tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-239871052024-03-17T21:17:42.808+00:00Rectory MusingsA Prog Vicar's Journal of:
Sermons
Theological thinking
Church musings...
and a near obsessive love of Progressive Rock, Metal, Jazz and a whole bunch of musical bewilderment!Fr. Simon Cutmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08371546028177475152noreply@blogger.comBlogger689125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23987105.post-54917107903345577052024-03-17T21:16:00.004+00:002024-03-17T21:16:52.656+00:00Homo Sapien/Homo Fabula - a sermon for Passion Sunday<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_01zKKjpGMJf1Vc8hInNEj6OalztFNGu5TV-5UVecjPlVeW5qh5YS5N3Cxz3Zjje6qii1cdKZEQawRKJK6R2QE5IBJaJPIq5U3h1nF6BFdSf57DY5GMfSvJ_AR8Oj3-codmFJtUr4hjOLWhciuLEQf3T1oszyNIT6ak37G04-rlVGoA4NNDg/s1237/Clara_Barton_by_Charles_R._B._Claflin,_front-_Original.tif.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1237" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_01zKKjpGMJf1Vc8hInNEj6OalztFNGu5TV-5UVecjPlVeW5qh5YS5N3Cxz3Zjje6qii1cdKZEQawRKJK6R2QE5IBJaJPIq5U3h1nF6BFdSf57DY5GMfSvJ_AR8Oj3-codmFJtUr4hjOLWhciuLEQf3T1oszyNIT6ak37G04-rlVGoA4NNDg/s320/Clara_Barton_by_Charles_R._B._Claflin,_front-_Original.tif.jpg" width="207" /></a></div><br />Clara Barton, <span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">was an American nurse. She began her career in hospitals during the </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">American Civil War</span></a><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, but she also worked as a teacher, and a </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_clerk" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">patent clerk</span></a><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 10pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Since nursing education was not then very formalized and she didn’t attend nursing school, she provided self-taught nursing care. She became well known for doing humanitarian work and civil rights advocacy for the poorest and most excluded at a time before women had the right to vote. Following the end of the Franco-Prussian war, having seen first hand the extraordinary work of the International Committee of the Red Cross, she petitioned the US Government to recognise it. She was subsequently recognised as the founder of the American Red Cross.</span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 10pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Once, a friend of Barton’s brought up in conversation a cruel deed someone had done to her. Barton claimed she did not remember the deed done. Insistent, her friend exclaimed, "Don't you remember the wrong that was done to you?'</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 10pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">"No," she answered, "I distinctly remember forgetting that."</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 10pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">We’ve all heard the expression forgive and forget. We get the principle but can we get the practice as it were? It seems that Clara Barton managed to.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 10pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The new covenant that God speaks of through Jeremiah, which we heard about in our first reading, is characterised by a relationship based on remembering and forgetting: remembering that all of God’s dispirited people are taken by the hand and married to God. It’s tender and beautiful stuff and God forgets all the times that they have been out of step with God and his will and purposes for them. The covenant is new because it is not linked to the activity of God at Mount Sinai or in freeing God’s people from slavery. It is new because God will make it with his much-loved people after they return from exile. After they make a choice to return to Him</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 10pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><i>‘...But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel… I will put my law within them, and I will write it on</i></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 10pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><i>their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people…’</i></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 10pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKvF8irDHo4FY72DDGGeYBmXO2uljPu9c_ADWAO_kAOC-RdDOsH5CtAAbBWhCa_8833wdLEcbJf47CVOnk8OAlXKPDhv4r9GQcY1xwv8PSJOpC4AW84WwB2oFdLs3OTTDeGKmcaix_92sJNB_pKg9F4wVwk_MoEwzu8LLco4OHtRIQj0eRrY0/s615/0_Resurgent-British-Seaside-resorts-Blackpool.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="615" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKvF8irDHo4FY72DDGGeYBmXO2uljPu9c_ADWAO_kAOC-RdDOsH5CtAAbBWhCa_8833wdLEcbJf47CVOnk8OAlXKPDhv4r9GQcY1xwv8PSJOpC4AW84WwB2oFdLs3OTTDeGKmcaix_92sJNB_pKg9F4wVwk_MoEwzu8LLco4OHtRIQj0eRrY0/s320/0_Resurgent-British-Seaside-resorts-Blackpool.webp" width="320" /></a></div><br />Ben Bullock, an ex Burnley miner, moved to Dewsbury in 1868 and began selling boiled sweets in Dewsbury market. In 1876 he formed his own company and began increasing his range of products. One of these new products was the first example of lettered rock. Ben turned out his first batch of lettered rock which sold like magic at the West Riding markets but bigger things were yet to come. 'The discovery of a paper which could cover the sticks of rock and yet be removed easily coincided with Ben's decision to take a fortnight's holiday in Blackpool. Shortly afterwards a few hundredweight of Blackpool lettered rock was sent to the resort and the novelty so caught the public’s attention that the Dewsbury firm was inundated with orders from seaside resorts all over Britain. Ben Bullock's fame spread abroad and demands for lettered rock arrived from all over the world.<p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 10pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">When you buy a stick of rock at the seaside it’s easily identifiable. Running through it is the name of the place to which it belongs: ‘Blackpool’, ‘Hunstanton’, ‘Brighton’. Wherever you break the rock, however much or little you eat, at every point it has its identifying feature - the name of the town where it was purchased right at its core. In the new covenant, God says that God’s law will be within people, written on their hearts, at their core – running through us like the name in a stick of rock.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 10pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Through Jeremiah, God promises that His covenant will become knowable. God becomes knowable through the Incarnation, in the person of Jesus. But through Jeremiah, God promises more. Even with the best teachers, preachers, prophets and priests, God’s people were not learning the lessons of the Law. The new covenant that God offers His people will require no work on the part of the people to receive or adopt it. God will write on their hearts; God will place it within them; God will write it at their very core - it will run through the people like a stick of rock.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 10pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Friends Passiontide begins today. What I’d like to do is encourage you to come and join us for as much of the worship as you possibly can. Coming and sharing in the worship of the church over the next fortnight is really important because we are telling each other of the suffering, death, and ultimately resurrection of Jesus once again. But we aren’t just retelling a story of tragedy and hope; of disappointment, death, and then life. Whilst this story does in many ways mirror that of our own human experience; as we retell the story of Passiontide, the story indwells us again, and we rediscover the power of the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus lying at our core, written on our hearts. We are after all, as the poet and novelist Ben Okri put it, not just homo sapien (wise people) but homo fabula (storytelling people).</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 10pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjYLY4R9ntvDb_L2Xj0JrZQlOH3Du-noqDY-Rv8rfG2Z37tqkzyJNV-zJZsxtnX_9aJ1xGRQzKC-kQfs2H8-HD8L27UwB6evPGyOlxDEehhpAJFYZzYeiDDjftK_dCJcoSgfv9xylezwNKJ83V3Qg4PvTan0jVjlzcJFC4eufQxxWGodb53fo/s466/51Oo1fyM10L._SY466_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="466" data-original-width="332" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjYLY4R9ntvDb_L2Xj0JrZQlOH3Du-noqDY-Rv8rfG2Z37tqkzyJNV-zJZsxtnX_9aJ1xGRQzKC-kQfs2H8-HD8L27UwB6evPGyOlxDEehhpAJFYZzYeiDDjftK_dCJcoSgfv9xylezwNKJ83V3Qg4PvTan0jVjlzcJFC4eufQxxWGodb53fo/s320/51Oo1fyM10L._SY466_.jpg" width="228" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 10pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">As we retell and hear the story of God this Passiontide, God through Jesus places his covenant love written at our core every time bread is broken and scripture is opened. But we hear that story for a purpose - God’s covenants have always been marking out people as much loved by Him and calling them to live distinctively in and amongst the people they are set. As we live amongst people beset by tragedy, God’s love calls us to live as people of hope; as we live amongst people facing disappointment God’s love calls us to be people filled with abundant life.</span><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 10pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Friends, return from the exile that our lives can some times feel they are, sometimes far from God, sometimes far from our neighbours and friends. Return. Hear the story again. Become homo fabula again. But don’t just hear the story - be the story. Live it.</span></p>Fr. Simon Cutmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08371546028177475152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23987105.post-42106844691718869192024-02-25T16:55:00.002+00:002024-02-25T16:55:21.885+00:00The Bush, the Professor, and the Cross<div class="separator"><span style="color: #010000; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I walk our dogs Pip and Peggy, usually early in the morning. </span><span style="color: #010000; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left; white-space-collapse: preserve;">We are taking the same route daily at the moment.</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiajKqMnEPikif-NpkQblojYd4ylTSxaDRDZ7MpJY1U9tL4Og8VaYlSnyXIflGP8p3ACInE3PGGiDm2W5YR5pMaAtBTcTT6bRKMiQ76UtIvIyhhTD-j0QSjcdQPsu60lyWPoIiAQAUz_mTJA9BoBzfdHK1aQcz0X1ZAu0-zSZpFI06Xh-TqRE8/s1280/signpost-164908_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><br /></a></div><p><span style="color: #010000; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: #010000; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl05oFlU7Rss8F68Uqypw3H2Sadh24_GKxmeCDJGOpp6byvzXFbCLGxitvZw6LfPG33tRJE2CGVPCAjasbniOgx6CkV-OQ1UR9AR06oHkQPNsfbNXtS19sOHI8fyvXBnvVNPDktKsBvlREJdBON0KtdFD-Kudw7SBnuAx9HPH4sYKM4MkCFAI/s1300/188495071-green-coniferous-bush-on-winter-day.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="867" data-original-width="1300" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl05oFlU7Rss8F68Uqypw3H2Sadh24_GKxmeCDJGOpp6byvzXFbCLGxitvZw6LfPG33tRJE2CGVPCAjasbniOgx6CkV-OQ1UR9AR06oHkQPNsfbNXtS19sOHI8fyvXBnvVNPDktKsBvlREJdBON0KtdFD-Kudw7SBnuAx9HPH4sYKM4MkCFAI/s320/188495071-green-coniferous-bush-on-winter-day.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>On the walk I pass the same things each day - people on their way to wherever; fellow dog walkers; immovables like street lights, bus stops and houses. I pass a coniferous bush on this route. It is pretty unremarkable as bushes go - it marks the boundary between the garden and pavement. Somehow on Thursday’s walk, it emitted a scent that was <span style="color: #010000; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">the essence of conifer</span><span style="color: #010000; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> - the dictionary definition of lively green freshness. It was so vivid an experience, that I was dragged from my audiobook, back into the present moment, to look at and marvel at it. The experience was arresting. Here was a bush somehow being the most perfect version of that bush that it could be at that moment - and all I could do was wonder.</span><p></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: #010000; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I would love to be like that bush. Even for a moment - the most perfect version of myself - the way God longs for me to be - that I can. Perhaps you feel the same? I hope it doesn’t shock you at all that I am far from Christlike sometimes. All too often I succombe to living out versions of myself that I willingly put on like a favourite jumper, but that aren’t necessarily the best version of me. I sometimes live and minister from a place of the expectations that are put on me or that others say about me, or based on the images I have of myself from my past. We all do it. The cross that Jesus invites me and each of us to take up again this morning is both a sign post and a milestone - a signpost pointing us on from the decision that we each need to make about which version of ourselves we are going to live out today towards Christlikeness; and a milestone that starkly reminds us of that decision - marking that place or moment of change. Both direction and decision are Christ.</span></p><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiajKqMnEPikif-NpkQblojYd4ylTSxaDRDZ7MpJY1U9tL4Og8VaYlSnyXIflGP8p3ACInE3PGGiDm2W5YR5pMaAtBTcTT6bRKMiQ76UtIvIyhhTD-j0QSjcdQPsu60lyWPoIiAQAUz_mTJA9BoBzfdHK1aQcz0X1ZAu0-zSZpFI06Xh-TqRE8/s1280/signpost-164908_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiajKqMnEPikif-NpkQblojYd4ylTSxaDRDZ7MpJY1U9tL4Og8VaYlSnyXIflGP8p3ACInE3PGGiDm2W5YR5pMaAtBTcTT6bRKMiQ76UtIvIyhhTD-j0QSjcdQPsu60lyWPoIiAQAUz_mTJA9BoBzfdHK1aQcz0X1ZAu0-zSZpFI06Xh-TqRE8/s320/signpost-164908_1280.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: #010000; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Throughout this chapter of Mark’s account of Jesus’ life, Jesus encounters hungry people: the crowd of four thousand, hungry to hear Jesus but without food; the Pharisees, hungry to discredit Jesus and to be right, demanding a sign; the disciples in the boat with Jesus crossing the lake, hungry to understand; the blind man hungry to have his sight restored. And Jesus meets us here this morning - part way through Lent, hungry to understand, hungry for a deeper knowledge, hungry that this gospel good news is true. Jesus points out that miraculous feeding, deeper knowledge, power, understanding and healing and restoration are all good but they are not a means to an end. They all encourage us to make an assessment of who Jesus is and the truth of what he teaches about God and the ways of the Kingdom - and then it’s about what we do as a result. We are called to follow To walk behind him, as was the traditon, and to do as he does, to speak as he speaks, to behave as he behaves. It is about a decision and a direction.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: #010000; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><div style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #010000; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><i>‘...‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it….</i></span></div><div style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #010000; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><i><br /></i></span></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: #010000; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I heard a story about an American English professor from his student days - his own English professor had been an inspiring teacher. He wanted his professor to know how deeply his lectures had affected him so he went to his office one day to tell him. The professor asked the student whether he liked his classes, to which he replied with an emphatic yes! Well, why? asked his professor. There was powerful question. The student went on to speak of how his professor’s classes on Kafka has enabled more self discovery in him than three years in high school. The professor asked him what he had learned. He wanted to know how the lectures had deeply changed this student - it was a real question which deserved a real answer. ‘I guess the main thing I learned is that I am a complete idiot’ the student replied. Don’t feel bad, the preofessor relied, our country manufactures idiots. There’s no way you could have escaped it.’ So what do I do now, the student asked. How do I stop being an idiot? Just stop being one the professor replied.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: #010000; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">That story and Jesus’ teaching and healing up to this point feel similar to me. What have you learned from my classes? I'm an idiot. What should I do? Stop being an idiot. What have you learned from my feeding of hungry people? You’re the messiah. So what should I do now, now that I know that? Follow me.</span></p><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4eZImp0o4C_8GqPX4pjHbju1pdwz1PLCYVGg7AWPWlph1IhFgB5Kao2Lagj999z_lVhrcy4xKgPbfMQZ20GpPmIaawzlDY9MS_YsPhR4VKcFEJXLPtR9kl2uLujupm8X5h286anrBSWDMWxdziysRlHtAn3RiCRsG121yxMEuRXTkpM4RTP8/s702/screen-shot-2012-09-08-at-10-07-36.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="521" data-original-width="702" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4eZImp0o4C_8GqPX4pjHbju1pdwz1PLCYVGg7AWPWlph1IhFgB5Kao2Lagj999z_lVhrcy4xKgPbfMQZ20GpPmIaawzlDY9MS_YsPhR4VKcFEJXLPtR9kl2uLujupm8X5h286anrBSWDMWxdziysRlHtAn3RiCRsG121yxMEuRXTkpM4RTP8/s320/screen-shot-2012-09-08-at-10-07-36.png" width="320" /></a></div><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0.0pt; margin-top: 0.0pt; padding: -6.0pt 0.0pt 0.0pt 0.0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0.0pt; margin-top: 0.0pt; padding: -6.0pt 0.0pt 0.0pt 0.0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The thing is - stopping being an idiot isn’t an easy end goal, but you can do it with practise. Following Jesus isn’t an easy end goal, because it hit me as I read this this week. We haven’t listened to Jesus here at all have we? We haven’t practised.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0.0pt; margin-top: 0.0pt; padding: 6.0pt 0.0pt 0.0pt 0.0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0.0pt; margin-top: 0.0pt; padding: 6.0pt 0.0pt 0.0pt 0.0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Jesus tells his disciples, the crowd and us that to follow him in the Way, we need to deny ourselves. The issue is that that’s tough. Denying ourselves involves putting the needs and wants of others before our own. What we </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">are</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> good at is denying others. We catagorise people by their difference to the majority. We deny people who are different the rights and access available to the majority. We deny others their politics, their creed, their race, their gender, their sexuality, their age all too easily instead of denying ourselves to ensure their need to be in the reach of the love of God is met.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0.0pt; margin-top: 0.0pt; padding: 6.0pt 0.0pt 0.0pt 0.0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0.0pt; margin-top: 0.0pt; padding: 6.0pt 0.0pt 0.0pt 0.0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">We all too often we take up the cross seeking to faithfully follow Jesus but instead we use it to crucify all those we deny. Instead of remembering God loves all - and so should we - we make the cross, a barrier not a bridge to God’s unconditional love for all. Come to join us we say - but I can’t because my wheelchair can't get in the building; I need large print orders of service; I am gay; I’m an ex con; I don’t feel good enough; I’m not worthy; my child will be a distraction. We continually try to make our buildings and resources physically accessible, but as someone once said - crossing the threshold of the door of the church is harder than climbing Mt Everest - especially if you feel you are not welcome the outside of it by the local or even the national church.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0.0pt; margin-top: 0.0pt; padding: 6.0pt 0.0pt 0.0pt 0.0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0.0pt; margin-top: 0.0pt; padding: 6.0pt 0.0pt 0.0pt 0.0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Oh, and one more thing. Notice, what Jesus says about the ownership of the cross we are to take up… not His, ours…</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0.0pt; margin-top: 0.0pt; padding: 6.0pt 0.0pt 0.0pt 0.0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0.0pt; margin-top: 0.0pt; padding: 6.0pt 0.0pt 0.0pt 0.0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">So I wonder what Jesus is asking of us as we take up our cross this morning? What am I denying in myself and putting to death on the cross, that will ensure that someone else’s needs are met? How am I using that cross as a bridge - to enable others to see and experience God’s love for them in my actions and words; is the cross I carry being twisted to keep some out - who is not here this morning from our wider community who could be but is excluded by me and my words and actions, or by us and our words and actions?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0.0pt; margin-top: 0.0pt; padding: 6.0pt 0.0pt 0.0pt 0.0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0.0pt; margin-top: 0.0pt; padding: 6.0pt 0.0pt 0.0pt 0.0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #050505; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">There's a thought. It's our cross. If we are serious about Jesus the miracle worker, teacher and healer and are convinced that God is accessible in a new way through Him - how can I go out of my way this week to use my cross to deny my need, and include someone. How can I use my cross this week as a bridge not a barrier to invite someone to join us. How can I ensure that as I carry my cross, others see Jesus in me and not just me.