wilderness, on the margins or at the centre, and we are to be faithful and obedient. It may seem that our part is very small but if we do it well, if we do it joyfully and confidently then there is no limit to what God can achieve through us.
I’m here this morning to encourage you in your journey of faith as individuals and as a church community. To say how valuable you are within the life of our diocese. How much we need you as part of the wider family. And I’m here to listen and to learn about your life together, your joys and your sorrows, your ups and your downs. I come from Iran, the seed of my faith was sown and nurtured in the tiny persecuted church in that troubled country. I believe in the depth of my being that the small and the apparently insignificant become in the eyes of God the pearl of great price. Size, power and influence are overrated in the kingdom of God. Faithfulness, obedience and joy are where it’s at.
So as we hear the voice of John the Baptist urging us to prepare our hearts afresh for a new encounter with God this Christmas, let’s dwell not on what we can’t do or be, and reflect instead on the many gifts and blessings which God has showered upon us and of all that we can do and be. Let us be alive to the possibilities of the present moment, of what God is requiring of us in this place and at this time, and let us embrace the future, keeping our eyes fixed on the light and hope of the Christ child. May God bless each and every one of you.
Guli Francis-Dehqani (Bishop of Chelmsford)
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27 November 2022 – First Sunday of Advent
Today is the first Sunday of Advent. It is the first Sunday of the church’s year. The beginning of a New Year means a new start, an opportunity to do things better this time, to avoid past mistakes, and build on last year’s successes. The season of Advent is a time of waiting and preparation – waiting and preparing for Christmas, and also waiting and preparing for Christ’s return. Waiting for that day when we see the Lord Jesus face to face.
At the moment many of us may be in a time of waiting. Waiting to hear from relatives and friends, waiting to find the right Christmas present for that person who is so difficult to buy for. I have a friend, Helen, who will be getting married at the end of December. She and her fiancé are not just sitting back and waiting for it to happen, they are busy making plans, choosing their music, buying their clothes, rings, arranging flowers and the many other things that need to be done to ensure that the day goes smoothly. I will be having some of Helens relatives to stay and so am also busy making plans – who will sleep where, what will we eat, arranging to borrow a highchair for the baby and so on, to say nothing of thinking about what I am going to wear for the wedding!
Our first bible reading from the book of Isaiah is very relevant to us today. Isaiah looks forward to God’s judgement of the world, and a new world order. It is a beautiful; picture where the tools of war are turned in to the tools of agriculture. Things which can be used to kill people being turned into items that will help to produce food to keep people alive. As we look around our world we see a very different picture.
This world is in a new age: the Age of Uncertainty. In one sense this has been growing for some time. As a nation we are in a time of economic uncertainty where some people are unable to heat their homes, some cannot afford to eat. There is uncertainty over whether the pandemic is over or whether winter will bring a resurgence. As a world there is uncertainty over the war in Ukraine and the food and energy shortages that have resulted. Individuals will be facing our own uncertainties. On a personal level I have an elderly cat with an array of health issues.
Now I am older I can look back on my life and remember many uncertainties that existed, but have passed and things have moved on. The wars and rumours of wars just in my lifetime: the Suez crisis, the Cuban missile crisis, wars in Vietnam, Korea, Biafra, the Six Day war in Israel and ongoing unrest between Israel And Palestine, Lebanon, the Falklands, Rwanda, Iraq, the Yugoslav wars,Afghanistan and now in Ukraine. And that is not to mention the many wars in Africa and other parts of the world
All times of very real uncertainty and fear of what might happen. However, over time in many cases, things changed: the Berlin wall fell, apartheid in South Africa ended, Cuba is now a tourist destination. Such change can happen quickly – I can remember when the Berlin Wall came down, seemingly almost overnight, in 1989 and the Iron Curtain parted to allow new relationships in Europe. However, those relationships are once again in question as we stand in the midst of the war in Ukraine and in the aftermath of Brexit. Things can change, and can change very quickly.
And yet we speak of living in ‘peacetime’. That peace is actually only an absence of war where I live – but again, is that true? Terrorist atrocities, gang turf wars, knife crime, county lines – war is not just nation against nation. We live in the midst of wars and rumours of wars.
When Jesus came into a world there was a time of peace, a time like no other in history. This was mainly due to the fact that the Romans had taken over almost all of the then-known world and were very strong in keeping law and order through their powerful and vast army. That peace was fragile, and eventually the Roman Empire fell and wars around the world increased, and there has been war somewhere in the world ever since.
If we are feeling fearful or unsettled, it is because we are looking at the world through today’s glasses. We are focusing on the uncertainty of the economic future of our country, of what is going to happen to the NHS, what will Russia do next? But the bible says – we need to have a longer view. God has been in charge of this world from the beginning. He knows the hearts and minds of all people. He knows the mistakes we make. He knows the underlying hatred and the deep deep hurts. God has allowed human beings to go their own way. He has allowed us to make our own decisions, he has allowed us to do the wrong thing. But behind it all he has a plan and purpose that can never be thwarted.
His plan existed from the very beginning – when people turned away from God and went their own God said, ‘I will find a way to bring my people back to me.’ A way that brings peace to their hearts and minds, but a way that will not force them to follow me. They will still have the ultimate choice – to go their own way, or to be reconciled to me and follow my ways.
As we begin Advent and as we wait with anticipation for Christmas Day, we are reminded that the way God has provided for us to have that inner peace, and to have our relationship with him restored was by his coming to earth, taking on our human life, not cushioned in comfort and luxury, but through the cold dark way of birth to parents who were rejected and left to start married life in a stable cave. Being part of a refugee family who fled the wrath of King Herod and had to travel to Egypt and live in that foreign land for many years.
God, in Jesus, lived life as an ordinary person, with brothers and sisters. He became an itinerant preacher, sleeping wherever he could find a resting place. If he had walked the earth today we would have called him a ‘sofa surfer’, and a rough sleeper. He had many hundreds of followers, until they couldn’t accept what he was teaching; he had a few close friends until one betrayed him and the rest deserted him. He was arrested, unjustly accused, beaten and crucified. He died a criminal’s death.
The world had waited a long long time for Jesus to come. He had been promised from the beginning. But when he came no-one recognised him and those who seemed to accept him ran away. It seemed as if God’s plan had failed.
But then, suddenly everything changed. On the third day Jesus rose from the dead. He met with his friends, they experienced his forgiveness, and he gave them new power to face life. Those friends, we call them the Apostles, were changed men. They went out preaching a message of love and forgiveness, a message of hope.
It didn’t make the world a place of peace – but it gave the individuals who accepted what God offered peace in their hearts and lives and strength to face whatever life had to give them. And the way we can experience his peace is through Jesus. When the angels announced the birth of Jesus to the shepherds they sang ‘Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth.’ Peace to his people, not peace to the nations.
Peace to the nations will not come until the end times. When Jesus returns he will bring peace, true peace. Peace that will last forever BUT Matthew 24:36 tells us no one know when that will happen. But in the meantime life must go on. We must get on with living our everyday lives, but as we do we must prepare our hearts and minds for that day when he comes. We may find that before then things may get even worse. But even through the bad times, Jesus can and will give us his peace in our hearts. He gives us a promise that he will never leave us or forsake us. He calls us to stand beside each other and work with each other, not just our Christian brothers and sisters but those who are our neighbours, workmates, friends. Helping them and sharing our lives and our faith.
To paraphrase our middle reading Paul says, ‘wake up, realise that although Jesus hasn’t yet returned, the time of his coming is getting nearer. Look at your life. When you started to follow Jesus he gave you a new heart of righteousness, but you have covered it up. The things you are doing are like dirty clothes, covering up the clean person God made you to be.
As we look forward to these four weeks of Advent and prepare for Christmas, and as we look forward and wait in anticipation for the return of Jesus, let’s remember that no matter how bad things may seem or become, or how good they may be or how much better they might become, the things of this life are transient. Wars come and go, economic crises come and go. Crises emerge in different forms. The older we get, the more we see. We must not lose heart. Things seem uncertain now – they may get better, or indeed they may get worse. But God has provided a better way. If we choose to follow his way then we can look forward in hope to the day when God promises to make all things new.
Maria Holmden
20 November 2022 – Patronal Festival (Feast of St Edmund)
I’m grateful to Revd Lesley for the invitation to be with you this morning as you celebrate your patronal festival and we continue to hold her and her family in prayer.
So your patronal festival…I’m going to be entirely frank in saying that I didn’t know the story of St Edmund before I was asked to come and worship with you today, but I suspect many of you do. But for the benefit of the uninitiated like me, Edmund was born in about the year 840, he was nominated as king whilst still a child. He won the hearts of his people through his love and care for the poor and those in need. When attacked by foreign invaders, he refused to surrender his kingdom or renounce his faith and so was brutally martyred in the year 870.
Edmund paid a very high price for his adherence to his faith and his calling. He put Christ at the centre of his life and fixed his eyes on him and his purposes alone. He was prepared to pay the ultimate price for that.
And it is to that selfless, costly love that we are called. In our Gospel reading for his feast day, from Matthew 10, Jesus says “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.”
For us to be truly faithful, and for Christ to be thereby glorified, we need to set Jesus as first priority in our lives. Our eyes must be fixed on him, our lives must resonate with his teaching and our hearts must be full of love and compassion for those close to his own heart. If the voice of the world ever stands on one side with the poor, the downtrodden, the stigmatised, the unheard and the oppressed on the other. Christ stands with them and so should we; it is in this that God is glorified. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote ‘It is a strange glory, this glory of God.’
So what does it mean for each of you and for your church community here in Chingford to have Edmund as your Patronal Saint. What marks of his ministry and his calling are in your DNA and how are you invited to live that out?
Edmund was humble and devout, faithful, committed, mindful of the wisdom of others, of the highest integrity and of the view that no-one should exalt themselves above another. What a wonderful set of values those are for how you might live, serve and minister here in the embrace of St Edmund.
I pray God’s healing power with Revd Lesley this morning, may she be restored to full health soon. And I lift to God this parish – may you own your calling to those who are vulnerable, may you honour those despised by the world and may you be known by your faithfulness, compassion, humility and grace. And may God’s deepest and richest blessing rest upon you. Amen.
Lynne Cullens (Bishop of Barking)
13 November 2022 – Remembrance Sunday (The Second Sunday before Advent)
‘Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold I make all things new.’
This might be the mantra of today’s modern, throwaway society, always looking to the future, but actually it comes from the prophet Isaiah, and was said to give hope to the people of Israel, living in exile in Babylon. We also understand it to point towards the new life, the new hope, which we are offered thorough Jesus Christ. It is a very real message of hope, and it is for signs and what they might mean, that those who question Jesus in our gospel today, are looking for. There was not much hope around in an occupied country like Palestine then, and they needed some hope. Indeed is that not still true, with people seeking to know what the future holds and never actually living in the moment? In some parts of our world, modern day Palestine included, any sign of hope for a better future is the only way to survive.
Now whilst the passage from Isaiah is focusing on the future, in order to give hope to a nation far from their homeland, we ignore what has gone before at our peril.
History is not just a pile of old thoughts, history can and should inform our future. It is one of the reasons we study it, both in our education to know what went before, and how it has shaped us, and when we read the Old Testament to understand the New. But do we learn from history? The evidence is that so often we don’t. Wars never actually solve the problems, it is only when people sit down and talk, listen to one another, and yes I know there are some people it is not possible to do that with, that differences are settled, but how often does humanity ignore that? The 1st World War was supposed to be the war to end all wars, and yet only 25 years after it had ended, the world was at war again, and this time the loss of life was as heavy amongst the civilian population as those involved in the fighting, a real change from wars of the past.
But still we have conflict, today the conflict we hear about most is in Ukraine, and now warfare is more sophisticated, but it still means individuals – mothers, fathers; sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, nephews and nieces lose their lives in the name of power,
Throughout history there have been those who have wanted to oppress and dominate others and, in stark contrast, there have been those who have stood up for human rights and political and religious freedom. These ‘battles’ between oppression and liberty are not just things of the past, they are a current reality and our world continues to need those who will ‘fight’ for freedom – whether that is physically or politically or morally.
In Jesus’ day the idea of destroying the Temple was significant because of its importance to the Jewish people. It was attacking the nation at its very heart.
But in all this only God can give us wisdom, only God’s kingdom is about love, not power, but love. To love is one of the most risky things we can do – love means being vulnerable and open, we can be hurt and deceived by others, but without love we are nothing. Anger and hatred eat away at our souls and destroy us. By your endurance you will gain your souls, says Jesus. He who endures to the end will be saved. Endurance in love, in working for peace and justice for all, in listening to others is our hope for the future. A future where we do learn from the past, where we give thanks for those who gave their lives that we might have freedom.
Freedom to love, freedom to hope; but let’s not forget freedom brings with it responsibilities to use it wisely, and our freedom has been bought at a high price. In the Acts of Remembrance I take with the British Legion, there is a very poignant line, which says. “when you go home, tell them of us, and say, for your tomorrow, we gave our today.”
St Edmund’s, when it was built in 1939, was a real beacon of hope, and I hope it still is. It was both bringing the good news, the gospel to the people of Chingford, that they might have a place to worship God, but it was also a sign of hope for the future. To build such a wonderful building at a time when the storm clouds of war were gathering was a real sign of hope for the future, for the future of God‘s kingdom. At times there does not seem to be much hope, much love in our world today, with violence on our streets, on every news bulletin that we see; but if we look there are signs of hope, of love.
We are currently in that part of the Church’s year which is called the Kingdom season, when we remember that Jesus came to bring in a new kingdom – but his is one based on truth and life; holiness and grace, justice, love and peace, note power is not amongst that list.
Jesus was asked what signs there would be that God’s new Kingdom was coming, that the old order was dead. He advised them to be patient and to endure, that is still so for us, but whilst we are patient, look for those signs of hope and of love, they may be small but they are there. Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
6 November 2022 – The Third Sunday before Advent
Everyone needs someone to have their back, particularly when loneliness or hardship hits us, when we feel abandoned or alone. And perhaps in the Bible, no one knows this better than Job. In this (as some suggest) the oldest book of the Bible, the fundamental question of ‘Why does suffering occur?’ is confronted head on, and presents to us a spiritual crisis laying “bare the whole human situation.”
At one point early in the story, we find Job, homeless, sat on a refuse tip outside of his town, on the ashes of the burnt rubbish, scraping the boils on his body with bits of broken pottery. Not only had his health gone, his livelihood had been snatched from him, his household had been slain, and his children were dead – killed when their house collapsed on them while they partied.
The rubbish tip was indicative of his rubbish life, of the rubbish friends that provided him with no solace or comfort, of a rubbish God prepared to play fast and loose with his life: a rubbish existence which he wished had never begun. His only hope lay in death, the erasure of the life that he wished he had not lived.
And yet, in today’s reading, despite his horrific trial of life, we hear Job expressing hope (in words that may perhaps be more familiar to us from Handel’s Messiah)…
- I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.
It is one of the sentences read at the Burial of the Dead, and is heard by us as speaking of Christ as redeemer and the hope of resurrection and eternal life. However, whatever we might surmise that it means now, is not necessarily how it would have been heard to the ears of its original audience. And what makes matters worse is the uncertainty that lies in the Hebrew text of this ancient book, which makes most translations of it unreliable.
So, what may be helpful: is to focus in on the word ‘redeemer’ that is used in this passage. The Hebrew is גואל (go’el). This go’el – this redeemer – would be a member of your own family, your next of kin, a senior relative, a person who had the duty to avenge you should something bad happen to you (if you were killed or murdered). This go’el was a person who would stand surety for you or buy back your possessions and property if you were confronted by debt or an overwhelming helpless situation. This go’el stood up for those who had no strength or whereabouts to act for themselves – the widow, the orphan. This go’el took action when all else failed, when the law and authorities – dare we say, when God – fell short. The go’el cared, defended, and protected.
Let’s take a different translation – from the New English Bible…
- I know that my vindicator lives and that he will rise last to speak in court; and I shall discern my witness standing at my side and see my defending counsel, even God himself, whom I shall see with my own eyes.
The passage speaks of the hope and determination of a beset person or people, who even when life is desperate, and their dreams and wishes are cruelly snatched and extinguished, holds out that somewhere there stands a go’el: a redeemer who will stand up and stand alongside and speak out for them, who will vindicate them, re-assert their integrity, redeem them back into an equal and respected relationship with others and with God. A vindication this side of death, but – should this not happen, even after they have gone: the readdressing of their legacy and reputation.
And then today’s gospel gave us this incident in the story of Jesus, where the Sadducees try to trip him up. The Sadducees – unlike the Pharisees with whom Jesus usually spars – did not believe in what they saw as such modern innovations like angels and life after death. And in our gospel passage, they used the practice of levirate marriage – that existed in Jewish society at the time – to make their point. This practice required a man to marry his brother’s widow if her husband had died childless. It’s quite an alien concept to us: of passing a woman from brother to brother until eventually one of them managed to do the deed and produce an heir. To us it seems a contrivance from a time when women were viewed simply as the means for having children and could be exchanged and passed on until that function had been realised.
And yet there is a connection between these two passages. For what the Sadducees refer to (bizarre though it is to us) is tied up with this concept of a go’el, a redeemer, a person who will be there for another in their need. In this marriage and re-marriage situation, each subsequent brother acts not only as go’el to his dead brother – to provide him with an heir (and a life after death through the life of that child) – but also as go’el to the widow to provide her with continued security and protection against oppression and poverty.
But (to paraphrase) Jesus responds ‘that’s what happens now, but that’s not what will happen when the Kingdom of God is here’. The go’el – the redeemer – is required now because, in the Kingdom that is not of God, there are victims, and there are the oppressed, there are those who are side-lined and those who are ostracised, those who are pushed and off-loaded to others, those who are left to fight their own cause and those who left to be crushed under the weight of their situation and the injustice of their condition.
When the Kingdom that is of God is here, there is no need of such redeemers: for in God’s Kingdom none is excluded, none is left behind, none is seen as ‘other’. But now … now there are many Jobs: maybe ourselves, maybe those who live among us, maybe those who travel to our shores to find in us their go’el, who sit on the metaphorical rubbish tips in our modern life with little hope other than the anticipation that somewhere and somewhen there is a redeemer who will stand up, stand alongside, and defend them.
In this church season of the Kingdom, for us the question therefore should be: how does the coming of God’s Kingdom work through us? That gospel reading ends with the statement that ‘God is not the God of the dead but of the living; for in him all are alive.’ And for us to proclaim that – that God is the God of the living – it has to be more than just a wishful yearning by us for those who have died or for our future life. “It should affect our lives on this planet, in this age, today.”
We can’t just fix our faith in Jesus as The Redeemer, without that making a claim on us and our living. If we are the Body of Christ, there is an imperative on us to step out, to stand up, and to be go’el to those within, around and among us who cling to the hope for a redeemer. We are not called to lazily stand around waiting for things to come good in the end, to gamble that God’s Kingdom will be realised in the last faint gasps of breath in our lives and of our world.
God’s Kingdom is for the here and now, and we are called to build up that Kingdom making it a reality in this world. To actively challenge the hopeless situations that cause division, poverty, hunger, suffering and exclusion; to fight for justice, generosity and human dignity; to embrace our kin-ship with all people and all creation, so that the responsibility to act as go’el becomes ours, as we put on Christ to fight: for liberation, freedom and to redeem.
Colin Setchfield
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30 October 2022 – All Saints’ Sunday
Okay I’ve got some medals, who do you think I should give them to here today? Who is the best at something, a model of excellence?
Teachers, carers, parents perhaps?
Well indeed they might be, but actually we all have something we are good at, and not just good, but the best at something, even if we don’t think it is important, and no one gives us a medal for what we do.
Today is All Saint’s Day, but who knows what we are celebrating?
It began back in the 4th century to remember all the people who had died for their faith, martyrs. By this time there were so many it was impossible to remember their dates individually. Today it honours all who have died in faith.
All Saints was originally held after Pentecost to link with the gift of the Holy Spirit to the disciples, and the foundation of the early church. Then, in the 8th century the Pope dedicated a chapel to all the saints in St Peter’s Rome on the 1st November and within 100 years that was the day observed in Britain and Ireland for all the saints.
Interestingly Halloween which also falls at this time, actually just means the eve, or evening before All Hallows, or All Saints, hallow meaning holy, so in fact it is very much a Christian festival remembering all that is holy, not quite what is celebrated today!
So what or who is a saint?
- Perfect people?
- Those who are never cross?
- Those who never do bad or unkind things?
Saints on paper perhaps, but real saints?
What do they look like?
They are always shown in paintings as perfect, often with a halo to show they are holy and rather one dimensional, not real, no wonder people say ‘I am no saint!’
Saints are flawed. Just like us. John the Baptist got angry; Peter denied Jesus when his friend most needed him and Jesus himself, who we might well say was and is perfect, was cross with those who were not following God’s way. He could be quite sharp and impatient with such individuals and when we read Mark’s gospel that includes the disciples at times.
Are saints always perfect? I find it an interesting thought that the Virgin Mary was a teenager, did she have spots and hair that would not go right? Did she worry about her weight?
Well the definition of a saint is someone who has died and been declared a saint, by the Church (although in the Protestant Church we recognise the older saints but don’t declare new ones.) They are a person of exceptional holiness and a model of excellence or perfection of a kind, note of a kind, it does not mean they are totally perfect.
So who do you consider to be a saint today?
We are all made in God’s image, does that make us all saints? Probably because however you define a saint, they all share a yearning, a longing or a hunger for holiness, for intimacy with God, through prayer, humility or humbleness of heart and love of their fellow men and women. They probably would not recognise that in themselves, certainly not some of the modern day saints I can think of, but what they have is a great love for humanity and therefore God, in whose image we are all made. As Jesus said the greatest commandment is love – of God and one another.
So who touches our lives now as saints and Christian heroes, and they do not have to be dead?
The man on the train looking after the young girl being sick after a night of excess? Those who run our local foodbanks and those who campaign against poverty and disease? The person next to you in the congregation?
All of them in their own way are saints as they seek to do God’s will, to live out a life of faith, even when they may not put that name to it, through their actions on behalf of God’s creation. Yes all of us can be saints, real three dimensional people, with our flaws but also our faith and our love for God and God’s people. So wear your medal, invisible though it may be to others, with joy. Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
23 October 2022 – Last Sunday after Trinity
Humility
One of my favourite authors is Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice remains top of my list of her books, despite studying it for my English Literature A level!
If you have never read any of her books, and I know a number of you, like me, do enjoy them, I encourage you to try Pride and Prejudice. In all her books her observations of the times and the people from all backgrounds is acute. Her characters are not drawn in detail, but it is in the characterisation that Austen excels.
In Pride and Prejudice, as the name suggests, the theme is about the pride of the characters and the prejudices that come from that pride. And that theme is carried through from the major players to the incidentals.
The two main characters, Mr Darcy and Miss Elizabeth Bennett, are both guilty of stigmatising others because of their own inbuilt prejudices, and the belief, in Mr Darcy’s case, that he is above many of his fellow humanity, and with Elizabeth, that she despises such pride; a form of pride in itself. Both come to realise the error of their pride and prejudice, and they fall in love and marry. Along the way there is much to both amuse in the author’s witty insights, as well as engender shock at the sheer blindness to other’s good qualities. Mr Darcy’s first proposal to Elizabeth is both shocking in its’ arrogance and sad at how trapped he is by his upbringing and pride.
The priest in the story, Mr Collins, is wonderful character, often portrayed as a buffoon, patronising and supercilious, indeed slightly ridiculous, so nothing new there then in portrayals of clergy in fiction! But there is a reason for all of this. He is beholden, as was the way in the early 19th century, to his patron for his position and thus his income. To say he is smug and a toadeater is to perhaps understate the matter, but Lady Catherine de Burgh has the power to promote him, or make his life very difficult, and so one has some sympathy with his position. But this does not prevent him looking down on those he considers his inferior, pride and prejudice indeed.
In fact he might have been a very good model for the Pharisee in our gospel today. The Pharisee was a righteous man, he kept the Jewish Law, he paid his tithes, but he is smug in his religious practice and no longer feels the need for God.
The tax collector on the other hand is not a righteous man. In Roman times tax collectors were open to bribery, extortion and often downright dishonest, and Jesus recognises the latter is true. But this man comes to God with genuine penitence – ‘have mercy on me a sinner.’ His prayer is that God will forgive him, whereas the Pharisee is not praying to God, in fact he isn’t praying at all, he is just listing, as he sees it, all the good he has done, as opposed to the tax collector’s wrongdoing. There is no dialogue, there is no listening. The very points I mentioned last week as being key to our prayer life with God.
In the book Mr Collins likes to puff off his consequence, and that of his patron. When Elizabeth dares to cross Lady Catherine, Mr Collins, is most anxious about this, as it could reflect badly on him!
In life there are many who believe that only they are important, they don’t need God, they can achieve everything on their own. Paul reminds Timothy that Paul has ‘fought the good fight, finished the race and kept the faith,’ but all of this was only possible because the Lord stood by Paul. When others deserted him, God gave him the strength to go on, and this is his reminder to Timothy. God will be there but remember that it is in God’s strength that we prevail. He/we do nothing in our own strength. Paul had come to know this well. He too, like our gospel character, had been a Pharisee, steeped in the Law, and in that role he had persecuted the early Church. His zeal for his own righteousness had led him down that path, until on the road to Damascus, he literally saw the light, when God intervenes. God had a role for him in taking the gospel to the wider world, and it is this vocation that Paul has persevered with. This has not been about him, and who he is, this is about God and how he, Paul, can serve God, in love and humility.
The tax collector comes to God confessing his faults and desperate to find the loving welcome and forgiveness that God offers; and recognising his humility, God offers that welcome to him.
As God offers that to all who want to come to God, not to justify themselves, like the Pharisee, but because they know they are not perfect. The Pharisee was a product of his time and upbringing, but he too has the opportunity to come to God if he can recognise that it is God, not he, who is at the centre.
In the book Elizabeth recognises that she has been wrong in her assessment of Mr Darcy, as he recognises his own pride. In accepting that pride and prejudice they find a new way.
When we come to God in humility and genuinely seeking that relationship with God, it is always offered, no pride, no prejudice, just a welcome. Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
16 October 2022 – Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity
Persistence
If I said I nag, that is I keep on and on about something, perhaps scolding, you might say that is an annoying character trait. Indeed many would say that. The stereotype often seen in comedy in years gone by was of the nagging wife, it was always a wife, possibly because the comedians were predominantly male! Yet if one looked at why there was nagging it perhaps indicated a lack of real communication between the two parties.
Now if I said I was persistent, that no matter what the obstacle, I would complete the task I had, continue working to my goal or objective, that is seen as a positive and strong aspect of my character. But actually stubbornness, doggedly following a path is another aspect of persistence and perhaps not so attractive. The reality is that persistence is a spectrum from stubborn through continuing, despite opposition, to helping build resourcefulness and achieving one’s goal or vision, and yes nagging is in there too.
So how do you feel when things don’t go your way do you get disappointed, angry, downhearted and exclaim with the age old cry, ‘it’s not fair,’ or do you dust yourself down, pick yourself up and start again?
The importance with continuing with anything is to recognise when it is plain stubbornness and when it is a path worth pursuing. And in this a time for reflection and communication are important.
All of our readings today focus on the persistence, the striving needed to achieve goals, and recognising when we are being stubborn and when it is right to continue, to persist.
Jacob strives from his very birth; in the womb he struggles with his brother Esau; as he is born he hangs onto his brother’s heel; as an adult he tricks their father Isaac into blessing him rather than Esau and he then runs away fearing his brother’s reaction.
He seeks a wife and agrees to serve his father-in-law Laban for seven years for the woman he loves, only to be deceived and duped into marrying the elder daughter. But Jacob does not give up, he serves another seven years for the other daughter and persists in his objective. Throughout he is sustained by God’s promise to be with him, and here in this passage we find him still wrestling, but this time with God, as he awaits a meeting with Esau.
His persistence pays off. Before he obtained the blessing of his father Isaac, perhaps not in a just or honest way; and now he wants the blessing of this opponent he is wrestling with. He does receive a blessing, and discovers that he has been wrestling with God, with the words you have ‘striven with God and with humans and have prevailed.’ Persistence is rewarded.
Paul knows that Timothy will face opposition and suffering in proclaiming the gospel, yet still encourages him to speak whether the time and place are favourable or not. To keep going, endure suffering and persist, because what he has to say is of God.
So I come back to how do we feel when life does not seem to be going our way? Do we lose heart, give up, or do we keep going? And if the latter what enables us to keep striving? Is it because we know we are right, that can be a difficult one especially if others disagree; or because we feel a sense of injustice, or perhaps because we feel God is with us. Indeed it may be a combination of all of these. Yet in order to go on it can be useful to take time to reflect, to reorientate ourselves and reassess before we start again.
