Author: St Mary's

‘Is the Lord among us, or not?’ – 19th March, 3rd Sunday of Lent

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In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Ivan Martynushkin, Harry Oakes, Laurence Ward, Roger Dixey.

These are names that you may never have heard before, but these four men found themselves looking in to the closest thing to Hell on Earth that humanity had experienced in 1945.

These men were amongst the first Allied forces to enter the Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps.  Pope Benedict said of these places:

“In a place like this, words fail; in the end, there can only be a dread silence – a silence which is itself a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this? In silence, then, we bow our heads before the endless line of those who suffered and were put to death here; yet our silence becomes in turn a plea for forgiveness and reconciliation, a plea to the living God never to let this happen again.”

I wonder, when these men found themselves in these dark places, whether they ever thought “Is the Lord among us, or not?” Not just ‘Does God exist?’ – but is He with us in this place of suffering? Is He guiding us, comforting us, loving us, protecting us? Does our faith journey have meaning?

Tonight’s reading from Exodus is particularly suitable for this Lent period when we review our relationship with God and we reflect on Christ’s time in the wilderness and his preparation for His Passion.

The people of Israel, freed from Egypt, have been wandering in the desert prior to tonight’s reading, fed by the grace of God with Manna and quails. They don’t need to do anything for it; just go out and collect the manna they need each morning, and wait for the quails to come each evening and twilight. God provided the people with what they needed, day in , day out.  The people occasionally lacked faith, though; even when told not to gather too much manna and try and store it, they would do and sure enough the surplus rotted. They didn’t always have the faith that God would deliver the manna the following day.

In our reading the people are concerned that they are now going to die of thirst in the desert.  There is no water to be had at their camp-site, and despite the fact that they’ve been adequately provided for so far, they seem to go off the deep-end, demanding that Moses finds them water.

Moses rightly points out to them, in verse 2, that they are questioning and testing the Lord.  And I can almost hear him adding the word ‘again’ under his breath…

To be honest, the people DO seem to be singularly lacking in faith in God’s continued help.  They’ve seen miraculous experiences– the plagues of Egypt, the first Passover, the parting of the sea and the destruction of Pharoah’s army, Manna from heaven, the very fact that after wandering a desert they’re still in a fit state to whinge about things at all – would certainly suggest to me that God has this covered.

But the people continue to protest the situation, to the degree that they’re ready to physically attack Moses, and Moses speaks with God, requesting some assistance. God advises him what to do, and the immediate problem is resolved.

Moses rather pointedly names the place where God’s gift was given as ‘Massah and Meribah’, which means ‘Proof and Contention’. Once again, the people have put the Lord to the test, and have asked the question ‘Is the Lord among us, or not?’

Faith is never easy; even for the people of Israel, who experienced a much more ‘hands on’ relationship with God than we do, they still found it easy to start doubting when things started getting a little tough.  If you think about how long we manage without water, no more than a few days or a week, then you can see that all this took place in a very short time-frame. Despite miraculous bread from heaven in their bellies, the people STILL end up questioning whether God is still on their side when they feel at risk or experience suffering – even when it’s for a short time, and even when they have had direct experience of the power of God.

I imagine that the inmates of Belsen, and the people who liberated and helped them back to health, must have also asked that question – ‘Is the Lord among us, or not?’. After all, our relationship with God today is not so intimate and ‘hands on’ as was the relationship between God and the people of Israel. Very few of us have experienced directly physical miracles such as Manna from heaven and the parting of the Red Sea. We rely on faith; and I can imagine that faith was tested within the camps.

In our own day to day lives, I’m sure there are moments when we ask ourselves ‘Is the Lord among us, or not?’  We see friends and family suffer from illness; we hear of cruel murder and rape on the news; we witness the inhumanity of men towards each other in war, and the see millions of people in risk of starvation due to drought and conflict.

I have asked that question many times over my life.  ‘Is the Lord among us, or not?’ More specifically, ‘Is the Lord with ME, or not?’

The Lord IS among us; it’s just that unlike our reading tonight, we don’t get the ‘behind the scenes’ stuff. In the reading we hear how God tells Moses what to do. God works through Moses.  The God that put Himself in a Burning Bush to speak with Moses could just as easily made water cascade from the rock at Horeb without Moses being there. But God works with His people, with His servants, with US.

Was God amongst the people in the death camps?

Yes, he was. He was there in the presence of the German industrialist Oskar Schindler, who saved 6000 Jews from execution. God was there in the form of Maximillian Kolbe, a priest who ministered to camp inmates and finally took the place of another prisoner condemned to death. He came in the form of Ivan Martynushkin, Harry Oakes, Laurence Wand and Roger Dixey to liberate and help those inmates.

It may seem odd to us – almost cruel – that God works in this way; as an omniscient and omnipotent God it’s well within his capabilities to simply ‘deal with this’ directly. But He delegates; he responds to our unspoken questions and heartfelt prayers by letting the Holy Spirit work through humans. God isn’t just among us; God is within people around us at these dark times.

In our lives, God is among us in the form of what the American children’s entertainer Fred Rogers called ‘the helpers’: ““When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”  I’m sure that we’ve all experienced these helpers – anonymous well-wishers, good samaritans, good friends, caring family. Folks who make things easier for us when times are desperate.

In a world that is increasingly hard and cruel for so many people, we should be ready to let the Holy Spirit work through us when God wants us to help out.  It’s doubtful that we’ll be asked to make the sacrifice made by Maximillian Kolbe, run risks like Schindler or witness the horrors seen by Ivan, Harry, Laurence and Roger.

But we can be ready and willing to let the spirit work through us, so that when people ask ‘Is the Lord among us, or not?’ we can ask that at this time, in this place, the Lord is indeed amongst us working through us.

Amen.

Reader Joe Pritchard

 

Readings for the sermon and links:

Exodus 17:1-17 Romans 5:1-11

Wilderness and fruit – 5th March, 1st Sunday of Lent

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A beautiful garden.  Full of plants and animals.  Plenty of warmth and sunshine.  Plenty of shade when it gets too warm.  Gentle rain when needed. God creates and places two people there, to enjoy it, to tend it, to eat of its fruit.  They spend their evenings walking in the garden with God.  There’s just one rule: don’t eat the fruit from that tree in the middle of the garden.  Don’t even touch the tree!  The couple are naive.  Innocent.  Like small children.  They don’t know much.  They don’t need to know.  They don’t know what they don’t know.

