Needing each other - and praying for peace

I’m writing this while BT Openreach drill a hole into the hall wall at Boroughbridge trying to get WIFI sorted for us. We’ve had five attempts to get it sorted which I won’t bore you with and today nearly didn’t happen. He arrived and said he’d need a hoist to climb the pole in the lane behind the church and he said it would be a day’s work. I said “haven’t you got a hoist?” He put in a call to “hoist support”! We will see what happens! Clearly “hoist support” hold the key to progress today! 

 

We all need somebody alongside us to help life move on or be fuller. On Monday, I was in Liverpool. My meeting didn’t last as long as I thought it would so I had time to explore the vast Anglican cathedral, and then walk along Hope Street to the Roman Catholic one. Half way down Hope Street are two sculptures of the two Archbishops who decades ago did much for Christian Unity in the city, David Shepherd and Derek Worlock. Underneath the sculptures, is a circle with the words “Better Together” on it. We all need somebody alongside us to share insights, challenge our position and tell their story or just do something we cannot do, like “hoist support”! 

 

Take our Circuit at the moment. We are seeing churches worshipping together more. We are sharing each other’s stories more. We are being honest about our problems more. It was good for me last Sunday to guide Harrogate Road through their annual church meeting. It’s been over two years since I worked with them and while we miss Sarah, it was good for me to hear where they are as Allhallowgate work in partnership with them. Ecumenical partnerships are developing as well. It’s my role in the District to encourage this. I’ve turned up at a lot of C of E special occasions recently, the licensing of Sue, the new vicar in Boroughbridge, the Diocesan Synod in Leeds and in a few weeks the licensing of my friend Claire as vicar at Kirby Hill. The Bishop of Ripon said to me the other day “oh for goodness sake, just become an Anglican!”

John Wesley preached a sermon about the importance of different groups of Christians working together called “Catholic Spirit” (“Catholic” meaning universal.)Wesley asked this question: “Is thine heart right, as my heart is?” He recognized that, in the church, we have many differences. Those differences are important and we must not deny them, but the core question for whether we can work together is, “Are our hearts alike?” I am confident that the answer for us in our Circuit in this moment is, “Yes, our hearts are alike!” 

Wesley goes on from there to ask, “Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may…”If it be, give me thy hand.” I do not mean, “Be of my opinion.” You need not: I do not expect or desire it. Neither do I mean, “I will be of your opinion.” Keep you your opinion; I mine; and that as steadily as ever… Let all opinions alone on one side and the other: only “give me thine hand.”

We need each other!  And the world needs to remember we need each other. Else all is lost.

This prayer offered by Rev Dr Raj Patta is where we are and from where we pray. It’s very powerful.

In the meantime, I’d better go and see if “hoist support” has done anything. It’s gone awfully quiet! 

 

Pentecost 2025 and three services…

It’s been a long but good Pentecost day in these parts. 

This morning I was with Boroughbridge folk. There were 18 of us there. There was a positive spirit about. I dedicated new toilets, ignoring the thought in my head to use “mighty rushing wind” in the prayer! 

This afternoon it was Chapel Anniversary at Dallowgill. As usual the place was full of our supporters who enjoy coming - I just wish they’d come more often! Our lovely local preacher Steve Laugher led us. It was his last service in the Circuit before he and his wife move to Orkney. A tea followed as ever! 

Then tonight I was privileged to share in the induction of our new vicar in Boroughbridge and the rest of the benefice, Rev Sue Simpson. I got to process with a load of Anglicans in and out and I got to welcome her as her ecumenical partner. Bishop Anna preached on hot coals moments. It was good afterwards to big up ecumenism locally with the new Archdeacon and to share frustration over rules stopping full interchangeability of ministry with the Bishop! She seemed to agree with me. 

It was lovely to be at a town event and be known by so many. The Dean of the cathedral was there. He’s only seen me in Ripon and seemed bemused why I was there! The choir vestry and clergy banter was fun!!!!! 

Here are my ramblings for Pentecost. I’m pleased the church isn’t done with yet. But we need to be open and adaptable to change…

One commentator I read this week suggested Pentecost is the most important festival of the Church, as the Church was born today but we don’t make much of it. 

And unless you live in a bit of Lancashire where they still do whit walks and have new clothes for the day the world is oblivious to it. 

We do Christmas, Easter but not Pentecost, and yet today should be a huge party because it’s the day God believes in us and gives us power to be his people, beginning in Jerusalem, to all Judaea, to Samaria and to the ends of the earth! 

So this article I read says “It is one thing to adore the infant Jesus, another to mourn the death of Jesus in our insular communities. 

