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Wednesday, 30 August 2023

A prayer for revival, restoration and return

Here's the sermon I shared this morning at St Andrew's Wickford:

The Christian movie “Jesus Revolution”, which was released earlier this year has surpassed the $50 million mark in cinemas and is now available on digital platforms and soon on Blu-ray. Released by Lionsgate, the movie telling the story of the 1970s Jesus People movement earned more than $51 million in box office receipts. That makes it the ninth highest-grossing faith-based film of all time. The film stars Kelsey Grammer (“Frasier”) Jonathan Roumie (“The Chosen”), and Joel Courtney (“Super 8”).

The story it tells is of the last major Revival to date in the Western world, which saw thousands converted to Christ, several new denominations started, and the beginnings of Jesus Rock, which has become the Contemporary Christian Music industry. The book on which the film is based is called ‘Jesus Revolution: How God Transformed an Unlikely Generation and How He Can Do It Again Today'.

Today’s Psalm is a prayer for revival, restoration and return (Psalm 126). Exile is a key theme in the Bible with important lessons for us to learn. Sam Wells has described the story of exile which is told in the Bible. He writes that:

‘There was a small nation on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, which we call Israel. It was made up of twelve tribes, but the northern ten tribes were destroyed in the eighth century BC. Only two tribes remained, based around the city of Jerusalem and its glorious temple. But at the start of the sixth century BC, the remnant of Israel, known as Judah, was destroyed and its ruling class was transported five hundred miles away to Babylon.

In Babylon the exiles reflected profoundly on their history and identity. They wrote down stories of how they had once been in slavery in Egypt and how under Moses they’d been brought to freedom. They recalled accounts of how at Mount Sinai Moses had met the God who had brought Israel out of slavery, and had received a covenant that bound Israel to that God forever. They perceived that that liberating God had also, at the dawn of time, created the world out of nothing. They remembered that after the ways of the world had gone awry, that same God had called the great ancestor Abraham to be the father of the people Israel and to inhabit the promised land. They commemorated the way the covenant with Israel, inaugurated in Abraham and renewed in Moses, was tested during forty years in the wilderness but came to fruition when Joshua entered the promised land and by endeavour and miracle subdued that land (sometimes brutally) and made it Israel’s own.

In Babylon the exiles recorded that it was a long time before Israel had a settled pattern of leadership and government, but eventually Saul, and then David, and then Solomon became kings of a united people. After this high point, the kingdom split and departed frequently from the path of the covenant; it was this weakness and shortcoming that led eventually to the nation’s destruction and deportation to Babylon. This was the story Israel came to understand in exile. Yet after fifty years of exile, Israel returned to the promised land, rebuilt the temple and city walls, and resumed the life of the covenant.’

Psalm 126 describes that moment expressing themes of redemption and joy and gratitude to God. Jewish scholarship often pairs this psalm with Psalm 137, which commemorates the beginning of the Babylonian exile just as Psalm 126 describes the end of that exile. In a similar way, the Jesus Movement was an unexpected revival in the midst of the growth of secularism and at a time when the established churches viewed Sixties youth culture as a wholly negative development. The Holy Spirit often surprises us with the people and places and times in which it moves.

The key insight from the exile for Israel, however, was not that God restored the people at the end of exile but that God had been with them through exile. Wells writes, ‘Out of the exile came ancient Israel’s new insight that the God they thought was for them was actually something much better—a God who was with them.’

He applies this insight to our own day and time where we see a decline in the numbers of people attending church and a growth in secularisation. The people of God have tended to be closer to God in times of adversity than in periods of plenty, he says, so, ‘if we’re experiencing adversity in our church life right now, this is precisely the time we expect God to be close to us like never before’. He says that: ‘This conviction—this trust—is perhaps the hardest part of Christianity to believe. But it is the most wonderful to behold.’ When we see the Lord restoring the fortunes of Zion in that way, then we will be like those who dream. Then our mouth will be filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then will it be said among the nations, ‘The Lord has done great things for them.’ The Lord has done great things for us, and we rejoice. So, as we experience a degree of exile currently within society, let us learn the lesson of the Babylonian Exile and make our prayer that of the writer of Psalm 126.

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11: 59 - Psalm 126.

Monday, 28 August 2023

Fundraising Campaign - St Catherine’s Church, Wickford

 

Thanks to the generosity of local people, grant funders and our fundraisers, we have raised £13,681.88 towards our Phase 1 target of £19,928.68. As a result, we are currently looking to raise £6,246.80 to complete this phase.

Money raised to date has come from: individual donations; grants from Benefact Trust and the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme; and a wide range of fundraising events including concerts by Allegro Choir, Ladybirds Song Group, Rumatica Rockulele Band; Flower Festival with Cream Tea Day; Pancake Party; and Quiz Night. Our thanks to all those who so generously donated and those who have given time and used their talents in organising events. Our thanks, too, to all the performers who have given their time to support our efforts. We are very grateful.

The campaign is necessary because, due to the long dry summer of 2022, the foundations of the North West corner of St Catherine’s Church have subsided. This has caused a number of large cracks to appear in the walls and some stonework to fall. As a result, we are fundraising for urgent safety and weather protection work (now completed) which cost £19,928.68 and, then, for the investigations needed to design a long-term solution.

If you wish to contribute to this campaign, please use the QR Code below or go to https://www.mygivinghub.com/go?id=0V2GmjBOEk to donate online or send cheques made out to Wickford and Runwell Parochial Church Council to The Rectory, 120 Southend Road, Wickford SS11 8EB or phone 07803 562329 / email jonathan.evens@btinternet.com for the bank details to use for a bank transfer.


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Moody Blues - Minstrel's Song.


The Jesus Rock Revolution and The Jesus Movement

Next month Cherry Red Records releases ‘All God’s Children: Songs From The British Jesus Rock Revolution 1967-1974’, a 3CD Box set.

Introducing the collection, they write:

‘During the late 60s and early 70s, the restless, questing nature of the Woodstock generation and the horrors of Vietnam saw the pop scene add a new spiritual element. Many young people embraced Christianity, viewing Jesus as the prototypal long-haired hippie, persecuted by the establishment of the day while dispensing peace and love to a troubled, cynical world.

The American branch of the Jesus movement effectively started in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, but there was also a parallel development in the UK that slowly evolved from beat groups performing in church coffee-bars. By 1971, leading British Xian rock band Out Of Darkness were appearing at notorious countercultural gathering Phun City, while Glastonbury introduced a “Jesus tent” that offered Christian revellers mass and holy communion twice a day.

