Blog post

Ruth’s Ordination at Chester Cathedral

/ Stratocastermagic / Leave a comment

Ruth writes:

On Saturday 2nd June I was ordained priest in Chester Cathedral. The service was very moving and emotional and was the culmination of my year here in Stretton and Appleton Thorn serving as a deacon. It was lovely to have the support of so many family and friends as I made my promises before the Bishop.

So what happens next? Well I’m still a Curate licensed to serve at St Matthew’s and St Cross and will continue to work alongside Alan, who is definitely still the Vicar of both parishes! But I am now able to preside at Holy Communion and conduct Weddings and I look forward to continuing my ministry in the churches and wider community.

Over the past few months I’ve had the chance to reflect on the ministry God has called me to. The Ordination Service includes a detailed explanation of the role of a priest:

Priests are called to be servants and shepherds among the people to whom they are sent. With their Bishop and fellow ministers, they are to proclaim the word of the Lord and to watch for the signs of God’s new creation. They are to be messengers, watchmen and stewards of the Lord; they are to teach and to admonish, to feed and provide for his family, to search for his children in the wilderness of this world’s temptations, and to guide them through its confusions, that they may be saved through Christ forever. Formed by the word, they are to call their hearers to repentance and to declare in Christ’s name the absolution and forgiveness of their sins. With all God’s people, they are to tell the story of God’s love.
Common Worship: Ordination Services. The Archbishops’ Council 2007

This is a daunting list of responsibilities and there have been moments when I wondered if I was up to the task! However, there are two things that have comforted and consoled me as I prepared for Ordination.

Firstly, during the Ordination service in response to the Bishop’s questions, I replied, “By the help of God, I will.” An important reminder that this can’t be done alone, by anyone, however gifted. I need the grace and power of God each day, because without Him I can achieve nothing.

Secondly, I am comforted by the last line of the quote above:

“With all God’s people, priests are to tell the story of God’s love.”

Sharing the story of God’s love isn’t a task reserved for those who have been ordained; it’s the responsibility of all baptized Christians. I can’t do this alone – in my own strength without God. I can’t do this alone – without you. We are in this together. So I ask for your prayers for me – as this next stage of my ministry begins to unfold. But also I pray for you too– that God’s surpassing power may be shown in your lives as you tell the story of God’s love to the world around you.

Revd Ruth Mock

Experience Easter

/ Stratocastermagic / Leave a comment

On the day before Palm Sunday, a group of church people, directed by Ruth Mock, came into St Matthew’s to prepare for ‘Experience Easter‘. They went to work with fabric and greenery, pebbles and props to create a series of six displays which were to be used to tell the Easter story, from Palm Sunday to the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus. And a fabulous job they did, too – the church looks great!

‘Experience Easter’ came (like a lot of good things) from the Diocese of Gloucester as an attempt to engage children and adults with the message of Easter. We live in a world where, increasingly, people are not familiar with even the basic elements of the Christian story. ‘Experience Easter’, as its name suggests, it not just about telling the Easter story: rather it aims to get participants to ‘experience’ the dynamic of Holy Week and Easter in a journey through six ‘stations’.

  • Hopes and Dreams

We start with the ‘Hopes and Dreams’ of Palm Sunday. Those who take part in ‘Experience Easter’ are asked what they hope for, what they dream of. Some talk about their career ambitions – especially if they want to be a pop star or professional footballer. Others share their hope that a family member will recover from illness.

We tell them that the inhabitants of Jerusalem dreamt of a day when God would send a saviour to rescue them from their oppressors, the Roman Empire. Riding into the city on the back of a donkey, Jesus looks like a saviour – albeit an unlikely one. He is greeted as a king by cheering crowds. Going against everything we usually say to children when they come into church (‘be quiet!’), we invite the children to wave palm leaves and shout as the crowds did: HOSANNA! They process around the church and are then invited to sit (near the font) to hear about ‘The Servant King’.