It is something else, and to many, VERY scary, to proclaim the gospel in every action we take, and to publicly proclaim ourselves to be THOSE people, Pentecost gives us marching orders. Christmas is so much easier…’

In Acts 2, we see the Christian Pentecost, at which, “a sound like the rush of a violent wind” fills the entire house where the apostles had gathered, and, “divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them and all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit.” God the Holy Spirit comes upon the disciples, fills the disciples, transforms the disciples, and they go from being a group hiding out in an upper room to being Christians on fire with the love of God.

Suddenly, there is no more fumbling, no more confusion. They are aflame with God the Holy Spirit; it is not until this moment, in which they are filled with the presence of God, that they are transformed into the living temple of the Spirit: the church. Suddenly, they are unstoppable. Each goes out into a different, far-flung corner of the world to share the Good News of the love of God the Father, the incarnation, teaching, death, and resurrection of God the Son, and the life-giving inspiration of God the Holy Spirit.

Doubting Thomas sets out to preach the Gospel in India and founds the Church of St. Thomas, which exists to this day. St. Peter goes to Antioch and Rome, spreading Christianity throughout Europe. St. Matthew goes to Syria, St. John to Turkey and Greece, and in a short matter of years,the church is born. The apostles are not forming insular little churches; this was the age of the martyrs, in which being a Christian meant being willing to die for the sake of the Gospel. And still, ancient people gave themselves in droves to this new faith in Christ.

St. Basil of Caesarea, in his book “On the Holy Spirit,” says that, even though God is surrounding us, filling all things, we cannot see him; even though we have his perfect image in Jesus, walking with us, teaching us, leading us through the darkness, we cannot comprehend him; and so, it takes God the Holy Spirit, filling us with light, surrounding us with the fire of his love, to know God.

Are we inspired and excited by the movement of God?

God is calling us to bigger things, new perspectives, new possibilities. 

Pentecost is too big to be contained in an upper room, inside the Church building or within the cosy fellowship of those who believe. We were designed by God to be his messengers, his witnesses, his people in the world.

It is too big in 2025 just as it was in Jerusalem more than 2,000 years ago.

The late John Stott, an Anglican priest and theologian, wrote: ‘As a body without breath is a corpse, the Church without the Spirit is dead.'

“Come Holy Spirit.”

Our prayer on this day is a dangerous prayer because it means that we must be open and vulnerable, willing to be challenged and changed so that we can seek and find Jesus in the ones we serve. “Come Holy Spirit” means that we must become open to the transforming power of God in our lives. It means that we will find ourselves standing with those on the margins, on the edges, on the outside.

Our simple prayer, “Come Holy Spirit,” is the first step towards saying “yes” to God’s desire in our life of faith. We are called, with the Spirit’s help, to say yes to God!

Edwina Gateley sums up our longing to say yes to God in her poem Called to say yes.

We are called to say yes

So that rich and poor embrace

And become equal in their poverty

Through the silent tears that fall.

We are called to say yes

That the whisper of our God

Might be heard through our sirens

And the screams of our bombs.

We are called to say yes

To a God who still holds fast

To the vision of the Kingdom

For a trembling world of pain.

We are called to say yes

To this God who reaches out

And asks us to share

His crazy dream of love.

God’s crazy dream of love is our crazy dream of love. We are called to say “yes” to allow the Spirit of the Living God to fall afresh on us, and that is scary but inspiring and exciting too. The day of Pentecost this huge mind blowing event tells us we are given enough to be the Church and we are called to be the Church, still. 

I want to end with some words of Walter Bruggemann. Walter Bruggemannpassed away this week, aged 92. He was one of my spiritual heroes. He describes Pentecost like this: 

We name you wind, power, force, and then, imaginatively, "Third Person." We name you and you blow... blow hard, blow cold, blow hot, blow strong, blow gentle, blow new...

Blowing the world out of nothing to abundance, blowing the church out of despair to new life, blowing little David from shepherd boy to messiah, blowing to make things new that never were.

So blow this day, wind, blow here and there, power, blow even us, force,  Rush us beyond ourselves, Rush us beyond our hopes, 

Rush us beyond our fears, until we enact your newness in the world. Come holy Spirit, come. Amen. 

May that be our prayer and may we be energised and renewed to be where God wants us to be.

The Day of Pentecost calls us to keep watch – to imagine what a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit might look like in our own lives. 

Of course, if we sit and wait for the same old thing to happen, we’ll always get what we ask for. 

But if we allow ourselves to imagine something new, something fresh, something holy, then anything is possible. 

Allhallowgate Anniversary

Here’s my sermon for Allhallowgate anniversary today:

As we celebrate this church’s anniversary today, it is important to take a moment to reflect on the past and to look to the future. When we look back on the past, we are reminded of the faithfulness of God. He has been with us every step of the way, and he has blessed us abundantly.

