Telling the story - Advent day two

One of the things I love doing is going into primary schools to do assemblies and do RE in classrooms. The saddest thing about having to curtail my last appointment was giving up my chaplaincy at a Methodist school. So, it was a huge privilege this morning to be invited to our friend’s school in city centre Peterborough to do assembly and then teach a class about the nativity story. 

Assembly in Advent was all about waiting. I got the children to stand in a queue. We explored the frustration of waiting. The children then sang Go tell it on the mountain with great gusto. I then went and shared with a delightful class of children for an hour. We explored the nativity story character by character, slowly, bit by bit, sharing what we knew of the story without looking at the Bible. I struggled to explain without being too graphic why Joseph should have dumped Mary, and we had fun when I asked what giving birth in a stable might have been like for Mary. One of the children said “it would smell of pooh” surprised I agreed with him! We also were shocked how old Mary was and how far they walked with a donkey from Nazareth to Bethlehem.  The children had been on a trip to Hunstanton and found it amazing this was the distance they would have walked from the front door of the school to the sea front. 

I think we understood as we explored the story that it is one about God entering a pooh filled world. God doesn’t come to neat and clean situations but to mess and dirt and to outsiders and overlooked. Incarnation brings those who didn’t matter into the embrace of God. I love this article from a back page of a Church Times from our President of Conference:  “ I’d abolish “they” from the English language. It’s “othering” people, and that’s the beginning of dehumanising them. We’re called to love our enemies and pray for those that persecute us; so we need to acknowledge our enemies and then acknowledge our shared humanity. It’s costly, but it’s the only way to change the world.”

 

My day after school took me to visit a couple who are struggling with health problems, then sorting a funeral of a beloved lady of one of our churches who has passed away suddenly. For both situations, those who are struggling need to know a God is there in their pooh! 

We’ve had our own pooh today. Dear Meena, the biggest character of cat I’ve ever known, lost her battle to hold on to life at nearly 16. It was horrible to have her pass to cat heaven and there is a huge hole in our house tonight. She will never be forgotten. Lis especially needs comfort tonight. The poor old girl was in a dreadful state this weekend and we need to remember her in her demanding Bengal state! 

 

At the end of my RE lesson I got the children to tell the nativity story back to me. We shared the story remembering what we know of it. People have said to me in the past that children in school don’t do any Christianity. I always say come with me into schools and see. We did more theology this morning than most adults in churches could do. 

We need in bereavement and in struggle to know this story we will hear over and over this month. It isn’t just a matter of hearing it, it is taking it in and knowing it to help us get through our pooh. Isn’t that the heart of Christmas?  

Advent with Christmas in your face

How do we do Advent, especially when Christmas is in our face? I suggest we use the time to listen, to wait, and to watch. If we don’t stop, we may well fail to see what God might want us to see. We need to wait on the Lord. Zechariah in Luke chapter 1 was so overwhelmed with what was about to happen, he was struck dumb until it happened. I’m not suggesting we keep silent until Christmas Day, but as my favourite carol says sometimes, we need to hush our noise, and hear the angels sing. 

Romans 13 talks of an hour of crisis when we need to wake up from our sleep because our deliverance is at hand.

Sometimes it’s hard to stay awake. I had a lady years ago in a sisterhood meeting who used to nod off during my talks. One day after about 10 minutes of snoozing with me still sharing with them, she woke up with a jot, looked me right in the eye and said “Good God, are you still talking?” Keep awake, and keep watching for the signs of something different in this season. 

And don’t be afraid to wait. In an age that craves the instant, rediscover the discipline of waiting, don’t take anything for granted. God’s time is not ours. Any of you who’ve had to wait for results of medical tests, or exam results, will know the agony of waiting. But sometimes we have no choice. 

 

A year ago, I couldn’t walk very far, I couldn’t sing a hymn without coughing violently, I went really hot if I had any conversations with people feeling absolutely exhausted, I certainly couldn’t lead an act of worship or do any ministry apart from writing my blog on line which people appreciate and at times I thought I could never return to full time ministry. 