  • Servant King

What kind of king did Jesus know himself to be? And how can a king be a servant? Jesus kneels in humility, like a lowly slave, and washes the feet of his disciples. We explain to the children that, in Jesus’ day, when you arrived at someone’s home you would do so on foot. Having walked through the hot, dusty streets – trying your best to avoid the ‘messages’ left by donkeys and other creatures – your sandaled feet would be in quite a state. Your host might instruct a slave to wash your feet before dinner. But who would choose such a job? In this station, the leader offers to wash the feet of one of the children taking part. (It’s a moving experience to be the person doing the washing.) Drying the child’s feet with a towel, we explain that Jesus said he was giving an example: that those who follow the Servant King should also serve. We ask the children to think how they might serve others.

  • Remember Me

In the next station, we gather around a table set for a meal – the last supper at which Jesus explains to his disciples that he will die, giving his body to be broken and his blood to be poured out. The station is called ‘Remember Me’ and we ask the children if they have something at home that reminds them of someone special. Children talk about photographs of pets and grandparents that have died. Others have precious objects, like a teddy or necklace that belonged to a family member. Jesus takes bread and wine, gives thanks to God, and shares them with his friends. ‘Do this’, he says, ‘to remember me.’ We give the children a small piece of pitta bread and some blackcurrant squash (no, not real wine!) to eat and drink, and invite them to remember something about Jesus.

  • Alone

After the meal, Jesus goes into the garden of Gethsemane. There he wrestles with the agony of what he must face. But his friends can’t even stay awake to support him and one of them will betray him. This station is called ‘Alone’. Children from Year 3 at the school had prepared poems about loneliness and they show a deep and moving appreciation of what it feels like to be lonely. In our Garden of Gethsemane, we read words of scripture that Jesus may have thought about: how God is always with us, even in our darkest hours and that, with God in our lives, we are never alone.

  • Sharing our Sorrows

Next, we move to the Cross. As you can imagine, this is a difficult subject for all of us, never mind primary school children. But even young children have the capacity to engage with difficult things. We ask them to sit in silence, holding a small cross, and looking at the wooden cross which stands in the pulpit, draped with red fabric. We ask them to share what the scene makes them think or feel. A number of them talk about the sadness, to think that Jesus died in pain. We explain that the station is called ‘Sharing Our Sorrows’ as we think of how God comes into our world with all its darkness and brokenness to share our lives, sorrows and all. We invite the children to bring their thoughts and prayers (and the crosses they have been holding), and to leave them at the foot of the cross before moving on.

  • Resurrection

     

If this was a Holy Week service for adults, we might end there and invite people to come back to church on Easter Sunday to hear the next part of the story. But we don’t do that with children; we don’t leave them with the sadness of the cross. The final station is, of course, ‘Resurrection’. We have a beautiful Easter garden with an empty tomb set up in the sanctuary of the church and invite the children, like those women on the first Easter day, to look into the tomb. What do you think those women felt? Afraid? Worried? Excited?

‘Experience Easter’ ends with the children being given time to ask questions and to look again at the six stations that tell the story. They are also given a small chocolate egg to take away and challenged to remember, when Easter comes and they open their Easter eggs, the story that they have shared through ‘Experience Easter’.

Many thanks to those who created the six stations and to those who have loaned items to decorate them. Everyone who comes into church will appreciate what has been achieved. ‘Experience Easter’ is a wonderful thing and I hope we will be able to repeat it in future years.

I’m writing this in Holy Week: for me, the full experience of Easter still lies ahead. But our prayer is that many visiting the church for an Easter service, or simply coming in to look around at the stations, will experience the Easter message for themselves: that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself and that the resurrection of Jesus changes the world for good.

Happy Easter!

Alan Jewell

Love Is In The Air…

/ Stratocastermagic / 3 Comments

This year, Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent, falls on 14th February, otherwise known as St Valentine’s Day. This may cause problems for devout romantics as we try to reconcile our Lenten discipline with the extravagance of love… (Maybe transfer your Valentine’s celebration to the day before and take your beloved out for pancakes?)

We will be marking the start of Lent (on Valentine’s Day!) with a service of Holy Communion, with the imposition of Ashes, at St Matthew’s at 7:30 PM on Ash Wednesday. Then, on the following Wednesday evenings during Lent, we will have our usual service of night prayer (also known as ‘Compline’). If you have never been to one of these, I recommend them: it’s a short service (about 25 minutes) of quiet reflection and prayer.

I am also hoping that we will have enough takers for a Lent Course. This will probably be held on Tuesday evenings at the vicarage. If you are interested, let me know and I will confirm the details for you.

