Where’s Gamaliel?

Low Sunday 2013 

Acts 5:27–32 and John 20:19–29

The Reverend David Moore

When we were coming up to retirement, 12 years ago, Dorothy and I thought long and hard as to what sort of house we would require in order to live a fulfilling retirement. We decided the minimum requirement would include a house with an upstairs and a downstairs loo; a house which was walking distance from a local shop and a property in which either of us would be comfortable to live alone.

We found such a house and the Methodist Ministers Housing Society purchased it, with us contributing 13% of the cost. It has two bedrooms, the second one doubles as a study. It is a modest house and it suits us well. I built a studio in the garden and there is a garage into which no car has a chance of entering. It is also a good place to live, with neighbors we both like and trust.

However, if we were Housing Association or Local Authority tenants I may not be sleeping so comfortably in my bed at night. I speak of the second bedroom tax!

But this is nothing new - in 1993 the year before we came to Milton Keynes the same song was being sung by the John Major Government. Here is the opening paragraph of a letter I sent to a Government minister and all the MPs in Bradford, where I then worked.

I am outraged at our Government’s latest invective. Selecting lone parents - in reality single mothers - for the latest round of castigation is obscene. .... I am also outraged by the mediocrity of the response of opposition parties.

The bedroom tax is but a continuum of the scapegoating attitudes ever present in class-driven politics. Should you think I am straying too far from scripture I invite you to take a second look at the Bible Reading from the Acts of the Apostles.

You will recall the reading from the Acts ended at verse 32.

This touched them on the raw and they wanted to put him to death... 

the passage continues ...

...But a member of the Council rose to his feet, a Pharisee called Gameliel, a teacher of the law held in high regard by all the people. He said Men of Israel, be very careful what you do with these men. Now my advice to you is this: keep clear of these men, for if what is planned and done is human in origin, it will collapse, but if it is from God you will never stamp it out, and you risk finding yourself at war with God.‘ 

Today we might say that Gameliel was viewing the bigger picture.

During the last ‘World War’ when the bombing of Germany and England was at its height the Rt Revd. George Bell, Bishop of Chichester, spoke out against the British policy of the carpet bombing of German cities - bombing which was primarily aimed at industrial working class areas of Germany. Bell did not get an easy ride - either from his Archbishop or from Parliament - but Bell was made of tough stuff - he was seeing beyond the immediate - his eyes were upon what it means to be civilised at a time of war.

A part of our high calling is being civilised and equitable in times of constraint - we are called to witness to the generosity of God ... the one who is light years beyond any possibility of penny pinching.

If only there were such effective voices in our land today, voices to speak to a government which now appears to be totally out of touch with the lives of ordinary people but which seems hell bent, not only on asking the poorest to carry a disproportionate share of the cost of the present financial plight, but also implying they are part of the problem.

Back to My house. If I were forced to downsize to a one bedroomed house - I cannot begin to imagine the real cost - books, furniture, paintings, tools, sculptures, clothes, studio. Never again being able to invite a visitor to stay - be it our children, grandchildren or friends. Nowhere to make sculptures. Yes, I also speak about the meaning of being civilised!

So where is our Gamaliel today? Who is willing to speak to power about truth of modesty? Where is the champion? The Church of Scotland, the Baptist Church, the United Reformed Church and the Methodist all made a comment this week ... I applaud their effort but the trouble is it had no real teeth! No practical dissent, no action.

How many people do you think there are who are in real danger of being forcibly relocated and have no platform from which to be heard? Relocated ... now there is a familiar word ... remember it?

In 1970 the book The Discarded People depicting the relocation of black South Africans from valuable development areas to more remote areas.. A few years later the priest/author Cosmas Desmond, was forced into exile and was to become one of my closest friends in East London. I conducted his memorial service just a year ago! He was the author of The Discarded People.

The Bantu Homelands Citizens Act - one of a string of Acts by the legitimate South African Parliament, compelled all black people to become a citizen of the homeland that responded to their ethnic group, regardless of whether they'd ever lived there or not, a process which also removed their South African citizenship.

For Cos Desmond this was an issue of Human Rights, it was about building a Civilised Society, this is why George Bell raised his voice during a war for the enemy about carpet bombing.

Or again going back even further .... The British Government in 1960 adopted the Parker Morris Building Standards which legislated housing to be built upon standards compatible with ‘healthy living’. Air, light, space.

The Margaret Thatcher government removed those standards and today more and more of our fellow citizens live in less and less space. Builders with Rabbit Hutch mentalities! Not only that, but the pouring of much of our income into home ownership has been part and parcel of the financial crisis of recent times. Banking and House building are close cousins!

Is there no balm in Gilead? Can we choose other ways of living? Are we bound forever to a treadmill designed by bankers? Or, as Gameliel put it, ... be careful for what you wish for ... only that which belongs to God truly lasts.

My religious heritage is Methodist which came into being with John and Charles Wesley in the 18th century. No more than 20 years after his death the growing movement began to splinter into a range of denominations all claiming Wesley as their spiritual inspiration - each carrying, as it were, their own particular flag. When these denominations eventually reunited in 1932 a prayer by William Younger the President of the Primitive Methodist Church, concluded with these words:

the oneness of our irrevocable decision (is to) to labour together for the salvation of the world

To labour together for the salvation of the world! ....... Not the salvation of their souls, not an assurance of a place in heaven - the great endeavour was the salvation of the world - civilisation, mutuality, compassion, community, support, strong and weak finding common purpose, shared joy.

Listen to these notes from Wesley’s Journal:

Bath, Wednesday October 1st 1783 All my leisure hours this week I employed in visiting the poor and in begging for them. Having collected about fifty pounds more, I was able to relieve most of those in distress.