A year on, I am back almost at full strength, and have been stationed for next September back in a full time Circuit appointment. I’ve had to be patient, I’ve shouted at God, I’ve been cross with the church, I’ve had to be satisfied that the journey had to be made slowly. The destination of feeling better and having lungs that worked again would come, but not straight away. But in waiting, I believe God has spoken.

Maybe waiting is a positive thing we need. We bought a Frozen 2 Advent calendar with chocolate in it for Lis’s friend Sarah’s little girl. We had a bad day. We opened every window and ate 24 bits of chocolate. Did we feel better by having all of it in one go? No – we felt sick. So patient waiting and reflective journeying is the key to a healthy Advent. 

Someone sent me a picture of Noddy Holder of Slade. We love to hear So here it is Merry Christmas, it’s a Christmas classic. The picture of Noddy Holder has him pointing at us with the caption in big letters: NOT YET! 

We need a slow, thoughtful, reflective, spirit filled Advent as we reflect on the characters and events of the incarnation. If we are awake and we wait with hope, then when he comes we will be ready. Let me try and inspire you with a quote from what is essential Advent reading, “The Coming of God” by Maria Boulding. 

She writes: Advent is the consecration of waiting in our lives. Human life is full of waiting: people wait for trains, buses and planes, they stand in queues at shops, they sit nervously in dentist’s waiting rooms, they wait in anguish for news of a lost loved one. They wait for the slow process of healing to take its time, they wait for the birth of a child. 

Waiting can be very different in these different situations, according to our attitude. In an age of “instant” products any delay can be viewed as negative for “time is money.” Yet some things cannot be skimped or hurried, we have to let them take the time they need. You can’t make the grass grow by pulling it, as the proverb wisely warns… Faith can demand long, patient waiting when nothing seems to be happening, and this necessary to growth. The waiting changes us, schools us, teaches us to know God: The Lord waits to be gracious to you. Blessed are all those who wait for him.” It was fun to gather this morning as a Circuit at Marshland St James to begin our Advent journey. The church was packed. I believe we set out with some excitement. That’s how Advent should begin. 

Longing...

Lis sings in a Gregorian chant group once a month in Stamford. They came and sang a chant at our wedding while the register was signed. Gregorian chant really isn’t my cup of tea but I’ve been a couple of times to try and get it. Stephen, who leads the group, is extremely passionate about it all and is on a mission to convert my unease into sharing his passion! 

Tonight we focussed on the tradition in some churches in the days before Christmas to sing or say an Advent Antiphon. These are sung or said in evening prayer just before the Magnificat. Remember that really the Magnificat is a summary of the ethics of the Gospel which Mary understands her Son will embody. Perhaps I didn’t get the chanting right but the words of them spoke to me especially as this year I’m really really frustrated that Christmas frippery has begun so early.    

Each begins with the acclamation "O" and ends with a plea for the Messiah to come. As Christmas approaches the cry becomes increasingly urgent. I share here when each one is meant to be used.    

 

 December  17 – O Sapientia: "O Wisdom you come forth from the mouth of the Most High. You fill the universe and hold all things together in a strong yet gentle manner. O come to teach us the way of truth."

 December 18 – O Adonai: "O Adonai and leader of Israel, you appeared to Moses in the burning bush and you gave him the Law on Sinai. O come and save us with your mighty power."

 December 19 – Radix Jesse: "O Stock of Jesse, you stand as a signal for the nations; kings fall silent before you whom the peoples acclaim. O come to deliver us, and do not delay."

 December  20 – O Clavis David: "O Key of David and sceptre of Israel, what you open no one else can close again; what you close no one can open. O come to lead the captive from prison; free those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death."

 December 21– O Oriens: "O Rising Sun, you are the splendour of eternal light and the sun of justice. O come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death."

 December 22 – O Rex Gentium: "O King whom all the peoples desire, you are the cornerstone which makes all one. O come and save man whom you made from clay."

 

December 23 – O Emmanuel: "O Emmanuel, you are our king and judge, the One whom the peoples await and their Saviour. O come and save us, Lord, our God."

