Paul Martin

Out of that boat! - A Sermon based on Mark 1: 14-20

2012-01-22T09:51:00.002Z

It is that Kairos moment in Mark’s gospel - the appointed time when God acts. The preludes are over and now Jesus marches back into Galilee with an urgent message to proclaim.

And what is that message? Well it is about the kingdom or as some would prefer to put it the Kingship of God. A message that will bring with it great division.

Even the concept of a Kingdom of God is enough to make some mutter. Back a thousand year before God alone was seen as king. But a movement for a monarchy had taken roots and although the prophet Samuel had warned of the downside of such a root, eventually the people got their King. Saul had started well but gone badly wrong. David though flawed was seen as the greatest of Israel’s Kings even if the extent of his kingdom is hotly debated. After that Solomon had brought division and the two kingdoms had been ruled by what in the main was a pretty rum collection of Kings before their ultimate downfalls. After that Israel had beeen ruled by outsiders with even the Herodian dynasty itself being despised and ultimately dependent on Rome.

Now Jesus begins to point to a Kingdom of God whose values will be so very different to those that had held sway for a thousand years. Now he says God is going to break through. And the beginning of this transformation will take place in Galilee - a relatively multi cultural area linked to trade routes in a way Jerusalem was not, Galilee whose land and resources had long been treated as spoils of war to be given to soldiers and politicians who rarely bothered to live there and who certainly bore no allegiance there, Galilee where the indigenous population who mainly worked in agriculture and fishing lived at little more than bare subsistence level.

And this Kingdom says Jesus is good news. But good news with a difference. For the Greek word (Evaggelion) had traditionally linked with the victories and successes of Caesar. But now it is transformed. For this good news has nothing to do with Caesar or any of our rulers. On the contrary instead it has everything to do with Jesus. A different type of good news is now unleashed!

But wait a moment! Our gospel reading began on a note of darkness. It told of the arrest of John the Baptist who will later be executed at a drunken party/ Why? For speaking truth to authority. You see the background of his arrest was his speaking out about King Herod Antipas replacing his wife with that of his brother. An act not just of personal immorality but an act with appalling political effects. For thanks to the actions of Antipas, the father of his disposed of wife would in AD36 launch a war on Antipas inflicting considerable damage.

So take note, the Kingdom of God is not presented by Mark as emerging at a holiness convention. Far from it Mark is keen that we should see it breaking through against a background of violence and the misuse of power.

And what is the message of Jesus to those who will listen? It is to repent and believe. Now let’s be clear that in this he is not speaking of a one off action. The Greek tensing implies that what Jesus is saying is that his hearers should keep on repenting and keep on believing. But what does this mean? Well repenting is about moving in a new direction. But keeping on moving in new directions is not something we can just do for ourselves. To suggest such would imply that we don’t need God’s grace but instead can make do with God’s patience as we keep on trying and failing. No, repentance takes us from our failings to God being where we place our trust. And this fits what Jesus says for the Greek word pestered is not so much about intellectual agreement as it is about radical trust. So when Jesus speaks here about repenting and believing what he is urging us to do is to be prepared continually to change our direction through exercising a radical trust in him as our guide.

But right as we expect big action on the part of this new Kingdom we get a surprise. For to our astonishment Jesus begins to call working people to be his followers. The men he chooses are fishermen at a time when fishing was in a state of unrest. An overtaxed occupation that depended on licences from Caesar who owned the Sea of Galilee. Their lives are tough but now at a time when such men could be expected to hold on to their livelihoods like grim death, Jesus calls on them to change direction and to embrace uncertainty by exercising radical trust in becoming his followers. It’s a crazy suggestion we might protest and yet two sets of brothers leave the world they know and allow Jesus to re orientate their lives. Now says Jesus they will become “fishers of men.” What does this mean? Well it doesn’t seem to be so much about evangelism as we know it - not that there is anything wrong with such evangelism as a concept. In the Old Testament scriptures fishing is often used as a metaphor for bringing the practitioners of injustices to justice as well as as a metaphor for teaching people to move from ignorance to wisdom. Whatever, this calling marks a radical departure for Simon and Andrew, for James and John. And it is a departure that shows Jesus working in community to bring in this new Kingdom.

So where does this leave us today. Are we content with business as usual? Or are we prepared to be moved by Jesus into places where we are vulnerable and in need of his help? I invite each of you to review where you are at at this moment. Don’t focus on your inadequacies. After all the followers picked by Jesus had bucket fulls of inadequacies. With Jesus we all have a part to play. Not one person here is without gifting. So I ask again is God calling you to exercise radical trust by responding to a calling of Jesus that takes you where you have never been or expected to be before?

And as I invite you to ponder this, I remind you that many of the Gods we have built up have failed. In the West we face a crisis of confidence at a time when markets have failed disastrously reeking havoc with many peoples’ lives. Our trust has been destroyed just as the trust of people in a very different system in East Europe collapsed two decades ago. For whatever the philosphies and idolatries that have been proclaimed, they have alike placed too much belief in themselves and too little respect for the people they have lorded it over. Jesus bids us to look at his domination free kingdom that offers respect and dignity to all. Now surely is another kairos moment when we are invited to let go of that which holds us in chains and time to get out of them boats so that we might embark on a journey with Jesus

Why pray?

2012-01-09T16:56:00.000Z

A real treasure on prayer by Ben Myers. Enjoy.

Why pray?

Herod - then and now A non lectionary sermon based on Matthew 2:13-23

2011-12-31T23:02:00.001Z

Councillor David Horton gets it wrong. In The Vicar of Dibley the local councillor gets asked to play the part of Herod in the local nativity. Unable to accept that poor shepherds might be closer to God than Israel’s King - albeit a puppet King who danced to Rome’s instructions - Horton subverts the nativity by giving sweets to the children leading one to pitifully reply;

“I Love you Herod.”

The reality is that Herod could have gone a fair way to writing “The Prince” fifteen hundred years before Machiavelli wrote his masterpiece of political cynicism.

He had ability. He left quite a legacy of building projects. And he knew how to play diplomacy somehow managing to walk a tightrope between the demands of his Roman masters and a Jewish people who never regarded him as one of their own.

His reign begun with an act of bloodshed in which he massacred practically the whole of the Sanhedrin. It ended with a King by now crippled with extreme pain having a great number of distinguished people brought to Jericho with instructions (not carried out as it turns out) left for them to be killed on Herod’s death so that his death might be accompanied by displays of grieving.

As for his family, he killed a number of relatives including at least three sons and his favourite wife. Not for nothing did Caesar Augustus comment that it was better to be such a man’s swine than to be his son.

So David Horton aside, most of us feel discomfort at Herod figuring in the Christmas story. Now to be fair theologians have long debated the historicity of the story of the massacre of children in Bethlehem. Some argue that this story is more about Matthew’s gospel proclamation than it is about history. Certainly there are no historical records that attest to such a massacre although it might be argued that if confined to Bethlehem the numbers killed would be small and thus ignored. Quite frankly it strikes me as a case of you pays your money and makes your choice.

But the story is such that it should never be ignored. It is a story that takes us into the darkness of the world. It is a powerful response to the sort of facile optimism that fails to take evil seriously and believes we can simply be happy all the day. Indeed it reminds us that it is for a world of imperfections that sometimes are horrifically grotesque that Jesus came.

In fact in this regard Matthew offers a similar understanding to John’s Gospel. There the evangelist speaks of light entering a world in which there is darkness. Matthew demonstrates this through the Herod story. And Christian hope suggests that wherever the darkness’s of cruelty and injustice exist Christ shines a light and bids us to join in incarnational ministry by bringing light to the darkest corners of our communities and world.

Back to the story. The Holy Family under threat are forced as others had been in previous centuries to seek refuge in Egypt that had once been a place of bondage. Israel has become unsafe. Only in Egypt can they be safe. And in this we see a story constantly repeated today as millions of people live as refugees across the globe often badly treated which makes it good news that next year Nottingham City Council are set to make Nottingham one of a number of Cities of Santuary in the UK. Indeed according to Matthew when the Holy Family return home after Herod’s death they are forced to return not to Bethlehem but due to the brutality of Archelaus who now rules in Judea to go north to Nazareth and the relative safety of an area ruled by another son of Herod where in the meantime there had been a devastating massacre by Rome’s army but a short time earlier less than an hours walk away.

But this is a story that must not be left in the past. For it is in so many ways an ongoing story. Indeed I would suggest that what should concern us more today is the ongoing presence of Herod. Look to resource conflicts around the world in places such a Congo. Look to the sale of weaponry to countries that cannot afford the bare necessities for their own peoples. Look to tyrants waging wars on their own people as with Assad’s Syria to use but one of many examples. Look to the use of torture in so many countries and it being ignored when convenient by other counties and yes standby for gloomy revelations of our country being caught up in at the very least covering up of some renditions to the torturers of Damascus and Tripoli amongst others during the past decade. Look to those who have sought refuge but are deported to places such as Uzbekistan as has been British practice for a number of years. Look to gang war on the streets. Look to the continued rampage of diseases such as HIV and the all too common failure to provide the necessary drugs to sufferers and would be sufferers. Look to the lives blighted by alcohol, drugs and yes the insidious disease that is gambling. Look to the homes where there is choice between consuming heat or food. Look to the homes where unemployment low pay or whatever mean than not just adults but children also lose the capacity to hope. Look to a rich west where incredibly many are consigned to dependence on food banks. Just look!

For this Jesus will soon tell us that he has come for the most vulnerable. He will speak of bringing life with abundance. Still he struggles with Herod.

But because we recognise with John’s gospel that darkness cannot put out the light of Christ, we move forwards even into 2012 with hope in our hearts. We gaze in wonder at possibilities for transformation knowing that being a friend of justice is part of the calling of followers of Jesus. And then engage with the cries for justice because anything else is playing games!

A boy in a manger - A sermon for Christmas Day based on Luke 2: 1-20

2011-12-24T21:38:00.001Z

It’s all about a baby boy. Lying in a manger he is the epitome of helplessness. No control over body function but a tendency to exercise those lungs to bursting point when hungry or just uncomfortable - that is what he’s about.

His dependency on a mother’s care is absolute. He just needs to be held, to be loved, to be comforted, to be cared for. That is all that matters to him. Oh sure he is born into a harsh world of conflict but that does not matter a fig to him. A Jewish baby boy he has no interest in your race or nationality. You can be a a fellow Jew, a Roman or even a Palestinian, these things matter not to him. Nor does he care about our gender or our respectability - even our lack of it. He just wants to be loved.

In that he is not dissimilar from us in our infancy. But whereas we easily lose our innocence and become cynical an judgemental he never loses it. The innocent acceptance of all is something he takes into adulthood and even to a public execution.

All around him are the signs of rejection but he does not care. The circumstances of his birth are the stuff of gossip. His early teenage mother is at the centre of a scandal and the equivalents of News International journalists are all over the case but he doesn’t care. He just wants her love. And in times ahead he will be the defender of tainted women.

And when his first visitors are shepherds is he bovvered. No way! It doesn’t matter to him that smelly shepherds were at this time regarded as shift dishonest people not deemed fit to provide evidence in a court. After all they took the time to visit him and to make a fuss of him when the respectable had gone walkabout. In fact he’s going to go on mixing with the sort of people who are no better than they ought to be. And religious professionals will tut about it but does he care! As Desmond Tutu puts it his standards are “quite low!”

Later he will be visited by astrological types from the East - foreigners whose religious understandings he will be told are quite mixed up. And even if their gifts are just a little bit strange for a baby he will be grateful that they gave him the time. And later he will build bridges with another group of semi foreigners with upside down religion, the Samaritans even telling a story in which one of these despised peoples bears a passing likeness to himself.

But of course he will not be immune to harsh side of life. Israel’s King, by now a paranoid tyrant, will seek to kill him. Herod - please note not a real Jew but an Idumean hated by many of the people he ruled over - will use his soldiers like many a despot if not to save the regime to ensure dynastic succession. And this baby will no longer be safe in the town in which he was born but have to flee as a refugee becoming one of those asylum seekers against whom the Daily Mail of his day would doubtless rage. And when he moves to Nazareth he will be moving but an hours walk from the scene of wanton destruction by imperial Rome at Sepphoris in the aftermath of Herod’s death - whose rebuilding at least gave some work to craftsmen such as Joseph. And yes his teachings will be at their sharpest when it comes to exposing injustices and cruelty for he knows these things are crippling to victims and also to perpetrators.

And later in adulthood he will just go on involving all sorts of people in an undemanding cycle of love. From the beginnings of his ministry when he proclaims good news for the poor he will be in solidarity will all manner of outcasts. Yet he will not champion violence against the wrongdoers. Even Roman military officers will be helped in their moments of need. So when we envisage Jesus as being on the side of the good guys he never hates the bad guys. Perhaps Will Campbell has it right. The only white man present when Martin Luther King formed his Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Campbell later sought to minister to klansmen and rednecks over whisky explaining when challenged about this;

“We’re all bastards but God loves us anyway.”

And that’s the way that Jesus will live even though such inclusive love will make him enemies and ultimately lead to his torture and a public, humiliating execution.

But all of that is for the future. The question now is will you give your love to this bundle of humanity? Will you like him embrace humanity even in its less appetising forms and even when it disappoints? Will you take the risk of journeying with and following this little boy? And will you open your hearts and minds to the claim that God is uniquely in this boy? And that in him we meet the truly human and the truly Divine, that in him we God made flesh, the means of our salvation and the pattern for our living.

A very political Christmas to you all - A non lectionary sermon based on Luke 2: 1-2-

2011-12-18T14:51:00.001Z

Well may I be the first to wish you A Very Political Christmas

. Yes you heard me right. I wished you A Very Political Christmas.Sure I know that some of you are thinking that this time I have lost it and gone too far.

But I repeat I wish you a Very Political Christmas. Not in the party political sense I would add for whilst political parties are perfectly legitimate as means to work for the implementation of cherished goals, they inevitably disappoint even the most committed loyalist. For they are very human organisations and all fall short at times so that to render any political party as above criticism would quite clearly be an act of idolatry.

No when I wish you a Very Political Christmas I am thinking in terms of power and how it is exercised. However you might date the birth of Jesus and to be honest estimates very widely, he was clearly born into a world dominated by the Roman Empire and the figure of Caesar Augustus. Luke’s community for whom he writes several decades later is also dominated by that Empire and by this time Jesus followers are experiencing difficult times with the Empire. So it is worth pointing out that Luke in his account of the birth of Jesus does not hold his punches when it comes to challenging and offending Rome. We see this in the Census story which suggests an empire moving people around like pieces on a chessboard.

And yet in so doing they unwittingly prepare the ground for the decidedly non imperial Jesus. Luke like Matthew sets the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem which has powerful connotations given that it is the town from which Israel’s greatest king David came. Hearers of the gospel would at once be jumping to the conclusion that just as David had seen off external threats so to might this new born King of whom Luke tells. But Luke goes further. We often miss the offence when he uses terms such as Lord or Saviour to describe the new born child. But these were the terms which were now being used of Rome’s emperor. Yes Luke is setting up Jesus as being truly that which Rome claimed its emperors to be. He is affirming that the new kid on the block or more accurately in the manger is the true Lord and true saviour. It is as shocking as if in Nazi Germany one other than Hitler was declared as Fuhrer. The very stuff of sedition - for if Jesus is Lord and saviour then the vacancy is filled and it is to him rather than flawed rulers in time and place that we owe our loyalty and allegiance.

And that is why Jesus continues to be dangerous to the powers.Give him our allegiance and our vision of life and the world begin to change. Caesar Augustus had ended the civil wars of Rome by victory over rivals. At the point of the sword he had brought the pax Romana to the world. This was the peace that came through force and the threat of shock and awe, of retribution. Now comes Jesus with the message of peace for that world but this is not peace from the sword but through the power of love. On Palm Sunday they come into ultimate conflict when through different gates Jesus and Pontius Pilate enter Jerusalem through different gates - Pilate with all the might of Rome and Jesus armed only with seemingly powerless love. And down through the pages of history these two visions have been in timeless conflict. Aye there’s politics in this!

And we see it also in the characters who fill the story. Sometimes we are tempted to expect god to work through the powerful but Luke’s nativity bypasses any equivalent of the lord Mayor’s banquet. It is instead a story of God at work amongst the marginalised. The Holy Family are incredibly ordinary in many ways. What may be seen as abnormal is the situation into which they are thrust with the possibility of shame in an honour culture which took such things seriously. Indeed there would be those who might argue from an Old Testament understanding that Mary should be stoned to death - shocking situation for a girl who would have been 13 years old at most. The first visitors to the manger would be shepherds whose standing socially was not of the highest order - outsiders with no place in the cultic worship of Israel. And what of where Jesus was born? Tradition often imagines an innkeeper sending Mary and Joseph away - a strange story given Joseph’s ancestry and Mary have relatives but a short distance away.

And this before we consider the tradition of hospitality that is so important in the Middle East. Perhaps here our problem is linguistic. The Greek word translated as Inn is kataluma. It appears elsewhere in Luke’s gospel to refer to the room in which the last supper is celebrated whilst a different Greek word is used by Luke in the parable of the Good Samaritan to refer to a commercial inn. Most probably what we see is the generosity of the have only so much’s who having no room in the guest room invite the Holy Family into the family room which would have had a manger for the animals kept at night on a ,lower level. Indeed what we see here is not the thieving of the wealthy priestly call which years later earns the rage of an adult Jesus but the generosity of the humble. And in this is a contrast. Jesus is welcomed by the lowly whilst he is ignored by the equivalent of the Great and Good to whom we sometimes refer. For what we see in the Luke’s nativity is God working not so much in the centres of power as in the margins.

And by the time Jesus begins his ministry Luke will have him speaking of good news for the poor. Christmas reminds us that Jesus occupies the margins. If we want to put Jesus at the centre of our lives then it is to the margins that we will have to travel. That is why Giles Fraser the until recently Dean of St Paul’s suggested that if Jesus was born today it might well be in an Occupation camp.In a week we shall celebrate his birth. We shall rejoice in the good news of Immanuel - God with us! In him Divinity has entered our world. Divine love has invaded our very being. And the world can never be the same again. His coming gives us direction, hope and meaning. His coming invites us into a new way of living. Now our loyalty is to him. Caesar in ancient on modern forms stands under his judgement.

So today rejoice! Embrace a political Christmas. For we put our whole beings in the hands of the one who is love for all times and for all peoples and who graciously invites us to make that journey of discovery and love with him that we might be transformed and be agents of the gospel of transformation.

So I say it again. A Very Political Christmas to you all!

Hope rising - A sermon for Advent 1 Yr B based on Mark13: 24-37

2011-11-27T09:09:00.002Z

“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day I can hear her breathing.”

Words from the Indian novelist activist Arundhati Roy in an inspirational speech at the World Social Forum in 2004.

And don’t we all dream of another world? For if we seriously engage with realities that surround us, we become all to well aware of their shortcomings. So time and again as we turn the pages of history we find the dreaming for a new and better world. This has inspired reform movements in every age and today is at the heart of the Occupy movement who seek new answers in an age in which institutions have failed people big time.

Jesus also lived in a world where people dared to dream. He was part of a people who had all too often suffered under the tyranny of others who cared not a jot for them. From childhood he would have heard the stories of exile and occupation. Indeed the stories of violence would not be academic for him as he was brought up in Nazareth just a short journey from Sepphoris where people had fought for their freedom in the aftermath of the death of King Herod the Great only for Roman legions to march in, burn the city down and reduce its people to virtual slavery according to the historian Josephus.

Mark’s community likewise were living in a time of dreams that would be cruelly dashed. Most commentators estimate that Mark’s Gospel was written during the Jewish revolt against Rome which took place from 66=70AD. Many of the signs to which Jesus alludes regarding wars, earthquakes and persecution were present realities for Mark’s community. The social unrest which underlies many of the stories of Jesus had reached explosion point. And so Roman cohorts and their supporters in the Jewish clerical aristocracy were driven out of the city. Debt records were burned. But divisions broke out between various Jewish factions and ultimately the power of Rome prevailed following a vicious scorched earth campaign which culminated in the very destruction of Jerusalem.

Mark faced the challenge which Jesus followers face in every age - how to interpret the Jesus way in concrete situations. Clearly Mark does not feel the rebellion to be wise. Rather than encourage his community to join in as a number of Christians did, his urging is to engage with the way of Jesus and instead to keep watch. And to keep watch by looking to that which Jesus himself accomplishes. The section that speaks of “those days” is not merely about a time in the future but actually sees that future being given shape by the story of Jesus and his Passion. It is in this that the future is given hope and not in the politics of violence which then as now all too often replaces one form of oppression with another. For hope in the darkest hour is found not in the passions of hatred but in the self giving that takes place on a wooden cross.

Like past generation we face our share of challenges today. An economic system has gone to rack and ruin throughout much of the world leaving many peoples’ life experiences severely damaged. Conflicts take place out of religious, ethnic and ideological divisions. The planet itself faces the ravages of environmental neglect to an extent that issues of sustainability are all too urgent. This is hardly a time for people of faith to retreat into bunkers. And Mark would certainly suggest no such thing.

Indeed Mark goes on to recount two parables of Jesus. The first concerning a fig tree points to a future in which the comforts of an old order are no longer to be present. Instead Jesus is close by, at the very gates.

The second parable tells of a man going on a journey who leaves the slaves in charge to carry on the work whilst keeping awake. In this we see perhaps an echo of Gethsemane when the disciples are called to keep awake, something they fail to do.

And in this we see a clue as to what Advent is about. It is as if the whole world has become Gethsemane. As history carries on it often gloomy course, the followers of Jesus are called to be alert, to keep awake not for the purposes of idle speculation but to be on the look out for every sign of genuine transformation that brings hope and dignity into the world so bringing meaning to the very processes of living.

Were another world not possible I think at times we would go mad. But like Arundhati Roy, like a litany of prophets in scripture or indeed subsequently, like those who live in tents we are encouraged to dream of another world, a world in which the humble are lifted up, a world in which the poor are fed, a world in which no human life is treated as disposable. And our dreams find meaning in the story, the presence and the promises of Jesus. For he tells us of a kingdom like no other, a kingdom of justice, peace and joy. He tells us through the Revelation granted to St John of a world in which death, mourning, crying and pain are no more. He is the one in whom the long march of history find its completion.

And so on this first Sunday of Advent, we see the dawning of hope even for a world where hope is all too often a commodity in short supply.

Our comrade King - A sermon for Christ the King Sunday based on Matthew 25: 31 -46

2011-11-20T09:38:00.002Z

I always feel just a little ambivalent when I see that Christ the King Sunday has come round again. I guess that is because Kings don’t exactly score highly with me. Certainly the Kings who are mentioned in our Old Testament going right back to when Samuel anointed Saul were on the whole a pretty rum bunch. I guess I could count on one hand the appealing ones.

And then studying British history back in school days a similar picture emerges. William the Conqueror, Richard the Lion Heart and Henry V111 were the big stars and each of them was responsible for a whole lot of bloodshed. And to make it worse each of them had the gall to claim they were doing God’s will.

And then last Sunday I found myself looking back to the First World War when a number of participating countries had monarchs who were related to each other - albeit with varying degrees of power within their countries.

Not that others who have claimed power have been any better. The unsavoury figures who emerged between the 2 World Wars are a powerful reminder of that. And indeed it was the emergence of Benito Mussolini as Italy’s dictator that was a factor in Pope PiusX1 establishing the Festival of Christ the King on the last Sunday in October. Now held on the last Sunday before Advent and celebrated ecumenically it has become an established part of the church year.

So what is the significance of Christ the King Sunday for us today? Well I think it provides a real challenge in how we see the world. Upon the cross of Jesus, Pontius Pilate placed an inscription, “The King of the Jews.” He did this as an insult to a subjugated people for whom he had no real sympathy. And yet he was not so far off the truth. For from the humiliation and pain of a cross Jesus would be more a King than Pilate ever could be.

But this Kingship would be that which subverts our understanding of kingship. For power historically whether exercised by a King or a dictator or indeed a few supposedly democratic leaders, tends to be caught up with domination. We expect the one in power to dominate yet Jesus tells us he has come to serve. Unlike the Kings of his day he did not rule by the sword but his kingship is exercised in love. Unlike the powerful of every age he does not surround himself with the rich and the powerful but instead is found with the poor and despised. Quite simply he turns our notions of kingship upside down.

And nowhere is that more true than in the parable which we have heard this morning. So often Kings are those who bark out the orders. Yet what we have here is the King who becomes a comrade to those whose needs are greatest - the hungry, the outsider, the sick and the prisoner. And that is what we need when our experiences of life are at their worst. Not a commander giving out the instructions but one who is alongside us completely identified with us.

Often we are caught up in hierarchical structures, the church no less than any other body. Often we write some people of as if they have nothing to contribute. But Jesus lives a very different way. He is so caught up with those treated as the disposables that what we do or do not do for them we do or not do for him. Now that we speak of Jesus as a King, are we not challenged to see those who are the needy and hurting as equivalent to royalty?

I think here we have a defining issue for the followers of Jesus. The economics of Europe look set to create an increasing tide of people who are dislocated from society. The problems of disaffected youth look likely to increase and alienation is rising among some within all age groups. These are indeed difficult times. And they present the challenge to us to hold on to the need to treat as special those whose lives are a disappointment to themselves even when they have contributed to that situation in some way or other. If we see others as lesser in value we ultimately demean ourselves.

Our parable ends on a pretty frightening point with a picture of judgement. The language here makes clear the importance that Jesus attaches to how we relate to those treated as the disposables. There is the divide between sheep and goats. And here is a problem in that we are all at times goats for we are all caught up in the injustices of this world. This scripture is dangerous when over literalised for Jesus is hardly the divine torturer. Instead we need to realise that the Judge is the one who loves us the most and the purpose of judgement is to strip our goatness away that we might become the people he wants us to be, the people who see the royalty that is in all.

I was recently reading about the slave trade. We are all aware that the primary victims were the slaves. Yet from reading case studies I found myself realising that those complicit with the trade were also victims in that their involvement with the trade and its attitudes tore away at their own humanity.

That is why I like the idea of Jesus as a comrade King. He is enmeshed in the life of the poor and the vulnerable but he is also enmeshed in our struggles with the dominant religion of the West, consumerism, through which we all too easily become identified. Alongside us he shares in all our struggles pointing us to his Kingdom of justice, peace and joy in which all count.

And so it is that next week we enter once more a new liturgical year in which we shall once more enter into that story of hope, the story of Jesus the comrade King who opens up the possibilities of royal life for all and who though executed by a tinpot dictator is raised by God to the Kingship unlike any other.

Make this our prayer today - Peace on Earth!

2011-11-13T08:33:00.006Z

Please note disturbing images

Remembering - a key to peacemaking. A sermon for Remembrance Sunday based on Matthew 5: 43 -48

2011-11-12T23:15:00.002Z

“Waste of Muscle, waste of Brain,
Waste if Patience, waste of Pain,
Waste of Manhood, waste of Health,
Waste of Beauty, waste of Wealth,
Waste of Blood, and waste of Tears,
Waste of Youth’s most precious years,
Waste of ways the saints have trod,
Waste if glory, waste of God,
War!”

Brutal words from a clergyman who in 1914 had encouraged young men in his Worcester parish to join the war effort. Within a year Rev Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy was on the front line as an army chaplain. He was good at it - well as good as any man could be. As well as the usual functions of a priest which he performed well even being awared the Military Cross for running into No Mans Land to help the wounded, he toured the front line with wrestlers and boxers giving morale boosting speeches about the usefulness of the bayonet. But most of all he is remembered for giving cigarettes to soldiers who would soon be going over the top to likely death or at the least serious injury. He wrote a poem about this practice which went as follows;

They gave me names like their nature,
Compacted of laughter and tears,
A sweet that was born of the bitter,
A joke that was torn from the years.

Of their travail and torture, Christ’s fools,
Atoning my sins with their blood,
Who grinned in their agony sharing
The glorious madness of God.

That name! Let me hear it - the symbol
Of unpaid - unplayable debt,
For the men to whom I owed God’s Peace,
I put off with a cigarette.

That poem was called “Woodbine Willie”, and Woodbine Willie became the name given to Kennedy by the troops and is the name through which he has gone down in history.

But as the poem I read at the beginning suggested the Studdert Kennedy who returned to civilian life at the end of the war was very different to the man who had been an enthusiast for war ain 1914. He had seen to much. Unlike many he did not lose his faith but he lived out the last decade of his life as a committed socialist and pacifist.

Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy had come to see the reality of war and was shocked to his core by it. He was by no means the first to experience this. Death and destruction are always disturbing and hard to make sense of. Years before reflecting on the Boer Wars Thomas Hardy had written a poem that has always haunted me entitled, “The man he killed.” The final verse is especially poignant;

Yes, quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You’d treat if met where any bar is,
Or help to half - a crown.

But long decades after the deaths of Hardy and Studdert Kennedy, war goes on being a terrible reality with the most striking change being that in the past century the changing nature of war has meant increasingly large numbers of civilian casualties.

And so today we remember. We look back in some cases to people we have known and loved who were killed or injured in conflict or who had their lives in some way or other changed.