Jesus is also encouraging persistence in the parable about the ‘need to pray always and not lose heart.’ Persistence in prayer might sound like nagging, but what Jesus was advocating was a persistence in applying ourselves to prayer, to maintaining communication with God. Good communication is always two way – it is both speaking, and, importantly, it is also listening.
I said at the beginning that nagging can be a sign that communication has broken down. If we have to constantly repeat a request, why is that? Are we putting it badly, is the request unreasonable or is the recipient not listening because they don’t want to assist, or they can’t answer, but don’t know how to say that?
The persistence Jesus advocates is continuing our dialogue with God, and that dialogue includes reflecting on what it is we are saying. God always hears and God always listens, the point is do we also listen out for what God is saying to us? And it is that listening that Jesus is encouraging in our prayer life. Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
9 October 2022 – Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity
The 10 Lepers
The recent pandemic introduced, or reintroduced, a number of phrases into our everyday conversations as we spoke of social bubbles, social distancing, quarantine, testing, face coverings and indeed the pandemic itself. Yes we had heard in history about the plagues which had an enormous impact centuries ago, and in more recent times the outbreaks in Africa, Asia and China of some new viruses, but flu seemed to be the most likely threat to society, and then came March 2020 and the first lockdown. Our reality was turned upside down and inside out.
One of the strangest aspects of Covid 19 was the concept of social distancing. Overnight we went from the idea of being in close proximity to others, to keeping a distance measured in metres. On television programmes we will always be able to date programmes in the future by that unnatural space between individuals.
But before modern medicine, distancing was the only way to reduce transmission of viruses and infections.
Leprosy was, and is, a contagious disease, and like Covid is spread most probably by droplets from the nose and mouth and frequent contact with untreated cases. So in Biblical times anyone with leprosy was ‘quarantined’ outside the community, which in effect meant total exclusion. It is the decay or corruption of the body and was seen as a punishment from God for wrongdoing, for example Moses’ sister Miriam is given leprosy as a punishment for disobeying God – so this disease meant exclusion was both from societal and spiritual support.
In our scriptures today there is therefore a significant dimension to the healing of those afflicted, as it not only cures the disease, but brings those excluded back into the community. In other stories Jesus has actually touched the sufferer, something that was just not done, but in this account and that in the Old Testament that is not so and both times the healing requires trust.
Naaman is a person of rank despite suffering from leprosy, and a non Jew, yet he seeks help from the prophet Elisha, who much to his annoyance does not come to Naaman in person. Instead he advises him to cleanse himself in the river. At first he refuses, angry at being ignored, not trusting that his request is being taken seriously. Yet with encouragement he does as instructed and is transformed – healed of his leprosy and recognising God’s power and authority he give thanks and praise. He is changed both physically and spiritually.
The ten on the road to Jerusalem are also seeking help. They encounter Jesus as he enters the village, they cannot enter the village, and keeping their distance they call out to Jesus asking for mercy. His response is to tell them to go and show themselves to the priest; as this disease was perceived as from God, only a priest could declare them cleansed.
Interestingly they don’t question as we might expect, especially given that Jesus has not actually touched them or said anything else, but they turn and go, and it is in the act of trusting and acting on Jesus’ instructions that they are healed. Nine of them continue, perhaps so excited to be well again, to see the priest to fulfil the law and ritual and be accepted back into society; but one returns to give thanks and praise God. Like Naaman he is an outsider by birth as well as his leprosy.
Jesus has come to speak to God’s chosen people, the Jews, but he is again highlighting that they are focused only on the letter of the Law not what God is doing in offering a new life. Unlike Naaman they obey and trust without question or encouragement when Jesus instructs them, but nine are blinkered and fail to see the greater possibility being offered.
In our various versions of the Creed, our statement of faith, we say that we believe and trust in God, but do we, like Naaman, sometimes need a little encouragement to trust that God has heard our pleas? Or do we, like the nine, obey and trust, but then forget to give thanks for, reflect on, what God is doing in our lives?
It isn’t so much gratitude that God seeks, as our understanding that our lives can be changed and transformed when we do place our trust in God. The one who returns is told ‘your faith has made you well,’ and for us too that is what we are offered. Not necessarily a physical wellness, but a spiritual wholeness as we allow God to work and move in us.
It does take trust, and it isn’t always easy, Jesus knew that as he often spoke to both his disciples, and those who came to hear his teaching, about having trust, as trust can move mountains he told them. So when we allow ourselves to become part of God’s plan, we are part of something greater, part of a community into which all are invited.
The psychological impact of social distancing will, I suspect, be with us for some time. It can still feel strange to be in such close proximity to others, and no doubt those in our readings who were healed would have felt that too after being excluded for so long. God invites us to be part of a community, a community of love, trust and faith. We may sometimes need encouragement, we may sometimes take God for granted, but it is in the community of God that we find support and spiritual growth. Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
2 October 2022 – Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity (Last Sunday of Creation Season)
Creatureliness
ACTIVITY: It seems only right that we get a little creative on this last Sunday in the church’s Season of Creation. I have plasticine – and wonder if anyone would like to create their own creature for us. Perhaps a human-like creature like Morph, that people of a certain age (well, actually my age) will remember from Take Hart in the 1970s. Human in form but made of plasticine and therefore often adapting his shape to mimic any other creature he chose to be, or actually even non-creature (from what I recall he often became a plasticine sphere while moving around). Or you might prefer an actual animal (real or slightly anthropomorphised like Gromit the dog, Shaun the sheep)? Or older members might wish to allow their imaginations to run riot in creating the type of fabulous beasts that clay animation brought to films like The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. Do your best (or your worst) and let’s see where creativity and imagination take us.
Creation is often seen as an activity, a thing that is done or has been done, a work, an action, a making. And in looking towards the Bible, we will define it in terms of the creation stories we find there – of God bringing all things into being: be that as a Spirit moving or vibrating over the empty waters of nothingness shouting into existence all he desired and bringing order, or as a potter scooping up the dry dust of the earth – as it reacted to the watering mist – and, having created a living creature, then creating ever-increasing numbers of new creatures to try and (not quite successfully) match to that first one which he had formed.
But if we see Creation as the stories alone, Creation can become viewed simply as something in the past, something that happened, something that merely explains us-being-here. Despite the seven-day Creation story ending with the statement that God ‘ceased from all the work he had set himself to do’ (Genesis 2.3 NEB), the Christian understanding of creation is that it is a continuous process existing across the whole of time, as God remains active: sustaining and upholding all things rather than resting on his laurels following a job done.
We will miss the point (let alone missing the richness of the storytelling and re-telling) if we seek to read the stories literally. It is actually a failure of faith to insist that the stories are factual rather than truthful. They are symbolic narratives. At the heart of creation is a relationship not a list of facts: a relationship between Creator and Creature (krē.āʹtyo͝or). (That more archaic pronunciation of the word ‘creature’ seems to focus how closely those two concepts are related.)
And that is what is often missing when we think of Creation – our creatureliness. Despite being but one of frankly quite a crowded contingent of ‘sixth-day’ creatures, we seem to retrospectively apply the Christian principle that the last shall be first, as we make us and our species the focus of it all.
But there is a problem with that. God the Creator is supreme goodness, and his creation – created through his love – is an expression of that goodness. Genesis tells us that God sees that goodness in his creation and declared each in turn as good … and the whole as very good.
The image of God and God’s goodness is borne throughout the whole of creation, as St Athanasius puts it “[God] placed in each and every creature and in the totality of creation [an] imprint and reflection of the Image of [God’s] Wisdom.”
So, we need to exercise care that we do not becoming too overly-confident in our assertions that God is love – but then temper that as a love that shows favouritism, that works out in preferential purposes for us.
There is not a radical separation in Creation between creatures one from another. They are created by the same Creator, on whom they all have a common dependency, they are born of and reflect his love, all are of inherent value to God, held in being by the Word of God, who is redemptively involved as a faithful companion in the lives and deaths of all his individual creatures. As another of the great Christian writers St Augustine expressed it, Creation is ‘God’s love song’ – a song not just of us, or of those things like us, or of those things owned by us or useful to us, but a song of the lives, the existence, the being-there of all things that are held in that relationship of finite creatures to the one eternal Creator: living and non-living, sentient and non-sentient.
The challenge for us is to acknowledged that, along the way, humankind “somewhere forgot their own creatureliness, their embeddedness within creation, their interdependence with other creatures” (Richard Bauckham). And in confronting that realisation we are called to move away from the idolatry that snatches God from the rest of Creation – the idolatry that re-creates him in our sole image. We are called to safeguard against a self-centred faith where other creatures – whether human, animal or totally other – never come into view or, if they do, only to be marginalised or exploited for gain. We are called to rise above self, above the narrow horizons of our own particular individualistic concerns and interests; we are called to humility as creatures before their Creator.
We need that realisation that we are part of an equal interconnected creation because that also is how we make, affirm and see the value of ourselves.
“We need to sense and relish our profound connectedness to all our ancestors, to all of the events and processes on which our life and being depend, stretching back from the present moment to our parents, to the animals and more primitive organisms from which we have evolved, to the stars whose life and death produced all the heavy elements (heavier than helium) which make up our bodies, to the Big Bang in which our possibility was first initiated and expressed” (Norman Wirzba).
Consider our creatureliness, our dependency on God, the wholeness of our shared reality. If God who creates is good, then if in our actions and deeds we ‘uncreate’ – destroying life and unpicking creation’s wholeness – we violate our relationship with our Creator, we forfeit Eden, and we ourselves are also lost.
Colin Setchfield
Plasticine creatures on the altar
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25 September 2022 – Harvest Thanksgiving
Today we are celebrating harvest, although with modern technology and the changes in the weather, the main harvest tends to have been gathered in long before now. Indeed, for those of us living in towns and cities, disconnected from the day to day rigours of farming, the closest we probably come to a harvest is growing some fruit or veg in our gardens or allotments, something I know a number of you do.
Yet food is a basic necessity. At present the cost of food, along with so much else that is necessary, is climbing at such a rate that many people are finding it hard to make ends meet. Crops have failed, or are much reduced, with the drought, and war continues to affect both food and energy production and price.
We live in a part of the world where poverty and need has been in the minority for many decades, unlike countries affected by long term drought, war, famine and poverty, and yet we too are seeing increasing numbers struggling on a day to day basis.
Out local foodbank is called Eat or Heat, underlining that for some the choice is stark – food or heating- but not both. Energy prices mean that many more will be pushed into both food and energy poverty, which in turn leads to calls for higher wages and this fuels inflation.
And this is for basic needs, not luxuries. Meeting those needs, not wants, affect who we are as a person and whether we fulfil our real potential. Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist and philosopher from the 20th century, developed a hierarchy of needs to explain human motivation. His theory suggested that people have a number of basic needs that must be met before they can move up the hierarchy to pursue more social and emotional needs and thus the full development of one’s potential.
Put bluntly if you do not have, and are thus concerned about, food, shelter, warmth and health, then one cannot focus on other things. And those other things such as relationships, loving and belonging, community and respect for one another are key to community and good society.
At present worries about food and energy prices, the lack of available and safe housing, as well as access to healthcare are the very matters top of the agenda for many people, and thus unless they are addressed the individuals will lose the motivation to reach their full potential, and society as a whole suffers.
And our harvest readings speak to this because all of this is sadly not new.
The Israelites are exhorted to bring the first fruits of their life in the Promised Land to God to give thanks. It is God who has saved them and brought them into a land flowing with milk and honey. A land they must take care of and celebrate that God has fulfilled the basic need for food and security. But of course there is more to this.
Rejoice yes, and ‘do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let you requests be known to God,’ says Paul. All well and good, and I am sure we all pray for peace, relief of poverty and famine, yet God requires us to take action too.
To think about what we are doing to the planet, to make changes to our lifestyle where necessary, and to assist those who need help.
Because all of this is part of God’s wishes for us to look at the wider picture.
‘Do not work for food that perishes,’ says Jesus to the crowd that gathers around him, the very day after he has fed the five thousand with a few loaves and fishes. He knows that they need, we, need the basics just as Maslow said, but to reach our full God given potential we also have to go further. Maslow referred to the next levels of need as safety, social that is loving and belonging, and being connected, all of which lead to self esteem with strength and resilience, and eventually to meeting one’s full potential. He never mentions faith, but integral to all of this is faith. Jesus reminds the crowd that all things come from God, the manna in the wilderness to meet the basic need for food, but also God feeds our spiritual and wellbeing needs, God looks to us being all that we can be.
‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.’ Jesus is talking about our relationship with God, with our emotional and relational needs, without which no matter how well our basic needs have been met, we will not flourish.
At a time of worry, stress and anxiety for many, the welcome we as a Church family can offer, along with the food for the foodbank and a listening ear are crucial and an essential part of God’s mission, of our mission as God’s Church.
Never underestimate the power of just letting someone talk to you, or you to someone at a time of anxiety. We may not always be able to help materially but being there can enable feelings and emotions to be recognised and that can help.
Jesus spoke, but he also listened, he saw what was important and encourages us to offer that both as individuals in our daily lives, and as a Church. Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
18 September 2022 – Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity (Third Sunday of Creation Season)
This morning’s readings seem to give us a bit of a problem. In Amos it is very clear that God says dishonest financial practices are very wrong, and yet in our gospel reading Jesus tells a parable that seems to condone a Manager who apparently defrauds his boss.
Surely Jesus, wouldn’t go against the teaching of Old Testament Scripture, so maybe there is more to this parable than is apparent from a simple reading. I love a challenge, and so I have chosen the gospel as the focus of my sermon. I will first of all look at the parable in the context of life in the time of Jesus. Then I will look at what seem to be the three lessons that Jesus draws out of it for his disciples (and therefore also for us).
Context: Firstly, this parable was told to the disciples (although others were listening in) and its teaching is for them alone. The story would have been talking about something the disciples could relate to, and we need to make sure we remember it was a parable, not a story telling them how to deal with money. To me, it seems almost to be an extended idiom than a parable. Rather like when we say ‘run your ideas up the flagpole and see who salutes them’, we don’t mean it literally but rather saying share your ideas in as wide a way as possible and see what response you get. But to avoid confusion I will continue to call it a parable.
There seem to be two streams of thought on what was happening between the Manager and the Rich Man. It seems likely that the debtors were tenant farmers who paid their dues in kind – wheat and olive oil.
Stream 1: Some people think that maybe the Rich man was also a bit of a scoundrel and was extorting interest on top of any debts (which was forbidden in Jewish society in those days). If this were so, perhaps the Manager simply wiped out this interest and in so doing earned the gratitude of the debtors, but the Rich Man could not say anything or his own bad practices would have been revealed.
Steam 2: Other people think perhaps the Manager was the one who had been charging and creaming off a high tax on top of what was due to his master, and so he was able to reduce this without anyone else being affected, similarly earning the gratitude of the debtors. In both scenarios the Manager earned a different kind of debt from the debtors – to offer security for the future.
In the story, and the thing that gives us big problems is that when the Rich Man heard what the Manger had done, he commended him. We might have expected Jesus to say this was wrong. He didn’t. Why? We need to realise that the Rich man was not commending the Manager on how he handled the finances, but because he had acted shrewdly. When he realised that things couldn’t go on as they were, and his future security was looking grim the Manager didn’t panic, he very carefully looked for a way through and made plans that would secure his future.
Jesus tells his disciples, ‘the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of the light’. Jesus was addressing his disciples who were perhaps rather naïve and too dependent on him. The day would come when he would not be there anymore and they would need to prepare. They did not and when he was arrested and crucified they felt lost. We too need to be wise in preparing for the future – Jesus has promised to return one day and we need to be prepared.
And so we come to the lesson from this parable. In our reading it says ‘I tell you’ …. At home I use the New Living Translation which helpfully interprets these words as ‘Here is the lesson’ and what follows is, I think, actually 3 lessons that can be taken and applied.
1. Make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone they may welcome you into the eternal homes.
This is a verse that has given me much trouble! Is Jesus saying ‘use money by whatever means it is acquired to earn favour with others’? Clearly not because this does not fit with anything else he taught. In my research I discovered that in the original Greek the word used here, and all throughout this passage, which is translated as ‘dishonest wealth’ or just ‘wealth’ is mammon, and for those who usually use older bible translations you will be only too familiar with the last sentence expressed as ‘you cannot serve God and Mammon’.
We need to remember that Jesus is speaking directly to his disciples and in the context of this and his other teachings for them I think we can safely assume that he is speaking in terms of spreading the gospel, of making disciples, of showing the love of God. So that when their (and our) earthly resources are gone (when we die) those people we have helped will be welcoming us into the eternal kingdom because they will have come to faith because we have helped them.
So even though the Manager is still a sinner looking after his own interests, he models a kind behaviour that the disciples can emulate. He is no longer a victim of circumstances but turns a bad situation in to something that benefits not only himself, but also others. William Barclay in his commentary on this passage suggests that if only we would give as much attention to the things relating to our eternal destiny as we do to our everyday pleasures our Christian faith would be far more effective.
2. ‘Whoever is faithful in little is also faithful in much; and whoever is dishonest in little is dishonest in much.
This parable reminds me a bit of another of Jesus’ parables – the parable of the talents. We are called to use what God has given us faithfully, wisely and honestly. Jesus says that if we cannot even handle the ‘dishonest wealth’ the ‘Mammon’, how will ever be able to handle the spiritual wealth he can give us to share?
When I chaired the Committee of a pre-school we needed to interview for an office manager. As part of the interview we set some tasks to complete: a letter to write, a small accounting task. We also did a proper interview. The tasks helped to show us whether or not the people we interviewed were capable in small parts of the job and would be able to handle the greater tasks.
God has placed many things in our charge, they do not really belong to us, they are given in trust, to use to give glory to God and to extend his kingdom. Another of my favourite commentators, Warren Wiersbee says ‘We should all want to meet people in heaven who trusted Christ because we helped to pay the bill for Gospel witness around the world, starting at home.’
Being faithful or trustworthy in small things is something that society today often doesn’t understand. Even some churches are not open and transparent about how they handle the financial gifts they are given. One day they will stand before God and be held to account. Even St Paul was very careful with how money was handled When the collection was made for the church in Jerusalem (2 Corinthians 8:21) he said ‘We are careful to be honourable before the Lord, but we also want everyone to see that we are honourable.’
Lesson 3: You cannot serve two masters… You cannot serve God and money.
I wonder if Jesus was thinking of what was going to happen in the future – did this contain a veiled warning to Judas Iscariot? Clearly Judas did not take notice and he betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.
If we choose to serve money, we will find we are drawn away from serving God. I spoke to a young man recently who was struggling because he had a responsibility in church on a Sunday morning which no one else was able to do. He fulfilled his obligation, but struggled because he had been offered overtime on time and a half which he had had to refuse. I pray that he will continue to choose to serve God, and that God will provide for his needs.
These things are a struggle for many of us. When I was called to be ordained I fought against it. I loved my job as an advisory teacher. I liked being near many of my friends, I had a wonderful little house that had taken me years to find and after some years of chaos I was settling into a very comfortable lifestyle, I had good neighbours. I knew what I would have to give it all up if I was ordained, and I struggled. But as I started to respond and obey, with resignation of what seemed inevitable, gradually God changed my heart. As I turned my mind away from holding onto the earthly things of job, house, friends, surroundings and placed my trust in the things of God and accepted his will for my future I was able to let go.
It was not an easy journey but I can truly say that over the years I have been so blessed. Although there have been very difficult times as well as times of joy, I know that I have been where God wanted me to be. I know I have been following my Lod who loves me and guides me and one day will welcome me into my eternal home where I will meet with so many of the people who have shared that journey.
Three positive lessons from something that seemed so negative! I would like to close by quoting Revd John Pridmore who used to be Vicar of Hackney, and with a challenge. John said, ‘The Manager may have cheated and lied. That is not the point. What matters is that he is not unnerved by the dread of what threatens to befall him. He responds to the crisis speedily and effectively, and for that, not for cooking the books, he is congratulated.’
Our challenge: can we as individuals and the church respond to the crises we are facing now in our personal lives, our national life, our climate, our international lives, now or in the future, without panicking and with the same degree of wisdom and effectiveness?
Maria Holmden
11 September 2022 – Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity (during the period of mourning)
The past week has been a rollercoaster of change in in the midst of a an era of change. The week began with the announcement of a new Prime Minister and concern about the energy crisis and ended with a nation in mourning the death of the Queen, and welcoming and getting used to the fact we now have a King.
We see from our TV screens that the death of the Queen has touched the hearts of so many. People who only knew her from one meeting, or indeed never met her, are laying flowers sometimes with tears. Everyone has spoken of her constancy and a seeming permanence in their lives which has now gone. This reaction is often seen in a much smaller way in any family when a loved one dies – especially a parent or grandparent. No matter how much we know it is going to happen, we cannot fully prepare ourselves for when it does, and a large hole is left.
Psalm 121 is a well know Psalm and one which speaks into the situation we face today – a time of personal, political and national change and uncertainty. Life will never be quite the same as it was. Change is constantly happening but many of the changes come gradually. Over the past months we have been faced with so many more abrupt changes: trying to adjust to coming out of lockdown and get out and about, but still aware of the need for further vaccines to keep healthy during the coming winter; the start, and continuation of, the war in Ukraine, welcoming refugees; getting used to shortages in some things; the energy crisis; price rises; inflation and threats of a Recession; a change of prime minister and new members of her cabinet. No wonder many people are feeling afraid and uncertain of the future.
To add to this, we have also lost our Queen. The person who for 84% of the nation was the only monarch they had ever known. She was always there, not only on our TV screens but on the coins in our purses and notes in our wallets, on our pillar boxes. For many, she was a constant and unchanging presence in a changing world, and now she has gone.
I have a book called ‘Praying the Psalms by Walter Bruggeman. In it he says, ‘Psalms are the voice of our common humanity …. They speak about “life the way it really is”. When we engage with the psalms we enter into that voice of humanity and decide to take our stand with that voice. We are prepared to speak among all people, and with them and for them.’ ‘The voice of our common humanity’. A voice so needed at a time when our nation is coming together to seek support and consolation.
Our Psalm today, Psalm 121, is a well-known psalm that speaks of God’s protection and help for his people. In my bible there is a heading above this Psalm ‘a song for the pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem.’ If you have ever been to Israel, or seen pictures, you will know that Jerusalem is built on a mountain, and the Temple was built on the highest part of the mountain. Anyone travelling to the Temple needed to descend the Mount of Olives, into the Kidron Valley and then walk up a steep hillside to reach the entrance on one side. Even from within the city itself the road climbs up to the Temple Mount.
The Jewish people had a number of important festivals during the year. Times when they remembered important things God had done for them in the past, and when they came together to worship and celebrate.
People would travel from all over Israel, and beyond, to join in the festivities and particularly join in the worship in the Temple. They would travel in groups from the furthest corners of the land. As they neared Jerusalem and began to walk up the final hill to the city they would sing together a set of Psalms called the ‘Songs of Ascent’ (Psalms 120-134). Today we are just focusing on Psalm 121 to see how it expresses the help they needed, and looked to God for, as they travelled (and so us too). The whole theme of this Psalm is God’s protection of his people. ‘Watches over’ or similar sentiments are repeated all through.
Safety would have been a big issue as the pilgrims travelled through the wilderness, or hill country, around Jerusalem. I’m sure you will be familiar with the story of the Good Samaritan (in Luke 10:25-37) and how he was attacked by robbers on that road – a real danger for anyone travelling through that area, which is why they tried to travel in large groups. But there were other dangers too.
The road was very rough with lots of loose stones and rocks. It would have been very easy to trip or fall, or turn an ankle as they walked along. During the day the sun would be burning hot, so there was a danger of sunstroke, and during the night the clear skies meant that temperatures would drop to freezing point, so there was a danger of catching cold or hypothermia.
This Psalm is not only for the pilgrims in the Bible, it also speaks to us today. Our lives are a journey, we face dangers and uncertainties along the way – maybe not identical to the pilgrims going to Jerusalem, but nevertheless real dangers that can de-rail us and make us feel helpless and bereft. These words give us the assurance that as God watched over the pilgrims as they travelled, so he watches over us. No matter how hard the path, how steep the hill we feel we are climbing, if we lift our eyes beyond the hill and look to God we will see that he is with us, he is watching over us and he is doing that 24 hours a day. God doesn’t sleep! And as Isaiah 40:28 tells us, neither does he grow tired or weary. When we are tired, when we feel we can’t go on, he can carry us.
As the pilgrims began to catch sight of Jerusalem and the Temple they knew their journey was nearing an end. From Jericho to Jerusalem is about 17 miles and the land rises by about 3,500 feet. The sight of the Temple would bring reassurance and allay their fears. They still had to travel down through the valley and climb the final hill but they knew the end was in sight. They believed that the Temple was where God dwelt. The mountains are high and powerful; they hold dangers, they cannot help. But God is greater and stronger and he is where help is found.
We had a Queen who knew the truth of these words, whose life was rooted in God and who turned to Him in all times of trouble, and now have a King who has already assured us, he will do the same.
As we journey through this time of great change in our national life, in our personal life and indeed international life, one thing is constant – God and his love for us. The pilgrims looked to hills, saw the Temple and were reminded that God was with them. In other Psalms they reminded themselves of what God had done for them in the past, and so could do in the present and future. We need to do that too.
Just at the moment it is as if our national life is ‘on hold’ just as in any family when there is a death, life seems to be put on hold; so it is with us as a nation. This is necessary, not just for each individual to deal with personal feelings, but also for those in positions of power to adjust and adapt. We need to pray for them as well as ourselves.
I cannot imagine that when Liz Truss was announced as our new Prime Minister she ever imagined that she would be dealing with the death of the Queen and having a new King, together with all the constitutional and legal things involved, as well as a state funeral. Especially having to put on hold all the policies and plans she was hoping to, as she put it, ‘deliver, deliver, deliver’. Whatever we think of her politics, she is now our Prime Minister and needs our prayers. I have no idea whether she has a Christian faith, but I pray that she does, because she needs to lift her eyes to look to God for the strength and wisdom she will need to lead our nation through the many crises that we face.
We also need to pray for King Charles III. We are finding it hard to think of him as king and I am sure it will take some time before we can sing ‘God save our gracious King’ without conscious effort. He is now head of the Church of England and I believe he showed in his speeches on Friday evening and Saturday morning that he will follow in his mother’s footsteps of dedication and of personal faith to discharge his duties. The Queen did not push her faith into others but lived it as a shining example. She also did not shy away from speaking of it. In her Christmas message in 2002 she said,
‘I know just how much I rely on my faith to guide me through the good times and the bad. Each day is a new beginning. I know that the only way to live my life is to try to do what is right, to take the long view, to give of my best in all that the day brings, and to put my trust in God!’
We need to hold the new king in our prayers as he not only comes to terms with being King, but also copes with his own grief and that of his family.
Alongside all this, the needs of individuals in our nation have not gone away – many people are still finding it hard to afford food to eat, hard to pay their energy bills; families are facing their own times of grief as loved ones die. Life is going on. The focus on the media may be on the death of the Queen, the advent of the new King, and all that surrounds that; Parliamentary business may be on hold for a couple of weeks, but life for the very poorest in our nation is still going on and we need to continue to pray and do what we can.
Whether we are intensely caught up in the events of the past week, and are concerned for the future, or are simply struggling with daily life, the words of this psalm speak comfort and hope in to our situation. No matter how good, or how bad life seems there is one constant – not the Queen (as has just been proved), not even the monarchy (even though it is continuing), but God.
Rulers and leaders come and go. Only God remains the constant. As Hebrews 13:8 tells us ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.’ When we place our trust in him we can know that He is always there watching over us waiting and ready to listen. He may not make all our pathways smooth, in fact we may find ourselves in dangerous places: physically, emotionally or spiritually, individually or nationally, but if we lift our eyes we will be reminded that our help comes from the Lord – he is all powerful , he created the hills, he created each one of us. He knows us and he loves us. He will be with us and carry us through. We can cry out to him – we call it prayer. He may not remove our circumstances, but we will know that he is with us and nothing is beyond his control. We can hold onto that truth whether we are in church or at home, at work or at leisure, awake or asleep. Confident that God is everywhere, and he is always awake and watching over us
Maria Holmden
4 September 2022 – Twelfth Sunday after Trinity (First Sunday of Creation Season)
The cost of discipleship
What is the most costly possession you have?
For many it will be their home, costly both in value, and perhaps if you a have a mortgage, or payrent, in terms of your monthly outgoings. Our home, keeping a roof over our heads, be it as an owner, or renting is a fundamental need and usually forms a very large part of our expenditure.
Some may be fortunate enough to own a valuable heirloom, or maybe they don’t know yet how valuable that item is! When I watch the Antiques Road Show I am often amused by the person who brings in a piece which they find hideous, and then receive a staggering valuation of it’s worth. Of course that was the reason they brought it, as they did not want to throw it out if it was worth anything; and invariably the question then asked is, do you like the item any better now, as if it’s value make is attractive. I love the honest owner who replies, no I still dislike it, but at least I know I can get a good price for it!