Into the garden comes a snake.  He’s cunning and more worldly wise than the man and woman.  What a lovely garden!  Can you eat absolutely any fruit?

No, says the woman, we mustn’t eat from that tree in the middle, or we’ll die.

Die?  says the serpent.  Oh, no, you won’t die!  God doesn’t want you eating from that tree because otherwise you’ll become like him – it’s the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  Don’t you want to be like God?  Don’t you want that knowledge?  Look at how lovely and tasty that fruit is!

And so the woman tries the fruit.  So does the man.  And suddenly they begin to know!  The first thing they know is that they are naked and so they rush to cover themselves.  Their knowledge makes them feel shame.

Their knowledge comes at a cost.  They have tried to become like God.  But instead, they have distanced themselves from him.  No longer can they stay in the garden.  They must go out into the wide world, a world of hard work, sweat and pain.  A world in which eventually they will die.

The wilderness.  Burning hot by day.  Bitterly cold at night.  A place where little grows.  A place where few animals can survive.  A place of desolation.  A place of need.

God leads a man there.

This man is worldly-wise.  He comes from a humble family.  He’s been a refugee.  He’s grown up in a world where the differences between rich and poor, between powerful and powerless, between those who loved God and those who don’t, are all too obvious.  He knows the world is full of evil and hardship.  He knows.  And because of this, God has called him.

When this man hears God calling, he goes to the wilderness, a place of even greater hardship than his usual world, to pray and meditate over what his calling might mean.

There’s no food in the desert.  He’s hungry.  He’s alone….Or is he?

Into the wilderness comes the devil.  He comes at the point the man is feeling his hunger most acutely.  “Turn these stones into bread” he says.  The man refuses, quoting scripture “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God”.

The devil tries again.  “OK, so you’re not going to give into your hunger, but I know what you’ve been pondering about here in the wilderness – you believe you might be God’s Son.  Ha! Well if that’s so, jump off the top of the temple!”  Oh, and as you’re so keen on scripture, here’s a verse from me to back it up!

Again, the man resists.  “Don’t put the Lord your God to the test!”

The devil tries a third time – “You think God wants you to be king?  Come up this mountain!  Look at all those kingdoms down there.  All yours if you just fall down and worship me now!

And Jesus resists Satan a third time “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him”

Two stories of temptation.  One set in a garden of plenty.  The other in a harsh wild place.  You want to become like God, said the tempter!  Take the easy route.  Eat that fruit.  Turn the stones into bread!  Jump off the temple!  Bow down and worship me!

Two different responses.

Adam and Eve succumbed.  They were seduced by the beautiful juicy fruit.  They thought “We wouldn’t mind being like God”  And, like a small child being told “Don’t touch that!”, they couldn’t resist seeing for themselves what would happen if they did.  And they discovered that their choice had consequences.  Suddenly life would be full of danger, hardship and responsibility.  Suddenly they were no longer close to God.

Jesus said NO!  He knew that choices had consequences.  He knew that taking up his calling from God meant taking the tougher course of action.  There was no quick, flashy route to kingship.  God’s idea of kingship was different.  No mighty power, but life as a servant, healer and friend.  No riches, but a life on the road, relying on what food could be found on the way, or on the generosity of others.  No mighty army to thrash the enemy, but hatred from his own people, desertion by his friends and then death on a cross.  But his choice led him closer to God.  No sooner had Satan gone, than angels were by him, offering him strength and support.

The world is full of temptations inviting us to do all sorts of things, promising this if only we just do that!  Jesus invites us to follow him.  He invites us to love God as he did and to love our neighbour as ourselves.  Whose invitation are you and I tempted to accept?

Reader Catherine Burchell

 

Readings for the sermon and links:

Psalm 32 Genesis 2:15-17 3:1-7 Matthew 4:1-11

Transfiguration – 2 Peter 1:16-21; Matthew 17:1-9 (26th February, Last Sunday before Lent)

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Mountain tops are always special places.  The summit, the very top – is  a place where there is nowhere else to go except into another dimension of sky and space – or back down into the more mundane world.

Everything of the world of buildings, roads, shops, daily life – even of trees and habitations – seems far away, small and insignificant.  Sometimes cloud like a blanket may fill the valleys – leaving grey skies for those below while the mountain tops enjoy brilliant sun.

In some countries people erect massive crosses on the tops of some mountains – perhaps expressing their sense of a spiritual dimension to the mountain top.

Spiritually we refer to” mountain top experiences” such as  times of special clarity, of faith gained or renewed, of enlightenment, or joy, understanding, inspiration or hope.  Mountain top experiences are usually all too quickly followed by a need to return to the mundane and everyday.

For the disciples chosen to accompany Jesus to the mountain top where the transfiguration took place – we have to wonder what the experience meant in the days and weeks and years after the event.  We know that at the time they were struck with awe and fear and were not sure how to react.  But what of later in the months and years after the event?

The passage we have read today from 2 Peter makes it clearer what was the lasting impact on an eyewitness.

When we think of the story of the transfiguration we usually focus on the light, the brightness but it is rather the sound, the words that were heard that have most impact on our eyewitness.  The voice of God from the cloud in that moment of glory and honour and majesty says “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him”.  It is the voice that caused the disciples to fall on the ground in fear.

Light, the shining glow was amazing but it was the voice they heard that was most incredible and awe-inspiring. The voice confirmed Jesus as the Son of God, the Christ.  Light can glow and dazzle and sparkle and astound our eyes but a voice from heaven is incredible and terrifying.

Jesus told those on the mountain with him to say nothing of what they had experienced until “after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead” which surely made no sense to them at the time.

This mountain top experience was not just a moment of amazing light and glory – it affirmed Jesus as Christ and it acted as a prophetic moment.  It linked Jesus into the whole Jewish tradition and history through the brief appearance of Elijah and Moses.  It affirmed God’s enduring faithfulness and present blessing but it also pointed forward to a time beyond that present moment – to a time the disciples could not yet know or comprehend after the resurrection and even beyond that to a time of glory in the future, the second coming of Christ.

And so we hear the eyewitness tell the early church that it would “do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts!”. The exhortation to be attentive to Christ was not just for those on the mountain top, but now in the post Easter, post Resurrection, post Ascension world it is for all the church.  The exhortation is to pay heed to this momentary revelation of Christ’s glory and look for its fulfilment in the second coming of the Christ. Hold fast to the prophetic dimension of the transfiguration to inspire hearts in the present and long for the light and glory of Christ to transform even the dark places of this life.