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0.0pt; margin-top: 0.0pt; padding: 6.0pt 0.0pt 0.0pt 0.0pt;"><br /></p><span style="color: #050505; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Let us pray - this week - t</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #4a4a4a; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">each us, good Lord, to serve you as you deserve; to give, and not to count the cost, to fight, and not to heed the wounds, to toil, and not to seek for rest, to labor, and not to ask for reward, except that of knowing that we are doing your will.<br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Fr. Simon Cutmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08371546028177475152noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23987105.post-69797851633395446842023-10-01T20:23:00.001+01:002023-10-01T20:23:44.262+01:00Salt Path Metanoia - Musings on Matthew 21:23-32 <span id="docs-internal-guid-d332c889-7fff-4bef-56a2-f2bd1bde1387"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-Twkha7Z9uWR9K6_9R046ZAgHfC0dGx4AcO0IrqGQc5XZ8-Sc8pQp8eY7emXeUK_nkbqLxbXubKyu38x-8ypeGUNAFzcdotC_LypDMB_hpO8aFkhfZCrBqP7iT34vgwVs5CuVyRqWltPbAkSGwWGBsy-J7g1GUPHGiMDopzMLPkX5u2-Opjo/s400/9781405937184.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="261" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-Twkha7Z9uWR9K6_9R046ZAgHfC0dGx4AcO0IrqGQc5XZ8-Sc8pQp8eY7emXeUK_nkbqLxbXubKyu38x-8ypeGUNAFzcdotC_LypDMB_hpO8aFkhfZCrBqP7iT34vgwVs5CuVyRqWltPbAkSGwWGBsy-J7g1GUPHGiMDopzMLPkX5u2-Opjo/s320/9781405937184.jpg" width="209" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Cardo;">I am reading Raynor Winn’s memoir, The Salt Path. Just days after she learns that her husband Moth is terminally ill, their home is taken away through circumstances they could not have really prepared for and they lose their livelihood. And their response, before the bailiffs turn up, is to pack all they can into a rucksack each and walk the 630 miles of the South West Coast Path. It’s a story of love, of loss, of endurance, and of the healing sometimes contained in just putting one foot in front of another.</span></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;">So often all of our lives can be lik<span style="font-size: 12pt;">e that? We make a decision or something happens that changes the direction of our lives completely. How did I end up here? What events, joys and sorrows led me to today? How will I navigate on from here into whatever lies ahead in tomorrow.</span></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><br /></span></span></p><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Jesus is confronted by the chief priest and the elders and is asked by what authority he is doing these things. I pondered this for some time this week. Am I interested in talking about <i>authority</i> or about <i>these things</i>. Which of the two do the chief priests have a problem with? Possibly both! In terms of the things that the elders might have an issue with, in previous verses Jesus has cleansed the Temple, entered Jerusalem proclaimed as messiah, he’s healed the blind and demoniacs and taught with much wisdom about the nature of forgiveness and the nature of the kingdom, and he has foretold the need for his death and resurrection. These things… We can’t hear the tone in the voice of the chief priests and the elders. Going backwards from this point you have to go back to chapters 15 and 16 to hear Jesus being asked similar questions by the chief priests or elders. I wonder if there is no sneering tone in their question. Those Pharisees and chief priests are me. They are you as Junior church leaders, as choir members, as sidespeople and welcomers. These chief priests and elders are trying to help God’s people go deeper into their faith with integrity. Sure, Jesus, has harsh words about them elsewhere, but I wonder if they are trying to work out who Jesus is because they see and hear some extraordinary things done at his hands - God must be with him. So their question, I think is not one of authority - they know that God is at work - it is the things Jesus is doing, teaching and foretelling </span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">that they have an issue with. But that’s not the heart of this morning’s Gospel.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Jesus said, </span><span style="color: #010000; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">‘What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, “Son, go and work in the vineyard today.” </span><span style="color: #777777; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="vertical-align: super;">29</span></span><span style="color: #010000; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">He answered, “I will not”; but later he changed his mind and went. </span><span style="color: #777777; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="vertical-align: super;">30</span></span><span style="color: #010000; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, “I go, sir”; but he did not go. </span><span style="color: #777777; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="vertical-align: super;">31</span></span><span style="color: #010000; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Which of the two did the will of his father?’ They said, ‘The first.’ </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #010000; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #010000; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The</span><span style="color: #010000; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">re is a line in the Salt Path which has stuck with me. Raynor Winn, reflecting on what they are doing together and whether they have thought it through and she says</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, ‘...Do we have a plan?” “Course we do. We'll walk until we stop walking, and maybe on the way we'll find some kind of future…’ It sounds like no plan, a crazy plan. A non plan that just tries to escape the inevitability of terminal illness, of homeless, of tragedy. A non plan that will innevitably involve being confronted with all of those things and more. As the book goes on I know I will get a sense of what motivates Raynor and Moth to walk aside from avoiding the present.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In this parable, Jesus is asking similar questions in a roundabout way. Let’s do that, by noting what we <i>don’t know</i>. What we don’t know is if </span><span style="color: #302f2f; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">this behavior was typical of the sons or extraordinary. We don’t know what interaction or conversation the sons may have had with each other (or with their father) after their initial response. We don’t know what may have prevented (or enticed) either of the sons to act conversely to their earlier statements. And we don’t even know exactly why Jesus told this parable or why Matthew shared it.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #302f2f; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: #302f2f; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">What we </span><span style="color: #302f2f; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">do</span><span style="color: #302f2f; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> know is that the son who said he’d show up and work did not and the son who at first refused changed his mind and did. I guess you probably agree that “actions speak louder than words” and therefore believe that the first son, despite his abrupt, if not somewhat obnoxious, refusal of his father iis the one who “did the will of his father.” And we know that Jesus links this parable to the response of the tax collectors and prostitutes (shorthand for those considered beyond the pale of respectable society) to the good news of the coming kingdom.</span></p></span></span><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><span><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #302f2f; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">A lot of what we don’t know has to do with motivation and circumstances, and this is true not only of our interactions with these characters but also of our interactions with each other. I don’t know what motivates many of you to come or – to not come to church. I don’t know what motivates one of you to give so generously and other who could easily do the same yet doesn’t. I don’t know what collection of experiences shape the religious and political beliefs that you hold. And so on and so on and so on.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #302f2f; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">We don’t know these things. We can have a good guess – just as we may guess about our questions related to the parable and its characters – we may make assumptions and judgments, but ultimately we don’t know. And that should introduce a modicum of caution, if not humility, in our judgments, again about these characters in the parable but even more about each other.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #302f2f; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I wonder though whether this story of Jesus’ serves both to highlight the tension between Him and the religious authorities of his day and to build the case against those same religious leaders for their failure to answer Jesus’ question about John’s authority, their failure to accept John’s message, and their failure to recognize in Jesus as Messiah. But I wonder if this parable does also offer a word of surprise and hope.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #302f2f; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUgob7K9kQfcZhCbCVCYhVdU4VTEuZHr5PJZXwIYdq6hUvSXXABf9M23xahpV9GdHskOtSjTOjholmGRyI-kYv78ejcj8_mVdIv6N2eQ8zu-27qQvHNJZuHLhVC6zPPcS2LBsHM8_hivtgWdz5LO9AzPezMmNbiUsengxwG1zr6I-xZOKSsBI/s700/HopefulQuotes-edit--scaled.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="700" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUgob7K9kQfcZhCbCVCYhVdU4VTEuZHr5PJZXwIYdq6hUvSXXABf9M23xahpV9GdHskOtSjTOjholmGRyI-kYv78ejcj8_mVdIv6N2eQ8zu-27qQvHNJZuHLhVC6zPPcS2LBsHM8_hivtgWdz5LO9AzPezMmNbiUsengxwG1zr6I-xZOKSsBI/s320/HopefulQuotes-edit--scaled.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #302f2f; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Here are just a few. I hear in this parable the surprising possibility of hope that someone who has refused to listen to God may yet change his/her mind. Hope that it’s never too late to respond to the grace of the Gospel. Hope that one’s past actions or current status do not determine one’s future. Hope that even those whom good folk (and, lest we forget, the chief priests and elders were good folk) have decided are beyond the pale of decent society are never, ever beyond the reach of God.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #302f2f; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">If this is so, then no matter what may have happened in the past, yet God is eager to meet us in the present and offer us – indeed, secure – an open future. It is not too late. God is here, inviting each of us into the kingdom that not only lives out in front of us but has the capacity to shape our every moment from this one forth. This is something, I think, of what Paul Tillich meant with his phrase “the eternal now.” Each moment is pregnant with the possibility of receiving God’s grace, repenting of things we’ve done or were done to us, returning to right relationship with God and those around us, and receiving the future as open rather than determined. Like Raynor and Moth - all we need to do is walk into that future.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #302f2f; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Friends, God’s promise about an open future shapes our present here and now. Friends, hear that - God’s promise about an open future shapes our present here and now, but to begin to grasp that we each need to look inside ourselves for those things that are holding us back from receiving God’s promises. What things do we hold onto that make it difficult to believe and accept God’s forgiveness or to imagine that the future can be different than the past? We also need to look around us - there are some here who will vote Conservative and some Labour or Lib Dem. Brexiteers and Sceptics. There will be some here delighted at Watford or indeed even Preston’s losses yesterday, and some not, people who are optimistic about the future and those who are frightened, people who feel great about our the direction of travel of the Church of England in trying to prepare prayers to be used with faithful loving same-sex married couple and those who don’t, and so on. Look, I don’t know your motivations or experiences or you mine, but we do know that God is reaching out to each one of us this morning with the gift of acceptance and love and forgiveness that are the hallmarks of the kingdom Jesus proclaims.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 7.5pt 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #302f2f; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">We live at time of division. And without for a moment undervaluing the important values, beliefs, and concerns that underlie some of those divisions internationally, nationally and ecclesiastically but beneath all of those differences is a profound commonality - we are each a child of God whom God loves, adores, and is speaking to right here and now. And being reminded of that might we take a little more time to listen to each other, try to understand each other, and try to listen for God’s calling for ourselves and our community together, instead of isolation? That I believe is John’s way of righteousness - recognising that the path that we are on may not be the right future for us or each other, turning around, and walking back towards God and each other?</span></p></span></span>Fr. Simon Cutmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08371546028177475152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23987105.post-76688031628535043602023-02-26T18:14:00.000+00:002023-02-26T18:14:06.803+00:00Love, Lies and Lent - a Sermon for the first Sunday of Lent based on Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7<div class="separator"><br /></div><span id="docs-internal-guid-34b38c1c-7fff-6fb2-03e3-7dfe99ec827f"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuCFqahoy0CaXtAKZ4CJUhbnnkU-xB2OnfrYs9vpz1Y8vYmoirkhEdQkvzKjNpfpsepZDziTw9AxwGSzoIyToFkMSJM_hWQP-ti1M20qjgdOfuQAQIHssBDDLgJuNa3jfH8LCtqYMVWkilNsSs1nIQYrMdj1kfKWauhYcFWDV5q01dn93d/s767/d41586-023-00364-y_23996644.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="575" data-original-width="767" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuCFqahoy0CaXtAKZ4CJUhbnnkU-xB2OnfrYs9vpz1Y8vYmoirkhEdQkvzKjNpfpsepZDziTw9AxwGSzoIyToFkMSJM_hWQP-ti1M20qjgdOfuQAQIHssBDDLgJuNa3jfH8LCtqYMVWkilNsSs1nIQYrMdj1kfKWauhYcFWDV5q01dn93d/s320/d41586-023-00364-y_23996644.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>In the news this week we’ve heard that at least 47000 people have died as a result of the earthquake on the Syrian/Turkish border; that millions live in fear a year on from the Russian invasion of Ukraine; that a new Brexit deal for Northern Ireland is close to being struck in the midst of political tension; that Nigeria have gone to the polls to elect a new government still moving out of the shadow of military rule; that Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is the first to march at the Mardi Gras gay rights march. These and countless other stories have unfolded in the media glare and in dappled pools of sunlight heard only by the birds are all at their heart about life’s ultimate mystery - the nature of human relationships.</span><p></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All human relationships are mysterious because they unfold a narrative of what binds and divides us which is centred on one emotion - love. That’s why those news stories move us. Grief erupts in tragedy because of love. We long for justice because of love. Love is the unifier. Love by it’s presence or absence transforms the human heart and will. It is humanity’s golden thread through our history - yet it remains an unfathomable truth.</span></p><div><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: right;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4bagqcaMdViQTMoR9BRZtddtTBJJFLnW2xkHgvXjmzm_NoMB6cJ3IMUseMNDB608-WABnk9BKmGiz7WjXohXNeNF0bvjZC0kC0f16uBQCIyeAqzPejpUKchC7ChpFazGz1-o1D8VIEJ7Vt0hlsg1S6B16SmdfmMuzKu3Ok4mPNlEtMuQK/s760/love-idioms.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="507" data-original-width="760" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4bagqcaMdViQTMoR9BRZtddtTBJJFLnW2xkHgvXjmzm_NoMB6cJ3IMUseMNDB608-WABnk9BKmGiz7WjXohXNeNF0bvjZC0kC0f16uBQCIyeAqzPejpUKchC7ChpFazGz1-o1D8VIEJ7Vt0hlsg1S6B16SmdfmMuzKu3Ok4mPNlEtMuQK/s320/love-idioms.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What we hear as our first reading this morning is a telling of part of the story that binds and divides us. Genesis 2 and 3 are part of a story told by God to humanity which has three lines: I love you; I want to be with people like you; will you come and be with me? Told another way, these chapters are trying to explain the inexplicable - why are we here; why do we act and react the way we do with each other; why is there pain in childbirth etc?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s also worth flagging at this point a bit about the ‘Once Upon a Time’ sort of Hebrew used in the passage. Our lectionary compilers leave out the story of the creation of the woman made not as a helper (such a derogatory term) but an equal - bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. They also leave out the commentary about a man leaving his father and mother and clinging to his wife as one flesh (this text is not at all about marriage (biblical or otherwise and the word marriage is not used here at all.) Also the same word means ‘man’ and ‘husband’ and ‘woman’ and ‘wife.’ Being ‘one flesh’ is surely as much about husbands not mistreating their wives as themselves.</span></p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">'... And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die...'</span></i></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></i></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiPlW32A2lJRpano2sXa5oadvKcYKX1zZZ-giMurvSFRJTL2VyTNXBuF1GZvsUQmm4xQ7BlA7MFHR76X1sQFj-tzrSIXF8P-sgAu_rbGJmbvsHpMwpwpPQvCDkxTpAK6PPy-rimSSjgbEyM4xfrV7xz0vJ-0bDHhefyuZohFHhh2X0sH3b/s4032/PXL_20230224_090927264.MP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiPlW32A2lJRpano2sXa5oadvKcYKX1zZZ-giMurvSFRJTL2VyTNXBuF1GZvsUQmm4xQ7BlA7MFHR76X1sQFj-tzrSIXF8P-sgAu_rbGJmbvsHpMwpwpPQvCDkxTpAK6PPy-rimSSjgbEyM4xfrV7xz0vJ-0bDHhefyuZohFHhh2X0sH3b/s320/PXL_20230224_090927264.MP.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I love walking Pip our dog early in the morning. I love the silence, the fact that it is just her and me, I love the nature in which we walk and the route we take means we are surrounded by trees. What has struck me over the last few weeks is the number of very deep conversations I have ended up having with folks - the sudden death of a mother’s partner complicated by other issues; the cloud of dementia; the impact of bullying. All of these conversations have occurred between the trees.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioXQ3WZjZZLH7fWmOqL1Xgopiz9_Lo9FqNoIEHvPoZs-h3XuqRneGTJ-Yu1yEXdRexH1ZPTmyVpL-DyNHaX5bHhp-u6unDm4VQ_HtpHENthzq605c8FGwV43d8jw5Fz10MnvgN-CNT7nFLXcY4e-rqhM_ktSreZIFdB_YwnnqoMVgCMsec/s768/Ash-Wednesday-Eventlas-768x768.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="768" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioXQ3WZjZZLH7fWmOqL1Xgopiz9_Lo9FqNoIEHvPoZs-h3XuqRneGTJ-Yu1yEXdRexH1ZPTmyVpL-DyNHaX5bHhp-u6unDm4VQ_HtpHENthzq605c8FGwV43d8jw5Fz10MnvgN-CNT7nFLXcY4e-rqhM_ktSreZIFdB_YwnnqoMVgCMsec/s320/Ash-Wednesday-Eventlas-768x768.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Lent began on Wednesday as we stood at one tree - the palm - and marked ourselves with the kiss of God’s love and reminded ourselves of our mortality and need of Him. And here, we stand at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and look on over the weeks of our Lenten Pilgrimage. It would do us well to note that this story about fractured relationships finds it’s fulfilment in the realising of all our hopes and dreams at the foot of another tree - the cross - where all relationships are reformed. We could understand our craving relationship with each other and our wrestling with life’s temptations; and God reaching out to each of us in love - as all being outworked between these two trees.<p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In our school assemblies this week we talked about saying and doing wrong things and how we might lie to avoid the blame. This is all too a human trait - notice how the serpent subtly twists God’s words (Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?), and how the woman adds to the lie (God doesn’t prohibit touching the tree of knowledge.) Much spurious theology has been outworked from this story - but as equals, both woman and man are culpable for their actions. As we continue to journey between the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the cross - this remains true for each of us - we each remain culpable for our actions.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What is Jesus asking of us as we take these first steps in our Lenten pilgrimage? Our first reading reminds us that we are made for relationship equally with each other and our actions and words affect those relationships, and our Gospel reminds us that our actions (prayer, fasting, almsgiving, clothing the naked, visiting the sick or imprisoned) have eternal weight in that how we act and react affect our relationship with God.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The consequences of the actions at the tree of knowledge are being outworked in Ukraine as the actions of some lead to the death of others. I don’t mean that literally as would you Adam and Eve it - it’s only a story, but the corrupting of human relationships - the right of one to have power over another - is being outworked in Kyiv and the Donbas and ultimately has led to the need for gay right marches in the first place.