For me the person I think of most on this day is an uncle of mine. One of three brothers who had previously not even travelled as far from their homes as Plymouth, he experienced the trauma of losing one of his legs as a result I understand of so called friendly fire. I recall that today was the one day when he would absent himself from morning worship. After all he remembered every day. My father was twice wounded including injuries on Hill112 a battled in which 320 soldiers from the Duke of Cornwall Light Infantry died = injuries concerning which his hospitalisation probably saved him from some of the worst fighting on the road to Berlin. But of that he rarely spoke. What we did hear about was the officer for whom he had been a batman. Many a time he would recount how this officer had been very enthusiastic in a way which had terrified him. Indeed the officer had been killed. And the story stopped there for about 60 years. But then as a funeral director he was called to arrange the funeral of a bank worker whose wife belonged to our church. Moments after arriving he noticed a photograph. It was he discovered the lady’s first husband and yes it was the officer whose batman he had been. The visit became much longer than was normal as the two of them reminisced. And it opened up Dad to telling more of his war experiences.

Yes today is a day for very real human experiences. But even if we did not have them it would still be right to remember today. For this day is about a debt of honour to those whom we as a nation have sent in harm’s way. It is a day in which we take seriously the sacrifices of those whose lives were cut short and resolve that their stories must never be forgotten, a day in which we remember that if we have no knowledge of the names upon our memorials, every one of them is known by name and loved by God.

So today we remember them whatever their individual stories recognising that those in whose memory the poppies fell last night in the Royal Albert Hall were so very often ordinary young men caught up in extraordinary circumstances and terrifying dangers.

But as we look back we also look forwards. Visitors to Yad Vashem In Jerusalem are reminded, “Remembrance is the secret to redemption.” And this echoes in so many ways the Hebrew Bible where time and again the people are exhorted to remember. For if we do not remember we fail to know who we are and we too often fail to learn the lessons of the past. And today we know the need to learn the lessons of the past so that one day humanity might discover the way of peace and war might be no more and those who once were enemies might find a path to reconciliation and even comradeship.

But we are gathered in a church. Jesus may speak of loving enemies with the change of perspective that this implies. Yet there are those who would say that all too often people of religion have been a cause of conflict rather than a force for peace. And there are times when that analysis is right. Yet I want to argue this morning that we can be the peacemakers that Jesus calls us to be.

Let me develop this further.

Firstly we having a calling to work for peace between people of faith. This means that rather than envisaging the clash of civilisations that was talked about post September 11th, we have a calling to create a healthy relationship between faith communities. This is one of the purposes of interfaith dialogue. Hans Kung the Roman Catholic theologian puts this well when he says:

“There will be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions. There will be no peace among the religions without dialogue among the religions."

Secondly in a world with scarce resources, injustice is often a cause of war. Look to the scriptures and you find that justice is a recurring theme. See that one of the greatest moral crusades in recent years, the Jubilee 2000 campaign for debt cancellation for the poorest countries has as its inspiration the Jubilee vision that can be found in the little visited book of Leviticus.

Thirdly faith challenges us not just to see things through our eyes or that of our country. When Jesus suggests that rather than emphasise the speck in the eyes of others we should take note of the plank in our own eyes. This means that not just individuals but movements and nations need not just to see their own propaganda but see ourselves as others see us - you know a little thing called empathy.

Then fourthly we need not to let go of the many biblical visions for peace such as the visions of swords being turned into ploughshares, spears into pruning hooks, a time when nations cease training for war, natural enemies lying down together in peace and of a city where death and pain are no more.

And fifthly we need to hold on to a view that people of all races and nations are special in God's sight

Let me tell you a story from the Bosnian conflict.

A reporter covering the conflict whilst in Sarajevo saw a young girl shot by a sniper. He threw down his note pad and ran to the girl and a man who had just picked her up before helping them both into his car.

As the reporter drove, the man holding the bleeding child begged him to drive faster, giving increasingly desperate updates on the girl’s condition. Sadly by the time they got to the hospital, the girl was dead. Together the two men went to wash the blood off their hands and clothes. After a bit the man who had held the girl, turned to the journalist and said:

“This is a terrible task for me. I must go and tell her father that his child os dead. He will be heartbroken.”

The reporter was stunned. Looking at the grieving man, he stuttered out the words;

“But I thought she was your child.”

The man looked up and replied:

“But aren’t they all our children?”

And he was right. All someone’s children! All God’s children!

For whatever the race, whatever the creed, all are the children of God. And God’s heart is the first to break at the pains of war. This was not how it was meant to be.

I began with Woodbine Willie, a man who knew the realities of war all too well. I end with another man who knew the realities of war all too well, Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander in World War 2 and later the 34th President of the USA. Late in his life he reflected on war with these words;

“I’d like to think that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.”

But that requires peacemakers. So today as we rightly honour the fallen with poppies, silence and prayers, as we commit ourselves to the living who suffer the consequences of war, we resolve also to do our part in peacemaking that death and pain might be no more and God’s peace, shalom, be experienced by God’s diverse community of children.

Yes, we will remember them!

Christmas Letter to Arnold Methodist Church magazine

2011-11-08T10:19:00.001Z

Christmas is getting ever closer. As is usual at this time of year there seems to be so much to do and so little time to do it. Still it is important that we once more grapple with the meaning of the season.

The gospel offer rich narratives concerning the coming of Jesus.

Luke portrays a happening on the margins of society. He tells us of young pregnant girl who responds to her situation with both obedience and a somewhat feisty spirit in her song, Magnificat, in which she speaks of a transformation in which the seemingly unimportant people will be raised up at the expense of those who had hitherto ruled the roost. Moved like pawns on a chess board by the mighty Roman Empire, they come to Bethlehem where the child is born. But there is no reception by the powers of the day. Instead it is those who would be regarded as of no great significance who meet the Holy Family - shepherds and quiet faithful souls such as Simeon and Anna. For Luke the coming of Jesus takes place among those who would be seen as the disposables.Yet Luke with a bit of a subversive edge shows many of the titles commonly granted to Caesar Augustus being more truly belonging to Jesus.

Matthew tells us of visitors. In his case they are a different type of outsider. Through him we meet the magi who would have been foreigners with a different faith allegiance.Meanwhile there is no response from the religious professionals. And Israel's King, Herod the Great, who despite his propaganda is not truly Jewish and who owes his position solely to Rome, actually wishes the child harm leading the Holy Family to seek refuge in the same Egypt where their forefathers had once been slaves. Matthew will remind us of ancient Jewish prophecies which he will present Jesus as fulfilling
while daring to suggest that God's salvation is wider than many had envisaged.

Mark and John offer no nativity stories. However, John's Gospel begins with a prologue which is rich in meaning. He tells of The Word present with God at creation before making the remarkable claim as he introduces Jesus - "The Word became flesh and lived among us." This is the good news of Christmas that God has entered into human living through this Jesus.

These are but tasters of the things we will be contemplating in coming weeks. For here is rich treasure. The coming of Jesus demonstrates God's love for the world and through Jesus' birth and all that flows from it, things can never be the same. The light has entered even the darkest of places and can never be put out!

May your Christmas be a blessed time.

The price of armaments

2011-11-05T22:55:00.001Z

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children....This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from an iron cross."

Dwight Eisenhower

The way of love - A non lectionary sermon based on Mark12:28 - 34

2011-11-05T20:47:00.003Z

So one of the experts in the Law asks Jesus what is the most important instruction in the Torah Law, not an uncommon question given that according to rabbinic tradition there are some 613 commandments within the Torah covering a wide variety of issues. So what lies at the heart of this question?

What most scholars believe is being asked for here is not so much the most important commandment but that which sums up the intent of Torah Law, that which demonstrates the principles from which Torah is derived. The prophet Micah had in a sense tried to answer this question centuries before when he had proclaimed;

“And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

Indeed the question was very current around the time of Christ. The great Rabbi Hillel had offered the answer;

“What you hate for yourself, do not do to your neighbour.”

Another rabbi, Akiba, offered what might sound a familiar answer;

“You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”

Jesus offers a reply that takes two parts. First he looks back to Deuteronomy where we find the Shema which is so important to the Jewish people, the command to love the One God with all our being. Then he visits Leviticus where we find the command to love our neighbour as ourselves.

What makes the response of Jesus of importance to us today is the link that he makes between love of God and love of others. We can easily separate the two but the relationship between them is at the heart of Christian proclamation. Hear for a moment the words of the Apostle John which affirm this connection;

“If anyone says, ‘I love God’ but hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God, who he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”

Now let’s be real as to the issue here. Love cannot be commanded. If on my first date with Andrea I ordered her to love me and ultimately marry me, a slapped face is the least I would have got. Emotions quite simply cannot be commanded by another. But that is not what this is about. The Greek word for love in this scripture is agape which is about actions. So what this is about is not romantic day dreaming but the actions of the love that seeks the best for the other party. What matters here is the actions that show an appreciation of the value of God and of others allied to a response to both God and others.

Now at this stage of this sermon I guess I could talk about the actions that can point to agape love of God. But hey time is short and what I want to stress is how this love of God is expressed through our dealings with others.

Now let us be clear that Christians are by no means the only people to love others. I think back to my undergraduate days and recall that most of those who visited the Vietnamese boat people or took part in the other Community Relations activities were not professing Christians. So too many of the people I have seen responding to international disasters through charitable activities would not claim the name of Christ. Likewise earnest people I have met at Nottingham Occupation for Global Change, people expressing serious concerns about the future of vulnerable people, people who talk about the need of a more love influenced politics and economics with great sincerity, come from a variety of faith and non faith perspectives. Claim that we are the only people to show true love and we delude ourselves but make no mistake love is at the heart of being a follower of Jesus.

And yet a warts and all exploration of Christian history shows that all too often those who have been aware of the love of God in Christ have allowed that love to be used as a cause of violent hatred. We see it in the Crusades when the slaughter of Muslims and even the wrong type of Christian was in Eamon Duffy’s words attributed by the highest spiritual authorities as “meritorious violence.” And the slaughters associated with post Reformation conflict were little better with the Thirty Years War being a religious conflict that prematurely ended the lives of close on 20% of the population of Central Europe. Add the killings of possibly millions of people, mainly women, for witchcraft and you get a clear picture that all too often love of God has been expressed in violent hatred of those who are deemed to be the enemies of God.

But Jesus reminds us that this is not how it should be. For when he says to love our neighbour he offers no safe instruction for us to hide behind but as demonstrated in the parable of the Good Samaritan a call for us to love precisely those whom it is not easy to love. As Dorothy Day who founded the Catholic Worker Movement put it;

“I really only love God as much as the person I love least.”

Let’s do a brief case study. Will Campbell is a Baptist minister in the USA. He also has quite a history as an activist being involved in a number of causes including opposition to the Vietnam War in which connection he helped many draft resisters find sanctuary in Canada. He has opposed the death penalty and indeed abortion but most of all he is remembered for his involvement in the civil rights campaign concerning which he was the only white person present at the founding of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by Martin Luther King.

All well and good but there came the time when he realised that he was less a minister than a rather doctrinaire social activist. He had begin to write off those who were on the other side of the barricades, even to hate them. And so without surrendering the causes that were dear to him, he began to engage with and to minister to those who had been his enemies even members of that most repugnant of groups, the Ku Klux Klan. I’m not sure that was particularly wise but I cannot escape the validity of his observation, “Jesus died for bigots as well!”

And so he did! You see what Jesus is doing in this scripture is calling us into a way of life where radical love is at the heart of our being. If I were to recommend 5 films that every Christian should consider watching, one of my choices would without doubt be Chocolat. In it there is a rigid religious scene of an oppressive nature. The Comte is at the heart of it and writes the sermons for the young priest Pere Henri. That is until on the eve of Easter he succumbs to temptation and stuffs himself with chocolate. Set free to preach without his mentor the young priest who has observed and indeed been complicit in the culture of exclusion of those whose lifestyle does not fit, finally grasps what faith is about as in a stuttering voice he proclaims to packed church on Easter Day that rather than preach on Christ‘s divinity:

“I want to talk about Christ’s humanity, I mean how he lived his life on earth: his kindness, his tolerance. We must measure our goodness, not by what we don’t do, what we deny ourselves, what we resist, or who we exclude. Instead, we should measure ourselves by what we embrace, what we create, and who we include.”
And that is inclusion unlimited even reaching Will Campbell’s bigots. For the way proclaimed by Jesus is the way that declares all to be of value - and that includes ourselves for the love we are invited to show to neighbours is a love we can match to ourselves. We’re alright!

And knowing that we prepare to go to the table where we are reminded of what it is to be accepted by God.

Saints yesterday and today - An All saints sermon based on Hebrews 12: 1-3

2011-10-30T08:39:00.002Z

“When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food they call me a communist.” Words from the liberationist priest Dom Helder Camara which challenge us as to what a saint is!

A story is told of 2 brothers who were no better than they ought to be. They were gangsters who made money out of protection rackets and the likes. Most people feared them and kept a discreet distance whenever possible. Now there came a time when one of the brothers died. The grief stricken surviving brother had to make the funeral arrangements and he wanted the service to be taken by a clergy person who would say positive things about the dead brother. In fact he wanted the funeral to be told that the dead brother was a saint. One by one the clergy of the local churches found excuses as to why they could not host the funeral. That is all except the Methodist Church. You see the surviving brother knew they had a weakness. They had to replace the roof and money was short. So he offered £100,000 to the Methodist minister if he would use the funeral to declare the dead brother to be a saint. The Methodist minister agreed but with one proviso - that half of the money should be provided up front.

It came the day of the funeral and the church was packed. Present were a right collection of gangsters and gangsters’ molls but also present were members of the church wondering how on earth their minister would be able to declare the dead gangster a saint without losing all credibility. Come the moment of the address and the minister went for it. The dead man was he said, a thief, a drunkard, an adulterer and a total hypocrite. The surviving brother by now was mopping the sweat off his brow. This wasn’t what he had planned. His only hope was that somehow the minister would keep his promise if only to get the second half of his payment. Surely he would pronounce the dead man to be a saint.

And the minister did precisely that! As he brought his address to a loud crescendo declaring that the word would have been a better place had the dead man never lived, he concluded with the words;

“But compared with his brother he was an absolute saint!”

Mmmm. Perhaps you can find one of Nottingham’s gangsters who is coming to the end of his life and we can do a similar deal to finance the Back Door Project. I’m up for it but I suspect the Methodist Connexion would need to move me on swiftly for my protection!

So where are the saints? Let’s for a moment look at 2 heroic individuals from the past cent who show us saintly qualities and who challenge us today.

The first of these is Oscar Romero, a pastor, prophet and mystic. Romero came from El Salvador and probably would be seen as a good Christian yet not one who stands out in the popular memory were it not for the last 3 years of his life. He lived in a land that was going through a tempestuous time for sure. But there was little tempestuous about the cautious Romero - well not at first!

You see El Salvador was a land of injustice. A mere 14 families controlled 60% of the arable land. And history shows that this elite was prepared to kill big time to keep its position and to keep indigenous people in their place. By the time Romero became archbishop, some 60% of the peasants were landless. And their conditions were atrocious with even today 25% of Salvadoran children dying before the age of 5 from curable diseases. And this injustice was backed up through repression, torture and killings carried out by a military funded by the United States and with soldiers trained by the notorious US Army School of the Americas.

But now priests were among the victims. Many influenced by liberation theology and the option for the poor proclaimed at Medellin’s council of Bishops were activists on behalf of the poor and dispossessed. Romero himself was socially concerned but at the same time suspicious of liberation theology which he saw as divisive. More than that he tended to see the killings as aberrations rather than as the deliberate policy they were. So when in 1977 he was installed as archbishop of San Salvador there was relief among the elite. The bookish cleric would surely be a restraining force on his clergy - no radical politics here!

But a few weeks later a Jesuit friend of Romero named Rutilio Grande was assassinated. Grande had worked building base communities in which role he had very publicly denounced injustices. Romero demanded an investigation before he went to see the body. That night transformed Romero from a cautious man who sought to make compromises into becoming a man who saw the evil unleashed on his country for what it was. Now like the friend whose radicalism had once troubled him he would stand alongside the poor in their quest for justice. Publicly he held a mass outside the cathedral to replace all other masses, in memory of the dead priest. There he made clear his solidarity with his priests in their work pf solidarity with the poor. And now came a message that he would boycott all government affairs until the repression ended. Indeed as archbishop he was never to attend a single official event. The man of books had become a prophet!

In the three years that followed the repression increased and many priests were among those killed - indeed soon after his own death the murder of American nuns would awaken the United States to just what it had been complicit in. In all 75,000 would die by the time this dirty war came to an end. But as archbishop Romero fearlessly denounced the violence and injustices even as hatred against him increased and the loyalty of many of his bishops became suspect. In a way he had become the good shepherd who seeks to shield his flock by putting his own life on the line - all in the conviction that an order that treated people as disposables was contrary to the gospel of Christ.

A week before his death in one of his radio broadcasts that had offended the elite but brought hope to so many of the suffering, Romero turned to address the military now deeply soaked in the blood of the innocents;

“Brothers, you are from the same peoples: you kill your brother peasants… No soldier is obliged to obey an order that is contrary to the will of God. Now it is time to recover your consciences so that you first obey your conscience rather than a sinful order… In the name of God, then, in the name of this suffering people, whose cries rise to the heavens, every day more tumultuously, I ask you, I beg. I order you in the name of God; stop the repression.”

A week later came their response when celebrating the Mass, Romero was shot dead!

But days before his death Romero had told a journalist in an interview;

“You can tell people, if they succeed in killing me, then I forgive and bless those who do it. Hopefully they will realise that they are wasting their time. A bishop will die, but the church of God which is the people will never perish.”

And when the war came to an end the people waved banners remembering that Romero had said he would rise amid the Salvadoran people, banners that proclaimed;

“Archbishop Romero, you have risen in your people.!"

The second heroic individual was Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was a Lutheran pastor and academic. Like Romero he lived in tumultuous times. His life was dominated by the rising of the evil of Nazism. And yet he could have escaped the worst of it. You see in the Summer of 1939 he was teaching at a university in New York. Yet to the consternation of his friends who had encouraged him to go there, Bonhoeffer who was already a marked man in the eyes of the Nazis gave up his security to return to Germany. In a letter he explained his decision;

“ I have made a mistake in coming to america. I must live through this difficult period in our national history with the Christian people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share in the trials at this time with my people….. Christians in Germany will face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilisation may survive or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying our civilisation. I know which of these alternatives I must choose; but I cannot make that choice in security.”

With this fateful decision Bonhoeffer came to embody the title of his most famous book, “ The Cost of Discipleship.”

His biggest contribution came in the German Church Struggle. At a time when the nationalistic perversion of Christianity known as the German Christians became dominant within the churches, Bonhoeffer was one of those who waged a theological onslaught against the heresy that so often comes when people confuse to loyalty to God with loyalty to state. Bonhoeffer nurtured communities within what became known as the Confessing Church in which to keep the gospel of Christ’s being for all. Despite in his younger days having refused to conduct the funeral of his sister’s Jewish father in law he became a vociferous voice against anti Judaism likening the expulsion of Jews to the expulsion of Christ from Germany.

Like Romero Bonheoffer paid the ultimate price. He had been a double agent in Abwehr through which he had been involved in smuggling Jews to safety in Switzerland. Ultimately a minor role in the plot to assassinate Hitler, in itself a difficult issue for a man who was and remained a pacifist, led to his being hanged a mere week before Hitler’s own death.

Bonhoeffer’s left a theological treasury which raises issues such as whether a church which puts Christ at its centre inevitably has to live on the margins of society. But most of all he leaves us with an example of a man who seeks to act rightly in an age in which both society and church have gone rotten.

Heroic figures like Romero and Bonhoeffer are inspirational. But they are unique rather than being the norm. Most of us can never be like them. And they are so few that they hardly constitute “a cloud of witnesses.” For that we need to see that the cloud of witnesses also contains a host of unknown saints who in various ways point us to the love of Christ and to our calling to remain faithful.

So that Saints aren’t just the super heroes of faith but also everyday followers of Jesus. They include gruff ladies such a Nellie whom I knew when she lived in a small flat in peel on the Isle of Man, a lady whose latest fall was a sign that her days were numbered yet who when I started to pray for her at the end of a visit, thinking rightly that my prayer would be about her, interrupted to tell me to thank God. Thank God - the last thing I felt like doing on what for me was a sad day. Think to of Bob a retired farmer from North Devon who with his with his wife Jean had brought up a terrific family and who whilst spending the last months of his life in considerable pain in a hospital in Bideford, time and again after I had prayed for him, insisted on praying for me. Yes Nellie Ridgeway and Bob Bellew are for me an important part of the cloud of witnesses that is the saints. And you will have their equivalents whom you have had the joy of knowing.

Lesbia Scott was a vicar’s wife who lived for many years on Dartmoor. She wrote hymns for her children. One which appears as far as I know in no British hymn book is to be found in the hymnal of the United Methodist Church in the US. It’s probably a bit too twee for the Brits. And it goes like this;

I sing a song of the saints of God,
Patient and brave and true,
Who toiled and fought and lived and died
For the Lord they loved and knew.
And one was a doctor, and one was a queen,
And one was a shepherdess on the green;
They were all of them saints of God, and I mean,
God helping, to be one too.

They loved their Lord so dear, so dear,
And his love made them strong;
And they followed the right for Jesus' sake
The whole of their good lives long.
And one was a soldier, and one was a priest,
And one was slain by a fierce wild beast;
And there's not any reason, no, not the least,
Why I shouldn't be one too.

They lived not only in ages past;
There are hundreds of thousands still.
The world is bright with the joyous saints
Who love to do Jesus' will.
You can meet them in school, on the street, in the store,
In church, by the sea, in the house next door;
They are saints of God, whether rich or poor,
And I mean to be one too

And in that resolve we find what All Saints is about. We look back and then seeks God’s help to be his saints in our time and place.

visualtheology: The Christian Church in an age of protest: no signals no hope?

2011-10-27T19:27:00.000Z

visualtheology: The Christian Church in an age of protest: no signals no hope?

A story of love - A non lectionary sermon based on Luke15:11-32

2011-10-16T08:27:00.000Z

It’s a story that could fill an entire Jeremy Kyle Show - this story told by Jesus that is so often called the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Each of the characters has a different take and indeed both sons are just a little bit dysfunctional. One cannot be sure that Kyle’s genius Graham would be able to sort this one out.

After all each of the characters has a story even if they do not match with each other. Let’s first look at the younger son. At the beginning of the story he sees his father as something of a cash cow. And he can’t bring himself to wait for the cash cow to die. He wants his inheritance and he wants it now. So he demands it - an act tantamount to telling his father to drop down dead! And when he gets it he goes binge spending = a bit like Vivian Nicholson who having won the then princely sum of £152,000 on the football pools in 1961, announced to the world that she was going to “Spend! Spend! Spend!” And like Nicholson he ends up well and truly spent out!

Confronted with the desperation and humiliation of his poverty which coincides with a time of famine, the son begins to realise that life back home was not so bad after all. And so he makes his journey back home not to sonship but to the relative insecurity and lack of status of a hired worker. After all his actions have brought shame on himself and by implication his father. So back he goes rehearsing his “I am no longer worthy to be called your son” speech.

That is his story, a story of unworthiness. But what is the father’s story. He has been hurt by the son’s actions towards him. Yet he has given him freedom despite knowing the risks. And in the time since he has not stopped loving this son. Indeed he has kept a look out for him. And when he sees him, he runs to him in what would have been seen as most unmanly behaviour in his culture. And when he gets him there is not the much deserved slap across the face but an embrace and a kiss. There is no allowing a “not worthy” speech but there is the robe, ring and sandals that signify sonship. There is no journey into servants quarters but instead a right royal party in the son’s honour.

Now see the contrast in the two stories. Now the son needs to decide whether he is to live in his story of making up for the past without expectation for the future or the father’s story that rejoices in his being alive as a fully dignified robe ring and sandal wearing son. His future quality of life and his relationship with his father depends on which story he chooses to believe.

Now let’s look to the other son, the older son. He has been working for his father whilst the young scamp has been gallivanting around - and doesn’t he know it! He comes over as having a chip on both shoulders. He clearly is not impressed by his brother. Indeed his reference to the use of prostitutes suggests that he is only too willing to think the worst of his brother. In fact he cannot speak his brother’s name. But when we meet him it seems that his prime anger is directed at his father.

This son is not going to the party. He’d rather be miserable on the outside. And he is full of gripes and by the time he speaks to his father his complaints come out with bucket loads of venom. As far as he is concerned he has worked for his father like a slave. And what has he got for it? Not even a scrawny goat to eat with his friends. And now the same father who has been a cheap skate with him is going overboard with that waster of a younger brother. We can almost hear him wanting to yell out those words so beloved of young immature children - “It’s not fair!”

And that is his story. He sees himself as the one who does the right thing and gets scant gratitude. But it is only his story. The father’s story is very different. It is a story summed up in the words;

“Son, you are always with me and everything I have is yours.”

This is a story that suggests that the Son has been the author of his own unhappiness. He hasn’t had to work all hours. He hasn’t had to do without. His father has been only to willing to let him all he wanted and that includes not just scrawny goats but fattened calves. By denying the reality of his father’s generosity he is the reason for his own embitteredness. It has all been there for him but he has chosen to believe the worst he can believe about the father. Indeed perhaps we might think that he could do with the thrashing that Jesus’ audience would expect a father to give him so as to defend his honour, in the hope of beating some sense into him.

But there is one more point in the father’s story that deserves mention. This point is that he blots out fairness. It doesn’t interest him. He is in the generosity business - the business in which fairness matters not one iota. The younger son does not deserve a party. But that doesn’t matter. It is profoundly unfair but this is how grace works - even parties for sons who Spend! Spend! Spend! But because one receives generosity and grace does not mean that there is less for others.

“Son you are always with me and everything I have is yours.!

So two very different stories. A Son who sees the father as cheap and unfair to him set against a father who is purposefully unfair yet who speaks in terms of generosity without limit. We do not get told which choice this older son eventually makes as to which story he chooses to believe. But as with the younger son that choice will determine his future quality of life and his relationship with his father.

We do well to be careful about suggesting that characters in parables represent God. In some cases carelessness can lead to a skewed picture of God. But the context in which this parable is set in Luke’s Gospel as well as the story itself, make clear that the father is a depiction of God.

So do we believe in this father as telling us God’s story?

If so we find that Hell is not believing in God’s story. For it when the sons do not believe in God’s story that they are essentially experiencing Hell. When they do not see that the Father is love unlimited then they reject the possibilities of love and celebration within their own lives. They cut themselves off from all that can make their lives whole.

But the story never ends. The father’s love just is not going away. It is the very nature of the father to love even when the sons are a right pain in the arse. And that is the truth of God’s story. When we are at our most impossible God loves us to the max. And when we give our time, our labours and our moneys God loves us to the max but no more for there is no greater love. For here is a love that has no limits, is not arbitrary but which in generosity and grace goes on and on. It can not be driven away ! Neither can it be earned. It is simply the natural yet purposeful way of God.

Too often in the Christian church we put limits on that love. Sometimes we portray a harsh understanding of God. And yet to take the title of a book written by a local preacher from Cornwall who was dying from motor neurone disease, “ Love never ends.” More than that God’s love is the great transformative presence in our world today greater than sin or any means of destruction. In it we can put our hope and listen to this story. For this love of God is victorious!

A new type of King - A sermon for Pentecost 17 based on Matthew 22: 1-14

2011-10-09T07:51:00.001Z

Let me start with a confession. I think the way we often interpret parables is offensive and verging on blasphemous. What I mean by that is the tendency to strictly allegorise in a way that everything must neatly match up.

Look at the parable of the wedding banquet if you want an example. You know the sort of interpretation I’m getting at, the sort that sees the King as standing for God. What do you end up with? A psychopathic monster who deals in revenge and slaughter assumed to represent God followed by intellectual gymnastics to say that it’s ok.

Rubbish! Stuff of nonsense! There is absolutely no way that we could possibly justify a God who is like this King. Let’s go further. I’d rather give up on faith than follow such a malign being.

But wait! The choice need not arise! God who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ cannot possibly be like this King. The differences are all too apparent. After all to borrow a creed used by David Jenkins the former Bishop of Durham;

“God is.

God is as he is in Jesus.

Therefore there is hope.”

You see it is the translation differences that are at the heart of this parable. The NIV translation may say;

“The kingdom of God is like a King who prepared a wedding banquet for his son.”

But a much more helpful translation is that offered by the New Revised Standard Version;

“ The Kingdom of God may be compared to a King who gave a wedding banquet for his son.”

It’s quite a difference isn’t it? On the one hand we have a likeness whilst on the other hand we have a comparison. And in this case only the comparison makes sense. So please ignore the NIV on this one. For then we are liberated to see the difference between a King whose savagery is rooted in the honour culture with which Jesus was familiar and the very different perspective of the kingdom of heaven which Jesus heralds and embodies.

