tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57071080607981514352024-03-05T09:03:53.468+00:00Ian BlackByte-sized spiritual commentIan Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833879886906464563noreply@blogger.comBlogger82125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707108060798151435.post-62430063311871494512015-11-14T10:50:00.001+00:002015-11-14T10:51:24.826+00:00Change of Address<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Ian Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833879886906464563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707108060798151435.post-91496778478785679762015-11-08T14:28:00.001+00:002015-11-08T14:29:16.062+00:00Bond: licensed to kill and not to kill.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">Bond is back!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The new
film, Spectre, was released a couple of weeks ago and last week we went to
sample the delights that are a new Bond film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’m enjoying the backstory that we are getting with the more recent
films, going back as they have to the first books by Ian Fleming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are filling in things which mean the
relationships with characters like Moneypenny and M have more depth to them,
are much more rounded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It would be interesting
to see the earlier films remade in the light of these prequels, having seen
what we’ve now seen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the latest,
without giving away any spoilers, M has a conversation with one of his
counterparts about whether we need people to do the dirty work of conflict or
they could be replaced by drones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>M’s
reply is that the ‘Double 0’ status is not just a license to kill; it is also a
license not to kill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The agent is
required to make split second decisions and no drone can make that judgment
call.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The implication is that there is a
moral side to what the double 0s are sent to do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">We see in the film, as we’ve seen in other Bond films, James
decide between pulling the trigger and not doing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the film ‘The Living Daylights’, Timothy
Dalton’s Bond decides that the ‘cellist sniper has been set-up and disobeys his
orders to take her out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This gets him
into trouble with a rather autocratic M in that film who expects him to just
obey orders and not exercise judgment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Bond is the moral one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A human
being is required precisely because judgment is needed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>War that only involves drones would lack all
morality and quickly become an extension of some kind of video game played out
on distant shores with no sense of consequences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bond is back and so are the moral judgments
made in the field.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">I have been reading a book by Nigel Biggar, Regius Professor
of Moral and Pastoral Theology at Oxford.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It has the surprising title ‘<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/In-Defence-War-Nigel-Biggar/dp/019967261X" target="_blank">In defence of war</a>’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a reassessment of Just War theory,
which has become popular, often repeated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Nigel Biggar takes a fresh look at it and applies it to modern warfare
and political aims.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He concludes that
the key to the whole debate about whether war can be justified in certain
circumstances lies with the first classic test, that of ‘Just Cause’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is only if there is a good reason for
going to war in the first place that there can be any hope of the other tests
being met.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Right cause means that there
must be an injustice to be righted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only
then can any assessment be made of whether there is a need for this
action.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The injustice needs to be of an
extreme and atrocious nature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Deaths and
persecution, horrific torture and oppression need to be present otherwise the
extreme action which warfare brings has no justification.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wanting to expand territory or get hold of
someone else’s natural resources – oil for instance – is not a good enough
‘cause’ to go to war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For war to have
any hope of being justified it cannot be reduced to just ‘the pursuit of policy
by other means’ in Carl von Clausewitz’s famous definition from the early
nineteenth century.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That policy must
itself be just.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clausewitz’s phrase does
point to the need for an aim, but it leaves far too much out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The aim is itself under scrutiny.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">From this righting of a significant wrong entry point
springs the requirement for a legitimate authority to do the righting, for
there to be legitimacy to the action.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
our democratic times that authority needs to be publicly accountable and it is
right for the public to call them to account.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There is no room for ‘a love that asks no questions’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The next test is that of the last
resort.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Other options should have been
exhausted and for those other options to be considered they need to be real
ones, feasible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This itself flows into
the next which is that the actions should be proportionate to achieve the aim
flowing from the cause.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That opens up a
whole new moral dilemma.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>War by
definition brings at best the unpalatable and grotesque into the frame.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no way round it involving death and
destruction, mutilation and scenes of an horrific nature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not surprising that those exposed to it
can suffer years, even a lifetime’s trauma, flashbacks and haunting dreams in
the night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For some there is never an
end game which justifies this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For many
the use of weapons like Trident is never an option.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The means and the cause are fundamentally
linked here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The final two tests are
that the plan should have a reasonable chance of success – not be foolhardy –
and non-combatants should be protected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Collateral
damage is no excuse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">So I don’t know if you have ever thought of Bond films as
being ones of moral choices exercised in the murky real politick of power and
conflict, of justice and defence of justice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He is far more than just a drone or killing machine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He has to exercise judgment in the field.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">There are hints of this in the first reading with the story
of Jonah </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 125%;">(3:1-5, 10)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
the story Jonah is sent to right a wrong, to warn of destruction coming unless
the people of Nineveh change their ways from the great injustices and
oppression they are living, described delicately as ‘great wickedness’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nineveh is today the Iraqi city of Mosel and
that is a city overrun by ISIS and so we are brought to consider with the moral
debate of our time how to respond to the evil and threat they present.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Should there be boots on the ground or bombs
from the air?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What are the prospects of
success and what would success look like?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What other options are there before us?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Who is the right authority to tackle this problem?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The just cause is set because atrocious acts
are being committed; it is an evil to be confronted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Protecting non-combatants is important to
prevent giving propaganda to terrorist recruiters and liberators being seen as
an occupying force, which former diplomat now MP Rory Stewart has identified as
a major problem.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">Jonah doesn’t want to go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Who would?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is sent to preach a
message of repentance to a people showing no sign of being receptive to that
message.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His story is a sign that all
efforts have not yet been exhausted, even if this is the last chance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Someone who can be trusted so that their
alternative message can be heard and tried can have dramatic effects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They can also be executed and murdered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>War comes when they are ignored, when voices
that try to call back from the abyss are ignored.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peace is always worth a chance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">The last resort test requires us to expand our imagination
to envision a different response, a non-violent one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Great and inspirational leaders like Martin Luther
King and Gandhi displayed the rich bounty of fresh imagination in
advocating<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>peaceful demonstrations and
not rioting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They demanded free speech
and they shamed their oppressors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
are remembered because they survived long enough to be heard and their deaths
became defining, shaming moments, and in time catalysts of change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the moral balance was tipped oppression
became unsustainable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The last resort
test can require the freeing of the imagination to see what we can’t see at the
moment, to dare to dream, to be a Jonah sent on what at first might look like a
stupid mission.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The last resort test is
no easy option or quick justification for the impatient.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">Last night’s Dr Who brought us the Doctor standing between
two warring groups.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a thinly
disguised portrayal of the problem presented by extremism and our
responses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a moment of brilliance he
pronounced:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">“The only way people can live in peace is
if they are prepared to forgive.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">No magic button, but a triumph of the imagination to break
the impasse and endless cycle of violence begetting violence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t rush to last resort.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">Remembrance Sunday is not a day to glorify war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not a day for shallow regret either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Real remembrance demands that we struggle
with the difficult questions of threat, oppression, peace and justice, violence
and restraint.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It requires us to imagine
fresh opportunities that mean if war comes it really is the last resort, but
has a serious end game for success to be to everyone’s benefit and good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bond is back: licensed to kill and not to
kill too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial"; line-height: 125%;"><o:p><i>Sermon preached in <a href="http://www.peterborough-stjohns.org.uk/" target="_blank">Peterborough Parish Church</a>, Sunday 8th November 2015</i></o:p></span></div>
Ian Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833879886906464563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707108060798151435.post-15088292721125134482015-11-01T14:51:00.002+00:002015-11-01T14:51:22.171+00:00All Saints Day: celebrating light and hope<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJc7ByKp273G2WbyRM-GS7ywfuNjWW1Zd61NFFEnhqd45WkoHY8yBnBFeb0GHHt9tw1fTECM_YDg_vxtp19SlDtNkHFcrd6YgV3YGViX7gLJu-YyZ4FpaDzeCIprCl2dRXjei5H-D3nUq9/s1600/IMG_4867.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJc7ByKp273G2WbyRM-GS7ywfuNjWW1Zd61NFFEnhqd45WkoHY8yBnBFeb0GHHt9tw1fTECM_YDg_vxtp19SlDtNkHFcrd6YgV3YGViX7gLJu-YyZ4FpaDzeCIprCl2dRXjei5H-D3nUq9/s320/IMG_4867.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From 'Gethsemane Garments'</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">It has been an interesting weekend with a jumble of stories being
told.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems that Halloween, as a
story of ghosts, ghouls, and all things ghastly has grown significantly over
the last few years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For some this is
clearly being whipped up by retail which floods the shops with cobwebs and
costumes and like sheep (to the slaughter perhaps) many fall in line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is something in that but it must also
be tapping into something otherwise it wouldn’t catch the imagination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A friend of mine thinks it is that lives are
so safe and protected that a bit of scary fun reminds us we are alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A bit like the appeal of extreme sports and
the desire to go to dangerous places.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There is also possibly a need to play with the mystery of death, from
which we are so protected and separated by modern dying, that there is a need
for the imagination to play with the meaning of life, especially for a society
that has lost touch with a confident faith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What does it mean to be ultimately powerless in a world that pretends it
can control everything?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Halloween
becomes an attempt to tame the untamable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The story of Halloween could not be further away from the story we
tell today, the real feast of this weekend, All Saints Day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today we celebrate the light of hope over
despair, of faithfulness over denial and betrayal, of those who have followed
in the way of Christ and lived lives that have been and are an
inspiration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Love conquers death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Life is gift and in that gift we flourish and
receive blessing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The dead are not
condemned to a shadow existence of half life and zombie gloom, but are welcomed
by the source of love to a banquet of grace.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">It may be that Halloween provides a safe expression for the deep
fear that there is around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fear of
terrorists out to get us, fear of those who would exploit us, the vampires who
use power to oppress and coerce.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
world seems rather scary at the moment and we are told from time to time that
there have been a large number of serious threats on the scale of 7/7 and 9/11
this year alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our security services
are having to be constantly vigilant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
is not surprising that the corporate psyche needs to let off steam and it may
be that Halloween is one of the ways that our society channels those tensions
and anxieties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It may also be a kick
back against the constant pressure to be beautiful and the oppressive effect
that has on self esteem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So a bit of
ghoulish make up is a relaxation from anxieties of image.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I guess there is some fun in dressing up,
of releasing the darker side of otherwise controlled emotions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The appeal will be mixed and varied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As someone who studies culture and social
developments I find the metaphors are work here very interesting, not least
because they are beneath the conscious surface.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">We know we live in a world where bad things happen and evil brews
in hearts that would attack and destroy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Violence and hatred brew in all sorts of directions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was talking with a colleague this week
about how hurt and pain can in turn lead to people hurting others and causing
them injury.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Damage done leads to damage
passed on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We actually don’t need to
look hard to find the really scary and dark.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is in all of us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Today’s focus on light and hope matters enormously, so much so that
we have now made it into a mini season.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>These days between now and Christ the King at the end of the month have
a particular focus on God’s Kingdom, on the sanctity of life and holiness being
worked out in the challenges we face.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Next week comes the challenge presented by Remembrance, the horror of
war and the evils that lead to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again
this is not a place to stay, but to think about what builds and sustains peace,
what is it that binds us together and strengthens the bonds of unity and
concord.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">We also hold during this period the memory of those we have known
who have died.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All Souls, the actual day
is tomorrow, is not just about those we have known and loved, but all who have
died.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some memories will be precious and
treasured.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some will be damaged and
there will be wounds we still carry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
need a place to lay those so that they don’t haunt us and oppress us so that we
become injury to others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of this is
held in affirming the redemption which comes through Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are changed from glory into glory, and all
these thoughts are held in the embrace of God’s kingdom: between the bookends
of All Saints Day and the feast of Christ the King at the end of the month.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We will have an opportunity to hold the
memory of those who have died at the special service on 15<sup>th</sup>
November at 4.00pm, to which we have also invited all who have been involved in
a funeral we have taken this year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Our readings reflect this All Saints hope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Isaiah </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">(25:6-9)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> gives
us a vision of a banquet, celebrating the destruction of all that oppresses us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It used the image of the shroud that is
wrapped round the dead being destroyed so that tears are wiped away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The second reading from the end of the book
of Revelation </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">(21:1-6a)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> brings the great hope of a new city, death is
destroyed, it has no hold on us, and all things are made new.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is not the image of zombie risings!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is completed by the one who is the
beginning and the end, the source and goal of existence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The gospel reading </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">(John 11:32-44)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"> was the touching story of
Jesus raising his friend Lazarus from the dead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He is no ghost and is not in any kind of half-life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His sister Martha seems to picture something
from the ghoulish and ghastly, he’s been dead four days so his putrid flesh is
stinking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The life on offer from Jesus
is not bound by this life, it is the life that comes from grace, the gift of
God and so when flesh corrupts, it is liberated through blessing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are multiple layers to this metaphor of
the raising of Lazarus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is the
hope of life being treasured beyond the grave to which this points.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is the liberation that comes from
celebrating life rather than death, of being set free from whatever would hold
us in death, pain, destruction and all that oppresses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just as Lazarus was released unbound from his
grave clothes so we are released from the grip that death can have on our
thinking or behaving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can become
characteristic of our outlook.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather we
are to embrace life and hope, future promise rather than decay.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">The call to us who celebrate All Saints, the kingdom of God in our
midst in holy lives that bring light and peace, is to be people who bless
others through this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes we all
need help with what should be straightforward, like just being nice to people,
it’s amazing how hard that can be at times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A start is to ask how I can be blessing in this situation, whatever it
is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And some are harder than others;
some have greater struggles to overcome to connect with the blessing rather
than the pain. But celebrating All Saints is to look for those who can remind
us of this, be they from the past or those we know today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are people who lighten up a room when
they walk in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are also those who
depress it too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would rather be the
former than the latter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I am being
the latter, I need to reconnect with holiness, with light and hope, to hold
onto the vision or picture in my mind of someone who displays this grace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our city centre chaplains have the strap line
to their project which simply says ‘Be the light’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or as Gandhi put it, ‘Be the change you want
to see’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is amazing how such actions
can change the world and change a situation or group’s tone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Today we celebrate the light and hope of the saints, their example
and their inspiration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>May they set
before us a vision of blessing, grace and peace that we grow to be more like
