Prayers for Sunday 22nd November 2009, prepared and read by Cheryl Montgomery.
CHRIST THE KING
Daniel 7:9-10 & 13-14
Revelation 1:4-8
John 18:33-37
O Christ our King, the beginning and the end:
who is and who was and who is yet to come,
who rules the rulers and the speech of the nations,
hear us as we pray for your Dominions in heaven, on earth and in our hearts.
We thank you Lord for the Dominion of heaven which enfolds us in a spiritual past, present and future. We remember with gratitude your faithful witnesses who touched our lives and brought us into your glory. We lift up to you the work of our Cornerstone Volunteers who demonstrate your reign through their ministry of welcome. We give thanks for the Hospice Movement and especially our own hospice here at Willen where respite and care are generously given. Give us all beautiful language and meaningful action which will testify to your Truth.
Give us grace to cherish and respect your Dominion of earth. Strengthen the people in the northwest with hope and determination as they come to start again after the flood. Bless the rulers of this world with courage to give meaningful pledges of hope for the earth as they prepare to meet in Copenhagen. Bless us with awareness of our own impact on the earth and help us to live with responsibility.
Look, Lord, into the Dominion of our hearts as we prepare to celebrate the birthday of our King. Compel us to take a prayer from the basket and hold close by an anonymous someone asking for aid. Touch the hearts of our church leaders with true thirst for an ecumenical tomorrow and send your spirit to seek out and call a new minister for our congregation. On the brink of Advent, help us to put aside resentment and throw off our old ways like rags. Let us drink in the power of your testimony that WE are the royal priesthood of the most high, our God.
O Christ our King, the beginning and the end,
whose glorious kingdom will never fail;
O faithful witness, firstborn of the dead,
Who loves us and freed us and made us your own,
In your name we pray.
AMEN
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Revd Alan Hodgetts, 15th November 2009
Prisons Week, Sunday 15th November 2009
Revd Alan Hodgetts, Chaplain of Woodhill Prison, Milton Keynes
Revd Alan Hodgetts, Chaplain of Woodhill Prison, Milton Keynes
Four years ago, as a Rector, I had the Cure of Souls of 10,000 – 400 of whom were on the church’s Electoral Roll. Today, as a prison chaplain, there are 1500 – 700 of us are staff and 800 are prisoners. Today I am preaching to around 100? I’m talking about sinners! On Prisons Sunday, we must preface every one of our reflections with Jesus’ words Luke 5:32:-
"I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance."
This, I believe, is the datum against which we should judge our actions – the reality that we are all sinners. In fact, unless we do then we might say that Jesus has little relevance for us.
However, many of us simply pay lip service to this truth because although we can say ‘we are all sinners’ we then begin to put a ‘spin on sin’ and begin to create a kind of moral highground, and like some kind of grotesque Harry Enfield character find ourselves thinking or even saying, ‘I am considerably less sinful than you!’
On Wednesday I was grabbed by the meditation in ‘Every Day with Jesus’ a little booklet of daily reflections we make available to prisoners. Last Wednesday the meditation was based on a passage from the Epistle of James :
If you show favouritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as law-breakers
The meditation ends …
“The whole point of this passage is to show that this sort of prejudice and judgmentalism is sin, just as adultery and murder are sin. The God who said that you must not steal, lie, murder, cheat or be unfaithful to your wife, says also through James that you must not be a snob. O God, save me from the central wrong of thinking of big sins and little sins. All sin is abhorrent to You.”
This is stark contrast to our society who’s attitudes are inflamed by our tabloid media, implying that those of us outside the walls or who have the privilege of drawing prison keys have the right to look down on what I have heard someone refer to as the pond life behind the walls. We currently have over 85,000 men and women behind bars in this country. Our current government is planning for 95,000 prison places and the opposition are planning for over 100,000. Many refer to this as ‘warehousing’ prisoners.
The theme for society seems, therefore, to encourage the imaginary plaque above the prison gate ‘Abandon Hope all Ye who enter here.’ Whereas Prison’s Sunday offers the very real antidote: Hold Fast to Hope.
As Christians we must walk in step with Our Lord who famously said
“… you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.”
But to do this is break step with the mores of the world and this takes courage and commitment. As Christians, we must not look for some imaginary ivory tower or moral high ground from which we can look down on those in prison because the voices we can hear wafting over the walls of Woodhill could so easily be ours or those of our sons.
So what, we might ask, are prisons for, if they aren’t to separate the sinners from the sinless amongst us. There are two phrases in the National Offender Management Service 2009 Strategic Business Plan from which I take great heart:
We work to protect the public and reduce re-offending
by delivering the punishment and orders of the courts
and by helping offenders to reform their lives.
by delivering the punishment and orders of the courts
and by helping offenders to reform their lives.
How, then, can we reduce re-offending by helping offenders reform their lives? Well, to start with we need to acknowledge the results of a culture of punishment. Recently I showed a group of prisoners a small extract from the film Wilde which showed the realities of the Victorian prison’s Exercise Yard and the Treadmill. They were visibly shocked. One prisoner on Wednesday called me over and said
“Father, have you got the DVD of what real prison was like.”
He inferred that if we had prison like that today it might work. I reminded him of the reality of that punishment culture and the three ‘S’s’ of Separation, Silence and Solitude which often resulted in madness. There is also the reality explored with great insight by Timothy Gorringe in his book ‘God’s Just Vengeance’ that punishment does not work as a deterrent.
The reality is that punishment results in the opposite to Hope – Despair. And even in today’s prison environment which is light years away from the prisons of the 19th and early 20th Century – there are still extreme cases of despair that result in self-inflicted death. Self inflicted death in prison is 4 times greater than in the normal UK population – on average around 100 out of the 85,000 prisoners in the UK. It doesn’t take much to calculate that at Woodhill with around 820 prisoners, we can expect around one self inflicted death every year.
Fortunately, such abandoned hope happens to a small minority of prisoners - around 4% of prisoners confide in having suicidal thoughts or have self-harmed. But it will be exacerbated unless there are committed men and women of faith offering the antidote – Hope.
If I had written this sermon before today’s service was put together, I would have asked for the Franciscan hymn ‘Make me a Channel of your Peace’ because of the verse:
Where there’s despair let me bring hope
This is what the Chaplaincy team of ministers and volunteers do by their very presence – we are visual aids for Hope. This is the marching song we sing as we break step with the march encouraged by the media and many politicians.
So are there signs of hope in Woodhill? There are indeed, let’s hear four prisoners explain what difference the Chaplaincy makes:
1. “As some of us were suddenly whisked away with less than 4 weeks to serve on an overcrowding draft from Woodhill to Lincoln, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your care and excellent Sunday services…… for our brilliant Monday bible studies where we benefited much from our studies of Romans …. The sacrifice you’ve made to work with prisoners brings a blessing.”
2. “Sir, I’m just writing to say thank you for helping me to become a better person. Before I came to prison I didn’t think about my actions. I’ve just finished the Sycamore Tree Programme which has really helped me. (This is a Victim Awareness and Restorative Justice Programme run by the Christian group – Prison Fellowship). I now think about my family more and other people’s families. I’m not going to excuse my actions with my bad past as I know what’s right and wrong.”
3. “you guys turned it around for me …. Remember on the last class David gave us the IF and THEN assignment, this is mine from Philippians 2:
IF I be encouraged, comforted and compassionate
THEN my joy will be complete on being like-minded with the same love and being one in spirit and purpose.
IF I consider others better than myself
THEN my attitude will be the same as that of Christ Jesus
IF I be humbled
THEN God will lift me up
IF I do everything without complaining and arguing
THEN I become blameless and pure as a child of God for Him to boast that he did not labour for nothing.
Thank you for giving me the encouragement and it has paid off and I will carry on.”
4. “Sometimes you look into others eyes and you see that sometime they have a look on their face of an endless chore of no hope. But they plod on regardless and receive no thanks. Sometimes when small things are asked you might think they go unnoticed. A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. God bless.”
The antidote to punishment and despair not to give up Hope even when we see a familiar face who has come through what can often be the revolving door of the prison gate. We do this by our very presence and our work, because our work is to help grow the self-esteem of prisoners and to strengthen their moral compass as they try to steer themselves through life.
I have always believed this core value and if you feel that God might be calling you to answer his call to do the same as a Chaplaincy Volunteer or Prison Visitor – please see me after the service.
This week, we are asked to pray for those who find it hard to Hold Fast to Hope.
1. On day 1 we pray for Victims of Crime,
2. On day 2 we pray for Prisoners
3. Day 3 for Families who serve “the silent sentence”
4. Day 4 for those who do extraordinary jobs – prison staff
5. Day 5 for the community
6. On the last day – for those engaged in the justice system
You can use the intercessions in today’s service to help you if you too would like to pray for those who sometimes struggle to Hold Fast to Hope. When I felt called to this ministry myself, I had to preach a sermon at my interview, and this is the story around which I based it and I would use it again:
Once upon a time there was a man who had two water jars – but years ago one of the jars had got a small hole knocked in it. Every morning the man would put a pole across his back and carry the jars, one on each end, down to the river at the bottom of the hill.
Each day the man returned home with only one and a half jars full of water. The perfect water jar was rather pleased with itself, but the other jar felt miserable because it always got home half full. In fact, it felt so bad, that one day it surprised the old man and spoke to him,
"I’m ashamed of myself,” she said, “and I want to say sorry."
"Why?" asked the old man, "What are you ashamed of?"
"Every day I’ve wanted to get home full to the brim with water, but this hole in my side means I lose half on the way. Compared to the other jar I feel useless.”
The old man felt sorry for her, and to cheer her up said, "On our way home, take a look at the lovely flowers by the roadside.”
The water jar took his advice and as they walked she smiled at the beautiful wild flowers by the road, but when she got home she still felt sad because once more she was only half full and so, again, said she was sorry.
The old man smiled and said to the water jar, "Didn’t you notice that the flowers were only on your side of the road, and not on the other? That's because I’ve always known about the hole in your side – so I planted flower seeds on your side of the road, and every day on our way back from the stream, you've watered them. So now, I can pick these beautiful flowers to decorate my table. Without you being just the way you are, my house would have no beauty in it.”
Sunday, September 20, 2009
The Reverend David Gamble, 20th September 2009
Covenant Renewal Service, 10.30 Sunday 20 September 2009
The Reverend David Gamble, President of the Methodist Conference
Let me first say what a delight and privilege it is to share this service with you today. I’ve brought you a present.
It’s a candle, in a presentation bag. It’s a candle from this year’s Methodist Conference, which was in Wolverhampton. It has on it the Wolverhampton cross of nails. It’s become a sort of tradition, for what Methodists might call connecting the connexion. Wherever the Vice-President and I travel and lead worship, during this year, we are taking one of these candles. So we have already taken candles like this to London, Leeds, County Durham, and to various town and cities in Scotland, and Shetland. We’ve taken them to Wesley’s Chapel and Westminster Central Hall. Currently the Vice-President is in Chile. And I’m in Milton Keynes and am delighted to bring a candle for you. Last Monday I was officially opening the new offices of Methodist Insurance Company, so I took them one – but I don’t think they’ll be taking it out of its presentation bag and light it. Too risky. May keep it in a bucket of water!
Today is a special Sunday in various ways. Of course, it’s particularly special here in Christ the Cornerstone, because it’s the Sunday of your annual Covenant Renewal. But, in the wider church, it’s also the Sunday designated as ‘Peacemaking Sunday’. And in the lectionary which many churches use today, this Sunday has the snappy title of the twenty-fifth Sunday in ordinary time. Our Old and New Testament readings are the readings for that Sunday. And I’m hoping this sermon might make a few links between these three different things – well, actually, I know it will because I wrote it.
