Author: Stratocastermagic

Father Abraham

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Reflections on the Advent Wreath

1. Abraham

Abram: his name means ‘exalted father’, but this Abram has no children and the prospects don’t look good. It’s enough to make you laugh, really! Laugh, or cry. An old man and his wife who’s barren, supposedly. And he’s called ‘exalted father’! Father Abram! But Abram is a man with a mission, and he’s on a promise:

‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ Genesis 12:1-3

Abram – ‘exalted father’ – it’s not a big enough name for you! How about, Abraham – father of a multitude! So many offspring that you’d be as well counting the stars in the sky!

Well, it didn’t seem very promising, at least, not to begin with. But Abraham’s God is a God of promise, a God of covenant. Although there was a bit of a false start with Hagar and Ishmael; and that troubling incident with the young Isaac that made it look like the whole thing might be doomed before it had begun. But Father Abraham was to be the father of a multitude that no one could number. And so it was to be. Through faith in God, Abraham was blessed and through him we are all blessed. Because Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob… and so on and so on, via one king David, and so on, until from this strange and mysterious genealogy comes another Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.

When this Jesus talks of his Father, it’s not Joseph he has in mind, but the One who says, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”. Abraham, Jesus says, ‘rejoiced to see my day’.

The New Testament tells us that when we live by faith, we too are descendants of Abraham, part of the family.

And so, as members together of this family – the one with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as our Father, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ – we join in worship as we rejoice to see God’s promise fulfilled in Jesus.

God of Abraham and Sarah, and all the patriarchs of old, you are our Father too. Your love is revealed to us in Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of David. Help us in preparing to celebrate his birth to make our hearts ready for your Holy Spirit to make his home among us. We ask this through Jesus Christ, the light who is coming into the world. Amen.

Common Worship:Times and Seasons, from which this prayer is taken, is copyright © The Archbishops’ Council 2006.

Taking the Wanting Out of Waiting

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Advent Sunday Evening

6:30PM 27th November 2016

You can read the text below and / or listen to the sermon here

I was going to call this evening’s service an Advent Carol Service. That’s what it is. The trouble is, when people see the word ‘carol’, they assume we’ll be singing Christmas carols. Even though there are Easter carols and Advent carols, and, probably, Michaelmas carols, people are more familiar with Christmas carols.

There’s a bigger problem. You see, I say ‘Advent’ and you hear ‘Christmas’. It’s a strange psychological phenomenon…

In a previous parish, I was talking to a primary school teacher about songs for assembly. I said it was the start of Advent, she said, “Let’s sing something festive: ‘Away In A Manger’.”

Let me illustrate: imagine it’s late February next year. You say to me, “Alan, what are you planning for Lent this year?” (Ash Wednesday is on 1st March in 2017.) I say, “For Lent this year, I have decided to eat chocolate eggs. One a day, every day in Lent. I’ll have a little Lent calendar with chocolate eggs behind every window…” That’s 40 chocolate eggs. You say, “But chocolate eggs are for Easter, not Lent. In Lent, people normally give up eating chocolate rather than take it up.” I say, “But I don’t like Lent. I like Easter, so it’s chocolate eggs every day.”

It’s not quite fair: the mood of Lent is penitential – we cover ourselves with sackcloth and ashes and feel miserable. The emphasis of Advent is not quite that. Advent is about expectation, looking forward to the fulfilment of promise. The trouble is, we’re not good at waiting. Previous generations saved up for furniture. We buy on credit cards. One of them used to have the slogan:

Take the waiting out of wanting.

The modern world is best pictured as someone tapping their fingers on the top of the microwave shouting, “Come on!”. Amazon Prime: order almost anything and they deliver it next day. Amazon Prime Now will deliver in 2 hours. And it’s available in my postcode area. I’ve checked.

You may know the marshmallow experiment.

The Stanford marshmallow experiment was a series of studies on delayed gratification in the late 1960s and early 1970s led by psychologist Walter Mischel, then a professor at Stanford University. In these studies, a child was offered a choice between one small reward provided immediately or two small rewards (i.e., a larger later reward) if they waited for a short period, approximately 15 minutes, during which the tester left the room and then returned. (The reward was sometimes a marshmallow, but often a cookie or a pretzel.)

