Cornerstone

The Sunday before Lent - The Transfiguration

2012-02-18T14:00:00.000Z

A sermon by the Reverend David Moore

The Bible is jam-packed with truly remarkable stories and we ruin them by believing that they are literally true. Not for a second am I suggesting they are untrue, but I am saying - truth is more ethereal, more elusive, more wonderful, more life-giving than any form of certainty.

Today it is story time! Three stories that have crossed my path, or have been my path, showed me the wonder of the uncertainty of truth. I start with my friend Tom, a vicar from South London - four or five times a year we have a day out together in London. The pattern is always the same - exhibition in the morning, pub lunch, exhibition in the afternoon and then the bookshops.

Last November it was Tate Modern - the Gerhard Richter exhibition. This was my first exposure to the work of this artist. My immediate reaction was muted, cautious, uncertain, but bit by bit his painting unbuttoned my resistance, opening my eyes and mind to things new.

Many of his paintings had a hard-to-define quality - he seemed to paint as if the subject was just out of focus and this irritated me, that is, until I was confronted by a painting of his wife as a young woman. She was full-frontal naked walking down the stairs towards the viewer. This painting had the same ‘out of focus’ element which stopped her being seen as a sex object and affirmed her simply as a statement of fact - this was a woman walking down the stairs!

I continued through the rooms of the exhibition, seeing more slightly ‘out-of-focus’ paintings, and then I am confronted with ten sheets or so of glass - 3m x 2m x 25cm. They were vertical, leaning against the wall and arranged so that the gap between each piece of glass was the same at the base but the gap at the top gradually became narrower.

I approached this installation from the side. My first reaction was to sniff and make an unrepeatable comment under my breath! Then I stood in front of these panes of glass! Looking straight through them to the wall behind - but then my eyes readjusted from the wall to my own reflection which seemed to come from the middle of these standing sheets - and I too was slightly out of focus, I too was somehow being placed beyond being caricatured.

Now my mind is buzzing - the nature of light, reflection, refraction, the definition of refraction, the mystery of seeing and being seen! Now my head is full of other stuff - the words of Jesus ‘I am the light of the world’. For me, that refracted light, as in Richter’s paintings, of seeing certainty less clearly, started to remove the male dominance of God - by definition God cannot be male. Is this the confusion/conversation those disciples grappled with on that transfiguration mountain with Jesus?

I will not ask for a show of hands of those who have not taken a good look at the carvings at the back of the church. I drove to Nottingham to get these for the Holocaust Memorial Service and also visit friends near Wakefield and to visit the new Hepworth Museum and then the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, where yet another transfiguration occurred.

We were at the Sculpture Park the day before a huge exhibition by Jaume Plensa finished - how lucky we were. I can only tell you a bit.

There were two heads made of fine wire, facing each other. These were probably 4 meters high - set on a large sloping lawn. We walked up and around the lawn, viewing the heads from 100 yards. As we walked, the heads appeared to move around to follow us. I just could not believe what was happening!

Because it was possible to see through the wire, wherever you were, you could see the trees beyond but you could at one and the same time see the eyes, nose and ears and your brain did the rest ... reconfiguring the disparate facts to make the face. Light-sight-brain within each of us continually battling for comprehension. Now, that really lit me up! Literal trans-figure-ation.

Next we entered the underground galleries which were linked to the outside by a glazed corridor. Along this corridor hung 4 inch metal letters, one above the other - dozens and dozens of vertical sentences - moving slightly as they were touched, played with or walked through; the sunlight reflecting off the aluminum letters. Each string of letters was a phrase or sentence from the Song of Solomon. The movement of the letters was reflecting also the movement, the tussle of the mind in comprehension. Transfiguration indeed.

There’s more!

Entering the first underground gallery, still filled with the excitement of that metallic waterfall outside, everyone was immediately stunned into silence. A half-lit room with 15 alabaster heads, each 6 feet tall. My mouth was dry with what I can only name as adoration and wonder. Was it the size, shape, the colour, the dim light - whatever it was communicated ‘the other’.

The next gallery only allowed 15 people at a time. A large room, again dim golden glowing lighting, and a circle of 5-foot brass gongs, each gong with a large mallet with a fabric head.

Strangers making music, each isolated within their own world of wonder and listening. Listening to unique sounds, freshly made, then disappearing like a blown out match, but with a trace of mmmmh on the air. Occasionally all that wonder triggered over-enthusiasm and some poor soul was mortified by a boom! Strangers intimately cooperating with the sound - sound the twin once removed of sight.

How was it that the experiences we long for in prayer and meditation were so readily available without tuition or authorisation? Complete strangers were sufficiently uninhibited to join in. Once again my heart and soul were ablaze, transfiguration in the gloom of a ‘cave’. We have our golden ‘gong’ but how do we truly authorise each other to fully participate, imagine in ways which produce in our souls our fresh loaves of insight?

One last story: The last Thursday evening in January, here, was the Milton Keynes Holocaust Day Memorial Service with a range of participants. As always, the contribution from Leon School was outstanding. Each year pupils from the school visit Auschwitz and two of them made a presentation here. I won’t go into what they said, but as always they stole my heart and I want to testify why this is so.

These unprepossessing young people were transformed from the normal ‘insignificance’ of their daily lives by having the opportunity, for once in their lives, to be dealing with primary sources - more than books, more than teachers - as important as they are. These youngsters had been, looked, thought and prepared an absolutely riveting presentation. In their heads they had gone beyond books, beyond photographs, beyond tuition - they, as it were, by their visit, by their conversation, by their shock, by their friendship had been up the mountain - they may not know the words or the story but they knew the wonder and confusion of transfiguration.

Of course I realise that all of this is so powerful to me because I was young once, I was a bit of a misfit, an under-performer at school, an outsider who became gripped by a story and, as a result, have for almost 60 years wrestled with that story of Jesus and it did, and still is transfiguring me. A brief journey sideways!

Butterflies get all their living from the flowers. You often think they are resting, but they are really getting their food - sipping honey from thousands of blossoms. But they did not always do this. Once they could not fly at all, and wore very dark coats, and crawled on the ground.

After a while their coats burst open, all down the back, and they came out in dresses of quaker grey. Then these poor, creeping things went to work and spun little silken cords, strong enough to hold them, and swung off from the under part of some leaf into the air; there they swung for more than a week, rocked to and fro by the wind, just as if they were going to sleep. Then a sudden crack in the light grey coat aroused them, and they began to get their sleepy eyes open, and look about. Such beautiful golden wings as they saw, all bordered with black and yellow, and covered all over with the tiniest feathers, only you could not see them with your naked eye.In a very short time the sun and the gentle winds dried up these beautiful wings and taught them how to use them. Off they went, over the tallest trees, to join the rest of the family, who had been transformed just as wonderfully as they were!

How could they believe their senses when they found that all this beauty really belonged to them? The transformation from a worm-like creature into the splendour of a butterfly is one of nature’s greatest wonders. Or as Jesus put it - you must be born again!

Transfiguration does occur - turning young kids, or older people into more than they can imagine - and for me art is doing that all the time! We celebrate the transfiguration of Jesus not because we know it is true from being in the Bible but because it is connects with the truth in our lives.

David Moore is a retired Methodist minister, a sculptor and member of the Church of Christ the Cornerstone.

2nd before Lent: The Reverend John Bradley

2012-02-17T20:34:00.000Z

A sermon by the Reverend John Bradley

Colossians 1.15-20 John 1.1-14

Only thirty years after Jesus of Nazareth had been tortured to death on the cross, a despised fate reserved for the lowest criminals in the Roman Empire, his followers were making the most extraordinary claims about who he was. It wasn’t just that he had cheated his executioners and come back to life again. It was that he, the man with whom they had trodden the dusty lanes of Galilee, was no less than the one who makes the universe hold together.

Today when we hear of experiments in the Large Hadron Collider coming nearer to detecting the Higgs Boson particle (if such a thing really exists), those of us who are not quantum physicists can only stand back in amazement at science beyond our understanding. Someone has nicknamed it the ‘God particle’ since without it, in the moments after the Big Bang, the primal elements would have simply dispersed into the void rather than be attracted into the first matter.