them and shaped as followers of Jesus Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Ours is not a story that locks us in zombie risings and death, but is
liberated by life, light and redeemed life in Jesus Christ.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><o:p><i>Sermon preached in <a href="http://www.peterborough-stjohns.org.uk/" target="_blank">Peterborough Parish Church</a>, Sunday 1st November 2015</i></o:p></span></div>
Ian Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833879886906464563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707108060798151435.post-20781071872186957252015-10-18T17:40:00.000+01:002015-10-18T17:40:01.938+01:00Luke: story is why we have churches<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzdZx1wFIR9N3TVbcDuI2lkntVMO7LhnKbncMKLjk3POJzzRHoV6PMxJvAU_lxCsyXv8L5yU1h1y02KIQ52BrhmBpyfZLGB4XwjGAC_Fa4Qk-LILCjD2MIRtVsd0Shq9Ai5jbn-1mXKGUh/s1600/IMG_7320.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzdZx1wFIR9N3TVbcDuI2lkntVMO7LhnKbncMKLjk3POJzzRHoV6PMxJvAU_lxCsyXv8L5yU1h1y02KIQ52BrhmBpyfZLGB4XwjGAC_Fa4Qk-LILCjD2MIRtVsd0Shq9Ai5jbn-1mXKGUh/s320/IMG_7320.jpg" width="178" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Window in north aisle</td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">This week a report was published on <a href="http://www.lawandreligionuk.com/2015/10/15/sustainable-building-management-for-cofe/" target="_blank">how we care for ourchurch buildings</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Church of England
is responsible for nearly 16,000 buildings covering every community in the
country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of these 78% are listed grade I
or II, the remaining 22% are not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Around
57% of our buildings are in rural areas, though only 17% of the population
lives there; 31% are in suburban areas catering for 58% of the total
population. Urban areas only account for 12% of the church buildings covering
25% of the population.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It doesn’t take
much thinking to realize that we have a mismatch between where people are and
where the church buildings are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Given
the number of listed buildings there is a burden many communities are
struggling with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The report offered all
sorts of suggestions which will no doubt be studied and assessed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">Church buildings have a number of purposes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their primary one is to provide a place for
the congregation that gathers to meet to pray, worship and retell the story of
Jesus Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is something to hold
on to and be clear about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without that
all we have is a shell, which may carry a long story of a locality’s history
and hold many associations deeply held, but is just an elaborate shed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having a role in various churches, which vary
from a world-ranking cathedral, a grade 1 listed parish church and a simple
brick built mission hall, I can clearly see great potential for them and am
very fond of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What matters here,
though, is not the grandeur of the place, but what takes place inside it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are not an ecclesiastical version of the
National Trust.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For me the most
important question is how does gathering here, or there, help us to worship,
reimagine the story of Jesus Christ and share that story in what we say and do?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How does it provide a place of hospitality so
that those who visit or call in, for whatever purpose, are touched by grace and
the loving embrace of God?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If it doesn’t
help with these things, then it is an expensive distraction and fosters
delusion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">Today we are celebrating St Luke, after whom one of the
gospels is named and so is <a href="http://www.peterborough-stjohns.org.uk/st-lukes/" target="_blank">one of the churches in this parish</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can see his image around the church, in the windows and around the pulpit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Luke was a physician, described by Paul as the beloved physician.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are passages in Acts when he is present
and this is shown by the style suddenly changing from the third person to that
of an eye witness; the ‘we’ passages, where he says ‘we did this’ or ‘we went
to this place’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A bit of biblical
detective work led to Luke being identified as the author of Acts and given the
similarities with Luke’s gospel, he was identified as the author of that one
too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are writings from early
centuries that name him as the author.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Apart from that, we don’t know much more about him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">What we do have is his gospel and this comes from the pen of
a storyteller.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Luke tells stories and uses
them to excite our imaginations and expand our horizons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like a modern biographer, he knows that he
needs to give some back story, so he creates an elaborate introduction telling
the story of John the Baptist, Mary and Joseph, Elizabeth, and the bizarre
journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem for Jesus’ birth to satisfy a weird Roman
poll tax.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s an unlikely story but it
carries so many layers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We cannot know
how much he made up to reflect Old Testament stories, using metaphor to tell
his central story, and how much happened like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the metaphor is powerful and insightful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are given homeless travellers refused
hospitality but shown mercy by an innkeeper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The first to recognize Jesus are not the powerful and wise, but humble
shepherds in a field.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Luke gives us Candlemas
and that wonderful tale of two elderly people waxing lyrical about this child,
how he will be the light for all people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When we want to know who our neighbour is Luke tells a story about that
Good Samaritan that not only expands our charity to embrace anyone in need, it
also challenges us with who the most caring is, the hero of the piece being a despised
Samaritan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">In a pictorial age, Luke is the gospel that is probably the
easiest to access. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It provides the
subjects for many of the illustrations in [our] windows: Pentecost in the
vestry, The Annunciation and Mary visiting Elizabeth by the font, Angels on the
hillside announcing to shepherds and the lost child in the temple in the Lady
Chapel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Easter scene in the East
window in the Lady Chapel reflects the version in Luke.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our windows are not exclusively based on
Luke, but Luke tells stories that expand in the mind and we see them around us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">In my radical moments I wonder what the church would be like
if we didn’t have our 16,000 buildings, 78% of them listed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we came to that day, we would be left with
the stories that inspire faith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like all
good stories, those in Luke enable us to place ourselves in the story itself
and imagine what it means to follow Jesus today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But what is that story?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">The story that Luke tells is that God has a purpose in creating and that the coming
of Jesus Christ is the fullest revealing of that purpose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God has been at work before him and in him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He sets this story in the Roman world and
rather than the rich and powerful, he moves the focus to a poor outpost of the
empire, known for breeding troublemakers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is a story of wonderful deeds, powerful teaching and there is
intrigue with plots and betrayal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Reading it for the first time it is not clear how this will end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Guiding the teaching and the deeds is the
unshakable faith that this is God’s world, we are his and life only has meaning
when lived to his praise and glory; nothing else is to have priority for us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The plot to kill Jesus leads to his
execution by crucifixion, a shameful humiliation, surely a sign of rejection
and defeat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the twist in the tale is
the resurrection and this becomes its validation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Luke gives us the journey to Emmaus, where
how this had to be is explained and Jesus is recognized in the breaking of the
bread.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The journey of faith is an
accompanied journey and it is gathered round the table together that Jesus
shows himself to us and his presence is made known.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">The story continues in Acts where Luke tells of how this
good news story spread.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Boundaries were
expanded from being a faith for Jews to one for all people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Missionary journeys showed how it captured
imaginations around the world and a movement began.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Martyrdoms, self-giving, opposition and the
struggle to convert hearts are set forth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But through it all Luke carries a deep hope and faith that this gospel
is from God and of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will
therefore prevail, whatever difficulties come, even persecution and death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because it is founded on such a strong
foundation we do not need to rely on stone buildings for fortification.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This faith sets hearts ablaze and that is
what changes the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the reason
these church buildings were put in place and so it alone is the reason they
continue – without it they have no purpose.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">Celebrating Luke reminds us that the only way for our church
buildings to continue, indeed to have a reason to continue, is for them to be
houses of storytelling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is only by
telling and retelling the story of God in Jesus Christ and igniting
imaginations with this life changing good news that there is any hope for
ancient stones and more recent ones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His
gospel sets out for us the life changing good news of Jesus Christ which is the
purpose behind everything we aim to do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><o:p><i>Sermon preached at <a href="http://www.peterborough-stjohns.org.uk/" target="_blank">Peterborough Parish Church</a>, Sunday 18th October 2015 </i></o:p></span></div>
Ian Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833879886906464563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707108060798151435.post-82888015584835818262015-10-11T11:55:00.001+01:002015-10-11T11:55:20.749+01:00Light of faith lived: Edith Cavell<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii9s1zlrW3cVEUgiNfo-bk_m2klkyn_R5r0LiIpoQ4nOlc7x955lwaI-cdW8Zog6qzdRtYFdgKbYP_e9dpZVgAushl-dZpt8GwL8kDdo1Y6sinRAZawm4QCWYGhjq_dGEdYJ8X-OHBpVzx/s1600/IMG_4643.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii9s1zlrW3cVEUgiNfo-bk_m2klkyn_R5r0LiIpoQ4nOlc7x955lwaI-cdW8Zog6qzdRtYFdgKbYP_e9dpZVgAushl-dZpt8GwL8kDdo1Y6sinRAZawm4QCWYGhjq_dGEdYJ8X-OHBpVzx/s320/IMG_4643.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Edith Cavell's Lamp</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">Near the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields in London, just
off Trafalgar Square, stands a memorial to an English nurse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the base are the words <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">“Patriotism is not enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I must have no hatred or bitterness towards
anyone.”</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">Edith Cavell was executed by the German army 100 years ago
tomorrow (12<sup>th</sup> October).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
was shot at 7.00am by firing squad at Tir national shooting range in
Schaerbeek, Belgium.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her crime was
harbouring Allied soldiers and helping them escape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Belgium was under German occupation during
WW1 and any Allied soldiers in need of care hid in the woods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Any found were either shipped off to prison
camps or shot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So those who came to
Edith’s hospital for treatment needed medical care, hiding and also help to
escape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That brought her into contact
with the resistance and clandestine activity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Her hospital regularly searched, she was betrayed by an entrapment
sting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">The night before she was executed she wrote final letters
and was visited by the priest from the Anglican church where she worshipped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As she spoke with him she uttered those
famous words, recorded on her memorial, except there was a bit more to
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What she actually said was:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">“I have no fear nor shrinking; I have seen
death so often that it is not strange or fearful to me…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this I would say, standing as I do in
view of God and eternity I realize that patriotism is not enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I must have no hatred or bitterness towards
anyone.”</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">Those words often missed out about ‘standing in view of God
and eternity’ matter enormously, because it was her faith that inspired her in
her work and it was her faith that provided tremendous comfort and perspective
as she faced her own death having seen so many others die.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">She had been reading Thomas a Kempis’ ‘The Imitation of
Christ’, that great 15<sup>th</sup> century spiritual classic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has in it passages that speak of
improvement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One passage in the chapter
entitled ‘On considering one’s death’ says poignantly <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">“What is the use of a long life when we
show so little improvement?…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Always be
ready; live in such a way that death can never find you unprepared.”</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">He gives practical advice on dealing with the failings of
others and being patient, as we ourselves expect others to be patient with us: for
as we pray ‘forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against
us’!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">She showed great compassion, treating the wounded of
whatever side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her hospital flew the Red
Cross’ flag and she told her nurses: “Any wounded soldier must be treated,
friend or foe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each man is a son,
husband or father.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For each was equal
at the point of need.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her compassion,
her rejection of hatred and bitterness sprung from her profound faith. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqDHgDpRfpluo45pwrqUeLrZvFmCZHZ2MjaySyYkyAmtaFI_m3n7hH0L3ck9hpvzVIcPyd2VUYBXgayPBnieqf5XB9gnUVn6vkY0QEeMF-WNPuDnZW2Y1FCuNMdKkUimnYgeHBvA3yr0TZ/s1600/IMG_4650.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqDHgDpRfpluo45pwrqUeLrZvFmCZHZ2MjaySyYkyAmtaFI_m3n7hH0L3ck9hpvzVIcPyd2VUYBXgayPBnieqf5XB9gnUVn6vkY0QEeMF-WNPuDnZW2Y1FCuNMdKkUimnYgeHBvA3yr0TZ/s320/IMG_4650.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Laurel Court, Peterborough Cathedral Cloister</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">It therefore seems fitting that the memorial we have to her
in this cathedral is not just the tablet paid for by her colleagues and friends
from Laurel Court School in our cloister, where she had been a pupil teacher in
1886, but her lamp hanging above it, given to us in 2009.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The light is the light of faith lived, that
placed its hope on God and ‘standing in view of God and eternity’ was conscious
not to hate or be consumed by bitterness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">The gospel reading this morning had a man anxious to live a
life improved and validating of his faith </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 125%;">(<a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=311482660" target="_blank">Mark 10:17-31</a>)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Keeping rules and ticking the right boxes,
showing that measurables have been achieved and met – don’t lie, steal, murder…;
outward discipline is not on its own the point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The one thing this man lacked was a heart that stood in view of God and
eternity and was ready.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Possessions
distract us and distract us from emptiness within. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Keeping rules can do the same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes we devise rules to help us learn and to
give us boundaries that help us be virtuous, or at least limit the damage we
might otherwise do, but they are not a substitute for a heart that is content
and at peace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the rules are just and
true, and that is itself a massive question, then a heart that is filled with
that justice and truth will instinctively behave in a way that is life-givng
and therefore blesses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So the injunction
to go and sell all you have exposes straight away that the man was not living
in a state of readiness for death; that was not standing in view of God and
eternity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">Possessions, then as now, were seen as a sign of blessing,
as validating a life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The established
view was that God showed his favour in bestowing riches and good things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bad things came because of God’s
displeasure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus we get passages that
ask who sinned, the blind man or his parents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Jesus moves beyond such shallow and transitory badges; indeed he turns
them upside down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cash is to be given
away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The very signs of blessing shunned
and rejected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Poverty is held up over
riches.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">How hard these lessons are to learn, now as then.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have inherited such great wealth from the
past: buildings which glorify; craftsmen’s art and music’s measure sublimely
combined.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As we pray, far from being
stripped back to be prepared for our death, or standing in view of God and
eternity, we can be very firmly locked in the temporal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The grandeur of this place must come with
this spiritual health warning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That
which should point beyond, from temporal to eternal, to be ready to let go of
everything, even life itself, can actually serve the complete opposite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those of us who live and work here daily have
to be careful we don’t take all of these surroundings too seriously less they
corrupt the soul, distort our vision and distract us from the view of God and
eternity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is hard for the rich to
enter the Kingdom of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those whose
sofas are well cushioned, and nests soft, have a harder task in reaching beyond
those distractions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">The reality check here is provided by the firm hope in the
Kingdom of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It grows within us if we
let it and it comes to a heart that stands utterly dependent on God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whenever I go on retreat, I like to kneel in
a simple chapel, in simple clothes (I don’t have an elaborate wardrobe),
without status, except that of a child of God, focused on the stillness that
comes from being touched by the silence of eternity and at one with the one who
is the source and goal of our existence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I fully understand St Cuthbert praying in the waves of the sea, and the
holy sites on wind swept hillsides or cliff edges. There is a challenge to find
that in more urban areas, but it is possible, away from the padding and all
that would make us think we are no more than material things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no other hope, certainly not in
money, elaborate surroundings or trappings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The question is often not can your faith survive outside of this great place,
but can it survive in it!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If it
struggles outside, it will certainly struggle inside where the distractions are
so great.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuSgoHV0wZko1-H7mWVrDBWiZVVRKuZp6GMSW4GzjaCiT4OEbqrGsCFL5eCQcwf59SYdNaMmMNHCQO75SQD6Scj8ieCcCDhSpdWyhJfrl3u_seyYF8k-b2gt8kuKUf2e7NBxWUzxtSHLNi/s1600/IMG_4646.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuSgoHV0wZko1-H7mWVrDBWiZVVRKuZp6GMSW4GzjaCiT4OEbqrGsCFL5eCQcwf59SYdNaMmMNHCQO75SQD6Scj8ieCcCDhSpdWyhJfrl3u_seyYF8k-b2gt8kuKUf2e7NBxWUzxtSHLNi/s320/IMG_4646.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Memorial, Peterborough Cathedral</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;">For Edith Cavell faith found its fullest expression in
serving those in need.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In that she found
hope renewed, not diminished, and in facing death eternity was clearer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The man in our gospel reading addressed Jesus
as ‘good teacher’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The reply reminded
him that God alone is good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the
priest told Edith Cavell on the night before her execution that she would be
remembered as a martyr she rejected it, saying she was ‘just a nurse who tried
to do her duty’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do not get distracted
by hopes of glory and fame, by the comfort of riches, but viewing God and
eternity, having a purity of heart totally focused on God, counts for more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 125%;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><o:p><i>Sermon preached in <a href="http://www.peterborough-cathedral.org.uk/" target="_blank">Peterborough Cathedral</a>, Sunday 11th October 2015</i><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
Ian Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833879886906464563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707108060798151435.post-25278509349258431202015-09-30T14:22:00.002+01:002015-09-30T14:22:43.215+01:00Food for All - Wednesday at One<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY55jLpJHNB6r7FbQhX1BY0Ko0FZYSfmvIdA8yxm5gL14SII3zEe5Nbo4W5UdMBUtMajWv2zJE7pkWZHUDsnibrKkseZaKTfUAxsZ-CF3j8frOmBjpotZPMqKaYKk07BSoNNBYD2pBSFWz/s1600/IMG_3325.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY55jLpJHNB6r7FbQhX1BY0Ko0FZYSfmvIdA8yxm5gL14SII3zEe5Nbo4W5UdMBUtMajWv2zJE7pkWZHUDsnibrKkseZaKTfUAxsZ-CF3j8frOmBjpotZPMqKaYKk07BSoNNBYD2pBSFWz/s320/IMG_3325.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">This half term we are looking at seven signs in John’s