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2lDHKJ7N9XV2mrutL-tpNn9YAxvNVv8iLca1KbyC2dpD7skMheqWqZfGLtkAtDppJEzYISfIvNtj2kCR50qjtUd-j4dAvE2lb3sjFB9a9q_9VwuhgXQxH-lH_C7m60hs8r-AhpeZKcSMr6oHb55BUYrsNl_FAPeveJqBq90KKrfM2uBzT/s800/43993-walking-shoes-lost-wandering.1200w.tn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="418" data-original-width="800" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2lDHKJ7N9XV2mrutL-tpNn9YAxvNVv8iLca1KbyC2dpD7skMheqWqZfGLtkAtDppJEzYISfIvNtj2kCR50qjtUd-j4dAvE2lb3sjFB9a9q_9VwuhgXQxH-lH_C7m60hs8r-AhpeZKcSMr6oHb55BUYrsNl_FAPeveJqBq90KKrfM2uBzT/s320/43993-walking-shoes-lost-wandering.1200w.tn.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This Lent, Holy Week, and Easter, Walk with Jesus, learn from Him; seek to frame all of your relationships differently as he does because how we act and react with each other affect our relationship with God.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Fr. Simon Cutmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08371546028177475152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23987105.post-20819296760346929402023-02-05T17:32:00.003+00:002023-02-05T17:32:28.005+00:00The Grandfather Clock, the Power of Love and the Type of the Church and Society - A Candlemas Sermon<div class="separator"><br /></div><p> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://ealingmonks.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/FentonHouse_048.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="491" height="320" src="https://ealingmonks.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/FentonHouse_048.jpg" width="197" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A grandfather clock - not ours.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">We have a grandfather clock which stands in our dining room. I have wondered at and wound that clock over many years. It belonged to my grandfather and I knew that one day it would belong to me.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-6146bbf8-7fff-8f1f-8971-59ed7944c1b3"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was made in Glasgow in the early to mid 1800s. I often dwell on who has watched the minutes slip by on it’s face and heard the hours fall away to it’s chimes. At the moment it has stopped and remains unwound, hands caught at 9.15.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple which we keep today, is not about the life of Christ stuck at a particular time or point. The Orthodox know today as The Meeting or The Encounter for it centres on the meeting of Mary and Joseph with Simeon and Anna, but in the drama of what unfolds in those conversations and liturgical rites are in a way ongoing, and in them the miracle of Christmas, the Incarnation, God amongst us is continually affirmed in a meeting of Heaven with Earth and Earth with Heaven.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ6kAlqAcvbDx3Q6ZsMvZPTLm4MHZk0XAxktXYWi-7Pnl07GsmOdIGS57HGqm7_3cnKIBBVsUpxAW1gGfes-vruisQNTUSJ_q9vbhj1RSAo9ju7IQtfZX1sKwJzJmSFvtwIOKEBiAa2JBwR7mQPHMhpnIUdtw7tg00o6w7H--xunjVWRdS/s1008/p06mv59m.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: Tinos; font-size: medium; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center; white-space: normal;"><img border="0" data-original-height="567" data-original-width="1008" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ6kAlqAcvbDx3Q6ZsMvZPTLm4MHZk0XAxktXYWi-7Pnl07GsmOdIGS57HGqm7_3cnKIBBVsUpxAW1gGfes-vruisQNTUSJ_q9vbhj1RSAo9ju7IQtfZX1sKwJzJmSFvtwIOKEBiAa2JBwR7mQPHMhpnIUdtw7tg00o6w7H--xunjVWRdS/s320/p06mv59m.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Simeon took the child in his arms and praised God… for my eyes have seen have seen your salvation…What makes us human - Jeremy Vine… poets, politicians, actors, journalists. Fot Julia Donaldson it is our understanding of time - the past, present and the future; for the journalist George Alagia it is care and compasssion; for Stephen Fry it is language; for the cellist Julian Lloyd-Webber it is, perhaps unsurprisingly, music. At the Feast of the Presntation, God’s answer to the question as to what makes us human, is love. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As Christ is presented in the Temple, our humanity is offered to God with Him. That’s all of our humanity, not just the Sunday best bits, because God takes all of what it means to human seriously. As we formally conclude our Christmas celebrations today we remember that in the Incarnation, God regards the impoverished, mundane, everyday material of humanity with such a generous love that he He is born amongst us, as one of us, as we are. In other words, God loves us, not as who we will be, or who we will become in His sight, but as we are now. He loves those whom we find it hard to love, those who we are probably too afraid or ashamed to admit we don’t - the homeless, the drug or drink addled, gay, straight or bi. God loves regardless which way you vote, whether you are up to your eyeballs in debt, whether you are tattooed or pierced… And before you start wondering if this is becoming a sort of universalist ‘it’s all about love love love’ sort of a sermon - yes it is - God loves us all universally and unconditionally. The Meeting at the heart of todays Gospel is indeed Good News as the Christ child is revealed in the midst of the aged, young parents - not in worship, but in conversation - and their lives are changed.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://cdn.aws.toolstation.com/images/141020-UK/800/73733.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://cdn.aws.toolstation.com/images/141020-UK/800/73733.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What we remember today, is the hinge that binds crib and the Cross together - a link between what we celebrated at Christmas, with all that is to come at Palm Sunday, Good Friday and on to Easter Sunday. Our focus moves away from the crib to the font - the place where our much-loved humanity is affirmed with the kiss of love that is Christ’s cross, and we are commissioned to live our lives for Him.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgy_l6BpSQ3nt-L8iF7FS7KKSiB7v6XXl2_5eFhu08NI726AYWhIE-khALnLLdTqedHrxvylxuqXLoQN75iP-8Mg3qYv45EDpozMVZyz-pa6sAOs7H2dEjx6Kta6XGJ7XOjDFQEy0gQ-IEjb2kOeu0W-sVOfc-dcWaZxXCwrxZZZPiYgS0/s1691/Viola-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1691" height="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgy_l6BpSQ3nt-L8iF7FS7KKSiB7v6XXl2_5eFhu08NI726AYWhIE-khALnLLdTqedHrxvylxuqXLoQN75iP-8Mg3qYv45EDpozMVZyz-pa6sAOs7H2dEjx6Kta6XGJ7XOjDFQEy0gQ-IEjb2kOeu0W-sVOfc-dcWaZxXCwrxZZZPiYgS0/s320/Viola-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p>Candlemas reminds us of the love of God for each of us, but of a love that transforms us, that heals us, that makes us to be more and more than we are or thought we ever could be. That love redeems us out of old habits, renews our drives and motives and offers us the ridiculous, seemingly unobtainable hope that we can become the people that both we and God long for us to be. For as Christ is presented to God in the Temple, He offers back to us a hope of the Divine life of God for us and with us and in us, yes even us.</span><p></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Candlemas is a vision of what not only the church, but our wider society could be. Instead of us living and loving within our age appropriate, gender-defined, politically constrained silos - God brings Simeon and Anna, Mary and Joseph and the Christ Child together as a model of intergenerational Godly living, loving and worship as a type for the church, but as a blueprint of what our whole society could and should be - where no-one is excluded, all are welcome and included and all are surrounded by the love of God. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At the end of the service of Holy Baptism, a candle is given and a charge to each baptised person is made to ‘shine as a light in the world to the glory of God the Father.’ Traditionally at this service, candles for the year for use in people’s homes and in worship were blessed so that the light of Christ could shine. We will have a resonance of that ourselves at the end of our worship this evening.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That Baptismal charge though is not about our light shining, our agenda being heard, our ideologies or preferences being pushed to the fore, but God’s. Whilst He loves unconditionally and eternally, He calls us to love Him and others that way too - with a love that surprises and transforms.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As we pack away the tree lights and the crib and turn to the font and on to Christ’s Passion and Resurrection I am reminded of Howard Thurman’s remarkable poem:</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When the song of the angels is stilled,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">when the star in the sky is gone,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">when the kings and princes are home,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">when the shepherds are back with their flocks,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the work of Christmas begins:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to find the lost,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to heal the broken,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to feed the hungry,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to release the prisoner,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to rebuild the nations,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to bring peace among the people,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to make music in the heart.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of your people Israel is the Light and Life of the Resurrection which shone through the night of Gethsemene; pierced the darkness at 3 in the afternoon; and shone brightly from the empty tomb. The hands on our grandfather clock may be stuck at 9.15, for now, but at the font we are called to shine with that same light of love, dispelling the darkness in every meeting, in every encounter…</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tonight we reaffirm again our willingness to take the Light of Life into the impoverished, mundane, everyday material of life, dispelling darkness with transforming light and love.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tonight, our world still seems to be filled with the darkness of hatred and fear towards those made in God’s image and loved by Him; the humanity that we share, that God took on Himself needs His light and hope more than ever.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tonight we are reminded that it is through us that the work of Christmas begins and that the light of God’s love must shine..</span></p></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Fr. Simon Cutmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08371546028177475152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23987105.post-89798868623374563112023-01-17T18:38:00.000+00:002023-01-17T18:38:04.400+00:00The Sculptor, The Nun and the Invitation - A Sermon for Epiphany 2 - John 1:29-42<div style="text-align: left;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-4bfd1424-7fff-b7dc-f5cc-6f4978f1b16f"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiijcP2P2xzskR6fi7uxAaBGQltr7qKX1Gxvcw6VGAoa0II7qkYu1ShNnlihLil943EmFgAi3c3PaAeAtvxAdzAuftUAan-HDQh7qJUhus_JnyIe5CTCJAQuW0p2tJBHAkKxLoiGXkNEaRGTTexJiKLLYXsms-CoIIvZ5q4j3f0v35KJikd/s1440/IMG_20220717_130530_050.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1440" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiijcP2P2xzskR6fi7uxAaBGQltr7qKX1Gxvcw6VGAoa0II7qkYu1ShNnlihLil943EmFgAi3c3PaAeAtvxAdzAuftUAan-HDQh7qJUhus_JnyIe5CTCJAQuW0p2tJBHAkKxLoiGXkNEaRGTTexJiKLLYXsms-CoIIvZ5q4j3f0v35KJikd/s320/IMG_20220717_130530_050.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Cardo;">It doesn't matter whether you visit the Yorkshire Sculpture Park; Barbara Hepworth's house or Kew Gardens. In fact, it doesn't matter where you see sculpture outdoors - the landscape and context shape how we encounter the art, and the art can shape how we enjoy the context and landscape. Whether it's Hepworth's almost organic forms set in the beauty and simplicity of her garden or Damien Hirst's towering The Virgin Mother blurring the lines between internal and external landscapes and the beauty of both. At its best, it should make you want to go, 'Look!'</span></span><p></p><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;">As children, we're taught that pointing at a person is rude. Pointing someone out like that is a means of highlighting difference - usually negatively. My sister (when she was little) when I accused her of something, '... You did such and such…', went on to tell me that my one accusatory finger pointing at her, masked three others pointing back at me. She knew (or at least hoped) that what I was probably accusing her of, was possibly a means of covering my own tracks!</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><br /></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.pexels.com/photos/1259327/pexels-photo-1259327.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&w=600" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="600" height="213" src="https://images.pexels.com/photos/1259327/pexels-photo-1259327.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&w=600" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;">John the Evangelist and gospel writer has drawn the extraordinary claim of Christmas - that the Creator and Sustainer of the universe comes among us - into sharp focus in the early verses of this opening chapter of his Gospel. And then his namesake, John the Baptist, provides some clarity when asked, as to who he is and who he isn't in the verses preceding this morning's section. To ram his point home, the next day, John points Jesus out. What is striking for me about this section is the number of times variants of the verb to see or to look are used. Both seeing someone or looking for someone, are an invitation into a relationship of both depth and discovery.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><br /></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/85/08/b2/8508b20ef402dd6d09d56302c4af198e.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="400" height="300" src="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/85/08/b2/8508b20ef402dd6d09d56302c4af198e.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” </span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He said to them, “Come and see.” </span></span></p><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><a href="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/35b7/live/9edf6fa0-8acf-11ed-8300-6b361ae1cb21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="180" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/35b7/live/9edf6fa0-8acf-11ed-8300-6b361ae1cb21.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Cardo;">Sister Mary-Elizabeth was taken by the Prioress to meet friar Robert who was visiting the Convent, to see whether he wanted anything to eat. The Prioress was called away for a phone call. Sister Mary-Elizabeth sat with Robert as he ate. As she came with him to the door of the Convent to let him out, she brushed his sleeve. At that moment, they saw each other and the future differently. About a week later she received a message from Robert, asking whether she would leave her Carmelite order, and marry him. It’s not been an easy journey for either of them but what they have learned is by coming into that room on that day has led each of them into a relationship of depth and discovery with the other.</span><p></p><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;">In the years I’ve served as your vicar I’ve rarely talked about evangelism but I have talked about mission. Maybe the word evangelism conjures up various images and preconceptions in your mind. I have talked often about invitation and building a culture of welcome. Friends as we rebuild as a church post-COVID and look to God for our life and growth going forward, I will need us all to play a part in evangelism through invitation and building a culture of welcome. A touch of love, an invitation to a service, building friendship with others here, is one of the simplest and most profound invitations into a relationship of depth and discovery you can make to someone. Asking someone to join you at church one week allows them to search themselves for the answer to the profoundest question in life - what are you looking for? And then inviting them to find the answer to all our life’s hopes in a life following Jesus. It sounds so easy. And it is. I am also aware it is also so hard, especially if you are feeling in any way unsure about your own faith but, there’s something upcoming that will hopefully give you some confidence.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><br /></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5db160e74efb877e1dd89661/1598537420761-2LH6BU2XVXADX888HN35/Evangelism+(2).jpg?format=2500w" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="800" height="168" src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5db160e74efb877e1dd89661/1598537420761-2LH6BU2XVXADX888HN35/Evangelism+(2).jpg?format=2500w" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;">Between 2-9 April this year I’d like to invite you personally to <b><u><span style="font-size: medium;">Walk with Jesus</span></u></b>. Mark the dates in your diary now. Commit to joining us as a church family over the course of that week. Hear again part of the story of the life of Christ. Meet people. Build confidence and grow in faith. And then walk with Jesus. It will be good Please do make every effort to join us.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;">Friends, it was good to see so many local folks with us in worship over Christmas. But as Richard Rohr says, ‘Worship of Jesus is rather harmless and risk-free; following Jesus changes everything. We will only grow as churches if God sends people to us or more realistically if we each invite them and welcome them when they come. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;">’... What are you looking for…?’, asked Jesus, ‘...Come and see…’</span></span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></div>Fr. Simon Cutmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08371546028177475152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23987105.post-49854552377745637682022-01-23T12:46:00.003+00:002022-01-23T12:50:08.389+00:00Boris Johnson, #PartyGate and Jesus' Menifesto in Fight Club<div style="text-align: left;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-6252c6de-7fff-1ebc-efb8-350e638ae0ed" style="font-family: verdana;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These remain difficult days if you are a conservative MP and especially if you are one Boris Johnson. Partygate seems to be derailing any credibility that the Government once had in abundance and it is making it very hard for the Prime Minister to exercise the power attributed to his office. When trust is blown, it is hard to regain. When the nation has been unable to gather for funeral and fun in the way we would have liked to throughout the pandemic, assuming that the allegations are true, Partygate has shot the trust that some, maybe many, had in the PM and the Government and has left a question - did and do the Government have the interests of the many or the few at heart? It seems that power given </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">can only be exercised within a locus of trust.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEirP_ClbvX4kfeFsTrQk9Yx9Z714bloapEbuZf-m0LtV-fzmqzQyc1EVy459fwWzd7ykvPblr9dRBsTIED_FwtQG-IFJehxM7J4gKDWcFQBUoB0_w47ShsNJwnkUbDRo5kLeTuqk8dS6QMGP8vQZvOl8sqXnDlI-AX-f8n_6KcBKr3TBVau=s480" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="480" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEirP_ClbvX4kfeFsTrQk9Yx9Z714bloapEbuZf-m0LtV-fzmqzQyc1EVy459fwWzd7ykvPblr9dRBsTIED_FwtQG-IFJehxM7J4gKDWcFQBUoB0_w47ShsNJwnkUbDRo5kLeTuqk8dS6QMGP8vQZvOl8sqXnDlI-AX-f8n_6KcBKr3TBVau=w400-h250" width="400" /></a></div><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">From the end of chapter three of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is given power to exercise - empowered by the Holy Spirit at his Baptism by John; he is sent by the same Spirit into the desert where the use of his power is tested; he is then sent, as we hear this morning, not to a Government building or palace, by the Spirit to use this divine gift - but home. Amongst his closest family and friends. Back to the normal and humdrum.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgstd97vpV0GeeqomrOmhenOx-lKLIskJcQDhHQJGMwbGYBSwkczh2z8I77MDZbguWq1zfCID2ldaJctyMeG2-qQcjBgK1mjDnDGZamDOYzChEMYlSBcLfiGVN0q3TqD_PcW92rUiRntgPbcIXJ4l0FlgMcdJQaofQVFrqdmovq1Kov1ryu=s276" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="265" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgstd97vpV0GeeqomrOmhenOx-lKLIskJcQDhHQJGMwbGYBSwkczh2z8I77MDZbguWq1zfCID2ldaJctyMeG2-qQcjBgK1mjDnDGZamDOYzChEMYlSBcLfiGVN0q3TqD_PcW92rUiRntgPbcIXJ4l0FlgMcdJQaofQVFrqdmovq1Kov1ryu" width="265" /></a></div><br />Now, having spent a weekend last weekend with my closest family at my parents’ home, it has not gone unnoticed to me that, back in that context I assume the role I always did growing up - I’m the joke teller; confident in and to my mother; the one who gets irritated by my father. We all slip into those roles in that sort of context like putting on a pair of comfy slippers. How will Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit, speak and act here?</span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgYtl_3CfgA1WLPkAgtMifIoUg9yexuq-vr2EszRGhQpyBhd8ijIyz3drYqq1JSByCw1BSnjCEbzX5-QEJ2faW-7hliRZu5FZpopLG7rP7eaW6SVgg0h6SnMCfgwcMVMnDEaDmUm43p2mrJprvNO127jmq59iNRAYrZOVPC2834wDEMJUqx=s1501" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1501" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgYtl_3CfgA1WLPkAgtMifIoUg9yexuq-vr2EszRGhQpyBhd8ijIyz3drYqq1JSByCw1BSnjCEbzX5-QEJ2faW-7hliRZu5FZpopLG7rP7eaW6SVgg0h6SnMCfgwcMVMnDEaDmUm43p2mrJprvNO127jmq59iNRAYrZOVPC2834wDEMJUqx=s320" width="213" /></span></a></div><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read… On Friday night, following the announcement of the death of the musician and actor Meatloaf, Alex and I decided to watch the film ‘Fight Club’ in which he has a starring role. The premise of the film is a group of disenfranchised men - numbed by menial jobs, the lure and lie of a capitalism that promises satisfaction in more stuff - get together to bare-knuckle fight in small, dark basements, and in so doing learn how to feel again. Soon their fight becomes far bigger, but I won't say more. Archaeology has recently helped us understand that the synagogue that Jesus went home to may have been more like a dark and dank basement than one of our churches. The recently rediscovered one at Migdal (where Mary Magdalene may have come from) was small 8 meters by 7 meters with stone benches around the walls - the size of a large lounge or basement. It had more in common with a boxing ring than a barn of a church.