Friendship

I did assembly this morning at a lovely little junior school near one of my churches. They are having assemblies on friendship this term. I took in Pooh, Piglet and Eeyore and we had a lovely time.

I spotted this poem on their prayer board (it is a church school) and I thought it was very powerful so I wanted to share it. It's called "If one day"

If one day you feel like crying, call me...
I don't promise that I will make you laugh.
But I can cry with you.

If one day you want to run away, don't be afraid to call me.
I don't promise to ask you to stop, but I can run with you.

If one day you don't want to listen to anyone, call me...
I promise to be there for you.
And I promise to be very quiet.

But if one day you call me and there is no answer,
Come fast to see me, perhaps I need you.

A model of community that some churches might do well to follow?  

Laughter and Memories

I had my first visit to church number three in my pastoral charge in my new Circuit today. It was Harvest and there was a lunch and "entertainment" afterwards. I really enjoyed being there with them. We had a time of fun together and belly aching laughter. It culminated in a lady getting an old Pam Ayres book of poems out of her handbag and reading "Pam Ayres And The Embarrassing Incident With The Parrot."  

There was much hilarity in the room but I think people wondered why their new minister was nearly under the table crying. When I was very young, at the church I grew up in, Folly Methodist in Wheathampstead, we used to have "entertainment"after Harvest like they did today. I used to read Pam Ayres poems out of the same book the lady used today. The parrot poem has the line "get off you little buggers" in it. I remember my Dad (or perhaps my Mum telling my Dad to do it) putting a sticky label over the last word of that sentence and altering it to perishers! I haven't heard that poem read for years. When I recovered, my senior steward said, "I think we are learning lots about our new minister today!"

It is good to laugh - I am glad to be part of churches that laugh. It is so refreshing. If we can't laugh together we are in serious strife. Pam Ayres is a genius. I follow her on Twitter and she is hilarious on that - @ayrespam if you're interested. I might have to save some pennies to see her on tour next month - she is near here in Crawley. I reproduce the parrot poem below in case anyone doesn't know it. Hearing it today being read by an elderly lady and watching people collapse in laughter and collapse with more laughter watching my reaction to it has been the highlight of my day. Thank you Pam Ayres, and thank you St Helens Methodist Church!

At the Cotswold Wild Life Park, In the merry month of May, I paid the man the money, And went in to spend the day, Straightway to the Pets Corner, I turned my eager feet, To go and see the rabbits, And give them something to eat. As I approached the hutches, I was alarmed to see, A crowd of little yobbos, 'Ollerin' with glee, I crept up close behind them And weighed the scene up quick, And saw them poke the rabbits Poke them! . . with a stick! 'Get off you little buggers!" I shouted in their ear, 'Don't you poke them rabbits, That's not why they are here." I must have really scared them, In seconds they were gone, And feelin' I had done some good, I carried on along. Till up beside the Parrots Cage, I stood to view the scene, They was lovely parrots, Beautiful blue and green, In and out the nestbox, They was really having fun, Squawking out and flying about, All except for one. One poor old puffed-up parrot, Clung grimly to his perch, And as the wind blew frontwards, Backwards he would lurch, One foot up in his feathers, Abandoned by the rest, He sat there, plainly dying, His head upon his chest. Well, I walked on down the pathway And I stroked a nanny goat, But the thought of parrots dyin' Brought a lump into me throat, I could no longer stand it, And to the office I fled, Politely I began: 'Scuse me, Your parrot's nearly dead." So me and a curator, In urgent leaps and bounds, With a bottle of Parrot Cure, Dashed across the grounds, The dust flew up around us, As we reached the Parrots Pen, And the curator he turned to me Saying 'Which one is it then?" You know what I am going to say, He was not there at all, At least, not where I left him, No, he flit from wall to wall, As brightly as a button, Did he squawk and jump and leap, The curator was very kind, Saying, "I expect he was asleep." But I was humiliated, As I stood before the wire, The curator went back, To put his feet up by the fire, So I let the parrot settle, And after a short search, I found the stick the yobbos had, And poked him off his perch.

         

What to say...