Gospel, through which Jesus reveals who he is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Over the last three weeks we’ve had Jesus making himself known in the
changing of water into wine </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">(John 2:1-11)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">, the healing of
the young son of the royal official </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">(John 4:46-54)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> and
last week the healing of the man at the Pool of Bethzatha </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">(John
5:1-18)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today we have Jesus
feeding a crowd on a hillside, which leads to a long piece of teaching in
John’s Gospel, chapter 6, about Jesus being the bread of life and how we need
to feed on him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">A few years ago, when I was a vicar in a different place,
some members of the choir were positively militant about the hymn we have just
sung.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Guide me, O thou great…’ well
that is where the problem came – should it be ‘Redeemer’ or ‘Jehovah’. Most
modern hymnbooks render the word ‘Redeemer’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A number of the choir were adamant that it should be ‘Jehovah’ and would
bellow it out loudly whenever the hymn was sung.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a good-natured dispute, one of those
bits of gentle banter, but nonetheless passionately held.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I decided to go for a knock down, definitive answer to the
question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A friend of mine lives in
Wales, near where the children’s series ‘Ivor the Engine’ was set, and not only
learnt Welsh but teaches it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(I take my
hat off to her.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I got in touch and
asked if she could look in a Welsh hymn book in her local church and translate
the hymn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This would surely give the
final and definitive answer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The result
turned out to be something of an eye opener.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In short it is neither ‘Redeemer’ nor ‘Jehovah’!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The English version is a very free
translation of the original Welsh hymn because the strict translation doesn’t
give the right number of syllables to fit the tune.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">My friend translated the first line as ‘Lord, guide me
through the desert’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No mention of
Jehovah or Redeemer!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The key word would
appear to be ‘Lord’, so we’re looking for an appropriate substitute. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">As I say most hymn books prefer to use the word ‘Redeemer’
today because ‘Jehovah’ is a hybrid of two words, the Hebrew name for God <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Yahweh</i>, or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jahveh</i>, and the word for Lord, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Adonai</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The combination arises through a tradition
which arose around 300 BC of regarding the name of God as being so holy that it
shouldn’t be mentioned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To get round
this the respectful ‘Lord’ (Adonai) was used instead, and that is reflected in
many English translations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hebrew
doesn’t use vowels as letters, just annotations to indicate where they need to
be placed, so we get YHWH and JHVH respectively.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Take the vowels of Adonai and mix with JHVH
and we get Jahovaih, the hybrid from which Jehovah is a corruption.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So while Jehovah carries the echoes of the
original word for Lord, it is a mixed up word that doesn’t really exist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some regard it as inappropriate for this
reason.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has to be acknowledged that
the author accepted ‘Jehovah’ when his hymn was translated into English. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Redeemer, on the other hand, doesn’t mean Lord, it just has
the right number of syllables to fit the tune.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It does however give a New Testament flavour and refers directly to
Jesus Christ as Lord.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is the one who
sorts out the consequences of our sin and need for redemption.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In that respect use of Redeemer does give us ‘Lord’
with a purpose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So on balance I think I
would go for Redeemer rather than Jehovah.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Now Lord with a purpose is what we get in our reading about
Jesus feeding the crowd of 5,000 with a small boy’s picnic </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">(John
6:1-14)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is part of a
much longer sequence of teaching which ends with Jesus describing himself, in
one of the great ‘I am’ sayings in John’s Gospel as the ‘bread of life’, the
bread from heaven, to use the term in that hymn </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">(v35-38)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This story has very strong Eucharistic
allusions to it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John doesn’t give an
account of the Last Supper or the institution of Holy Communion. Instead he
gives us this long passage in which he sets out his Eucharistic theology and
because of the setting expands our horizons beyond liturgy and churchy
settings. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus takes the bread, gives
thanks, breaks it and distributes it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Those are the four actions of a Eucharistic celebration identified by
the great scholar of liturgy, Dom Gregory Dix, in his seminal work ‘The Shape
of the Liturgy’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We take the bread, we
give thanks, we break it and we share it out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This is not just a service but it is how the church is to be, how we as
believers are to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are taken,
called, gathered into a community that needs to feed on Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We give thanks, we celebrate the gift that is
Christ, that is one another, that is the life that he gives us, that is his
saving love in his life, death and resurrection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are broken, fragile and vulnerable,
injured and in need of our pride to be broken so that in humility we can celebrate
and grow, be useful and serve.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are
sent out, shared, given a job to feed others – physically and spiritually.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has to be said, John doesn’t say ‘break’,
but it is implied otherwise how could everyone eat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The Eucharist, the Communion, the Celebration of the Lord’s
Supper, is not just a meal or act of remembrance – as important as this is – it
is where we become the church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is
more it is a model of what it means to be followers of Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are to be Eucharistic people: called;
blessed in thanksgiving, in gift; broken, prepared for sending; shared and sent
out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The calling is for all, not just
for a few.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All who are baptized are
called to follow the Master, the Lord with a purpose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All are blessed as beloved gift and we are
gift to one another as well as to the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>All are broken and so in need of treating with tenderness and care, love
and honour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All need to recognize their
brokenness with honesty and humility, with trust in the redeeming love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And all are sent with a mission to be salt
and light, to make a difference wherever they go, to be themselves signs of the
blessing they have received.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We not only
receive ‘food’ which is ‘for all’, we are to be ‘food for all’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The Gospel of Jesus Christ breaks down whatever exclusive
barriers and boundaries we care to erect and boy are we good erecting
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first disciples had to learn
this with the commission to go beyond the Jewish community to embrace
Gentiles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the first miracles of
the first Christian church was that it dumped Aramaic as the language of their
faith in favour of Greek, the language of trade, common around the Mediterranean,
more so than Latin, thanks to Alexander the Great.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ‘for all’ in the title for this talk is
written into the language of the New Testament.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">But this food, what is it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What does it mean to refer to Jesus as ‘bread’?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well this is John’s Gospel and it began with
his wonderful prologue, the hymn to the Word among us, full of grace and
truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God and the Word was God’ </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">(John 1:1)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it ends with the astounding affirmation
that this Word became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">(v14).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The bread of life is Christ among
us, inspiring, nourishing with his grace, with his love, with his transforming
presence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To understand this more fully,
he gives a new commandment later in the Gospel, to love, he brings forgiveness
and reconciliation, comes to save not condemn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This is a radical new way; radical because it takes us back to the
fundamental principles revealed in the Bible: God is love and those who live in
love, live in God and God lives in them, to quote the Epistle of James.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">That new commandment to love, the radical way of love and
peace, challenges us to look around us and see beyond outer appearances to the
inner glory within each person, to see the gift and blessing that we are to one
another and are to be to one another, and the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we serve Christ in those we meet, as an
unknown guest, then we see his glory in them too and that should change how we
behave, because they too are beloved children of God, heirs of grace and the
reason for his coming; they too are called, blessed, broken and sent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meeting them is to stand on holy ground.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Christ came to draw us into the heart of God,
that we may become divine, to quote an ancient writer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is within each of us the seed of
glory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our life is special coming as it
does from the desire of God’s will and purpose.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">When Jesus describes himself as the bread of life, feeding
on him, following him, being filled with the grace that was within him, changes
how we are to behave if we are to honour the glory within him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The feeding is also literal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The hungry are fed, the blind receive sight,
the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the poor have good news
brought to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was the answer
Jesus gave when John the Baptist’s disciples asked him if he was the real the
deal </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">(Luke 7:18-23)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>His calling card was good news to the poor and needy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is no mere aesthetic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Which takes us back to the hymn I began with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has one reference to ‘Bread of heaven’ and
being fed ‘till I want no more’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
passage from John’s gospel has provision of food which more than satisfies,
because the leftovers fill 12 baskets. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
hymn is also about pilgrimage through a barren land and being fed, sustained
for the journey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sustenance that we
need is the bread of life, the Word among us, the Christ who is the Way the
Truth and the Life, who brings a new commandment to love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sustenance comes through the gift, the
purpose, knowing that there is a point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This seems to be particularly important at the moment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The assisted dying bill debates brought out some competing
convictions about how we see life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
was a hard call when we look with compassion and understand the distress on
both sides, the suffering and the desire for release balanced against protecting
the vulnerable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>St Francis referred to
Sister Death, who comes as a welcome guest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But there was an editorial in the Independent newspaper which said “If
you believe that all life comes from God, then it may be reasonable to argue
that only God can take away what he created… the vast majority of the public do
not go near a church and do not see their lives as some kind of gift that needs
to be returned to sender.” (Monday 7<sup>th</sup> September 2015)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now there are assumptions there, but there is
a view quite loudly proclaimed that there is no purpose or point to life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is contained within the parameters of what
we see.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has no source outside of
random accident and so when it ends there is nothing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a very empty and ultimately bleak view
of existence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we celebrate Christ
as the bread of life, the bread of heaven, feeding us for the journey, we
proclaim that there is a point and that point lies with the eternal Word who
was at the beginning and whom we see made flesh among us in Jesus Christ. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we call him Lord, we affirm his redeeming
purpose, redeeming from futility, from the brokenness and sinfulness of this
fragile life, that everything is and comes from gift.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">So on the mountainside, Jesus fed the crowd, physically and
spiritually.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was food for all,
because he came their redeemer, and that redemption calls us, blesses us and
prepares us to be sent out to feed others in their hunger for dinner as well as
knowing there is a purpose to hold us through our pilgrimage to the goal of promise.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p><i>Wednesday at One Talk for <a href="http://www.peterborough-cathedral.org.uk/" target="_blank">Peterborough Cathedral</a>, 30th September 2015</i></o:p></span></div>
Ian Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833879886906464563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707108060798151435.post-33696052364266093362015-09-16T15:09:00.001+01:002015-09-16T15:10:29.090+01:00National Anthem - like/dislike<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh99MRPzTlz8enXLFtHjnuOc0_VJRMHLWC-tVvNVbFnNRoZu2ejRHRYRdshX8i1LKUS6KwoGannZgiDWPiMlzZWqd_W8iBwIeuUbQC0HLGPUrxrnS6AJw6aWtnBpk_2MlIQBnig9Hrf81ni/s1600/Facebook_like_dislike.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh99MRPzTlz8enXLFtHjnuOc0_VJRMHLWC-tVvNVbFnNRoZu2ejRHRYRdshX8i1LKUS6KwoGannZgiDWPiMlzZWqd_W8iBwIeuUbQC0HLGPUrxrnS6AJw6aWtnBpk_2MlIQBnig9Hrf81ni/s320/Facebook_like_dislike.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
On Tuesday Jeremy Corbyn, the new leader of the Labour Party, caused scandal for many when he didn't join in with the singing of the National Anthem at a service to commemorate the Battle of Britain in St Paul's Cathedral. He was criticised by Admiral Lord West, former Labour Minister, on Radio 4's Today programme on Wednesday. But the Admiral didn't defend the anthem line by line, but by saying rather vaguely that it was a symbol of loyalty to the UK and the British people. The words, he said, do not mean today what they once meant. Hmm that sounds like most of us have our fingers crossed behind our backs at some point during singing it.<br />
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In other news Facebook have announced that they plan to introduce a 'dislike' button to join the 'like button'. Time then to join the two up and play National Anthem Facebook like or dislike over each line of the National Anthem - to find out where we might have our fingers crossed behind our backs.<br />
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<b>God save our gracious Queen</b><br />
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<b>God</b> - I believe in God, so I have no problem there; an atheist would have and so probably has difficulty getting beyond the first word!<br />
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<b>save </b>- I believe in salvation - from sin, from all that separates us from God and neighbour, from the futility which comes from not believing life has a purpose which comes from God. I believe that in Jesus Christ we see everything we need to know about what it means to follow God and grow to be all that God would have us be.<br />
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<b>our gracious Queen</b> - graciousness means displaying gift and thankfulness for the gift; someone who is giving, generous and hospitable. There is much in this for a nation to celebrate in its openness.<br />
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<b>Long live our noble Queen</b><br />
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<b>long live</b> - I don't wish her a short life, so a life in which to flourish is to be desired. Length of days, though, are not the only criteria to judge a life by - is it one of blessing and faithfulness? How that life is spent matters.<br />
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<b>our noble Queen</b> - see above for gracious...<br />
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<b>God save the Queen</b> - as above<br />
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<b>Send her victorious</b><br />
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<b>Send her victorious</b> - over whom, over what? ISIS are an evil in the world and so I don't wish them to dominate and become the rulers of the world. There are oppressive regimes and evils of organised crime, people trafficking and violence. But Britain has a mixed record over the centuries; we've not always been the noble power we like to think we are, and there are questions about some of the things we get up to now behind the scenes. So victorious cannot be given unequivocal assent.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL00epeWhUtWt4y2GwJxYzFwl54ZciwmmF5ndUvrj2SST0yJyz59Zdyrr4GbGWYjrD3PdpQZCTVmntOFBxawCS_f0IHgSpV7A7SQDJLCAMsyfrotAeKwFNPpYYAMdBMYgplkS3u9lpr0H6/s1600/FB+like.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL00epeWhUtWt4y2GwJxYzFwl54ZciwmmF5ndUvrj2SST0yJyz59Zdyrr4GbGWYjrD3PdpQZCTVmntOFBxawCS_f0IHgSpV7A7SQDJLCAMsyfrotAeKwFNPpYYAMdBMYgplkS3u9lpr0H6/s1600/FB+like.jpg" /></a></div>
<b>Happy and glorious</b><br />
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<b>Happy and glorious</b> - I don't wish her to be miserable, and someone who carries the dignity of office to command respect is to be desired.<br />
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<b>Long to reign over us</b><br />
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<b>over us</b> - I don't believe in reigning 'over'. I believe in democracy where we elect our political representatives who act on our behalf. We can remove them! We have, it has to be said, removed a few monarchs too over the centuries, so reigning is not as clear as it might seem. I don't believe in the 'divine right of kings'. So this is a dislike for me. That said, when I think of some of the likely alternatives - President Thatcher, President Blair, President Cameron or Corbyn... Long may she reign! There is a value in having the head of state separate from the executive, so that there is someone above them in precedence, but birth is no basis for choosing this person.<br />
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<b>God save the Quee</b>n - see above.<br />
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<b>Verse 2?</b><br />
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There have been a number of different verses over the years, one praying that God will confound the Scotts politics and navish tricks! That would be a definite 'dislike'. The second verse often used today is more positive.<br />
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T<b>hy choicest gifts in store</b><br />
<b>on her be pleased to pour</b><br />
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God's choicest gifts are presumably the gifts or fruits of the Spirit. These are listed by St Paul as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self control <span style="font-size: x-small;">(Galatians 5:22-26)</span>. Can't argue with those. We may add wisdom and an understanding of justice which make good rulers.<br />
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<b>Long may she reign</b> - see above.<br />
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<b>May she defend our laws</b><br />
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Absolutely! The purpose of government is to pursue justice. Laws need to be set for the flourishing of all people. So the laws to be defended must be just, honourable, true.<br />
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<b>And ever give us cause</b><br />
<b>to sing with heart and voice</b><br />
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If she defends laws that are just, honourable, true, enabling all to flourish, defending the weak and protecting the vulnerable, then we will sing with heart and voice.<br />
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<b>God save the Queen.</b><br />
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<b>Nor on this land alone</b><br />
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Some hymn books give a third verse which expands our horizons to embrace all nations and peoples as brothers and sisters in humanity. This is the basis of peace, fairness in trading and cohesion. It's a good aim and makes our national song outward looking and loving. This is the politics of hope rather than hatred or fear.<br />
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On balance I seem to be more thumbs up than down, though some of the caveats are significant ones. With all of this in mind, I shall continue singing it - though it's not the most inspiring song we could have as our national anthem and the tune is remarkably dull. It also has no official status, beyond customary use, according the the <a href="http://www.royal.gov.uk/MonarchUK/Symbols/NationalAnthem.aspx" target="_blank">British monarchy</a> website!<br />
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<br />Ian Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833879886906464563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707108060798151435.post-75162422075150100362015-09-13T14:35:00.001+01:002015-09-13T14:35:21.550+01:00Words<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">I don’t know if you caught any of the Assisted Dying Bill
debate on Friday, but I thought it showed Parliament at its best. Most of the speeches I heard were
compassionate, well reasoned and thoughtful.