And so much of society puts a value on everything purely in monetary terms, as indeed they did in the time of Jesus. Herod was rebuilding the Temple as a sign of his power and wealth, is this referenced by the mention of building a tower in Jesus message?
Yet I am sure if I ask you ,what is the most important thing in your life, it will not be a material possession. It is much more likely to be around family, friends and relationships. And here we have Jesus saying that his followers must turn away from those who they care for. Hardly a good advertisement to follow him – indeed the two candidates for the leadership of the Conservative Party, and therefore at this point the role of Prime Minister, which will be decided this coming week, would not have found many followers with such a sales pitch.
Jesus of course is, as always, looking at the bigger picture, because he is saying that the cost of discipleship is a big one. We may not have to actually give up family, friends or indeed possessions, but we need to recognise that these may be distractions from following a life with God.
The Jewish people entering into the Promised Land are promised prosperity and life, but only if they follow God’s commandments by loving God, walking in God’s way and following God’s lead. Yes possessions may be there, but they should not be the main focus, that should be on their relationship with God.
Following God’s way does bring life, but it is costly – it does not necessarily bring popularity, great wealth or an easy way of living. Following God means recognising there are costs in our daily lives, but in the knowledge that God is with us when we choose life with God.
One of the ways we do that is in recognising our responsibilities. Paul is pleading for his brother in Christ, Onesimus, to be taken in and welcomed by the local Church he is writing to. They have a responsibility to do that, is his sub text. For us as we begin this month we will be focusing on God’s Creation and our responsibility to care for that, and certainly the last few months of heat and drought have underlined how important and costly that commitment is. We are a country that has not experienced the devastation of rising sea levels, drought and failed crops in the past, unlike many in the world, but that is changing.
At times our responsibilities in our daily lives, to say nothing of the future of our planet, can seem overwhelming, yet when we look at each small action we can all take, there is a way forward. Breaking things into manageable areas, means we can free ourselves from the inertia that a massive task can create.
Earlier this summer our bishops attended the Lambeth Conference, a gathering of bishops across the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the first such conference for over a decade. In a letter to clergy and licensed lay ministers they told of us that ‘within the context of prayer, worship and bible study, we discussed a wide range of issues. Perhaps the theme to which we gave the greatest attention was the urgent and catastrophic issue of climate change. We heard from Bishops whose islands in the Pacific are sinking under rising sea levels and others experiencing severe weather events, including drought, floods and fires.
Member churches of the Anglican Communion have a unique perspective across our world as:
- We are the people facing devastation in disaster-stricken communities.
- We are all the polluters, especially in wealthy countries.
- We are people living in poverty and on the margins.
- We wield power and political influence.
- We are experiencing loss and damage of our land, homes and livelihoods.
- We are investors with financial capital.
- We are first-responders to disasters and those who accompany communities on the journey of recovery and resilience.’
Those discussions were about focusing hearts and minds on the responsibilities we all have and as we reflect on this during September, we too can take the opportunity to think about what is really important in our role as disciples of Christ and stewards of God’s Creation. Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
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28 August 2022 – Eleventh Sunday after Trinity
Who is first?
I tend to use public transport a lot, it makes sense not to take the car on so many levels, including environmental, but I have a real bugbear with people queuing, or indeed not nowadays!
Tubes, trains or buses you name it the day of the orderly queue seems to have gone, perhaps it never was there on the tube but other modes of transport did have the give and take. But now immediately the doors open, the pushing and shoving starts, and anyone less able bodied, or unable or unwilling to use their elbows tends to get pushed to the back. A noticeable exception is at stations that have doors on the platforms, Westminster and Canary Wharf come to mind, there orderly queues do tend to form.
Sadly, we have seen that same, shall we say selfish behaviour with panic buying where again it is the less able physically and economically, who get pushed aside.
And in our gospel today Jesus seems to be advising his listeners to think of others and not be so thoughtless and selfish. And in one sense his advice, echoed in Proverbs, not to put oneself forward, is indeed good advice. But as always there is more to what he says. This, we are told, is a parable, so there will be a deeper meaning, and this the gospel of Luke, the gospel written for those on the margins, the outsiders.
Jesus has been invited to a meal, but immediately we are told those attending are watching him closely, this is no convivial social event. They are not looking to see that he uses the correct utensils or observes the proper etiquette, they are looking for any deviation from Jewish Law, any opportunity to trip him up and devalue his teaching. To them following the letter of the Law was what mattered before God, and in that they had lost sight of what serving God really meant.
But Jesus was observing them too, as I said, no relaxed meal this one, and noticed how the guests chose the places of honour, nowadays we tend to avoid that problem by having name places on the table, but not here. It was all no doubt polite, probably no elbows, but determined place seeking none the less. And the parable Jesus tells is both about humility before pride and arrogance, but also about jostling for position with God. In following the Law, and all the various religious observances, the guests believed themselves to be superior before others; others such as those Jesus was attracting and teaching about the kingdom of God. Those following the letter of the Law and conscious of their own position, were not willing or able to understand God’s love and openness to all.
Do not put yourself forward (in the kings’ presence) wait to be asked is not just about good etiquette, but reminds us all that God works in different ways, not human ways, and God’s kingdom is different too – the first shall be last and the last first is another way of putting this same parable.
So having told them not to push themselves forward, Jesus then goes on to say don’t invite those you know to eat with you because you know they can repay you in whatever way. Invite the most needy, and in that again he is not speaking only of those who are hungry for food, but those who want to know God, yet feel unable to approach God. Invite them to know God is the advice, show them God’s welcome – some have entertained angels without knowing it, says Paul, when we show hospitality, when we show welcome to a stranger.
Just like those who are unable or unwilling to push themselves forward in a queue, many feel unable to come to God for whatever reason, and it is in encouraging and welcoming that we truly do God’s bidding. God is always there, the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, faithful, caring, loving enabling all to say the Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid.
Yes, the Pharisees were watching Jesus closely, but as on so many occasions he takes the opportunity to observe them and what he sees is not of God.
God offers a kingdom, a way of life, for all, not just those who push themselves to the front or think they have the right credentials.
I will no doubt still be irritated by those who push into queues, forcing others who have waited patiently to wait even longer if they cannot, or will not employ the same tactics themselves, yet hopefully I will retain my sense of humour, as so often there is amusement in those situations.
But most importantly let us all take to heart the real meaning of Jesus’ words, that God welcomes us all, no matter who we are, all are equal in the sight of God. God who is the same now and always does not differentiate between those who come first and those who come later. Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
21 August 2022 – Tenth Sunday after Trinity
We hear much today of the word regeneration – regeneration of the economy, regeneration of a geographical area. It is used as a word to encourage, to look forward, to think positively about an area of life that has become tired and run down, and that of course can include us.
When you look up the definition of regeneration, one finds words such as renew, reform, rebirth and interestingly these are used both in a secular sense and in a spiritual sense.
Re-generation, as the word suggests, is about both a natural renewal, such as tissue re-growth, and something created by humanity.
When we think of regenerating a rundown area, it is often the physical aspects that are the focus. But as I know only too well from my years of working on such schemes, the regeneration will only work if there are people, a community committed to the area. There has to be a new positive outlook. Physically repairing and improving an area is only part of the plan. We of course feel better when our surroundings are pleasant, free from vandalism and in good repair, but what is important is the outlook of the people, of the community.
All too often regeneration means that the original population is pushed out. We hear that an area has improved, but whilst that may be true for the physical location, it isn’t true regeneration. True regeneration involves people, it involves a new outlook, an outlook which is transformation and rebirth and includes those who tend to get left behind or pushed out in such physical regeneration.
The kingdom Jesus was teaching about, is a kingdom where all are included. ‘If you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.’ (Isaiah 58.10) You will be like a watered garden whose water never fails, Isaiah goes on to tell the people, if you serve God and not your own interests. Those interests, those things which hold you captive like a yoke, a harness. Free yourselves from things that don’t matter, concentrate on what really matters, and you will find joy and light in your lives.
Focus on what really matters. Those who wanted Jesus to wait until the day after the Sabbath to heal the crippled woman were not focusing on what really mattered. They did not, or chose not, to see the woman bowed down, held captive, they only saw the rules to be followed. She could not look up to the sky and see the birds or the sun, she represented, she represents all who are oppressed, either physically or mentally/spiritually. Jesus frees her, as he is longing to do for all Israel, yet the leader of the synagogue criticizes him for healing that is working on the Sabbath. Hardly God’s love and welcome.
The woman, doubled over as she has been for 18 years, is not only in pain, but has a very narrow view of the world. She can only see a few feet in front and around her. When Jesus frees her from that disability she can stand up straight and see far and wide.
Jesus calls those who criticize him hypocrites because the Sabbath is not supposed to prevent good things being done, the leaders would release a trapped animal, he says, so why not this woman?
But Jesus is also telling them that their vision is too narrow. Israel’s insistence on tight boundaries, including rigid application of the Sabbath law, is preventing them looking up and seeing the bigger picture. It is preventing them seeing that God ‘s kingdom, for which they are keeping all these rules, is already around them, but they can’t see that or let God’s kingdom in, because of their narrow vision.
Paul reminds the Hebrews that they have not come to believe in something that can be touched, something that is tangible or evidenced, that after all is not faith. What they have come to believe, is that Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant with God, a new promise. True worship, true faith, with reverence and awe, not rules, is what God asks for.
Think of what is true and honest in living lives following God, says Isaiah, and when we too think of that – true worship, truly living our lives following God, is not about a set of rules, but living. Living as God calls us to do, and yes rules help, they give us guidance, but they should not define, or confine, the lives we live in God.
Jesus came/comes to bring a new way of life, a chance to be transformed, to be reborn, to be healed, to be truly regenerated – and yet so often we are held back, by what?
Perhaps fear, ignorance, other priorities getting in the way, which hold us captive? The key to our being reinvigorated, replenished, spiritually reborn is within us. God offers us an opportunity, a chance, like the woman bent over, to be able to stand up straight, look the world squarely in the face, and say ‘bring it on,’ let me live life. I know that God has plans for me, that God wants me to live life to its fullest, to be like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.
Life, with God at the centre is to be lived for God. In a world that is increasingly ‘me’ centered, it is good to look up from that narrow vision, and see what life with God, a relational God can look like. To seek God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and know that God will not always be in the expected, so we need to look up and around, we need to open our horizons and be prepared to change. Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
14 August 2022 – Ninth Sunday after Trinity
- Peace?! You are supposing that I came along to give ‘peace’ in the land? No! indeed not peace – division: father on son, mother on daughter, the groom’s mother on her son’s young bride. I am come to set fire on the earth.
Today’s gospel is not particularly easy, particularly when we consider the hatred, prejudice, bigotry, violence and war perpetrated in the name of the church and of religion throughout history and across the globe. This Jesus isn’t quite the Jesus we expect Jesus to be: perhaps we may not even particularly like this Jesus or even actually want this version. We shuffle uneasily in our pews and hope that perhaps next week the love-preaching, non-violent Jesus may have returned. But today, at least, love, peace, respect, and family values seem to be very much in short supply here. I think we are safe in assuming that this gospel reading was not the inspiration for Charles Wesley when he wrote his hymn ‘Gentle Jesus meek and mild.’
Family divides of course occur even in the closest of families. Living together or sharing a common gene pool will not necessarily create clones within the same family, all sharing the same values, beliefs, and attitudes. Those will be influenced by family, but they are formed and bonded over time, shaped also through the influences of our friends, our society, our life experiences.
My family was always particularly close as we grew up, some may say quite weirdly so. And yet, we were and are not of one mind on many issues and opinions and preferences. In terms of politics, ethics, churchmanship, temperament, outlook on life, we are all quite different, and that often could be seen in the lively, loud and heated arguments and debate we engaged in around the dinner table whenever we got together. It never failed to amuse me somewhat, when the church at large seeks to encourage family membership, it then worries about active participation of family members within their local church, in case they collectively exerted an undue influence. (Often it was the case on church council that members who were couples or close friends would be more concerted in their opinion and voting, while my family tended to disagree and counter each other.)
The church experienced some family tension in the recent Lambeth Conference, which concluded last Sunday. The conference is a ten-yearly assembly of the worldwide Anglican bishops, for them to consult together on matters relating to the Anglican church, its relations with other churches and religions, as well as considering questions on theological, social, and international issues.
The bishops of our diocese wrote to all their clergy and lay ministers this week following their return from the conference. They highlighted in their letter that “The theme [which had been] ‘God’s Church for God’s World’ directed [their] thoughts and attention away from the internal divisions and disagreements of the church and towards a world that is in desperate need of the healing balm of the Gospel.”
And yet, family division seemed the order of the day, with bishops from Nigeria, Rwanda, and Uganda boycotting the conference, refusing to meet with those with whom they disagreed and felt estranged from. Others, though attending, issued statements on how they felt about those members of the Anglican Communion with whom they disagreed; defining themselves as ‘orthodox’, ‘faithful’, ‘a holy remnant’: refusing to receive communion from those within the family whom they felt were none of those. There was hurt and upset on all sides, and yet each side seemed unable to see what the others were feeling because of the focus on their particular stance based on their own context, history and priorities. And yet as the Bishop of Monmouth in Wales has written, though Anglican churches work in “massively different contexts” there is ultimately “something stronger than our context, our experience, our views and our opinions, [even] our reading of scripture [for] we are held together in the love of Christ.”
We need to hold on to that: that despite our divisions – our ‘diamerismon’ (διαμερισμόν), the word used in our gospel reading – our disunion of opinion and conduct, our discord, our division of mind, whenever we teeter on breaking up, and slide into hostility – Christ still holds all together in love. Christ does not hold together just the righteous or the pure ones but all of us, all ‘fellow broken pilgrims’.
Faith by its very nature is tough, for faith seeks truth, and the truth of the matter is that life is not all sweetness and light, but it can also contain some darkness, nastiness and evil, even within the church. And in our readings today, we are reminded that no matter how much people may only want to hear “feel good sermons” that peddle in wishful thinking and false hope, we are not necessarily called to bring comfort. Jesus frustrates our expectations, and himself brings division where once there was unity. For Jesus is not a Christ of bland moral platitudes or sentimental piety, his purpose is not peace at any price, but Jesus is a Christ who brings justice. That Greek word ‘diamerismon’ emphasises this – we cannot avoid confrontation: the division it talks about is about making a clear distinction, taking sides, making a stand. And in seeking justice, dissent is our calling – not to create power structures and build our own godly empires in defence of our faith and beliefs but to confront the injustice of this world, to disquiet the status quo in order to bring healing and restoration to all of our brokenness.
The division that Jesus speaks of in that gospel passage is inter-generational – father/mother/mother-in-law vs son/daughter/daughter-in-law – but it also strikes at the working relationship between family members at that time. Sons were apprenticed and schooled in the work of their fathers; daughters were trained by their mothers in skills for running a home; daughters-in-law would take over the household responsibilities of the older matriarch. It was predicated on ‘business as usual’ – that the tomorrow we build today is simply the serving up of yesterday again.
But this inter-generational division reminds us that often the cause of justice is taken up by the young, the next generation, whereas often it is us the older generation that has become deeply invested in the status quo. As Christians, we are all – old and young – called to a daring act of courage: the courage to stand up and speak out when everyone else just shuts up. A daring act of courage to be ever mindful that we are never called to love the status quo – or to even to love the church – more than the people whom God has made: to love them as they are, for who they are, as beloved children of God.
In the words of Maya Angelou, at the end of the day “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you make them feel” – and that comes not through conflict avoidance but it requires us to stand up, and stand alongside people, and to model ourselves on the young Son of God … and to challenge, to subvert, and – even in the pursuit of love – to divide.
Colin Setchfield
7 August 2022 – Eighth Sunday after Trinity
What are the things you have faith and trust in nowadays, what do you truly believe in?
Well immediately after this sermon we will say the Creed together, a statement of what we believe and trust in, God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The very word creed comes from the word credo, I believe, so let us take a moment to unpick that a little, what is it we believe?
We believe in one God, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. Okay so far? A big statement, like God, larger than we can ever truly comprehend, especially the unseen.
We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten not made, of one Being with the Father. Now this is where it gets a little more complicated. The only Son of God, begotten not made, and one with the Father, so already we have someone who is different to anyone else, this is certainly the unknown, the unseen. Jesus came to be with us, to save us, and in order to do that he died, and then rose again on the third day, and he will come again. He will come again, but when, will there be signs? Can we see this and plan for it? Well Jesus says be vigilant you don’t know when the Son of Man is coming again. And the kingdom that will come will be new and have no end. This is some statement of belief, how can we know?
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the giver of life, who is one with the Father and the Son, and we believe in one holy universal Church which has come down to us from the original apostles who were sent out to spread God’s word. And if that is not enough we are looking for the new life promised by Jesus, which he told us to watch and wait for.
So in a few minutes we say this is what we believe, and that belief takes faith, after all we have no scientific proof, none of this is rational, what does faith really mean?
Faith involves trust. Faith is an assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen, the very words from the Creed, we believe in all that is seen and unseen. We cannot know it because we have not seen it, but we believe, we trust.
Faith in others, and in ourselves is an essential part of life; without faith and trust how can we have relationships one with another? Of course we can be let down by others, and we can also let others down – their actions, our actions, may not be intentional, but whether intended, or not, they hurt and when things go wrong we need to recognise that hurt and say sorry and reflect on how we can do better.
And what of our faith in God? God is the one who will never let us down – we are only separated from God if we choose to be; if we turn our backs on what God offers. And yet at times we probably all have, or will, walk away from God, or try to, because God has a habit of drawing us back.
Faith isn’t easy, believing without evidence isn’t rational, living our lives as faithful followers of God is not easy, especially if God feels very far away at times, or we cannot see God at work in this world, in those around us. We may judge others, their behaviour, their comments, but what about our own behaviour, our comments? All of us get it wrong at times, none of us is perfect, and God never turns us away; yet living a life of faith requires us to live our lives differently, to walk differently. Faith isn’t just for Sundays and our worship – faith should change our lives, all of our lives, in large and small ways.
Abraham’s faith enabled him to leave his home, live in a strange land, believe that he would have a child, yet with all his faith, he died without seeing the results of God’s promise to him. He looked towards a heavenly kingdom and had faith it would happen, and still he got it wrong at times. In Egypt when he pretended Sarah was not his wife, for fear of Pharaoh; in not waiting for God to fulfill God’s promise to give him an heir, but taking his own disastrous course of action; and he had to say I got it wrong, let’s try again.
Don’t be afraid, it is God’s good pleasure and delight to give us a kingdom – not a kingdom of earthly things, because God sets different priorities than earthly possessions and position, as we discussed last week. God’s priorities are around how we live our lives – sharing what we have, our possessions, justice, love, care and compassion.
Living as a Christian requires us to live differently – not being sanctimonious or a soft touch, not being walked over, but acting with integrity, thinking how we can impact positively in our daily lives. It means recognizing when we, when I, get things wrong, and saying sorry. Saying I got it wrong is not a weakness, it takes real strength to say I got it wrong, sorry. It means thinking about what we say, and how that might affect others. It means sharing with others – in time, possession, skills, not because we must, because we want to be well thought of, or because we are paid to, but because our faith in God means we want to do things differently, to go the extra distance, and we want to be prepared for God breaking into our lives.
We don’t know when God will fulfill God’s promises, yet our God has us safe and calls us to be expectant, knowing that God has great things in store for us in this world, and the next, even though we may not be able to see quite what that is, or like Abraham, when or how God will complete the task.
That expectation calls us to live in faith, in hope, to live our lives distinctly and in harmony with one another. So as we say the Creed together let us think of the words we are saying and how they impact our lives today and tomorrow. Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
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31 July 2022 – Seventh Sunday after Trinity
“Please sir, I want some more.” “More,” bellowed the well-fed overseer to the underfed and starving Oliver, in Dickens’ story, “you want more!”
And isn’t that how much of our society lives, we constantly want more – more wealth, bigger homes, the latest technology, more and more exotic holidays? Yet our wealth and greed are depleting our planet of its natural resources and a percentage of our world has too much, but a larger percentage does not have enough to live on, and rightly wants more.
The writer in our first reading says all is pointless because we toil and struggle and then we die and others get to enjoy the fruits of our labours, so why bother? A rather cynical and selfish approach, but sadly one that is popular today as it was then
Obsessive want can lead to anger, envy, even theft and wrongdoing, and still the perpetrator will not be happy because they want more and more.
In our gospel two brothers are arguing over their inheritance, so one asks Jesus to arbitrate, but Jesus asks why he should sort it out, and warns about being greedy.
Why? Because he says our lives are not about having bigger and better possessions.
But that is not how things are portrayed today. Adverts try to sell us things by inferring we will be more popular or more attractive etc if we have a better car or clothes or whatever it is they are selling. They play on our wants as opposed to our needs, but life is not all about possessions, what we have or have not.
This was a theme Jesus understood. For the Jewish people, then and now, land in the Holy Land was and is important, it said who they were – God’s chosen people. God’s chosen people, even when they failed to recognise this or show their gratitude to the God who gave them all they had. But it isn’t about wealth, it isn’t about what we have says Jesus, it is about what we do, and how we act in our lives, and sometimes we don’t actually realise that until we have lost what we had.
Seek the things that are above, focus on what is important, don’t concentrate on the things that are of the earth, Paul tells the Colossians. Think about what is really important – living a decent life; putting away the things that are not good, like greed, anger, malice, wrath, slander and bad language. Be honest with yourselves and one another – live a life in Jesus Christ. And what is that life? A life of love, of giving, of compassion, of equality, where all are valued, not for who or what they are, but for the individuals they are, individuals created by God, called by God, loved by God.
That means thinking of others, of putting others before ourselves – having respect for ourselves, respect for others and taking responsibility for our actions. Live an honourable life, then when you look back you can enjoy it a second time, is a saying I rather like. Living for the moment has rather a selfish aspect, but living in the moment, not without thinking about the impact of our actions, but living in the moment and enjoying it, or living with the pain of a particular moment and learning from it are important. If we are constantly looking to the future, hoping for something new and better; or looking back and regretting actions or dwelling in the past and not moving on, we are not living our lives.
True happiness comes from within, and from our relationships with those around us, and with God, not from the material things we have.
The rich man had a lot of possessions, but he had no spiritual relationship with God, he had neglected living his life, in the pursuit of riches, and for what? In the end it was for nothing as the Old Testament reading said, all was in vain.
Living, being aware of the here and now, as well as the now and not yet, are where we are called to be, and looking to the future, the not yet – means we need to reassess the now – where am I, who am I, what is God calling me to do, and how can I serve God in who and what I am? As we discern the answers to these not inconsiderable questions, we can feel valued and worthwhile, knowing that we are the individuals God created, and every single one of us is important and loved by God, every single one of us, even when we feel most undervalued and hopeless about our lives can know that God’s love is something very real to hold on to.
“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom,” says one of the thieves crucified with Jesus. “Today you will be with me in Paradise, “he promises. That is what Jesus promises us if we want a new life with God. A life without greed, anger, malice, wrath, lies, or any of the other negative things that can take over our lives and make us feel down, can make us feel unloved and worthless. Jesus offers us a life of love and truth and hope and grace in his kingdom.
So do you want more material possessions and wealth, like the rich man in our gospel reading, or do you want to be rich toward, and with God? Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
24 July 2022 – Sixth Sunday after Trinity
Persistence is often seen as a good thing, but persistence without purpose is useless. Dogged determination to keep to a plan that is not working, or going to achieve the desired objective, is not persistence. It may perhaps be stubbornness or an unwillingness to accept the real position, it may even be pride, but it is not persistence and probably not a good thing.
Being persistent means having the strength and flexibility to stop and take stock when one is aware that our efforts are not getting results.
When it is for the right reasons persistence means one continues with an opinion or course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition, but as we can see one person’s persistence is another’s foolhardiness. Self awareness and honesty are essential it get it right.
And today we are given examples of persistence for all the right reasons. Abraham and Sarah, his wife, have been promised by God that despite their age, they will give rise to nations. The angels of the Lord have met them and eaten under the oaks of Mamre the food prepared by Abraham and Sarah, and God decides not to hide from Abraham his intentions towards the peoples of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The interchange is one of closeness and respect, yet persistence. god shares God’s intentions to destroy the cities, and Abraham, showing his wide loving care, intercedes, indeed negotiates, with God on their behalf, Abraham shows his understanding of God’s viewpoint as well as his concern for those righteous individuals caught up in God’s anger. God hears and responds positively to Abraham’s persistence.
Paul tells the Colossians to live lives rooted in Christ, lives rooted in faith because Jesus is the base of all faith, not laws. Live up to your full potential is the call, one we hear time and again in the scriptures. We as God ‘s creation have the opportunity to fulfil a wonderful potential, a potential God wants and encourages us to fulfil and God is persistent in encouraging us to take that opportunity in the strength of the Holy Spirit.
And in our gospel we get the ultimate in encouraging persistence in our journey with God. Ask God and God will hear is the message. But this is not about requests for small matters, this is about seeking God working in our lives, guiding and directing us, through talking to God and listening to God. God wants us to ask, God is there, but God always waits to be invited into our lives.
God wanted the people of Sodom and Gomorrah to turn away from their wrong doing, and recognised in Abraham’s negotiations the invitation to be there in the lives of those who still wanted, and invited, God into their lives. God forgave the wrong doings of humanity through the death of God’s own Son on the cross.
Jesus’ disciples ask him how to pray, how to invite God to be with them, and what they get is the universal prayer we use to this day. A prayer of praise – hallowed be your name; and of thanksgiving – your kingdom come, on earth as in heaven. A prayer confessing our wrongdoing – forgive us our sins; and finally the request to feed us, not just with physical food, but with that spiritual food which nourishes our inner self.
This is a prayer for those following Jesus on the kingdom journey, those wanting God to be part of their lives as they seek the kingdom and life God offers.
So why did Jesus’ disciples ask for this guidance on prayer at this point? Well perhaps because of his recent meeting with Mary and Martha. Mary had sat at the feet of Jesus listening, whilst her sister Martha rushed around, distracted and worried, as Jesus put it. Mary has chosen the right path he responds, when chided by Martha for detaining her sister; and perhaps we too need that reminder when we are distracted by the cares of our daily lives. Stop, take time to speak to God, to leave our worries with God and ultimately then to listen to God.
God, like a loving parent, will not ignore our requests, yet also like a parent, God will want what is best for us, and that is not always the same as what we may think we want.
Persistence in seeking God for no other purpose than because we want to know God, and God’s love and purpose for us, is always a positive thing. Persistence in seeking God purely for what we think is right, without listening and reflecting on what God is offering is perhaps wilful misunderstanding on our part.
Yet God will not abandon us, God will be there waiting patiently until we re-evaluate and invite God to show us what God has planned.
God is love and love is patient, love is kind and God’s patience and love are infinite. Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
17 July 2022 – Fifth Sunday after Trinity
Today, Nice begins a journey: a journey with God, that stretches out before him for the rest of his life. In his baptism, he places one step forward, travelling into the unknown of tomorrow: a tomorrow which offers little certainty, except for the promise of baptism: that – wherever we journey – God is and will be there with us. In this service, after Nice has been baptised, there is the ‘Welcome,’ as we also stand up and stand alongside him, acknowledging that we too are wanderers, fellow travellers in life, with God hanging around: God loitering, lurking, being present, being here, even when we don’t expect him to be, feel him to be, or want him to be.
Our readings today give us an opportunity as baptised people to think about the call to be hospitable: welcoming, friendly, gracious, empathetic, being there. And how we are called to mirror that in our community, society, and world, and to speak out and challenge where hospitality is not extended and where it is denied.
Our Old Testament story begins on a hot day, with Abraham sat in the entrance doorway of his tent: perhaps napping in the shade, jolting himself back into wakefulness each time his head flopped. Looking up, three unidentified men were stood nearby: intentionally so. They stood facing him: stood in a position where he could not help but to see them, and stood waiting to be seen by him, for him to approach them. And so, despite not knowing them from Adam, he springs to his feet and runs across to greet these unknown paused travellers, as they stood wilting in the heat. Abraham had been sat in, perhaps, the best place for that time of day: getting the benefit of the sun and of any slight passing breeze while still being shaded from the excesses of both. Not only did he take himself out of his relative comfort, but he risked the danger that these strangers may have posed. He offers them water to wash their feet, he asks his wife to bake some bread, and he roasts a young calf; and – together with butter and milk – he takes the prepared food to them, and stands by: waiting on them. And when fed and ready to leave, Abraham accompanies them sending them on their way. The strangers are not Abraham’s neighbours, neither is their presence expected by Abraham, and yet they become Abraham’s guests, as he provides for their need and offers protection; and – when they leave – well, they are still strangers, but they are transformed by that encounter and that brief time together.
