Belonging and believing: travelling with those on the journey of faith

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

I wonder if you attended the Olympic or Paralympic Games in 2012 and were greeted by the cheerful faces of the 70,000 red and purple-clad Games Makers and further 8,000 London Ambassadors who were a key feature of those Games. The majority of Games Makers gave up at least 10 days to volunteer and took on a wide range of activities including welcoming visitors, transporting athletes and working behind the scenes.

As a Church, we can learn from the wonderful welcome given out by the Games Makers. As Archbishop Stephen Cottrell wrote in his book ‘From the abundance of the heart’: "There is a fantasy about evangelism: people hear the gospel, repent, and look around for a church to join. Then there is the reality: people come into contact with the church, or have some inkling of the possibility of God, and enter into a relationship with the church, either through its activities, its worship, or just friendship with its members. In the loving community of these relationships, faith begins to grow. Or to put it more succinctly: belonging comes before believing. Therefore, right at the heart of any effective evangelistic ministry must be a warm and generous attitude to those who are currently outside the church community and a place of welcome and nurture within it."

Archbishop Stephen has also said that in recent years we have re-discovered that for most people becoming a Christian is like a journey. This changes the way we approach evangelism. For the most part it will mean accompanying people on that journey and this is why the story of Jesus on the Emmaus Road (Luke 24. 13 - 49) is instructive for us in thinking about evangelism.

When Jesus encounters the two disciples on the Emmaus Road on the evening of the first Easter Day, he meets them where they are but Luke tells us that "their eyes were kept from recognising him" (Luke 24. 16). He joins their conversation and walks with them while they are going in the wrong direction. He listens to them before he speaks. His first question is one of open vulnerability to their agenda: "What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?"(Luke 24.17). In response to their questions and accounts of what has happened he then breaks open the scriptures, explaining to them "the things about himself "(Luke 14. 27). Arriving at Emmaus he "walks ahead as if he is going on" (Luke 24. 28). But they invite him in, and as he breaks the bread their eyes are opened. They then rush back to Jerusalem. They can’t wait to share with others the good news they have received.

Luke’s account provides us with a rich and challenging story about evangelism which is hugely relevant for the situation we face today because: "our own culture here in Essex … is not so dis-similar to the ones the first apostles encountered outside the comfort zone of the Jewish faith: a smorgasbord of beliefs, a general interest in things spiritual, a lack of confidence in the meta-narratives that had previously been trusted so much. In this sort of world becoming a Christian will be like a journey, and much of our work will be helping people to make the journey; and much of that will be removing obstacles from the path."

God longs for reconciliation with the whole of the creation and with every person on earth; he is therefore an evangelist. His great love for the world and his purposes for the world have been revealed in Jesus Christ, and through his death and resurrection Jesus has already done everything that is necessary for us to enjoy eternal life with God. The ministry of evangelism is our sharing with others the good news of what God has already done in Christ and the transformation it can bring to the world and to our lives here on earth and in eternity. It can involve specific ministries (such as a place of nurture where people can find out about Christian faith), but is also shaped enormously by our witness as individual Christians as we walk with others in their individual daily lives.

"Becoming a Christian is not just learning about the Christian faith: it is about becoming a member of the Christian community, and it is about relationship with a God who is himself a community of persons. Therefore, right at the beginning of the journey, people need to experience what it means to be part of a pilgrim church. Before people can become pilgrims themselves, they need to feel happy to travel with us and be open to experiencing life from a Christian perspective."

"Nurturing a generous attitude of welcome to newcomers is something that needs to be worked at over many years … Welcome is not just what we do when someone comes through the door. It is an attitude which seeks to get inside the shoes of the other person so that they can be welcomed and accompanied at every point of their journey."

Archbishop Stephen likes "to use the term ‘Travellers’ to refer to people who are beginning to explore the Christian faith, because it describes those who are on the way. They may not yet be coming to church, but they are committed to taking the next step. For many people the best next step is a course of enquiry where they can enter into dialogue with the Christian faith in the company of other Christian people."

In April we are going to begin our next Enquirer’s course called Being With Church. Being With is about sharing stories about our lives and hearing the stories of others. These stories are the small things that mean a lot to us and they can also be the most challenging and life changing moments of our lives. There’s a space for every person’s life in this course. The course is based on the belief that to find the meaning of life we need each other. We need to spend time being present and attentive to others who may be different to us and to ourselves and the world around us. As we do this, we can discover a way to be attentive to God and discover that God is present to us.

So, we are talking here about three specific forms of welcome: the welcome someone receives when they first encounter the Church or an individual Christian; the welcome involved in travelling with someone else on their journey to God and beyond; plus, the welcome which can be provided in an enquirer’s course like Being With.

Just like the Olympics and Paralympics, the Church needs welcomers. The traditional role of welcomer to services in the Church of England is that of the sidesperson. We can see from all that we have thought about so far today why that is such an important role. We might not all have a ministry as a sidesperson, but we can all get alongside others on their journey towards God in the way Archbishop Stephen has described and as Jesus did with the two disciples on the Emmaus Road. How, I wonder, can you get inside the shoes of those you know so that they can be welcomed and accompanied at every point of their journey towards God?

Finally, could you encourage people to join our Being With course by making people feel comfortable and safe, putting them at ease so they can bring their questions and feel challenged but not pressured. These are all ways in which we can use our time and talents in God’s service and so be a transforming presence in our homes, community, workplaces and world.

Archbishop Stephen suggests we need to have become a church where evangelism is in our DNA and where we have learned ways of doing evangelism that work in the different and varied and fast changing contexts that make up our diocese. All these involve an intentional desire to welcome others and share with them the good things that we have received from Christ. To do that, like Jesus on the Emmaus Road, we need a warm and generous attitude to those who are currently outside the church community and a place of welcome and nurture within it.

