Meet the family walkers

The picture above is of our two children, James and Kaye. It was taken on Dartmoor on Sunday after James completed the 35 mile Ten Tors course which takes place over very hilly terrain. The previous week, Kaye had completed the 16 mile Exmoor Challenge.

Kaye is thinking of entering the Ten Tors next year while James seems to be thinking of attempting the 45 mile course.

As for me, I am just about up to walking to the kitchen.

Mad election video

This by election video by the English Democrats starts reasonably OK but by the end it enters La La Land. As one who supports English devolution, I can only suggest that people do not waste votes on these crazies.

Hat TIP: Iain Dale.

A season to celebrate - A Pentecost Day address

A season to celebrate! Well this evening we have entered very much into the Jesus story from birth in Bethlehem through to those climactic days of execution and resurrection in Jerusalem. We have been reminded through the story of the encounter with that Samaritan woman at the well just how different in attitude Jesus was from most of his contemporaries. And ultimately we have landed on the shores of Pentecost through which we find the Jesus story going on through fallible people being guided and empowered by the Holy Spirit - the Go Between God.

Now given that the Holy Spirit is the third person within that mysterious community, the Holy Trinity, it goes without saying that the Holy Spirit is in harmony with God the Father and Jesus Christ, the Son. So Pentecost is a time when we are reminded that God is still present with us through the Holy Spirit and that the Holy Spirit has been given in order that the story of Jesus might go on.

And what is that story? It is nothing less than the story of unlimited love to the whole of humanity without regards to whether or not we deserve it. It reached beyond racial and religious barriers as shown in that encounter with the Samaritan woman. It is not restrained by moral failings of the recipient - whether the Samaritan woman was morally flawed or a victim of the fickleness of men or mere cruel fortune we do not know but certainly in many an encounter Jesus brought a dignity to those whose lives were tattered. And as for gender issues, notice how Jesus breaks down the conventions of his time in which women were kept out of the public space and discouraged from bothering themselves with mens’ business.

Indeed Jesus in his stories and through his actions constantly challenged all manner of forms of exploitation, cruelty and degrading treatment. His desire was that all should receive abundance of life. And yet unlike many radicals his path was the path of non violence for ultimately his ministry was about setting people free from the practice of domination.

Nowadays we often speak of Pentecost as being the birth of the church for without the Holy Spirit there could be no church worthy of the name. And yet we need to be cautious in using such a description. For it can give the impression that the Holy Spirit is merely about the growth of an institution whose conduct has not always been benign. Better perhaps to look to that which should always be the vision of the church, the Kingdom of God in which the work of Jesus finds fulfilment.

So at Pentecost, we can look to the Holy Spirit to guide us in enabling people to be connected to God’s all inclusive love. At Pentecost we can look to the Holy Spirit in our struggle for the domination free world of non violence to which Jesus points us. At Pentecost we can look to the Holy Spirit to help us both communicate and live out grace through which we are all treated better than we can ever deserve.

The path of Christ is at times both difficult and counter cultural. Like the closest followers of Jesus we need help. Like them we know the difficulties of being Jesus people. But like them we know a source of hope. For just as it was the Holy Spirit who enabled them to move from their failures into being those who astounded the crowds at Pentecost in Jerusalem, just as it was the Holy Spirit who enabled them to turn the world upside down, so to it is the Holy Spirit who enables our faith to be deepened and equips us to carry on the liberating work of Jesus in our world today.

A Pentecost Sermon based on Acts 2: 1-21

Today we celebrate Pentecost Day. Often the ignored Christian festival, it is absolutely foundational to our Christian faith. Sure there may be no nicely wrapped presents or chocolate delights but take Pentecost away and we find ourselves caught following a religion with no power and above all no hope.