So, let’s go straight to today’s gospel reading, which was from Mark 9, 30-37. Jesus and the disciples are on the way to Jerusalem. The disciples already know that Jesus is someone very special. They’re even thinking he might be the Messiah. But Jesus has made it quite clear that if he is the Messiah, he’s not going to be the kind of Messiah they were hoping for and expecting. At every opportunity, Jesus tries to explain what kind of Messiah he is. Not a strong, violent, warlike, powerful, ruling one coming to smash the Romans and throw them out of the country and establish his own military government. But a loving, caring, vulnerable, even suffering and dying one. But the disciples don’t really get it. And they’re confused and sometimes argumentative. And so, in the second part of the passage we heard this morning, it turns out they’ve been arguing over who is the greatest between them. The most important. Who’s the best, maybe. Who is the greatest?
Who is the greatest? And Mark probably included the story in his gospel because it wasn’t just those first disciples of Jesus who argued about it. The problem kept coming up. One of the most memorable images in several of St Paul’s letters is that of the church as the body of Christ. But he didn’t just invent it because he knew that in centuries to come it would make the basis for a good children’s address. He used it because people in the early church kept arguing about who was the greatest, the most important. So Paul says, ‘Look. Think of a body. It’s made up of lots of different parts. And it needs all those different parts and it needs them to be different or it wouldn’t work as a body. The parts are different – not better or worse, greater or lesser. Simply different. Apostles, teachers, preachers, administrators, pastoral workers – all important. All different. None greater than others. All essential.
So, back to Mark’s story. Here’s Jesus, faced with his followers arguing about who is the greatest. So, what does Jesus do or say? Well, first Mark says Jesus tells his disciples that ‘whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’ Then Mark says Jesus picks up a little child, holds the child in his arms, and says ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’ To be honest, as you read this it’s a rather strange answer to the question. Indeed, it isn’t really an answer to the question about who is the greatest. There were several sayings of Jesus about little children around for Mark and the other gospel writers to choose from. In his version of this story, Matthew chooses one that fits much better (Matt.18.4) ‘Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.’ Who is the greatest? Whoever becomes humble, like a child.
But in Mark the argument about who is the greatest finishes with Jesus talking about receiving, welcoming, accepting children. And he says that anyone who welcomes a child welcomes him – and not just him, but the one who sent him. So, how you respond to a small child is how you respond to God. And I suppose I read Mark as saying something like this. I’m not going to help you answer the question of who is the greatest, because it’s the wrong question. God’s way, the Jesus way, is not about squabbles over power and people setting themselves up as the most important, the best, the greatest. Just the opposite. God’s way is about caring for the smallest, the weakest, the least powerful, the most vulnerable. It’s a totally different way. Pointing to a totally different kind of world if people took it seriously.
A totally different kind of world. Things could be so different!
And our reading from the Hebrew Scripture, Psalm 1, suggests there are 2 different ways – the way the world usually seems to operate, with people after the best for themselves and not too worried about how others are doing, and the way of those whose delight is in God. A totally different kind of world.
Things could be different – lots. And by drawing attention to the little child, Jesus points to how different the world would and could be. If only......
I said earlier that, as well as being your Covenant Renewal Sunday, today – September 20th - has been designated as Peacemaking Sunday. It links with tomorrow, September 21st, which since 1982 has been the United Nations’ International Day of Peace. And, because it’s important for Christians as individuals and as churches to align themselves with those who care about the same things, more recently the nearest Sunday to September 21st has been named Peacemaking Sunday. Why the title ‘Peacemaking’ Sunday, rather than, say, just Peace Sunday. Peacemaking Sunday.
And I guess the answer is because peace is something you have to work at. It doesn’t just happen. In the beatitudes, that purple passage at the beginning of his sermon on the mount (Matthew 5), Jesus says ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’ Not ‘Blessed are those who think peace might be quite a nice thing sometime.’ But ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’. The people who work to make peace come about. Peace doesn’t just happen. It has to be worked for.
When I was a child at Sunday School, we were told of a game played by Hebrew children as they were taught their scriptures. This was before football was invented. The game was that you had to try to find a text from the scriptures that began and ended with the same letters that your name began and ended with. Like a harder version of ‘I spy’. So, if your name was Fred you looked for a line of scripture that began with F and ended in D. Psalm 14, verse 1: ‘Fools say in their hearts there is no God.’ Ben. B. N. Psalm 137, verse 1. ‘By the rivers of Babylon – there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion.’ Ingrid. I. D. John 1.1 ‘In the beginning was the word’ – it’s quite catching. You might like to try it. Anyway, my name is David. And after some research I came up with my verse as Psalm 34, verse14. ‘Depart from evil and do good.’ I’ve remembered it ever since. But actually, that verse has a second half. ‘Depart from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it!’ Peace doesn’t just happen. People have to pursue it, actively to seek it, to try to bring it about, to make it. Peacemakers.
And in how many parts of the world today do we need peacemakers? People who believe that the world could be different. In Iraq. In Afghanistan. In Palestine. In Somalia. People who don’t squabble over power. Who don’t argue over who is the greatest, and seek top p[rove they are, but who accept and welcome and receive and care about the little ones. The powerless ones. The hurting ones. The vulnerable ones. Things could be different.
At the beginning of last week, having delivered my candle to Methodist Insurance, I went on to Liverpool. To the TUC Conference. I heard the anger of people who fear their jobs are going to be cut. And of people who have no jobs, and whose fathers had no job, and whose grandfathers had no jobs. I heard the wrath of postal workers describing their working conditions and what they get paid and then asking how could it be justified that the head of the Post Office gets paid 175 times more than they do.
I heard Gordon Brown trying to respond to the questions the union representatives had. To their concerns and the things that made them angry. Tomorrow I go to Bournemouth to hear the Liberal Democrats setting out their stall for a general election that is bound to happen by next summer. And in the next two weeks there will be the Labour Party and Conservative Party Conferences (unfortunately I shall miss them, as I’m going to India and Sri Lanka). But over the coming months we’ll be faced with the struggle for power. Who is the greatest? Who is most able to govern? Who’ll get the most votes?
And I wonder what alternative societies we shall be offered. Is there an alternative enough alternative? Where will the little ones, the powerless ones, the hurting ones, the marginalised ones feature in what we are asked to vote for? Will we be shown that things could really be different?
One of the roles of Christian people and people of faith; one of the roles of faith communities, is to place a question mark against how things are happening in the wider world. And I hope we shall become involved as the election approaches – and maybe go to meetings and write letters and keep ourselves well informed. But maybe it’s not just about asking questions in words – though that is important. Maybe part of what we do is to model the alternative. Not just to ask why things can’t be different, but to show that they can.
Which is at least one reason why this Church and what it seeks to demonstrate is so very important. Because just as it was with the first followers of Jesus, and just as it was in the early church, so it has been through history. Christians and their churches sometimes fall out, and argue over which church is more important and which church has the right answers. And this church, Christ the Cornerstone, has committed itself to a different way. It has said ‘Things could be different’. The people here have committed themselves to a covenant in which you work together not against each other or in competition. Rather, the opposite. As you renew your covenant later in this service you will say that you commit yourselves – again -
To work together in love
To pray and care for one another and for our neighbour
To serve together the community based in the City Centre
And to live together in fellowship
To the greater glory of God.
And it is a privilege for me to share in this renewing of your covenant. A commitment to things being different in this church. A prophetic statement that things can be different. A sign of God’s kingdom.
Things really could be different.
The Kingdom - RS Thomas
It’s a long way off but inside it
There are quite different things going on:
Festivals at which the poor man
Is king and the consumptive is
Healed; mirrors in which the blind look
At themselves and love looks at them
Back: and industry is for mending
The bent bones and the minds fractured
By life. It’s a long way off, but to get
There takes no time and admission
Is free, if you will purge yourself
Of desire, and present yourself with
Your need only and the simple offering
Of your faith, green as a leaf.
The Reverend David Gamble, President of the Methodist Conference
Let me first say what a delight and privilege it is to share this service with you today. I’ve brought you a present.
It’s a candle, in a presentation bag. It’s a candle from this year’s Methodist Conference, which was in Wolverhampton. It has on it the Wolverhampton cross of nails. It’s become a sort of tradition, for what Methodists might call connecting the connexion. Wherever the Vice-President and I travel and lead worship, during this year, we are taking one of these candles. So we have already taken candles like this to London, Leeds, County Durham, and to various town and cities in Scotland, and Shetland. We’ve taken them to Wesley’s Chapel and Westminster Central Hall. Currently the Vice-President is in Chile. And I’m in Milton Keynes and am delighted to bring a candle for you. Last Monday I was officially opening the new offices of Methodist Insurance Company, so I took them one – but I don’t think they’ll be taking it out of its presentation bag and light it. Too risky. May keep it in a bucket of water!
Today is a special Sunday in various ways. Of course, it’s particularly special here in Christ the Cornerstone, because it’s the Sunday of your annual Covenant Renewal. But, in the wider church, it’s also the Sunday designated as ‘Peacemaking Sunday’. And in the lectionary which many churches use today, this Sunday has the snappy title of the twenty-fifth Sunday in ordinary time. Our Old and New Testament readings are the readings for that Sunday. And I’m hoping this sermon might make a few links between these three different things – well, actually, I know it will because I wrote it.
So, let’s go straight to today’s gospel reading, which was from Mark 9, 30-37. Jesus and the disciples are on the way to Jerusalem. The disciples already know that Jesus is someone very special. They’re even thinking he might be the Messiah. But Jesus has made it quite clear that if he is the Messiah, he’s not going to be the kind of Messiah they were hoping for and expecting. At every opportunity, Jesus tries to explain what kind of Messiah he is. Not a strong, violent, warlike, powerful, ruling one coming to smash the Romans and throw them out of the country and establish his own military government. But a loving, caring, vulnerable, even suffering and dying one. But the disciples don’t really get it. And they’re confused and sometimes argumentative. And so, in the second part of the passage we heard this morning, it turns out they’ve been arguing over who is the greatest between them. The most important. Who’s the best, maybe. Who is the greatest?
Who is the greatest? And Mark probably included the story in his gospel because it wasn’t just those first disciples of Jesus who argued about it. The problem kept coming up. One of the most memorable images in several of St Paul’s letters is that of the church as the body of Christ. But he didn’t just invent it because he knew that in centuries to come it would make the basis for a good children’s address. He used it because people in the early church kept arguing about who was the greatest, the most important. So Paul says, ‘Look. Think of a body. It’s made up of lots of different parts. And it needs all those different parts and it needs them to be different or it wouldn’t work as a body. The parts are different – not better or worse, greater or lesser. Simply different. Apostles, teachers, preachers, administrators, pastoral workers – all important. All different. None greater than others. All essential.
So, back to Mark’s story. Here’s Jesus, faced with his followers arguing about who is the greatest. So, what does Jesus do or say? Well, first Mark says Jesus tells his disciples that ‘whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’ Then Mark says Jesus picks up a little child, holds the child in his arms, and says ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’ To be honest, as you read this it’s a rather strange answer to the question. Indeed, it isn’t really an answer to the question about who is the greatest. There were several sayings of Jesus about little children around for Mark and the other gospel writers to choose from. In his version of this story, Matthew chooses one that fits much better (Matt.18.4) ‘Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.’ Who is the greatest? Whoever becomes humble, like a child.
But in Mark the argument about who is the greatest finishes with Jesus talking about receiving, welcoming, accepting children. And he says that anyone who welcomes a child welcomes him – and not just him, but the one who sent him. So, how you respond to a small child is how you respond to God. And I suppose I read Mark as saying something like this. I’m not going to help you answer the question of who is the greatest, because it’s the wrong question. God’s way, the Jesus way, is not about squabbles over power and people setting themselves up as the most important, the best, the greatest. Just the opposite. God’s way is about caring for the smallest, the weakest, the least powerful, the most vulnerable. It’s a totally different way. Pointing to a totally different kind of world if people took it seriously.
A totally different kind of world. Things could be so different!
And our reading from the Hebrew Scripture, Psalm 1, suggests there are 2 different ways – the way the world usually seems to operate, with people after the best for themselves and not too worried about how others are doing, and the way of those whose delight is in God. A totally different kind of world.
Things could be different – lots. And by drawing attention to the little child, Jesus points to how different the world would and could be. If only......