We have been enjoying settling into life in Hastings over the past few weeks. Today is September 1st, the beginning of a new church year in our denomination. Tomorrow, I lead worship in a church I know very little about, apart from the fact their choir sing an introit, the Lord's Prayer, an anthem and the doxology!

What do you say to a congregation who will come out to suss out the new minister, perhaps in expectation, but also in fear of change?

First I think I will want to say we need to be ourselves. We cannot do what we cannot do, but we have potential within us. The Paralympics are full of stories of achievement, courage, hope, the triumph of the human spirit over adversity. In the Opening Ceremony, the story was about enlightenment, where part of the Tempest was used. Prospero leads his daughter Miranda on a journey of discovery. At the end, he says to her "go, be yourself." We are called to be us. No one else is called to sing our song, as Edwina Gateley puts it in the wonderful "Called to Become" - we are not called in Christian terms to compete, but to be distinctive using our own gifts.

Second, I think I will want to say we need to be authentic. I am aware so many people are leaving the church in 2012 through disillusionment that Christians should behave in the way they see them behave, bullying, power issues, unwillingness to change, not accepting new contributions, clinging to tradition unhealthily. We need to remember why we do what we do. I went to a lovely service last Sunday in a village Parish Church where the lay reader after endless notices said, "right, let's get on with what we are really here for!" Are we open as a people? Can people see Jesus through us? Or is there something in the way?

Finally, I think I will want to say we need to embrace what is around us. At my Welcome Service on Monday we will sing a hymn I've chosen by the New Zealand hymn writer Shirley Murray:

"Community of Christ, look past the Church's door and see the refugee, the hungry and the poor. Take hands with the oppressed, the jobless in your street, take towel and water, that you wash your neighbour's feet."

We are called to respond to the need that is in our community. We are not to be a place where we have no clue about real life because we are stuck in a undated church culture that has no resources to respond because life has moved on quickly. I remember little children in my last church looking in wonder at a cassette player. I didn't win the "can I please have a CD player in church" argument with my folk! I am challenged by tomorrow's epistle from James concerning true religion: "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world." You've got to be in the world though!

Tomorrow's service is in the lovely Sussex town of Rye. I've been reading the history of the Methodist cause there. John Wesley when opening a preaching house there in 1789 wrote this:
"Such a congregation I never saw at Rye before, and their behaviour was as remarkable as their number; which, added to the peaceable, loving spirit they are now in, gives reason to hope there will be such a work here as has not been heretofore." I shall remind the small congregation there tomorrow that 223 years after those words were written, they are now God's people there, and there is still work to do together.

Tomorrow will be strange, but also exciting for me. I hope some folk who come out in the morning to meet their new minister, might go away helped and encouraged by a reminder of some basics. We shall see!      

One step at a time - pondering Exodus 33

Moses is my favourite character in Scripture because he is so honest. His story is full of “please don’t make me do that” and sometimes he gets exasperated with God and with his life. 

He has confronted the Egyptian Pharaoh and has won the release of his people. He has held his arms over the Red Sea to part them so the people could pass safely through, and he has guided and cajoled them through the wilderness and their justifiable apprehension that eventually questioned whether they had done the right thing in leaving the relative security of Egypt.  He has organized, cared pastorally, led the journey; he has interceded and reassured – the work of an ordained minister!  And no sooner has he gone up the mountain to spend some quality time with God, the people gather up all their jewellery, melt it down and cast it into a golden calf to worship.

In chapter 33, one of my favourite parts of the Bible, he is tired, mad, nervous and afraid. 

I guess there are times when we feel paralysed and can’t face the challenge of moving to where God requires – anywhere but there.

It is a common feeling in Scripture; think of Jonah for example, he sets off as far in the opposite direction to God’s direction as he can. Think of would be disciples of Jesus – they have all sorts of other priorities to attend to before they can commit themselves to the journey, the journey Jesus beckons them on is for today, not tomorrow. Think of John the Baptist, radical prophet heralding the coming of God’s Kingdom and calling people to change. Does he have sleepness nights in the wilderness about his safety upsetting the apple cart? Coming against the hierarchy of the day, he isn’t afraid to stand up for what he believes, even where it conflicts with the majority view around him. Going out can be risky, especially if we are commissioned to be controversial. How easily we can be knocked off course by difficulties and oppositions! We so easily give up. Keep quiet John; you can keep your head that way! It is easier to stay in bed, than to interact with the world where you might meet a Herodias.  