In follow-up studies, the researchers found that children who were able to wait longer for the preferred rewards tended to have better life outcomes, as measured by SAT scores, educational attainment, body mass index (BMI), and other life measures.[1]

We’re not good at waiting but Advent is about waiting hopefully. We look back to the way in which God’s people waited for their messiah. We look forward to celebrating the birth of Jesus. We look forward to God fulfilling his promises. As someone has said, in Advent we celebrate God coming to us in:

  • History – the incarnation, the birth of Jesus, the babe of Bethlehem
  • Mystery – by God’s Holy Spirit, the promise of Jesus to be with us always
  • Majesty – the second coming, the promise of Jesus to return.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment

Angel-Voices, Ever Singing…

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You may know the hymn from which my title is taken. You may even know that this year’s St Matthew’s Christmas Tree Festival is taking that as its theme. Angels, it seems, are everywhere: one of the most popular songs in recent times is ‘Angels’ by Robbie Williams. You’ll find angels in the movies, including the Christmas classic, ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ in which Clarence, a second-class angel, gets his wings. Angels are popular in art, from icons and stained glass, to statues and tattoos, and from architecture to children’s nativity plays.

We get our word ‘angel’ from the Greek ‘angelos‘ which means ‘messenger’. In the bible, angels are messengers, communicating between God and humanity. Sometimes, particularly in the earlier parts of the Old Testament, the ‘Angel of the Lord‘ is almost indistinguishable from God. The angel that appears to Abraham or to Moses is God’s representative. Since God is far beyond human imagination, the angel bridges the gap. And when Jacob wrestles with a strange figure, usually considered to be an angel, he is said to have “striven with God”. Jacob also has a vision of a stairway to heaven: he sees a ladder which reaches from earth to heaven, with angels moving up and down. When Jacob wakes he says:

“How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” (Genesis 28:17)

In the New Testament, when Jesus meets Nathaniel, he tells him that he will see

“heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man” (John 1:51)

It’s an odd picture; not one I’ve ever seen in stained glass, but Jesus is God’s ‘ladder’, God’s ‘stairway to heaven’. Jesus is the ‘place’ where God is made known, the place where earth connects with heaven. Jesus is the mediator, the one in whom heaven and earth, God and humanity connect.

If your picture of an angel is overly influenced by children’s nativity plays, in which the angels are played by little girls in tinsel tiaras and fairy wings, then you should note that the only biblical angels we know by name are male: Michael and Gabriel. (There’s also Raphael if you count the apocryphal book of Tobit.) Not only are they male, they are tough, warlike characters. In the book of Daniel, Michael turns up as defender of God’s people, Israel, and, in the New Testament book of Revelation, when war breaks out in heaven, Michael and his angels take on the dragon and his evil forces.

In the Old Testament, Gabriel helps Daniel to understand the strange vision God has given him. When Gabriel appears, Daniel is so terrified that he falls to the ground. If you are still not convinced that meeting an angel would be a terrifying encounter, then let me point out that, in most cases in the biblical story when an angel appears, the first thing they say is, “Do not be afraid!”

Gabriel also turns up in the New Testament. He appears to the priest Zechariah to tell him that his wife, Elizabeth, who had been unable to conceive, will give birth to a son, to be called John. (We will know him as John the Baptist.) The angel Gabriel is then “sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth”, to a virgin called Mary (Luke 1:26-38). If the news given to Zechariah is strange, this news blows that out of the water. Mary will bear a son, call him Jesus, and he will be called ‘Son of God’.

In Matthew’s account, an unnamed angel of the Lord appears to Joseph and reassures him that Mary’s unplanned pregnancy is God’s doing – “the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit”; he is “‘Emmanuel’, which means, ‘God is with us’.” (Matthew 1:18-25). An angel of the Lord, accompanied by “a multitude of the heavenly host” then appear to the shepherds to tell them to hurry down to Bethlehem to see this thing that has taken place (Luke 2:8-20). If a single angel is a terrifying sight, then imagine the prospect of seeing “a multitude of the heavenly host”! A whole army of angels filling the sky!

Angels reappear at a number of key points in the Gospels and in the rest of the New Testament, at moments when heaven breaks open to earthly view and when God speaks. I don’t know that I have ever seen an angel – but the bible warns me not to rush to judgement since, some have “entertained angels unaware” (Hebrews 13:2). But as we approach Advent and our Christmas Tree Festival, perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to be open to the possibility of God sending us a message of encouragement and hope through an angel or two. And as we prepare to celebrate the Christmas message, in which God and humanity are brought together by the one who is far superior to angels (Hebrews 1:1-14) let’s be open to the fact that we might have an angelic mission to others as messengers of that good news.