When pondering about this sermon last week I was reminded of a book I read 40 years ago for “A” Level French – Vol de Nuit by Antoine de Saint Exupery about” bush pilots” in South America flying  small mail planes through the night. These are the very early days of commercial flying and there are none of the computer aids enjoyed by pilots today. One solo pilot finds himself not just flying through the night but caught in a bad storm that blocks out all light and any landmark. Ultimately this pilot chooses to gain altitude until he finally breaks through the storm clouds to where he knows there will be light and landmarks – the moon and stars and maybe even the amazing sight of the approaching dawn.  He gains altitude to find the lights that have aided navigation throughout history.

Believing the light is there even when it seems hidden, holding on to the promise of glory can pull us through the dark times of life and draw our hearts and minds upwards to look to God and trust in his word, his truth and his glory.

This brings us to the last point made in our 2 Peter reading – the exhortation to hold to what it truly prophetic from God, to God’s word and not to ideas and interpretations just thought up by people.

True prophecy is inspired by the Holy Spirit in the words of men and women.  True prophecy enlightens our heart, emboldens us to seek after Christ.  It deepens our love for others and draws us into deeper communion with God.

The Transfiguration was not just a strange event for the benefit of a chosen few on a mountain top – it was an affirmation for all of Christ’s identity, a foretaste of Christ’s risen and ascended glory and a promise of the second coming.  It is a call to all of us to heed the word of God and to follow Christ’s way, listening to his authentic voice.

As we turn our eyes to Lent and Easter let us hold in our hearts the promise of the Transfiguration. God, incarnate in Jesus, the Christ, lived among us, died for us, and rose in glory and leads us also to glory, bringing us into the light and splendour of his glorious kingdom.

May we daily aspire to let Christ dwell in us, inspiring us, drawing us from the dark places in our lives into the transforming glory of his presence. A presence we can know now in the joy of our hearts and in the light shining in the darkness and a presence we can look forward to as a prophetic promise of eternal life in God’s unending Kingdom.

Reader Anne Grant

 

Readings for the sermon and links:

2 Peter 1:16-21   Matthew 17:1-9

 

I don’t need to go to church – Genesis 1:1 – 2:3, Psalm 136, Romans 8: 18-25 (19th February, 2nd Sunday before Lent)

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“I don’t need to go to church.  It is easier for me to connect with God when out in the natural world”

How many times have you heard something like that from someone you know?  I expect you have had similar experiences when you, too, have been on a beautiful beach, or on a walk in the Peak District or maybe even in our local cemetery in the Rivelin Valley.

The natural world is awesome!  We can marvel at the size of mountains or trees, at the power of the waves crashing on to the shore at the coast, at the beauty of a bird, flower or insect.  It can make us feel small compared to the vastness of the land.  It can encourage us to respect the elements, realising that we don’t have control over the weather.  We appreciate that the natural world is beautiful but can be dangerous!  Our reaction to the natural world is “Wow!”  It can lead us to feel God’s presence.  It can lead us to worship God the creator!

Sometimes our response to experiencing the awesomeness of creation is to create something ourselves.  So we might paint a picture or make something from wood, clay or cloth for instance.  We might play music or sing a song.  We might write a poem or tell a story.  Creating something of our own is good.  We get a sense of joy from it.

And through creating something ourself, we can find that it helps us to make sense of the world about us.  It helps us to tell others about our experience too.  So for generations the world over people have told stories, created paintings and sculptures and made music and drama.  And so they have passed their experiences of the created world and human life on to each other.

Sometimes we build the stories into the fabric of our buildings.  You can see this in old churches.  When many churches were built, most people couldn’t read.  So the buildings themselves told the story of the faith.  Stained glass windows, carved stonework and wooden features all told bible stories or sometimes the lives of the saints.  If you look up at the roof of the church, it’s like the inside of a boat – a reminder perhaps of the boat Jesus and his disciples were in when he calmed the storm.  Or a reminder of the sea journeys made by Paul.  Or a reminder that we are all on a voyage of faith together.  The pillars represent the ordinary people of faith from the earliest Christians nearly 2000 years ago to us here today.

Some scholars think that the Jerusalem temple told a story too.  It told the story we heard this evening, of the very beginnings of time, the well-known and well-loved story of the 6 days of creation.  You may remember me mentioning it in passing a few weeks ago.  Here’s how the scholars suggest the temple told the story:

At the front of the temple was the “Holy of Holies” – the area no-one except the high priest was allowed to enter.  This contained the ark of the covenant.  This was where God and the Holy Spirit symbolically resided.  This represented Day 1 – or a time outside of time.

On the 2nd Day the story tells us that God separated heaven from earth.  The veil separating the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple represented this.

On the 3rd Day the story tells of God separating land and sea.  Plants and trees covered the land.  In the temple this was represented by the golden table for plant offerings – bread, wine and incense.

On the 4th Day the story tells that God filled the heavens with lights.  This is represented by the 7-branched lamp – the sun, the moon and the 5 planets known at that time.

On the 5th Day (and half of the 6th) the story tells of how God then filled the seas and skies with fish and birds.  He filled the land with animals.  In the temple this was represented by the altar of sacrifice.

And then on the 6th day, human beings, both male and female, were created to tend the earth and to take care of the animals.  And they were represented by the high priests.

The story itself reads a bit like a religious liturgy.  Notice how certain phrases are repeated…And there was evening and there was morning…the first day.  And God said:  Let there be…. And God saw that it was good.  You could imagine how as part of their worship, the people might move round the different areas of the temple, telling the story as they went.

So it seems that for ancient Israel, the temple “was” creation.  Worship in the temple protected and preserved the creation.  As long as worship was carried out in the right way, creation would be protected.  Worship and creation go hand in hand.  So we have those strange bits in some of the psalms where trees are clapping their hands, or mountains, hills and sea monsters are being encouraged to praise God.  The psalm we read this evening was a bit like that.

If the worship went wrong and the people sinned, it would have a knock-on effect on creation.  Much of the rest of the Bible focuses on this.  We are reminded in Romans 8 that creation has been marred.  God’s plans for the earth have not yet come to completion.  Creation is still going through the pains of labour, but God’s promise of new life and new birth is there.