Our story is located around a wedding banquet. Such an event would be of great political significance. Sure not turning up would fail to demonstrate the honour owed to the King. But things run deeper. The marriage of a son would carry with it dynastic complications. Failure to attend would seem to represent a withholding of loyalty to the legitimate succession to the throne. Political allegiance would be at stake and failure to comply would be seen as insurrection. And the price for insurrection would be high! After all the kingdoms that existed in Palestine and surrounding territories were hardly liberal democracies. The only question was the level of violence to be directed at those who were or were thought to be dissidents. Real politique had no time for anything so namby pamby as human rights.

Still in our story when called for, the people resist the invitation. More than that they carry out acts of violence against the King’s representatives. And this begins a cycle of violence. The King kills his enemies and destroys their city. Is this not a picture of what we see in many conflicts today. One act of violence leads to greater acts of violence and the outcome is that the crime that is collective punishment becomes not just an injustice but that which draws more and more people into conflict creating ever greater circles of hatred, violence and destruction. “Love your enemies,” those words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount is so removed from this orgy of death. No wonder Martin Luther King looking at the realities around him and centuries of grisly centuries summed up the choices that even more confront us today with the words;

“We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”

In the story Jesus tells, it does not end with a scene of massacre. Now the King sends his slaves to compel those who previously had not been deemed suitable to attend the wedding, to now attend. Think for a moment of situations around the globe where those intoxicated by power in moments of need all too often find reason to call on the loyalty of those whom they had previously given little thought, that they might bolster the apparatuses of power. Pawns on a chessboard after all can defend even the most endangered of Kings.

But now comes another twist. It comes in the form of a man not wearing wedding clothes. The King deems this to be an insult. After all this can be seen as an expression of a willingness to enjoy the goodies but fail to enter into the joy of the occasion -as much an act of disloyalty as those who reject an invitation. But let’s hold on a moment! Given that some have been brought from the streets this might be a man without the means to be appropriately attired. Certainly he seems to be inarticulate for he offers no defence whatsoever. Might it not be that this man represents the many victims of arbitrary power, those who if not deemed to be non persons are treated as non persons in the world today as well as then.

Oh this King is a nasty piece of work. And we see it furthermore in the condemnation of the man to be tortured. Sure the line about the weeping and gnashing of teeth reminds me of the apocryphal story concerning Ian Paisley in which having read this line, he is confronted by a lady who protests that she has no teeth, only for him to give the reply;

“Teeth will be provided!”

But torture is a serious business. I remember as a student meeting Chileans who had electric shocks applied to the part of their bodies they would least like to be treated in such a way. And more recently we have seen the debate regarding rendition through which terror suspects were handed over to regimes such as Libya, Egypt and Syria to be tortured. And we heard of how a US government many of whose leaders professed to be Christians used weasel words to deny that waterboarding was torture. This is why careful exegesis of this parable is essential for if you are prepared to see your God as a tyrant then you will use his name to justify wicked deeds - even a bloodstained tyrant who having done his worst grimly says t himself in satisfaction;

“Many are invited, but few are chosen!”

This afternoon, I invite you to compare this gruesome King with the storyteller. For here is a massive difference. Yes the storyteller invites us to his banquet but does so with graciousness rather than for the promotion of his own honour. He spreads the invite far and wide not to demonstrate his power but because his generosity is for all. When we turn away he does not give up on us - indeed not even death itself marks the end of his loving intentions towards us. To use the title of a recent book, with him Love wins. For the storyteller Jesus reaches out through seemingly powerlesss love rather than as with this King through love of power. When our response is faltering and we approach him with all our imperfections the storyteller Jesus still dines with us and moves us forward with his presence rather than to respond with offended pique as does this King. And whilst the King at the end snarls words of condemnation the storyteller Jesus goes on loving and redeeming.

Indeed the point of this parable is that God is nothing like this King. The comparison shows how very different they are. And in this we are reminded of how the Kingdom of God is so different than the Kingdoms of Caesars and Empires. Here we see the clash that will be played out in Holy week as it begins with Jesus and his followers entering one gate into Jerusalem whilst on the same day Pontius Pilate would have entered in full imperial regalia through the other gate. And the clash that begins then goes on even today.

This parable asks the big question, “What is your God like?” The opposite to those whose power is used to dominate is the answer. But it speaks also to our world today indicting every example of arbitrary power that coerces, slaughters and demeans. Yes this is precisely the sort of parable that convinced the powers that Jesus was a trouble maker. So I invite you to be today’s trouble makers for the causes of justice and peace. Let’s get to it!

The gratitude that changes the world - A Harvest Thanksgiving sermon based on Ruth 2

2011-10-01T17:21:00.002Z

“Dear God, we paid for all this stuff ourselves so thanks for nothing!”

With those words the great theologian Bart Simpson doubtless speaks for many! Yet this morning we gaze on a Harvest display and link our pleasure with a sense of gratitude. Gratitude to God and gratitude to those whose labours provide a bounty. For this is a season when we know that far from being independent we live in a state of dependence.

We are in a state of dependence on God. It is not that God personally hands us the goodies. Rather it is that God is the reason that lies behind scientific processes that bequeath us a world of great possibilities. Our responsibility becomes that of using those possibilities in life enhancing rather than life destroying manners. And so God is worthy of gratitude! Indeed in thanking God we find a sense of unity with the one to whom we owe our being. We who are recipients of gifts and possibilities have a need to express gratitude. No wonder G.K. Chesterton once observed;

“The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has no one to thank.”

And yet if we stop at this point something is missing. You see this is a time to contemplate the links that exist within humanity. Farmers, fishermen, process workers, transport workers and retail workers locally and globally make this celebration possible. Those whom we may never meet or know much of are part the story of the abundance we observe on a day like this. It makes me think, albeit probably in a way that is different than he intended, of those words of John Donne;

“No man is an island.”

We depend on each other and need to develop our community and global relationships in a spirit of gratitude for in our world of diversity we are enriched by one another.

Different communities celebrate Harvest Thanksgiving in different ways. The revival of Harvest festivals in the 19th Century is said to owe much to an eccentric Anglican clergyman named Robert Hawker who served as a priest for a number of decades in Morwenstow, who begun the tradition of church harvest Festivals in 1843. There the outcome of the harvest was crucial to the wellbeing of the local community. A bad year and people went hungry – that is if they did not engage in those activities so beloved by his parishoners of smuggling and wrecking! And whilst some city communities emphasise in the words of a hymn “God of concrete, God of steel” for most of us Harvest is about food – that which so defines our living!

Today from the scriptures we have listened to the Book of Ruth. Incidentally if any of you are wondering after the past month how on earth they let “him” in, the book of Ruth is part of my story. At Ministerial Candidate's Selection committee part of the process is an interview by two people concerning studying done thus far. I remember little of this as my mind felt quite blank. Anyhow I ended up be asked about an essay I had written on the Book of Ruth and mission. I spluttered out a few words before agreeing with my questioner that really the book of Ruth wasn't primarily about mission. Asked what it was about I apparently replied, “Sex of course!” Anyhow my questioner who was the Principal of the place where I was to train, on his return told a student who became a good friend of mine that at that moment he decided I was in and I was coming to his college.

Well I am as you will have gathered a little bit shy so I have spared my blushes if not your by missing Chapter 3 with the threshing floor and all of that. But the second chapter of Ruth which we have just listened to is an ancient picture of the process of harvesting. Ruth is an outsider. She comes from Moab. The people of Moab get a bad press in the Hebrew Bible. They had opposed the conquest of Canaan and as a result been excluded from the “congregation.” The 2nd Book of Kings suggests a tendency towards human sacrifices. More than that Ruth is a widow, a vulnerable position at that time. And so by the time of our reading, her mother in law Naomi in response to the loyalty of her daughter in law is encourages Ruth to win the heart of Boaz, a good man, so that she might have the security she needs. The earliest encounter arises through following the harvesters. Indeed she goes out to be one of those who would follow the harvesters picking up that left behind. In this we find the practice decreed in the law given to Israel as recorded by Leviticus;

“When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the Lord your God.”

This law shows the heart of God for the poor and the outsider. Always the needs of the vulnerable are to be addressed. And as you read deeper into the Book of Ruth, you find that Boaz goes beyond the law as he demonstrates that “hesed” which means loving kindness.

Today is a day to say thank you. It is also a day to consider those whose needs may be greater than ours whilst their value to God is equal to ours. Each of us can today rejoice in the loving kindness of God whilst exercising the thanksgiving that is expressed not just in cries of thanks and hymns of thanksgiving but by a renewal of commitment to the poor in this land and the poor globally. This is a day when we must protest against that trend which seems to have moved world concern away from the globally poor at a time when other economic concerns have taken central stage. Extreme poverty is as sharp a wound today as it was before the banking collapse – indeed its prevalence may well be increased. In a time such as this the cries of the needy must be heard as never before.

So let's rejoice today at the bounty. Let's show our gratitude to God and to the humanity with which we are bound up. But let our thanksgiving be the thanksgiving which leads to a real concern for the needy. Let it be the thanksgiving which demands economic, political and environmental justice for the poor of this land and for the poor across the world. Let this be the day when we take seriously the motive for which Jesus came – life with abundance! Life to the full! The time when God's creatures might experience life to the very max!

Good Old George = George Lansbury a modern prophet!

2011-09-26T17:49:00.004Z

Just before I left Bideford at the final meeting I was able to attend of North Devon Anti Cuts Alliance I was given a book by my good friends Doug and Jim Lowe entitled Good Old George which is Bob Holman's biography of George Lansbury.

There is a story behind this choice of book. At a “Tough Choices” meeting in Bideford organised by Devon County Council as an act of seeking to create the illusion that the cuts the council ruling group had decided on had public support I had been one of a number of protestors. That night I had a real go at County Council leader John Hart quoting Magnificat to him and telling him to get of his knees and fight for the people of Devon like a real man. I also reminded him of councillors in Poplar led by George Lansbury who in 1921 had in defending their people gone to jail uttering the slogan “Better to break the law than break the poor!” Jim has told me since that such was the fury of my onslaught that he thought I was going to hit Councillor Hart – it has to be added the thought of doing so had not occurred to me!

Jim and Doug did however know that I was fascinated by Lansbury who was 100% Christian and 100% socialist.

So how has the book impacted on me?

Firstly I found myself drawn to the very ordinariness of Lansbury. His background as the son of a timekeeper in a firm of railwat contractors in Suffolk was solidly working class. Unlike many of today's politicians he never lost touch with his roots. His political career was very much based on a conviction that the people amongst whom he grew up deserved justice. Indeed while he went on to represent the people of East London where he lived subsequent to an ill feted spell in Australia he remained very much a man of the people with a home that was open to people in need in a way that one cannot imagine being the case with today's politicians. No wonder children called him “Good Old George.”

At a young age Lansbury became a Christian and whilst he drifted away from the church for a period of time in his younger days, the teachings of Christ held great influence over him. Examples of this are his passion to combat poverty which led him to be a Poor Law Commissioner at a young age where his actions significantly improved the wellbeing of residents in the local workhouse and which later fired him as Labour leader in the 1930s when a National Government was permitting mass unemployment with its attendant sufferings. His commitment and passion is that which we need from today's opposition leaders! In between as as leader of Poplar Councillors in 1921 he was imprisoned for defending the interests of some of the poorest people in the country – hence the slogan “Better to break the law than break the poor!”

The same Christian influence made him an inveterate opponent of war. Whilst in recent years the Labour Party has been led by a man who cajoled them into supporting an illegal war sold on false premises, Lansbury heroically and at some cost in terms of being physically attacked, opposed the slaughter that was the First world War. He believed that Christ tells us in word and example that to kill is wrong. This commitment to non violence would eventually be destructive in terms of his leadership of the Labour Party. He knew that faced with the radical evil that is Nazism his principles would be unnacceptable to the party he was so committed to. He was willing to step down but persuaded not to do so until Bevin administered the final and ruthless coup de grace. He carried on making efforts to avert a war but was to sadly die early in the Second World War.

What can one say about this? In a way he was unlucky to lead the Labour Party at a time when the most radically evil force in modern history was threatening all that was decent. Many said that on the peace matter he was not practical but his opposition to the First World War had been practical and if heeded might have saved the world from the horrors not just of 1914-18 but also 1939-45. Still in a world today when so much of politics is conducted by “dessicated calculating machine” type politicians playing a game I find something very attractive about a man who demonstrated deep principles rooted in Christ. Certainly a question that comes from studying Lansbury is how one handles seeming contradictions between real politics and faith. In the case of war Lansbury himself is aware that pacifism has its costs and needs to be conducted with bravery. Yet who can say that war is without cost and often contributes to a continuation of the cycle of violence and destruction.

Lansbury stands out on other issues as well. He was a supporter of womens' suffrage at a time when many in the labour movement regarded it as a side issue. Lansbury even resigned his Parliamentary seat over the issue to fight a by election which he lost. Another example it might be said of principle winning out over political judgement. Equally he stood firm in a conviction regarding the advantages of total abstinence. It is likely that this concern regarding alcohol came from having a father who drank rather too much. The later George Thomas who was later to be Speaker of the House of commons recalled with thanksgiving a visit by Lansbury to his constituency to speak against the demon drink which both men felt had destructive effects on many families.

Of course Lansbury made political misjudgements. Yet I see him as an inspirational follower of Jesus. His life reminds us of the twin gospel imperatives of being in solidarity with the poor and opposing the very principle of war. These stances built on Jesus are stances that Christians and Socialists today would do well to emulate. Every time I read more than a page or two of scriptures I come to the conclusion that to neglect these emphases is inconsistent with being follower as opposed to fans of Jesus.

In the next few weeks I will re read the book with more care than I managed on my first reading. I want to reconnect with the vision of a man whose politics were of the greatest nobility. But then as a follower of Jesus I know that for me discipleship means being in solidarity with the poor and being an inveterate enemy of war even if such a path is countercultural.

God's honouring - A non lectionary sermon based on matt 5: 1-12

2011-09-25T08:19:00.001Z

And so today we come to those beatitudes spoken by Jesus with which Matthew begins the Sermon on the Mount. As a means of wisdom beatitudes were hardly unknown at the time of Jesus. Normally they were commonsense sayings which reflected the widely held wisdom of the day. But spoken from the mouth of Jesus they stun us with their audacity for they turn norms upside down. They herald a view of the world that is in essence counter cultural then and indeed now.

But before we go any further we need to pause and look at the word “blessed.” Some translations use the Greek word “makarios” differently. The Good News Bible which has many merits translates it as “happy” which seems a tad trite when talking for example of the poor or those who mourn. It does not work. A French translation of the Jerusalem bible translates it as “debonair” which stretches the imagination somewhat. Even “blessed” seems to give us a less than clear understanding. The translation that seems to me to be both accurate and helpful is “honoured.”

To fully appreciate this, it helps to appreciate that the world in which Jesus lived was dominated by an “honour” culture. Your connections especially family connections determined your own importance. Come from a poor family and live without meaningful patronage and you belonged at the bottom of the pile. Who you were connected to was vitally important. And to lose those connections was a devastating experience both materially and in terms of your social standing.
Remember this was a time when wealth, health and success were seen by the religious professionals and doubtless most people as being evidence of god’s approval.

So when Jesus speaks his beatitudes what people hear stuns them. This is no boring shopping list. This is not the way they have normally heard it. Indeed to many of those listening what they hear makes about as much sense as the glorious mishearing in “The Life of Brian” - you know the one “Blessed are the Cheesemakers.”

So this morning as we hear whom God honours let us prepare to be both stunned and challenged.

The first beatitude speaks of honouring the poor in spirit. I draw your attention to the word for “poor” in the Greek translations. That word is “ptochos.” This word means destitute to the point of being forced to beg. And that was a painful reality at the time of Jesus. After all this was a time when landowners were able to expand their estates by forcing peasants into indebtedness. Commentators reckon that close on 20% of the people were in this state of destitution. Furthermore a good 60% lived with a real danger that a bad throw of the dice would put them in such a situation. The danger of extreme poverty was all around. And given the makeup of those who followed Jesus, we can be in no doubt that such as these were well represented in the crowd that surrounded Jesus. But “in spirit” is something we are often tempted to spiritualise away. We can after all then make it safe. But I think Mark allen Powell probably gets nearer the truth when he writes;

“In Matthew’s Gospel the poor in spirit are not people who trust in God because they have no reason for hope in the world. They are people who have no reason fro hope in this world, period. The presence or strength of their trust in god remains unaddressed in this beatitude, although if anything, the implication of the Matthean phrase would be that it is slight.”

So I suggest to you that what Jesus is speaking of here is the dehumanising effects of poverty. And as an aside this should never be far from our minds as even in our nation and the continent of Europe, people are increasingly experiencing this reality - after all is it not said that most people are but a couple of steps from the poverty that casts them out of community life. So here Jesus speaks in solidarity with the poor just as Old Testament prophets had done so often in their confrontations with the Kings of Israel and Judah. God honours the poor rather than the successes who drive others to poverty!

The next beatitude concerns those who mourn. Certainly by the time Matthew’s Gospel hit the Christian communities, they knew what it was to often be rejected within their own families. Family was important. It was at the heart of identity. So the loss of family, especially parents through death or disownment came with a heavy price. And Matthew’s community would have contained many who had been rejected by family because they were followers of Jesus. Yet Jesus here suggests that they and indeed those whose experience of life is wretched, too are honoured and can rely on his comfort when there are no other arms to embrace them.

The third beatitude addresses the matter of the meek . The Greek word here “praus” can be translated not just as the “humble” but also as the “humiliated.” This may be the result of poverty or rejection amongst other things. But first and foremost this refers to those who have been denied a fair deal in God’s world. They have been the “nobodies” in so many eyes. And yet now they receive the promise that they inherit (no need to earn it) their reward from the God who values and honours them in a proper sense.

And then Jesus turns in the fourth beatitude to those who long for justice to the point of literally being hungry or thirsty. In a way this beatitude underlines those that have gone before. This sums up all that is in the previous three beatitudes allied to a dream of a world in which all are honoured and none are put to shame.

These first four beatitudes speak in terms of God honouring those who lack justice and a positive experience of life. But now comes a change of emphasis. Jesus turns his attention to those who dare to work for justice.

So the fifth beatitude speaks for the merciful. Mercy is sometimes in short supply in our world. During the past week we have seen reports of the execution in Georgia of Troy Davis for a killing 2 decades ago concerning which most of the prosecution witnesses had changed their mind. But mercy there jolly well wasn’t - only cold blooded state murder from a justice system that sets itself against justice! But mercy is a much wider concept than the commuting of a death sentence. It is about the active compassion that doesn’t just feel sorry for the sufferings of others but which actively seeks to alleviate it. It is about the active compassion that is for the undeserving as well as the deserving. Think for a moment of Sister Helen Prejean an American nun who has been alongside many on Death Row, both the guilty and the innocent, whose desire that their final experience in life be of love, a woman whose story is told in the book and film entitled “Dead Man Walking.” Yes here we see Jesus telling us that those who exercise this active compassion are honoured by God.

The sixth beatitude speak of the pure in heart. Now please do not get excited. This is not so much about naughty thoughts and the likes which when preached on tend simply to leave people with awful guilt complexes. The Greek word “kardia” is more about resisting pretence. It is about having an undivided heart or a single passion for God and God’s ways. It is in reality about resisting the drumbeat of conformity to tattered and destructive orthodoxies but being open to the mind and heart being transformed by God into a whole new way of being.

And then the seventh beatitude speaks of the peacemakers. This is those who bring god’s shalom into the world. But once again we find the Jesus way is a challenge to the orthodoxies of the day. You see at the time of Jesus the myth was that the real peacemakers were the Roman army. “Peace through victory” was advocated - about as coherent a philosophy as chastity through ceaseless promiscuity! Octavian who became Augustus Caesar had been proclaimed a “peacemaker” after his victories ended the Roman Civil War. But this view was not the peacemaking of Jesus and his followers. For at least until it was subverted by Emperor Constantine’s takeover of the church in the fourth century, Christian came to see peacemaking as being about the righting of wrongs and the treating of all peoples with dignity. And that remains at the heart of true peacemaking today.

As for eighth beatitude it speaks of those who are persecuted for the cause of justice, the ongoing story of those who work for the dignity of others. It was his speaking for justice amongst other things that made Jesus some very dangerous enemies who would ultimately execute him. And the pursuit of justice has always meant colliding with vested interests. Think for a moment of the violence meted out on the early campaigners against the transatlantic slave trade well before the Willberforce Act went through Parliament. Or think of the American nuns who helped the poor of El Salvador in their struggles againt gross exploitation by the dominant landed families and the death squads, nuns who were eventually raped and murdered for being true followers of Jesus. On that dark night when they were slaughtered, talk of them being honoured must have seen hollow but that is precisely what Jesus says they are by God.

And then finally in the very last of the beatitudes, Jesus turns his attention from the third person to the second person. Now he tells them and by implication Matthew’s community that they are honoured when reviled and persecuted on his account. To Matthew’s community this must have been precious. In so many ways the practices of the early community of Jesus followers had moved far away from many of the hitherto norms of society and historical writings suggest that Christianity was regarded as a “despised sect.” But through the many trials they could know that they were honoured by God. And as we follow Jesus that may well become precious to us.

So here is Jesus offering a new and counter cultural vision. His followers are set free to see the world in a new way. The poet James Russell Lowell puts it well:

“They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think;
They are slaves who fear to be
In the right with two or three.”

This morning we gather as those granted freedom by God revealed in Jesus. So I ask you but two simple questions. Firstly, will you honour those whom God honours? And secondly will you be those whom God honours?

Good news for the poor and birthday parties for prostitutes - A non lectionary sermon based on Luke 4: 14 -21

2011-08-30T15:28:00.002Z

So Jesus begins his ministry by speaking of good news - ironic in a sense because by the time he’s finished his congregation want to throw him over a cliff - a fitting way you may think to deal with many preachers!

But this is good news that is very different from most understandings of good news for this is the good news that subverts the accepted norms of the day!

What do I mean by this? Well Palestine at the time of Jesus knew all too well what good news entailed. “Good news” or “gospel” was about Roman propaganda. Military victories by an empire built on violence were trumpeted as “good news” or gospel.” But the good news with which Jesus identified himself would be very different.

In this context good news was linked to a peculiarly Jewish vision. Here Jesus echoes words from the sixty first chapter of the prophetic book of Isaiah which echo the provision of the Jubilee Year envisaged back in the duty book of Leviticus as well as adding for good measures words from a little earlier in Isaiah which hint strongly at the salvific purposes of Jesus’ mission.

Let’s for a moment pause to consider the Jubilee vision. Recently it inspired the campaign by the Jubilee 2000 coalition to cancel the debts of the poorest nations of the world. But its original vision which lay in the aftermath of the Exodus from slavery in Egypt and in the emergence of a movement to create a new community in what was often called the Promised Land was to create a nation which rather than be dominated by a concentration of land and power would be one in which all should have a real stake in the community‘s wellbeing. This would be brought about through a freeing of bondage slaves, a return of forfeited land and a cancellation of debts in the Jubilee Year every 49 years.

Such a system could serve to remind the people that the land they had arrived in ultimately belonged to God. But still self interest worked amongst ruling elites to ensure that Jubilee was barely if at all implemented and so by the time of Jesus the land was owned by a small elite with the approval of much of the religious establishment whilst a multitude of peasants struggled to eke out a subsistence lifestyle against a background of great insecurity with the ever present threat of extreme poverty and the loss of basic freedoms and dignity.

Jesus will rail against these inequalities in much of his story telling challenging the status quo and offering a vision of the kingdom of God in which roles will be reversed from the torrid realities of the kingdoms of this world - a sort of fulfilment of the change in wealth and power envisaged by the pregnant Mary in Magnficat.

Time and again we will find Jesus as a friend and voice for the poor whilst the rich which in global terms includes each of us will find our place alongside Jesus as we aid an come alongside the needy.

And this is part of the calling of the church. In the second half of the 20th century we find South American Roman Catholic bishops at Medellin, Anglicans through Faith in the City and Methodists with the Mission Alongside the Poor programme placing themselves as friends of the poor so that in the words of the liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez those not considered human in the present social order might receive the message that God is love.

Yes Jesus is good news for the poor. But it doesn’t stop there. He is good news for those who are outsiders or even outcasts whether through poverty or other reasons.

At the time of Jesus the religious professionals had developed quite a system of purity. And those who deemed themselves pure knew not to share food at tables with those considered impure. So to share a table with non Jews, the ritually unclean, those deemed to be “sinners” or those in questionable occupations such as tax collectors for Rome or even shepherds was to put one’s own character into question. You and I might happily eat and drink with anyone without feeling in any way disturbed but at the time of Jesus you were judged by who you ate with because to share a table meal with somebody was seen as accepting them with all that that entailed.

Jesus scandalised the religious establishment by riding roughshod over this demeaning system. Time and again he was derided for keeping bad company. Time and again he showed compassion to those who were seen as the people to be avoided. No wonder Desmond Tutu wrote with joy of Jesus that "his standards are quite low." For in social contact, healings and teachings, Jesus consistently gives dignity to those so often treated as non counting, virtually untouchables. Yes Jesus is good news for the rejected

And today Jesus calls on us to be those who in speaking, being and doing point to the humanity of those so often seen as just not counting. And the reason for this is that his love is the love that has no limits. It is wide! It is deep! It is for all!

I don’t think that it is a good thing for Christians to accuse one another of heresy or blasphemy. It is after all most of the time nothing but juvenile name calling. And yet when it comes to using Jesus as a justification for our prejudices thereby denying that his love is for all, then it is not without justification. Philip Yancey in his book, “ What’s so Amazing about Grace” tells of a Gay Pride march in Washington DC. The atmosphere of hatred disturbed him as marchers and protesters hurled abuse at each other - the occasion given healing only when a group of marchers from the Metropolitan Church, a church that has served as a place of safety for gay Christians, facing the bile of fellow Christian responded by singing, “Jesus loves us, this we know for the Bible tells us so.” And how right they were. Whatever ones’ view on human sexuality and I have friends with conflicting views on this one, the one thing we can affirm with confidence is God’s passionate love for each of us - lifting us up not knocking us down!

Tony Campolo is a prominent Christian sociologist in the USA. He tells a story of a trip to Honolulu to speak at a conference. Unable to sleep he gets up at 3am and goes for a walk. Feeling just a little bit hungry he ends up in a diner run by a fat guy called Harry to get a donut and black coffee. Sat there munching away at 3.30 Tony’s peace is disturbed by the arrival of eight or nine rather loud prostitutes smoking and swearing. As Tony prepares to get away he hears one of the women tell her friend that tomorrow will be her 39th birthday. The friend snorts back, “Well what do you expect - a birthday party with a cake and all of that?! “No” replies the birthday girl. “Of course not! I’ve never had a birthday party in my whole life. Why should I have one now?”

Hearing this, Tony makes a decision. He waits until all the women have left and then he asks Harry if they come every night. Learning that they do including the birthday girl whose name turns out to be Agnes, he suggests to Harry that they might throw a little birthday party for Agnes the following night. Harry goes along with the idea - his wife is even enthusiastic! And so the next day they decorate the joint and put up a “Happy Birthday Agnes” sign. Meanwhile Harry gets the word about the party out on the streets.

Well it works. By 3.15 the next morning the diner is jam packed with it would seem every prostitute in Honolulu. At 3.30 when Agnes arrives to the sight of a lifetime and a great shout of “Happy Birthday Agnes!” her knees just buckle. As she looks at the cake that Harry’s wife has made she begins to cry. Harry not used to seeing a prostitute cry calls out for her to blow the candles out. But this is not what Agnes wants to do. She asks to take the cake home for a few minutes promising to bring it back a little later.

As Agnes with tears streaming down her face leaves the diner, Tony gets on a chair and says “Shall we pray together?” And then in a greasy diner packed with prostitutes, he leads them in a prayer for Agnes that her life might be changed and that God might be good to her.

At this Harry leans over and with a touch of hostility says, “Hey, you never told me you was a preacher. What kind of church do you belong to anyway?”

In one of those moments when the right words came, Tony replied, “I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for prostitutes at 3.30 in the morning.”

And Harry after a moment of silence in a mocking sort of voice replies, “No you don’t. There ain’t no church like that. If there was I’d join it. Yep I’d join a church like that.”

Jesus shocks his fellow townsfolk from Nazareth by demonstrating God’s love is for foreigners and is not just their private possession. And in this we find the scandal of the gospel. For here is a grace that touches those we might be tempted to look down upon. Indeed it seems that Jesus goes out of his way to show his compassion for those who are outsiders. And then as now he leaves us with a temptation to wish that he would show some sort of limits in where he puts his favour. Yet as he touches those who are the unvalued, he reminds us that we too have a place within his favour. For here is the Christ who is for all and who ultimately dies for all.

And now he calls on us to continue his mission to all that we might be followers not fans, that we might be those whose discipleship is defined by our being for disparate often battered humanity rather than setting ourselves against God’s creation. For the work of Jesus which we are called to continue is the work of good news which entails lifting people up that they might experience life with abundance and to do this even if it means throwing parties for prostitutes.

In Nottingham

2011-08-30T14:49:00.002Z

Well we are now very much living in Arnold on the outskirts of Nottingham. Our time is being spent settling into our manse as well as getting to know some of the people of the surrounding churches. Those things are going well. Our welcome service is on DSeptember 1st here in Arnold.