For the romantics, with thoughts of love around this time, we are again holding our Weddings Afternoon at St Matthew’s. It will be at 2:00 PM on Sunday 11th February – the nearest Sunday to St Valentine’s Day. As in previous years, we have invited couples who have booked weddings at St Matthew’s to attend but the occasion is open to anyone who would like to join us. I’m sorry to say that we have very few weddings currently booked – there are just 4 at St Matthew’s and 2 at St Cross for the whole of 2018.

The dearth of weddings being planned may make you wonder whether love is, actually, all around or not. Of course, people still fall in love and get married. But increasingly, they don’t make the connection between romance and family life, and what the church has to offer. The most recent statistics show that only a quarter of weddings (26%) include a religious ceremony. These days, the choice that couples have is greater than ever – from hotels to stately homes and other venues. The Christian Church needs to make more of the fact that the very heart of our message is love:

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them (1 John 4.16).

Making that connection – between the love of God and people’s daily lives is our constant challenge – demonstrating that our faith in the God who is love makes a positive difference to the lives that we lead.

One of the problems with Lent is that it might look like we are not really good enough for God; that we have to improve our lives before God will find us acceptable. But that is not the message of the Gospel. Before his public ministry begins, Jesus is baptised by John in the river Jordan. As he comes out of the water, he hears a voice from heaven:

‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ (Mark 1.11)

This is before Jesus has done anything! Before his public ministry of teaching and healing; before his miracles; before his death and resurrection. Before any of that, God affirms that Jesus is God’s beloved Son and that God is already pleased with him!

As we make our journey through Lent and as we celebrate the love that we have for one another, maybe we need to hear God’s affirming word to us:

You are my child. I love you. I’m pleased with you!

And on that basis, let’s get on with loving God and loving one another. Not in order to win God’s favour but in simple gratitude for knowing ourselves loved. We need to know that love is, actually, all around!

Alan Jewell

Andrew the Apostle

/ Stratocastermagic / Leave a comment

What do we know about Andrew? He was a fisherman from Bethsaida on the shore of lake Galilee and brother of Simon Peter (Matthew 4.18, Mark 1.16); John’s gospel tells us he was originally a disciple of John the Baptist (John 1:35ff). John directed Andrew to Jesus (John 1:25-42). Andrew then found his brother, Simon, and brought him to Jesus, saying “We have found the Messiah” (v41).

Andrew and Simon become disciples of Jesus and are appointed as apostles (Matthew 10.2, Mark 3.18). They seem to have shared a house in Capernaum where Jesus healed Simon’s mother-in-law of a fever (Mark 1:21, 29-31).

Andrew is present with the other apostles at key events in the gospels. He is specifically mentioned (Mark 13:3) when Jesus talks about the coming destruction of the temple as asking, with Peter, James and John, ‘when will this be?’

We also come across him in John’s account of the feeding of the multitude (John 6.3-13).

8One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, 9‘There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?’

The next time we hear of him is when some Greeks tell Philip they want to see Jesus. Philip and Andrew then tell Jesus, and Jesus talks about his death. (The mission to the gentiles won’t begin in earnest until after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.) (John 12:20ff).

Andrew is with the others at the start of the Acts of the Apostles when they are awaiting the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 1:1-18).

The Orthodox Christian tradition (which refers to him as Πρωτόκλητος, the ‘first called’) claims Andrew as the first Patriarch in the same way that the Roman Catholic tradition claims Peter as the first Pope. And the connection with Scotland? The story that, in the C8th, relics of Saint Andrew were brought to the town now known as St Andrews, where you’ll find Scotland’s oldest university and ‘the home of golf’.

What I like about Andrew is that he often seems to be a crucial link in a chain that brings others to Jesus: his brother, Simon; the boy with the loaves and the fish; the gentile Greeks who are looking for Jesus.

As churches we face significant challenges – declining attendance, ageing congregations, and increased expenditure. It looks like Mission Impossible! And it is: none of us can meet the challenges that the church faces, unless every member of the church sees themselves as a link in a chain. Andrew links his brother to Jesus. We have family and friends who know us as church people. How can we bring them closer to Jesus? Andrew is a link for the gentile Greeks who want to see Jesus. We all have links to the wider community. How can we reach out to them? Our neighbours may not know that it’s Jesus they want to see – but they might want to see a Christmas tree festival or sing some carols. You are the links that can bring others closer to Jesus. In the feeding of the multitude, Andrew is the link that releases resources to meet the need. We’d like to put a kitchen in this building, not to feed the 5,000 but to offer hospitality to our community – not just regular churchgoers. We need the whole church family to be links in the chain that will release those resources.

