Midnight Mass Sermon
As I write, I am sucked in by the ad for tomorrow’s Eastenders - ‘Who is the daddy?’ Only a little while to go and we will know, perhaps!, the truth about the parentage of Roxy’s baby, Amy. I am not a fan of the soap I have to say, but it’s the sort of thing that Alex irons to and that I will half watch if I am in.
Nothing is ever simple in Walford. Families are never ordinary or normal. No 2.4 children. No happily married for 30+ years. It’s all fiction I know, and so do you, but I wonder, was Oscar WIlde right when he said, ‘All that I desire to point out is the general principle that life imitates art far more than art imitates life?’ Perhaps nearer the truth is American singer/songwriter Ani Difranco when she says, ‘...Yeah, art may imitate life. But life imitates tv...’
I am not trying to suggest that tv soaps lead the way that society lives, but I wonder whether to a degree, the media in general becomes a mirror that we can hold up and view ourselves, our famillies and our neighbourhoods in. Speaking personally, I don’t much like what I see in that mirror at the moment.
More than 70 teenagers have been violently killed this year alone. Some 3000 people have died from the Cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe. Unemployment in the UK has reached nearly 2 million - an 11 year high - a direct result of the Credit Crunch...
It is into these stories, that God, ‘the Word made flesh’ speaks. Into this world, God comes.
But St John does not tell of an arrogant Creator God, who slaps the corporate wrist and puts back everything the way that it was. John reminds us of what we celebrate tonight - God becomes flesh and blood like us, weak and needy like us, and lives among us. John literally says that God pitches His tent among us. In other words, he doesn’t move among us like some sort of ghost - in the world but not part of it. God comes into our world, living among us, as a vulnerable baby.
We celebrate the birth of that baby tonight, but that in itself is not miraculous as many babies are born in UK hospitals and homes every day. The baby we celebrate born tonight is born in poverty, but that in itself is not miraculous as many babies are born and survive in similar situations all over the world today. Tonight we are reminded of the parentage of this baby - he is God’s Son. Even that is not the Christmas miracle that we celebrate tonight.
The Christmas miracle that we celebrate tonight is that this baby grew to be a man. Through this man, God spoke and demonstrated what it means, how it feels and what it costs to love and be loved by God and each other. Through the life, death and resurrection of this man, we can not only know about God and His
ways, but we are welcomed as members of the family. The Christmas miracle we celebrate tonight is not that God becomes a human being. The Christmas miracle we celebrate tonight is that through this baby human beings can come to God.
The message of Christmas challenges our complacency an our prejudices and our misconceptions about God and humanity. For this baby was not born amongst the wealthy, the intelligent, or the powerful, but rather was born in the poorest of situations, to parents who were not formally educated and who in the eyes of others had no influence or status. God values the humanity of the ordinary man or woman so much that he chose to come amongst them, trusting them for love and life. In return he offers us as ordinary men and women love and life, and he trusts us to share it with others.
The Christmas miracle that we see and hear tonight, celebrates a God who embraces our humanity completely and sees every single one of us as a potential stand in for him. As potential stand-ins for God therefore we each need to be treated with value, dignity and respect: the God who comes to us in humility tonight as a baby, later as a man speaks forcefully to our pride, our economic and social status, our sense of justice and the importance of our sheer human worth, and calls us to simply love each other. As such, in the killing, raping and
looting fields of Darfur; in the broken nation and a broken people of Zimbabwe who have been forcefed with injustice and can swallow no more; for the unreconciled children of Abraham in the Middle East - the Palestinians without a viable state they can call home and Israelis hungry for peace and security; for the refugees, the homeless and people caught up in human trafficking; in the walls of silence the abduction of Madeline McCann, the murder of Rhys Jones and the failure for any to take responsibility for the Omagh bombing – God is being daily violated and blasphemed.
Through the birth of Jesus, we are reminded that the tragic human plight that we see and read through the media, is God’s plight. Through the birth of Jesus, we are reminded of how much God loves that ordinary humanity, enough to make it his own. Through the birth of Jesus, we are reminded therefore that apathy to horrendous news stories is no longer an option. It is all to easy to change the channel to avoid them, but because of the birth of Jesus, those stories are not about ‘others’, but about men and women like us, amongst whom he was born, whom he trusted for love and life, and who he continues to trust to love.
Tonight we are reminded that through the birth of a baby, God clearly demonstrates the depth of his love for ordinary men an women by being born
vulnerable and helpless amongst us, trusting us for love and life. Tonight we are reminded that through the birth of a baby, God longs for each of us to be loved by
Him, to know that in the midst of complicated family life that he is our Father. Tonight we are reminded that through the birth of a baby, that we are worth loving and so should love each other in turn. Amen.
A Blog for Advent 2012
Wednesday 24 December 2008
Four Last Things - Hell
Everything stops in our house at 9pm on Thursday night. Why? We have thoroughly enjoyed, if that’s the right word, the BBC programme ‘Apparitions.’
Without diverting into too much detail, the series centers around a Roman Catholic priest, Fr Jacob, who practices a ministry of exorcism. During last Thursday night’s episode Fr. Jacob, referring to a tormented soul in Hell, said something like. ‘People are not sent to hell, they choose it when they deny God.’
During Advent, the church has traditionally meditated on what it calls the Four Last Things - death, judgement, heaven and hell. They are traditionally the things that the dying contemplate on before the inevitable, or to put another way, they are the four things that the dead encounter after death. In this final address this morning I want to think about Hell.
There was a time when it was very a la mode for preachers to talk about, Hell, hellfire and damnation. Yet as a doctrine, whilst still central to the teaching of the church, it is mentioned very infrequently these days, so much so that one could seriously wonder whether the church has completely ditched it.
The Church though places the doctrine of Hell at its’ heart. The 39 Articles of Religion, the basic summary of the beliefs of the Church of England, composed back in 1563 but still one of the founding documents of the church today, refer to Hell. Article III reads, ‘...As Christ died for us, and was buried, so also is it to be believed that He went down into Hell...’
Back in March 2007, in a Lent sermon, Pope Benedict XVI said, "Hell exists and there is eternal punishment for those who sin and do not repent."
Using the Gospel reading of John where Jesus saves the adulterous woman from death by stoning by saying "let he who is without sin to cast the first stone", Pope Benedict said: "This reading shows us that Christ wants to save souls. He is saying that He wants us in Paradise with Him but He is saying that those who close their hearts to Him will be condemned to eternal damnation....Only God's love can change from within the existence of the person and, consequently, the existence of every society, because only His infinite love liberates from sin, the root of every evil...”
Dante's The Divine Comedy is a classic inspiration for modern images of Hell with its flames and winged, diabolical-looking beasts. The 15th century Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch also seared his vision of Hell into the popular European imagination, with pictures showing half-man, half-beast creatures.
There is no one specific definition of Hell in the scriptures, but rather three different traditions. Firstly within Judasim there is Gehenna. The name derived from the burning rubbish dump near Jerusalem, metaphorically identified with the entrance to the underworld. It was a foul smelling place, outside the safety and sanctity of the city where rubbish and the bodies of dead animals and criminals were burned.
Gehenna is cited in the New Testament and in early Christian writing to represent the place where evil will be destroyed. Gehenna as a destination of the wicked is different from Sheol, the abode of all the dead.
Secondly there is Sheol as it is called in the OT, Hades the Greek New Testament. Hades was the place of the dead in general rather than the abode of the wicked. It is a place of waiting before the Final Judgement. The parable of Lazarus and Dives is unusual in that Jesus links Hades to a place of torment for the wicked.
Thirdly there is Hell. A fiery vision of Hell is mentioned in the Bible, in the Gospel of Matthew 25, which describes: "the eternal fire prepared for
the Devil and his angels", while the Book of Revelation talks of "lakes of fire, brimming with sulphur". Hell is a place or a state in which the souls of the unsaved will suffer the consequences of sin and for those who have rejected Jesus.
In the 1968 book, Introduction to Christianity, Joseph Ratzinger, described Hell as a state of existential abandonment, "the loneliness into which love can no longer reach".
Our world feels like a loveless place from time to time, whether that’s in a Harringay flat or a Merseyside pub car park or in a refugee camp in Darfur or a Zimbabwean hospital. Yet even these places are filled with colour, love and light compared with a time and place where the love of God cannot reach.
God does not condemn souls to Hell, it is somewhere people choose when they willfully turn their back on love, God’s love. Love draws us in. It transforms loneliness into friendship, relationship and intimacy. God created in love, he fills the world with love, and shows us His love in Jesus Christ. As this season of Advent draws to a conclusion, Hell stands as a warning sign to us all, not necessarily to believe or behave in a certain way, but rather to live in love, to live by love and be judged by love. Amen.
Without diverting into too much detail, the series centers around a Roman Catholic priest, Fr Jacob, who practices a ministry of exorcism. During last Thursday night’s episode Fr. Jacob, referring to a tormented soul in Hell, said something like. ‘People are not sent to hell, they choose it when they deny God.’
During Advent, the church has traditionally meditated on what it calls the Four Last Things - death, judgement, heaven and hell. They are traditionally the things that the dying contemplate on before the inevitable, or to put another way, they are the four things that the dead encounter after death. In this final address this morning I want to think about Hell.
There was a time when it was very a la mode for preachers to talk about, Hell, hellfire and damnation. Yet as a doctrine, whilst still central to the teaching of the church, it is mentioned very infrequently these days, so much so that one could seriously wonder whether the church has completely ditched it.
The Church though places the doctrine of Hell at its’ heart. The 39 Articles of Religion, the basic summary of the beliefs of the Church of England, composed back in 1563 but still one of the founding documents of the church today, refer to Hell. Article III reads, ‘...As Christ died for us, and was buried, so also is it to be believed that He went down into Hell...’
Back in March 2007, in a Lent sermon, Pope Benedict XVI said, "Hell exists and there is eternal punishment for those who sin and do not repent."
Using the Gospel reading of John where Jesus saves the adulterous woman from death by stoning by saying "let he who is without sin to cast the first stone", Pope Benedict said: "This reading shows us that Christ wants to save souls. He is saying that He wants us in Paradise with Him but He is saying that those who close their hearts to Him will be condemned to eternal damnation....Only God's love can change from within the existence of the person and, consequently, the existence of every society, because only His infinite love liberates from sin, the root of every evil...”
Dante's The Divine Comedy is a classic inspiration for modern images of Hell with its flames and winged, diabolical-looking beasts. The 15th century Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch also seared his vision of Hell into the popular European imagination, with pictures showing half-man, half-beast creatures.
There is no one specific definition of Hell in the scriptures, but rather three different traditions. Firstly within Judasim there is Gehenna. The name derived from the burning rubbish dump near Jerusalem, metaphorically identified with the entrance to the underworld. It was a foul smelling place, outside the safety and sanctity of the city where rubbish and the bodies of dead animals and criminals were burned.
Gehenna is cited in the New Testament and in early Christian writing to represent the place where evil will be destroyed. Gehenna as a destination of the wicked is different from Sheol, the abode of all the dead.
Secondly there is Sheol as it is called in the OT, Hades the Greek New Testament. Hades was the place of the dead in general rather than the abode of the wicked. It is a place of waiting before the Final Judgement. The parable of Lazarus and Dives is unusual in that Jesus links Hades to a place of torment for the wicked.
Thirdly there is Hell. A fiery vision of Hell is mentioned in the Bible, in the Gospel of Matthew 25, which describes: "the eternal fire prepared for
the Devil and his angels", while the Book of Revelation talks of "lakes of fire, brimming with sulphur". Hell is a place or a state in which the souls of the unsaved will suffer the consequences of sin and for those who have rejected Jesus.
In the 1968 book, Introduction to Christianity, Joseph Ratzinger, described Hell as a state of existential abandonment, "the loneliness into which love can no longer reach".
Our world feels like a loveless place from time to time, whether that’s in a Harringay flat or a Merseyside pub car park or in a refugee camp in Darfur or a Zimbabwean hospital. Yet even these places are filled with colour, love and light compared with a time and place where the love of God cannot reach.
God does not condemn souls to Hell, it is somewhere people choose when they willfully turn their back on love, God’s love. Love draws us in. It transforms loneliness into friendship, relationship and intimacy. God created in love, he fills the world with love, and shows us His love in Jesus Christ. As this season of Advent draws to a conclusion, Hell stands as a warning sign to us all, not necessarily to believe or behave in a certain way, but rather to live in love, to live by love and be judged by love. Amen.
Monday 22 December 2008
23rd December 2008
Very moving reflection from Rt. Rev'd. Stephen Cottrell...
One of my best Christmas memories is from the church in Chichester where I was the parish priest. Because the building was so small, and because every other available inch of space was needed for chairs, we used to put the crib underneath the altar.
One Christmas morning, about halfway through the service, a little girl, Miriam, toddled up to the front of the church. She can only have been about two or three at the time. For several minutes she stood before the crib, gazing intently at the figures. Then, very carefully, so as not to wake the baby, she stepped inside and sat down. And as people looked at the crib that Christmas, as well as the shepherds and the angels and the ox and the ass, and Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus, they saw Miriam. She sat there for the rest of the service, content to have become part of the story.