Now perhaps the strangest part of the story – of Abraham showing hospitality to three unexpected travellers – is that first line, ‘The LORD appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre…’ Really?! There’s no great theophany with light from heaven, or thunder from the clouds, or tarantaras of trumpets. That line simply leaves us confusedly looking at the depicted scene and asking, ‘huh! where on earth is God in this?’ Is God one of the travellers, or more than one of them, or all three of them, or in the guise of them? Or is God elsewhere looking on, like some divine mystery shopper, assessing and appraising the hospitality and welcome provided by Abraham? Or is God somehow in the situation itself? How is God present? How did God appear? And (actually) in the story itself, does Abraham even know that God has appeared to him? Centuries later, the writer of the New Testament Letter to the Hebrews, with this story in mind, writes, ‘Do not neglect hospitality, for by this some have unknowingly hosted angels.’
When we think of hospitality these days, we often view it as a professional service, a huge money-making industry, which – for the right price – will provide lodging, and food and drink, entertainment and theme parks, and many or any other opportunities that will release the cash from your pocket. Or else, we just make hospitality a bit too bland: it is the entertaining of friends, the laying on of food for a visiting dignitary or bishop, or just simply parading our own magnanimity – showing off how ‘kind’ and ‘generous’ we are because of the position of strength and power we have and the resources this brings.
At least from a Biblical perspective though, hospitality is not really that round of comfortable dinner parties, schmoozing to gain favour, putting on a good show for the bishop, networking, influencing, and building business and political partnerships and opportunities. It is nothing like that. Former Archbishop Rowan Williams, put it simply as ‘Hospitality means mess.’ Hospitality is welcoming everyone, including everyone, dignifying everyone, treating strangers and friends alike. And this type of hospitality is not easy. It brings with it practical and difficult questions; it may require us to turn our place of safety into a place of risk; it may make us fearful of the consequences it might bring – requiring us to question, and stretch, and break the boundaries we have placed on our lives to make them orderly, predicable and pleasant for ourselves. Hospitality requires us to work out of weakness; it requires us to become vulnerable. And if it doesn’t? Well, perhaps what we think of as our hospitality is not really hospitality at all.
The hospitality that God calls us to, subverts and challenges: it calls us to reach across the boundaries we create, to dissolve them, and to bring about change. We are not called to be charitable – to act out of largesse or piety or some other noble motivation; what we are called to do is to step forward and encounter that person standing afar outside of the space that is guarded by our defences, to reach out across difference. And that will upset people, because mostly people tend to be happy with things as they were, before God’s hospitality started meddling in the comfort that they and we have so painstakingly created and crafted for them and ourselves.
Hospitality is not a piece of cake – quite literally. Hospitality requires us to see the person who stands waiting-for-us-to-see-them, who stands waiting for us to go and meet-them-where-they-stand; for us to disturb the dividing lines that we have created intentionally or inadvertently, for us to acknowledge that we are impoverished by their absence, by our distance. To step out, over and beyond those boundaries, and in so doing to bring justice and healing to our mutual situation.
The British Government’s current plan to send Channel migrants to Rwanda stands in marked contrast to this Biblical call to Hospitality. Our Archbishops publicly called out the policy as something that should shame us as a nation, naming it as ‘immoral’; Rowan Williams went further and called it ‘sinful’. Refugees and asylum seekers are among the most powerless, marginalised and dislocated people in the world. “Our Christian heritage,” the Archbishops wrote, “should inspire us to treat [these people] with compassion, fairness and justice.”
The church (of course) was accused of meddling in politics, by the usual suspects among Conservative MPs and the right-wing press, who themselves never quite have the same qualms whenever they meddle in religion. They denied the prophetic voice that condemned the victimisation of those vulnerable migrants seeking protection and seeking safety from the risk of being trafficked. And instead, they sought to focus the church and the debate away from the victims (those fleeing conflict, hardship and persecution) to a political solution to tackle those who capitalise and profit from their desperation. And this denial of hospitality, as Rowan Williams said, is a sin: it is an intentional rejection of the divine imperative for us to be a neighbour to those who present themselves, to practise hospitality ungrudgingly, and to offer freedom; to see in each individual the person of Christ himself. This is a ‘structural sin.’ It is not just the politicians and the media, but we all have a corporate responsibility.
This lack of hospitality results from our unwillingness to surrender our position of power and comfort and privilege and to refuse to see ourselves in the other person who stands at a distance waiting-to-be-seen. As soon as you see the stranger in the distance, no matter how far away, that proximity makes the stranger your neighbour. And as the Bible teaches, the call to neighbourliness is not easy, because of the implications it has on our shared public life. Our neighbour has needs for safety, for a home, for food, for education, for health, for justice. It means nothing to say we love our neighbour unless we love our neighbour as ourselves and ensure that they share in the things that both we and they need.
As a church, we need to be careful as well: that in seeking to offer hospitality, the focus rests not on us but on those who seek and hold out for welcome. We see this in our Gospel reading, which paints a scene of Jesus in the home of two sisters: one busying herself in preparations and serving her guest, the other seemingly ‘feckless’ sister opting out of the work, distracted by the presence of the guest. The question is where does hospitality lie? Is it in Martha’s lavish generosity inviting Jesus into her home or in the gracious attention of Mary open to the horizons Jesus presents to her beyond her own insular world?
Too often, baptism is portrayed as becoming a member of the church: hooking a person in, growing the body, building the kingdom. Be careful of that phrase we will say to Nice, “We welcome you into the fellowship of faith,” as if somehow it is a private members’ club and we are opening the door to let one more in. The kingdom of God that Jesus preached is an upside-down kingdom, he did not seek to empire-build but rather he broke down boundaries, affirming human dignity and blessedness to all – wherever they stood, particularly to those on the margins of society and to those outside of it standing at a distance. For ultimately, hospitality is more than just a welcome, a meal, a bed; it is solidarity and defending the other, it is salvation.
The Hebrew word for salvation יָשַׁע (yaw-shah) is to be liberated; its root means being open, wide, free. Salvation (what hospitality concerns) is about bringing us into a ‘spacious environment, freeing us from a narrow [and] cramped existence … making room, creating space.’ Nice and all those who seek baptism do not become loved by God only by the splash of water. Baptism is a sacrament: it is an outward and visible sign of that which already was and is (an inward and spiritual grace).
And today as Nice is baptised, we acknowledge that the church is an impoverished incomplete place without him. It is not that he needs to come in and join us, to seek membership of our exclusive club, but that we need to be always open – to change what we are: to break our boundaries, our self-identification, for – with those rigidly in place – the church is not spacious enough. It is a mutual acknowledgement that each person can be who that person is – and still be the image of Christ to each other. And that offers both Nice and ourselves the freedom together to be the hospitable body of Christ – both welcoming and being welcomed, both host and guest, both changed and changing into something new: something new of the great hospitable love of God.
Colin Setchfield
10 July 2022 – Dedication Festival
I find it fascinating to visit old buildings, to feel the history in the stones and to marvel at the skills and workmanship. Many tools, such as those used by stonemasons, have not changed over the centuries, indeed why reinvent something that already works, mobile phone and other tech companies take note!
Some buildings defy logic at times, Salisbury Cathedral had insufficient foundations to support the mass of the building, and features, such as buttresses, were often added to strengthen walls for heavy and ornate ceilings. The magnificence and size, and indeed ingenuity are fascinating.
One of the key parts of a building is the cornerstone – it carries load and helps define the structure, and Paul uses that building imagery with the Ephesians as he describes the Church as built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Jesus as the cornerstone. From these beginnings Christian communities have spread far and wide, some meeting in magnificent buildings, others in small rooms or tents. Because the importance always is the community, the people who gather to worship, they are the Church, they are built on those early beginnings, it is not the building, however magnificent it may be.
Buildings can indeed inspire wonder, peace and stillness, as they are intended, and as the years of prayers, joys and sufferings seep into the very stones. When Notre Dame in Paris was severely damaged by fire some years ago, the feeling of sadness and tragedy was palpable, not just for the building but for all it meant down the years, yet from that devastation there are new beginnings. Many new people are learning the skills of old as they repair the damage, it is sign of hope and rebirth.
Perhaps one of the most interesting cathedral projects in our lifetime is the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. Its very name means Holy Family, and it was conceived at the end of the 19th century and started in the early 20th it stood far from completed for decades after the death of the architect Gaudi. Yet today it is the most amazing and vibrant space, a place of light and space. Love it or hate it, it is a Marmite building, it dominates the skyline and is a testimony to creativity and tenacity by the community who support it. This is their cathedral this is their place to worship God.
For none of the buildings would be anything without the people. An empty building lies dormant, with no purpose unless it is inhabited and used by people. Buildings need to be used, and whilst it may sound fanciful, they do come alive with people and activity.
During the period that we were unable to enter this building it stood as a sad reminder of what we were missing, the human interaction, the coming together to worship as the people of God. We met online, and that was better than not meeting, because at least online we could share and interact, to a degree, in our worship, but we could not share in Holy Communion, the sacrament at the heart of our worship.
This church was completed just as the 2nd World War was beginning, a real act of faith and hope, and it was damaged as a result of that war, yet it stood as a beacon of hope in a dark world, and that is still its’ mission today, through us the Church of God.
This is a beautiful space, it is light and airy, it can be full of noise, and it can be a place of silence, and all to the glory of God. Buildings can inspire us, but ultimately without us, the people of God it has no life, no purpose.
This is somewhere that offers a place of respite, of sanctuary and peace, a place to be with God in community. Yes we can worship God and offer prayers alone, but it is in coming together, in being a community that we truly share, after all our service is called Holy Communion, and we come together as a congregation, a gathering of God’s people.
That is why Jesus was angry when he entered the Temple and found it being used in ways that did not glorify God, in fact quite the opposite, and his anger turned into action, as he overturned the tables used by the moneylenders and sellers. This was a physical reaction, but he was also angered at the those who had failed to lead God’s people, and forgotten God’s commandment to love on God. He knew his challenge would have repercussions, but he knew he must challenge what is not of God. As he speaks of his own death, and resurrection, he is telling them that God is not in the building, however long it took to build, without the true faith of the people.
Today as we celebrate this building and those who strove to build it, as well as those who continue to care for it, we also dedicate ourselves again to serve God. We who were bought at the price of Christ’s precious blood offer ourselves to be the temple of God, and in doing that continue the Church here in South Chingford. Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith
3 July 2022 – Thomas the Apostle
Little is recorded of St. Thomas the Apostle both in the bible and in the historical accounts of the time. Thomas was probably born in Galilee to a humble family, but there is no indication that he was a fisherman. He was a Jew, but there is no account of how he became an apostle to Christ. Nevertheless, thanks to the Gospel of John, his personality is clearer to us than some of the other twelve. In the Gospel of John, he plays a particularly distinctive part. Thomas is often condemned for his lack of belief, and he is often called Doubting Thomas.
But Thomas was equally courageous, willing to stand by Jesus in dangerous times. He also relentlessly sought the truth, constantly asking questions and his profession of faith, “My Lord and my God,” is the clearest declaration of Jesus’ divinity in Holy Scripture. Accounts of Thomas’ missionary activities are unreliable in the early church after the resurrection, but the most widely accepted report holds that he preached in India. He planted seeds for the new Church, forming many parishes and building many churches. Their tradition holds that he built seven churches and was martyred during prayer by spearing on the “Big Hill” near Madras.
Almost everything we know about Thomas is found in the Gospel of John. One of the main themes in John’s Gospel is moving people from doubt to faith, so Thomas is a natural example. In the eleventh chapter of John, Jesus has just informed the disciples of the death of their friend Lazarus and then tells them that he is going to Bethany to raise him from the dead. But the disciples know Bethany is only a few miles from Jerusalem, and the officials seek to put Jesus to death. Going there will mean that all of them will be placed in harm’s way. The rest of the disciples show dismay that Jesus is going back. but John writes, “Then Thomas (called Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him” (John 11:16). “When the worried disciples wanted to keep Jesus from going for fear He would be stoned, Thomas, in a moment of bravery not often expressed by the Apostles before Pentecost, rallied the others to stay by their Master come what may.
The next time we meet Thomas, it is in the upper room, where Jesus and his disciples have just eaten their last supper together. Judas has left their company to begin his journey of betrayal. At this point, Jesus unveils his heart as he speaks openly to his friends. He tells them that he will not be with them much longer. “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going,” Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going; how do we know the way?“
Thomas misunderstands Jesus’ reference to His death and resurrection, yet Thomas’ question provides Jesus with an opportunity to teach one of the most profound and difficult truths of His ministry. Jesus said to Thomas: (John 14:6) “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.“
We have all met people like Thomas, whose minds are filled with debates and disagreements. Questions are more important than answers – they have to know. Even when you present the most rational arguments possible, it does not satisfy them. Sometimes doubting is silly. Listen to these examples of things that some people said “couldn’t be done”:
- One authority in the United States once declared that the introduction of the railway would require building many insane asylums since people would be driven mad with terror at the sight of locomotives rushing across the country.
- It was supposedly proven by “experts” that if trains went at the frightful speed of 30 miles an hour, passengers would suffocate.
- A man called Joshua Coppersmith was arrested for trying to sell stocks and shares in the telephone because “All well-informed people know that it is impossible to transmit the human voice over a wire.”
All these people were doubters. Sometimes, as in these cases, there are times when doubting is a display of ignorance.
But doubt is not always foolish. If it is honest doubt, it can actually lead to faith, as it did in the case of Thomas. The difference between dishonest and honest doubt is the willingness to accept evidence when it is given. History, for instance, is full of success achieved by doubt. There could be no progress without it. Galileo doubted that the earth stood still. Copernicus doubted that the earth was the centre of the universe. Columbus doubted that it was flat. Newton doubted that nature was erratic, and Einstein doubted that the earth was fixed.” All these people need to prove their doubt one way or another.
There is nothing wrong with asking questions and even doubting. It means you are thinking. In Thomas’ case, his questioning eventually led to faith. He had some honest doubts, but there came a time when he had to be told that it was time to set his doubts aside and stop letting them keep him from the truth, as in our gospel reading. St. Thomas is remembered for being absent from the Upper Room the first time Jesus appeared to the disciples after His Resurrection. Thomas dismissed the accounts of the others by saying, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in His hands and put my finger into the nail marks, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe” (Luke 20:25). Eight days later, Thomas made his act of faith. He fell at the feet of Jesus and said, “My Lord and my God!“
Thomas is the first person in John’s Gospel to look directly at Jesus and address him as God. This is what John has been working on from the start. His Gospel starts with, In the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was God- nobody had seen God – St John’s Gospel then tells the story of Jesus’ life on earth until a week after Jesus’ resurrection. Thomas – a muddled, dogged disciple, determined not to be taken in, standing on his right not to believe until he has seen for himself, is confronted by a smiling Jesus who has appeared through a locked door and recognises that is what the Word looks like. My Lord and my God.
Doubt is balanced by Faith. Faith provides the proof of things that are not evident; Jesus said to Thomas, “Because you have seen me, you have believed,” Thomas did not just see; he also believed. He saw a human being but acknowledged my Lord and my God. Thomas needed to touch in order to believe. Jesus knew that just as he knows our every thought, we should tell Jesus what we need to happen before we believe, just as Thomas did. Jesus will meet that need. The resurrected Jesus is alive and comes to all who seek to follow him as Jesus did long ago. He comes to the point of our need, strengthening us for ministry in Christ’s name.
The thought to take with us is that Jesus knew exactly what Thomas needed to strengthen his faith at that moment, and he knows what we need for our faith. We must never worry when we have doubts or our faith wobbles. Never be ashamed of the questions, as it allows God to address them. Let us lay all our doubts at Jesus’ feet, and God will answer that prayer in the way that is exactly what we need to continue our witness to Christ on earth. Giving our doubts, worries, and every part of our lives to the Holy Spirit ensures that God will be who us in everything we do. As we approach the altar today and receive the Holy Spirit through the gift of the sacrament – give your doubts and fears to God, knowing that he is always with you and will always bring you comfort and peace. Amen.
Katherine Ward
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26 June 2022 – The Second Sunday after Trinity
Good morning. It’s so good to be here with you this morning.
I’m going to be focusing on our second reading this morning, from Paul’s letter to the Galatians. The section of chapter 5 that was read this morning seems to be rather like two side of a coin, or perhaps more like this bar of soap I brought with me today – sinner and saint!
But I get ahead of myself. The very first verse v.1 gives us the context for the longer section of v.13-26. It tells the Galatians (and us) that when they became Christians they were given freedom from the Law. This has sometimes been interpreted to mean that Christians are free to do anything they want. But that is not what it means.
The young Galatian Christians were Gentiles (non-Jews) who had been targeted by some Jewish Christians who had been teaching that they must be circumcised and follow all the Jewish Laws and ceremonies in order to be true Christians. Paul is anxious to assure them that this is not so. He has taken pains earlier in the letter (ch.3 v.11) to show them that faith is what is important, not following the law, “So it is clear that no one can be made right with God by trying to keep the law. For the Scriptures say ‘It is through faith that a righteous person has life.’”
When we accept that Jesus has died in our place on the cross and our sins are forgiven, we not only receive Christ’s forgiveness, we are also covered in his righteousness. God looks on us through Jesus and sees us as righteous. That doesn’t mean we are perfect, it doesn’t mean we will never sin again, but our faith enables us to receive all that Christ offers us, and that sets us free from the rules and regulations of religious law.
Just as the Galatians did not have to follow all the rules of Judaism to be accepted by God, so we don’t have to follow religious rules to be accepted by God today. We are free to come to him, in faith, just as we are and he accepts us.
It is in that context that the main part of our reading is set. And so we move to v.13. Paul says, ‘don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature, instead use your freedom to serve one another in love.’ But this is not easy! Even Paul found he struggled. Back in Romans 7:18 he said ‘I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.’ Why is this? He says, ‘it is sin living in me that does it.’
In this hot weather I often leave my back door open. Lots of insects fly in and end up buzzing around the kitchen. Sometimes I am able to catch them in a glass jar and help them get out. Sometimes they fly out by themselves but for some, they get exhausted by the effort and die (maybe helped by my cat!). The insects have freedom to fly anywhere, but not everywhere they fly is good for them.
God has given us freedom but we must use it wisely. But there is a problem. We want to live good lives, but something stops us. I certainly identify with the struggle of Paul – wanting to do the right thing but not doing it. Why, when we have been given forgiveness and the gift of the Holy Spirit do we still find ourselves sinning? And Paul sets out here a whole list of sins that were happening in the Galatian church, which if we look closely we find are still around us today. It is because we still live in a fallen world. We still have within us the basic instincts of our human nature.
These instincts/desires are part of being human. God has given us the Holy Spirit, but it is like there is an inner battle going on inside us. This battle cannot be won by following rules. The problem lies deep within us. It is a battle that can only be won as we submit to the love and guidance of the Holy Spirit. God has given us guidance in the Bible; we have the freedom to follow this guidance or to ignore it, but if we ignore it we will suffer.
I am not going to go through the sinful consequences in detail but just to say that Paul gives four (or possibly five) different types of sins that come from us following the baser side of our human nature:
- Sexual sins: ‘sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures.’
- Religious sins: idolatry, sorcery,’ today maybe we could add other things that can take the place of God in our lives including technology, social media and the like.
- Relational or interpersonal sins: ‘hostility, quarrelling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division.’ Things that separate us from one another.
- Social sins or sins of excess: ‘envy, drunkenness, wild parties.’
- This may not be a separate category, but Paul says ‘and other sins like these….’ We are not to take his list as exhaustive. All sin is sin and we are all capable of sinning when we follow the desires of our human nature. Without the Holy Spirit we can find it hard to resist the the things that rise up within us – which may not be the things we might call ‘big sins’ (although all sins is sin!) but also the hidden sins – the things no one else sees: the anger we feel against someone else, or jealousy or pride.. the list is endless.
Then v.22 gives us hope. Paul says ‘BUT…’. These things may be pulling us in one direction BUT the Holy Spirit is inside us and is working to pull us in the other direction and produce positive fruit in our lives. ‘Love, joy peace, patience, kindness , goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.’ Now some of us may be thinking, “I’ve been a Christian for years and yet I don’t see all the fruit in my life. I still get impatient if I am kept on hold for ages on the phone, I am not always loving, or kind, or gentle when I know I should be. Have I missed out, did the Holy Spirit not come into my life when I became a Christian?’
If that is how you are feeling today please don’t lose heart. If you are a follower of Jesus then you will have his Holy Spirit.
But first let me tell you something about my garden. I have an apple tree. It is in a pot awaiting a garden makeover when it will be given a permanent home I the ground. I have had it for about 4 years. In year 1 it neither flowered or fruited. In year two it bore one apple. In year 3 I moved home and brought it with me in its pot but that year it neither flowered or fruited. This year the apple tree was covered with blossom in the spring and now has about 10 small apples, not yet big enough to eat but recognisable as apples, and as long as I keep the tree fed and watered I am confident that most, if not all, will grow to maturity by the autumn and that once it is given a permanent place in the garden I will be able to look forward to a regular crop of apples.
One of the problems we have as Christians is that we can expect too much too quickly. We expect that God will make us perfect straight away. When that doesn’t happen we try and make it happen. We work and strive to make the fruit appear in our lives. But that isn’t how it works!
Perhaps you could indicate by raising your hands if any of you have ever walked past a tree or a tomato plant or such like and heard it struggling and straining to produce fruit, ‘I’ve got to make a tomato. I haven’t got any tomatoes, I must try harder’? Tomato plants don’t have to say ‘I must produce tomatoes. Perhaps if I strain a little harder one will appear.’ That is clearly ridiculous. A tomato plant will produce its fruit over time simply because that is what tomato plants do – if they are in good soil, if they receive the nutriments (food) and water water they need, if they have light and warmth. Tomatoes will grow just because it is a tomato plant.
The same applies to Christians. How many of us have ever heard someone say (or even said to ourselves), ‘I am not showing enough love/joy/peace etc. I need to try harder’? I know I have. But the truth is that no matter how hard we try we cannot make the fruit of the Spirit appear in our lives by stressing and straining.
The fruit comes as we plant ourselves in the right soil – as we place our lives in Jesus. As we feed and water our spirits on the Word of God, regularly reading the Bible and listening and applying what it says. As we pray and feel the light and warmth of God’s presence as he speaks to us and we listen to Him.
When we simply live out our lives in this environment we will discover that gradually we will start to see the fruit beginning to appear. It may not arrive fully developed and fully ripe – it may be very small, but as long as we continue to grow in our Christian lives, feeding on the Word and being in the light and warmth of God’s presence, the fruit will also grow.
It may take a lifetime for the fruit to become perfectly developed and ripe, but that is for God to determine. The important thing is that we don’t panic. We don’t consider ourselves failure. We simply try to remain obedient and in God’s love and care.
The tree produces fruit just because of what it is. Fruit comes as a natural part of living. As Christians if we are living a Christian life the fruit of the Spirit will come in us as a natural part of life.
At the beginning of this sermon we saw that Christians are free from the Jewish religious laws, but somehow we seem to make our own laws – for some it may be having a Quiet time each day, or attending the Bible Study or Prayer meeting, or coming to church each Sunday. Now these things are good and can help us grow in our faith, but we must not make them a legal obligation or somehow make them something we must do to earn favour with God. God couldn’t love us any more or any less, whatever we do, but some things can be helpful in building our relationship with him.
And we need to remember that being a Christian will not always be a bed of roses. A tree needs to experience all the elements: sun, wind, rain. It also needs to experience all the seasons, not just spring and summer, but also autumn and winter. To be fruitful it also needs to be pruned, and in many ways it is the harsh things of life that enable it to produce good fruit.
We may be facing difficult circumstances at the moment, challenges that make is wonder how we will cope, but if we plant our lives in Jesus Christ and live close to him, his Holy Spirit will fill us and we will know the fruit in our lives. Maybe not appearing overnight, but day by day slowly growing until one day we realise that the fruit has ripened and we know we are a saint not sinner.
Maria Holmden
19 June 2022 – The First Sunday after Trinity
Who are you? Who am I?
Let’s take a moment to think how you would describe yourself to another person, something we have been doing as part of getting to know one another on the PCC. Do you start with your name, your job, if you have one, your gender, or the roles in your life? With the PCC it has been fascinating to hear about all of these various aspects of each person.
What makes you, you, and you alone? Not an easy one, many will define themselves by their roles, and thus feel less of an individual if those roles are lost or worse still taken away, it is one reason redundancy can be so hard.
Many have mentioned, men especially, often because they were the main breadwinner, that they felt quite bereft when they retired or lost a job, who they were was so much intertwined with what they were, that the loss was a real bereavement.
Perhaps it is your gender that you feels defines you. It certainly can, excluding some, especially women, from roles, and as we see sadly in parts of the world, that is still happening, where women are not allowed to take on roles, and education, the bedrock for opportunity, is denied. Sexism is still an issue for many, as is sexuality. In some cases the latter may mean the difference between life and death.
Your race or heritage may also be an important part of who you are, yet have you always felt able to embrace that heritage, or has racism played a part in how you feel and act?
Because who we are does encompass all the aspects I have mentioned and more. Expectations, both of ourselves, and from others, are based on factors such gender, background and ethnicity, and whilst we cannot always change other’s viewpoints, at least initially, our own expectations should not be defined by others and how they see us. I was fortunate that not only did I have the opportunity to go to a school that believed in good education for girls, it promoted the idea that we could achieve whatever we put our minds to, and that was not the norm 50 years ago, as I discovered at my first university interview with its’ blatant sexism!
Our scriptures today are about being the best we can because of who we are and all are one in Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, yet 2000 years later we are still having to emphasise that message, because who and what you are does make a difference in our world.
When Jesus asks the man in our gospel his name, the reply comes from others, not him, he does not count as a person in his own right. I am Legion, meaning many, because he is possessed by many, being pulled in different directions and not able to be his own person. Perhaps you too have felt that in your life, times when you felt I am not me, I am constrained by what others expect of me. Here Jesus restores the man to be who he really is, and this story comes amidst a stream of such changes.
Jesus has just calmed the storm when he steps ashore, after this he will restore life to a young girl, and heal a woman, and in those encounters not only does he bring peace and a new beginning to those he has helped; all are recognised as individuals because they would have been considered as untouchable, outsiders according to Jewish law and society.
The man, literally lives outside society; a dead body, and a female one at that, was unclean, and as for the woman with a haemorrhage, she was completely beyond the pale. Yet in each case faith makes them well, faith in God, belief that life can be different, that they can be themselves.
When Paul tells the Galatians that all are one in Christ, he stresses that faith comes before the Law, and Jesus demonstrates this in all his healing and teaching. Luke the Evangelist is generally understood to have been a physician by training and brings this background into his writings. Like all of us his background, his training, is part of who he is, and the context in which he writes and who he writes for. He speaks to the marginalised and the outsider.
We are defined by many aspects in our lives, but we are also each unique in who we are and what we can do with our lives. How we see ourselves is crucial to what we can do, the views of others may inform that, but don’t let it hold you back if those views are negative. We may not always hit the heights we aim for, but if we don’t try we will never know.
Legion had faith and was healed, the girl’s father had faith and she was restored to life, the woman was too fearful, given her position in society and her condition to approach Jesus directly, but had faith that touching just his clothes would heal her. We too are encouraged to come to God, to have faith that we too can have new life, whoever we are.
In whatever way we define ourselves, do not let that definition constrain you. Maybe you will be the first to do something and encourage others to follow; maybe you will follow others who have paved the way. Yet however we see ourselves, God sees and knows each of us individually and calls us to live out our God given potential to its fullest. Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
12 June 2022 – Trinity Sunday
Have you ever tried finding your way through one of those garden mazes, or indeed tried to solve a puzzle game such as the Rubik cube?
I was fascinated the other day on the tube, as a man opposite me had a Rubik cube puzzle, and his fingers were a blur as he twisted the cube this way and that, occasionally pausing to reflect before off he went again at speed, twisting and turning. Suddenly he stopped, the puzzle was solved, just in time for him to alight from the train, very clever timing; or did he perhaps already know the solution?
In each case, be it a maze or a puzzle there is a starting point and a goal or solution, and once you have the key to the puzzle or maze the answer is quite straightforward. Without the key one comes up against dead ends and has to retrace one’s steps or moves.
It struck me that explaining the Trinity can be rather like that. We can try many different routes and explanations, simple or otherwise, to describe the three in one of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Calling the Trinity, Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer to describe each role in the Godhead is one way, various examples of three things making up one whole is another. All can be helpful, but at the heart, the key to it all are love and relationship.
In a relationship there has to be more than one, there has to be trust for there to be love, and in that coming together they become one, distinct yet equal, and one.
One of the most famous images of the Trinity is the Rublev icon, which depicts the Father, Son and Holy Spirit together in a real relationship as one, engaging with one another, and us, as they look out of the image, and each has a distinct role to play. Our issue so often when thinking of God, is grappling with something so huge we cannot come to terms, with it and accepting mysterious, unknowable God as outside of Creation is at times beyond us.
Yet as God reminds humanity, ‘my thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways are not your ways.’ God is beyond anything we can comprehend, and so to come closer to us, that we might understand, God emptied Godself and became human. As Jesus he showed love and compassion, was generous and self-giving, yet also laughed and cried, was angry and hurt. God became fully human, yet also is always God.