I said earlier that, as well as being your Covenant Renewal Sunday, today – September 20th - has been designated as Peacemaking Sunday. It links with tomorrow, September 21st, which since 1982 has been the United Nations’ International Day of Peace. And, because it’s important for Christians as individuals and as churches to align themselves with those who care about the same things, more recently the nearest Sunday to September 21st has been named Peacemaking Sunday. Why the title ‘Peacemaking’ Sunday, rather than, say, just Peace Sunday. Peacemaking Sunday.
And I guess the answer is because peace is something you have to work at. It doesn’t just happen. In the beatitudes, that purple passage at the beginning of his sermon on the mount (Matthew 5), Jesus says ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’ Not ‘Blessed are those who think peace might be quite a nice thing sometime.’ But ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’. The people who work to make peace come about. Peace doesn’t just happen. It has to be worked for.
When I was a child at Sunday School, we were told of a game played by Hebrew children as they were taught their scriptures. This was before football was invented. The game was that you had to try to find a text from the scriptures that began and ended with the same letters that your name began and ended with. Like a harder version of ‘I spy’. So, if your name was Fred you looked for a line of scripture that began with F and ended in D. Psalm 14, verse 1: ‘Fools say in their hearts there is no God.’ Ben. B. N. Psalm 137, verse 1. ‘By the rivers of Babylon – there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion.’ Ingrid. I. D. John 1.1 ‘In the beginning was the word’ – it’s quite catching. You might like to try it. Anyway, my name is David. And after some research I came up with my verse as Psalm 34, verse14. ‘Depart from evil and do good.’ I’ve remembered it ever since. But actually, that verse has a second half. ‘Depart from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it!’ Peace doesn’t just happen. People have to pursue it, actively to seek it, to try to bring it about, to make it. Peacemakers.
And in how many parts of the world today do we need peacemakers? People who believe that the world could be different. In Iraq. In Afghanistan. In Palestine. In Somalia. People who don’t squabble over power. Who don’t argue over who is the greatest, and seek top p[rove they are, but who accept and welcome and receive and care about the little ones. The powerless ones. The hurting ones. The vulnerable ones. Things could be different.
At the beginning of last week, having delivered my candle to Methodist Insurance, I went on to Liverpool. To the TUC Conference. I heard the anger of people who fear their jobs are going to be cut. And of people who have no jobs, and whose fathers had no job, and whose grandfathers had no jobs. I heard the wrath of postal workers describing their working conditions and what they get paid and then asking how could it be justified that the head of the Post Office gets paid 175 times more than they do.
I heard Gordon Brown trying to respond to the questions the union representatives had. To their concerns and the things that made them angry. Tomorrow I go to Bournemouth to hear the Liberal Democrats setting out their stall for a general election that is bound to happen by next summer. And in the next two weeks there will be the Labour Party and Conservative Party Conferences (unfortunately I shall miss them, as I’m going to India and Sri Lanka). But over the coming months we’ll be faced with the struggle for power. Who is the greatest? Who is most able to govern? Who’ll get the most votes?
And I wonder what alternative societies we shall be offered. Is there an alternative enough alternative? Where will the little ones, the powerless ones, the hurting ones, the marginalised ones feature in what we are asked to vote for? Will we be shown that things could really be different?
One of the roles of Christian people and people of faith; one of the roles of faith communities, is to place a question mark against how things are happening in the wider world. And I hope we shall become involved as the election approaches – and maybe go to meetings and write letters and keep ourselves well informed. But maybe it’s not just about asking questions in words – though that is important. Maybe part of what we do is to model the alternative. Not just to ask why things can’t be different, but to show that they can.
Which is at least one reason why this Church and what it seeks to demonstrate is so very important. Because just as it was with the first followers of Jesus, and just as it was in the early church, so it has been through history. Christians and their churches sometimes fall out, and argue over which church is more important and which church has the right answers. And this church, Christ the Cornerstone, has committed itself to a different way. It has said ‘Things could be different’. The people here have committed themselves to a covenant in which you work together not against each other or in competition. Rather, the opposite. As you renew your covenant later in this service you will say that you commit yourselves – again -
To work together in love
To pray and care for one another and for our neighbour
To serve together the community based in the City Centre
And to live together in fellowship
To the greater glory of God.
And it is a privilege for me to share in this renewing of your covenant. A commitment to things being different in this church. A prophetic statement that things can be different. A sign of God’s kingdom.
Things really could be different.
The Kingdom - RS Thomas
It’s a long way off but inside it
There are quite different things going on:
Festivals at which the poor man
Is king and the consumptive is
Healed; mirrors in which the blind look
At themselves and love looks at them
Back: and industry is for mending
The bent bones and the minds fractured
By life. It’s a long way off, but to get
There takes no time and admission
Is free, if you will purge yourself
Of desire, and present yourself with
Your need only and the simple offering
Of your faith, green as a leaf.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
God's in the Dark.
Sermon presented by David Moore at the Church of Christ the Cornerstone, 30 August 2009
I Kings 8 v 12
From the beginning of recorded histories there have always been taboos about depicting God. The second Commandment is explicit - no graven images.
In other words do not depict what you have not seen or cannot see. It sounds akin to a total block on imagination and creativity. The problem with idolatry is that it can very quickly lead to expressing as fact what you do not know for sure to be true! So, beware, do not overstate your convictions!
I find it strangely attractive, perhaps poetic, that the God who chooses to dwell in darkness has shone his light upon us in the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Now then, why might God choose to dwell in darkness?
These may not be burning issues for you but for me as a theologian and an artist - these are issues we neglect to our peril! Or, put in another way, why might it be that the deepest mystery of our faith can be encapsulated in a slice of bread and a cup of wine.
The God ‘concealed’ in bread and wine is the one who chooses darkness that we might enjoy the light.
You will recall these words from John 6. ‘My flesh is real food, my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me and I in him.’
What do we really think these words mean? Are any of us like those first hearers who said “This is more than we can stand”. Some who heard Jesus speak voted with their feet! At the heart of this issue is the God of light choosing to dwell in darkness.
A possible clue!
Those of you who are parents will have had the experience of teaching a child to ride a bicycle and having to let go of the saddle for the first time - it has got to be done, not just once but in 1000 other ways - letting go. If we over-protect our young we weaken their autonomy. It is not for nothing we refer to God as father - which of course equally means mother! - the one who steps back into darkness and allows the other the light.
Another clue!
The director of the play, or the stage manager must disappear into the shadows of the wings for the actors to perform. Without a fully autonomous performance, that exquisite interaction between the actor’s voice and the audience’s ear; without that magic the audience cannot engage heart, memory, emotion, imagination - mysteriously offering it as part of the total performance. Not only is play-write, director and prompter all in the darkness but so is the audience! The play does not exist for the actors, neither does it solely exist for the audience!
Somehow in worship the rules of theatre apply - no wonder we close our eyes to pray – we, like God, also enter the dark! Collectively, we help each other to ‘balance our bicycle’, to ‘act’ to ‘sing’, to remember, to engage ... to have faith!
Bread and wine, the evocative symbols of faith ONLY exist in order to disappear. Any nourishment that occurs is not from the nutriments but the mysterious ‘conversations’ which occur within; within the darkness and with the One who chooses that darkness?
I want to park all of that for a moment or two and ask you some questions. These are questions which do not have a right or wrong answer. Will you answer ‘yes’ by raising a hand.
So without doubt most of you are artists - to do any of the tasks I mentioned you have to imagine - to engage your inner world with your outer world. That is how the practice of creativity occurs - the inside and the outside, if you like, the light and the dark. When that which dwells in darkness combines with practical physical movements.
How many of you draw? How many of you, if asked, would automatically reply ‘ I can’t draw?’
Picasso was perhaps the greatest artist of the 20th century - as a boy and young man he drew with amazing skill and dexterity, producing drawings of photographic accuracy. Yet later his great quest was to learn to draw with the freedom of a child – drawing where precision and accuracy no longer mattered. Capturing the essence became the big issue.
You know why am I telling you all this, but I will tell you again - every year in October there is a national drawing campaign called The Big Draw - it aims to encourage those of you who say ‘I can’t draw’ to un-believe – to have faith and have a go!
Here at Cornerstone we plan to cover the wall of the entire cloister with drawing paper and to invite people to draw Bible stories - the work can be done at home and fixed to the wall or can be drawn straight onto the wall. I am asking all the churches in Milton Keynes to join in, also company workplaces, residential homes and those in the prison. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a healing miracle drawn by a doctor, St Paul’s prison break by a Police Officer and the widow’s mite by the Bank Manager.
Any Bible story or reference – pencil, charcoal, paint, crayon, pastels, photography, collage, fabrics, calligraphy - have faith, make a picture ... allow the God who shares the darkness of your doubt to give you the courage to have a go?
My son and family recently returned from holiday – before they left I gave him and his two daughters a blank postcard each with the request - ‘don’t just send me a postcard, draw me one’. Last week I received three beautiful postcards from Thailand - it made my heart glad in ways that completely surprised me. I was quite unprepared for the impact their work had upon me!
I like to think that if some of you were to have a go, it would be like sharing your light with the God who chooses to be in the shadows, and perhaps more!.
The plan is to draw the Bible in a month – which is a surprising and interesting way of saying ‘we believe’. That we even believe in what we think we can’t do! Now that is faith or is it not?
In John 6 v56: Jesus was talking about eating his flesh and drinking his blood - he is not speaking about cannibalism, or proposing belief in magic! This is about participating, about joining in, about discovering that the effects of joining-in always bring us closer to the deeper mysteries in life.
During my ministry I have met people who would never take communion because they thought they were not good enough. But you know and I know, that this is not what communion is about, ultimately it is about saying ‘I’m in’.
A person saying ‘I can’t draw’ usually means ‘I won’t draw, because I don’t think I am good enough at it’. I know - I have said that all my life! Might we ‘non-drawers’ be somewhat akin to the person refusing communion on the grounds they are not good enough.
Go on, make God smile - create a drawing - YOUR drawing. Make God smile, not as in laughing at you, but as delighting in you. You might for a moment draw God out of the shadows – sorry about the pun!
The Big Draw will happen at Cornerstone during October. Wherever you are you are most welcome to join in - you could make a small drawing and scan it into your computer and send it to us. Or if you might wish to create an electronic drawing. We still do use the postal service and our address is on the website, so you can mail your contribution to us. Please address it to 'Cornerstones Big Draw'. Click here for our contact details on our website.
I Kings 8 v 12
Then Solomon said: The Lord has caused his sun to shine in the heavens, but he has said he will dwell in darkness.
From the beginning of recorded histories there have always been taboos about depicting God. The second Commandment is explicit - no graven images.
In other words do not depict what you have not seen or cannot see. It sounds akin to a total block on imagination and creativity. The problem with idolatry is that it can very quickly lead to expressing as fact what you do not know for sure to be true! So, beware, do not overstate your convictions!
I find it strangely attractive, perhaps poetic, that the God who chooses to dwell in darkness has shone his light upon us in the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Now then, why might God choose to dwell in darkness?
These may not be burning issues for you but for me as a theologian and an artist - these are issues we neglect to our peril! Or, put in another way, why might it be that the deepest mystery of our faith can be encapsulated in a slice of bread and a cup of wine.
The God ‘concealed’ in bread and wine is the one who chooses darkness that we might enjoy the light.
You will recall these words from John 6. ‘My flesh is real food, my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me and I in him.’
What do we really think these words mean? Are any of us like those first hearers who said “This is more than we can stand”. Some who heard Jesus speak voted with their feet! At the heart of this issue is the God of light choosing to dwell in darkness.
A possible clue!
Those of you who are parents will have had the experience of teaching a child to ride a bicycle and having to let go of the saddle for the first time - it has got to be done, not just once but in 1000 other ways - letting go. If we over-protect our young we weaken their autonomy. It is not for nothing we refer to God as father - which of course equally means mother! - the one who steps back into darkness and allows the other the light.
Another clue!