Letter to Ebenezar Blackwood:

To Lending Stock	2	0	0
Brooks, expecting daily to have goods taken for rent	1	0	0
To Eliz Room (a poor widow) for rent	0	5	0
Toward clothing for Mary Middleton and another poor woman almost naked	0	10	0
To John Weaver, a poor weaver, out of work	0	5	0
To Lucy Jones, a poor orphan	0	2	0
To a poor family for food and fuel	0	5	0
To Christopher Brown, out of business	0	2	6
To an ancient woman in great distress	0	2	6
Distributed among several sick families	0	10	0
	5	5	0

I am, dear Sir, your affectionate servant

Letter to Dorothy Furley. Sept. 21st 1757 

.... in most genteel religious people there is so strange a mixture that I seldom have confidence in them. I love the poor; in many of them I find pure, genuine grace unmixed with paint, folly and affectation.

So whether I like it or not, even in retirement, I consider myself as a manunder orders! The Methodist Movement flows from the same spirit that moved Bishop Bell to speak out against indiscriminate bombing at a time far more precarious than ours today and perhaps that is why I can never and will never be at rest.

Those of you who read the local newspapers may have seen the headlines about the City Counseling Centre based at this Church. To the undiscerning reader it may have given rise to believing that in some way we (this Church) gave the MK Bereavement Service its marching orders. We can of course simply say that it is nothing to do with us - but so are the poor of the world. Clearly something somewhere has gone off the rails and I hope some representative of ‘us’ might post a message on the notice sheet and or website, expressing at least concern for those who feel trampled upon by recent events.

My difficulty is that resurrection really means ALL of life - we can be polite, mind our own business or we can believe with Bishop Bell and John Wesley that life is far too precious for silence in such matters.

A friend from Stoke on Trent whom I have known for over 50 years, has lived most of her adult life with a severe mobility disorder. Now retired, she works as a volunteer at a local Advice Centre. Last Wednesday was her first day back at the Centre after the Easter and after April 1st - she says the Centre was totally overrun - 100s of emails; queues out the doors - people in panic and confusion, simply not knowing what to do.

Come unto me all you who labour and are laden and heavy laden. Are we meant to believe that ? Are we meant to act it out? Or again: ‘What you do to the least of these my brethren you do it to me?‘
 
What can we actually do about the the changes in benefits? I am sorry to say, very little. A majority of MPs at Westminster have voted for them and some came into effect on April Fools Day! One thing we can do is let our MPs know just how we feel as Christians.

It is not difficult to get email addresses for MPs through the internet - I am not going to spoon feed you!

Postscript

Since this sermon was delivered Margaret Thatcher has died. There is no doubt that she was a remarkable leader. As a politician, most people I knew and worked with, disliked or despised her.

Easter Day Meditation 2013

Acts 10:34-43 and Luke 24: 1-12

Fr Jonathan Ewer SSM

31st March 2013

But peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

In every Jewish home at the Passover meal, the youngest person present asks the question ‘Why are we doing this? What’s all this business about unleavened bread and bitter herbs?’ And the father of the family, presiding over the meal, gives the answer, ‘We do this because our ancestors were slaves in Egypt, but the Lord freed us from slavery…’ and so they go through the story in detail. And the detail is important, because their Passover meal is a re-living of the original Passover event. For they were there, in the loins of their ancestors, as they quaintly put it; they were there in the bodies of their ancestors; they were there as slaves in Egypt and they were there at the crossing of the red sea. They were there in the desert and at the foot of Mount Sinai. They were there as they trecked around the desert and eventually made it to the promised land. They were there, in the bodies of their ancestors. So every year they re-lived the Passover event. They didn’t just remember it, they re-lived it symbolically, in their homes at this meal with unleavened bread representing the manna in the wilderness, the bitter herbs representing the difficulties of the journey, and the wine poured out representing the blood of the covenant.

During this last week, the whole Christian community – well, apart from the Orthodox who have got the date wrong again – apart from them, the whole Christian community has been re-living its Passover. Last Sunday we re-lived the entry into Jerusalem with palm branches and crosses welcoming the Messiah into the place of Peace – which is ironically what Jerusalem is thought to have meant: the place of peace. On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday we listened to the stories about Mary anointing Jesus feet with costly ointment as if for burial, about the Greeks from Galilee wanting to see Jesus, which prompts Jesus to say ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified’, and about the terrible moment at the supper when Jesus knew that someone there was going to betray him… All of these stories led us relentlessly towards the events of that Thursday evening, the last supper, the foot washing, the agony in the garden. ‘Not my will but thine be done.’ The tension mounts as we go through Thursday night, watching the encounters between Jesus and the Jewish and Roman authorities, and watching his disciples slinking away through fear and bewilderment.

Then the crucifixion itself. On Good Friday we heard the passion story from St John’s gospel, and then there was time to pray in front of the cross, until 3 o’clock when it was all over and there was an emptiness – like death. Yesterday, Holy Saturday, was a nothing day, an empty day, which we filled with doing things to prepare for Easter, busying ourselves the way that people do when they are in grief.

Then last night or early this morning, there was the lighting of the new fire, the blessing and lighting of the Easter candle, which we brought into church. “The Light of Christ: Thanks be to God”.

At Willen we sang the Exsultet, an ancient song which tells the Exodus story of the pillar of fire which led the Jews by night through the wilderness to freedom – eventually. Going the through the Red Sea is linked to baptism so we renewed our baptismal vows and celebrated our washing for freedom, our being brought into the Body of Christ.

All of these events this week have been for us a re-living of our Passover event – and it is a reliving, because in the nature of symbolism we have been baptized into Christ, made parts of his body so that what happened to that body happens to us: we share in his crucifixion, we share his death, his descent into hell, and we share his rising from the dead.

The Jews re-live the Passover, the escape from Egypt; we re-live our Passover, our escape from slavery – the slavery of sin. It isn’t simply remembering past events: we are re-living stuff that has happened to us, and keeps on happening to us, so that we are different people – and will keep on being made different people.

There is another point about this re-living business: the Jews looked backwards – to the Exodus, and beyond that to Abraham, to see the events which made them the people of God, the events which made them who they are. They march forward indeed, but whenever they get carried away and forget to look back to their formative events, they go off the rails and get into all sorts of trouble. A prophet has to be sent to get them back on track.

