Dorothy Mary Daniell - May She Rest in Peace and Rise in Glory!

I needed to include this somewhere, so I thought I would blog it here, but below is the sermon I preached at the memorial service for Dorothy Daniell. The readings are from Romans 8:31-15, 37-end...

³²³³³⁴What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.^* Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

and St. John 14:1-6...

‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe^* in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?^* And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’^* Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ^{3537383923456}

~~~

In the name of Jesus Christ, who carries our burdens, and gives us rest. Amen.

The Dorothy Daniell that we are here today to remember was in death as she was in life - gracious, graceful and generous. A slight frame belying a wisdom accumulated through a full and diverse life and a passion for people. Time spent with Dorothy was time well spent. It was time that was rewarding, sometimes challenging but always enriching.

Dorothy’s graciousness, gracefulness and generosity I believe, rose out of her quiet, still God-filled centre. It is that centre in others that she spent her life helping articulate, accept and respect whether in social work or psychotherapy and in friendship and relationship. She graciously listened like you were the only person in the world. She was graceful in her dress, her manner and her words were full of the grace and compassion of Christ. She was generous of herself, of her time and her talent, all arising from her trust in a God who was ‘for her’, to use Paul’s words, and for those with whom she spent her life working.

What can we say about the faith in God that lay at Dorothy’s centre? She trusted in a self-giving God - who shared His very self with us in Jesus Christ. Calling us into a life-changing love relationship through Him. She trusted in a God who justifies, who shows us to be worthy of love and respect, who does not judge or condemn us. She trusted in a God, who when we turn to Him, will never turn from us and from whose life transforming love will never be separated - not in hardship, persecution or distress. Dorothy, with us, will not even be separated from God’s love in life nor in death.

It is that quiet certain faith that was Dorothy’s centre and it is that same faith that calls to us as we celebrate her life today. ‘Do not be troubled’ says Jesus to His closest friends as they are confronted with the realisation of his imament death. ‘Continue to believe in God and all that you have seen and heard in me.’

‘Do not be troubled’ says Jesus to us as we are confronted with Dorothy’s death. Continue to believe in the same God she did. Continue to listen to and live out in your lives, all the things she saw and heard in her relationship with me.

I am in no doubt my friends that Jesus has prepared a place with Him, for her. How can I be sure? Because in her graciousness, gracefulness and generosity we met again and again a remarkable woman in every way. In those encounters we met a woman at whose heart, in whose quiet centre was a graciousness - the kindness and simple human courtesy that found a place in all of her relationships, but which has it’s roots in God. In those encounters we met a woman at whose heart, in whose quiet centre was a gracefulness - the favour, the attention she showed you as you spent time in her company - true in all her relationships, but which has it’s roots in God. In those encounters we met a woman at whose heart, in whose quiet centre was a generosity - the giving of herself in every way that found a place in all of her relationships, but which has it’s roots in God.

Dorothy’s faith was no intellectual exercise. It impacted her life and therefore ours whether we recognise it or not. As God made his way into our world in Jesus Christ, revealing the truth of God’s life transforming love for us, and offering each of us the chance to have our lives transformed by love - so He did also in Dorothy. We are not the same because of her and better for it thanks be to God!

With St. Paul I am sure that ‘...neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord...’ Love we have come to know in Dorothy. Amen

The Nativity - God's protest song...

Well who would have thought that Rage Against the Machine would have the Christmas number one, especially as for the last few years at least, the winner of the X-Factor has been pretty much guaranteed the number one slot.

‘Killing in the Name’ could not be a more unlikey choice for the top slot this or any other Christmas... not a saccharine syrupy lyric in sight, a great guitar riff, and very very political (and fairly colourful) lyrics. It is a heartfelt cry for justice. The song is about the then campaign against corruption in the US police forces, trying to expose and remove officers who were also members of the Ku Klux Klan, and American society’s unwillingness to act against this clear abuse of power.

‘’Killing in the Name’ is a cry for justice that is echoed down the corridors of history: in the recent Climate Change protests, the ‘Stand Up’ anti-poverty campaign, the Make Poverty History and Jubilee 2000 campaigns, Band Aid, CND, the Suffragettes the anti-slavery movement, and so on... Things just should not be like this. We know they shouldn’t. God knows they shouldn’t... and yet they continue to be so, we continue to be so...
In a year of the failed Copenhagen summit, global recession, mass unemployment, flooding nationally and internationally, banking crises, and more fighting and dying in Afghanistan it is no wonder that we might think that God had gone on an extended holiday and left us to our own devices and our self-made mess... In that context ‘Killing in the Name’ seems a most appropriate anthem this Christmas.

We so easily approach the events that we recall tonight as though they were a scene from many of the Christmas cards that we have received or sent. The Holy Family surrounded by animals, shepherds, maybe an angel or wise man or two all enveloped in the divine light of God. A soft focus Nativity, and yet our first reading tonight could not be a more sharper contrast.