She was the best Christmas sermon I have ever experienced. I think this is also the best example I can muster of the how to get ready for Christmas this year.
STOP
* Now that all the preparations are done – or at least now that there is no more time for any more preparing – stop, and find a place of quiet.
* Be still. Get inside the story. Sit down. Make yourself smaller. In your imagination go to Bethlehem. Bend beneath the lintel of the door of the stable and come in.
* God comes to us in the vulnerability of a child. We can come to him in stillness. We can find him in silence. And Christmas can be put back together. And enjoyed.
Do Nothing Christmas is Coming. By Stephen Cottrell. Published by Church House Publishing 2008
One of my best Christmas memories is from the church in Chichester where I was the parish priest. Because the building was so small, and because every other available inch of space was needed for chairs, we used to put the crib underneath the altar.
One Christmas morning, about halfway through the service, a little girl, Miriam, toddled up to the front of the church. She can only have been about two or three at the time. For several minutes she stood before the crib, gazing intently at the figures. Then, very carefully, so as not to wake the baby, she stepped inside and sat down. And as people looked at the crib that Christmas, as well as the shepherds and the angels and the ox and the ass, and Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus, they saw Miriam. She sat there for the rest of the service, content to have become part of the story.
She was the best Christmas sermon I have ever experienced. I think this is also the best example I can muster of the how to get ready for Christmas this year.
STOP
* Now that all the preparations are done – or at least now that there is no more time for any more preparing – stop, and find a place of quiet.
* Be still. Get inside the story. Sit down. Make yourself smaller. In your imagination go to Bethlehem. Bend beneath the lintel of the door of the stable and come in.
* God comes to us in the vulnerability of a child. We can come to him in stillness. We can find him in silence. And Christmas can be put back together. And enjoyed.
Do Nothing Christmas is Coming. By Stephen Cottrell. Published by Church House Publishing 2008
Sunday 21 December 2008
22nd December 2008
I loved this, from Paula Gooder's excellent book...
It was only when I was pregnant with my first child that I realized I had completely misunderstood what waiting was about… Waiting makes me anxious, restless and uneasy. Imagine my bemusement then to encounter an experience that is entirely about waiting…
It was during the period of enforced waiting that I began to discover that waiting is not just about passing the time between the moment when the expectation is raise and when it comes to completion, in this instance between conception and the birth, but that it has deep and lasting value in and of itself.
…The waiting of pregnancy is about as active an occupation as one can hope to engage in. Pregnant waiting is a profoundly creative act, involving slow growth to new life. This kind of waiting may appear passive externally but internally consists of never-ending action and is a helpful analogy for the kind of waiting Advent requires. For many of us, Advent is such a busy time with our preparations for Christmas that the thought of stopping and sitting passively – while attractive in many ways – is simply impossible. Advent, however, does not demand passivity but the utmost activity; active, internal waiting that knits together new life.
The Meaning is in the Waiting, Pp5 and 6 by Paula Gooder. Printed by Canterbury Press, 2008
It was only when I was pregnant with my first child that I realized I had completely misunderstood what waiting was about… Waiting makes me anxious, restless and uneasy. Imagine my bemusement then to encounter an experience that is entirely about waiting…
It was during the period of enforced waiting that I began to discover that waiting is not just about passing the time between the moment when the expectation is raise and when it comes to completion, in this instance between conception and the birth, but that it has deep and lasting value in and of itself.
…The waiting of pregnancy is about as active an occupation as one can hope to engage in. Pregnant waiting is a profoundly creative act, involving slow growth to new life. This kind of waiting may appear passive externally but internally consists of never-ending action and is a helpful analogy for the kind of waiting Advent requires. For many of us, Advent is such a busy time with our preparations for Christmas that the thought of stopping and sitting passively – while attractive in many ways – is simply impossible. Advent, however, does not demand passivity but the utmost activity; active, internal waiting that knits together new life.
The Meaning is in the Waiting, Pp5 and 6 by Paula Gooder. Printed by Canterbury Press, 2008
Saturday 20 December 2008
21st December 2008
It's easy to get believing in God all the wrong way round. We think we need to understand have all the answers - or at least most of them - before we can believe. Many people find that it works the other way round; they believe in order to understand. They start from the premise that it might be true, that those feelings inside them that tell them that there might be more to life that what they see around them might be right after all, and then, inch by inch, as they participate in the life of the church and try to behave in a way that matches up to those beliefs, understanding slowly grows.
This is faith and it's not the same thing as certainty. It always includes doubts. And there is never a time when all these questions are answered. One question leads to another. And if your children ask you questions, give them honest answers. Don't pretend you know it all. Most of us have a bit of faith, it just needs nurturing and tending. FInd a place for both you and your children where your questions can be explored.
One of the names that Jesus is given at his birth is Emmanual. It means 'God with us.' The Christmas story is about God revealed in a person, living among us, and known in relationship. Just like all human relationships, this one with God, requires honesty and trust. What we need to do now is to give it a go.
From 'Do Nothing Christmas is Coming' by, Stephen Cotterall pp 50 ff, Church House Publishing, 2008
This is faith and it's not the same thing as certainty. It always includes doubts. And there is never a time when all these questions are answered. One question leads to another. And if your children ask you questions, give them honest answers. Don't pretend you know it all. Most of us have a bit of faith, it just needs nurturing and tending. FInd a place for both you and your children where your questions can be explored.
One of the names that Jesus is given at his birth is Emmanual. It means 'God with us.' The Christmas story is about God revealed in a person, living among us, and known in relationship. Just like all human relationships, this one with God, requires honesty and trust. What we need to do now is to give it a go.
From 'Do Nothing Christmas is Coming' by, Stephen Cotterall pp 50 ff, Church House Publishing, 2008
20th December 2008
Found this on the 'Why Are We Waiting' website... it resonated with me today... Sounds good!
While you are waiting today - review your day-to-day life and work out what makes you feel alive and what drains you; make a note of them.
In an experimental comparison, those who kept gratitude journals on a weekly basis exercised more regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms, felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the upcoming week compared to those who recorded hassles or neutral life events (Emmons & McCullough, 2003).
Spirituality: Those who regularly attend religious services and engage in religious activities such as prayer and reading religious material score are more likely to be grateful. Grateful people are more likely to acknowledge a belief in the interconnectedness of all life and a commitment to and responsibility to others (McCullough et al., 2002). Gratitude does not require religious faith, but faith enhances the ability to be grateful.
Materialism: Grateful individuals place less importance on material goods; they are less likely to judge their own and others success in terms of possessions accumulated; they are less envious of others; and are more likely to share their possessions with others relative to less grateful persons.
Source Robert Emmons, Professor of Psychology, University of California, Davis, USA, author of Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier (Houghton-Mifflin)
While you are waiting today - review your day-to-day life and work out what makes you feel alive and what drains you; make a note of them.
In an experimental comparison, those who kept gratitude journals on a weekly basis exercised more regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms, felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the upcoming week compared to those who recorded hassles or neutral life events (Emmons & McCullough, 2003).
Spirituality: Those who regularly attend religious services and engage in religious activities such as prayer and reading religious material score are more likely to be grateful. Grateful people are more likely to acknowledge a belief in the interconnectedness of all life and a commitment to and responsibility to others (McCullough et al., 2002). Gratitude does not require religious faith, but faith enhances the ability to be grateful.
Materialism: Grateful individuals place less importance on material goods; they are less likely to judge their own and others success in terms of possessions accumulated; they are less envious of others; and are more likely to share their possessions with others relative to less grateful persons.
Source Robert Emmons, Professor of Psychology, University of California, Davis, USA, author of Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier (Houghton-Mifflin)
Friday 19 December 2008
19th December 2008
While you are waiting today - review your day-to-day life and work out what makes you feel alive and what drains you; make a note of them.
In an experimental comparison, those who kept gratitude journals on a weekly basis exercised more regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms, felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the upcoming week compared to those who recorded hassles or neutral life events (Emmons & McCullough, 2003).
Spirituality: Those who regularly attend religious services and engage in religious activities such as prayer and reading religious material score are more likely to be grateful. Grateful people are more likely to acknowledge a belief in the interconnectedness of all life and a commitment to and responsibility to others (McCullough et al., 2002). Gratitude does not require religious faith, but faith enhances the ability to be grateful.
Materialism: Grateful individuals place less importance on material goods; they are less likely to judge their own and others success in terms of possessions accumulated; they are less envious of others; and are more likely to share their possessions with others relative to less grateful persons.
Source Robert Emmons, Professor of Psychology, University of California, Davis, USA, author of Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier (Houghton-Mifflin)
In an experimental comparison, those who kept gratitude journals on a weekly basis exercised more regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms, felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the upcoming week compared to those who recorded hassles or neutral life events (Emmons & McCullough, 2003).
Spirituality: Those who regularly attend religious services and engage in religious activities such as prayer and reading religious material score are more likely to be grateful. Grateful people are more likely to acknowledge a belief in the interconnectedness of all life and a commitment to and responsibility to others (McCullough et al., 2002). Gratitude does not require religious faith, but faith enhances the ability to be grateful.
Materialism: Grateful individuals place less importance on material goods; they are less likely to judge their own and others success in terms of possessions accumulated; they are less envious of others; and are more likely to share their possessions with others relative to less grateful persons.
Source Robert Emmons, Professor of Psychology, University of California, Davis, USA, author of Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier (Houghton-Mifflin)
Wednesday 17 December 2008
Four Last Things - Heaven (preached by Jane Smart)
“Jesus said I go to prepare a place for you, in my Fathers house there are many rooms, do not let your hearts be troubled believe in God and also in me.”
Jesus goes to prepare a place for us, by dying on the cross. He makes the way back to God possible, because God always wanted us to have a relationship with him, he loves us and wants us to love him, but we were given free will to choose, he did not want us to be like puppets without life. We were made in Gods image and he wants us to freely choose to live Gods way, just as Jesus did. Jesus glorified God by doing his will.
But people ever since Adam and Eve have thought they could do better and have followed their own will instead, hence the fall and sin making it impossible for God to continue his relationship with us.
So Jesus came to show us what God is like and just how much he truly loves us.
Heaven is where God is and where Gods will is done, where there is no sin or rebellion, where there is a relationship with God and also with others. Heaven is a community. Also it is a place of power don’t forget God is so powerful that he spoke and the universe was created. It is a place not of this world, but it is near by. However it is not several billion light years away, with angels in nightdresses, fluffy clouds, and Philadelphia cheese!!!
Jesus met peoples needs with real answers, he healed the sick, gave the blind sight, made the dumb speak, the deaf hear and the paralysed walk.
Jesus showed them the love that God has for everyone; they had never encountered such love before. Jesus reached out to those shunned by society, teaching us to love our neighbours and our enemies and helping others as we would like to be helped, turning this worlds values upside down.
Now for a story…
A man had a dream where an angel showed him the difference between Heaven and Hell.
The Angel took him to Heaven first to see what it was like. He saw a large room with a big long table laden with a banquet of all sorts of delicious foods imaginable and everyone present was happy laughing and enjoying themselves.
Next the Angel took him to see Hell. The man saw again a long table laden with excellent food in a large room; the only difference he could see was that everyone there was miserable and unhappy. The man could not understand it at all. So he spoke to the Angel and asked why he could not see any difference between the two except everyone in hell was miserable and not enjoying the feast.
The Angel replied that the guests are given chopsticks to eat the food but the chopsticks are two feet long. The difference being that in Heaven everyone feeds their neighbour!
Love changes things; everything is viewed in a new way. Just as a lake looks threatening dark and dangerous under a cloudy grey sky, but suddenly the sun breaks through the cloud and the lake becomes breathtakingly beautiful as the suns rays glisten on the water.
Heaven is where Gods will is done in love, thinking of others before ourselves, it is being in the right relationship with God, with ourselves and others. Which means to accept trust and obey God, just as Jesus did.
Realizing that Jesus died in our place on the cross. Only God can save us, the king’s job is to save his people and that is what Jesus did. By accepting Jesus as our saviour we become citizens of the kingdom of Heaven now!
We are then called to go and share the Good news with others. We cannot just sit back and do nothing like in the parable of the talents, where the man buried his talent in the ground. We are to share our gifts showing by the way we live Gods love for us all, to make a stand against the world, which is only concerned with survival not Peace and Love. Amen
Jesus goes to prepare a place for us, by dying on the cross. He makes the way back to God possible, because God always wanted us to have a relationship with him, he loves us and wants us to love him, but we were given free will to choose, he did not want us to be like puppets without life. We were made in Gods image and he wants us to freely choose to live Gods way, just as Jesus did. Jesus glorified God by doing his will.
But people ever since Adam and Eve have thought they could do better and have followed their own will instead, hence the fall and sin making it impossible for God to continue his relationship with us.
So Jesus came to show us what God is like and just how much he truly loves us.