It is the same with us. We look back to the events of Holy Week, the events that made us the people we are. We march forward, of course, but we know perfectly well that whenever we forget our origins, whenever we get obsessed with moving towards the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, we get off course and a prophet arises to make us stop and re-think. That applies to us as a church, it applies to us as a nation, it applies to us as individuals.

In our own lives we can see the hand of God only when we look back. We can see where we have come from, we can see the important stepping stones, the decisions we made or which were made for us, we can see how we’ve been led. Faith is an assumption that God will keep on leading us, a belief that the direction will be more or less the same, a hope that he is drawing us nearer to himself. And it is faith, not knowledge. We don’t know where we’re heading, we don’t know where we’re being taken, but in faith we go on, tentatively, trying things out, but confident that we are being led – to the promised land, to the kingdom of God. The opposite of faith is not doubt; the opposite of faith is certainty. People who say they know what God plans for them, people who say they know the will of God, frighten me a bit. Fundamentalists of any kind frighten me. They are absolutely they are right, and everyone else is wrong. It is a short step from that illusion to violence and oppression.

We are a people of faith, not knowledge, a people of hope, not certainty. Every little we are given to understand of the will of God is provisional, enough to work with for the time being, but not the whole truth. And every bit that we think might be the truth we test by checking it with what God has done in the past. We can see the pain – and can identify with the suffering of Jesus, we can see also the moments of wonder and amazement as the presence of God is revealed to us – and we can identify with the Resurrection.

If we can see where God has been leading us, if we can see the stepping stones, if it all makes sense – God’s sense, that is, not ours necessarily - then we have the courage to continue. That is being brave, that is being radical, going back to our roots in order to check out what we are about to do now.

Holy Week enables us to re-live the passion with Jesus. It takes us back to our roots, to the crucifixion in which we play a part, not simply as observers of an event 2000 years ago, but as participants in the mystical body of Christ. We are there in his body. Holy week takes us back to our roots so that we can see where we come from, and that tells us who we are, and where we might be going. And the Resurrection of our Lord seals the deal: slavery to sin is over, everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name, as St Peter said. The kingdom has come near, and we are given glimpses of the truth, the truth that shall set us free. Our response is not a triumphalist certainty, to lord it over others. No. Like Peter we are amazed at what has happened.

And whereas Moses commanded every Jewish family to re-live the Passover every year, Jesus, our new law-giver, commands us to re-live our Passover – every year in Holy Week, yes, but also every week, or even more often than that, every time we celebrate the Eucharist – which is what we are doing now.

So today especially, today of all days, as we come to share the Eucharist, let our eating the holy bread feed our awareness that we are one body with him, the body tortured, crucified, and resurrected. And let our drinking the holy wine slake our thirst for the things of the new covenant, for justice, for peace, in the new Jerusalem, the city of peace. And with Peter, let us go home, amazed at what has happened, amazed at what has happened to us, and amazed at the possibilities God is leading us into.

Lent 1: Temptation in the Wilderness

Luke 4.1-13

Sermon by the Reverend John Bradley

17th February 2013

Jesus' temptation in the wilderness follows immediately after his baptism. The wilderness is a place of purification where nothing can live for long. Jesus ate nothing for forty days and at the end of that time he was literally beginning to starve to death. If most of us ate nothing for forty hours we would say we were starving but after forty days without food, all the body's reserves of fat have been burnt up and the body starts digesting its own organs. That is a medical definition of starvation. So Jesus was in an extremely vulnerable state.

Why did Jesus teach us to pray that our Heavenly Father would not lead us into temptation? What loving parent would deliberately put temptation in the way of their child like a bowl of sweets on the coffee table with a sign saying 'don't touch!'? But suppose you had designed a toy that was meant to be indestructible; you might well give a prototype to some boys and say "see what you can do with that!" That's the difference between temptation and testing. Part of the expectation of Jesus' hearers was that just before the glorious Day of the Lord came there would be the fiercest time of testing, the darkest hour before the new dawn. For Jesus this darkest hour came when he was at his physical weakest. In the dry, lifeless wilderness he encountered the Devil.

My headmaster, J W Harmer, was an authority on religious education. He wasn't good at remembering our names but when he taught RE he had the habit of firing questions at anyone he thought wasn't paying attention. "Who is the devil?" he once asked, "The boy behind Jones". "No, sir," said the boy, flustered, "it's not me!" The Old Testament has three elements which become one in the New Testament. The subtle snake, the twister who deceived Eve in Eden is the first to challenge what God has said. 'Did God say...?' The right answer was "God said it, I believe it; that settles it!" but Eve used her own intuition instead. The second element is the Accuser, the Satan, a title more than a name. He appears in the book of Job where he is given divine permission to put Job through his darkest hour. The Satan is not wicked, just the Chief Prosecutor in the Court of Heaven. The third element comes from the superpowers which bring about the eventual destruction of Israel, especially Babylon. The overwhelming characteristic is pride and the demonic power is called the Beast. Later, especially in the book of Revelation, it is applied to the Roman Empire. The one who Jesus encounters in the wilderness has all of these three elements. 'We wrestle,' wrote St Paul, 'not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers, spiritual forces of evil.' It is with this timeless enemy of the People of God that Jesus struggled in the wilderness and we struggle now.

At his baptism, Jesus had heard the heavenly voice saying "This is my Son; with him I am well pleased". But what does it mean to be the Son of God? The three temptations can be seen as three alternative ways of being God's son. In his starving state, the flat round stones in the wilderness began to look like fresh warm loaves of bread. If he was the Son of God through whom the world had been made, surely it would be easy to turn a stone into bread and satisfy his craving? Should he meet people's physical and material needs? He did it when he fed the 5,000 and when his disciples got an amazing unexpected catch of fish. He could go around the world meeting people's needs and be the most popular provider ever. But people would keep coming back for more. After he fed the 5000 some started following him just in the hope of more bread and fish. If he had just healed the sick and fed the hungry why would the rich and powerful have crucified him? They would have been pleased that he was keeping the peasants happy. But then he told the crowds to deny themselves, take up their cross and follow him. He announced the arrival of God's new kingdom where the world would be turned upside down, putting down the mighty from their seat and exalting the humble and meek. The mighty didn't like that and so conspired to do away with him. He set his course for Jerusalem, the city of peace which had become the maelstrom of oppression, knowing all that must happen there but the first temptation was to be Christ without a Cross.