‘All God’s Children’ assembles the best of the British Christian acts, including such respected names as Out Of Darkness (and their earlier incarnation, garage R&B act The Pilgrims), Parchment, Whispers Of Truth and Judy MacKenzie. It also features the secular alongside the sacred, including the likes of Strawbs, Moody Blues, Amazing Blondel, John Kongos and Medicine Head – bands who, though theologically shyer than their more overtly Christian contemporaries, all wrote songs with a strong spiritual message.

A 3CD, four-hour set, ‘All God’s Children’ – which takes its name from the gorgeous Kinks’ ballad which is included in the set – is a fascinating look at an under-documented phenomenon and unexpected by-product of the hippie era.’

In an excellent review for International Times, Rupert Loydell explains why, in the main, this collection is not an anthology of Jesus Rock, but more a compilation of music from the period that includes references to Jesus. Loydell also shares memories from that time and summarises the development of British Jesus Music.

For more of Loydell’s reflections and memories of this period see ‘Looking down the wrong end of a telescope’ where the writer and poet looks back to the collaborations and collisions between church culture and the wider culture in the 1970s and 80s, with a cast including Jesus Rock Music, the Greenbelt festival, Mary Whitehouse and musicians such as Larry Norman and Steve Fairnie of Writz.

‘All God’s Children’ can also usefully be set alongside ‘Lysergic Saviours (A Psychedelic Prophecy! The Holy Grail Of Xian Acid Fuzz 1968–1974)’ and ‘The Rock Revival’, the latter of which documents the early Jesus Movement in the US while the former includes rare tracks from both sides of the Atlantic.

While ‘All God’s Children’ may not be a particularly full collection of British Jesus Music, its focus on secular music that references Jesus demonstrates something of the wider impact that the Jesus Movement made. While there was a particular focus around this period, Jesus has consistently been referenced in Rock and Pop music from early days of Rock ‘n’ Roll onwards as the ‘Rock of Ages: Jesus in Popular Songs’ website demonstrates. This is a constantly-updated, searchable database of 500+ secular songs in which Jesus shows up by rock stars, rappers, singer-songwriters, country stars, and hardcore punks.

The recent film 'Jesus Revolution' has been described as telling ‘the story of a young Greg Laurie (Joel Courtney) being raised by his struggling mother, Charlene (Kimberly Williams-Paisley) in the 1970s. Laurie and a sea of young people descend on sunny Southern California to redefine truth through all means of liberation. Inadvertently, Laurie meets Lonnie Frisbee (Jonathan Roumie), a charismatic hippie-street-preacher, and Pastor Chuck Smith (Kelsey Grammer) who have thrown open the doors of Smith's languishing church to a stream of wandering youth. What unfolds becomes the greatest spiritual awakening in American history. Rock and roll, newfound love, and a twist of faith lead to a Jesus Revolution that turns one counterculture movement into a revival that changes the world.’ The film is based on the book 'Jesus Revolution: How God Transformed an Unlikely Generation and How He Can Do It Again Today' by Greg Laurie and Ellen Vaughn.

The Jesus Movement birthed two major new groupings of churches/denominations. The first being the Calvary Chapel movement, the story of which is told in ‘The Jesus Revolution’, the second – The Vineyard Fellowship - emerging from Calvary Chapel at a later point. Lonnie Frisbee was influential in the early stages of both developments. However, the Jesus Movement as a whole did not arise solely from Calvary Chapel, as, for example, the story of Arthur Blessitt’s ministry demonstrates - https://blessitt.com/new-jesus-movement/.

All these strands of the Jesus Movement used Jesus Music within their churches and ministries. The LA Times has described how Frisbee and Chuck Smith transformed Calvary Chapel into a haven for touched-by-the-spirit bands such as Love Song, Gentle Faith, Blessed Hope and Children of the Day. Half-a-dozen Calvary Chapel bands united in 1971 to create “The Everlastin’ Living Jesus Music Concert.” Released on Chuck Smith’s new Maranatha! Music label and costing about $4,000 to produce, the album went on to sell more than 200,000 copies. A film called ‘The Jesus Music’ tells the story of this strand within Jesus Music and examines how the spirit of the times, a rush of faith-filled creativity and the emergent “Jesus People” movement begat a multimillion-dollar industry fuelled by devotees eager to support their blessed messengers. The documentary includes interviews with Girard and his Love Song bandmate Tommy Coomes; contemporary Christian stars Amy Grant, Kirk Franklin, TobyMac of DC Talk, Lecrae and Michael W. Smith; and volumes of archival footage.

Blessit worked with musicians such as Eddie Smith, Andraé Crouch, Sharon Peck and the Sunshine Sisters, Charles McPheeters, and The Jimmy Owens singers and others as well as preaching at mainstream rock festivals such as like the West Palm Beach International Rock Festival, where his ministry’s band ‘The Eternal Rush’ also played.

Explo '72 was an evangelistic conference sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ which has been called the most visible event of the Jesus movement, and came to be associated with the same, even though its primary attendees were not directly involved in that movement. Billy Graham spoke on six occasions during the event including the final event which was a public, eight-hour-long, Christian music festival on Saturday, June 17, 1972. Dubbed "The Christian Woodstock", the event drew an estimated attendance between 100,000 and 200,000. Newsweek described the crowds as being "militant Christians." Featured artists were Love Song, Larry Norman, Randy Matthews, The Archers, Andrae Crouch and the Disciples, Children of the Day, Johnny Cash, and Kris Kristofferson.

The first local Vineyard church began when Kenn Gulliksen brought together two Bible studies, both meeting at the houses of singer/songwriters: Larry Norman and Chuck Girard. This was in West LA in 1974. Later, three members of Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue – T. Bone Burnett, Steven Soles and David Mansfield - attended the Vineyard Fellowship. John Milward notes ‘T-Bone [Burnett] was the first one to go through this [born again] experience and Steve [Soles] sort of followed him, and I eventually did too,” said David Mansfield.’ Christianity.com says that ‘Burnett attended the Vineyard church during or just after the Rolling Thunder Revue tour ended in 1976. Around this time, he had a spiritual reawakening some sources reported as his conversion. He described it to Gallagher as more of a reconnecting with God: “when I was 11, my needs were very different from when I was 28 or so. At different times in my life, I met God from a different point of view.”’ The three played together as The Alpha Band, their second album being 'humbly offered in the light of the triune God'.