Heaven is where God is and where Gods will is done, where there is no sin or rebellion, where there is a relationship with God and also with others. Heaven is a community. Also it is a place of power don’t forget God is so powerful that he spoke and the universe was created. It is a place not of this world, but it is near by. However it is not several billion light years away, with angels in nightdresses, fluffy clouds, and Philadelphia cheese!!!
Jesus met peoples needs with real answers, he healed the sick, gave the blind sight, made the dumb speak, the deaf hear and the paralysed walk.
Jesus showed them the love that God has for everyone; they had never encountered such love before. Jesus reached out to those shunned by society, teaching us to love our neighbours and our enemies and helping others as we would like to be helped, turning this worlds values upside down.
Now for a story…
A man had a dream where an angel showed him the difference between Heaven and Hell.
The Angel took him to Heaven first to see what it was like. He saw a large room with a big long table laden with a banquet of all sorts of delicious foods imaginable and everyone present was happy laughing and enjoying themselves.
Next the Angel took him to see Hell. The man saw again a long table laden with excellent food in a large room; the only difference he could see was that everyone there was miserable and unhappy. The man could not understand it at all. So he spoke to the Angel and asked why he could not see any difference between the two except everyone in hell was miserable and not enjoying the feast.
The Angel replied that the guests are given chopsticks to eat the food but the chopsticks are two feet long. The difference being that in Heaven everyone feeds their neighbour!
Love changes things; everything is viewed in a new way. Just as a lake looks threatening dark and dangerous under a cloudy grey sky, but suddenly the sun breaks through the cloud and the lake becomes breathtakingly beautiful as the suns rays glisten on the water.
Heaven is where Gods will is done in love, thinking of others before ourselves, it is being in the right relationship with God, with ourselves and others. Which means to accept trust and obey God, just as Jesus did.
Realizing that Jesus died in our place on the cross. Only God can save us, the king’s job is to save his people and that is what Jesus did. By accepting Jesus as our saviour we become citizens of the kingdom of Heaven now!
We are then called to go and share the Good news with others. We cannot just sit back and do nothing like in the parable of the talents, where the man buried his talent in the ground. We are to share our gifts showing by the way we live Gods love for us all, to make a stand against the world, which is only concerned with survival not Peace and Love. Amen
18th December 2008
The church Christmas tree arrived today and was lying outside the building earlier this morning. Our own tree still sits in our garage and almost certainly wont go up until after bedtime for some on Friday of this week.
Most of us still have a Christmas tree each year, some real, some those ghastly fake ones or even worse (!) one of those fibre optic ones...
Most of us also have a box of decorations that we keep in the loft and that we unpack with childlike wonder. The decorations themselves usually carry the weight of many memories: things our children made at school as well as decorations passed to us from parents or grandparents, perhaps reminding us of our own childhood.
We usually put a star or an angel at the top of the tree. This even happens in the homes of those who won't be planning any visits to church at Christmas. Yet it gets us back to the heart of the story – the strange announcement to Mary that she would bear God’s son; a new star rising, offering the world a different path to follow.
I wonder though what stars are you following? What do you really want to get out of life? No one on their deathbed says that they wished they had spent more time at the office!
I wonder what angels will visit you today? What messages are you listening to? Those siren voices complaining that you aren’t good enough, rich enough, clever enough, attractive enough? The word angel means ‘messenger’. There are messages for you today.
The message of Christmas, is simple and clear: God loves you for who you are - not what you do, how hard you work, whether you are fat or thin. No strings. We don't have to earn approval. God thinks you’re OK, that he has a purpose for your life that he can be alive in you.
Most of us still have a Christmas tree each year, some real, some those ghastly fake ones or even worse (!) one of those fibre optic ones...
Most of us also have a box of decorations that we keep in the loft and that we unpack with childlike wonder. The decorations themselves usually carry the weight of many memories: things our children made at school as well as decorations passed to us from parents or grandparents, perhaps reminding us of our own childhood.
We usually put a star or an angel at the top of the tree. This even happens in the homes of those who won't be planning any visits to church at Christmas. Yet it gets us back to the heart of the story – the strange announcement to Mary that she would bear God’s son; a new star rising, offering the world a different path to follow.
I wonder though what stars are you following? What do you really want to get out of life? No one on their deathbed says that they wished they had spent more time at the office!
I wonder what angels will visit you today? What messages are you listening to? Those siren voices complaining that you aren’t good enough, rich enough, clever enough, attractive enough? The word angel means ‘messenger’. There are messages for you today.
The message of Christmas, is simple and clear: God loves you for who you are - not what you do, how hard you work, whether you are fat or thin. No strings. We don't have to earn approval. God thinks you’re OK, that he has a purpose for your life that he can be alive in you.
Tuesday 16 December 2008
17th December 2008
We have an interior space, our soul, which is a space that we can fill with endless distractions and avoidance mechanisms. If we can remove some of the avoidance mechanisms, then our self-awareness will grow quite naturally. Gossip and idle curiosity are top of the list of things to avoid; these activities waste our time, distracting us from more generous and thoughtful conversation or reading…So cut out reading rubbish and allow reading time to become spiritual reading. This is the first remedy for spiritual apathy; to read spiritual books and reflect on what they are saying about our own lives. A good book can help us to stay focused on what matters, free from distraction. In the Christian monastic tradition pride of place is given to reading the Bible prayerfully, a reading style called lectio divina. This slow reading has been compared to eating; firstly, bite off the words by simply reading them; then chew them, that is, repeat them again and again in meditation; then swallow by making those words into a prayer and finally enjoy the flavour of the words in silent contemplation.
Finding Happiness. Page 62 by Abbot Christopher Jamison. Published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson
Finding Happiness. Page 62 by Abbot Christopher Jamison. Published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson
Monday 15 December 2008
16th December 2008
Most of us still have a Christmas tree each year; though it might be better to buy a sustainable one and to make sure we dispose of it in an environmentally friendly way. Most of us also have a box of decorations that we keep in the loft and that we unpack with childlike wonder. The decorations themselves usually carry the weight of many memories: things our children made at school as well as decorations passed to us from a previous generation, reminding us of our own childhood.
We usually put a star or an angel at the top of the tree. This even happens in the homes of those who won't be planning any visits to church at Christmas. Yet it gets us back to the heart of the story – the strange announcement to Mary that she would bear God’s son; a new star rising, offering the world a different path to follow.
STOP
* What stars are you following? What do you really want to get out of life? It doesn’t say on anyone’s gravestone, they wished they’d spent more time at the office!
* What angels will visit you today? What messages are you listening to? Those siren voices complaining that you aren’t good enough, rich enough, clever enough, attractive enough? Or the voices of affirmation that say to you, like they said to Mary, that God thinks you’re OK, that he has a purpose for your life that he can be alive in you. The word angel means ‘messenger’. There are messages for you today.
* And why not buy a real ever-new, evergreen Christmas tree in a pot this year, and then keep it for next year as well.
* If you have a cut tree, make sure you recycle it. Ninety per cent aren’t!
Do Nothing Christmas is Coming. By Stephen Cottrell. Published by Church House Publishing 2008
We usually put a star or an angel at the top of the tree. This even happens in the homes of those who won't be planning any visits to church at Christmas. Yet it gets us back to the heart of the story – the strange announcement to Mary that she would bear God’s son; a new star rising, offering the world a different path to follow.
STOP
* What stars are you following? What do you really want to get out of life? It doesn’t say on anyone’s gravestone, they wished they’d spent more time at the office!
* What angels will visit you today? What messages are you listening to? Those siren voices complaining that you aren’t good enough, rich enough, clever enough, attractive enough? Or the voices of affirmation that say to you, like they said to Mary, that God thinks you’re OK, that he has a purpose for your life that he can be alive in you. The word angel means ‘messenger’. There are messages for you today.
* And why not buy a real ever-new, evergreen Christmas tree in a pot this year, and then keep it for next year as well.
* If you have a cut tree, make sure you recycle it. Ninety per cent aren’t!
Do Nothing Christmas is Coming. By Stephen Cottrell. Published by Church House Publishing 2008
Sunday 14 December 2008
15th December 2008
This holy season on of Advent begins with Mary and an Angel. As we make our way passed its midpoint towards its end, we encounter Mary again.
Let’s put Mary in context. What did she look like? Next to the tomb of the tomb of the Venerable Bede stands the diminutive stature, the slight frame, the delicate features not quite grown into yet of a teenage girl. There is a gracefulness and yet awkwardness about her as she stands almost coyly next to the English saint. This is Mary - the shy, unassuming girl edging with some difficulty into womanhood whom you still see coming out of Woolworth's at 4.30pm with her school uniform untucked, who spends hours with her friends trying out the cheap make-up she bought in the bathroom mirror. That said, by Jewish standards, she will have been a woman socially, legally, and religiously.
Secondly, the religious context. Mary as a good Jew, was expecting the Messiah who would redeem God’s chosen people and liberate them from the Roman tyranny. The Messiah would be David’s son - a political tour de force with the heavenly armies at his command. This divine leader would exercise the righteous judgment and wrath of God over people and nations. The expectations of most seem to be that this person would come from ‘above’ as an exalted leader and would certainly not be born fragile and delicate in our midst ‘with us.’
Mary must have wondered about the future and what it would bring after her angelic visit - for the child she was carrying promised the world much, as what the angel said challenged her own hopes for her baby, but the angel’s words also challenged what her faith told her about the nature and action of God. In her discussions with angel, we also learn something fundamental about this adolescent and her radical obedience to the will of God.
The Mary’s we see probably every day are often very self-conscious and extremely image conscious. So if some teen idol had spoken to her today, my guess is Mary would have been terrified, excited, and embarrassed all at once. It is hard to begin to imagine how one feels in the presence of an angel but I suspect that it must be all that multiplied to eternity. Either way, after the initial rush of emotions, most of us would be very perplexed at being called ‘favoured one!’
Gabriel goes on to tell this ordinary girl some extraordinary news. She has found favour with God. Why should she - she not holy, in fact she may have seen herself as wholly unremarkable, but she is exactly the sort of person that God likes to give status to - where the poor and humble are lifted up and the rich and proud are brought down. Gabriel comes with a commission, literally a co-mission with and from God. She is to bear a son and to name him Jesus which means saviour. It is a a joint mission with God as this child will be given the throne of David by God and his kingdom will last to eternity. This child is the promised redeemer, but He, like Mary, is not the person that people will expect God to use and he will redeem people for God, but not in ways that they will expect.
What is remarkable with this Mary, compared with her peers in today’s world, is that she has not had sex with Joseph or any other man. This she tells quite calmly to the angel. The biology is pretty basic - how can she become pregnant? Gabriel reassures Mary that all this will be God’s doing. This is supposed to reassure Mary. What will people say? What will Joseph say more importantly? This is it - the marriage is over - in Joseph’s eyes, this will be the consequences of sleeping around. She will bring shame on herself and her parents. Mary is not the sexually active or even curious teen of today - no contraception, no morning after pill - she will somehow just have to come to terms with the social and religious stigma of having a baby outside marriage. Gabriel tells her that this child will be holy and called son of God. So what, who will believe her and how will she cope? The road ahead must have seemed confusing, complicated, even objectionable, but God will see to it Gabriel's says.
In Mary the teenager, God takes something very ordinary and does something extraordinary in the miracle of the conception of the Christ child. The truly extraordinary thing though is not what God does, but what Mary does - she hears the Angel’s words, believes, and obeys, despite the consequences of what others will think of her.
We can learn much from Mary. The Orthodox Church call her Theotokos - God Bearer. This Christmas, as we celebrate the fulfillment of gabriel’s words, we have a choice, a co-mission with and from God. Either we can resolve to hear and obey God’s call to bear Christ to others in our whole lives, for as Christians we believe that God made a permanent and lasting difference to the world in this child. We must not shy away from the consequences of being Christian, and God using even us to tell others in our words and actions of His love. Let it be to me according to your word. Or, we can do nothing leaving it all to to others, besides what might others think of me - thank God Mary didn’t.
Let’s put Mary in context. What did she look like? Next to the tomb of the tomb of the Venerable Bede stands the diminutive stature, the slight frame, the delicate features not quite grown into yet of a teenage girl. There is a gracefulness and yet awkwardness about her as she stands almost coyly next to the English saint. This is Mary - the shy, unassuming girl edging with some difficulty into womanhood whom you still see coming out of Woolworth's at 4.30pm with her school uniform untucked, who spends hours with her friends trying out the cheap make-up she bought in the bathroom mirror. That said, by Jewish standards, she will have been a woman socially, legally, and religiously.
Secondly, the religious context. Mary as a good Jew, was expecting the Messiah who would redeem God’s chosen people and liberate them from the Roman tyranny. The Messiah would be David’s son - a political tour de force with the heavenly armies at his command. This divine leader would exercise the righteous judgment and wrath of God over people and nations. The expectations of most seem to be that this person would come from ‘above’ as an exalted leader and would certainly not be born fragile and delicate in our midst ‘with us.’
Mary must have wondered about the future and what it would bring after her angelic visit - for the child she was carrying promised the world much, as what the angel said challenged her own hopes for her baby, but the angel’s words also challenged what her faith told her about the nature and action of God. In her discussions with angel, we also learn something fundamental about this adolescent and her radical obedience to the will of God.