The director of the play, or the stage manager must disappear into the shadows of the wings for the actors to perform. Without a fully autonomous performance, that exquisite interaction between the actor’s voice and the audience’s ear; without that magic the audience cannot engage heart, memory, emotion, imagination - mysteriously offering it as part of the total performance. Not only is play-write, director and prompter all in the darkness but so is the audience! The play does not exist for the actors, neither does it solely exist for the audience!
Somehow in worship the rules of theatre apply - no wonder we close our eyes to pray – we, like God, also enter the dark! Collectively, we help each other to ‘balance our bicycle’, to ‘act’ to ‘sing’, to remember, to engage ... to have faith!
Bread and wine, the evocative symbols of faith ONLY exist in order to disappear. Any nourishment that occurs is not from the nutriments but the mysterious ‘conversations’ which occur within; within the darkness and with the One who chooses that darkness?
I want to park all of that for a moment or two and ask you some questions. These are questions which do not have a right or wrong answer. Will you answer ‘yes’ by raising a hand.
- How many enjoy cooking?
- How many of you make cakes or bake bread?
- How many of you are gardeners by choice rather than of necessity?
- How many use make-up?
- How many of you do cross-stitch or the like?
- How many like to sing?
- How many of you knit or make things of fabric?
- How many make things of wood or DIY?
- How many of you draw, or paint or make collages?
- How many of you have raised their hand one or more times?
So without doubt most of you are artists - to do any of the tasks I mentioned you have to imagine - to engage your inner world with your outer world. That is how the practice of creativity occurs - the inside and the outside, if you like, the light and the dark. When that which dwells in darkness combines with practical physical movements.
How many of you draw? How many of you, if asked, would automatically reply ‘ I can’t draw?’
Picasso was perhaps the greatest artist of the 20th century - as a boy and young man he drew with amazing skill and dexterity, producing drawings of photographic accuracy. Yet later his great quest was to learn to draw with the freedom of a child – drawing where precision and accuracy no longer mattered. Capturing the essence became the big issue.
You know why am I telling you all this, but I will tell you again - every year in October there is a national drawing campaign called The Big Draw - it aims to encourage those of you who say ‘I can’t draw’ to un-believe – to have faith and have a go!
Here at Cornerstone we plan to cover the wall of the entire cloister with drawing paper and to invite people to draw Bible stories - the work can be done at home and fixed to the wall or can be drawn straight onto the wall. I am asking all the churches in Milton Keynes to join in, also company workplaces, residential homes and those in the prison. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a healing miracle drawn by a doctor, St Paul’s prison break by a Police Officer and the widow’s mite by the Bank Manager.
Any Bible story or reference – pencil, charcoal, paint, crayon, pastels, photography, collage, fabrics, calligraphy - have faith, make a picture ... allow the God who shares the darkness of your doubt to give you the courage to have a go?
My son and family recently returned from holiday – before they left I gave him and his two daughters a blank postcard each with the request - ‘don’t just send me a postcard, draw me one’. Last week I received three beautiful postcards from Thailand - it made my heart glad in ways that completely surprised me. I was quite unprepared for the impact their work had upon me!
I like to think that if some of you were to have a go, it would be like sharing your light with the God who chooses to be in the shadows, and perhaps more!.
The plan is to draw the Bible in a month – which is a surprising and interesting way of saying ‘we believe’. That we even believe in what we think we can’t do! Now that is faith or is it not?
In John 6 v56: Jesus was talking about eating his flesh and drinking his blood - he is not speaking about cannibalism, or proposing belief in magic! This is about participating, about joining in, about discovering that the effects of joining-in always bring us closer to the deeper mysteries in life.
During my ministry I have met people who would never take communion because they thought they were not good enough. But you know and I know, that this is not what communion is about, ultimately it is about saying ‘I’m in’.
A person saying ‘I can’t draw’ usually means ‘I won’t draw, because I don’t think I am good enough at it’. I know - I have said that all my life! Might we ‘non-drawers’ be somewhat akin to the person refusing communion on the grounds they are not good enough.
Go on, make God smile - create a drawing - YOUR drawing. Make God smile, not as in laughing at you, but as delighting in you. You might for a moment draw God out of the shadows – sorry about the pun!
The Big Draw will happen at Cornerstone during October. Wherever you are you are most welcome to join in - you could make a small drawing and scan it into your computer and send it to us. Or if you might wish to create an electronic drawing. We still do use the postal service and our address is on the website, so you can mail your contribution to us. Please address it to 'Cornerstones Big Draw'. Click here for our contact details on our website.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Sunday 26 July 2009: Brenda Mosedale
Sermon preached by Rev Dr Brenda Mosedale on 26th July as heard by a member of the congregation.
Today I do not have a flip chart with a picture of a mountain, nor are you going to be given post it notes to complete. For those of you who have not been here for the past three weeks you will not see the significance of that remark. We have been considering in recent weeks our Vision, what is our dream for this church, our Purpose, what are we here in CMK for and who are we here for. Then in the third week we considered what Pathway we would nee to take to realise this vision and purpose. Ernesto had guided us in our thinking with a picture of a mountain and indicated the vision at its peak with our current position being somewhere near the foot. (I would question whether our vision should always be for the top of the mountain, but that discussion can be for another day.)
All of our responses on the post it notes are being collated and considered, then finally distilled into a common understanding of what should be our priorities and how we move forward. It’s rather like the model for business activity of deciding what on is about and seeing if one has the right resources and how one might deploy them to achieve the objective. The theory behind the model is that if you cannot see a way to achieve the objective without undue risk then one should not waste resources starting out on the project. I work in the Health Service and quite properly we also have overall objectives and have to consider the big picture, but you cannot be doing that all of the time, for the most part you have to buckle down and get the day to day tasks completed each day without too much thought for the long term. The priority is the patient before you.
So now we come back to having a sermon based upon the bible readings, but please do not forget the thoughts about vision purpose and our pathway, they are relevant to today’s message.
Today’s readings are both about feeding a crowd of people. Elisha’s servant thought that there was insufficient food to feed a crowd of people, but Elisha had faith that with God’s help it would be sufficient. John’s gospel gives us the familiar story of the feeding of the five thousand; rather more than Elisha had to deal with. I used to worry whether the miracle was that our Lord made the bread sufficient for all of the people with no other help or if the miracle was that having portioned out a tiny single lad’s food, others who had food were moved to share what they had and so all were satisfied. I do not think it matters which way we think of the miracle.
John’s gospel has a theme of the disciples, although witnesses to Christ’s teaching and miracles, not quite getting the message. Frequently too when things get tough or problematic they would take, not one or two, but six or seven paces back and then ask Our Lord what he was going to do. This story has such an instance. I have this picture of our Lord smiling at this point and even the gospel writer recording this with a smile. You can see them at it, just like Elisha’s servant. “It would take 200 denarii to feed this many”, “It’s no good we do not have the resources.” Then Andrew comes forward with a little boy and enough for one packed lunch! Big deal!
Jesus took the bread, blessed it and broke it; then, he took the fish, blessed it and broke it. What about that poor boy seeing his food being portioned out and given away. He might not have been happy until he had received in return his portion, which proved sufficient, for we are told all were satisfied.
In looking at our vision, purpose and the pathway God is asking us to follow, we may be tempted to take a strict perspective and say, we do not have the resource, it will be too difficult for us therefore we should not try to start. Perhaps with today’s readings we are being asked to show more faith in what God can do through us and not be disheartened at the size of the task. We have put individual responses on post-it notes and there will be far too many suggestions, if we are being asked for a common way forward. Those post–it notes are our loaves and fishes and we have to be prepared to see them blessed, broken up and shared so that God’s purpose can be fulfilled and all can be satisfied.
There are records of the feeding of the five thousand in other gospels, but here in John’s gospel it is followed by the story of Our Lord walking on the Sea of Galilee to offer encouragement to the disciples who were in a boat caught in a storm. I think the reinforces the message that we should be bolder in our thinking for what we as individuals might be able to do and what we collectively as a church should take on here in CMK today and in the future. The disciples thought Our Lord was not with them when they hit the storm, but he appeared when it seemed impossible for him to be able to intervene.
I think today’s message is for us both collectively and as individuals and ask you to take it with you and think about what each of you has to offer and recognise as you do that God will take it, give thanks- maybe break it and share it- because that is what is what it may take.
Today I do not have a flip chart with a picture of a mountain, nor are you going to be given post it notes to complete. For those of you who have not been here for the past three weeks you will not see the significance of that remark. We have been considering in recent weeks our Vision, what is our dream for this church, our Purpose, what are we here in CMK for and who are we here for. Then in the third week we considered what Pathway we would nee to take to realise this vision and purpose. Ernesto had guided us in our thinking with a picture of a mountain and indicated the vision at its peak with our current position being somewhere near the foot. (I would question whether our vision should always be for the top of the mountain, but that discussion can be for another day.)
All of our responses on the post it notes are being collated and considered, then finally distilled into a common understanding of what should be our priorities and how we move forward. It’s rather like the model for business activity of deciding what on is about and seeing if one has the right resources and how one might deploy them to achieve the objective. The theory behind the model is that if you cannot see a way to achieve the objective without undue risk then one should not waste resources starting out on the project. I work in the Health Service and quite properly we also have overall objectives and have to consider the big picture, but you cannot be doing that all of the time, for the most part you have to buckle down and get the day to day tasks completed each day without too much thought for the long term. The priority is the patient before you.
So now we come back to having a sermon based upon the bible readings, but please do not forget the thoughts about vision purpose and our pathway, they are relevant to today’s message.
Today’s readings are both about feeding a crowd of people. Elisha’s servant thought that there was insufficient food to feed a crowd of people, but Elisha had faith that with God’s help it would be sufficient. John’s gospel gives us the familiar story of the feeding of the five thousand; rather more than Elisha had to deal with. I used to worry whether the miracle was that our Lord made the bread sufficient for all of the people with no other help or if the miracle was that having portioned out a tiny single lad’s food, others who had food were moved to share what they had and so all were satisfied. I do not think it matters which way we think of the miracle.
John’s gospel has a theme of the disciples, although witnesses to Christ’s teaching and miracles, not quite getting the message. Frequently too when things get tough or problematic they would take, not one or two, but six or seven paces back and then ask Our Lord what he was going to do. This story has such an instance. I have this picture of our Lord smiling at this point and even the gospel writer recording this with a smile. You can see them at it, just like Elisha’s servant. “It would take 200 denarii to feed this many”, “It’s no good we do not have the resources.” Then Andrew comes forward with a little boy and enough for one packed lunch! Big deal!
Jesus took the bread, blessed it and broke it; then, he took the fish, blessed it and broke it. What about that poor boy seeing his food being portioned out and given away. He might not have been happy until he had received in return his portion, which proved sufficient, for we are told all were satisfied.
In looking at our vision, purpose and the pathway God is asking us to follow, we may be tempted to take a strict perspective and say, we do not have the resource, it will be too difficult for us therefore we should not try to start. Perhaps with today’s readings we are being asked to show more faith in what God can do through us and not be disheartened at the size of the task. We have put individual responses on post-it notes and there will be far too many suggestions, if we are being asked for a common way forward. Those post–it notes are our loaves and fishes and we have to be prepared to see them blessed, broken up and shared so that God’s purpose can be fulfilled and all can be satisfied.
There are records of the feeding of the five thousand in other gospels, but here in John’s gospel it is followed by the story of Our Lord walking on the Sea of Galilee to offer encouragement to the disciples who were in a boat caught in a storm. I think the reinforces the message that we should be bolder in our thinking for what we as individuals might be able to do and what we collectively as a church should take on here in CMK today and in the future. The disciples thought Our Lord was not with them when they hit the storm, but he appeared when it seemed impossible for him to be able to intervene.
I think today’s message is for us both collectively and as individuals and ask you to take it with you and think about what each of you has to offer and recognise as you do that God will take it, give thanks- maybe break it and share it- because that is what is what it may take.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
28 June 2009: David Tatem's farewell sermon
Final Address given by Revd David Tatem at the Church of Christ the Cornerstone, Milton Keynes on Sunday June 28th at the conclusion of his ministry there.
