This will be a sign unto you...

When we come downstairs in the morning, what do we expect from the day? Opportunity or trepidation at what lies ahead? We look for a sign that all will be well as we engage with the world. 

Last week while we were in Peterborough, Evensong in the cathedral included the Christmas story from Luke 2: 1 - 20. The lectionary for evening prayer at the moment is going through Luke’s Gospel. To hear the Christmas event out of season was actually very powerful. “Do not be afraid” is the word of the angel. “Today in David’s town is born to you a Saviour” is the good news of God. The verse I heard afresh as Canon Sarah read it was “this will be a sign unto you.” We look for signs as we go out and engage every day that God is at work. 

Today, I’ve been privileged to share in the service of remembrance and thanksgiving for my first mentor in God, the Revd. Geoffrey Hawkridge. I was deeply humbled when his family asked a friend and I to give the eulogy at his funeral today. We gathered at lunchtime today at St Giles Church in Desborough to celebrate him: a preacher for 70 years reminding us of the signs and the need to respond to them. 

Geoff used to preach using a little spiral bound pad and would excitedly turn the pages over as he got more and more worked up. We used to enjoy counting the times he turned the pages over as he went along. 

He wore his love for Christ on his sleeve, he wasn’t frightened to wear his politics on his sleeve either, his commentaries on the events in the world were relevant and to the point especially when the values of the world and the values of Gods kingdom collided. His worship was full of joy because he believed the Gospel was joyful. Who can forget him gently persuading children on Christmas morning they had to dance with him round the communion table to Good Christian men Rejoice because it HAD to be danced to! 

In the service book presented to me at confirmation Geoff simply wrote in it Isaiah 26 verse 3. “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast because they trust in you.” Keeping looking for the signs of divine activity. I added the reminder of Isaiah 26 to my notes the other night. It was clearly an important verse to Geoff as it was on the front of the service sheet we were given this afternoon.

Apart from the awesome privilege of delivering the eulogy of a minister who inspired me as a teenager and challenged me to candidate, calling ordained ministry “the greatest calling in the world”, it was deeply moving to hear recordings of Geoff holding forth from the pulpit of The Drive in St Anne’s. In one he talks about responding to the the signs today. Today is all we have. He bemoans our hymn book has left out several huge verses of the Venite: Psalm 95:

Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness:

When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work.

Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways:

Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.

It was a privilege today to be able to say thank you to Geoff for his ministry. Three of us from youth club days travelled to Desborough from Skegness and Harpenden and Hailsham to be with others in remembering a man who through 70 years of preaching, challenged people to read the signs...

Today is the feast day of St Brendan the voyager. Brendan and his friends set out in a coracle, with no destination, believing that God had new things to show them. 

St Brendan and his companions landed on an island and lit a fire, the earth began to move, and they quickly sailed away. Upon looking back, they realised the island in fact was a giant fish! That may be a dodgy tale, but it reminds us of the need to travel and find the signs, even if there are dangers on the way. 

We need to venture out into the unknown of each new day. We need to open the front door and embrace the divine ahead of us. Hopefully, this will be our front door in a few weeks time. A new beginning after a very bad time. 

Geoff’s service today ended with the Nunc Dimitis. There is a peace in looking for the signs and responding today. 

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word.
For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;
To be a light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of thy people Israel.

So tonight I raise a glass to the Revd. Geoffrey Hawkridge. Apt for an ex navy man I used to see buying his rum in the off licence at the bottom of my road, even though alcohol wasn’t allowed in the manse back then! My lungs ache and my head hurts, but I wouldn’t have missed today for the world! Even if I’m now stuck at East Croydon!!

First sermon for ages

Later today I am trying to help in a service to see if I collapse afterwards! Here’s my first attempt at a sermon to thank the church we have journeyed with for the last few months... enjoy.

Sermon for Hailsham - 5 May 2019

Most of you will know I’ve been signed off unfit for work since last August with breathing difficulties. We left a poorly manse in Hastings and after travelling around for a bit, arrived here in Hailsham to babysit your manse last October. I’ve had to curtail my appointment as Superintendent of the Hastings Bexhill and Rye Circuit and I’ve been granted a recuperative year and a bit by the Church to get well. Part of the recuperative process is to slowly build myself up. We move away from Hailsham, sadly, in a few weeks time as Irena needs your manse, but before we go, I’m glad for this chance to thank you for your welcome to us and to preach and lead communion for the first time in ages. I’m grateful to Roger for his gracious invitation to share in his service this morning. So rather than us slipping in at the back as we often do, this morning we are at the front, and I cannot tell you how good me being at the front feels...