God made humanity in God’s image and conversely we are most human when we are most God like, that is when we are compassionate, forgiving, generous and self-giving, not easy, but as Jesus in obedience to God showed on the cross as he died for us.
In the beginning God stressed we are relational, as God also created a mate for Adam, humanity was always made to be relational, just as the Godhead is, as it delights in the human race.
Life can and still will be difficult at times, even when we draw close to God, as Paul reminds the Romans. Yet suffering he says creates endurance, and endurance produces character, and character leads to hope. Hope, which is essential for life and our wellbeing, hope in God’s love poured out, in creation, redemption and prodding, guiding and inciting us through the Holy Spirit.
In recent weeks many of our readings have reflected on Jesus’ promise to the disciples that the Holy Spirit would be with them, after he leaves them, to guide them in all truth and declare what is to come. What is to come is love, God’s love for us and our love for one another as he has given them a new commandment to love; to love one another in order to show that they are his followers. To show that God is love. God is loving and to be trusted, giving and receiving, real relationship that is at the heart of the Trinity, and humanity; and perfect love is excessive, generous and life giving.
So just like solving the route through the maze, or the answer to the puzzle, the Trinity falls into place if we accept that the Trinity is love – perfect love, lived out in the commandment that Jesus left with his disciples, and us, to love one another, as I have loved you. We can try to explain it in simple and logical terms, but understanding love is never simple, it can’t be proved, it can only be shown, offered and accepted, or rejected.
God, as Trinity offers us that love and relationship in a package of creation, redemption and sustenance, all three making up the total love that is ours, all we have to do is accept it. Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
5 June 2022 – Pentecost / The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee
Oils! I have here the three oils we use at various times – the oil for healing, the oil for baptism and Chrism oil for confirmation. These oils are blessed each year on Maundy Thursday at the service known as the Chrism Mass when those who minister in word and sacrament also come to be reaffirmed and recommissioned for their own ministry.
Oils are used for anointing at ordinations and the coronation of Kings and Queens too, and both of these go back to our earliest scriptures. Olive oil is used as the base, at it is seen as the cleanest, purest, and longest lasting of all the oils.
Originally only priests were anointed with oil, but this was extended to include kings when Samuel, at God’s behest, anoints David as King of God’s people.
The oil is used to sanctify and set aside those anointed and is a very special part of both ordination and coronation. It is part of the calling down of the Holy Spirit to set aside the person for God’s work as well as to empower and strengthen them.
The oil of healing is used, as the name suggests, in the ministry of healing and wholeness, usually at a time when there is a real need for strength; it can also be used at the time of death.
The oil for Catechumens is used in baptism – the word literally means one preparing for baptism, and marks those anointed as special, and is again for strength and healing.
The oil of Chrism is used for confirmation and ordinations, again for strength and support, and also as a sign of the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is used after the bishop has laid hands on the person and invoked the Holy Spirit in their calling and faith.
At her coronation our Queen was blessed by the archbishop who called upon the Holy Spirit before anointing her with a special oil which included orange, rose, cinnamon, musk and ambergris. She was then invested with her royal regalia and crowned. The point being that first she was called and strengthened by God, and it is this which has been so important to Queen Elizabeth. This is not about the divine right of kings to reign, King Charles 1st lost his head over that particular point, but that for our current Queen her faith is an essential part of who and what she is.
At the time of the anointing the hymn we have just sung, Come Holy Ghost, was sung, just as it is at ordinations.
The Holy Spirit is a constant in all the anointings from the earliest priests and kings to date. We may think of the Holy Spirit particularly at Pentecost, but the Spirit is there throughout. At Pentecost the Holy Spirit, promised to the disciples by Jesus at the Last Supper, comes upon them empowering and strengthening them just as Jesus foretold.
And as they are anointed with the Holy Spirit they are able to speak to all, as Jesus told them it would be, not just for the disciples then, but for all who want to hear God and take on the new life God offers. No more are peoples and nations, as at Babel, confused and lacking in understanding, but now all can be part of this new life.
At her coronation the Queen took on the role as Head of this Nation, and others beyond, which have become the Commonwealth; a nation of many peoples and increasingly many faiths. As Defender of the Faith she has a specific role as Head of the Anglican Church, but her Christian faith has not precluded her engagement with those of other faiths and indeed none.
Elizabeth II has worked to bring peoples and nations together, her steadiness and calm bringing those very strengths at difficult times during the past 70 years, and her faith has been a mainstay of that.
As the disciples received the Holy Spirit they were strengthened, empowered and directed to speak of the good news that God is here for all who want to come to God, and to receive the sevenfold gifts of wisdom, understanding, counsel, strength, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord, which led them in the mission to the world.
Pentecost is the time we specifically recall the coming of the Spirit and the gifts it can bring to us too, each one called by God, called by name and anointed as special at our baptism.
Strengthened, guided and empowered by the Holy Spirit let us joyfully offer ourselves to God as people who have placed our faith in Jesus and receive continual guidance and inspiration from the Holy Spirit.
Come Holy Ghost our souls inspire
And lighten with celestial fire.
Thou the anointing Spirit art,
Who doest thy sevenfold gifts impart.
Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
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29 May 2022 – The Seventh Sunday of Easter (The Sunday after Ascension)
And – focus!
Working for one of London’s City churches, we get a regular flow of tourists coming in. I suspect that St Botolph’s isn’t particularly high on many of their itineraries. But I assume that – as they pass on their way to The Tower or further into the City to see the major must-see sights – they notice that the church’s main door is open and they make an unscheduled detour to pop in.
I sit in the office, and look up as the CCTV catches them on entering, and smile, as invariably they stride up the central aisle, take out a camera or phone to take a photo, and then turn around and leave.
Looking up towards the altar, their photo may capture the batik reredos by Thetis Blacker, or the 7/7 Aldgate Tube bomb processional cross, or the dove-shaped hanging pyx, or the large Venetian window behind the altar ‘filled with dark jewel-like stained glass.’ But even if the photo does, that is mainly just happenchance, for in most cases it seems the photo opportunity is little more than a desire to collect evidence to show that they were there.
And as they turn and walk out again, they fail to notice the ornamental plaster angels on the ceiling, and the country’s oldest working church organ up in the gallery; they pass by memorials to Tudor traitors, and miss the opportunity to smile at the occasional Lego constructions randomly left on windowsills and surfaces by the Sunday School. But ‘tick’: they’ve clocked up St Botolph’s, they have the photo, which in years to come they can look at and puzzle over where on earth it was taken.
Our lives can also perhaps often be a little like that. So relatively short, there’s a rush – an urgency – to cram in as much as we can: to go and see and do everything, and yet failing miserably and missing out much along the way. In the recent Expedia ad on telly, the actor Ewan McGregor taps into this, by suggesting to the viewers that even though there’s some great stuff out there, none of it compares to seeing the world. “Do you think any of us will look back on our lives and regret the things we didn’t buy, or the places we didn’t go?” he says.
Of course, Expedia is encouraging us to think about its holiday destinations around the world for our pleasure, and to put to one side the fact that flying is the most damaging way to travel for the climate. And also, they are not really trying to suggest that many will despair on their death beds that they never managed to get to and see Aylesbury or Huddersfield or Luton ( – named as the top three worst places to live in the UK this year). Interestingly, when Ewan was interviewed in the past about his own regrets in life, they weren’t about places not visited, but rather the relationships that he didn’t invest in.
In our rush, we often get caught up in a form of echopraxia, that is when people do something that simply mimics or imitates what another person has done or suggested. We get distracted and fail to see what is there in front of us: we focus on the wrong things, the spangliest or flashiest demand on our attention wins out. Someone shouts out ‘Look!’ and we just seem to be unable not to stare where they are staring. We go where others go, we do what others do, we see what others see.
There’s a phrase in the story of Christ’s Ascension (its festival was kept by the church on Thursday just gone), which to me ties in with this. In the story (and here I paraphrase – just a tad), the risen Christ appears to his disciples once more, and they question him. ‘Erm! … Are you thinking of bringing the Kingdom about anytime soon?’ And he replies, ‘Actually, that’s not really your concern. Focus on what you need to be focused on, there’s a job for you to do, and – when it comes – do that.’ And without so much as a by-your-leave, he’s gone. And the disciples just stand there, looking up into the skies, just staring. Staring that is until a couple of men dressed in white sidle up to them, ’Psst! What are you looking up there for?’ Angels, agents of God, who arrive on the scene, to snap them out of their awestruck inertia and to nudge them into action.
When I was a young choirboy, I remember Deaconess Turner preaching a sermon, in which she suggested that the gap between the resurrection appearances of the risen Christ became increasingly prolonged – longer and longer each time. It was almost as if to wean the disciples off the dependence on his physical presence among them; until, at the Ascension, the appearances ceased. What the period of Easter (from Easter Day to Pentecost) represented was the building up, the commissioning, the focusing of the church for the job in hand; so that, by the time we come to Pentecost, the disciples do not experience Jesus as having left or disappeared at all. Though taken from their sight, he is not absent. He’s not waiting in the wings to show up now and again capriciously. He is there around them, among them, in them. As the emerging church gathered together, in prayer and teaching, in breaking of bread, in action, in community, the presence of Christ continued to be experienced and to be real.
There is a difference between focus and fixation. When we fixate, we direct our eyes simply to one spot, often in the distance or away from where we stand, with a singularity that blocks out everything else; when we are fixated, we develop an obsessive attachment to someone or something almost to the exclusion of all others. I am not sure that is what we are called to be as Christians. Rather, instead, we are called to be focused. We sometimes mistakenly assume that focus and fixation are the same, but they are not. Whereas fixation excludes all other, focus is to adapt to all the influences around you (such as the prevailing levels of light) in order to see clearly: to bring something into view in the context of the wider whole.
Fixation or focus: that is our challenge this Ascensiontide. Are we simply fixated on a Christ who is just our ‘fix’ in life? Are we simply rushing hither and thither in search for him, looking ahead, oblivious to all that we pass or blind to everything that is not the Christ-shape we expect? Do we stand and stare into the sky, with the clouds hazing our vision, faithfully waiting and hoping for a returning Christ who never quite shows?
Or do we shake ourselves out of that monomania, and hear the gentle chiding of God’s prompting, ‘actually, what on earth are you doing looking up into heaven?’ Do we allow our fix to break? To look around and see that the future hope we fixate upon is here: for God’s future has broken into our present, through the death and resurrection of Christ.
To focus on God is not to push everything else out, it is not to narrow your view on to God. To focus on God is to ‘concentrate’: to expand your view, and to gather all things together into a common centre – the common centre of the reality of God. Think big, and act collectively; live in the now, and be particularly aware of the small, the dowdy, and the overlooked, for without those your focus will be incomplete, and your vision of God will be clouded.
Colin Setchfield
22 May 2022 – The Sixth Sunday of Easter
I recently went to a service in the very old church, 12th century, in East Ham, where I served as a curate. The priest there was retiring after 27 years, and it was an uplifting as well as emotional leave taking.
In our gospel too there is leave taking. Jesus is preparing to leave his disciples his death is imminent, and he wants to ensure that they have the strength and courage to carry on. Unlike us who know how it all turns out, they don’t.
Rather like cramming before an exam, Jesus knows that telling them all they need to know will not be enough, they will not retain the half of it, so he reassures them, again and again. At the start of this discourse he says to them, ‘Do not let your hearts be troubles, believe in God, believe also in me,’ and as he ends he repeats this. ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you… Do not let your hearts be troubled. And do not let them be afraid.’
But naturally the disciples have questions. How is that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world, asks one of them? Because through you the world will know me is the answer they receive now, as on so many other occasions in this preparation, and Jesus returns to the theme we explored last week of love and service to the wider community.
In loving Jesus by serving others the disciples will need God’s constant presence, and Jesus assures them this will be so. We, the Father and the Son will come and make our home with you, he says, and the Holy Spirit will be there to teach them everything and he will leave his peace with them so that their hearts need not be troubled. This peace is not about inner tranquility, but strength to meet the days to come. This indeed is a phrase I often use at funerals as an encouragement to those who mourn that they do not face the future alone.
A number of times during this long discourse at the Last Supper, Jesus promises them that the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Advocate will be with them. And in all this the message is about encouragement, guidance and strength. We may think of comforting as a gentle caring word, and indeed that is one interpretation certainly today, yet in earlier English its’ main meaning was to be strong or brave.
Jesus is therefore saying the Holy Spirit will come to teach, to prod, to incite, to move the disciples on, this is not about gentleness. In that same church in East Ham I mentioned earlier, the churchwardens staves, their badges of office, are in fact sticks known as prickers. They date to 1805 and were used to prod members of the congregation who were not listening or paying attention, perhaps during the sermon! Comforters indeed!
In the Bayeux tapestry, that pictorial record of the Norman Conquest in 1066, there is a section with King William marching behind his soldiers with a drawn sword. The words underneath say ‘King William comforteth his soldiers.’ In other words he prodded, incited and urged them – comforting here is neither gentle or especially caring! But it clearly succeeded in strengthening the troops as William won the Battle of Hastings and became William the Conqueror.
It is the Holy Spirit that directed and guided Paul and his companions as they travelled to Macedonia to spread the gospel, the same Spirit that has prevented them from going to areas they thought they should visit, as this was not the right time. God’s time as we know is not always our timing. The writer of Revelations is carried away by the Spirit to see the vision of the new holy city, the unexpected, and it is the Holy Spirit that we too look to for direction, strength and courage to do God’s bidding.
When Paul arrives in Philippi his mission is successful, he meets, converts and stays with Lydia, a dealer in purple (and thus expensive) cloth. She and her household are the beginning of the Church there, and at the end of their stay, and indeed imprisonment for their teaching, Paul and his companions return to Lydia to again encourage and incite the Church before departing to other parts on their mission to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Encouragement, strength and perhaps occasionally prodding is something we all need, both in our daily lives, and in our journey with God. The Holy Spirit is there to do that, to guide us and move us on so that we continue to grow in our faith and feel God’s presence in our lives, nurturing and inciting us to be the people God calls. Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
15 May 2022 – The Fifth Sunday of Easter
Recently I went to see the film Operation Mincemeat. It is about a very clever, indeed stranger than fiction, true event that took place during the Second World War.
The war was beginning to turn in the Allies favour, and an invasion in the southern Mediterranean was the next stage. The Allies needed to convince Hitler that the invasion was to take place in Greece, rather than Sicily, the actual location, and a team of creative, inventive people, including Ian Fleming who later used much of his war experience in his James Bond spy stories, was put together.
I won’t spoil the plot, but suffice it to say, this fake news worked! We hear much about fake news today – fake reviews and experiences, fake medicines and qualifications, scams to elicit money, and of course in both politics and war, with a prime example at present with the war in Ukraine and the view of this portrayed in Russia. Fake news is nothing new, but increasingly sophisticated.
So how do we tell the authentic from the fake? It is not always easy, it takes discernment, time and even then we can be fooled, or taken in, perhaps only for a short while, but even so that can be enough to damage trust and cause hurt and pain.
Love is one of those areas where trust is required and an area where we can be misled and indeed hurt. Love is a risky business.
In our gospel today Jesus gives his disciples a new commandment, that they love one another, as he has loved them. This is not the only time he gives this command, but as always, the context is important. This comes at the Last Supper after he has washed the feet of his disciples, and he has just foretold his own betrayal – Judas has literally just left to do that when Jesus gives this command. Immediately after he will tell Peter that he too will fail as he will deny his friend, so the commandment to love is set against a background of betrayal, hardly the love that Jesus has commanded.
Yet Jesus knows all this, and still he gives the commandment, because this is how people will know that these are his disciples, his followers. He is preparing them for their future mission, when they will see Jesus no more, and are required to go out and give the good news, the authentic news of God’s love.
I am often amused that in Morning Prayer, just after we have read a particularly difficult passage of scripture, usually in the Old Testament, or Hebrew Scriptures, about God’s frustration and anger with God ‘s people, that the response is either, ‘The Lord is full of compassion’ or ‘in your unfailing love.’
Because love is not a pushover, love includes saying something is wrong, yet still loving the person. Love covers practical service, Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, to risk taking – laying down one’s life for another. Love is giving of self and continues what may. (I am of course mindful that ‘love’ can be used in a coercive way but that is not true love, as I said love is a risky business, and can be used in unloving ways.)
Perhaps the best description of true, authentic love comes in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians which says
‘Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends… And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.’
God knows that we will fail in living up to this, just as Jesus knew the disciples would fail, yet still loves them. He gives bread to Judas as he goes to betray him, he still loves and forgives Peter who will deny him, and God continues to love us too.
God encourages us to try again and again when we fail to live up to this commandment to love one another, because it is not through learning or morality, but by our simple loving acts that we point to the love of God made known in Jesus.
Jesus tells his disciples to love one another, yet this is not just love for the community of faith, this is to show God’s wider love. That wider love that Peter recognised when he reports to the Church in Jerusalem of his ministry beyond the Jewish community to the Gentiles. Initially the Church is critical of him, but come to understand that this is God’s work.
God is doing a new thing, God has provided a new heaven, and a new earth open to all who want to know God, and God’s unfailing love, God’s compassion and mercy, even when we fail.
The new commandment that Jesus gives is for all his followers, then and now. Love one another as I have loved you, and in this way people will know you are my true, my authentic disciples, and that God’s love is good and authentic news for all. So let us love one another as God loves us, and show that authentic good news in this troubled world. Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
8 May 2022 – The Fourth Sunday of Easter
- I saw standing in the very middle of the throne, a Lamb with the marks of slaughter upon him. I heard the voices of countless angels, myriads upon myriads there were, thousands upon thousands, and they cried aloud: ‘Worthy is the Lamb, the Lamb that was slain, to receive all power and wealth, wisdom and might, honour and glory and praise!’
Just over three weeks ago, we recalled how – as the light of the first Good Friday died – the disciples, and first followers who had pinned all their hopes on Jesus, were confronted by the stark reality of a dead Messiah being removed from his blood-stained gibbet.
And Easter is a ‘making-sense’ of that experience, not only just in the continuing story of Jesus himself, but also how the Church moved forward, how Christians understood themselves and the world in which they lived, in the shadow of the cross.
In the past weeks, understandably, we have focused on the gospel stories of the empty tomb and appearances of the risen Christ. But in our other readings, particularly those from the Book of Revelation (which may have possibly gone under our radar), we have been presented – though rather scantly – with a different and challenging take on the significance of what has happened: with Jesus being portrayed as the Paschal lamb, through whose sacrifice humanity is freed from the bondage of sin.
The image of Christ as a sacrificed lamb is probably as difficult to fully understand as the Book of Revelation itself. This is particularly so for us living in the 21st century, where the concept of animal sacrifice is rightly abhorrent (even though it still occurs in parts of the world), and the image of a blood-thirsty God who ruthlessly needs to be bought off by shedding blood is perhaps one that many would be happy to consign to the realms of myth. (It is particularly difficult for me, as a vegetarian who disagrees with using animals for food, medical research, and human gratification.)
But despite all of that, the symbolism is important. The eagle-eyed among you may have had a sense of déjà vu during our gradual hymn today (before the gospel): ‘The lamb’s high banquet called to share.’ You may have asked yourselves, ‘Actually, isn’t this just simply the same hymn as the first one we’ve just had?’ And the answer is (kind of) ‘yes.’ They are both based on the same early sixth-century hymn, with our first one ‘At the lamb’s high feast we sing’ based on a later seventeenth-century revision of it. But I thought that doubling up might subliminally prepare you for what we are looking at today.
Last Sunday, the Archdeacon risked a versicle-and-response gamble, both at the beginning and at the end of his sermon. The gamble was that, when he pronounced ‘Alleluia! Christ is risen,’ we the congregation would automatically respond, ‘He is risen indeed. Alleluia!’ The first time, the response wasn’t immediately forthcoming and had to be prised out of us (which to be honest is something that actually happens most years), but the second time it worked slightly better.
So, let’s try another. It should be doable, as it is another versicle-and-response that we use throughout Easter in this our communion service. ‘Alleluia! Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us.’
(INTENDED CONGREGATION RESPONSE: ‘Therefore let us keep the feast. Alleluia!’)
Well, that didn’t quite work as expected but at least you are consistent! That versical-response is a phrase that comes from the Apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, probably written about 20 years after Jesus’s death. And you’ll notice even by that time a link between his death and Passover had been established. Jesus was not only just killed at Passover, but Christ himself is our Passover.
So, let’s briefly unpackage that term ‘Passover’. It is pivotal to the story of the Exodus, of the Hebrews’ liberation from slavery in Egypt. On the eve of the Exodus, when the Hebrews stepped out of slavery and into freedom: they dressed appropriately to be in readiness for the journey ahead, and they quickly prepared meals – a hearty lamb supper – to be eaten by the whole community. None of the food was to be wasted, they paired individuals and families: so that all (no matter how great or lowly, rich or poor, numerous or single) had sustenance for what lay ahead. This meal was to provide them with the nourishment required, as they took their first steps in a mass migration: fleeing persecution, hardship and poverty, as they searched for security, for safety, for a home. And as the darkness of their last day as a subjugated people settled across the land of their enslavement, the blood of those consumed lambs was smeared on the homes of those to be liberated: a sign of protection, a sign of hope, a sign of life, a sign for keeping them safe from death. And though a remembrance and re-enactment of that meal came to be later established as part of Jewish cultic worship, the actual event to which it ostensibly relates is one rooted in hope and liberation, in nourishment and protection, in feeding people and saving them from death.
And so, with Jesus dying at the time of Passover, those same themes come to the fore. But, in writings like The Book of Revelation, it is not in the heroes and leaders that the representation of Christ is found. Christ’s representation is in the hapless lamb whose young life is taken, with never the chance of seeing out its potential 10-, 12-, 20-year lifespan. It is unfairly and tragically sacrificed, in order that through its dying others might have life, bringing them liberation, securing protection, keeping the flame of hope alive.
In the bizarre imagery of Revelation, we are given a mystic vision of heavenly worship. Here, alongside the worship of God, the young lamb whose life was sacrificed is also worshipped. The suffering and death of the lamb are transfigured into a narrative of glory. And that challenges us to consider how what we celebrate at Easter cannot simply be a glory-story that does not take account of the real lived experiences, suffering, and abandonment of the most vulnerable, and of the victims of our community, society, world and biosphere.
Later in the service today, just before we receive communion, we will sing the Agnus Dei. The version that we use was written in the 1970s by the liturgical scholar Geoffrey Cuming; but it is a free rendition of a much earlier Christian chant, addressing Christ as the sacrificed Passover Lamb. In its original usage, as the bread was prepared for communion, broken and divided into pieces so that all could share in the one bread, the petition ‘O Lamb of God that takest away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us’ was repeated and repeated and repeated. And this continued (not just for a nominal two times but) until the whole bread made been broken, the oneness of the loaf sacrificed. And only then could its unity be restored, through its consumption by every member of the body of Christ present. And the Agnus then resolves itself in its final petition, ‘O Lamb of God that takest away the sin of the world, grant us thy peace.’ Only by each member sharing in the brokenness of the bread, sharing equally the experience and fellowship of the weakest and the most vulnerable among them, could wholeness come, and it was then that Peace was shared.
Now all of that can become just simply an idea, a theological fancy, unless we follow through and believe its reality. Belief in the redemptive work of a God who has stepped and continues to step into our life, our pain, who empties himself, self-sacrificing for others, sanctifying the most vulnerable, seen in the victims of each injustice, with our worship not simply the remembrance of something past, spiritual comfort (as and when we choose to attend), but a memorial of the present and ongoing and regular call for us to share in all of that redemptive work, as Christ ‘easters’ within us.
Colin Setchfield
1 May 2022 – The Third Sunday of Easter
The most important thing of being a Christian is finding God’s call in your life. I once assisted on a Christian sailing project in Wales teaching children to sail. The person in charge was a very senior medic who was head of anaesthetics at Papworth Hospital; he wrote about keeping people alive during heart transplant operations. I was very impressed he was spending a week teaching these young people to sail and telling them a little bit about Jesus.
At the time, I was working for the Inland Revenue, as a tax man. (I wasn’t a very good tax man.) My vague plan was, after I’d done a few years of that, as you did in the 1980s, I would go into the private section, where I would make lots of money in the City and retire with a Porsche with red braces. At the end of the week, this man told me what he did and he said to me what do you do, and I said that I was a tax man but was hoping to go in to the private sector, and make lots of money. And he said ‘Are you going to do that for the rest of your life?’ And it was a good question, it was as if a light was switched on, and I knew that I wasn’t going to do that for the rest of my life. Within four months I moved and went to a job working with a Christian GP practice in Bethnal Green as practice manager. I did that for five years during which my calling developed. I can look back and see that as a light bulb moment when something someone said to me changed my life. I can see that was God’s call at that particular time.
Now we don’t always respond immediately to God’s call in the right way. Think of Jonah. Jonah was called by God to go and speak to the people of Nineveh but he ran away in the opposite direction. But I know that one of the privileges of being in my position is that I’ve heard so many good stories of people who have felt called by God at different times in their lives. I invite you to think about God’s call in your life and how you have responded and may need to respond again.
I wrote a piece in the Newham Recorder this week about David Moyes, who is the manager of West Ham. He was reasonably successful at Everton for some time; he was head hunted to be the new manager of Manchester United – it all fell apart (the first of many managers of Manchester United who failed – including the current one). He then went to Sunderland and failed there, and was recruited by West Ham and he saved them from relegation at the end of the season but left. However, he was invited back for a ‘second coming.’ He arrived back at West Ham and the team were doing brilliantly (so much so that some of the fans have started calling him the ‘Moysiah’).
Even David Moyes will know (particularly as he is a Christian) that – time and time again in the Bible – people are called, and called again and again. And even when things have failed the first time, God calls them again. There is room for repentance, for forgiveness, for second chances, for second comings in life. I’ve known so many people who have known that God is calling them, and then things go a bit difficult or things go sour. So, think of God’s call on your life afresh.
In these two readings, we hear two traumatic moments, two traumatic types of call. The first concerns Saul, a man who was going around with letters from the high priests to round up those who were following Jesus Christ, and bring them back to Jerusalem as prisoners. Their prospects following being captured weren’t going to be very good. It was going to take something very big from God to stop Saul in his tracks. So, it was big: a light from heaven flashed around him, he fell to the ground and heard a voice calling him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ And Saul is left blinded by that experience and left needing the help of others. Maybe the loss of sight made him think. When we are used to using our eyes to navigate the world around us, and lose the ability to do so, we become dependent on others. And Saul wouldn’t enjoyed being reliant on others, it was he who had gone to the high priest and was probably the leader of the group of men on the way to Damascus to persecute Christians. He wouldn’t have liked to be dependent. Eventually, one of the followers of Christ Ananias – someone who Saul had come to capture – comes to visit him and restores his sight. And, perhaps because at the time he was thinking of what had happened on the Damascus road (we talk of a Damascus road experience), it resulted in a complete change of mind: he goes into the synagogue saying that Jesus is the Son of God. He becomes the most influential figure in the early Christian church, spreading the good news. We know that people were wary of him, it took Barnabas to persuade the others to welcome him into the group of Christian leaders. The key thing is how he responded to his call: the change in his life, the change in what he did, and the energy he put into what he did after that point.
People who have a conversion experience, whether a big one or a quiet still small voice of God, have a choice at the end of that to act on what has happened, to turn to Christ, to seek out the will of God, to carry out immediately and sacrificially, or to carry on ‘business as usual.’ It is up to each of us to chose how we respond to God’s call in our lives, sometimes in response to a moment like that, sometimes day to day, as we think and pray during the day. How we use the gifts that God has given us, the situation we are in, matters.
And, just finally to say, in the Gospel reading, we had the story of Jesus’s third appearance to the disciples following his resurrection. They had gone fishing, and caught nothing. Jesus appears on the beach, and tells them to try fishing from the other side. They do that, and suddenly – after having a disappointing time – it is turned into a joyful time, with a great abundance. At that point, Peter realises who it is who has been speaking to them, and his response is one of joy. But of course, he is the one who didn’t have the courage to admit to the servant girl during Jesus’s trial that he knew him. It was Peter who denied Jesus three times. In the remainder of the Gospel reading, we have how he was allowed back, forgiven, rehabilitated. He was shown in that three-fold forgiveness that he was accepted; it took those three times to make it clear that he was forgiven.
How we hear God’s call, it doesn’t matter: there’s no hierarchy of call, it can be something quiet, something from scripture that speaks to us, something that someone says to us, it could be a thought that we understand as probably from God, or it could be a traumatic thing. What matters is how we respond to what we know to be God’s call on our lives: what we do as a result.
God calls you and me to follow him day by day. Sometimes he calls us to make big changes, sometimes his call is simply to be faithful to model our lives on Kingdom values. The key question, as Easter people, is to decide today if you will respond to that call, and tomorrow and in the days ahead. Peter was responding to the risen Jesus Christ, everything was changed by him, by the fact that Jesus was alive. Peter lived the rest of his life in the light of that fact, and you and I can too. Alleluia! Christ is risen.
