Cheering us on in our endeavours

Here is the sermon I shared yesterday at St Catherine's Wickford:

Hebrews 11 tells the stories of many people of faith who we know of from the stories contained in the Old Testament (Hebrews 11. 32 – 12. 2). These are the great figures of the Old Testament; Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses. The section we have heard read this evening comes towards the end where the writer of Hebrews realises that he is running out of space and does not have room to fully tell the stories of all those that he wishes to mention.

In shorthand he asks us to picture many who because of their faith have experienced persecution, torture, poverty and ill-treatment. Finally, he asks us to picture all those who have lived lives characterised by faith as being like the crowd filling an enormous stadium and cheering us on as we run our race of faith through life. All these wonderful heroes of the faith who lived such exciting and eventful lives, they are cheering us on in our endeavours to all live lives that are faithful to God and his purposes. Not only are they there supporting us but the writer to the Hebrews says that their experiences are not complete and that only in company with us will they be made perfect.

As God’s people, we are on a journey or running a race with an end point, a destination in view. What is this endpoint or destination? It was set out for us in our reading from Isaiah 65 and is the coming new creation; the moment when God will make a new heaven and new earth fusing the two together to create a new existence for human beings in a world that is characterised by joy and not sorrow.

This is the wonderful future towards which we run, for which we minister both in our individual lives and together as a Church and towards which those who have gone before us and who now cheer us on from the stands point by the way in which their lives were lived and the inspiration that their lives provide for us.

Madeleine Channer is a lovely former nurse who was a member of the congregation when I was at St John’s Seven Kings. She wrote a book called Echoes from the Andes telling stories of those she met while nursing in Peru. Her book is, I think, imbued with this reality about which we have been speaking. In the book Maddy says that she went to Peru “with the aim of serving” but that her actual experience was that she received as much, if not more, than she gave. The Rev. Colin Grant, to whom Maddy dedicates the book, and the Doctors with whom she worked in Peru all influenced her deeply but it was the beauty of the Quechua people that influenced her most profoundly. Maddy writes:

“Things were happening in my heart and mind. I had come to Peru with the aim of serving, but I was receiving. As well as the emergence of spiritual truths, the Quechua people exemplified priceless qualities: humility, generosity of spirit, quietude, kindness and longsuffering.

Like the petals of a flower gradually unfolding to the rays of the sun, this was another unfolding, another lifting to the light. It shone into the corridors of my mind, and into the shafts and labyrinths of my soul like a searchlight. I saw and beheld; the Spirit of God was moving, spurring me on, the Spirit of life and peace.”

In this short extract from the end of Maddy’s book, we see how the examples of those around her where both an inspiration and a lesson to her and how they were used by God to move her forward in the race which had and has to run. It can be the same for us as we look for God in the people around us and as we find out about those people of faith who have gone before and who are alive today and ministering in different parts of the world.

We have this large crowd of witnesses round us and we have Jesus in front of us. We know the destination towards which we run; the joy of the new earth and new heavens. So then, let us rid ourselves of everything that gets in the way and let us run with determination the race that lies before us. Amen.

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David Grant - Wake Up Everybody.

Do you love me?

This evening's service at St John's was a meditation on love based on the repeated question of James Baldwin's Ears to hear me:

The joint, as Fats Waller would have said, was jumping ...
And during the last set, the saxophone player
took off on a terrific solo.

He was a kid from some insane place like Jersey City
or Syracuse, but somewhere along the line he had disco-
vered he could say it with a saxophone.

He stood there, wide-legged, humping the air, filling
his barrel chest, shivering in the rags of his
twenty-odd years, and screaming through the horn,

"Do you love me?" "Do you love me?" "Do you love me?"
And again - "Do you love me?" "Do you love me?"
"Do you love me?"

The same phrase unbearably, endlessly, and variously
repeated with all the force the kid had ...
The question was terrible and real.

The kid was blowing with his lungs and guts
out of his short past; and somewhere in the past,
in gutters or gang fights ... in the precinct basement,
he had received a blow from which he would never
recover, and this no one wanted to believe.

Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me?

The men on the stand stayed with him, cool and at a
little distance, adding and questioning ... But each man
knew that the boy was blowing for every one of them ...