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Malcolm and Alwyn - Fool's Wisdom.

All Saints Goodmayes: Stations of the Cross

All Saints Goodmayes, which has a set of Stations of the Cross by the artist Henry Shelton, has prepared a booklet of images, reflections and prayers based on these Stations. The reflections and prayers used are those that I wrote for an earlier collaboration with Henry called 'The Passion'.

The Passion: Reflections and Prayers features minimal images with haiku-like poems and prayers that enable us to follow Jesus on his journey to the cross reflecting both on the significance and the pain of that journey as we do so. Henry and I aimed in these reflections to pare down the images and words to their emotional and theological core. The mark making and imagery is minimal but, we hope, in a way that makes maximum impact. Here is an example of one of the reflections and prayers: 

Jesus dies on the cross

The sun is eclipsed, early nightfall,
darkness covers the surface of the deep,
the Spirit grieves over the waters.
On the formless, empty earth, God is dead.

Through the death of all we hold most dear, may we find life. Amen.

The set of Stations now at All Saints Goodmayes have previously been exhibited at York Minister, St stephen Walbrook, and Chelmsford Cathedral. The booklet comes with a Foreword by The Most Revd and Rt Hon. Stephen Cottrell, Archbishop of York:

"At this most holy time, as we follow Jesus on His journey to the cross, Henry Shelton's contemporary images provide an evocative background against which we can place our deepest reflections as we contemplate the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, who by his death and resurrection delivered and saved the world." 

Henry Shelton was born and grew up in Stratford, East London. He joined West Ham church as a choir boy where he first became aware of the importance of Christian art.

After leaving school he joined a London studio as an apprentice draughtsman developing his drawing skills in lettering and fine art. After 15 years of service he set up his own studio receiving many commissions to design for such clients as the Science Museum, Borough Councils, private and corporate bodies.

During this time he continued painting Christian art and after meeting Bishop Trevor Huddleston he completed a series of portraits of him which were exhibited in St Dunstan's Church, Stepney, where he was also confirmed by the Bishop.

Henry worked designing in studios across the world, including Hong Kong and the USA. Together, we formed commission4mission, an artist's collective that generated church commissions, exhibitions, events and resources. Henry's commissions include a large oil painting of the Ascension installed as an altarpiece in the Church of the Saviour, Chell Heath; the Millennium clock tower in Goodmayes, memorial etched glass windows in All Saints Goodmayes and All Saint's Hutton, paintings for the Chapel at Queen's Hospital Romford, Stations of the Crown of Thorns at St Paul's Goodmayes, and the Trinity Window at All Saints Goodmayes.

An interview that I undertook with Henry can be read here and here.

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Extreme - Peacemaker Die.

Prayer: Away from others and in secret

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

When Jesus prayed on this occasion, he went to a dark, deserted place (Mark 1.29-39). When he taught his disciples about prayer, he taught them to pray in secret with the door closed so they couldn’t be seen by others (Matthew 6.5-6).

While there is a place for public prayer, personal prayer is not for public consumption as it is something that happens directly between ourselves and God. In addition, as we see in this story of Jesus’ ministry, it is personal prayer undertaken in secret, hidden places that is what fuels public ministry.

Jesus knew that he could not carry out his public ministry without time spent in private prayer, that is why he gets up early in the morning and goes to a quiet place away from others in order to pray. It is not important that we imitate Jesus in the specifics of when and where he prays but it is important that we prioritise prayer in the way that he does and find our own times for private prayer as well as finding our own hidden, secret places in which to pray.

So, reflect for a moment on the times and places where you are able to pray.

A saying that has come to us from the Desert Fathers and Mothers, hermits, monks and nuns who lived mainly in the Scetes desert of Egypt beginning around the third century AD, is this: ‘Stay in your cell. Your cell will teach you everything’. The idea is that being in conversation with God through prayer will teach us everything we need to know. For this reason, when he was interviewed once by Radio 4 and was asked which wilderness he would go to for Lent if he could be taken anywhere in world, the Archbishop of York replied that he would stay in his own living room. The location for our prayer is not the main point (although quiet and privacy will help); instead, the point is the quality and depth of our prayer.

From the mid-1920s onwards, Evelyn Underhill became highly-regarded as a retreat conductor and an influential spiritual director. Much of her ministry was undertaken at our own Diocesan Retreat House in Pleshey.

In her book on The Fruits of The Spirit, she wrote, in relation to retreats, about Jesus’ injunction to shut the door and pray in secret:

“Christ, who so seldom gave detailed instruction about anything, did give some detailed instruction of that … recollection which is the essential condition of real prayer, real communion with God.

"When you pray, go into a room by yourself - and shut the door." I think we can almost see the smile with which He said those three words, and those three words define what we have to try to do. Anyone can retire into a quiet place and have a thoroughly unquiet time in it - but that is not … the shutting of the door …

Shut the door. It is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do. Nearly everyone pulls it to and leaves it slightly ajar so that a whistling draught comes in from the outer world, with reminders of all the worries, interests, conflicts, joys and sorrows of daily life.

But Christ said shut and He meant shut. A complete barrier deliberately set up, with you on one side alone with God and everything else without exception on the other side. The voice of God is very gentle; we cannot hear it if we let other voices compete. It is no use at all to enter that room, that inner sanctuary, clutching the daily paper, the reports of all the societies you support, your engagement book and a large bundle of personal correspondence. All these must be left outside.

The object … is not intercession or self-exploration, but such communion with Him as shall afterwards make you more powerful in intercession; such self loss in Him as shall heal your wounds by new contact with His life and love.”

Jesus’ words were addressed to ordinary people going about their everyday lives, so his call to shut the door when praying was for each time we pray. Seeking the opportunity of being alone with God and attending to God in order that we may do His will better in our everyday lives was intended by Jesus as a regular experience. The distractions Evelyn Underhill notes are with us each time we pray. We need to face them each time we pray. Jesus said, ‘whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.’ Our reward will be, as Evelyn Underhill wrote, ‘real communion with God.’