Christians have sometimes had the reputation of not caring that much for the environment.  And this can mean that the people we try to share the Gospel message with don’t have much time for it.  Things have thankfully changed a lot over the past years – each Christian denomination now has its own environmental policy.  And today, this second Sunday before Lent, is now called “Creation Sunday”.  We are actively being encouraged to celebrate God’s work in creation.

So it’s not only ok to care for creation, it is part of our response to the God who is good.  You cannot worship God and neglect creation.  And as we care for creation, so we spread the Good News about God’s love.

Male and female, we are all called to care for creation

Male and female, we are all called to worship the Creator and to encourage others to join in.

Catherine Burchell – Reader

 

Readings for the sermon and links:

Genesis 1:1–2:3   Psalm 136   Romans 8:18-25

What does unity mean? – Psalm 40:1-12, Isaiah 49:1-7, 1 Corinthians 1:1-9 (15th January, 2nd Sunday after Epiphany)

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It starts so positively!  I can imagine the excitement at Corinth when the letter from Paul arrives.  The people assemble.  The letter is opened.  Someone starts to read out loud.  Greetings from Paul and Sosthenes.  And then a whole list praising the church for what is good there.  They have been given the grace of God.  They have been enriched in every way.  They are not lacking in any spiritual gift including gifts of speech and knowledge.  They are waiting for Christ to come again.

God will strengthen them to the end and be faithful to them.

And there our reading ends.  You’d be forgiven for thinking that all was going really well at this church.  But if we had continued, we’d have immediately realised this was not the case at all.  From the very next verse onwards and for most of the rest of the letter – all 16 chapters of it – Paul is addressing a very difficult situation that is threatening to split the church.  Yes they have these spiritual gifts, but they are elevating some of these gifts over others.  In particular, a superiority complex is developing among those who have the gift of speaking in tongues.  The people of this church are not behaving towards each other as Christians should.  And the resulting divisions will get in the way of their witness to Christ in the world.  They are not practising unity.

Unity.  This coming Wednesday sees the beginning of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.  A week when we’re encouraged to pray for all Christians to work together as one body.  We can pray for the worldwide church.  We can pray for neighbouring churches of different traditions, such as the Methodists, Roman Catholics or Baptists.  We can pray for the very different traditions within the Church of England itself.  And of course we can pray for unity within our own church community here.

What does unity mean?  Well it doesn’t mean that everyone has to think in the same way, to worship in the same way, to express their faith in the same way.  That would get rather boring!  People are different from each other.  Differences are good.  Variety is the spice of life and all that.

No, what unity means here is being able to work with difference and even conflict when you passionately disagree.

And the best relationships result when people are good at negotiating difference.

But to negotiate difference, you need to try to see where the other person or party is coming from.  You need to try to be able to see an issue from their point of view.  And sometimes this means stepping out of our comfort zone.

I heard a radio programme recently that was discussing how people choose to get the news.  These days more people are getting it on the internet than from the TV or radio or newspapers.  The problem with this is that the internet quickly learns what sorts of things you’re interested in, what your political and religious bias is and offers you more of the same.  You can end up never learning the point of view of others whose views are vastly different.  The same is also true if we only read one particular newspaper.  So the programme’s contributors recommended things like regularly reading a politically different paper or looking at websites reflecting an alternative viewpoint.  Uncomfortable perhaps, but it helps to see things as someone with the opposite view to yours might see them.

Because you need to be able to see the other person’s point of view if you are to get them to hear yours.

This programme pointed out that certain issues tend to get associated with particular party politics.  Concern about Climate change is an issue that is associated with the Democrats in the US.  So when a Republican went to a conference about Climate change and was horrified about the damage being done to the planet, he hit a problem.  He tried to raise the issue with his fellow Republicans and was accused of betraying the side.  They thought he’d gone soft and become a lefty liberal.

However, this man was able to draw on something he did still have in common with his fellow Republicans.  He was an evangelical Christian.  So he was able to refer to the beginning of Genesis, to remind his colleagues that it was God’s creation.  Humankind was given the task by God to be stewards of creation.  Climate change was resulting from humanity’s misuse of its God-given role.

Because he understood where many of his Republican friends were coming from, and the way they expresssed themselves through their faith, this man was able to get through to some of them.

This week there was an article in the paper about marriage.  It noted that January is the busiest month for the divorce lawyers and offered some reasons for why relationships go wrong and what you might do to help a relationship succeed.  It reminded readers that we have this rosy idea of love.  We look for the perfect partner and then expect them to fulfil our every need.  And then we discover that the more you’re with someone, the more you realise you have less in common with them than you think.  Disappointment sets in and we can end up being our worst selves with the people we’re closest to.

The article suggests that in a successful relationship one should be more ready to love than be loved – like a parent loves a child unconditionally even when they’ve been up all night, driven to distraction all day and sometimes would gladly throttle the child.

Unconditional love.  Love when you don’t feel like loving.  This is what Paul talks about several chapters later, after he has gone on at length about the tensions which are tearing the Corinthian church apart.  The famous passage on Love from Chapter 15 which we often have at weddings.  Love that is not restricted to romantic relationships, and in the Corinthian context wasn’t intended so.

Working together when you don’t agree is hard.  Loving each other unconditionally when you have fallen out is hard.  Sometimes it’s tempting to give up on a relationship, leave a church, go it alone.

But that’s not what God wants us to do.  God has called us into fellowship.  Fellowship with his son, Jesus and fellowship with each other.  Paul reminds the Corinthian church of this at the end of the passage we heard this evening.  God has given us the gifts we need to live and work together, just as he had given the Corinthians the gifts they needed.  God has given us the gifts we need as individuals and together as a church to share the gospel with others.

God is the focus, the driving force behind our faith and the way we live as Christians, not only with our Christian brothers and sisters, but with our families and friends, our colleagues and neighbours, many of whom won’t share our faith.  It is God who calls us into Unity.  So in this coming Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, let us pray for Christian Unity in the widest possible understanding.

Reader Catherine Burchell

 

Readings for the sermon and links:

Psalm 40:1-12  Isaiah 49:1-7  1 Corinthians 1:1-9

A time of waiting… a time to rejoice – Isaiah 35, James 5:7-10, Matthew 11 (11th December, Gaudete Sunday)

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A time of waiting… a time to rejoice

 

The desert waits.

Dry, hot, harsh.