Then came the temptation of seeking political power. Many people have set out on the road to political office with the aim of making a better world but have been corrupted by the power they acquired. That doesn't mean that no Christian should go into politics but it does mean that political power alone cannot make the world what God intends it to be. When people began to acclaim Jesus as the Messiah, they expected him to take political power, today Israel and tomorrow the world. But when Jesus was on trial before Pilate, the representative of political power, he said "my kingdom is not of this world; if it was, my followers would fight."

Finally came the temptation of dramatic acts which nobody could explain or reproduce. Sometimes unbelieving Jewish leaders would ask him for a sign, a miracle to convince the sceptics that he really was who he claimed to be. Jesus always refused. His mightiest act of all, his resurrection, happened without human witnesses and the first to see him were not Pilate and Herod but women whose testimony in that culture was generally disregarded.

How do these temptations affect us today? We might think that all we have to do to fulfil the commission of Christ is to feed the world, educate the world or even heal the world. But the task is not complete until we have made Christ's disciples. It is not that the Church is a membership club whose main purpose is to make more members but that trusting in Christ is the way to life in all its fullness.

We may not hanker after world domination (!) but it's easy to daydream about suddenly acquiring unexpected power or wealth. If you do the Lottery, what if the deep voice from the cloud said "it's you!"? (but it's not you or you or you!)? Some Lottery winners would say that their sudden wealth has brought them more problems than solutions. When I was a boy, my parents gave me a Premium Bond. It's never come up in 50 years but it could make me an instant millionaire. Such daydreams are a subtle temptation; giving attention to what most probably won't and would bring their own problems if they did! 'Solid joys and lasting treasure none but Zion's children know'! What Jesus heard at his baptism was a declaration of his Father’s love, a love bond which sustained him every moment of his life. A love bond cannot be proved by empirical experiment; to try to do so is to distrust the relationship. There are two love bonds which are fundamental to my life and neither can be proved or disproved by double-blind placebo trials. Both are sources of constant amazement to me. For each there was an event which changed my life. I asked for something I didn't deserve and received far more than I could ever imagine.

In Torquay, South Devon, alone in my room, in April 1966 I prayed that Jesus Christ would become Lord of my life and direct my way in his way. I thought of my life as a car and I asked Jesus Christ to take the steering wheel and direct me in the way he wanted me to go. I had been trying so hard to live a life that was good enough to please God and finally realised I couldn't.  I didn't feel any different but from that time onwards I was overwhelmed by a love which transformed my life.  I didn't deserve it, there is nothing I could ever have done to win it or earn it.  It was pure grace: undeserved favour.

In January 1979 I was near Hamnavoe in Shetland with a beautiful girl with whom I had fallen in love. I asked her to marry me and she said yes! Amazing! A few days later I woke up and thought "What did she say?" And I remembered clearly that she said yes.  I wasn't the only one to be surprised. When I introduced my fiancée to some of my college friends they were surprised that I had found anyone willing to marry me and amazed that I had found such a cracker!  But the sceptics would say in both cases "Prove it then!"  Some people can become sceptical about everything and everyone. When scepticism takes you over like that you can develop scepticaemia - a soul-destroying condition! What kind of husband would I be if I was always trying to prove that her love was real? It is the same with questioning the reality of the amazing grace of my Saviour.

We have a Saviour who knows what it is to be tempted but who showed that it is possible to resist and overcome the attractive but wrong choices and take the costly path of God's way instead. 1 Cor 10.13 This Lent we won't spend forty days and night without food and if you have decided to give up something you enjoy, that isn't the main point. It's all about learning how to be the people who God is calling us to be so that we can be part of God's plan to make the world what God intends it to be. Resist the temptations to take the easy roads; let's follow Jesus on the road of costly discipleship.


Prayer for the Week

Lord Jesus Christ, beloved Son of God, who resisted the subtle easier options and set your face firmly towards the Cross, help us in our weakness to follow close behind you whatever the cost. Amen

To act justly, to love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.

What does the Lord require of you?
To act justly, to love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.

Micah 6.8 

A Sermon by The Revd. David Moore
Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, 20 January 2013

If you search the internet for films about Border towns you may be surprised how many there are. You will all have seen such films - often sinister, always a danger of the bad guys arriving; often with a no nonsense sheriff and of course Mexican dozing under big hats! Border towns are often places for people fleeing violence, poverty, cruelty - all looking for safe lodgings or safety or revenge.

Micah lived in a Border town at a time when human settlements were more or less associated with tribes. The implication from his words is that he lived in a violent place, where killing strangers appears to have been a godly thing to do. Probably surrounded by tribal communities - small nation states in the making - knocking ten bells out of each other much of the time.

This was the world of the Prophet Micah who called his fellow citizens to adopt a very different approach to life! He called them to act justly, to love mercy, and walk humbly before God. Micah appears to carry a message similar to that of Isaiah’s, namely to: beat your swords into ploughshares. At a time when other small nation states were slaying each other in the name of God there were a few Jewish ‘dreamers’ with a very different approach to international relations.

We might conclude that many of these films about border towns were revisiting stories as old as the Bible - and this has been the perpetual struggle of those who would provide leadership on the world stage ever since - how to make peace in the midst of diversity, misunderstanding and cultural difference, and competing territorial claims (cf Falklands!).

The recent Cornerstone discussion document on Diversity disappointed me in that it explores diversity solely within our own religious community. My sense is that the burning issue for the Church in Britain is to understand and express the diversity of the world in which we find ourselves and for us that is the experience of Milton Keynes. The word ecumenical refers to the ‘whole inhabited world’ - ecumenism is a quest, a calling, a burden, as well as the holding of everything together in the name of Christ.