Only a week ago we remembered the Ascension when Jesus was taken beyond our physical world. He left with a final instruction that his followers should be his witnesses firstly in Jerusalem and ultimately to the ends of the earth. A tough calling! And yet given that Jesus was no sadist a calling that would be met through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And in this promise of what Bishop John Taylor described as the “Go-Between God” we see God who has revealed himself in Jesus continuing to be very much involved in the world. Oh I know that at Ascension the physical presence of Jesus was removed but the outpouring of the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, informs us that the Divine presence is till very much with us. The followers of Jesus are not to be left alone. As the hymn writer puts it:

“Alleluia! Not as orphans
Are we left in sorrow now;
Alleluia! He is near us,
Faith believes, nor questions how.”

Yes, this is the day when we rejoice that the promise given by Jesus in Matthew’s account of the Great Commission, has taken reality, the promise;

“And remember, I am with you always to the end of the age.”

But not only we have the Divine companionship that is brought to us by the Holy Spirit. We also have the power to be the people that God wants us to be, the power to be the witnesses of Jesus. Relying on followers who had thus far failed to come up to the mark, would seem to have been an act of incredible folly on the part of Jesus. No pundits would have placed any hope in this group of men and women. And yet, on the Day of Pentecost, there is a great change in them, a change so great that scoffers could only accuse them of being drunk. And yet they were more in their right minds than they had ever been as they began without fear to tell of the wonderful deeds of God to a richly cosmopolitan crowd who had returned from the Jewish diaspora to Jerusalem to celebrate the annual feast of Pentecost. By the time Peter had addressed the crowd telling of how this was a fulfilment of the prophecy of Joel before going on to tell of the crucified and resurrected Jesus, some 3,000 people would respond by going through the waters of baptism. Just think how incredible this must have been. A motley collection from the backwaters of Galilee were even now beginning to turn the world upside down - not in their own strength but through the enabling power of the Holy Spirit.

And down through the 2,000 or so years since, the Holy Spirit has continued to enable men and women to witness to God’s love in Christ and accordingly to bring change to both lives and society. Our Methodist tradition is a product of this. For its beginning are to be found in two earnest clergymen who went to America to convert the natives and came back with dreadful failure in that mission, even asking whether it was they themselves that needed converting. But their struggles came to an end in 1738 when on Pentecost Day, Charles Wesley had an experience of the Holy Spirit followed just a few days later by the more famous Aldersgate experience of brother John whose heart became in a famous phrase “strangely warmed.” And of course the rest became history as over the next half century in the Great Evangelical Awakening, Methodist societies sprang up across the nation and the seemingly terminally ill Church of England found renewal. But more than that, across the land many people including those at the sharp end of the Industrial Revolution discovered that whilst others might see them as but cogs in a machine, they were greatly loved by God. And in places such as Cornwall’s Gwennap Pit, they would gather to celebrate the love of God and at the same time in classes seek earnestly to live as the holy people of God. But it wasn’t just about pie in the sky for this movement brought about much social reform which enabled many to have a better experience of life. But never forget that just as with those first followers of Jesus, great things happened not in human strength alone but in people being open to the guidance and empowerment of the Holy Spirit. And if I might say so, if we are serious about being God’s people, if we are serious about the church of Christ and more importantly the Kingdom of God which is the real purpose of the church, then we need to seek the Holy Spirit in our lives. For in our own strength we can only travel to disappointment but if open to the Holy Spirit, we find ourselves caught up in God’s unlimited possibilities.

If I might illustrate the point with a story I invite you to think of the American evangelist D.L. Moody. Now I struggle with some of Moody’s theology but quite clearly he was a man used by God to some considerable effect. Once a shoe salesman whose lack of articulate expression caused him to be rejected as an applicant for membership at a church in Boston, a pivotal occasion in his life was attending a prayer meeting in the UK. He heard a man at that meeting use repeatedly the phrase, “We have yet to see what God can do through a man who is totally consecrated to him.” It bugged Moody who said to himself, “By the power of the Holy Spirit I want to be that man.” And by the time that Moody died it was reckoned even by his critics that he had been the instrument for the conversion to Christ of about a million people. And some of those converts, people like C.T Studd and what became known as the Cambridge 7, went on to take the Gospel across the continents of the world. Oh sure there was something heroic about them but they themselves would recognise that they were dependent on the Holy Spirit in all their endeavours. And so it is today. There is no guaranteed way to turn the corner of church decline or to right the wrongs of society but I tell you in all seriousness that a better starting place than seeking the help of the Holy Spirit, absolutely does not exist. To escape from an anaemic form of faith, we each have need of the Holy Spirit. Just as we need a saviour in Christ, we need a guide and empower in the Holy Spirit.