Advent begins on Sunday. Sunday is Advent Sunday not Christmas Sunday! One church in our circuit has its carol service on Sunday afternoon for goodness sake! We need before the feast a time of longing for that feast to come. I think longing is a huge emotion in the world at the moment. 

People long for a better life, for a new beginning, for health, for love. Surely Advent is a gift the Church offers to people to express that longing. When I was little, we had one holiday (to Cromer!) and you had to wait for it to come and you longed for it to come (until you got to Cromer and were bored rigid as the parents dragged you to Dennis Lotis Sings at the end of the pier!) You saved up to buy things, you received gifts for birthdays, not every day. You longed for special days to come, not taking them for granted. 

We need to remember the longing prayers expressed by God’s ancient people. The Psalter has hundreds of words that are about exasperation. God will act but not in our timescale. Isaiah puts it well in the 64th chapter of his prophesy: “Why won’t you tear the heavens open and come down?” I love the fact the Antiphons get more and more urgent and probably louder as we get nearer Christmas. Ending with “O come and save us!” I’m just wondering after my hour of being with the chant group tonight whether our worship needs more longing in it. Do we allow people the space to express their deepest longings they bring into the sacred space we share as a mixed bunch of humanity as we come together? 

On Sunday, I’m sharing our Circuit Advent Service - note - not Circuit Christmas Carol Service as someone has called it - with the acting Superintendent of our Circuit, Debbie. It’s been fun to put an act of worship together with her. We haven’t a single carol in the thing! I’ve insisted O come o come Immanuel is included, and now in the intercessions, after tonight, the good folk of the Fens will be introduced to the Advent Antiphons! They make for powerful intercessory prayers. 

I watched screaming children today while out and about in Kings Lynn. How parents keep them calm with incessant Christmas in their faces I do not know. The children want Christmas to come today. Waiting is alien. Longing is a reality for them and it gets more painful the longer the wait goes on. We are weeks away from the General Election. We long for a better future for our country and we make our choice thinking deeply about how what we long for might be enacted. We need time to think and ponder before we go into the wooden booth and use the little pencil on its string or we put a postal vote in a postbox. It’s too important to just do it. I’m really annoyed there appear to be no hustings in my new constituency. It’s a safe seat for the sitting MP, the Secretary of State for exiting the European Union! But it would have been good for us to hear him and others...

O come, and do something God! That’s the prayer we say over and over in the season we enter on Sunday. We wait and we long and we expect. And maybe after the longing we will be surprised...

And here’s a little something from a Catholic site that might interest you as I end: 

It is interesting to note that the first letter of each antiphon – Sapientia, Adonai, Radix, Clavis, Oriens, Rex, Emmanuel – when read backwards forms an acrostic in Latin: "Ero cras." This can be understood as the words of Christ, responding to His people’s plea, saying, "Tomorrow I will be there."

Christmas in November

I’ve been joshing with folk this week about how early they are putting Christmas decorations up in their churches! It does seem like Christmas, even in churches begins in late November, well over a month before Christmas Day. We seem to need a long Christmas season that lasts nearly two months, rather than twelve days beginning on December 25! For many, Advent is an ignored season. We are doing Christmas now. 

I’m blogging this sitting in Peterborough Cathedral waiting to hear a performance of The Messiah. Lis is singing in the choir here for it. It’s a mighty work, reminding us of the presence of Christ through birth, death and resurrection. We shall end by standing to share the Hallelujah Chorus. The last time I heard the Hallelujah Chorus in here was walking down the aisle to it after our wedding. I’m trying to reflect this year why people need a presence of something better for a while in dark months, even the biblical Christmas story told them once a year. We seem to need comfort and peace and vast amounts of food to make us feel better. I’m amazed at the size of chocolate bars people buy! It seems this is a long season where we just do anything that makes us feel better. In Peterborough today you would think it is the Saturday before Christmas it is so busy. 

Into all of this comes the Church with a real opportunity. Perhaps we need in these weeks to take time to tell the story slowly. If Christmas commercially and personally is now longer, then maybe we need a programme through it of bringing a much deeper source of hope and cheer into it through loads of carol services and reflections. More people engage with religion at this time of the year than any other. 