Just as Andrew was called to be a link in a chain that drew others to Jesus, so are we.

Happy St Andrew’s Day!

Joseph

/ Stratocastermagic / Leave a comment

My bible dictionary tells me that there are 11 Josephs in the old and new testaments – from Jacob’s favourite son to several in the new testament, including one who is Jesus’ brother – but this one is “Joseph, the husband of Mary, mother of Jesus” (Matthew 1:16). What do we know about him? He was a carpenter (Matthew 13:55), although that word (τέκτων, from which we get ‘technology’) could mean a craftsman or builder of various types. He could have been the village odd-job man or a builder or an architect employing others. Whatever his actual trade was, Jesus is known as ‘the carpenter’s son’. In 165CE, the Christian writer Justin Martyr says that Jesus himself made yokes and ploughs, which would give a nice context to his saying

28 ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’

Both Matthew and Luke tell us that Joseph was a descendent of King David (Matthew 1:20, Luke 2:4) which is why, Luke tells us, he and Mary made the journey from Nazareth, where they lived, to Bethlehem to comply with the demands of the census made “when Quirinius was governor of Syria” (Luke 2:14). The birth of Jesus then fulfils the prophecy of Micah (Micah 5.2) that a ruler would come from Bethlehem, the “city of David” (where David was anointed king by Samuel, 1 Samuel 16:13, 15).

In Matthew’s nativity story, Joseph hears that Mary, to whom he is engaged but before they live together as man and wife, is pregnant and resolves to “dismiss her quietly”. A reasonable response! He’s “a righteous man” and a gentleman. He doesn’t want to “expose her to public disgrace”. What on earth could make him change his mind? Nothing on earth: it takes an angel! The angel appears to him in a dream and reassures him that this is God’s business and that he has nothing to fear (Matthew 1:18-25). (Unlike the annunciation to Mary, none of this finds its way into the average nativity play!)

The child is to be named Jesus, which, like Joshua, means “God is my saviour (v21)”. Born of a virgin, he will be Emmanuel, which means “God is with us” (v23). Luke tells us that shepherds, “keeping watch over their flock by night”, are summoned by angels to go to Bethlehem where they find “Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger” (Luke 2:8-20).

When the child is born, another angelic dream (in Matthew’s account) warns Joseph to take “the child and his mother” and to flee to Egypt so that they can escape the jealous wrath of Herod. They stay there, refugees, until the death of Herod means that they can return to Nazareth (Matthew 2:13-21).

We are told that Joseph was “a righteous man” (Matthew 1:19). He was a devout Jew, travelling to Jerusalem to attend Passover each year, including that occasion when Jesus, aged 12, went missing (Luke 2:41-52). I wonder how Joseph felt, to hear his son’s explanation that he had to be in his Father’s house? (v49)

By the time we arrive at the Crucifixion, Joseph has disappeared from the story. Mary is present but not Joseph. Perhaps Joseph was older than Mary and had died. We don’t know when that might have happened, but when Jesus is rejected at Nazareth, he (Jesus) is referred to as “the carpenter’s son” (Matthew 13:55), so presumably Joseph was still alive when Jesus began his adult ministry.

From the end of the second century CE, it was being claimed that Jesus’s real dad was a Roman soldier, with whom, willingly or otherwise, Mary had conceived her child. But Matthew gets in quickly; even before the accusations start to fly: Joseph may not be the father of this child (what we would call his ‘biological father’) but God is. Both Matthew and Luke agree that Mary was an engaged virgin when she conceived Jesus (Matthew 1:18; Luke 1:26). Her pregnancy was “from the Holy Spirit”.

The ancient understanding of conception may have been different to ours – there was less understanding of the biology than we have – but they knew enough. The announcement of a virgin conception that the Holy Spirit has brought about is the curtain-opener for a story of God’s engagement with His world. It’s a way of saying that this man, born in this way, is going to do something extraordinary; that God has a plan for God’s world.