The reading of this poem followed an instrumental piece played by Floyd, a saxophonist who had travelled from Bexley to be with us for this service. Maddy Channer who led the service spoke about the way in which so many of our actions are a cry for love and linked the poem to the repeated question that Jesus asked Peter as he restored him following his denial.

"Love ... is tried and tested by those nearest to us. True love needs the discipline of demand, the nag of domesticity, and the failings of those dearest to us. This means pain, the pain of growth and perfecting ... The Easter Christ wore the scars of human brutality, for his love had been perfected in the fires of human malice and meanness." (Hugh Lavery)

The service ended with prayers based on 1 Corinthians 13 and another marvellous saxophone solo from Floyd. It was a simple, profound and life-giving, reflective service.

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Albert Ayler - Summertime.

Running the race

Hebrews 11 tells the stories of many people of faith who we know of from the stories contained in the Old Testament. These are the great figures of the Old Testament; Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses. The section we have heard read this evening (Hebrews 11. 32-40 & 12. 1-2) comes towards the end where the writer of Hebrews realises that he is running out of space and does not have room to fully tell the stories of all those that he wishes to mention.

In shorthand he asks us to picture many who because of their faith have experienced persecution, torture, poverty and ill-treatment. Finally, he asks us to picture all those who have lived lives characterised by faith as being like the crowd filling an enormous stadium and cheering us on as we run our race of faith through life. All these wonderful heroes of the faith who lived such exciting and eventful lives, they are cheering us on in our endeavours to all live lives that are faithful to God and his purposes. Not only are they there supporting us but the writer to the Hebrews says that their experiences are not complete and that only in company with us will they be made perfect.

As God’s people, we are on a journey or running a race with an end point, a destination in view. What is this endpoint or destination? It was set out for us in our reading from Isaiah 65 and is the coming new creation; the moment when God will make a new heaven and new earth fusing the two together to create a new existence for human beings in a world that is characterised by joy and not sorrow.

This is the wonderful future towards which we run, for which we minister both in our individual lives and together as a Church and towards which those who have gone before us and who now cheer us on from the stands point by the way in which their lives were lived and the inspiration that their lives provide for us.

The book which our own Madeleine Channer has written (Echoes from the Andes) telling the stories of those she met while nursing in Peru is, I think, imbued with this reality. In the book Maddy says that she went to Peru “with the aim of serving” but that her actual experience was that she received as much, if not more, than she gave. The Rev. Colin Grant, to whom Maddy dedicates the book, and the doctor’s with whom she worked in Peru all influenced her deeply but it was the beauty of the Quechua people that influenced her most profoundly. Maddy writes:

“Things were happening in my heart and mind. I had come to Peru with the aim of serving, but I was receiving. As well as the emergence of spiritual truths, the Quechua people exemplified priceless qualities: humility, generosity of spirit, quietude, kindness and longsuffering.

Like the petals of a flower gradually unfolding to the rays of the sun, this was another unfolding, another lifting to the light. It shone into the corridors of my mind, and into the shafts and labyrinths of my soul like a searchlight. I saw and beheld; the Spirit of God was moving, spurring me on, the Spirit of life and peace.”

In this short extract from the end of Maddy’s book, we see how the examples of those around her where both an inspiration and a lesson to her and how they were used by God to move her forward in the race which had and has to run. It can be the same for us as we look for God in the people around us and as we find out about those people of faith who have gone before and who are alive today and ministering in different parts of the world.

We have this large crowd of witnesses round us and we have Jesus in front of us. We know the destination towards which we run; the joy of the new earth and new heavens. So then, let us rid ourselves of everything that gets in the way and let us run with determination the race that lies before us. Amen.

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Curtis Mayfield - Move On Up.

Bible Sunday sermon

“Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will never pass away,” said Jesus. I was reminded of these words, which come from the Gospel reading for Bible Sunday (Matthew 24. 30-35), as I was reading the book that Maddy Channer has written about her experiences working as a nurse in Peru. The book is called Echoes from the Andes and in it Maddy tells the stories of people that she encountered through her nursing work.