So, reflect again for a moment on the times and places where you are able to genuinely shut the door and be in quiet and in peace as you pray.

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Lavine Hudson - Create In Me.

Immersed in the story

Here's the sermon I shared at St Mary’s Runwell this morning:

The favourite Christmas story of the Archbishop of York concerns a two-year-old called Miriam at a church on the edge of Chichester where he was then parish priest.

The red brick rectangular church seated about 80 and was full to overflowing for the Christmas Day service. As every space was taken, the crib scene had been placed under the altar. During the service Miriam wandered into the sanctuary and stood for a while observing the nativity scene. It was a large nativity set and so the characters in the scene were about the same size as the two-year-old. After observing the scene for a while, Miriam carefully climbed in under the altar making her way around the characters to sit in a space within the crib scene where she then remained for the rest of the service.

What she did was essentially an acted parable to the congregation because she became part of the story. That is what happens – it is what we are doing – when we become Christians. In other words, for many of us, it is what is going on when we are baptised.

Baptism is our immersion in the Christian story; a story which begins with God’s creation of the universe and life on earth. It continues with our rebellion as human beings. Our saying to God that we know who we are and what we need to do and, therefore, will go ahead and do our own thing. We all live with the consequences of that right now.

But in the story which the Bible tells, God does not leave us simply to do our own thing. First, he chooses the people of Israel and through his special relationship with them seeks to call all people back to their true identity and purpose and then he sends his own Son, Jesus, to reach out in rescue and return us to him. He does this so that each one of us can find our identity and purpose in God and play our part in bringing the kingdom of God in full on earth as it is in heaven.

When Jesus was baptised, he was saying that he would immerse himself in this story and play his special, unique part within it (Luke 3. 15 – 17, 21 – 22). As he made that commitment, God the Father affirmed him in his identity and purpose by saying, “You are my own dear Son. I am pleased with you.”

As we do what Miriam did and enter the story, then we are also affirmed by God in just the same way. St Paul writes in Romans 8. 14 – 17 that:

“Those who are led by God's Spirit are God's children. For the Spirit that God has given you does not make you slaves and cause you to be afraid; instead, the Spirit makes you God's children, and by the Spirit's power we cry out to God, “Father! my Father!” God's Spirit joins himself to our spirits to declare that we are God's children. Since we are his children, we will possess the blessings he keeps for his people, and we will also possess with Christ what God has kept for him; for if we share Christ's suffering, we will also share his glory.”

What he is saying is that as we enter the story we are adopted by God as his children and become brothers and sisters of Jesus, co-heirs with him of all he possesses.

You may remember the wonderful words of Philippians 2. 6 – 11 which say that Jesus gave up the equality he had with God the Father in heaven in order to be born as a human being, living and dying as our servant in order to save us:

“For this reason God raised him to the highest place above
and gave him the name that is greater than any other name.
And so, in honour of the name of Jesus
all beings in heaven, on earth, and in the world below
will fall on their knees,
and all will openly proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.”

That same glory, St Paul says, is shared with us as we enter the story, join the family of God and play our part with the story. The incredible message of Christianity is that our rightful identity as human beings is that of being God’s own dear children with whom he is greatly pleased.

How do we play our part? That all depends on our coming to know the story and what happens within it. New Testament scholar Tom Wright has described Holy Scripture as being like a five-act play containing the first four acts in full (i.e. 1. Creation, 2. Fall, 3. Israel, 4. Jesus). “The writing of the New Testament,” he says, “would then form the first scene in the fifth act, and would simultaneously give hints (Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 15, parts of the Apocalypse) of how the play is supposed to end ... The church would then live under the 'authority' of the extant story, being required to offer an improvisatory performance of the final act as it leads up to and anticipates the intended conclusion ... the task of Act 5 ... is to reflect on, draw out, and implement the significance of the first four Acts, more specifically, of Act 4 in the light of Acts 1-3 ... Faithful improvisation in the present time requires patient and careful puzzling over what has gone before, including the attempt to understand what the nature of the claims made in, and for, the fourth Act really amount to.”

So, we start by looking at what we know of the story to date – the things God has done in and through Israel, Jesus and the Church – and we also look at the hints we have about the way the story will end with the coming in full of the kingdom of God on earth as in heaven. Then we say to ourselves, ‘What is it that people do in this story? How do they act and behave? And then we start to do and say similar things, as we have the opportunity. As Christians we are never given a script which has all our lines and actions printed on it. Instead, we have to improvise our part on the basis of what we know of the story so far, on the basis of the example provided by those who have lived in the story before, and on the basis of the opportunities provided in the places where we are and among the people that we know.

Living in the Christian story, therefore, is a challenge – something we should know anyway from looking at the life and death of Jesus – but it comes with the affirmation that we are part of God’s family; his dearly loved children, brothers and sisters of and co-heirs with Jesus himself. When we know this, we can relax because whatever happens to us we are accepted, forgiven, loved and gifted by the God who created all things and who will bring all things to their rightful end.

When we do that, we are like Miriam climbing in under the altar to become part of the crib scene. When we do that, we become part of God’s story which makes us his children and gives us identity, purpose and meaning. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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Iona - Edge Of The World.

In Praise of Stop

Here's the sermon that I shared today at St Andrew’s Wickford:

When you use the Lectionary to decide on the Bible reading for a particular service, as we do in this Church, you sometimes wonder what the people who chose the readings were thinking when they made their choices. The Gospel reading for today (Mark 6: 30-34, 53-end) misses out the wonderful stories of Jesus feeding the five thousand and walking on the water which have stimulated thousands of sermons and instead all we get is Jesus travelling around towns, villages and farms meeting large crowds and healing people and, as the preacher, you think; well, how am I going to get a sermon out of that?

