Be back soon

It is unlikely that I shall be posting in the next couple of days. That is because we are getting ready for a week in Turkey. Still nobody knows just what is around the corner.

This site has been quiet in recent weeks. This is because I have been under doctor's treatment for a stress problem. I have therefore used what time I have been able to work doing precisely that - after all my first obligation is to the people I am called to serve in Bideford.

Anyhow I am well on the mend. So I shall holiday like a good one and then begin to express thoughts on this site again. So it is a case of resuming posting towards mid August when I shall have returned from Turkey and spent a few days enjoying the second part of our holiday amidst the fleshpots of North Devon

The Lord's Prayer - A sermon for Proper 12 YrC based on Luke 11: 1-13

Years ago I remember being told that the prayer meeting was in reality a competition. It was a competition as to who could use the floweriest language or quote the most obscure scriptures. You may yourselves have been at prayer gatherings which fir that description. On the other hand you may have been at the sort of prayer gatherings which feel rather like a cure to amnesia like sermons are also often thought to be.

I couldn't comment on such suggestions but this morning we need to face the truth that prayer was something that Jesus found to be important in his life. Time and again we find him in prayer at pivotal moments in his ministry. And here we see him talking of prayer to his closest friends.

The scripture we are looking at today includes Luke's recording of the Lord's Prayer. This prayer is often seen as not so much that which we must say whenever we meet together but as a pattern for the life of prayer.

It is rooted in relationship. Like Jesus we are encouraged to approach God as our father. This speaks of the intimacy that we can enjoy with God as well as this relationship being not an exclusive relationship but one which is open to all. All that follows flows from this relationship.

We begin with wonder at the otherness of the Father. There is an awe here that flows out of respect and love. This is a relationship in which we are moved not to cringe with fear but to wonder at that which God is. It is this wonder that draws us closer to God.

We then seek God's Kingdom. Christ himself came proclaiming not so much a church as a kingdom. This look to the way of God reigning in our lives, our communities and our world. Too often kingdoms are oppressive and coercive. Christendom itself has often betrayed those negative qualities. But theKingdom proclaimed by Christ is a way of life in which all may be included, a way of life in which the poor and lowly are lifted up, a way of life in which the ways of peace are made real as swords are turned to ploughshares.

Next the prayer looks to our needs. I know that the global economy is a bit of a disaster when it comes to meeting human needs. Yet despite our economic sins, God is in the business of meeting human need. From John's gospel we know that this is both physical and spiritual, the latter being something we are reminded of when we come to the Communion Table. But let us make no mistake. Whenever a person is without shelter, food or sustenance, we need to speak of theft from God's provisions.

And then we come to the matter of forgiveness. Her we meet the language of indebtedness. Indebtedness was something inflicted on peasants in Palestine by the Romans and those to whom they gave the land they had taken by conquest. In a poor peasant society the debts that came from rent were something that peasants could never quite get rid off. It choked the very life out of them. The concept of Jubilee which Jesus related to the Kingdom of God dared to look to a time when there would be release from this debt. So to release from debt and sin was a sign of the Kingdom which Christ proclaimed. And as people practised release from indebtedness then they are enabled to see the greatest release from indebtedness of all, the forgiveness of sins which God in Christ makes available.

Finally we seek that God will not bring us to the time of trial. This petition leaves us with a problem. We know that followers of God do get tested. We are not offered a convenient "Get out of jail" card! Perhaps the best way to see this is a request that God should not load us beyond that which we can bear.

In the teaching afterwards we are offered contrasts between reluctant human responses to requests and that of God. The point of these is not suggest a "name it, claim it" theology which sees God as a shortcut to wealth, health or ease. Instead its point is that God rather than having his arm twisted by us, is in the business of willing good. This does not mean that being a prayerful Christ follower guarantees that we may be "happy all the day." What it means is that God seeks to help us through the varied experiences of life. As Fred Pratt Green puts it in a well known hymn;

"Father hear the prayer we offer,
Not for ease that prayer shall be,
But for strength that we might ever
Live our lives courageously."

And that is why prayer matters. It is not like putting coins into a vending machine to get the outcome we desire. It is about a path of intimacy in which the outcome is that we find an enriched relationship with God. It is about a growing relationship in which God brings us to a more healthy state of being. It is about ultimately becoming the means through which prayer is answered and God's Kingdom revealed on earth.

Support for Methodist stance on Palestine/Israel from World Council of Churches

It is good to see that the Methodist Church has received warm approval from the World Council of Churches for the constructive resolutions passed at last week's Methodist Conderence concerning the Middle East conflict.

Nobody can pretend that the dispute is other than complex but Christians need to stand for a solution that takes seriously the security of Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian state with territorial integrity. It is the latter that lies at the heart of a boycott of goods emanating from illegal settlements whose existence is hardly compatible with the establishment of a Palestine with territorial integrity.