In 1978 Bob Dylan followed, ‘taking a three-month, four-day-a-week course at the Vineyard Fellowship.’ The result was his Gospel-influenced albums from ‘Slow Train Coming’ to ‘Infidels’ and a subsequent strengthening of the religious and Biblical imagery and influences which had always been a feature of his work. As a result, the Jesus Movement claimed its highest profile convert while pissing off thousands of his fans who wouldn’t fully appreciate what he was doing or the wonderful music he was making until the release in 2017 of ‘The Bootleg Series Vol. 13: Trouble No More 1979–1981’.

The music emerging from the Jesus People USA Christian community in Chicago, most notably the Resurrection Band and its founder Glenn Kaiser, should also be noted. ‘Resurrection Band, also known as Rez Band or REZ, was a Christian rock band formed in 1972. They were part of the Jesus People USA Christian community in Chicago and most of its members have continued in that community to this day. Known for their blend of blues-rock and hard rock, Resurrection Band is credited as one of the forerunners of the Christian metal genre. Christianity Today called them "the most influential band in Christian music history." Following their debut in 1978, the band's greatest popularity was during the early 1980s, but later in the decade they received some crossover success when they had two music videos featured on MTV. Led by the husband-and-wife team of Glenn and Wendi Kaiser, the band sought to evangelize using Christian rock, and addressed a variety of social ills in the lyrics of their music. While the group is officially disbanded, they played several one-off dates at the now defunct Cornerstone Festival, which members of the band helped establish. Currently Glenn Kaiser has an established solo career as a blues musician and is also a speaker on various spiritual issues to youth and adults.’

From its beginnings, the Jesus Movement has included a range of controversial characters and events. The movement has been criticised, by Reformed Christians in particular, for being un-Biblical, particularly in its focus on signs and wonders. The Calvary Chapel movement and Vineyard Fellowship have been particularly wedded to ‘End Times’ thinking of the kind made famous by Hal Lindsey’s book ‘The Late, Great Planet Earth’. Dylan was particularly influenced by these teachings in his Gospel period. Key Calvary Chapel pastor Chuck Smith predicted that the “rapture” – when, in this interpretation of the Book of Revelation, all true believers in Jesus Christ will suddenly be raised, leaving cars and buses driver-less, and plane’s pilot-less (described by Larry Norman in the song ‘I Wish We’d All Been Ready’) - would happen in 1981. His ministry was somewhat discredited when this prediction did not occur. Additionally, and unacceptably, as with all the mainstream Christian denominations, the movement has had to face examples of abuse that occurred within its churches.

Two of the most controversial but central figures within the movement were Larry Norman and Lonnie Frisbee.

Kelefa Sanneh has written of Larry Norman that:

‘Many historians trace the birth of Christian rock to the release, in 1969, of “Upon This Rock.” It was an inventive concept album, by turns fierce and sweet, that was the work of a stubborn visionary named Larry Norman—the founding father of Christian rock. Norman, who died in relative obscurity, in 2008, has often been viewed as a tragic figure: a gifted and quirky musician who inspired a generation while alienating his peers and, at times, his fans. In “Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?,” the first biography of Norman, Gregory Alan Thornbury tells a more triumphant story, portraying Norman as a genius and a prophet, clear-eyed in his criticism of what he sometimes called “the apostate church.” …

Norman grew up in the Bay Area, and dedicated his life to Jesus when he was five—purely on his own initiative, he later remembered. He discovered a talent for singing and songwriting when he was in high school, and soon joined a local band called People!, although he quit after one marginally successful album. (There were religious differences: most of the other band members were Scientologists.) Norman moved to Los Angeles and made his solo début with “Upon This Rock,” which attracted a small number of buyers and, in time, a large number of acolytes. Over the next few years, Norman came to seem like less of an outlier, as the Jesus Movement went from a fringe pursuit to a national obsession. Time put a Pop-art picture of Jesus on its cover in 1971 (“the jesus revolution,” it said), and the next year hundreds of thousands of young people gathered in Dallas for Explo ’72, a weeklong revival that was widely described as the Christian Woodstock. In retrospect, the event marked the moment when the Jesus Freaks began to shed their freakiness: Norman was one of the headliners, but so was Billy Graham, the embodiment of mainstream Christianity …

Like many rock stars of his generation, Norman was proudly antiestablishment, which meant that the increasing popularity of his chosen field presented something of an existential crisis. By the nineteen-eighties, Norman had grown contemptuous of the Christian music business that had sprung up in his wake. According to industry conventions, Christian bands were expected to eschew profanity and any drug stronger than caffeine. They were also expected to proclaim their faith in Jesus—although the necessary frequency and clarity of these proclamations were the subject of much debate. Norman hated the idea that his faith should dictate or limit his subject matter. (He once said that, because he was a Christian, all of his songs were necessarily Christian songs, no matter what they were about.) In some cases, the contempt was mutual. Thornbury reports that, in the nineties, when a Norman tribute album was arranged, he was so controversial within the industry that some Christian-music stars “had to get permission from their pastors” before they would agree to participate.’

'Lonnie Frisbee was a young hippie seeker fully immersed in the 1960s counter culture when he claimed to have experienced an encounter with God while on an acid trip. This event so transformed him that Lonnie became an itinerant Christian evangelist, something of a John the Baptist of Southern California who compelled thousands of fellow spiritual seekers to make a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. During the 1970s Lonnie Frisbee became widely known as California's "hippie preacher," the quintessential "Jesus freak" whose pictures frequented such magazines as Time and Life as the media told the story of a burgeoning "Jesus movement." Lonnie Frisbee provided the charismatic spark that launched the Calvary Chapel church into a worldwide ministry and propelled many fledgling leaders into some of the most powerful movers and shakers of the evangelical movement. During the 1980s Lonnie was at the centre of the "signs and wonders" movement, one that focused on reviving the practice of spiritual power through diving healing, speaking in tongues and other demonstrative manners of manifesting the power of God. But besides his influence and beyond the miraculous stories that swirl in the wake of his life, what makes the story most fascinating is that his call into the ministry came while deeply involved in the Laguna Beach homosexual scene. Treated with contempt by the ministers whom he helped establish, Lonnie has been written out of their collective histories. He died as a result of the AIDS virus in 1993.'

Frisbee has been reinserted into the story of the Jesus Movement by the documentary film ‘Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher’ and the ‘Jesus Revolution’ (although the latter glosses over what are understood to be the controversial aspects of Frisbee’s life). However, it is fundamentally the lack of inclusion shown to the LGBTQIA+ community by the Jesus Movement as a whole that is the real tragedy in the story of Frisbee.