Alan Jewell

Stairway to Heaven

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You’ve probably heard of the actor who was so modest that, when he wrote his autobiography, he didn’t even get a mention in it.

Today (24th August) is St Bartholomew’s day and if you read the gospel set for today (Luke 22:24-30), you will find no mention of Bartholomew. In Matthew, Mark and Luke we see Bartholomew’s name listed as one of the twelve apostles, but that’s it. Nothing else. John’s gospel doesn’t mention Bartholomew at all. Instead, John speaks of a Nathaniel (John 1:43-end) and it is suggested that this Nathaniel is the same person. Matthew, Mark, and Luke name Bartholomew as one of the twelve apostles. John doesn’t, but does name Nathaniel. ‘Bartholomew’ is not a personal name but means ‘son of Tolmar/Talmai’, a bit like someone whose surname is Robertson or MacDonald. Or possibly it means that he was a ploughman, ‘son of the furrows’… Matthew, Mark and Luke list Bartholomew’s name next to Philip and in the John passage (John 1:45), it is Philip who finds Nathaniel and brings him to Jesus.

Bartholomew (or Nathaniel) was a fisherman from Cana in Galilee (John 21:1, 2). He is one of the seven disciples to whom the Risen Christ appears while they are fishing without success. Jesus invites them to have breakfast on the beach.

And, finally, Nathaniel is with the other disciples after the Ascension (Acts 1:13). And that’s it. No other references to Bartholomew or Nathaniel. Tradition has it that he travelled to India (possibly Arabia or Ethiopia) and to Armenia. He is said to have been flayed alive and is depicted in art holding his own skin and the instruments of torture (including by Damien Hurst, in his ‘Exquisite Pain’, currently at Chatsworth House). He is, therefore, patron saint of tanners, leather-workers and bookbinders.

In the John passage (1:43-end), Jesus is in Galilee and finds Philip and says to him, ‘Follow me’. Philip finds Nathaniel and says, ‘We’ve found him! The one promised in the law and the prophets.’ Nathaniel is not convinced that anything good can come out of Nazareth. Philip says, ‘Come and see’. Jesus is about to impress him: he describes Nathaniel as someone without guile or deceit. ‘How do you know?’, asks Nathaniel. Jesus says, ‘I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you’. This supernatural insight is enough to convince Nathaniel that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. Jesus says, ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet!’ and gives this slightly strange picture in which heaven is open and the angels ascend and descend on the Son of Man. Behind this is the story of Jacob’s ladder (Genesis 28:10-22). Jacob dreams of a ladder which reaches from earth to heaven, with angels moving up and down. When Jacob wakes he says:

“How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”
(Genesis 28:17)

Jesus is God’s ‘ladder’, the one who connects us to God. The place where God is made known, the place where earth connects with heaven; Jesus is the mediator who makes God known, the one in whom heaven and earth, God and humanity connect.

We know very little about Bartholomew – almost nothing if we don’t accept the identification with Nathaniel. But like us, he finds in Jesus the one mediator between God and humanity, the stairway to heaven.

The Rich Fool

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Sermon preached at St Matthew’s Church, Stretton
On Sunday 31 July 2016 / Trinity 10 (Green) / Proper 13

Readings:

Hosea 11:1-11 (OTp769) God the parent’s compassion for his wayward child: how can I let you go? #Hosea11_1 #TweetingTheBible
Colossians 3:1-11 (NTp187) Since you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above. #Colossians3_1 #TweetingTheBible
Luke 12:13-21 (NTp69) The Rich Fool stores up treasure for himself without being rich towards God. #Luke12_13 #TweetingTheBible

Prayer

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above…

Introduction

Donald Trump has had a tough life. He has worked hard to become the billionaire that he is today.

“It has not been easy for me… I started off in Brooklyn, my father gave me a small loan of $1 million. I came into Manhattan and I had to pay him back, and I had to pay him back with interest.”[1]

So, his father, Fred, who was an actual self-made multi-millionaire, with a dodgy reputation, lent him the small sum of $1M, from which Donald has made his fortune. Along with the 100s of millions he inherited from his father.

But it’s easy to use the parable of the Rich Fool to have a go at someone like Donald Trump. It’s fun, too. But, of course, the parable is not about someone else. It’s about us.

The Dangers of Wealth

Luke’s gospel, in particular, shows how Jesus warns of the dangers of wealth, of possessions. The danger is that we don’t possess our possessions: they possess us! They distort who we are and rival God in our lives.