The Mary’s we see probably every day are often very self-conscious and extremely image conscious. So if some teen idol had spoken to her today, my guess is Mary would have been terrified, excited, and embarrassed all at once. It is hard to begin to imagine how one feels in the presence of an angel but I suspect that it must be all that multiplied to eternity. Either way, after the initial rush of emotions, most of us would be very perplexed at being called ‘favoured one!’
Gabriel goes on to tell this ordinary girl some extraordinary news. She has found favour with God. Why should she - she not holy, in fact she may have seen herself as wholly unremarkable, but she is exactly the sort of person that God likes to give status to - where the poor and humble are lifted up and the rich and proud are brought down. Gabriel comes with a commission, literally a co-mission with and from God. She is to bear a son and to name him Jesus which means saviour. It is a a joint mission with God as this child will be given the throne of David by God and his kingdom will last to eternity. This child is the promised redeemer, but He, like Mary, is not the person that people will expect God to use and he will redeem people for God, but not in ways that they will expect.
What is remarkable with this Mary, compared with her peers in today’s world, is that she has not had sex with Joseph or any other man. This she tells quite calmly to the angel. The biology is pretty basic - how can she become pregnant? Gabriel reassures Mary that all this will be God’s doing. This is supposed to reassure Mary. What will people say? What will Joseph say more importantly? This is it - the marriage is over - in Joseph’s eyes, this will be the consequences of sleeping around. She will bring shame on herself and her parents. Mary is not the sexually active or even curious teen of today - no contraception, no morning after pill - she will somehow just have to come to terms with the social and religious stigma of having a baby outside marriage. Gabriel tells her that this child will be holy and called son of God. So what, who will believe her and how will she cope? The road ahead must have seemed confusing, complicated, even objectionable, but God will see to it Gabriel's says.
In Mary the teenager, God takes something very ordinary and does something extraordinary in the miracle of the conception of the Christ child. The truly extraordinary thing though is not what God does, but what Mary does - she hears the Angel’s words, believes, and obeys, despite the consequences of what others will think of her.
We can learn much from Mary. The Orthodox Church call her Theotokos - God Bearer. This Christmas, as we celebrate the fulfillment of gabriel’s words, we have a choice, a co-mission with and from God. Either we can resolve to hear and obey God’s call to bear Christ to others in our whole lives, for as Christians we believe that God made a permanent and lasting difference to the world in this child. We must not shy away from the consequences of being Christian, and God using even us to tell others in our words and actions of His love. Let it be to me according to your word. Or, we can do nothing leaving it all to to others, besides what might others think of me - thank God Mary didn’t.
Saturday 13 December 2008
14th December 2008
The interior world of human beings is a mixture of irrational and rational forces. The spiritual exercise of reason was the ancient and monastic response to this world, with daily reflection on the workings of my innermost soul; from such exercises flowed the solutions to life’s challenges and temptations. By contrast, in our culture, we are brought up without explicit and systematic spiritual formation, being informed that we can do and think what we like providing we don’t harm others. Spiritual practices such as meditation are considered purely optional extras for an eccentric few and so we are subtly led to understand that the spiritual struggle is not worth the effort.
While we want music with ‘soul’ and condemn ‘soulless’ bureaucrats, we have created a culture of spiritual carelessness that neglects the disciplined life of the soul. This state of mind is often accompanied by statements such as ‘I have not time for that sort of thing’, where having no time means both not having enough hours in the day and not having the inclination.
…A parallel can be drawn with the world of medicine. Before the discovery of germs, hygiene was not considered essential so many deaths were caused by infections that nobody could see. Once the existence of germs had been identified, physical hygiene became rigorous and lives were saved. Similarly, the cause of much unhappiness lies hidden from view but is truly present. Our demons are unseen thoughts that make us unhappy and spiritual hygiene is as necessary as medical hygiene if these diseases of the soul are to be healed. But we are a spiritually unhygienic society. While we know we must find time to brush our teeth, to visit the doctor and to take exercise, we have no such shared conviction about the need for spiritual exercises.
From 'Finding Happiness' Pp56-57 by Abbot Christopher Jamison. Published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson
While we want music with ‘soul’ and condemn ‘soulless’ bureaucrats, we have created a culture of spiritual carelessness that neglects the disciplined life of the soul. This state of mind is often accompanied by statements such as ‘I have not time for that sort of thing’, where having no time means both not having enough hours in the day and not having the inclination.
…A parallel can be drawn with the world of medicine. Before the discovery of germs, hygiene was not considered essential so many deaths were caused by infections that nobody could see. Once the existence of germs had been identified, physical hygiene became rigorous and lives were saved. Similarly, the cause of much unhappiness lies hidden from view but is truly present. Our demons are unseen thoughts that make us unhappy and spiritual hygiene is as necessary as medical hygiene if these diseases of the soul are to be healed. But we are a spiritually unhygienic society. While we know we must find time to brush our teeth, to visit the doctor and to take exercise, we have no such shared conviction about the need for spiritual exercises.
From 'Finding Happiness' Pp56-57 by Abbot Christopher Jamison. Published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson
13th December 2008
Better late than never... from the CofE's own advent website...
While you are waiting today thank God for five people who mean a lot to you.
'Lord God,
thank you for the gift of Advent,
the gift of time and of waiting,
thank you for the gift of other people,
and especially those who have shared my life
and mean so much to me:
for …..[name]*
for …..[name]
for …..[name]
for …..[name]
and for …..[name].
And as you have blessed me through them,
so, I pray, bless them today,
through Jesus Christ, our friend and brother. Amen.
While you are waiting today thank God for five people who mean a lot to you.
'Lord God,
thank you for the gift of Advent,
the gift of time and of waiting,
thank you for the gift of other people,
and especially those who have shared my life
and mean so much to me:
for …..[name]*
for …..[name]
for …..[name]
for …..[name]
and for …..[name].
And as you have blessed me through them,
so, I pray, bless them today,
through Jesus Christ, our friend and brother. Amen.
Thursday 11 December 2008
12th December 2008
What would you like for Christmas? How much packaging will it come in? Our bins all overflow for weeks after Christmas... as we celebrate the birth of life in it's fullness, I am left with a real unease. The more we consume, the more we consume of our life and the lives of others both now and in the future.
In the days that lie ahead, if you have seen something you like for yourself. Wait a week and if you still want it go and buy it then.
Advent was traditionally a period of penitence and quiet anticipation. But now it seems no more than four weeks of frenzied consumption in which stress, needless debt and damage to God's creation have become its defining hallmarks.
Did you know...?
125,000 tonnes of plastic packaging will be thrown away this Christmas?
333,333 trees will be used for Christmas cards?
Countless unwanted "gifts" will end up, at best, in the charity shops and, at worst, in the landfill.
If Jesus returned in December 2008, what would he make of us doing all of this in His name?
So, instead of shopping, we want you to come together to celebrate and anticipate the birth of Christ together, in community, reducing your consumption footprint over the Advent period, the time famed for its excessive rate of consumption and to build friendships whilst doing so.
We say no to singing Santa mugs, golf ball washers and umbrella hats that will be discarded by the 12th day of Christmas, and yes to living simply, together, over the Advent period.
As we prepare for God's coming to us, and therefore our coming to Him, can we do so with a clear conscience with those sorts of statistics to do with the way we are treating each other (made in the image of God) and the Earth (God's good creation)?
For further thoughts see the Operation Noah website - www.operationnoah.org
In the days that lie ahead, if you have seen something you like for yourself. Wait a week and if you still want it go and buy it then.
Advent was traditionally a period of penitence and quiet anticipation. But now it seems no more than four weeks of frenzied consumption in which stress, needless debt and damage to God's creation have become its defining hallmarks.
Did you know...?
125,000 tonnes of plastic packaging will be thrown away this Christmas?
333,333 trees will be used for Christmas cards?
Countless unwanted "gifts" will end up, at best, in the charity shops and, at worst, in the landfill.
If Jesus returned in December 2008, what would he make of us doing all of this in His name?
So, instead of shopping, we want you to come together to celebrate and anticipate the birth of Christ together, in community, reducing your consumption footprint over the Advent period, the time famed for its excessive rate of consumption and to build friendships whilst doing so.
We say no to singing Santa mugs, golf ball washers and umbrella hats that will be discarded by the 12th day of Christmas, and yes to living simply, together, over the Advent period.
As we prepare for God's coming to us, and therefore our coming to Him, can we do so with a clear conscience with those sorts of statistics to do with the way we are treating each other (made in the image of God) and the Earth (God's good creation)?
For further thoughts see the Operation Noah website - www.operationnoah.org
11th December 2008 - Third Anniversay of the Buncefield Blast.
Today marks the third anniversary of the Buncefield Oil depot blast in Hemel Hempstead. Below I enclose my sermon from the Sunday of the first anniversary.
A year ago at 6.01am all of us were woken by the largest explosion in peace time Europe. For a large number of us, the damage to our homes, lives and livelihoods has been small, and in most cases anything that needed attending to in terms of counseling, building work, and employment have all been resolved one way or another.
For a significant minority of people though in this village, the Buncefield blast lingers on in more than just the memory due to wrangles with the insurance company, incomplete building work, ongoing unemployment, children’s inability to sleep, and unresolved post traumatic stress. As Mike Penning rightly said on Friday night - those members of our community have become a forgotten people and and their struggle has become a forgotten story. So on this anniversary weekend I feel that it is absolutely right that bring to mind the almost biblical events of last year that affected us all to a lesser or greater degree, that we remind ourselves of the ongoing struggle for some, and that we commit ourselves to walking with them into the future.
This anniversary weekend we are also confronted with this strange, hairy man, John, shouting in the desert about repentance. The Gospel writers associate him with a prophet standing in the desert scrubland. This prophet seems to think we only get to the comfort when we’ve faced the devastation. He’s on about the wilderness, as well. What’s more, he seems to think that we are sitting in a desert because that’s what we have made of our lives. He suggests that we’ve pulled up our roots, and turned away from our ground, our source of water, which is God. Now we are so weak and dry that we drift about aimlessly.
With the Buncefield blast still ringing in our ears, and the prophet in Isaiah linked to John certain that we only get true comfort when we have faced devastation - a devastation still present amongst us, what sort of a community should we be as we prepare to greet the Christ child?
Repentant. John calls us to repentance, to live a new way. To give ourselves so completely to God, that our lives take an about face away from the wasteland that we so often make them, filled with lifeless doubt, crippling guilt, and choking fear of today and tomorrow, to them becoming places where life springs up and new growth is nurtured which is completely dependent on God for it’s future.
Advent is our readying ourselves for God’s coming to us. In some senses this is not a joyful season but one that helps to acknowledge that our world, our society, our lives, our faith are all broken and the only help and hope open to us is in God. Advent is also our readying ourselves for our coming to God and therefore being repentant is not just about breast beating at our willful ignoring of his will for us, rather it is as much about our longing for wholeness, healing and hope.
An Advent community is a repentant community, because it knows that we try to survive on our own without God at our peril. As an Advent community need to work to bring ourselves and others to him, broken and incomplete as we each are yearning for forgiveness and love.
As advent people, on this Buncefield anniversary weekend of all weekends, we need to work for healing and hope for those in our community who continue to be affected by the events of a year ago - listening to and sharing the story of our community, supporting the most vulnerable amongst us through acts of practical love and working together for the future of all.
Seeking justice and judgment. Hear the words of God through Malachi - God says he is like a refiners fire and a fullers soap, purifying and refining the descendants of Levi. Isaiah too prophesies the leveling of the land before God. We as an advent community need to be prepared for God’s judgment whilst also longing for his justice.
The story of God’s involvement with people in the scriptures speaks again and again of God’s coming and his coming again, to conclude the work he began at the first moment of creation and to restore and renew, but also to identify that which is irrevocably broken, to bring to light the things that we as people do which have willfully hampered God’s purposes for us and our lives.
Advent communities seek justice and are aware of God’s coming judgment. Since the Buncefield explosion a year ago, there has been a growing need for justice and judgment for residents and business people alike.
As an Advent community, on this Buncefield anniversary weekend of all weekends, we need to continue seek justice and judgment and to call for closure for our community. Part of this justice and closure must come through a full and transparent public inquiry, not so that the finger of blame can be pointed at particular people because their job was not done properly, but so that the community can know stage by stage what happened and why it happened. God’s advent justice for this community is also about our insurance companies acting with a single voice and acting as one and acting now. God’s advent justice for this community is also about those who have the power to ensure that as far as possible this sort of event doesn’t happen again, make sure that it doesn’t.
Hope. Hear the words of Isaiah, liked to John the Baptist - all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Salvation, literally saving from an irredeemable event, from an impossible situation offers hope. The story of God’s involvement with people is one that speaks again and again of God stepping in and lifting humanity out of the deepest darkness we insist on putting ourselves into
As an Advent community, we must be about sharing hope; hope that the darkness is temporary, hope that the bleakness of life is being overcome by the coming of Life itself, God himself in Christ.