When Paul wrote his letter to the Colossians he wasn’t telling them about astrophysics or quantum mechanics but he was affirming something very important about power. At that time most people thought that the greatest power on earth was the Roman Emperor. That’s certainly what Caesar thought. As a personal affirmation of civilisation and the peace and security which Rome had brought to its empire, the Pax Romana, a man would simply say ‘Caesar is Lord.’ It meant paying taxes, and nobody likes having to do that, but it also meant safety and security without the danger of some local chieftain deciding that he needed his tribute too. But instead of ‘Caesar is Lord’, Paul was teaching the Christians to affirm that Jesus is Lord.

The Colossians were part of the Greek-speaking world where, apart from the pantheon of various deities who behaved like characters in a soap opera, the idea of God was defined negatively. God is what we are not. We are aware of limits to our power but God has no limits; God is omnipotent. We know there are limits to what we know but God knows everything; God is omniscient. However fast we travel, we can only be in one place at a time but God can be everywhere all the time; God is omnipresent. We only live for a time and then die but God lives forever; God is eternal. I don’t think the Greeks speculated about what God eats but if they did, they probably would have concluded that God is omnivorous! One problem with this theoretical ‘God of the omni-s’ is that he is always distant from us. To be approached by such a God would be as terrifying as coming near to a black hole or a supernova.

Paul came to the question of who God is from a completely different starting point. The Hebrew understanding of God was not a philosophical construct like that of the Greeks. The God of Israel reveals himself through history. This is why one of the earliest Hebrew creeds, recorded in our Bibles in Deuteronomy 26, is not about what God is like but about what God has done. The God of Israel can still be terrifying and it is significant that whenever God’s angels appear to mortals, their first words are usually “Don’t be afraid!”

But something essential both to Paul and to the writer of the Fourth Gospel is that it is of the nature of God to reveal himself, to enable us to know him in ways that we can understand. According to Luke, when Paul went to Athens he found people offering worship to ‘the unknown god.’ There has been much speculation about what this was and no archaeological remains to confirm such a shrine but Luke takes it to be Paul’s starting point for engaging with the Greek philosophers. It might have been a popular catch-all insurance in which worshippers were saying to the various deities “I didn’t miss you out; when I offered incense at the altar of the unknown god, it was for you!” But another idea from further away fascinates me. After Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire, his land stretched from Greece as far as the Indus valley which is today in Pakistan but had been the birth place of what today we call Hinduism. Within the Hindu scriptures, the Vedas, there is the idea that the highest concept of God is Nirguna Brahma – the unknowable God, the God of whom we can say absolutely nothing, not even whether or not such a God exists! Indeed, Nirguna Brahma is beyond existence and non-existence. So was the deity worshipped in Athens not just unknown but unknowable?

The writer of the Fourth Gospel was quite sure that God is knowable and that he chooses to make himself known to us in ways that we can understand. Our understanding will always be far less than the reality of who God is but that does not mean that it is deceptive. God reveals to us true truth, public truth, not just ‘oh that may be true for you, dear’ truth! In the beginning was the Word, God’s self expression, and everything which came to be owes its existence to the Word. The ultimate question is not a scientific one but it is philosophical or theological. The question is why is there something rather than nothing and the answer given by our readings today is God. But God did not wind the universe up like a clockwork toy and then go off to do something else. The Word became human flesh like yours and mine and so ‘set up his tent’ among us. So Charles Wesley wrote

He laid His glory by, He wrapped Him in our clay;
Unmarked by human eye, the latent Godhead lay;
Infant of days He here became, and bore the mild Immanuel’s Name.

Our God contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made Man.

Here is the power of Christ the Lord, the total opposite of the power of Caesar the Lord or any of his modern would-be equivalents. In Jesus Christ, God reveals his power not in spectacular acts of vengeance on his enemies but in radical powerlessness. Instead of being born in the luxury of a royal palace, he is born in an ordinary peasant home. Some shepherds are told ‘this shall be the sign for you… a baby wrapped in swaddling bands and laying in a manger, just like their babies would be and just unlike the babies of the rich and powerful. Then he grew up in an obscure town at the edge of the Empire, far from the corridors of power. When he began his public work those he called to be close to him were ordinary common workmen, not the greatest brains or the wiliest politicians available. When 5,000 men, miraculously well-fed with bread and fish, were longing to make him their political leader, he refused. Instead he took the powerless route, the ignoble way, and set his face steadfastly towards Jerusalem knowing all that must happen to him there.

We shall soon be in Lent when we will again follow our Master in his journey to the Cross. Be prepared to be turned upside down. As Martin Luther once said,

“Only the weak shall be strong; only the humble exalted; only the empty filled; only nothing shall be something.”

410 Creator of the earth and skies
263 O Lord of every shining constellation
398 Christ triumphant, every reigning
584 Thanks to God, whose Word was spoken

Self-revealing God, beyond our understanding yet nearer than our closest breath, show us how to live as creatures made in your image and bring your grace to its goal in our weakness. Amen.

A light that says, "No!"

2011-12-03T10:02:00.001Z

On Thursday evening, we turned on the lights on our 24 foot Christmas tree. It was a great occasion, and there will be many other opportunities to light candles or enjoy Christmas lights through the coming month. Tiny twinkling lights are an essential part of the Advent and Christmas season up here in the northern hemisphere. Our pagan friends would be happy to tell us of the significance of light at a time when the world seems dark. The past year is dying and something new is about to begin. Those small lights signify the tiny sign that something big and bright is coming.

The lights that appear on our Christmas trees and in our twinkling candlelit carol services, do far more than set the scene for a cosy night in, or indicate the turning of the seasons. For Christians, Christmas marks the turning point in history, when God himself stepped into creation in the tiny twinkling eyes of a baby. Christmas marks the breaking through of the kingdom of heaven into this broken world.

Christmas lights are potentially a great deal more than mere decorations. They are the tiny signs that something big is coming. It is quite appropriate to have them during Advent when we are waiting for the big day itself. They are tiny prophetic signs of the light that is even now coming into the world. They appear, at first in small numbers, and then as the holidays themselves approach, there are more and more of them.

Even one tiny light, is enough to illuminate a room – or rather – to reveal the darker corners. One tiny light, can show the shape of the darkness. Christmas lights are God's "No!" to darkness. Christmas lights are the signs of God's commitment to bring light into the world. When we look at our Christmas lights, let's see in them God's promise to be with us, to be in us, to be near us, through Immanuel, God made flesh.

Sermon for Prisons Sunday

2011-11-21T20:12:00.001Z

Revd Wendy Carey

20th November Matthew 25 35-40

About twelve years ago, I was leading aBible Study at Bullingdon Prison in Bicester. It was a special day, because as well as the dozen or so prisoners whocould usually be expected to attend, there were four new clergy in their firstyear of training, who had come to see what Prison ministry was like. The morning went well; one of the prisonershad prepared to share the leadership of the study. Everyone joined in, and it was about as goodand worthwhile a Bible Study as you might wish to attend. The curates were impressed, and as I escortedthem back through the locked inner gates to the Prison gatehouse, one said 'Butyou've chosen the most respectable ones, the nicest ones, to come and meetus.'. Little did he know, but most of them were serving long sentences, two ofthem, including the pleasant, quietly spoken one who had prepared and co-ledthe session were Lifers, and one was serving a nine year sentence for veryserious crimes that would have shocked them deeply.

The theme of this year's Prisons Week is'can you see me, or are you just looking'? We are challenged by Jesus' parable to look at ourselves and at othersthrough fresh eyes, and without preconceptions. The curates who met the prisoners at Bible Study met them without beinggiven their labels, 'car thief' 'burglar' or 'murderer'. Toooften when we are just looking, rather than when we are really seeing, we onlysee what we think we ought to see, and it becomes harder to discern the personbehind the label.

Think about the labels we each carrythrough life, and how they make us feel. In my life I’ve been wife, stay athome Mum, teacher, woman priest, pensioner, bus pass holder, and manymore. Some of them make me feel angry,because they turn me into a stereotype, none of them fully represents theperson I am. What are the stereotypesused to describe who you are, and how do they make you feel?

Jesus’ parable about the Last judgment,when people are finally divided like sheep and the goats, is thought provoking,and asks the question whether we are just looking or really seeing thetruth. An intriguing point about thatparable is how unaware the people being judged were about where they fitted in. The sheep did not know they were sheep, thegoats didn’t know they were goats. Bothasked ‘when did we do these things, or when did we fail to do them?’ We only know truly where we fit in, when weare seen through God’s eyes, God who truly sees us, and is not just glancingidly in our direction.

The God who sees us, sitting here in the Church of Christ the Cornerstone, is the same Godwho sees the congregation of prisoners sitting in the Chapel of Hope inWoodhill Prison at this moment. I bringtheir greetings, and the greetings of Chaplain Alan and the Chaplaincy Team, onwhose behalf I’m speaking to you on this Prisons Sunday.