To be clear: the Bible is not anti-wealth. Many figures in the bible are wealthy and see their wealth as God’s blessing. Contrary to what people often say, money is not the root of all evil. It is our attitude to money that matters:

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

1 Timothy 6:10

Of course, in church, the only time we ever talk about money is when we are trying to part you from yours! So, in order to stop loving money, you should definitely put more in the collection plate! Jesus talks about money, wealth, possessions a lot of the time, precisely because they are dangerous to our spiritual health. Unlike some who claim to be religious, Jesus never tells you to take money out of your pockets and put it into his! But Jesus wants us to be free. And the pursuit of wealth, for its own sake, is a form of spiritual bondage.

The Parable of the Rich Fool

Jesus is asked to intervene in a family dispute over an inheritance. (How many families have been broken by such disputes?) Jesus refuses to get involved, presumably because he knows that the motivation of the appellant is greed. ‘Don’t involve me in your money squabbles’, Jesus says.

‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’ V15

Then he told them this parable of a rich man whose land produced abundantly. He has the problems of wealth: where am I going to keep all this stuff I have accumulated? I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones. He doesn’t know how lucky he is! “My grain, my goods”. It’s all me, me, me!

And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” V19

The problem is not with him enjoying his wealth, nor with planning to take it easy. The problem is that he can see no further than the end of his nose. He lives in a universe with himself at the centre. A universe which is empty of all but himself. There is no God in his universe; no neighbour in his world. Like the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31), he cannot see anything outside of himself. He speaks to himself: “I will say to my soul, soul…”

It really is all about ‘me’. Not a thought for the other – no mention even of family, let alone neighbour or God. His problem is not wealth but greed.

Who is the Rich Man?

The Rich Man is you. And me. We are among the wealthiest people who have ever set foot on the earth. And we don’t believe it! That’s because we have advertisers who tell us that we would be happier if we were only a bit richer. If only we had more stuff to store in our barns! You and I know that’s not true. So why do we buy lottery tickets? (I don’t! I’ve never bought a lottery ticket in my life. But I do pray for my dad to win!) Why do we fall for scams? Why are we taken in by advertising?

Conclusion

Our materialistic society wants us to focus on what we don’t have, not on what we do. Without everyone wanting more, capitalism fails. Jesus warns that greed is a powerful way to lose your life. What a terrible way to live! Storing up treasure but not being rich in any way that actually matters (‘towards God’)!

And, it turns out the man with the biggest brain in the universe – Stephen Hawking – agrees. We need to rethink wealth, he says. Because money doesn’t do it.

“The best things in life aren’t things.”

Art Buchwald

[1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3291142/It-s-not-easy-Donald-Trump-admits-father-gave-small-loan-million-dollars-start-real-estate-empire.html#ixzz4FcypwfQx

Hosea: Skeletons in the Closet

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Sermon preached by Linda Buckley at St Matthew’s Church, Stretton, on Sunday 24th July 2016

Any skeletons in your closet? Anything that you’d rather nobody ever found out about you? These are some of the things that were found in the top 25 of a recent survey

BRITS MOST COMMON SKELETONS

1. Having an affair
2. An embarrassing incident
4. Debt
6. Family history
7. Phobia
8. Purchases
9. You smoke/used to smoke
10. Real-life crushes
11. Addiction
13. Bank/credit card statements
14. Age
15. A criminal past
16. Illness or condition
17. Previous marriage(s)
18. Pretending to like something/someone you loath
20. Tattoo
23. Sexting/Snapchat
24. Education/exam grades
25. Pretending to be good at something ..I include pretending you’ve read a book or watched a film

Apparently bumping the car is also there along with taking small items home from work previous lifestyle

We are going to explore a very public skeleton on full view in this story from a minor prophet, Hosea. Minor because shorter book in the Bible, not less important
Imagine, you get an invitation to the wedding someone you have been out of contact with. You look around. On the groom’s side are well-dressed​ families and some local church members talking quietly.
The bride’s side is packed and noisy. Lots of people are dressed as if for a night out, mostly single people and no families… Then the traditional music of Britney Spears “hit me baby one more time” starts and the bride enters wearing bright red … Well, almost wearing because, there isn’t much left to the imagination….and , although you don’t like to judge and know the groom has always been a person of faith and sound advice, you begin to wonder if he’s lost it.
Then the service begins… I take you for better, for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, in adultery and prostitution……you want to stand up and shout “Is it too late to object? Run for it!”

So why did Hosea marry someone who he knew would sleep with other men and become a prostitute ….because God told him to.