As an Advent community, on this Buncefield anniversary weekend of all weekends, we need to be the voice telling our beleaguered community God’s story of hope. Part of this story is already being told not in words but in actions. Look back over the last year and see how this community has come together and supported one another because we had to.
Advent calls us to be purveyors of hope - the hope of God coming to us in this child who is Emmanuel (God with us), Jesus (Yeshua - saviour). Hope that indeed God is with us as a community Hemel Hempstead might mean 'heavenly homestead.' Hope that the future lies open before us with God.
A year ago at 6.01am all of us were woken by the largest explosion in peace time Europe. For a large number of us, the damage to our homes, lives and livelihoods has been small, and in most cases anything that needed attending to in terms of counseling, building work, and employment have all been resolved one way or another.
For a significant minority of people though in this village, the Buncefield blast lingers on in more than just the memory due to wrangles with the insurance company, incomplete building work, ongoing unemployment, children’s inability to sleep, and unresolved post traumatic stress. As Mike Penning rightly said on Friday night - those members of our community have become a forgotten people and and their struggle has become a forgotten story. So on this anniversary weekend I feel that it is absolutely right that bring to mind the almost biblical events of last year that affected us all to a lesser or greater degree, that we remind ourselves of the ongoing struggle for some, and that we commit ourselves to walking with them into the future.
This anniversary weekend we are also confronted with this strange, hairy man, John, shouting in the desert about repentance. The Gospel writers associate him with a prophet standing in the desert scrubland. This prophet seems to think we only get to the comfort when we’ve faced the devastation. He’s on about the wilderness, as well. What’s more, he seems to think that we are sitting in a desert because that’s what we have made of our lives. He suggests that we’ve pulled up our roots, and turned away from our ground, our source of water, which is God. Now we are so weak and dry that we drift about aimlessly.
With the Buncefield blast still ringing in our ears, and the prophet in Isaiah linked to John certain that we only get true comfort when we have faced devastation - a devastation still present amongst us, what sort of a community should we be as we prepare to greet the Christ child?
Repentant. John calls us to repentance, to live a new way. To give ourselves so completely to God, that our lives take an about face away from the wasteland that we so often make them, filled with lifeless doubt, crippling guilt, and choking fear of today and tomorrow, to them becoming places where life springs up and new growth is nurtured which is completely dependent on God for it’s future.
Advent is our readying ourselves for God’s coming to us. In some senses this is not a joyful season but one that helps to acknowledge that our world, our society, our lives, our faith are all broken and the only help and hope open to us is in God. Advent is also our readying ourselves for our coming to God and therefore being repentant is not just about breast beating at our willful ignoring of his will for us, rather it is as much about our longing for wholeness, healing and hope.
An Advent community is a repentant community, because it knows that we try to survive on our own without God at our peril. As an Advent community need to work to bring ourselves and others to him, broken and incomplete as we each are yearning for forgiveness and love.
As advent people, on this Buncefield anniversary weekend of all weekends, we need to work for healing and hope for those in our community who continue to be affected by the events of a year ago - listening to and sharing the story of our community, supporting the most vulnerable amongst us through acts of practical love and working together for the future of all.
Seeking justice and judgment. Hear the words of God through Malachi - God says he is like a refiners fire and a fullers soap, purifying and refining the descendants of Levi. Isaiah too prophesies the leveling of the land before God. We as an advent community need to be prepared for God’s judgment whilst also longing for his justice.
The story of God’s involvement with people in the scriptures speaks again and again of God’s coming and his coming again, to conclude the work he began at the first moment of creation and to restore and renew, but also to identify that which is irrevocably broken, to bring to light the things that we as people do which have willfully hampered God’s purposes for us and our lives.
Advent communities seek justice and are aware of God’s coming judgment. Since the Buncefield explosion a year ago, there has been a growing need for justice and judgment for residents and business people alike.
As an Advent community, on this Buncefield anniversary weekend of all weekends, we need to continue seek justice and judgment and to call for closure for our community. Part of this justice and closure must come through a full and transparent public inquiry, not so that the finger of blame can be pointed at particular people because their job was not done properly, but so that the community can know stage by stage what happened and why it happened. God’s advent justice for this community is also about our insurance companies acting with a single voice and acting as one and acting now. God’s advent justice for this community is also about those who have the power to ensure that as far as possible this sort of event doesn’t happen again, make sure that it doesn’t.
Hope. Hear the words of Isaiah, liked to John the Baptist - all flesh shall see the salvation of God. Salvation, literally saving from an irredeemable event, from an impossible situation offers hope. The story of God’s involvement with people is one that speaks again and again of God stepping in and lifting humanity out of the deepest darkness we insist on putting ourselves into
As an Advent community, we must be about sharing hope; hope that the darkness is temporary, hope that the bleakness of life is being overcome by the coming of Life itself, God himself in Christ.
As an Advent community, on this Buncefield anniversary weekend of all weekends, we need to be the voice telling our beleaguered community God’s story of hope. Part of this story is already being told not in words but in actions. Look back over the last year and see how this community has come together and supported one another because we had to.
Advent calls us to be purveyors of hope - the hope of God coming to us in this child who is Emmanuel (God with us), Jesus (Yeshua - saviour). Hope that indeed God is with us as a community Hemel Hempstead might mean 'heavenly homestead.' Hope that the future lies open before us with God.
Wednesday 10 December 2008
10th December 2008 - Four Last Things: Judgement
You will have heard the expression, ‘You can’t judge a book by it’s cover.’ This though is just not true! We do it all the time... We constantly make, judgements about people by the way they look, their clothes, their hairstyle, skin colour, age, sex and so on.
As Shakespeare’s Hamlet put it, "Aye, there’s the rub." It is the thought of judgment that strikes fear into the Christian soul. Who among us dares to stand face-to-face with God? Who among us dares to own the darkness that lurks within us? The very word judgment becomes, in our minds, condemnation.
That’s not the dictionary definition of the word. Webster speaks of authoritative opinion, a formal court decision, discernment and comparison.
More importantly, the people who shaped our faith centuries ago, the Jewish people who were Jesus’ own forebears, didn’t think of condemnation when they spoke of judgment. They didn’t see themselves as defendants in a criminal court. Rather, they saw themselves as plaintiffs in a civil action, seeking redress from God for their suffering. Go back and re-read the Book of Job or Daniel for the detail.
Like their Jewish ancestors, Christians await vindication. Speaking of the signs that announce his imminent return on the last day, Jesus told his followers to
"stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand" (Luke 21:28). We fear condemnation because we too easily focus on our own weaknesses and failures rather than on God’s goodness. In truth, were the scales of justice truly balanced, we would surely stand condemned. Nothing we do, nothing we are comes within light-years of God’s holiness. The bottom line is not that we must earn eternal life but, rather, that God has lovingly given it to us. "God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us," Paul wrote (Romans 5:8). And Jesus prayed that his disciples and all future believers "may be with me where I am" (John 17:24).
St. Paul speaks of facing judgment with imagery that again recalls birth: "At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known" (1 Corinthians 13:12, emphasis added). We wear a lot of masks to keep from being known. Perhaps no one judges us more harshly than we judge ourselves. But every now and then someone catches us off guard by peeking behind our masks and loving us as we are—a surprise someone called the most magical: "God’s finger on one’s shoulder." Truly, no one knows us so well and yet loves us with such enduring passion as God does.
Centuries of Christian art reflect many changes in our understanding of Christ’s triumphant return and final judgement. That event was eagerly awaited by the first believers. Into the early Middle Ages, works of art suggest joy rather than terror. Typical is a carving on the tomb of a bishop buried in 608: The elect, wakening from death’s sleep, lift their arms to acclaim the returning Lord. Some 500 years later, another detail appears: the separation of the damned, the scene Jesus describes in Matthew 25:31-46. Their misery becomes more dominant and more horribly detailed as the centuries roll by.
The reasons for the change are too complex to explore here, but it seems apparent that Christianity took a rather gloomy turn after its first millennium ended without Jesus’ return on clouds of glory. The Dies Irae, a hymn describing the terrors of Judgment Day, became part of the funeral liturgy and remained until the post-Vatican II liturgical reform.
This morning’s Gospel reading reminds us that we must not, should not, can can not judge. In Jesus day, sheep and goats looked very alike, almost identical. The untrained eye could not tell them apart only the shepherd. Jesus the Good Shepherd who can discern the righteous from the unrighteous because he sees not the cover of the book, but the nakedness of the human heart with all it’s drives and motives exposed.
The theologian Mirolsav Volf in his book "Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace" reminds us that not only are dependent on God to fulfill the longings of our hearts, as we are made in His image. Our need of God goes far deeper. Wolf reminds us that all that we have, all that we are is borrowed by us, given to us as a gift from God. Not even life itself is ours to do with what we wish. As God created human beings, He breathed into them the breath of life - the essence of life itself. We are all created equal in God’s sight, and are equally in need of the grace of God our heavenly father. God made us equally and loves us equally even in judgement.
Jesus judges us but does not condemn us, and neither should we. The story of Jesus’ encounter with the women caught in adultery remind us that it is all too human to condemn. On that day, Jesus reminded us that only the sinless can judge, God alone, and when he does he e looks at each of us in love and in judgement. On the scales of judgement God finds us guilty of falling short of His standards, His expectations through our sinfulness, but rather he balances out the judgement with the weight of love shown in the Cross of Christ.
We judge others by appearance as a means to make sense of our lives and our world, yet we are reminded that despite the superficial differences we define others by, God sees us as equal, made in His image through His love. It is through that same loving nature that God judges our motives and drives, challenging us not judge or condemn, rather to love and love and love just as He does.
As Shakespeare’s Hamlet put it, "Aye, there’s the rub." It is the thought of judgment that strikes fear into the Christian soul. Who among us dares to stand face-to-face with God? Who among us dares to own the darkness that lurks within us? The very word judgment becomes, in our minds, condemnation.
That’s not the dictionary definition of the word. Webster speaks of authoritative opinion, a formal court decision, discernment and comparison.
More importantly, the people who shaped our faith centuries ago, the Jewish people who were Jesus’ own forebears, didn’t think of condemnation when they spoke of judgment. They didn’t see themselves as defendants in a criminal court. Rather, they saw themselves as plaintiffs in a civil action, seeking redress from God for their suffering. Go back and re-read the Book of Job or Daniel for the detail.
Like their Jewish ancestors, Christians await vindication. Speaking of the signs that announce his imminent return on the last day, Jesus told his followers to
"stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand" (Luke 21:28). We fear condemnation because we too easily focus on our own weaknesses and failures rather than on God’s goodness. In truth, were the scales of justice truly balanced, we would surely stand condemned. Nothing we do, nothing we are comes within light-years of God’s holiness. The bottom line is not that we must earn eternal life but, rather, that God has lovingly given it to us. "God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us," Paul wrote (Romans 5:8). And Jesus prayed that his disciples and all future believers "may be with me where I am" (John 17:24).
St. Paul speaks of facing judgment with imagery that again recalls birth: "At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known" (1 Corinthians 13:12, emphasis added). We wear a lot of masks to keep from being known. Perhaps no one judges us more harshly than we judge ourselves. But every now and then someone catches us off guard by peeking behind our masks and loving us as we are—a surprise someone called the most magical: "God’s finger on one’s shoulder." Truly, no one knows us so well and yet loves us with such enduring passion as God does.
Centuries of Christian art reflect many changes in our understanding of Christ’s triumphant return and final judgement. That event was eagerly awaited by the first believers. Into the early Middle Ages, works of art suggest joy rather than terror. Typical is a carving on the tomb of a bishop buried in 608: The elect, wakening from death’s sleep, lift their arms to acclaim the returning Lord. Some 500 years later, another detail appears: the separation of the damned, the scene Jesus describes in Matthew 25:31-46. Their misery becomes more dominant and more horribly detailed as the centuries roll by.
The reasons for the change are too complex to explore here, but it seems apparent that Christianity took a rather gloomy turn after its first millennium ended without Jesus’ return on clouds of glory. The Dies Irae, a hymn describing the terrors of Judgment Day, became part of the funeral liturgy and remained until the post-Vatican II liturgical reform.
This morning’s Gospel reading reminds us that we must not, should not, can can not judge. In Jesus day, sheep and goats looked very alike, almost identical. The untrained eye could not tell them apart only the shepherd. Jesus the Good Shepherd who can discern the righteous from the unrighteous because he sees not the cover of the book, but the nakedness of the human heart with all it’s drives and motives exposed.
The theologian Mirolsav Volf in his book "Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace" reminds us that not only are dependent on God to fulfill the longings of our hearts, as we are made in His image. Our need of God goes far deeper. Wolf reminds us that all that we have, all that we are is borrowed by us, given to us as a gift from God. Not even life itself is ours to do with what we wish. As God created human beings, He breathed into them the breath of life - the essence of life itself. We are all created equal in God’s sight, and are equally in need of the grace of God our heavenly father. God made us equally and loves us equally even in judgement.