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Out Of Darkness - On Solid Rock.

Sunday, 27 August 2023

Witnesses in the trial of life

Here's the sermon I shared at St Andrew's Wickford this morning:

“I have been used for many years to studying the histories of other times, and to examining and weighing the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which God has given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead.” Professor Thomas Arnold

The teachings of Jesus “are read more, quoted more, loved more, believed more, and translated more because they are the greatest words ever spoken … No other man’s words have the appeal of Jesus’ words because no other man can answer these fundamental human questions as Jesus answered them. They are the kind of words and the kind of answers we would expect God to give.” Professor Bernard Ramm

“Is not the nature of Christ, in the words of the New Testament, enough to pierce to the soul anyone with a soul to be pierced? … he still looms over the world, his message still clear, his pity still infinite, his consolation still effective, his words still full of glory, wisdom and love.” Bernard Levin

“Jesus was irresistibly attractive as a man … What they crucified was a young man, full of life and the joy of it, the Lord of life itself, and even more the Lord of laughter, someone so utterly attractive that people followed him for the sheer fun of it.” Lord Hailsham

“I believe there is no one lovelier, deeper, more sympathetic and more perfect than Jesus. I say to myself, with jealous love, that not only is there no one else like him but there never could be anyone like him.” Fyodor Dostoevsky

“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of thing Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God … however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that he was and is God.” C. S. Lewis

“Brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand … For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.” Saint Paul

“Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.” Saint Peter

“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Saint Peter

All those testimonies to Jesus that you have just heard stem from the one testimony in today's Gospel reading (Matthew 16: 13-20), the moment when Peter speaks out his belief that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God. Jesus calls Peter ‘the rock’ and he is the rock because he was the first to testify to Jesus and all the millions of people that have followed him in testifying to Jesus have built on the foundation of the testimony that Peter originally gave.

Testimony is what is given by a witness in a trial. A witness makes his or her statement as part of a trial in which the truth is at stake and where the question, ‘What is the truth?’ is what is being argued. Lesslie Newbigin has argued that this is what is “at the heart of the biblical vision of the human situation that the believer is a witness who gives his testimony in a trial.”

Where is the trial? It is all around us, it is life itself? In all situations we encounter, there is challenge to our faith and there is a need for us to testify in words and actions to our belief in Christ. Whenever people act as though human beings are entirely self-relient, there is a challenge to our faith. Whenever people argue that suffering and disasters mean that there cannot be a good God, we are on the witness stand. Whenever people claim that scientific advances or psychological insights can explain away belief in God, we are in the courtroom. Whenever a response of love is called for, our witness is at stake.

Witnesses are those who have seen or experienced a particular event or sign or happening and who then tell the story of what they have seen or heard as testimony to others. That is what Jesus called us to do before he ascended to the Father; to tell our stories of encountering him to others. No more, no less.

We don’t have to understand or be able to explain the key doctrines of the Christian faith. We don’t have to be able to tell people the two ways to live or to have memorized the sinner’s prayer or to have tracts to be able to hand out in order to be witnesses to Jesus. All we need to do is to tell our story; to say this is how Jesus made himself real to me and this is the difference that it has made.

I want to encourage us today that this is something which each of us can do. The best description I have heard of it is to gossip the Gospel. Just simply in everyday conversation with others to talk about the difference that knowing Jesus has on our lives.

It is also important to remember that we are not alone in being witnesses. We are one with millions of others who have testified to the reality and presence of Jesus Christ in their lives. No courtroom on earth could cope with the number of witnesses to Christ who could be called by the defence. That is why the writer of Hebrews says, “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.”

This is what Peter began by saying, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” We are part of the witness that has been built on that rock. So let us be encouraged today by the incredible numbers of others testifying to Christ and let us be challenged to add our own testimony in words and actions to those of our brothers and sisters in Christ because every day in every situation we face, we and our faith are ‘on trial’.

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The way to unity is through diversity

Here's the sermon I shared in the 8.00 am service at St Mary Magdalene, Great Burstead, this morning:

In the culture of Jesus’ day, those with disabilities were often excluded from their community because of their disability. We see this in the Gospels in references to disabled people living outside villages and towns and being beggars on the streets. Those who were Jews, were excluded from worship at the Temple because of their disability. Jesus’ acts of healing were, therefore, acts of inclusion because, as a result, those healed were reintegrated into their community. For those who were Jews, we often read of these people being sent to authorities after their healing in other that they can return to their communities.

Despite this, as the theologian John Hull has noted, many disabled people rightly ‘claim the Bible and Christian faith are not so much part of the answer but part of the problem.’ He notes that ‘many Christians still persist with a literal concept of miracle, and the imitation of Christ is sometimes thought to involve healing miracles for disabled people.’ In addition, ‘the Bible itself depicts many disabilities in a negative way.’ ‘He gives blindness as one example, due to his personal experience of this condition, which ‘is frequently used as a metaphor for sin and unbelief.’ This is a metaphor taken from the world of sighted people and used to marginalise and demean the world of blind people. The result of these negative features of the [Christian] tradition’, John Hull says, ‘is that disabled people usually find better things to do on a Sunday morning than go to church’ (https://faithinhealth.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/theology-of-disability-health-and-healing-conference.pdf and http://www.johnmhull.biz/A%20Spirituality%20of%20Disability1.htm).

That situation is the reverse of Jesus’ intent when he healed. He intended to include disabled people in the community, culture and worship of his day but some aspects of the Christian tradition which he began have resulted in disabled people experiencing exclusion. As John Hull has said, ‘The true miracle … is when disabled people are fully integrated into Church life and accepted exactly as they are’ (http://www.johnmhull.biz/ChurchTimesInterview3rdMay2013.doc).

This is why it is vital that we address access issues as a church. We inhabit buildings which visual treasure chests, particularly here at Great Burstead with your medieval wall paintings. We rightly value the wonderful architecture and the beauty of our churches. However, if those who are blind are unable to also appreciate what we see in our churches and those with mobility impairments cannot access the spaces in order to see while those who can access and see the glories of these spaces accept that others cannot, we are actually a places and communities of exclusion. Instead, we need to creatively imagine how we can include those who are currently excluded.

Jesus, in order to communicate with the man in our Gospel story (Mark 7. 31 – 37), uses touch and gesture. There are several different theories as to why Jesus acts in ways that seem very strange to us; putting his fingers in the man’s ears, spitting before putting his fingers on the man’s tongue and looking up to heaven. The simplest explanation would seem to be that touch and gesture were the ways in which communication could take place. The starting point for inclusion for us, as for Jesus, is to enter to some extent the world of the other person, in this case the man who was deaf and who had a speech impediment.