No water here.  The few plants are bare, shrivelled.

Perhaps the odd hardy insect colony.

The occasional tough rock pigeon.

A snake or lizard.  A jackal.

 

Hidden away in the ground, life is dormant.  Waiting.

Waiting perhaps for years.

 

And when the rains do come, suddenly, without warning

The desert bursts into life.

Rivers flow abundantly where once there was a dry valley

Seeds hurry to germinate, grow.  Flowers to blossom.

Birds, animals and insects get busy, feeding, breeding.

 

The desert bursts into song and rejoices!

 

Isaiah’s community waits.

Scared, unsure, marginalised.

Ignored by those with political and religious power

by those who persist in walking away from God

tempted by wealth, unwise political allegiances, other gods.

 

The poor, the weak, the disabled are forgotten.

They wait.  They wait for the trouble that will surely come.

When Jerusalem will fall and Judah will be overthrown.

When their nation will be scattered and exiled in a foreign land

far from home.

They wait in uncertain times.

And their prophets proclaim the message of doom.

Over and over again.

 

Suddenly, like the rainstorm in the desert comes a message of hope.

The exile hasn’t begun yet, but God will not forget his people

God will especially not forget the weakest of this people.

Here is a message of hope to sustain them in times ahead.

 

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad…

Waters shall break forth in the wilderness.

The blind shall see, the deaf shall hear.

A road shall appear in the desert

A road of safety that all God’s people can travel along

Back home.

 

Isaiah’s people can rejoice!

 

 

 

James’ community waits.

Rich and poor they wait.

The rich have been growing richer

at the expense of the poor.

James has harsh words for the rich.

Words of warning

about the dangers of unfair business practices

and not paying their workers a living wage.

The dangers of storing up wealth for themselves

whilst their employees go hungry.

God hears the cries of the poor.

 

God has heard you, says James to the poor.

God will come and come soon.

But you must be patient a little longer

Suffer a little longer.

Wait like the farmer waits for the rains to come and the crops to grow.

 

 

John the baptist waits.

He sits in prison, pondering his fate.

Examining his life and mission.

Wondering if it were all in vain.

Was he right about Jesus being the one who was to follow?

Is Jesus really the Messiah?

 

Like the prophets before him,

John’s life has been spent urging the people to repent

To turn away from their sins and back to God

or face the terrible consequences.

There will come a time, a time soon

when the Messiah will bring about God’s kingdom

And restore the nation of Israel.

 

He thought it would be this Jesus.

And now he’s not sure.

Jesus isn’t behaving as he expects the Messiah to behave.

So John sends messengers to Jesus

waiting behind for an answer.

 

And Jesus points them back to Isaiah

Look and see!

The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed

And the poor are hearing the good news.

 

A time to rejoice!

 

In Advent we wait,

We wait for the time

when we re-enact the story

of Jesus coming to earth as a little child.

And we wait for the time

when Jesus will come again

And God’s kingdom on earth will be fully realised.

 

In the northern regions of the world

We wait as the nights get longer

The weather colder

The plants become dormant

And the animals hibernate

We wait as sometimes our own energy levels sag

And life becomes more of an effort.

 

Advent is a time of waiting

A time of dormancy

A time of expectation

Christmas is not here yet

But like the message of hope

given to Isaiah’s community before they had even gone into exile

Here is a Sunday of rejoicing

Ahead of time

 

The third Sunday of Advent

Known in the Roman and Anglo-Catholic church traditions

As Gaudete Sunday

Gaudete – “rejoice”

Like Mothering Sunday in Lent

It’s a time of brief relief and refreshment

in the middle of a more sober, reflective, penitential season.

A time when perhaps we can take a step back for a moment

from the hustle and bustle

of present-buying, card writing

and cleaning the house for our Christmas visitors.

And rejoice because God’s kingdom is coming soon.

 

The Sunday when in some churches,

the clergy wear rose-coloured vestments

The Sunday when the rose-coloured candle is lit

on the Advent wreath.

 

The Day of the Lord is not here yet

We are still in our own desert world

Times are still tough

But we can see glimpses already

If we look long enough

We can see where, like the flowers and streams in the desert

God’s kingdom is already breaking through.

 

So on this Gaudete Sunday

This Refreshment Sunday

Let us rejoice too!

Catherine Burchell – Reader

O Root of Jesse – Isaiah 11:1-10, Romans 15:4-13 (4th December, 2nd Sunday in Advent)

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On 17th November the residents of Rustlings Road were woken up at 5a.m..  “Move your cars” said the police.  Then the men with the chainsaws moved in. Several mature trees were chopped down.  Trees that had stood for decades.  Three protesters tried to prevent it happening and were arrested.  It made the national press.  The council argued that it was essential for street maintenance and that double the number of replacement trees would be planted. Whatever the merits of the case, the situation could have been better handled.

There is something about a big mature tree that arouses deep emotions.  Perhaps it’s the size, or the fact that some trees are many times older than any of us.  Trees provide a haven for birds and other wildlife.  They make use of carbon-dioxide and produce oxygen in return and are aptly named the lungs of the planet.  They can provide shelter from the rain and a playground for children.  No one really likes to see a tree chopped down, however necessary it might be.  It’s sad to see a stump where a mighty tree once stood.

But sometimes that stump fights back.  Sometimes in the months following the felling of a tree you see shoots sprouting from the stump.  They generally look untidy as they spring up en masse in all directions.  But you can’t deny that they’re stubborn.  That tree wants to live.  It will not go down without a fight.

The image of a felled tree is a powerful one.  The people in Old Testament times knew this too, which is why it appears in the prophetic literature.  In this evening’s reading from the prophet Isaiah, it is used to describe the royal line descending from Jesse, the father of King David.  The kingdom has been thrashed by another, more powerful nation.  The last king and his sons have been killed.  Jesse’s royal line, once a mighty tree, is now but a stump.

And yet Isaiah tells the people to have hope.  There is life in this stump yet.  A shoot will emerge from it.  A shoot which has been given the spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel and might.  A shoot which will judge the poor with righteousness.

This shoot is not fully grown.  It is fragile.  With enough determination, frequent use of the loppers and copious amounts of weedkiller it could be killed off.  But it took 10 years worth of attempts to eradicate a self-seeded sycamore that was growing out of our house!  That shoot is stubborn.  It grows where it is not expected and where it is not wanted.  It will never become the mighty cedar or oak or plane tree that once stood there.  It will not take the same form or shape as its parent tree even if you let it.  This new shoot is going to grow in a new and unexpected direction.