My text is taken not from either the old or new testament readings for today but from Lewis Carroll's Alice through the looking glass and in particular the rhyme of the Walrus and the Carpenter; 'the time has come the walrus said, to talk of many things..... I was going to leave it there but the verse goes on...of shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and Kings and why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings.'
This seems like a very appropriate quote for a 21st century church. After all, it has everything. There is something about the manufacturing industry and transport about agriculture and climate change and I suggest, change management too! Anyone who has tried to work with change in a church setting and especially in ecumenism will be familiar with the concept of the flying pig! In an 'ancient' manuscript of Cornerstone's I found when I was clearing out my office I found language which spoke of moves towards organic unity in the church and made some hopeful references to the year 2000, well, by the year 2000 there was certainly plenty of organic pork but none of it was flying!
It was though, the first part of the verse I was really thinking of. 'The time has come....to talk of many things. It's tempting in a sermon like tis to want to say all the things I've left unsaid, to pack them all in together but I need to focus down onto something which I hope you will remember and which may be helpful. To do that I want to tell you a story which come from a clip of an address given by Sir Ken Robinson, the education expert, at a conference in the U.S. [http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html]
He tells the story of an eight year old girl in the 1930's who was being extremely disruptive because she wouldn't sit still and couldn't concentrate. Today she would be diagnosed as having ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyper-activity Disorder) but in the 1930's people didn't know this was something they could have. Her school wrote to her parents saying that there was obviously something wrong with her and that they should get treatment to help her. Her mother took her to a specialist and they sat and talked for 20 minutes while the girl sat on her hands next to her mother. Eventually the specialist came and sat next to the girl and told her that he now needed to speak to her mother privately for a few minutes and that they would go to another room. As they left the room he switched on the radio and the girl immediately began to dance around the room to the music. They were looking in through a window and the specialist turned to the girl's mother and said, “she isn't sick, she's a dancer! Take her to a dance school". Her mother did just that, and the girl, Gillian Lynn, eventually went on to become a famous dance choreographer who worked with Andrew Lloyd Webber to create Cats and The Phantom of the Opera.
The point that Ken Robinson was making was that the specialist could have gone along with the 'popular' diagnosis of the school, that there was something wrong, and her creativity would have stifled. Thankfully he didn't but that is what so often happens in education, that creativity is educated out and not encouraged.
I want to pick up the thought and transfer it to the church to argue that one of the roles of faith and therefore the church, is to encourage and bring out creativity and not to stifle it by the demands of conformity to this or that.
We can be creative in art (and Cornerstone has many good examples of just that) but we can creative in liturgy in the way we respond to pastoral needs and in the way in which we reach out to the community and enable the wider community to be creative too. We can become a ferment of creativity. That should always be one of our core characteristics.
I'm not going to ignore our two bible readings, the story of Moses striking the rock to produce water for the people to drink and Jesus turning water into wine because they belong in a sequence together and they are relevant to provide a theological basis for what I have said. Moses demonstrated the creative use of a walking stick! Jesus takes the ordinariness of water, essential as it is especially to a people in desert conditions and turning it to wine makes it extraordinary. They both do it for the community, not just for themselves.
This is the challenge that the church goes on facing, to find ever new ways to be creative and to do it not in an inward looking way but outward looking, in ways which albeit slowly, build the Kingdom of God for the whole community.
We may be impatient for change or to see the visions we have had become a reality but perhaps our problem is with timescale and generations in the far future may look back on our time and be surprised as to how quickly things moved but they may say, “It went really very fast, it only took 200 years!”. We need to learn to be satisfied with the thought that the beat our butterflies wings here at Cornerstone may just cause a hurricane in Canterbury, or Rome or at the Methodist Conference or the Baptist and URC assemblies.
While we wait, the challenge is for us not to get impatient but to get creative. That's my challenge to you to get even more creative than you've been in the past and let it be to the benefit of the community. Let it become constantly better than it has been in the past.
My text is taken not from either the old or new testament readings for today but from Lewis Carroll's Alice through the looking glass and in particular the rhyme of the Walrus and the Carpenter; 'the time has come the walrus said, to talk of many things..... I was going to leave it there but the verse goes on...of shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and Kings and why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings.'
This seems like a very appropriate quote for a 21st century church. After all, it has everything. There is something about the manufacturing industry and transport about agriculture and climate change and I suggest, change management too! Anyone who has tried to work with change in a church setting and especially in ecumenism will be familiar with the concept of the flying pig! In an 'ancient' manuscript of Cornerstone's I found when I was clearing out my office I found language which spoke of moves towards organic unity in the church and made some hopeful references to the year 2000, well, by the year 2000 there was certainly plenty of organic pork but none of it was flying!
It was though, the first part of the verse I was really thinking of. 'The time has come....to talk of many things. It's tempting in a sermon like tis to want to say all the things I've left unsaid, to pack them all in together but I need to focus down onto something which I hope you will remember and which may be helpful. To do that I want to tell you a story which come from a clip of an address given by Sir Ken Robinson, the education expert, at a conference in the U.S. [http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html]
He tells the story of an eight year old girl in the 1930's who was being extremely disruptive because she wouldn't sit still and couldn't concentrate. Today she would be diagnosed as having ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyper-activity Disorder) but in the 1930's people didn't know this was something they could have. Her school wrote to her parents saying that there was obviously something wrong with her and that they should get treatment to help her. Her mother took her to a specialist and they sat and talked for 20 minutes while the girl sat on her hands next to her mother. Eventually the specialist came and sat next to the girl and told her that he now needed to speak to her mother privately for a few minutes and that they would go to another room. As they left the room he switched on the radio and the girl immediately began to dance around the room to the music. They were looking in through a window and the specialist turned to the girl's mother and said, “she isn't sick, she's a dancer! Take her to a dance school". Her mother did just that, and the girl, Gillian Lynn, eventually went on to become a famous dance choreographer who worked with Andrew Lloyd Webber to create Cats and The Phantom of the Opera.
The point that Ken Robinson was making was that the specialist could have gone along with the 'popular' diagnosis of the school, that there was something wrong, and her creativity would have stifled. Thankfully he didn't but that is what so often happens in education, that creativity is educated out and not encouraged.
I want to pick up the thought and transfer it to the church to argue that one of the roles of faith and therefore the church, is to encourage and bring out creativity and not to stifle it by the demands of conformity to this or that.
We can be creative in art (and Cornerstone has many good examples of just that) but we can creative in liturgy in the way we respond to pastoral needs and in the way in which we reach out to the community and enable the wider community to be creative too. We can become a ferment of creativity. That should always be one of our core characteristics.
I'm not going to ignore our two bible readings, the story of Moses striking the rock to produce water for the people to drink and Jesus turning water into wine because they belong in a sequence together and they are relevant to provide a theological basis for what I have said. Moses demonstrated the creative use of a walking stick! Jesus takes the ordinariness of water, essential as it is especially to a people in desert conditions and turning it to wine makes it extraordinary. They both do it for the community, not just for themselves.
This is the challenge that the church goes on facing, to find ever new ways to be creative and to do it not in an inward looking way but outward looking, in ways which albeit slowly, build the Kingdom of God for the whole community.
We may be impatient for change or to see the visions we have had become a reality but perhaps our problem is with timescale and generations in the far future may look back on our time and be surprised as to how quickly things moved but they may say, “It went really very fast, it only took 200 years!”. We need to learn to be satisfied with the thought that the beat our butterflies wings here at Cornerstone may just cause a hurricane in Canterbury, or Rome or at the Methodist Conference or the Baptist and URC assemblies.
While we wait, the challenge is for us not to get impatient but to get creative. That's my challenge to you to get even more creative than you've been in the past and let it be to the benefit of the community. Let it become constantly better than it has been in the past.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Pentecost 2009: David Moore
Sermon for Pentecost, 31st May 2009
David Moore*
I guess many of you will have noticed that I am not much of a singer. I have plenty of volume but I am somewhat inconsistent when it comes to the tune! I am also equally hopeless at doing accents. I just do not appear to have the facility for picking up and replicating sounds. Consequently I am thoroughly English when it comes to languages. When Dorothy and I travel abroad I push her ahead of me in the shops and restaurants. She, being a singer, is much better with the shapes and sounds of words. She is the audio/language member of our partnership and I am the visual/spacial counter balance.
So when it comes to Pentecost and people hearing in their own languages my heart leaps with delight, but also with incomprehension! What did happen on the day of Pentecost? How could it be that all these people could comprehend what was going on? I discovered an answer which made sense to me - by looking rather than listening.
Many moons ago a Jesuit friend of mine rang me one Friday evening and said "Be ready at 9.30 in the morning and get dressed to look as much like a Catholic as possible!" That was all he said - but the underlying excitement in his voice intrigued me and I agreed to go on some mysterious trip without further question.
The journey from my home was not long - a mile and a bit. It was to the local Catholic Centre - Pope John House. I was being taken to a private function attended by priests and nuns and hosted by the Roman Catholic Bishop of East London. I did not think I was doing much of a job of being a Catholic look-alike as none of the 150 or so priest and nuns were sporting large beards!
The guest of honour and speaker was Archbishop Helder Camara from Recife in Northern Brazil. Helder Camara a legend in his own life time! He was a household name around the world in 70/80s. His voice was not strong and I could not hear all that he said; at times his Brazilian accent was impossible to decipher. When he was lost for the English word, he simply slipped into Latin – which was not much help to me! However, he made an outstanding speech covering a range of topics and mysteriously I heard it all - somehow he was living a message and I saw and heard it all! But this was much more than being an enthusiastic or effective communicator - what he was saying 'came through'.
At one point in his speech he spoke directly to the Sisters - all head to toe in black. He told them – 30 years ago - that he was sure that one day their great church would ordain women as priests…. "Not in my life time and not in your life time, but we are people of faith, we live and work for what we will not see." Then with a mischievous twinkle in his eye he continued: "My dear sisters you can begin this very day your preparation for that great day. You can begin now by refusing to allow the male priest to boss you around. You can start living the future." You do this and others will take your place and take the next steps - live the future. As you can imagine, the atmosphere was electric. It was at that point I twigged - this was a Pentecostal moment. The electric - the flames - were as much to do with the resistance to the message as it was to the power of the speaker!
Pentecost pushes us to explore new boundaries, new relationships, new ways of being people in community. Pentecost rearranges our furniture, taking no account of our desire for neatness and order, even church order. Pentecost exposes fault the lines in society and in us as individuals. Think for a moment what it meant to a predominantly Jewish community of Christians to witness that Parthians, Medes, Elamites; inhabitants of Mesopotamia, of Judea and Cappadocia, of Pontus and Asia , of Phrygia and Pamphlyia, of Egypt and the districts of Libia; visitors from Rome both Jews and proselytes; Cretes and Arabs. In effect, virtually the whole known world.
Making sense of the cross-culturalism implicit at the Day of Pentecost makes the boldest adventures of our ecumenism appear modest, to say the least. We can but guess at the stresses and conflicts which had to be worked through for such a diverse group of people to seriously make sense of their life in Christ.
We face no less a task in our society. It would be all too easy for us today to shift all woes of the present time upon bankers or members of Parliament or the BNP. We Christians are part and parcel of the host culture of this land and we have hardly begun the serious work that is needed to sustain safe, inclusive multi-ethnic, multi-faith communities. On Tuesday this week the Dosti Lunch club will meet here in the Guildhall- all members from the Indian Subcontinent - I wonder what they have been feeling earlier this week with the British National Party broadcasting it views on prime time television. The majority of the members Dosti are older people - do you think they know deep in their hearts that if racial trouble occurred in MK we would be actively supporting/defending their interests. Standing with them against their enemies? Christians didn’t do much of a job defending the Jews when the Nazis broke the Synagogue windows.
If the Dodsti members do not know we are for them, then Pentecost is passing us by - for they will not have heard in their own language the love and grace we carry as the Body Christ for all people - in particular to those who come from distant lands - for they also are part and parcel of Pentecost! Pentecost is multinationalism!
I am not calling for knee jerk reactions - but for serious consideration of what Pentecost means for this City Centre Church. Are we a safe and welcome refuge for those whose traditions and cultures are different from our own - and if we are how are we communicating it?