</span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You can hear the chatter - who’s this coming to read? It’s Joseph's lad. Well, he left the family in the lurch didn’t he? The place will have been fizzing with the electricity of attention and expectation - all these men huddled together listening hard. Jesus reads and interprets words from what we know as Isaiah 62 and tells them that when they’ve heard is to be fulfilled in Jesus the one reading. Amen? Asks Jesus. Amen? It is so… Silence and disbelief add to the melting pot of emotion as Jesus sits down next to Malachai on the bench.</span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The power Jesus has been given by the Holy Spirit, unlike what partygate may suggest, is not self-serving but self-giving (and a I paraphrase Jesus’ words) - to bring hope to the hopeless; to let those who are bound by habit and addiction that they can be free to live; to help those blinded to see the world clearly, and to free those trapped by oppressive politics and greed.</span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No wonder there was stunned silence. But a silence of anticipation, of expectation; of knowing that something was afoot here; that change could come; that hope was real again and there for the taking.</span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgJ6IEwyva0VLReQp6s2rlq3beRryO8vwA_wT2pv_SrXOSjJ6deb5Hh48AAZMVF8DhJx2IY6hfdu5DMhBdXwg9ZwqmQInXRuL8J5TuksdVI3hFi9Flk72Y4j4D0ctKdXkTRIjgcVN3WYR9dT37IbtI1SYf9P28_gEnFzBO5Aj0f7StQAiA3=s1500" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="844" data-original-width="1500" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgJ6IEwyva0VLReQp6s2rlq3beRryO8vwA_wT2pv_SrXOSjJ6deb5Hh48AAZMVF8DhJx2IY6hfdu5DMhBdXwg9ZwqmQInXRuL8J5TuksdVI3hFi9Flk72Y4j4D0ctKdXkTRIjgcVN3WYR9dT37IbtI1SYf9P28_gEnFzBO5Aj0f7StQAiA3=w400-h225" width="400" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">And right now - those words of Jesus feel very contemporary. They are a power that our nation and neighbourhoods need again and again and again especially in these days. And Jesus’ manifesto - as some have called it - doesn’t start at a party conference, but at home; it is outworked not on the campaign trail in constituencies, but in his own neighbourhood amongst those who have known him all his life. Here. Us and amongst our neighbours. Jesus empowered with the Spirit makes known his mission. And here’s the thing - we are empowered with the same Spirit, given to us at our baptism, renewed in us at our confirmation and every time we share the eucharist and as we eat the bread of heaven and share the cup life - that same Jesus dwells in us. In us. In us and calls us to the same manifesto promises. And St Paul makes clear in our first reading that that call to clear sightedness; to hope; to renewed living free from habit and addiction and oppressive politics and greed - isn’t just down to the eye or the ear - for this extraordinary manifesto to be heard and outworked in our communities - requires the whole body to be working together. The ‘us’ is all of us.</span></div><p></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Empowered by the same Spirit, Jesus calls us with him indwelling us, to live out his manifesto - how can we together bring hope to the hopeless in our neighbourhoods? How can we ensure that those trapped by habit or addiction are liberated to really live? How can we enable our neighbours to see our community and those in it clearly in love? How can we play a part to see those trapped by greed and debt to be free? This is Jesus’ manifesto. It is a powerful mandate for the many not the few - we are called, inspired, filled with the Spirit to pray it and to live it.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /></div>Fr. Simon Cutmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08371546028177475152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23987105.post-28396355482354880012021-05-23T18:00:00.002+01:002021-05-23T18:13:53.551+01:00Franz Jägerstätter, Ariana Grande and the Coming of the Spirit.<div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-9RAbLqb8afwawCQGFv4lPEJaLm7xnecoWU9jlzLz7N2LUGhjIO5cfGPa0uhWceN2k8Fe3M5Ru3jsruyue79uIGdD-SbL4nXZaauyneFXWVliDN4Tdhhvp3DiK_SnLY7EbNVW/s1136/FB_IMG_1621672083394.jpg" style="clear: left; display: inline; float: left; font-family: Cardo; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1136" data-original-width="640" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-9RAbLqb8afwawCQGFv4lPEJaLm7xnecoWU9jlzLz7N2LUGhjIO5cfGPa0uhWceN2k8Fe3M5Ru3jsruyue79uIGdD-SbL4nXZaauyneFXWVliDN4Tdhhvp3DiK_SnLY7EbNVW/w225-h400/FB_IMG_1621672083394.jpg" width="225" /></a><span style="font-family: Cardo; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Franz </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cardo; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jägerstätter was an unknown peasant farmer in Austria. He fell in love with Franziska Schwaninger and they married on Maundy Thursday in 1936. Their honeymoon involved a pilgrimage to Rome where they received a Papal blessing. </span></div><div><p><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Inspired by his wife’s faith, Franz began to study scripture and the lives of the saints. When German troops moved into Austria in 1938, he began to openly oppose the Nazi rule and propoganda but he never joined any part of the official resistence. He became a Fransiscan tertiary and during the 1940s was astonished that Catholic layperson and Bishop alike were unprepared to speak out against the regime.</span></span><span id="docs-internal-guid-837c5861-7fff-328e-346f-80144289e474"><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Cardo; white-space: pre-wrap;">In 1943 he was called up to serve in the the Nazi army but he refused to fight and was tried and executed on 9th August 1943. He is reputed to have said, ‘If the church stays silent in the face of what is happening, what difference would it make if no church were ever opened again?’</span></p><p></p></div><span><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is a place for silence - it is good for our prayer lives and our mental health. Silence, out of fear of what others will think, or in extremis, in fear of our lives, is bad for us and our communities. But speaking up isn’t always easy - whether that’s at school when you know who broke the window or stole the calculator; or calling out our government or other governments when they are inactive in matters of justice which especially affect the poor and marginalised in society. We don’t always feel like we have the power to speak.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p></span></span><span><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The disciples were gathered in Jerusalem for the festival of Shavuot which recalls God giving the Torah on Mount Saini with it’s clear countercultural expectations about distinctive living as God’s people. Also at Shavuot, Jews celebrate a sort of harvest festival 50 days after the passover, where the firstfruits of the harvest are offered back to God. Words from Leviticus are read which remind the community that their agriculture should not only produce enough for the community, but a certain amount should be left for the poor, needy and the foreigner. These actions demonstrate God’s expansive generosity to all people. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p></span></span><span><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">St Luke records: And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Four years ago today, Salman Abedi was at the Manchester Arena towards the end of the show by Ariana Grande. A member of the public reported him to the security team on the gate, as they thought he looked suspicious, dressed in all black with a large rucksack. Another guard noticed him too but decided not to intervene in case he was branded a racist. Five minutes later, Abedi detonated his device in the foyer of the arena, killing 23 people including himself and injuring over a thousand others.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A few weeks later, Ariana Grande hosted the One Love Manchester benefit concert with a message of unity and peace between all people. The concert and associated fund raising raised an extraordinary £17 million for the victims of the attack.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI4_ItYu_Ru1KrPV_JEmuJT7jij_EmUf0ty2q16NTeAHujL0f5JPrvV_YiFYLRoTJrYPLsAeKnAFV3d1hg7fZtj-0Av8l8odU51ueO8nzhfAok-BShLiCf4SAnsFWvQ_4iKScA/s944/One_Love_Manchester_Logo_2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="531" data-original-width="944" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI4_ItYu_Ru1KrPV_JEmuJT7jij_EmUf0ty2q16NTeAHujL0f5JPrvV_YiFYLRoTJrYPLsAeKnAFV3d1hg7fZtj-0Av8l8odU51ueO8nzhfAok-BShLiCf4SAnsFWvQ_4iKScA/s320/One_Love_Manchester_Logo_2.jpg" width="320" /></a></p></span><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Luke records a crowd gathering. They were inquisitive and excited like a crowd at a gig. What drew them though was not the phenomena that the disciples experienced in the room, but what the crowd heard outside it. All too often we focus on the phenomena of the Holy Spirit at work - oh we don’t do that here. There’s an inference that manifestations like what Luke tries to describe, are irrational and should be avoided. The crowd gathered because of what they heard said in a way they understood.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Luke records the crowd hearing in ways they understood about, ‘...God’s deeds of power.” </span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: super;">12</span></span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">London’s Tate Modern gallery staged an exhibition of 20th-century paintings. One wall was just a blank painted surface. Directly opposite was one of Monet’s paintings of water lilies. After staring at the Monet for ages, one gallery-goer described in wonder how she turned around to look at the blank wall behind her. Monet’s vibrant, swirling colours changed what they saw from something flat and formless to a surface with shade and texture.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p></span></span><span><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sometimes, perhaps more often than not, we need to be open to seeing the blank and ordinary, differently. The experience that was personal to the disciples in that room had transformed their ordinariness into extraordinariness. The encounter with the Spirit made them bold and courageous to tell the vibrant and varied crowd who had gathered, about God’s mighty deeds.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p></span></span><span><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Occasionally sand from the Sahara desert can be found in the UK, having blown here on the wind. Different cultures and nationalities are mentioned by Luke as having gathered in that crowd - each heard about what God was doing in ways they understood. Could we be more open to the surprises blown in by the Spirit today? A friend has spent months in hospital over the years I have known him, tended to and cared for by medical specialists who look out for him and speak up for his cause and act in his best interests. The Advocate of which Jesus speaks in the Gospel, will do the same for us. Luke’s account in Acts of the activity of the Spirit in each disciple will have been a process of trying to recount a very dramatic but very personal experience later on. In Romans, St Paul describes the Spirit’s work as helping ’... us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought’ and ‘intercedes for the saints’</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p></span></span><span><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What is God asking of us? The gathered crowd, on hearing the disciples communicate clearly with them about God’s activity and love, ask - what does this mean? As if it is possible to comprehend or understand the ways of God. In the Greek text the crowd ask - what will this become?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p></span></span><span><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We have each received the Holy Spirit ourselves - at our Baptism, our Confirmation, at our Ordination, at our Licensing or commissioning for any sort of ministry or service, and at this and every Eucharist as we pray this or similar, ‘‘... Pour out your Holy Spirit as we bring before you these gifts of your creation… as we eat and drink these holy things, form us in the likeness of Christ…’ Filled with the Spirit, we have been given the resources to speak and demonstrate God’s work in us and amongst us - we must speak, as our communities are looking for hope and healing as we edge (please God) out of this pandemic - let’s look for surprising opportunities to speak of or demonstrate God’s love to others; let’s trust the Spirit to be our Advocate, enabling us to be advocate to others and come alongside them - supporting and encouraging them; as the Spirit prays in each of us, let us intentionally turn to prayer afresh for our communities and the church because God knows both need it. As Franz </span><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jägerstätter said, if we don't speak, the church we love, may as well never open fully again. We too are filled. We too must speak.</span></p></span><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.vermontlaw.edu/sites/default/files/styles/header_image/public/inline_images/SPEAKLogoNew.png?itok=3HIRhEp-" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="177" data-original-width="480" src="https://www.vermontlaw.edu/sites/default/files/styles/header_image/public/inline_images/SPEAKLogoNew.png?itok=3HIRhEp-" /></a></div>Fr. Simon Cutmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08371546028177475152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23987105.post-53086090449067711342020-12-07T11:23:00.000+00:002020-12-07T11:23:16.588+00:00Comfort - An Advent Sermon (Isaiah 40:1-11)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://comps.canstockphoto.co.uk/bunch-of-comfortable-old-shoes-stock-photo_csp25891724.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="470" data-original-width="300" src="https://comps.canstockphoto.co.uk/bunch-of-comfortable-old-shoes-stock-photo_csp25891724.jpg" /></a></div><span style="color: #010000; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;">Comfort. Comfortable. Like a pair of shoes or jumper, you’ve owned for years. They’ve seen better days. And yet, the fit is just right. The memories of places and amongst people that they’ve been worn, cluster in your mind. Good times.</span></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: #fefdfa; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: #fefdfa; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;">Comfort is not rose-tinted. As you fall in the playground, comfort is someone cleaning the graze; comfort is telling the grieving widower that in time it will be alright; comfort is the reassuring phone call that they are safe out of the operating theatre and it’s gone well. Comfort is a present knowledge that all shall be well.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: #fefdfa; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: #fefdfa; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-family: Cardo; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: #fefdfa; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-family: Cardo; white-space: pre-wrap;">Comfort is the action of intervention in love. It is active, not passive. It meets us where we are. It is tangible, look-you-in-the-eye-and-doing-something-about-it hope. God calls for Jerusalem - exiled into Babylon, now returning - to come home, and as they do they find the city, their home, the dwelling of God, razed to the ground, houses obliterated, walls shattered, lives and livelihood decimated - and God tells them it will be alright. The awfulness of the time passed is ended. They are home. God promises to give them double in goodness for what they received in suffering and death.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: #fefdfa; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: #fefdfa; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;">The promised comfort isn’t just reassuring words - as tender and beautiful as they might be - like a loving mother holding and gentling rocking her hurting child. God’s comfort to His people will see a safe passage created for them to return to Jerusalem - a safe road, not one surrounded by bandits and wild animals in the shadowy valley, this road will be built for them to travel from Babylon home on. The journey is long and difficult, but to ease it, God will level hills and fill in valleys and the scrubby wilderness will be laid with green grass like a newly fitted carpet. Every other nation will go - wow, look what Israel’s God does for His people! Now that’s love! That’s comfort.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: #fefdfa; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: #fefdfa; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;">A further voice comes to the conversation - hang on. Don’t get people’s hopes up! They will love this sort of comfort, but like the meadow flowers they’ll respond - growing beautiful in their renewed faith and trust, but before you know it God, they’ll die down and go back to living the same old same old and ignoring you. God says - what I have promised I have promised. I am faithful.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: #fefdfa; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: #fefdfa; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;">So Jerusalem, if this is news you needed to hear and you are excited - go and tell others. Get up to a high point where people can see and hear you - tell the surrounding peoples and communities, your neighbours and friends - God is here! He isn’t absent. He didn’t cause this devastation. He didn’t abandon you. He left you, you having told him forcefully like a hormone-filled teenager in your actions and words that you didn’t need him - to walk off, as any loving parent would, to see what you would make of your longed-for independence, not loving you any less, but realising that you just weren’t listening, or accepting loving help and support.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: #fefdfa; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: #fefdfa; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;">Tell your neighbours - God is coming. God is here. Like a loving father, He will protect his beautiful teenage daughter. Like a shepherd on the hillside - he will eat and sleep and provide for you 24/7 and when you are afraid or hurting, He will carry you.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: #fefdfa; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: #fefdfa; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;">Comfort. Comfortable. Like a pair of shoes or jumper you’ve owned for years. They’ve seen better days. And yet, the fit is just right. The memories of places and amongst people that they’ve been worn cluster in your mind. Good times.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: #fefdfa; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: #fefdfa; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;">Comfort is not rose-tinted. As you fall in the playground, comfort is someone cleaning the graze; comfort is telling the grieving widower that in time it will be alright; comfort is the reassuring phone call that they are safe out of the operating theatre and it’s gone well. Comfort is a present knowledge that all shall be well.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: #fefdfa; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: #fefdfa; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Comfort is the action of intervention in love. It is active, not passive. It meets us where we are. It is tangible, </span></span><span style="color: #010000; font-family: Cardo; white-space: pre-wrap;">look-you-in-the-eye-and-doing-something-about-it hope.</span><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> God calls coronvairus invaded, recession filled, unemployment rising, public debt increasing, hungry family, longing for a hug filled Britain and the other nations of the world, to look forward, gingerly, to a time when all of this will be ended. God tells us</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> it will be alright.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The awfulness of the time passed is drawing to a conclusion. We be home.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: #fefdfa; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><a href="https://mk0riseaboveorg8j5i8.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/17_How-to-confort-a-friend_xlarge.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="180" src="https://mk0riseaboveorg8j5i8.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/17_How-to-confort-a-friend_xlarge.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: Cardo;"><br /> </span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: #fefdfa; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;">The promised comfort isn’t just reassuring words - as tender and beautiful as they might be - like a loving mother holding and gentling rocking her hurting child. God’s comfort to us is like seeing a safe road, not one surrounded by bandits and wild animals in the shadowy valley, this road will be built for them to travel home on. The journey is long and difficult, but to ease it, God will level hills and fill in valleys and the scrubby wilderness will be laid with green grass like a newly fitted carpet. Every other nation will go - wow, look what God does for His people! Now that’s love! That’s comfort.