Poor old Joseph may not get top billing in the nativity play but he has a supporting role in the story. He is a decent chap, wanting to do what is right; protective of his missus and her son.

Collect

God our Father,
who from the family of your servant David
raised up Joseph the carpenter
to be the guardian of your incarnate Son
and husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary:
give us grace to follow him
in faithful obedience to your commands;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

 

Thinking about our Worship

/ Stratocastermagic / Leave a comment

We have had a series of meetings across the two parishes to look at worship. On two occasions, we asked the Revd Andy Stinson, Diocesan Worship and Liturgy Missioner, to lead our thoughts and discussion. One of the things we have been thinking about is how our churches seek to reach others – our mission – and how that relates to worship. One of the questions we are asking is, How can we encourage more people to attend church services? Sadly, our motives are often mixed: we want more people to come to church. Why? Because we need more money in the collection plate to pay our bills! Why? So that the church will be there for us as long as we want it to be! Real mission happens when we believe we have something to share with others – the good news of God’s love. (Otherwise we are simply trying to recruit people to prop up an organisation that we support.)

It’s difficult to extricate the church’s worship from its mission. In fact, the two are very much tied up with each other. Mission is ultimately God’s activity: worship, our response. The church’s mission, as has been said, is to find out what God is up to and join in. So, what is God up to? God is the ultimate missionary. The incarnation is God’s coming to us and dwelling with us, sharing our lives and inviting us to share his. At Pentecost, we see how Jesus sends God’s Spirit to commission and empower the church to carry on his mission, God’s mission. In worship, we seek to respond to God who loved us so much that he sent his son (1 John 4:10-12). Once we grasp that we are loved, we are encouraged to share that love with others. So, worship (responding to God’s love) and mission (sharing God’s love with others) are intimately connected.

It’s a bit of a leap, then, to get from these lofty ideas to the nuts and bolts of what services we offer in our two churches. But we need to plan our worship so that it is (as far as we can manage) worthy of the God to whom it is offered and helpful to those who worship, and accessible to those who might join us.

One of the ideas that I got from Andy is based on the TV programme (sadly no longer being broadcast) Ready, Steady, Cook. The premise of the show was that members of the public had to bring a carrier bag of ingredients, bought on a limited budget, to their chef who had to cook up an enticing meal using what was in the bag, with a few stock items from the store cupboard. When it comes to cooking up enticing worship, what ingredients to we have to offer? We have two church buildings which are loved by their communities and a history of serving our two parishes. We have a church hall in Stretton. We have one vicar and are looking forward to the arrival of Ruth, our Curate. We have a couple of Readers and a large group of lay people who assist with our worship – from wardens and sidespeople, those who do the flowers, serve refreshments, lead prayers, sing, play musical instruments, ring bells, set up communion etc. We also have a number of congregations who meet for the services they value. What can we do with those ingredients? Quite a lot, I would suggest!

And what do we have in the store cupboard? The Church of England has the Book of Common Prayer, much loved and valued by many, and the range of provision under the heading Common Worship. We have centuries of liturgy and hymnody to draw on and the Anglican tradition of worship that has a recognisable structure but allows flexibility and seasonal variation.

We know that some value tradition and others prize contemporary expressions of worship. Some are more at home with formal worship, others with less structured services. Some like to have their communion at 8:00 AM, some like to worship mid-morning and some on Sunday evenings. Others come to midweek services, which include regular communions (weekly at St Matthew’s, monthly at St Cross) and Praise & Play. One of the things we must face is that those who come to church tend to like what they get: if you ask someone who attends the 8:00 AM service what time they think church should be, they are likely to answer ‘8:00 AM’. Equally, those who regularly attend other services. So, how do we find out what service dates and times, and what forms of worship, might suit those who don’t yet attend?

What media do we use or could we explore? The black ‘main volume’ Common Worship books are not necessarily user-friendly: they are bulky and contain material that we rarely use. The Book of Common Prayer offers services that some people love but in a language that resonates with some but not all. We use printed leaflets for many of our services, so that people have in their hands just the material they need – the structure of the service and the texts they are invited to share – but many churches now use projection for service words, allowing maximum flexibility (providing you get the technology to work reliably!). How would people feel about looking up at a screen rather than down at a book? (Singing and congregational speaking are probably improved by having people look up.)