Powerful imagery.  And there was more imagery to come from our reading.  Before we move on to that, I’d like to share a little lateral thinking problem with you.  Some of you may have heard it before – it’s even older than some of our trees:

A man is on a journey.  With him he has a wolf, a goat and a cabbage.  They come to a river.  There is a boat, but only room for the man and one passenger at a time.  If he leaves two of them unattended, the wolf will eat the goat or the goat will eat the cabbage.  The wolf is not interested in eating the cabbage.  The cabbage isn’t hungry.  How does he get all three across the river safely and intact?

Verses 6 onwards reminded me of this puzzle.  In Isaiah’s mind, the problem would not exist, at least as far as the wolf eating the goat were concerned.  Because the prophet envisages a time when hunter and hunted will lie down together.  As in the very opening of Genesis, there will be a time when creation is once again vegetarian.  So the wolf will live with the lamb, the calf with the lion, and a little child will be in charge.  The little child will play near poisonous snakes and no harm will come to it.

This situation may not happen literally any time soon.  The traveller will still need to use his wits to get his 3 passengers across the river without eating each other.  It seems as though this very much an “in your dreams” passage.

And yet.  Isaiah speaks of a royal child leading the not only the domestic animals such as the oxen, but the dangerous wild ones such as the lions.  He lives among them and leads them.  It was more usual for such a prophecy to have him fighting and killing the lions – as David once killed the giant Goliath.  The reign of this new royal child will not be like that of the old order.  It will be different.

When Jesus came to earth, he came as a small, fragile baby.  When he became a man and became known for his healings and teachings many who followed him thought he would be the warrior Messiah that they were expecting.  They were expecting a leader in the old style – one who would, to paraphrase a certain American, “make Israel great again”.

But Jesus wasn’t like that.  He lived among the lambs of his people and he lived among the wolves and lions.  And because it wasn’t the right time for Isaiah’s prophecy to come to completion in its entirety, the lions and wolves were provoked and retaliated.  He was arrested, tried and executed.  Once again it seemed as though the tree had well and truly been felled.  But we know that this was not the end of the story.  The shoot was stubborn.  It lived.  It grew.  It continues to move and grow in mysterious ways.  And it will continue to do so until the time is right for the lion and the lamb to lie down together.  A time when the whole earth will know the Lord and the root of Jesse will stand as a signal to the nations.

Sometimes in our lives it feels as though a large and beautiful, powerful and majestic tree has been felled.  Many feel like this about the Sheffield trees.  Many feel this way about Brexit or Donald Trump, about Syria, about the recent plane crash in Columbia.  Or about something that has happened in their own personal lives.

Sometimes all we feel able to do in times like this is to sit on the stump of despair.  That’s ok.  And God will sit there with us.  But we need to be alert to when God is nudging us to look at that little shoot that’s growing just there!  At some point the time will be right to stop counting the rings of the past, but to see where this new little shoot might be leading us!

Amen.

Catherine Burchell – Reader

(Some ideas used here come from Barbara Lundblad’s post for this passage on December 8th 2013 on the workingpreacher.org website)

Anticipation & Expectation – Isaiah 2:1-5, Matthew 24:36-44 (27th November, 1st Sunday in Advent)

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Advent: it’s a season of anticipation and expectation.

For children it’s a time when Advent calendars or candles mark the countdown of growing excitement as Christmas draws closer.  For many adults, however, these weeks before Christmas seem to be a mad rush to do shopping, write cards, wrap presents and complete all sorts of other preparations for Christmas.

But truly – although Advent does look forward to Christmas and we remember the prophets, the forerunners and those who welcomed the good news of Christ’s birth, the incarnation, Advent also looks forward to another coming, the Second Coming, the triumphant return of Christ in glory.

Our readings today reflect that in. In Isaiah we have the glorious vision of the nations all streaming to the Mountain of the Lord, learning His ways and living in peace; and in Matthew we read the exhortation to be alert for no-one knows the date or time of Christ’s return.

Our collect (special prayer for today) and prayer after Communion also reflect these themes – calling us to live in the light of Christ, to live lives worthy of Christ and to remain faithful, watchful and vigilant that we may be found actively serving God and joyful in our praise of the Lord whenever He may return.

But what does it take seriously to lift our thoughts from the everyday pressures of the here and now to consider the end times?

Last week I read a newspaper article about an anaesthetist in California who was a successful man working in a major hospital.  He had built up considerable wealth with a mansion sized home and a number of top of the range cars but along the way he had lost empathy for his patients, never having time to talk to them. He was also quite a severe father – following the pattern of his own father and grandfather before him – leading to a relationship with his son defined by anger and by his insistence that the boy go into medicine whether he wanted to or not.

Then the anaesthetist himself needed surgery and what should have been a fairly straightforward operation actually led to complications, more surgery and finally septic shock which saw him rushed into hospital for life or death surgery. During that surgery he had an out of body experience (such as he had always dismissed when any of his patients had tried to speak of such things).  He saw himself in the operating theatre and the team doing the surgery and he also saw his mother and sisters in India.

The he had a terrifying vision of hell from which he was drawn away by the loving presence of his father and grandfather (so different from his experience of these men in life). He was drawn further and further into a place of profound love which he came to believe was the most important dynamic in life. Then 2 angels – Michael and Raphael – brought him to a place of light where he was given a new direction for his life – to offer healing to others through consciousness-based healing (mediation and other alternative therapies).

He came through the surgery and tried to tell his doctors of his experience but they were as dismissive as he would have been before. However, he went on to amaze his colleagues by giving up his hospital job and setting up a healing centre. He sold his expensive home and cars and began to live more modestly and he developed a more loving relationship with his son giving him the space to be the person he wanted to be, following his own choice of career in computing. As a Hindu he had never heard of angels Michael and Raphael but he discovered these were angels associated with healing and protecting people.

From being a hard headed, even hard hearted man driven by desire for materialistic rewards, for wealth, position and control he became much more empathic man with a modest lifestyle looking to live a life of love and healing.  He aimed to break the cycle of anger that had dogged his family for generations.

Whatever happened to this man during his lifesaving surgery, it profoundly changed him, altered his perspective on life and on relationship and he changed direction, job, home and lifestyle. He came to see love as the undergirding dynamic of life.  He felt his previous way of life had not been right and he had been given a new direction in life, a new chance.