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: #fefdfa; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: #fefdfa; line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Cardo;">This passage isn’t about a coronavirus action plan but it is about comfort, a reversal of awfulness in love by love to love. We all need comfort - an active, physical knowledge that all shall be well. This is the road, the song, the unbridled hope of Advent. This is how God feels about us. This is how God feels about you. Come home.</span></span></p>Fr. Simon Cutmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08371546028177475152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23987105.post-60963562870832408862020-04-08T14:59:00.001+01:002020-04-08T14:59:25.826+01:00I Am Judas - A Sermon for Wednesday in Holy Week<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-4fb6ba87-7fff-f5f7-8c64-8160d5cfb858" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anxiety is a common emotion amongst many of us. For many of us, in these days of pandemic it will come in waves. We might be enjoying the opportunity to read a chapter or two of a novel each day that we haven't ever quite got to, or to immerse ourselves in a film we have always loved, but perhaps like me, you find that soon after that, anxiety washes into our inner lives as sure as the ebbing tide.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The thing that makes that anxiety so insidious at the moment especially is that it ebbs into our lives as we spend enforced periods of time in the place that should be our security and safety - our homes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anxiety has ebbed even in to Jesus' life as he sits with his security and sureity - his friends and closest companions gathered around a table for food; and that anxiety is there, like a taut drumskin before Judas does what he has to.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Judas gets bad press in Christian tradition. We know little about him. Judas, his given surname could mean that he came from Kerioth a town in southern Judea. Iscariot could also come from a dagger - the sicarius - and it could be a nickname 'dagger man' referring to Judas perhaps belonging to a Jewish terrorist cell - the sicarii. Iscariot could also be a corruption of the aramic word for 'red' and Judas is sometimes portrayed in red clothing or with a red beard in Christian art.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We do not know why Judas betrayed Jesus. Some say it was because he loved money. John describes him as a thief. But to me the way scripture describes him in those sorts of terms feel like an addendum - a naming of the way that Christian tradition has treated him. Two of the Gospel writer ascribe Judas' motives due to diabolic or satanic action.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We find him offensive because of what he did to his friend Jesus--he handed him over into the hands of his enemies. We are offended by that for most of us can identify with the pain of being turned on by a friend. The wounds inflicted by a friend seem to go deeper and hurt more than the wounds inflicted by someone who cared nothing for us. David said in the 55th Psalm, "It was not my enemy who reproached me, for then I could bear it, but it was my friend." So we are offended by Judas because of what he did to his friend.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Judas not only offends us, but he also frightens us, for Judas is an unpleasant reminder to all of us that on any given day a faithful follower, like you or me, could turn from following Christ and stumble out into the night, caught up in the power of darkness and be quickly led to our death.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He frightens us even more when we try to put distance between ourselves and Judas by pointing out all that was wrong and rotten about him. We say Judas allowed himself to be used by that one who is opposed to the things of God, but have we not all at some point in our lives been used by that which is antithetical (totally opposing) to God? We all at some point in our lives have allowed ourselves to be taken over by evil schemes, harmful suggestions, misguided intentions and ruled and guided by other forces and powers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We say Judas lacked honesty and integrity for he stole from the money box over which he had been placed. But have we not all done some things for which we are now ashamed?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We say Judas was small-minded and mean spirited, for he complained when the woman anointed the feet of Jesus with a costly bottle of perfume--but we all have to pray from time to time and ask the Lord to help us not to major in minor things; not to drown in shallow water; nor to lose our soul behind stuff that doesn't amount to anything.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well we say he was duplicitous and deceitful. On the night of the Last Supper when the Lord tried so desperately to reach him, Judas resented correction and resisted reconciliation. He was stubborn; once he made up his mind you couldn't turn him from his course. In a moment of empathetic truth, we see so much of ourselves in Judas.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And so, for whatever reason, Judas decided to walk out on Jesus. He turned from the light, lost his way, and stumbled out into the night. What could entice a person to turn away from Christ? Some people turn away from Jesus out of disillusionment. They thought that faith offered immediate rewards, with little sacrifice, at no cost.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some turn away from Christ when confronted with some unexpected loss or horrific ordeal in their lives. And because they were caught off guard, they think Jesus was also caught off guard or does not care. They seem unaware of the fact that nothing takes our Saviour by surprise, and that Jesus cares for us when no one else does. In fact, he loved us before we loved him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And then, as strange as it may seem, some people turn away from Christ because they say they want more out of life. They believe they have outgrown the faith. They believe other avenues and interests can speak to their condition better than the claims of Christ. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">John says when Judas walked out it was night. When John says it was night he is not simply calling our attention to the clock, he is calling our attention to the condition of any person's soul when they turn from Christ. When Judas, by his own choice, turned from Christ, he cast himself into the worst darkness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Judas is me. Judas is you. We, and especially in times of great stress - where our jobs are not secure, or our relationships are strained, or sickness lies at our door as in these days - can all behave uncharacteristically selfishly for our own ends. Judas is us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When we are Judas we need to be told another story. We need to live another narrative. Even in days of anxiety and in and through our actions and words which betray Jesus, God's glory is revealed. Now, says Jesus, in days and moments like these, are ones that sodden and heavy with the Divine Presence.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Victor Frankl, a survivor of Auschwitz, treated like a brute beast in the concentration camp, wrote about his refusal to accept this definition of himself by holding onto his belief in his humanity, his memories of being loved. He withheld his consent, refused to be an object, though he was unable to change what was happening to him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We encounter Judas today in scripture, but each day in ourselves. This journey that Jesus willingly walked towards the cross is one that darkens as each step falls until it was night. But in the midst of the deepest darkness on the cross, the light and love of God could not be extinguished raised Jesus and reshapes our present and future renames us as much loved children of God.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The name Judas is the Greek version of the Hebrew name Judah, which means God is praised. When we find ourselves awash with anxiety or we betray ourselves of others, or that night is setting in, the light and love of God in Christ that cannot be extinguished still shines on and in and through us transforming our hearts and lives to be places - with Judas - where God is praised.</span></div>
Fr. Simon Cutmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08371546028177475152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23987105.post-18405092539319901682020-04-08T14:59:00.000+01:002020-04-08T14:59:18.290+01:00Save Us! The Prayer Of The Heart - A Sermon For Tuesday In Holy Week<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-d1a7d3ce-7fff-3e68-a4f8-8b1a2ef5d49c" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;">
<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On Sunday, as we recalled Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem with its palm branches and shouts of praise, I remembered that the word ‘hosannah’ does not translate as ‘hurray’ but as ‘save us!’ And all of a sudden the story that we unfold this week takes on a very contemporary edge.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We cannot help but hear this tale through our own current experience of pandemic and social isolation. Yesterday Anne helped us ponder of the wastefulness or not of panic buying; of building HS2; or using venthilators on over 70 year olds with underlying health conditions at the moment; and of Mary of Bethany use of a year’s wages to buy perfume to anoint Jesus. In her case at least - that extravagance was an act of adoration and worship of the Jesus who had transformed her life and that of her sister by raising their brother Lazarus’ to life.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The same crowd that cried out to Jesus to save them in previous days, have generated some further, perhaps more in-depth enquiries of what that saving help might mean … but from the non-Jewish Greek community. They want to see Jesus. Is He wasting his time giving them attention, or not?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jesus doesn’t really answer their request for an audience - and as Greeks they might have expected wise words and rhetoric from this teacher - instead, Jesus seems to speak to Andrew and Philip about the hour having come for the Son of Man to be glorified. A strange response indeed. For St John, the verb to glorify comes over 20 times in his account of Jesus life beginning with </span><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The verb to glorify has a complex meaning. Glory, doxa, in the New Testament is a translation of a Hebrew word - kavod - which means heavy, honour, respect. Someone who has gravitas or authority. Glory, doxa, in Greek society meant common belief or popular opinion. To see the glory of God in the Word made flesh, for John, is about experiencing something of the profound extraordinariness of God in and through Jesus.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To me, Jesus is responding to the request for an audience with Him from those Greeks by reminding them what any time listening to his teaching or seeking to live lives as he has done means. Perhaps this </span><span style="background-color: white; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">may be the best way of understanding what the verb “glorify” means. To listen to Jesus means to learn and learning leads to following and following Jesus points ultimately on towards the cross. To glorify God, for Jesus, is not to appease God’s anger over human sinfulness, but because a death like his can be the means for bearing much fruit. I know that Archbishop Oscar Romero found great consolation in this verse when his own life was threatened and, in fact, his words have reverberated ever more strongly since his assassination.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">‘Save us!’ is the prayer on every person’s lips in these days of pandemic. It’s a cry to our healthcare professionals; to our politicians; to scientists working on a vaccine. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Save us! Is the same taunting cry from the thief crucified alongside Jesus and from neighbours and newspaper editors - why did God inflict this disease on us and how come Jesus is not acting?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In response to the request for an audience seeking wise words and lifestyle choices, Jesus instead points towards a weightier matter; a time and place where God will be honoured and people’s requests will be answered; where popular belief and common opinion will be confronted by the profound extraordinariness of God at work in Him - on the cross.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And in days where families and communities are shattered by grief, here we see a Jesus confronted by that same weight and fear - his soul is troubled; fearful in the depths of his being; to his very core. For Jesus to answer our cries for saving help still, and especially in these days, this is a road he acknowledges he needs to go down. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In these days of pandemic, we will each be heavy with profound and puzzling questions and faced with the reality of death; but we journey these days with Jesus who willingly chose to walk to the cross and embrace it knowing that through it a new relationship with God will be forged for all people everywhere. At the cross we will be heavy with profound and puzzling questions and have to face the reality of death head on, but there we are confronted with glory and an offer of eternal - life transformed by the love and the glory of God in the now - is made still.</span></span></div>
Fr. Simon Cutmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08371546028177475152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23987105.post-65699555078864771852019-11-06T16:13:00.000+00:002019-11-06T18:12:39.929+00:00On A Pause... New Blog Active<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This blog is currently on sabbatical as it were.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I am still blogging but I am reflecting at the moment about some experimenting that I am doing with silence.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You will find me at <a href="https://experimentsinsilence.blogspot.com/">https://experimentsinsilence.blogspot.com</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I hope to maybe see you there.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Blessings!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Simon</span><br />
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<br />Fr. Simon Cutmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08371546028177475152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23987105.post-5843249925876289292019-08-20T16:47:00.002+01:002020-03-01T05:49:58.307+00:00On Being AvailableOne of things expected of us, as parish clergy, is us being available to our parishioners. In the 21st century church this is increasingly difficult to achieve, but hopefully, it remains a cornerstone of the way that Anglicans minister. It is worth noting that being available is not sitting around and waiting for the phone to ring or the doorbell to be pressed. Being available is as much about making ourselves available to others.<br />
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Making ourselves available can occur in many and varied ways. For me, in recent days, this has included taking the Sacrament of Holy Communion to the housebound. This is a joy and privilege that I discovered in my Deacon's year and has remained a vitally important part of the ministry I exercise.<br />
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Earlier this week, as I walked to my car parked outside one of our church buildings to make a Home Communion visit, I encountered a family. We got talking - they were staying in the area on holiday - but that day a much-loved family member's funeral was taking place in the north of Scotland. Their pre-arranged holiday meant that they couldn't attend, and so were delighted to discover the church building open.<br />
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They had already been inside to think, to remember and to pray. They hadn't discovered where they could light a candle in the Lady Chapel - a beacon of hope, love and light in the midst of their grief and a prayer to the God of Compassion in their sorrow.<br />
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I showed them where they could do this, and they lit and candle and prayed for them and those gathered at the funeral many miles away, and for the repose of the soul of their loved one. This gentle act reduced them to tears.<br />
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They were effusive in their thanks that I had just been there and able to pray with them, and that the building was open to hold time and space.<br />
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As we parted ways they assured me that they would come back if staying in the area. In so many ways that doesn't matter. What matters is that the church was available to them; a space in which they knew they could come and be and hold their loved one in the Love of the One who loves us all.<br />
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<br />Fr. Simon Cutmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08371546028177475152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23987105.post-82247212243754967612019-08-19T08:58:00.002+01:002019-08-19T08:58:55.010+01:00The storyteller, faith and Emmanuel's brother: A Sermon on Hebrews 11:29-12:2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://miro.medium.com/max/963/1*HwlAjZjl4RBgnnefDvzWzg.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="722" data-original-width="800" height="288" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/963/1*HwlAjZjl4RBgnnefDvzWzg.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I knew someone once who is a traditional storyteller. I don’t some sort of glorified children’s entertainer. I mean someone who collects and retells the ancient stories of the people and communities and land that makes up these and other islands.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We got talking about why these stories remain important. Anyone who has heard these sorts of stories will know that they resonate deep within your soul. They meet us in a way that can surprise and delight us. He explained that the stories connect us, deeply, with one another. He said: as I retell a story centuries old, the person who told me stands behind me (not literally) with their arm outstretched and their hand on my shoulder, and the person who old them stands behind them with their hand on their shoulder, and the person who told them stands behind them with their hand on their shoulder and so on, right back to the person that the story is about.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #010000; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I first became a Christian in a Lancashire Low Church, I was taught nothing about the Saints of God. I later deduced that the Saints were Jesus’ disciples and others who became close to Him in life or a life of prayer, worship and service. But because they were enshrined forever in stained glass windows, as people to emulate in my own journey of faith, they were unobtainable and deeply removed from my own experiences of life and faith in suburban Preston. Often the writer of the letter to the Hebrews has been quoted and taught to offer a different vision.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #010000; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">The letter to the Hebrews is by an unknown author but was probably written to an early church community living in Jerusalem facing persecution from their fellow Jews for following the new Way of Jesus and it almost exclusively focusses on understanding who Jesus is as Messiah and His role as mediator between God and humanity.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">‘... By faith …’ And so we continue straight on from last week’s section of the epistle. By faith such and such happened to so and so. By faith such and such happened to so and so. Bearing in mind these letters in New Testament were meant to be listened to, for me at least, it feels like the writer - if they were writing today - would be channelling Martin Luther King Jr or Barak Obama or another great orator of our day. It feels like they are reaching some sort of impassioned crescendo - and indeed they are! </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We talk much of faith in the church but we often do so in one of two ways: faith is either a commodity that we are exhorted to have more of so that we might find the gap between those enshrined in stained glass windows and us is lessened. We hear Jesus - O ye of little faith… where your treasure is there your heart will be also… and in these and many other instances, faith is something that we should be seeking to accrue, saving in the heavenly bank so we can cash it in later.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Alternatively, the language of faith is used interchangeably with the language of belief and in that context, we are often then trying to defend a position of faith as being true. We have all been in conversations like this - how does your faith stack up against… insert this week's favourite knockdown offered by the ever noisier evangelical atheists around us. We are constantly being encouraged to have a confident faith - which to me sounds like being sent out armoured to the hilt with great arguments. Faith in that context is the ultimate trump card of propositional truth.