This is The North East | CommuniGate | Saint Cuthbert's Church, Shotley Bridge Feedback Home Page How to find us Activities Services & Times How can we help? Church Hall & Bookings Who's Who? This Sunday's Bible Readings Parish News - May 2008 Parish Gallery 2001 Homilies: October 2001 - February 2002 This Month's Calendar Thinking about Baptism Thinking about Marriage Faith & Action - inclusiveness and opportunity Aids to Prayer Children & Holy Communion Homilies: Easter-tide 2002 Homilies: May - November 2002 Parish Review 2002 Photo Page 2002 Homilies: December 2002 - February 2003 Celebrating 2003 - people in pictures Homilies: Lent & Easter-tide 2003 Ordinary Time - Sermons 2003 Pictures - summer 2003 Sermons - Advent 2003 - Epiphany 2004 Annual Reports 2007 (APCM 2008) Sermons - Lent & Easter-tide 2004 Sermons - Ordinary Time 2004 Sunday School Sermons - Advent + Christmas 2004, Epiphany 2005 Sermons - Lent & Easter 2005 Sermons - Ordinary Time 2005 St. Paul - a series from St. Cuthbert's Sermons: Advent 2005 to Trinity Sunday 2006 Sermons - Ordinary Time 2006 Sermons 2007 Sermons 2008 Contact Information for Parish of Saint Cuthbert, Benfieldside Links for Parish of Saint Cuthbert, Benfieldside Guestbook Mail Form Sermons in the Season after Trinity 2006 These are a few of the sermons preached at St. Cuthbert's from June 2006 onwards. They're only here if there's a script available for them. You'd be welcome to hear the rest by joining us at St. Cuthbert's! A Picture of the Kingdom 1st Sunday after Trinity Sunday 18th June 2006 Rosie Junemann, Reader of St Cuthbert’s Mark 4. 26-34 I’ve recently returned from a holiday in the North West of Scotland. It was such a good holiday that I’m going to be talking about it for weeks! I’ve been to the North West of Scotland before, but this time the trip included a tour of the Outer Hebrides. It’s the ideal place for anyone who enjoys fresh air, open spaces, wildlife, wild flowers, boat trips and white sand beaches! It’s also a place with a huge sense of history. On every island there are signs of human habitation and activity going back for more than 5000 years. I’d like to tell you the whole story but I’ve only got time for a bit of it! Back in the so-called Dark Ages, the Hebrides and the North West coast of the mainland formed the Kingdom of the Isles, also known as Dal Riata. This Kingdom was ruled over from about 500AD by the Scots. (Believe it or not the original Scotti were Gaelic people from Ireland!). Later (from about 800) it was first plundered and then ruled by the Vikings. The great warrior or sea-lord, Somerled, eventually wrested control from the Vikings in about 1100 and founded the dynasty of Lords of the Isles, who held power, and maintained the independence of the Kingdom, until 1493. But during the same period the Hebrides saw the growth of a different kind of kingdom. Most of us know the story of Saint Columba, who set sail from Ireland in 563, landed on Iona, off the coast of Mull, and established a monastery there. Less is known about two other influential Celtic saints, Saint Moluag and Saint Maelrubha. Both, like Columba, originated from Ireland. Moluag was born in 530. In 562 he founded a monastery on the island of Lismore, near Oban. Maelrubha was born in 642. He also travelled to Scotland and founded a monastery at Applecross on the North West mainland. Missionary monks from Iona, Lismore and Applecross travelled throughout the islands, converting the pagan inhabitants – and some of the Viking invaders! – to Christianity, and building churches, religious settlements and colleges. These monks were men of learning and faith, but they must also have been intrepid travellers and skilled sailors. Weather and sea conditions in the Hebrides are not always kind! Yet within three hundred years there were Christian churches on every island – even in the remotest communities of St Kilda and Rona. The parables in today’s Gospel reading also speak of a different kind of kingdom – the kingdom of God. Jesus said: “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.” “It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs..” Parables are always something of a mystery! St Mark explains to us that Jesus always spoke to the crowd in parables. They were to make of it what they could! Only the disciples were given a clear explanation. So what are we to make of the parables of the seeds? The theologian, John Drane, refers to parables as ‘pictures of the kingdom’. They cover four main subjects. Some, like the parable of the lost sheep tell of the nature of God himself. Others, like the parable of the prodigal son, speak of people’s response to God. Some, like the parable of the good Samaritan, teach us about loving our neighbour. And others tell of the future coming of God’s kingdom. Today’s parables are very much in this last category. At face value it would appear that the parables of the seeds are about growth. But can we simply assume that Jesus was foretelling the rapid spread of the Christian faith? Was he saying that from small beginnings the kingdom of God will grow until it encompasses all people? It is certainly true, as we have seen from the example of the early missionaries in the Hebrides, that the Christian faith has spread. From its small and insignificant beginnings 2000 years ago its growth throughout the world has been spectacular. And yet that growth in numbers, in itself, does not seem to bring God’s kingdom any nearer. That vision of God’s perfect society, of a world where God’s will is done, in which love and peace and justice rule, seems as far away as ever. If we’re to understand something of the kingdom of God from the parables of the seeds, we need to think more about the nature of a seed, about the mysterious processes of germination and growth. The mustard seed, though it is so small, contains within itself the blueprint for a great tree. Both what is held in the kernel and the process by which it grows remain a mystery. What we do know is that every seed holds both the pattern for and the promise of growth. With regard to the kingdom of God, whatever else may be revealed in the future will be, not so much a new beginning, as