But still to appreciate Pentecost properly we also need to see in this celebration the reconciling work of God. The Genesis story of the Tower of Babel shows language working to divide people. Yet in Pentecost as we see the followers of Christ being understood in a range of languages and dialects, we see a unity in the Spirit amidst our diversity. Here we see God far from being tribal or national, reaching out to peoples of all races and tongues. Today this goes on in translation work concerning the Scriptures for God is the God all peoples who calls us to relate to others in a way that values diversity. Here is a vision of what life should be about for the followers of Christ. Recognising that the Spirit is about unity in diversity we are called to work for reconciliation in our world rejecting the clarion calls to arms when they arise as being other than the way of God’s Holy Spirit. Like the Jesus who promises the spirit we are called to be counter cultural in situations where society casts away those who fail to conform to its norms.

So today let’s rejoice! God is with us through the Holy Spirit. We are not alone in the challenges that lie before us. And yes, Pentecost does indeed represent the beginnings of the church but more importantly Pentecost calls on each of us and enables each of us to share in partnership with God in creating the signs of that Kingdom proclaimed by Jesus - the Kingdom of justice peace and joy in which all find their worth.

Ascension Day Sermon based on Acts 1: 6 - 14

And so today we come to the first Sunday after Ascension Day, a day which is all too often bypassed in the life of the church today. For in a way, the Ascension is something we find hard to imagine. I confess that I find it difficult to think of the Ascension without picturing in my mind the Apollo spacecraft lift offs which were such a big part of my school days. And of course, I know that the idea of heaven up in the skies above and hell in the depths below is a pre scientific view that was allegedly mocked by the soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin with the words;

“I don’t see God up here.”

So it that I know that my pictures of the Ascension of Jesus are inevitably flawed. It is clearly beyond us to comprehend exactly what the disciples witnessed other than to appreciate that Jesus is not subject to the physical restraints that we experience. As Markus Borg puts it;

“He is no longer restricted to or confined to our dimensions of time or space as he was in his historical lifetime.”

Powerfully, Ascension reminds us that Jesus is no longer physically with us but yet he is alive and a presence in our lives and in the world. As Fred Pratt Green memorably puts it in his Easter hymn;

“Christ is alive! No longer bound
To distant years in Palestine,
He comes to claim the here and now,
And conquer every place and time.”

This reminds us that Jesus is today as alive as ever. More than that, it informs us that his scope is greater than ever before for the physical limitations that we experience are for him now in the past. Yes, the Jesus who was crucified, is through Ascension set free to affect the world yet more than when restricted to a small portion of Middle Eastern land.

And yet this must have been a difficult experience for those who were closest to him. Those of us who have seen loved ones move to distant places know only too well the stomach pangs that come from physical separation. And for those closest to Jesus, this pain would be added to by them being taken out of their comfort zones. Notice how at the beginning of our scripture reading their concern was about restoring the Kingdom to Israel - a somewhat narrow concern. Yet Jesus whilst giving no answer to this matter, tells them that now they are to be called to think and act in a much bigger way. The very people who had failed Jesus in Gethsemane, are told that their future is to be standing up for and propagating the good news about Jesus in Jerusalem where they have failed him. And then the calling gets wider - firstly to surrounding Judea, on to hated Samaria a place to which they have in the past been hostile and then on to the very ends of the earth and all manners of peoples.

An unbelievable calling! A calling well beyond the capacity of this parochial bunch who this far have quite a record of not stepping up to the mark. But note here that this is not some sadistic challenge in which they are destined to fail. On the contrary the calling is linked to a promise, the promise of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is that the Holy Spirit will give them a power for the tasks that lie ahead, the Holy Spirit will enable them to do things beyond their expectations and imaginations. In this we see a linkage which continues to be relevant today. Calling and promise are entwined. For the promise is to enable the calling to be followed through whilst the calling is only given with the accompaniment of the promise that enables it to be given reality.