One interesting thing about this selection of verses is that we see Jesus attempting to take some time out from ministry together with his disciples and being frustrated in the attempt because the demands of the crowds around them were too great. That continues to be the case in ministry whether we are lay or ordained but the busyness of ministry here in the Wickford and Runwell Team Ministry and in our weekday lives cannot be sustained if it is not fed by regular times of withdrawal for prayer and recuperation.

That was Jesus’ regular practice. We read of him getting up long before daylight, leaving the town and going to a lonely place where he could pray. In order to pray effectively and well he needed to get away from the demands of ministry and away from his disciples too. He needed to be alone with God in order to recharge his batteries for further ministry to come and this is his pattern throughout his ministry; active mission together with others combined with withdrawal for individual prayer and recuperation. It was what he tried to demonstrate to his disciples in today’s Gospel reading and it needs to be our pattern too.

I’m reminded of an exhibition by the artist Micah Purnell which was called In Praise Of Stop . This was an exhibition which reflected on the theme of Sabbath as Resistance by exploring 'the practice of the fourth commandment in a contemporary age.' The exhibition included thought-provoking aphorisms such as ‘Nothing takes practice’, ‘Switch off to connect’, ‘Thou shalt not prepare for tomorrow’ and ‘Everything comes from nothing’. 

In a similar vein is the book written by Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York, which is entitled ‘Do Nothing to Change Your Life: Discovering What Happens When You Stop.’ In this book Cottrell invites us to slow down and stop … and breathe. He asks, ‘When was the last time you had a real day off? Ditched the 'to-do' lists? Switched off the phone? Had a lie-in? Sat in the bath until the water went cold?’ Most of us, he suggests, live at break-neck speed. Busy lives - work, family, friends, endless tasks - leave us with little time to sleep, never mind stopping and reflecting. We urgently need to learn to nurture our inner slob. As Isaiah 30:15 says, ‘In return and rest you shall be saved.’

In a book called 'The city is my monastery', Richard Carter writes that 'Rest is given to us as the culmination of creation’ and that the ‘whole of creation moves towards this time of Sabbath, and our lives have no meaning simply as cycles of survival without this arrival at the place of wonder and rest.’ The rest that is ultimately the culmination of creation is that which we will experience in heaven. Sabbath is our anticipation of that experience in the here and now.

‘Creation is not complete,’ he writes, ‘until God rests on the seventh day and contemplates all creation.’ Therefore, 'God blesses time’ and ‘consecrates it as holy.’ The whole of creation is moving towards this time of Sabbath, ‘and our lives have no meaning simply as cycles of survival without this arrival at the place of wonder and rest.'

‘When we rest, we imitate God - we enter into the rhythm of God's time,' but, more than that, 'if Sabbath is God's time, it does not end in the keeping of the Sabbath - the Sabbath enters into all our time.’ ‘When we keep Sabbath, everything we do can be infused with that sense of God's presence.'

He describes a day on holiday in Kefalonia where he pays attention to every moment of the day – the bread he buys from the bakery, the person who serves him, the wrapping in which it comes, the feel and taste of it. Later in the day, he writes, ‘I sat on the beach and watched people playing in the sea … I swam, ate bread and ripe tomatoes, and these actions were like a prayer.'

So, Richard Carter suggests that Sabbath rest is not simply about stopping but more so about an attitude of the heart which slows us in everyday life to appreciate and enjoy what we encounter in our daily lives.

In lockdown we all experienced an enforced Sabbath. An unattributed poem that was circulated on Facebook at that time suggested that our lockdown experience could be a moment in which we learn how to rest and experience renewal:

For years our land has groaned beneath the grind
Of work, work, work, of pounding feet, of churn;
For years we stopped our ears and would not mind
The gentle voice that urged us all to turn
From endless slog and strain that warps and rends
The sinews of the Spirit, toward rest:
The Sabbath's breathing wisdom God intends
For human flourishing and the land's best.
Now cafes rest, deserted and the shops,
The bank, the bustle, bargain, building, bar,
The tube's hot haggling hustle: it all stops.
Forced into stillness, now we breathe, we are.
Such tragic loss of love, of breath, to prove
How much we need to rest, to breathe, to love.

Our reading today, demonstrates some of the difficulties in regularly finding that time and the attitude Richard Carter described because of the constant demands that ministry makes on us. However, the difficulties involved shouldn’t prevent us from making the attempt to build rest periods and an attitude of slowing down and paying attention into our daily lives. By doing so, we follow in the footsteps of Jesus who specifically carved out times for prayer in the busyness of his ministry years and sought to teach his disciples to do the same. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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Be Still For The Presence Of The Lord.

Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome

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

Hospitality is a bedrock of cultures and countries across the Middle East. Everywhere travellers go in the Middle East, they are overwhelmed by hospitality. This culture derives in part from the experience of nomadic peoples in desert landscapes where one had to travel significant distances to find water. To refuse travellers refreshment in such places would have been to let them die which would have threatened the openhandedness that nomadic peoples must depend on to survive. For Jews, Christians and Muslims, the story of Abraham receiving three travellers who turned out to be divine was key, as he was seen to have entertained angels unawares. This story is then contrasted with the sinful response of the people of Sodom to the same three travellers; instead of offering hospitality, the people of Sodom seek to abuse them.

The rabbis teach that Abraham left off a discussion with God to greet these guests when they arrived at his camp. He ran to greet them during the hottest day on record and served them the best food he could put together. Based on this example, the rabbis say that taking care of guests is greater than receiving the divine presence. The fundamental wickedness of Sodom was their hostility to vulnerable strangers and the violence they enacted on the innocent. The people of Sodom had a moral responsibility to offer protection and hospitality to vulnerable strangers, as all the ancient laws of the East demanded, and they stand in scripture as an example of extreme wickedness because they attacked and abused those they should have protected.