the final working out of all the implications of something that, in its essence, is already here. The essence of that kingdom which is to come is already here in the person and the teaching of Jesus. There are of course other clues in the gospels to the nature of the kingdom of God. Later in Mark’s gospel Jesus says to a scribe who had questioned him: “You are not far from the kingdom of God”. What did the scribe say or do to merit such high praise? It was because he had understood that to love God with all your heart and to love your neighbour as yourself are much more important than burnt offerings and sacrifices. Here, perhaps, is the key to the kingdom. Love of God and love of neighbour are the seeds which Jesus plants in our hearts. As one early Christian writer said: ‘Christ made love the stairway that would enable all Christians to climb up to heaven’. These are the seeds which Columba and Moluag and Maelrubha carried within them to the people of the Hebrides. These are the seeds which are the good news for the people of today. These are the seeds which can grow to fruition in our daily actions and in our relationships with God and with other people. When will God’s kingdom came? In the words of the song ‘when will there be a harvest for the world’? When people everywhere are brought into fellowship with God. When God’s love rules all our hearts and all our actions. ‘It will be a kingdom’ says one writer, ‘of absolute righteousness, of unsurpassable freedom, of dauntless love, of universal reconciliation, of everlasting peace’. It’s fascinating to learn about the kingdoms of the past. But it’s even more exciting to contemplate this kingdom of the future. And it will come, as surely as day follows night! King Herod and John the Baptist Trinity 5 - 16 July 2006 All-Age service for the end of Sunday School Term Rosie Junemann and Paul Heatherington, Readers Mark 6. 14-29 Rosie: Today¡¦s Bible story is quite a scary one! Paul: Yes, but lots of people like scary stories! Some of the Dr Who stories on television are quite frightening. And what about Harry Potter? Can anyone think of any scary bits in those stories? Now, most scary stories have one thing in common ¡V they have ¡¥goodies¡¦ and ¡¥baddies¡¦. Like: „X Harry Potter and ¡K¡K¡K¡K.? (Voldemort) „X Robin Hood and ¡K¡K¡K¡K..? (The Sheriff of Nottingham) „X Snow White and ¡K¡K¡K¡K..? (the wicked stepmother) Who do you think are the ¡¥goody¡¦ and the ¡¥baddy¡¦ in today¡¦s story? „X John the Baptist and King Herod Rosie: Can you tell us more about the ¡¥goody¡¦, Paul. Paul: Well, to go back to the beginning of the story of John the Baptist, I have to ask you to think back to Christmas ¡V in fact before Christmas, to Advent. Do you remember the story about the Angel Gabriel coming to visit Mary? You might also remember that afterwards Mary rushed off to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who was expecting a baby. Now, Mary became the mother of Jesus. And Elizabeth was the mother of John the Baptist. So John and Jesus were cousins. Rosie: What happened to John when he grew up? Paul: John and Jesus both became teachers and preachers. John was rather a strange person. The Bible tells us that he dressed in camel¡¦s hair, with a leather belt round his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. Rosie: Locusts are about four inches long Paul: Swarms of migratory locusts can strip fields, trees, grasslands, and any other plant life in their path. Rosie: Their wings carry them upward. Before coming down, locusts have been known to fly like gliders for more than 100 miles. Paul: At night they land in trees or in grasses. When the morning sun comes up, they take off again ¡K to find food. Rosie: When locusts come to a river, they try to fly over. If the wind doesn¡¦t carry them across, they fall into the river in their thousands and form a bridge for the other locusts. Paul: So even in dying they cause trouble; because the millions of dead locusts float downstream and breed disease. Rosie: Fire is the most popular method to fight locusts. The hope is that the smoke will steer them away, but this doesn¡¦t always work. Paul: The Old Testament Law of Moses allowed the Hebrews to eat locusts (Lev. 11:22; Matt. 3:4). Rosie: The most popular way to prepare locusts for eating was to dry them, put them in a sack, and make them available for visitors to ¡§dig in¡¨ and eat as snacks. Paul: Some think that John the Baptist¡¦s food might have been ¡§husks¡¨, which is the fruit of the carob tree¡Xmuch like the Prodigal Son ate, but that¡¦s another story¡K (Mark 1:6; Luke 15:16).You can¡¦t get live locusts in Tesco¡¦s, but I¡¦ve got some dried locusts and honey. Anyone want some? Paul: John was what we call a prophet ¡V someone who speaks for God and tells people what is going to happen in the future. John said that he had to ¡¥prepare the way of the Lord¡¦. His message was that someone very important and powerful would be coming soon. He asked people to prepare themselves for this by asking forgiveness for their sins, and then he baptised them in the river Jordan. Who knows where there is a picture of John the Baptist in Church? [Children went to the back of Church to view the stained glass window of the Baptism of Christ by John the Baptist] Rosie: OK. So John the Baptist was the ¡¥goody¡¦ in this story. Now tell us about the ¡¥baddy¡¦. Paul: King Herod! He came from a family of cruel and evil people. He was very powerful and he lived in a great castle called Machaerus. This grim castle stood on a lonely ridge, surrounded by terrible ravines, on the east side of the Dead Sea. There were lots of dungeons in the castle. If you visit Machaerus today you can still see the dungeons in the ruins. Rosie: Why did the King put John the Baptist in prison? Paul: Well, King Herod did a bad thing. He married a lady called Herodias, who had been his brother¡¦s wife. This was against the Jewish law. John dared to criticise the King¡¦s behaviour, so Herod arrested John and imprisoned him in the castle dungeons. It seems that Herod was a weak man, rather than an evil man. There was a part of him that admired John the Baptist ¡V or perhaps he was a little afraid of