Let me return to my encounter with Archbishop Helder Camara. When he finished speaking, the meeting room was being made ready for a Mass. The Archbishop wandered around talking to people. My friend dragged me off to meet him and introduced me as the only Protestant present. This slight man turned to me and embraced me with a hug far greater than his stature. Then pushing me away he asked what kind of Protestant. When I replied Methodist, he yelped like a puppy with delight, hugged me again, kissing me on both cheeks repeatedly. A few moments later he returned with a prayer book and said "we Catholics are very sinful people and you Methodists are so holy - I want you to lead us in the Mass by taking the confession and announcing absolution. He thrust the book into my hand saying, "your friend will explain it to you" and with that he was gone.
With more than a little trepidation I did as I was asked! Then when it was time for communion I remained in my seat - but he searched me out with his eye and beckoning me with his finger and I was the first to receive communion - bread from an archbishop and wine from a bishop! I tell you that not to arouse discontent as to the rules and customs under which we operate here - but to ask how we explore the possibility of such hospitality and grace to those outside our walls and especially toward those who faith is different to our own or of none?
I could add to all this by exploring the Milton Keynes Leipzig link and the content of our second reading - but you take home the service sheet and make time to read and think about it. This Church as progressive as we wish it to be, has hardly cut its milk teeth, there will be much tougher meat to chew in the years ahead. Only you can welcome the Christ of Fire into your inner self.
The Christ figure you passed on the way in to the worship was made for Pentecost 2000 and raises the question how we honour and respect other faith traditions whilst honouring and celebrating the dying/rising Christ. That will take a lot of listening and a lot of looking by us all.
The startling element of Pentecost is that it is a thumping welcome for all. Turning that welcome into practical political reality was as real a task for the infant church as it is for us. What an honour - we stand in the tradition of the apostles. But with diligence we have to learn our own lessons as did they!
*David Moore is a woodcarver and a Methodist minister and the preacher at the morning services at Christ the Cortnerstone on Pentecost Sunday. Prior to retirement he was the City Centre Chaplain in Milton Keynes
David Moore*
I guess many of you will have noticed that I am not much of a singer. I have plenty of volume but I am somewhat inconsistent when it comes to the tune! I am also equally hopeless at doing accents. I just do not appear to have the facility for picking up and replicating sounds. Consequently I am thoroughly English when it comes to languages. When Dorothy and I travel abroad I push her ahead of me in the shops and restaurants. She, being a singer, is much better with the shapes and sounds of words. She is the audio/language member of our partnership and I am the visual/spacial counter balance.
So when it comes to Pentecost and people hearing in their own languages my heart leaps with delight, but also with incomprehension! What did happen on the day of Pentecost? How could it be that all these people could comprehend what was going on? I discovered an answer which made sense to me - by looking rather than listening.
Many moons ago a Jesuit friend of mine rang me one Friday evening and said "Be ready at 9.30 in the morning and get dressed to look as much like a Catholic as possible!" That was all he said - but the underlying excitement in his voice intrigued me and I agreed to go on some mysterious trip without further question.
The journey from my home was not long - a mile and a bit. It was to the local Catholic Centre - Pope John House. I was being taken to a private function attended by priests and nuns and hosted by the Roman Catholic Bishop of East London. I did not think I was doing much of a job of being a Catholic look-alike as none of the 150 or so priest and nuns were sporting large beards!
The guest of honour and speaker was Archbishop Helder Camara from Recife in Northern Brazil. Helder Camara a legend in his own life time! He was a household name around the world in 70/80s. His voice was not strong and I could not hear all that he said; at times his Brazilian accent was impossible to decipher. When he was lost for the English word, he simply slipped into Latin – which was not much help to me! However, he made an outstanding speech covering a range of topics and mysteriously I heard it all - somehow he was living a message and I saw and heard it all! But this was much more than being an enthusiastic or effective communicator - what he was saying 'came through'.
At one point in his speech he spoke directly to the Sisters - all head to toe in black. He told them – 30 years ago - that he was sure that one day their great church would ordain women as priests…. "Not in my life time and not in your life time, but we are people of faith, we live and work for what we will not see." Then with a mischievous twinkle in his eye he continued: "My dear sisters you can begin this very day your preparation for that great day. You can begin now by refusing to allow the male priest to boss you around. You can start living the future." You do this and others will take your place and take the next steps - live the future. As you can imagine, the atmosphere was electric. It was at that point I twigged - this was a Pentecostal moment. The electric - the flames - were as much to do with the resistance to the message as it was to the power of the speaker!
Pentecost pushes us to explore new boundaries, new relationships, new ways of being people in community. Pentecost rearranges our furniture, taking no account of our desire for neatness and order, even church order. Pentecost exposes fault the lines in society and in us as individuals. Think for a moment what it meant to a predominantly Jewish community of Christians to witness that Parthians, Medes, Elamites; inhabitants of Mesopotamia, of Judea and Cappadocia, of Pontus and Asia , of Phrygia and Pamphlyia, of Egypt and the districts of Libia; visitors from Rome both Jews and proselytes; Cretes and Arabs. In effect, virtually the whole known world.
Making sense of the cross-culturalism implicit at the Day of Pentecost makes the boldest adventures of our ecumenism appear modest, to say the least. We can but guess at the stresses and conflicts which had to be worked through for such a diverse group of people to seriously make sense of their life in Christ.
We face no less a task in our society. It would be all too easy for us today to shift all woes of the present time upon bankers or members of Parliament or the BNP. We Christians are part and parcel of the host culture of this land and we have hardly begun the serious work that is needed to sustain safe, inclusive multi-ethnic, multi-faith communities. On Tuesday this week the Dosti Lunch club will meet here in the Guildhall- all members from the Indian Subcontinent - I wonder what they have been feeling earlier this week with the British National Party broadcasting it views on prime time television. The majority of the members Dosti are older people - do you think they know deep in their hearts that if racial trouble occurred in MK we would be actively supporting/defending their interests. Standing with them against their enemies? Christians didn’t do much of a job defending the Jews when the Nazis broke the Synagogue windows.
If the Dodsti members do not know we are for them, then Pentecost is passing us by - for they will not have heard in their own language the love and grace we carry as the Body Christ for all people - in particular to those who come from distant lands - for they also are part and parcel of Pentecost! Pentecost is multinationalism!
I am not calling for knee jerk reactions - but for serious consideration of what Pentecost means for this City Centre Church. Are we a safe and welcome refuge for those whose traditions and cultures are different from our own - and if we are how are we communicating it?
Let me return to my encounter with Archbishop Helder Camara. When he finished speaking, the meeting room was being made ready for a Mass. The Archbishop wandered around talking to people. My friend dragged me off to meet him and introduced me as the only Protestant present. This slight man turned to me and embraced me with a hug far greater than his stature. Then pushing me away he asked what kind of Protestant. When I replied Methodist, he yelped like a puppy with delight, hugged me again, kissing me on both cheeks repeatedly. A few moments later he returned with a prayer book and said "we Catholics are very sinful people and you Methodists are so holy - I want you to lead us in the Mass by taking the confession and announcing absolution. He thrust the book into my hand saying, "your friend will explain it to you" and with that he was gone.
With more than a little trepidation I did as I was asked! Then when it was time for communion I remained in my seat - but he searched me out with his eye and beckoning me with his finger and I was the first to receive communion - bread from an archbishop and wine from a bishop! I tell you that not to arouse discontent as to the rules and customs under which we operate here - but to ask how we explore the possibility of such hospitality and grace to those outside our walls and especially toward those who faith is different to our own or of none?
I could add to all this by exploring the Milton Keynes Leipzig link and the content of our second reading - but you take home the service sheet and make time to read and think about it. This Church as progressive as we wish it to be, has hardly cut its milk teeth, there will be much tougher meat to chew in the years ahead. Only you can welcome the Christ of Fire into your inner self.
The Christ figure you passed on the way in to the worship was made for Pentecost 2000 and raises the question how we honour and respect other faith traditions whilst honouring and celebrating the dying/rising Christ. That will take a lot of listening and a lot of looking by us all.
The startling element of Pentecost is that it is a thumping welcome for all. Turning that welcome into practical political reality was as real a task for the infant church as it is for us. What an honour - we stand in the tradition of the apostles. But with diligence we have to learn our own lessons as did they!
*David Moore is a woodcarver and a Methodist minister and the preacher at the morning services at Christ the Cortnerstone on Pentecost Sunday. Prior to retirement he was the City Centre Chaplain in Milton Keynes
Pentecost 2009: Leipzig reading
An ecumenical link has existed betweent Christians in Leipzig and Milton Keynes since 1987. An ecumenical group from Leipzig visited MK just last week. The visitors prepared themselves for their visit by studing a discussion paper prepared by Fulbert Steffensky, which in turn was discussed with thier Milton Keynes hosts.
This except, a third of the original lecture, will be read at Christ the Cornerstone on Pentecost Day.
The Church of Tomorrow: Fulbert Steffensky
1. Tomorrow’s church will be less connected to the state. We don’t know what will happen to holidays and Sundays. We don’t know if the name of God will be mentioned in the European constitution...
2. Tomorrow’s church will be smaller and poorer. No longer will it have at its disposal the vast resources for constructing its buildings, for academies and social facilities. This is a chance for the church to refocus. It can and will have to relearn who it is and what it needs to do.
3. Tomorrow’s church will be ecumenical. It will no longer allow the nonsense of confessional double structures. There won’t be a Catholic parish hall next to a Protestant one anymore, and a Catholic Nursing Home next to a Lutheran. The new ecumenism will liberate the denominations from the wrong and childish issues they are still caught up in today.
4. Tomorrow’s church will be less directed by the clergy. It will need the charismata of lay persons and voluntary workers and will be given much from them.
5. Tomorrow’s church will be more dominated by women. Because of that its theology will probably be more risky and diverse. Theological correctness and the trying to avoid making mistakes will play a lesser role.
6. Tomorrow’s church will be less determined by Eurocentrism. It will be influenced by other forms of piety and church services. On the one hand this is dangerous; on the other hand it’s an opportunity.
7. The members of tomorrow’s church will come from a society so far away from traditions, that they in turn will be able to devote themselves to the traditions of Christianity in freedom and without resentments. Breaking traditions leads to being open to traditions.
This except, a third of the original lecture, will be read at Christ the Cornerstone on Pentecost Day.
The Church of Tomorrow: Fulbert Steffensky
1. Tomorrow’s church will be less connected to the state. We don’t know what will happen to holidays and Sundays. We don’t know if the name of God will be mentioned in the European constitution...
2. Tomorrow’s church will be smaller and poorer. No longer will it have at its disposal the vast resources for constructing its buildings, for academies and social facilities. This is a chance for the church to refocus. It can and will have to relearn who it is and what it needs to do.
3. Tomorrow’s church will be ecumenical. It will no longer allow the nonsense of confessional double structures. There won’t be a Catholic parish hall next to a Protestant one anymore, and a Catholic Nursing Home next to a Lutheran. The new ecumenism will liberate the denominations from the wrong and childish issues they are still caught up in today.
4. Tomorrow’s church will be less directed by the clergy. It will need the charismata of lay persons and voluntary workers and will be given much from them.
5. Tomorrow’s church will be more dominated by women. Because of that its theology will probably be more risky and diverse. Theological correctness and the trying to avoid making mistakes will play a lesser role.
6. Tomorrow’s church will be less determined by Eurocentrism. It will be influenced by other forms of piety and church services. On the one hand this is dangerous; on the other hand it’s an opportunity.
7. The members of tomorrow’s church will come from a society so far away from traditions, that they in turn will be able to devote themselves to the traditions of Christianity in freedom and without resentments. Breaking traditions leads to being open to traditions.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
David Tatem, Low Sunday, 2009: Thomas
David Tatem's Sermon, 19th April 2009
If you were here on Easter Sunday, then you may remember that in my address I suggested that one of the things that the account of Jesus’ resurrection tells us is that reality is different to what we have always thought it was, indeed feared that it was, because of the apparent defeat of Good Friday. Instead, we are invited to celebrate the fact that against all the logic that says that ‘might is right’ and that you only have to have the strength and the means in order to be able to define reality the way you want it to be, the way that God has planned from the beginning will be the way that lasts, ultimately.