At the time Israel was prosperous and successful as never before and as a result they had fallen away from God…they didn’t need him for help, they had all the security and material stuff they wanted. They became proud of what they had achieved and complacent. They forgot what God had done for them in rescuing them from Egypt, however it was his plan not theirs, and certainly not the plan of other gods
God is not pleased and through Hosea he basically says
You’ve sinned – stop it
God’s angry – repent
If you don’t he will punish
If you do he will restore you
God loves his people and wants them to love him

Back to the wedding. God tells Hosea to marry someone who will break his heart, who will commit adultery and eventually become a prostitute. Simply this will be an example to the people of Israel who keep breaking God’s heart. He marries Gomer
The bible tells us Hosea and Gomer have a son Jezreel, Jezreel was a place which was remembered by the Jews as a place of massacre because of disobedience to God. Would you call a child Belsen or Auschwitz? We are then told Gomer has a daughter ..no mention of Hosea so we assume by someone else called Lorumaha, meaning no mercy, no compassion, and a son Loami – not my people. God will show no mercy they are not his people
How do we feel about Gomer? Do we want to punish Gomer, see her as the bad person? Gomer leaves her husband and children for other men, and prostration, eventually she gets so desperate she sells herself into slavery, we will return to the rest of this story later
While all this is going on Hosea is giving Israel God’s message

God says he’ll reject them if they don’t want, him he points out they don’t know him any more…there is no mercy in their hearts, or faithfulness, they are hard hearted, their love has gone like a vapour or early morning mist, they are following other gods or ideals as the centre of their lives (today could that be careers, investments, beauty, holidays, material goods, technology, social status or social media statuses, longevity)… All Mist and vapour

God wants mercy not sacrifice he wants love not false action

He says my “prophets will kill you with words… ” God didn’t come to set up a religion but a relationship, the Jews had kept some of the trappings of religion but rejected the relationship

So this is where Hosea is, the relationship with Gomer has been rejected, but his family still have a future…can they change things?
In chapter 2 we have hope, given through the language of relationship. Using the imagery of an unfaithful wife God talks about Israel, and the potential future the future of the relationship.

V 14 Therefore, I will now persuade her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.

God wants Israel to come back to him of their own free will

19 And I will take you for my wife for ever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. 20 I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know the Lord

God offers a clean slate , a fresh start leaving the past behind. The language of unconditional love.

So back to our story. Hosea wants Gomer back,chapter 3 Hosea says The Lord said to me again, ‘Go, love a woman who has a lover and is an adulteress, just as the Lord loves the people of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes.’ So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer of barley and a measure of wine.
Hosea has to look for Gomer, actively search for her; he finds her and he has to pay the debt to buy her back. He didn’t have enough cash to redeem her so he uses important food and drink, he restores her. There is a cost for her rebellion
This is not a God who is keeping account of sin, but of a loving husband who says what is neededto restore the relationship – I love you still no matter what you’ve done… I will give you back your vineyards

And what about their children?

Chapter 2 I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know the Lord.
21
On that day I will answer, says the Lord,
 I will answer the heavens
 and they shall answer the earth;
22
and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil,
 and they shall answer Jezreel;
23
and I will sow him for myself in the land. Jezreel here has another meaning ..to sow, to bear fruit
And I will have pity on Lo-ruhamah,
 and I will say to Lo-ammi, You are my people’;
 and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’

Everyone has a place in God’s family

What a story, full of imagery full of real people with real relationships
What does it say to us?
Maybe we need to deal with our own skeletons, or those of others, When we say the Lord’s Prayer we ask God to forgive us . Do we truly forgive ourselves? If not , admit it and ask God for help.
As we forgive those who sin against us… Do we, really? If not ask God for help to do this. Admit it.
Some skeletons can be trapped in our idea and emotions?…. Things we are ashamed of feeling, and thinking.
In The Luke reading lJesus says
9 ‘So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened

At no stage was Gomer forced to come back. Just as Hosea went looking for her and offered her the opportunity, so God offers us the same. Through the sacrifice of Jesus we can enter into a relationship with God. Jesus is knocking, not forcing his way in, we can open the door, we don’t have to have Spring cleaned our lives, he is a visitor who isn’t looking at the dust, the unwashed dishes, opening the cupboard doors to look for skeletons ; he is looking directly into our eyes offering a hand if we take it. We come as we are.