Did he encounter Christ?  We don’t know – and there is no indication that he stopped being a Hindu. He did encounter angels named in our Scriptures – Michael and Raphael and felt their influence.

The reason I wanted to tell that story is that we none of us know what is in store for us – in the next minutes, hours, days, years. We cannot predict accurately even such simple things as whether a lightbulb will fail or whether we will catch a cold.  We certainly cannot predict or pinpoint the return of Jesus. But we are promised it will happen and we are warned and encourage to live as if we believe that so that we will not be caught off guard if it were to happen today or tomorrow.

Matthew tells of people going about their daily lives and being utterly surprised by what happens – like people caught out by a sudden earthquake or flash flood. We know the unexpected happens – cutting across people’s plans and lives – but do we ever prepare for it? People know they will die but so many never get round to writing a will …

In Advent we are reminded that Christ’s coming in glory – the final establishment of God’s Kingdom – could come at any time and we are exhorted to be vigilant, to live the ordinary routines of our lives but to live them well.  To try to live as we would want Jesus to find us living.

The man whose story I have told had a profound and life changing experience and he responded and made big changes – more focused on love and healing and people.  He broke cycles of anger and desire for materialistic rewards.  What would it take for any of us to break our less good habits and attitudes and live the kind of live that we would be happy to be found engaged in if Jesus returned today or tomorrow? If Jesus returned today or tomorrow would we be able to welcome his gaze or would we look away, saying “I’m not really ready. My life’s a bit of a shambles.  If I’d known it was today I’d have done all those things I’ve intended to but have always put off.”

Jesus knows our lives are sometimes difficult and that we struggle in many ways with current circumstances and pressures – but are we living surrounded by life-clutter that we know we should have sorted out long ago? Are we holding on to anger or resentments or cold-hearted attitudes or are we trying to live lives of love and mercy and grace?

Advent gives us time to reflect on God’s promises and the visions of peace and love from prophets like Isaiah. I heard a Bishop in a black-led Pentecostal church say “Don’t let your memories destroy your dreams”. Memories of rejection or hurt can get in the way of us going after or believe in our dreams. Don’t let the bad things of this world take your faith and hope in the promises of God.

We have seen again this week in our news how bad memories can dog people for years.  As Christians we believe we can bring all these bad memories, hurts and damage to Jesus and let him love and enfold us and ultimately set us free us from their power. We all need to find a way to live with hope and faith, to live with joy and expectation and with mercy and love.

In our uncertain and sometimes cruel, hard and violent world we need to hold on to the vision and promise of God. We need to live lives as worthy of God as we can manage and to ask for the Holy Spirit to help us. We need to look forward to the time when God’s promises will be fulfilled. Jesus will come in glory.May we all be able to say with enthusiasm – Come Lord Jesus, may we welcome your Advent here.

Amen.

Anne Grant – Reader

Christ the King – Jeremiah 23:1-6, Colossians 1:11-20 (20th November, Christ the King)

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Christ the King

Through the written word, and the spoken word, may we know your Living Word, Jesus Christ, our Savour. Amen. Please be seated.

Today we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King.

Now what might surprise you is that this feast was only added to the Western liturgical calendar in 1925, when it was celebrated in October, and was only moved to it’s current position on the last day of the Liturgical Year as late as 1969.  It might seem strange to us to think that it took the Church 1900 years before it actually got around to adding the celebration to the liturgical calendar, but that’s the way it was; whilst Christians acknowledged Christ as King of Creation, the institutional Church just took it’s time recognising it formally.

Just to put things in to context, the first celebration of the Feast of Christ the King took place less than 10 years after the end of what was still being called ‘the war to end all wars’.  Mussolini’s fascist party was in power in Italy.  In Germany the leader of a small political party called Adolf Hitler was starting to make a name for himself, and the US was enjoying the ‘Roaring Twenties’, just a few short years  before the Great Depression would lay waste to western economies.  Here in the UK, government policies were laying the foundations for the 1926 General Strike.  All in all, the world was somewhat out of control.

What better time for the Church to formally acknowledge that, despite what’s happening in the world, Jesus Christ is indeed King of the whole universe.

And as we look at the world around us today and consider the upheavals and changes that 2016 has brought us, we might consider that it’s worth our while being reminded that despite everything, Christ is indeed King.

And who better to help us remember than the prophet Jeremiah.

Jeremiah is probably better known for being something of a misery guts than for what he actually said.  He’s been called the ‘weeping prophet’, and to call someone a Jeremiah is to basically accuse them of being overly pessimistic.  But Jeremiah was a bold and brave prophet; he answered God’s calling and whilst he was not always enthusiastic about what God called him to say to the people, he did so with boldness and ‘said it as it was’ – if you sinned, you were called out even if you were the King.

But tonight’s reading, although it starts harshly, is one in which Jeremiah offers the people a small bit of hope when they were in desperate need of it.

The time to which this refers is a bad and uncertain time for the people of Judah; a smallish nation surrounded by large powers, Judah had had to decide who to support in a period of conflict – Egypt or Babylon. Judah ended up being invaded by Babylon and the Babylonians appointed Zedekiah as King. Unfortunately, Zedekiah chose to turn against Babylon, who then laid siege to Jerusalem.  When Zedekiah pleads with God for help in Jeremiah 21, God basically says that you’ve brought this upon yourself, that he will help the Babylonians, and that he’ll hand over Zedekiah and ALL the people to Babylon.

Poor old Zedekiah never really lived up to the meaning behind his name – “The Lord is my righteousness”.

And by the time of tonight’s reading, somewhere around 586BC, Jerusalem was in ruins, Solomon’s temple destroyed, and only a few agricultural workers had been permitted by the Babylonians to stay in the land.

Our reading tonight from Jeremiah starts with the Lord denouncing and accusing those who have been ruling Judah.  Let’s remind ourselves of God’s statement through Jeremiah to the people.

“Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture….Because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and not bestow care upon them, I will bestow punishment upon you for the evil done.”

And the Lord isn’t forgetting HIS role in this; he promises that he will gather up the people from where He – the Lord – has driven them, and that he will bring them back and give them leaders – shepherds – who will serve them well, calming their fears and protecting them from harm.