 What’s the message people are longing for since they need all of this to begin so early? Surely it is light in the darkness. Just now there was a power cut in the cathedral. A health and safety lady shouted out to the queue for seats “stand still until we get some light!” People in this country at the moment feel stuck in the darkness of uncertainty and need a brighter presence. Hence Christmas lights, German sausage, sugary sweets and mulled wine outside the cathedral attract crowds every day. People want hope and relief from the darkness of gloom and despondency. We have the most important General Election in this country in a few weeks in decades. I worry that people are so disillusioned with politicians they won’t bother to vote. But the choice we make this time will affect so much after we have made it. All the four main party leaders in the Question Time programme last night offered us a vision of something better. I’m not allowed to say what I think - but two of them were really good, one wasn’t and the other, well... God help us! 

Surely the message of the Church whether a cathedral filling up with expectation tonight or this little place I visited the other week on a farm in the middle of nowhere, which has a handful of faithful members, is to offer a permanent light in the darkness that the darkness cannot ever put out. A light that will shine long after Christmas markets and brief encounter with the story is over. A light that will shine beyond the General Election and Brexit and prevalent selfishness and lack of respect that seems to have the upper hand in so many places at the moment. A message this cathedral, the tiny church at Dallowgill, the churches I’m helping in The Fens, wherever we meet and serve from, have faithfully offered and need to share urgently. That’s our task. And it’s a greater message than a bottle of Baileys or endless mince pies or temporary bonhomie. Where do we get our hope. As Canon Sarah has just said because of Jesus being involved and experiencing all of life including the horrible bits, Hallelujah is not just possible it is imperative... 

Retreat time

I’ve been on retreat today and have greatly enjoyed being in community with Steve and Cate who along with their friend Chris have made me very welcome into their home in Nordelph just outside Downham Market. They open their home to troubled or wearied souls, give them space, food, and a bed for the night. I’ve enjoyed walking by the river and sharing conversation at the dinner table and sleeping a lot! 

I wanted to come away for 24 hours to get my head round the stationing process. We will hear on Thursday where we have been matched to for an appointment next September. Any minister who goes through stationing will tell you it is a scary, unsettling yet exciting time. For a while your life, job, family home, everything is uncertain. You wait for the Chair to ring on Thursday evening with a match. You wait for 9am on Friday morning for a Circuit to invite you to come and visit. I have absolutely no idea where we will be going at this point although I’m  relieved there are some good possibilities. In the end I’m under the discipline of the Conference and will be sent where the Church thinks is right. We shall see! 

 

I love that Thomas Merton poem “Lord I have absolutely no idea where I am going.” I walked this road this afternoon. I don’t know where it goes to. But it was good to travel along it and see what was on it to experience: mostly quietness and the natural world getting on with life. I guess over the next couple of weeks I will travel to a place I don’t know, be open to what’s there, take in what might be on offer and see if I and they want to travel together on the road a bit further. Most of the 100 plus Circuit profiles talk about thinking outside the box, doing things differently, having some vision. We need to be brave enough to set out first! 

Retreating for a few hours has helped me see wherever we are sent, God’s people are there already. I will merely be part of the next chapter of a long story of faithfulness and care, and it will be a privilege to join the story and see what might be possible. 

Retreating for a few hours has also helped me see that just being able to enter the stationing process is an absolute miracle! At the beginning of this year I still couldn’t speak for long without coughing my guts up, I couldn’t walk very far without being absolutely exhausted and I hadn’t the energy or drive to think about tomorrow let alone contemplate going there. I’m now back on the preaching plan most Sundays, and I’m beginning to do some pastoral and support work in the Circuit, which feels really good. There were times over the last year I didn’t think I could do this full time ever again because I was so physically unwell. I’m so grateful to the people who’ve walked the journey with me: especially at the moment the good folk of the Fens Circuit who I’m loving quietly getting to know and gently help. 

I found the card at the top of this blog in a vegan shop in Norwich yesterday. It does feel, in many ways, I’ve been growing back. I guess my faith story is one of holding on when it was so really tough. Only now, over a year and a month since I collapsed in my kitchen unable to breathe, and going through what was depression, am I believing there might be a flourishing experience round the corner. God is good. He’s never abandoned me. Because my God does darkness and death and crap, light and life and healing and hope and energy feel brilliant if you’ve walked through those things.