Jesus called his 12 disciples to an itinerant ministry which involved going ahead of him to prepare people for his coming and his message. As a result, they took nothing unnecessary with them, they weren’t distracted by small talk along the way, and they welcomed hospitality when they received it but simply moved on to the next place and the next person whenever they were not made welcome. We’ve been listening to and reflecting on the instructions Jesus gave to his disciples in our Gospel readings for the past couple of weeks (Matthew 10). This passage (Matthew 10.40-42) comes as the conclusion to Jesus’ teaching. His concluding words are all about the importance of welcome and they are, therefore, based on Middle-Eastern understandings of hospitality.

Before the disciples go Jesus warns that those who fail to welcome them are not only turning God’s messengers away from their homes and lives but God himself too. As he says, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me” and earlier, “Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me; and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.” When the disciples return to him, he rejoices at the welcome which they have received and the sense that the Gospel has been received from “the diverse and motley group he has chosen as his associates.”

The emphasis in these passages is on the hospitality provided by others to Jesus’ disciples. We tend to think of ourselves as being called like them to take the good news of Jesus to others, so we naturally identify ourselves with the disciples in the passage and think about the response we receive from others when they know that we are Christians. But to really get the force and challenge of what Jesus is saying in this passage we have to put ourselves in the shoes of those the disciples went to and ask ourselves how well do we receive others? The challenge in this passage is about the quality of the welcome provided to others. The great sin here is to be inhospitable and to be inhospitable is actually to reject the divine in our lives.

So, how do we rate on that basis? We think of ourselves as a friendly, welcoming church but it’s important not rest on our laurels and instead ask ourselves how we can be more welcoming, more hospitable to those who come for the first time and those that we don’t know well. When we are here in church, let us make those people our priority, always seeking to speak first to those we don’t know, don’t know well or haven’t spoken to for some time.

Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York has written: "Nurturing a generous attitude of welcome to newcomers is something that needs to be worked at over many years … Welcome is not just what we do when someone comes through the door. It is an attitude which seeks to get inside the shoes of the other person so that they can be welcomed and accompanied at every point of their journey."

We get six mentions of welcome in the three verses that form today’s short reading which suggests the importance that welcome of others held for Jesus. We see this, too, in his teaching that we should love our enemies and bless those that curse us. We see it in his statement that those who feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked and visit those in prison are doing those things to Jesus himself. We see it, too, in his concern to be with those who were excluded from worship and society; those with disabilities, tax collectors, publicans, prostitutes and others. In Jesus, God became one with those who are rejected by others, but the rejected one became the cornerstone of our faith. The experience of Jesus provides a model for ministry. In Jesus, we see that God is most clearly seen among those who are marginalised or rejected (whether by Church or state) and, therefore, those on the edge are the gifts from God which have the most potential to renew us.

Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields says: ‘In his crucifixion [Jesus] was rejected by the builders – yet in his resurrection he became the cornerstone of forgiveness and eternal life. That’s what ministry and mission are all about – not condescendingly making welcome alienated strangers, but seeking out the rejected precisely because they are the energy and the life-force that will transform us all. Every minister, every missionary, every evangelist, every disciple should have these words over their desk, their windscreen, on their screensaver, in the photo section of their wallet, wherever they see it all the time – the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. If you’re looking for where the future church is coming from, look at what the church and society has so blithely rejected. The life of the church is about constantly recognising the sin of how much we have rejected, and celebrating the grace that God gives us back what we once rejected to become the cornerstone of our lives. That’s what prophetic ministry means.’

Whoever welcomes, welcomes Jesus and welcomes God. If we truly want to see and hear God, then all we need to do is to welcome those we encounter as we will see the face of God in them. God calls us not just to be those who follow him but also to be those sent out to prepare the way for him to come into the lives of others and challenges us, too, to be those who are always welcoming, always hospitable towards others.

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Little Richard - Great Gosh A'Mighty.

Lent: A course in Christian meditation

Here's the sermon I have shared at St Andrew's Wickford and St Mary's Runwell today as part of our Ash Wednesday Eucharist's with the Imposition of Ashes:

When Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York, was a parish priest in Huddersfield, a friend of his, who was involved in Adult Education, told him that a course on Zen Buddhist meditation could have been filled three times over and asked why the church was not running a course on Christian meditation.

Archbishop Stephen later moved to a role at the Cathedral in Peterborough and when he told this story there, the Head of Adult Education asked him to run a course on Christian meditation as part of the Adult Education programme. He did, and the course filled up with a mix of those who were already Christians and those who would describe themselves are ‘searchers’.

This experience confirmed his belief that, with the right kind of introduction, many people are open to the riches of Christian spirituality. What better time than Lent for exploring some of that tradition? Lent is a time for going deeper with God; for going deeper into our faith and the riches of its tradition, particularly in terms of prayer.

This Lent we are essentially going to run a course on Christian meditation through our Lent Course ‘Ways to Pray’. Our five-week course explores some different ways of praying: Being Still with God, Prayer Through the Day, Using the Imagination, Multi-sensory prayer, Using Art and Images. The course gives some ideas on aspects of the Church’s tradition and practice that we could explore this Lent, as part of going deeper into God through prayer. Our Quiet Day, here at St Mary’s, on 4 March will also do more of the same. Here are some others ideas and resources too …

The Desert Fathers and Mothers were hermits, monks and nuns who lived mainly in the Scetes desert of Egypt beginning around the third century AD. These informal gatherings of hermit monks and nuns became the model for Christian monasticism. Many of the wise words and teachings of these early desert monks and nuns were collected and are still in print as the ‘Sayings of the Desert Fathers.’