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The writer of the letter to the Hebrews offers us another way. The phrase, ‘... by faith…’ comes nearly 20 times in chapter 11 and in every case the expression is used actively. By faith someone </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">did</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> something but this isn’t just in English. In the Greek that the letter is written in, the word for faith - </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>pistis</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - is in the dative tense and is something that someone is a recipient of or an is an action done to them. In other words, faith for that very early Christian community was not something you believe to be true like some sort of equation; nor is it something that if you have enough of God will smile more favourably on you - faith is something that is done or you do; something you give and receive. Faith is something you live out.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://middlechildcatholicpriest.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/lived-faith.jpg?w=1024" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="525" data-original-width="800" height="210" src="https://middlechildcatholicpriest.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/lived-faith.jpg?w=1024" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A year ago, a motorway bridge outside Genoa collapsed plunging cars, lorries and buses to the ground killing 43 and injuring dozens. Henry Diaz was driving his brother Emmanuel to the airport to fly to Columbia to study. By the time Emmanuel reached his destination 140000 km away he heard of the bridge collapse and knew that something was wrong - his brother felt even further away. He later saw footage of his car being removed from the rubble. Henry was dead. Subsequent tests proved the bridge to have fatal flaws in it. Emmanuel has put his studies on hold to care for their mother and to attend the hearing into what happened to discover why what happened on that day happened.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/98BC/production/_108300193_emmanuel2_976.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="213" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/98BC/production/_108300193_emmanuel2_976.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The ‘great cloud of witnesses’ that the writer refers to, are the faithful saints and holy ones of faith gone before us. They are not distant and aloof, enshrined in windows or silenced in plaster busts. The early church that the author writes to was small in number and looked constantly for encouragement as they sought to live faith. Much like the traditional storyteller in a long line of story, or Emmmanuel Diaz in the courtroom in Genoa, they watch the church - the people, you and me - and they notice when faith is lived out. They rejoice when one of us prays for healing for a sick friend. They smile with joy when one of us visits someone who is bereaved. They sing for joy when one of us sings God’s praises. They cheer when one of us stands up for justice. It warms their hearts when one of us supports the needs of a lonely and isolated neighbour. They notice. They are witnesses to what we do and how we live.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What is the writer of the letter to Hebrews asking of us: Simple. Don’t just accumulate faith for some future point. Don’t just learn about faith to win an argument. Live faith. Look to Jesus. Do what He taught - love, forgive, pray for, feed, clothe, seek justice and mercy, not worrying what others think or dwelling on when we fail - live it out - make the cloud of witnesses go nuts.</span></span></div>
Fr. Simon Cutmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08371546028177475152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23987105.post-41122400704951666172019-08-04T20:18:00.000+01:002019-08-04T20:18:27.880+01:00Surrender our life; live His life - a sermon on Colossians 3:1-11<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At a point not far from El Paso, the architect Ronald Rael has installed something beautiful. As a way of reminding people both sides of the US/Mexican border that that which unites is far greater than that which divides, several pink seesaws have been installed between the fence. He said that the event was about bringing joy and togetherness at a place that signifies division, and a reminder to all as they play, that actions on one side have a direct consequence on the other.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">These seesaws are a sign of hope and unity, that the writer of the letter to the Colossians refers at the end of our Epistle this morning. It is a stirring vision - there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian and Scythian, slave and free, and I don’t believe that this is intended as an exhaustive list! - all of the societal, religious and cultural barriers that we continue to maintain that divide - are broken down by and in Christ.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The letter to the Colossians is written to one of the earliest Christian communities. It’s hard to date but it was probably written between 30-60 years after the resurrection. In the section prior to what we hear this morning, the church are being reminded that if they want to have a deep and life-transforming faith, they need to continue to remain rooted in Christ. For a plant to grow it needs to put its roots down into good well-watered soil, so too for the Colossian church. The writer reminds them that by following Christ they have been freed from whatever they believed, or however they behaved, before hearing of the Way of Jesus the Carpenter and seeking to live that out. So because they are free - they shouldn’t feel compelled by other teachers to be bound again by other rules and regulations in regard to their new faith. In other words - the writer of the letter doesn’t want them to slip back into an expression of faith that says ‘if I do this or that, or avoid this or that, I will please God.’ The writer says ‘NO!’ - they have been living the new life Christ promised already - focus on that.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘... </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So if you have been raised with Christ… [s]et your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth…’</span></i></span><br />
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<a href="https://www.britishironworkcentre.co.uk/media/wysiwyg/M.Jaworska1_WPS.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="514" data-original-width="800" height="205" src="https://www.britishironworkcentre.co.uk/media/wysiwyg/M.Jaworska1_WPS.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The remarkable sculpture, the Knife Angel, has been touring the UK since 2018. The 27 foot tall sculpture made with over 100,000 knives is an artistic response to the ‘surrender a knife; save a life’ campaign run by the police in 2014. The angel looms large reminding us that the status quo regarding knife crime and violence in our communities must not continue and something new must be forged.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The writer of the letter to the Colossians, contrary to what the opening verses sound like they are saying, is encouraging the church to continue to live in the now, the new life forged for us all by Christ. They are not</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> asking their hearers to step out of the world and focus their endeavours on things that are above or otherworldly, thus ignoring life around us. Rather as Christians, as we live Jesus’ life in us and look to Him as our raised and ascended Lord, so we should allow the life and values forged from ‘above’, of heaven, to permeate our daily living. In other words - we need to continue to allow the teaching of Jesus risen and ascended to guide us. Living this way should mean that the way we act and react should be transformed.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #010000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Thus, the things that should be put to death (on the cross of Christ) and got rid of are actions and individual character traits that will ultimately harm us and those around us. They are listed by the writer as examples of what someone who’s eyes are not focussed on Christ, who’s life is not being oriented His way, might do or think. But if we don’t read this passage through the lenses of the Old Testament we might miss the hint that this renewal, that we who seek to follow Christ are invited to consciously put on like a coat, renews us in the relationship that God wanted to have with people as told in story form in the book of Genesis. Similarly if we don’t read this passage through the lens of empire and nation-building we might miss the hint that the renewed relationship that we called into in Christ doesn’t so much do away with our cultural, religious and ethnic differences, but that all are welcomed into that relationship, no one is excluded, and Christ Himself as we look to Him, fills all of us with the life of heaven.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #010000; font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Like the Colossian church, if we are seeking to live as our risen and ascended Lord has shown us, what actions and thoughts should characterise us individually and corporately? The writer of the letter is suggesting that in the same way that the clothes we chose to wear to church this morning were carefully chosen because we like the colour/fabric/the fit/the way they look/the ways they make us feel/or even say something about us - so, as we continue to put on the renewed life of Christ - our inner thoughts and outward actions should point to the One whose love is transforming our hearts. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Firstly, I’d like to encourage each of you to take time each day to read a little scripture. Remind yourself of the story of Christ in the Gospel. Start with Mark’s account - it’s short and has less tricky theology. Read a portion each day. Ponder it. Try to live what Jesus teaches. </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://www.cru.org/content/experience-fragments/shared-library/language-masters/en/train-and-grow/spiritual-growth/devotionals/how-to-study-a-passage-of-scripture/how-to-study-a-passage-of-scripture/_jcr_content/root/image.coreimg.jpeg/1537452699775/how-to-study-passage-scripture.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="180" src="https://www.cru.org/content/experience-fragments/shared-library/language-masters/en/train-and-grow/spiritual-growth/devotionals/how-to-study-a-passage-of-scripture/how-to-study-a-passage-of-scripture/_jcr_content/root/image.coreimg.jpeg/1537452699775/how-to-study-passage-scripture.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #010000; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Secondly, pray. Prayer places us intentionally in God’s presence. Many of us find prayer difficult, so keep the prayer simple - the Lord’s Prayer is a good place to start. Say it every day.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://aleteiaen.files.wordpress.com/2018/09/web3-communion-church-priest-pascal-deloche-godong.jpg?quality=100&strip=all&w=620&h=310&crop=1" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="310" data-original-width="620" height="160" src="https://aleteiaen.files.wordpress.com/2018/09/web3-communion-church-priest-pascal-deloche-godong.jpg?quality=100&strip=all&w=620&h=310&crop=1" width="320" /></a></div>
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Fr. Simon Cutmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08371546028177475152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23987105.post-7865270095178909002019-07-04T22:23:00.000+01:002019-07-04T23:24:10.050+01:00Musing On My Green Stole<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Thursday 4th July 2019.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGB925J0WmP5fmgMAdgxzOqFqbpQXx6gqiLWPdtxHDMwN5u9w-Fpi2uQujitAD8FKTnulUL7nmgkBJKUaF9nocf6MAUB3G33ZLIXeO33-qEnFKjKs9Zj7SM_EyknN0B4CXcdjR/s1600/IMG_20190704_202156.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1154" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGB925J0WmP5fmgMAdgxzOqFqbpQXx6gqiLWPdtxHDMwN5u9w-Fpi2uQujitAD8FKTnulUL7nmgkBJKUaF9nocf6MAUB3G33ZLIXeO33-qEnFKjKs9Zj7SM_EyknN0B4CXcdjR/s320/IMG_20190704_202156.jpg" width="230" /></a></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-2547a6d7-7fff-d7dc-2853-736e71408312" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am writing this on the 20th anniversary of my ordination to the Diaconate. The picture shows one of the stoles given to me to mark that occasion. It came from the congregations at Holy Trinity Maisons-Laffitte where I had worked as a Youth and Children’s Worker and Chaplaincy Assistant for two years, and where my vocation was tested.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When Sam saw it recently he noted that the beautiful silk panels (of two icons that the church gave me when I moved to Durham to begin my training) were starting to show some wear and tear and perhaps I should seek some help in restoring them. But tonight I realise that this stole bears the marks and scars and love of those 20 years and in many ways what it means for me and you to exercise the ministry Christ calls us to.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSjV73oA6RsCmag4KLHcDLCLuSeeoU3SLnzZlZRtUCj91J7N_nBypkGXpKPPMbf-7EuMxIRmVnh6R66YfboaZCdcBApk7f7CWtqdKYGASGHL1sbfoV-uADDZs-vG52MQb03DOV/s1600/IMG_20190704_204556.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSjV73oA6RsCmag4KLHcDLCLuSeeoU3SLnzZlZRtUCj91J7N_nBypkGXpKPPMbf-7EuMxIRmVnh6R66YfboaZCdcBApk7f7CWtqdKYGASGHL1sbfoV-uADDZs-vG52MQb03DOV/s320/IMG_20190704_204556.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One side of the stole has a stain on it - either a drip of wax ironed off with greaseproof paper as my incumbent taught me, from one of the many candlelit services we seemed to hold in my Curacy parish; but more likely though it is a drip of wine from the very many times I have worn it to take Holy Communion to the sick or housebound - where the parishioner received Jesus in the bread and wine of the Eucharist, and I met him in strong brown tea in a chipped mug and bendy biscuit.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The nape of the neck is pretty grubby, sweat stained dare I say, reminding me of the many Eucharist’s I wore it at in my Curacy parish (but sadly less so subsequently), where I had the privilege of serving at the altar, administering the Sacrament, preaching God’s word; but also reminding me of the number of times I lugged chairs around before or after an event, or led an assembly, or sat with a bereaved family and planned the funeral of a loved one, or led a Eucharist in a hospital or nursing or care home, or sat with someone lonely or broken.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3mLOsPa3gA6LrYMyD6YbOs5y-OdgXp-ipdZJACyz5VDJnFi7pp54yRJ5v3K5H040lvYnTS2ge5ogvc3dYDQcNQqHe8diZqDiq0PYEGyaEbj8TGDIjUWim0Q_6cPnq3EGNF_z3/s1600/IMG_20190704_204524.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3mLOsPa3gA6LrYMyD6YbOs5y-OdgXp-ipdZJACyz5VDJnFi7pp54yRJ5v3K5H040lvYnTS2ge5ogvc3dYDQcNQqHe8diZqDiq0PYEGyaEbj8TGDIjUWim0Q_6cPnq3EGNF_z3/s320/IMG_20190704_204524.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There is a thread pulled out slightly on one side of it, leaving it imperfect. This is from where I had to pin it when I wore it as a Deacon. That pull reminds me that, 20 years later, I am still imperfect and blemished. It reminds me of the number of God’s people I should have ministered to differently, of the situations or conversations that with hindsight I realise I could have handled in other ways. But that pull is part of a beautiful whole - God loves despite it all.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In many ways, 20 years later, I can confidently say that being a Deacon has left an indelible mark on the ministry I am called to exercise. In an age of Renewal and Reform in the Church of England, where a ‘growth agenda’ at all costs, and an increasing emphasis on a culture of leadership seems to be the driving force of ministry, this stole calls me and you to be something different.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As Sam readied himself to be ordained a priest recently, I did what I do annually at this time of year, and returned to the Ordinal to be reminded of what the church hopes that these ministries might be as part of the priestly ministry of the whole people of God:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">‘... The Church is the Body of Christ, the people of God and the dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit. In baptism, the whole Church is summoned to witness to God’s love and to work for the coming of his kingdom.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To serve this royal priesthood, God has given a variety of ministries. Deacons are ordained so that the people of God may be better equipped to make Christ known. Theirs is a life of visible self-giving. Christ is the pattern of their calling and their commission; as he washed the feet of his disciples, so they must wash the feet of others… </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To serve this royal priesthood, God has given particular ministries. Priests are ordained to lead God’s people in the offering of praise and the proclamation of the gospel. They share with the Bishop in the oversight of the Church, delighting in its beauty and rejoicing in its well-being. They are to set the example of the Good Shepherd always before them as the pattern of their calling. With the Bishop and their fellow presbyters, they are to sustain the community of the faithful by the ministry of word and sacrament, that we all may grow into the fullness of Christ and be a living sacrifice acceptable to God…’</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The call of God on all of our lives is one of love, to be in a relationship of love with Him, and in turn to call others into that same relationship themselves. We answer that call first at our Baptism and it finds fulfilment in our following of Jesus in our lives, whether as sidesperson, reader of readings, leader of intercessions, maker of a good cuppa, a listening ear, a friend to your lonely neighbour, Deacon, Priest, Bishop or Reader, teacher, bank manager, bus driver, Cub Scout leader and so on. What Jesus calls us all to, is not a glamourous leadership role for which we will be extolled for our courage or skill - rather it is a way of love that cannot be easily quantified or counted and which often goes often unnoticed - but it is there, the Kingdom is revealed.</span></span></div>
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Fr. Simon Cutmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08371546028177475152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23987105.post-81548694359213421682019-07-02T15:21:00.000+01:002019-07-02T15:21:28.103+01:00On Funerals and Funeral Addresses<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ahhhh, my much-maligned blog... I've not posted anything here for ages...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So by way of seeking to remedy that, I enclose a funeral address from this week. I have done many funerals over 20 years of Diaconal ministry. They are all as much a unique privilege as the people we commend and commit to God are.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Some funerals live with you... of babies; suicides; circus or traveller funerals; of an elderly couple, the wife died and then days later the husband died of a broken heart; a Council contract funeral for a tenant in social housing who died with no traceable relatives.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Other funerals live with you because they are of people you have known and loved and worshipped alongside either in the church building or at home. They leave their mark on our hearts.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For me, a funeral should always hold that tension of acknowledging and naming grief whilst also offering Christian Hope. The address is always a key part of any funeral liturgy for me, as it is then that I have the chance to reflect the light of the Gospel on the life of the deceased. It is a chance to offer those of us present a different narrative. A narrative that needs to be sensitively offered - even in the face of real tragedy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I presided at a funeral yesterday with my colleague. I wrote an address (now anonymised) based on <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=429074799" target="_blank">1 Corinthians 13:1-8a.</a> I hope I got the balance right.</span><br />