And so it is that Ascension is about the story of Jesus going on. During Easter we have seen his love in the self giving of Good Friday. In his resurrection we have seen God’s resounding Yes to all that Jesus has said and done, the victory over death, hatred and violence. Now through Ascension we see Jesus set free from limitations so that the story might continue through the likes of you and me as we are given help by the Holy Spirit. And now the story is no longer tribal or nation. On the contrary it is now for all nations and for all peoples.

I don’t know about you but I have always liked the men in white with their message to the followers of Jesus that they need not look into the sky. You see there is far too much speculation. The “Left Behind Books” are but one example of a tendency to speculate about end times and the likes. And such speculation is utterly useless and wasteful as Jesus has already intimated. There is no point idly looking above when there is a world to engage with and much work to be done.

Those present at Ascension made their ways back to where they were staying. With the family of Jesus and a number of women they engaged in community. They spent time in prayer as they sought to be about the continuation of the work of Jesus. And when Pentecost came, they went on to the streets of Jerusalem and soon they continued that work in Judea, Samaria and truly to the ends of the world as it then was known. And today as heirs to the promise of the Spirit, we are called to engage with the world in all its diversity sharing the hope that is at the heart of the message of Christ, loving and giving value to all those who experience need, condemnation or rejection, and building community.

Having during recent weeks looked at the stories of Jesus and celebrated that he is alive, today the story becomes personal. For now it is about us - how we follow on from Jesus. Yes, now it is about the Gospel according to us!

More from the "pisseth against the wall" man

Here is more bizarre preaching from Steven L Anderson albeit in a rather poetic way;




It ends up as quite the most bizarre thing I've watched since this bizarre sermon suggesting that men should stand to urinate (put in somewhat stronger language by the good pastor).

I think he needs to chill out - get him a ticket for Brokeback Mountain!

Our gentle Olympic hosts

Now what were those Olympic ideals?


HAT TIP: Justin McKeating

School fingerprinting - should I say leave them kids alone?

The school attended by my children may soon be using fingerprinting as a means to payments for services etc.

I am uneasy. After all this is banned in the democratic paradise that is China.

Anyone with a view?

The Sower - A non lectionary sermon for Fremington Methodist Church Anniversary based on Mark 4: 1-20

The parable of the sower - I guess that at least one or two of you are wondering if I have had a bit of a senior moment. After all, this is a parable that is often visited at Harvest Thanksgiving but Church Anniversary - well it just does not see to belong.

But believe you me whilst I have my fair share of doddery moments, I was in no way experiencing one of them when I decided that I would preach on this parable for tonight’s service. So why are we looking at this parable? The reason is quite simple - it speaks directly into the ministry of the church for today.

It helps to appreciate the realities of Palestinian agriculture. The common practice was for small family farmers to eke out a basic living from marginal plots whilst wealthy landowners kept the best land for themselves. The peasant farmers would throw their seed earnestly hoping for the best. After all the stakes were high. They would need sufficient return to feed their families, pay the rent and invest in sufficient seed in order to repeat the cycle again the following year. If the yield was insufficient and they fell into debt the farmer would face the prospect of borrowing from the wealthy landowners against the security of their land. If the cycle of failure continued and debts could not be repaid, they would face the prospect of losing their land to the lenders and of having to work to pay off the debt.

This system was fundamentally unjust. It deprived the peasant farmer of real choices in life. For truly such people were in chains. And yet Jesus in this parable gives a picture of a better tomorrow. His parable envisages a bumper harvest way beyond the expectations of his hearers, a bumper harvest that could make all the difference, the bumper harvest that would break the cycle of poverty and struggle. Beyond reasonable expectations, it looked to a future of liberation.

Sometimes, we downplay this aspect of the Gospel. We speak as if our aspirations can be measured in the size of congregations. This is absolute piffle. Much better to be small and faithful than be seduced by a cult of numbers in pews or the trimmings of success. We need once more to touch base with the inspirational words of James Russell Lowell who proclaimed;

“They are slaves who fear to be in the right with two or three.”