When I was ordained Deacon in 1993, mylicense was a joint one, to be Honorary Curate at this Church, and AssistantChaplain to Woodhill Prison. For fourand a half years I had the perspective of bringing together two places in thecity, one, high profile and ‘respectable’, the other low key, and probablylittle thought about, unless you happen to be related to someone who works orresides there. When you come into thiscity, you can see the cross on the dome of this church from a long distanceaway. We are set on a hill, and visible,Woodhill is set away behind earth banks, few signs direct you to it. Perhaps the people who are there today,either as prisoners or staff are ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ Today, on Prisons Sunday, we take a closerlook, and try to see reality.

To help you look more closely at ourprisons nationally, a few facts.

When I began work at Woodhill as it opened in July 1992, the prison population in England and Wales was 43,000. Today it is over 88,000. That is, it has more than doubled in nineteen years
A very large proportion of offences causing that imprisonment are in some way alcohol or drug-related
It costs about £38,000 to keep someone in prison, that is, more than it costs to send someone to a top public school
A disproportionate number of prisoners have been in care as children or young people
About a third of male prisoners, and over half of female prisoners have mental health problems
The majority of women prisoners have school aged or younger children
Prison Officers, please never call them Wardens, do a most complex and demanding job, keeping our prisons under control and safe, a job that is very little recognised or celebrated.

And two facts tomake you think, I hope – first, that more than 50 per cent of prisoners willre-offend within two years

And second,proportionately more prisoners will have been victims of crime, than an averagesection of the community – some of them being victims at a very early age.

If we are justlooking, and not really seeing, we may easily make the decision that we canjudge who in life is successful, admirable, blessed. But Jesus’ parable of judgment tells us tostop and think again. We do not knowwhat it is that we may have done, to honour the Christ in those about us – Lordwhen did we see you and come to your aid. Nor do we know when we might miss seeing the Christ among us – Lord,when did we see you and fail to come to your aid?

I spoke aboutthe two buildings, The Church of Christ the Cornerstone, and Woodhill Prison astwo very different places, this building, set high in the centre of the city,the prison on the edge, concealed. ButI’d like us to begin this Prisons week by thinking for a few moments of thethings we have in common.

First, we are communities of hope. Both buildings, and the people who come tothem, have the expressed intention that what happens within this place will furtherthe ends of justice and peace. TheChapel of Woodhill prison is called the Chapel of Hope, and I have seen hopeexpressed there against all odds, and in really tough and challenging times. As you think about our prisons as places ofhope, I’d ask you to pray for Prison staff. Most Prison Officers, Governors and administrators begin their prisonservice with high ideals. They have tostruggle to keep them, through disappointments, difficulties, and sometimesbetrayals. Please pray for them, especiallyin the week ahead.

Next, we are communities of faith, inthe context of a society where faith is not always openly on view. At Cornerstone we struggle to make sense of acontext of the shopping and business centres. Open expressions of faith may be rare, but there can be a recognition ofthe alternative values that faith can offer. Similarly, there is little open recognition of the place of faith in thebusy and routine of a prison, yet the prison chaplaincy can offer a quiet placeof renewal and refreshment to both prisoners and staff. Please pray for our prison Chaplaincy Teams,offering hope and new and positive directions through faith. Pray for the team at Woodhill

We are communities of reconciliation. Neither Cornerstone nor Woodhill can serveits purpose unless we bring change and reconciliation into people’s lives. One of the saddest things about the waste oflives and waste of money represented by imprisonment, is the re-offending rate. Only by helping people to take a realisticlook at their own lives, at the harm we may have done, and the way back towholeness of life, can we bring healing. Such realistic recognition of the offer of new life is not just the workof the prison, it is the work of the church as well. As we confess our sins week by week werecognise that we too need to realign our lives to the life offered in JesusChrist.

And so, finally,we are both, Cornerstone and Woodhill, communitiesof forgiveness. Many of ourprisoners have committed crimes that make it all too easy to consider them asbeyond our understanding, or beyond God’s forgiveness. Yet it is for forgiveness, after truerecognition of the harm done by sin, that we both exist. And when the end time comes, God will be ourjudge about whether we reached out to the Christ in our neighbour.

I would like to leave the last words to aprisoner. Paul, imprisoned at Woodhillin the 1990’s wrote this:

A prayer for Forgiveness

Iask for forgiveness

andyet

Idon’t feel forgiven.

Itseems that by sinning

aloneI am driven.

Ibelieve in God

andhis son

Jesus’death

Andfor my sins

hesacrificed

hislast breath.

Sowhy do I feel

sounworthy and unloved?

Maybebecause all

myselfish actions

Iknow God has seen.

Iwant

Ineed

Tobe cleansed from within.

Andto feel reassured

thatGod has wiped away my sin.

Idon’t care

whetherI’m rich

orpoor.

I just want

theLord

to come through my door.

Doesn’the know it is open?

Amazing Grace: The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard

2011-09-21T12:23:00.000+01:00

Matthew 19.27-20.16

Amazing Grace: TheParable of the Workers in the Vineyard

GeoffColmer

Sermonpreached at the Church of Christ the Cornerstone Covenant Renewalservice, 18 September 2011

AmazingGrace is a very popular hymn, the favourite in the USA. Because ofits popularity, familiarity, maybe our understanding of grace haslost something of its cutting edge. If that’s the case there’snothing like the parable of the labourers in the vineyard to give usa jolt. In a vivid and even abrasive story, the radical andoffensive nature of grace is depicted, inevitably leaving the hearersaying, ‘But that’s just not fair’ and maybe having somesympathy for those who’d worked all day.

Thesetting would have been a familiar one. It was about a vineyard andthere were lots of vineyards in Israel. Israel herself was referredto as a vineyard in the Old Testament, Isaiah 5.7, ‘The vineyard ofthe LORD Almighty is the house of Israel’.

Andit was the harvest season. Because storms could ruin a crop therewas a race against time. Many labourers were employed on a casualbasis. They were like the migrant workers we have in our owncountry, without regular jobs and dependent on others for any sort ofemployment. The wage was typical if not generous for a twelve hourday’s unskilled labour. But those looking for work were oftendesperate and so they would wait even until 5 o’clock on theoff-chance that there might be some work for even an hour or so.

Whenthe vineyard owner arrives, he chooses some of those assembled forwork. Just for the sake of illustration, let’s say that thirtylabourers are there, and he chooses six and agrees to pay them thegoing wage. As an aside, there is an injustice of sorts done here,because out of thirty only six are hired. Yet there is no word ofprotest from those who are chosen at this point. They are more thanpleased to have a whole day’s work ahead of them and the promise ofpayment.

Thevineyard owner returns at nine o’clock and finds labourers stillstanding there so he tells six more of them to go to his vineyard andpromises to pay them whatever is right. At twelve noon he does thesame and also at three o’clock in the afternoon. At five o’clockwith just one hour left there are still six labourers standing there,hoping against hope to get some work so that they can put somethingon the table. The vineyard owner asks, ‘Why are you standing hereidle all day?’ They reply, ‘Because no-one has hired us.’ ‘You also go into the vineyard.’

Iwant you to notice that at this point everyone is partiallysatisfied. Everyone had received at least a portion of what he hadwanted at the start of the day. No one was going away empty-handed.

Thenat the end of the day, the owner says to his manager, ‘Call thelabourers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and thengoing to the first.’ When those who have worked just one hour arepaid they discover to their astonishment that they are given the wagefor a full day. When those who came at three, at noon, at nine, andat six are paid, they are given the same amount. And it’s at thispoint that there’s trouble. ‘These last worked only one hour, andyou have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the dayand the scorching heat.’

Thevineyard owner doesn’t hide behind his manager and let someone elseclear up the trouble. Instead, he says, ‘Friend’, and that’san interesting word when used by Jesus like this. ‘Friend, I amdoing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual dailywage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give this lastthe same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose withwhat belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

Solet’s have a rain-check - how do we feel? I’m tempted to ask whothinks the owner was fair, and who thinks he wasn’t fair. It’s anatural reaction. Surely if the world operated like this peoplewould sleep in, arrive late, and get paid for the whole day. Thewhole ‘equal pay for equal work’ principle would come unstuck. But it’s to miss the point, and to miss the question, which is,‘What is the kingdom of heaven like? What is God like?’ Does hegive us what we we’re due, what we deserve, what we earn? Or doeshe treat us in a manner which is of a completely different order? Such as gift, or as we call it, grace?