Many spoke from personal experience, either as a medical practitioner or
as someone who had cared for a loved on in their dying moments. The pain of what was at stake, for both those
in favour and those against the Bill, came out thoroughly, and I could see
merit in both arguments, though for my mind I think Parliament made the right
choice on this Bill. There were one or
two moments when a particular MP was less sensitive and more combative in their
approach, but in the main they knew that this was a moment when it was possible
to disagree well and recognize the integrity and good motives of those who took
a different view. We regularly pray for
those we elect to Parliament and this was an occasion when those prayers for
wisdom and justice were particularly important.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">The words we choose matter enormously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They can persuade, they can incite strong
reactions, they can sooth and they can injure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They can, in the words of our Epistle reading from James </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(3:5-6)</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">, ‘set a
forest ablaze’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This week I attended a training
workshop in London on ‘Email, Social Media and Conflict in the Church’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was in part about how to deal with those
emails and social media comments that get the hackles up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a mantra for Twitter, ‘Don’t feed
the Trolls’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have to exercise caution
when on the receiving end of comments that can be placed on a spectrum from the
badly or roughly worded to an outright assault.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Sometimes the best course is to leave it a bit and whenever we don’t we
usually regret it later, certainly if it gets the better of us and we bite back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some clergy present, notably a young woman,
had had to deal with some pretty offensive stuff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a resilience which we have to
develop and some of those who speak on behalf of the church with a higher
profile are on the receiving end of some pretty vile abuse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we pray for our bishops, when we pray
for Justin our Archbishop, they can be at the sharp end of some unsavoury
comments, as indeed can their colleagues and office staff.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">Disagreeing well is a theme which Justin Welby is
encouraging the church to take seriously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He is also sharing this as an approach over the forthcoming European
debates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a blog called ‘Reimagining
Europe’, which isn’t arguing for a particular outcome, but is calling for a
respectful debate, one that honours the view of the other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How we disagree says a lot about how we are
as a community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the problems with
social media is that it is not always very sociable. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The political columnist for the Guardian
<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/19/social-media-politics-reformation" target="_blank">Rafael Behr</a> has described it as a place where our prejudices and pre-existing
views are reinforced and massaged by those who agree with us, or see it our
way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This means that we edit out the
challenging and contradictory voices.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Society becomes a place where we see the likeminded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The more this happens, the less we become
able to deal with dissent, disagreement and the ensuing conflict which
difference of opinion brings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So
learning to disagree well is prophetic and goes against so much of the
prevailing mood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It also opens us up to
new ideas, to challenge and to growth in our understanding.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">One of the hot topics at the moment is the migrating peoples
seeking to enter Europe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of these
have come from the most violent places in the world: Syria, Iraq and
Eritrea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are traumatised as well as
in desperate need of shelter and a place of safety – the true meaning of
Asylum; they will present multiple needs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We have a duty to be hospitable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is a biblical standard and we have a noble history of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some others are in search of a better life
and their applications will be assessed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Some are trafficked for others’ gain and are abused.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of them have stories to tell and these
stories move us beyond labels to the people concerned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My disappointment with the BBC Songs of
Praise broadcast from the Calais camp during the summer was that it didn’t give
as many stories as I’d expected, probably due to the new magazine-like format of
the programme.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The debates around these
are very quickly polarized, and some comments are outrageous and encourage
hatred.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is possible to raise
questions about what provision will be needed and capacity without dehumanizing
and it is possible to encourage a generous response to take the human need
seriously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a humanitarian
crisis and I’ve put out the milk churn at the back of the church for donations
towards the UNHCR appeal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">The words we choose for any debate or discussion make a
tremendous difference to how that goes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So often the writings in the Bible encourage us to use our words as a
source of blessing rather than cursing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Our aim should be to build up, to encourage, to seek the Kingdom of God
and for us all to be formed into the likeness of Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
words we choose reveal or expose us for who we are, whether we are really
people who seek this or are consumed with something else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The hitting back is a sign of fear and
anxiety.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And other people do have a way
of finding where our weaknesses and vulnerabilities are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When people are incited to riot or react with
anger at words, when they take offence, it is because they feel attacked and
this shakes their sense of security and worth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If I am feeling sensitive, vulnerable and insecure, I will react very
differently to when I’m not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The power
dynamic can change how we are in this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
resilience that we need to develop comes from the trust that we have in God and
the confidence we have in his truth and victory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A faith in one who dies on a cross and rises
in glory is not one to place too much store by feeling offended or the
transitory insults.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A faith that calls
on us to take up our cross in order to follow, is not one that looks for
getting the upper hand all the time </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(Mark 8:27-38)</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is God’s world, we are his and there is
nothing that can separate us from his love and purpose. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Under attack, the challenge is to find words
that heal, that call to a new way of looking and loving, that call us back to
what blesses and restores dignity, honour and hope.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">So words not only matter, they also reveal the hope that is
inside us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we are to bless we have to
know that we are blessed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we are to
be gracious, we need to have grace, the joy of the gift of love within us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Above all our trust is in the Kingdom of God
which matters more than our own purposes and that may require admitting that we
are wrong at times because truth matters more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Disagreeing well means that we know the truth is bigger than us and it
needs to possess us, not us it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Sermon preached at <a href="http://www.peterborough-stjohns.org.uk/" target="_blank">Peterborough Parish Church</a>, Sunday 13th September 2015</i></span></span></div>
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Ian Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833879886906464563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707108060798151435.post-63581721526659672942015-09-12T21:40:00.001+01:002015-10-07T12:55:32.355+01:00Paying for the church's mission<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxY5XU4Kj1fBV4rpe6pquS5iLutNvIv8otJUnVl1SHLx5kKNMQCBlFo9fI8Zd7sDEp2ecu1iFKDTK6xpG991mZ6Sgi5PvrwCY787alp6KT2f_D9Fm6q4BebIRp-m0jY3Vjjv9SreUo-T_b/s1600/IMG_4978.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxY5XU4Kj1fBV4rpe6pquS5iLutNvIv8otJUnVl1SHLx5kKNMQCBlFo9fI8Zd7sDEp2ecu1iFKDTK6xpG991mZ6Sgi5PvrwCY787alp6KT2f_D9Fm6q4BebIRp-m0jY3Vjjv9SreUo-T_b/s320/IMG_4978.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">The Peterborough Diocesan Synod this morning debated a new way of paying for the church's mission in this area. For 2016 that will be around £12m. Although the church nationally has massive assets, these are either buildings which are being used, land which is providing an income, or are committed for pensions and other purposes. The day-to-day running costs of the local church have to be found by the local people. Collectively these are organised into dioceses (an area focused round a bishop) and the total budget to fund what that area wants to do, mainly made up of salaries, has to be found.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Each diocese asks the parishes for a contribution known as 'parish share'. Some places have more money than others, because some churches have more people filling their pews (or chairs) than others and those people have different incomes. In reality some parishes pay what is asked and some don't. The collection rate for this 'share' has hovered around 93.5%.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Traditionally parishes have been organised into what is known as 'benefices'. A benefice is a unit intended to provide the income necessary to support a priest (Vicar). Some places are recognised to have such a level of deprivation that they need help. Most places are assumed to be able to find the money needed. In the main they do. If they don't the diocese has to decide if they are going to fund it any way - from the money other parishes pay - or reorganise them with others so that they form a unit (a benefice) that can.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Over recent years the amount asked from each benefice has been allocated on a complicated system that has also taken account of the relative wealth of the parish and the size of the congregation. This has been seen as penalising those who are growing and not providing incentive to do so. The diocese has a policy of growing and 'employing' more clergy. To pay for these, the share system needs to take account of the cost where it is deployed. That is difficult to achieve if that place is paying for ministry in other places. So a rethink has taken place.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">From 2016 Peterborough is going to start moving to a system based solely on the cost of the diocese's mission. This will be allocated between the benefices according to how many paid clergy they have (excluding training posts). If the benefices are able to match this, then the system will work. If they don't, then there is no one else to pick up the bill so the vision and planned mission will have to be rethought.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If everyone pays 100% of what is asked, the full cost to be shared out works out at around £57,500 per paid cleric. So places with additional clergy will pay multiples of that figure. Because we know that it is unlikely that 100% will be collected, the actual amount will be nearer £63,000. There will be some transitional arrangements as we move from one system to the new one.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In the end whatever shape the mission of the diocese takes it needs to be funded. The test of the new system will be in how it works. If it proves unrealistic then it will be rethought - it will have to be. If it works it will produce the money needed. Many know this will be a challenge.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Levels of giving in church congregations vary enormously. Some are very generous and commit their giving at a realistic level with thankful hearts. Some are less realistic. When people commit to the vision of the church's mission they literally buy into it. What is needed is provided. When they don't, it isn't. There are costs and they need to be met. The theory is that growing churches should be able to find the resources that are needed.</span><br />
<br />Ian Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833879886906464563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707108060798151435.post-81563556005249100922015-09-11T10:58:00.000+01:002015-09-11T10:58:06.073+01:00Gluten Free Altar Breads<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ6TCONJFaS9Lc-NF_RjmNtXQwfsXD_tP-WtVQcdXwYsUmwg7TkXFWsnB2-J3B2TKT77y_G5XAiRQbSqsJWlnHirnl22yd0xuKG9GZfZ3giFMIRTE5OglRCpKe3Jyn1e1AT-i9cAlF1UYp/s1600/IMG_3256.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ6TCONJFaS9Lc-NF_RjmNtXQwfsXD_tP-WtVQcdXwYsUmwg7TkXFWsnB2-J3B2TKT77y_G5XAiRQbSqsJWlnHirnl22yd0xuKG9GZfZ3giFMIRTE5OglRCpKe3Jyn1e1AT-i9cAlF1UYp/s320/IMG_3256.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
This is an appeal to church suppliers, especially of communion breads. Gluten free wafers are vile. They have a consistency of plastic and dissolve in the mouth with as much ease. I feel for those who need them and my heart sinks when I find I have to consume any left over at the end of the Eucharist. We need a palatable alternative.<br />
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I was pointed towards one available online from the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in the USA, but the cost of import and practicality of that makes this not very viable. The ingredients listed on the pack are 'wheat starch and water', less than 0.01% gluten content. They dissolve in the mouth and are palatable.<br />
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My appeal is to church suppliers to come up with something like this, not the plastic squares we endure at the moment. More people are asking for gluten free now so there is a gap in the market and clearly it can be done.Ian Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833879886906464563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707108060798151435.post-64606823626612783772015-09-03T22:03:00.000+01:002015-09-03T22:03:26.149+01:00Arts Festival - projectionsThis weekend Peterborough will be holding an <a href="http://www.vivacity-peterborough.com/festivals/peterborough-arts-festival-2015/" target="_blank">Arts Festival</a>. Part of this will involve painting St John's Church in the city centre with light and images. Below are some photographs taken during the technical preparations this evening (Thursday 3rd September 2015).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggsfTQ6NyxiREnHy3NBqSM1X0zlp9I6Yf8fzp0_9G-SsObxXaagl0rzd_MVGirYo_i_3YdtoufwebTcjOmnRwdcZHnDSrXNt5EhZah01zofyihv6gfqyu1E8CFel7rhGJGYYsPde86ThYQ/s1600/IMG_4302.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggsfTQ6NyxiREnHy3NBqSM1X0zlp9I6Yf8fzp0_9G-SsObxXaagl0rzd_MVGirYo_i_3YdtoufwebTcjOmnRwdcZHnDSrXNt5EhZah01zofyihv6gfqyu1E8CFel7rhGJGYYsPde86ThYQ/s400/IMG_4302.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br />Ian Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833879886906464563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707108060798151435.post-82384317152563190892015-08-23T16:27:00.000+01:002015-08-23T16:27:06.777+01:00Spiritual Armour<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">Life can give us a real battering. We are under assault from all sides. Pressures of family demands, particularly
felt by parents who by this stage of the school holidays can be gnawing at the
calendar for the school term to start again.
And felt by carers, who get tired and need respite from time to
time. Pressures of instant communication
raising expectations of a swift response, which is not often the best response
we could make, especially if greater reflection is needed. Financial pressures, with interest rates
having been so low for so long, finding savings are eroded after 7 or 8 years
of this, or if wage increases have not kept pace with inflation there may be no savings at all. Then there are competing
political claims to the best course for a country to take, and we seem to have
a paucity of real political vision at the moment. Slogans are mistaken for political vision and
proper analysis; political stones for bread.
Cathedral Square is a market place for faith, each group offering their
view of certainty, which leave me cold.
Shallowness in politics and faith, pressures in the workplace and home,
how do we hold our heads when all around us seem to be losing theirs? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">When we are facing the batterings of life the writer of the
Ephesians offered six pieces of armour </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(<a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=307263804" target="_blank">6:10-20</a>)</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is spiritual clarity and a coping
mechanism when the strains are there, how we can keep our spiritual head above
water.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">He starts with a belt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Clothes need to allow freedom of movement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Girding loins in the first century required
the tunic to be pulled up between the legs and tucked into the belt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then you can run, jump and have freedom of
movement that would otherwise not be possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The belt does more than protect from embarrassing wardrobe malfunctions,
it allows agility of movement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So the
belt of truth puts us in a place where we can manoeuvre and make decisions that
allow for movement and direction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Falsehood takes us into dead ends and stops us functioning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can be difficult to assess truth claims but
since 16<sup>th</sup> century we have had three classic tests in the Anglican
tradition: scripture, tradition and reason courtesy of an Anglican clergyman,
Richard Hooker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">Scripture is the writings of inspired reflection on
religious experience and how God has been sensed and understood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It carries the distillation of generations where
wisdom has been found to work and proved by experience – it works in life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that never comes without some kind of
cultural packaging and the story of that over the centuries is the tradition in
which we stand – it is the ‘how we got to where we are’, intellectually and the
story of the journey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we also know a
lot more, we have scientific discoveries and the wealth of a bank of knowledge
that has been accumulated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is termed
‘reason’ and this vast bank of knowledge also needs to be brought in to play so
that what we see as being true is grounded and adds up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Belt of Truth is understood through these
three classic pillars that need to relate to one another: scripture, tradition
and reason.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When competing claims come,
this belt will help us manoeuvre through them and assess them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will protect us from the shallow and the delusory.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">The breastplate of righteousness is a less obvious concept.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when we have truth tucked in, we are put
in the right place to assess what is just, what is sacred, what is the vision
of purpose that we seek to live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Righteousness is being in the right place from which to judge, from
which to plan, from which to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
the state of being in the truth, of living it and allowing it to shape who we
are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are a lot of emotional as
well as intellectual layers to that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">For shoes we have whatever makes us ready to proclaim the
gospel of peace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is rather vague
and open, but we don’t proclaim peace if we try to antagonize those around us;
we don’t proclaim peace by seeking to dominate and bully.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My attention was drawn to a very interesting
piece on the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jun/09/boarding-schools-bad-leaders-politicians-bullies-bumblers?CMP=share_btn_fb" target="_blank">Guardian website</a> this week by a psychotherapist, Nick Duffell,
about what he called ‘boarding syndrome’, the effect of being at boarding
school on the development of emotional intelligence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The writer was arguing that our politicians
who have come out of this stable have emotional handicaps which can limit their
effectiveness as leaders in how they cope with competing views.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We all have our character flaws or aspects of
our background that we struggle to overcome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Nick Duffell went on to contrast the ‘boarding syndrome’ background with
what he sees in Barak Obama.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Obama is
seen to break down diplomatic barriers where others reinforce them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nick Duffell gave the example of Barak Obama
meeting the Russian Prime Minister and allowing him to speak and tell his story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The effect was that having been heard he was
more open to enter into a conversation that led to a more peaceful solution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We proclaim peace by being peace, and the
power of listening before speaking never ceases to amaze me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I find hearing and knowing peoples stories
changes how I view them and therefore how any conversation goes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It also changes how they see me because they
it seems to matter to them that I know their story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They feel understood or at least heard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peace is about more than the absence of war;
it is a way of relating that is life giving and life enhancing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">For a shield we are given faith, so that we can deflect the
flaming arrows of evil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Faith is trust
and having confidence that we can rely on God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Having confidence in God is the root of hope because hope is not just
wishful thinking, it is that God’s purposes will not be thwarted, whatever the
short-term picture may look like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
know that our life has its origin in God and its goal lies there too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Death comes to us all and when it does we
trust, we have confidence through Jesus Christ, that our life is held by
God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is our hope, affirmed at every
funeral and in the face of every tragedy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Faith is a shield because it places the arrows and attacks in
perspective and saves from our spirit, our morale, being destroyed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">This moves us into the helmet of salvation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That comes through Jesus Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is the sign and reality that God does not
abandon the life we have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is
salvation from futility, from life just being a collection of days and each day
meaning there is less left. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Salvation
asserts that there is purpose behind, within and beyond life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are saved from pointlessness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">Our faith is never just a gazing into space and time; it has