The downside is that we are presently without telephone or internet links - thank you Talk Talk! Still it must be insulting to be turned down as a call person by this particular company although how much is a staff issue and how much is a organisational issue I do not know. I certainly understand the bad press they have received as recently as in the Daily Mail only a week ago.

I do not know how exactly ministry will unfold here. Every situation is different. I guess that I will be seeking to play a part as a Bible teacher, as a pastor and also as a prophet. I remain convinced that church is both enabling people to live worthwhile lives and also to fearlessly challenge injustices as did the one we follow.

My first sermon will be based on the Jesus Manifesto and will look at what it is to bring good news to the poor.

Meanwhile it is interesting to read that more and more people will depende on private rented sector for homes in coming years. What a surprise! the result is that with rents being more expensive than mortgages people at bottom of the ladder will be paying more and guess what? Those able to buy up property face a bonanza. So when you hear we are all in it together just blow a raspberry. You are being conned!

MOVING

2011-08-14T20:13:00.003Z

This site has been very quiet. The reason is that Methodist ministry is itinerant and we are preparing to move to Nottingham later this week. So at present boxes rule our lives and the result of that is no time to blog.

I am not sure when I will return to blogging. The problem is privatised telephone companies give little guidance at times like this and so we may be without telephone or internet which is great in the week when my son gets A Level results and tries to avoid being hit by the Lib Dem breach of electoral promises re tuition fees to the public as part of keeping in with their new best friends.

When I return I want to address the violence of the riots as well as the pathetic playing to the gallery by our masters who having gone on holiday on mass and failed to return now seem set to indulge themselves in the ugly sport of " chav bashing" as well as riding roughshod over human rights considerations. But that will have to wait.

In the words of a song from The Sound of Music I shall " be back soon."

Bread and fishes made fit for many - A farewell service for Bideford Methodist Church nased on Matthew 14: 13 - 21

2011-07-31T08:12:00.001Z

It was back in December that I was asked how I interpreted the parable of the feeding of the 5,000. I mumbled a bit about the possibility of a miracle of generosity and the likes. I am not sure if I convinced anyone least of all myself what I was talking about. Still two days later I received the telephone call that told me that the Nottingham East Circuit Invitation Committee had decided to invite to join their ministerial team in September.

Well what a surprise to find that for my last Sunday in the Bideford Circuit, the gospel reading in the lectionary is about this very same feeding of the 5,000. So I get another go!

But time is short. So I don't want to revisit the question as to how little food became much food other than to to say that what we have before us is an incredible transformation. After all five loaves and two fishes of the sort that this scripture concerns would according to commentators struggle to feed more than a dozen people much less 5,000 men and an unknown number of women and children.

Nor do I want say too much about effect that this miracle had upon those present. That is other than to assert that this miracle is quite unique in appearing in all four gospels whilst a separate feeding of 4,000 appears in both Matthew's and Mark's gospels. But if you want to know the effect of this feeding look no further than John's gospel where you will find that many people were minded to make Jesus King by force - a seemingly suicidal act given the propensity of Rome to use wholly disproportionate violence to put down and to deter rebellions!

This morning I want to look at 3 simple points concerning this feeding.

The first is that when Jesus feeds the crowd he does so with generous extravagance. Fed to the full they are with a dozen baskets of leftovers full to the brim. Is this not a picture as to how Jesus gives to us? This is no reluctant giver but one who gives to the max and still has more to offer. Indeed what we have here is a picture of the love and grace of Jesus. Not something we can put false limits upon but something which amazes us from day to day. And notice there would be many in the crowd who might be deemed undeserving but this matters not a jot to the Jesus who scandalises us by loving not just those whom we might approve of but every manner of reprobate as well. For here is a clear message of a wideness in the mercy and favour of God.

Secondly there is the trust that Jesus inspires. You know the saying, "You are what you eat" - not a comfortable saying for someone like me who loves black oudding and whose favourite part of a roast chicken is the parson's nose! Today we still care that food is properly prepared as anyone who has suffered food poisoning can bear witness. We care what the ingredients are especially in our awareness of allergic reactions. But in the time of Jesus the purity of the provider and handlers would also be a concern. Yet in this story we find a suspension of any such distrust. the normal rules are abandoned. Why? because Jesus not only is seeen to be trustworthy but he is in the business of changing people and how they see the world.

And finally Jesus heralds a new community. The background to the story in Matthew's gospel is that just before Matthew has told the story of another feast. This feast hosted by Herod Antipas for the Roman elite has ended in dark violence with the beheading of John the Baptist. How different though is this feast hosted by Jesus. It begins with Jesus being motivated by compassion. And what ensues is not the self centred nastiness of the Herodian court but an inclusive invitation from which none are excluded. Here the lowly are as important as the mighty and the poor are as valued as the rich. Here none can lord it over others with power of life or death. Here none are too insignificant to have a place.

This is a new way of community living. We are reminded that the message of an end to domination which lies at the heart of Magnificat and which is a recurrent them in the teaching of Jesus, is an important part of the gospel message. Our faith is not about applying holy oil to exploitative and unjust structures. Rather it is about us being led into God's way of being in which the hitherto least significant person's hopes and dreams are as important as those of the hitherto mighty and powerful. For justice and liberation far from being options are gosepl imperatives. The search for them is a cause that will ever continue, a hope that will ever endure and a vision that will never die as long as there are followers of Jesus.

So this morning as I take my leave of you I commend to you the grace of Jesus which is totally inexhaustible, the capacity of Jesus to change our perspectives and the challenge left to us by Jesus to work at transforming our communities and world in a manner consistent with the messages of the prophets and most of all that which has been revealed by Jesus of the Kingdom of God.

So I encourage you to go on as the followers of Jesus confident in the knowledge of his love for each and very one of you. And as you do so may you continue through you living and your witness to be sign of his Kingdom.

Farewell to Gammaton - A sermon for closing of Gammaton Methodist Church based on Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8 and Matthew 17: 1-9

2011-07-23T20:37:00.003Z

Today we come together to share in the end of the Methodist work in this chapel. We do so with some real sorrow for here is a place with a long Methodist history.

Methodism in these parts goes back some 200 years - first with services taking place at the home of a Mr Beailey at Brownscombe before being based in a cottage just below where we gather this afternoon. When the numbers became to large for that location they moved to a nearby barn before taking the decision in 1835 to build a chapel on this site. We do not know when the foundation stone was laid or indeed when the chapel was opened. But we need not trouble ourselves for the Church Council in a moment of great insight chose to celebrate the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary in 1989. So rightly or wrongly we date this chapel back to 1839.

That is indeed a long history. But more importantly it is a history in which we can take great pride. Back in 1900 The Bideford Wesleyan Circuit magazine told of Gammaton's "loyal and generous support of connexional and circuit funds giving it a place among the first of our village centres" whilst also observing that "its public teas and accompanying meetings have for long made it a centre of attraction to many outside the membership of the Methodist Church." Well in a few minutes we will enjoy the last of those teas and I guess more than a few of you faced with that propspect will be murmuring under your breath, "Get on with it!" and that such murmuring might be a little louder if the hint is not taken.

Indeed Gammaton has also hosted a society with a strong musical tradition to which its hymns have been sung. The records tell us of flutes and clarionettes and great musical events. And then of the arrival of the harmonium an instrument first played by a Miss Chamings.

But more than that Gammaton has been a gathering of people of faith. A number of remarkable characters have contrinuted to the spiritual life of this place. Sometimes such people have been a bit on the vocal side such a Grace Scott who if she approved of the direction of the service would start clapping her hands and exclaiming, "Praise the Lord!" Or a Mrs Sanders from Woodville who clearly with a touch of the Billy Brays, when prior to a class meeting remembering that she had left her best shoes near the fiure to warm them up. discovered that one of them was badly burnt, rather than blaming herself for carelessness, cried out, " Never mind, Mr Devil, you shall not keep me fromclass; I shall wear my old ones!"

Yet it is steafast faith that has been a hallmark of the people called Methodists who have met here. Children have been educated in the faith and adults have been built up in a faith that has enabled them to live victoriously. Indeed when I faced the District Probationer's Committee for examination as to whether I should be recommended for ordination, my interrogation was led by a former meber of this church, Rev Linda Barriball - and believe you me the experience cost me a good few pounds in weight!

That was then and now is now! But I would like to say at this point that the small faithful band whom I have got to know here are very much the equal of their ancestors from the past. This has remained a place of real faith, fine hospitality and a proud musical tradition - the number may have been few especially after the deaths in the past 18 months of Bob and Jean Bellew and indeed Elsie Bellew not so long before but I can tell you that there has never been any question about wholehearted singing of hymns in this place.

And yet today we prepare to move out from this place. The preacher in Ecclesiates talks about there being a time for seemingly contradictory activities. And in those words are great wisdom. In 1835 it was a time to build on this site. Today it is a time to move on. Why? Because the needs have changed. The demographics of this area are not what they once were. Patterns of transportation are also not what they once were. And so as a a society we have been faced with a quest to find out what is most in the interests of God's church and ultimately God's kingdom for us to do. Oh yes, as Bob Dylan put it so prohetically, "The times, they are a changin." And we know that in changing times the church can never stand still.

This afternoon our gospel reading took us back to that strange story of the transfiguration of Jesus. Matthew tells us of how the disciples were astounded at what they saw. Peter was tempted to hold onto the moment. That is why he suggested that he along with James and John should build shelters for Jesus, Moses and Elijah. He was as we so often are, tempted to hold on to the wondrous experience. But that is not how the story ends. For a voice from heaven tells them to listen to Jesus. And of course listening to Jesus means that soon they will be going back to a world of disbelief and conflict.

We can so easily fall into the trap of equating the calling of God to a place that is precious to us. You know the sort of thing where place and God become intertwined. I don't mean to suggest that we should not have deep feelings for the places where we have experienced the holy. I feel a sense of sorrow whenever I drive pass the church where I was confirmed and find it is a church no more. But we need to grasp the urgency of God's kingdom, the kingdom that is at the heart of the teachings of Jesus, and this means recognising that the shape of the church which points to this kingdom is forever changing according to the needs of the time.

As we prepare to move on from this church, we go knowing that we will continue to meet with God in other places. And to those other places, members of Gammaton you have much to contribute. for in the past four years I have seen in this place great faithfulness to the gospel. I have seen great sensitivity to the needs of society. I have seen great gifts of hospitality. I have seen a great desire to engage in meaningful worship. And I have seen what it is to live as a closely knit community. In a way what is happening today is not so much the end of Gammaton but an invitation to take Gammaton to other places of faith.

Here in this sanctuary for over 170 years there has been a great story of faith. Today we thank God for it. And we bring it to a conclusion that is certainly not one of despair or defeat. Gammaton has journeyed in faith. It mission has been completed. Now let all that is good about Gammaton be shared with other church in this area to God's praise and glory.

John Prescott's letter to Daviod Cameron in 2009.

2011-07-23T15:28:00.003Z

Just for anyone interested here is a letter written to David Cameron in 2009 warning him of the dangers of appointing Ansy Coulson. Seversl others sent advice to Mr Cameron before he took Coulson into No 10.

Mr Cameron chose to ignore such advice. His inability to see the dangers that clearly lay ahead raises significant questions as to his fitness to be Prime Minister. He is the author of his difficulties and it is hard to think of another Prime Minister in the past half century who would have stubbornly ignored the avalanche of advice that was offered to Mr Cameron. In this matter he las let not only himself but the country down.

Sowing to Jubilee - A sermon for Pentecost+4 YrA based on Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23

2011-07-10T20:35:00.003Z

I guess that the most rural church in the Bideford Circuit is a fitting place for us to be looking at that most rural of parables, the Parable of the Sower.

After all this is a story that reflects on life as lived by one who is dependent on the land for the outcome of the seeds he sows - seeds whose return will determine his and his family’s material wellbeing.

As child I was told that parables were “earthly stories with heavenly meanings.” The trouble with such an outlook is that it has the effect of making the stories of Jesus somewhat removed from the daily struggles of life as well as conveniently removing Jesus from controversial political and economic debates. Indeed it divorces the gospel from justice issues in the here and now relegating it to a matter of “pie in the sky.”

And yet I am convinced that those who first heard the parable would have related it to the very real injustices that afflicted them. After all nothing could be more painfully unjust to Palestinian peasants than the matter of land ownership. The peasant working the land faced a daily struggle for subsistence. He depended on a decent yield from his sowing so that he night feed his family, pay the rent, pay a range of taxes and tolls as well as purchase sufficient seed so that that the cycle might continue for the following year and into the future.

Should he fail to do so he would need a loan which in those pre banker days would come from a wealthy landowner - at the time of Jesus often those who were beneficiaries of the patronage of Rome. Further failure would result in the peasant farmer having to default and in the process losing his land and needing to sell his labour. In short this was a system through which the rich got richer and built up great estates whilst the poor grew poorer and ever more dependent. The great prophet Isaiah of Jerusalem had expressed regret at this concentration of wealth and power in ever fewer hands several centuries before the coming of Jesus but along with other prophets of justice he had been ignored by ruling elites who preferred to keep religion safe and unthreatening.

So when Jesus told this story he was drawing attention to centuries of wrong which had caused far too much suffering, suffering in which religious elites had colluded.

Jesus from the very beginning of his ministry linked his vision of the Kingdom of God with the ancient vision of Jubilee which is rooted in the Book of Leviticus. This involved the periodic cancellation of debt (an inspiration to those who through Jubilee 2,000 sought cancellation of the debts of the world’s poorest nations ), return of land to original owners and the freeing of slaves. This vision whose DNA if not its every detail given the changing ordering of society should be a part of our vision today, had the purpose of ensuring a society in which justice is underpinned. Dare I say it, but it represents a serious vision to ensure inclusion of all people in society with a fair distribution of the fruits of their labours. That it was barely implemented makes it no less of a challenge to us in an increasingly unequal world today!

I suspect that this parable is a challenge to embrace the vision of Jubilee and the justice that flows from it. But it is also a warning as to how we might be obstacles rather than enablers of the vision.

Jesus speaks of four types of soil which represents differing responses. There is the shallow response which seeks benefits from the gospel but which lacks the commitment to see matters through. Then there’s the response that falls away when confronted by persecution. This is a very human response and soon we will see the disciples themselves give way to this fear in the face of Roman power which brings Jesus to a criminal’s execution - indeed perhaps the fear of persecution lies behind this week’s big story in which politicians of both the main political parties along with others among the great and good bowed down to the Murdoch Empire and its prejudices in large part out of fear of the consequences of making a stand until such time as News International’s moral bankruptcy was laid bare to face public revulsion! Thirdly there are those discipleship begins with sincerity but is ultimately choked out through love of wealth and privilege - the rich young ruler being an example. But finally there are those who hold firm to Jubilee values as will the disciples and others who emerge as followers of Jesus down through the centuries often resisting the collusion of church with ruling elites, a failing which dates back to the coup through which the blood stained Emperor Constantine gained power over the church in the early 4th century subsequent to the Battle of Milvian Ridge.

Most of us are at various times examples of each of the negative outcomes. Yet we can be world changers when we embrace Jubilee and become as good soil. Here Jesus speaks of thirty, sixty and a hundredfold bumper harvests. Listeners would gasp at this. After all the best that could be hoped for by the Palestinian farmer was six fold! But Jesus is pointing his hearers to an incredible possibility - the possibility that his followers might through identifying with God be the means through which the whole cycle of indebtedness of not just farmer but village and even nations might be brought to an end. Now the parable points to a world in which each person might have life with abundance.

I see this parable as containing a message of real hope for the followers of Jesus. Our ordinariness is not an obstacle to our being used to extraordinary effect when we allow ourselves to be allied to the liberating purposes of God. Here we encounter the good news that God’s kingdom of justice, peace and joy can break through into our world that is often dominated by despair and cynicism.

In two weeks time this fellowship at Gammaton will be closed down. We may well go in different directions. But I urge you to hang on to what you have learnt in fellowship with one another in this church that you might go forwards knowing that whilst the mission in this place is completed, you may well be the means through which in other places God’s kingdom of justice and liberation takes root and you like the sower may see change that goes beyond your wildest dreams.

A trip to Nottingham, a protest, a holiday and a national scandal

2011-07-10T17:28:00.002Z

Well I’ve been quiet this past couple of weeks. The reason has been that I’ve had plenty going on.

Firstly I have been on a trip to Nottingham. This was in part so that my daughter could attend an induction day at her new school where she will be doing A Level studies. It also became a chance to meet some of the people we shall be getting to know in Arnold and to have a second look at the manse.

Soon after my return I was involved in an anti cuts protest in Barnstaple. The atmosphere was great and certainly there were a number of people involved whom I have enjoyed getting to know over the past year. There were speeches at the end which dealt with the effect of cuts on various groups of people including young people who are hit by cuts in the youth service, worrying cuts in further education provision , elderly people for whom the going is getting harder as well as those suffering from addiction problems and disabled people who are very much a part of a worrying picture in the health service. I was one of the speakers. My main point was that only a mad man or a monster could cuts housing when we have homes that need to be built and unemployed building workers. Likewise a similar picture arises regarding education and health care. What sort of country fails to provide jobs for much needed newly qualified nurses, leaving many to work in retail where their skills will stagnate ,when their skills are clearly needed? The answer is of course Britain!

From the protest I went on holiday to Cornwall. It was nice to see familiar places again. Newquay Zoo was a new experience for me even if the main memory I shall take away from there was a urinating penguin! It was also interesting to visit the Eden Project. My fear of heights was challenged by going out onto a platform looking down from a considerable height in one of the biomes. Still I was amused at the shop afterwards to peruse a copy of one of Daphne DuMaurier’s books where the forward suggested she would have hated the Eden Project. It was as always good to see my old town of Redruth and to visit the Meadery - my first date with my wife having been at St Agnes Meadery whilst fighting off a tummy bug.

Now I am back in Bideford for my last three weeks of ministry here. This will be an emotional time for me.

Throughout the past week I have kept up with the News International scandal. I have not been surprised by much of it although the hacking of Milly Dowler’s mobile and that of her parents was a low as was the similar treatment of those how have lost loved ones in the July 7th bombing and the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Still much of it has long been obvious. We knew that hacking had gone on and that money had been paid to police officers for information. The reality is that politicians have been only too desperate for the approval of Rupert Murdoch and scared of the consequences of offending him. They have served us poorly other than exceptions such as Tom Watson M.P and Chris Bryant M.P.

Hopefully the BSkyB takeover is dead in the water although we have a Prime Minister who is closely aligned with the criminal conspiracy that is News International.

I hope that there is now vigorous police investigations as well as the necessary judicial enquiries. Hackers and corrupters of the police service need to brought to account as do those police officers who sold information to News International. Equally questions must be asked as to the police enquiry of Hayman (now earning a crust from News International) and Yeates. Their neglect on the job is surely a national scandal!

Finally it is to be hoped that a new culture will emerge. Never again should politicians be beholden to or scared of a press baron, especially one who is not British. To win that new culture it is imperative that the government takes the right decisions to bring a vigorous resolving of the crimes that are now revealed and which may yet be no more than the tip of the iceberg!

God loves you - A non lectionary sermon based on Luke 15: 11 - 32

2011-06-26T08:52:00.002Z

With just a few weeks left in sunny north Devon I have found myself reflecting about the time here. This has included glancing at numerous sermons preached and the odd article written. Certainly as I look through the sermons I find one essential message even if it is occasionally preached in a somewhat roundabout way. That message is;

“God loves you.”

It is tempting to think I could just have said that time and again therefore saving myself thousands of words and perhaps more importantly saving countless trees that ave been pulled down to provide me with paper.

But that is not the way it is with preachers. And yet if you take nothing else from this morning’s sermon just take those words;

“God loves you.”

Over the seven years here I seem to have done my fair share of baptising infants. Now I know that there are those who believe that baptism is something for those who show repentance and I confess that I have some sympathy with that position which can certainly be argued from scripture. Yet I gladly baptise infants because I believe it to be a sign that we have a place within the cycle of God’s love before we do anything to deserve it. Is not infant baptism a sign that from the very moment of birth;

“God loves you.”

And this is a reality throughout our lives even we we foul up big time. Back in the days when I gave every sermon a title one of them was “God loves Osama.” It was provocative but it had a purpose. After all if God loves a terror chief who not long before had brought mayhem to the streets of London, the whoever you are, you cannot escape the message that in that case;

“God loves you.”

We see it in the parable which we have just heard. This parable is not about the prodigal son as he is often called. It is instead about the father. Jesus told the story to show the nature of God. In it the father is effectively told to drop dead by a son who wants his share of the inheritance right now. He lets him have the inheritance in an age in which he would be more than entitled to let him have a right hook to the jaw. And then whilst the lad messes up big time, he keeps a lookout for the day his son will return. And when the son for self serving reasons does make his way back he doesn’t make him grovel but restores him to the privileges of being a son and puts on a party to celebrate. Of course there’s another son who forcefully makes the point that young brother is a wrong ‘un who doesn’t deserve this special treatment and behaves appallingly to make the point. Yet the father is seen to treat both of his sons better than they could possibly deserve even though he has been hurt.
Why? Because Jesus is using this story to tell you;

“God loves you.”

Sometimes we use a word to describe this love that goes way beyond anything we can deserve. That word is “grace.” The Irish rock band U2 once produced a song by that title. In it they sing of grace as an idea “that changes the world.” Certainly it challenges religious concepts based on fear. Instead it proclaims that there is hope because;

“God loves you.”

In a few minutes we shall be singing a song written by John Newton. Now I know that in some Christian traditions the story of coming to faith is expected to be a “guttermost to uttermost” story as if there was no merit in pre Christian life. I am uncomfortable with this but in Newton’s case it does seem to be the truth. A slaver, rapist and violent man, his coming to faith marks the beginning of a process that would eventually lead him to oppose slavery, serve as a clergyman in the Church of England and write hymns such as the autobiographical “Amazing grace” in which he writes of the grace that “saves a wretch like me.” For he had learnt so well the good news that;

“God loves you.”

And because God loves you there is no reason why his love should be restricted. For it is for all races, religious understandings and types of people. For even those whom we find it hardest to be alongside, those whose deeds put them outside of decent human society are not cast aside by God for God’s love is not restricted or limited in any way. After all;

“God loves you.”

So today we rejoice that we have a place in God’s cycle of love. Knowing ourselves to be loved by God, we see all those who may feel deserted or rejected as also caught up to a place in that cycle. For God loves us even when we are at our most desperate or most ugly. This is truly Love Unlimited.

So yes let us say it, proclaim it together that it is true for us and it is good news for all whom we encounter that we can say with confidence;

“God loves you.”

Then let the message go out that the grace of God in Christ means that our words and deeds to those in isolated dwellings, and those in might cities, to those in hospitals struck down by cruel fate and those in prisons be it through their own fault or the failings of justice, far away and here in Bideford proclaim;

“God loves you.”

And let us see that this truth transforms lives, communities, politics and economics for in the words of a song;

“Love changes everything.”

From this place may we go knowing that we have a shared truth that together we can shout;

“God is love.”

My Letter to Western Morning News in response to a correspondent suggesting Archbishop should keep out of politics

2011-06-16T21:56:00.002Z

Colin Richey (June 16) seems to fail to understand the responsibility of Christian leaders in his letter criticising recent comments by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams.

The idea that the Archbishop should keep out of politics is a nonsense. After alll the scriptures are full of political clashes.

The prophets of the Old Testament seem to be continually challenging the Kings. And the issue that dominates in such clashes is the condemnation of the unjust treatment of the poor which is the main concern of Dr William's New Statesman article.

The parables of Jesus are often highly political and those who first heard them would be quick to observe clear attacks on the injustices meted out on the peasants by the absentee landowners who were very much in league with Roman power.

Indeed Palm Sunday is a street theatre in which Jesus sets up his vision of the Kingdom of God with its emphasis upon the dignity of the poor against the wickedness with which Rome ruled and oppressed those poor people.

Scripture presents a clear message that God is on the side of the poor as has been recognised by Roman Catholic Bishops at Medellin, Anglicans in Faith in the City and other prophetic voices such as Martin Luthe King and Jim Wallis. To fail to assert this would be to water down the message of the Bible to such an extent as to make it unrecognisable.

At present a lot of people are having their hopes and dreams smashed by a government which perpetuates the myth of us "all being in it together." It would be a spiritually bankrupt church that failed to raise a protest on their behalf.

At a time such as this to stand on behalf of the poor, the unemployed and those who are vulnerable is not merely an option for Christians. It is a duty. My only regret about the Archbishop's comments is that he didn't go in harder!

That he took the stand he took is to his credit. After all speaking truth to authority is one of the better Christian traditions

A day that changes everything - A sermon for Pentecost Sunday based on Acts 2: 1-21

2011-06-12T08:32:00.001Z

It's a day that means the world can never be the same!

Pentecost so often the Church festival that passes the world by! The day in which the Jesus story becomes a story without end.

It happens on a day in which Jerusalem was a busy city just as it had been seven weeks earlier for the festival of Passover. Jewish people have travelled great distances just to be there for the celebration of Pentecost, a festival which celebrated both the gathering of the harvest and the giving of the Law to Moses.

Streets would be full but this could be no ordinary Pentecost. For this would be the day in which a group of people who only weeks earlier had seen their dreams crumble, would suddenly come alive to proclaim the story of Jesus in a way they could never have imagined. And this time there would be no running away as happened when confronted with the shadow of the cross. Now boldness in speech and action would be the order of the day.

It all begins in a place where the followers of Jesus have gathered to pray. But this is going to be no ordinary prayer meeting. Instead Luke tells us that the Holy Spirit comes upon them. And his language of a rushing wind and tongues of fire is language rich in imagery to describe that which is the undescribable.

After all the Hebrew and Grek words for wind also translate as Spirit. After all legend had it that with the coming of the Law on Mount Sinai a flame had come down from heaven dividing into 70 tongues of fire, one for each nation of the then known world with only Israel promising to keep the Law.

But this is not a story about wallowing in an experience. Those who have been touched by the Holy Spirit now go out onto the streets and there they begin to tell others of the stories of God transforming the world through Jesus. And whilst the gathering is cosmopolitan, now all are able to understand the message in their own tongues. Whereas the ancient story of the Tower of Babel had suggested that language divided people and blocked their capacity to communicate with one another, Luke tells us that the Holy Spirit comes to unite people and to enable them to share the good news of the gospel with one another.

Not surprisingly people are astonished. Not surprisingly the more cynical suggest that those touche by the holy Spirit are drunk!.

But drunk they are most certainly not. After all the drunken person becomes incoherent. These people on the other hand become more coherent than they have ever been and by the time Peter has addressed the crowd some 3,000 people have joined the community of Jesus followers.

Sometimes Pentecost is spoken of as the birth of the church. It certainly is a day in which the community of believers are enabled to do that which they cannot do in their own power. The Spirit which in the Hebrew Bible came upon individuals who were called to specific tasks is now made available not just for a spiritual elite but for all the followers of Jesus. Why? So that the deeds of power and words of mercy that marked the ministry of Jesus might go on happening, no longer however limited to one geographical location or one moment in time. Yes, this is the day when the gospel goes global and eternal. This is the day when we get the assurance that no Caesar or dictator can stop the gospel because God the Holy Spirit is unleashed into our world and is actually enabling even the most timidly ordinary of us to be used to extraordinary effect. Truly, the Holy Spirit is the guarantour that the Jesus story can never be halted. Why? Because God is present and always will be!

But this is not just a story of the past. The Holy Spirit is at work today. Today people go on being called to follow the Jesus way, to identify with his story and to embrace his values. And to that end The Holy Spirit is today guiding, encouraging and enabling men and women not just in Bideford but across the globe. And as with those early followers of Jesus, we find the Holy Spirit working in us enables us to do more than we could ever do in our own strength.

This doesn't mean that the Holy Spirit is a device to be manipulated for selfish purposes. Far from it! Back in the 1800s an American man sat in a prayer meeting in Bristol. He heard a prayer in which a man spoke of how the world had yet to see what God could do through someone wholly comitted to him. The American prayed quietly that he might be such a person through the power of the Holy Spirit. And D.L. Moody for that was the American's name went on to be hugely used - a man of clumsy speech that led to him being mocked by the arrogant clever clogs of Cambridge University, within days he had been used at that same university that talented young men including C.T Studd the best allround cricketer in England at that time, would not merely seek to follow Jesus but would go on to take that message to China and later other distant lands. And belive you me that episode is but one of many concerning the one time Boston shoe salesman who was refused a church membership in his youth because he couldn't articulate his faith.

But let's not get stuck on big names. The Holy Spirit is God's gift to each of us and is at work in acts of kindness and deeds of mercy in every town across this land including our won town of Bideford. And each of us needs the Holy Spirit, God dwelling in us, if we are to be followers of Jesus rather than mere fans.

Look back for a moment to the Last Supper jesus ate with his friends but a day before his crucifixion. His words at that meal point to parting but in those words he also makes a promise, the promise of the Holy Spirit. In this he was saying that the Divine presence would not be taken from them. But the time was coming when that presence would be not in his physical presence but in the gifting of the Holy Spirit. At Pentecost we rejoice in the fulfilment of that promise. for we are not left alone but with what one writer has termed, "The Go Between God" that we might have God's loving presence in our lives, in highs and lows, in joys and sorrows.