But wouldn’t life be boring if we couldn’t move, or hadn’t the will to move? I have said in many sermons that I believe Methodism needs to rediscover being a movement, bringing a new beginning to lives crippled by fear, confusion, stress, pain, insecurity and paralysis. I believe in a God whose mercies are new every morning and who says there is always more, more, more, more, more to discover, more work to do, more blessings to seek, more to discover in ourselves as we do his will.

One of my friends moving appointment for September like me asked her new church what they wanted her to do. They described what their very popular, long serving minister, who they really didn’t want to go, has done for the past ten years. They then told her, “and we expect you to do what he has done and we don’t want change.” And she is now worrying about moving because they seem to have already decided that “the storm may roar about me but nothing changes here,” and she won’t be allowed to be herself because they are comfortable where they are.

Some churches can be so negative – we don’t want this, we don’t want that, no new hymns, no chairs, definitely not a screen, and they seem to think new people will come by returning things back to how they were many years ago. Some churches faced what Moses faced some chapters before the one we are looking at today, “why have you brought us out here to die? We want to go back to Egypt!” Moving though can get us involved in new things and it can be fun!

On a recent visit to Hastings, I felt so good because I managed to find the road where I was heading without getting lost. But I missed the turning into the road and went too far past. I decided I could turn round in the cemetery along the road and come back. So I found the exit. Trying to turn out into the road, I saw a lot of cyclists coming towards me, but I thought I can get out before they reach me, so I turned into the road. I then realised there was a big funeral, possibly of a cyclist, and I found myself in the middle of a funeral cortege, people on the street with cameras watching and police everywhere. The cortege in front of me turned back into the cemetery, I in my clerical collar went straight on, past a bemused policewoman who assumed I was taking the service! I was in the middle, by accident, of real life, real pain, I never intended being there, but I was. Sometimes that how we find ourselves and we have to respond to what is around us.

The new, the move, the challenge is exciting. New opportunities await. I read this week an article by Canon Giles Fraser. You may remember with all those protestors on the steps he left St Pauls Cathedral and he’s just started in a London parish. Before starting he wrote, “What will I be doing? I don’t know. As I wander round the council estates I have no idea how to begin.” But then he discovers within a few days you start by seeing what’s there, where God is, and you encourage that, and you work from that point. I am thinking about that looking forward to taking my first steps into the new. I think!

A Christian Queen

I was asked to think about the Queen and Trinity Sunday for my service this week. It got me thinking about three prayers and three attitudes that our monarch might show.    

I found this prayer for Trinity Sunday:

O God our mystery, you bring us to life, call us to freedom, and move between us with love. May so we participate in the dance of your Trinity, that our lives may resonate with you, now and for ever.

Our God is big, a mystery. Our Queen sees her reign as vocation, as response to God, who is always there for her. She is a Christian, but she embraces other faiths and promotes tolerance and understanding in community. The Queen puts God at the heart of the nation’s life, reminding us not just once a year on Christmas Day, but in what she does, that he matters and he can help us.

I bought a book which came out 10 years ago for the Golden Jubilee in 2002. I remember it was hot on Jubilee Weekend 10 years ago. I did a wedding on the Saturday and hadn’t drunk enough, and I fainted at the couple’s reception in the Masonic Hall afterwards which was a big of a talking point! The book is about the spiritual dimension of monarchy and it reminds us that lots of the times the Royal Family are visible and have their highest public profile are religious in character – the Remembrance Service at the Cenotaph, the Christmas broadcast and church service at Sandringham, the Royal Maundy service, the Garter service at Windsor, royal weddings and funerals and services of national thanksgiving. The writer says, “Television and newspaper coverage of these and other events reinforces the image of a churchgoing Queen who leads her country in the worship of God.” God is central.