It can only be as we connect with the different world that others inhabit that understanding can come from which inclusion can develop. John Hull says: ‘The major disabilities create a distinctive world of experience, so different from the world in which the majority live as to constitute different human worlds. The powerful majority often create a world which is assumed to be the only world. Those who do not share this world are regarded as being without a world and are pitied or patronised. This idea of multiple worlds is of great political and social significance. If you do not understand my world, how can we relate to each other with mutual respect? If we rush too soon to a single world, we create an exclusive domination. The only way to create a unity of the human species is to go through multiplicity. The way to unity is through diversity … We must also include the different human worlds of experience, such as the disabled worlds we have been thinking about. Just as the Church can’t be holy or catholic without the equal ministry of women with men, so it cannot be holy or catholic without the equal prophetic and sacramental ministry of disabled people with the able-bodied.’

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Carleen Anderson - Let It Last.

Saturday, 26 August 2023

FROM HONG KONG TO WICKFORD A Multifaceted Pictorial Display with Stories




FROM HONG KONG TO WICKFORD A Multifaceted Pictorial Display with Stories
Ho Wai-On (Ann-Kay) & Friends
25 September – 16 December 2023
Mid-Autumn Harvest Moon Celebration Viewing with Refreshments Friday 29 Sep 7-9pm
St Andrew’s Church, 11 London Road, Wickford SS12 0AN
Exhibition Viewing Evening Friday 6 Oct 7–9pm
Admission Free.
St Andrew’s opening hours: Sat 9 am - 12.30 pm; Sun 9.30 am - 12 noon Mon 2 – 3.45 pm; Tue 1 – 4.30 pm; Wed 10 am - 12 noon; Fri 10 am – 1 pm

Dr Ho Wai-On: Surname Ho, known to colleagues as Wai-On. She comes from Hong Kong where the surname is followed by the given name that represents the individual. She has lived in Wickford for about 15 years and is known to locals as Ann-Kay (her childhood name). Before moving to Wickford she lived in London for more than 30 years. 

Best known as a composer and creator/director of combined-art works and projects, this multifaceted pictorial display features her lifetime of interaction with UK and Hong Kong based artists/people that have resulted in many creative works. It also tells the stories of these people and their work. 

FEATURING: 

  • Acis & Galatea: Dance-opera directed by Ho Wai-On for the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts Blessed – Stations of the Cross with Beatitude: An offering to St. Andrew's from Ho Wai-On (Ann-Kay) Clark Ainsworth (UK-HK): HK photos 
  • Dr Juliet Chenery-Robson (Sunderland): Visual artist 
  • Ruth Cutler (Ramsgate): Mixed media 
  • Graham Ekins (Boreham): Hong Kong birds photos 
  • Ho Wai-On (Ann-Kay HK-UK): Music videos; combined arts; design & photos... Inter-Artes: Performing group formed by Ho Wai-On (Ann-Kay) 
  • Polly Hope (London): Artist 
  • Herry Lawford (Stockbridge): Chelsea Flower Show photos 
  • Professor Stephen Matthews (UK-HK): Hong Kong birds photos 
  • Ben Rector (Wickford): Photographer 
  • Roy Reed (UK): Photographer 
  • Martin Singleton (Wickford): UK birds photos 
  • Albert Tang (HK-London): Stage/costume/poster/cover design and more 
  • “THEME HONG KONG“: Project 
  • Dr David Tong (Sidcup): Poetry 
  • True Light Old Girls (Ho Wai-On's old school): Choy May-Chu (HK-Taiwan) drawings/paintings; Kitty Kwan (HK-UK-AU-US) photos; Toby Man (HK-US) drawing 
  • Marcus West (Cardiff): Computer graphics 
  • Benson Wong (HK-UK-HK): Fashion/textile/jewellery design & digital portraits 

N.B., ( ) indicates residency. E.g., (HK-UK-AU-US) = From HK, then lived in the UK, AU, now lives in the US. 

MID-AUTUMN HARVEST MOON VIEWING WITH REFRESHMENTS
Friday 29 Sep 7- 9 pm
Come view and eat – admission free!

Friday 29 Sep is the Mid-Autumn Festival (Harvest Moon to the English) - one of the most important festivals celebrated by ethnic Chinese, and also celebrated in Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and other countries in East and Southeast Asia. People, and especially family members, gather together to eat and to look at the moon at its brightest and roundest in a year. Rod Reed's photos of "Mid-Autumn in London Chinatown", commissioned by Inter-Artes, are featured in this Display. Mid-Autumn is celebrated for three days: Thu 28 Sep "Welcome the Moon"; Fri 29 Sep the Festival proper, "Appreciate the Moon"; and Sat 30 Sep "Chasing the Moon". It is said that "Chasing the Moon" was recognised by the then HK British government as a holiday so that people can view the full moon till very late and need not worry about going to work early next morning - quite humane.

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Ho Wai-On - Wisdom and Love.

Windows on the world (440)


 Lyveden, 2023

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Wednesday, 23 August 2023

From Hong Kong to Wickford: A Multifaceted Pictorial Display with Stories


From Hong Kong to Wickford: A Multifaceted Pictorial Display with Stories
by Ho Wai-On * and friends (* known locally as Ann-Kay)
25 September – 16 December 2023
St Andrew’s Church, 11 London Road, Wickford SS12 0AN


The multifaceted pictorial display created by Wickford-based composer Ho Wai-On features stories of a lifetime of interaction with UK-Hong Kong based artists/people that have resulted in many creative works. Includes work by Clark Ainsworth, Juliet Chenery-Robson, Ruth Cutler, Graham Ekins, Polly Hope, Kitty Kwan, Stephen Matthews, Choy May-Chu, Ben Rector, Roy Reed, Martin Singleton, Albert Tang, Marcus West, and Benson Wong ...

Exhibition viewing evening – Friday 6 October, 7.00 – 9.00 pm.

St Andrew’s is usually open: Sat 9am-12.30pm; Sun 9.30am-12 noon; Mon 2-3.45pm; Tue 1-4.30pm; Wed 10am-12 noon; Fri 10am-1pm

FROM HONG KONG TO WICKFORD
A Multifaceted Pictorial Display with Stories
At Wickford Andrew's Church 25 Sep to 16 Dec 2023
Project by Dr Ho Wai-On (known as Ann-Kay locally) *
and Revd Jonathan Evens


* Ho Wai-On: surname HO, known to colleagues as Wai-On. In Hong Kong the surname is followed by the given name that represents the individual. Known to locals as Ann-Kay (her childhood name).