We need a simple prayer. Please come in… It may be the first time we have opened the door, or it may be a revisit but we can come to God or come back to him as God is merciful and faithful and unconditionally loves each one of us
So our God really reigns and we can be a part of his kingdom on earth right here right now

The Lord’s Prayer

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Sermon preached at St Cross Church, Appleton Thorn

On Sunday 24 July 2016 / Trinity 9 (Green) / Proper 12C

Listen to an audio recording of the sermon – click here.

Readings:

The readings summarised as a tweet
Hosea 1:2-10 Want to know what it’s like being your God? Try marrying an unfaithful woman! H’s children named prophetically. #Hosea1_2 #TweetingTheBible
Colossians 2:6-15 Emptiness of deceit vs the fullness of God in Christ and fullness of life in him. From death to life. #Colossians2_6 #TweetingTheBible
Luke 11:1-13 When you pray, say ‘Father…’. Persevere. How much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit. #Luke11_1 #TweetingTheBible

Prayer

Gracious Father,
revive your Church in our day,
and make her holy, strong and faithful,
for your glory’s sake
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Introduction

The disciples ask, ‘Lord, teach us to pray’. You’d expect a religious teacher to teach prayer, as John the Baptist had done.

Jesus gives them the Lord’s prayer, not quite in the form that we are used to. The prayer is recorded in Matthew as well but Luke’s version is shorter.

Given what Jesus has to say about prayer (e.g., in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6:7) you’ll know that learning a prayer off by heart and reciting it parrot fashion is not what Jesus is suggesting. Rather, he gives a pattern for prayer, an idea of what Christian prayer is.

What is Prayer?

Prayer is Relational

Father…

It comes from our relationship with God – the relationship that God has already established and offers, that God is our Father, we are his children. Prayer is addressed to ‘Father’. (Matthew has ‘Our Father’.) Given that the word Jesus uses is ‘Abba’, a term of intimacy, we begin with a certain confidence. God has made himself known to us as Father and we are invited to address God using the word that Jesus himself used, ‘Abba’. It’s the sound that a child makes, like ‘dada’, but it’s not childish because it also would be used by an adult to address his or her father.

Prayer is Reverent

…hallowed be your name.

We address God as ‘dad’, but this is no indulgent sugar daddy. This father is one whose name is ‘hallowed’, treated with respect. Matthew has ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name’. This is our heavenly father, the who whose name is holy.

Prayer is about Ranking Priorities

Your kingdom come.

We pray first for God’s kingdom to come. Not ours. You are not the centre of the universe. The universe does not revolve around you. Matthew has:

Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.

In prayer, we align ourselves with God’s will. And you thought it was about presenting God with a shopping list!

Then, Prayer is about our Bodily Resources

Give us each day our daily bread

Given that God knows what we need before we ask, why do we ask? Because we need to acknowledge our creaturely dependence on God. That’s the deal: God is Creator. We are creatures. Our daily bread is what we need to sustain us in our earthly pilgrimage. This is not caviar and champagne – though we may enjoy those on occasion – this is the staff of life, meeting our basic needs.

And Prayer is about our Spiritual Resources

And forgive us our sins…

Sin is what breaks our relationship with God our Father in heaven. In Christ, God has done all that needed to be done to restore that relationship. But we can drift away. Each time we pray using the Lord’s Prayer, we ask that the relationship be restored.

Prayer is about our Relationships with Others

…for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.

Our relationship with God is always tied in to the relationships we have with others. We can’t expect God to forgive us if we are not open to forgive others.

Prayer is about having the Resilience to cope with life

And do not bring us to the time of trial.

It’s not a ‘get out of jail free’ card. I don’t know if you had noticed, but Christians – even vicars – do not necessarily lead charmed lives! We pray that we may have the resources to cope with what life throws at us.

Our prayer is that God will never take us to a place where we are stretched beyond our capacity to endure, to persevere.

Matthew has:

And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one.

Conclusion

Prayer is never mere repetition or recitation of something we have learned by rote. It is

  • Relational
  • Reverent
  • To do with Ranking Priorities
  • We trust God for our Material Resources
  • and for our Spiritual Resources
  • We seek the Resilience to cope with what life throws at us.

Evaluating Worship

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Think about the last church service you attended: how good was it? Perhaps that’s an odd question. How do we evaluate our worship? Is the whole thing just personal and subjective? Or are there some objective criteria that an OFSTED-style inspector could apply? What would a mystery worshipper (like the mystery shoppers who visit supermarkets) make of us?