I welcome the move to oppose the selling of arms to either side. This is a conflict in which the sale of arms has tended to lead on to their use for killing and maiming. This is sin and so I go the extra step of applauding even illegal moves to prevent such exports to any participants in the conflict.

I think we need to reognise that there are enemies of peace on all sides. I am perfectly aware of the Hamas Charter and know that movement from Hamas is sorely needed. Equally I feel no trust in the current Israeli givenment whose conduct in Gaza recently was a quite disgraceful.

The conflict needs a real peace momentum. The US has a major part to play but it is necessary to break free from the powerful Israel lobby groups which hold such sway. Europe also has a part to play. Players on the ground need to know that there is a commitment to a peace which takes equally the needs of Israelis and Palestinians. they need to know that peace will roll over those who chose to be the obstacles to peace.

And in an area which has often seen the worst of all faiths it needs to be affirmed that Palestinian and Israeli, Jew, Muslim and Christian, are all equally loved but the God who grace is without favouritism.

A final note is that Christians need to build relationships with the increasingly small Christian community of Israel/Palestine. Too often we bow down before Western groups with often whacky agendas. Surely we need to give due respect to the community that has kept the Christian faith alive down through many centuries. Relics and ancient sites are well and good. But better still is the living stones!

Healing of Naaman - A sermon for pentecost 6c based on 2 Kings 5: 1 - 14

A suspicion of power is a healthy thing. Too often power is used in the interests of the strong and with precious little regard for the weak. Too often power is used to unleash wars as part of the power games between rulers. 1914 is the perfect example although more recent examples are not exactly hard to find. Nothing is more chilling than the real politic that sends the young off to slaughter in order to enhance the standing of so called statesmen. All too often the phrase " drunk on power" has had more than a tinge of reality about it.

Power is at the heart of this morning's scripture. There has been a history of conflict between Aram, which equates to present day Syria, and Israel. Aram has had much success. Indeed not so long before these happenings, the Aramites have killed Israel's King Ahab. And certainly there is a history of raids into Israel. Indeed the young girl in our story is a captive as a result of such a raid.

And amidst it all is Naaman, the commander of the army of the King of Aram. Let's be clear. This is a man who has inflicted his share of suffering a death. Indeed the narrator suggests that he has been rather good at it.

So it is no surprise that when the King of Israel receives a letter from the King of Aram requring that Naaman be cured of his skin disease, it is no surprise that he gets into quite a state. After all he has grounds to fear that all of this is a pretext for war.

A dysfunctionality can be seen that emanates from a culture in which power is revered. A story that goes on happening today.

But this story also speaks into a world in which we emphasise differences at the expense of what we have in common. Too often we have lost sight of the reality that our lives are so often enriched by those of different background and culture to ourselves.

This is a lesson that has to be learnt from this story. The King of Israel has to learn that God may choose to bring healing even to one who is an enemy of Israel. Naaman will have to learn that God may bring healing to him through the waters of a river in a land that he has treated with criminal disdain.

Yes, God is bigger than our petty nationalisms. Nationalisms that are often but the last resort of scoundrels are rejected by God. For God is the God not of all things British, American or Israeli but God is the God of all peoples.

And then the story has about it the capacity to surprise. Too often we make God sound predictable as if we could put God in a box. Yet here is a story in which God works in a way that surprises its participants. A slave girl becomes the mean through which her master finds hope of healing. Naaman has to travel to a land he has little love for. A King of Israel has to see the God who brought his people out of slavery now showing favour to a hated enemy. And soon Naaman will find his healing comes in a way that he could never have expected.

Perhaps we need to be open to God's surprises. We need them if we are to move on forwards.

And then finally this story speaks of God working when we are but open. The slave girl was a nobody. Her name is not even recorded yet she is the one who sets off the healing process. Her humanity may have beeen denied by others yet she retains an essential goodness when she suffering in the person who had taken her away from all that was familiar and precious to her. In a real sense she holds on to to humanity and goodness when it is in short supply on the part of those who have treated her as a non person.

We see it in the servants of Naaman who risk their lives by remonstrating with Naaman when he resists Elisha's instruction to wash himself in the River Jordan. Indeed it is their brave stand that breaks down the stubborn pig headedness of Naaman when he demands to be healed in his way. Through them Naaman learns a little humility. No longer can he think in terms of manipulating the Divine but instead he learns that he need to be open to the Divine.

And is not that our need? Too often we talk the language of independence. Across the pond today the US will be celebrating its independence. But the mesage of scripture is about dependence rather than independence. It tells us that wee need to learn to be dependent on God who has revealed himself to us in Jesus. Our healing comes not from our own efforts but from the love and grace offered by God. This grace gives our lives the meaning they were designed to have.

Later in this story an act of generosity by Elisha will bring the conflict between Aram and Israel to a close for a time. Today does not our fractured world need acts of generosity to bind its wounds? Today do not we need to be open to the surprising yet permanently love focused God whom we encounter in this story? After 97 years of this church's life might we not see that God works for the healing of all. And might not we take the risk of being God's agents in that process?