Ho Wai-On is best known as a composer and creator/director of combined arts works and projects.

My memory of life in Hong Kong (HK) is about 15 years, which is about the same as I have been living in Wickford. In between, for more than 30 years, I lived mostly in London and went back to HK from time to time. With UK-based professionals in creative and performing arts, I created and staged performances of works/projects that combine music, dance, drama and visual art across different cultures, sometimes with relevant displays. Wickford is not an art/cultural centre like London and my health makes me more housebound, so I use the Internet as my performing venue. I focus on creating music videos and a multifaceted website where I update new materials regularly.

My Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@AKLHWO/videos
My Website: howaion.co.uk

During the Tiananmen Square incident I happened to be in HK staging a performance. At that time, the HK press/media showed me what I would not have seen had I been in London. I was moved by the HK people's pro-democracy activities and their fear of the 1991 Handover. As HK was under British rule and had been practising the British judicial system since 1841, many Hongkongers considered emigrating to the UK. To promote greater understanding between the two people, I staged “Theme Hong Kong” - a one week event of HK-UK related creative performative programmes at London's Southbank Centre, with relevant displays at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and other London Boroughs. The 2nd leg was held in Hong Kong.

The recent upheavals in HK resulted in many Hongkongers moving to the UK again. This multifaceted pictorial display at St. Andrew's Church features stories of my lifetime's interaction with UK-HK based artists and people and the resulting creative works, and tells you about these people and their work. I hope this might encourage audiences' interest in getting to know more.

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Ho Wai-On - Fly Wild.

God's naturally overflowingly generous nature

Here's the sermon I shared at St Andrew's Wickford this morning:

Chichele Road in Cricklewood has been known as Job Street, where economic migrants line up to be hired from the back of a van, no questions asked. Dozens of men in jeans and anoraks would be found hanging around from 6.30am to discover whether they will be working that day. A car would stop, a negotiation would take place, a deal might be struck. Typically, the men would be whisked off to a building site or a house in the process of renovation. They would be paid £20 to £40 for a long, arduous day's work: no tax, no national insurance, no questions asked.

That’s essentially the scenario for today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 20. 1 - 16). The social situation in Jesus’ day was that many small farmers were being forced off their land because of debt they incurred to pay Roman taxes. Consequently, large pools of unemployed men gathered each morning, hoping to be hired for the day. They were the displaced, unemployed, and underemployed workers of their day. Those still waiting at five o'clock would have had little chance of earning enough to buy food for their families that day. Yet the vineyard owner pays even them a full day’s wage. The owner in the parable ensures that all the workers are paid enough to support their families, as a denarius was a full day’s pay for a skilled worker.

So, unlike those exploited illegal workers or gig economy workers earning less than the minimum wage, the employer in this story is concerned that those he employs are paid a living wage. The standard thing for an employer in Jesus’ day to do would be to send one of his employees to the marketplace to pick up a few extra workers for the day. But this employer goes to the marketplace himself. In fact, he goes repeatedly to seek workers and clearly cares about their predicament seeking to lift them out of their despair by providing work that meets their needs and the needs of those who depend on them. If God is like the owner of the vineyard then he cares about our hopeless situation as human beings. He comes looking for us. He goes on an all-out search to find workers for his vineyard. He longs to provide us with a life of significance in his kingdom work.

As N. T. Wright has said, God’s grace, in short, is not the sort of thing you can bargain with or try to store up. It isn’t the sort of thing that one person can have a lot of and someone else only a little. The point of the story is that what people get from having served God and his kingdom is not, actually, a ‘wage’ at all. It’s not, strictly, a reward for work done. God doesn’t make contracts with us, as if we could bargain or negotiate for a better deal. He makes covenants, in which he promises us everything and asks of us everything in return. When he keeps his promises, he is not rewarding us for effort, but doing what comes naturally to his overflowingly generous nature.

Michael Green says of this story: Length of service and long hours of toil in the heat of the day constitute no claim on God and provide no reason why he should not be generous to those who have done less. All human merit shrivels before his burning, self-giving love. Grace, amazing grace, is the burden of this story. All are equally undeserving of so large a sum as a denarius a day. All are given it by the generosity of the employer. All are on the same level. The poor disciples, fishermen and tax collectors as they are, are welcomed by God along with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. There are no rankings in the kingdom of God. Nobody can claim deserved membership of the kingdom. There is no place for personal pride, for contempt or jealousy, for there is no ground for any to question how this generous God handles the utterly undeserving. He is good. He sees that the one-hour workers would have no money for supper if they got paid for only one hour. In generosity he gives them what they need. Who is to complain at that?

Yet there is always a danger that we do get cross with God over this. People who work or move in church circles can easily assume that they are the special ones, God’s inner circle. In reality, as we have seen, God is out in the marketplace, looking for the people everybody else tried to ignore, welcoming them on the same terms, surprising them (and everybody else) with his generous grace. In Ephesians 2:8-10 Paul says, For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Is there anywhere in today’s church, I wonder, that doesn’t need to be reminded of that message?

The parable is also a message of hope to everyone struggling to find adequate employment. In God’s kingdom, it suggests, we will all find work that meets our needs. The parable is, therefore, also a challenge to all those who have a hand in shaping the structures of work in today’s society. What can we do, as Christians, to advance this aspect of God’s kingdom right now?

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Sufjan Stevens - So You Are Tired.

Sunday, 20 August 2023

George Morl: Electrum Spektrum


‘Electrum Spektrum’ is an installation at Chelmsford Museum by Basildon born artist George Morl. The installation has grown from a series of projects and evolving conversations with students in Cornwall and Essex. It features artworks by Morl and the students, and work from their collaborative collection of art. The works trace the evolution of social and technological networks and reflect on conversations about their experiences of online spaces.

Since 2020 Morl has been working in partnership with students from Elm Class, Nancealverne School in Penzance as well as support centres in Essex: two regions linked by the development of wireless radio. This ongoing collaboration has also explored fiction in gaming and art, the development of communication history, as well as creating artwork and their own workshops.

In 2022 they began to build an art collection together centred on the needs of disabled people and encompassing a broad range of sensory engagements. They have acquired artworks by artists such as Grayson Perry with the selection based on their own interests and accessibility needs.