Then a second prayer, which is about the Queen:

“Dear Father, thank you for our Queen Elizabeth and her wise ruling over the United Kingdom for the past 60 years. Thank you for Her Majesty’s shared faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. We ask Lord for a continued blessing of this nation through her Majesty. Amen.”  

What sort of reign over us do we have in this Queen? She is accessible, perhaps the most well known face in the world. I’ve been reading some books about the 1950’s and the Coronation in particular. At the beginning of 1953, fewer than two million homes in this country had a television set. In the build up to the Coronation, 526,000 sets were sold, and 3,000 tickets for a large screen showing at the Festival Hall went in under an hour. 20 million people watched the service, 40 per cent of the population, and another 12 million on the wireless. It was the start of the television age. She was the first monarch really to be in our homes, there for us, stability, a force for good, our Queen.

So, what sort of leadership is Christian monarchy or any sort of leader? We must look to Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, who came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.

Jesus saw leadership not as dominance, as dictatorship, as bending subjects or citizens to the will of the leader, but as service, bearing the burden, paying the price. His followers thought he had come to bring freedom from the imperial Roman yoke. His kingship would change things, but not in the way people thought.

Our Queen on her 21^st birthday said her whole life, whether long or short would be devoted to service.

She cares for her people, she works hard, she lives her Christian faith daily, she knows Jesus makes a difference. She shares her faith as we must share ours. If Jesus matters, we must show he does. This got me thinking about the Maundy service. During that service, where alms are given to the people, corresponding with the monarch’s age, ever since Henry IV, the monarch personally washed the feet of the poor, up until the reign of James II. After that the monarch wasn’t involved at all even giving money until George V in 1932. But the almoner who is there and his helpers while not foot washing, wear linen aprons as a reminder of the way of Jesus in this act of service.

Then thirdly this prayer which I have loved since it was used at last year’s Methodist Conference:

“May God grant us the strength to seek justice, the wisdom to care for all God’s creation, and the courage to proclaim the Gospel.”   

How does God inspire us to go out and make a difference in the world?

He is the power within us through his Spirit, enabling us to have courage to proclaim the Gospel, to seek justice, to care. In history, kings and queens have been judged by whether they ruled with righteousness, and righteousness is literally having a right relationship with God. We are in a Jubilee year. We learn from the book of Leviticus that the ram’s horn trumpet was to be blown as a proclamation of liberty throughout the land. During this year, all debts were cancelled, lands were restored to their original owners and family members were restored to one another. Jesus announced such an agenda in the synagogue in Nazareth, freedom for the prisoner, recovery of sight for the blind, setting free for the oppressed, proclamation of the year of the Lord’s favour – the year of Jubilee. We need such a Jubilee today.

Returning to our Queen, people say when they meet her or see her in the street, they feel special. That is the Christian calling for us, the Spirit of God enables us to make a difference. People need to feel they are somebody, and God’s Spirit comes into the world to enable.

I love Jean Vanier who worked with people who have disabilities. He said, “Can we reasonably have a dream of a world where people, whatever their race, religion, culture, abilities or disabilities, can find a place and reveal their gifts?” That’s the sort of Kingdom, spiritual Kingdom we all work towards. That’s the sort of country Queen Elizabeth II I believe tries to govern. We need to be pointed to the Spirit, enabling us to make a difference.

What will thinking about our Queen this weekend, thinking about our God in three persons, thinking about the world and its need for redemption and reconciliation and Jubilee do to us? 

The Jubilee principle is that all people matter, all people deserve to live, all people can be free, all people can experience the year of the Lord’s favour. What does the Spirit do, the third person of the Godhead? It helps us see God’s future, it helps us perceive and judge people we meet, situations in the world, not simply on our own terms, but in the light of God’s new world, a world where all are included and no one is an object but a somebody. 

A God who is there everywhere – a Queen who worships.

A God who is close in Jesus – a Queen who serves.

A God who inspires and is in the world – a Queen who cares.

A church that does you good...

I found this cartoon from Asbo Jesus. I find it funny but also very sad because it can be so true.
I long for a church that heals, that walks alongside, that is compassionate, suffering with people, that doesn't judge or make inappropriate comments, that doesn't say you are okay then you find out you've been stabbed in the back. I long for a church that accepts without reserve.