him. But sadly, his wife, Herodias, and his step-daughter, Salome, tricked him into arranging for John to be beheaded. Rosie: All this happened a very long time ago! So why is it important to us today? Paul: John the Baptist was a man of great courage. He wasn¡¦t afraid to speak out for God even against a powerful king. John lived for the truth and he died for it. We can follow John¡¦s example today by being prepared to speak out for God ¡V to say and do the right thing. Even in so scary a story there is real encouragement for us to follow Jesus in everything we say and do. We can be ¡¥goodies¡¦, too! Where is the bread for those who are hungry? Trinity 7 - 30th July 2006 - Year B The Revd. Martin Jackson, Vicar 2 Kings 4.42-44; Ephesians 3.14-21; John 6.1-21 Some words from our OT reading – and they tie in with words of Jesus in today’s Gospel: “Give [the food] to the people and let them eat, for thus says the Lord, ‘They shall eat and have some left.’” How do we provide for those who are needy? I want to approach this by reading a letter from Riah H. Abu El-Assal, the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem. Some people may think this is a rather one-sided account. But it’s a voice speaking from a perspective we rarely hear, that of a Christian Arab, marginalised and caught up in the conflict of Jew, Sunni and Shia Muslim... ACNS 4170 | JERUSALEM | 27 JULY 2006 The Episcopal Church in Jerusalem & the Middle East Bishop Riah, the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem, on the current crisis in the Middle East Dear Friends, For the past forty years we have been largely alone on this desert fighting a predator that not only has robbed us of all but a small piece of our historic homeland, but [also] threatens the traditions and holy sites of Christianity. We are tired, weary, sick, and wounded. We need your help. We have seen and we have been the recipients of the generosity of our American and British friends. We cherish the support of everyone throughout the world who stands with us in solidarity. Daily, I hear from many of them who express outrage at the arrogant and aggressive positions of President Bush, Secretary Rice, Senator [Hilary] Clinton, and Prime Minister Blair. I am saddened to realise just how much the deserved prestige of the United States and Britain has declined as a result of politicians who seem to devalue human life and suffering. And, I am disturbed that the Zionist Christian community is damaging America's image as never before. Little more than a week ago, we were focused on the plight of the Palestinian people. In Gaza, four and five generations have been victims of Israeli racism, hate crimes, terror, violence, and murder. Garbage and sewage have created a likely outbreak of cholera as Israeli strategies create the collapse of infrastructures. There is no milk. Drinking water, food, and medicine are in serious short supply. Innocents are being killed and dying from lack of available emergency care. Children are paying the ultimate price. Even for those whose lives are spared, many of them are traumatised and will not grow to live useful lives. Commerce between the West Bank and Gaza has been halted and humanitarian aid barely trickles into some of the neediest in the world. Movement of residents of the West Bank is difficult or impossible as "security measures" are heightened to break the backs of the Palestinian people and cut them off from their place of work, schools, hospitals, and families. It is family and community that has sustained these people during these hopeless times. For some, it is all that they had, but that too has been taken away with the continued building of the wall and check points. The strategy of ethnic cleansing on the part of the State of Israel continues. This week, war broke out on the Lebanon-Israeli border (near Banyas where Jesus gave St. Peter the keys to heaven and earth). The Israeli government's disproportionate reaction to provocation was consistent with their opportunistic responses in which they destroy their perceived enemy. In her recent article, "The Insane Brutality of the State of Israel," American, Kathleen Christison, a former CIA analyst says, "The state lashes out in a crazed effort, lacking any sense of proportion, to reassure itself of its strength." She continues, "A society that can brush off as unimportant an army officer's brutal murder of a thirteen year old girl on the claim that she threatened soldiers at a military post (one of nearly seven hundred Palestinian children murdered by Israelis since the Intifada began) is not a society with a conscience." The "situation" as it has come to be called, has deteriorated into a war without boundaries or limitations. It is a war with deadly potential beyond the imaginations of most civilized people. As I write to you, I am preparing to leave with other bishops for Nablus with medical and other emergency supplies for five hundred families, and a pledge for one thousand families more. On Saturday we will attempt to enter Gaza with medical aid for doctors and nurses in our hospital there who struggle to serve the injured, the sick, and the dying. My plan is that I will be able to go to Lebanon next week - where we are presently without a resident priest - to bury the dead, and comfort the victims of war. Perhaps as others have you will ask, "What can I do?" Certainly we encourage and appreciate your prayers. That is important, but it is not enough. If you find that you can no longer look away, take up your cross. It takes courage as we were promised. Write every elected official you know. Write to your news media. Speak to your congregation, friends, and colleagues about injustice and the threat of global war. If Syria, Iran, the United States, Great Britain, China and others enter into this war - the consequence is incalculable. Participate in rallies and forums. Find ways that you and your churches can participate in humanitarian relief efforts for the region. Contact us and let us know if you stand with us. I urge you not to be like a disciple watching from afar. 2 Corinthians 6.11 "We have spoken frankly to you Corinthians, our heart is wide open to