We are grateful for the pioneers of our faith who planted the seeds of our church. We are grateful for those who have served our church over the years. And we are grateful for the countless members who have given their time, talents, and resources to build up our church community.

And today, we believe that God has called us to be a beacon of hope in our community. We believe that hehas called us to make a difference in the lives of those around us.

We are committed to continuing to share the love of Jesus Christ with our community. And we are committed to building a church that is known for its love, its compassion, and its commitment to serving others.

So what are we feeling about our churches this morning? Are we pessimistic or optimistic. Do we worship and serve expectantly and enthusiastically or is it all hard slog to just keep going? 

It’s unusual for the current minister to take an Anniversary. I’m glad the Church Council asked me to do both services today. I’m reminded of the little rural chapel in a village where the President of the Methodist Conference was on holiday. The steward got wind he was about and also that Sundays preacher was unwell so wasn’t coming, so he asked the President if he might take the Sunday afternoon service. Which he was happy to do. 

The steward welcomed him like this: “Mr President, we thank you for stepping in to take our service today. A far worse preacher would have done, but we couldn’t find one!” So I’m glad to be here, all day. An anniversary can be a nostalgia fest when we bring back former ministers, which is lovely, but there is a danger we remember the old days with rose coloured spectacles and we yearn for those days back. 

I remember the college plan sent me to a chapel near St Helens on the road between Manchester and Liverpool for a Sunday School Anniversary. So I prepared an act of worship involving children. 

I got there to be greeted by a very morose steward who when I asked where the children and indeed Sunday School was, told me they had no children nor had they had a Sunday School for years but they still expected a Sunday School Anniversary! 

Have we come to this service and this Anniversary expectant? I did a nursing home service in the week. A man said “ is this bingo?” “No,” said Shelby the activities co ordinator, “ it’s a church service.” “OH GOD!” he cried!

John Wesley came to Ripon in May 1780. In his journal he wrote: “We came to Ripon andobserved a remarkable turn of Providence. The great hindrance of the work of God in this place has suddenly disappeared, and the poor people, being delivered from their fear, gladly flock together to hear His word. The new preaching house was quickly more than filled. Surely some of them will not be forgetful hearers!' That would have been the chapel on Coltsgate Hill of course. But note a lot of people gladly flocked together to hear His word. 

Wesley talked about an optimism of grace. Yes,the shape of church might have changed since 1881. Note things that happen in the world haven’t really. There was a major war that year, the Boer War of corporal Jones fame in Dads army – remember the line “ they don’t like it up them.” There was an assassination of an American president, there was an enquiry in our country into poverty… and the Church would have spoken into those things a different narrative, a confident Gospel, thundered from a high pulpit that God was at work, and you were to expect things to happen.

Last week, to mark Wesley Day, I used some words of Pete Greig who I know some of you read…he reminded us of the might of Methodism: Wesley’s heart changing conversion experience in 1738 would spark one of the greatest awakenings the world has ever seen: detonating the Methodist movement, reforming British society, averting a bloody revolution, repopulating dying churches, mobilised the laity, rescuing millions from generational cycles of poverty, catalysing the planting of countless new churches, and ultimately through Wesley’s disciple Wilberforce, criminalising the slave trade in the British Empire.

“Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord. Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy” prays the prophet Habbukuk.

Surely an Anniversary Sunday is a Sunday to say we expect wonders, and awe, for God to repeat marvellous deeds in our day and make them known. So today let’s take time to ask what is God up to here. And Harrogate Roadand Masham I suggest you ask it too. Hey, I am taking your annual meetings so we might have that conversation! Harrogate Road in two weeks and Masham on the 13 July. 

Then I suggest an Anniversary be a day to say very strongly that God in Jesus is always optimistic. Just when you think you know what he’s up to he goes and does something else. I haven’t watched much of this series of Doctor Who, no spoilers but no one expected the ending we got last night. Churches that are growing are growing because they are open to the Lord you know, they spend less time worrying and more in prayer and they are open to the Spirit coming and turning our ideas upside down. I spend a lot of time talking with people about how we keep the church going, rather than how it might flourish… it should flourish because God is still at work. This isn’t Victorian 1881, but our confidence in the Gospel should be the same. Methodists got into trouble for being radical and a nuisance. They saw there was nowhere the Gospel shouldn’t reach, and the chapel, this chapel would have been alivewith missionary zeal. Wesley himself said “set yourself on fire with passion and people will come for miles to watch you burn.” So what Allhallowgate friends are you passionate about? Where is the fire in your belly? 