Listen to this short letter from a newspaper and as I read it, I invite you to switch your imagination to ‘high definition’ and your memory to that of being a teenager again. This letter comes is by Dinah Hall and was in the Guardian letters page a few weeks ago.

There is nothing like a teenage diary for putting momentous historical events into perspective. “This is my diary entry for 20 July 1969. ‘I went to the arts centre (by myself) in yellow cords and blouse. Ian was there but he did not speak to me. Got a rhyme put in my handbag by somebody who’s apparently got a crush on me. It’s Nicholas I think. UGH. Man landed on moon.’”

Four words about humankind’s most momentous adventure ever and 66 words about teenage hormones!

This story makes clear the power of our personal agenda to override the most spectacular world-changing events. How is it that our interests, fears, passions have the power to override or hide what is happening outside of us?

And that is also the tragic story of the church: we produce some of the most beautiful music, literature and art the world has ever known, but are beaten down again and again by the bigotry of our own ignorance. And we are not free of it here at Christ the Cornerstone, far from it.

There are very few people remaining who were here at Cornerstone when the decisions were made to build this church. Clearly, a project as ambitious as this does not ‘just happen’. Meeting after meeting after meeting. People like you engaged in discussion after discussion; having major disagreements and eventually finding sufficient agreement to move forward.

It was, by all accounts, an invigorating and taxing time - a time when church members and bishops lost a great deal of sleep! When countless critical decisions had to be made almost on a daily basis, members of the church HAD to find ways of trusting each other! There are now few of those left who carried the full weight of that cost.

As the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity begins, what might the ecumenical vision now mean for us today 21 years on from the opening.

What is clear is that there is hardly any first-hand memory, that we have difficulty in recalling or imagining the exact emotions and order of events. If memory and interpretation is that hard to grasp, how much harder will it be to envisage the Bible stories - and therein lays a problem. We today are perhaps not unlike the girl in yellow jeans - our emotions colour all our horizons. Putting our personal agendas to the fore can be a way of missing what God’s word for us today might be.

What does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. Micah 6.8

This week I invite you to reflect/muse upon faith as ‘radical trust'; love as course of action, rather than a cluster of beliefs about which we endlessly argue or worry. 

The Border town prophet spelt out a radical belief:

Act justly - this is first and foremost about putting others first - not allowing the ‘yellow jean syndrome’ to flood our horizon with our ‘hormones’ or cultural myopia. (Myopia = nearsightedness, lack of imagination, foresight or intellectual insight.) Act justly.

Love mercy - think of ‘love’ as a verb ... a doing word; love as action rather than sentiment or sentimentality; putting first that which puts the other person first. (The trouble is we think we know what is best for others!)

I cannot pass the word ‘sentimentality’ without comment - the sentimentality we go in for at difficult times - eg death - is so damaging, so deadly!! How dare we voice that American drivel about not being dead but just in another room. When we die we are gone for ever - the crematorium sees to that. Justice is also about the persistence of truth.

Walk humbly - to take this lifestyle as no big deal - this, quite simply, is the reason why it can be a very disturbing way - the radical nature of ordinariness when lived with purpose.

When I came to work here I was more than a little bruised by my previous experience of being sacked ... I came into a team of remarkably gifted human beings ALL of whom treated me as if I had more to offer that I could imagine. I remember all their names and the tone of their voices.

One of the things I personally find most difficult as a Christian is the way other people assume to know what, for me, being a Christian means .... the assumption is that it’s about believing in impossible things, like God, the Trinity, being good!

For me being a Christian is first and foremost NOT these things but about becoming a pilgrim, having a clear purpose you can articulate.

What I have in mind is ‘love’ as a verb and not just or even a feeling.  I am drawn by the disturbance Jesus caused to the establishment because of his capacity to focus on the most important things, and my quest is to redefine what that means for us today.

I cannot affirm with any sense of purpose or excitement the historic creeds - I do not want to get rid of them - they are marker posts in the ever-changing sands of Christian history. However, I do invite you to make time this week to muse upon my minimalist affirmation: faith as a journey away from certainty, rather than a primary source of certainty. I understand faith as a call to action, rather than a cluster of beliefs which we argue about or feel forced to conform to.

The disturbance Jesus brought to the establishment of his day, because of his capacity to focus upon the most important things and to redefine and refine what that was, is my primary interest.

The very thing that ‘captured’ me when I arrived at Cornerstone was that people were living by faith - not in pious ways but practical, intelligent, adult ways. That is the reason I am still here. I do, however, fear now that the Diversity discussion, as wonderful as it is, lacks the political clout required to face up to the long-term disasters being heaped upon future generations by the present Government.

I do not believe that Jesus would settle for the present level of silence between believers and the world.

Act justly, love mercy, walk humbly with God. These characteristics do not immediately spring to mind in either the political or religious world of today.

We all adore Desmond Tutu. I wrote to Tutu many years ago when I was organising an ecumenical confirmation service, asking him to send a letter of greeting to those who were being confirmed. He obliged, sending me a letter, whereupon I, with skilful 1990 photocopying and careful use of pen AND ink, rewrote the individual names plus Desmond’s signatures. I photocopied the letter with handwritten names and signatures. Fifteen or so people between 12 and 80 left clutching their letter as if holding hands with God!

My small brush with fraud is nothing compared with the courage and clear-headedness of Desmond Tutu but we appear to have no such prophet in the land! We applaud the example but few even attempt to follow his example - we all have a long, long journey ahead. How will we rise to the challenge?

Peter Sharrocks, a retired Methodist minister living in Milton Keynes, has written songs for most of his life and he completed this one just yesterday. In conclusion I offer Peter’s vision of the ecumenical quest, in the hope that we here at Cornerstone may continue with a vision which is greater than self-interest:

TRANSCENDENT LOVE

Transcendent Love, lift us above
the petty squabbles that divide –
the spats of jealousy and griefs
that split a family apart;
with mercy, grace and deeper love
help us to heal and reconcile.

Transcendent Love, lift us beyond
the need to dominate and rule –
above the fears that come between
the nations and religious creeds;
let mercy, grace and justice be
the means by which we build our peace.