And a part of our calling is the work of liberation which lifts people up from being nobodies to the value that God would bestow on all. This means that the church must be a community that confronts the prejudice that excludes in all its forms. This means that the church must be a place that embodies in word and deed radical inclusion for every single one of God’s children. After all has not Jesus spoken of coming that all may have life with abundance? Of course this speaks into the role of the church as a prophetic voice.

I wonder if anyone read today’s Sunday Times which proclaimed that the richest 1,000 people in Britain have seen their wealth quadruple over the past decade. When I read that, I wanted to puke. For I see plenty of the struggles of people even within my own town whose lives feel as bare and who are a limited in choices as the sower of whom Jesus told. I have no time for an easy accommodation with the powers that be if they cannot see the corruption in extreme wealth and life denying poverty side by side. Our faith is a faith that takes material seriously, a faith that is sorely misrepresented if we see bums on seats as more important than the denial of a good life for those at the bottom of the pile. Oh I know that the church matters but may we never forget that the church is not an end in itself but a signpost that points to God’s Kingdom of justice, peace and joy for all.


Back to the parable and we find the differing outcome of the seeds that are sown. Sowing on poor soil, it is no surprise that much of the soil would land in the places where it would fail to bring a yield. This is a simple fact of life. And I think that today in our efforts to make the Gospel real in peoples’ lives, there is here an echo. Much of what we do bears no obvious fruit. And yet, surely our greatest calling is to faithfulness rather than to success. Now I have no problem with planning or prioritisation - these are obvious realities in the ongoing life and work of the people of God. But they must never blind us to the reality that what we are about in the mission to which God calls us, is the incredible reality that God’s grace is for all. There is no nook or cranny that is beyond God’s love, no place of darkness that cannot be illuminated by the light of God, not one of our Hells that cannot be transformed by grace.

Of course, in many an exposition of this parable we have found ourselves contemplating the difficulties of sowing God’s seed. We are encouraged to think of the factors that seem to be obstacles to God’s work. Lack of roots, troubles and persecutions, the lures of this world, all these things come to mind. Such things represent challenges and remind us that God’s mission requires patience and a capacity to resist the temptation of shortcuts. And as those of us on the Pioneer Disciple Course will be finding, mission in God’s world involves a need for understanding of what is happening in that world.

But yet, it can be more personal. Use your imagination for a moment and picture the sower as being not us but God. Picture ourselves as the seed that is thrown, landing on various soil. You may imagine yourself in the varying cataegories of where the soil has landed. And if you are like me, that will not be easy because I know that at different times I am each of those seeds. For generally we are all a mixed picture. More and more I think that we fail to conclusively fit into neat boxes such as saint or sinner. At different moments, we can be both of these things and a whole lot more beside. So here this parable serves to challenge us about addressing our points of weakness so that we might grow in fruitfulness to God living lives and being in community in such a way as to make a difference and to bring about the signs of the Kingdom of God.

Fremington Methodist Church, today you celebrate another year as a community of God’s people in this village. You can look back with gratitude at past blessings. You can also look ahead to a continuing part within God’s ongoing mission. May this parable encourage you to move forwards with God, seeking to be the seeds that produce a yield.

But don’t expect it to be easy. Don’t expect great applause for this Gospel is full of challenge and controversy. Jesus, himself, was met with hostility for in so many ways it is a challenge to the orthodoxy of not just his but any age. Yet here is a challenge to both love and sow wastefully for if we hold back no seed is sown. And if no seed is sown there can be no yield.

So go forwards dreaming dreams and seeing visions of what can be. For we are called to simply allow ourselves to be a part of God’s unlimited possibilities. Holding nothing back, who knows what might be?

If you love me - A sermon for Easter 6 based on John 14: 15-21

“If you love me”

Don’t those words send a chill through you? The note of qualification is all too present. How often those words are used by a child, a lover or even a parent as a precursor to some demand or other. They are the words that make you feel apprehension as to the contents of your wallet or your bank balance - provided the credit crunch hasn’t emptied these things already.