The prophet Isaiah speaks to Jerusalem has been ransacked and laid waste. It has been waiting for it’s day of liberation. Those who guard the city’s shattered buildings and nearly empty streets are scanning the horizon. They have to be especially wary as the Babylonians have undermined the city’s walls leaving the it defenseless. Suddenly, off to the east, they spot someone on the crest of the Mount of Olives. They can barely make out the person’s faint cries. As he makes his way down the mount they hear, “Your God is King!” The messenger is from Babylon and has made the 500 mile trip across the desert to bring this hopeful news to Jerusalem. God is returning to making the city holy by His divine presence.

We gather again tonight, looking out for hope and life too, for many of us feel hopeless. Yet over the brow of the year comes the Christmas story... and our hearts sink. The soft focus, saccharine stories of the God who fails to make a difference... And yet, have we really heard the Christmas story at all? Strain with me to hear again what St John says. The Word, who pre-existed with God, has brought all that is into existence. The life that he lives is like a beacon of light to people - a blinding light that cannot be extinguished. He lived that Divine light and life amongst us, but we did not see him or recognise him, but those who do are offered the life of God, life with God. Who or what is this Word? He is the one who speaks of, acts out and lives the very life of God Himself... Not a mention of global recession or unemployment, Afghanistan or climate change, but there is talk about light, life and an over-riding sense of hope...

If you came tonight to coo over a baby, born in conditions that the Social Services would have a fit about, but to go ‘ahhh’ at the Christmas story nonetheless, then you will find that child on the front of many a card at home. Through the child born in the manger in Bethlehem, tonight God speaks to us His Word, He blinds us with the light of justice and He deafens us with His protest song of hope.

Friends I am not naive enough to realise that this sounds all too utopian, a Christmas sticking plaster over the gaping wound of my life or our lives together - yet tonight I am reminded in the midst of political, financial and environmental turmoil this baby is born. The Word made flesh. God himself amongst us, returning to make the city, this village, our workplaces, our families, our lives, holy by His divine presence.

A colleague of mine was once describing the beauty of the world to some children, when one child popped up with, ‘He could not have done it without the council,’ meaning the workers of which his Dad was one. The child knew that without us, God will not, without God we cannot. Or to put it another way, ‘Though Christ a thousand times in Bethlehem be born, if he is not born in you, you a still forlorn. Want a better life? A better year? Some good old fashioned hope? It begins at the manger. But we have got to accept what He offers. This baby comes to make us holy, to forge a friendship between us and God, to offer us light, hope and life, to transform our lives and together, our world. Amen

Advent II sermon

Herewith a verison of Tim's sermon this morning...

MESSAGE: Peace
1 Introduction
How well do you know the book of Malachi? Probably better than you think. Did that first reading sound familiar?
tempting to sing the readings - text of Messiah
Handel saw a lot in the prophecies of Jesus' coming, and he set parts of them beautifully to music. The Messiah gives us a picture of a mighty king, wonderful counsellor, and so on. Today, though, our theme is peace, and that comes up less often.

2 Peace
What is peace?
Not quiet, or an absence of noise or conflict - more than that.
On Friday some of us were at the children's disco at school. It certainly wasn't quite, or still, but watching the children enjoying themselves I felt a definite sense of peace. Things were as they should be; God was there.

Our book group recently read "The Shack" by William Young. It gave us all a lot to think about. One of the things that struck me was a passage where the central character learns, "The Bible doesn't teach you to follow rules. It is a picture of Jesus. Words may tell you what God is like and even what he may want from you, but you can't do any of it on your own. You didn't think you could live the righteousness of God on your own, did you?"
And a bit later "Just don't look for rules and principles; look for relationships - a way of coming to be with me."

Peace is about relationships; about the relationship between us and the people around us, or between us and God, or between us and the world we live in. Relationships are active; they have to be worked at.

One of the names given to Jesus is "King of Peace". That doesn't mean he kept quiet and did nothing, or that he avoided conflict. On the contrary, at times he seemed to be looking for a fight! Sometimes the absence of conflict is a sign that we're ignoring evils that should be fought.

3 Readings
Peace isn't about accepting everything as it is, about an absence of change. If anything, it's more about accepting and welcoming change. Look at today's readings!
Malachi writes about a refiner's fire, and fuller's soap; Isaiah, quoted in Luke, wrote about valleys being filled and hills being made low.
As long as relationships are broken, or non-existent, there isn't real peace.

4 Christmas
Jesus came to show us his way. The thing that really stands out when we read the gospels is that he cared about people. He noticed them. They mattered to him. He needed friends, and he worked with them and through them.

In this season of Advent we're preparing to receive the greatest present anyone could ever have, the gift of God's own Son. He came to show us how to live in the right sort of relationship with God, one that would enable us to live in peace with God and with each other.
Have you ever given someone a present, and then been disappointed when they didn't show any interest, when all the thought you had put into choosing that present seemed to have been wasted?

A child perhaps - I can remember one birthday when Ian was about two when he was much more interested in a large cardboard box than in the present that had been inside it!
If you can picture yourself in that situation, perhaps you can imagine how God must feel when we reject his gift; when we show more interest in the turkey, and the parties, and the material gifts we're hoping for, than we do in the amazing gift of his Son.

5 Conclusion
I hope you'll have a peaceful Christmas - in the truest sense of the word. One thing we can do to make that more likely is to work at relationships. If we put real effort into the time we spend with the people around us, and with God, amazing things can happen. Amen.