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.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
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.
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