Elwin Cockett (Archdeacon of West Ham)
inspired by a sermon by Caroline Harding
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24 April 2022 – The Second Sunday of Easter
Have you ever been required to be a witness to an event?
As such one is required to recall in detail, without subjective input, exactly what one saw and heard. If the incident is an accident of some kind that can be very difficult to do, as by the very nature of what happened one is taken by surprise, and in that moment some things may be crystal clear, but others hazy, and however hard we try, we cannot remember the detail.
Sometimes our lack of recall may be our brains trying to protect us from difficult sights and sounds. I think of those who have experienced traumas through the atrocities of war, where they may have constant recall, as post traumatic stress, or a complete blank. But often it is because the events happened so quickly and in such confusion that important details are lost. Of course nowadays, if we are thinking clearly, we can record much on our phones as video or pictures, but in the heat of the moment that may well not happen.
At other times we might be witnesses to important or exciting events, and we prepare ourselves to retain the memory with diary notes, pictures or photos. I find music and smells are also wonderful memory joggers of places and people too.
In the time of Jesus much of what was seen was passed on by word of mouth, and some cultures still retain this way of remembering their history in ancient stories passed from generation to generation.
The early disciples recognised that it was important that the details, not only of Jesus’ teaching, but his death and rising again were known and shared, so that the good news came to share was known. Not only known but kept to faithfully and not changed or embellished over time.
No matter that they are persecuted by the Jewish leaders, that is why the apostles cannot stop speaking. We are obeying God is their response, we are witnesses of who Jesus was and is, and importantly his forgiveness of our sins by his own death.
Jesus the faithful witness, the first to rise and ruler of kings of the earth, the one who freed us from our sins by the shedding of his own blood is to be spoken of, so that all understand and believe.
In John’s gospel Jesus appears to the disciples on a number of occasions after his resurrection, to underline exactly what they are witnesses of. Yet he knows it will not just be sight that spreads the good news.
Thomas will not/ does not believe until he not only sees the wounds of the cross, but touches them too. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” And they come to believe through the testimony of those who have seen and witnessed and speak of what they have seen and heard.
Tomorrow we remember Mark the Evangelist, writer of one of the gospels. John Mark was a Jew and accompanied Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey, and later went to Cyprus with Barnabas, and Rome with Paul and later Peter.
Mark’s gospel is generally regarded as the first of the four, written around 66-74 AD. It is the shortest with a sharpness and urgency and the writer is certainly not impressed with the understanding, or lack of, of the disciples when it comes to Jesus and his teaching!
Mark is perhaps harsh in his assessment of the disciples, who were not learned men versed in the Hebrew scriptures, after all hindsight is a wonderful gift. The disciples came to realise who and what Jesus was, after his death and resurrection, and understood that sharing in the glory of his resurrection, means sharing in the giving of self. Many, including Peter, died for speaking of the good news, sharing the gospel was both generous, as they obeyed God, and also sacrificial.
Today it is still both generous and sacrificial as we offer ourselves and our belief to others, generous because the gospel Jesus offers to all is indeed generous, as an inclusive welcome to God’s kingdom of love. Sacrificial as it is not seen as the obvious way to live in this self-seeking and self-centred world that we now inhabit.
But giving is always a blessing and encouraging others to seek the love and welcome of God is a real blessing. We may not know whether the seeds we sow will germinate, only God can enable that, but sharing enables others to know there is that opportunity for a different and more fulfilling way of life.
So are we a Thomas doubting until convinced by what we see and hear for ourselves, not sure or confident about speaking of our faith, or do we say I believe and I will obey God in sharing that faith so that others too may know the love of God? Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
17 April 2022 – Easter Day
We live in a world of sound bites, and I have a wonderful one I was given for today. When asked why Easter was special to Christians, a young child replied, because Jesus died and got up again!
Out of the mouths of babes and infants comes such insight. As a summary it is perfect and quite takes one’s breath away. The stark simplicity of the answer, no great theological arguments, just this is it, this is the message, or rather we might say this is the good news, this is the gospel that we believe in, this is our faith. Jesus died and got up again.
In a world of pain and darkness the hope and joy within this deceptively simple, but also amazingly complex, statement of what we believe, is as much needed today as it was over 2000 years ago.
Yet this is always a surprise, we can still find something new each time as we ponder what the resurrection means to us. Jesus had told his disciples at various times of his own rising from the dead, but they had not heard, or if they had they had not understood. When the women went to the tomb, they had no thought, other than to anoint Jesus’ dead body, which they had been unable to do at the time of his death. They had been there, they had seen him die, slowly and painfully on the cross. They had heard him draw his final difficult breath, they had seen his body taken down from the cross and placed in the tomb they were coming to visit. The last thing they expected was to find that he had got up again.
Although Jesus had told them, both explicitly and implicitly, that he would return, this was not what anyone expected. Dead people remain dead. His disciples had seen Jesus heal the sick and bring back the widow’s son and the young girl from the dead, but this was not the everyday. And to add to all of this it is the women who are witnesses to this, and women were not seen as credible witnesses. Indeed Peter goes to the tomb to look for himself, and finds it empty, although the messengers who spoke to the women are no longer there, and he too leaves the tomb none the wiser. Some translations say he was amazed, others that he was perplexed, as well he might have been, either way this was not the expected outcome, and he goes away to try and make sense of it all.
We too are left in suspense, where is Jesus, what has happened? He died and he got up again is so fantastic as to indeed appear like the idle talk that the disciples accuse the women of. When we want something so badly does the mind play tricks on us, is that what is happening?
Because the resurrection is amazing, and perplexing, it was a real act of faith then, and it is now. The gospel, the good news tells us things we don’t expect that we find it hard to comprehend and require us to believe the apparently unbelievable. No wonder we are amazed and perplexed.
The resurrection is the start of something new and different, and although Jesus has tried to prepare his disciples for what has come to pass, they needed to process it all in the light of what has now happened. The resurrection enables each one of us to start anew, to celebrate a new beginning with the God of surprises.
God surprises us again and again with God’s love and perseverance with humanity and our lack of understanding. God is God of the unexpected, the unknown and the new, and God uses the most unlikely people to share that good news. You would not put women into leading roles in this story if you were making it up, because women did not have authority or power. But by doing so God is saying again, what I am doing is the unexpected, it is different, my kingdom, says God, is different. This new life is based on love, not power, it is not at all what is expected.
The women coming to the tomb expected and believed that all hope had gone, the hope they had in Jesus and his teachings, had died with him on the cross. But what they found was indeed hope. Jesus had risen, just as he had told them all, and if this was true, so much else that he had promised could be true too. There was still the possibility of the new opportunities, the new beginnings that he had offered.
At Easter we celebrate new beginnings, new life in Christ, and because these new beginnings are not what is expected, they take some believing, because God is offering new hope for us and for our world.
On the cross Jesus said ‘it is finished’ but he didn’t mean this is the end. What was finished was the beginning, the way of salvation, of being reconciled, of being in relationship with God is open. As Jesus opened his arms on the cross, he opened them in love and welcome so that we can participate in God’s love and welcome because we are on that journey with God.
He is risen, Alleluia, and what we do next on our journey with the God of the unexpected is up to us, the offer of God’s companionship, of God’s love is there. We are asked to accept that the amazing, the fantastic, the unexpected does happen, in this case, Jesus died and got up again and opened the way to new life for us, do we want to take that opportunity? Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
14 April 2022 – Maundy Thursday
The writer and theologian Henri Nouwen in his book Reflections on Christian Leadership was struck by the three temptations of Jesus and how these related, in his mind, to temptations to be relevant, to be popular and to be powerful. He believed that God does not call us to be any of these things, much as they may speak to our feelings of self-worth, and this struck me as very apt after our Lent sermons on self -examination. In the world there is a demand for all three, and if one does not exhibit at least one of these traits we are judged as a failure.
Knowing ourselves is crucial to who we are and how we feel about ourselves. Theresa of Avila, the 16th century Spanish mystic, said that the more we know ourselves, the more we know our limitations and our true home in God.
In the desert temptations Jesus was tested by the devil who tempted him to be relevant, popular and powerful, and in each case Jesus had a strong riposte as he knew himself, and his ministry and his mission for God was a different calling to that shown to him by his adversary.
When called to turn stones into bread, to show he could be relevant to his and the world’s needs, to solve problems, his response is that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. No matter how good we may be at doing, it is in our being, our actions as directed by God that we succeed.
As he is invited to be spectacular by throwing himself from the roof of the temple so that God’s angels can rescue him from death, Jesus understand his mission. His mission is to die, to give up his life. In Gethsemane Jesus accepts that it is not his will, but God’s. So his response to the temptation to be spectacular was to say, do not put the Lord your God to the test. It is God who will decide what is needed and when spectacular is required.
Power, Jesus knows is not about earthly power, because God’s power is about love and service. As we have reflected in our service tonight already, Jesus states that he is giving his followers a new commandment, that they love one another as he has loved them. And if that were not enough, he also serves them reminding them that he came not to be served, but to serve, and that is what is expected of us.
The way of Jesus is not the easy way – enter by the narrow gate, that way leads to life. Jesus knew it wasn’t easy when he said to his followers, the wide gate is the easy way, but not the way to fulfilment, and so it is for us, easy is exactly that, easy, but to face challenge is the hard part.
One of our (human) temptations, when faced with fear or difficulty, is to ignore it or run away, but the issue still has to be faced and we don’t do this alone but with God by our side. Jesus knows this in his prayer in Gethsemane, when he knows what is ahead will not be easy, and he would much rather run away, but whilst it must be faced, he won’t be alone. ‘Let me not come into the time of trial, but your will, not mine, be done.’
We may face many challenges in our life, sometimes we may indeed be tempted to be relevant, to be spectacular or powerful, but God does not call us to be any of these for their own sake. God calls us to be ourselves. That may mean we are relevant, spectacular or even powerful, but with each of these come a responsibility to use them in God’s service.
This morning at the cathedral, lay ministers, deacons and priest were called to renew their commitment to ministry, in leading prayer, in service to others, teaching and ministering of the sacraments. Whilst some roles are specific to an ordained ministry, we are all called to servant leadership. Such leadership can be hard, as God’s presence can often feel distant or hard to hear. To listen to the soft, gentle and loving voice of God will help us to do God’s will in a world that still does not always understand that God’s way, God’s kingdom, is not of our making, but God’s and is about love and service. Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
13 April 2022 – Wednesday in Holy Week
Christ walks to death.
Amid the crowded heaving city, with people shouting out and pressing flesh, he journeys to his cross alone: in isolation.
Throughout the long, silent, unrecorded years of an ordinary life lived, unregarded, in workshops and on building sites, a man labouring for a living: singly and among many, …
Through the forty long long testing days, wandering in the wilderness going nowhere, walking in the dust kicked up by long-dead prophets and wild men of years long past, …
In the heady short time of his ministry, always on the move, a man on the run in a hostile landscape, where power and unpower, hope and fear, vie, …
… Christ was always journeying on his way to the cross.
The cross is always there: waiting at the end of the journey, with its arms outstretched to claim him, to raise and to hold, exposing the loneliness of his journey in this solitude of death and dying.
- ‘Are you the Son of God?’
- ‘You say that I am.’
- ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’
- ‘You say so.’
- ‘If you are the King of the Jews save yourself.’
- ‘Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us.’
We look for a God of our own making: a God who will snatch us from the danger-infested roads on which we walk, that we may pass through the world in safety. We push past the cross in a rush to find an empty tomb, a happy ever-after. But the God of the cross is he who himself walked along those same desperate, perilous paths in which we lumber and stumble. The tears we cry have ‘already blinded the eyes of Christ;’ the aching we feel in our hearts has already constricted his own.
He hangs there exposed, offering us the option to share in his loneliness – in the loneliness of God. We are called, like him, to be emptied, so that we may enter into a new relationship: not only with this lonely God, but with all the lonely souls in the Kingdom of Nobodies over which he rules.
To live his life, as he dies our death: in that sharing, all the loneliness is sanctified, and our personal journeys of life become – not safe – but God-shared.
Colin Setchfield
12 April 2022 – Tuesday in Holy Week
Our theme over Lent this year has been on Journeys. Last night Lesley reminded us of some of the many journeys found throughout the Bible. We had the dramatic conversion of St Paul on the road to Damascus through to Jacob’s story and he being sold by his brothers.
In our Lent group this year, one of the first stories we looked at was Noah’s remarkable story and his calling by God to build an Ark. He was chosen by God as he was a righteous man and only he and his immediate family were to be saved from the flood. Noah, we are told, obeyed right away and built the Ark. Whilst reading and listening to the story, I note that he wasn’t conflicted with any worries and doesn’t appear to be filled with any angst and just gets on with it. I think about the emotional journey that he may have undergone in responding to God’s call. I think of his immediate acceptance, his courage and his strong faith.
As with many great stories Noah’s Ark has been made into a Hollywood film. There have been many versions. I would like to refer to a later edition called, Evan Almighty, which was set in a modern day America. Noah’s character doesn’t obey God. In fact he does everything in his power to avoid the call. However, after many signs and images shown to him, he relents and has to do what has been asked and build the ark. I mention this as unlike the original Noah, how many of us are like this fictional character needing many gentle prods, messages to do what the Holy Spirit is guiding us or leading us to. I have found when the Holy Spirit wants us to do something, no matter how long it takes, how many excuses we find, ultimately we will have to do God’s bidding.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus is preparing us for his own death. Jesus knows that his journey on earth is coming to an end and provides words of support and comfort to us all. He wants us to prepare ourselves as he knew what lay ahead.
Jesus’ journey is often described as the greatest act of love because he gave his life for us all so that our sins will be forgiven. As we prepare ourselves to walk with Christ, along this path spiritually, let us reflect upon our own personal journeys in this most holy of weeks. Let us ask the question ‘what is God calling or guiding me to do in my Christian journey’.
In our final Lent meeting, we were asked ‘What is God leading us to do as we stand before the cross?’ I reflect on the Gospel reading where Jesus tells us to use the light and believe. For me this means using our time when we can, when we are able to because all too soon the light dims and darkness enfolds us.
And so I pose that question to us all, as we look at the cross, what is our spiritual journey during Lent? Is God leading us or calling us to do something, perhaps something that is out of our comfort zone? Are we listening to the Holy Spirit with our whole heart?
Will we be like Noah accepting and believing immediately or like the fictional character requiring many, many prods and messages before we accept?
Therefore let us walk with faith, courage and belief to answer the call as we travel along our Christian journey.
Catherine Greenidge
11 April 2022 – Monday in Holy Week
During our Lent group we have been looking at various journeys in the scriptures, some well-known and others perhaps less so, as we moved towards the journey into Jerusalem and the cross.
In the Bible there are so many journeys – Noah and the Ark; Joseph taken into Egypt; the Israelites led by Moses out of Egypt; Paul traveling around the Mediterranean, to name but a few of the more well known. And of course Holy Week itself, is a journey, as we travel from the excitement of Palm Sunday, through the darkness of Jesus’ betrayal, arrest and crucifixion, to the joy of the resurrection.
All of these journeys had purpose and an urgency. None are easy and all entail risk, and possible failure.
In the past two years travel in person was heavily curtailed, borders and countries were closed to try and contain a global pandemic, and we took to ‘journeying’ via technology using phones and computers instead of physical movement.
This week we focus on our spiritual journey as we too share the excitement, hope, despair and joy of Jesus’ mission to reconcile God and God’s creation. Our spiritual journey is of course not just this week, it is one that starts with our first being open to God, working in our lives, and continues as we walk, perhaps sometimes even run, with God and discover what it means to be a child of God, valued and loved for who we are, not what we are.
All journeys involve change. It may be a change of scenery or even culture, but each journey in our life will change us in some way.
All those in the scriptures whom God called, were changed, and in turn implemented change around them. Noah’s story about new beginnings and a new covenant with God. Joseph’s story starts with hatred and anger as his jealous brothers sell him into slavery, but in Egypt he instigates change, and saves many from famine and is reconciled with his family as a result. The Exodus was a new start for God’s Chosen People in a new land, and Paul travelled to spread the good news that God is there for all who turn to God.
So how were the disciples feeling after the high of the journey into Jerusalem as Jesus was hailed as the new king? The next day the road was still strewn with the palms and detritus of a large crowd. The world has gone after him say the Pharisees, because of the signs they have seen, including the raising of Lazarus, change is indeed afoot.
But amongst Jesus and his disciples it is business as usual, Greeks wishing to meet Jesus, as they tell Philip, and many following Jesus around. Yet Jesus is talking about his death and the crowds cannot believe this. They have lauded him as Messiah, he cannot die, yet he knows that is his next journey. He has come to be light in a dark world, so that everyone who believes in him should not remain in darkness, and his death, his own darkness, is part of that journey to a new life.
Easter is a time for new beginnings, an opportunity to try a new way of being with God. So this Holy Week will we allow ourselves to take the risk of journeying with Jesus to the cross, leaving our darkness at the foot of the cross, and turning to the new light, and new beginning of the resurrection? It is a risk and we will be changed, but standing still is not the route God has in mind for us. Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
10 April 2022 – Palm Sunday
No sermon.
3 April 2022 – Lent 5
One almost feels, listening to our gospel today, that the theme music for one of the dramatic soaps on television will suddenly cut in.
Imagine the scene, a convivial dinner party to celebrate Lazurus’ return from the dead, Martha is in the kitchen preparing the food (a place we find her in another gospel too) Lazarus we assume is relaxing, as is Jesus, and in to this comes Mary with her hair uncovered, something women did not do in public, and carrying an expensive jar.
She then proceeds to pour out a most costly, and pungent, perfume on Jesus’ feet, and most scandalous of all, to wipe his feet with her hair! You could no doubt cut the atmosphere with a knife. Judas complains, and Jesus says don’t; she has carried out a wonderful thing, she has prepared me for my burial. Aghast looks all round and cue dramatic cliff hanger music.
So let’s unpack this, is this Mary yet again upstaging everyone else? Her actions may at first appear like that, and Judas is possibly voicing the thoughts of many present at the supper, particularly as such a strong perfume would have ruined the food, but Jesus, as so often sees beyond the obvious.
Mary is taking a huge risk. Sitting at Jesus’ feet to hear his teaching, as she did before, was unusual and excited comment, not least from her sister. But now cleansing his feet in such a way and wiping them with her hair, an act of submission and servanthood, leaves her open to shame and ridicule. She has not undertaken this task in a modest way, or on a one-to-one basis, but in a crowded room in front of many. Her love and worship are there for all to see.
Jesus recognises this act for the offering of herself that it is, this is break with the past, the holding back, this is setting a new path. And Jesus too is about to set out on the next stage of his journey. After this supper he will turn towards Jerusalem, his triumphal entry and ultimate death in his own act of sacrifice and servanthood.
And yet those around him fail to see so much of this. Shortly after he will offer to wash the feet of his disciples, and Peter, will initially deny Jesus this act. Not you, this is not your role, says Peter. But it is my role, says Jesus. You may not yet understand, but my ways are not of the past. Jesus is living out the scripture from Isaiah. ‘Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; do you not perceive it?’
And no they don’t see it, not until after Christ’s journey to the cross, his death and resurrection.
But quiet Martha has seen. When she speaks to Jesus about her brother’s death, she says that she believes that Jesus brings new life, she knows he is the Promised One, the Messiah. Mary in her anointing of his feet marks Jesus out as someone special, one she worships and wants to serve; just as he, when washing his disciples’ feet indicates his servanthood and submission to God’s will.
Jesus is setting out on his final journey, the road that will take him to a rapturous welcome into Jerusalem, and then the pain and rejection of his arrest and humiliating and painful death on a cross. This is drama indeed, and Mary’s gesture, her extravagant gesture, sets the scene for what is to come.
It is interesting how so often it is those on the margin, the excluded, and women were in that category, who perceive what Jesus’ mission is. Here the two sisters recognise who and what Jesus is. At the cross it is the women who predominantly keep watch when others have run away, and it is to Mary Magdalene that the risen Christ first reveals himself.
This is no accident, God’s new kingdom is one that will turn the world upside down and continues to do so. A world where those on the margins are welcomed, are valued and invited to be part of the good news that is God’s plan.
Anointing Jesus’ feet with a costly perfume was an act of worship and sacrifice by Mary. Worship by the very revealing way in which she anointed him; and sacrifice because the ointment, and the jar, were both expensive in monetary terms, and how they were used. Judas’ complaint that the money could have been better spent on the poor was a reasonable one, but sometimes the extravagance is important.
This gesture was one of those, it was part of the recognition that all was about to change. I am about to do a new thing. Jesus is indeed pressing onwards and breaking with the past, as Paul reminds his readers. And in that change Jesus was to upset many, overturning the tables in the Temple, being proclaimed as a new king by the people, and not giving in to the religious leaders and Pilate.
As we begin Passiontide and turn towards Easter, do we recognise something new and exciting? Are we prepared to make extravagant gestures in our service, note it is service not for the sake of the gesture, to God and make all things new? Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
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27 March 2022 – Mothering Sunday
As we continue to emerge from the Global pandemic we are needing to reimagine much in our day to day lives. Much has changed and we will not return to how things were before, and in so many ways we would not want to.
The last two years have hastened the use of technology for many things, some positively and some more challenging, especially if you are not comfortable with the changes. Appointments for many needs in our lives such as doctors, banks, shopping and indeed meetings are via our computers and phones. This has made access easier for some, but for others it is leading to ever more isolation. The importance of relationships has been emphasised in so many ways, as has care for one another, yet if we are not careful it is relationships that will suffer with the continued use of technology rather than people. It always amuses me that a security question on many online applications is a section that says ‘I am not a robot!’
As we reimagine our lives many areas need rethinking, societies’ attitude to women and those of different backgrounds still has a long way to go, and our ideas of motherhood have changed considerably since I grew up and mothers were still very much encouraged to put their own lives on hold to look after the family. Today we recognise that mothering is something beyond one person.
We all need to take care of one another, to mother one another, and that means being unselfish and loving, caring about others and our relationships with them. We see that in our readings today
Moses’ mother had seen her son born and flourish and then she had to hide him because his life was in danger. His sister watches over him, she mothers him until he is found by Pharaoh’s daughter. Then she brings his mother to nurse him while Pharaoh’s daughter adopts him as her own.
Mary nurtured and cared for her son Jesus, enabling him to grow and develop contributing to his ministry and authority. But she also saw him suffer hurt, agony, he was hated, and she suffered misery and anguish, as her son, Jesus tried to show others how to care for God and for one another.
Both Moses’ mother and Mary had to trust and allow their sons to go forward alone. One of the hardest things to do is let those we care for free to make their own decisions, to let them stand on their own two feet, and sometimes fail and get hurt. But we have to do that so that they can become their own person. Risks are part of that.
Because mothering should not be about smothering, ie, stopping us from taking risks, from growing and developing. God, as Father and Mother, wants us to grow, not to stay as children, but also not to lose the simplicity of childhood, God encourages us to live our lives, and to have faith that God will be alongside, as we grow and develop in our daily lives and in our spiritual life too.
God encourages and guides us. God comforts us when we fall. If we go and do something bad, or stupid, God comes to find us, God wants us to be part of this wider family.
Woven together, rather like that basket for the infant Moses, we can be strong, we can support, we are a community. Moses’ mother put her son in a basket and entrusted him to God’s care. As Christians we are all part of one body because we all share in one bread, our Saviour Jesus Christ.
The basket, woven together, is also a symbol of God’s loving embrace. God’s motherly love that holds all in joy and sadness, like the mother hen gathering her chicks under her wing, an image used by Jesus himself.
Jesus, as he died, entrusted his friend and his mother to one another. He knew that together they would support one another, he started a new relationship, as he recognized that we are all sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers in our Christian lives.
What brings this all together is love; the love of those who care for us throughout our lives, and the love of God. Love holds no boundaries, as we are woven into one in God
Today we celebrate those who mother us now, or have in the past, as well as mother Church, where we come together as the wider family of God. The family that Jesus started on the cross as he gave his life for us, and gave his mother into his friend’s care, and his friend to his mother in a new bond.
Together we are a family that celebrates in times of joy, a family that supports one another in difficult times, a family that grieves when part of the family is hurting and a family that shows God’s love in a world that is hurting and never more in need of God’s healing love. Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
20 March 2022 – Third Sunday of Lent
- Be sure that you act on the message and do not merely listen; for that would be to mislead yourselves. A man who listens to the message but never acts upon it is like one who looks in a mirror at the face nature gave him. He glances at himself and goes away, and at once he forgets what he looked like.
James 1.22 & 23 NEB
On Ash Wednesday, as part of the liturgy, Lesley invited us ‘in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination …; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy word.’ And this Lent, the theme for our sermons is ‘Self examination,’ and on that basis I’ve taken a bit of a liberty by using a passage of scripture that we didn’t hear today, as a starting block for our thoughts. That passage came from the Epistle of James in the New Testament: a letter bearing the name of Jesus’s brother – though it’s uncertain whether that means that he wrote it or that someone else wrote it in his name. But whatever the case, there are many parallels in this letter to the sayings of Jesus that we find in the gospels, despite it having been unfairly categorised, at the time of the Protestant Reformation, as ‘an epistle of straw’ in comparison to Paul’s letters, on the basis that ‘it has nothing of the nature of the gospel about it.’ It’s a practical letter focusing on what we do and how we act rather than what we think or what we believe; and we hear in its pages a condemnation of pride, of hypocrisy, of favouritism, of slander. And this letter and its warnings are written to the Christian church. Perhaps that is why historically some elements of the church haven’t looked upon it so favourably.
Each day we use mirrors: when we wash and groom ourselves, when we dress ourselves. But often we associate looking into a mirror with narcissism or feelings of inadequacy, or (at least for me) feeling it’s all a bit of a faff. But the desire to be seen and reflected is basic and innate, and mirrors can often help to change our perspectives and expose parts of ourselves that are sometimes hidden, as we look out into the world. They bring us face-to-face with our own selves and help us in our understanding of who we are.
But often the Bible is seen more like a window on to the world, helping us to see – through its stories – how the world is and how the world could or should be. However, seeing the Bible simply as a window is perhaps just a little too safe. The people, the events, the lessons, that we view through this window of the Bible are ‘out there’, we are not part of it; what is written and related has little impact on us: we stand comfortably behind its safety glass.
The 19th-century Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard argued that, actually, instead the Bible should be used as a mirror – we ourselves are part of the picture, there in the middle of what is going on and of the stories being told. We are not merely spectators of the stories, viewing them simply as drama of or lessons for someone else, but we need to directly involve ourselves into the stories. He believed it was not good enough only to ask questions of what is going on in the stories, but the questions should be of ourselves. It is us who should be called into question; the stories should make us question ourselves.
He says don’t look at the mirror, don’t behold the mirror, but rather see yourself in the mirror that is ‘God’s Word’, and in everything that is read to constantly say to ourselves: that’s me who is being addressed, it is to me this passage speaks.
Recently, you may have caught the BBC documentary ‘Stacey Dooley Inside the Convent’. (It’s still on the BBC iPlayer if you haven’t.) It follows the presenter as she spent ten days living alongside the 23 nuns of St Hilda’s Priory in Whitby, and allowed the viewer to learn of the new insights into her own life that confronted her during that time.
In the programme, there is one scene where the sisters meet together for their weekly bible class. After listening to the parable of the Good Samaritan, the prioress Sister Jocelyn asked ‘[so] how do you relate to any of those characters?’ And one of the older devout sisters – Sister Allison – responded that she knew, in herself, that she probably would be somewhere in the company of the priest and the levite, those who passed by on the other side and failed to engage with the person in need on the road. And another, Sister Grace, who sat two from her, expressed relief as she was feeling shame for thinking exactly the same. Stacey, who had joined the sisters in this activity, shared her thoughts: that their study group gave opportunity for the sisters to dissect biblical passages, to work out how they could be related to modern everyday living. The stories were not simply fossilised in the age in which they were written, but they reflected our own selves to back us.
But we need to be careful that, in all this self-examination, it does not in turn into all become self-absorbing and self-indulgent. Lenten discipline has always focussed on the church calling individuals to examine their self, that is each individual’s own person. But ‘self’ can also relate to our wider social, family or religious group. It is not good enough simply for the church to ask its members individually to see themselves in scripture’s mirror. The church itself is a community …, a society…, a family… of God; and, therefore, there is also a need for self-examination in a collective approach.
Going back to Stacey and those sisters in Whitby, they recognised – in the Good Samaritan story – how often in life they too could simply pass by on the other side of the road when need and danger presented itself. But they didn’t seem to see beyond that: to see their own faith and church was also reflected. The priest and levite pass by on the other side, as they go up to Jerusalem, to the Temple, focussing on their duty to God. The implication isn’t necessarily that they are hard-hearted in failing to empathise and step in to help, though that may be in play as well. But as religious people, they would realise that to stop and help would place this person in need above their call to put God first in all things and keep to the word of God in scripture. Going across, to check if the man on the road was still alive, would have made them ritually unclean if, when they touched him to check, he turns out to be dead. And in that situation, their faith told them they would not be allowed to continue to the Temple to worship God.