you. There is no restriction in our affections, but only in yours. In return - I speak as to children - open wide your hearts also." In, with, and through Christ, The Rt. Rev. Riah H. Abu El-Assal Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem (The sermon continues:) "What can I do?” is Bishop Riah’s question. One thing we can do, I think, is to look at today’s Old Testament and Gospel Readings. The feeding of the hungry is an imperative. In a time of famine, the prophet Elisha finds himself with a hundred people to feed and only 20 loaves of barley in his sack. “How can I set this before a hundred people?” Elisha’s servant enquires. But it strikes me that this is far more than the provision that so many people under fire in Southern Lebanon are able to receive at present – and while their plight has finally made it on to our television screens, we seem already to have forgotten the needs of the people of Gaza with so much of their infrastructure destroyed. Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” Jesus asks Philip the disciple. St. John’s Gospel puts these words into Jesus’ mouth so that they appear as a sort of test. Will the disciples recognise that Jesus has the power of God to provide, even with just five loaves and two fish? In the other Gospels, the question comes from the disciples. It’s about their concern for those in need… All these people who have put their trust in Jesus, who have come out in their thousands to hear him. It’s a basic question of welfare: how are they going to manage because they don’t have the provisions they need? How are the people of the Lebanon and the people of Gaza going to manage… without food, medicine, clean water, power supplies, homes or the possibility of escaping to somewhere safe? Jesus provides for the needy, but somehow our own government and that of the United States can’t bring themselves to call for an immediate cessation of hostilities that might allow some basic sort of relief to get through. I have to say that I understand why. The people of Northern Israel have come under increasing attack from Hizbullah positions in the southern Lebanon. How are they themselves to find some sort of relief unless the people firing missiles at them are rooted out of their positions? People who recognise that might say that Bishop Riah doesn’t give much space to this argument. But he makes an essential point – that seeking to protect the innocent of Northern Israel, of communities under attack in and around Haifa and Qiryat Shmona, does not justify attacks upon the innocent of the Lebanon. It is not justified to seek to apply political pressure by wrecking the lives of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. A basic question for us all must be, how do we respond to any form of injustice that we might suffer? It’s wrong when people do us damage, and forgiveness doesn’t always seem to get us very far, especially when the people who do us damage are far from repentant. But we cannot repay evil for evil. Even the best intentions can go horribly wrong, as we’ve seen in Iraq where the intention of using military power to bring about peace and justice has simply opened the way to near anarchy. The original aim of the Old Testament law, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” was to limit the extent of revenge and retribution that people so naturally seem to desire. It was to stop things getting out of hand. The shelling of Israeli civilians by Hizbullah can in no way be justified. The taking hostage of Israeli soldiers by Hamas and Hizbullah is similarly unacceptable. But the retaliation inflicted as a means of seeking their release and the displacement of the terrorists has gone beyond any sense of proportion. “An eye for an eye” is the beginning of a process in which the whole world is left blind, someone once noted. Where is the bread to be found for the people who are hungry? Jesus had asked, and Elisha before him. How is provision to be made now for those who are hungry, homeless, wounded, bereaved? We saw the scenes last week as British, American and other foreign citizens resident in the Lebanon clamoured to be evacuated on the warships which were sent to their aid. We can be relieved for those who have been brought to safety. Now we need to remember the millions left behind who have to live there. The Bread of Life The 9th Sunday after Trinity (Proper 14) Sunday 13th August 2006 Rosie Junemann, Reader of St Cuthbert’s Church 1 Kings 19. 4-8 Ephesians 4. 25 – 5. 2 John 6. 35, 41-51 “Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty’. Imagine a world without any bread. No toast for breakfast, no soldiers with your boiled egg, no sandwiches for lunch, no roll with your soup, burgers without buns. Ok. Some serious problems! But we’d probably survive! Now think of the importance of bread in a world where food is scarce and bread is a staple part of the diet. Without bread people would go hungry, perhaps even starve to death. We see images of hunger all around us – the outstretched hand - emaciated mothers and children queuing patiently for food aid - children with arms and legs like twigs, and swollen bellies. This is what we need to be keep in mind, if we’re to begin to understand why Jesus said ‘I am the bread of life’. Way back in the time of Moses, the children of Israel were almost certainly on the point of starvation, as they trudged through the desert towards their Promised Land. They complained bitterly to Moses and Aaron, wishing themselves back in Egypt, where they ‘sat by the fleshpots and ate their fill of bread.’ So God said to Moses ‘I am going to rain bread from heaven for you’ … In the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground…. Moses said to the Israelites ‘It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.’ They ate and were filled. Even at the time of Jesus, food was scarce for many people. The diet was mainly vegetarian. People ate bread, grapes and olives. According to the strict Jewish dietary laws only certain kinds of meat and fish could be eaten and these were generally only for special occasions. Ordinary people ate bread made from barley flour. Wheat flour was too expensive. The flour was mixed with water, seasoned with salt and baked on heated stones or a griddle. Sometimes yeast was added. Leavened bread was usually in the form of round, flat loaves, and unleavened in the form of thin cakes. Bread was all-important. It meant: Survival. I need bread to keep me alive. Satisfaction. I’m hungry. Bread fills me up. Strength. I’m weak. Bread strengthens me. Sustenance. I need energy. Bread nourishes me. In a world without bread many people would die. Bread is essential to our existence. Imagine a world without Jesus. No Christmas, no Easter, no cross, no empty tomb, no church, no human face of divine love and compassion, no pattern for living, no means of forgiveness. Consider the man himself – Jesus, son of Joseph. He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village, where he worked as a carpenter until he was thirty. Then for three years he was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never held public office. He never had a family or owned a house. He didn’t go to college. He never travelled more than 200 miles from the place where he was born. He did none of the things we usually associate with greatness. He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While he was dying, his executioners gambled for his clothing, the only property he had on earth. Twenty centuries have come and gone and today he is the central figure of the human race. All the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of people on this earth as much as that one solitary life. Why? Because Jesus was heaven-sent. Jesus, the Son of God, was sent by his Father from heaven to earth. The manna, which God had sent from heaven, like rain in the desert, to feed his hungry people, provided only a short-term solution. Jesus is the living bread from heaven, who brings real and everlasting change. We can see the signs of spiritual hunger all around us: • People who are grieving – looking for comfort and hope • People who are lonely or isolated, seeking for love • The searchers, dabbling in the occult or New Age cults • People who are in pain, anxious, or afraid, looking for healing and relief • Those who are tired of pursuing material goals, who are looking for more, but don’t know which way to turn For them, and for us, Jesus, the bread of life, means: Survival. Jesus brings new life – a life which begins now for all who believe in him and continues for eternity. We are born again into the Resurrection life which we share with Christ, where everything is made new. “The Resurrection is for those who are hungry for life,” writes John Pritchard, Bishop of Jarrow. “It’s for those who are prepared to come alive to the vast embracing love of God, to the glory and tragedy of the world, to the potential of Christ within each of us.” Satisfaction. Jesus fills with love and grace those who are spiritually hungry. Did he himself not say: ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled’? But the Bible promises us more than ‘just enough’. The prophet Isaiah declares: ‘The Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-matured wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-matured wines strained clear.’ Jesus said ‘ I came that you may have life and have it abundantly’! Strength. Jesus gives courage and strength to those who follow him. In the words of the Psalmist, God gives us ‘bread to strengthen the human heart.’ St Paul has plenty to say on this subject. ‘Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God’. We have the ‘whole armour of God’ to protect us – truth, righteousness, faith, salvation and the word of God – the gospel of peace. Sustenance. Jesus nourishes and sustains his faithful people. About a thousand years ago, a young man from a wealthy French family entered a monastery at Citeaux, near Dijon, and adopted the austere lifestyle of a Benedictine monk. His work in the order led to a huge growth in the number of monasteries in France and in Britain. Shortly after his death in 1153 he was canonized as a saint and miracle worker. We know him today as Bernard of Clairvaux and he is renowned for his spiritual teaching and writing. Here’s what he had to say on the subject of nourishment: “The name of Jesus is more than light, it is also food. Do you not feel the increase of strength as often as you remember it? What other name can so enrich the man who meditates? What can equal its power to refresh the harassed senses, to buttress the virtues, to add vigour to good and upright habits, to foster chaste affections? Every food of the mind is dry if it is not dipped in that oil, it is tasteless if not seasoned by that salt. Write what you will, I shall not relish it if you exclude the name of Jesus. Jesus to me is honey in the mouth, music in the ear, a song in the heart.” “Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty’. Lord, give us this bread. Eating, drinking, living Sunday 20 August 2006 - 10th SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY Paul Heatherington, Reader of St. Cuthbert's Proverbs 9.1-6; Ephesians 5.15-20; John 6.51-58 The Gospel reading is a very strange story that appears to make no sense at all in the context reported. Chapter 6 of John’s Gospel begins with the Feeding of the Five Thousand. Later, Jesus and his disciples move off. The crowds catch up with Jesus on the other side of the lake. Today, Jesus is in the synagogue at Capernaum. In the synagogue a text was taken and read. A Rabbi would then sit down. He would paraphrase it. He would give a homily (a sermon) about it, in which every word of the text would be picked over. Then the homily would end with the original text. Jesus is teaching in the synagogue. He is making a comparison with the manna given to the children of Israel in the wilderness. He moves from talking about physical bread to spiritual bread. The people ask, ‘Give us this spiritual bread.’ Jesus tells them, ‘I'm the life-giving bread from heaven. Take a slice of me and you won't need any other food. Drink my blood and you won't need anything else to drink.’ Is this passage to be understood factually? Did Jesus say literally what John’s Gospel tells us? Eating flesh and drinking blood, was as scandalous to Jesus’ hearers, as it would be to us today. The talk of flesh and blood is meant to shock. Drinking blood is forbidden by the Jewish purity code (Lev 7:26-27) and eating human flesh is as nauseating to the Jews as it would be to us. Imagine your reaction if at the offertory a chalice of blood was brought to the altar to take its place beside a chalice of consecrated wine, to bring home the ‘transformation.’ At communion we are provided with little white wafers. It’s bread, but not as we know it. We are given a sip of wine. It is wine, but not the sort we would normally drink. We are given ordinary things. This is not shocking. The Gospel reading offers the opportunity to discover ‘shocking’ aspects of sharing in communion. The disgusting image created by the language used and the shocked reaction of the audience confronts believers to accept something, which is impossible, on the face of it. It’s often said that we are what we eat. Food feeds and nourishes us and becomes our body. That is the analogy. John is writing symbolically. In receiving bread and wine in communion we human beings join with the human – but transformed – Jesus. Jesus assures us that this new life is ours and will never be taken away. We usually think of eternal life as the promise of life following death. But for John, eternal life begins in this life, as a gift from Jesus. People who have faith in Jesus and who follow him, share in that life, while they are alive. That life is sustained by eating Jesus’ flesh and blood. Some of the audience struggled with the very odd cannibalistic stuff. And when Jesus talked about com¬ing down from heaven, they can't stop seeing Jesus as the youngster who helped his dad in his carpentry workshop. They can't stomach it. There is an irony here. In the wilderness, God provided the children of Israel with manna to eat; but the people still whinged at Moses. In John, Jesus has bread to offer more precious than the manna given to Moses. His listeners mostly do not recognize Jesus as the person about whom Moses was writing and all they can do is exactly what their ancestors did – whine and grumble. Let me bring today’s readings together. We had a Wisdom reading from Proverbs. We heard from Paul too, who is OK with drinking wine, but instructs the Ephesians not to get drunk. Putting the readings together, we are being told:  Listen to the words of scripture and struggle to understand them  When we're given advice, listen carefully and try to hear if Wisdom is speaking.  Don’t get drunk. Sing to the Lord in your hearts  Follow Jesus. What does the symbolism of John mean to us as we go about our daily lives? I said earlier that the Gospel reading makes no sense at all in the context reported. A former bishop of Durham, Hensley Henson, once said that John’s Gospel is the first commentary on the gospels. Many scholars believe that the Gospel of John went though several editions. I think it is important to recognise that, whilst Matthew, Mark and Luke preserve the sayings of Jesus in words closer to the original, John uses his own thoughts and language to interpret the teaching of Jesus. But John’s Gospel (and here I quote another Bishop of Durham – the present one – Tom Wright) is not about the Word becoming an idea, a spirituality, a feeling or an experience. It is about the Word becoming flesh. The aim of the gospel of Saint John is to enable us to see what the first Christians saw, that is ‘the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, that we might see his glory’. In the 16th century, Queen Elizabeth the first was declared Supreme Governor of the English Church and England became Protestant by law. I quote something she said because it is plain and sensible – a continuing Anglican characteristic, I hope. Whilst religious disputes about the Eucharist raged, Elizabeth said, Twas God the Word that spake it; He took the bread and brake it; and what the Word did make it that I believe, and take it. This morning we are not merely discussing a subject of ancient history, Jesus of Nazareth, a man like any other man, the first-century Jew who preached in Capernaum. This morning we shall have an encounter in the present with the risen, ascended, glorified Jesus who is a living reality. In the words of the once well-known, though now less well-used Prayer of Humble Access we pray grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. We share in bread and wine, to make Jesus our meat and drink, to taste, chew and swallow God because – and this is what John wants us to understand – it is only by making Jesus an essential part of who we are that Jesus will live in us and we shall live in Jesus and we shall have His promise of eternal life. “Choose whom you will serve…” 11th Sunday after Trinity - Year B Eucharist – 27.viii.2006 The Revd. Martin Jackson, Vicar Joshua 24.1-2a, 14-18; Ephesians 6.10-20; John 6.56-59 Every week, John Pridmore, a parish priest in London, writes a column in the Church Times about the Bible readings we use in church. This week’s offering is especially worth reading. This is how he starts: WHEN I WAS a boy, there was a rousing chorus we used to sing in our Crusader class, whose lyric was lifted from today's first reading: "Choose you this day whom you will serve." The chorus ended with the refrain: "As for me, as for me, as for me . . . I will serve the Lord." We bellowed the umpteen "as for me”s louder and louder, and, with the final "I will serve the Lord," we raised the roof. It was a rollicking number, and our enjoyment of it was not lessened by the fact that we hadn't a clue what we were singing about. Had we stopped to think, we might not have sung so loudly. The nature and role of choice in the life of faith seem to have received little study. “Choose whom you will serve…” That’s the invitation in both the Old Testament reading and the Gospel today. In the Old Testament reading, Joshua has led the people of Israel through the waters of the Jordan into the Promised Land. They’ve defeated the peoples who lived there before them. Now they can settle down and enjoy the fruits of conquest. But, he asks them, will God still be part of the picture? Will they continue to serve the