We are thinking about the services we offer in our churches and, as part of that, I’m reading a booklet[1] on the topic of evaluating worship. The booklet asks whether our worship is any good and what we mean by ‘good’. Of course, we need to ask a prior question: what (or who) is worship for?

Some regard attending church as a duty. They value such qualities as loyalty and faithfulness. Nothing wrong with that, of course! But the danger with such an approach is that we might not care too much about the content or quality of our services if our only consideration is ticking the box that says we have ‘been to church’.

Another approach is to think about what we get out of going to church. Again, I’m not knocking people coming to church because of what they get out of it. We all do, to some extent. (I have to go to church because my name’s on the board outside.) But it surely can’t be right to approach worship if our only concern is, ‘What’s in it for me?’ Occasionally someone will say that they didn’t get much out of a particular service. The officially sanctioned answer to that is to ask, Well, what did you put into it? We live in a consumerist world where “What’s in it for me?” seems the most important question. We might want to turn that around: ‘ask not what your church can do for you. Ask rather, what you can do for your church’.

Another reason people might go to church is to meet their friends. Again, nothing wrong with that. Given that we all know that we can pray and worship God in the privacy of our own homes or gardens, or on a walk in the countryside, the fact that we go to church at all must be something to do with the other people who are there. Some of them minister to us in word and song; some in taking care of the practicalities of worship; some in providing a cup of tea or a friendly word. The danger, of course, is that church becomes nothing more than a social club where we exchange pleasantries and catch up with the gossip. (So, when people are exchanging the peace at a communion service, it can easily turn into a moment to talk about the weather or the bus service!)

Do you ever wonder what God thinks of our worship? Do we imagine that God probably likes the same things that we do? Perhaps God would prefer it done a bit more carefully or a bit more enthusiastically, but basically God likes the forms of worship that we like!

Of course, the God of the bible is often very far from pleased with the worship that is offered by God’s people. The prophet Amos rails against the hypocrisy of those who prepare “festivals” and “solemn assemblies”, those who offer sacrifice and song but neglect God’s command to act with justice and righteousness in their daily lives (Amos 5:21-24).

Of course, in the bible, worship is far more than what we do when come together on a Sunday. Paul reminds us that ‘spiritual worship’ is a life given over to God as a “living sacrifice”:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:1,2)

What we do when we come together in church must be a part of that – a life that is acceptable to God – and must help us to live our lives as Christians.

In the charismatic tradition, where I came to faith, the emphasis was on worship as an intimate encounter with God: “I really felt the Spirit here today” means that the worship was good. It may not be that different from what people experience in BCP worship or listening to a great organist in a cathedral. You sense that God is present. I still believe that the aim of leading worship is to usher people into a sense of the presence of God. (Of course, God is always present: our sense of that varies with our circumstances and our mood.)

In some traditions, the emphasis is on worship as teaching or edification. Evangelical and liberal traditions have both seen worship as an opportunity to teach people about the Bible, about God. One discussion I sometimes have with colleagues when we share the preparation of a service is around who picks the hymns. To some it’s obvious that the preacher picks the hymns because they know what they are going to talk about and the hymns should support that, leading up to the sermon and responding to it. I make the point that, rather than worship being seen as supporting preaching, preaching should support worship. The preacher’s job is not to teach but to usher people into the presence of God. The best preaching does that: it makes you feel that you have encountered God.

Then there is the idea that worship has power to convert. What impact does our worship have on visitors? To be honest, this is where we probably do need to ask questions about the quality of our provision. We can expect committed worshippers to get something out of a service, even if the preacher goes on too long and they don’t know the hymns. Regular churchgoers can use the time to pray and to reflect. But visitors need to be bowled over by what they find. From the welcome of the sidespersons to the coffee after the service, the whole experience needs to be good. If we are looking at the quality of our worship, a primary question must be to ask what it looks like to visitors. How does it feel to be a visitor to one of our services?

Worship needs to speak of community – to be open and accessible to all, reflecting God’s unconditional love and acceptance. We can’t simply have the church as a club for those who like that sort of thing. How can our worship nurture, encourage and challenge the regular church-goers and reach out to our occasional visitors? I hope you will give some thought to this and to the other questions in this piece, and let me know what you think.

Alan Jewell

[1] Evaluating Worship: How Do We Know it is Any Good?, Mark Earey, Grove Books 2016

Numbers and Miracles…

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You may have come across this headline:

People of no religion outnumber Christians in England and Wales

To be clear, this is not just that the number of people in church is smaller than those who don’t go on a Sunday. And this is not the fact that active members of the Church of England are in a minority. What this is, is that when you ask people their religion, 48.5% of the population of England and Wales say they have no religion. And the number who say they are Christians, of whatever denomination, is 43.8%.