bite now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sword, the tool of cutting
through so that purpose can be achieved is the Spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the Spirit is the word of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The supreme word of God is Jesus Christ, in
John’s gospel, the Word made flesh among us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So faith, trust, hope in God, living the truth in righteousness, leads
to action in how we live it and bring it to effect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It leads to what is just because by being in
the right place, righteousness, we are able to determine that.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">All of this is underpinned with prayer and sustained by prayer. Prayer is the lifeblood of truth, faith and hope, of the courage we need and the source of our inspiration.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">So the writer to the Ephesians uses the image of armour as a
metaphor for spiritual resilience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
belt of truth putting us in the right place so that we are able to proclaim the
gospel of peace, to be that peace, protected by the shield of faith from the
attacks of futility and trusting in the salvation that comes through Jesus
Christ, who calls us to follow him in lives of justice and truth, peace and
hope.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><o:p><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sermon preached in <a href="http://www.peterborough-stjohns.org.uk/" target="_blank">Peterborough Parish Church</a>, Sunday 23rd August 2015</span></i></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></div>
Ian Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833879886906464563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707108060798151435.post-91639313209920822582015-08-16T14:02:00.001+01:002015-08-16T14:02:35.325+01:00Praise and Thanksgiving<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga1L-r4nCsy4yn6e_KLsncIAwdzWOJ0Q8TfIzrw5zbk2r5z90nbA5fB9j_WfjsCqckSNnIqWChfYBZcEUHKpVNldbnlTFhlztQIDrE38nXEkA2A6zYg0V8lCBUPZ-uppIRFdigA9Frc92E/s1600/IMG_2887.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga1L-r4nCsy4yn6e_KLsncIAwdzWOJ0Q8TfIzrw5zbk2r5z90nbA5fB9j_WfjsCqckSNnIqWChfYBZcEUHKpVNldbnlTFhlztQIDrE38nXEkA2A6zYg0V8lCBUPZ-uppIRFdigA9Frc92E/s320/IMG_2887.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">I don’t use the Book of Common Prayer Communion order of
service very often. I have very mixed feelings about it. I don’t like the order it puts things, you
never quite get forgiven by it – it follows the words of absolution with a
reminder of our sinfulness – and its language can be convoluted, though at
other times it is pithy and direct. There
are elements I do like, though, and one of the texts which I particularly
appreciate is the words to accompany the giving of the bread and wine,
particularly the wine. A version of this
has been captured in the ‘Draw near with faith’ prayer. In the Book of Common Prayer version it ends
with a simple ‘And be thankful’. There is something direct and clear about that
which cuts through: ‘be thankful’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">Thanksgiving, being thankful, matters enormously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It changes us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It changes the way we see the world and helps
us remember that everything is gift and there is a gift in every
situation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was listening to a woman
talking on Radio 4 yesterday morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As
a child during the Second World War she had been captured by the Japanese and
taken to a prison camp.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The conditions
she described made me think who needs horror films.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The floor was sticky and it slowly dawned on
her that this was because of the dead bodies left around her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The story she told was appalling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It reminded me of reading Eric Lomax’s book
‘The Railway Man’ with his memories of being a prisoner of war building the
Burma railway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This woman then said that
her mother insisted that, even in that horrific place, they give thanks before
meals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She just wanted to eat, so scarce
was food, but her mother kept them focused on being thankful and raising their
spirits with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is thanksgiving,
unconditional and just the heart's response to being alive and having sustenance
to keep going.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">Human beings have a much deeper quality to their life than
other animals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That deeper quality is
the level of our consciousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are
not just the consequence of drives and desires, appetites and unrestrained
demands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can think, imagine, make
music and think in the abstract.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There
are levels which this is shared with some other animals, which seem to be able
to display cunning and calculation, can even be self-giving and put the needs
of their young before their own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the
level at which we can do this, with writing, poetry, music and philosophy gives
us a level of awareness that is more developed than any other creature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite what Douglas Adam’s ‘Hitchhiker’s
Guide to the Galaxy’ may say about dolphins. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thanksgiving is a way we connect and keep
connected with this deeper sense of being, of being human, of being human created
in the image and purpose of God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">I said last week that John doesn’t give us an account of the
Last Supper in his gospel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What he gives
us instead is this long teaching in chapter 6 about Jesus as the bread of life,
that eating his flesh and drinking his blood brings eternal life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are clear links with the Communion
sharing of bread and wine and this passage, though it is not spelt out in those
terms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By not narrowing down the focus
to one meal, to one way of communing in the highly ritualized format that we
know, John opens up wider possibilities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Can it be that every time we eat and drink we share in the great
thanksgiving?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well only if we are
mindful of what we are doing, if each meal becomes a moment of thanksgiving and
praise, of remembering that the food of life is connected to the source of
life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So it is that thanksgiving that
changes the focus of the meal, not just some kind of magic food.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">That doesn’t mean that we don’t need to gather together to
worship and feed on word and sacrament.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Privatised, isolated faith is not good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Which is not quite the same as saying there should be no choice, but it
needs to be corporate and open to all, not narrowed down to just a club of the
like minded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, being thankful in
all circumstances and especially when life gives precious little obvious cause
for it, becomes a moment when grace shines through and the situation is
transformed even if in a small way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
moment of grace becomes Eucharistic, thanksgiving, becomes a moment when we
feed on Christ as if on his flesh and blood.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">The letter to the Ephesians was written at a time of
persecution and great hardship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There
are hints of it in the reading we heard </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(Ephesians 5:15-20)</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The days are described as ‘evil’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather than trying to anaesthetize the pain
with alcohol and being drunk, or some other mood altering substance, the writer
encourages his readers to look deeper into chinks of sunlight that manage to
penetrate the darkness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Singing psalms,
hymns and spiritual songs are a way of being reminded of God’s unfailing
goodness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The lives of the persecuted
are not forgotten and abandoned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">On Friday our church calendar remembered the Franciscan
friar, Maximilian Kolbe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was
imprisoned by the Germans during the Second World War.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A prisoner escaped and so as a warning the
guards lined up ten men to be shot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One
pleaded for his life, that he had a family and begged to be spared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maximilian took his place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From his prison cell he sang songs of praise
and thanksgiving and drove his guards round the bend with fury that they
couldn’t break his spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He died
transformed with this grace. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">The broadcaster Gerald Priestland wrote a book in 1983,
based on a radio series, called ‘The case against God’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was an exploration of suffering and
pain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How can we believe in a God of
love and care and justice when there is so much suffering in the world?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when we look and see just how awful human
beings can be towards one another, not only 70 years ago in wartime, but today
with ISIS, trafficking of human misery, abuse and all forms of oppression and
violence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In his book, Gerald Priestland
told a story of a group of Jews who put God on trial in their concentration
camp.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The case was overwhelming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God was guilty of the worst crime, that of
permission, creating a world where all these things were possible, indeed
inevitable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The possibility means there
must be actuality and that permission gives us a darkness in God that we do not
understand; a darkness of our perception but also how it feels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the end of the trial, a Rabbi stood up and
said let us not forget that it is time for our evening prayers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they ended that day, as they did every
day, with prayers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The service at St
Martin-in-the-fields yesterday for the 70<sup>th</sup> anniversary of VJ Day
ended with the hymn ‘The day thou gavest Lord is ended’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The commentator introduced it by saying this
was the hymn sung at the end of each day in the prison camps, used as a rallying
cry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">Songs of praise in a death cell, songs of praise in a prison
camp, the best response to the problem of suffering and pain, is not clever
words and arguments, which quite frankly don’t cut it when the pain is raw, but
praise and thanksgiving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We find in it
and through it that we are affected and changed, lifted and transformed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lament, anger and sorrow, all have a place
and must be held.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are held on the
cross.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But so must praise and thanksgiving
because it reminds us that we are not just brute beasts that have no
understanding, but are created from gift and there is grace and gift in our
lives whatever it brings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not just in
the dark moments, but especially in the dark moments, and especially when we
find we don’t feel like it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is then,
as with the famous poem footprints, that we find there is only one set of
footprints on the sand and we are being carried.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">So the bread of life comes to us today through praise and
thanksgiving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is in that praise and
thanksgiving that bread is turned into the gift of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We share in the Communion of Christ’s body
and blood, in bread and wine, but it comes to us through praise and
thanksgiving because that is what the word Eucharist means.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Take this in remembrance that Christ died
for thee and be thankful.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><o:p><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sermon preached at <a href="http://www.peterborough-stjohns.org.uk/" target="_blank">Peterborough Parish Church</a>, Sunday 16th August 2015</span></i></o:p></span></div>
Ian Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833879886906464563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707108060798151435.post-61014304727204047722015-08-14T22:03:00.001+01:002015-08-14T22:03:54.293+01:00Up close with the neighbours - Knights ChamberI had the opportunity to climb up the scaffolding around the Knights Chamber this afternoon and got up close and personal with the statues and other features I usually only see from the ground.<br />
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The view wasn't bad from up there too.<br />
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Meanwhile, serious work is taking place inside The Knights Chamber and The new Education and Visitors Centre.<br />
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<br />Ian Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833879886906464563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707108060798151435.post-27092455814099810262015-08-09T13:12:00.004+01:002015-08-09T13:12:39.420+01:00A Cloud of Glory and A Cloud of Shame<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuZC2XKITTQTybo6NKGkZv9sjWxuWo9APpDTyGeEB0yDg10uycNDbGYDUy59V0tuh-nEfF90NxyQLGMRJTePVV6uThBVnSvR7Np11nyrY1U1uTFIZWbAgY_xkfuDTaPCcE3QjXSJ-9P8nx/s1600/1280px-Atomic_bombing_of_Japan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuZC2XKITTQTybo6NKGkZv9sjWxuWo9APpDTyGeEB0yDg10uycNDbGYDUy59V0tuh-nEfF90NxyQLGMRJTePVV6uThBVnSvR7Np11nyrY1U1uTFIZWbAgY_xkfuDTaPCcE3QjXSJ-9P8nx/s320/1280px-Atomic_bombing_of_Japan.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">This week we have remembered two clouds: a cloud of glory
and a cloud of shame. The cloud of glory
came on Thursday when the church calendar remembered the Transfiguration. This is the story in the gospels when Jesus
takes a few close companions up the mountain and while he is praying he is
transfigured, they see beyond the outer appearance to the inner glory of God within. It is couched in all sorts of imagery which
is reminiscent of Moses’ encounters with God on his mountainside: face and
clothes shining, and there is a cloud from which God speaks </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(Luke
9:28-36)</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were given a
cloud of glory, a symbol of mystery, awe and wonder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this moment of transfiguration on the mountainside,
we are invited to enter into the cloud of mystery with the disciples and see
something of the fullness of God’s glory revealed in Jesus Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">But history has given us a darker cloud on 6<sup>th</sup>
August too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thursday was also the 70<sup>th</sup>
anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few days later, 70 years ago today, a
second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
is estimated that 129,000 people died in those raids and many, many more
suffered life-changing injuries, the consequences still seen today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I mentioned this in various places and
services on Thursday and Friday I was struck by the response.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wasn't a particularly representative sample
but there was an audible revulsion and sense of horror that these bombs had
been used.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The awesome destructive power
triggered a sense that they must never be used again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I found this interesting given there had been debates back at the
General Election about Trident. This group, at least, have a strong
feeling that these weapons are evil and it is unthinkable to think of using
them, let alone to do so, knowing what we now know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve heard military strategists refer to
Trident as yesterday’s solution to yesterday’s problems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the technology cannot be uninvented, so we
have had to live in an age with a weapon no sane person would dream of
using.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And an insane one wouldn’t be
deterred by knowing others have it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">Speaking in a radio broadcast 70 years ago today, the US
President, Harry S Truman said:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">“I realize the tragic significance of the
atomic bomb ... It is an awful responsibility which has come to us ... We thank
God that it has come to us, instead of to our enemies; and we pray that He may
guide us to use it in His ways and for His purposes.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">That is a heady mix of facing the stark reality of what they
have done while thinking God thinks this is OK.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I don’t think there are purposes that can be linked to God that justify
the use of such weapons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are
dreamed up from evil intent and fail the test of just war theory: they are not
proportionate and noncombatants are not protected.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">So we have today two clouds, one of glory and one of
shame.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How do we allow the former to
remove the latter?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our readings gave us
some clues that are worth heeding.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">Firstly, our gospel reading has been working through, over
these last few weeks, the long passage in John’s gospel where Jesus feeds 5,000
people with very meagre provisions and then teaches about himself as the true
bread, the bread of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we heard
the third section today </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(John 6:35, 41-51)</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">; there will more
over the next two weeks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has
Eucharistic overtones to it; John does not give the Last Supper in his
gospel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is as close as he gets to
expounding a theology of Communion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John
doesn’t give us the Transfiguration either, but this teaching is close to
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Referring to Jesus as the bread of
life, he requires us to look more deeply into who he is, into who he brings to
be among us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John is after all the
gospel that begins with a long prologue expounding that ‘in the beginning was
the Word’ and that Word came among us ‘full of grace and truth’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bread of life is Christ among us,
inspiring, nourishing with his grace, with his love, with his transforming
presence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To understand what that means
to counter clouds of shame, the glory revealed gives a new commandment to love,
brings forgiveness and reconciliation, comes to save not condemn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a radical new way; radical because it
takes us back to the fundamental principles revealed in the Bible, often
overlooked or forgotten, but they are there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">The new commandment to love, the radical way of love and
peace, challenges us to look around and see beyond outer appearances to the
inner glory within each person, to see the gift and blessing that we are to one
another and are to be to one another, and the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we serve Christ in those we meet, as an
unknown guest, then we see his glory in them too and that should change how we
behave, because they too are beloved children of God, heirs of grace and the
reason for his coming; meeting them is to stand on holy ground.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Christ came to draw us into the heart of God,
that we may become divine, to quote an ancient writer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is within each of us the seed of glory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our life is special coming as it does from
the desire of God’s will and purpose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That should affect us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The divine
devotion at the Transfiguration changes how we see one another as well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">The reading from Ephesians </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(4:25-5:2)</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"> gave a
list of virtues to replace vices.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Falsehood replaced by truth, making no room for evil intent when angry,
honesty to replace theft, using our words to build up rather than breed hatred,
putting away bitterness and wrangling and being kind to one another
instead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Beneath all of this, holding it
up, is the appeal to be imitators of God, living in love as Christ has loved us
and gave himself for us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The way of
self-giving, gracious love is to triumph over hatred and death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cloud of glory is to triumph over the
cloud of shame.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">When there are threats, whether that is violence or hostile
words and bullying, a fight or flight response is triggered within us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Self preservation wants to find safety and
that might mean running for cover or making a stand where we either survive or
are overcome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are plenty of
passages in the Bible where protecting and entering the struggle to overcome
oppression is taken for granted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is
why we have a theory of Just War; a desire to limit when violence begets
violence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But even if a violent response
is assumed or required, it is not a place to stop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it is not to be the first response either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a better way and when we seek to be
a follower of the Way of Jesus we learn that love overcomes hatred and the
tools used for weapons are turned into implements to feed, to bring life rather
than death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Love triggers a very
different response.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">When Jesus says that he is the bread of life feeding on him,
following him, being filled with the grace that was within him and displayed on
the mountainside at the Transfiguration, changes how we are to behave if we are
to honour the glory within. The cloud of
glory is to dominate and drive away the cloud of shame.<span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sermon preached at <a href="http://www.peterborough-stjohns.org.uk/" target="_blank">Peterborough Parish Church</a>, Sunday 9th August 2015</span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><br /></span></div>
Ian Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833879886906464563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707108060798151435.post-30985080332760893192015-08-02T12:51:00.001+01:002015-08-02T12:51:50.158+01:00Longing for the bread of life has consequences for justice<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitLV0dxRHYLLddpl0QgmO_df228ugcvtoiI5t-16iY5cvgM7JN1b5m1dJcpdVt1KejPwVOWl5JCcZf2xR9plhLp8WvywQP_nCBXWB5BxPUXtt_OiLt09HmtNDOcXwMd_th6o_3_FnMe9-7/s1600/IMG_6841.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitLV0dxRHYLLddpl0QgmO_df228ugcvtoiI5t-16iY5cvgM7JN1b5m1dJcpdVt1KejPwVOWl5JCcZf2xR9plhLp8WvywQP_nCBXWB5BxPUXtt_OiLt09HmtNDOcXwMd_th6o_3_FnMe9-7/s320/IMG_6841.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">There are a couple of characters, advertising a 118
directory enquiries service, who pop up during programmes on ITV and have spoof
conversations with actors in old films.
One of these involves a man talking on a pay phone about bread and it is
clear that what he means is money. Bread
is the staple of life, a basic foodstuff and its slang link with money is that
money buys the basics to keep us alive.