Today I led folk in thinking about the Methodist emphasis on the priority of God's love, that all are welcome and all are accepted in the ethos of my denomination. I passionately believe we need to rediscover that basic principle of what we are about. I am sorry when I keep hearing stories of people stressed by church, made unwell by church and staying away from church because of unchristian behaviour they experience from people who should know better!

I remain in the church to change the church. Someone told me this morning to never stop being me and never stop saying what needs to be said, even though it can bring horrid stuff to me personally. I read Luke 4 verses 16 to 21 this morning, Jesus manifesto of Kingdom values in the synagogue in Nazareth. The faithful there received his words and were so angry they tried to hurl him over a cliff. That hasn't happened to me - yet!

I discovered this "mission statement" in a church I visited recently. I like it:

Our mission is to proclaim the love of God and share the good news of Jesus Christ with all people.

Our vision is to grow in faith: to worship, pray and learn,  to care for one another, to offer support and encouragement. 

Our aim is to serve others; to be a good neighbour in the community,  to challenge injustice,  to use our resources wisely.

That to me is what a church is for. That is how we become relevant again. Being there, being open, feeling people’s pain and joy, and not being frightened to get our hands dirty for others, rather than beating up others who aren't like us or challenge us.  People this morning loved the fact we sang some Wesley hymns. 

If we are really to celebrate Wesley and his story, then a real celebration of him and what God hath wrought would be to emulate his talent for reaching out to ordinary people in practical demonstrations of Christianity. Sounds simple, doesn't it? 

Christian Aid - not a week a year only

I did assembly on Friday afternoon at our local school. As I walked in the school, I sensed something was not quite right. The Headteacher pulled a face at me when I asked her how she was and I noticed her summoning children one by one into her office.

At the assembly, she went onto the stage and gave the whole school what for. There had clearly been an “incident” and she had spent all day investigating it. She said “you have let me down, where’s your respect for one another? If you see it, you say so!”

If you see it, you say so! I get inspiration from the strangest place… It made me think about our responsibilities in the world as part of a global community.

If we see it, we need to say so, voicing the wrong, sharing the hurt of the world with others and then doing something about it so it doesn’t happen again. Monday morning at that school they hope will bring a new start as someone somewhere shares what might have happened and the issue can begin to be resolved – whatever it is!

If you see it, you say so!

I wonder though whether because we live in an era where the news is “in your face” we take the injustice and suffering and the cry for help in the world less seriously. We can get news weary. We can get used to scenes of distress, even when we are warned “this report has some things some people might find distressing.” Is it easier to ignore the situation, keep quiet, seeing it but not talking about it, hoping it will go away?   

Jesus tells us to love our neighbour and so on - but what if I don't want to do that because my own life is so complicated today?

If you see it, you say so!

What if I can’t be bothered to say so? What if it is easier to keep my head down, because the need for aid might be messy? Do I allow the pain to continue, the injustice to continue because we are too wrapped up in what might happen to us if I stand up and am counted? 

It is easy to ignore the world’s pain, to say it has nothing to do with us, there is nothing to say. We see it, but we say nothing, so the negative things continue because we didn’t intervene. 

At the beginning of Christian Aid Week, I think we all can justify our failure to give aid, but sometimes we betray the Christ who suffers for the world and all his teachings which are all about giving help where help is needed. Jesus gets involved with Christian Aid every day. I believe the God we worship and Jesus shows is one of mercy, infinite grace, compassion and care, and who chooses to enter the difficult places and transform them.

The world is not right yet, but we don’t bury our head in the sand, or hide in fear for speaking out, we believe that we can make a better world, beginning here, and praying and giving for other parts of the world we will perhaps never visit. If you see it, you say so. I love what Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said, “Don’t give up, don’t be discouraged, I’ve read the end of the book. We win!”             

If you see it, you say so.

We see the world as it is as we watch the news and so on today, but we also see the possibilities that bringing Jesus’ love into that world can bring.

How can we really keep quiet, or do nothing?