Jesus judges us but does not condemn us, and neither should we. The story of Jesus’ encounter with the women caught in adultery remind us that it is all too human to condemn. On that day, Jesus reminded us that only the sinless can judge, God alone, and when he does he e looks at each of us in love and in judgement. On the scales of judgement God finds us guilty of falling short of His standards, His expectations through our sinfulness, but rather he balances out the judgement with the weight of love shown in the Cross of Christ.
We judge others by appearance as a means to make sense of our lives and our world, yet we are reminded that despite the superficial differences we define others by, God sees us as equal, made in His image through His love. It is through that same loving nature that God judges our motives and drives, challenging us not judge or condemn, rather to love and love and love just as He does.
Monday 8 December 2008
9th December 2008
We opened the next door of our Advent calendar this morning, to be greeted by the smiling face of an angel. Angels in the Bible appear as divine messengers - conveying heavenly news to people on earth. Probably the most famous angelic visit of them all was that of the Angel Gabriel to Mary, bearing news of her divinely conceived pregnancy, that the church remember with joy in days from now.
I wonder how Mary or Joseph felt about her pregnancy with days to go? I can remember how I felt as we expected the birth of Matthew nearly 6 years ago now - a mixed bag of emotions - excitement, anticipation, uncertainty, doubt... I can remember wondering how it was all going to work out? Whether we had what it took to be the good parents that we hoped that we would be? Mary and Joseph must have felt similar things - even more keenly though perhaps as there were no travel systems, no car seats, Johnson's didn’t manufacture any baby products, infant mortality was far higher, and for Joseph to top it all off - the baby was not even his!
The birth of a child is, even in today's techno-friendly world, a miracle in every sense as any new parent or midwife will tell you. They are so perfect! The safe arrival of a child in the world is a truly remarkable event especially in the face of the way we seem constantly unable to live in and at peace with each other whether internationally, nationally or locally. A new baby gives hope and flies in the face of more dead in Chechnya or a torturous regime in Iraq. Many people, when holding a child in their arms for the first time are completely overawed by the whole experience - tears of joy and relief my be shed - even by dads.
But if Advent is just the spiritual part of the preparations for Christmas that many of us are rather franticly making right now buying enough presents to start a shop of our own, enough food to rival the local supermarkets and enough booze to turn the local offy as dry as the desert - and all this just to remember the birth of a baby, albeit a most remarkable one, then it seems to me what we have missed the point.
The word Advent means ‘coming’ and over the days of this season Christians begin to prepare themselves for a completely unique event. It is not the birth of a baby that the church celebrates in a matter of weeks, rather the beginning or coming of a new perspective on life because the baby to be born was different to all others and his arrival changed the course of human history for good.
The angel Gabriel told Mary that the baby to be born should be named Jesus which means saviour. He would be holy and called Son of God, he would be God’s appointed King forever and that his kingdom would cross boundaries of space and time. This baby later as an adult in word and action offered and still offers the whole world the possibility for permanent forgiveness and reconciliation between people, nations and God - to be transformed into people that love not lie, into a culture that gives and forgives, into a world at peace with itself and its maker.
Is this an all too utopian vision and hope when so many die at the hand of fellow humans each day? Is it too good to be true? The Christian faith says no - this is what that baby came to bring and to start. That baby is God himself in the flesh - here not to understand our world with it’s joys and pains like ET - but to start to make perfect the work he began at the moment of Creation.
Advent marks for a church a time of preparation to meet with God himself, the creator of the universe in the flesh and to celebrate not the 2003 birthday of Jesus - but the promise that God made the world when he made it, the promise that he made through the angel Gabriel that we and all creation can all be perfect - not just new babies.
I wonder how Mary or Joseph felt about her pregnancy with days to go? I can remember how I felt as we expected the birth of Matthew nearly 6 years ago now - a mixed bag of emotions - excitement, anticipation, uncertainty, doubt... I can remember wondering how it was all going to work out? Whether we had what it took to be the good parents that we hoped that we would be? Mary and Joseph must have felt similar things - even more keenly though perhaps as there were no travel systems, no car seats, Johnson's didn’t manufacture any baby products, infant mortality was far higher, and for Joseph to top it all off - the baby was not even his!
The birth of a child is, even in today's techno-friendly world, a miracle in every sense as any new parent or midwife will tell you. They are so perfect! The safe arrival of a child in the world is a truly remarkable event especially in the face of the way we seem constantly unable to live in and at peace with each other whether internationally, nationally or locally. A new baby gives hope and flies in the face of more dead in Chechnya or a torturous regime in Iraq. Many people, when holding a child in their arms for the first time are completely overawed by the whole experience - tears of joy and relief my be shed - even by dads.
But if Advent is just the spiritual part of the preparations for Christmas that many of us are rather franticly making right now buying enough presents to start a shop of our own, enough food to rival the local supermarkets and enough booze to turn the local offy as dry as the desert - and all this just to remember the birth of a baby, albeit a most remarkable one, then it seems to me what we have missed the point.
The word Advent means ‘coming’ and over the days of this season Christians begin to prepare themselves for a completely unique event. It is not the birth of a baby that the church celebrates in a matter of weeks, rather the beginning or coming of a new perspective on life because the baby to be born was different to all others and his arrival changed the course of human history for good.
The angel Gabriel told Mary that the baby to be born should be named Jesus which means saviour. He would be holy and called Son of God, he would be God’s appointed King forever and that his kingdom would cross boundaries of space and time. This baby later as an adult in word and action offered and still offers the whole world the possibility for permanent forgiveness and reconciliation between people, nations and God - to be transformed into people that love not lie, into a culture that gives and forgives, into a world at peace with itself and its maker.
Is this an all too utopian vision and hope when so many die at the hand of fellow humans each day? Is it too good to be true? The Christian faith says no - this is what that baby came to bring and to start. That baby is God himself in the flesh - here not to understand our world with it’s joys and pains like ET - but to start to make perfect the work he began at the moment of Creation.
Advent marks for a church a time of preparation to meet with God himself, the creator of the universe in the flesh and to celebrate not the 2003 birthday of Jesus - but the promise that God made the world when he made it, the promise that he made through the angel Gabriel that we and all creation can all be perfect - not just new babies.
Job Oportunity - Administrator
The Team Parish of Chambersbury
wish to appoint a
Parish Administrator
This is a large and busy Parish currently consisting of three churches:
St Mary’s in Apsley End
Holy Trinity in Leverstock Green
St Benedict’s in Bennetts End.
You will report directly to the Rector and assist in the following tasks:
The production of the Parish publications
Central administration of parochial fees
Central contact point for baptism, wedding, funeral enquiries
Liaison with other Team Members and Church officers
Co ordination of Parish diary and events
Wedding registers and quarterly returns
Other administrative work as required
The skills required are:
Experience of MS Office is essential
An ability to work as part of a busy team
Maintenance of accuracy whilst under pressure
A smile and a sense of humour!
The post is for 15 hours per week in the afternoons.
Initially, this post will be for one year with a salary in the region of £7,000.
The employee will be based at the Parish Office, All Saints, Kings Langley, and will work with the current Administrator of All Saints.
In the first instance please apply in writing to:
The Revd: David M Lawson
St Mary’s Vicarage
7 Belswains Lane
Hemel Hempstead
HP3 9PN
The deadline for receipt of applications is Tuesday December 16th 2008. Interviews will be held on Friday December 19th 2008.
Enhanced CRB disclosure will be required for this post.
wish to appoint a
Parish Administrator
This is a large and busy Parish currently consisting of three churches:
St Mary’s in Apsley End
Holy Trinity in Leverstock Green
St Benedict’s in Bennetts End.
You will report directly to the Rector and assist in the following tasks:
The production of the Parish publications
Central administration of parochial fees
Central contact point for baptism, wedding, funeral enquiries
Liaison with other Team Members and Church officers
Co ordination of Parish diary and events
Wedding registers and quarterly returns
Other administrative work as required
The skills required are:
Experience of MS Office is essential
An ability to work as part of a busy team
Maintenance of accuracy whilst under pressure
A smile and a sense of humour!
The post is for 15 hours per week in the afternoons.
Initially, this post will be for one year with a salary in the region of £7,000.
The employee will be based at the Parish Office, All Saints, Kings Langley, and will work with the current Administrator of All Saints.
In the first instance please apply in writing to:
The Revd: David M Lawson
St Mary’s Vicarage
7 Belswains Lane
Hemel Hempstead
HP3 9PN
The deadline for receipt of applications is Tuesday December 16th 2008. Interviews will be held on Friday December 19th 2008.
Enhanced CRB disclosure will be required for this post.
Sunday 7 December 2008
8th December 2008
Prayer of Abandonment
Father,
I abandon myself into your hands;
do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you:
I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me,
and in all your creatures -
I wish no more than this, O Lord.
Into your hands I commend my soul:
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,
for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,
for you are my Father. Amen.
'...As soon as I believed there was a God, I understood I could do nothing else but live for him, my religious vocation dates from the same moment as my faith: God is so great. There is such a difference between God and everything that is not...'
The prayer above and the quote are both by Charles de Foucauld. He was born in 1858 and led a dissipated life as a young officer in the cavalry. In 1883, he went on an expedition to Morocco where he developed a passion for north Africa and its ways. Four years later, he returned to the Catholic faith of his infancy and, after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, became a Trappist monk in 1890. Desiring an even more austere life, he left in 1897 and became a servant to the Poor Clares in Jerusalem and Nazareth. He was eventually ordained priest in 1901 and went to live as a hermit in Algeria, ending up at Tamanrasset. He became fluent in the local language and his care and concern for the local tribes-people made him accepted and then much loved, though he never sought converts. He composed Rules for brothers and for sisters, though none ever actually joined him. He was assassinated on this day in 1916, a victim of local religious wars. The Little Sisters of the Sacred Heart were founded in 1933, others decided to adopt a life based on his rule, eventually becoming The Little Brothers of Jesus in 1945. He was beatified by The Pope in 2005.
I mention Charles here because someone introduced me to the prayer above (thanks Brian) recently. He spent a significant part of his life living as a solitary hermit in Palestine.
About half a million people will spend Christmas on their own this year. Some will do it out of choice, others though will spend the season of goodwill lonely, isolated, forgotten, abandoned. We live in a very crowded and technologically interconnected world, and yet contemporary Britain can feel like the loneliest place on earth - we know the names of the characters in Eastenders, but not those of our next door neighbours.
Charles did not withdraw to escape people, to a lonely existence. Rather he withdrew to be able to block out the things in modern living that make us supposedly more connected, more available, and to spend time discovering a reliance on a relationship with God. Away from contact with others, Charles became acutely aware of God's love and provision for him.
This holy season let's take some time to step outside our comfort zones, befriend our neighbours and allow something of God's love to be seen and shared and felt in and through us, by those who need it most.
Father,
I abandon myself into your hands;
do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you:
I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me,
and in all your creatures -
I wish no more than this, O Lord.
Into your hands I commend my soul:
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,
for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,
for you are my Father. Amen.
'...As soon as I believed there was a God, I understood I could do nothing else but live for him, my religious vocation dates from the same moment as my faith: God is so great. There is such a difference between God and everything that is not...'
The prayer above and the quote are both by Charles de Foucauld. He was born in 1858 and led a dissipated life as a young officer in the cavalry. In 1883, he went on an expedition to Morocco where he developed a passion for north Africa and its ways. Four years later, he returned to the Catholic faith of his infancy and, after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, became a Trappist monk in 1890. Desiring an even more austere life, he left in 1897 and became a servant to the Poor Clares in Jerusalem and Nazareth. He was eventually ordained priest in 1901 and went to live as a hermit in Algeria, ending up at Tamanrasset. He became fluent in the local language and his care and concern for the local tribes-people made him accepted and then much loved, though he never sought converts. He composed Rules for brothers and for sisters, though none ever actually joined him. He was assassinated on this day in 1916, a victim of local religious wars. The Little Sisters of the Sacred Heart were founded in 1933, others decided to adopt a life based on his rule, eventually becoming The Little Brothers of Jesus in 1945. He was beatified by The Pope in 2005.
I mention Charles here because someone introduced me to the prayer above (thanks Brian) recently. He spent a significant part of his life living as a solitary hermit in Palestine.
About half a million people will spend Christmas on their own this year. Some will do it out of choice, others though will spend the season of goodwill lonely, isolated, forgotten, abandoned. We live in a very crowded and technologically interconnected world, and yet contemporary Britain can feel like the loneliest place on earth - we know the names of the characters in Eastenders, but not those of our next door neighbours.
Charles did not withdraw to escape people, to a lonely existence. Rather he withdrew to be able to block out the things in modern living that make us supposedly more connected, more available, and to spend time discovering a reliance on a relationship with God. Away from contact with others, Charles became acutely aware of God's love and provision for him.
This holy season let's take some time to step outside our comfort zones, befriend our neighbours and allow something of God's love to be seen and shared and felt in and through us, by those who need it most.
7th December 2008
I have watched I think one episode of 'I am a celebrity...' Reality tv takes many forms these days but the thing that unites is the desire for the contestants to either be famous or revive their place in the public eye. How many of our young people, whether it is out of escapism or misguided career choices, just want to be famous. The enterprise, I nearly wrote industry, is self perpetuating - glossy mags, webcasts, tv interviews all designed to keep the profile up and perpetuate the fame game.