Maybe it’s that God hasn’t done with us yet and we are on a journey together to amazing wonderful things. So our second reading today was from the book of Revelation. That’s all about the end. It is my absolute conviction, my absolute conviction, that we are here only to make connection with people that today isn’t it and with God there is a better tomorrow. God’s people must have vision else we perish. God’s people are called to share a different ending to things. Revisit Revelation 22, the end of Scripture. 

What if the end is not the slamming of a door, but the sound of one creaking open? What if this strange, final word—the one that comes after the dragons and the despair, after the blood and the beast—isn’t a threat, but a welcome? With someone whispering your name into the dark—“come.”

“Let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life… as a gift.”

A gift—unearned, unmeasured—just given. Because grace is ridiculous like that. This isn’t Rome’s way. 

Remember Revelation is an alternative to Rome, and whatever Rome is today. Rome says, “Prove it. Earn it. Deserve it.” But this cityJohn describes —this kingdom whose gates never close—says you’re already enough. This isn’t a kingdom for the shiny and successful. It’s for the weirdos, the weary, the ones who the world says this isn’t for you.

Someone has helpfully written, “Jesus says, “I am coming soon.” This isn’t a quiet waiting. We wait the way women in labour wait—breath caught between pain and promise. We wait by giving ourselves over to what will outlast the ache. We wait by becoming the welcome.

Come, Lord Jesus.

We are not waiting for the end. We are living at the beginning of something that hasn’t fully arrived but is already true. We will speak as those who’ve seen what mercy can do. We will believe—still, even now—that joy will have the final word.” 

Friends of Allhallowgate, on your anniversary and friends joining us today, that’s what the Church is for. To have confidence again in Jesus, the embodiment of grace, a Jesus who is here and who can be met.  Cause for optimism? I think so. Joy will have the final word. 

Then finally I think an Anniversary is a day we need to all remember we can meet Jesus. If we go home from this service and we haven’t met Jesus here, well, that’s a bad state of affairs isn’t it. Today we begin Bible month and this year it’s suggested we read John’s Gospel together. John’s Gospel is all about working out who Jesus is through written and personal evidence.

“What are you looking for?” he asks.

These are the first words Jesus speaks in John’s gospel. We heard the opening verse of John on Christmas Day: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God…” But that Word doesn’t actually utter a word until 38 verses later, and when he speaks, it’s a simple but profound question.

When Jesus asks Andrew and the other disciple, “What are you looking for?” it means a lot more than just, “Can I help you find something? Is there some object you’ve lost?” 

Jesus is really asking, “What are you searching for in life? What is your soul’s deepest desire? What are you seeking with all of your being?” What are you looking for?

Jesus asks us the same question today. What do you seek? What are you hunting for, to satisfy your soul’s deep longing? He’s still asking. He still wants to know, because we are really good at looking for all the wrong things, in all the wrong places.

What are you looking for? What will satisfy your deepest need? What will bring you joy?

When Jesus asks them, “what are you looking for?” the disciples of John know what they are looking for. They know that the thing they’ve been seeking is this man standing in front of them. They respond with a question of their own. They only want to know, “Rabbi, where are you staying?”

Again, this means more than, “what’s your current address?” They are really asking, “Teacher, what is it like to abide with you? Is there room for us in your life? Can we come live where you live? Will you teach us? Because, what we are looking for something to devote our lives to. We are looking for someone who will teach us the things of God. If you are who John says you are, we want to spend every possible moment in your presence. Where are you abiding, so we can come abide with you?”

And Jesus invites them to “come and see.” He doesn’t give them a business card with an address they can find later. He invites them immediately into his life. He does this with the understanding that they may choose not to follow. Once they’ve seen his accommodation and had a taste of his teaching, they may not want to stay. But his invitation is open anyway. Come, and see. So today I simply invite us to rediscover his call on us to come and to be churches where we ask others what they might be looking for. 

Through our encounters with people inside and outside our buildings, we provide the space for others to find that love that we celebrate Sunday by Sunday, coffee morning by coffee morning, every pastoral visit, every kindness, every conversation. 

A church that is optimistic, a church that believes in God’s future, a church that helps seekers find their hearts desire. A church that puts bread and wine in people’s hands and says this is for you, come and be renewed to be the church for another 144 years or until the day Jesus comes again. 

So happy anniversary Allhallowgate, and happy ordinary Sunday to our visitors. You know recently when I was dressed in black a lady stopped me outside this church and had a right go at me about the state of the world and the state of the church, her church, then she said “ oh, aren’t you the Roman Catholic priest?” “ No” I said, “I’m the minister of this church pointing to the front door of the church.” Oh,” she laughed, “ they are okay, the people in there.” Friends, you are more than okay, you are God’s beloved, called and commissioned to be optimistic and full of grace. Most of all I say to you believe in yourselves because God believes in you. Amen.