How often, in looking in the mirror of that story, do we also see reflections not only of ourselves – in how we act and think and do – but also of how our church may react and respond? How our faith, our beliefs, and our scripture are also starkly reflected back to us in its telling? How piety, prayer and practice, with their focus on our relationship with our God, may blind us to being open to finding God incarnate in our neighbour, in the stranger on the street, in the situation that challenges our belief and takes us away from our religiosity?
As we continue through Lent, particularly as it turns darker – as we begin to anticipate the story of Christ’s suffering and death in Passiontide, hold up the passages we hear in the Bible and look, to find in them ourselves and our faith and our church staring back out at us. As we check the ‘mirror’, allow that mirror to keep us in check. And beware of Christ’s own warning that in focusing in on the failings of others, both in those stories and in our living, the speck of sawdust that we criticise in another’s eye is not simply the whacking plank of wood in our own, seen in the convex mirror of that story or that other person.
But importantly, don’t allow your self-examination of ourselves, our community, society and churches, become tiring and fruitless, simply an exercise of introspective concerns. Allow the focus of self-examination to make us more understanding, more forgiving, more welcoming, more accepting of others and their perceived shortcomings.
Remember, like any mirror, the bible can only reflect back to ourselves, because of the light in the space where the mirror is. In a room that is dark, you won’t see any reflections in a mirror. An image is only ever formed when the light gets reflected. Reflection is nothing more than a phenomenon of light.
So, the bible only works as a mirror if we ‘open the curtains’ and allow the light of Christ to break in to the darkness. There is no point straining our eyes in the dark; no matter how much time and effort we expend, the mirror won’t work, there will be no reflection.
The reflection of ourselves and our groupings, of our churches, no matter how unexpected or uncomfortable or unwanted or shocking, are exposed not to condemn but to change. It is the light of God’s love, of God’s acceptance, of God’s inclusion, of God’s embrace, that allows us to see our reflection, that allow us to adjust, that allows us ourselves in turn to become a mirror of the light of that love, acceptance, inclusion and embrace.
Colin Setchfield
13 March 2022 – Second Sunday of Lent
What does Jerusalem mean to you? Maybe you think of Jerusalem the Golden that we’ve just sung about. A place of plenty and peace for everyone. Or heaven, in other words. Or maybe you think of the William Blake poem that has become the hymn Jerusalem, when we sing about building God’s kingdom among the dark satanic mills of the Industrial Revolution.
Jerusalem is both a metaphor for heaven and a real place. It has always been a troubled place. According to Wikipedia, Jerusalem has been been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times.
I was lucky enough to go to Jerusalem when I was a teenager. We went to visit family who live in Tel Aviv. I remember it as a busy, sunny place with a lot of ancient brick walls. Our tour guide had a gun on his hip, which was a shock.
My mum had been ordained as a deacon, and possibly even a vicar, by that point. Because of that, the guide was very keen to show us all the places where Jesus had been. And there are a lot of those in Jerusalem! Me and my younger brother got bored towards the end and I remember my mum looking a bit sheepish that it was taking so long.
In our gospel reading, we find Jesus in Jerusalem and in a tight spot. Herod wants him dead and for once the Pharisees are trying to help by helping him to leave. But he says no. A Jewish man, who is given a way out of a dangerous situation, who chooses to stay and face the music. It’s funny how a book written thousands of years ago can still feel relevant today.
Jesus is despairing – not about his circumstances but that Jerusalem keeps turning him away. He longs to take the city under his wings, like a mother hen. If you have ever seen or touched a real life hen, you’ll know that they are gentle, calm creatures. Their feathers are soft to the touch. They take their time when they walk.
When life is hard, who wouldn’t want to be sheltered from the world? And yet, like Jerusalem, we turn God away. We try to do things on our own and don’t ask for help. Well, I can’t speak for any of you but I know I do sometimes. When Lesley asked me to give this sermon, I was a bit taken aback. I haven’t got time, I thought. And since then I have had Covid and now my husband has it too. I have an essay due in this Friday for a course I’m doing. I have a full-time job and a dog to walk.
And in any case, I’m no Bible scholar. There are many people here today who know their Bibles much better than me. And yet here I am. Sometimes God asks things of us that we don’t even know we can do. They can be small things, like getting to know a neighbour who we don’t like. Or they can be the bigger things, like becoming a server here in church, or standing up to a bully who wants to put us down.
Of course, God can only ask us to do things if we are ready to listen. We have to make time to talk to Him and it’s not always easy. Like any relationship, we get out what we put in. Last week Lesley talked about the self examen prayer, where you bring the day before God and how you feel about it. I find that a good way to let God in.
And even if we do manage to pray, we don’t always get a big loud reply. The other day I was walking the dog and had something on my mind I couldn’t shift. I felt something click into place and like God lifted a small weight. It didn’t solve the problem but it was enough to make getting through the day easier.
Prayer can also be hard because it sometimes feels like we are talking to ourselves. It can also feel a bit pointless to pray for Ukraine when hospitals have been bombed. Why can’t God stop wars, people ask, as they look at the horror unfolding in Europe and many other places. I suppose the answer is that we have free will and we can use it for evil as well as good.
So as we think about what we will do during the week ahead, let us do our best to carve out a few moments to sit with God. To put aside what is on our minds and troubling our hearts. It is in those moments that we can feel the wings of God, as a mother hen, soothing us and giving us strength for things we didn’t think we could do. Strength to do good in whatever way we can.
Liz Skinner
6 March 2022 – First Sunday of Lent
Self Examination
Lent is one of those times in the Church year that is very much about a space to reflect, to take time to think about our relationship with God, and this year we have taken as our Lent theme, self-examination.
An opportunity to take stock, to think about our faith and what God might be saying to each one of us, and what that might mean in our daily lives and our spiritual journey. Perhaps after the disruption and changes of the past 2 years our lives have moved on and so now is a good time to take that space.
So what do we mean by self-examination? There are plenty of television programmes and articles encouraging us to look after our health, to ensure we know our bodies, to check for unusual signs and symptoms and seek help if things are not right. That is one form of self-examination and very important.
Another is where we are in our lives. In many roles in life, especially study and careers, as part of our self-knowledge and growth, we are required to look at our strengths and areas for development. There are many tools to help us do this. Self-assessments that identify skill sets, management or learning styles, and others where we seek feedback from others who know us well. One I found particularly interesting was called the 360 degree assessment, and for this people who worked for me, as well as those who worked with me, all gave feedback on my management style. The results, as the name suggests, gave a view from all perspectives. Some were not a surprise, but some insights were fascinating, because we think we know ourselves, but how others see us can be completely different, depending on the role that we are in, also means that we will be seen in different ways.
But what about our spiritual self-examination? What are the tools for that, and where do we start?
Well prayer is always a good beginning, but that in itself can be difficult for many, how do I pray? Even Jesus’ disciples asked him how to pray, and he gave them a structure which we know as the Lord’s Prayer.
When praying, a good way to begin is with space to think, to be still and set aside the buzz of everything around us. It is why people go on retreat, to leave the daily ‘to do’ list behind and focus on wellbeing, in this case our spiritual wellbeing. Be still and allow yourself to feel God’s presence, and sometimes that very presence can come to us in the most unexpected places.
Structure may be helpful, and the Self Examen Prayer might be the place to start if structure is for you. It enables us to remember that our relationship with God needs intention, time and attention. The prayer was introduced by Ignatius of Loyola, who was born in the 15th century, and it is now part of the Ignatian Spirituality. This is a spirituality for everyday life, which insists that God is present in our world and active in our lives. It is a pathway to deeper prayer, decisions guided by keen discernment, and an active life of service to others
Ignatian spirituality is rooted in the conviction that God is active, personal, and, above all, present to us, and this prayer helps us to see God’s hand at work in our lives and to discern God’s direction for us. Ignatius recommended that it should be used at noon and the end of the day, many nowadays use it at the end of the day as a helpful way of reflecting on the day.
In this prayer we take time to become aware of God’s presence, we are still; and then review the day with gratitude, note finding the positives not immediately looking at what did not go so well. As we pay attention to our emotions, our feelings, we then choose one feature of the day and pray for it. That may be facing up to a challenge or what is not so positive in our lives and leaving this with God, and then we leave the prayer as we look toward tomorrow.
Ignatius thought this prayer was a gift from God to be shared as widely as possible. It reflects on the positive, not the negative, and given the darkness that we have all experienced in recent years that emphasis is a helpful one. Whenever we look at ourselves, be it in a work role, our daily life, or our life with God, giving thanks for the good, thinking about what has worked and being thankful is always a positive way to begin, and will encourage us to look at those areas which are not going so well in a different light. Whenever we receive feedback, if the first thing we are given is the negative, we will not hear the positive, so think and reflect back to others the positive first, then reflect on what may need changing or improving.
Lent too is like that. So often it is seen as a negative season, rather than the opportunity to step back, reflect and make space. Space to reflect on our life, our relationship with God and how that might be transformed.
Our Bishop, Guli, is encouraging us all to use Lent as Holy Sabbatical, a time to rest and be in the presence of God. A time to be open, to listen and to seek the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, as we seek to be transformed. In the desert Jesus was seeking that space, that opportunity to rest in the Lord, to understand his own identity and to seek to know the will of God in his coming ministry and journey with God. It is that will that we all seek as I so often return to those words of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane before his arrest, your will not mine be done.
But to do that will we need to take time to examine ourselves and to rest in God. ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.’ (Matthew 11.28) I encourage you to take time to go into the desert within, that inner soul, to confront our doubts and distractions and move to a new place with God, a place f growth and joy.
This Lent do not dwell on the negatives and the temptations, but set aside time, perhaps using the Examen Prayer to give space to God, to listen to what God is saying to you, and to look at ways in which you can draw closer to God. And above all take time to rediscover the joy in our lives, as I leave you with poem from the 14th Century by the Persian Poet Hafiz.
I sometimes forget
that I was created for Joy.
My mind is too busy.
My Heart is too heavy
for me to remember
that I have been
called to dance
the Sacred dance of life.
I was created to smile
To Love
To be lifted up
And to lift others up.
O’ Sacred One
Untangle my feet
from all that ensnares.
Free my soul.
That we might
Dance
and that our dancing
might be contagious.
Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
2 March 2022 – Ash Wednesday
“Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return”
Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Lenten season–a season that begins with dust and ashes–an ancient tradition, symbolizing our humility before God. The Ash Wednesday liturgy calls us to see ourselves as we truly are; to reflect on our attitudes, actions, and priorities; and to return to God through penitence and prayer. This is the beginning of a 40 day journey, a journey from brokenness to restoration; from darkness to light; from fear to love; from mourning to celebration; and from ashes to joy.
In some ways the past 2 years have felt like a long never ending season of Lent. It has been a time of fasting, self-denial, and giving up; a time when people and things have been lost or taken from us; a time that is continually pointing to our mortality and the fragility of life. What are you doing with all that, and also what is all that doing with you? Our mental wellbeing has been highlighted as never before, yet there is also our spiritual wellbeing too.
In one of the readings appointed for Ash Wednesday, from the Prophet Joel, God proclaims; “Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” (Joel 2: 12-13)
In her sermon on Sunday, as she reflected on the mountaintop meeting with God of Jesus and three of his disciples, Hilda posed the question, how are we going to discover new ways to meet with God and help to grow in faith? She went onto say that she feels that God is more interested in what we have the potential to become, rather than what we have been, a thought I agree with and in that I see echoes of our reading from Joel. God calls us to turn away from the past and to turn to God, and Lent is the perfect time to reflect on that. Lent is all about returning to God, a God who desires to be in relationship with us.
But after all the uncertainties of the last 2 years, and the concerns about world peace now, are you feeling distanced or disconnected from God? Are you as close to God as you want to be? Do you need to draw closer to God? Do you need to return to God this Lent? All of these questions, as well as those I posed earlier, about our mental and spiritual wellbeing, invite us to think about ourselves and our relationship with God, a theme we will explore in more detail in our Lent sermons. Such reflection requires us to be open and honest with ourselves, not always easy or comfortable, yet God will be there to listen.
This Lent, God invites us to come home to God, to receive God’s restoring grace and feel God’s loving embrace. The choice is yours. How are you going to spend the next 40 days?
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
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27 February 2022 – Sunday next before Lent
Let’s get a bit of context
This morning in our Gospel reading we come to a pivotal point in the life of Jesus, and that’s his transfiguration. It comes at the end of his Galilean ministry and points ahead to his passion. After the transfiguration, Jerusalem becomes the only direction of travel.
At this point in the story the disciples have been with Jesus for nearly three years. And after all that they have seen and learned; Christ brings them to a moment of decision by asking them a question. In Luke 9 and verse 20 ‘who do you say I am?’ Peter responds, ‘you are the Messiah sent from God.’
Shockingly for the disciples, Jesus uses Peter’s profession of faith as the occasion for announcing his own upcoming passion – he says…‘The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.’
Jesus goes on to tell them that not only will he suffer but anyone who follows him should be ready to suffer too. That must have come as a real shock to the disciples.
We know that they struggled constantly with trying to understand Jesus’ identity and his mission; and if we are honest, so do we.
But we know that afterwards they looked back and reflected on the things Jesus said and did, and it all started to make more sense. So, let’s try to make sense of it today.
What is the Transfiguration?
A few days after this conversation, Jesus takes Peter, James and John on a prayer retreat to the top of the mountain. While they are up there Jesus gives these frightened men, a glimpse of the future, and reveals to them his heavenly origin. And that’s our subject this morning.
What happened essentially is this, the appearance of Jesus changed, so that he looked as he would look in the future. Peter, John and James may have seen a few miracles until now, but this time they see something completely other worldly.
This is a glimpse of how Jesus will look after his death, and after his resurrection and ascension. In V29 we are told that ‘…the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning.’ You see it’s very similar to the description of Jesus that we have in Revelation chapter 1. In Revelation, John said that ‘his face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.’ The descriptions are essentially the same. It’s something indescribable, mystical, heavenly, which is why we might find it hard to understand when we read it in the text.
You see, human wisdom alone will not help you to see and understand Jesus – we need a revelation from God. We see earlier in Luke 9, the disciples struggled to understand the fact that Jesus was the Son of God, and we see now Peter is completely at a loss when he is immersed in the heavenly reality of it.
But the disciples needed this. Because in the next few days, they were going to see the face of the Christ they loved battered and bruised, as he was beaten. In fact, Isaiah says that the face of Jesus was so disfigured that it was beyond recognition. And before they get there, God is saying to them, ‘look what lies beyond the cross. Yes, there is going to be a lot of suffering in Jerusalem, but I want you to see what it will look like in the end because the Christ that you love, is going to be exalted in glory. The kingdom you’re investing your life in, is not some lost cause, it’s not going to dwindle away into failure. You’re part of the kingdom that will never end.’ We are all part of God’s kingdom that will never end.
We serve a risen Christ, who sovereignly moves history towards its climax, and on that day, he will be revealed in glory. As disciples we need this understanding, otherwise we get discouraged when we look around and see the state of our world. If we’re going to sustain lifelong devotion to Jesus, we need this glimpse of the future. This should inspire us to live on a higher plane in the face of life’s difficulties.
Luke tells us that what Jesus was discussing with Moses and Elijah during the Transfiguration was concerning his departure which he was going to fulfil in Jerusalem.
And we know now that the departure is going to involve a journey through rejection and death to exaltation. And it would bring freedom to many, as the exodus from Egypt had done, but on a cosmic scale.
But what does it mean?
I can’t imagine that at the end of that awe inspiring experience the disciples just shrugged their shoulders, put their coats back on and went back to business as usual. From now on, the disciples are more committed to Jesus even if they don’t understand fully what Messiah means. That experience changed them forever, it left an impression on them. We know that because later on they recalled the experience and now it all made sense. And we know that later on in their ministries both Peter and John went on to mention it in their letters. It was a life defining moment for them.
Many of us have our own equivalent of mountain top experiences, those life- changing moments, every now and then, that alter our perspective. For us it may come as a fleeting experience in worship or prayer, or even here at church. Of course, we know too well that life isn’t all mountain tops. There’s valleys too.
Transfiguration experiences may encourage us to a fresh vision, but they do not rescue us from the realities of life. Real life is where the vision must be worked out. It was the writer C.S. Lewis who pointed out that while heaven may be beckoning, you still have Monday morning to get through.
And for us living in this part of London, our equivalent of mountain top and back to earth are very close together.
This ‘mountain top’ of St Edmund’s is yards away from Morrisons and other shops where the tills will start to ring in a few minutes, if they haven’t done so already, and they are surrounded by places where work is done, money is made, jobs lost. How unstable our economy is now, we struggle with the idea of ever-increasing fuel bills, inflation fast rising yet wages remain the same. We have many in our communities who are finding it hard to make ends meet.
What does that say to us? How might our mountaintop experiences make a difference in the realities of life?
We know from the Bible that when Moses went up the mountain, he had his own encounter with God. In our Epistle reading, Paul says that, when Moses came down the mountain with the ten commandments, his face shone with reflected glory. You and I are called to be up there with Moses, with Peter, James and John, gazing on the Lord’s glory with unveiled faces. And if we catch just a glimpse, then the Spirit of God will begin to change us, so that what we have seen of God we start to reflect in the world; and that will begin to make the world a better place. That is God’s call to each of us.
I’m going to New Wine conference tomorrow. I know that spending time in God’s presence, listening to his word, worshipping, and praying with others, I’ll come back transformed. I know that because this is my experience of New Wine. It’s a way of recharging my spiritual batteries. A kind of transfiguration experience that gets me equipped to continue my Christian life and ministry in a more useful way and helps me avoid running on empty.
There’s obviously that buzz that I feel from being around other people and other Christians, and prayer, and worship, preaching and sometimes some really special moments of encounter with God. But after a while, the buzz kind of fades, but what you’re left with is solid growth, better prayer times and a maturity of faith that you can draw on come Monday morning when the gas prices have gone up again.
Whenever we meet with God, we are changed. And, like Moses, we may not notice any difference, but others will, and do.
The bottom line
So, here’s the question: How can we discover new ways to meet with God and help us grow in our faith? And how can we use that growth in everyday life and bring heaven down to earth? It may help to ask yourself: ‘How do I make space for my own times of transfiguration?’ And how can I make sure that those moments make a difference afterwards?
Well, here’s an idea, Jesus’ transfiguration takes place during a time of prayer. Lent begins on Wednesday, it’s a good time to seek more of God, as we follow Christ on his journey to the cross and beyond. It’s a time to listen to Jesus; to see in what ways our lives can be transformed by his life. You might want to get to grips with the Bible, join the Lent course, learn to pray more regularly, how about fasting, the ideas are endless.
Too often, I worry that Lent has been used to induce guilt and make us feel bad about ourselves. I believe God is more interested in what we have the potential to become rather than what we have not been. I wish you a meaningful and life transforming Lent. Amen.
Hilda Gilbert (Associate Minister: St Andrew, Walthamstow)
20 February 2022 – Second Sunday before Lent
You may not be familiar with Rembrandt’s painting of the Storm on the Sea of Galilee, for it was stolen back in 1990 (probably the biggest art theft in history). Its empty frame still hangs in a museum in Boston (Massachusetts), but the painting’s whereabouts is still unknown. If you don’t know it, google it after the service. It is very striking, and depicts the disciples panic-stricken, amid a sudden violent storm, struggling frantically to regain control of their fishing boat. As the sky darkens, the clouds glower and the sea churns, a huge wave beats the bow, dramatically tilting the boat, filling it with water. It rips the mainsail – the rope lashing the boat, which veers perilously close to nearby rocks, on which it could founder. In terror, one disciple (holding on to his hat) tries to steady himself clinging on to a rope; another vomits over the side. Whereas some react in total panic gathering around a somewhat-tranquil Jesus seated at the rear of the boat, five others stick to the sail and work, attempting to hold the boat together. Yet despite their efforts, nature appears to be winning and it would seem that all are to be likely to drown.
The story appears in the each of the first three gospels, and today we heard Luke’s telling of it, which probably is the one with slightly less detail. But in each, it is Jesus who instigates the sea crossing. Matthew states and Mark implies that Jesus was already in the boat when he calls across to the disciples ‘’Ey up! let’s go across to the other side of the lake.’ (Like a child or dog who jumps into a car, intently staying put there, in order compel the parents or owners to take him where he is determined to go.)
Things prior to this had been going pretty well. Jesus had definitely made some impact and had got quite a crowd travelling around with him, including (importantly) some wealthy women who had sufficient money to finance the group. There’s an implication in the gospel that things weren’t particularly smooth between Jesus and his family, but (hey-ho) the disciples were probably heartened by Jesus’s rather cutting sideswipe that at the end of the day his family are those who actually act on what God is saying through him. A point emphasised in the story of the sower, told earlier in the chapter.
So! not surprisingly, they show this by acting on what he says. They clamber on board, leaving the hooked crowds behind. (Well, not quite so: Mark says other boats set out with them, perhaps packed with some of their most fervent groupies.) And Jesus settles down at the back, in the stern, and – as the disciples sail the boat – he falls asleep, drowsing with his head on a pillow.
This is a detail provided only in Mark’s gospel, but an interesting one, nevertheless. It was beneath the stern deck, in the storage area, a cramped tiny space, that this reading implies is where Jesus curled up asleep, with perhaps one of the sandbags (used for trimming the boat) as his pillow. Very much a different picture to that conjured up by Rembrandt: where Christ sits on the stern deck, in a haven of calm, far removed from the harsher reality: of exposure to the weather, with the helmsman struggling there, in charge of the rudder.
And the predicament in which the disciples find themselves may seem like how some (perhaps less traumatic) twists and turns in our lives can seem. How many times, when things are going particularly well, when our lives are cruising along across placid waters, that – out of the blue – we are hit (as it were) by a freak wave? One day, all is fine, all is good, all is as desired, when unexpectedly, without warning, all that comes crashing down. It might be an intentional attack; a chance event; a realisation that what we assumed – isn’t actually as it really is; an illusionary deep-held belief that no longer sustains us; a relationship that dies; a friendship that runs out of steam; actions that surprise; words said that cannot be retracted. And perhaps for us, for those who trust in God, it can sometimes feel that danger or difficulty hits exactly as a consequence of living a life of faith or responding to God’s call and challenge. And when that does happen often it can feel that we are left standing in a very God-empty place.
The disciples, when confronted by the danger of the storm, knew where to find Jesus. They go over to the stern, lean into his sleeping cubby-hole, and shake him out of his slumber, berating him ‘Don’t you care we are perishing?’ Their faith in him dissolves. His presence in the boat seemed to have guaranteed nothing. They risk losing everything, they face drowning, and their Messiah is hidden away below deck, dormient and inactive.
A hidden God is a hard and difficult concept to understand and to accept. But that is the God we often find in Christ – hidden … but hidden in plain sight. In past weeks, in the Sundays following Epiphany, we have been looking at how Christ is manifested to the gentiles, manifested in the world. And yet, despite his public ministry, his life has a hiddenness to it. Christ is hidden in his mother’s womb during his gestation. Christ is hidden abroad as a refugee as his family flees the wrath of a fearful king. Christ is hidden for thirty years in an ordinary life lived without notice. Christ is hidden as he hangs among a forest of hanged men on crosses, struggling not to breathe out their last and final breaths. Christ is hidden deep in the tomb, in the darkness of death. Christ is hidden when he returns to his Father. Christ is hidden here among us sacramentally.
However, being ‘hidden’ does not mean ‘not being there’. The danger that the disciples faced might be seen as brought upon them by the decision of Jesus, to overlook the changeable nature of that beautiful deep-blue inland lake nestling surrounded by the hills of the Galilee. (Its very location creating this real threat of such sudden and violent storms.) But he is there in the boat with them when the storm hits.
Seemingly hidden, silent, aloof on his cushion, as all others worked and struggled; in this situation, he becomes as vulnerable as them. The disciples’ accusation ‘Don’t you care’, echoes throughout history, whenever people struggle to understand and make sense of situations and tragedies and evils that hit them in life.
And when God feels hidden or remote or absent, or we feel abandoned by God, Jesus’s retort: ‘why are you afraid?’ ‘why are you so timid?’ ‘why such scant belief!’ ‘how little is your faith!’ may seem harsh or accentuate those feelings. But the story and the rebuke challenges our simplistic understandings and picturing of God, as a power-based deity, as some type of superhero Bob the builder, who will always responds to the question ‘can you fix it?’ with a ‘yes I can.’
The God we meet in Jesus is much more nuanced than that. The emphasis is on the presence of God. In the danger confronted on the lake, Jesus – though seemingly hidden – is there; he is with his disciples and remains with them until the danger has passed and beyond. He is there by their side; he is there in the danger of drowning; he is not distant nor indifferent – but emerges and stands in the midst of the terror, confronting it, shouting ‘be still!’
In every person, in every event, God is present, even if we only perceive God’s absence. Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict) put it this way, ‘God is no longer merely a God up there, but God surrounds us from above, from below, and from within: [God] is all in all.’ And our other readings today remind us of that: for the God of creation is the God who is before we were; the God of Revelation is the God who is after we have been; and the God revealed in Christ is the God who is being here with us – ever present, and not just a God of the good times.
Colin Setchfield
13 February 2022 – Third Sunday before Lent
Last week I spoke about feeling worthy, and this week our readings are focusing on faith and how this is important to our lives. Life is not about earthly goods and power, but belief and faith in God.
If you think about the huge history and the future of planet Earth as a long line and randomly pick a point on that timeline, the overwhelming likelihood is that you will not be alive at that point. We do not live in the time of the dinosaurs; we will not live in the 23rd or 24th century like the heroes of Star Trek. We live now. For good or ill, this is our time, and time not to be wasted, because extraordinary though it is, we are made in the image of God, and God wants us to use the time we have well.
Every human life is exceptionally precious, and is filled with value, meaning and purpose. And somewhere in our planet’s timeline there is a brief spark that is you, but if that is all we are, just a brief spark why bother doing anything worthwhile, why not just live our lives for ourselves? Philosophers down the years have promoted the philosophy of living life to its fullest extent because there is nothing else than this life. “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die” is the phrase used, and yet our readings today are very much advocating that there is more to our lives than this.
As Christians, we believe that there is much more, that this life is only part of our being, and how we live our lives now will lead onto something bigger. But the mysteries of God, such as the Virgin Birth, the nature of the Trinity or the resurrection of Jesus can’t be explained or understood by reason alone, faith is involved.
When people say that they cannot believe in God and that the Christian faith makes no sense, it’s often because they can’t get their heads round the mysteries of God and the presence of undeniable evil in the world. Human beings are capable of such terrible things and good people often suffer at the hands of others who use their power to hurt and dominate. Why does God let the sun shine on good people and bad people alike? Why do the wicked people prosper at the expense of others? Why doesn’t God do something to force the world to be more equitable and just? I am sure questions many of you have posed at some time.
These questions are not new and are part of an age-old reflection on why the world is as it is, and what our part is in all this.
One of the most mysterious things about God is that God gives us free will to decide for ourselves how to live and even to reject God’s love. Yet we are also given guidance about how to choose wisely and well. In all his teaching Jesus looks at what brings us closer to God and what will distance us.
When Jesus teaches his followers how to pray, he specifically includes the words: lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, because we all get tempted and tested. We need to think about our freedom to choose what kind of path we will take.
In the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament), we sometimes hear about God as utterly beyond human comprehension and experience. ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts’ (Isaiah 55.8-9).
This makes God sound essentially unknowable, so far beyond human reason and imagination that the mystery of God is impenetrable, so that we can only respond with awe, wonder and silence. What could we have to say to God, whose thoughts and actions are so far beyond us?
One who tried this was Job who challenges God, and God stuns him with the amazing miracle of creation, so much vaster and more incredible than a human lifetime: ‘where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?’ We can only ever scratch the surface of the mystery that is God.
In other places in the Hebrew Scriptures though, we come across different ways to describe God. Sometimes God’s power comes to the fore as a king or a judge or a warrior, but in other places God is imagined as a nurturer, a shepherd or a gardener, or as a parent, as a woman in labour or as a father.
One of the most extraordinary things Jesus did in his life and ministry was to tell his friends that they could relate to the mystery that is God, by going beyond such likenesses to being in immediate, intimate relationship with God.
But God’s love goes much further than this. It’s not just about learning how to live and how to understand the world, it is about turning ourselves around to be people who actively work with God to create God’s kingdom and to be with God after our lives are done. We have to learn to die to ourselves and our selfish wants. We have to learn to sacrifice. Yes this may mean that at times life does not go the way we either expect or planned, and that we will face challenges and difficulties that seem neither fair or justified.