God who has been their companion and guide since the days of their slavery in Egypt? Or will they forget him now? Along with all the busy-ness of tilling the fields which have come into their possession, will they find themselves switching to the worship of the gods served already by the people of that land which they have taken? And of course they join in chorus, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods…” It’s uncannily like that Crusader chorus John Pridmore had joined in as a child: “As for me, as for me, as for me… I will serve the Lord.” But is it any more than a chorus that they sing in the enthusiasm of the moment? Jesus puts his disciples on the spot too… in our Gospel reading. The crowds have come out in their thousands – literally – and Jesus has not only taught them, he’s fed them in that miracle of the loaves and fishes. But after the works of wonder, there’s the teaching, things to learn, things to reflect upon and take in as to who this man really is. Jesus himself has to tell them: “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” And after the first flush of enthusiasm, the simple fact is that many of them can’t. John’s Gospel tells us, “Because of this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.” That’s when Jesus asks the original Twelve, “Do you also wish to go?” As elsewhere in the Gospels, it’s Peter who makes the reply: “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life…” Joshua’s words: “Choose whom you will serve….” Jesus’ words: “Do you also wish to go away?” We have to answer questions like these. Where would we rather be? Listen to your heart – where does it direct you?” There’s a prayer which I think we can all use which goes like this: Dear Lord, So far today, I’ve done all right. I haven’t gossiped, haven’t lost my temper, haven’t been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish, or over indulgent. I’m very thankful for that. But, in a few minutes, God,… I’m going to get out of bed. And from then on, I’m probably going to need a lot more help. It can be easy to serve God in the right situation… lying in bed first thing in the morning; when we’re hearing the message we want to hear; when we’re with people of a like mind, people we want to be with. It can be different when the circumstances are different – which is nearly all the time. So in church at Morning Prayer, we pray every day: The night has passed, and the day lies open before us; let us pray with one heart and mind. And we keep silence before we go on to pray... As we rejoice in the gift of this new day, so may the light of your presence, O God, set our hearts on fire with love for you; now and for ever. We can make the decision to be Christ’s people each and every day. Where else can we go? asks Peter. There seems to be an echo there of the attitude that many people have towards religion… It’s OK, if there’s nothing better on offer. But then Peter finds himself saying those words which the Gospel writer wants us to hear: “You have the words of eternal life.” We need to remind ourselves of that. What drew us first to Christ? What remains true and life-changing for us? What are those “words of eternal life”? Flor McCarthy suggest some of the words recorded in Scripture that can bring us back to Christ: Go in peace. Your sins are forgiven. I am the bread of life. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever. I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows me will never walk in darkness, but will always have the light of life. I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep… I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will never die… All words of Jesus, which may seem to be chosen rather arbitrarily. But they raise the question, what draws us to Christ? what will keep us traveling with him? And it came to me as I asked myself this question that I could add texts like that put on the lips of Christ in the Book of Revelation: “Behold I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” People who know me know that I don’t think you can prove anything just by quoting passages of scripture. But we can talk about “words of eternal life” when those words have proved themselves because they tell us a truth which has meaning for our lives. We need those words which we can reflect upon and live by. We need God as our companion, Christ as our guide, and we need to make the decision that it should be so. The Gospel passage we use today is all but the last couple of verses of the end of chapter 6 in St John’s Gospel. We’ve been reading that one chapter for the last five weeks, since the end of July! So much of it is about bread: Jesus taking bread and fishes to feed the five thousand; Jesus speaking about himself as the bread of life or the true bread from heaven; Jesus inviting his hearers to eat this bread. What we might have missed is a change of place. The sixth chapter of St. John’s Gospel begins in the open air with the crowds thronging to hear Jesus speak. But it ends in the synagogue in Capernaum – John tells us that Jesus “said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.” And it seems to me that this shift in location is significant. We’ve moved from the place where people are drawn eagerly and with enthusiasm to discover something new… to another place where religious debate is the focus and where people bring out the teachings which have been rehearsed over hundreds of years. It’s in this second place where Jesus seems so often to come into confrontation over issues of religious authority that the going is much tougher: hard for Jesus who finds so many of the synagogue adherents unsympathetic to his message; hard for people who have so far gone along with Jesus, but now find his teachings too difficult. But each location has its necessary place. We all need the conditions where a message can come to us fresh as it did to the crowds, a place where emotion and enthusiasm can kindle new faith. But we need also the readiness to work hard at faith, to ask what it means in the light of what has gone before, to recognize what it means as we seek to work it out day by day. Jesus’ question to his followers, “Do you also wish to