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<img alt="Image result for Stephen Fry what makes human" height="225" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/640x360/p07fbbb2.jpg" width="400" /></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; clear: left; color: black; float: left; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><span style="background-color: transparent; clear: left; color: black; float: left; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-align: left;">I heard Stephen Fry speaking in a slot on a radio show the other day about what it means to be human. For him, the essence of our humanity is our use of language; our ability to </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-align: left;">communicate meaningfully and deeply with each other.</span></span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-c2c05eae-7fff-c8ca-3bfa-3e9250c15d9d" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">St Paul would disagree with Stephen Fry on a whole range of issues, but chiefly I suspect he would disagree with him on the thing that makes us human. St Paul reminds us today that our humanity is not dependent on speech or spirituality, not on faith or philanthropy but on love - and our ability to give, receive and live it. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For us all here today, love is life’s ultimate quest, and we search for it in all sorts of situations and circumstances. For people of faith, and especially those of us who call ourselves Christians, love isn’t just what defines us as human or the highest of all emotions, but the very nature of God. God doesn’t just love. God </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> love. Love revealed supremely, personally in the flesh and blood of Jesus.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">St Paul tells that no matter what else we may or may not be able to do or achieve - it is love that defines us. Love is the reason we gather today. Each of you has been touched in love by J or in turn by the love she has brought up S, A and H to live out. The love of God in Jesus is eternally strong - calling each of us - as it did J - to better living and better loving. God’s love for us is such that not even when confronted with the deep darkness of tragedy and death - and love seems to be snuffed out like a candle - we discover that the light of love can never be fully extinguished. God’s love in Jesus is so strong that not even the grave could contain it, raising him from death, and offering each of us hope - shining like bright light in the midst of our present darkness.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Candle_(Slava_celebration).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="603" height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Candle_(Slava_celebration).jpg" width="241" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">St Paul reminds us, that through it all love never ends. Later in the passage we heard read, Paul speaks of his experience as though he and we were still missing something. He still has ultimate questions for which there are just no answers. He talks of, '... seeing as if in a mirror dimly...' and '...knowing only in part...' Perhaps that is because our lives and the direction they take are ultimately a mystery despite the plans we lay. As we gather to remember J today, we come seeking answers to ultimate questions: for which there are just no answers. Whilst your lives have been intertwined with J's with a host of memories and stories - you perhaps quite rightly feel cheated out of many many more - death, however abrupt or painful is the most puzzling aspect of living, and yet… even it cannot snatch away your memories and stories of J's or the love she has etched into your hearts.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">St Paul speaks of love that never ends - love that is the essence of God. For J, and for all who call themselves Christian - the love of God in Jesus opens up our lives and calls us to respond to it’s source. Thus faith is not a monlogue into a dark void - but an inviation into a relationship with the source of all love. Faith allows us to draw from that source, flowing freely, available to us all.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Love for J and her family is the reason we gather today. Today of all days, St Paul reminds us that all love points us back to it’s source in the love of God. God’s love for each of us is eternally strong and I pray that it would well up within each of us today and in the days to come, that through it we may daily find the resources we each need, not just for living but for living in and out love, as J did. Amen.</span></div>
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Fr. Simon Cutmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08371546028177475152noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23987105.post-55099214037973353202019-03-11T12:40:00.001+00:002019-03-11T12:40:29.892+00:00Jodie, The Colour Purple and the Protection of God<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/03/07/23/10720926-6781745-image-a-29_1552001007636.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="213" src="https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/03/07/23/10720926-6781745-image-a-29_1552001007636.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #010000; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">They dyed their hair purple and hung purple ribbons around the area using her favourite colour. Her peers instead of a minute’s silence had a minute of applause. Closer to our home, some built a circle of stones - the traditional tracking symbol for a Scout to know that someone being tracked has gone home, but also the traditional Scouting way of remembering one of their own who has died. All of this done to remember Jodie Chesney, who was stabbed to death in Romford - the fifth teenager to die in the capital this year. How can this be?</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #010000; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Calls to build a wall continue to spout from the office of the president in the White House whilst concerns, ramped up by certain sections of the British press continue to ask popular but unpalatable questions about immigration, crime and employment.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #010000; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Despite all the political wooing of North Korea in recent months, there seems to be renewed construction underway at a rocket launch site, amid mounting fears of an imminent ICBM test.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #010000; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">All of these questions of safety and security, of national identity, of ethnicity and cultural heritage, are all in the mind of the community that the Psalmist was part of. Midrash tradition says that Psalm 91 was written by Moses on the day that the tabernacle for the ark of the covenant was completed and was recited by him as he made his way up Mount Saini to protect him from angels of destruction. The psalm is said today in the Jewish community before sleep and during the burial of the dead.</span></span></div>
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<a href="http://rushindu.nextmp.net/media/catalog/product/cache/3/image/920x920/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/S/o/Soldier_s_Psalm_Coin2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://rushindu.nextmp.net/media/catalog/product/cache/3/image/920x920/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/S/o/Soldier_s_Psalm_Coin2.jpg" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #010000; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is known as the Soldiers Psalm or Prayer and bandanas or badges with it imprinted are often given to US troops and verses of this psalm are quoted by the devil to Jesus in this morning’s Gospel reading as Jesus deals with temptation.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #010000; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the face of personal, national and international fear and uncertainty, in a time when we might want to be lifted out of a situation that it out of our control; when we wish we could escape a scenario that is not of our making or that is not going our way; when we fear for our lives or the lives of those we love; the opening verses of the psalm present us with an image not of a mother hen and with us her chicks nestled beneath her, but of God as the Almighty, as a fortress or refuge. God like a massive bird of prey, powerful and yet intimate images of protection. God’s angelic wings will be a sure protection in the face of all attack. No evil will affect us or even come close to the places where we dwell but not just us, but all those who dwell with us in our tent. God will protect families and communities.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.sandramccollom.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Gods-Protection-Over-Us-1030x671.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="521" data-original-width="800" height="208" src="https://www.sandramccollom.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Gods-Protection-Over-Us-1030x671.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #010000; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If these words were said by Moses as he climbed the mountain and recited by the people of Israel as they pilgrimaged through the wilderness, these were words said by a people on the move. So when the devil quotes verses 11 and 12, ‘... For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone…’ to Jesus he was meaning that God will surely protect Jesus if He jumped, but the original context was about avoiding the rocks and stones that littered the desert as the people walked. God has such a close eye on us that He won’t let us stumble on a stone, He will not let us trip and if something blocks our way - he will bear us up, lifting us up over it. The psalmist acknowledges that things will block our way, that our path through life will not always be easy, sometimes the road will be hard and dangerous. It doesn’t say that God will make the road of life smooth for the faithful. Bad and difficult things will come, but we encounter them with His protection. In those situations, if we call to God, He will answer, He will protect, He will deliver. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #010000; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But, notice that the psalm is not a litmus test of faith. Being able to tread on adders, lions and serpents is not a sign of God’s favour. Sometimes we will step on an adder as it were, a lion will leap out at us unprepared - tragedy and danger will come even to those who love God. But, God is there. Talk of long life is, therefore, is not about avoiding tragic death because of our faith, rather it is a metaphor for God’s blessing, of his favour, of His presence and love.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #010000; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">God says he will do all of this for those who love Him and for their communities. These words, therefore, are very contemporary and ones of all-encompassing hope to the tense streets of our capital, to communities frightened about their identity because of the presence of others, but also to those of us concerned about what a nationalist politics might bring to the international stage or how we might walk forward when confronted by personal tragedy or illness and to all of us who keep this holy season as a time dedicated to deepening our love of the One who watches over us: keep walking; keep loving and trusting God. He is there.</span></span></div>
Fr. Simon Cutmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08371546028177475152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23987105.post-41295597244002358602019-02-27T15:09:00.002+00:002019-02-27T15:10:11.227+00:00The Man Sat On The Wall<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I enjoyed a sunny dog walk in the late morning today. As I neared home, I met a Muslim taxi driver who parks in the road outside the church. We've met before and exchanged pleasantries.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; text-align: center;">Today our hellos led to something more. We sat next to each other on the wall and talked candidly and openly. The wall didn't divide us. Instead, it was a place that allowed us to meet as equals, as fellow pilgrims.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">He talked about his Muslim faith. He spoke about seeing himself more as a cultural Muslim now, but those stories and traditions are part of his own story and therefore have enormous depth and meaning for him still. He talked using the language of a spiritual seeker - he spoke how he valued meditation and I spoke about how contemplation and silence are a strong strand within my own faith and I suspected within some Islamic traditions too. We talked expansively about the similarities and differences between Islam and Jesus' way.</span></div>
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<a href="https://media.npr.org/assets/artslife/books/2010/08/the-tenth-parallel/islamic-christian-f7956d513f609d5d620cf096093d8243b1fa84f3-s800-c15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://media.npr.org/assets/artslife/books/2010/08/the-tenth-parallel/islamic-christian-f7956d513f609d5d620cf096093d8243b1fa84f3-s800-c15.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We touched on who Jesus includes and excludes - especially how Jesus sought to reach out to those on the edge socially, culturally and religiously; on Jesus' response in scripture to other faith traditions; on shared stories in our scripture; and the t</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">hree words for love in Greek and how as a Christian I'm called to consciously choose to enact agapé to all. I spoke about Jesus showing that by washing his disciples' feet - something which seemed to move and impress my new friend deeply. I spoke about how Christian faith, for me at least is not about assenting to propositional theology, but about following the Way, living a lifestyle. How do I do what Jesus did or say what He said?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">He spoke about how peaceful he found the Garden of Remembrance in our churchyard and how he liked to sit on the bench there. I spoke about that place being somewhere that gained meaning by being a place of memory and story, but it also being a place where people have ultimately encountered God as we have entrusted those who are beloved to His care and keeping.</span></div>
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I invited him to sit there any time, but also to feel free to sit in church. This invitation seemed to move him again. I talked about that peacefulness he feels being the presence of God.</div>
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One of those amazing chance encounters that remind me of Jesus encounter with the woman at the well. Here was someone thirstily seeking the water of life.</div>
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Fr. Simon Cutmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08371546028177475152noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23987105.post-88593709346783771302019-02-26T20:53:00.002+00:002019-02-26T21:09:25.305+00:00Addressing the District Council.<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Tonight I had the privilege (& I mean it) of addressing Three Rivers District Council before their meeting and leading them in prayer. Here's what I tried to say.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">~~~</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">One of the privileges of ministering in the Church of England is the parish system. This means I have a responsibility to look out for the welfare and wellbeing of all who live in Mill End, Heronsgate, West Hyde and Maple Cross. Sometimes that will involve speaking up for the people in the communities I serve, especially when they are faced with injustice. Sometimes that will involve working with you (as councillors). Sometimes when those in most need are affected through the loss of community facilitates (whether that be bus routes or community sports facilities) that will involve me speaking out.</span><br />
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<a href="https://news.fordham.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Identity-and-Social-Justice-2-702x336.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="702" height="153" src="https://news.fordham.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Identity-and-Social-Justice-2-702x336.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I was reminded of all of that when I was at a meeting in Maple Cross last night where we discussed extending the reach of the Rickmansworth foodbank and establishing a new Community Cafe to seek to provide a hot meal to local families who otherwise wouldn't easily have access to that during school holidays.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">You might say that as a representative of the church I should stay away from decision making like that as it sounds overtly political. But I cannot but seek to when the one I follow, namely Jesus, calls me to love my neighbour as myself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The way that Jesus teaches its all about relationships with neighbours whoever they are, whether they are refugees, asylum seekers or EU nationals.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuHJqcAmYDcQH9GUxxXD-fh56bmooPwcN4b7-7zylxsuqLM-_7R4GZLPzPWqIxmQsrtPZ31jnbFLdICMmzsDjKh-CRy64oeLhtECn8nmj3_yIETPqsxpyRgHe9FMeB9wf2MYsN/s1600/love-thy-neighbour.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="756" data-original-width="756" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuHJqcAmYDcQH9GUxxXD-fh56bmooPwcN4b7-7zylxsuqLM-_7R4GZLPzPWqIxmQsrtPZ31jnbFLdICMmzsDjKh-CRy64oeLhtECn8nmj3_yIETPqsxpyRgHe9FMeB9wf2MYsN/s1600/love-thy-neighbour.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">One of my heroes of faith, Desmond Tutu once said 'the Gospel for a hungry person is bread.' Bread could be housing, education or access to health care - it's about practically meeting the need of those most in need in our communities.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I look forward to continuing to working with you to ensure that those in greatest need get support because Jesus tells us to and because it's the humane thing to do.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Let us pray.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Almighty God, </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">you have created the heavens and the earth </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">and made us in your own image: t</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">each us to discern your hand in all your works </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">and your likeness in all your children; t</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">hrough Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Living God, d</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">eliver us from a world, counties and communities without justice </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">and a future without mercy; i</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">n your mercy, establish justice, a</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">nd in your justice, remember the mercy r</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">evealed to us in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.</span>Fr. Simon Cutmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08371546028177475152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23987105.post-37870305771036112019-02-13T22:11:00.003+00:002019-02-13T23:23:10.856+00:00Stranger In A Strange Land - Reflections on Psalm 137<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>Psalm 137</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>1By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, ♦</i></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>when we remembered Zion.</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>2As for our lyres, we hung them up ♦</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>on the willows that grow in that land.</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>3For there our captors asked for a song,</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>our tormentors called for mirth: ♦</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion.’ </i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>4How shall we sing the Lord’s song ♦</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>in a strange land?</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>5If I forget you, O Jerusalem, ♦</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>let my right hand forget its skill.</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>6Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>if I do not remember you, ♦</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>if I set not Jerusalem above my highest joy. </i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>7Remember, O Lord, against the people of Edom</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>the day of Jerusalem, ♦</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>how they said, ‘Down with it, down with it,</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>even to the ground.’</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>8O daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, ♦</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>happy the one who repays you</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>for all you have done to us;</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>9Who takes your little ones, ♦</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><i>and dashes them against the rock.</i></span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Aside from the challenging images in the latter verses of the psalm, verses which the ASB (Alternative Service Book - an earlier version of the Church of England’s liturgy) bracketed off, I was reminded today as I was at a Quiet Day led by our Bishop on the Psalms, that the verses of Psalm 137 speak to the contemporary church.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></b> <b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It also made me think of a certain Iron Maiden song...</span></b><br />