When Andy spoke to our Deanery Clergy Chapter, I noted that he asked a couple of fundamental questions to think about when considering our worship:

  • Have we forgotten God?
  • Have we forgotten others?

If we have forgotten God or other people, then, whatever we are doing, it is not mission or worship! We have simply become a social club for like-minded people. Our worship, whether traditional or contemporary, high-church, low-church or middle of the road, needs to lead us towards the mystery of God. We also need to be hospitable to others: what are we willing to give up in order to make our worship accessible to those who don’t currently attend services?

I’m sure that we are never going to get it all to work perfectly. We won’t be able to please all of the people, all of the time. But each of us needs to ask what is the best worship we can offer and how can we make it accessible to those who are not yet regular worshippers?

As always, I value your thoughts!

Alan Jewell

Thy Kingdom Come

/ Stratocastermagic / Leave a comment

Prayer. It’s one of those things we know Christians are supposed to do but perhaps we don’t find enough time or energy for. Or perhaps we are stuck with the same words we used as children:

“God bless mummy. God bless daddy…”

Or perhaps we think that praying is best left to the professionals: after all, that’s what vicars are for, isn’t it?

Luke’s gospel tells us that Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them to pray. His answer was to give them the words we call the Lord’s Prayer – ‘Our Father’. Some have called this prayer ‘a summary of the whole gospel’. Others note that whatever differences of belief and practice divide us, The Lord’s Prayer is said by Christians of all traditions and denominations.

In Matthew’s gospel a slightly longer version of the prayer is given as part of Jesus’ teaching that we call the Sermon on the Mount: here the context is a warning against thinking that God is likely to be impressed by the many words we might use in prayer. Keep it simple, Jesus says, and don’t pray to impress others. It’s just between you and God.

Many who are not regular churchgoers have this prayer tucked away somewhere. Occasionally when I have been praying with someone who is quite ill and not at all communicative, I have noticed that the words of the Lord’s Prayer seem to strike a chord. Their very familiarity is a point of contact.

I’m not sure that when Jesus was asked, ‘teach us to pray’, his aim was to give us a formula to recite. After all, in the Sermon on the Mount we are told not to ‘heap up empty phrases’. Rather, I think that the Lord’s Prayer is an example of what prayer is all about. It begins by addressing God in a way that is both intimate and reverent – as ‘our Father in heaven’. Our first concern in prayer is for God’s kingdom and God’s will, before we come on to our own needs (our ‘daily bread’). Then we seek God’s forgiveness, which is tied in with our willingness to forgive others, and ask for God’s protection in the face of temptation and evil.

The Lord’s Prayer, then, is not a formula but a pattern for prayer. It’s also a useful resource to fall back on when we have no words or thoughts of our own!

In 2016, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York invited members of the Church of England to pray, “Thy kingdom come”. The invitation was offered for the period between Ascension and Pentecost that we should pray for God’s Holy Spirit to help us become better witnesses to Jesus Christ and that others might come to faith in him.

“In praying ‘Thy Kingdom Come’ we all commit to playing our part in the renewal of the nations and the transformation of communities.”

Archbishop Justin Welby

In 2017, the invitation is being re-issued. This year, Pentecost falls on Sunday 4th June. At Pentecost, we hear of God’s Spirit being poured out on the disciples, as Jesus had promised. It is the coming of the Spirit that turns them from timid followers to bold witnesses, and makes them the Church. (We sometimes call Pentecost ‘the birthday of the Church’.) This year, as well as attending a service on the day, can I ask you to set aside some time to pray? Perhaps you could do that as soon as you finish reading this! You might simply ask God to pour out his Spirit on you – in a new way, with renewed love and power. And then you might ask God to make himself known to your family, friends, and neighbours. You don’t need many words. Just the willingness to connect with ‘our Father in heaven’. You might think of a handful of people who need your prayer, that they will come to know Jesus Christ.

If you want to know more, there are resources online (‘Thy Kingdom Come‘).

May God bless you as you pray ‘Thy kingdom come’.

Alan Jewell

Angel-Voices, Ever Singing…

/ Stratocastermagic / Leave a comment

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

The Lord’s Prayer

/ Stratocastermagic / Leave a comment

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

/ Stratocastermagic / Leave a comment

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