‘Low Sunday’ as this is traditionally known invites us to remember the story of Thomas whom we also traditionally call ‘Doubting Thomas’; the one of the disciples who has gone through Good Friday but has not gone through the Easter Day experience and is suddenly confronted with his friends who have undergone some amazing and baffling transformation in their state of mind and although he may not have heard of the term ‘mass hallucination’, we might wonder if he’s not well on the way to inventing it!
But lest we think that we’re just being told the story of a disciple who is weak in his faith – as if the others weren’t, let’s remember that John’s gospel is written to be read by people who have also not directly experienced the risen Christ in the way that Peter and the others had and whatever we read is intended to help those people and that we are those people too, as well as the readers of nearly 2,000 years ago. So it seems very clear that Thomas is one who we are intended to identify with and actually not simply because our faith may be weak but because it may be strong.
We can, of course, just take the story as of one who can’t believe it and who is convinced by the evidence and we can say well, if that happened for him, then it makes it possible for me to follow his example. Or we can go a little deeper and wonder if there isn’t perhaps more to it.
It’s helpful to start with Thomas’s declaration at the end of the account. ‘My Lord and my God’. It’s a very developed statement, a long way from a statement of ‘ok I’m convinced now tell me what it all means’, or even ‘thank God, I thought you were dead!’. This is of the order of ‘I almost had it all worked out, I could see the sense of what you were doing but then I wasn’t quite sure, but now it all falls into place, I know exactly who you are and what’s going on and to that I give myself utterly’.
The story of Thomas can speak not only to those who doubt but actually to those who inherently have a strong faith but need a coherent story of reality in which to have faith and that is a very contemporary situation.
Despite what seems to be the strength of the position of the modern atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchins, there is a strong counter-current of people who are actively and positively exploring and discovering the coherence of religious faith, that is to say, it’s ability to not only make sense of the world around us but to provide a meaningful way of living in it and engaging with that sense.
The writer AN Wilson 20 years ago declared his ‘conversion’ to atheism and has in the past written about the sense of freedom and joy that he experienced at the time. More recently he has announced his re-conversion back to Christian faith and it is interesting to read the article published in the New Statesman at the beginning of April in which he describes the journey. It seems to have two parts to it; one is that ultimately he has come to the conclusion that the place to which he had gone was empty and meaningless and that he had come to see that the heart of the Christian story not only makes sense but makes sense of and gives a meaning to life. The other part is to do with his observation of the difference that has made to the lives of people he admires, not academics who have come up with convincing arguments but people who have invested their lives in their faith and the difference that has made. He mentions Ghandi, who although not a Christian in a formal sense lived a life utterly rooted in his faith in God and was influenced strongly by the life of Jesus and he speaks of the example of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and other Christians who confronted the degenerate philosophy of Nazism to a point where Bonhoeffer could face his own execution with a serenity inexplicable in any other way than because of the sense that his faith made. I and I guess many others would want to expand on that and say that it was a faith which encompassed body, mind, soul and the world.
It is, after all, the difference that the resurrection makes that is what the resurrection is about, the difference it makes to the quality of life of those whose faith is rooted in it and formed by it. But lest we leave it on the personal level it is also the difference it makes to the way we engage with the world, as people like Bonhoeffer and countless others have done down through the centuries. If AN Wilson has made any mistake in what he has written it may be to focus on people as well known as Bonhoeffer and not to refer to the lives of people far less well known, of which there are an uncountable number. We could share our stories too, not perhaps as dramatic, but none the less real.
Perhaps that is another thing that Easter invites us to do; to share our own stories of the ways in which the resurrection of Jesus has made a difference to our lives and then others may be able to see how that difference in us has made a difference to others around us, or the world at large in one way or another. Even if, one day, we don’t make it onto the celeb pages of the obituaries (and I confess that often I don’t recognise half the names that are there anyway), we may make it into the ‘other lives’ section that at least one broadsheet has introduced – stories submitted by friends who have marked the difference that their friends lives have made, often in small but significant ways.
Thomas himself is not one of those apostles we have a huge amount of information about in his later life, unlike Peter or Paul. Tradition (and maybe some history) says that he went to India and preached the gospel there and founded a church. There is certainly a church tradition there which long predates the western missionaries. Originally the Mankara it is today known as the Mar Thoma church and its pattern of government and rituals are ancient indeed, so perhaps we can see there today the result of the difference that Thomas made, nearly 2,000 years ago.
Well, this place is well built and in 2,000 years time it may just be an ancient monument. But let us pray and commit ourselves to the thought that the difference we make may be more than just a memory but something still alive, still growing and still making a difference, because of Jesus Christ, our Lord and our God.
Amen
If you were here on Easter Sunday, then you may remember that in my address I suggested that one of the things that the account of Jesus’ resurrection tells us is that reality is different to what we have always thought it was, indeed feared that it was, because of the apparent defeat of Good Friday. Instead, we are invited to celebrate the fact that against all the logic that says that ‘might is right’ and that you only have to have the strength and the means in order to be able to define reality the way you want it to be, the way that God has planned from the beginning will be the way that lasts, ultimately.
‘Low Sunday’ as this is traditionally known invites us to remember the story of Thomas whom we also traditionally call ‘Doubting Thomas’; the one of the disciples who has gone through Good Friday but has not gone through the Easter Day experience and is suddenly confronted with his friends who have undergone some amazing and baffling transformation in their state of mind and although he may not have heard of the term ‘mass hallucination’, we might wonder if he’s not well on the way to inventing it!
But lest we think that we’re just being told the story of a disciple who is weak in his faith – as if the others weren’t, let’s remember that John’s gospel is written to be read by people who have also not directly experienced the risen Christ in the way that Peter and the others had and whatever we read is intended to help those people and that we are those people too, as well as the readers of nearly 2,000 years ago. So it seems very clear that Thomas is one who we are intended to identify with and actually not simply because our faith may be weak but because it may be strong.
We can, of course, just take the story as of one who can’t believe it and who is convinced by the evidence and we can say well, if that happened for him, then it makes it possible for me to follow his example. Or we can go a little deeper and wonder if there isn’t perhaps more to it.
It’s helpful to start with Thomas’s declaration at the end of the account. ‘My Lord and my God’. It’s a very developed statement, a long way from a statement of ‘ok I’m convinced now tell me what it all means’, or even ‘thank God, I thought you were dead!’. This is of the order of ‘I almost had it all worked out, I could see the sense of what you were doing but then I wasn’t quite sure, but now it all falls into place, I know exactly who you are and what’s going on and to that I give myself utterly’.
The story of Thomas can speak not only to those who doubt but actually to those who inherently have a strong faith but need a coherent story of reality in which to have faith and that is a very contemporary situation.
Despite what seems to be the strength of the position of the modern atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchins, there is a strong counter-current of people who are actively and positively exploring and discovering the coherence of religious faith, that is to say, it’s ability to not only make sense of the world around us but to provide a meaningful way of living in it and engaging with that sense.
The writer AN Wilson 20 years ago declared his ‘conversion’ to atheism and has in the past written about the sense of freedom and joy that he experienced at the time. More recently he has announced his re-conversion back to Christian faith and it is interesting to read the article published in the New Statesman at the beginning of April in which he describes the journey. It seems to have two parts to it; one is that ultimately he has come to the conclusion that the place to which he had gone was empty and meaningless and that he had come to see that the heart of the Christian story not only makes sense but makes sense of and gives a meaning to life. The other part is to do with his observation of the difference that has made to the lives of people he admires, not academics who have come up with convincing arguments but people who have invested their lives in their faith and the difference that has made. He mentions Ghandi, who although not a Christian in a formal sense lived a life utterly rooted in his faith in God and was influenced strongly by the life of Jesus and he speaks of the example of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and other Christians who confronted the degenerate philosophy of Nazism to a point where Bonhoeffer could face his own execution with a serenity inexplicable in any other way than because of the sense that his faith made. I and I guess many others would want to expand on that and say that it was a faith which encompassed body, mind, soul and the world.
It is, after all, the difference that the resurrection makes that is what the resurrection is about, the difference it makes to the quality of life of those whose faith is rooted in it and formed by it. But lest we leave it on the personal level it is also the difference it makes to the way we engage with the world, as people like Bonhoeffer and countless others have done down through the centuries. If AN Wilson has made any mistake in what he has written it may be to focus on people as well known as Bonhoeffer and not to refer to the lives of people far less well known, of which there are an uncountable number. We could share our stories too, not perhaps as dramatic, but none the less real.
Perhaps that is another thing that Easter invites us to do; to share our own stories of the ways in which the resurrection of Jesus has made a difference to our lives and then others may be able to see how that difference in us has made a difference to others around us, or the world at large in one way or another. Even if, one day, we don’t make it onto the celeb pages of the obituaries (and I confess that often I don’t recognise half the names that are there anyway), we may make it into the ‘other lives’ section that at least one broadsheet has introduced – stories submitted by friends who have marked the difference that their friends lives have made, often in small but significant ways.
Thomas himself is not one of those apostles we have a huge amount of information about in his later life, unlike Peter or Paul. Tradition (and maybe some history) says that he went to India and preached the gospel there and founded a church. There is certainly a church tradition there which long predates the western missionaries. Originally the Mankara it is today known as the Mar Thoma church and its pattern of government and rituals are ancient indeed, so perhaps we can see there today the result of the difference that Thomas made, nearly 2,000 years ago.
Well, this place is well built and in 2,000 years time it may just be an ancient monument. But let us pray and commit ourselves to the thought that the difference we make may be more than just a memory but something still alive, still growing and still making a difference, because of Jesus Christ, our Lord and our God.
Amen
Friday, April 24, 2009
John 1. 1-14: A conversation
David Moore
In 2001 I was listening to Radio 4 - Thursday morning and Melvin Bragg had his usual bunch of lively experts. This particular conversation was picking it way through the history of humanism in European thought and somehow stumbled across the work of Erasmus, the 17 century Dutch scholar, who began life as a priest before renouncing his belief to become a leading Humanist.
At one point the conversation hovered around Erasmus’ translation of John’s Gospel and in particular his translation of the Greek word logos. People with knowledge of the New Testament will recall the Prologue to John - In the beginning was the word .
However, Erasmus did not translate logos as word but as conversation. The scholars with Melvin Bragg agreed that this was a perfectly acceptable translation. I could hardly believe what I was hearing. Not only was this complete news to me, but I had recently retired and had formed a small Arts and Theology project with the name Colloquy .... conversation.
I rang my close friend Clive Scott, who had maintained his New Testament Greek over forty years, and asked him to make a translation of the John 1. 1-14 using the Erasmus translation for logus as the guiding light.
John 1. 1-14
COLLOQUY LOGOS CONVERSATION
Logos Commentary A CONVERSATION
These notes were attached to the first copy of the 'Logos as Conversation' text.
John 1. 1-14 The Introduction
I can hear some people saying that this is a paraphrase and not a translation. But I would dispute that. A paraphrase in this context is a 'filling out' of the traditional interpretation (translation) to try and cope with the transition from the Greek of the traditional interpretation into English. But this is not what I have attempted to do here. I have taken the premise that logos is to be understood as 'conversation' and then listened to the Greek in the light of that. It puts a different slant on everything. If the original readers heard 'conversation', what would they then go on to hear? Now put that into English. That is translation.
The first translators into English heard the Church Fathers (and their Greek Philosophy), and put that into English, most translations, if not all, build on that. We value the translation “Logos as Word”, because that dealt with the Jewish/Greek listening. The two translations need to be heard in stereo! I still think that these verses begin and end the introduction, and that everything which follows is the story which unpacks this introduction.