We can’t survive without it. I
think people who have large reserves in the bank have difficulty knowing what
it’s like to live hand-to-mouth. In fact
if you find that you have more salary than month you don’t really know what
it’s like to have more month than salary where you have used up your cash long
before the next payday. Living
hand-to-mouth, or even worse not having enough, is very difficult to understand
for those of us who have a cushion to fall back on, however small.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">The more I look into money and the more I understand about
how it works the more I realize that it doesn’t really exist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our financial system has long since ceased to
be linked to anything tangible like gold or trading chickens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is based on promissory notes, the
perception of a market that a trading system is stable and will continue to
produce a very complex network of transactions that keep the illusion going.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are some goods in the background but
there is an awful lot that is illusory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
the trust in those promises is shaken then the system becomes unstable and can
unravel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have seen what that can look
like in Greece and our own banking crisis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Money is a very fickle and unstable place to rest our ultimate hopes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To borrow a phrase from the gospel reading, it
is a bread that perishes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In our
financial system money exists because we say it does.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As soon as we think it might not, like the
cartoon character Wiley E Coyote, we plummet into a dust ball at the base of
the cliff.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">In that gospel reading Jesus was a little irritated with the
people’s cupboard love </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(John 6:24-35)</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They also seem to be a bit dim.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He has just fed 5,000 of them with very
little more than a small boy’s lunch and they have the cheek to ask him what
signs he will do to prove himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rustling
up a meal for 5,000 with a few slices of bread and some fish fingers seems
pretty impressive to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Leaving that
aside, he sees through their Teletubby ‘again, again’ call.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His response is for them to look more deeply
into what is going on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His call is not
for a free lunch to fill their stomachs for one day, conjured up out of very
little, but for aspirations and striving for a higher purpose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who are we, who are you, what is the point
and is there an ultimate goal which gives life its purpose and point beyond the
day-to-day?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clearly Jesus’ answer is
that there is and we find it in all that we see in him and the life and hope he
brings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We need to read the story to the
end to find out exactly where that leads in the cross and resurrection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hope here means having confidence in what
that means.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there is in this story,
in this conversation following the feeding, a hint that the sustenance of life
can itself reveal the gift that is life and the grace that gives rise to it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">The irony here is that once we start to look into the
purpose and point, the bread that endures, we find that how we share the daily
bread, the cash, the fruit of our financial scheming, comes under the spotlight
too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Justice is how we live out the
truth that we believe and the Christian truth will never be content with an
‘I’m alright, you don’t count’ approach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If we want to know what that means this week’s news gave a few examples
to be going on with.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">We have seen yet more images of desperate migrants climbing
over fences in the pursuit of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a new life
and border controls stretched to cope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
hope that leads us to ask where these people are coming from and how we can
respond with humanity and compassion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
is complex, not least because mixed in with desperation there is trafficking
and corruption.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have to make sure
that services can cope and asylum and residency applications need proper
assessment, indeed need to be processed in the first place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is not an easy problem to solve and will
involve cooperation across Europe and probably further afield.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">By one of those strange coincidences those who are being
trafficked were also in our minds this week because on Thursday we remembered
William Wilberforce in our church calendar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He strove with others to end the slave trade 200 years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sadly there are new forms and on Friday new
sanctions came into force.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People find
ways in each generation to display their inhumanity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">More directly linked with bread, with money, the living wage
debates continue. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our government in
their budget has taken the living wage branding, which is currently £7.85 per
hour (£9.15 in London), and applied the term to an increased minimum wage,
which in April will be just £7.20.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
doesn’t take a maths genius to work out that is a cut.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And what is more it won’t apply to those
under 25. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wages need to be set at a fair
minimum otherwise the tax payer ends up subsidizing the true cost through
benefits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Responsible employers know
their workers need to be properly paid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is also not the job of the tax system to increase off-shore tax haven
profits by picking up the bill through benefits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These benefits have themselves just been cut,
so I foresee some big problems ahead for the poorest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The living wage brand is now a confused term
because it has been applied to different things, they are not the same, so I
think we now need to talk about a living income.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A living income is the just sharing of bread
which springs from being committed to pursuing the bread which does not perish.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">Behind all of this is an amazing generosity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the generosity that brings life into
being and sustains it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it sustains
it with a purpose and that purpose lies in the eternal giver, the source and
goal of everything that there is, God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When
we long for the bread of life that does not perish, we long for the hope that
is our life and which is truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When
truth is lived it is justice and that brings hope for everyone, especially the
poor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If our bread, our financial system
is to have any semblance of hope for the poor, which is written on the
foundation stones of the Kingdom of God, then it must bring justice, fairness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">Jesus’ redirecting the crowd’s attention away from a free
lunch to the bread of life, of hope that does not perish, should not be
mistaken for a shallow don’t worry about food.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is a warning not to devote our energies to storing up riches which
are of no lasting value.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Money, rich
bounty are tools for a purpose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
bread which does not perish is fundamentally linked with the purposes of God
and those require the hungry to be fed, the homeless sheltered, the sick
visited and healed, the oppressed set free and good news to be lived in all its
forms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That should sound familiar
because it is the passage of Isaiah that Jesus read in the Synagogue at the
beginning of his ministry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was his
manifesto announcement </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(Luke 4:16-21)</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The spiritual hope has some very physical consequences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The physical likewise has spiritual roots
too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">Come to Christ the living bread and you will be amazed how
this banquet feeds you and everyone else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Longing for the bread of life has consequences for justice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><o:p><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sermon preached in <a href="http://www.peterborough-cathedral.org.uk/" target="_blank">Peterborough Cathedral</a>, Sunday 2nd August 2015</span></i></o:p></span></div>
Ian Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833879886906464563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707108060798151435.post-20663776362324675002015-07-26T14:26:00.001+01:002015-07-26T14:26:47.454+01:00Everything is gift<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidwQLsaAgt_27yGoZtQ54AeXKg47KZVC3MigAxkGhF3NiIrfzkvmigrSQ4hxArl_3SO7SY4zeDc5m8ACHqp9ROpraDYbhkwFDe6YkoMtEKPGDlBC3GDtMvRaB3dPfDwsLS8CW-O69SxFx9/s1600/IMG_2870.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidwQLsaAgt_27yGoZtQ54AeXKg47KZVC3MigAxkGhF3NiIrfzkvmigrSQ4hxArl_3SO7SY4zeDc5m8ACHqp9ROpraDYbhkwFDe6YkoMtEKPGDlBC3GDtMvRaB3dPfDwsLS8CW-O69SxFx9/s320/IMG_2870.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">There are one or two key themes in the Bible and how we see
everything rests on these key concepts.
For the Archbishop of Canterbury, one of these is reconciliation and he
has made this one of his priorities for his tenure in office. Christ came to reconcile us to God and to one
another. He brings peace and in that
peace we live peace. Justin Welby wants
us to live this reconciling love and his hope is that focusing on this will
change the church and affect the world.
To my mind he is right.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">Behind this is another key idea, which I think is
foundational.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is that of gift, of
grace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything is gift.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We only exist because God chose to make it
happen as a gift, out of his generous love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We see how exceptional life is through the various space explorations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a probe around Pluto at the moment
and it has sent back spectacular images.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> J</span>ournalists are fascinated with whether they will find signs of
life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They may, they may not, but the
more we see of these planets and other orbiting masses, the more remarkable and
incredible we see our planet to be with its ability to enable life to emerge
and to support it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That there is
something rather than nothing is incredible and the result of gift.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">There is a prayer used in Morning Prayer that reminds us
that the night is passed and the day lies open before us, and we rejoice in the
gift of this new day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems to be
very popular to ridicule politicians who own up to having a faith in God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tim Fallon, the new leader of the Liberal
Democrats, has been on the receiving end of this recently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having faith means that you are someone who
believes in gift and is thankful for that gift.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Out of this gift a great deal flows, but the opposite of it is to
believe that life is random and ultimately pointless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All sorts can flow from that, but at its core
it is not very hopeful. I feel sorry for the sneerers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">Our readings were full of gift and grace. The story of Elisha
feeding 100 people </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(2 Kings 4:42-44)</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"> prefigured Jesus’
feeding of the 5,000, which we heard about in our gospel reading.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The clear message about Jesus is that not
only can he tick the box of performing wonders, he does it and some – not 100
hungry people, but 5,000 are fed </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(John 6:1-21)</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He takes the meagre provisions of a small
boy’s lunch and turns them into a banquet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The gift of the God who makes everything out of nothing is that there is
no situation that cannot be transformed by gift, by grace, being let loose.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">The reading from Ephesians </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(<a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=304916523" target="_blank">3:14-21</a>)</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"> was a
beautiful song of praise and thanksgiving to God praying for strength in our
inner being, that Christ may so dwell in our hearts, that we will be rooted and
grounded in love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This love will fill us
with nothing less than the fullness of God, accomplishing abundantly far more
than we can ask or imagine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This all
comes from gift, from grace, pouring, flowing from God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is generosity which cannot stay contained
or shut inside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has to flow and it
changes us; it changes everything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
becomes the reconciliation where that is needed, it becomes the life that
blesses, it refreshes with energy and new life, it is the opening for
evangelism and mission.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">I think a lot of people are quite frightened by the words
evangelism and mission.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have become
buzzwords but they can conjure up all sorts of different things depending on
what you have seen those labels attached to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And around the city centre we see some pretty bad examples of shouting
and aggressive behaviour in the name of evangelism and mission.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a turn off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But at its root sharing the faith that
inspires us and gives us hope is really rather simple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It involves making friends and being
friendly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We meet people; treat them
with the love and value which everyone deserves by virtue of being a fellow
beloved child of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They too are the
fruit of gift and grace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And as we get
to know them the faith that is the focus of who we are shines through and can
be shared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can be as simple as asking
if they think life is fundamentally pointless or has a point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That point lies with God who doesn’t stay
aloof, but meets us, supremely in everything we see in the life, death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In trying
to be more like him we become one of his disciples and meet each week to be
renewed in grace, as we share together in bread and wine, coffee and Jaffa
cakes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The last two don’t appear in the
Bible, but they should.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What could be a
better sign of gift and grace than a small chocolate covered sponge cake with
jam inside it!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>May be clotted cream and
scone…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">None of this is rocket science, but it can prove to be quite
elusive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How doe we fare here?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When people come through the doors, do we
greet them with the love and value they deserve as fellow fruit of God’s gift
and grace?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do we treat one another like
that?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we are really honest about
this, we will find that there are times when we do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is generous caring; there is welcome
and acceptance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there are also times
when we don’t manage it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We do have a
reputation of not always being a happy place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That’s not good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have to turn
down the volume on the grumps and bad temper and turn it up on the grace, on
the love, on the remembering that the person in front of us is a fellow beloved
child of God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">There are times when this is difficult, not least because
some people make it hard to respond that way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Like Harry Potter combatting the Dementors we have to conjure up our
patronus, whatever reminds us of hope, grace and love so that we can be
these.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes we are caught off
guard, absorbed in another task, with challenges we have to get sorted and the
request or comment comes at us what feels like sideways and there is a side-on
collision that shunts us across the road like in a high speed car chase in a
film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How we respond in a crash may say
quite a lot about us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have been
involved in a head on collision and I didn’t get out and stab the person who
smashed into me, like happened recently in West Sussex.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Few of us would.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is an extreme response.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there are degrees of aggression and
degrees of crash.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we find it hard to
be gracious when there are sudden challenges then we may need help, at the most
extreme with anger management, or it may be that public facing roles are not
for us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">I’ve been the vicar of a church that had a lot of angry
people in it and it was not pleasant at times and it was destructive of
mission.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People looked and said if that
is how Christians treat one another then you can count me out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I went to a funeral tea in the early days in
that parish and someone asked me if I’d met the witches yet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I looked puzzled she said ‘you’ll find
out’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not a good reputation and it takes
a lot to overcome it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can happen but
only if the gift, the grace of God dwells in us so much that we are filled with
the life and love of Christ. Without that we have no good news to share.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are not good news to share.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We cannot be the agents of the reconciling love
that we see and proclaim in Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Archbishop’s priority for reconciliation will only happen if it is rooted and
grounded in grace, in gift, in love.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">This church is not unique is struggling with this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A lot do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In fact I think our culture struggles with the realities of
community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Communities are made up of
people who are different, have their joys and injuries, their raw nerves which
if you wait long enough someone will find and irritate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Community, in an age of individual consumer
choice that sells the lie of designing your own life to tailor fit you, does
not flow easily.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We need to work at
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That work begins inside us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It begins with seeking to be so filled with
the grace and gift, the love and life of God in Christ, that we become people
who honour, respect and value those we meet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That becomes a moment of blessing for them and in the peace the gospel
can be shared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can’t be shared
without it and indeed won’t be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">So take away the reading sheet today and read
the passage from Ephesians over and over again.
Pray it and ask God for the gift that is the love of Christ that
surpasses knowledge and which can accomplish abundantly far more than we can
ask or imagine. </span><!--EndFragment--><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sermon preached at <i><a href="http://www.peterborough-stjohns.org.uk/" target="_blank">Peterborough Parish Church</a></i>, Sunday 26th July 2015</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span>Ian Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833879886906464563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707108060798151435.post-18713250814193845972015-07-22T10:42:00.000+01:002015-07-22T10:42:02.066+01:00Women Bishops - Don't expect too much<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Today in Canterbury Cathedral <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33606593" target="_blank">Rachel Treweek</a> will be consecrated as the first female Diocesan Bishop in the Church of England - for Gloucester. The total is currently at 6 and my prediction at the beginning of the year that there would be 5 has already been surpassed, I am pleased to say. There are more vacancies where a woman nomination would be a very likely outcome.<br />
<br />
The media seem to be very interested in these appointments, though the novelty factor is reducing and so it should. This morning on the Today programme on Radio 4 Rachel Treweek was asked what difference women will make. It's a difficult question to answer and I would urge caution in expecting too much of them.<br />
<br />
I have worked with women colleagues in a variety of church settings and I have found that this enriched ministry through the breadth of experience and perspective it brought. Quite simply their contribution is that they were women and not men and there are differences through differences of life experience which feed into decision making and approach. These are beneficial.<br />
<br />
The 'but' is that some of the women I have worked with have been outstanding and some have been okay-ish and some have been a walking disaster. The same has been the case with the men I have worked with. There is a distribution of abilities and competencies and we should not be surprised to find this amongst women and men equally.<br />
<br />
So today I rejoice that the 'new normality' is taking shape. But don't expect too much - some will be brilliant and some will not. The overall effect though will be definitely blessing, life giving, through the balance and breadth of perspective that will flow.<br />
<br />
<br />Ian Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833879886906464563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707108060798151435.post-5023596916605136212015-06-28T18:01:00.000+01:002015-06-28T18:01:01.102+01:00Head in the Chapel, Feet Outside<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">A few weeks ago I went to Canterbury for a conference
marking the 800<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the issuing of Magna Carta in 1215. I never studied Magna Carta at school, so I
have had to read up on it and it has caught my imagination. While I was there I took the opportunity to
see the grave of Archbishop Stephen Langton, who was influential in it coming
to fruition. His grave is not easy to
find, hidden in a chapel in the south transept.