We’re seeing the difference between the ‘bad shepherds’ that ruled during the time that led to the destruction of Judah and the ‘good shepherds’ that the Lord will put in place. Shepherds – Kings – who will genuinely care for the people, who will tend to their needs, who will watch out for the lost and the missing, and who will remove fear and terror from their lives.

Jeremiah is able to give the people a small, but bright, glimmer of hope.  Like a patch of blue sky in the grey sky of winter.

“The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up to David a righteous branch, a King who will reign wisely, and do what is just and right in the land.  In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called : “The Lord our righteousness.”

This is a messianic passage; the word ‘branch’ here is actually rendered as ‘Messiah’ in some Aramaic paraphrases of this text. The King to come will have all the traits of a good King, and those of a good shepherd, and more.

Although Zedekiah didn’t live up to the meaning of HIS, very similar name, we know that Jesus the Messiah, foretold in this passage, will do what is just and right, and be a shepherd to all his people.

Our own leaders tend, however, to be closer to Zedekiah in their attitudes and behaviours.

The word of the year, apparently, is ‘post-truth’.  I have to say that when I first heard this word my eyebrow was raised almost to my hairline…which is quite something for me.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘post truth’ as:

Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief:

‘in this era of post-truth politics, it’s easy to cherry-pick data and come to whatever conclusion you desire’

We currently have a period of great uncertainty in politics; a time when if you ask enough of our so-called leaders a question you’ll get any answer you want. I’m sure that we’ll soon have leaders declaiming that ‘black is white…if that’s what you want it to be.’ We have strong leaders who don’t seem to be caring for all their flock; we have others who, shall we say, are true exponents of ‘post-truth’ politics.

At times like this we Christians need to bear in mind that ‘post-truth’ is simply a mealy-mouthed way of saying that our leaders no longer feel they need to be honest with us; that they will not necessarily “reign wisely and do what is right in the land”. Instead, they’re more likely to ‘go with the flow’ and end up being those shepherds that Jeremiah warned us about – the ones who scatter us from our pasture, and who don’t care about us.

At times like this, we must remember that we have one King who is not ‘post-truth’ – He is ‘the truth’. Jeremiah was able to tell the people the there was good news coming.

And tonight, as we celebrate that Christ is indeed King of the Universe, we too can bear in mind that a true good shepherd reigns, and no post-truth tomfoolery can take that away.

Let us pray that the reign of Jesus Christ will live in our hearts and come to our world.

Amen.

Joe Pritchard – Reader

All Soul’s Memorial Service – Psalm 27:1-6, 16, 17; 1 Peter 1:3-9 (30th October 2016)

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May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart
be pleasing in your sight,
Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.

 

I’d like to start tonight by with a quotation from a film that you may recognise:

“A fellow will remember a lot of things you wouldn’t think he’d remember. You take me. One day, back in 1896, I was crossing over to Jersey on the ferry, and as we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in, and on it there was a girl waiting to get off. A white dress she had on. She was carrying a white parasol. I only saw her for one second. She didn’t see me at all, but I’ll bet a month hasn’t gone by since that I haven’t thought of that girl.”

That quotation is from the character Mr Bernstein in the film ‘Citizen Kane’. And it’s about a very powerful gift we have – that of memory. Tonight we remember those we have loved and from whom we see no longer. Mr Bernstein has a vivid and powerful memory of a split second of experience from when he was a young man; such is the power of memory. A smell, a piece of music, the sight of a dress in a shop window may all trigger our memories of those we have lost.

As Christians, we look at our memories, and our responses to those memories, with the faith, hope and comfort that comes from our relationship with Jesus Christ.

But when we lose friends and family, it can be desperately hard to find comfort even with our faith. We love and remember those who’ve died; we know that Jesus himself mourned deeply for the death of his friend Lazarus, even though he knew that he could bring him back.  In Matthew’s gospel, we’re told:

“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.  But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.  Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

And we’re also reminded in John:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe in Me as well. In My Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and welcome you into My presence, so that you also may be where I am.”

Our faith tells us that our loved ones are going ahead of us in to the closer presence of God. But despite our faith and the hope within it, when our loved ones die we still suffer.

Peter’s first letter is often referred to as a letter of hope in the midst of suffering. It’s addressed to Jewish and Gentile Christians in many places throughout Asia Minor, and he acknowledges that they will have to ‘suffer grief in all kinds of trials’ but that through these times of trial their faith will be refined and proved genuine.

When Peter says ‘He has given us a new birth in to a living hope’, ‘hope’ is loaded with a meaning for the readers of the letter than we might find surprising today.  In scripture, hope doesn’t mean our current ‘wishful thinking’, but a firm conviction for the future – in this case, a firm belief that they will, like Jesus, be resurrected in to a new life.

The readers of the letter haven’t met Jesus; they’re not with him yet; but they love him all the same.  And they’re told in this reading that they can rejoice in the knowledge that they’re protected by God’s power through their faith, until they get their ‘inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.’ – that of resurrection in to a new life in the presence of God.

In Psalm 27, the writer is telling of his faith in the power of the Lord.  The writer asks that he may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of his life; not just this earthly life, but the new life to come.  And he tells us that in the days of trouble, the Lord will “hide me in his shelter; in the secret place of his dwelling shall he hide me”

And at the end of this reading, we’re reminded of something very important indeed; to be patient.

“Wait for the Lord; be strong and he shall comfort your heart; wait patiently for the Lord”.

During times of suffering, the Psalmist tells us, we will be comforted, but we must show patience as well. And when we suffer, showing patience is hard; we want our suffering to be over – we often want to be with our loved ones again, here, now, to be able to share our daily toings and froings with them.  Or we want to be with them, close to God. And sometimes comfort seems far off.

But we have memory. A gift from God that starts off being sharp and painful, but smoothes to become more comforting as time passes. A gift by which we can still express the love we have for those who’ve died, and in some cases, even realise through our memories that they loved us more than they let on at the time!

Marcel Proust wrote in his ‘Rememberance of Things Past’ that memory is “a sort of cutting [that] can be taken from one person and grafted on to the heart of another, where it continues to exist even when the person from whom it has been taken has perished.”

I’d suggest that the cutting is a gift of comfort from God, nourished by our love, and His grace, to keep a link between us and our loved ones.

They go ahead of us to the eternal and nearer presence of God; we who are left here are blessed with their presence in the form of those memories in our hearts and minds until we too join them in that New Heaven and New Earth that we are promised.

Amen.

Joe Pritchard – Reader