Earlier this year at St Andrew's Wickford Morl spoke about their experience as collector and in an exhibition called New Town, New Collection showed work by Grayson PerryElsa JamesMadge GillRosie Hastings & Hannah QuinlanUma Breakdown, as well as a selection of their own work. Through founding a collection which reflects on the communal legacies of New Towns, Plotlands, and the possibility of human connections across the virtual world, Morl visions a future art collection centring support. In their talk Morl shared the joy of acquiring art, and motivations for building a collection to share for others.

Morl identifies with Perry’s use of imagination and construction of identity in his art, and sees parallels with using virtual spaces as a young person. It was Perry’s work that inspired Morl to study art at South Essex College in 2013.

A selection of works by Perry can be seen in the Ceramics Gallery at Chelmsford Museum. These include the 'Chelmsford Sissies' pot, the 'Julie Tile', the limited-edition print ‘England as seen from Lockdown in Islington’, which was created in 2021 during the Channel 4 series ‘Grayson’s Art Club’, and an 'Untitled' drawing depicting a hybrid of rural and urban Essex – a unique portrait of Perry’s hometown of Chelmsford.

Also to be seen at Chelmsford Museum is Behind the Rainbow, a collection of personal stories and experiences from the LGBTQ+ community, showing the creativity, complexity, and humanity of its members. This exhibition recognises the relationship between self-expression and identity and invites visitors to connect and empathise with the people behind the stories. 

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Joy Oladokun - Keeping The Light On.

Making a family out of strangers

Here's the sermon I shared at St Catherine's Wickford this morning:

Jesus was deliberately rude to the Canaanite Woman – a woman from another race and culture – that he encountered, as we heard in today's Gospel reading (Matthew 15. 21 – 28). He began by making it clear that she was not one of the chosen people for whom he had come and continued by insulting her and her people in calling them 'dogs'.

Why was he so uncharacteristically rude? His disciples had wanted him to send the woman away; ostensibly because of the fuss she was making but, more probably, because she was not one of 'them'. Therefore, Jesus threw all their prejudices at the woman both as a way of confronting his disciples with the ugliness of their prejudice and as a provocation that revealed the faith within this woman.

In the face of seeming denial and insult, she persisted in her request and in her faith in Jesus' ability and willingness to heal. On the back of this tangible example of faith, Jesus was then able to challenge the prejudices of his disciples (as I think was his intent from the outset) by pointing out the depth of faith which he had uncovered in a woman of another race, culture and faith.

We can see these same issues recurring in our own day and time in the way in which the debate about immigration has changed enabling the whole apparatus of the state to now be bent towards stopping immigration and sending migrants away despite such people being amongst those most disadvantaged in the world today. The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that the Government’s Illegal Migration Bill is morally unacceptable and represents a “dramatic departure” from Britain's obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention.

Several years ago, the then Bishop of Dover accused senior political figures, including the then prime minister, of forgetting their humanity and attacked elements of the media for propagating a “toxicity” designed to spread antipathy towards migrants. He said, “We’ve become an increasingly harsh world, and when we become harsh with each other and forget our humanity then we end up in these standoff positions. We need to rediscover what it is to be a human, and that every human being matters.” We can see, therefore, that this story speaks into issues of our own day and time challenging the prejudices of our Government and, maybe too, ourselves.

Seeing this story of the Canaanite woman as a deliberate challenge to the prejudices of his disciples is also consistent with the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10. 25 - 37) where Jesus tells a group of God's chosen people a story in which one of their own receives help, not from his own people, but from a man of another race, culture and faith. In that story, Jesus went further than his already radical teaching of love for our enemies by telling a story in which a member of God's chosen people received God's love and help from a person that he considered to be outside the people of God and an enemy of his own people.

However we choose to draw the boundaries of who is and who is not one of God's people, Jesus breaks through those boundaries with his love for all people, his sacrificial giving for all, and his recognition of all that those who are excluded actually have to offer to those who exclude. The strapline of St Michael’s Church in Camden Town - 'Making a family out of strangers’ - is a very good summary of this aspect of Jesus’ teaching and ministry. 

It is a helpful practice, which comes from Ignatian spirituality, to try to place ourselves fully within a story from the Gospels by becoming onlooker-participants and giving full rein to our imagination. If we were part of this story, would we be with the disciples, who wanted Jesus to send the Canaanite woman away because she was not one of 'them', or would we be with Jesus, who challenged the prejudices of his disciples by pointing out the depth of faith which he had uncovered in a woman of another race, culture and faith? Our answer to that question will determine the extent to which we seek to make a family out of strangers ourselves.

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Julie & Buddy Miller - Broken Things.

Against whom do we compare ourselves?





This morning I took the 8.00 am Eucharist at St Mary Magdalene, Great Burstead

The Churchyard contains some early 17th century headstones and an ancient yew tree. Unusually, St Mary’s has two porches. Enter by the north porch and in the stonework over the 14th century doorway are the heads of a King and Queen and a scene depicting the Annunciation. There is a stoup in the porch. Watch the steps down, your first impression is of white walls, a light and a spacious interior crowned by a wonderful array of 15th century king post trusses supported by heavy tie beams. A spiral staircase in the choir vestry leads up the bell tower to the ringing chamber.

The only remaining part of the Norman structure is the nave which has a narrow Norman window, and further along is a squat Tudor window. In the chancel is a blocked in door and in the other wall a piscina, now used as an Aumbry.

An arcade of five bays separates the nave from the south chapel, which again, has beautiful roof timbers. This 16th century chapel contains the Tyrell family tombs and ten 16th century carved pews. It has a 13th century piscina with a drain and close by on the wall is a 15th century painted altar curtain. The windows here contains some ancient glass and there is a Royal Coat of Arms with an unusual crouching lion. The Font is 15th century.

Go out through the 16th century south porch and look for the medieval scratch dials (Primitive sundials) on the stonework of the doorway. To come to Burstead to see these lovely things would be enough but there is more. A 12th century oak Crusader chest, Registers which tell of the burning at the stake, in Chelmsford, of a local man and the marriage of Christopher Martin, who sailed to America on the Mayflower. The most recently discovered treasures are early 14th century wall paintings in the south aisle including the Nativity, the Annunciation, and St Catherine on her wheel.