One such saying has a significant overlap with today’s Gospel reading: ‘Stay in your cell. Your cell will teach you everything.’ The idea being that being in conversation with God through prayer will teach us everything we need to know. For this reason, when he was once interviewed by Radio 4 and was asked which wilderness would he go to for Lent if he could be taken anywhere in world, Archbishop Stephen replied that he would stay in his own living room. The location for our prayer is not the main point (although quiet and privacy can help); instead, the point is the quality and depth of our prayer.

Having said that, the Celtic Church has given us a model for the precise opposite; integrating prayer into our daily lives. Celtic Christians had a sense of the heavenly being found in the earthly, particularly in the ordinary tasks of home and work, which can blessed if we see God in our tasks and undertake our tasks as an act of worship to God.

This tradition was particularly strong in Gaelic countries and in the late 19th century Alexander Carmichael collected a number of the prayers and poems together in a book called the ‘Carmina Gadelica’ which ‘abounds with prayers invoking God’s blessing on such routine daily tasks as lighting the fire, milking the cow and preparing for bed.’ In more recent years, equivalent contemporary prayers have been written covering every aspect of daily life from turning on a computer to attending meetings, driving a car, stopping for a lunchbreak, and so on.

Some of the most visionary and passionate prayer in the history of the Church derived from the renewal of the Carmelite Order undertaken by St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross. Through quiet prayer, resting in contemplation of God which involved forgetting all earthly things, these attained occasionally prayers of union in which their whole being was absorbed in God.

They frequently described these experiences in terms of the union of lovers in marriage. St John, in particular, described in great poetry the experience of feeling abandoned by God which he described as the dark night of the soul. Their writings can help us understand those times when we feel God is very distant from us as well as those times when we feel an intimate closeness.

St Ignatius of Loyola devised a series of prayer exercises which many have found particularly helpful in the development of their prayer life. The Examen is a daily process for reflecting on the events of the day in order to detect God’s presence and discern his direction for us. The Examen begins with prayer for light then continues through thanksgiving, reviewing our feelings and focus before concluding with future appointments and the Lord’s Prayer.

Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises are a compilation of meditations, prayers and contemplative practices developed to help people deepen their relationship with God. These are divided into four weeks; not seven-day weeks but stages on our spiritual journey. Week 1 involves reflection on our lives in light of God’s boundless love for us. Week 2 involves imagining ourselves as Christ’s disciples as we reflect on the Gospel stories. Week 3 is meditation on the Last Supper, Christ’s passion and death, while Week 4 is meditation on the resurrection.

These are just some of the resources for prayer which can be found in the Christian tradition (some of which we explore in our Lent Course) and which are available to all of us as we seek to go deeper into God this Lent. These resources can be found in books, through retreats, and by using online meditations. It is possible to travel to centres of prayer or to the world’s deserts and wildernesses in order to learn to pray in some of these ways. But we don’t have to! Like Archbishop Stephen, we could take to heart the teachings of the Desert Fathers to stay in our cell and our cell will teach us everything. Our cell can be our own front room. If we use it for committed, regular prayer this Lent then like the saints, monks and mystics about whom we have thought, we can go deeper into God.

Jesus said: ‘… go to your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what you do in private, will reward you.’

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Iona - Today.

Love lost in translation - a possible source for substantial debate

The Church Times carries reports of Bishops seeking to show regret for how "divisive" the House of Bishops' pastoral statement on same-sex marriage had been.

The article says that the Archbishop of York, Dr Sentamu, has described the statement, which he signed a fortnight ago, as "Anglican fudge". While the Bishop of Oxford, the Rt Revd John Pritchard, issued a very carefully worded and pastorally appropriate letter to clergy in his diocese on Wednesday.

Bishop Pritchard also said that he accepted most people would not change their minds during the facilitated conversations recommended by the Pilling Report. This, it seems to me, is a key aspect of what is at the heart of the current impasse on this issue; the processes of dialogue that have been and are being initiated are not resulting in greater understanding of the issue because most participants enter the dialogue from entrenched positions. At the heart of this is our differing understandings of scripture and the reality that, for all the excellent biblical and theological work that has been done on the issue in recent years, this has not, to date, succeeded in moving the dialogue onto more constructive ground.

This is, in part, because much of that work does not seem to have been given prominence in the formal dialogue processes which the Church of England and the Anglican Communion has been using but also because that work has not perhaps, to date, been widely seen as sufficiently robust biblically to challenge the current and traditional consensus. Renato Lings' Love Lost in Translation: Homosexuality and the Bible seems to me to be a substantial contribution to this issue around which substantial debate could occur.

Lings has posted a summary of the main findings of the book on his website but the detail and thoroughness of his Biblical analysis mean that this is a book that must be read and not simply read about:

"For decades, a painful controversy about same-sex relationships has rocked Christian churches, and no solution is in sight. Frequently the Bible is quoted. In response to this crisis, this exciting new book systematically examines the biblical stories and passages that are generally assumed to deal with, or comment on, homoerotic relationships: Noah and Ham, Sodom and Gomorrah, Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, Deuteronomy 23:17–18, Judges 19, Romans 1:26–27, 1 Corinthians 6:9, 1 Timothy 1:10, and the letter of Jude.

Love Lost in Translation documents how mistranslations of these texts into Greek, Latin and other languages occurred early, and how serious errors are committed by translators today ... The book proposes a fresh approach to translating the Bible by means of linguistic and literary criteria. The method enables readers to discover the amazing literary sophistication, psychological insights and spiritual depth of the Bible."

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The Danielson Famile - We Don't Say Shut Up.

Handing on the Torch

Christianity is the largest movement our world has ever seen. Nearly one third of the world’s population identify themselves as Christians, making Christianity by far the world’s largest religious group. A recent report on the size and distribution of the world’s Christian population, ‘Global Christianity’, says that 2.18 billion of the world’s 6.9 billion people are Christian, compared with about 600 million of the world’s 1.8 billion people in 1910. This means that “Christians make up about the same portion of the world’s population today (32%) as they did a century ago (35%).”