Finally back to the concept that Pentecost is the birth of the church. It's a concept that at times is troubling. After all the Christian church has all too often screwed up in terms of its attitudes to war, the existence of slavery and segregation, its toleration of social injustice and indeed its tendency to moral judgementalism particularly at this time in relation to gay people. That is of course not the whole story and each of those wrongs has indeed been challenged from within the church to some considerable effect. But get it wrong the church often does - and yet I would not want to be without the church. Sure she's not perfect and if you want a perfect church please on finding her don't join because as is the case with me you'd wreck it because you like the rest of of ain't perfect! that's part of being human. After all the church is made up of imperfect people but people who have discovered a beautiful truth - that despite our failings God goes on loving us.

Pentecost speaks to us of the true calling of the church. And that calling is to point in word and deed to the Kingdom of God in which there is shalom, the peace in which all are valued, in which all are included, in which there is true justice.

On this Pentecost Day may it be our prayer that God the Holy Spirit is experienced in our lives, our communities, our world and throughout the Church whose birth we celebrate this day.

Final Editoriall Letter to Bideford Methodist Circuit Newsletter

2011-06-11T21:35:00.001Z

Dear Friends,

This is the last editorial letter that I shall write for this Circuit Newsletter.

There are two reasons for this. One reason is that Rev David Morris will soon be back from the joys of sabatical and raring to take up his leadership role once more. The other reason is that I am in my final two months as a serving minister in North Devon and the time to move on is getting ever closer.

Seven years seem to have gone by quickly and yet the relationships formed during those seven years do make leaving rather painful.

As I prepare to leave I find myself thinking of the many people I have got to know in pastoral situations. Some have left this life and are in the closer presence of God. Others of you I will soon be parted from by a distance of approximately 240 miles.

In North Devon I have seen many people living out their faith in Christ. At times I have been privileged to see quite extraordinary spiritual depths in our people often at cost and in difficult circumstances. I have also seen and indeed been a recipient of wonderful expressions of love.

These seven years have at times been difficult as we have struggled to discern what God wants of us. At times we have felt as though we were swimming against a powerful tide given that the times have seen to be against us and the reality that our demographic profile raises some very real difficulties. However, I cannot leave without expressing a conviction that God's presence has been a reality in our churches and indeed that we have often met God through our brothers and sisters in the faith. For this we have cause to be grateful.

As a family we have found these to be important years in our lives. Andrea has been become involved in working with people who have learning disabilities at Bidna House and we have seen how such people are people who often teach us much about what is really important in life. James and Kaye are both a little bit bigger physically than when they first came to Bideford and have this year been facing the challenges of A Levels and GCSEs respectively. Their lives are being shaped for the adult world and people within the circuit have played a significant part in their development.

Leaving a community we have come to love is certainly not easy. Doubtless we shall pass this way many times given our Cornish connections and it will be a joyful experience for us when we are in your midst again. In that sense it is very different from when we left the Isle of Man where the sea is a real barrier. However, we know that we will be visitors rather than part of the local scene.

Still whilst leaving is hard we do look forward to the next chapter of our lives. We believe that in Nottingham we face new challenges and opportunities and we have found the people whom we have met to be very warm people indeed. We look forward to getting know them better and to becoming a part of their communities. We are sure that as with Man and North Devon we will be ministered to as much as can minister. We shall as has always been the case for us receive more in terms of human kindness and assistance than we are able to give. For we have learnt much of the many virtues of the people called Methodists. Methodism is not a perfect family by any means but it is one that we are greatly privileged to belong to.

As we prepare to say our farewells, I would commend to you the diligent ministers who remain in the circuit and the lay people whose commitment to both God and the people of God are real strengths. I encourage you to pray for one another, to love another and to share your hopes and dreams with one another.

I do not know quite how many sermons I have preached in this circuit or how many words have been compressed within them. Ultimately their message has been quite basic and simple. That message is that God loves each of you to bits. God also loves the rest of society to bits as well and that includes those whom we might find strange or difficult. It certainly includes the poor and needy whom we are called to serve and to be in solidarity with. And that love of God is deeply transformative for in the words of the title of a book by Rob Bell which I commend to you, "Love Wins." Please go on exploring that love and living it out!

Anyhow we just thank you for have been such a welcoming people to us over these last seven years. You will always have a place in our hearts. Our work now lies in Nottingham and as of July 31st we shall be disentangled form the processes of this Circuit. Yet we hope we will see many of you either in Nottingham or on our visits whilst visiting family in Cornwall. We certainly wish each of your every possible blessing.

Roads may separate us by some hours yet we are united in the same Lord and our common faith now and forever.

God bless you,

Paul, Andrea, James and Kaye.

Civic Service Sermon based on Micah 6: 1-8

2011-06-05T09:36:00.000Z

Politics and religion are often seen as a toxic combination. Secularists argue that religion should keep its nose out of the politics that does not concern it whilst many people of faith contend that faith is about the beyond rather than than the debates of this world.

Many look at times when politics and religion come together with devastating consequences. Think for a moment of religious influences at play in the Troubles of Northern Ireland or look to the theocratic government in Iran where religion is used to stifle both political debate and freedom.

Consider how in Germany during the Nazi era how the so called German Christian movement provided a form of holy oil that gave comfort to that most insidious of regimes. Or look to south Africa where the dominant Dutch Reformed Church offered a theological justification of the sickness that was appartheid. Of course in Germany there were Niemoellers and Bonhoeffers who made sacrifices in the stuggle against nazism at great personal cost, the cost of his own life in the latter case. And of course in South Africa there were the Alan Boesaks and Desmond Tutu's who contributed so greatly to both the theological and political struggles to bring a monstrous system down

I mention these episodes to affirm that whilst the world of faith can sometimes be beneficial in its influence on the issues of the day, it can also be malign. And it is at its most malign when it seeks to dominate in the tradition of the bloodstained Roman Emperor Constantine who following his supposed conversion sought to align the Christian faith with exploitative power structures. Meanwhile the influence of faith is at its best when it is linked to the service mode demonstrated by Jesus who specifically sought to align himself with the powerless, the dominated, the poor and the outcasts.

Jesus was very much influenced by his Jewish background. He knew the Hebrew Bible very well. He knew that the history of the people of Israel was a history with much political conflict. An important part of that conflict was between the Kings and the prophets. Kingship was something that had been permitted reluctantly. and the history of Kingship was pretty tawdry indeed. The Deuteronomic histories of Kings from thetime of Saul going down to the time of the destruction of jerusalm five centuries later was with a few honourable exceptions a history of those who may have started with good intentions but ended up being no better than they ought to be.

This is why the prophets were needed. Whilst court prophets all too often tickled the fancy of their paymasters there were those who dared to speak truth to authority. These were people who looked asked the big questions as to whether society was developing in a way that was true the Divine image. And in a world in which Israel's Kings were all too often seduced by war and violence, all too often part of an elite that failed to justly share the riches of the land, being a prophet was a busy as well as a dangerous calling.

Amongst these prophets was Micah. A man who saw the powerful perverting the cause of justice, he lived about 2,700 years ago. His denounciations of the sins of ruling elites against the poor were colourful indeed likening them to "tearing the skin of my people."

In the scripture we heard this afternoon he puts the ruling elite on trial and finds them wanting. then he goes on to say what God wants and it is nothing to do with the things that rteligion has been reduced to but is now about doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with God.

What does this mean for us? To prophets like Micah justice is about fair treatment for all. "Let justice flow like waters" proclaimed Amos. And thge justicew of these prophets is about fair treatment and full inclusion for all people. It is about a bias for the poor, the weak and the disadvantaged. As David Fillingim puts it, "Justice is about restoring the marginalised to their rightful place as full participants in the community."

On this basis our western societies are as much under condemnation as ancient Israel. We have permitted even in the good times a situation in which many are left behind in terms of housing, employment and general living standards. Clever our finance ministers may be but voodoo economics has created a scandal in which over 22 million people in the EU are currently unsuccessfully looking for employment - and that is a figure taken from the notoriously deflated figures of national governments. And meanwhile contibutions to production and caring services alike are denied from being made whilst those denied pay the heaviest price on being scapegoated for problems they never created.
The justice envisaged by the prophets such as Micah mean solidaity with the poor, the homeless, the jobless, the sick in body or mind and those who are old. To fail to treat these people properly and as our equals puts us in dire need of their forgiveness.

As for loving kindness, Micah uses the word "hesed" a word with echoes of God's covenant love for us. This is about the love that goes the whole way and which is rooted in how God treats us rather than in how others treeat us. This is the path of treating others including strangers and those whom we might find strange in a way that does not have to be earned. just as God gives freely to the created order even when failed by that created order, Micah suggests that we are called to be committed even to those who may have brought misfortune upon themselves. Might not this speak of a real reposnsibility to offenders or those who have fallen into addiction or unhealthy patterns of life. The society envisaged by Micah calls for a durability to such people on the lines of that shown to us by God. And whilst charity is not a substitute for economic or social justice, it does have an important role to play in reflecting this Divine compassion.

And finally Micah speaks of walking humbly with God. Now let's be clear that this is not about Uriah Heap "ever so humble" type of attitudes which have nothing to do with being children of God.Instead it is about recognising our limitations. It's about recognising that we are at times tempted to dominate or to look down on others and not just tempted but prone to doing so. We can easily be a contradiction of all we proclaim. More than that none of us are so brilliant that we can in our own strengths build Jerusalem in "England's green and pleasant land." No! We need to appreciate both that our talents come from God and we need God's guidance on how best to use them. In a world that has so manycalls for independence, we do well to recognise that we are dependent on God - a realisation that can help to prevent us being pumped up with notions of our own importance.

20 years ago I brought to an end a four year term as a Town Councillor in Redruth. that term taught me that there was good we could do but equally we needed help in many places. I sympathise with Town and indeed District Councillors when subjected to unrealistic expectations. You can only do your best with whatever limitation are imposed upon you.

But still you have a privilege in both acting and speaking for this town with its commercial life and its public services plus a whole host of community needs and aspirations. In the midst of your busyness I simply invite you to look to the ancient prophets of Israel and to Jesus himself who was in many ways shaped by them. Sure your deliberations will cover a range of issues that were unimagineable in Biblical times. But I believe that prophets like Micah and indeed Jesus himself would whisper to you a simple guidance regarding priorities.

Put the poor and vulnerable first!

Put the poor and vulnerable second!

Put the poor and vulnerable third!

For this is the way of true religion as embodied by Jesus Christ.

Back and ready to rumble

2011-05-25T11:00:00.002Z

This blog has been quiet for some time. In part this has been due to being below par healthwise. It has also been because of my being acting superintendent for my cicuit over the past 7 weeks - only 5 to go and the circuit has not yet collapsed. i have also been busy looking ahead to our move to Nottingham.

During the time of silence on this blog there has been much going on within church and world. I now feel sufficiently reinvigorated to resume shouting from the safety of a keyboard. So I'm ready to rumble and rumble I jolly well shall.

Jesus and a Samaritan Woman -- A Sermon for Lent 3A based on Luke 4: 5 - 26, 39 -42

2011-03-26T10:06:00.005Z

Walls can be signs of conflict. I think of Hadrian's Wall built to keep the Picts out, the Berlin Wall which was the ultimate sign of the Cold War era and the Wall that today exists in Israel which makes it at the very least time consuming for Palestinians to come in.

But walls do not have to be physical structures. Attitudes themselves can at times be as impreganable as any concrete structure. And those attitudes can be the sort of attitudes that keep those deemed other firmly on the outside.

It is that such walls that we find ourselves encountering this morning in our gospel reading. But the twist is that the text before us is one in which Jesus knocks the walls down by his conduct in this encounter with a Samaritan woman.

You see, this was an encounter that went against all social norms of the day. The Samaritan woman herself is surprised at the very beginning of the encounter. As she says;

"You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan. How can you ask me for a drink?"

Now just for a moment let us pause to look at the history of bad relations between Jews and Samaritans.

Back in 722 BCE the Northern Kingdom of Israel was overrun by the Assyrians. To avoid rebellion the Assyrians moved some people out and moved others in. The area became known as Samaria. A couple of centuries later when the leaders of the Southern Kingdom of Judah returned to Jerusalem after some 50 years of exile, they regarded the people of Samaria as havingfallen away from true religion and so rejected their offer of help in rebuilding the Temple of Jerusalem. In pique the Samaritans did their best to sabotage the building efforts. Relationships deteriorated further and the Judeans came to regard samaritans in a negative way on both racial and religious grounds. The situation was not helped by the Samaritans building a rival Temple on Mount Gerizim. Nor were things made easier when a Judean army destroyed that Temple in 110 BCE. Meanwhile Samaritans tried to disrupt festivals in Jerusalem. So by the time of Jesus the two peoples tried to avoid each other. Most Judeans travelling between Galilee and Jerusalem would take a diversion to the other side of the Jordan River in order to avoid setting foot in Samaria. That Jesus goes through Samaria and finds time to talk with this Samaritan woman shows him to be confronting a wall of prejudice.

The disciples perceive Jesus to be confronting another wall. In verse 27 we read;

"Just then the disciples returned and were surprised to see him talking with a woman."

To be honest the Greek word implies something stronger than merely "surprised." Now in our society we are in no way shocked at finding socialising between men and women. I suspect there was plenty of that on the streets of Bideford last night and in some cases shall we say people were being a little what we might call "forward." but that is not how it was at the time of Jesus. It was improper for man to speak to a woman to whom he was not related in public. It just wasn't seen as being right - let alone as in this case where the dialogue is a bit of a joust covering subjects such as relationships and deep religious concerns. So once more we see that in taling to this woman Jesus is confronting the very walls of prejudice.

But the matter does not end here. Often people make the assumption that the woman has an unsavoury personal history. The bit that is often used is the reference to 5 past husbands and a current lover. I want to suggest a little caution here. Jesus is not in the habit of showing interest in the details of people's love lives. It is quite possible that these references are a reference to the idolatry of Samaria and refers to the five peoples that 2 Kings tells us were imported into Samaria by the Assyrians with whom the people intermarried whilst the current lover could be seen as Rome which know exercised direct rule without such intermingling. Jesus may be making a Judean point with regards to what Samaria had become.

And yet the traditional understanding cannot be completely discounted. After all the Samaritan woman's action in coming to the well to carry out the drudgery of hauling water from the well and then to carry it back, at noon which is the hottest time of day, a time when others would not be there, suggests strongly that the woman was an outcast. These are the actions of a woman who was so desperate to avoid contact with others in the cool of the early morning or evening, that she instead chooses to endure the heat of the Middle Eastern sun at its very hottest. Once more a cautionary note needs to be sounded. Should she have had 5 husbands may not be a judgement of her morality necessarily. After all divorce was the prerogative of men not women. She may have been one of those women who have existed down the centuries, women who have been used and abused by men. But now she would face if not scorn, a sanctimonious pity. So in speaking with her as an equal Jesus is once again confronting the walls of prejudice.

And why does he do it? He does it it as a sign that in his Kingdom all have a place regardless of ethnicity, religious heritage, gender or them having been shamed. For in all his doings Jesus is throughly inclusive. Man made divisions must be set aside for this Jesus is the one who is for all. And he offers a living water which refreshes us not in the temporary way that the water from our taps refreshes us but for all eternity. Indeed as this story ends we find that this Samaritan woman does what supposed insiders like Nicodemus fails to do - she not only accepts the gift for herself but draws others in.

Who is Jesus? He is the One who is for all. He is the One who tramples on our prejudices with a vision of a Kingdom in which all count, a Kingdom in which unlike the demonic economics which is leaving tens of millions in our continent alone without gainful employment, everyone has a stake. He is for each and every one of us.

So this morning if you feel like an outsider lift up your head! Jesus who is God revealed in humanity says you count. He invites you to his kingdom where with others you can experience dignity and worth. And he invites you to share that living water with those you find it hardest to share it with. For his love is for all.

In our daily living Jesus goes on challenging us to follow his lead in demolishing the walls of prejudice that separate people and even dehumanise them - replacing them with bridges of unity and dignity.

And of course the greatest bridge of all is that which Jesus offers to bring us into harmony with God. Near the end of his life the great theologian Karl Barth was asked at a press conference at the University of Chicago what was the most profound truth he had learnt from his studies. His answer was simple;

"Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so."

And that truth is for each of you, those whom you love, those whom you need to overcome prejudice concern and yes even thoe who are a right pain in the ...........

Accessories to murder - UK in dock as our weapons kill!

2011-02-19T09:45:00.002Z

As the dictators of Bahrain and Libya use lethal force against democracy campaigners it makes sense to be reminded that amongst their armoury is much supplied by the UK.

No longer is the debate about arms sales able to be conducted in an abstract manner. As protesters die in the streets we as a country have become accessories to murder.

Our only means of redemption is to shut the arms industry down now!

Pentecostalism changing the church

2011-02-19T09:39:00.005Z

Anyone interested in the implications of the rise in in Pentecostalism in the poorer parts of the world might find this Ekklesia article helpful. Interesting discussion of a phenomenom that is particularly flourishing amongst the poor yet sometimes bankrolled by the rich.

Peace Prayer of st Francis

2011-02-15T19:54:00.004Z

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is error, truth;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in self-forgetting that we find;
And it is in dying to ourselves that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.

Of course we do not know who wrote this prayer despite the popular idenfification with St Francis of Assissi. What matters is not just the beauty of the words which we can aloow to lull us into a false sense of security. What really matters is the challenge that comes from asking how we measure up. Do we bring God's peace into the world we inhabit?

Panto days come to end

2011-02-01T21:23:00.008Z

What I suspect will turn out to be my last pantomime performance has taken place. for the fifth year I have been a panto dame with Northam Bright Stars who play at the Northam Methodist Church. This year I was Mother Goose for a six performance run.

I have enjoyed these forays into amateur dramatics. If ministry is showbiz for ugly people, I have enjoyed my ugliness. I've enjoyed being part of a splendid team of people. I've enjoyed making people laugh and occasionally shocking them. And I've enjoyed the fellowship that really exists amongst the Bright Stars.

On the last night I was presented with a lovely clock and a very nice card by my colleagues. At that moment I realised that it was now over.

Soon I move to the Nottingham East Circuit where I shall be based at Arnold. The new challenge there will not allow me time on my first year to give the necessary time for such activity. And I doubt I will ever again encounter as tolerant a producer as Mike Sale who must have year by year endured sleepless nights wonderingif I would get around to learning my lines. Indeed I'm not sure I ever have really managed to do so, relying as I have done on adlibbing to fill the gaps. So that it even if I am tempted to add;

"Oh No it's not!"

Anyhow here is an article from the local press

And now I return to blogging.

Tea Party sing Cannibal Corpse

2011-01-18T21:00:00.002Z

Sarah Palin Battle Hymn - words fail me!

2011-01-17T23:24:00.000Z

George Lansbury, Christ and Justice

2011-01-03T19:50:00.006Z

Christian and former Labour Party leader George Lansbury offers these words about Christ. I offer them as something for people of faith to contemplate at a time in which those who have never sold a prime mortgage or dealt in derivatives etc pay the price for those who have been seduced into such gambling with perilous results for the world economy. Many of these still live in luxury whilst in Britain alone we have a grwoing unemployment problem with already one million young people out of work. And all the time a government that threatens them with clampdown after clampdown. Come back George! We need you!

Keep in mind the fact that the Son of Man, the Christ who lived and was executed by the government of His day, was a great leader, and leader of the common people. It was his great message of Love and Brotherhood which brought him to his death. He knew the poor of the earth were oppressed by the rich and wealthy, and in scathing terms denounced the money changers and all those who defiled the Temple and brought suffering to starving humanity.

HAT TIP: Neil Clark

Come to make a difference - A Christmas Day sermon based on Luke 2: 1-20

2010-12-24T22:41:00.000Z

I love the music that we sing at Christmas. Carols such as those we are singing today are full of joyful meaning and on the whole they come with pretty good tunes.

I like other Christmas songs. I can't quite enthuse over Wizard wishing it could be Christmas every day or that awful Shakin Stevens' number about a rock and roll Christmas but I do love John Lennon's "Merry Christmas: War is over" and don't even get me started about the classic by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl, "The Fairy Tale of New York" which is most years played so much in our home that I think I pretty well know the words off by heart.

Of course "The Fairy Tale of New York" is more of a drunken argument between an Irish immigrants to the United States and a young woman than anything to do with the Christmas story. Sure the bells are ringing out for Christmas Day but that is as far as it goes.

But that does not invalidate it for this time of year. After all it was within Cornish Methodism that I first heard that seasonal offering about Good King Wenceslas so beloved by many carol singers.

Its relevance to Christmas is that it is located on the Feast of Stephen which is of course our Boxing Day. It fits the fascination of the Northern hemisphere with notions of a White Christmas - something about which Bing Crosby dreamt whilst this year we know the real thing when we sing;

"When the snow lay round about
Deep and crisp and even."

Indeed it may be the current weather which has caused Good King Wenceslas to dominate my thinking this past week.

Now at this stage it is worth considering who Wenceslas was. He lived back in the tenth century out in Bohemia. In fact he wasn't a King in his lifetime. Instead he was a paltry Duke who was granted the title of King only after his death by order of the Holy Roman Emperor Otto 1.

By all accounts he was fine person who showed great kindness to widows, orphans and those in prison. And his kindnesses were expressed at great cost to his personal convenience. So the events about which we sing are very much in keeping with what historians know of Wenceslas.

In the Christmas song he leaves the comforts of the palace to bring firewood and a meal to a peasant who is battling against the ferocious elements. At a time when at Christmas it was common for the peasantry to be invited to go up to royal palaces to share in the leftovers of Christmas feasting, Wenceslas goes out to the peasant to provide him withmeans of warmth and a new feast to enjoy. And this he does despite inclement weather which turns out to be nearly too much for the page who accompanies him.

I cannot help but think that there is a picture of the Christmas story here. Through the birth of Christ, God does not stay at a distance. Instead he invades our world with love that comes with both risk and cost to himself. For God is not a remote deity but instead he empties himself of all the trappings of comfort, of everything but love itself for each and every one of us.

In Luke's Gospel we see God moving amongst the poor and outcasts. Mary in her Magnificat sees God working to feed the poor whilst sending the rich empty away. she sees the humble being lifted up and Kings pulled down from their thrones. Soon the first to be called to visit the baby Jesus will be shepherds, men of little wealth, men of low social standing. The Holy family themselves are regarded by the respectable with disapproval on account of the circumstances surrounding the birth. Not unexpectedly then this Jesus will be the friend of outcasts and his teachings and stories will display a solidarity with the poor denied the justice for which prophets had long spoken.

No surprise then that several centuries later Wenceslas will have discerned that to follow Jesus involves being in solidarity with the poor. Far from harshly judging the poor, the follower of Jesus is called to follow in the master's steps in being a friend to those deprived of dignity and the full recognition of their humanity.

Our Christmas song concludes with the words;

"Therefore Christian men, be sure
Wealth or rank posessing
Ye who now will bless the poor
Shall yourselves find blessing."

So on the Christmas Day may we looking at Luke's Nativity and at the story of Wenceslas, come to know and then to live out the Gospel imperative to be alongside the poor - not as some sort of patronising act but because this is the way of the Lord in whose step we should seek to tread.

Daniel Berrigan - Saved by Jesus!

2010-12-16T22:27:00.003Z

Daniel Berrigan's Credo which seems to me to be worth sharing

I can only tell you what I believe; I believe:
I cannot be saved by foreign policies.
I cannot be saved by the sexual revolution.
I cannot be saved by the gross national product.
I cannot be saved by nuclear deterrents.
I cannot be saved by aldermen, priests, artists,
plumbers, city planners, social engineers
nor by the Vatican,
nor by the World Buddhist Association
nor by Hitler, nor by Joan of Arc,
nor by angels and archangels,
nor by powers and dominions,
I can be saved only by Jesus Christ.

An inspirational Advent Creed

2010-11-28T12:25:00.003Z

This morning at Torrington Methodist ChurchI used the Advent creed below which comes from the inspirational Jesuit priest and peace activist Daniel Berrigan. Many people found it helpful and even inspirational so I share it with you

It is not true that creation and the human family are doomed to destruction and loss—
This is true: For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life;

It is not true that we must accept inhumanity and discrimination, hunger and poverty, death and destruction—
This is true: I have come that they may have life, and that abundantly.

It is not true that violence and hatred should have the last word, and that war and destruction rule forever—
This is true: Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, his name shall be called wonderful councilor, mighty God, the Everlasting, the Prince of peace.

It is not true that we are simply victims of the powers of evil who seek to rule the world—
This is true: To me is given authority in heaven and on earth, and lo I am with you, even until the end of the world.

It is not true that we have to wait for those who are specially gifted, who are the prophets of the Church before we can be peacemakers—
This is true: I will pour out my spirit on all flesh and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions and your old men shall have dreams.

It is not true that our hopes for liberation of humankind, of justice, of human dignity of peace are not meant for this earth and for this history—
This is true: The hour comes, and it is now, that the true worshipers shall worship God in spirit and in truth.

So let us enter Advent in hope, even hope against hope. Let us see visions of love and peace and justice. Let us affirm with humility, with joy, with faith, with courage: Jesus Christ—the life of the world.

Evening thoughts on suffering

2010-11-25T20:59:00.001Z

Tonight has been one of those nights in which I've spent time with someone going through great pain. He is a man whom I like very much and yet somehow his faith gives me heart in the situation.

This is not an unusual situation. In ministry I have seen much of the painful side of life. Occasionally it has been young people which is heartbreaking. Yet to me there is a similar sense of sorrow in those occasions where people who have lived good lives find the final chapter full of pain.

I cannot in honesty make any real sense of suffering. At times I ask the age old question of why a loving God can allow so much unjustified suffering. And as we learn from the example of Job, suffering is often both unfairly distributed and devoid of beneficial effects.

It is not just a question regarding illnesses that attack the body. Our planet whilst often source of pleasure has the capacity to wreak havoc in our lives. Earthquakes, volcanoes and mighty hurricanes all create a legacy of chaos and destruction. And then there are the times when crops fail and children amongst others go hungry.

Now I do not believe for one moment that God is the author of these things although there were for example those who after 9/11 who claimed the tragedy was a judgement on American moral permissiveness. Equally after the tsunami that hit Sri Lanka and other places there were voices that claimed that through it God had made a point through allegedly less Christians than those of other faiths being killed. But this is bunkum theology. the fact is that if God was the author of these things, God would be a force of darkness. Surely this cannot be the case with the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And yet we ask the question as to why God does not intervene when bad things happen to people. At university I studies Christian and Jewish responses to the Holocaust. Now the Holocaust was a dreadful eveil in which a people were slaughtered simply for being. It is I think the ultimate example of radical evil. And how it tests the faith of those of us who believe that God was first revealed to the Jewish people and continues to love them dearly. Against that how does one face the silence of God. It certainly challenges how we see the "almightyness" of God. It raises the question of God in some way being limited in action.

Too often we talk glibly about a perfect creation. I am not convinced that this is biblical. Creation is good - yes! But perfect - surely that is a step too far! to believe otherwise is to deny the testomony of our eyes and ears. It is to bury our heads in the sand.

I do not have an answer to the question of suffering. To pretend to have one is just insensitive and cruel. I recognise that life is just not fair.

And yet I do not want to leave the matter there. Whilst we have no glib answers I believe that in the face of suffering there is a calling to us as followers of the Jesus who himself both suffered and addressed the suffering of others. Our calling is not to the escapism of some rather sentimental hymns. It is to be with people in their times of need.

In the past few weeks I have been privileged to spend time at both hospice and hospital. In such places I have seen great human kindness and the spirit of Christ even in those who would not recognise Christ as their inspiration. we see it in those who work with people with learning or physical disabilities. We see the same in aid workers and amongst those who work with the poor.

So whilst we have a shortage of answers as to the whys of suffering, perhaps we are best off moving from the speculative in the direction of being those who do our bit to help those who suffer and accordingly do our bit to heal the world. For to do so is to follow the way of Jesus.

Kicking refuges out of homes is also violence against Jesus

2010-11-19T09:21:00.003Z

I am not sure that we are country that takes Jesus seriously. Certainly judging from this post by Ian Galloway who is the Church and Society Convenor of the Church of Scotland, we are in denial as to the Christ who has nowhere to lay his head or the Christ who as a child is forced to fell into exile.

I am very distressed at the decision of the UK Border Agency to relocate 600 refugee households. This decision has apparently been takes as a result of the termination of the contract with Glasgow City Council to house these people.

Letters have apparently been sent to 600 households advising them that they will be given 3-5 days notice to move from their homes. Each household will be allowed to take two pieces of luggage per person, plus baby equipment, children’s toys and disability aids. This action will effectively mean the potential removal at extremely short notice of 1,311 people from their current homes to undisclosed destinations within Scotland.

From a psychological perspective, this action can have devastating effects on people who are already very vulnerable. It will also affect children who will have to be taken away from their school, their friends and their local connections. Many of these people have already had to suffer forced, sometimes violent uprooting, fleeing their countries through fear for their lives. Another forced uprooting can have dire consequences. Refugee families and their children are not objects that can be stashed or shifter about at the stroke of a pen. They are human beings and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect irrespective of the place where they happened to be born.