Langton was a scholar, who was part of a school of thought in Paris that
was involved in disseminating ideas about what it means to be a good king, what
just rule should look like. He drew on
his biblical study of the prophets calling kings to account. He was also familiar with charters of earlier
kings which set out rights and responsibilities for good government. Langton was instrumental in mediating between
King John and the barons in bringing the king to see that the charter had to be
issued. His thinking is reflected in it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">Stephen Langton’s tomb is interesting because of a twist of
history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Originally occupying the
central position in the Chapel of St Michael in Canterbury Cathedral it got
moved because a wealthy woman wanted the spot for her tomb, so Langton was
moved under the altar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The East Wall was
rebuilt and the chapel shortened bizarrely leaving his head in the chapel and
his feet poking through the wall outside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You can see this in the two pictures on the back of the service
sheet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having your head in the chapel
and your feet outside is a good model of this church’s ministry in the heart of
this city centre.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a good model for
a church named after John the Baptist and also in this anniversary year for
Magna Carta and we think about the church’s influence on it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">A lot has been said about Magna Carta over the last few
weeks, not all of it accurate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
important because it is a marker on the long journey to democracy, but it is
not a very democratic document, not exactly the charter of liberties people
credit it with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What it did establish
was that the king was subject to the law and that taxes should only be levied
with the agreement of what became parliament.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Justice is bigger than the individual monarch or ruler, bigger than
whoever happens to be in power at a given time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As a charter, the 1215 Magna Carta was abandoned within months, but it
came back and became an important bargaining chip for the young King Henry III and
his advisors when wanting to persuade the barons to fall in with him rather
than the French prince who was after the throne.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was revised to remove the difficult bits
and the fourth edition, issued in 1225, is the one that really sets the tone for
the future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a principle it proved
inspirational around the world, not least for the American Bill of Rights.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">In negotiating Magna Carta, Archbishop Langton knew how to
keep his powder dry until the moment was right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He kept his distance formally from earlier charters, though he may well
have provided much of the thinking and encouragement for it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He struck decisively just before Runnymede,
getting protection for the church set out clearly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although this had already been agreed in a
charter the previous year, he was skillful in how he brought it in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is a good example of how to do
politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He knew what he wanted, he had
a vision of what good government should look like, and he knew to keep his cool
until the time was right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had his
head in the chapel and his feet outside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Church of England can learn a lot when engaging in politics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">Having our head in the chapel means that we put prayer and reflection
on life and faith as our number one priority.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It takes precedence over everything else, and it shapes how we approach
everything else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It sets our
agenda.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it does not exist in a
fantasy world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our feet are to be
outside, where life is real and where it makes a difference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyone who thinks the church shouldn’t be
involved in politics hasn’t read the bible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They don’t understand what it means to be named after John the Baptist,
who was hardly silent on calling rulers to account for their actions and abuses
of power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John the Baptist proclaimed
the Kingdom of God and was not afraid to say uncomfortable things to miscreant
rulers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those who want churches to be
quiet usually don’t like what they are saying, which it has to be said is not a
view that David Cameron has taken.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is
happy if he disagrees to say so and then the onus is on those who challenge him
to come up with the arguments to back up whatever campaign they are launching.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">Many of the issues that we face today are actually very
difficult circles to square.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For some
things there are no easy answers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How
Europe should respond to boatloads of migrants crossing stretches of water is
not straightforward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can begin though
by remembering that they are people who are desperate and have made incredible
journeys in the pursuit of a new life away from horrors unbearable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have been reminded again what comes of
what some of those horrors are with the events in Tunisia and France.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many have been trafficked, some even phoning
for help from inside a lorry outside our city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The root cause of their migrating lies in the countries they leave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many of the ethical issues that we face today
don’t lend themselves to easy soundbites, which makes communicating difficult
in a media dominated age.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We saw this
with the mitochondrial DNA debates earlier in the year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyone who aims to speak on behalf of the
church needs to work on how they are going to present their case, what the
person who led my media training a number of years ago termed as ‘the
Sun-reader’s headline’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having our feet
outside means we have to do a great deal of research before commenting and the
communicating needs to be clear what we see <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the central issue as being, finding an
accessible way in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It doesn’t mean we
shouldn’t comment but making sure we have something valid to say and that it is
said clearly matters enormously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we
won’t have anything distinctive to say unless it stems from a faith that is
rooted on prayerful reflection; head in the chapel and feet outside.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">These last few days have seen some atrocious acts and it is
natural to feel nervous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One danger is
to blame all religious people for violence and want a ‘neutral’ world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is a delusion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no such thing as neutral, nothing
comes values free.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we proclaim
justice we base this on what we see as being true, right, how things should
be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is always based on an
underlying belief about who we are, who you are and how we should live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If our faith doesn’t give us that it is in
the words of the Epistle to James useless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Faith without works is dead. But works without a faith, without a
guiding philosophy, is routeless and directionless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It floats free.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Faith that is true will be just, will be
honouring and will be life-giving; it will bless.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">Sitting, as this church does, in the middle of the city
square we have a special vocation to proclaim faith as the inspiration for
life; that blesses and proclaims justice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We are called to follow John the Baptist in prophetical witness that calls
to follow God, prepares for his Kingdom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We are called to have our head in the chapel and our feet outside.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><o:p><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sermon preached in <a href="http://www.peterborough-stjohns.org.uk/" target="_blank">Peterborough Parish Church</a>, Sunday 28th June 2015</span></i></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></div>
Ian Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833879886906464563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707108060798151435.post-58056500204290986622015-06-19T09:48:00.000+01:002015-06-20T16:48:02.235+01:00How to build a tiltyardAs part of the 2015 <a href="http://peterborough.temp.glow-internet.com/143/section.aspx/142/peterborough_heritage_festival_2015" target="_blank">Heritage Festival</a>, a tiltyard is being built in front of <a href="http://www.peterborough-cathedral.org.uk/" target="_blank">Peterborough Cathedral</a>. It will host jousts over the weekend, billed as the first in a city centre for 500 years. It promises to be a spectacular show.<br />
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It has been interesting to watch the tiltyard being created over the last 24 hours, so below is a pictorial guide to how to build one.<br />
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<br />Ian Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833879886906464563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707108060798151435.post-53637539420206200702015-06-13T11:05:00.000+01:002015-06-13T12:57:32.320+01:00Significant Anniversaries<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">This year will see
a number of significant anniversaries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They will all be marked in the <a href="http://www.peterborough-cathedral.org.uk/" target="_blank">Cathedral</a> in a variety of ways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On 15<sup>th</sup> June our attention will be
directed to a meadow at Runnymede where King John was forced by the barons to
issue the Great Charter, which became known as Magna Carta.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We will observe this as part of the Heritage
Festival weekend (19-21 June), as well as it having been the theme for the
Rutland Service back in March.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
September we will jump nearly 700 years to 1940 and this year being the 75<sup>th</sup>
anniversary of the Battle of Britain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This is a significant occasion for the RAF and there will be a regional
service to remember this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That service
usually takes place each year in <a href="http://www.peterborough-stjohns.org.uk/" target="_blank">St John’s Church</a>, where I am also vicar, but
this year the Cathedral will host a larger scale commemoration. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The following month we will mark local student,
Edith Cavell, who as a nurse was shot by the Germans in 1915 for aiding Allied
servicemen to escape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again the
Cathedral will host special commemorations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">The challenge in
all events in the Cathedral is to relate the story of the commemoration to the
Christian story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are not just here to
paint a holy gloss over whatever anniversary anyone might bring to us to mark.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That would be to capitulate the faith that
challenges and inspires us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It always
offers something of blessing to honour but also a yardstick to measure against
the events to see where we can learn and rededicate ourselves to live
differently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The standards of justice
and righteousness always bring a call to repentance and acknowledgement of our
frailty and fallible nature.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Magna Carta</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"> has become a banner of democracy and the 800<sup>th</sup>
anniversary of it being sealed at Runnymede, near Windsor, has captured the
imagination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has inspired charters of
rights and good government around the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is seen as the great standard for our own government to aspire
to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was forced on a reluctant king,
who ditched it within months.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It came
back though, and version four is the one that has stood the test of time,
sealed in 1225.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Influential in the
framing of Magna Carta was the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, and
he based his contributions on the biblical principles of just kings who rule
for the benefit and flourishing of their people, not their oppression.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He also wanted to protect the church from the
king’s medaling and interference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
first principle that the English Church should be free was a late entry in the charter, not in earlier drafts. The version in the cartulary of Peterborough abbey,
held by the Society of Antiquaries in London, seems to reflect an earlier version.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It should be noted that
Magna Carta was sealed just 40 years after King John’s father, Henry II, had
been responsible for the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket in 1170 and
Canterbury Cathedral was being rebuilt at the time of Magna Carta following a
fire, the climactic focus of the building being Thomas’ shrine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stephen Langton was instrumental in the
design of Becket’s tomb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Revenge really
is a dish best served cold and decisively: the clear message is don’t mess with
the church’, and Langton seems to have kept his powder dry making his move when the time was right. The church had already been granted its freedoms but there was in Magna Carta a cementing of ancient understandings of what it meant to be a good king. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Incidentally I still get a thrill
out of the thought that the painted ceiling in the nave of Peterborough is
probably how the ceiling of Canterbury would have looked prior to the fire there
in 1174 and not only did we have a reliquary and chapel for Becket, but the
building forms a link too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Benedict, the
Abbot of Peterborough at the time the ceiling was constructed, had been a monk
at Canterbury and this may have inspired the décor<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5707108060798151435#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Magna Carta was
not quite the bill of rights at the time it was issued that it is assumed to be,
though its scope has been expanded over the centuries as freedoms have become
more universal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> The 1215 version</span> protects the free,
which did not include serfs and others in feudal bondage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But as the freedoms we now take for granted increased
over the centuries, the protections for ‘freemen’ have been expanded, and also
extended to include women in the 20<sup>th</sup> century as emancipation
increased. The 1225 version is addressed to everyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That justice will be free of
corruption, and not denied or delayed, is a foundational principle found in
clause 40.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">“To
no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay, right or justice”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5707108060798151435#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">There are provisions
for inheritance and for widows, taxes will only be imposed by the agreement of
parliament, liberties of certain cities are set out, goods are to be paid for
and not extracted by menaces, weights and measures are to be standardized so
that people are not cheated, trial by jury is enshrined in law and there is something
strange about fishing on the rivers Thames and Medway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we read the Old Testament books of Amos
and Hosea we can find the justice behind these clauses set out and their
infringements castigated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Magna Carta
enshrines some foundational biblical notions of ‘doing justly, loving mercy and
walking humbly with God’ (Micah 6:8).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">We have travelled
a considerable distance since 1215 and the later versions of Magna Carta.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
have gone from a notion of the Divine Right of Kings to a constitutional
monarchy with governments being elected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Magna Carta was a landmark in the journey setting out that even the king
was subject to his laws, though that has not always been obvious, and that taxes are only to be levied with the agreement of Parliament.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This year is also an election year where the
sovereignty of the people is demonstrated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We have chosen to remove monarchs in the past (Charles I, James II,
Edward VIII) and even decided to appoint others overriding direct succession
(Victoria), so our Queen occupies the throne by consent. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once we pick at the threads of absolute
monarchy and dictatorship, democracy is inevitable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Magna Carta sets out some key principles for
democratic and just government. Even the strange references to fish weirs are about the protection of free movement of trade.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">The Battle of Britain</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"> in 1940 was a defining moment in the RAF’s history,
even though it didn’t exist as such then.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Their 100<sup>th</sup> birthday will coincide with our 900<sup>th</sup>
anniversary celebrations of the rebuilding of the present Cathedral structure
in 2018.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Battle of Britain Sunday is for
the RAF a significant date that stands alongside 11<sup>th</sup> November.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is sometimes said that the first duty of
government is defence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From the Bible,
the first duty of government is justice, which is why Magna Carta matters so
much to us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But justice requires
security for it to be maintained, so defence from aggression is linked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a child, my mother-in-law recalled seeing
dog fights overhead in Kent and watching the planes setting off and some
returning to airfields nearby.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a
memory that stayed with her for the rest of her life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The airborne battle was touch and go, and the
outcome could easily have been different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>War brings courageous sacrifice, the putting of lives on the line in the
hope of achieving liberation and the defence of freedom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cost is all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is never to be celebrated, always marked
with a somber reflection on what has been required, even though we acknowledge
the bravery and self-sacrifice of those who rose to the hour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That it came to this is a moment best marked
by silence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Remembrance
Services in the Cathedral, as in all churches, are moments when the struggles
and conflicts of now are placed under the searing judgment of the eternal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the centre of the Cathedral hangs George
Pace and Frank Roper’s crucifix with the Latin motto of the Carthusian order
underneath, ‘Stat Crux Dum Volvitur Orbis’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This translates as ‘The cross stands while the world turns’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our faith is a still point around which so
much moves and rushes, clamours and struggles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We crucify so many in the process and the Christ there catches the
broken, twisted lives that are destroyed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It brings them to redemption and shines out a hope of a new tomorrow
where peace and justice reign so that all can flourish.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">Edith Cavell</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"> attended a school in Laurel Court, the large house
on the western side of the cloisters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Her lamp hangs on a pillar in the south aisle of the nave, above a
memorial to her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although she is buried
in the grounds of Norwich Cathedral, formative years were spent in the shadow
and shelter of Peterborough when she attended the school briefly in the 1880s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She is remembered for treating the wounded of
both sides of the First World War.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Humanity displayed amidst the hatred and violence of warfare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the drives for Just War Theory is to
bring restraint and limitations to the horrors of war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It too finds its roots in the Bible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Edith Cavell was the daughter of an Anglican
clergyman from Norfolk.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">She was arrested
on 3<sup>rd</sup> August 1915 and charged with harbouring Allied soldiers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At 7am on 12<sup>th</sup> October she was
executed by firing squad at Tir national shooting range in Schaerbeek, Belgium.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The night before her death her words to the
chaplain who took her communion have become inspirational and are recorded on
her memorial near St Martin-in-the-Fields in London:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">“Patriotism
is not enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I must have no hatred or
bitterness towards anyone.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">This is a counter
to the ‘my country right or wrong’ patriotism that drives divisions and builds
conflict.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It holds out the hope of
reconciliation when the guns fall silent and the prospect of building a new
peace where justice has space to flourish.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;">The central theme
holding these major commemorations together through this year is that of the
real primary purpose of government: the upholding and pursuit of justice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Keeping these anniversaries is a moment to
recall what sustains this and the cost when it is threatened or attacked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">This is an amended version of an article in the 2015 <a href="http://www.peterborough-cathedral.org.uk/" target="_blank">Peterborough Cathedral </a>Friends' Journal, correcting some errors in the one submitted for publication, for which I apologise.</span></i></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></i></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5707108060798151435#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> Paul Binski ‘Peterborough Cathedral 2001-2006 from Devastation to
Restoration’ Paul Holberton Publishing 2006 page 79<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5707108060798151435#_ednref2" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> David Carpenter ‘Magna Carter’ Penguin Books 2015 page 53<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Ian Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833879886906464563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707108060798151435.post-46402117219408114142015-06-04T19:01:00.001+01:002015-06-04T19:01:40.153+01:00Jesus in my porridge - Corpus Christi<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgomEvDw9nL5Z7LrlrvPX4X4yTLCXiR8MPqkCpnbxSkHYN55Wb7hryKOKd4jjq9fD45rUPshpBwTtC-NR-q4UX3Gbr2hXFyIyc8AVtfcrVjmd7ucSpArLvtZw7FoGymCYaI3qMVfBzD9A4-/s1600/IMG_6171.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgomEvDw9nL5Z7LrlrvPX4X4yTLCXiR8MPqkCpnbxSkHYN55Wb7hryKOKd4jjq9fD45rUPshpBwTtC-NR-q4UX3Gbr2hXFyIyc8AVtfcrVjmd7ucSpArLvtZw7FoGymCYaI3qMVfBzD9A4-/s320/IMG_6171.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">I need to acknowledge my wife’s brother for this, because he
posted the link on Facebook and it rather set my mind off on this train of
thought. The tantalizing title was ‘<a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/355ogp/statistically_speaking_is_there_any_isaac_newton/" target="_blank">Is there any Isaac Newton in my bowl of porridge?</a>’
I don’t know why Isaac Newton or a bowl of porridge were chosen, but
they catch the attention. The question
is based on how frequently the cells in our body are renewed, that we are
largely water and the food we take in, which forms the raw ingredients for atom
and cell structure, is also largely water.
The amount of water that passes through us is enormous and the cycle of
water is such that it moves round the world.
We are what we eat, literally.
Due to how our bodies replenish and replace atoms all the time – skin
flakes off, nails and hair grow, other cells are replaced – and use the food we
eat to do this, basically atoms get moved about and are sometimes part of you
and sometimes part of me and sometimes part of the carrots on your plate. The baby you is not atomically the same you
as the older you is and the older you are, the more stuff has been recycled.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">One answer, after some very big number maths, is that there
will be about 10 million atoms of Isaac Newton in every ounce of what you
eat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The claim is that the same is true
of any other person who has ever lived. So the theory is that your bowl of
porridge, or pie, or whatever you are planning on having for tea, contains the
elements that made up Isaac Newton and pretty much every other person who has
ever lived.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bon Apetite! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever the actual scale of this, there does
seem to be some sharing of atoms between people at different stages of their
lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And of course that would include
Jesus, because he was a real person of flesh and blood, and as he lived and
grew his atoms will have changed just like ours do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now this idea took me on an interesting
thought journey.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">When Jesus says ‘this is my body’, ‘this is my blood’, I
don’t think he actually meant it like this, but, if this is all true, there is
a sense in which it really could be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
was referring to the bread and wine at the Last Supper which have become this
central act of worship, the Eucharist, and we repeat his words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Made of physical food, they are just like my
porridge and contain atoms which have been recycled from all sorts of other
things and people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of those people
will have been good and some not so, even evil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Since water makes up so much of us and that water moves around the world,
who knows who we are eating with this bread and wine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">The sharing of atoms means that we are fundamentally linked
in our humanity, in our physicality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
turn out to be even closer than being metaphorical brothers and sisters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are structurally linked!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we say that this Eucharist binds us
together, is a vehicle of unity, then it now has a layer to it that really does
link us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we also look at this at
another level, focusing our communing on Jesus Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To limit that, or hone in on one person in
particular, something else needs to take place, beyond the surface physicality.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">Here, the crucial element is Christ’s words to ‘do this in
remembrance of me’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we take this
food, we retell the story of Jesus, we retell his life, his teaching, his call,
his transforming love, his death, his resurrection, his ascension and the gift
of the Holy Spirit to continue to guide and inspire us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We bring into the present all that he meant
and continues to mean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We make his story
the defining story for everything we do, not least eating the elements which
will become us, the atoms which will form the cellular structure of our bodies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is in this Eucharistic act a declared
intention that we want to be shaped and moulded, guided and to live like
Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We take on the food that will
become us and say may these elements form us into the likeness of Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To do that, we retell his story.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">And because we are sharing the elements of Christ and the
elements of all humanity, or at least a shared humanity, we are united in this
sacrament in a way that I don’t think I had really thought about in these terms
previously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We share the physical atoms
that make up our world, our life, our shared life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are the same elements that make up the
people who work for good and those who work for evil, just like Jesus shared
that fallen humanity in becoming one of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He did not claim a special exemption here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So in him the physical elements are blessed
with a holiness that raises us to the throne of God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">A 4<sup>th</sup> century Bishop of Alexandria, St
Athenasius, talked of Christ sharing in our life that we may share in the
divine life: ‘Christ became human so that we may become divine’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this meal we say that what it means to be
human is to share in the created order of the universe, made with the love and
purpose of God, and touched by the blessing of Christ.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">So take this bread and wine in remembrance of Christ, eat
and drink, and be thankful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You are
sharing the body and blood of Christ, in the Corpus Christi, of humanity, of
the call to grow in his likeness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As you
eat the elements that made him may the sharing of his story make you grow in
his likeness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><o:p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Sermon preached in <a href="http://www.peterborough-cathedral.org.uk/" target="_blank">Peterborough Cathedral </a>for Corpus Christi, Thursday 4th June 2015</i></span></o:p></span></div>
Ian Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833879886906464563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707108060798151435.post-13531606640828008862015-05-31T17:50:00.001+01:002015-05-31T17:50:30.312+01:00Dynamic Trinity: labelling experience of God<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1lL0AHrlyUACU7Gjx5OPNbRiMIE-bB5WL0NJlhJRuA20tIS5ZDtPP7xqUKWfjwG5ji_NgnHAq0cMaNX8Bia8yrEhT23OnVgFoEv5f-ukWxDA4EMR9zh7GVyguvjybz_00eRlQj4f67tqk/s1600/CGVh1C5XEAEgvsu.jpg-large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1lL0AHrlyUACU7Gjx5OPNbRiMIE-bB5WL0NJlhJRuA20tIS5ZDtPP7xqUKWfjwG5ji_NgnHAq0cMaNX8Bia8yrEhT23OnVgFoEv5f-ukWxDA4EMR9zh7GVyguvjybz_00eRlQj4f67tqk/s1600/CGVh1C5XEAEgvsu.jpg-large.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">If you were asked to draw a picture of God, what would it
look like? How do you imagine God when
you pray or think about the eternal and the divine? This week’s pew sheet bulletin has an image
on the back depicting God as three: an old man and a young man (both with
beards), and a dove. Images of God and
religious figures have been controversial over recent years with the
cartoonists in Holland and France and their satirical depictions which were seen
by many Muslims as being an attack on their faith. Islam doesn’t as such ban images of Muhammad,
but there is a prohibition against idolatry, and that is shared with all the
Abrahamic faiths, Christianity included.