Transcendent Love, lift us above
beliefs that differ and divide;
compassion calls, and God’s served best
when neighbours needs are recognised;
humbly we walk, with hearts aflame
for justice in a world of pain.

Rejoice in God who raises up
the Way of Christ, the Best of Love;
there is no way than this to peace,
no meaner path than sacrifice;
the prophet’s call rings out today,
let faith be trust in Jesus’ Way.

©2013 Peter Sharrocks

Mary and Elizabeth

A reflection by The Reverend David Moore

Luke 1: 26 - 38

Most of you will no doubt will love a good story - very long novels, however well written, are not for me. In fact the storytelling which appeals most to me is poetry. I always circumvent being disappointed at Christmas by buying myself a new book of poetry.

In a poem a word can mean whatever the poet or the reader, choose it to mean. I am not suggesting that with poetry we abandoning all reason, but that in reading a poem the conjunction of pace, rhythm and form, plus where you are sat, can create such juxtapositions in ones head that more than we ‘know’ can come to mind. It has been said that a poem is never finished, simply abandoned.

Alan Horner gave his book of poetry the title ‘ A picture with the paint still wet’ - suggesting that poetry is not completed and that the reader can always reads as if for the very first time.

I consider much of the Biblical narrative to be first cousins, if not non-identical twins, of poetic form. Over and over again we can be readi it as if for the first time.

Mary and Elizabeth, what beautiful literature, what precise storytelling, touching the heights of the very best poetry ever penned. So, what better Christmas gift can I offer you but Alan’s poem ‘a picture with the paint still wet.’

A picture with the paint still wet

The Word became flesh

and had his portrait painted,

but not hung in the Gospel Gallery,

gazed on by the multitudes

for a fixed fee. His

was a picture with the paint still wet,

changing with the changing light,

open to interpretations, all correct,

depending where the viewer stood.

The virgin Birth was a stroke

of genius, an inspiration of eternity,

unique in its conception,

delicate in its portrayal,

showing the seeming simple

life of obedient faith.

Bethlehem background

might have been predicted,

being the home town

of that most honoured king,

himself a son of God,

though wayward with it,

the singer of God’s praise.

He was a shepherd too, of sheep

and of God’s nation flock,

but shepherds were but common folk,

at home in sheepfolds

or in sheltering barns,

no airs and graces, though sufficient grace.

Angels and stars were messengers

in that ancient world, where

all such forces were servants

of the most high God,

and served to indicate

the face of the divine.

the source and end of wisdom

for all who love the truth,

whatever their religion, race

and unlikely gifts. Such are

the Magi, also in the canvas,

moving across the screen, adding

their own flavour, colour to the whole.

That the paints run and the lines blur

is not matter of surprise. This

is not the stuff of science or of history’s

assumed or proven fact. This is not prose,

but poetry, with its own power

to reach the heart, which static pictures lack.

A poem of lasting worth does not give up all of its treasures on the first reading - nor do the biblical narratives. Last year, for all its worth is not today - read, reflect, experience the story now, whatever it may say.

Thanksgiving for the life of Edna Read FRSA

Background

Edna Read was a remarkable woman compared by one friend as ‘a ball-bearing, eg shiny, beautiful, indestructible and always on the move’. Sadly indestructible she was not!

Her life was shaped first by her history - an Anglo-Japanese teenager in Britain during the 1940s - and, secondly, by the intuitive way she embraced the visual arts as a critical and vital humanising presence in the life of the emerging new city of Milton Keynes.

She remained beautiful into her 80s, remaining energetic, persuasive and also completely impossible at times. She died aged 83 following a road accident in November 2012.

The Remarkable Edna Read

Address by The Reverend David Moore

Tuesday 13 November 2012

There is no avoiding it - I cannot avoid being political!

The news that a Henry Moore sculpture sold to Tower Hamlets Council in East London at a reduced price is now to be sold to offset the impact of Government cuts is, I fear, a clear sign of the true terror of our times - that of knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing.

It is not just that the economy is in trouble, but far more critically, the vision of civil society, of our life together, has itself become disposable! Can you imagine what Edna would be doing about the Moore sculpture - she would be firing off letters and emails in all directions, whilst the rest of us go Tut, Tut,Tut and carry on as usual!

Edna understood value and worth in terms of human enrichment, community enrichment ..... for her, cities were not battery farms for people, but launch pads for exploring the, as yet, unknown. For Edna art was far more than decorative, she believed it to be transformative, the very stuff that leads the human adventure/development.

With the death of Edna Read this city has lost an arts Champion at a terribly dangerous moment for the arts. We must all pray - believers and unbelievers together (!) - that the challenge of taking up the baton of her vision will be accepted as a high priority in these austere times. We dare not allow the present restraints to lull us into believing that austerity means the loss of artistic vision, that the new, the unknown is somehow unattainable or put on hold.

There was a time when Edna regularly drove down to London in an old van, convincing Gallery owners to lend her paintings for her to hang in the new offices and other work places of Milton Keynes! You heard earlier John Napleton’s comment on an Arts Loan Scheme Edna organised with the Library Service.

Edna believed to her very bones that the visual arts were as important to civil society as public footpaths, clean water and roundabouts! It is because she was so driven by her vision that I want to nudge you again with words from John Chapter 1 and the Andrew Motion poem A Garden in Japan.

St John writing to an early community of Christians described how he saw things: They heard the conversation still going on, here, now, and took part, discovering a new way of being people.

New ways of being people - that was Edna.

Or again the concluding verses of A Garden in Japan :

but the real event

will be my decision

to lift a red leaf

from the fang of rock

overhanging the pool,

and so free the current

to fall to earth

which will never again

be one and the same (Andrew Motion The Cinder Path)

Edna refuted the view that we could do nothing. She believed there were things we could all do which would make a difference. She was a ‘believer’! We could all find a leaf to lift which would release some energy!

‘Visions’ don’t have a particularly good press at the present time - perhaps to a certain genre of film makers - but visions, or if you prefer, deep seated change, only takes place in real time - never somewhere else, and that was what Edna was always about. Deep seated change and Public art was her gateway and her highway.