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UJsl-bB7lmk" width="560"></iframe> </span></b></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The writer picks up on the idea of being far from home; somewhere which is unknown. There is a lack of identity; a dislocation from the community’s story; where language and customs are meaningless and all this is held by a small group. It feels vulnerable and precarious.</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The danger, in those occasions, is to give up. To hang up our lyre as it were; to no longer sing the songs or retell the stories; to allow meaninglessness to prevail.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The writer looks back to a former time in Jerusalem where this all made sense and the exiles were home. The issue with living like that is that we end up longing for former things. '... God is not the God of the dead but of the living...' '... Behold I make all things new...'</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">How do we live as exiles - as people of monotheistic faith in a pluralist and sometimes hostile landscape - live without looking backwards? How do we live in the now shaped by the God who was, who is and who is to come? How do sing the songs and tell the story now, without wishing to give up?</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">What scripture speaks into that? The Emmaus road account - walking away from Jerusalem into a new reality where Jesus is not dead but alive? The burning bush - from there Moses is sent by God on with God’s people.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The Psalmist talks with passion about not forgetting Jerusalem and the associated stories and centre of faith to give confidence to their present.</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">What of the church in 21st century England? Are we in exile? In many ways we are in a strange land. A place and time where the stories and songs of our faith make little sense except to a smaller community. Do we entrench? Do we give up? The psalmist would encourage us not to. We are to remember the heart of our faith with its customs and songs but to live in the present - the eternal moment that Elliot hints at in Little Gidding - knowing that the One who was and is and is to come is there too.</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It leaves me with thoughts about faithfulness and about discipline. There is no hint in this psalm (or in Judaism per se) of the need for evangelism. There isn’t a sense from the psalmist that they better seek new recruits in this strange place of exile because unless they do they will die. Rather the psalm, for the Christian, hints at a return not to a place but into a relationship - with God - through Jesus Christ. What does this psalm say in a church driven by a growth agenda and Renewal and Reform?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Prayer:</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">God of our pilgrimage,</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">you sent your Son to our strange land</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">to bring us home to you;</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">give us your songs to sing,</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">that even in our exile</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">of Jesus Christ our Lord. <b>Amen</b>.</span><br />
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Fr. Simon Cutmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08371546028177475152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23987105.post-17482875416070136362019-02-03T19:23:00.002+00:002019-02-04T22:57:59.732+00:00A Growing Faith. A Growing Church.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-weight: 400;">I'm thinking a lot these days about church growth. I am convinced that the church grows when God wills it. In some senses that's the stop and start of it.</span></div>
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There are things that we can be engaged in that open us up to being formed by God and therefore open to growth ourselves. As St Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:6: <i>'...Paul planted, Apollos watered, but it is God who gives the growth...'</i></div>
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<a href="https://www-images.christianitytoday.com/images/80304.jpg?w=700" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="394" data-original-width="700" height="180" src="https://www-images.christianitytoday.com/images/80304.jpg?w=700" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><u>Prayer</u></b>.</div>
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We should be disciplined and diligent in prayer. Prayer places us intentionally in the presence of God and as we share our hopes and dreams with God, so He shares His with us. Prayer can happen anywhere - o<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">n our own as we walk the dog; with others in a small group; dwelling in silence together listening for the voice of God. If you're unsure how to pray why not join me/us across the week (Monday 7.30am12noon/4pm; Tuesday 8.45am/12noon/4pm; Wednesday 8.45am/12noon; Thursday 7.30am/12noon/7pm & Saturday 9.30am.) You can find the liturgy we use available <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aimermedia.dailyprayer&hl=en_GB&fbclid=IwAR1xMkfOGF4AqrHpxkNJZY1RDKvn7jpHxUDZ34f0yb-7bWruTEBWFGdEfnM">here</a> or <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/daily-prayer/id818491760?mt=8&fbclid=IwAR3p1bQulpzw7qHJFFzQdnbUcrXHtAw3DQJ71wkPJamoK-14gTNRmfaLh38">here</a>.</span></div>
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<b><u>Scripture.</u></b></div>
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Immersing ourselves in Scripture enables us to become more familiar with the story of our faith and thus building resilience and confidence. Engaging with Scripture also opens us up - along with prayer - to the ways and purposes of God. Reading scripture for scripture's sake is a good thing, but then to spend time with others' wisdom (through Bible notes or a course or conversation) forms us in faith.</div>
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<b><u>The Sacraments.</u></b></div>
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The Sacraments are about revealing outwardly the grace of God at work within us. Thus seeking Baptism and Confirmation; partaking regularly in Holy Communion; offering and receiving prayer for healing by anointed with Holy Oil; looking to be reconciled with those whom we have let down and with God are all about building and reshaping relationships. Traditionally, the church talks of Sacraments of Service, which will usually refer Ordination and Marriage. Those two sacraments are not for everyone and they are a specific and particular call - but service more generally, seeking to put our faith into action, to serve and love one another is fundamental in following the way of Christ, and shaping community.</div>
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Faithfully living this way forms us in faith, calls us to be disciples, keeps us attentive to our Teacher, and opens us up to being signs of the Kingdom where God sets us.</div>
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Fr. Simon Cutmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08371546028177475152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23987105.post-16480010973212621882019-01-27T22:04:00.002+00:002019-01-27T22:09:36.469+00:00What Hope Looks LIke<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I asked some of my friends recently what hope looked like and to give me some examples. Whichever way one voted in the Brexit referendum in 2016, it is hard not to get dragged down by the bleak prospects predicted for our nation post March 29th. As a result, perhaps, we need a sense of hope more than ever. There were a number of insightful suggestions. One wrote,</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">‘... Hope is not for the selfish. It is not a thing we should cling to or hang onto, it is the thing we should give to others. If someone around you is looking for hope, give it to them. This is not done in positive soundbites or long speeches, it is done with love. "Faith, hope and love. These three remain". No coincidence that all three are gifts. Gifts are not for keeping but for giving…’</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXXamznxB6iYMLqbFat5rNTSZFJTCBrAdvB_xINtIeKd8FqkDC5IUqMdqjhwqp0QW3RNOmrhRtbeXDZs5Mmj3Y4uNbnnHgoAWjau61jNdL0mxAiqfTQdBt2Lqyu9SUtQd4ypII/s1600/keyhole+photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="574" data-original-width="960" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXXamznxB6iYMLqbFat5rNTSZFJTCBrAdvB_xINtIeKd8FqkDC5IUqMdqjhwqp0QW3RNOmrhRtbeXDZs5Mmj3Y4uNbnnHgoAWjau61jNdL0mxAiqfTQdBt2Lqyu9SUtQd4ypII/s320/keyhole+photo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Another wrote movingly,</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">‘... hope isn't is wishful thinking. It's a brutal fact that each of my children have a 50% chance of having inherited my husband’s condition/genetic mutation. 50% chance that they all have it, or none of them. Wishful thinking might make me ignore this statistic. Hope means that I believe that they can all live rich and fulfilling lives, and at their futures are in God's hands…’</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In my experience, the word hope is one that is used with some regularly within faith communities. Hope for Christians is not feeble and frail, but sure and certain. It is simultaneously something on the horizon towards which we travel, but also something tangible which we hold in our hands and travels with us. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXIDjiAt8w6FEJryQbHRj4oSYNhW_bj4cLTulLvq0q0z7VcAfY1UcPGLTzizHNWzfHjy73EWlUn4Br5GYwKZjAtCKetfwsBLoLaj_ErZ6hSlcR8YDkNRkuhGSKak_teLgsCjxX/s1600/12289734_1738759249679034_762808666631124338_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="912" data-original-width="960" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXIDjiAt8w6FEJryQbHRj4oSYNhW_bj4cLTulLvq0q0z7VcAfY1UcPGLTzizHNWzfHjy73EWlUn4Br5GYwKZjAtCKetfwsBLoLaj_ErZ6hSlcR8YDkNRkuhGSKak_teLgsCjxX/s320/12289734_1738759249679034_762808666631124338_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Hope is God’s business. It is second chances, restored relationships, forgiveness given and received, and outsiders welcomed, and the wayward returned home.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In these days before Lent, we are reminded that God’s business of hope is found both on the horizon: at the cross towards which we journey; and in the nail imprinted hands of Jesus. As his family, that is true for us too: at the cross, we are invited to crucify with Christ that which divides and dehumanises, but also to remember that as we bear the mark of Christ on and in us by virtue of our baptism - we hold the hope for which so many look and long for in our hands.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 10pt; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The Benedictines have a motto - <i>laborare est orare</i> - to work is to pray - the idea being that their life together in the monastery would have plentiful helpings of both, but both were of equal importance in a life with God. In that sense, praying is seeking to align our lives with God and to seek His will for us. It is not just something we say, but rather something we do; something we are.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It is all too easy when one is feeling hopeless, to look to hope arriving from on high. In these days, let our hands, our lips, our hearts and our lives be the hope that we and our communities need. Hope is a work of God in and for us; like our prayers, let it be something we do; something we are.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Fr. Simon Cutmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08371546028177475152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23987105.post-84634337606770186682018-12-23T21:59:00.000+00:002018-12-23T22:21:00.691+00:00Stop Preaching - Start Singing (A Sermon for Advent 4)<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FtQ2yGJmXnI" width="560"></iframe></div>
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<i style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif; font-size: small; white-space: pre-wrap;">Middletown Dreams by Rush - one of my favourite songs.</i></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There is something evocative and beautiful about a song. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Songs have the capacity to transport us to far off shores or to the innermost parts of our being; to lift or to lower our mood. Music also can carry or even tell a community’s story - think about the music you enjoy and the way that it hangs as a backdrop to your own life or the way that you have enjoyed in sharing it with others. Music can also tenderly hold our hopes and dreams - the psalms in the heart of the Old Testament do just that - they bring every gamut of human emotion and experience into the presence of God. </span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ariana Grande at teh One Love Manchester concert.</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But that is true in the secular sphere - cast your minds back to the One Love Manchester concert organised by the singer Ariana Grande following the terrorist attack at her concert held at the Manchester Arena where 23 people died and 139 people were injured; or further back to the Live Aid concerts. The music performed on those occasions carried themes of love and justice which transcended politics, race and creed and carried a universal hope.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There is also something about a song which touches our hearts in such a way that enables us to enter into the reality and experience of that which is being voiced. When we listen to love songs we find a new language to express our deepest feelings for another. When we hear a song crying for justice it gives us new solidarity with those who long to be set free. In other words, in the same ways that the food that we consume becomes part of us to enable us to live - we are what we eat - what we sing shapes our inner world in such a way that it can cause us to reshape our outer world individually and corporately - we are what we sing or what is sung over us. We are both <i>homo sapien</i> and <i>homo musicus</i>. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span></span><a href="https://www.audicus.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/blog_evolution-music1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="241" data-original-width="400" height="192" src="https://www.audicus.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/blog_evolution-music1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Humanity’s experience of God can be described as the greatest love song ever sung. In the words of Scripture and in people’s experience of the Divine we hear a simple three-line song - I love you, I want to be with people like you, will you be with me? It is an invitation to hear the song of love and to join in.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In our Gospel reading, we encounter Elizabeth and Mary pregnant with children, but pregnant with so much more. They are also the many in our world who long to see different opportunities, possibilities and outcomes brought to birth: the hospitalised woman longing to be well; the accused man longing for justice; the hungry family longing for food; the refugee longing to be accepted in their new homeland; the workless on unemployed longing for meaningful employment; the middle-aged housebound man longing to be pain free; the gay woman longing to be accepted by her parents and her church; the elderly grandfather longing to be lucid and heard. They all sing their own songs with countless others, all of which echo God’s song of love and community for all.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/resizer/-cFknpA1yO_s2d8PxnSxZ-PD80o=/1484x0/arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/456D5EH27JC2XGZTDKETER5BUM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="582" height="320" src="https://www.washingtonpost.com/resizer/-cFknpA1yO_s2d8PxnSxZ-PD80o=/1484x0/arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/456D5EH27JC2XGZTDKETER5BUM.png" width="232" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mary supremely sings of this pregnant longing. We hear this song read as scripture, we sing it in our hymnody, we pray it at Evening Prayer but all too often, the song doesn’t sound like good news to us because we are by in large well fed, or rich, or in positions of power and might compared to others locally and globally — or if we benefit from systems that oppress. Mary articulates an end to economic structures that are exploitative and unjust. She speaks of a time when all will enjoy the good things given by God.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">If we only hear the Magnificat as scripture or an evening prayer we fail to hear the call of God through it to the transformation of our lives and of our world, and we all too easily hear the words but do not listen to what they say of the love that God has for us all but especially for those that we all too often push to the margins or silence or disempower.</span><br />
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<a href="https://i1.wp.com/travellingcalavera.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Vintage-fingers-in-ears-not-listening.jpg?resize=1024%2C614" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="800" height="191" src="https://i1.wp.com/travellingcalavera.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Vintage-fingers-in-ears-not-listening.jpg?resize=1024%2C614" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We have closed our ears to Mary’s radical song of resistance, even though there is so much oppression and evil in the world. We have turned Christmas into a cattle-lowing, no-crying-he-makes Jesus, Silent Night. With only hours before we celebrate his birth, we are in danger of soft focusing the manger scene failing to realise that the birth of her son in animal feeding stall are the actions to accompany the song Mary sang in Elizabeth's company. With only hours before we celebrate his birth, we are in danger of airbrushing out impoverished social outsiders like shepherds who are not just called to the manger by angels, but because they join in in a version of Mary’s song.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://shop.taize.fr/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/m/a/magnificat_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="501" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://shop.taize.fr/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/m/a/magnificat_1.jpg" width="319" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Today we really need to hear Mary’s song; we need to listen to what Mary’s song says to us; we need to listen what Mary’s song says about us; we need to hear what her song says about those we don’t/won’t/can’t/shan’t see or hear. But we can only do any of that if we are singing too.</span></div>
Fr. Simon Cutmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08371546028177475152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23987105.post-63306750979550452672018-07-17T14:45:00.000+01:002018-07-17T14:53:45.060+01:00324 Bus Route To/From Maple Cross<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Some of you locally may have heard that Arriva have announced that they are reviewing the 324 bus route which runs to and from the Maple Cross/West Hyde communities. This bus route is a life line for many in both communities and it's withdrawal would be a real blow socially and economically.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Today I have written to local councillor Phil Williams, and I enclose my email to him below. If this issue concerns you, please add your voice by contacting him too.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCg-dRuVKa8Is15-d6L_kdJsndXojhZoNbKiI7AAnGoT5i6wlk5LTU3-kmWB01_aZ7fkK5eEOzmLD6vX6mmWv0rxHDXED8B6AhYIIoanV15cAP-TZcXJo-RYRTj-2qz0G3dtKH/s1600/15803308789_16ae0468ca_k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCg-dRuVKa8Is15-d6L_kdJsndXojhZoNbKiI7AAnGoT5i6wlk5LTU3-kmWB01_aZ7fkK5eEOzmLD6vX6mmWv0rxHDXED8B6AhYIIoanV15cAP-TZcXJo-RYRTj-2qz0G3dtKH/s320/15803308789_16ae0468ca_k.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Dear Phil,</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am sorry that I am bit late to the party on this.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I was very concerned to hear recently that Arriva are considering a review of the 324 bus route to/from Maple Cross. The community is not well served with bus services with a disjointed R1 service. The W1only runs on Sundays.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Just under half of the population on the Maple Cross Estate is outside of the normal working age bracket (under 18 and over 65) and a quarter live in rented or social housing. From TRDC own development framework, you note that,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>‘...The area has limited services, with the exception of a primary school and local shop, and is therefore reliant on surrounding areas. Access to healthcare provision has been identified as a particular issue for the area…'</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-size-adjust: auto;">Maple Cross JMI school is a transformative presence for good in the community, and the local shop provide some means of social interaction and shopping and the Maple Cross Community Centre works hard to bring people together, but the community relies on other services such as local doctors and dentists elsewhere. Reducing community transport such as a regular bus service would be very detrimental for residents of the estate and surrounding area.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">According to social research, 16% of the population on the estate have no access to a car or van. 20% of the 16+ year olds have no qualifications and 7% of the working age population are on some sort of out of work benefit. Whilst these figures may not be particularly startling when compared to other areas within Three Rivers or nationally, they demonstrate that reducing access to public transport to and from the estate will limit social mobility and potentially employability as whilst there are some major employers on the estate, these largely require a specialist skill set.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Social isolation is a significant issue recognised by the Government with the appointment of Tracey Crouch MP as 'Minister for Loneliness' who was charged to continue the brief began by the late Jo Cox MP. The Government acknowledged that this is an issue that cannot be resolved by Government alone whether nationally or locally and will require a multi disciplinary approach. That being the case, the removal of a vital communications link will surely only exacerbate the issue.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I urge you, on behalf of my parishioners, to communicate with Arriva the inappropriateness of their proposal as the knock on effects go way beyond the financial viability of the route, but tap into what it means to be a community in the first place.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Yours sincerely</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Simon</span></div>
Fr. Simon Cutmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08371546028177475152noreply@blogger.com