One of those whose story she tells was Jacinto whose wife Pascuala died an untimely death. Maddy writes, “Sad and weary, [Jacinto] felt his strength, especially his spiritual strength, ebbing away. He turned to Quechua hymns and sacred texts for solace. He remembered Christ alone in Gethsemene …

In the course of time, Jacinto found the memory of Pascuala’s suffering and his own pain and loneliness was transformed, so that he was quick to recognize pain and hurt in others, and respond to their need. All suffering was in some way, for him, related to her suffering.

He not only identified with the pain of those he encountered, but in particular, the sufferings of Christ – the corner-stone of his faith: the ultimate symbol of innocent suffering.

He came to understand that love is eternal, and both human and divine love are somehow intertwined and would remain with him for always.”

She also tells the story of Aurelio, who first appears in the book in this way:

“A figure appeared in the doorway of the tiny church in the middle of a scripture lesson.

“Aurelio, come on over, you’re late,” beckoned one of the boys. Aurelio pulled out a chair and joined them. He was just thirteen. His grey trousers were too short, and his red jumper barely covered his waist. Thick black hair stood out from his forehead like the bristles of a new broom. He was reserved and quiet, but soon became deeply immersed in the book given him to read …

Aurelio sold bread on the trains at weekends. He would set off on a Friday evening and catch the train to Sicuani, about a hundred miles away, and return the following day. He earned forty new pence.

“Where do you sleep in Sicuani on Friday nights Aurelio?” I enquired.
“In the street, Seńorita.”
“But it is very cold at this time of year, especially at night!”
“Seńorita, if I can’t endure the cold? Look what Christ suffered!”

Maddy writes that she pondered Aurelio’s words, “In his adversity, his thoughts were of Christ.” And his thoughts were of Christ because of what he had read of Christ in scripture and then experienced of Christ in his life.

Aurelio and Jacinto came to understand their lives and suffering as a part of the big story of salvation that is told in scripture and which can also bring meaning to our lives as we see ourselves living within that story.

What is this big story? Gabriel Josipovici has described it like this:

“It’s a magnificent conception, spread over thousands of pages and encompassing the entire history of the universe. There is both perfect correspondence between Old and New Testaments and a continuous forward drive from Creation to the end of time: ‘It begins where time begins, with the creation of the world; it ends where time ends, with the Apocalypse, and it surveys human history in between, or the aspect of history it is interested in, under the symbolic names of Adam and Israel’. Earlier ages had no difficulty in grasping this design, though our own, more bookish age, obsessed with both history and immediacy, has tended to lose sight of it. Neither theologians nor biblical scholars have stood back enough to see it as a whole. Yet it is a whole and quite unlike any other book.”

Tom Wright, the Bishop of Durham, has written about this big story as being like a five act play. Act 1 is Creation, Act 2 is the Fall, Act 3 is the story of Israel and Act 4 the story of Jesus. The writing of the New Testament is the first scene in Act 5 and also gives us hints of how the play will end. The church, that is all Christians, including us, are then actors in Act 5 improvising our scenes on the basis of what has gone before and how we know the story will end.

This is what Aurelio and Jacinto did, their thoughts were on Christ and understanding their lives and suffering in the light of his story. Their actions – sleeping on the streets to earn money for the family and recognizing pain and hurt in others and responding – became part of the story of salvation throughout which God is seen in human form and this world drawn into the coming fullness of the kingdom of God. Our lives and actions, like theirs, can also be part of this big story as we immerse ourselves in the story through scripture and act out our part in the unfolding narrative of salvation history.

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Beth Rowley - Oh My Life.

Echoes from the Andes

Madeleine Channer, a member of St John's Seven Kings, has recently had a book published based on her experiences of working as a nurse in a small hospital set in the haunting loveliness of the Peruvian Andes.

Echoes from the Andes tells the story of a journey to Peru which was a response to the plight of human need, yet it led to a spiritually rich experience and new dimensions of understand and awareness.

These stories have been written in honour of an obscure community, a remarkable people; the poor crushed beneath life's load whose resilience and fortitude has left a sacred memory.

Echoes from the Andes is published by Four O'Clock Press and costs £7.99. Copies will shortly be available from St John's.

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Cesar Paucar & Saywa - Palomita Vanidosa.