She knew in her heart the immense potential of the arts and how a place as ‘barren’ as a new city could be gently transformed by the arts, especially public art, that a culture could be led through infancy and puberty to becoming a life-giving entity.

As we might give a meal a lift by the addition of a twist of black pepper, so Edna knew the arts was charged with a similar mystery and as such was as important as anything else - a twist by the hand or imagination of an artist can produce/uncover the deepest mystery of life!

A work of art can last for ever while almost everything else in life must change or die!

To my mind, the arts are the permanent hand and footprint of God in the world. Edna also knew the art of lifting the leaf, allowing the water to flow and everything being transformed. But this has to be done on the hoof, in the hustling and bustling of everyday life. It is not reified activity.

I remember, as yesterday, the first time I met Edna. It was 18 years ago in her small office on the lower floor of Saxon Court. I was the newly-appointed City Centre Chaplain and had an interest in the arts. I was looking for a brief introduction to the arts in Milton Keynes and I got far more than I had bargained for!

The fact that I had stumbled upon more than I could quantify or comprehend did not matter - that first conversation sealed a friendship which sadly concluded a few days before her death. It was in the Guildhall of this church, a Fair Trade Sale - we had a coffee, lots of laughter and as usual plotting, plotting, plotting. And I must say that although she was frail, she looked spectacular! She was herself a fantastic work of art!

Over the years she introduced me to artists, arts administrators, politicians and community leaders - her address book must have been phenomenal - and it was in and through that address book that she steered her own vision of a ‘world made right’. (How I would like to get my hands on it!)

I recall her speaking of her burning desire as a 14 year old (1943) of not wanting to appear to be Japanese, of wanting to pass as English. She wanted to be tall, white and blonde, not small and dark. The fact that her best efforts were futile probably led to even greater determination, ingenuity and guile in later life!

The Exhibition at this Church ‘The Japanese in Britain’ was an outstanding success. It involved me being driven by Edna to London to meet with possible funders, but also hearing stories from her childhood. Her driving certainly did encourage one to pray! On one occasion she drove straight into the Royal Academy and demanded to park outside the College of Antiquarians and we were immediately admitted. We had tea and cake and left!

You have already heard mention of those three exhibitions in the CBX building - they were absolutely outstanding by anyone’s standards - she put down markers about vision and quality and audacity which are hard to live with and that is the point. ‘A world made right’ does not come cheap and you can’t buy it. It has to be worked for.

Paul Tillich fled Nazi Germany for America. To my mind he was one of the 20th century’s most remarkable theologians - he learned to squeeze himself beyond the immediate mysteries and problems of life to a position where he could form a grand, more detached vision - indeed not unlike Edna. Tillich wrote this about the arts:

“.... the arts open up a dimension of reality which is otherwise hidden, and they open up our own being for receiving this reality.  Only the arts can do this: science, philosophy, moral action and religious devotion cannot.  The artist brings to our senses, and through them to our whole being, something of the depth of our world and of ourselves, something of the mystery of being.” 

Edna may not have put things quite like that but that is what she was about and that is why she was so passionate in her support for so many artists. Her vision outstripped most of our dreams! For her, what she did was not passing fancy, no time filler, this was the STUFF of life itself. She “heard the conversation going on” and joined in! And she was at it until the very end.

Recently Edna was in conversation with this church as to how it might be possible to fund the reinstallation of a Ronnie Rae Sculpture in front of this church. Her proposal was a lease-lending arrangement leading eventually to a transfer of ownership. She just could not stop working against impossible odds, for public sculpture in this city.

It was, of course, Edna that we have to thank for the beautiful Willi Soukop papier maché sculptures in the Reception Area of this Church and the fantastic Madonna and Child in the Chapel. Most of us, including me, have no idea of the debt we owe to this woman.

Public Sculpture in Milton Keynes was a deep, deep concern for Edna - she considered it to be the Jewel in the Crown of Milton Keynes and as such required care and conservation. One of her dreams (that did not come to fruition) was for vacation time courses in art conservation for young people - both in terms of care for our heritage but also in terms of opening windows to career opportunities for young people in this city. She ached for her vision to spread beyond the art specialist, to cascade down to the poorest streets and homes of Milton Keynes.

Find a piece of public sculpture in MK and you will find a trace memory of Edna.

In conclusion, a personal comment - I started making sculptures at the age of 50. The first object I exhibited was at Edna’s insistence! It was at an exhibition she had organised at the then De Montfort University in MK. Since then, somehow, I have curated 16 exhibitions as far afield as Edinburgh, Taunton, Winchester, Westminster, Tower Hamlets and, of course, Milton Keynes, including places where exhibitions were virtually unknown. It was her, she set that ball rolling! She caused something dormant within me to kick start into life. I also “heard the conversation still going on and joined in”. Edna the evangelist!

A Champion has left us ... another red leaf has been lifted, causing much to change .... painful change, untimely change ... and for the moment there is a pause in the conversation. Rest in Peace dear friend .... we will find ways to honour your memory. Remembering your fortitude we will face the new challenges ahead of us.

In Biblical terms Edna was the Good Samaritan - the one who did the right thing. None of us can say we have not been given a good example.

PS This morning I received an email from Ronnie and Pauline Rae in Edinburgh. It is their wish to donate one of Ronnie’s granite sculptures to the memory of Edna and it is their wish that it be sited in front of this Church - that means, it being granite, her memory will be here forever and ever. Amen.

Milton Keynes-Leipzig link: 25 Years

Silver Anniversary service Saturday 6th October 2012

Sermon by the Reverend Elizabeth Welch

Minister of Clapton Park United Reformed Church 

Luke Chapter 7. 1 - 10

1 Corinthians 9. 16 - 27.

I am delighted to be here at this twenty-fifth anniversary service of the Leipzig-Grunau Milton Keynes partnership. I remember the early days of the formation of this partnership including the key role that Clive Fowle played from the English side in setting it up. 20 years ago this month, I was one of the group that went to Leipzig-Grunau. I had previously visited Potsdam for a World Council of Churches conference, before the wall came down, but the visit to Leipzig was my first visit to the east after the wall came down.