The report says that 1.3 billion (61%) of Christians in the world live in the ‘Global South’, compared with 860 million (39%) who live in the ‘Global North.’ The study says that about half of the Christians in the world are Roman Catholic, 37% are Protestants, 12% are Orthodox, and the remaining 1% are of other Christian traditions.

Christianity continues to grow at an immense pace – especially in Asia (including China ), Africa and Latin America . At the same time, Christianity in the West struggles to grow and – perhaps – even to survive. In this year’s Lent course - Handing on the Torch - sacred words for a secular world  - we will consider some of the reasons for this and what it might mean for individual Christians, for churches and for Western culture, in a world where alternative beliefs are increasingly on offer.

This course, which has been prepared by York Courses, comes in five sessions:

Session 1 – A Christian Country?

Session 2 – A Secular Society?

Session 3 – A Beleaguered Church?

Session 4 – Competing Creeds? and

Session 5 – Handing on the Torch.

The participants on the course CD are Archbishop Sentamu - the Archbishop of York, Clifford Longley - RC author, broadcaster and journalist and Rachel Lampard - who has responsibility for the Methodist Church 's engagement with political issues. Bishop Graham Cray - Archbishops' Missioner and leader of the Fresh Expressions team - provides the Closing Reflection at the end of each session and Dr David Hope - former Archbishop of York - introduces the course.

As in previous years, this course is being organised by the Seven Kings Fellowship of Churches and can be studied at the local Methodist Churches, St John’s and St Peter’s Aldborough Hatch. Those attending in previous years have greatly appreciated the York Courses that we have used, so, if you want to learn more about the Christian faith, tackle the biggest questions facing humanity, and examine your own beliefs, in fellowship with others, then this course is for you.

The course can be studied at:

* St John’s Seven Kings on Wednesday mornings (from 10.45am) and evenings (from 8.00pm) on 29^th February, 7^th, 14^th, 21^st, and 28^th March.

* St Peter's Aldborough Hatch on Wednesday mornings (from 11.00am) on 29th February, 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th March.

* Goodmayes Methodist Church on Thursday afternoons (from 2.00pm) on 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th March. 

A Seven Kings Fellowship of Churches Lent Service led by the Philadelphia Church will bring the course to a conclusion on Tuesday 3^rd April at 8.00pm at Seven Kings United Free Church.

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After The Fire - Joy.

Stop human trafficking petition

The Independent on Sunday, alongside a number of high profile figures including the Archbishop of York, actress Juliet Stevenson and the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper, is now supporting anti-slavery international campaign urging the Government to sign up to a new EU Directive to prevent human trafficking.

Over 13,000 have already signed the petition calling on the Government to adopt the Directive, demonstrating widespread concern that a UK opt out could undermine European-wide efforts to tackle trafficking.

The IOS's support comes as Romanian children as young as nine years-old were found in slavery on UK farms. The UK needs to take tougher action now more than ever to fight human trafficking across borders, especially as many victims are now trafficked from new EU member states such as Romania and Bulgaria.

Please take action by:

1) SIGNING THE PETITION calling on the Government to guarantee the UK will opt in to the Directive.

2) Writing to your MP urging them to sign Early Day Motion 779 which calls on the Government to opt in to the Directive. Click here for a template letter and MP contact details.

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Neil Young - Angry World.

Spiritual Life: Blessing laptops & mobiles

This is my Spiritual Life column for today's 'Ilford Recorder':

"A VICAR has launched a bizarre bid to attract city workers to his church — by offering to BLESS their mobile phones and laptops." That was how 'The Sun' responded to a service in the City of London where laptops and mobile phones were blessed as part of a service for workers in the financial district of London. David Parrott, the Vicar concerned, said that he hoped his blessing had made worship "lively and relevant to the people who work nearby in the financial district". Mobile phones and laptops, he suggested, are our daily working tools and therefore are forms of technology that we should bless.

What David did generated lots of press coverage but only seems bizarre if you think there are no connections between work and faith. In a speech given in 2009, the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, said "Many Christians are living out their lives as the church dispersed in the world of business and commerce every day. They ... have the daily challenge of living by a set of values that the world thinks are mad. Their counter-cultural work and calling needs to be recognised, affirmed and supported." The counter-cultural perspective of which he spoke is "the vision of justice and righteousness that comes from a creative and generous God."

He added: "All of life is religious and there is a desperate need to reconnect the sacred and the secular. There is no more urgent time than now to break down the compartmentalised thinking that separates trust in God from the world of work. There needn't be a separation between what goes on in church and in our prayers – and what goes on in the office or in the boardroom or on the shop floor."

That is what David Parrott was doing by blessing laptops and mobile phone as daily work tools. Interestingly there is research which has suggested that as many as three-quarters of workers may be interested in ‘learning to live the spiritual side of their values.’ So what David has done may not be so bizarre after all. It may even be that, were the mad values of Christianity (that vision of justice and righteousness, of which the Archbishop spoke) to be adopted and lived out in the world of work, we might see a restructuring of the economy based on a broader understanding of wealth than simply monetary gain and economic growth alone.

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Blondie - Hanging On The Telephone.

St Edward's Day sermon

A sermon preached at a St Edward's School Communion Service for St Edward's Day:

Last week the Archbishop of York accused a group of people working in finance of being "bank robbers" and "asset strippers." That is not language that you expect an Archbishop to use of others, especially not at a posh banquet for the Institute of Worshipful Company of International Bankers at Drapers Hall in the City of London.

The people that he was talking about worked in the finance industry and had made £190 million by the sending shares in the large bank HBOS plummeting, putting the jobs of all who work for HBOS at risk and putting the money of all who invest in HBOS at risk. These are people who, for their own profit and gain, were prepared to play with the jobs and savings of thousands of other people. And that is why they were branded "bank robbers" and "asset strippers" by the Archbishop of York last week.