Your church is used for many things in the week, one of which is Slimming World. 

We’ve been coming to Slimming World for a couple of months - I need to do something about my stomach. I’ve had some amazing conversations about what I do for a living in your kitchen! Why am I mentioning Slimming World? Because our consultant posted on Facebook the other day after too much chocolate being consumed and the scales not being kind: “We need to draw a line under Easter.” 

“We need to draw a line under Easter” - can we really do that. 

I’m not talking about returning to a diet, but the challenge as Christians to live Easter every day. This is the Easter season. We are an Easter people and alleluia is our song, isn’t it? Not just one day a year. 

The Easter story is one that is so huge it takes some time to take it all in and then there’s always more to think about. This morning I want us to consider, using the fab lectionary passages set for today, three Easter words for us, for your church, for us to live it and bring it’s message to others.

The first word is transformation. Remember where Easter starts. In confusion. 

Do you remember Donald Rumsfield, George W Bush’s defence secretary in the Iraq war. He made this statement in a now infamous press conference:   “As we know there are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.”

Ever had the experience of life being so difficult you just don’t know what you know anymore. What you believed is suddenly swept away.  What you took for granted is abruptly no more. It can be through health or sudden unemployment or the actions of others destroying our hope. 

That’s where the disciples are where we join them this morning. With the Jesus project over, they are demoralised and directionless, they go back to the only thing they can do: get their fishing boat out.

  Imagine their despair when they can’t now even do that right. Imagine how they feel when this stranger appears on the beach and says “oy, why don’t you throw your nets on the other side of the boat.”

 What does he know? We know what happens. At the amazing haul, Peter recognises who this stranger is.

Easter begins often when we are at our lowest when we think it is all over.  The God we worship is a God of transformation. The full stop to a story divinely comes a lot longer after we have given up. Jean Vanier, founder of the L Arche Community in France once wrote that “ sometimes God waits until we have exhausted our Human Resources before he answers our call.” He makes a way out of no way, he turns our mourning into dancing if we hold on. Easter transformation. 

The second word this morning for you is invitation. Easter invites us to feast on the life God wants us to enjoy. What is Jesus invitation in this story? “Come and have breakfast!” 

The one who suddenly is an expert in fishing is now a barbecue expert! And they all have a sacramental moment on the spot. 

Hospitality, eating together, making people welcome, breaking bread at communion as we will in a moment are invitations to feast on the always returning love of God. Come and have breakfast... and here’s why I wanted to preach this morning. 

Because I want to say to you even though we’ve only known you a few months, we have both been deeply blessed by your welcome, your quiet care, your inclusion of everyone, your remembering Lis only drinks hippy tea before we get to the hatch! Jesus at this table says come and have breakfast. Every conversation, every cup of tea, every stitch you knit, every item you drop in the Food bank basket, every care bear you give away, every Sunday at three event you hold, is an invitation to whoever you are with to come and have breakfast. We came here a few months at a really low ebb. Being here has been for me a lifeline so thank you. We wanted to say thank you with a little gift thinking about your kind hospitality. Here’s a new teapot, a good representation of hospitality. Methodists do tea. But we decided it didn’t express the sufficient  warmth of your hospitality so we had another think and lis has been busy while we’ve been away and this iswnst we came up with. Heres a teapot with a Jesus tea cosy on it. We hope if you use it you might be reminded of your call. Easter invitation. 

Then finally the third and last word. Easter commission.

 Lets be honest about it, Peter had made a mess of discipleship. Denial, regret, beating himself up now, he was mentally anguished. And Jesus comes to his state and gives him a new beginning and a commission: feed my sheep. Is not our task to do the same today in our town to a lost and despairing people? It might not be easy - Peter is told he might be led somewhere he would rather not go. Life is hard.

 A year ago my ministry looked very different from how it looks today but here is where I start from slowly coming back. Church might not be the same as we knew it. 

Easter commission. Tell each other you are beautiful. Go now and enjoy yourselves. Expect much. Fish lots. Break bread. Be Gods people. Anticipate always that God hasn’t finished with you yet. 

Thank you good people of Hailsham Methodist Church. We are around for a couple of weeks yet. We will come and see you when we are back in the summer to see consultants - but for now, let me say it’s been a huge privilege to be in your care. Don’t ever draw a line under Easter. 

Alleluia, amen.