This evening I want to reflect back on three memories from that visit, within the setting of the readings chosen for this service, in order to see the significance of this partnership for the future.

The readings chosen for today pick up on the theme of the ‘other’, the person who is outside, the person who might seem to be the stranger or the alien.

In the Gospel, the focus is on the Centurion who seeks healing for his servant lying on his death bed. In the Jewish world, the centurion, as a Roman and representing the powers of the death, could well be thought to be the stranger and the alien. Yet it was clear that this centurion had already built bridges with the Jewish community, for he had indeed physically built them a synagogue. He is portrayed as a person who is open to the one who is different. The point of the story is not so much the healing of the servant as the trust the centurion puts in Jesus. Jesus comments favourably on this, that he sees more trust in this Roman centurion than in the whole Jewish community.

Out of this story come the words which I hear said regularly in the Roman Catholic Mass, words of complete trust in Jesus: ‘Lord I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word, and I shall be healed.’ Week by week the faith of the centurion is remembered throughout the Christian world, as the basis of the faith that we can share in Jesus Christ today. In an increasingly secularised Europe, we are drawn back to the centrality of our faith in Christ and the ways in which we can grow in that faith by our sharing together.

In the letter to the Corinthians, we get a different angle on the building of bridges between people. Paul writes of his desire to so identify himself with the ‘other’ that he will win them for Christ. He is even identified with the community from which he has come, the Jewish community, for the sake of the Gospel. He comes as one who is in Christ, but who desires to share the good news of Jesus with others as they are, so that they may know Jesus’ blessings. His starting point is not to look to the other and say ‘here is a stranger or an alien’ with whom I will have nothing to do. His starting point is to be alongside the ‘other’ and build the relationship.

These two passages are resonant of Paul’s words in Ephesians, in chapter two when he writes of the way in which Christ breaks down barriers between people, who then are ‘no longer strangers and aliens, but citizens with the saints and members of the household of God’.

Jesus comes to heal, to teach, to build bridges between people of different backgrounds and communities, that all might be one in him.

Building bridges between God’s people involves giving and receiving. It involves that difficult work of becoming the ‘other’ for the sake of receiving the ‘other’. Building bridges becomes possible because we recognise that we are each sharers in the bridge that has been built by Christ, in reconciliation of the world.

Building on the setting of these two passages, I want to share three memories and reflect on what they stand for in terms of this partnership and of our proclamation of the Gospel today.

The 1st memory is the story of the peace prayers at the Nikolai Kirche. I remember on that visit to Leipzig 20 years ago, being taken in to the Nikolai Kirche and listening to the voices of those who had been involved in the peace prayers and the lighting of candles as a sign of the hope for change. I remember particularly hearing of the day when the people came out of the church to face the soldiers outside, not knowing whether they might arrest people or fire on the protesters. Gradually the soldiers just moved back and let the crowd go. It was a sign of the possibility of peaceful change. I was moved to tears at hearing the witness to these significant events. People from different backgrounds and faith positions had come together to protest peacefully and change had come.

This story still speaks to me of the possibilities that God opens up of hope and of unexpected change. Who would have thought that the wall would have come down without violence? Who would have thought that Mandela would walk free without civil war? Who would have thought that the Burmese protester You +1'd this publicly. Undo Aung San Suu Kyi would be talked about as a next possible president of her country? We need to go on looking for and telling the stories where faith in peaceful change has led to courage to resist the powers that oppress. We need models of resistance, when we look to those parts of the world which are moving towards ever increasing violence, such as Syria, or Afghanistan. We need to go on telling the stories of peaceful resistance, and open up new ways of peace-making

My 2nd memory is of a different kind.
I remember the music that was played at the beginning and end of the services, and the way in which people sat still and listened. It struck me because of my experience in this country of the way in which the music at the beginning and end of the service is often a time for movement, for people to come or go.

I have also a larger memory of the musical tradition of Leipzig through the life and work Johann Sebastian Bach and his 27 years as cantor and Director of music. The magnificent music of Bach has been a gift to the whole church and across the world. We have all been his inheritors of Bach. One of the great gifts of music is the way in which it unites a people in a way that goes beyond words. Bach’s settings of music for the Mass lift people together to the heights of heaven.

Music is both a reality of worship that transforms God’s people and is a symbol of what it’s like when God’s people come together. Each musician has his or her own instrument. Each person who sings has his or her own voice. Yet together, something much more powerful happens. In both Milton Keynes and Leipzig we celebrate the way in which Christians across different traditions can share together. It’s an important gift to be offered to the wider church. When we participate in God’s music, our differences our taken up together in a larger harmony, to the greater glory of God

My 3rd memory is only of a small incident, but one that has major implications. At the end of the visit 20 years ago, I went into a big store in Leipzig, in order to buy gifts to take back home with me. I specifically wanted to take back something that was from Leipzig, or from eastern Germany. So went to a counter and asked where I could buy something that was made in the east. The person just looked at me and said ‘we only sell goods made in the west.’

The question of economics and the issues of the financial crisis Europe and the rest of the world are going through, is one of the biggest challenges we have to face at present. The framework for the debate is often one which puts money, consumerism and the free market at the heart of the matter, with the assumption that these are normative values. The danger is that the pursuit of these values fragments the human community and puts people against each other – rich against poor, German against English, north against south.

As Christians, we stand together against values that fragment human communities and are destructive of people and of creation. We stand together for values that come out of our faith – faith in God who chose a person and a community and the creation through which to reveal himself. Our shared Christian faith values the person and the community at the heart of the matter, not in isolation, but in fundamental solidarity with all God’s people.

Paul, in the passage we heard from the letter to the Corinthians knew that the road he was travelling down was not going to be an easy one. But he wanted to give himself fully to this race he was running, whatever the cost. We share today in that costly journey, as we build partnerships that take us across boundaries and as we witness together to the Christ who comes to overturn this world’s values.

To God be the glory, in Christ Jesus and to all eternity.