A situation like this brings into sharp focus the question of the way in which we choose to live our lives and the kind of society in which we want to live. Do we want to become people and a society which regards ‘greed as good’ (which was the mantra in the film Wall Street) or do we want to be people and a society that live in love, as in our reading from the first letter of John (1 John 4. 13-16)? We have a choice. Our lives are not pre-determined and the decisions we make down can alter our lives for good or ill.

In today’s Gospel reading (Luke 14. 27-33), Jesus says that we need to make those decisions carefully, in a considered way. He tells two stories to illustrate this point. In the first, a man wants to build a tower but because he doesn’t make any plans he only gets as far as laying the foundations and then runs out of money. As a result, he becomes an object of ridicule. In the second, a King realises that he doesn’t have enough soldiers to win a battle against another King with a bigger army and so he asks for terms of peace. In the first story, the builder doesn’t plan ahead and can’t finish the job but in the second story the King does plan ahead and wins peace for his people.

Jesus says that if we are to be people and a society that seek to follow him and live in love then we have to plan ahead, think it through and count the cost in order to see it through and stay the course.

It is not easy living in love with others because others are not easy to live with. Jesus says it is like carrying a cross and walking towards your own death because what you do is what he did; you sacrifice yourself for the sake of others. It is much easier the Bible says to live for yourself, to be like the asset strippers and bank robbers, and try to make as much and keep as much for yourself as possible. Many people live their lives that way today but, if you are on the receiving end of someone else’s greed, if you lose your job because someone else has made money from the collapse of your employer, you quickly realise what a miserable way to live life that selfishness actually is.

It is not easy living in love with others Jesus says. You need to sit down and count the cost first before beginning. But ultimately it is the only way not to destroy ourselves, our society and our planet. Fortunately, there are many that have followed Jesus in carrying their cross and walking the narrow path.

The man that we remember today and after whom our school is named was one of those people. He was a man of great power because he was a King in England yet he chose to live as a witness to Jesus by the way he lived his life and the way in which he ruled his people. For this he became known as the Confessor; Edward the Confessor.

His prudent management of his kingdom gave England more than twenty years of peace and prosperity, with freedom from foreign domination, at a time when powerful neighbours might well have dominated a less adroit ruler. He reduced taxes as he lived off the income of his own lands and did not have to pay for expensive military campaigns and so prosperity and the population grew under his reign. to around one million.

He was diligent in public and private worship, generous to the poor, and accessible to subjects who sought redress of grievances. Instead of travelling to Rome on pilgrimage he was responsible for building Westminster Abbey which was consecrated one week before his death. He was buried there after his death in 1066 and the location of his tomb there was rediscovered only three years ago, in 2005.

Edward’s life shows that it is possible to have great power and wealth and use this for the benefit of others, not yourself. This is the way of life into which Jesus calls us whether we have wealth and power or not. It was Jesus’ call to live in love that Edward confessed and sought to follow in his life. Which will we choose? The turmoil in the financial markets, the asset stripping of HBOS, the Archbishop’s speech, this service, these readings, the example of Edward the Confessor’s life; these are all opportunities for us to count the cost of our life choices and to decide whether we believe that greed is good and seek to live our lives selfishly or whether we will hear the call of Jesus, as Edward the Confessor did, and take up our cross to live a life of love for others.

O God, who called your servant Edward to an an earthly throne That he might advance your heavenly kingdom, and gave him zeal for your Church and love for your people: Mercifully grant that we who commemorate him this day may be fruitful in good works, and attain to the glorious crown of your saints; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

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The Band - King Harvest.

An Alice in Wonderland market system

I have a new Gospel Reflection on the MiLE website for Sunday's Gospel Reading. This reflection links up with the comments made by the Archbishop of York when addressing the annual dinner of the Institute of Worshipful Company of International Bankers at Drapers Hall in the City of London.

Dr Sentamu declared: "To a bystander like me, those who made £190million deliberately underselling the shares of HBOS, in spite of its very strong capital base, and drove it into the bosom of Lloyds TSB Bank, are clearly bank robbers and asset strippers."

He continued: "We find ourselves in a market system which seems to have taken its rules of trade from Alice in Wonderland, where the share value of a bank is no longer dependent on the strength of its performance but rather on the willingness of the Government to bail it out, or rather on whether the Government has announced its intentions so to do."

The Archbishop also spoke of the contrast between the bail outs being proposed for banks and the lack of funding for the Millennium Development Goals and drew attention to the plight of those outside the financial industry who would benefit from Government assistance at a time of need.

This contrasts with a fascinating comment piece by Matthew Parris in The Times where he argues that "Christian socialism has ambushed [socialism], subverting its original message and wrecking it as a viable philosophy of government in a market-driven age":

"Marx is about power. Christianity is about charity. Marx is about the authority of the collective. Christian liberalism is about the individual conscience. Marx is about justice. Christian humanitarianism is about mercy. The common causes in which Christians, liberals and socialists have tried to reconcile their differences - personal freedom, the redistribution of wealth and the beneficent State - have in Christian hands proved ruinous to the socialist idea: softening its head, picking its pocket, throwing good money after bad, nursing the weak and neglecting the winners, hearkening to disability and turning away from ability, and leaching its energies into a welter of simpering charitable causes. For most of the second half of the 20th century, Western socialism has hovered around the bedside of the victim, the loser and the marginalised. To win, it should have been outdoors, exhorting the strong."

Parris' comment is fascinating because he clearly understands the 'bias to the poor' within Christianity at the same time that he rejects it. As my Gospel Reflection seeks to set out, I stand with the Archbishop of York.

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The Clash - Working For The Clampdown.