JewishParable

Atthe beginning of Jesus's parable we are told that this is what theking of heaven is like. And we know from the whole of Jesus'steaching that the king of heaven is in fact a very peculiar kingdomto our way of thinking. It is an upside-down kingdom. It sets theestablished order on it head. It constantly challenges ourassumptions. And what God’s kingdom is like is a mirror of whatGod is like.

Andthe word that describes it is grace. But the fact is that our worlddoesn’t operate on grace. Instead, we are so used to things comingto us on the basis of merit, because we have worked hard and long andin tough conditions, and because we deserve them. And to show howdeeply this is ingrained, if you don’t believe me just ask yourselfhow easily you receive something without having to pay for it, agift, a favour, a compliment.

ButGod doesn’t operate like this. In his kingdom he gives us notwhat we deserve. This is called mercy. And on the contrary Godgives us what we don’t deserve, forgiveness, acceptance, arelationship with him. This is called grace. And he gives us hisgrace in abundance. Ephesians 2.1-10. CS Lewis, ‘extravagantgenerosity’.

Thismeans that we’re all on the same level. All are equallyundeserving. There are no rankings. There is no first and last. Noone can claim privileged status or special membership of the kingdomof heaven. In relation to God it does us no good to say, ‘Myparents were Christians’, ‘I lead a good life’, ‘I’vealways gone to church’, ‘I’ve been a Church Officer for moreyears than I can remember’, ‘I’m a Baptist Minister’, ‘I’ma Regional Minister’.

Ourpersonal connections don’t do it. And our worthy achievements, allthat we do for God, doesn’t do it. God isn’t overly impressed,it doesn’t win his approval. The king of heaven, knowing God,begins with him, and his generosity to everyone.

God’sgrace isn’t the sort of thing you bargain with, or try to store up. It isn’t the sort of thing that one person has a lot of andsomeone else only a small amount. And actually the point of thestory is that what people get from serving God and his kingdom, isn’ta ‘wage’ at all. It’s not a reward for work done. God doesn’tenter into contracts with us, as if we could negotiate a better deal. God makes covenants, in which he promises us everything and asks ofus everything in return. When he keeps his promises - which is whathe does - he isn’t so much rewarding us, as doing what comesnaturally from his extravagantly generous nature. And this is whatyou celebrate today on your Covenant Sunday. You make covenant witheach other but only because God out of grace has made covenant withyou.

Thisstory wouldn’t have gone down a bundle with the Pharisees who werecontemptuous of the common people. It wouldn’t have gone downbrilliantly with the Jews in general. They’d spent two millenniapunctiliously trying to keep the law and the thought of despisedGentiles welcomed on equal terms to them – not on your life.

Butthen maybe this parable wasn’t so much for them, as for thedisciples themselves, and disciples in subsequent generations, youand me.

Ifyou go back to the end of the previous chapter Jesus says to thedisciples, Matthew 19.30. It may have seemed that ‘the first’were the rich and powerful, whereas ‘the last’ meant thedisciples themselves. However, that saying was part of the answer toPeter after his self-centred question in v. 27. It’s possible thatJesus is intending this saying about first and last, to be a warningto the disciples themselves. ‘Don’t think that because you’vebeen close to me so far, you are now the favoured few for all time.’

Inthis parable Jesus warns them, and us, that they may have set outwith him from the beginning, but others may come in much later andend up getting paid just the same, the regular daily wage.

Inboth Jesus's parable and the other one, some individuals had nothing,were undeserving, knew themselves to be powerless, and then graceerupted in their lives. As long as they focused on what had beengiven to them, they were filled with joy. However, as soon as theymade comparisons with someone else, their joy was turned tobitterness. They didn’t have a problem with grace, they had aproblem with grace shown to others.

It’sbeen said, ‘If you want to be miserable, compare what you have tosomeone else.’ Invariably there will be someone who has donebetter than you for some reason or the other.

Forsome people, the very notion of grace is a scandal, an offence. Butfor other people, the fact that grace is shown to others makes it tentimes worse.

Wecan all too easily assume that we are the special ones, God’s innercircle. The fact is that God is out there in the marketplace,looking for the people nobody wants, and who everybody else triesnot to hire, welcoming them on the very same terms and surprisingthem with his extravagant generosity. Who are they? – the verypeople who maybe you would rather not see in Christ the Cornerstone. And sometimes it’s hard to stomach. ‘Look we have lefteverything and followed you. What then will we have.’ Matthew19.27.

Thisparable is a challenge to us because although we speak and singfrequently of grace, we lose sight of just how radical, howscandalous it is. Instead we domesticate it, we make it manageable,and yet there is a wildness about God’s grace to us his people, andGod’s grace to those not yet his people. ‘Radical grace has mostoften been too radical for most Christians. We most often putconditions on God’s grace: God accepts you if … Andwhenever an “if” clause is added, grace becomes conditional andceases to be grace.’

Onthis Covenant Sunday, let’s celebrate the grace of God forourselves, and especially as we covenant together in our vision ofunity. But let’s make sure that the vision of unity doesn’tbecome such a preoccupation that we fail to give ourselves to thewider vision and to have eyes to see where God’s grace is breakingout in unlikely places, among unlikely people.

Meanwhile Down on the Farm

2011-09-14T22:25:00.000+01:00

Luke 7. 36 -50

Meanwhile Down on the Farm

A sermon by David Moore

The story ofJesus at the house of Simon the Pharisee is a fantastic piece ofstorytelling.

Jesus is out todinner. A gatecrasher turns up at theparty who is making an exhibition of herself. She has latched herself on to Jesus.

The host, Simon the Pharisee, a man committed to a rule-basedtradition, appears to be playing by his own rules - not following the normalrules of hospitality - no water to wash the visitor’s hands and feet! And added to this Simon appears toleranttowards a woman with a questionable reputation who is ‘molesting’ his principalguest.

Jesus challenges his host with a story, the simplicity of whichexposes a critical truth. It is a storyabout what matters most of all in life. Themoral of the story according to the Gospel is: the one who loves the most is the one who is forgiven the most!

So, at the Dale Farm Travellers’ Site in Essex today who is in linefor forgiveness? Is it the saints or isit the sinners?

Basildon Council says the law is the law and our hands aretied. The law is the law says the localMP. One rule for us and for them, saylocal land and property owners.

In the Gospel reading for today, Jesus is suggesting there issomething higher than the law - mercy, forgiveness, love.

Presumably the Councillors, the Bailiffs, and local residents willbe satisfied with the symbolic shedding of blood that has appeared (caravansleaving) and they will sleep in their beds in peace knowing that right is rightand the law, in the end, will prevail.

The question I have for myself is ‘where is God in all this?‘

My judgment is that God is locked up tight in the overwhelmingsilence of the Faithful, and that it has been left to a few scruffy and one ortwo posh protesting ‘angels’ to remind us that God is love and love is theultimate obedience of law.

The TV News, with mass delivery of fences, the diggers, the hardhats, the apparent meticulous planning, eerily reminds me of the hard time theGypsies had under the rule of the Third Reich. (Most German Christians did not see what was coming as they welcomedHitler).

Luke, in his record of Jesus being led away for crucifixion, has himspeaking these words: If such things as these are done when thewood is green, what will happen when it is dry.’

Over the next hundred years, whatever happens with global warming,the dominance of Europe in the world economy is bound to shrink - life willbecome less juicy for most of us. We do need to be clear what matters most ofall.

This story from Luke alongside the events at Dale Farm not only putmy ecumenical vision into an uncomfortable perspective but also re-awakenDietrich Bonhoeffer’s question ‘who is Christ for us today?’ or who is Christfor the Travelling Community in Britain?

Los 33

2010-11-04T20:52:00.002Z

Sermon preached at the Church of Christ the Cornerstone

Revd Ernesto Lozada-Uzuriaga

30 October 2010

This morning I would like to reflect on an event that had captured the imagination of the whole world few weeks ago. I am referring to the story of ‘Los 33’ Chilean miners trapped inside the mine of San Jose.

Thanks to the great media coverage, we were all able to see the dramatic pictures of the rescue. We were touched, moved, inspired.... We even wept, as one miner after another was freed and welcomed by their relatives. After weeks of anxious uncertainty, finally they were back to their families – safe.