So thank you Steve and Cate for the gift of space and hospitality. Jesus went off to sort his head out. I really think we need to if we have big stuff ahead. The stationing process isn’t facing death on a cross like he was facing, but it’s still pretty mad! Please pray for us this week and next and for those who meet to do the work of matching us all. It’s an awesome responsibility for them and we often forget how much work is done to get it right. 

Night everyone. 

Thank God I am not like them...

I’ve been asked to blog yesterday’s sermon. I was trying to convince our church at Murrow it needs a new notice board, but I failed miserably as afterwards the steward stood firm!

Oh well! 

Yesterday I was privileged to be at the closing service for one of my former churches at Somerby, a small village just into Leicestershire just outside Melton Mowbray. It is hard when churches close and there were many emotions present in the gathering as we remembered a faithful witness over many years, a chapter closing, and a hope that the small number who worship there now might find a new spiritual home. 

Ministers will tell you every church they serve becomes part of them. Stories remain special years after we’ve moved on. I remember the good folk of Somerby for one story. They had a 6pm service, and at 5.55 June, the steward would say to me “we may as well start!” They put out six chairs for six people and at 5.55 all six were present so “we may as well start!” I used to say to them how do you know no one is going to walk in in the next five minutes? 

I solved it by taking friends in my car to my service there and asking them to walk in at 5.59 to find no chair they could sit in! We started at 6 after that and always put out a few extra chairs just in case. 

You see, the church without thinking about it had become inaccessible and the people had started to believe only they would ever be there. If you go out to a restaurant and there’s no seat or worse no food you don’t go back, do you? 

If you go to the theatre and you are told you can’t come in because you’re not good enough or smart enough, you don’t go back do you? 

If someone blocks your way in, you give up. 

We have an interesting Gospel story today. Two attitudes to religion at the temple. One a Pharisee, full of himself, a chair out for him in the synagogue, full of self righteousness and pomposity. A Pharisee who says to himself “look at me and how much I do - I’m very important, and I like to do my religion with my sort and I like to keep it that way.” 

The Pharisee, part of God’s own people, is horrified to see a tax collector sharing his space. He says, “I thank God I’m not like him!” 

Do you have a story from a time when you said a similar prayer to the Pharisee – when you gave thanks that you weren’t like someone else? Perhaps there are people you know who you find frustrating, or maybe it’s people you don’t know at all whose behaviour or life situation you just judge. What makes us act like we are superior like like the Pharisee? I thank God I’m not like the those poor people up the road. I thank God I’m not like those unruly teenagers in the street. I thank God I’m not like those people who voted to remain. I thank God my church is not like that one!

 I thank God people like that don’t come here! Only put out enough chairs for us...

Our society excels in deciding on another’s fate. But who are we to judge who is in and who is out? 

The Pharisee doesn’t actually speak to God. He just makes a statement seeing someone he thinks is inferior near him, daring to approach this Jesus, the so called holy man. Remember that tax collectors were lumped with sinners as undesirables. Remember that the law the Pharisee knew well had stuff in it about being clean and unclean. A common criticism of Jesus by the law abiders was that he ate with tax collectors and sinners. What is powerful about this episode Luke records is that the person you expect to pray doesn’t, he just lords it about, reminding the world how important he is, do you know people like that? There’s none in your church but they are about! I’m a steward! I’ve had churches which used to insist on having a top table at functions. There used to be a scrap who got to sit on it. My church in County Durham even had different china on the top table than the riffraff used! The person judged to be outside and rightly outside divine attention, prays. He works in the tax office, for the government, never a popular job with your neighbours; he simply prays for God to have mercy on him. 

Of course, we aren’t a pharisaical church are we? Before we congratulate ourselves let’s look at how we can be. Are we as bad as only putting six chairs out, not just not expecting people to share our Christian story but not wanting them to.  