Here's the sermon that I preached:

Against whom do we compare ourselves? Our answer makes all the difference in the world. The Pharisee in Jesus’s parable (Luke 18: 9-14) compared himself against other people: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this publican. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’

This is generally what we do when we make comparisons; we compare ourselves with others and so compare ourselves with those we think are worse than or similar to ourselves. We’ve all heard others and, maybe, ourselves saying ‘I’m alright, Jack!’ or ‘I’m as good as the next person, if not better!’ On the basis of these comparisons we think we are ok; at least no better or worse than others, at best, better than many others around us. On the basis of these comparisons we are comfortable with who we are and see no need to change.

The Pharisee lived in a simplistic world of legalism where he could look down on those like the publican because he kept certain rules and fulfilled certain practices. Therefore, he could say, I am not like other people because I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all my income. For him, there was no wrestling with difficulty and no struggling with conscience but the world he inhabited was, ultimately, a harsh world without understanding, without compassion, without forgiveness. 

Our common response as human beings to our own fallibility and failure is that, instead of acknowledging our own shortcoming, we attempt to distract attention away from our selves by identifying a scapegoat and angrily pointing out that person’s many failings. We are often very successful in covering up our own shortcomings when we adopt this tactic but, of course, the reality is that we are being hypocritical.

The true comparison that we make should not be with others, but with God. Jesus challenged us to ‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.’ On the basis of that comparison, we all fall short. As St Paul writes, ‘for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.’ Jesus, through his life and death, showed us the depth of love of which human beings are really capable and, on the basis of that comparison, we come up well short and are in real need of change. In the light of Jesus’ self-sacrifice, we see our inherent selfishness and recognise our need for change. Those are the kind of comparisons that the publican in the parable was making when he stood far off, not even looking up to heaven, beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’

In the light of the way that Jesus lived his life, we see our lack of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, remain in darkness, and there is no truth in us. But when we live in the light, seeing ourselves as we really are, then we become honest with ourselves and with God. By coming into that honesty we confess our sins and are purified; as we say in this service, we make our humble confession to Almighty God truly and earnestly repenting of our sins.

This reality undermines the simplistic legalism of the Pharisee’s world by revealing the hypocrisy at its heart. The reality is that each one of us has broken the Law and each one of us are sinners. If that is so, on what basis can one sinner presume to judge or condemn another? To do so is a gross act of hypocrisy which multiplies one sin upon another. The publican, by contrast, lives in a world of without condemnation because he lives in a world where second chances and fresh starts are available. 

On Ash Wednesday the sign of the cross is marked in ash on our foreheads and these words are said: "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel." In the Ash Wednesday service, we acknowledge both our sinfulness and our mortality recognising the link between the two – that the wages of sin are death.

The ash mark on our forehead is a public acknowledgement of our sinfulness but, because it is formed as a cross, it is also a sign of the forgiveness we have received. We are saying that we no longer live in the legalistic, unforgiving world of the Pharisaical Law where sin automatically leads to death; instead, like the publican, we have been accepted and welcomed into the world of love by Jesus himself. 

Jesus says to us what he said to the woman caught in adultery, "I do not condemn you … Go, but do not sin again." Those words are spoken to us all whether we are the accused or whether we are those who accuse others. Whichever we may be, we are called to turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.

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Bruce Cockburn - Orders.

Saturday, 19 August 2023

Exhibition: Theatrical Ceramics by David Millidge

 







'Theatrical Ceramics' by David Millidge, 18-26 August 2023, Hyde Hall

David Millidge produces unique ceramic sculptures and installations using a combination of slip-casting and thrown forms. He is experimental with layering glazes and wax-resist techniques, although many of his effects are created solely with coloured clays.

This is the second solo exhibition of ceramic art created by artist David Millidge. Head to The Hilltop Lodge to discover a carefully curated exhibition of stunning pieces inspired by architecture, films, fashion and culture. This diverse collection draws you into a fantasy world and includes vessels, modular abstract sculpture and figurative work, which brings mannequins to life.

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The Strawbs - Benedictus.

Windows on the world (439)


Saffron Walden, 2019

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Steve Scott - Not A Pretty Picture.


International Times: Pissabed Prophet review



My latest review published by International Times is on the first Pissabed Prophet album:

"Zany in parts, moving in others, you’ll be hard pressed to find a more unusual, inspired & profound album this year. ‘Pissabed Prophet’ will thrill, intrigue, amuse & inspire."

Matt Simpkins, who is one half of Pissabed Prophet with Ben Brown, was a curate in the Wickford and Runwell Team Ministry. He returned to St Andrew's Wickford in autumn 2022 to play a wonderful gig as Rev Simpkins and the Phantom Folk. He returns this year to play another gig at St Andrew's on Friday 17 November at 7.00 pm.     

See also my IT review of 'Religion and Contemporary Art: A Curious Accord', a book which derives from a 2017 symposium organised by the Association of Scholars of Christianity in the History of Art.

Several of my short stories have been published by International Times including three about Nicola Ravenscroft's EarthAngel sculptures (then called mudcubs), which we exhibited at St Andrew's Wickford last Autumn. The first story in the series is 'The Mudcubs and the O Zone holes'. The second is 'The Mudcubs and the Clean-Up King', and the third is 'The mudcubs and the Wall'.

My other short stories to have been published by International Times are 'The Black Rain', a story about the impact of violence in our media, 'The New Dark Ages', a story about principles and understandings that are gradually fading away from our modern societies, and 'The curious glasses', a story based on the butterfly effect.

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Pissabed Prophet - Evensong.

Friday, 18 August 2023

Artlyst: A World In Common: Contemporary African Photography - Tate Modern

My latest exhibition review for Artlyst is on ‘A World In Common: Contemporary African Photography’ at Tate Modern:

'‘A World In Common: Contemporary African Photography’ at Tate Modern draws on the theories of Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe (born 1957) by inviting us to imagine “a world in common”. To do this, Mbembe claims, we must “think the world from Africa”. ‘A World In Common’ explores Africa’s past, present and future to create a more expansive and inclusive narrative of humanity. It suggests that to conceive “a world in common” is to imagine a future of possibility. Unfolding across three chapters – Identity and Tradition, Counter Histories and Imagined Futures – the exhibition charts the dialogue between photography and contemporary perspectives on cultural heritage, spirituality, urbanisation, and climate change to reveal shared artistic visions that reclaim Africa’s histories and reimagine its place in the world.'

For recent exhibitions exploring similar themes, see my reviews of In The Black Fantastic at the Hayward Gallery and Rites of Passage at the Gagosian Gallery.

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

Interviews -
Monthly diary articles -

Articles/Reviews -
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Jide Chord - Gospel Vibes.