Positive Action in Housing has written to the Prime Minister asking him to intervene in the negotiations between Glasgow City council and the UKL Border Agency. The Kirk is entirely in support of this action. Moreover, as a minister within a community which is working actively with asylum seekers, I encourage everyone to be present at the protest which will take place on Brand Street in Govan the 20th of November supporting the refugees against this appalling action.

Let's face the truth. As a nation we have the outward appearance of Chritsianity but the reality denies it. So what are we going to do about it?

Random act of culture - Hallelujah Chorus

2010-11-18T19:12:00.000Z

Enjoy!

Olives and the conflict between the children of Abraham

2010-11-18T18:13:00.003Z

Just to recommend this sensitive post by the excellent John Cooper which takes us into the heart of the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis.

One day theyhad better live together and share the resources of the land or they will die together with many others. Time for peace!

What would Jesus cut?

2010-11-18T18:06:00.001Z

Good answer from Jonathan Bartley. Go and read it!

Cuts are nuts

2010-11-17T12:50:00.005Z

I thought I'd include this account of last night's "Tough Choices" meeting organised by Devon County Council. As with the previous week's such meeting at Barnstaple we leafleted as many as posiible of the audience.

The meeting yielded little light. It is clear that Devon County Council's rul9ing groups support the cuts all the way. Equally some of us will oppose them. My contribution is mentioned in the report as are a splendid group of pupils from Bideford College.

I am sad that there are those who think cuts will somehow solve our problems when the reality is that as in Ireland they will fail to do so. The reallity is that they threatend the basis of a welfare society which became a consensus after 1945. The human effect is that people who have served the public well will be given the gift of unemployment. Their skills which have been beneficial will be thrown away. As for young people career openings are closing down for them - at the same time as our precious little government has abandoned promises of only months ago and trebled university tuition fees.

I warn readers that under this government it is extra bad to be sick. It is no longer encouraged to have educational aspirations. And for goodness sake don't loose your jobs for they will even blame you for that an given half a chance impoverish you for good measure!

As a father who fears for his childrens' futures and as a Methodist minister who takes seriously God's option for the poor,I feel no choice but to resist. Whilst I do not believe our deficit is as extreme as made out, I cannot get away from the fact that measures that will cut growth as will public spending cuts (please remember the private sector will be affected by loss of public sector projects) are hardly a cure.

Still here are a few suggestions so that the crisis of capitalism is paid for by those able to do so:

- introduce a wealth tax

- Robin Hood tax on financial transactions

- bring down rents by introducing rent tribunals an a fair rent policy with a tax on empty properties so that they can be brought into use

- abolition of Trident

- bring troops home from Afghanistan

- default on any part of deficit owed to banks until repaid by them in full for the cost of the bailout

- increase income tax by 2p at basic rate and more at higher levels. It might hurt but we'd be in it together rather than a scapegoated unemployed community.

- introduce a maximum wage of £150,000 a year.

And there's plenty more where all of that comes from! It may not be nice but it is better than failing to support the homeless, those with substance problems, those with learning disabilities etc. It is better than shutting libraries, failing to maintain roads or getting rid of teachers or teaching assistants. It is better than chopping the Youth Service or schemes with offenders. It is better than cutting healthcare professionals. and so the list goes on.

Yes, this is the battle of a generation. It is about being a civilised nation rather than one that slips into a form of barbarianism as dictated by shock capitalism. this is a struggle that requires a mighty alliance of socialists, environmentalists, trade unionists, progressive liberals, faith groups and more besides.

Those backing these cuts have been revealed to be implacable. So must we be in opposing their deeds. It is up to us. Don't trust Her Majesty's Opposition to do it - they are far to cautious. We need to take on the debate with protests on streets, support for strikes by those who are thrown out of work and a range of creative opposition that utilises humour as well as anger so that we maintain outr humanity.

Losing this engagement cannot be an option! Peaceful extra Parliamentary action must be joined.

Credo - 10 things I believe

2010-11-17T09:28:00.000Z

1/. The immensity, unconditionality and timelessness of God's love is good news. But it is a cause of scandal. Still God's grace is for all manner of people in this life and after.

2/. We see the nature of God best when we look at Jesus in whom God has revealed Godself. This has to be good.

3/. The church's feudings over issues like sexuality do more demage to Christianity than any of the efforts of radical atheists. We need to discover a generous orthodoxy that builds bridges rather than walls.

4/. Spiritual treasure is found in other major faiths as well as in Christianity.

5/. Recognising the reality of differences between faiths as well as points in common we need real dialogue with those of other faiths. This can help us see what we treasure in our won faith as well as being a means to understanding and friendship in a multi faith world.

6/. I can see political reasons why nations go to war. However, I can no longer reconcile the killing of war with being a follower of Jesus. I guess this makes me a faltering pacifist.

6/. The message of the Bible points me to believing that God is on the side of the poor. In fact I would go further. To me the the Bible seems to point to the desirability of a more equal society without extremes of wealth or poverty.

7/. We are called not to be passive in the face of injustice. After all Jesus and the prophets did not pull their punches On matters such as the cuts in public spending, non violent civil disobedience is for me not an option. It is a necessity!

8/. Nationalism is a form of idolatry. I care about the people I am in contact with but at times I am disgusted at my country. So patriotism as I see it often defined is as Oscar Wilde put it t"he last resort of the scoundrel." So no flag flying for me!

9/. Personal experience has taught me that being human is a vulnerable experience. We are like a delicate thread that is easily broken. The mental and emotional wellbeing of others should be a trump consideration in both our personal lives and in the functioning of society.

10/. We are leaseholders not freeholders of our world. This means taking care of the planet and its resources so that we fulfil God's desire to hand over a good legacy for future generations. This means that environmental considerations are vital.

Climate change - are the lunatics taking over the asylum?

2010-11-14T18:55:00.004Z

As victor Meldrew would say, "I don't believe it!" But it really is true that a man who does not believe in climate change on Biblical grounds is set for the top environmental position in the US House of Representatives.

Thanks to Richard Hall for unearthing this gem. Somtimes I really do think the world is going mad!

Remembering it well - A sermon for Remembrance Day based on Micah 4: 1-8

2010-11-13T21:08:00.002Z

"We met at nine
We met at eight

I was on time
No you were late
Ah, yes I remember it well.

We dined with friends
We dined alone

A tenor sang
A baritone
Ah, yes,I remember it well."

Some of you will doubtless remember those lyrics about a couple with very different memories of their first date, from the film musical "Gigi" by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe sang by Maurice Chevalier and Hermione Gingold.

More important today though is the remembering of this day. Do we remember it well?

Certainly today is a day in which we remember those who have fallen in wars going back to 1914 and indeed those who continue to die in the quagmire that is Afghanistan.

It is certainly a day in which we should remember how conflicts have impacted upon often very ordinary people. People whose conduct on the field of battle has been of heroic dimensions. Those too who who have succumbed to instincts of cruelty in their treatment of others especially those of other nations

People who have put themselves in great danger to save the lives of their comrades Those too who have been unable to cope and become frozen in fear sometimes mocked for so called cowardice

And then there is the multitude of civilians who have suffered or even died as a result of military actions - for the past century has taught us all too well that despite the sort of rubbish spouted on television by so called military experts about precison bombings and the likes by the lesson of the past century is that in our modern world civilians die as much in war as combatants.

And also we remember other stories. Those who worked down the mines, on the farms, in a range of reserved occupations. And then there are those who often for religious reasons went against the tide of public opinion by refusing to fight in past wars - sometimes heroically taking on the risks of attending to the injuries of combatants, in other cases imprisoned or just simply rejected by those around them.

You see the conflicts we remember today have deeply affected all sorts of people- and on this day we remember that for far too many the consequence has beeen death or years of living with awful physical and emotional injuries.

I'd like to say that those have experienced these dangers have been honoured. But sadly the reality all too different. Those who fought in the trenches returned to promises of "homes fit for heroes" but the homes did not materialise on anything like a satisfactory basis. And within 20 years some of those who experienced hell on earth would once more catch the eye as Jarrow Hunger marchers coming down from London on their own behalf but also on behalf of others, once needed by King and country now dispossessed of employment and dignity, thrown aside by the nation that they had served. Today all too many of those who have been through our recent wars, depsite the efforts of the Royal British Legion, lack the support they need to cope with civilian lives and to handle the demons of their experiences in ways that do not destroy them further.

You see, to remember them well is about more than just looking back or even wearing a poppy. It is also about appreciating the worth of people through the changing scenes of life, not just when they can be used as pawns on a chessboard.

And in that remembrance we need to grasp the horror of war. Harry Patch the last fighting Tommy alive writes a moving description on an event during the hellish batle of Passchendale;

" We came across a lad from A Company. He was ripped open from his shoulder to the waist by shrapnel, and lying in a pool of blood. When we got to him, he looked at us and said, 'Shoot me.' He was beyond all human help, and before we could draw a revolver he was dead! And the final word he uttered was 'Mother!' "

That is the reality repeated countless times that we remember on Remembrance Day. No wonder Harry Patch, a man whose grasp on humanity was such that he told of aiming at the legs rather than to kill, later in the context of telling of a meeting with a German soldier also well past 100 years of age, makes the assertion that politicians and generals today should hear morningt noon and nightfall;

"War is organised murder and nothing else."

So have we learned? Got to Dachau's concentration camp and you will find the words of Georges Santayana on a memorial -

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Yet still it is repeated. Only this month our Ministry of Defence's business plan makes one of its prime priorities the sale of weapons - and despite the weasel words we know full well that successive governments have sold them to some pretty ghastly regimes. One of our top men at defence has spoken of there being no embarassment at the sale of weapons. All I can say is that given the effects of weaponry there jolly well ought to be more than a little embarassment.

So what is the message from God on a day such as this? well we know that from the beginnings of time there have been those who have tried to co opt God as a justification for war. The biblical message of God being the giver of life to all peoples has time and again been ignored. Yet the prophets of ancient Israel dared to challenge the people with the vision of a better way than that pursued by the Kings.

Think for a moment to those verses from Micah that we heard a few minutes ago. In an age of mountinging security Micah looks to a time when swords will be turned to ploughshares, a time when technology will serve the wellbeing of humanity rather than its brutal destruction.

Look to Third Isaiah encouraging a community intent on a return to Jerusalem after long years in exile. His vision is of a new community in which there will be wellbeing and a deep sense of harmony. In this new world even wolves will lay down with lambs and crnivorous wolves will eat straw. for now there will be no hurting or destruction.

And thhen look to Jesus himself advocating relationships with those were seen as the enemies of his people. See him in the Garden of Gethsemane stopping Peter from using the sword in defence of Jesus. And remember that this same Jesus is the one who has already told those who would listent to love their enemies - doubtless madness in the eyes of the local media!

Of course the Biblical witness is not easy. But as a community of faith we need to remember that witness on such a day and to commend it to others. For the vision of Peace is at the heart of our faith as is Shalom to our Jewish friends and Salaam to our Muslim friends.

Today we pay a debt of honour in the act of remembrance. It is right and proper. It looks back but also looks forward. At Yad Vashem in Jerusalem there are to be found the words;

" In remembrance lies the secret of deliverance."

There those words of an 18th century Hasidic Jew are found in the context of the remembrance of the Holocaust. But they are words of wisdom that we hold a meaning for us today.

It is when we remember the horror of war and the peoples it destroys that we become less likely to repeat the past.

It is when we remember the humanity of other nations that our destructive urges are softened.

It is when we remember the way of God as expressed in Jesus that we begin to realise that war does not have the final say.

Today with a range of emotions we look back and remember. But as we do so we commit ourselves to peace. War is not inevitable and if we will but build bridges and look to the ways of God then we can indeed resist the chill winds that breathe hatred and destruction into our world. After all Britons, Americans, Germans, Japanese, Russians,Iraqis and Afghans are alike children of God who belong together. We were created to build one another up not to tear one another apart.

Back to Harry Patch. As he heard the dying soldier cry out "Mother!" he felt it revealed to him that death is not the end, not the last word. On this day may we have our epiphany that war is not the final word. For as our remembrance looks to God we see the highest calling on humanity to put an end to the practice of destroying the lives that are themselves the gift of God.Yes, may it be our resolution to put an end to war that those swords may indeed be turned to ploughshares.

For that is remembering it well!

Common Wealth - A Bblical Alternative to Capitalism

2010-11-13T08:44:00.002Z

I have been waiting for a solid faith based contribution to why and how we should resist the cuts. I have great pleasure in linking to Common Wealth. Please read and even sign their statement.

I will do anything I can to support this initiative just as I commit myself to involvement in broad based campaigns against these iniquitous cuts. It is out duty as followers of Christ to resis - it is not just an option!

Churches warn that government welfare plans misunderstand poverty

2010-11-11T23:22:00.001Z

Christian organisations have warned that the Government’s welfare proposals are based on a lack of understanding of the poor. They argue that constructive reforms are at risk of being lost under a wave of punitive measures and cost-cutting.

The Methodist Church, the Church of Scotland, the United Reformed Church, the Baptist Union of Great Britain, Housing Justice and Church Action on Poverty have welcomed plans for a simplified benefits system, but have raised concerns that the proposed reforms are based on inaccurate assumptions about the poor.

“There is a serious danger that people living in poverty will be stigmatised by government announcements that imply they are lazy or work-shy,” said Revd Alison Tomlin, President of the Methodist Conference. “The Government seems to assume that if people are forced into working they will comply and their lives will be made better. The poor we meet are seeking to better their lives in difficult circumstances. They are willing to work, but face difficulties in finding jobs, in meeting caring responsibilities and in living on the wages offered.”

“People who are long-term unemployed are already struggling to find work in a market place where there is increasing pressure on both the public and private sectors,” added Alison Gelder, Director of Housing Justice. “Some need help to develop the skills to find and keep a regular job. What they do not need are punitive measures such as the proposed cut in housing benefit by 10% after a year out of work. Most of all, they should not be forced to do manual labour in return for their benefits for just £1.73 an hour - £4.20 below the current adult minimum wage.”

The group argues that Government welfare policy needs to be based on a realistic assessment of those living in poverty and what they really need to get back into the work force. They are concerned that policy should not be based on a skewed figures and a misunderstanding of the poor.

Revd Graham Sparkes, Head of Faith and Unity for the Baptist Union of Great Britain said: “We meet people on a daily basis who are experiencing long term unemployment. Unemployment, especially in an area where there are few jobs available, damages a person’s self-confidence, health and ability to survive life’s knocks. The Government needs to understand what people in poverty need in order to return to work. It’s not good enough to just tell people to ‘pull their socks up’.”

Niall Cooper, National Coordinator of Church Action on Poverty, said “We ask that the government to talk to people in poverty and base their policies on combating the problems they face daily. Iain Duncan Smith should come to one of our listening events, where people struggling to make ends meet tell their stories. Simplistic solutions such as benefit cuts, telling people to get on a bus to find work, and enforced labour would face a harsh reality check.”

On 28 October a group of Churches and Christian agencies wrote to David Cameron asking him to set the public record straight after Chancellor George Osborn conflated figures for benefit fraud and error during his speech on the Comprehensive Spending Review, claiming that there is three times as much fraud as shown by government figures.

SOUCE: Methodist Church

Remembrance 2010 - Memorial Tablet

2010-11-10T23:26:00.001Z

Squire nagged and bullied till I went to fight,
(Under Lord Derby's scheme). I died in hell -
(They called it Passchendaele). My wound was slight,
And I was hobbling back; and then a shell
Burst slick upon the duck-boards; so I fell
Into the bottomless mud, and lost the light.

At sermon-time, while Squire is in his pew,
He gives my gilded name a thoughtful stare;
For, though low down upon the list, I'm there;
"In proud and glorious memory" ... that's my due.
Two bleeding years I fought in France, for Squire:
I suffered anguish that he's never guessed.
Once I came home on leave: and then went west ...
What greater glory could a man desire? Siegfried Sassoon

Arms trade subverts Christmas

2010-11-09T22:16:00.003Z

Most of us would see Jesus as the bringer of peace, as the child hunted by Herod's military. We may eeven remember him as theone who told us to love our enemies and the one who in his hour of need told Peter to put his sword down. Certainly we surely couldn't reconcile Jesus with the deathly arms industry. Well some see no contradiction. Amazingly the promoters of London's "Spirit of Christmas Fair" also promoted arms fairs for the whores of death. Clearly they don't understand the Christmas message or at least they do not let it enter their business activities. Full marks to Campaign Against the Arms Trade and their very own Santa.

Visitors to the Spirit of Christmas Fair in London were surprised to be greeted by Santa Claus and his elves warning them that the Fair's owners are involved in the arms trade.

The Fair, which took place at Kensington Olympia in London on Sunday (7 November), is run by Clarion Events. The company also own a string of arms fairs, including the biennial London arms fair, known formally as Defence Systems and Equipment International (DSEi).

Hundreds of leaflets were distributed to the fair's customers by campaigners dressed as Santa and elves. They displayed placards calling for "Tinsel, Not Tanks". The campaigners said that the spirit of Christmas was “being corrupted by the owners of the DSEi arms fair”.

The demonstration was organised by the London Group of the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT). They described it as a continuation of their campaign for Clarion to ditch its portfolio of arms fairs. Clarion has also faced protests at a number of its other exhibitions, including the high-profile Baby Show.

Clarion bought many of the arms fairs – including DSEi – from the publishing business Reed Elsevier. Reed sold them following a campaign by their own customers, clients and shareholders, which was co-ordinated by CAAT.

“I find it disgusting that Clarion Events are happy to run such family-friendly events as the Spirit of Christmas Fair while also organising the destructive, harmful DSEi arms fair,” said London CAAT activist Ian Pocock, 35.

London CAAT pledged to continue their campaign on Clarion into 2011. The next DSEi arms fair is scheduled for 13-16 September 2011.

SOURCE: Ekklesia

A prayer for peace for Israelis and Palestinians

2010-11-09T12:21:00.001Z

From a song by Garth Hewitt;

'May the justice of God fall down like fire
and bring a home for the Palestinian.
May the mercy of God pour down like rain
and protect the Jewish people.
And may the beautiful eyes of a Holy God
who weeps for his children
Bring the healing hope for his wounded ones
for the Jew and the Palestinian.’

Amen!

Mark Thomas praises Palestinian Christians

2010-11-08T22:42:00.003Z

The activist comedian Mark Thomas has praised Palestinian Christians for their role in the growth of nonviolent resistance to Israeli occupation.

Thomas recently walked the length of the wall surrounding the Occupied Palestinian Territories, in preparation for a book and a film on the subject. He met with Muslims, Christians, Jews and others who are opposing the occupation without violence.

Thomas, an atheist, said, “When Christians get it right, they really get it right”.

He applauded the decision of Christian churches in Jerusalem to describe the occupation as a sin. And he quoted one Christian priest who told him that he was resisting the occupation to “save our Israeli brothers and sisters from committing a mortal sin”.

Thomas made his comments while drawing links between military occupation and the arms industry in a speech to the annual National Gathering of the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) in London on Saturday (6 November).

He said that seeing the wall in Palestine reminded him that campaigning against the arms trade is part of a wider struggle against militarism and all that keeps it in place. Thomas has used comedy alongside more traditional campaigning methods to work against the arms trade over the last decade.

CAAT's National Gathering brought the highest turnout in years, with people from across Britain and beyond meeting for a day of talks, networking and campaigning workshops.

The event allowed participants to explore the elements of the arms trade that concerned them the most, as well as the forms of campaigning that they were most interested in.

Subjects offered in workshops included the arms industry's role in relation to the new government, next year's arms fair in east London and the growth of mercenary armies. They were followed by workshops to develop particular campaigning skills, such as organising local activism or using social media.

A key aim of CAAT is to bring an end to the influence of arms companies within the UK government.

The organisation is urging the government to close the arms wing of UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), a unit of the Department for Business that promotes British exports. While arms account for less than two per cent of UK exports, UKTI devotes more staff to arms than to all other sectors combined.

Mark Thomas said, “There is an odd air of expectancy about the arms trade - that it has access to ministers, that it has access to governments, that it has access to the highest levels”.

He added, “One of the great things about CAAT is that it makes room for everyone”. And he insisted that all actions against the arms trade can make a difference. “Every bit counts," he said, "It all counts".

SOURCE: Ekklesia

Remembrance 2010 - All wars are planned by older men

2010-11-08T22:22:00.002Z

"All wars are planned by older men
In council rooms apart,
Who call for greater armament
And map the battle chart.

But out along the shattered field
Where golden dreams turn gray,
How very young the faces were
Where all the dead men lay.

Portly and solemn in their pride,
The elders cast their vote
For this or that, or something else,
That sounds the martial note.

But where their sightless eyes stare out
Beyond life's vanished toys,
I've noticed nearly all the dead
Were hardly more than boys." Grantland Rice

What a haunting poem and how painfully true!

Pilger - time to shake the earth for democracy!

2010-11-08T17:10:00.003Z

A stirring call to resistance from John Pilger in the face of the Cameron government's attack on public spending and social democracy.

Pilger makes a string case to stand up and fight. And in that I endorse him. The poor for whom Jesus has a particular place are under an obscene attack at present. I have no doubt that the consequences of the public spending review will be a rise in depression and indeed in suicides as many feel increasingly insecure. Not to resist is to collabarate. Anyway here as a taster is Pilger's opening which draws on Shelley's "Mask of Anarchy."

"Rise like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number!
Shake your chains to earth, like dew
Which in sleep had fall'n on you:
Ye are many - they are few."

These days, the stirring lines of Percy Shelley's "Mask of Anarchy" may seem unattainable. I don't think so. Shelley was both a Romantic and political truth-teller. His words resonate now because only one political course is left to those who are disenfranchised and whose ruin is announced on a government spreadsheet.

Born of the "never again" spirit of 1945, social democracy has surrendered to an extreme political cult of money worship. This reached its apogee when £1trn of public money was handed unconditionally to corrupt banks by a Labour government whose leader, Gordon Brown, had previously described "financiers" as the nation's "great example" and his personal "inspiration".

This is not to say parliamentary politics is meaningless. It has one meaning now: the replacement of democracy with a business plan for every human activity, every dream, every decency, every hope, every child born.

Shelley we have need of your inspiration at this very moment. Rise like lions after slumber!

Same sex relationships and the Bible

2010-11-07T22:23:00.004Z

For anyone interested I recommend this analysis of same sex relationships and Christianity by the The Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement for your consideration and study. It certainly opens up debate and the need for serious exegesis.

Remembrance 2010 - Anthem for doomed youth

2010-11-07T21:55:00.005Z

Few poems convey to me more clearly the futility of war than Wilfred Owen's "Anthem for Doomed Youth." Every line fills me with anger at the wretched politicians and military leaders who sent the young men of Europe to be mown down in the trenches of World War 1. War criminal indeed! And no less guilty was the churches of Britain which with honourable exceptions followed the path of merciless lords and ignored the Lordship of Jesus. Heresy is a fitting word here. But of course it is young men and their loved ones whose dreams were mercilessly stolen who invoke deep feelings of sadness. We will remember them. But will we learn?

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, -
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Iraqi translators - an unpaid debt of honour.

2010-11-07T13:34:00.002Z

Remember the days of the Iraq War? A number of Iraqis put themse;ves and their families at great risk to help toe Coalition troops. eventually some were allowed to settle in the UK for the sake of their safety. Sadly the gratitude seems to end there. Read here about the lifestyle and shattered dreasm that so many of them are now living with.

Clearly now that their use is over, we treat these people as disposable. Shame on Britain!

Henri Nouwen on being in communion with all people

2010-11-06T21:49:00.000Z

"Christians should put survival of the planet ahead of national security...Here is the mystery of our global responsibility: that we are in communion with Christ- and we are in communion with all people...The fact that the people of Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Russia, Afghanistan, and Ethiopia are our brothers and sisters is not obvious. People kill each other by the thousands and do not see themselves as brothers and sisters. If we want to be real peace-makers, national security cannot be our primary concern. Our primary concern should be survival of humanity, the survival of the planet, and the health of all people. Whether we are Russians, Iraqis, Ethiopians, or North Americans, we belong to the same human family that God loves. And we have to start taking some risks- not just individually, but risks of a more global quality, risks to let other people develop their own independence, risks to share our wealth with others and invite refugees to our country, risks to offer sanctuary- because we are people of God"

The stew of corruption.

2010-11-06T20:33:00.002Z

Do read this depressing but painfully accurate post concerning the state of British democracy by former UK amabassador to Uzbekhistan Craig Murray.

Read! Weep! Get angry! Then get even!

Canon Naim Ateek

2010-11-06T20:28:00.003Z

Interesting article on Naim Ateek. Remember I have in my time heard hate campaigns against Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and Sandinistas for starters. I have met many who tell me how their parents believed the most dreadful things about Mohandas Gandhi. Ateel deserves a hearing even if you disagree with him. I will not denigrate this Christian anymore than I will automaticaaly support him in all he contends for.

Against the cuts - Jesus makes me resist them!

2010-11-05T21:56:00.002Z

"We do not create a fair society - let alone a ‘Big Society’ - by placing some of our fellow citizens beyond the reach of social solidarity,” - Bishop Tim Stevens.

And that dear reader is what is happening. And that is why these cuts must be opposed! Too many people fear loss of jobs, homes, valuable social support and benefits. The medicine offered by this government means that the vulnerable will pay the price for the reckless gambling of men in suits. Jesus stands in solidarity with the poor and the outcast. For the life of me I cannot reconcile that with current policies of austerity for those without nice trust funds. It is because of the gospel that I stand publicly against these cuts.

Oscar Romero on peace

2010-11-04T22:50:00.002Z

■"Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty."

It is this "good of all" which means that in the Middle East there can only be real peace when the aspirations and good of Jew and Palestinian are bothe taken equally seriously. It is the failure of politicians to address this that leaves them condemned in the eyes of God!

Wisdom from Elias Chacour

2010-11-04T21:46:00.002Z

As the Methodist blogosphere is in uproar over the issue of Palestine/Israel. it is good to hear some words from Elias Chacour, the author of "Blood Brothers."

You who live in the United States, if you are pro-Israel, on behalf of the Palestinian children I call unto you: give further friendship to Israel. They need your friendship. But stop interpreting that friendship as an automatic antipathy against me, the Palestinian who is paying the bill for what others have done against my beloved Jewish brothers and sisters in the Holocaust and Auschwitz and elsewhere.

And if you have been enlightened enough to take the side of the Palestinians -- oh, bless your hearts -- take our sides, because for once you will be on the right side, right? But if taking our side would mean to become one-sided against my Jewish brothers and sisters, back up. We do not need such friendship. We need one more common friend. We do not need one more enemy, for God's sake.

Now that is spiritual depth!

Save Sakineh Ashtiani

2010-11-03T17:46:00.002Z

Sakineh is the woman who not so long ago faced stining to death. As I write she is believed to be within hours of the hangman's noose. Please go to Avaaz and join the pressure to save thi8s woman from judicial murder.

Don't waste time! There is little left. Just join the pressure on Iran to spare a life! NOW!

Time to buy Christmas cards - look to Amos Trust!

2010-11-02T20:23:00.003Z

Well even for dozy old men like me, the time is coming to get Christmas cards as the celebration of God becoming flesh in Jesus Christ draws near. Anyhow I recommend these cards from the Amos Trust especially the Nicaraguan one. I do love its text;

A Christmas thought about Solentinam, Nicaragua

In the silence of Solentiname interpreted by bird song,
Where dignity was born from the womb of simplicity. where justice will come as the fruit of humanity, As justice once came in the birth in a manger.
Where daily survival arrives with creativity,
With painting on canvas an crafts full of colour,
by Elba Jimenez and Rosa Pineda.
Just as hope was the song sung by the angels,
And humble the way taken by magi
May we find the wayt to journey beside them,
One the road to justice - on the road to creativity,
Straight out of Bethlehem - the gift of simplicty,
With all the colour and all of the birdsong,
And all of the joy - born in Solentiname

Solentiname is the island home of a base community of artists created by the priest/poet Ernesto Cardenal. The picture on the cards comes from Rosa Pineda who works in the setting.

Gart Hewitt whose work is at the heart of the Amos Trust sings of this in his "Poets of Nicaragua on his Moonrise album which I fully recommend.

So go on. Celebrate Christmas with the voices of God's liberation!

That Jesus was HIV sermon - Mad Priest takes on the sensationalism.

2010-11-02T20:19:00.001Z

Do read this helpful take in the "Jesus was HIV sermon." It gets the whole thing into perspective.

The way of understanding with Islam

2010-11-02T20:09:00.003Z

The coordinator of a Muslim initiative to promote common ground with Christians says that leaders of the two religions have a duty to protect adherents of the other faith against followers of their own.

"For both our religions harming religious minorities among us is evil, is absolutely forbidden and is ultimately a rejection of God's love and a crime against God himself," Prince Ghazi Bin Muhammad Bin Talal of Jordan said on the opening day of a 1-4 November 2010 meeting of Muslim and Christian leaders and scholars in Geneva.

Speaking at the Ecumenical Centre, which houses the World Council of Churches and other international organisations, Ghazi urged leaders of the two faiths to, "defend the other against followers of our own religion when the other is weak and oppressed, especially in a social minority context".