As I watched the remarkable events on television, I began to notice something interesting: I realised there were two different narratives taking place at the same time. One was about technology and engineering; the other was about faith and mystery.

On the one hand, we had the impressive rescue operation. An incredible display of engineering and technology. An effort that excelled by its rigorous and meticulous attention to detail. It was a masterpiece of efficiency. A great achievement for a small nation like Chile.

On the other hand, we have the people and their world view. As they shared their stories and articulated their experience, we discovered a fascinating world view: a beautiful way to explain life through allegories and metaphoric language, where the supernatural elements blended into reality without any conflict.

These two separate narratives were not at odds, but quite the contrary. It is amazing that all the advances of the modern world have not taken away this beautiful way to explain, interpreted and understands reality.

In their world view HOPE, FAITH, GOD, MIRACLE, MYSTERY sit together comfortably with high power drills, advanced technology and complex engineering. As they see it, the real and the fantastic can live together, as the material and the spiritual, the visible and the invisible, the natural and the supernatural, secular and sacred – Heaven and earth – God and technology.

The American news network CNN broadcast this story:

One of the miners wrote a letter to his brother telling him what happened before the accident. In the letter, he explained that on the day of the accident he was driving a vehicle trough the tunnels when suddenly something compelled him to stop suddendly. It was a display of white butterflies flying around. In all his years working in the mines he never have seen anything like that. He was stunned by the beauty and unusual nature of this incident. He had to stop. Seconds later the sealing of the mine collapsed in front of him, blocking the way out. If he had not stopped to admire the white butterflies, he would be buried. The white butterflies saved him. When the story become known in Camp Hope, people interpreted this incident as a miracle. They started to refer to the white butterflies as the ‘angelitos blancos’ – little white angels.

This story encapsulates the essence of this world view, where miracles and unexplained things can happen any time. Sadly, in the West we have lost this way of seeing things. That is why sometimes we feel at odds when we read the Bible, because the Bible is full of this kind of stuff. Our culture in the West has numbed our ability to see the world in a more holistic way.

One of the psychologists from NASA who had been advising the Chilean government explained that, in his opinion, the reason why the miners survived such as tough and hostile conditions was their faith. These people survived because they had a faith that gave them hope and strength in unbearable circumstances. Faith kept them alive.

This story of 33 men trapped in the dark womb of the earth maybe is a metaphor for all of us. Something we can learn from this story is that a holistic world view is the key to our survival. Maybe that is the reason why this story has resonated and captured the imagination of the whole world.

Technology rescued the miners, faith save them.

Cornerstone Stewardship Launch October 3rd

2010-10-04T18:05:00.000+01:00

Sermon at the launch of the Cornerstone Stewardship campaign

The Reverend John Bradley October 3rd 2010

• Exodus 35.30 – 36.7 When the people gave too much!
• Matthew 6.19-34 The best investment

We have heard a lot this year about cut-backs in government spending and later this month the details will be announced of which programmes will be cut. Here at Cornerstone there is a gap in our budget for the coming year between the predicted giving and the budgeted expenses. This has led your Ecumenical Council to plan this Stewardship Campaign which we are launching today, but it is about far more than giving money.

The reason we are here is to follow Jesus, not just to keep the Church going. Following Jesus is about being a fully human being, not just being a Church member, and his teaching is about bringing in the Kingdom of God, not just growing the Church. So we do our Christian following far more outside this building than inside it.

Cornerstone is a city centre church in a mobile city; a few of you have been here since the beginning but most of us are here for a few years or even months and then will move on. However long or short, it’s important to belong somewhere because it is together that we are the Body of Christ. A human body only works because its different organs each take their different part. Its differences are part of its strength but only if the different parts work together. If you have ever broken an arm or a leg, you will remember how weak it felt when the plaster came off and you started to use it again. The muscles were weak because they hadn’t been stretched. It’s the same with the Body of Christ which this church is. Our strength is in our differences but what holds us together is that Christ is our Head. This body is going to be stretched through this Stewardship Campaign but the stretching will make us stronger.

Stewardship is about more than giving money and balancing budgets; it is about how we give ourselves to God so that His will may be done on earth as it is in heaven. So before we come to the gifts that we give, we need to look at the people we are. We not only give gifts; each one of us is a gifted person. There is no such thing as an un-gifted Christian. Every Christian has at least one spiritual gift (Eph 4.7); how do you use yours? None of us has all the gifts needed to be a church but together we do. If you don’t use yours, the ministry of the whole Church is weakened, like an unexercised muscle. It means not just giving your money but also your time – which is harder for some to give.

When Paul wrote his letters to the Corinthians, he was writing to a wealthy church. When they took up their offertory, they didn’t sing ‘Hear the pennies dropping’; they sang ‘I hear the sound of rustling…’! But the example which Paul held up to them was the church in Galatia which was materially poor but spiritually rich. He writes of them ‘They gave themselves to the Lord first, and to us.’ (2 Corinthians 8.5) They had the right priorities in Christian giving. We give in response to what God has already given us. Titus 3:4-6 ‘when the kindness and generosity of God our Saviour dawned upon the world, then, not for any good deeds of our own, but because he was merciful, he saved us through the water of rebirth and the renewing power of the Holy Spirit, which he lavished upon us through Jesus Christ our Saviour.’ There is an extravagance in God’s giving to us and our giving is in response to that. So do it cheerfully or not at all! Don’t be reluctant payers! ‘Each person should give as he has decided for himself; there should be no reluctance, no sense of compulsion; God loves a cheerful giver.’ (2 Cor 9:7)

One day while I was going to catch a train my mobile phone rang and a young man had made a cold call trying to sell me an investment. I let him finish his patter but when he asked me if I was satisfied with my present investments, he clearly expected me to answer no. But I told him I was extremely satisfied with my investment: it’s thief-proof, moth-proof and rust-proof. Once you’ve invested, you can’t touch the capital but the interest rate is simply out of this world! I told him it’s called the Kingdom of Heaven and people have been investing in it for 2000 years. I hope he looked it up on Google afterwards! Paul told the Corinthians ‘Remember: sow sparingly, and you will reap sparingly; sow bountifully, and you will reap bountifully.’ (2 Cor 9:6) We can’t expect an abundant harvest if we sow casually; we need to plan for abundance. That means that instead of coming last, after you have spent your income on everything else, giving comes first. The Master speaks to our generation when he asks, “Where is the profitability in gaining the whole world at the cost of losing your own true self?” We pray that God’s kingdom will come, that God’s will may be done on earth as it is in heaven. If that means that the aim of your life is to leave the world better than you found it, a bit less like hell and more like heaven, you can do that by your giving. When you invest in the Kingdom of Heaven, there are people who will be fed and clothed and housed and healed and educated who otherwise would not be. You won’t know their names and will probably never meet them but their transformed lives are your true wealth.

There is a precious promise here which has been missed by the financial gurus and economic pundits: ‘you will always be rich enough to be generous.’ (2 Cor 9:11) The consumerist industry – what Jesus called Mammon – doesn’t want you to hear that because it wants you to keep spending on yourself, even if you can’t afford to. It wants you to be dissatisfied because that will make you a better consumer but following Jesus gives you the healthy alternative. I love the version of Psalm 23 which begins ‘The Lord’s my Shepherd; I have everything I need!’

We each need to decide whether our giving is going to be casual or deliberate. If we give casually, we will spend what we have on our own needs and then give from what is left. If we give deliberately, we will look at our total income and decide what proportion of it we are going to give. When giving comes first, the Lord who is our Shepherd makes sure that we have everything we need but when giving comes last, we never have enough. You will need to decide prayerfully what the right proportion is for you to give. In biblical times, the Jews gave 10% of their income and many Christians do that today but the biblical tithe also paid for some things which today we pay for through taxation. Some churches suggest that in Britain today, 5% is a reasonable amount to aim for. But whatever you give, give deliberately and cheerfully. Remember that while the Pharisees were pernickety about getting their tithes exactly right, Jesus noticed the poor widow who literally had only two pennies to rub together and she put them both in the offering chest. She was totally dependent on the charitable support of the Temple and could surely be excused from giving yet, as the Authorised Version puts it, she ‘cast in all the living that she had’ (Luke 21:4) and I expect she did it cheerfully!

This is a challenging time for the Church of Christ the Cornerstone. When this church began, our parent Churches gave generously to plant it here and have supported us financially until now. But the time has come for us to stand up and support ourselves so that those funds can be used to support new work elsewhere. We can rise to that challenge only by praying as if it all depends on God and giving as if it all depends on us. I believe that by God’s help the gap in our budget can be closed and that in giving generously, we shall all be blessed. Hudson Taylor, the pioneer missionary in inland China, once said that God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply. God is waiting to demonstrate that again here at the Church of Christ the Cornerstone.