The reason for this is quite simple.
God is bigger than any image we can create and the act of creating one
can limit how we see God. There is also
the danger that we worship the image and forget what it is supposed to point
to: the sign replaces the destination. For
us there is no ban on images and statues as such, and there is a distinction
between works of art and idols, but there is always a danger that the boundary
can be crossed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">If one of the objections to creating idols is that we box
God in and limit what by definition is beyond our imagination, then we also
need to be careful with the words we use.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>These can be equally problematic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Words are spoken symbols we use to convey thoughts, understandings and
meaning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are shaped by our culture,
by the things we think it is important to say and communicate, by all the
experiences that have shaped how we understand the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the mix of this is how we perceive
revelation, God making known the deepest self of the divine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because we feel we can relate to this, we
want to use personal language, but that immediately gets us into deep
water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As soon as we plump for ‘he’ we
have ruled out half of the population and that is before we get into the
complexities of what gender is really like from the inside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So today, Trinity Sunday, the day we
celebrate our doctrine of God, comes with this enormous health warning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a definition based on how we have
perceived revelation and that is limited, at best as through a glass dimly, as
St Paul put it in his great hymn to love </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(<a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=300090917" target="_blank">1 Corinthians 13</a>)</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather than serving to box God in, it would
be better to see the Trinity as a door way through which we can glimpse the
eternal, indeed come to know the eternal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">The word ‘revelation’ is itself a slippery word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has to be tested over time and in our
experience, alongside all the other things that we know, so that we can check
that what we think we have received stacks up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That is how we check out that revelation has its origin in truth rather
than fantasy – over time, in our experience, standing it alongside the other
things we know.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">The doctrine of the Trinity is not the easiest one to
explain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It sounds like we have put God
under the microscope and been able to quantify and label all of the constituent
parts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It would be a profound heresy to
assume that we were able to do that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To
claim to have God sown up is a form of arrogance that should leave us
breathless for its audacity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So what we
have in the Trinity is three ways that religious experience has come to know
God tested over time and standing it alongside the other things we know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For this the shorthand labels of Father, Son
and Holy Spirit apply.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Behind these is
everything that we proclaim and understand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So this will be a very quick summary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">‘Father’ stands for the ultimate source of everything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The one who stands behind the created matter;
who is the origin and goal for everything that there is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve already hinted that calling this ‘Father’
has its problems, through its gender limiting associations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But of course the idea of God being Father
brings a relationship of parent to child, and that can be problematic for many
too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a sense that through this
person or persons we can trace our ancestry, our origin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the case of God as Father, it is the source
of everything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another way of describing
this is to see it as the God who is distant, beyond, other and who holds the
ground of our being.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It also brings a
special intimacy, a love that brings into being and guides through this love.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">Before our brains explode at all of this, there is a
fundamental principle in the Christian faith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We can only know anything about God because God choses to make himself
known.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God in creating with a purpose is
present and among us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can reach out
to God because the creating love makes itself known.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We see this supremely in the person of Jesus
Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again another confusing term
comes to us, namely describing him as God’s son.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It sounds like someone who is other than God,
created by God and distinct from God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But being part of the Trinity means he is not distinct and other, rather
he reveals to us something unique about the character of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We see in Jesus everything we need to know
about God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are still working out
exactly what we have seen in him, not least his radical message of
transformational love, calling us to follow him in service, love, sacrificial
living, prayer and forgiveness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At
different times of history some aspects of this seem to be more prominent than
at others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Supremely he reveals to us the
purpose of God in his death and resurrection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There the power and victory of God, the confidence we can have in God is
revealed beyond measure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we are
wondering the profound philosophy, the mystery of the universe, we are given a
person to relate to, to follow and be inspired by.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are not people of a book; we are people of
the person of Jesus Christ.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">Inspiration comes in another form too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Last week we celebrated the gift of the Holy
Spirit at Pentecost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God’s presence
continues to pour out and that dynamic energy moves to make things happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It moves us, it moves the world, it brings
surprises.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fresh vision is brought to
enable us to adapt and change, to grow and be fruitful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Life is organic and fluid; it is not
static.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is why we have birth and
death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If it was static we would not
need birth, growth and would experience no change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We would have no need for the Holy Spirit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">So while we can’t draw a picture of God, we can note how we
experience God in terms of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are shorthand for everything we think
and know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they are distinctively
Christian.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not all religions are saying
the same thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We may feel that there
is much we can learn from those of other traditions, but for us this statement
about who God is and how we have seen God is foundational for us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The terms Father, Son and Holy Spirit open up
to us the mystery of God, always beyond what we can comprehend, so never to be
boxed in, but still making enough visible to us so that we can be inspired to
live as Jesus taught us, guided and strengthened by the Holy Spirit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">Dynamic Trinity, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">from you we derive our being, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">through you
we are brought into your loving embrace, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">and in you we are inspired to live; </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">now
and always. Amen.<span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sermon preached at All Saints' Church, Paston, Peterborough, Sunday 31st May 2015</span></i></span></div>
Ian Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833879886906464563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707108060798151435.post-27944635770720518442015-05-24T17:01:00.001+01:002015-05-24T20:41:01.967+01:00Ireland, same-sex unions & Pentecost<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Yesterday the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ireland-gay-marriage-vote-rainbow-appears-over-dublin-as-the-emerald-isle-votes-yes-to-gay-marriage-10272834.html" target="_blank">Republic of Ireland voted in a referendum</a> to allow same-sex marriages. The remarkable aspect here is that it was a public referendum and there was a clear message that the people want this to be allowed to happen. In a country where this would have seemed unthinkable just a few years ago, there has clearly been a radical social change. I have long since realised that when you ask people you get a very different answer to what you think you will get before hand, not least because the majority are often silent and quietly make their minds up away from the noise and clamour of those who like to tell everyone what 'everyone thinks'. I wish we had had a referendum here on this, because it would have provided greater legitimacy to the change and also it would have offered space for a better debate than we had. That said the arguments deployed were very similar and the majority of the people clearly found those against didn't cut it for them.<br />
<br />
In response there have comments from <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32862824" target="_blank">churchmen</a> that they need to reconnect with the young. I'm not sure if this means that they feel the need to change their view so that it is more in line with the public mood or find better ways of communicating what stands in opposition to the public consciousness. Many will see this as a matter of justice and equality, which it is. How we see justice has to be based on something. That clearly has to be more than the teaching of a particular church. More is required.<br />
<br />
The best definition of justice I know comes form the 11th century Archbishop of Canterbury, St Anselm. He was brought into a dispute after the Norman conquest between the monks at Canterbury and the new Archbishop, Lanfranc. A Saxon Archbishop, Alphage, had been murdered by the Danes because he refused to allow the city to pay a crippling ransom for him. Lanfranc thought this didn't constitute a sufficient reason to regard him as a saint, so deleted him from the calendar of holy days. The monks, in uproar, appealed to the visiting Anselm. His response was that Alphege died for justice, since justice is truth in action, he therefore died for truth. He was reinstated in the calendar.<br />
<br />
Truth is itself a slippery phrase, but it needs assessing by some standard. Since the 16th century, after Richard Hooker, Anglicans have had at their disposal three pillars for assessing truth: Scripture, Tradition and Reason (reflection on experience and other knowledge). Scripture gives us the story of faith that provides the frame through which we interpret the meaning of life. Tradition gives us the story of that faith over time and ensures that we have a sense of how we got to be where we are, in thought and insight. Reason is how we make sense of everything else that we know, from science, the arts and our experience of life. All of this has to be put into the mix and how we see truth is the product that comes out at the other end. When we put this into practice, we live justice. Truth will find it is justified by experience and be backed up. Falsehood will crumble and not be sustained.<br />
<br />
Attitudes to sexuality have changed dramatically over recent decades. This is not surprising because we have come to see that people do not choose who they love or who they are attracted to. We understand its complexity in ways we once did not. How we see this will determine how we assess what is truth and therefore what is just. The people of Ireland have decided that they do not see a conflict between what they believe and same-sex relationships. The idea that the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church can tell them what constitutes truth has clearly been left behind, otherwise they would have voted in a very different way.<br />
<br />
The Holy Spirit leads us into truth. It disturbs and challenges. It brings to light things which we have not seen before. We can only interpret its stirrings in light with what we can see as being possible and some things seem to take a long time to break through, and a more liberal attitude to sexuality would seem to be one of those areas. If truth is static we would have no use for the Holy Spirit. Everything would be clear and all we would need to do is follow the Maker's instructions. But that is not the way Scripture describes God's revelation. Insights emerge and change; it is more relational than concrete. In relationship we change as we grow and share, experience and reflect.<br />
<br />
The arguments for and against same-sex marriages have been rehearsed many times. My thought here is how the change in public mood can fit with how we understand what is true and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who leads us into truth and urges change where it is needed. It is grounded in how we understand and perceive, even evaluate, truth, which is itself based in the interaction between scripture, tradition and reason.Ian Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833879886906464563noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5707108060798151435.post-38681160141619343092015-05-17T14:24:00.001+01:002015-05-17T14:27:36.618+01:00Justus: a patron for the disappointed<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtwJOisstg0VqPj1hMq71gwcy3wmXw9RD_WTA8L64RkhweSLtik0PpsV3z3gQEft_80J-z8QHJVP3livjH5SJ5E8ZzUTFAz3g2-_JsxA1rAEwokSGaZ7LKBWKIqyMsjX5sp8xyJb3h7YBg/s1600/IMG_2595.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtwJOisstg0VqPj1hMq71gwcy3wmXw9RD_WTA8L64RkhweSLtik0PpsV3z3gQEft_80J-z8QHJVP3livjH5SJ5E8ZzUTFAz3g2-_JsxA1rAEwokSGaZ7LKBWKIqyMsjX5sp8xyJb3h7YBg/s320/IMG_2595.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">Coping with disappointment is never easy. Once we’ve set our heart on something to be
dashed at the final moment takes a bit of time to recover from. Anyone who has been for a job interview and
not been appointed knows this and the more we invest in thinking ourselves into
the post, which at some levels we have to do otherwise we are not taken
seriously, the further we have to fall.
On Friday I was involved in interviewing for a new Rector for a vacant
parish and clearly only one candidate could be appointed. This week we learnt that the <a href="https://www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2015/05/vacancy-in-the-see-of-oxford.aspx" target="_blank">Crown Nominations Commission</a> has not been able to agree on a candidate to present as
the next Bishop of Oxford. That means
that a number of clergy have been interviewed and no one has been invited to
take it on. Various politicians are
having to come to terms with their name not being the top of the ballot last
week. So disappointment is in the air.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">Our first reading </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(Acts 1:15-17, 21-end)</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"> gave us
the selection of Matthias to replace Judas as an apostle in the church. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Judas was one of the disciples closest to
Jesus but betrayed him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The apostles, as
some of them came to be known after the resurrection, decide they have to fill
the vacancy and the lot falls on Matthias.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Justus is not selected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We don’t know
anything else about Matthias after this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We don’t hear anything of Justus either, he’s not even given a day in
the calendar, but he is still interesting, in fact I find him more interesting
than Matthias.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’d be a good candidate
for patron saint of the disappointed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">Both candidates were well qualified.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They had both accompanied the other disciples
as Jesus had ‘gone in and out among them, beginning from the baptism of John
until the day when he was taken up from them’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>One of these is to be a witness with them of the resurrection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So they had a choice and had to come up with
an open and transparent appointment process, in this case drawing lots, which
it has to be said does save time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We now
have job descriptions, person specifications based on the vision and direction
the particular vacancy has identified, and candidates are assessed on how they
present against this criteria.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">What we are aiming at is finding someone who will be the
right person for a particular vacancy at this time to lead it in the direction
it needs to go in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We don’t know of
course whether Justus was disappointed, or actually relieved not to be
chosen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, the top jobs only
look attractive from the outside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From
the inside they can look very different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And this is the key to evaluating how we deal with disappointment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Somewhere in all of the processes there is a
faith and trust that God’s providence holds us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Sometimes the appointment panel sees things we might not have seen and
save us from what would become a very serious mistake for us and everyone
else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes they just get it
wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ve all seen that at
times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is the joke of the bishop
who calls on a priest and one of the young children in the house asks the
bishop if he can explain something to him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The bishop is keen to encourage the youngster, so agrees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The child asks, my mum can’t understand how a
fool like you became a bishop!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course
that would never have been said by my children not least because we had a clear
rule, what was said at the kitchen table stayed at the kitchen table!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even when the selection process does not go
well, we have to trust that with God all things can work for good and be a
moment of grace, of gift, rather than doom and despair.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">The first Christian writers, which include the gospel
writers, were writing to churches that were facing persecution and significant
trials.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is no less the case with John’s
gospel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were under Roman occupation
and justice could be summarily executed, so life was precarious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So when our gospel reading refers to the
world hating them and asks for protection from evil </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(John 17:14)</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">, it is
not merely a figure of speech.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Christian
hope is not just for when things go well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is also for when things do not go straight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After a disastrous uprising by Jewish freedom
fighters in AD70, and the subsequent destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple
when it was brutally and decisively crushed by the Romans, hopes and dreams of
liberation lay shattered along with the bodies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">But, God can and does circumvent our mistakes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I find there is a punch line to the
appointment of Matthias.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is chosen as
an apostle, but we hear nothing of him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He may have done his job, been an effective witness of the resurrection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meanwhile, though, a young Pharisee called
Saul was getting angry at the church’s rise and the spread of the gospel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was inspired to persecute them but in so
doing something of their message worked inside his mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So on a journey to Damascus to round up more
of their number he was struck down by a blinding light and as a result became
the champion of the faith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In one of his
letters he described himself as an apostle, though he matched none of the
criteria set out in the person specification in our first reading.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is second generation, not first
generation, because he was not a witness to the actual events.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet he becomes the champion of the faith and
is responsible for its spread along the Mediterranean coast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He may not have been the official choice, but
that did not put him beyond the grace, the gift, the choosing of God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">We have to organize our life, we have to plan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As we set up structures to achieve certain
ends, we place boundaries around what we expect to see happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These days between the Ascension on Thursday and
Pentecost next Sunday are days we look to the coming Holy Spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We look for God’s surprises and punch lines
to give the story a twist and send it off in a new direction, where we may not
have expected it to go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God has a
wonderful sense of humour and we see this not least in whom he calls to be his
witnesses and to lead, to inspire and to navigate the new course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each of us has a role to play because each of
us is called to be a witness to this hope, revealed in the resurrection of
Jesus Christ and in his Ascension, where his contact details are also revealed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if not selected, for whatever purpose,
each of us is still held in the purpose of God and we can receive this purpose as
a sign of grace, a gift too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In that
gift we grow, flourish and celebrate the purpose of God’s love which holds and
moves us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are surprises, but God’s
providence can be relied on and be trusted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Even when it doesn’t go straight for us God’s loving purpose holds us
and the Holy Spirit brings surprises to revitalize and refresh hope.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 125%; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;">So today we remember Justus who wasn’t chosen and all who experience
disappointment but nonetheless know they are held by the grace, the gift of
God’s love and purpose.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Arial; line-height: 125%;"><o:p><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sermon preached at <a href="http://www.peterborough-stjohns.org.uk/" target="_blank">Peterborough Parish Church</a> & Marholm Church, Sunday 17th May 2015</span></i></o:p></span></div>
Ian Blackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10833879886906464563noreply@blogger.com0