At those times our faith may well be tested as we ask why me? A question that has echoed down the centuries, and like Job we too may not receive an answer that we expect, the mystery of God is that God who loves us is there and will be there for us, all we need to recognise that, is faith. Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
6 February 2022 – Fourth Sunday before Lent / Accession Day
Worthy?
Today is the anniversary of the Queen’s accession to the throne seventy years ago. She was 25 years of age, and her father’s health was failing when she left the UK for Kenya on a tour, but one suspects she did not feel ready, or expect to become Queen at such a young age.
Initially of course during her childhood, unlike her own son and eldest grandson who have grown up knowing their destiny, she was not expected to become the monarch. Her grandfather was king and when he died her uncle Edward became king. Yet as we know Edward gave up his throne and Elizabeth’s father, a shy man with a stammer, who had never thought, or been prepared for the role, became Head of State. From that date Elizabeth’s pathway in life changed forever. At the age of 21 she made her now often quoted speech, in which she dedicated her life, be it short or long, to public service. This year she celebrates becoming the longest reigning monarch in our history.
There must have been times when she felt completely overwhelmed by the task, not least that day in February 1952, when not only was she taking on a new role but her beloved father, who knew what the role entailed, had died. But she has made no secret of the fact that her Christian faith has been a major part of her life, guiding and sustaining her as queen and in her life.
Thinking back over your own lives can you think of an occasion, or indeed a number of occasions, when you have felt overwhelmed, and not worthy of the task before you, or the trust placed in you? During those times what has guided and sustained you, what has given you the strength and courage to take the road ahead?
Perhaps it has been the support of those closest to you, encouraging you and reminding you of the talents and skills you have to offer, and perhaps it has also been prayer and your faith in God too.
There is a definite theme in our readings today, of all those called by God, that they were not worthy. Isaiah in the temple who sees that action is needed, but judges himself as a sinner and thus unworthy of God’s calling, yet is strengthened by God and says “Here I am, send me.’
Paul recounts the appearances of Jesus after his resurrection to many, and adds that Jesus appeared to him too, but says that as one who had persecuted the early Church, those followers of Christ, he was the least worthy. But God had a role for him, and called Paul, interestingly like King George VI, a man with a speech impediment, to spread the gospel. In mercy God thought that Paul was worthy of that calling.
Peter and the other fishermen knew what they were good at, fishing, and yet the day Jesus calls them from this role, according to Luke’s gospel they had had one of those days in this case, nights, where nothing goes right. They had spent all night fishing in waters they knew well and had caught nothing. They are no doubt tired and dejected, no fish meant no income, when Jesus turns up, commandeers the boat so that he can teach the crowds and then tells them to try again with their nets. Possibly more in hope than anything else they do let down their nets, and this time they are successful, in fact so successful their nets are in danger of breaking. Peter is fearful of Jesus’ power and begs him to leave him in peace, he is a sinful man and not worthy. Echoes here of Isaiah and indeed many others in the Old Testament.
Do not be afraid says Jesus, I have a role for you, sub text here being, I, Jesus, do consider you worthy. And in all this we see simple people called to do extraordinary things by God, as God continues to call simple people to do extraordinary things in today’s world.
During the last two years we have seen this in the everyday people who have done amazing things for others. Some have received accolades and awards, most have not, but their deeds have nonetheless made a real difference to the lives of those around them and often beyond as they inspire others too. Their love and kindness have been exactly what God called for. Did they say leave me in peace, I am not worthy? Possibly but they decided to go ahead anyway.
One of my favourite prayers is the Prayer of Humble Access. It says ‘we are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table. But you are the same Lord, whose nature is always to have mercy.’ God recognises in each one of us the potential to be worthy, to do wonderful and extraordinary things, when we believe and trust in what God sees in us.
That does not mean everything will be plain sailing, it never is in life. We see that many times in the scriptures, Abraham leaving his family and homeland, Moses struggling with the leadership of God’s People, Jonah running away when God calls him to deliver bad news, and the Queen with all she has faced in the last seventy years would certainly echo that thought, that life will have its challenges.
What faith and belief does offer is the hope that we do not face all that is to be alone. We do not need to feel overwhelmed; fear may be there, as with Paul and Peter, but it does not need to paralyse us.
None of us is worthy of God’s calling, but God knows that, and calls us nevertheless, because God has work for us to do in letting others see and understand that God values and loves each one of us, and in that we have hope and strength for when that call comes. We may still want to say leave me in peace, and I am not worthy, but listen, as God has a role for each of us, and often more than one role too. God uses the ordinary to do the extraordinary. Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
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30 January 2022 – The Presentation of Christ in the Temple (Candlemas)
The feast of Candlemas marks a bit of a turning point in the Church’s year. Whilst the rest of the world kissed goodbye to Christmas long ago – some people of course taking down the decorations and banishing the tree as early as Boxing Day these days, keeping the Feast of Candlemas is a bit of a reminder to us all that the good news of Christmas doesn’t stop after the presents have been opened – here is truly a gift that keeps on giving, and the really hardcore churchgoer might have actually kept their decorations up until today, which is officially the end of Christmas!
The strange thing about this is that, no sooner do we stop thinking about Christmas, than we start thinking about Lent – it feels way too soon yet for Easter eggs (now readily available in the shops, of course – but who eats an Easter egg in January?) but it won’t be long at all now before thoughts turn to pancakes, to what to give up for Lent, and to the forty days and forty nights where things become markedly less festive again. So, in many ways, Candlemas is a bit of a turning point for us all.
And that’s quite appropriate, because it was something of a turning point for pretty much everyone in the story too. It is rare to see in the Bible an assembly of people of various different ages and both sexes coming together – but here we have the infant Jesus, the young Mary and slightly older Joseph, and the comparatively ancient Simeon and Anna, both of whom we know fairly little about. For Simeon and Anna, today – where they see Jesus and Simeon recognises this little baby as the Messiah – today is for them, a day where their destiny is completed: and Simeon breaks forth into song to God saying ‘I can depart in peace’, effectively, ‘I’m happy to die now’, because he has seen the salvation of the world.
For Mary and Joseph, this must have come as another shock – I mean they’d had a few already hadn’t they! An angel visiting them, a virgin birth, wise men and shepherds turning up out of the blue, having to flee to Egypt. They were probably ready for a quieter life and no doubt were probably trying their best to forget some of the stranger things that had happened, in an effort to get on with bringing up their son and making a living. And yet, once again, here’s someone telling them their son is the Messiah. I wonder if Mary was tempted to reply “he’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy!”
This was yet another reminder for Mary that she was no ordinary mother and her Son would grow up to be no ordinary Son. And for her, the elderly Simeon points Jesus towards his own future – away from the coziness of the crib and towards the pain and challenge that would be his birth-right. So the day must have been bittersweet for Mary, even if it was wondrous for Simeon and Anna.
It must have also been a strange day for the others in the Temple, who were there worshipping amidst gloriously plush surroundings. What was Simeon doing? Has he gone senile, singing and shouting over a little baby? How could such a tiny, feeble infant represent the salvation of anything? He had no might, no ability even to speak. Yet Simeon rejoiced and sang to God – he didn’t look to the grandeur of the Temple, but to the simplicity and wonder of the tiny baby, for his salvation.
What words of wisdom might I offer you as I myself seek to depart in peace, hopefully not to shuffle off this mortal coil, but at least, to cross the border into Redbridge? Well, perhaps sometimes we forget to be like Simeon. Unlike him, we will not see the baby Jesus in the flesh, but there is always a danger in getting lured in by the flashy lights and enticing beauty of grandeur. And you know what that looks like in your own life – because I might be able to define the things that lure me in, in my life, but they’ll be different for you. Have a think about it – what is it that really sometimes makes you want more, what is it that you get cross about other people having, that you don’t? We’ve all got stuff in our lives that we worship after all, and most of the time it’s not actually God at all, it’s all the other stuff – the stuff of worldly success. The sad thing about that is that it doesn’t ever actually bring proper happiness – because worldly success is a drug that is really alluring and addictive, we need ever more of it to satisfy our craving. Whereas, if we put even half the time into our faith as we do into the other stuff, I’m pretty sure we would be absolutely transformed people, and I very much include myself in that challenge.
See God in the small wonders of life. See God in the world around you. See God in the person next to you. Even, I dare you – see when God is at work in yourself, and just go with it. Maybe God is asking you to go and see that person down the road you know is lonely. Maybe God is asking you to be more generous with your money. Maybe God is asking you to leave something behind in your life. Maybe God is asking you to try to laugh more. Maybe God is asking you to forgive someone, or even to forgive yourself for something. Maybe God is asking you to be on the PCC, or to do coffee after church, or to help run children’s work. Maybe God is calling you to ordained ministry. What is God doing in you, in ways small or large?
Walking the pavements and cycling streets of this borough, you see an awful lot of people who look unhappy. Maybe they are just concentrating on getting somewhere – to Sainsbury’s then to Superdrug, maybe ten minutes in Costa before a trip to get the frozen stuff from Iceland and then on to the bus stop. Maybe they are actually deeply unhappy, I don’t know. We don’t spend our lives being happy, necessarily. But we do spend our lives being loved, whether we know it or not, by God who made us and who cares for us so deeply that he sent his own Son to die for us. And that, ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys, is why we come here. It’s why I’m a priest. It’s the essence of the Christian faith – and it needn’t be a secret from those who you see outside Greggs, or the Wishing Well, or Ladbrokes. In fact, it needn’t be a secret from anyone. And for all our sermonising and what have you, the message is surprisingly simple in what it boils down to. Because ultimately, no matter what dreadful stuff life has to throw at us, love wins.
James Gilder
23 January 2022 – Covenant Service (preached at joint service at South Chingford Methodist Church)
Epiphany is not just one day, when we celebrate one element in the story of Jesus’ birth, the visit of the Magi, but a whole season where we also pray for the worldwide mission of the Church.
As part of that we have the week of Prayer for Christian Unity which is coming to an end this week, and it is an apt time, we always think to share this Covenant Service as both Methodists and Anglicans, Christians united in our commitment to one God.
Covenant is primarily used as a legal term, a binding contract, but the covenants in the Bible are rather different. Covenant here is used as a way of describing the relationship of God and the people as one of mutual interaction. Yet so many times we see that the people get it wrong and view this relationship as one sided, they can do what they like and ignore God when it suits them, but that is not true relationship.
Time and again God offers something wider and it is clear in the prophecy of Jeremiah that this is not just a legal agreement. Yahweh, I Am, says I will be your God and you will be my people. This is a new covenant where all will know God, a God who will forgive and love each one, this is of the heart, it needs real commitment.
The Covenant Service is a renewal of our individual commitment to our relationship with God, but also as faith communities. It is relationship, not a contract, that underlines all, because God made humanity to be relational, and it is one of the reasons the lockdowns have been so difficult as they curtailed that coming together as communities in so many ways, we are not hermits by nature.
The intertwined nature of our relationship with God is one where God loves us and encourages us to abide, to stay or remain in that love. By following and accepting that we are not just called to act in accordance with that love, and care for God and others, but it is a commandment from God.
Relationships are not easy and can need work, so often if a relationship become too uncomfortable, we leave, be it a job, a personal relationship or even a church. And sometimes that may be the right decision for our own wellbeing. But overall tor Christians relational life is not casual – we are made in the image of God, even others who we can find it hard to like, let alone love, but all are loved by God.
A covenant is a solemn and mutually binding commitment, and in our covenant with God it is love, on both sides that is the commitment. The Covenant Renewal Service is about celebrating God’s commitment of love to us since the beginning of creation, as we commit ourselves to God. God has promised, and given and continues to give unfailing love, and as we enter into these solemn promises today we offer our love in return.
To abide in the Lord means that we continually believe and trust and remain steadfast as we walk with God, as we depend on God, yet do we?
Time and again we find in the Bible that those God has chosen do not obey and trust God. Adam and Eve chose to disobey God’s one instruction, that they not eat from a specific tree. Moses certainly had a few wobbles both in his early relationship with God, and as the leader of God’s Chosen People, David gets it wrong on many occasions, and Jonah runs away from the role God has called him to; you get my drift.
Because there are always two parts to this promise, and like all covenants in the Bible, it is God who instigates the relationship, and we can choose not to accept, we can even try turning away. But why would we refuse such a wonderful gift, when all we have to do is accept it? Well not quite all that we have to do. We need to understand that in committing ourselves to God and God’s love, we have a part to play in loving God, trusting God, and all that God has created. Not always so easy, just as those earlier Biblical characters found.
Many in the Bible got things wrong, yet God forgave them, as God forgives us in our wrongdoing and offers us the chance to start again when we recognise our error.
Ultimately Jesus died for us so that all our broken promises could be mended, in that new covenant, the cross promises us that God loves us, and loves us so much that God‘s Son died on the cross to save us from ourselves. As he died he declared, ‘it is done,’ the broken relationship with God was restored. In the garden of Gethsamene Jesus had momentarily hesitated, but vowed your will, not mine, and in this Covenant service that is what we say too.
‘I am no longer my own but yours.
Your will, not mine, be done in all things.’
That promise goes on to say that we offer ourselves in all times, good and bad, challenging and clear cut. That is a lot to promise, but God does not ask us to do this on our own, but with and through God, who walks alongside us, yes sometimes even carries us, because God is always there.
God’s love for us, God’s creation is a promise we can rely on now and always, and how many other promises can we say that about? So let us renew that wonderful relationship, which offers us so much, with God and one another in our promises today. Amen.
Lesley Goldsmith (Vicar)
16 January 2022 – Second Sunday of Epiphany
If nothing else, this week, we have learned that people like to have a party, even when they should not have been having one. Celebrations are part what we do as humans, they bring people together and they create bonds. Today’s gospel is of a wedding, an important ritual of the time, as not only did two individuals come together as a couple, but that also brought together the wider family and friend networks, creating new relationships, new alliances, turning strangers into friends.
Often at weddings, there will be many strange faces, people who (at the event) are unknown to others. People will try to second guess whether the strange group sat in the corner are actually “part of our family”, “part of their family”, friends or acquaintances of either of the couple, or people deemed “important to be seen at the event”.
Strangely, the wedding in today’s gospel doesn’t really provide us with much detail as such. It’s at Cana: though really we don’t know where that is. It is a wedding: but we don’t know the bride nor groom. And the only people we hear of are the unnamed mother of Jesus who was at the wedding; the servants and the dining-room chief; and Jesus and his disciples who had been called or invited to attend. Everyone else you would expect to be there are unnamed, unreferenced, invisible, in the storytelling.
Now of course that is the opposite of what we would expect. If you look back on weddings that you may have attended, it is not normally the waiting staff who you would recall. It is not the architriklinos – the duty manager responsible for putting the chairs and tables out and getting food to the guests – who is most memorable on the day. And unless there had been a real kerfuffle, words between one old woman and her son (who had turned up with several of his friends in tow) would have been a long-forgotten awkward detail in people’s reminiscences of the special day.
Last week, when James preached, he commented on the speediness of the telling of the Christ’s story in liturgical time. Two weeks ago, it was an infant Jesus whom the Wise men were visiting, but only seven days later, Jesus had already attained the biblically-significant age of 30 in the telling of the story, when he is baptised. That storytelling at high speed is also there in the gospel today – but we don’t see it: as the first four words of the story are cut from the reading, which actually begins “On the third day there was a wedding at Cana…”
Read the chapter before this story: Jesus is baptised, but in John’s telling there’s then no sulking around in the desert, but rather on the next day (Day 1) two of John the Baptist’s disciples jump ship to follow Jesus, one of whom – Andrew – goes and gets his brother. Then the next day (Day 2), Jesus recruits Philip who, like Andrew the day before, goes and gets another one – this time Nathanael. And the next day (Day 3), well it’s this wedding, with Jesus there and his small band of new followers recruited over the previous two days.
There is an urgency in this telling, there’s no hanging around, for there is no time for it. Even after Cana’s wedding, Jesus leaves, goes home to Capernaum for a day or two (probably dropping off his mothers and brothers there), and then hot foots it down to Jerusalem to cleanse the temple, casting out the money-changers. This is the story of Jesus, but not quite the story of Jesus as we know it from the other three gospels.
Two weeks ago, it was the Feast of the Epiphany – or as the old Book of Common Prayer calls it: The Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. Back then it was, by using Matthew’s Christmas story of the visitation of the Wise Men to baby Jesus, that the church’s calendar asked us to consider how was Christ – how is Christ – manifested, in the world and in our lives. And in these subsequent Sundays, these Sundays after Epiphany, that theme, that question, is posed again and again. How is Christ made manifest, or as our first hymn repeatedly put it, how is ‘God in man made manifest?’ How is God brought tangibly into our lives – through our thoughts, and actions, our beliefs, our emotions, our living?
Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of depth in the story of Cana’s wedding, with echoes of the marriage banquet that would herald of the long-awaited Messiah, of how the old-things-that-have-been need to turn into new-things-that-are-now-required; of the superabundance and lavish outpouring of God’s gifts, God’s grace and God’s love; and, of course, of the hope and promise of the new beginning on the third day, of new life after death.
But that Epiphany question is a pertinent one here, not only about how God becomes manifest in the person of Jesus, but for us – in the current time – how God is made manifest in us, in humankind, on an ongoing basis. How in our lives and in our living, in our speaking, our moving, our loving, our giving, we and others experience and know the presence of God.
And these Epiphany-referencing stories give us a strong steer, no less than in today’s gospel. There is no time to sit around. Strategic planning models, action planning, and long-term missions and goals, may be the solution for an organisation that seeks success, building influence, increasing membership, and justifying its own existence. But what Epiphany tells us is it is no longer a matter of what is coming/what is needed but rather what is now/what should we be about.
The message of Epiphany lies in the ordinary and in the everyday, in the here and in the now. It is in the home where a mother copes with her new-born child in the midst of all the pressures that brings, with unexpectedly and potentially unwelcomed guests waiting at the door with presents; it is in the line of people queueing take the next step in their lives, to drown their past mistakes, and to move forward as new people with new promise; it is in the celebrations and life-events, and in the relationships and friendships we share. And (as the stories of this Epiphany time continues) it is in our responses – in our care and reaching to others; it is in speaking out and challenging the strong voices that seek to divide and harm; it is in sacrifice, and living now without fear for the morrow.
Epiphany is a water into wine story: it is making the ordinary extraordinary, and contrariwise grounding the extraordinary in the ordinariness of life. Epiphany exposes God in our reality, in the weird group of people along the back wall at the wedding, whom no-one really knows who has invited them; he is a God that places the background overlooked characters centre-stage; he is a God in whose presence simple plain common water drawn from old wash-pots tastes better than the ‘bestest’ of best wines; he is a God whose wondrous signs are small yet significant, unnoticed but far-reaching, fleeting but impactful.
This is the exciting story of Epiphany, and what better than to use these remaining Sundays after Epiphany to surprise yourselves on how God is manifested in us and in our lives, and even in those persons and places we would not have expected him ever to have been.
Colin Setchfield
9 January 2022 – The Baptism of Christ
Between Christmas and Easter we journey at a break-neck speed through the various important parts of the life of Jesus. It’s as if all the most exciting parts of the Church’s year were pretty much reserved for the nastiest time of the world’s year, weatherwise, or at least that’s the case here in the Northern Hemisphere. Maybe that was on purpose – a way of livening up a miserable time of year. Indeed, now that a greater number of Christians live in the Southern Hemisphere than the Northern, perhaps we ought to swap over and give them the chance to celebrate Christmas in June and Easter in September, but something tells me we won’t.
Because the time between Christmas and Easter is short, we do tend to hurtle through it all. Only last week, Jesus was being visited by the wise men when he was still a tiny baby. Well, he had to do a lot of growing up since last Sunday, because now we join him at his Baptism. Because this is the time of year where we celebrate the newborn King, the baby in the manger, there is always a temptation for the brain to confuse us and give us visions of the baby Jesus somehow being baptised in a font. But, of course, nothing could be further from the truth! Firstly, Baptism wasn’t a thing back then when Jesus was a child – because of course there was no Christian faith to be baptised into, and we see that Jesus is an adult when he comes for baptism, by John the Baptist, as recorded in today’s Gospel.
John is the first person to baptise anyone, and it is his way of showing those around him that their sins are forgiven and that they can be born again in the Spirit. This has confused lots of people, who are wondering whether maybe John is the Messiah and I think you may remember we heard that reading just before Christmas, where John tells everyone that he is not the Messiah, but that there is one who is coming after him (who also handily happens to be his cousin), who is the Messiah, and today we hear that Jesus will baptise with the Holy Spirit and with fire. When writing this sermon it occurred to me that I couldn’t think of any actual instance where Jesus baptises anyone in the Bible, and I resorted to Google, which confirmed my thoughts – Jesus never actually does baptise anyone, yet he himself gets baptised.
Now, isn’t that a bit weird? I mean, after all, why do we get baptised? Well, there are lots of reasons. For some, it is a familial right of passage, of course, and I’m sure we’ve all been to a few baptisms where the party afterwards seems to be a lot more important than the ceremony itself. For others, though, it is the welcoming into the family of the Church – a sign that our sins are wiped clean and that we are born again – whatever you believe that means. Why would Jesus need to be baptised then? He was a man without sin, so we are told. He was God’s only son, the head of the Church.
I think the answer is, Jesus plainly didn’t need to be baptised at all. But, just like a good teacher does for their pupils or a good parent does for their children, Jesus did all kinds of things for us that he didn’t need to do, to show us what life was really meant to be like for us. I mean, you could even say the crucifixion was something that patently didn’t need to happen for our sins to be forgiven – if God is all powerful, he doesn’t need to do anything at all to forgive us, let alone send his own son to die on a cross, murdered by the ones he came to save. Yet, God did that for us. So, if Jesus was going to die as a radical example of God’s ultimate love for us, then Jesus getting perhaps slightly needlessly baptised, to show us a little hint of what God’s love for us is, is pretty small beer for him.
And it’s interesting that the Gospel of Luke, which is the longest and most detailed of all the gospels when it comes to giving us stories of what Jesus said and did, and it’s the gospel from which we get most of the narrative of Jesus’s birth – this gospel is oddly brief and taciturn about Jesus’s baptism. It just says all the people got baptised. And Jesus got baptised and was praying. It does not say ‘there was a grand ceremony at which Jesus, the Messiah, was baptised, and lots of people gathered to see the wonderous spectacle’. No! One must assume from the simple text, that Jesus just got in line with all the other men and women who were being baptised by John. And, when it was his turn he got down into the river next to his cousin John, and John did the business, and then Jesus got out and dried himself off, probably put his clothes back on and went off and had a pray. And it was then that the Holy Spirit came down as a dove, and God’s voice was heard saying ‘This is my only Son, in whom I am well pleased’. It was only then that the heavens opened.
Maybe the fact that Jesus just got in line with everyone else tells us something about Jesus’s personality and his message. I always remember at primary school there tended to be a long queue for dinners. And there was one teacher, whom none of us liked very much. As children we initially feared her, and then used to laugh about her being like Miss Trunchbull, of Roald Dahl fame. She would always sweep into the hall and jump ahead of the queue to get her dinner, carelessly swatting aside any child who got in the way of her ample frame and sensible shoes. Now, I’m sure that, as a teacher, this lady had plenty of work to be getting on with that meant she was probably more than entitled to jump the queue for school dinners, but the apparent unfairness of her doing so to the nine-year-old me has stuck in my memory now for almost another thirty years, and no doubt it will be there for good. And, it should be said that, when I myself became a teacher, minded of this memory, I never jumped the queue for dinner, because I didn’t want someone else to think of me that way, and I was aware of what it might teach the children in my care, if I had done.
Maybe that’s a pointless recollection, I don’t know. But what I’m trying to get at here is that Luke doesn’t have Jesus setting himself up as someone apart and above the rest of society – someone far too important to mingle with the hoipolloi. No – instead, Jesus is one of us. And he still is. He is sitting there on the pew next to you. He is there when you are at your best and at your worst, when you are happy, sad, angry, despairing, joyful, loving, hating. When your life is going brilliantly, and when it’s not. And that’s a real challenge for us as a church. Often in ministry I’ve heard people say- not just here but in lots of places – I need a bit of time away from church to sort myself out, I’ll come back when I feel ready for it. This can be completely understandable and if you’ve felt like that, this is by no means an attack on you. What makes me despair though, is I think, why is Church viewed as a place where you have to be someone perfect to show your face? Surely we need to be able to build church communities where people actively come to sort themselves out, not where people stay away until they can face us again. Because if we preach about Christ as seen in the Gospel of Luke – he’s someone who is one of us, and he’s with us. He loves you at your best but he also loves you just as much when you’re being a complete nightmare.
Jesus’s life was changed by his baptism, even though he got in line and did it fairly needlessly. It set him up for the life he was going to lead – and next week we will hear about the first of his miracles – the water into wine. But we also need to remember that our baptism has changed our life too. So let’s start this new year in a really positive way if we can. Maybe one thing we could do is to go home and have a read of the Gospel of Luke. If you need a copy of it, let me know. Have an explore of it, because it’s a great and a radical gospel, which might make you see Jesus a bit differently. It might change how you view your faith, even. And enjoy this Lectionary Year C, where we look at Luke in more detail, and hopefully come to show others what this faith of ours can really be about.
James Gilder
2 January 2022 – The Epiphany
At one of the Nativity plays this Christmas, the baby Jesus had not appeared in the crib at the point in the story when he was due to appear, so an angel delivered him. This was followed moments later by one of the Wise Men throwing down his gift with some force, it certainly sounded heavy, must have been the gold!
Delightful moments in such plays and fortunately my face covering hid the huge smile on my face. Yet as so often those children had added a special dimension to the familiar Christmas story. As a child conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary, the angel delivering the baby Jesus was perhaps rather apt as it made a very real theological point, that this child was different, this child was of God.
The giving of the gift by the Wise Man was certainly definite, you could not miss the point that this gift was well and truly given, and the more meaningful sentiments of the gifts underlined.
Christmas is the celebration of God, the light of the world, coming into the world to be with us, one of us, among us for all peoples, and that deserved a bang not a whimper.
Epiphany continues that celebration, as throughout the season we recall God is revealed to us, God’s people, in many and varied ways.
Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, when the Wise Men, guided by a star, a star which had revealed to them that a new king had been born, came to pay homage to that king. Their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh show this king to be something out of the ordinary, well they did travel a fair distance to meet him and you don’t do that for a run of the mill king.
Gold to crown a king, frankincense for prayers to and in recognition of God, myrrh for healing and embalming. A manifestation, a showing of what was to come for this unusual king.
As those Wise Men came for afar to meet the infant, God was revealed not just to the Jewish people, God’s Chosen people, alone, but to the wider world, the gentiles.
And in this season of Epiphany, the season of revelation, we celebrate too that we have a wider mission and ministry to the whole world. We have the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and in 2022 the theme is the story of the Magi, ‘We saw his star in the east,’ and the needs of the church throughout the world to come together to work against poverty, injustice and need only exacerbated by the current pandemic. During that week we at St Edmund’s join our Methodist friends in their Covenant Service. A service that promises renewed commitment to our relationship with God, not just at an individual level, but as an act by the whole faith community.
In this same season we remember the Conversion of St Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, the wider world, and one who’s conversion was after a manifestation, a revelation to him by God.
The Festival of the Baptism of Christ is when Jesus begins his ministry and is revealed to the world at that moment as God’s Son; and the first miracle at the Marriage at Cana shows Jesus power. Yet as always those manifestations are not to those we might expect. Just as the infant was not the king the Wise Men expected, Jesus’ baptism and his first miracle are not as expected, they are shown not to the authorities and spiritual leaders in the Temple, but by the river bank with a traveling preacher, albeit one related to Jesus, and those who followed John; and his mother and the steward at the wedding.
Paul is not the most obvious candidate to speak of Jesus, after all he has been persecuting Jesus’ followers, so in all God is showing that God’s way is not as we expect. God will reveal God in many and varied ways to all who are prepared to welcome God.
All of our readings today speak of God’s calling to the lost and dispersed, to those who have not wanted to know God, and to those who saw something and longed to know more. In that we have hope that God can and will reveal God to each one of us, be we lost, unsure, or longing to know more.
God in us, God with us, and as today we recall those first visitors who travelled so far, let us think of those gifts they brought as we too offer ourselves again to God.
Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe:
to you be praise and glory for ever.
As gold in the furnace is tried
and purified seven times in the fire,
so purify our hearts and minds
that we may be a royal priesthood
acceptable in the service of your kingdom.
Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe:
to you be praise and glory for ever.
As our prayer rises up before you as incense,
so may we be presented before you
with penitent hearts and uplifted hands
to offer ourselves in your priestly service.
Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe:
to you be praise and glory for ever.
As you give medicine to heal our sickness
and the leaves of the tree of life
for the healing of the nations,
so anoint us with your healing power
that we may be the first-fruits of your new creation.
Blessed be God for ever. Amen.
© 2022 St Edmund, Chingford
St Edmund, Chingford 