And yet now these words are coming to us not from one on the make but from Jesus himself. And so we get the feeling that we are about to find out the true cost of faith.

But what follows is perhaps even more demanding. What will we do if we love Jesus. The daunting response to that is;

“You will keep my commandments.”

Wow! For me those words take me back to a friend from my teenage years who advised me against being confirmed into the Methodist Church. After all the miserable so and sos would turn my life into an unending endurance of boredom in which anything remotely enjoyable I might do, would bring the wrath of the religious thought police down upon my unsuspecting head.

And to be honest this is the sort of text that I used to dread hearing preaching on. I always feared that a sort of Christian Taliban would tell me that I couldn’t enjoy a pint, the punk music which I loved in my youth and to be honest still do, or chasing women. Now there may well be good reason for a measure of restraint in these things but we do a violence to this scripture if we suggest that this is what Jesus is talking about here.

For to Jesus, the essence of his teaching was not the petty restrictions that have damaged many peoples’ perceptions of religion, but instead was about love. Think back to a teacher of the law who came to Jesus asking what was the most important of the commandments only for Jesus to respond;

“The first is ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”


See, it is love that is at the heart of the commandments of Jesus. And indeed only a few verses before our scripture reading, in the same dialogue at the Last Supper, Jesus has given one final commandment;

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

So when Jesus says;

“If you love me you will keep my commandments”


He is not talking about ethics. He is simply saying that those who love him with be people who are people of love.

Now I know that love can easily be a debased word. It can be spoken in a shallow way such as on a first date or in the desire for a few moments of peace. At times the word seems divorced from any reality. Some of you will remember the song “Both Sides Now” penned by Joni Mitchell, a song revived in the film “Love Actually” - a song which contains the words;

“I’ve looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
Its loves illusions I recall
I really don’t know love at all.”


And the reality is that far too many lives are marked by an abundance of love talk accompanied by a great shortage of love action. For the love that Jesus speaks of is a love that in gratitude is directed to God and which also develops for other peoples including ultimately as demonstrated by the example of Jesus, those whom we might see as the most unlovely. And that love directed at others goes well beyond fancying or fluffyness. It is the love that seeks the best for others even when they are awkward or living in a way that is destructive to self or others. And is this not what we see in Jesus? - that great capacity not to see or to freeze people in their worst moments but to see amidst the tattered realities, preciousness and even potential.

And make no mistake, love really changes things. This week I read of some of the tensions after the erection of that dreadful Berlin Wall. Apparently in the early days thereafter, truckloads of stinking garbage was dumped from East Berlin into West Berlin. Anger developed and many in the west wanted some sort of payback. And yet, the Mayor took a very different path. He asked that beautiful, fragrant flowers be gathered. These flowers were taken to a place along the wall before being poured over to the east along with a banner that proclaimed;

“We each give what we have.”

And if we are to be followers of Jesus who love Jesus, we need to get into offering reconciliation where there are barriers, peace where there is confrontation and love where there is hatred. Why? Because we are called to give what we have and these are the things that Jesus offers to us.

And Jesus tells us that help is at hand. In our Scripture reading, he has talked of a promise. Soon the friends with whom he is speaking will be without his presence for soon he will die for love. Yet, he wants them to know that they will not be without God. That is why he promises them that they will not be orphaned for the Holy Spirit, the go between God. Will be with them to assist them in their futures. The Holy Spirit will guide them and enable them to live out the way of love.

This morning I want to encourage you to travel the journey of love. Oh there is life without love but it is a waste of time or as the poet Mary Oliver puts it;

“not worth a bent penny or a scuffed shoe.”

Its value is negligible. But Jesus points us to a better way - the way that he has embodied, the way of love. Each person here this morning is within his circle of unending, divine love. God’s love for each of us is as powerful as that of any parent, lover or friend - passionate and without condition. And yet he asks us to let it embrace our entire being that we might model love with all that we are.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”


And what are those commandments? In one solitary word - love!