But that's just it, it feels like there is a real desire to be famous for famous sakes. Watching my one episode of 'I'm a celebrity...' and I asked my wife, 'Who's that?' and she doesn't know says something about us and the circles we move in, but also says something about being in the public eye - needing enough media attention to keep your name known and you picture shown, but not getting so much that the life you spread all over the international media doesn't get invaded by the press...
John the Baptist is the antithesis of celebrity culture. Whatever he does or says he points beyond himself, and points others there too, Godward,
'...John the Baptist stands as an example to us of one who is prepared, in all humility, to recognize that he is not the centre but the periphery; not the attraction but the signpost to the attraction; not the Light but the one who helps others to see the Light. Jesus’ calling to us all is that we pick up the ‘baton’ on John and become witnesses to the one who brings salvation to the world.
John the Baptist’s message of repentance involves a huge reorientation in which the centre of our being becomes no longer ourselves but one who is much, much greater.
The waiting we do at Advent reminds us of the importance of taking up John’s baton of witness and passing it on, and of re-orientating ourselves outwards from the centre of our lives so there is room for Jesus in the centre of our being...'
The Meaning is in the Waiting, page 76, by Paula Gooder.
John lives out God's kingdom values and as Advent people so should we. John is not the centre but the periphery. When God is at the centre, striving after celebrity pales into insignificance. When God is at the centre, those who are on the edge - the poor, the lonely, the sick, the grieving become the centre of our world, of God's world. When God is at the centre, my 15 minutes (and more if I can get it) of fame don't matter, others do.
This mentality is what society lacks, what Christmas lacks, what my life so often lacks. John the Baptist, teach us, show us and Maranatha, come Lord Jesus!
But that's just it, it feels like there is a real desire to be famous for famous sakes. Watching my one episode of 'I'm a celebrity...' and I asked my wife, 'Who's that?' and she doesn't know says something about us and the circles we move in, but also says something about being in the public eye - needing enough media attention to keep your name known and you picture shown, but not getting so much that the life you spread all over the international media doesn't get invaded by the press...
John the Baptist is the antithesis of celebrity culture. Whatever he does or says he points beyond himself, and points others there too, Godward,
'...John the Baptist stands as an example to us of one who is prepared, in all humility, to recognize that he is not the centre but the periphery; not the attraction but the signpost to the attraction; not the Light but the one who helps others to see the Light. Jesus’ calling to us all is that we pick up the ‘baton’ on John and become witnesses to the one who brings salvation to the world.
John the Baptist’s message of repentance involves a huge reorientation in which the centre of our being becomes no longer ourselves but one who is much, much greater.
The waiting we do at Advent reminds us of the importance of taking up John’s baton of witness and passing it on, and of re-orientating ourselves outwards from the centre of our lives so there is room for Jesus in the centre of our being...'
The Meaning is in the Waiting, page 76, by Paula Gooder.
John lives out God's kingdom values and as Advent people so should we. John is not the centre but the periphery. When God is at the centre, striving after celebrity pales into insignificance. When God is at the centre, those who are on the edge - the poor, the lonely, the sick, the grieving become the centre of our world, of God's world. When God is at the centre, my 15 minutes (and more if I can get it) of fame don't matter, others do.
This mentality is what society lacks, what Christmas lacks, what my life so often lacks. John the Baptist, teach us, show us and Maranatha, come Lord Jesus!
Saturday 6 December 2008
6th December 2008
A practical post...
The average UK household spends £420 a year on food that could have been eaten but ends up being thrown away. I have no idea whether more at Christmas time.
What's more, producing, transporting and consuming food is responsible for nearly a third of individuals' contribution to climate change.
Making a few simple changes to the way you shop for food can save pounds on your shopping bill and slim down your carbon footprint. This weekend try to buy fruit and vegetables grown in the UK. Get into the habit of waiting for a food to be in season before you buy it.
This is timely in the current credit crisis, but also about God's justice being exercised by His Advent people...
Find out more at http://campaigns.direct.gov.uk/actonco2/home/out-shopping/buying-food-and-drink.html
The average UK household spends £420 a year on food that could have been eaten but ends up being thrown away. I have no idea whether more at Christmas time.
What's more, producing, transporting and consuming food is responsible for nearly a third of individuals' contribution to climate change.
Making a few simple changes to the way you shop for food can save pounds on your shopping bill and slim down your carbon footprint. This weekend try to buy fruit and vegetables grown in the UK. Get into the habit of waiting for a food to be in season before you buy it.
This is timely in the current credit crisis, but also about God's justice being exercised by His Advent people...
Find out more at http://campaigns.direct.gov.uk/actonco2/home/out-shopping/buying-food-and-drink.html
Thursday 4 December 2008
5th December 2008
Count your blessings while you wait - think about the things that make you happy...
"We don't have a series of packages descending from heaven labelled 'love from God'. You have something much better - which is the love of God."
The Rt Revd Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury
November 2008
"We don't have a series of packages descending from heaven labelled 'love from God'. You have something much better - which is the love of God."
The Rt Revd Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury
November 2008
Wednesday 3 December 2008
December 4th 2008
(I am indebted to Stephen Cotterell's 'Do nothing Christmas is Coming' for this post)
The TV is starting to go Christmas mad. The links between programmes all have snow or hats and scarves and a distinctly wintery/Christmassy feel. The same is true of the adverts, now decked with jingle bells, Santas, conifers, decorations and so on... If I see another beaming family, around a yuletide table eating more food than they will ever need, pulling executive crackers, I think I will...
A significant number of people, especially at this time of year, accuse the church of peddling myths. 'Oh we'll come to church at Christmas... it's just for the kids...' I have heard those words... The real Christmas myth is the one that the TV channels are peddling - doting parents, satisfied children, stress free 25th December...
The story of family life at the heart of the Christmas story couldn't be more different. It has a teenage girl, pregnant outside marriage. She's nearly dumped and then supported by her older partner. They travel across boarders and territories to conform to the tax regulations of the day. There is nowhere for the child to be born other than in the outhouse at the back of a local pub. No midwife. No gas and air. No clean sheets. No epidural.
This Christmas story is a story that could be set in contemporary Britain. It is closer to the real family life of many than any of the commercials you will see in the next 3 weeks or so. It shows a family struggling and supporting each other through enormous challenges.
Advent is a good time to be reminded that God was at the very heart of the lives of that dysfunctional family. God longs to be at the heart of our lives - however dysfunctional they may or may not be this week. God showed love, life-changing love through that family... what can we do to show love to ours?
The TV is starting to go Christmas mad. The links between programmes all have snow or hats and scarves and a distinctly wintery/Christmassy feel. The same is true of the adverts, now decked with jingle bells, Santas, conifers, decorations and so on... If I see another beaming family, around a yuletide table eating more food than they will ever need, pulling executive crackers, I think I will...
A significant number of people, especially at this time of year, accuse the church of peddling myths. 'Oh we'll come to church at Christmas... it's just for the kids...' I have heard those words... The real Christmas myth is the one that the TV channels are peddling - doting parents, satisfied children, stress free 25th December...
The story of family life at the heart of the Christmas story couldn't be more different. It has a teenage girl, pregnant outside marriage. She's nearly dumped and then supported by her older partner. They travel across boarders and territories to conform to the tax regulations of the day. There is nowhere for the child to be born other than in the outhouse at the back of a local pub. No midwife. No gas and air. No clean sheets. No epidural.
This Christmas story is a story that could be set in contemporary Britain. It is closer to the real family life of many than any of the commercials you will see in the next 3 weeks or so. It shows a family struggling and supporting each other through enormous challenges.
Advent is a good time to be reminded that God was at the very heart of the lives of that dysfunctional family. God longs to be at the heart of our lives - however dysfunctional they may or may not be this week. God showed love, life-changing love through that family... what can we do to show love to ours?
The Four Last Things - Death
The first Wednesday Advent address on the Four Last Things... This week... death... I am indebted to Richard Holloway's 'Anger Sex Doubt Death.'
They say that there are only 2 things certain in life - death and taxes. In the current financial climate I wouldn’t dream of talking about taxes. I do though, on this the first of four Advent addresses, want to talk about death.
During Advent, the church has traditionally meditated on what it calls the Four Last Things - death, judgement, heaven and hell. They are traditionally the things that the dying contemplate on before the inevitable, or to put another way, they are the four things that the dead encounter after death.
In society in general death is marginalised. In former generations death usually occurred at home and was followed by burial in the churchyard at the centre of the community; more typically nowadays death happens in an institution followed by a funeral at an out of town venue. In order to put off the idea of our mortality we use an increasing array of means to mitigate the effects of ageing - creams, diets, exercise, surgery etc. And its not just that purple is the new black, no, today 60 is the new 40.
Funerals themselves have changed. In the Book of Common Prayer there the service was frankly entitled ‘Burial of the dead’. More and more we have ‘Services of Thanksgiving.’ The funeral is turned into a version of ‘This is your life’; the death of the subject is conveniently ignored. And even within supposedly Christian funerals there is pressure for elements which are scarcely compatible with Christian belief. All too often I am asked if we can have what purports to be a poem about death:
Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was…
These words were written by Henry Scott Holland when he was a Canon of St Paul’s cathedral in London. But they weren’t written as a poem, these words, and the longer version usually quoted, were part of a sermon. Scott Holland fashions these words to encapsulate one response to death, a response which often comes in the immediate wake of a death but which swiftly evaporates. Alongside this response to death he expressed another view:
Death ‘makes all we do here meaningless and empty…. It is the cruel ambush into which we are snared... It is the pit of destruction. It wrecks, it defeats, it shatters It makes its horrible breach in our gladness with careless and inhuman disregard of us. We get no consideration from it. Often and often it stumbles in like an evil mischance, like a feckless misfortune. Its shadow falls across our natural sunlight, and we are swept off into some black abyss. There is no light or hope in the grave; there is no reason to be wrung out of it.’
Though from the same Scott Holland sermon, this extract is not read at funerals. But death for the Christian is neither ‘nothing at all’ nor is there ‘no light or hope in the grave’, as the Canon goes on to explain.
Paul writes in Rom 6:23 ‘the wages of sin is death’. Death is a serious thing, it is not a trivial or illusory as the first scenario from Scott Holland suggests. But Paul’s verse continues ‘but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord’. Therefore the second scenario from Scott Holland is also wide of the mark. For us as Christians therefore we can own on the one hand the seriousness of death, but also to our hope that it does not have the final word; hence Paul can taunt death, I Cor 15:55 "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O grave, is your sting?"
Christian hope in the face of death is an abiding trust in the God who called us out of nothing into life and who will call us again to life out of the second nothing of death. We have no security in ourselves, no false hopes, no naive longings. Our only ground for hope is the God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead.
This hope is founded on expectation - on the expectation that death is not the end of life and that hope is rooted in God alone. Our expectations lie in the promise of a reliable God who already, in Christ, set the action of our resurrection in motion. God defeated death by raising Christ from the dead at Easter, and his resurrection is the assurance and beginning our of resurrection.
Death reminds us that we are indeed mortal. Dust we are and to dust we shall return. But remember out of that dust God made human beings and to that dust he gave the gift of life an through faith in Christ he brings that dust to the kingdom of heaven.
Death reminds us of the weakness but also the glory of humanity. Weakness because the universe ultimately defeats us, brings us to dissolution and reminds us that we are dust just dust. We must never be tempted to see Christ’s own death as at best God’s identification to our plight or at worst God’s last ditch rescue mission, for Christ’s death on the cross stands between our fallenness and our fulfilment, between the dust from which we come and the glory towards which we move, between Eden and the New Jerusalem. The resurrection of Jesus confirms this for us. We may be dust, but we assured through the resurrection of Christ, that we are glorious dust through the will of Him who had the first word not allowing death to have the last word. Amen
They say that there are only 2 things certain in life - death and taxes. In the current financial climate I wouldn’t dream of talking about taxes. I do though, on this the first of four Advent addresses, want to talk about death.
During Advent, the church has traditionally meditated on what it calls the Four Last Things - death, judgement, heaven and hell. They are traditionally the things that the dying contemplate on before the inevitable, or to put another way, they are the four things that the dead encounter after death.
In society in general death is marginalised. In former generations death usually occurred at home and was followed by burial in the churchyard at the centre of the community; more typically nowadays death happens in an institution followed by a funeral at an out of town venue. In order to put off the idea of our mortality we use an increasing array of means to mitigate the effects of ageing - creams, diets, exercise, surgery etc. And its not just that purple is the new black, no, today 60 is the new 40.