We thank God in the Church that we are not like other people. We are not like that lot. And we do the same in our country. We thank God we are not like that other country, the French, or that foreigner. Listen to the Pharisee shout so loudly about what he is against: I am not a thief, a rogue, or an adulterer. But heed this as someone wrote about this passage - when we start to make a list of what we are not, the list takes on an energy of its own. The list refuses to stop.

 The Pharisee bleating on so cheerfully about who he is not like, finally admits that he is separated even from his fellow worshipper who happens to be in the temple with him. The Pharisee is all alone.  He separates himself from humanity one category at a time. 

And the more he separates himself from those who come in need, he separates himself from God. 

Meanwhile, the tax collector humbly comes and seeks God’s mercy in a beautiful and simple act of contrition. In old Russia, a lonely monk wanted to learn how to follow the instructions of First Thessalonians 5:17, "Pray without ceasing."

 How can one pray without ceasing? He learned that he could pray while he breathed in and out, with a prayer that we now know as the Jesus Prayer.

"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,

Have mercy on me, a sinner."

The monks of ancient Greece used that prayer, and many other use that Jesus Prayer today. If anyone today is just learning to pray, you have all you need in this Jesus Prayer, in this prayer of the tax collector, "God, have mercy upon me, a sinner." When life seems to have left you out, "Lord, have mercy" acknowledges our need.

What’s the lesson of these two men sharing sacred space for us here today? That we cannot afford to be self righteous when people in need are wanting to come and give their lot to God. We need to be more open and accessible because there is a yearning for the spiritual in people we may be have judged there is no interest. The shape of the Church has to change to be more inclusive and less condemnatory. We have to expect encounter with people, and leave spare chairs. 

We are currently looking through profiles for a new appointment as I return to full time Circuit ministry next September. Stationing happens a week next Thursday.

 We went to visit some possible contexts this week and in one I walked into the local parish church and picked up their church magazine for November. You can learn a lot about churches from magazines and notice boards. 

I learnt in a few pages they do a soup kitchen free of charge every Monday, and in their ladies loo are piles of sanitary towels as locally there is period poverty and young girls can’t afford them, and they have a specialist worker at the Methodist Church to pastor those with dementia in older age. The church responding to local need. 

We should have a large sign up outside that people can see as they drive past that Murrow Methodist Church is open and this is the message we want to share with you. 

I think you need a new notice board on the other wall outside at the front with less stuff in it than the one you have at the moment I say with respect! People need to know you are still open. This is a large village with people searching. You are the only church here. We have an opportunity. People like the tax collector are needing a new start. And if the door is shut, or there aren’t enough chairs or we tut at them then we face a very bleak future indeed like the lonely Pharisee.

 The challenge for me in this story today is the need to remember we have to create space for the story of Gods love and new beginnings to be encountered.

At Somerby yesterday the preacher included this story: A young man beginning university arrived at a boardinghouse. A retired, wheelchair-bound music professor resided on the first floor. Each morning the young man would stick his head in the door of the teacher’s apartment and ask the same question. “Well, what’s the good news?”

The old man would pick up his tuning fork, tap it on the side of the wheelchair and say, “That’s middle C! It was middle C yesterday; it will be middle C tomorrow; it will be middle C a thousand years from now. The tenor upstairs sings flat. The piano across the hall is out of tune, but, my friend, that is middle C.” 

God’s love hasn’t changed. The need to share it is as urgent as its ever been. The tax collectors are the mission field. 

We offer mercy at the heart of what we are. Leave out enough chairs. Expect people. Have a larger God. Or face doom by saying I thank God no one comes near me. 

We have all been there. Maybe some of us are there right now. "Lord, have mercy on us." And may our humility, with God's mercy, bring us into right relationship with our neighbour, with the world, with God.

Offering God’s providence —- or not :(

Yesterday’s lectionary readings were all about people, lepers, being given unexpected healing as the God person entered their suffering, namely Elisha for Naaman, the commander of the enemy army, and Jesus for the ten lepers Luke describes ostracised by society. 

We want life’s journey to include blessing and renewal, inner healing of body, mind and spirit, after a tough time or even simply a long day. We have found a lovely place to have Sunday dinner. We ate after my afternoon service and it felt good to be full and satisfied. 