Tim Cutting: 6 June 2010

2010-06-07T20:55:00.005+01:00

Brief notes from the sermon delivered by Tim Cutting on Sunday 6 June 2010, at the Church of Christ the Cornerstone.

Tim has lived with his family in Milton Keynes since moving to work for Bridgebuilder Trust in 1993. He served as a schools worker with the Trust for over 13 years, then left to work with the national charity, Mission India, in promotion and fundraising. For the past 3 years he has worked out of a small office with the Church of Christ the Cornerstone. At the end of May this year Tim finished working for Mission India and is now prayerfully searching for God’s next ministry position for him. The lessons from the passage in Luke are things that God has challenged and spoken to Tim about….

Reading: Luke 5 v 1-11

Forgive me for mentioning a certain sporting event soon to place – especially as not everyone likes football! Yes, the World Cup tournament is about to ‘kick off’ in South Africa, and there will be 32 teams competing for the prize of football world champions. (Sadly there are one or two notable exceptions who failed to qualify, eg Peru - sorry Ernesto! - as well as Scotland, Wales and N Ireland… “Come on, England!”)

There will be ‘wall to wall’ coverage of the tournament and all the games, and every newspaper, radio and television report will draw out different aspects of each match.

Our reading provides us with a ‘match report’ of an incident early on in Jesus’ ministry, and Luke records the details of this seaside occurrence. Let me identify six main points that I observe within this report….

1. Jesus starts with what we do have available! v 2, 3

At the start the main focus is on ‘the crowd’ who are listening to Jesus. The fishermen are nearby ‘washing their nets’. But Jesus approaches them and asks to use one of their boats in order to preach from.

Jesus can always take and use what ‘resources’ (possessions, money, skills, gifts, abilities, etc) that we have available. He often starts with what we do have, and goes from there….

2. Jesus then makes a more demanding request! v 4

His request to Peter to “Put out into deep water and let down your nets” was significant. Peter, as the ‘professional’ fisherman knew it was naturally and humanly speaking a complete waste of time. They had fished all night and caught nothing. He knew there was no sensible reason to fish in the day, and in deep water too! However, here is one of the great Bible’s ‘but’s’…. “But, because you say so….” Only do what God wants if he says so. Faith is needed, so if Jesus says do it, we can trust Him for the more demanding challenges that will undoubtedly come.

3. Obeying Jesus leads to blessing – and complications! v 6

There is a great ‘blessing’ in responding to Jesus, but it can often bring complications too: their nets begin to break and the boats start to sink! I often like to receive God’s blessing, but not with any complications or problems that might come as a result of it! Be ready for God’s blessing – but also the complications that might follow. Jacob knew this when he ‘wrestled’ God for a blessing, then limped for the rest of his life!

4. It’s a team effort! v 7

Working for God cannot really be done alone; we need each other, for support, help and encouragement. Here Simon called his ‘partners’, and they came to his aide. We must be prepared to work alongside others and share the burden (and blessing!) together.

5. CV criteria: humility and awareness of sin! v 8

As I have recently finished work for Mission India, I have prepared my ‘CV’ for using in my search for a new job. Peter was an experienced fisherman, but in God’s kingdom and economy, it isn’t always ‘natural’ skills, gifts and experiences that will impress Him. Jesus wanted to see something different, and Peter revealed it:: “…he fell at Jesus’ knees and said,’ Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man’.” This was the response Jesus needed to hear, and the ‘CV’ that passed his interview test!

6. Courageous people given new opportunities! v 10

Jesus responds to Peter’s ‘CV’ statement with a word of encouragement, and a new commission: “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will be ‘fishers of people’!”

If we bravely and faithfully follow Jesus, he will give us new challenges and further opportunities to serve Him…. That’s what I want to experience as I follow Him in my life.

Environment Sunday Sermon

2010-06-05T09:28:00.004+01:00

Sermon by the Reverend John Bradley, for Environment Sunday 2008

Note: 6th June 2010 is Environment Sunday. The following sermon from 2008 is as relevant as ever.

Isaiah 24.4-13 Matthew 11.16-30
Matthew 11.19 God’s wisdom is proved right by its results

I can remember a time when the word ‘environment’ was a technical term used only in geography, when few people had heard the word ‘ecology’ – let alone knew what it means – and to call somebody ‘green’ was not a compliment! It was when I learnt French that I realised that the root meaning of environment is what you see around you. The problem is that despite modern television news, many people only take notice of a small part of what surrounds them.

The crisis we are constantly reminded of today first came to my attention through a book called Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. She was a lonely voice in the early 60s warning that if we kept on spraying our crops with pesticides such as Aldrin and Dieldrin which not only killed the agricultural pests but also the birds which fed on them, the day would dawn when there would be no birdsong left and the trees would bud in a silent Spring. Hers was a prophetic voice which was dismissed by the agri-chemical industry but a movement began which challenged the major powers. Until then, most people believed that modern technology was always a good thing and anyone who thought otherwise was just being old-fashioned.

But the movement grew and its prophets were largely secular. One ecologist actually blamed the growing crisis on the spread of Christianity. As long as people believed that divine spirits lived in every tree and river, he said, they treated them with respect. But when Christian missionaries came and taught them that there were no such spirits, only one God in heaven, this new teaching gave them permission to cut down the trees and pollute the rivers without fear. The criticism was valid but the answer was not to stop spreading the Christian Gospel but to make sure it was the whole Gospel. That includes the affirmation of the Psalmist that the earth is the Lord’s and everything that it contains. That statement underlies the Hebrew economy of the land where, at its best, land was not bought and sold as a commodity but lent for a while to those who would take care of it. In Israel, the people did not own the land because it all belonged to God. There are still some places in the world today, considered primitive by most Westerners, where individuals do not own land any more than we own the air we breathe. It works when everyone recognises their share in the responsibility for caring for the earth together.

Today, the threat of major damage to the earth is far greater than the extinction of songbirds. If we needed more evidence of rapid climate change, it is there on the news every week. The latest I saw was an expedition in northern Canada which found ice which had been rock solid for thousands of years is now starting to crack. Christian Aid has reminded us that the effects of this rapid change fall mainly on the poor. Subsistence farmers depend more than most on the regularity of the seasons and have no cushion to protect them against drought, flood or unusual temperature. In the past, we would have had confidence that the scientists would fix it. Still there are some who expect that one day soon a technology will be announced which will put it all right. But the sober message is that the disturbance of the world’s climate is under way and cannot be stopped. The best we can do is stop making it worse. We can change only three things: change the way we live, change the way we help the victims and change our understanding of wisdom.

It has often been explained that the burning of fossil fuels releases gases into the atmosphere which change the way its temperature is kept in balance. I once met Dr Jim Lovelock, a brilliant scientist whose book The Gaia Hypothesis showed how the earth and its atmosphere behaves as if it were one huge living creature, regulating and balancing the composition of gases in the air in order to maintain life. His theory was also dismissed by some at the time but it has now been developed into the science of geophysiology. Our modern economy is changing the atmosphere on which life on earth depends. We have become so dependent on burning oil, coal and gas that it will cost us more to find alternatives. Some proposed solutions have themselves proved to cause other problems. In America, thousands of tons of wheat are being converted into bio-fuel as an alternative to oil. But the side-effects have been an increase in the virgin forest being slashed and burnt to clear land for growing grain and a world-wide rise in the cost of grain for human consumption leading to food riots in many countries.

Even if the world stopped burning fossil fuels tomorrow, climate change would continue to happen for at least the next century. Pharaoh needed the wisdom of Joseph to prepare for seven years of famine. We have other means of predicting disaster. It means that in order to prevent large scale starvation, we will need to double at least our giving for world development and famine relief for the rest of our lives. If we do nothing, or just carry on doing what we have done so far, all the benefits of relief and development so far will be swept away. That is a hard message but we must be prepared to hear it.