The remarks come in the wake of the appalling tragedy in Iraq, where anti-Christian extremists occupied a Catholic Church on Sunday, taking over 100 congregants hostage, and a failed military operation to storm the building and free them resulted in 50 deaths and many more injuries.

HAT TIP:Ekklesia

COMMENT: The Prince is right. True spirituality is shown through protecting those whose understanding is other than our own.The followers of different faiths need to listen sensitively to each other and to defend each other from those who would emphasise divisions in a way that builds up walls. The sad truth is we have a long way to go before that aspiration is met

Churches ask Prime Minister to put record straight regarding poor

2010-11-02T14:10:00.002Z

At a time when the poor seem to be both paying the heaviest price for the economic downturn which was not of there doing and being double punished by being stigmatised bu government comments, I welcome this letter by church leaders asking the prime minister to put the record straight.
Dear Mr Cameron

We are writing to express our concern that a number of recent Government announcements have had the effect of stigmatising the poor, especially those in receipt of out of work benefits. Our experience of working in deprived communities is that life on benefits is often a struggle, with difficult and stressful financial choices being a daily occurrence. We believe this reality is not well reflected in Government statements and needs to be at the heart of any debate on Welfare Reform

The stigmatising effect these announcements have had on the poorest and most vulnerable in society has been noted in a number of areas by the signatories of this letter, who may correspond individually at a later date. The single outstanding example has been Government rhetoric around benefit fraud. We in no way condone benefit fraud and would wish to see this reduced to zero, but we question the Government’s public emphasis placed upon it. For the financial year 2009-2010, the NAO estimates fraud to be 0.6% of the DWP benefits bill, while errors make up more than double this figure. The tendency to emphasise fraud when poverty and welfare reform are discussed often distracts attention from getting resources to those genuinely in need, which accounts for the other 99.4% of benefit spending.

The most important example of this misrepresentation occurred when your Chancellor conflated benefit fraud and error during his speech announcing the Comprehensive Spending Review on October 20th 2010.

He said:

“Nor will fraud in the welfare system be tolerated any more. We estimate that £5 billion a year is being lost in this way - £5 billion that others have to work long hours to pay in their taxes. This week we published our plans to step up the fight to catch benefit cheats and deploy uncompromising penalties when they are caught.”

As I trust you are aware the £5 billion figure is a three fold exaggeration of the true Government estimate of benefit fraud. The publication referred to above confirms that benefit fraud is estimated at £1billion, and tax credit fraud is estimated at £0.6 billion, making a total of £1.6 billion. The exaggerated figure is derived by adding the fraud estimates to the error estimates.

We agree with the Government that benefit fraud is a serious offence, but implying that the poorest perpetrate this offence three times more than is the case is clearly unjust. We also agree with you that the CSR will dramatically affect the lives of a generation, but the fact that issues around welfare reform are vital to the social and economic future of this country means it is imperative that the debate is informed by accurate information.

As speeches in the Commons are matters of public record we would ask that you instruct the Chancellor to correct his statement of 20th October. We would also ask that the Ministerial forward to the publication ‘Tackling fraud and error in the benefit and tax credits systems’ published last week by the DWP and HMRC, is similarly corrected, as it makes the same error.

We would ask for a speedy response as the debate on welfare reform is moving rapidly and deserves to be informed by the best and most accurate information possible.

Yours sincerely

Revd Martyn Atkins General Secretary The Methodist Church

Simon Loveitt Public Issues Spokesperson The United Reformed Church

Revd Graham Sparkes Head of Faith and Unity The Baptist Union of Great Britain

Rev. Ian Galloway Convener, Church and Society Council The Church of Scotland

Lt Col Marion Drew The Salvation Army

Niall Cooper National Co-ordinator Church Action on Poverty

Alison Gelder Director Housing Justice

c/o The Methodist Church Methodist Church House 25 Marylebone Rd London NW1 5JR

SOURCE: Methodist Church News

Settlements and Peace in Israel/Palestine

2010-10-31T17:02:00.002Z

At a time when there is such controversy over Methodism' support for a boycott og goods from the settlements on occupied land, here is an article which remonds us why the settlements are an obstacle to peace. Yes, Methodism like Christian Aid and the TUC are right on this one! A please dear reader remember that the peace which is currently being frustrated is in the interests of Paletinians and Israelies alike. So yes the issue presented here is a no brainer!

Free churches suggest Chancellor got his numbers wrong

2010-10-26T10:54:00.006Z

Churches have voiced concern over Chancellor George Osborne’s inaccurate use of welfare fraud statistics in his Spending Review speech.

The Methodist Church, the Baptist Union of Great Britain and the United Reformed Church have criticised the Chancellor for claiming that welfare fraud is responsible for cheating tax payers out of £5 billion a year.

A Department of Work and Pensions report published last week stated that welfare fraud accounts for £1 billion of money lost, with tax credit fraud accounting for an additional £0.6 billion, leading to £1.6 billion lost in total. Church leaders said the exaggerated £5 billion figure depicts the poorest and most vulnerable in society as thieves.

“Exaggerating benefit fraud points the finger of blame at the poor,” said Revd Alison Tomlin, President of the Methodist Conference. “Let us be clear this recession was not caused by the poor, those on benefits, or even benefit cheats. The poorest in society only got poorer during the boom years and it’s simply not fair to make them pay for the bust.

“Questions also need to be asked about the £7 billion of uncollected tax revenues that the Chancellor claims he is targeting. According to the HMRC, there is approximately £42 billion in uncollected revenues; why does Mr Osborne only speak of £7 billion?”

Revd Graham Sparkes, Head of Faith and Unity at the Baptist Union of Great Britain, said: “There is already deep concern that the severe reductions in welfare provision will cause immense hardship to the most vulnerable. This misuse of figures to exaggerate the scale of benefit fraud only adds to the sense of injustice.”

Mr Simon Loveitt, Public Issues Spokesperson for the United Reformed Church, added: “The coalition government is very keen to talk about fairness and the false notion that ‘we are all in this together’, but the Chancellor’s exaggeration of fraud and last week’s Comprehensive Spending Review confirm the grim reality that it is those who are most vulnerable who will pay the price for that which is so clearly not their fault.”

SOURCE: Methodist Church News

Saints of God - A sermon for All saints based on Luke 6: 20 - 31

2010-10-26T08:05:00.003Z

One of the highlights of the recent visit of Pope Benedict was the canonisation of John Henry Newman in Birmingham. The criteria for such canonisation is theological soundness, extreme holiness and the performance of two miracles. Two further miracles will be required before Newman will be able to be raised by this or a future Pope to the level of being recognised as a "Saint."

The papacy of John Paul was particularly notable for the number of saints recognised by the church. This continues very much under Benedict. But of course the practice has a long history behind it. Certainly the church has especially in difficult times found great comfort and inspiration in the celebration of its saints. After all many of them show us the potential of lives that are lived out to God's glory.

Within Protestantism there has often been some disquiet concerning the understanding of sainthood in both Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions. This owes not a little to the abuses of relic worship at the time of the Reformation. An unfounded suspicion that Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians worship rather than venerate their saints, adds to the divide.

Hence the Protestant emphasis has tended to be that all Christians and not just the superstars of faith are called to be saints. For me that is the gist of the line in the Apostles creed in which we speak of the "communion of saints." We belong with all the people of God across the divides of time - church militant and church triumphant!

So perhaps both Roman Catholic and Protestant understandings of sainthood have something to teach us. At times we profit in our faith by looking to those Christians who have displayed heroic and extraordinary qualities. And indeed such people are not limited to those who acquire the title "saint." But we also do well to see the sainthood of the multitude called by God into being followers of Christ.

I am one who has benefited from the ordinary unsung saints of Christ. In my ministry there have been those times when very ordinary people have ministered to me in extraordinary ways. I think of the woman in Peel on the Isle of Man who coming to the end of her life stopped me from praying for her until I first gave thanks to God. I think of the very quiet woman from North Devon, a woman normally not prone to having much to say for herself who just a couple of days from her death responded to my prayer for her by praying for me, the minister whom she had only known for a short time. And dare I suggest that most of you will at times have been blessed and given heart by the everyday saints that surround us. That is why I believe in the church - not because I love the institutional side of things but because in our gathering together we are encouraged by one another amidst our shared ordinariness.

Not that there is anything ordinary about our calling. Indeed we are called to be signs of God's transforming mission. We see that very much in what is known as the Sermon on the Plain. This sermon does not offer the spiritual get out that we are tempted to reach for in Matthew's Sermon on the Mount. On the contrary, this sermon spoken to the followers of Jesus is a fundamental challenge to the world as it is.

The challenge operates on two levels. The first is that it reminds us that we are called to be in solidarity with the poor. Nothing surprising about this - after all we see plenty of it from the Old Testament prophets as well as in the teachings and actions of Jesus. Indeed as one Methodist minister recently put it;

"Cut the poor out of the Bible and you cut out God."

The Sermon on the Plain comes against the background of a society in which the reality for many was a stifling poverty which was reinforced by a tax system that made the richer ever richer through the continuous impoverishment of the poor. It was in all honesty a system that stank. And so the blessings demonstrate God's favour to the poor - those who wept not just for themselves but for their parents and offspring who were also caught in the trap of deprivation. Meanwhile the curses demonstrate an anger directed against those whose wealth originated from keeping the poor down.

Might this speak to us today? I think the answer has to be Yes! It speaks to us in terms the poverty of the "Third World." As Garth Hewitt puts it in one of his songs;

"The rich world makes its living from the poor world on its knees."

In the past week the Daily Mail has been particularly vocal in its campaign against this country's aid budget which is nearing the UN target set so long ago of 0.7% of Gross Domestic Product. Well the news for them is that this objective is pure gospel. But we also need to question a range of issues concerning trade justice before we can say that we are truly good news to the poor world, issues surrounding our use of subsidies, dumping and the opposition to tariffs behind which such economies can grow as once we did.

And then within our own country we face the challenge of ensuring that austerity does not bite those whose needs are greatest. I know some say we should keep out of politics but I tell you there is no such thing as a worthwhile church that does not in some way stand alongside the poor - be that in charitable endeavour or through being a voice for the voiceless. So if people are going to end up living on the streets in greater numbers as is a current possibility or if they are reduced to being unsure as to where there next meal is coming from, the followers of Christ have not an option but a duty to challenge those in appropriate positions of power. And to do it in the face of condemnation on the part of those who would rather that the voiceless remain mute or who would blame the poor for their plight! After all some things are too important to be left to politicians alone!

The second challenge is to resist wrong in nonviolent ways which keep open the possibilities of reconciliation. Love for enemies means seeking their good in ways that they might be surprised at. Hatred is not and cannot be a Christian option but neither is being a doormat a Christian virtue. Jesus speaks of ways of disarming aggression with a creative but non violent resistance. Turning the cheek means no longer accepting a backhander with the contempt it involves that sees the target as a lower person but instead stating to the aggressor that now they could only carry out aggression in a way that recognised the target as an equal human to themselves. Likewise giving a shirt as well to the one who demands a coat only demonstrates their aggression as well as shaming them in a society where to witness nakedness was a shaming thing.

And don't today we need to be creative in resisting violence? As Gandhi reminds an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth creates nothing but a world of blind and toothless people. Today of all days we should give thanks to those who have creatively resisted the dark powers of violence, people such as Martin Luther ling and Desmond Tutu who have lived out a conviction that love is ultimately stronger than hatred or any of the symbols of violence.

Such challenges lead us into the way of Christ. By following him we join the great company of saints. Yes, today give thanks for those canonised! Give thanks for those about whom we read in books and hear of in sermons. But most of all in company with the followers of Christ let us seek to be his saints for today.

Lesbia Scott, wife of an Anglican priest on Dartmoor puts it well in a song she wrote for her children in the 1920s;

I sing a song of the saints of God,
Patient and brave and true,
Who toiled and fought and lived and died
For the Lord they loved and knew.
And one was a doctor,
And one was a queen,
And one was a shepherdess on the green:
They were all of them saints of God--and I mean,
God helping, to be one too.

They loved their Lord so dear, so dear,
And his love made them strong;
And they followed the right, for Jesus' sake,
The whole of their good lives long.
And one was a soldier,
And one was a priest,
And one was slain by a fierce wild beast:
And there's not any reason--no, not the least,
Why I shouldn't be one too.

They lived not only in ages past,
There are hundreds of thousands still,
The world is bright with the joyous saints
Who love to do Jesus' will.
You can meet them in school, or
In lanes, or at sea,
In church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea,
For the saints of God are just folk like me,
And I mean to be one too.

May we who are indeed surrounded by "a great cloud of witnesses" be inspired to be God's saints for today that the transforming power of God's kingdom might be glimpsed.

One came back - A sermon for Proper 23 C based on Luke 17: 11-19

2010-10-09T23:02:00.000Z

Borders are dangerous places. They are the places where opposing powers come into conflict. Think of the artificial borders of World War 1 or that of Israel and Palestine. In times of animosity nowhere is more dangerous than a border. And then in some cities there are borders between areas of great wealth and those of great poverty.

Sometimes measure are taken to create security. In World War 1 trenches were dug. Out in Israel/Palestine a walll has been constructed to keep out those who might threaten harm to Israel. And gaited communities have increasingly emerged to protect the wealthy from the great unwashed.

In this morning's gospel reading Jesus is at a border or perhaps a sort on "no man's" land. On one side is Samaria. on the other side is Galilee. And here we meet two peoples who have little regard for each other.

The history of this particular conflict lay many centuries earlier. Samaria hasd been then home of ten of the twelve tribes of Israel. But in the eighth century BC the armies of Assyria had overrun them. Many Jewish people were taken into exile whilst many non Jewish people were planted into the land. The result was a people who were racially mixed and seen as religiously comprimised. Of particular significance was that these Samaritans looked to worship God at Mount Gerizim as opposed to the Jewish practice of worshipping God at the temple in Jerusalem.

By the time of Jesus the poison betwen two peoples had been running for several centuries and both peoples had their folklore of insults from the other people. And so at the time of Jesus it was normal for Jewish people to keep away from Samaritans even if it meant journeys being much longer as a result.

Luke has himself shown us something of the bad relationship between the two people. Samaritans have refused to receive Jesus and so James and John have responded with a desire to call down fire from heaven to consume them. Jesus has rebuled them and even later told a story in which a Samaritans has emerged as the epitome of good neigbourliness. In this we see the Jesus who refuses to be governed by the man made barriers that separate peoples and keep them apart.

In this narrative we find a group of lepers. Now it is probable that they were not suffering from Hansen's disease which we think of as leprosy today. It is probably some other skin disease. But just because it was not that which is so dreaded today doesn't mean that being a leper was anything other than an awful experience. Any skin disease is unpleasant as I know having a daughter who has had exzema. But the probablem in this culture was greater for there was a fear of such diseases being contagious. So lepers were forced out from their communities to fend for themselves. "Unclean! Unclean!" became the traditional cry of the leper. So it was that these lepers crying out to Jesus were a community of need. And in need perhaps it didn't quite matter who was a Jew and who was a Samaritan - perhaps it need never have been other for Galilean and Samaritan alike were looked down upon by the Jerusalm elite and so perhaps should have made common cause without needing to be cast out first!

We do not see Jesus actually work a healing. He simply tells the lepers to go and show themselves to the priests. After all it was the priests who could certify that they were clean and so enable them to return to normal society. And quite clearly at some point the lepers whilst on the road discover that indeed the leprosy has gone. Now nine of them carry on with their journey. And indeed they are doing exactly what Jesus has told them to do. We can imagine their excitement for Jesus has in a sense rehumanised them. They are fully human once more. They count again! Dignity is restored.

But one leper comes back. One wonders why he was even on the road. After all no priest would have much time for him. Oh his leprosy might be gone but no priest is going to certify that he is free from Samaritanism. The journey will only lead him towards rejection. Yet this despised Samaritan is to be the one blessed most of all. He wants to see Jesus. He wants to thank God for what has happened. And even if his theological understanding is back to front, he wants the world to know that God has been working in his life and that he fully recognises the fact. No wonder Jesus sees him as one who has attained a wholeness, a wellbeing that goes beyond mere cure.

I rather like this story. too often the church has dehumanised those who don't fit in with its thinking but Jesus rehumanises thosewho bore the scars and indeed the stigma of leprosy. Censorious people and the religiously orthodox would sense divine judgement in their sufferings but Jesus would see in their suffering merely an opportunity for divine grace. And that grace would be most remarkably displayed through the greatest outsider of them all.

Indeed here we see the inclusiveness of Jesus. His grace builds bridges where foolish men have erected walls and barriers. And too often the church has been part of the problem. Our history is littered with the anti semitism that made the Holocaust possible. Misfits were persecuted as witches and even killed by the Medieval Church. Africans were enslaved and elsewhere treated as lesser in part at least due to Christendom's perversion of scripture. And time and again every prophetic voice for justice and liberation has been confronted by other voices using scripture and church tradition to drown out the cries for freedom. And what of today? Sometimes within the church we can be dismissive of the faith journey of those of other faiths, nowadays especially Muslims. We can at times be cruel to those whose sexuality leads them to seek loving same sex relationships. We can at times treat with disdain those trapped in poverty or disability.

Yet this scripture challenges us to new ways of seeing God's world. For God values not just those who think and act as us. Far from it God is radically inclusive in love. And we can keep up with God or get left behind. But keeping up with God means rejoicing in those times when God's grace is revealed in surprising ways and to surprising people. Keeping up with God means identifying with God's work of giving value to all, of rehumanising the dehumanised. And then like a Samaritan whose religious understanding may have been all at sea, giving to God the thanks that are well and truly due to God.

Bounty for all - A Harvest Thanksgiving sermon based on Luke 16: 19 -31

2010-09-26T15:32:00.001Z

There are few occasions when our churches look more inviting than at Harvest Thanksgiving. Displays of food and flowers remind us of our good fortune in living the good life. And so today is a day when it is right to express a hearty "Thank You!"

After all God has been good to us and the promise given to Noah has been fulfilled once again.

So why have I subverted this time of gratitude with a discomforting story told by Jesus?

Well the reason for so doing is based upon a conviction that for Harvest Thanksgiving to be meaningful we need for our gratitude to be linked to justice in our world. After all did not the Old Testmament prophets continually remind the people of Israel that religious observation which blots our the cries of the needy and the urgent call of justice, is worthless in the sight of God. As Micah reminds us what God wants is for us;

"To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God."

In the story of the rich man and Lazarus, Jesus paints a picture of great extremes. The rich man is incredibly wealthy. we are told that he dresses in "purple and fine linen." For clothes to be purple a special dye would need to have been used, a dye that was quite seriously expensive. Likewise fine linen required a special process which also was seriously costly. And this was not a sunday best for our rich man but a daily occurence. Likewise, the rich man feasted sumptuously every day. And all of this goes on at a home through which access is gained via a gate, a sign in that time of a substantial estate.

Those listening to Jesus would feel no real empathy for such a man. After all this was an age in which most people were peasants struggling to eke out a subsistence existence. And in all their struggles their lives were made harder by the wealthy class to whom this man belonged, a wealthy class that ensured that the odds were in their favour at the expense of those at the bottom of the pile.

On the other hand there is Lazarus. Just as the rich man is a sign of the greatest extremity of opulence, so is Lazarus a sign of the greatest extremity of life denying poverty. Chucked at the gate, Lazarus is left to beg for his existence. And as is so often the case today with poverty comes poor health so that he is so covered in sores that his only relief is from the dogs licking those sores. And at this description we need to be rescued from sentimentality. For these dogs would not be the pet dogs which we know of today but ferocious snarling giard dogs kept so that the likes of Lazarus would not be able to invade the rich man's paradise. Yet the spittle of these dogs would have brought some comfort to the open sores of Lazarus.

Yes, this story offers us a picture of the greatest and most repulsive extremes of wealth and poverty living just a few yards apart. And is there not a touch of irony in the name of the beggar for Lazarus means "God has helped" - oh really?

And yet the story has a twist. The two men die. And now in an astonishing role reversal we find Lazarus carried up to heaven whilst the rich man is condemned to Hell. And at this the protests would begin. After all many would argue that the rich man's material wealth was a sign of God's approval and blessings whilst the sufferings of Lazarus were a sign of judgement and wrath. Deuteronomic theology that was so much a part of religious orthodoxy is now itself under judgement.

For here is the evidence that God's blessings are not for us to wallow in. Far from it, they are to be used to help the poor. You see, we are not told that the rich man was a particularly bad man. According to most people he may well have been a virtual paragon of virtue. But his downfall is an indifference to the sufferings of the poor. The poor Lazarus longed even for the crumbs of the rich man's table. But the rich man though not a jot of Lazarus' needs to do anything about it. Even in the dialogue with Abraham, the rich man sees Lazarus as one who is lesser than him, one to be used to spare the brothers of the rich man from ending up in the same mess as him. Even at this late moment the rich man is breathtakingly indifferent to the wellbeing of Lazarus.

And this is where we return to Harvest Thanksgiving. Being grateful for our blessings is a necessity. But we are not alone in the world. We are in relationship with others. And this means being on the side of the have nots. Justice means that we cannot be indifferent to the sufferings of others or to their being denied the good life that we take for granted.

As a country we navigate some difficult waters. Gamblers in pinstripes who rather than be grateful at their blessings wanted more, have left our country and others in difficult waters. As we enter austerity it is all too possible that those whose lives are most changed will be the unemployed and underemployed, the poorly housed, those for whom every pound matters desperately. In finding a way forwards we will need to protect these who are already blocked out of the good life.

And that which is for the affairs of our nation is also global. After all globally we are the rich man. Indeed as Canon Garth Hewitt puts it in song;

"The rich world makes its living through the poor world on its knees."

Take a look at the website "Global Rich List." This afternoon I put the stipend of a Methodist minister in and found that we are globally in the richest 4%. And many of those below us live precarious lives that are ill befitting the much loved children of God. Thankfully the UK government to its credit continues to be committed aiming to fulfil the UN target of 0.7% of GDP to go in international aid. But already far too many countries are bailing out of such commitments. And empty bellies, dirty water, inadequate shelter, poor healthcare and denial of educational opportunities are the result.

At Harvest we give God thanks for the bounty. But for that thanks to be worth more than a pitch of spit, we also have to empathise with and be in solidarity with all for whom the door of the good life is firmly shut in the face. For people being chucked at the gate is most certainly not consistent with true thanksgiving this day.

From Thanksgiving to Justice - A sermon for Harvest Supper based on Psalm 8

2010-09-13T20:44:00.001Z

As has been the case for many years this church is delightfully decorated for our harvest thanksgiving.

Around me I see a range of foods and flowers. These remind us that our God is a God of bountiful provision. Our God meets our needs and then adds those things that delight us, those things which take us from merely existing into the joys of abundant living.

It is right and proper that on an occasion such as this we should be expressing gratitude. That is gratitude to the people whose skills and labour enable our needs to be so well met. It is also gratitude to the God who out of love has granted us the use of a world that is rich in resources and teeming with wonderful possibilities.

And yet there is a BUT! That BUT is that being a follower of Christ should never be a reason to opt out of the real world. And in the real world we find that there are many for whom our harvest celebration might well ring a little hollow. At the extreme end there are those who can only dream of a square meal, clean water and shelter. Here we find our attention particularly focused on the developing world. But missing out on the bounty is hardly confined to far off lands. Closer to home are many missing out on the good life who are even fearful that their deprivations are about to get even worse. The poor are certainly a reality and a rebuke to our easy accomodation with injustice.

Our Psalm speaks to us of humanity being given a creative role in God's world. This creativity is expressed through work which is the means to which we are enabled to contribute to the material and cultural wellbeing of society. In recent times we have heard much about our duty to work. I sort of agree with this but it becomes but cruel mockery when it is not linked to the other side of the coin which is the right to work. Much needs to be done for the common good yet we have a rising unemployment in this country and in that we are certainly not alone. No wonder economics is sometimes called the "dismal science." Let me use one example. In my six years in this circuit I have seen some abysmal housing and have met people desperate for decent affordable and secure housing. Meanwhile builders languish on the unemployment registers despite their longing to work. The needs could be met! In so many fields life could be enhanced by developing skills and putting them to use. But instead the clever people at international summits tell us that this is just not possible. People experience instead the penury and frustration of not being allowed to develop and use creative skills and the practice of biblical stewardship is thereby strangled. No wonder when I listen to international captains of finance, I find myself singing that old Fun Boy 3 song,

"The lunatics have taken over the asylum."

Indeed the madness can be seen in the distribution of the bounty. Only today on the news we have heard of an agency designed to reduce 3rd World poverty indulging in lavish entertainment of its directors whilst failing the poor of the world. Only today we have learnt that the crazy bonus culture is back to something like before the banking crisis whilst destitution is on the streets. And we know that despite efforts of Make Poverty History and other such groups there is so much still to do regarding extreme poverty.

And still we know that too often human creative capacity is used less for life enhancing purposes than for naked destruction.

Many years go a man said these words;

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed."

Words from anti war campaigner Brian Haw? No! Words from a disaffected radical? Hardly! Those are words from General Dwight Eisenhower soon after the ending of his 8year term as President of the USA. And those are words that ring true today!

And those words bring us to the Harvest of the Spirit about which we sing in our final hymn. This is not a harvest about putting bottoms on pews. it is a harvest about seeking the will of God above all things. It is about being touched by the extravagant love of God and being so transformed by it as to find our vision of the world reorientated.

Through this harvest we meet the God who is the author of life and love, the God who grants value to all peoples. This means working for a society in which all are able to contribute to the welfare of others, a society in which all find dignity and a just reward for labour. It is a society in which as individuals we are bound through God to one another. So different from the stale, tired orthodoxies with which we are bombarded, here is a vision in which exciting possibilities can become wonderful realities. For it is in seeking the Kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed that we can both contribute to and experience the good life that god desires for all his creation.

The invite - A sermon for Proper C based on Luke 14: 1, 7-14

2010-08-28T18:35:00.001Z

One of my favourite TV channels is Gold. This is a channel which shows comedies from the recent and sometimes not so recent past. One favourite comedy series of mine is Yes Minister. It portrays a deeply ambitious yet morally cowardly politician named Jim Hacker who ultimately rises to the post of Prime Minister. Hacker stands for nothing other than his own career and yet this is portrayed as a good tactic to clim the greasy pole to power.

I used to think that Yes Minister was somewhat cynical. Now I am not so sure. The abandonment of principle for advancement does not seem so far fetched at all judging from political memoirs and the like.

And of course politicians are not exactly a separate breed even if we sometimes wish they were. In many workplaces and organisations there is a tendency to seek the favour of those who can do us good in the furthering of our own ambitions. Even John McCririck who last week got nominated for eviction by every single housemate in Ultimate Big Brother nefore winning a bet on himself being the first to the evicted by the public, would seem to have found a way to use others to maintain his own profile and doubtless his earning power.

But none of this is new. The Palestine in which Jesus lives was a place where people knew their place. And this would be lived out amongst other ways in terms of presence and place at meals.

Now we live in a society that is pretty casual about food and drink. Some of us take either where we can get it so to speak. But food and drink was taken much more seriously in the world that Jesus knew. Indeed many significant events in the life of Jesus took place around food be it the turning of water into wine, the controversies around meals with which Jesus was often engaged or indeed the teaching of Jesus at that meal which we know as the Last Supper.

Indeed it was eating and drinking with others that often got Jesus into trouble with his detractors. Sometimes the criticism was that he was all too keen to eat with riffraff in a society in which much was learnt about a man by the company he shared a table with. Indeed there were those who were quick to condemn Jesus as a glutton and a drunkard.

Now to our scripture reading. Jesus is at the home of a Pharisee and Luke seems to suggest that he is being watched like a hawk. This may be because of the ongoing controversy regarding Jesus seeming to disregard the Sabbath rules. Indeed he gives his enemies cause to attack him by healing a man in the verses that the lectionary has missed out on for today. And so by the time he comments on what it is to be a guest or host, we can well believe that there is the sort of atmosphere that you can cut with a knife. But Jesus is not a of a mind to make things easier. In keeping with Hellenistic tradition he is a teacher who is only too keen to share his wisdom - in his case even if so doing will cause offence!

The advice to guests is commonsense. It is in keeping with ancient religious texts that suggest that it is unwise to elevate oneself in a social gathering. After all being demoted can be humiliating whilst being promoted can be a pleasure. Perhaps this is a reminder of the wisest of advice to treat others well on the way up so that they might treat you well when on the way down.

But the advice to hosts is much more radical. For here the emphasis is on inviting not those of standing or those who can do you good but instead inviting those whose presence might be an embarassment, those who can do nothing useful in return.

Here is a call to identify with the poor rather than the rich, the powerless rather than the powerful, the outcasts rather than the respectable. Uncomfortable yet in keeping with the path that Jesus himself lived out. For it is among the Nobodies that we so often find the presence of Jesus.

Back in the 1980s, Roman Catholic Bishops in South America spoke of a "preferential option for the poor." This was not because the poor are morally superior to the rich. It was because the needy have the greatest needs. And globally speaking just about every one of us gathered in this church is to be found among the rich. This does not mean that we have to divest ourselves of all the good things we have but it does call us into a real solidarity with those who live in need.