In the restaurant we were welcomed, our needs were met, we felt we mattered, we want to go back, because what we got was extremely good. (Local readers: The Barn at Terrington St John really is yummy!) 

How does this compare with church? Are churches places where people can go and find healing, transformation, sustenance? We’ve enjoyed playing mystery worshipper since June. Yesterday we were in three worship spaces. What we received was mixed.

Church 1 (above) - we arrived ten minutes late. We arrived in torrential rain. The vicar, Ryk, who has met us a few times, leapt out of his stall, walked down the aisle and warmly greeted us. The Old Testament reading was being read at the time by someone else. The service was simple and good. Afterwards, we were welcomed warmly. It was a joint Anglican and Methodist Service. The two churches are next door to each other. The two Methodist folk there, Chris and Joy, introduced us to everyone as I’m taking a joint breakfast service for them in a fortnight. If we had gone seeking help, would we have found it? Yes! 

We went on to church number 2: an 11am service. We arrived at 10.56 to find the preacher half way through her prayers of adoration. They had already sung a hymn so they had started early clearly thinking everyone was there who was coming. We had to sit behind everyone. One person turned to look at us in the benediction. We were spoken to, but mostly people wanted to moan about how to keep the thing going. There was no welcome, no concept of need coming in off the street. The preacher did her best, but the whole thing was hard work. The hymns were accompanied by a music box which set them all to waltz time with amazing bits in between the verses. I’ve never sung To God be the Glory like I did yesterday morning! If we had gone seeking help, would we have found it? No. 

I’m challenged here by the outside of some church buildings. Here’s the notice board of church number 2 and another church board I pass every day which just makes me so frustrated... Sunday services are just about in this mess. Apparently it’s a Council board we can use but well, we could do better! 

In the afternoon we moved to Church 3, the little church we’ve attached ourselves to for our brief stay here. They are now worshipping in the lady chapel in the Parish Church. We knew there would only be a few there as one of them was in hospital and another has just come out of hospital, but early yesterday we got a call to say another two had no water and had to wait in for it to be turned back on so we should cancel the service. The fifth lady who comes had already been phoned to say the service had been cancelled! 

I suggested I turn up at the church with a service and a CD player with disks just in case anyone turned up. To my surprise, two people from another church and the church warden from the C of E came through the door so we had a service after all. There were five of us and we had a lovely time. I was sad as I’m not taking many services to be cancelled even though it was for difficult pastoral reasons. It was really good to lead worship again after a gap of a few weeks. I think God spoke to us with a message of surprise. Never cancel the service unless you really have to! You never know who might come and then finding a locked church because we think no one can come of our little group is just so wrong. If we went yesterday afternoon seeking help, did we find it? Yes! 

What’s the lesson from all of this for us? The bible stories we heard yesterday were about the overflowing grace of God being offered to desperate need. We say all are welcome, it is the heart of Methodist theology. But often how we put out the chairs, how we don’t expect people to joIn us anymore, how we act like it is our club, how we are obsessed with keeping it going but have lost the reason why, blight inclusivity and frankly the Gospel being shared. 

We used to sing this hymn years ago:

When the church of Jesus shuts its outer door,
Lest the roar of traffic drown the voice of prayer:
May our prayers, Lord make us ten times more aware
That the world we banish is our Christian care.

If our hearts are lifted where devotion soars
High above this hungry suffering world of ours:
Lest our hymns should drug us to forget its needs,
Forge our Christian worship into Christian deeds.

And that’s before we’ve even begun to discuss being God’s people where people are. Jesus met the lepers as he approached the village. They would have had no thought of engaging inside a religious community - and nor have many today. We offer the providence and healing of God by being creative and relevant and so often now that’s not in a traditional act of worship that we enjoy and just isn’t reaching anyone except us. 

When we are satisfied, life feels good. We put the log burner on last night and Alice was in heaven! Similarly if Jesus is met then who knows what that will do to people. I just worry he isn’t being met because we’ve forgotten how to share him or even need to. 

Discuss!