The third change is the hardest and will be the most unpopular; we need to change our idea of wisdom. In some ways it is a return to a former wisdom which has been eroded and abandoned. But it is also a new way of combining the best of the old and the new. Jesus said that when a teacher of the law has become a learner in the kingdom of Heaven, he is like a householder who can produce from his store things both new and old (Matthew 13:52). It won’t be easy because there is a huge industry out there which is dedicated to proving to you that what I am saying now is wrong. I like the version of Psalm 23 which begins ‘the Lord’s my shepherd; I have everything I need!’ but they don’t because they want to convince you that you need more things. Satisfied people don’t make good customers; their aim is to convince you that you need to buy things you never knew you needed. They don’t want children to grow up because the clamouring toddler, pestering its mother to buy sweets, is their icon of success. Combine that appetite for more things with the spending power of an adult and you have the ideal customer! Consumerism thinks the wisdom of God is foolishness. God’s wisdom shows that human beings need one day of rest a week and that a healthy society has a shared pattern of work and rest. But consumerism campaigned to end restrictions on Sunday trading and now Sunday is one of the busiest days at the ‘cathedral of mammon’ across the road! God knows we all need some things and will need to buy most of them. The wisdom is in keeping the buying of things in its proper place. Jesus taught us that if we make our priority the reign of God and the right relationships which come from that, all the rest will come to us.

There are still some people who question whether climate change is really happening, but they are becoming fewer. There are more people who see it happening but think there is nothing we can do about it. I believe we need the wisdom of God in this more than ever. God’s wisdom is proved right by its results but if we wait for the results of our present folly, it will be too late to save the earth. If we do nothing, in fifty years time our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will blame us for our selfish short-sightedness. When we lived in Devon, one day a letter came to the school where Marian taught addressed to ‘The Teacher Responsible for Saving the Planet’! It went around the staff room and ended up on her desk. So what about you today? You can’t do it all but you needn’t do nothing. Let us all renew our commitment to care for the environment, to reduce our own carbon footprint, to care for those who are already suffering most from climate change and to choose the wisdom of God rather than the foolish wisdom of this world.

-----------------------------

The glory of creation, throughout the universe,
So wonderful in essence, delightfully diverse.
Antarctica to Asia; the jungles of Brazil,
Established by the Father, with loving care and skill.

From mountain tops to valleys; in forests and in parks,
We watch the playful squirrels; we hear the joyful larks.
Wild orchids so unusual; bright parakeets so loud,
Rare butterflies so fragile; the tiger standing proud.

Deep mysteries, of oceans and unknown outer space,
Migration paths of swallows, the eagle’s nesting place.
The more we gain in knowledge, the less we understand
This world so rich and complex, created by God’s hand.

But crisis looms upon us; the planet’s under threat,
The global climate’s changing, the balance is upset.
The melting of the ice caps; diversity declines,
Extinction of key species; we’re overwhelmed with signs.

So Father please forgive us for spoiling Planet Earth,
Give us a chance to change it; to instigate new birth,
Let’s care for your creation, in details and in whole
Protect, preserve and cherish; may this be our new goal.

© Denzil Walton

The Reverend John Bradley, 16th May 2010

2010-05-19T19:42:00.000+01:00

Sermon preached at the Church of Christ the Cornerstone

Sunday 16th May 2010 (Easter 7)

Acts 16.16-34 John 17.20-26

Today’s Gospel reading is the one most frequently read on ecumenical occasions. It was probably read when this church was opened and certainly on many occasions since then. It reminds us that the visible unity of the Christian Church is not just a good idea; it is central to the will and purpose of Jesus Christ. Let us remember that if we are honest when we say that Jesus Christ is Lord of our lives and Head of the Church, what matters is not what I want or what you want but what He wants. This passage in the Fourth Gospel is at the climax of what is often called the Final Discourses, the last teaching of Jesus to his disciples before he is taken from them to suffer and die on the Cross. So clearly this is of central importance.

The whole of chapter 17 is a prayer. You can learn things about a person from what they pray for that you cannot learn in any other way. There are many occasions when the Gospels report Jesus praying to his heavenly Father but this is the most extended. Jesus is praying for his disciples, knowing that what is about to happen to him will also be a severe test for them. Judas Iscariot has already betrayed him; Peter will soon deny that he ever knew him. They will all let him down in some way yet it is to these that Jesus has entrusted his message and the future of its communication rests with them; there is no plan B. Jesus is also praying for people who haven’t yet heard of him such as the Philippian jailer who we shall come to in a moment. When Jesus prays for those who will put their faith in him through the words of his disciples, that includes every Christian from then until now and from now until the end of time. When you read in the Gospels of the many different people to whom and about whom Jesus spoke, do you realise that includes you and me? If we have become believers, it is because some other Christian believers put their faith into words that we could understand so that we could believe too. But it doesn’t stop there! We live in a world where many people are putting their trust in Jesus Christ and being added to his Church but we are living in a part of that world where currently the going is tough. Yet the need for the transformation which Jesus alone can bring has never been greater. That’s where you come in: when you tell your story of how and why you became a Christian and what Jesus means to you, others can catch on and become transformed believers too.

The unity that Jesus is praying for is not that we should all be the same; how boring that would be! You only have to look at the trees and flowers bursting into life around us to see that our Creator God loves variety! It is wonderful that people from all over the world have come to this city and to this church and we are seeking a dynamic unity in our diversity. Jesus’ prayer shows that this is the evidence that he is sent by the Father. Christian disunity is a denial of the incarnation; it really is that important. Jesus also prays that the glory which the Father gave to him and which he gives to us might make us one. Glory has several meanings; one of them is a good reputation. We often fail to glimpse the glory around us because we judge other people by their outward appearance rather than their heart. It is when we see one another as the saints which God is making us into rather than just the sinners we were that He makes us His ‘one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.’ There is a danger in an ecumenical partnership like Cornerstone, with its prominent position and iconic history, that we become complacent and think that we have already done all the ecumenical journeying we need to do. But the ecumenical challenge to make visible the unity which the Spirit is giving to the whole Church and to remember that the whole inhabited earth – the oikoumene – is our concern because it is God’s concern is constantly before us. If we think we have arrived, we most surely have not!

So what about our first reading, one of the amazing missionary stories of the apostle Paul? First we meet a girl who would be considered in this country to be mentally ill. Like some in the Gospels who are described as being demon-possessed, she shows clear perception of who Paul and Silas are and what they are doing. But to her masters, she is a source of wealth, a ‘nice little earner’! I don’t think Paul was exasperated with the girl but he was disturbed by what her condition was doing to her. In setting her free, he deprived her masters of their income so they had the missionaries arrested. They had no compassion on the girl or joy at her healing, only anger at their loss of revenue. So Paul and Silas are flogged and thrown into jail. Instead of complaining about the injustice or worrying about the misfortune to their venture, they fill the jail with songs of praise to God! Praising God isn’t always easy; sometimes it really is a sacrifice of praise. But when we do give thanks to God in all circumstances, not just the nice ones, there is a power in praise! This time it led to an earthquake. The jailer assumed that the broken walls meant that any prisoners who had not been killed by the earthquake would have escaped. He knew that he would be held responsible and if any of the prisoners were held on capital crimes, his life would be forfeit. So he decides to take his own life rather than face his masters. Then Paul stops him and tells him they are all safe! When the jailer asks them “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” what did he mean?

In the first sense, Paul had saved his life by preventing his suicide. Secondly he was saved from the wrath of his masters because the prisoners had not escaped. But there is a deeper danger from which he needs to be saved, a prison in which he was a prisoner not a jailer, and it is to that that Paul responds. Wise counsellors know that there is often a hidden agenda; the presenting problem may not be the real problem. Paul told him to believe, trust, put his confidence in the Lord Jesus – a person of whom the jailer had probably never heard. Apart from Lydia and the other tiny band of Christians, the only Lord in which the people of Philippi had been told to believe, trust and put their confidence was Caesar Augustus! So when Paul and Silas had been accused of ‘advocating practices which it is illegal for us Romans to adopt and follow’, the Gospel they preached was at least subversive of the Emperor cult. The name to which every knee shall bow and whose Lordship every tongue shall confess is not Augustus; it is Jesus. We have an understandable reluctance to give such subservience to anyone because all those who set themselves up as Augustus Caesar did have proved to be fallible and inadequate. This is why our democracy is so precious: not because the majority is always right but because no individual leader is ever entirely right because they are not Jesus Christ.

So Paul and Silas, the wounds of their lashing washed and dressed, told the jailer and his household the message of Jesus. They put their trust in him and were baptised. Since ‘household’ normally would mean all the family including children, this may be the first recorded instance of infant baptism. Presumably these new Christians then met Lydia and the others and so the Philippian church grew.