The increase in those who identify themselves as having no religion has increased massively in a very short space of time. As recently as 2011, the figure was 25%. And by 2014 it was 48.5%. It used to be that people who were not very religious (but who were not actively anti-religion) would put themselves down on forms as ‘Church of England’. That is increasingly not the case. And people who were brought up in a family where religion was practiced now say they have no religion, rather than simply identify themselves with the religion of their parents or grandparents.

Half of those who identify themselves as Christians are over the age of 55. ‘Millennials’ – those born in the period from about 1980 to 2000 are missing from church. We might comfort ourselves by saying that as they get older, get married, have children, they will come back to church. That’s highly unlikely because they are not people who see themselves as Christians who just don’t have time to go to church; increasingly they see themselves has having no religion.

In 1983, those who identified themselves as Anglican made up 44.5% of the population. In 2014, it was 19%. The Church of England has never been good at converting people to faith: we have somehow assumed that everybody in England was more-or-less a Christian unless they identified with another religion, in which case it was in poor taste to suggest they might like to come and join us. Those who do join the Church of England tend to come from another Christian denomination – a transfer, rather than conversion. And for every one person who joins the Church of England, 12 leave it. The Church of England itself predicts that attendance is going to fall for the next 30 years, at least.

Clergy numbers are going to continue to decline as those who retire outnumber those who come forward for ordination. 25% of C of E clergy are aged over 60. Only 13% are under 40. In another profession, people would be asking me about my plans for retirement.

How do we respond?

Abject despair!

This is it. We are the last generation. The church may limp along for a few years yet, but there’s no real future for the church when we have gone. Will the last person to leave kindly turn out the lights?

Guilty Activism

Something must be done! If we don’t get more people coming to church, the collections will continue to go down, we won’t be able to pay our bills. We are in danger of making ourselves and one another feel guilty. Clergy do this all the time!

We are doing some good things: looking at our worship and the way in which we publicise our services. We want to develop the building so that it provides a welcome to visitors. Those are good things. But we can’t do that just to assuage our guilty consciences.

Is there something we have going for us?

It turns out, we believe in resurrection. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus raises the widow’s son from death to life, as an act of compassion and in anticipation of his own resurrection.

The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has risen among us!” and “God has looked favourably on his people!” This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country. (Luke 7:15-17)

A miracle like that would do us a power of good! But we see little miracles here all the time. On Thursday morning, as walked to the front of church to start the service there two people talking to each other, oblivious to me. I stopped for a moment and waited for them to finish their conversation. They looked at me and I looked at them. And it made me laugh. That Thursday morning congregation has in it a number who have suffered loss and bereavement. Some who live with long-term illness in themselves or are carers for others. And on Thursday mornings, we meet here and make each other laugh. There’s a communion service complete with sermon in the middle; but far more importantly, we have a cup of tea and a biscuit afterwards. It’s a group of people who have learned to love one another.

It’s not just the Thursday morning crowd. I’ve had a couple of people say to me in recent days how much they have appreciated the support of the church while coping with difficult circumstances. These are little miracles and they happen here. They are not things that we proclaim from the rooftops but we give thanks to God because we sense that God is here amongst us.

On Pentecost Sunday, we had a service of all-age worship. There was quite a group of younger children, some currently part of Praise and Play, some now part of the school. They came and sat on the carpet on the front. I did a magic trick, creating a cake to celebrate the church’s birthday and we sang a children’s song. And while I was talking, one little lad engaged me in conversation. At one point he was telling me that his trousers had a pocket in. It’s become one of my favourite things: sitting on the step at the front of church with the Praise and Play families on a Friday afternoon and with the children who come to our all-age services.

We live in a society where people are increasingly isolated. The elderly who never see a living soul from one day to the next. People of working age who never get time to be with their families. Young women with children who long to have another adult to talk to. People who live with mental health problems and don’t fit in. Young people who spend hours a day looking at a screen, not another person. Church is the opposite of social isolation. Church is where you come through the door and you belong. From the youngest to the oldest of us, this is our space where we matter and so does everyone else.

Conclusion

What if that got out? That this was the place of little miracles? Where people get to know themselves loved? And commit to learning what it means to love one another? Maybe it will be a while before we have queueing round the block, but you never know!