Funerals themselves have changed. In the Book of Common Prayer there the service was frankly entitled ‘Burial of the dead’. More and more we have ‘Services of Thanksgiving.’ The funeral is turned into a version of ‘This is your life’; the death of the subject is conveniently ignored. And even within supposedly Christian funerals there is pressure for elements which are scarcely compatible with Christian belief. All too often I am asked if we can have what purports to be a poem about death:
Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was…
These words were written by Henry Scott Holland when he was a Canon of St Paul’s cathedral in London. But they weren’t written as a poem, these words, and the longer version usually quoted, were part of a sermon. Scott Holland fashions these words to encapsulate one response to death, a response which often comes in the immediate wake of a death but which swiftly evaporates. Alongside this response to death he expressed another view:
Death ‘makes all we do here meaningless and empty…. It is the cruel ambush into which we are snared... It is the pit of destruction. It wrecks, it defeats, it shatters It makes its horrible breach in our gladness with careless and inhuman disregard of us. We get no consideration from it. Often and often it stumbles in like an evil mischance, like a feckless misfortune. Its shadow falls across our natural sunlight, and we are swept off into some black abyss. There is no light or hope in the grave; there is no reason to be wrung out of it.’
Though from the same Scott Holland sermon, this extract is not read at funerals. But death for the Christian is neither ‘nothing at all’ nor is there ‘no light or hope in the grave’, as the Canon goes on to explain.
Paul writes in Rom 6:23 ‘the wages of sin is death’. Death is a serious thing, it is not a trivial or illusory as the first scenario from Scott Holland suggests. But Paul’s verse continues ‘but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord’. Therefore the second scenario from Scott Holland is also wide of the mark. For us as Christians therefore we can own on the one hand the seriousness of death, but also to our hope that it does not have the final word; hence Paul can taunt death, I Cor 15:55 "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O grave, is your sting?"
Christian hope in the face of death is an abiding trust in the God who called us out of nothing into life and who will call us again to life out of the second nothing of death. We have no security in ourselves, no false hopes, no naive longings. Our only ground for hope is the God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead.
This hope is founded on expectation - on the expectation that death is not the end of life and that hope is rooted in God alone. Our expectations lie in the promise of a reliable God who already, in Christ, set the action of our resurrection in motion. God defeated death by raising Christ from the dead at Easter, and his resurrection is the assurance and beginning our of resurrection.
Death reminds us that we are indeed mortal. Dust we are and to dust we shall return. But remember out of that dust God made human beings and to that dust he gave the gift of life an through faith in Christ he brings that dust to the kingdom of heaven.
Death reminds us of the weakness but also the glory of humanity. Weakness because the universe ultimately defeats us, brings us to dissolution and reminds us that we are dust just dust. We must never be tempted to see Christ’s own death as at best God’s identification to our plight or at worst God’s last ditch rescue mission, for Christ’s death on the cross stands between our fallenness and our fulfilment, between the dust from which we come and the glory towards which we move, between Eden and the New Jerusalem. The resurrection of Jesus confirms this for us. We may be dust, but we assured through the resurrection of Christ, that we are glorious dust through the will of Him who had the first word not allowing death to have the last word. Amen
Tuesday 2 December 2008
December 3rd 2008
Happy Birthday Richard...
It was reported yesterday that nearly 500 people have died in Zimbabwe from a cholera outbreak since August. A further nearly 12,000 cases have been identified over the same period.
Also, the man who murdered Vicky Hamilton some 17 years ago was jailed for at least 30 years.
Also, it is being claimed that there was an intelligence report warning of an attack not unlike the one in Mumbai in recent days...
There is so much more...
If that were not enough, the threat of unemployment is starting to become a reality to some of us as the credit crisis slides into serious recession...
And so on.
Advent is a season where the longings of the Christian and non Christian unite - these things have to stop. Things have to change. They must change. They cannot get any worse.
Back in 1966 the great German philosopher Martin Heidegger said, '...philosophy will not be able to effect an immediate transformation of the present condition of the world. This is not only true of philosophy, but of all merely human thought and endeavor. Only a god can save us. The sole possibility that is left for us is to prepare a sort of readiness, through thinking and poeticizing, for the appearance of the god or for the absence of the god in the time of foundering Untergang for in the face of the god who is absent, we founder. Only a God Can Save Us...' (Der Spiegel's 23 September 1966 interview with Heidegger, published posthumously, on 31 May 1976, translated by Maria P. Alter and John D. Caputo in The Heidegger Controversy, edited by Richard Wolin.)
Heidegger's words lie at the very heart of Advent - we can try all we like by ethics, philosophy, politics, and force of will to stop the world and it's people being the way they are. Ultimately that yearning will be fruitless because, even the current round of problem could be resolved using these means, ultimately something else would 'pop up' to replace it.
Heidegger recognised that the only way of breaking out of that cycle, to discover what we all long for, was only by a god intervening.
This is Advent hope - longing for God to come to the world he made to bringing lasting liberation, freedom, justice and peace.
That would be a Christmas gift worth having...
It was reported yesterday that nearly 500 people have died in Zimbabwe from a cholera outbreak since August. A further nearly 12,000 cases have been identified over the same period.
Also, the man who murdered Vicky Hamilton some 17 years ago was jailed for at least 30 years.
Also, it is being claimed that there was an intelligence report warning of an attack not unlike the one in Mumbai in recent days...
There is so much more...
If that were not enough, the threat of unemployment is starting to become a reality to some of us as the credit crisis slides into serious recession...
And so on.
Advent is a season where the longings of the Christian and non Christian unite - these things have to stop. Things have to change. They must change. They cannot get any worse.
Back in 1966 the great German philosopher Martin Heidegger said, '...philosophy will not be able to effect an immediate transformation of the present condition of the world. This is not only true of philosophy, but of all merely human thought and endeavor. Only a god can save us. The sole possibility that is left for us is to prepare a sort of readiness, through thinking and poeticizing, for the appearance of the god or for the absence of the god in the time of foundering Untergang for in the face of the god who is absent, we founder. Only a God Can Save Us...' (Der Spiegel's 23 September 1966 interview with Heidegger, published posthumously, on 31 May 1976, translated by Maria P. Alter and John D. Caputo in The Heidegger Controversy, edited by Richard Wolin.)
Heidegger's words lie at the very heart of Advent - we can try all we like by ethics, philosophy, politics, and force of will to stop the world and it's people being the way they are. Ultimately that yearning will be fruitless because, even the current round of problem could be resolved using these means, ultimately something else would 'pop up' to replace it.
Heidegger recognised that the only way of breaking out of that cycle, to discover what we all long for, was only by a god intervening.
This is Advent hope - longing for God to come to the world he made to bringing lasting liberation, freedom, justice and peace.
That would be a Christmas gift worth having...
Monday 1 December 2008
December 2nd 2008
A friend of mine had a day off yesterday - to go Christmas shopping with his wife. I tried to convince them that all he needed to do was carry the bags, produce the plastic to pay and to say nothing... There are only 23 shopping days to go after all... :-)
There is a great story about a government minister who was asked by a national newspaper what he wanted for Christmas. Not wanting to appear too grasping, he said that he rather liked those bottles of stem ginger that you see in the shops around this time of year. And so the article ran: ‘We asked leading figures what they wanted for Christmas. The Archbishop of Canterbury said he wanted an end to the violence in Iraq. The Dali Lama said he wanted peace in the Middle East. The Pope said he wanted an end to poverty. The Minister for Trade and Industry said he wanted a jar of stem ginger.’
Christmas tends to begin around December 1st with the office party and end around April 5th when we have really taken account of what we have spent. Even in the midst of the credit crunch the tills are busy and even the shops that are often empty seem more full. It's official, Christmas is the ultimate consumer festival.
The giving and receiving of presents can be wonderful and life giving. It can be an horrendous stress. We spend copious amounts of money that we cannot afford on presents that very often no-one wants. I don't have the stats to hand, but I wonder what percentage of the Christmas shop of the nation will be done online. I also wonder how if this Christmas will be simpler than some past. Either way, as we sit surrounded by delight, perhaps some disappointment and wrapping paper on December 25th I can't help wonder what all of that has to do with what Christmas is really about.
I don't suppose that for any of us the concept of Christmas shopping could be classed as retail therapy but it has become the way that we view the buying of gifts - a therapy.
"...‘Retail Therapy’ is a tongue-in-cheek phrase used to describe a particular approach to shopping. Hidden within it, however, is the germ of what can go wrong when the exercise of choice becomes an end in itself. We all need clothes, so living in a society that provides a choice of clothes at a reasonable price is a real benefit and a contribution to happiness. But when the consumer society persuades us that when we are unhappy shopping will make us happy again, then life has become unbalanced. If we are unhappy, we need to look at our interior choices, not at our shopping list.
In other words, simply choosing and choosing again can distract us from that interior world which is the true source of happiness. The exercise of external freedom can become a substitute for exercising internal freedom, a displacement activity that helps people avoid some hard interior choices. Rather than finding a new job they may need to spend more time with their family, instead of a holiday they may need to face their alcohol problem. At best, external choices can alleviate the symptoms, but they don’t lead to that interior delight that is the real source of happiness..." (From 'Finding Happiness' Pp35-37 by Abbot Christopher Jamison. Published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson.)
Hmmm... a therapy to modern living perhaps? The interior life, interior world, interior choices, interior delight... I think Christopher Jamison means the place in all of our lives where the moral, ethical and spiritual direction in all of us flow from. He alludes silently to St Augustine's '... our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you...' the place where God dwells.
Advent reminds us that God delights in us. He made each of us. He loves each of like a parent should love their child. When we are apart from those whom we love some describe that in physical terms as heart ache. We yearn for our lover, our spouse, our children. God yearns for his children whom he made; he longs for his bride The Church. Advent is that scene in the movie, where in slo-mo, God runs to us and we run to God, embracing passionately.
I started out with this about present shopping, but Advent is about gifts. God's gift to us of himself - rushing as an eager lover to us. Advent is also about our gift of ourselves to God, for if we fill our lives with presents this Christmas - wanted or not - we ultimately still feel empty. We all long for lasting love. For hope in bleakness. For peace in the turmoil that most of our frantic lives are.
Why not give God a present this Christmas - a restless heart, and find in him what you are really looking for.
There is a great story about a government minister who was asked by a national newspaper what he wanted for Christmas. Not wanting to appear too grasping, he said that he rather liked those bottles of stem ginger that you see in the shops around this time of year. And so the article ran: ‘We asked leading figures what they wanted for Christmas. The Archbishop of Canterbury said he wanted an end to the violence in Iraq. The Dali Lama said he wanted peace in the Middle East. The Pope said he wanted an end to poverty. The Minister for Trade and Industry said he wanted a jar of stem ginger.’
Christmas tends to begin around December 1st with the office party and end around April 5th when we have really taken account of what we have spent. Even in the midst of the credit crunch the tills are busy and even the shops that are often empty seem more full. It's official, Christmas is the ultimate consumer festival.
The giving and receiving of presents can be wonderful and life giving. It can be an horrendous stress. We spend copious amounts of money that we cannot afford on presents that very often no-one wants. I don't have the stats to hand, but I wonder what percentage of the Christmas shop of the nation will be done online. I also wonder how if this Christmas will be simpler than some past. Either way, as we sit surrounded by delight, perhaps some disappointment and wrapping paper on December 25th I can't help wonder what all of that has to do with what Christmas is really about.
I don't suppose that for any of us the concept of Christmas shopping could be classed as retail therapy but it has become the way that we view the buying of gifts - a therapy.
"...‘Retail Therapy’ is a tongue-in-cheek phrase used to describe a particular approach to shopping. Hidden within it, however, is the germ of what can go wrong when the exercise of choice becomes an end in itself. We all need clothes, so living in a society that provides a choice of clothes at a reasonable price is a real benefit and a contribution to happiness. But when the consumer society persuades us that when we are unhappy shopping will make us happy again, then life has become unbalanced. If we are unhappy, we need to look at our interior choices, not at our shopping list.
In other words, simply choosing and choosing again can distract us from that interior world which is the true source of happiness. The exercise of external freedom can become a substitute for exercising internal freedom, a displacement activity that helps people avoid some hard interior choices. Rather than finding a new job they may need to spend more time with their family, instead of a holiday they may need to face their alcohol problem. At best, external choices can alleviate the symptoms, but they don’t lead to that interior delight that is the real source of happiness..." (From 'Finding Happiness' Pp35-37 by Abbot Christopher Jamison. Published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson.)
Hmmm... a therapy to modern living perhaps? The interior life, interior world, interior choices, interior delight... I think Christopher Jamison means the place in all of our lives where the moral, ethical and spiritual direction in all of us flow from. He alludes silently to St Augustine's '... our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you...' the place where God dwells.
Advent reminds us that God delights in us. He made each of us. He loves each of like a parent should love their child. When we are apart from those whom we love some describe that in physical terms as heart ache. We yearn for our lover, our spouse, our children. God yearns for his children whom he made; he longs for his bride The Church. Advent is that scene in the movie, where in slo-mo, God runs to us and we run to God, embracing passionately.
I started out with this about present shopping, but Advent is about gifts. God's gift to us of himself - rushing as an eager lover to us. Advent is also about our gift of ourselves to God, for if we fill our lives with presents this Christmas - wanted or not - we ultimately still feel empty. We all long for lasting love. For hope in bleakness. For peace in the turmoil that most of our frantic lives are.
Why not give God a present this Christmas - a restless heart, and find in him what you are really looking for.
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