The risen Christ has ascended to his glory and his appearances have ceased until the end of time. But there are still people who need to know what they need to do to be saved and the Gospel which Jesus brought can still transform them and us into those who reflect his glory. In our ecumenical journey ‘we are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, through the power of the Lord who is the Spirit.’ (2 Corinthians 3.18)

May we be one as you, Father God, are one with Christ our Saviour so that the world might believe that you sent him.

May we so reflect the glory which you gave to him that others may catch a glimpse of his presence in us. Fill us with your love so that our joy may be complete.

The Reverend John Bradley, 18th April 2010

2010-04-19T22:42:00.001+01:00

Sermon preached at the Church of Christ the Cornerstone

Sunday 18th April 2010 (Easter 3)

What happened to Saul of Tarsus as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles was the classic ‘Damascus Road Experience’; it has put that expression into our vocabulary. Today such a radical change is treated with suspicion. No politician likes to be accused of ‘doing a U-turn.’ Before another election, Mrs Thatcher famously declared ‘the lady’s not for turning!’ But Saul did change direction, specifically with regard to Jesus of Nazareth and the Christian faith. He had tried to stamp it out but now he became one of its great ambassadors. The change was unexpected and unsought but utterly life-changing. What kind of change was it?

Conversion doesn’t just mean changing religion or denomination. This September when the Pope comes to Coventry, he will declare Cardinal John Henry Newman to be a saint. When Cardinal Newman described himself as ‘the only convert’ at the 1st Vatican Council, he meant that he had been an Anglican and had become a Roman Catholic. What happened to Saul of Tarsus was not that he changed from one religion to another. Many years later, when the Roman commandant in Jerusalem asks him who he is, he still says “I am a Jew…” (Acts 21.39; 22.3), not “I was a Jew but now I have become a Christian.”

So what is conversion? Conversion is the work of God. Ever since the time of Paul, some people have thought us preachers are proper fools. Some might say to me “you’ve been preaching for over forty years; how many people have you converted?” The answer is none, but whenever by God’s grace someone has heard what I have said and believed it and been converted, the work of conversion is entirely God’s. It seems ridiculous to imagine that people can actually be radically changed for the better by listening to someone preaching. But we keep on preaching and God keeps on converting people. When Paul wrote to the Corinthians about his preaching he said that ‘the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God.’ (1 Cor 1:18) Notice that these are not fixed categories of ‘the lost’ and ‘the saved’; they are ‘journeying’ words. God’s work of conversion is changing ‘being lost’ people into ‘being saved’ people.

So what happens when God converts someone? There are many famous accounts where people have described their conversion. As well as Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan wrote an account of his conversion which he entitled Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. The classic sequence is conviction of sin – realising the gulf between the person you are and the person you should be, repentance – a change of heart, mind and direction, receiving forgiveness and assurance. It is still valid, but there are other roads. As well as The Damascus Road, there is The Jericho Road – being cared for when at rock bottom and brought to safety and health. And there is The Emmaus Road – from confusion and despair to a realisation of the transforming presence of the risen Christ.

Conversion is more than repentance. Repentance is something that God enables us to do but we have to do it. Every time we gather for worship, our prayers include an element of repentance. It is a reality check because we live in a culture where we are constantly expected to present a positive image – hordes of candidates are scouring the country doing it right now! – but when we come before God who sees us as we really are, such veneers are pointless. Some repentance can be frequent but short-lived; like the man who said “it’s easy to give up smoking – I’ve done it dozens of times!” It is after we have had a change of heart, mind and direction that God changes the actual person you are, and that is conversion.

What about those people who have never known a time when they didn’t believe? Do they still need to be converted? Most people brought up in a Christian home experience a time of drifting, or rebellion, or reassessment. We began with our parents’ faith and assumed it was true but eventually came to the point of asking “what do I believe for myself?” God’s work can be quiet, almost imperceptible. You could catch the Eurostar from St Pancras to Paris and fall asleep on the train. When you reach Paris, you know you have arrived, even though you have no idea when you crossed the border.

Conversion is not only for individuals; there is a need for both personal and social conversion. Social conversion is more than the benefit to society when more individuals are converted. It is the transformation of society itself by the power of the Gospel. Engaging in social conversion inevitably brings us into the realm of politics, whichever party you support. When we pray that God’s kingdom may come and God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven, we are asking for a changed society and offering ourselves as agents of that change. It is a good thing to aim in life to leave the earth a little more like heaven than you found it. Social conversion addresses the national disgrace of 85,000 people in prison, the widening gap between rich and poor, the causes and consequences of marriage breakdown and broken families. It does so not by condemning those who have failed but by reaching out in costly compassion as Jesus did in Galilee, leaving us an example to follow in his steps.

Our Gospel reading this morning is one of my favourite parts of the Easter story. Peter was still under the cloud of having denied knowing Christ. He only knew how to do two things: following Jesus and fishing! How could he follow Jesus now? Better go fishing… Then comes another turning point – an unexpected appearance of Jesus, a life-transforming encounter. Peter can’t wait for the boat to land; his enthusiasm reminds me of Forrest Gump jumping out of his shrimp boat when he sees Lt Dan! Peter learns that Jesus still loves him and recommissions him to love others. 153 fish represent 153 Gentile nations; Peter is still to be a fisher of men.

Cynics will always scorn the possibility of conversion, just waiting for the reformed criminal to reoffend or the recovering addict to relapse. But the power to change the heart of a person, a change as radical as that from death to life, flows from the resurrection of Christ. It is because of Easter that we can be changed, not just when the last trumpet sounds, but now!

In some ways conversion is unrepeatable, like baptism, but at the same time, it is not just a once-for-all crisis. It is a stage in the process of becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ. In fact, the renewal of your conversion can be a reaffirmation of the faith in which you were baptised. The hymn writer Philip Doddridge wrote ‘High heaven, that heard the solemn vow, that vow renewed shall daily hear.’ Whether or not there has been such a life-changing moment in your life, each one of us can know that we have been and are being changed from ‘being lost’ people into ‘being saved’ people. When you think what God has done in your own life, you are better equipped to tell your story of growing faith to others. That is the best way to pass the faith on. Paul was ‘not disobedient to the heavenly vision’ he received on the Damascus Road and Peter never denied again the Master’s commission to feed his flock. Through their faithfulness, the faith reached us. Through our faithfulness, this same life-transforming message will reach others as yet unborn when they, too, need God’s gracious work of conversion.

Christmas Poster from New Zealand

2009-12-15T23:35:00.003Z

A Christmas poster commissioned by a church in New Zealand more information.

Prayers for 22nd November

2009-12-09T22:37:00.004Z

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

Revd Alan Hodgetts, 15th November 2009

2009-11-15T16:22:00.006Z

Prisons Week, Sunday 15th November 2009

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.

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.”

The Reverend David Gamble, 20th September 2009

2009-09-20T21:13:00.007+01:00

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.

God's in the Dark.

2009-09-05T08:42:00.006+01:00

Sermon presented by David Moore at the Church of Christ the Cornerstone, 30 August 2009

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.

Sunday 26 July 2009: Brenda Mosedale

2009-07-27T21:53:00.002+01:00

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.

28 June 2009: David Tatem's farewell sermon

2009-07-05T21:55:00.005+01:00

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.

Pentecost 2009: David Moore

2009-05-27T11:40:00.004+01:00

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

Pentecost 2009: Leipzig reading

2009-05-27T11:37:00.001+01:00

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.

David Tatem, Low Sunday, 2009: Thomas

2009-04-25T10:09:00.004+01:00

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

John 1. 1-14: A conversation

2009-04-24T20:20:00.004+01:00

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

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 ©

Easter Intercessions 2009

2009-04-21T13:11:00.001+01:00

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:

David Moore: We believe. Glory, glory
Women: Christ is Risen.
All: Glory, Glory, Glory

Mysterious 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.

DM: We believe. Glory, glory
Women: Christ is Risen.
All: Glory, Glory, Glory

Lord 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.

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, glory
Women: Christ is Risen.
All: Glory, Glory, Glory

Risen 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.

DM: We believe. Glory, glory
Women: Christ is Risen.
All: Glory, Glory, Glory

Open the graves which exist within our world, that we may harness and express the grandeur and intensity of your purpose for all people.

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, glory
Women: Christ is Risen.
All: Glory, Glory, Glory

Most earnestly we pray you to fill in the graves we currently dig for future generations - though our senseless and wilful misuse of the planet.

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, glory
Women: Christ is Risen.
All: Glory, Glory, Glory

For 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.

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