Back in the 1800s the philospher Karl Marx spoke of religion being the opium of the workers. He meant that religion often caused people to accept the world the way it is. Too often the church proclaims a gospel that is but a bandage for society's wounds. But Jesus is having none of this. He bucks the system by providing a challenge that his followers should reject the greasy pole and instead engage with those devoid of power, wealth or status. He calls us into the activity of being justice seekers who are prepared to have a healthy but not over lofty view of self so that others might have a healthy but not over lowly view of their selves. He calls us to build the relationships through which all may know that they are the precious, much loved children of God.

Back to Gold. Another favourite series often shown is Keeing Up Appearances. Here we meet the ultimate social climber in Hyacinth Bucket with her soirees et al. A truly grotesque character, she lives with an unending desire for every higher status. In this quest she is embarassed by her brother Onslow and the rather dysfunctional family that she is only too keen to leave behind.

But Jesus suggests that there is to be no leaving behind. We are to be caught up not in a narrow Me or Mine but in an unending We and Us that includes both diversity and vulnerability. None left behind for our roots are roots that we share. None left behind for our humanity is shared. None left behind for all alike are children of God, all alike are a part of his great family.

The ladder, the invite are for all!

Be back soon

2010-07-29T20:46:00.005Z

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

2010-07-24T18:18:00.004Z

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

2010-07-05T12:38:00.004Z

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

2010-07-04T08:20:00.000Z

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?

Following Jesus - A sermon for Pentecost 5c based on Luke 9: 51 - 62 and Galatians 5: 1, 13 - 25

2010-06-27T13:05:00.002Z

So what does it mean to be a follower of Jesus? This is the question at the heart of today's scripture readings. And the answers given by Jesus are certainly more than a little bit disturbing.

The gospel reading finds Jesus and his followers in Samaria. That they should be there is itself somewhat surprising. After all Samaria was located in the Northern kingdom. Centuries before when it had been conquered by the Assyrians, many people had been deported elsewhere within the Assyrian empire whilst in keeping with colonial practice others had been brought in.

What followed was a story of two people with a fractured relationship. Down South the Judeans looked on newly constituted Samaria with distaste. They saw in what today we would describe as a racist way, a people who were half breeds - different than they had once been. Furthermore the two peoples had religious differences. The Samaritans saw only the first five books of our Bible, the Pentateuch, as sacred. More than that there was a difference as to where God should be worshipped. For Jews, it should be in Jerusalem whilst Samaritans built a temple at Mount Gerazim.

By the time of Jesus this conflict was longstanding. The Jews had the upper hand militarily. Indeed they had destroyed the Mount Gerazim temple. But the Samaritans were more than capable of hitting out, an example being the strewing of dead bones in the Jerusalem temple during the life of Jesus.

So perhaps whilst it is a surprise that Jesus didn't avoid Samaria as many Jews did, it is no surprise that there were those amongst the Samaritans who had no intention of receiving the Jewish Jesus whose face "was set towards Jerusalem." Indeed we can imagine their rejection to have been vociferous.

But how should rejection be handled? This is indeed a big question for today in a society in which Christianity has become a minority voice. The answer of Christendom would have been to use force. History tells us of many such cases with laws to enforce conformity and even the forced baptism of Jews and Muslims. James and John would seem to be of that mindset. Perhaps recalling how Elijah had called down fire from heaven to destroy a military detatchment from Samaria, they suggest such a judgement might again be appropriate.

But this is not the way of Jesus. Coercion in its varied forms is not compatible with the way of Jesus. Moving on is instead his way. This does not mean giving up on the Samaritans - indeed he goes on to another Samaritan settlement. And ultimately we learn that there will be Samaritans who become followers of Jesus. But take note that this owes its happening not to shaming nor to force but to the inherently respectful attitude of Jesus.

Today we do well not to slip into a bunker mentality or to demand that others see the world as we do. Instead the Jesus way is to be respectful of those whose religious beliefs are either different from ours or non existent. Domination is not a gospel option. For all too often it leads verbal or physical violence and takes us to what Mark Twain describes as the condition where we have enough religion to hate but not enough to love.

Indeed Paul writing to a faith community in Galatia riven with internal controversy some years later, emphasises the importance of peaceful qualities. He is writing to a community where many have rejected him for not insisting that Jesus followers should become Jewish first. He argues that Jesus followers should embrace the Holy Spirit rather than legalism. It is not that the has no interest in the Torah - far from it for later he will defend himself before a court stating that he is not was a Pharisee. But he contends that the Law is summed up in the single commandment;

"You shall love your neighbour as yourself."

And so it is that he points to the qualities that are the fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. These are good fruit which are of the Holy Spirit. These are fruit in keeping with that summary of the Law. These are fruit which we see in their fullness in the Jesus whom we seek to follow and to make the pattern of our own lives - a total contrast with the Christendom that used Jesus as a weapon to enforce conformity, a total contrast with James and John at this stage in their journey.

But Jesus seeks to guide us into this way of living whilst emphasising that to be a follower of him requires commitment. Sometimes it is easier to be committed when that commitment is against someone or something. Yet Jesus calls for commitment to his ways of love joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. And does he not make his point strongly!

For he does not promote discipleship as a form of therapy that will make everything alright. Far from it! He calls us into discipleship that contains risks. There's no promise that being a follower of Jesus will make you "happy all the day." There's no promise of economic security or even of popularity. Instead the road of following Jesus is a road with much vulnerablity - as indeed has been the case with Jesus himself. Indeed he speaks of himself as one "with nowhere to lay his head" - something which ought to be meaningless to us in modern Britain but which is all too full of shocking meaning!

Indeed following Jesus is about a new beginning. Today we greatly emphasise the role of family. Family values are often spoken of even if I'm not always sure what it means. But Jesus challenges this. The challenge is of course expressed with no small degree of hyperbole. After all burying a parent is part of honouring one's mother and father as we are commanded to do in the 10 commandments. Saying farewell to one's family before going on a journey seems only reasonable and courteous. Even Elijah allowed Elisha to say farewell to his parents before following him. So what is Jesus' point?

I think it is about the fact that our families are the products of past events and handed down DNA. They cannot exist without the pasts which take them to their current place of being. On the other hand the Kingdom of God is about a new future. It look ahead to new ways of being. So Jesus sets the past against the future in this teaching. Read literally this is dangerous nonsense - after all does not Jesus himself commend his mother to the Beloved disciple as he hangs dying on the cross! But he certainly calls us to a new future in which we are drawn into the wonder of his all embracing love even in a world that is not receptive.

So this morning we are called to move forwards. We are called to Christlike lives. We are called to take the risks of commitment for a future we can only partially understand. We are called to defy the logic of the age.

So will we? Will we?

The late but never to be forgotten Olive Morgan

2010-06-20T14:53:00.007Z

Olive Morgan who died a few weeks ago was a truly remarkable lady. Her contribution to the Methodist blogosphere was unique. Anyhow here is an interview with her that I recommend. It took me very much back to when I met Olive at the Methodist bloggers gathering a couple of years ago

If you wish to make a donation in memory of Olive this is the place to do so.

The sad fall of David Laws

2010-05-30T16:06:00.001Z

I do not want to be a hypopcrite. I am not a fan of David Laws. Contrary to some commentators, I was not impressed at the recent £6billion cuts in public spending. They represented a shockingly unprincipled U turn by the Lib Dems who had consistently opposed such cuts this year for fear of a double dip recession. And the suggestion that they did not hit the vulnerable is absolute rubbish! They were a disgrace from what once was apparently a left of centre party.

That the Lib Dems are no longer a left of centre party is in part due to David Laws. The Orange with which Laws, Clegg and Huhne were associated was a clear attempt to move the party closer to neo liberal economics of the sort associated with the party to whom the Lib Dems are now blissfully betrothed. Indeed the recent educational proposals and the assurance that Liberal Democrats will go into the lobbies to vote for it is a clear sign of the victory of Laws and co.

However, I am uneasy as to the circumstances that have brought abour Laws' downfall. Of course he has questions to answer on the subject of his expenses. Nobody should rule out the real possibility that those answers will be at least close to satisfactory and indeed I can see that he had no alternative but to step down while the matter is resolved. Still there are two matters that disturb on the David Laws story.

The first of these is the way the matter was brought into the public domain. The Daily Telegraph has had the relevant information for some time. I find it hard to believe that its publication was not to some degree related to that newspaper's campaign against Capital Gains Tax increases which have been proposed by the Liberal Democrats and accepted by the coalition. Is there not a warn across the bows for those who do not do the bidding of the Daily Telegraph? Words like blackmail come to mind.

Secondly there is the sexuality issue. Today the Sunday Telegraph says it had no intention to out Mr Laws concerning his sexuality. Yet to defend himself, it has been necessary for Laws to out himself. His actions seem to have been motivated not by a desire to cream of excess expenses but rather to protect himself from his homosexuality entering into the public domain.

Now today we like to think that we are enlightened on matters of sexuality. Yet many gay people still live with dread at disclosing their sexuality to their nearest and dearest. This is especially the case where a person has been brought up in a strong religious tradition. Laws was brought up in a Roman Catholic family and even today the Roman Catholic Church uses terms like "disordered" to refer to homosexual feelings. And Roman Catholicism is not alone in this. Note the relative silence of much of the Christian church concerning the men jailed in Malawi for a gay relationship. Does not the church seem at times keener to disown a gay Bishop than one who calls for the imprisonment of gay people. Given the vulnerability of young gay people even in supposedly liberal Britain I suggest that the church in all its forms needs to develop greater sensitivity on this issue.

I think that our country does not come out too well if it looks into a mirror on this matter. A bullying press and remnants of homophobia make unsavoury bedfellows. More than that this matter undermines the self righteousness adopted by the Liberal Democrats concerning the expenses scandal. They are not better than the rest but share in being tainted. Perhaps the last word should belong to a man named Paul who lived nearly 2,000 years ago-

"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 3v 23).

When we realise that such is true of all of us we may rediscover the virtue of kindness and decency.

Development awareness under attack

2010-05-19T19:57:00.000Z

The last government was certainly committed to issues of international development. As well as increasing aid budgets there was also a serious attempt to inform the public on aid issues.

Sadly the incoming government does not share this commitment to promoting awareness. Now it has wielded the axe.

Among the casualties are Greenbelt where the Department for International Development has been able to use a partnership to engage with faith communities in a positive manner. This is after all a gathering with imense interest in development issues.

Other cutbacks include a range of educational issues. These include real engageme4nt with young people.

Not so long ago making extreme poverty history was a major cause. It is far from being achieved. Whilst it is good that the government is ring fencing the overseas aid budget, the case fo development aid and how people can be involved in it is not a mere option.

In due course this will be seen as a major error which does not fit in with the coalition's talk of creating a "big society."

Following the Ascended Christ - A sermon for Ascension Sunday based on Acts 1: 1-11

2010-05-15T12:55:00.001Z

Ascension does not make a lot of sense in our scientific world. Thanks to the likes of Galilieo and Copernicus we can no longer believe in heaven being up there and hell down below. Instead we know that we are but one planet circling one of the billions of stars that are out there in the cosmos.

So we don't have to waste time thinking of the Ascension of Christ being like one of those Apollo launched that so excited me in my school days. We don't have to speculate how far he will have got presuming he is travelling at the spped of Light. For this is one Christian festival that we certainly need to liberate from excessive literalism.

I'd rather think in terms of Jesus passing into a new dimesnion of being. I can't be particularly specific in how I understand that but let's not worry. We do not need to understand everything. And any healthy spirituality takes seriously the place of mysterry in faith.

What Ascension does tell us is that the Jesus whom our Easter faith proclaims to have been raised from the dead is more that just recuscitated. He is alive. And yet he is no longer physically present with us.

This could be seen as an end of the Jesus story, a time of despair. And yet it is not. For the departure of Jesus is linked to farewell instructions that his followers should be his witnesses not just in Jerusalem where he has been crucified, not just in nearby Judaea, not just in despised Samaria but to the very ends of the earth. It is as if a local phenomenom is against all the odds to go global.

And the means by which this is to happen is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. In a way this tells them that whilst a physical presence is to be removed from them, they are still in the company of divivnity for Jesus is unleashing his own Holy Spirit.

What this means is that what has hitherto been limited in terms of time and space is now to be global and for all times. The Jesus story has not ended but expanded for a new unlimited audience! The seeming defeat on the cross has now given way to new endless and unlimited possibilities.

And at the heart of these possibilities lies the church, the people who follow the path of Christ. On many occasions that church will fail. At times it will do unspeakable wrongs that defame the name of Christ. But at the same time it remains a means of continuing the Jesus story. And at its best it grasps the truth that its supreme purpose is not about perpetuating an institution but pointing to the Kingdom of God which is at the heart of all that Jesus has said and done.

Sometimes Ascension has been described as the most political of all the celebrations of the church. It points to Jesus as being exalted to the right hand of God above all the powers and authorities. This does not mean a justification of the practice of Christendom through which the church has all too often associated itself with the powerful and sought their favours.

No! What this means is that communities of Christ followers are challenged to see their true calling as being to follow the man from Nazareth rather than the tinpot Caesars of the world. And the man from Nazareth points us to a whole new way of being which casts aside domination and lives in solidarity with the poor, the weak and the downtrodden. The now exalted man from Nazareth points us to the wonder of God's liberation.

Go back in time! Go back to Jesus at the beginning of his public ministry attending the synagogue in Nazareth associating himself with words from Isaiah.

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.
because he has annointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour."

What a contrast to the tawdry evasiveness of our recent General election! What dynamite that is contrary to so much of what we are told is rerquired of us to be good British citizens. But this is the path to follow if we are to be followers of the Ascended Christ.

May we identify with his liberating word!

General Election 2010 - The aftermath

2010-05-12T19:08:00.001Z

Well the General Election is over. Seats produced litle correlation with votes cast. But we always knew that would happen. Indeed the only form of electoral reform on the table, the Alternative Vote system, will probably only be marginally proportional to the current system.

Much of our media showed immaturity in wanting Gordon Brown to evacuate Downing Street at maximum speed.he rightly hung on until it was clear that Cameron was in a position to form a government. This took time as proper negotiations always do. A sense of entitlement may be understandable but is hardly attractive.

I regret that the "progressive alliance" didn't happen. The maths were always difficult. Sadly tribalism with Labour and an antipathy by some to electoral reform made it unlikely to ever succeed. Labour deserves the strongest censure for this.

As for the Liberal Democrats, I regret that they have committed to a 5 year coalition with the Conservatives. The stench of privilege will certainly not be challenged. I am one of those who voted Liberal Democrats to keep the Conservatives out - never again!

Some of the things the new government are aiming at doing are desirable. This is particularly true regarding the removal of some of Labour's assault on civil liberties including ID cards. I hope that they are serious about Lord's reform by which I mean a fully elected upper chamber elected on STV on a rolling basis. That they are likely to elevate a substantial number of people to the peerage in the next few weeks does not bode well.

I remain convinced that the wealthy must pay for the collapse of their system. More than that the recession cannot be an excuse for not confronting problems such as poor housing conditions in so many of our towns. I remain convinced that future money must not be wasted on military projects such as Trident and aircraft carriers.

The key issues today are not just about protecting the poor. They go further. Nothing short of a fundamental redistribtion of power and wealth in favour of working people and those who wish to be working, is accepted. Casino captialism can never be tolerated again.

I am not going to be neutral about the new government. It is the government formed by two political parties wedded to privilege. Labour's indequacy cannot change that. I believe that the new government's inadequate agenda must be challenged. A starting point is the outrageous suggestion that a successful vote of no confidence is no longer sufficient to trigger a General Election with a 55 % barrier being preferred. In the short term this will nto matter. I suspect that this government will last about 2 years before the contradiction between the two participants cause it to collapse in recriminations. Time will tell if I am right.

In the meantime the struggle for greater democracy, the turning of swords into ploughshares and an economy geared to the benefit of the many rather than the few must go on. I do not think that the three major parties are up to the task. In essence all are like a blushing bride when confronted with a hedge fund manager waving wads of money. But democratic struggle has never been confined to elections every five years or the sterile debate on the green benches of Westminster. It belongs on the streets, on picket lines and in constant debate that turns every day into polling day.

For me that struggle will include an active commitment to the political party that most clearly offers a new politics, the Green Party.

Olive Morgan - a lively follower of Christ!

2010-05-09T13:10:00.003Z

It is with sadness that I report the death of Olive Morgan. I only met Olive for about 24 hourse of her life when we held a gathering of Methodist bloggers.

I found Olive to be a remarkable woman. Well into her 80s Olive was really interested in the use of the internet and blogging to promote the gospel. She was particularly interested in drawing young people into a discusion Indeed she was one of the very first Methodist bloggers.

Her site was always full of useful information which was offered in a graceful manner. I cannot recommend readers too strongly of the value of paying a visit to her Octomusings site.

Olive was an example of how to advance in years without losing a sense of wonder and excitement. If I reach her age with a fraction of her energy I will be delighted. Only weeks ago a friend of miner met her at her church and was full of what a wonderful woman of faith Olive was.

May she rest in peace and rise in glory!

Why Bideford Town Council prayer issue needs grace

2010-05-09T12:51:00.003Z

Some things never change. Yes, once more the battle over prayers at Bideford Town Council is back in the news. And yawn you may be tempted to do!

In once corner is the National Secular Society. They want a judicial review on the matter claiming abreach of the European Convention of Human Rights. Well I suppose we have to keep the lawyers in the style to chich they have become accustomed,

In the other camp are former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey and Bishop of Crediton Bob Evans. Now I think that the National Secular Society has gone over the top However, the two prelates seem to have migrated to La La Land!

Let's take Carey first. He says;

"The centuries-long tradition of saying of prayers before council meetings is simply an acknowledgment of the important role the Christian faith plays in civic life.
"The attempt to rule such prayers as discriminatory is an attack on freedom and a cynical manoeuvre to drive public expressions of faith from national as well as local life.
"This should not be a matter for the courts as it concerns democratic freedoms. Councillors can halt the practice of saying prayers through a vote rather than resorting to judicial means."

I wish this was resolved without courts. However, sad as it may be this has so far not happened. I think the Remembrance Day incident when two councillors were publicly criticised for not attending a service at the Parish Church depite being present at the Act of Remembrance at the War Memorial has given them and any who have similar attitudes some justification in thinking they are being got at. The point of human rights legislation is that minorities have rights as well.

Moving on to the Bishop of Crediton, he offers the following insight;
"The saying of prayers before meetings is an integral part of the British system of government."

Only this is not so. I served for 4 years on the Redruth Town Council. Never did I hear a prayer in that time - and given that I think only one other member ever attended a place of worship it would have been odd for the situation to be otherwise! I know of many other councils where prayers are not said.

Let me be clear about my position! I am happy to pray with anyone. I am happy to pray with councillors who wish to be prayed with. Equally I am happy to pray with refuse collectors, teachers or nurses who express such a wish. Their responsibilities are at least equal to members of a town council.

But I am not going to force my prayers down those who do not wish them. Why? Some Christians say it does no harm and is tradition. My response is that prayer is a dangerous thing because it opens us up to the living God. And that living God is not the possession of safe bourgeoise understandings to pour holy water on decisions that at times may be contrary to the gospel that proclaims a world in which the might are brought down and the lowly lifted up.

In Islam there is a Quranic verse which speaks of no compulsion in religion. That is the true sentiment of Christianity. When we dare to coerce we move from the spirit of Christ.

So as someone who has occasionally been asked to say prayers at Bideford Town Council where will I stand when the phone next rings? I will not be in solidarity with the National Secular Society whose agenda I am suspicious of. Neither will I be in solidarity with those who wish to inflict prayer on those who dissent from such a practice.

I will gladly pray with those who wish to be prayed with. If only they are present I shall gladly pray although I suspect that this can only be if prayers are brought forward before the meeting so that dissenters can absent themselves. That is why I suggested to the BBC that prayers should be held 6 minutes before the Mayor's entrance. Otherwise, I shall simply give space for silent prayer or reflection which seems to be the desire of the outgoing Mayor.

And this I will do not as an opt out or a climbdown to the National Secular Society. I shall do it as an act of grace because I am totally bowled over by the gracious Christ who treats even those who differ from him with utmost respect.

And if in the process a blow is truck against the domineering monstrosity that is Christendom then I shall be glad to do a little to knock down an edifice that has brought Christianity into disrepute.

In solidarity with Tim Ireland

2010-05-05T20:32:00.002Z

I have admiration for Tim Ireland who is a crusader for truth. At times his life has been made hell by right wing extremists who have smeared him time and again.

This item concerns a hustings at which Nadine Dorries resorts to smear tactics.

I trust that her conduct will be referredto the appropriate authorities. Why shouldn't the hustings which are a public event be shared with the public?

General Election 2010 - Tactical voting to defeat the Conservatives

2010-05-05T18:19:00.001Z

And so we come to decision time in the General Election of 2010. A campaign strong on style yet week on substance has run its course. Tomorrow is the day of decision.

For Gordon Brown the decision will be of particular significance. I have often felt frustrated by Brown's premiership yet I believe him to be a fundamentally decent human being. He certainly deserves better than to be targeted by a Conservative Party campaign which is reminiscent of Don Revie's Leeds which seemed to prefer playing the man to playing the ball.

Nobody sane can dispute that the outgoing government has many achievements. Prior to this recession, we had the longest period in most peoples' lifetimes of continuous economic growth. this has enabled public services to improve greatly. The NHS which was woefully underfunded under 18 years of Conservative government is not recognisable today from that inherited. Schools have also received substantial investment. Here in Bideford next Autumn my children will be going to a spanking new Bideford college building which offers great possibilities in an area where aspirations among the young need to be fostered.

Other areas of achievement include the likes of the minimum wage once the subject of fierce Conservative hostility, civil partnerships, devolution and free admission to museums. Indeed the list could become a very long list indeed. And even in this recession whose beginning lie across the Atlantic, this has been a government which has used its powers of intervention to restrain unemployment and the horrors of house repossessions in a way that puts the Thatcher and major government to shame in comparison

Yet not all has gone as one would wish. Brown's light touch regulation of the banks which was always to rigorous in the eyes of the Conservatives, has to be seen as a factor in our recent economic woes. Too often this has been a government which has genuflected before extreme wealth. Civil liberties have not been treated with the respect they should have received. And of course Iraq will be an indelible stain on the Labour Party and those backbenchers who put careers before conscience.

Clearly there is here a fine balance between the positives and the negatives. Such a balance however is not needed in the case of the Conservative Party. I have already mentioned the mendacity of its personalised attack mode. But I cannot stop there. It is time that attention was drawn to the links between the Conservative Party right wing hoodlums and the nihilistic blogger Guido Fawkes. This twice convicted drunk driver has time and again dragged politics into the gutter with nasty smears and innuendos. Only those with the strongest of stomachs should read some of th ehate filled string of comments on his blog. Particularly nasty is his unsavoury sniping regarding the Prime Minister's mental health and the use of the title Prime Mentalist to describe a man far more decent than Paul Staines who pens the blog.

But there are two other reasons why the Conservative Party should be kept from the tillers of power. The first of these is economic related. Throughout the recession Cameron and George Osborne have made wrong call after wrong call. They have lied about the effects that their cuts will have. Their rush to cut creates the real danger of a double dip recession. And ultimately their "Big Society" is a rehash of Thatcher's talk of rolling back the state. What this means is that ordinary working people will be denied a government that is on their side.

Secondly the Conservative failure to embrace democratic electoral reform raises serious questions. Just as they opposed devolution in the late 90s, now they oppose fair votes. There is no way that first past the post can fit in with the realities of a three or even multi party system. That system has died - and rightly. Only an anti democratic party like the Conservatives can justify a system where people vote out of fear rather than desire or where there is precious little correlation between votes cast for a party and parliamentary seats gained. They take this position in part out of a sense of entitlement and in part because they are stuck in an immature game of passing the parcel of government. Arrogantly they demand absolute power which is hardly a panacea when the hung parliaments of Germany produce better economic results than single party government in Greece.

More than that Conservative leaflets have utilsed fear on this issue. I for one hope that the people of Britain have enough balls to resist the politics of fear. Hopefully people will grasp that a political party that does not care about a fair electoral system and which offers no democratic reform of the revising chamber, hardly has the DNA to offer economic or social fairness.

So on polling day the prime aim must be to keep the Conservative Party out of power and failing that to ensure that their power is not such as to constitute what Lord Hailsham called an "elective dictatorship."

I entered this General Election minded to vote Green. they are a fine progressive party who deserve representation. However, I have come to the conclusion that in a Conservative/Liberal Democrat marginal constituency that is a luxury that cannot be afforded. I shall vote Liberal Democrat on polling day. Here the local candidate seems to be a good person with good local knowledge. But I am not a Liberal Democrat. I have huge difficulties with market based Orange Book liberalism. On the other hand I have admired Clegg's refusal to play to the reactionary gallery concerning immigration and his preparedness to challenge Trident renewal. But still I wouldn't really want to vote for the totality of Lib Dem policies. I simply do so because the Conservative Party is resolute in denying me the chance to vote for what I truly believe in. Therefore I have to vote for the party best placed to stop them in my constituency, the party with the clearest commitment to electoral reform amongst the dominant parties. I may be disappointed with how they use their seats but I have no choice but to give them an opportunity.

Progressives will have to make choices based on their localities. I very much hope that Respect and the Green Party make breakthroughs in their target seats. I hope that Labour leftwingers who will challenge neo liberal cuts in public expenditure are successful and I wish the SNP and Plaid Cymru success. And some of that will doubtless come against the Labour Party and I welcome it. But in most places it seems to me that the best means to resist a Conservative winter will quite simply be to vote for whichever of Labour or the Liberal Democrats are best placed to notch up a win over Cameron's horrors.

In recent weeks I have followed the Conservative Party closely. I see little sign of a political party that has changed. Perhaps they have become more socially liberal although even that seems no under threat. The reality is that in economics they are still Thatcherite and no sane person could wish a repeat of the brutality of that era.

I know of no political party that is magic in any meaninful sense. But I do know that for the vulnerable and those with democratic and progressive aspirations, a Conservative government under Cameron would be tragic. That outcome is all to likely. It is a disaster that must be averted.

The great betrayal - A letter sent by me to the Western Morning News and North Devon Journal

2010-05-03T09:17:00.003Z

I have always tried to see elections as celebrations of democracy. However, I have come to the conclusion that the current General Election is a cause for shame rather than celebration.

Firstly,the emphasis on leadership debates in which precious little gets answered has been a sign of the infantilisation of politics. The manner of reporting in much of the media has been as if we are choosing someone to lead a debating society rather than to be Prime Minister. We have come to a sort of X Factor for ugly people in which greater concern is given to mannerisms and style than substance. Indeed these debates have dominated the campaign squeezing out issues and propogating a presidential view of government rather than of a team working together.

Secondly, the political parties have practiced deception concerning what is to come. Wedded to neo liberal economics as the main parties are, they promise cuts in public expenditure yet no party has given us a clear picture as to where those cuts will fall, preferring instead to hide behind the old chestnut of waste.

On a matter that is especially important to me as a father of teenagers, Labour and the Conservatives have resolutely refused to give any indication as to their intentions concerning university tuition fees. Instead they hide behind the forthcoming report of Lord Browne who as a man once paid millions of pounds a year at BP will surely be sympathetic to student debt problems. Indeed today's Guardian suggests that he is likely to recommend a rise in fees ofabout £,5,000 a year as well as changing the system of calculating interest rates on student loans in a way that will hurt our students. So why won't the politicians come clean now?

Thirdly, we remain stuck with a corrupt electoral system. Votes only really matter in marginals rather than in safe seats where the most useless of MPs can get in time and again if they wear the right coloured rossette. And even in marginals there is a democratic deficit. In the marginal where I live if I vote according to my beliefs which would be to vote Green, I am told that I waste my vote. So to influence the future I have to decide which of the two front runners I disagree with less - in other words a negative rather than a positive vote. And anyhow we face a real possibility that even more than in past elections, there will be an outcome in terms of parliamentary seats that bears no relation to the votes cast by the electorate. That David Cameron stands by this injustice places him in line with the dynassours who until 1832 defended the rotten boroughs.

Fourthly amidst the noise of the past few weeks so many issues have failed to get the attention they deserve. Global warming, mental health, the failure to provide affordable secure housing to so many people and the disgracefully harsh treatment of many asylum seekers are issues that should have been properly discussed. Instead we have had dog whistle politics all too often emanating from media attack dogs owned in the main by quite unsavoury individuals who are prepared to exploit every prejudice and to indulge in wilful misrepresentations to advance their agendas or in the case of Rupert Murdoch to promote his own media power base.

Our democracy has been well and truly stolen from us. I shall vote for just two reasons. The first is that I do not believe that any political party is worthy of total power least of all one that judging by donations received is in hock to the City which has failed us so badly. A balanced Parliament is essential. The second is that it is important to marginalise the BNP which despite the sharp suits remains a malevolent racist force that merits the support of no decent human being let alone Christians who were they to do so would commit a violence on their Lord whose life displayed much respect for those of other races and faiths.

But after May 6th, we need to make every day a polling day in which we stand firm for justice and democracy. We must not be fooled again!