There are lots of things which I have heard in a new way. Using the idea of 'conversation' gives much more of the sense of things 'going on' to those first verses ... activity, harmony not unison, ie life. THIS was the life, this God mobility, this interaction which IS God. Quite a movement away from the Ian Paisley figure who speaks the WORD and it all happens. And so, if it is this mobility, the collaboration, this conversation, which is the life THEN IT IS THAT NATURE OF LIFE WHICH IS REVEALED AND IN WHICH WE CAN SHARE. This, being the introduction, has implication for the whole Gospel story. One would like to go on and translate the whole Gospel with this in mind.
There are a lot of things I have enjoyed discovering in this exercise. There is a wholeness about this passage which is often lost in our translations. The verses usually come out as a series of disconnected statements, but it is a very subtle whole, all linked together by words which carry the reader from one stage to the next. I have tried to capture that.
I liked using 'observe' because it captures the sense of 'see and do', 'perceive and follow', 'have faith and be a disciple', even though it sits rather uncomfortably at the end of the sentence in paragraph 2.
At the end, the use of the cliché 'a glorious opportunity not to be missed' cried out to be dismissed until one asks how else do you express 'grace upon grace' not to be heard as a Reformation theological statement, but as a response of wonder from those who got the message, saw the point, shared the life, grasped it, had faith ie perceived and joined in?
'The nature of life' is also a cliché phrase and you might have your own suggestion. But some other phrase must express the point that it is just that nature, the sort of life on offer, that concerns John. That is the subject of the introduction, and indeed the subject of the whole Gospel. The remarkable thing, the 'grace upon grace' is the astonishing call for us to be co-creators. This is where Introduction ends.
Verse 15. The Gospel now begins!
Thinking about the ways of hearing the word ‘witness’ in verse 15, confirms my hunch about logos as conversation.
If the subject is ‘conversation’ then one hears ‘witness’ not just as a pointer “Gosh, look at that”, but as an inviter, “here it is, share it.” One joins a conversation but not a proclamation. At the he heart of the Gospel there is always an invitation to join in, that is the Good News.
Clive Scott Colloquy ©
In 2001 I was listening to Radio 4 - Thursday morning and Melvin Bragg had his usual bunch of lively experts. This particular conversation was picking it way through the history of humanism in European thought and somehow stumbled across the work of Erasmus, the 17 century Dutch scholar, who began life as a priest before renouncing his belief to become a leading Humanist.
At one point the conversation hovered around Erasmus’ translation of John’s Gospel and in particular his translation of the Greek word logos. People with knowledge of the New Testament will recall the Prologue to John - In the beginning was the word .
However, Erasmus did not translate logos as word but as conversation. The scholars with Melvin Bragg agreed that this was a perfectly acceptable translation. I could hardly believe what I was hearing. Not only was this complete news to me, but I had recently retired and had formed a small Arts and Theology project with the name Colloquy .... conversation.
I rang my close friend Clive Scott, who had maintained his New Testament Greek over forty years, and asked him to make a translation of the John 1. 1-14 using the Erasmus translation for logus as the guiding light.
John 1. 1-14
It all arose out of a conversation,
conversation within God, in fact the
conversation was God. So, God started the
discussion, and everything came out of this,
and nothing happened without consultation.
This was the life, life that was the light of men,
shining in the darkness, a darkness which
neither understood nor quenched its creativity.
John, a man sent by God, came to remind
people about the nature of the light so that
they would observe. He was not the subject
under discussion, but the bearer of an
invitation to join in.
The subject of the conversation, the original
light, came into the world, the world that had
arisen out of his willingness to converse. He
fleshed out the words but the world did not
understand. He came to those who knew the
language, but they did not respond. Those
who did became a new creation (his children),
they read the signs and responded.
These children were born out of sharing in
the creative activity of God. They heard the
conversation still going on, here, now, and
took part, discovering a new way of being people.
To be invited to share in a conversation
about the nature of life, was for them, a glorious
opportunity not to be missed.
Clive Scott ©
COLLOQUY LOGOS CONVERSATION
Logos Commentary A CONVERSATION
These notes were attached to the first copy of the 'Logos as Conversation' text.
John 1. 1-14 The Introduction
I can hear some people saying that this is a paraphrase and not a translation. But I would dispute that. A paraphrase in this context is a 'filling out' of the traditional interpretation (translation) to try and cope with the transition from the Greek of the traditional interpretation into English. But this is not what I have attempted to do here. I have taken the premise that logos is to be understood as 'conversation' and then listened to the Greek in the light of that. It puts a different slant on everything. If the original readers heard 'conversation', what would they then go on to hear? Now put that into English. That is translation.
The first translators into English heard the Church Fathers (and their Greek Philosophy), and put that into English, most translations, if not all, build on that. We value the translation “Logos as Word”, because that dealt with the Jewish/Greek listening. The two translations need to be heard in stereo! I still think that these verses begin and end the introduction, and that everything which follows is the story which unpacks this introduction.
There are lots of things which I have heard in a new way. Using the idea of 'conversation' gives much more of the sense of things 'going on' to those first verses ... activity, harmony not unison, ie life. THIS was the life, this God mobility, this interaction which IS God. Quite a movement away from the Ian Paisley figure who speaks the WORD and it all happens. And so, if it is this mobility, the collaboration, this conversation, which is the life THEN IT IS THAT NATURE OF LIFE WHICH IS REVEALED AND IN WHICH WE CAN SHARE. This, being the introduction, has implication for the whole Gospel story. One would like to go on and translate the whole Gospel with this in mind.
There are a lot of things I have enjoyed discovering in this exercise. There is a wholeness about this passage which is often lost in our translations. The verses usually come out as a series of disconnected statements, but it is a very subtle whole, all linked together by words which carry the reader from one stage to the next. I have tried to capture that.
I liked using 'observe' because it captures the sense of 'see and do', 'perceive and follow', 'have faith and be a disciple', even though it sits rather uncomfortably at the end of the sentence in paragraph 2.
At the end, the use of the cliché 'a glorious opportunity not to be missed' cried out to be dismissed until one asks how else do you express 'grace upon grace' not to be heard as a Reformation theological statement, but as a response of wonder from those who got the message, saw the point, shared the life, grasped it, had faith ie perceived and joined in?
'The nature of life' is also a cliché phrase and you might have your own suggestion. But some other phrase must express the point that it is just that nature, the sort of life on offer, that concerns John. That is the subject of the introduction, and indeed the subject of the whole Gospel. The remarkable thing, the 'grace upon grace' is the astonishing call for us to be co-creators. This is where Introduction ends.
Verse 15. The Gospel now begins!
Thinking about the ways of hearing the word ‘witness’ in verse 15, confirms my hunch about logos as conversation.
If the subject is ‘conversation’ then one hears ‘witness’ not just as a pointer “Gosh, look at that”, but as an inviter, “here it is, share it.” One joins a conversation but not a proclamation. At the he heart of the Gospel there is always an invitation to join in, that is the Good News.
Clive Scott Colloquy ©
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Easter Intercessions 2009
David Moore
Introduction
The prayers of intercession this morning take their tone from the sculpture you passed on your way into worship this morning.
The sculpture comments upon attitudes toward Mary Magdalene and her place in the memory of the Church and reflects upon the uncomfortable aspects of resurrection.
Mary Magdalene become synonymous with, on the one hand, gross sentimentality, and on the other, the dubious nature of womans sexual morality. And so, by this crude and unjustified categorisation, the very first witness to the resurrection was perpetually sidelined!
However you might wish to reflect the fact that the meaning of the name Magdala in the Aramaic, is Tower eg strength, refuge.
End of each prayer:
We ask you, our Risen One, to burst open the graves within us this day, so that as women and men together, we may honour you by truly honouring each other. Help each of us grow, free us from all that holds us back, egg us on with renewed supplies of courage, humility and grace.
On this great day of liberation, it is in sadness and shame we whisper our prayers for Palestine, those with HIV-Aids, the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, Italy, those in poverty, the hunger, caught up in warfare, the shame of the arms-trade, bankruptcy, repossession. We know deep in our heart that our levels of comfort and reward feed off the injustices which others suffer.
Risen Christ as you hear the echo of our voice in your empty tomb, remind us again that you are not there but alive and active in the world.
May the Christ, the one who rises, rise among us and within us, so that as individuals and as a community, we may discover both hope and actions to contribute to the future, that we will learn to live sustainable lives of imagination and joy.
We give thanks for the dogged persistence of Friends of the Earth, the Soil Association and the great tapestry of ‘green’ campaigners. Keep us faithful in small things but persistently hungry and willing to do more.
Risen Christ you greeted the grief-stricken Mary and turned her life around; affirming her as the Tower she already was, be with all those in need a Tower of Strength at this time.
Amen
Introduction
The prayers of intercession this morning take their tone from the sculpture you passed on your way into worship this morning.
The sculpture comments upon attitudes toward Mary Magdalene and her place in the memory of the Church and reflects upon the uncomfortable aspects of resurrection.
Mary Magdalene become synonymous with, on the one hand, gross sentimentality, and on the other, the dubious nature of womans sexual morality. And so, by this crude and unjustified categorisation, the very first witness to the resurrection was perpetually sidelined!
However you might wish to reflect the fact that the meaning of the name Magdala in the Aramaic, is Tower eg strength, refuge.
End of each prayer:
David Moore: We believe. Glory, gloryMysterious God, concealed in creation and revealed in Jesus, we have waited patiently and earnestly for this day - the day when we approach the open grave and discover once again for ourselves, not that it is empty, but that Christ is risen.
Women: Christ is Risen.
All: Glory, Glory, Glory
DM: We believe. Glory, gloryLord Jesus, even as we focus on Mary Magdalene, the first person to know that you were alive, and even though the words ‘Christ is Risen’ is like honey upon our lips, we also carry the shame and regret that Mary become a byword for sentimentality and immorality and that her degrading continues to shadow our lives.
Women: Christ is Risen.
All: Glory, Glory, Glory
We ask you, our Risen One, to burst open the graves within us this day, so that as women and men together, we may honour you by truly honouring each other. Help each of us grow, free us from all that holds us back, egg us on with renewed supplies of courage, humility and grace.
DM: We believe. Glory, gloryRisen Christ open the graves which exist within our own community at Cornerstone, free us from all that constricts, that the ecumenical flame may burn with renewed freedom, diversity and delight. May this Church be a place of welcome, gladness and new life for all people.
Women: Christ is Risen.
All: Glory, Glory, Glory
DM: We believe. Glory, gloryOpen the graves which exist within our world, that we may harness and express the grandeur and intensity of your purpose for all people.
Women: Christ is Risen.
All: Glory, Glory, Glory
On this great day of liberation, it is in sadness and shame we whisper our prayers for Palestine, those with HIV-Aids, the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, Italy, those in poverty, the hunger, caught up in warfare, the shame of the arms-trade, bankruptcy, repossession. We know deep in our heart that our levels of comfort and reward feed off the injustices which others suffer.
Risen Christ as you hear the echo of our voice in your empty tomb, remind us again that you are not there but alive and active in the world.
DM: We believe. Glory, gloryMost earnestly we pray you to fill in the graves we currently dig for future generations - though our senseless and wilful misuse of the planet.
Women: Christ is Risen.
All: Glory, Glory, Glory
May the Christ, the one who rises, rise among us and within us, so that as individuals and as a community, we may discover both hope and actions to contribute to the future, that we will learn to live sustainable lives of imagination and joy.
We give thanks for the dogged persistence of Friends of the Earth, the Soil Association and the great tapestry of ‘green’ campaigners. Keep us faithful in small things but persistently hungry and willing to do more.
DM: We believe. Glory, gloryFor the sick within our community at Cornerstone; for all of those whose life and well-being weighs heavy upon our hearts; we especially remember today a family of young children whose dad was buried in MK this week.
Women: Christ is Risen.
All: Glory, Glory, Glory
Risen Christ you greeted the grief-stricken Mary and turned her life around; affirming her as the Tower she already was, be with all those in need a Tower of Strength at this time.
DM: We believe. Glory, glory
Women: Christ is Risen.
All: Glory, Glory, Glory
DM: We believe. Glory, glory
Women: Christ is Risen.
All: Glory, Glory, Glory
Amen
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