go away?” is not just a request that they stick around with a weary attitude for want of anything better to do. It’s to ask us all to see where we are on our journey of faith where Christ is in our midst. We may need our inherited assumptions to be challenged – the things we took for granted, not least a faith which needs to mature. We may need to ask again what we expect out of our faith – the Israelites tell Joshua that they will stick with their God because he had driven out the people from their land and wiped out the Amorites; surely the events of the last weeks with the devastation wrought in Gaza, southern Lebanon and northern Israel show us that there must be a better reasoning than this. And day by day we need to be able to make our affirmation of Christ a part of our worship and prayer, and a transforming presence in our lives. In all this I’ve found the words of one of John Keble’s hymns coming back to me in its challenge to recognise God’s place in our lives even as we start each day: New every morning is the love our wakening and uprising prove; through sleep and darkness safely brought, restored to life and power and thought. New mercies, each returning day, hover around us while we pray; new perils past, new sins forgiven, new thoughts of God, new hopes of heaven. But then, as the hymn reminds us, this is more than a spiritual pick-me-up or a pious hope. This is a faith worked out in the midst of daily life: The trivial round, the common task, will furnish all we ought to ask: room to deny ourselves; a road to bring us daily nearer God. Doers of the Word 12th Sunday after Trinity Sunday 3rd September 2006 Rosie Junemann, Reader of St Cuthbert’s Deuteronomy 4. 1-2, 6-9 James 1. 17-end Mark 7. 1-8, 14-15, 21-23 On Thursday last week, in our midweek Eucharist, we celebrated the life of St Aidan, Bishop of Lindisfarne and Missionary, who died on the 31st August 651. Bede wrote about Aidan: “he taught nothing that he did not practise in his life among his brethren; for he neither sought nor loved anything of this world, but delighted in distributing immediately among the poor whom he met whatsoever was given him by the kings or rich men of the world” St Aidan, I think, was a ‘doer of the word’. ‘Be doers of the word and not merely hearers’ might be an apt summary of the whole of The Letter of James. We’re going to be taking a closer look at The Letter of James over the next few weeks, so I’m going to begin today with some background information. There is considerable debate about the identity of James, the writer of the letter. Some scholars argue that he is none other than James, the brother of Jesus, who – Paul tells us - became a Christian when he saw the risen Jesus, and quickly became a central figure in the church in Jerusalem. Luke tells us in Acts that James presided at the great Council of Jerusalem in about 48AD. He has since been venerated as the first ‘bishop’ of Jerusalem and has been nicknamed ‘James the Just’. But James – Jacob in its original form - was a very common Jewish name. All we can really be sure of is that the James who wrote the letter was an authoritative teacher, and an educated man, who was able to write in stylish Greek, but also had a knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic. There is general agreement that the letter reflects the concerns of a Jewish Christian community at around 60AD. These people may well have been followers of Jesus who remained in Galilee after he died, though the main centre for the early church was in Jerusalem. Many would have been fishermen or farmers – James writes of sea and wind, ships and rudders, and also of fields, harvest, crops, fig trees, olives and grapevines. At this early stage, the group of baptized believers formed a sect within Judaism. It was called ‘the sect of the Nazarenes’ by outsiders, but its members called their faith ‘The Way’. It was still essentially Jewish in character. Its members accepted the obligations of the Jewish law and the worship of the Temple. Their distinctive belief was that Jesus of Nazareth was Israel’s Messiah. Their distinctive practices included baptism in the name of Jesus, regular instruction by the apostles or other elders, and fellowship on a household basis, which Luke described as ‘the breaking of the bread and the prayers’. James gives his readers practical advice on Christian conduct. Real faith shows in the way that Christians behave. Throughout the letter James advocates a rigorous, disciplined moral existence. He makes clear distinctions between right and wrong and is greatly concerned that his readers should live righteous lives. Like Paul, James teaches that believers are engaged in a struggle between desiring to sin and desiring to do what is right. He is convinced that hearing the word of God will generate an active life of faith. The people who James was writing to were by no means perfect - and they lived in an imperfect community, too. The Letter itself tells us that it was a society in which people discriminated against the poor, in which conflicts and disputes were common. Workers were underpaid. Material greed and self-interest made people slander and accuse each other, and even commit murder. James challenges his readers to improve themselves and their communal life. Self-discipline is all-important. ‘Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger’. The Christian must not be tainted by worldly desire and ambition, but must care for people in need. ‘Be doers of the word and not merely hearers’. We ought, perhaps, to consider what James means when he talks about ‘the word’. The Letter of James was probably written before the first Gospel – Mark’s Gospel – was completed. But it’s worth reflecting that some of James’ first readers may have heard the word of God from Jesus himself. They may have had the wonderful advantage of a personal encounter with Jesus. Perhaps they heard him teach, or watched him heal the sick. Or they may have met the apostles or other eye-witnesses and heard the stories and sayings of Jesus in that way. But for James and his readers the word of God was first and foremost to be heard in the Jewish scriptures. As we know from Matthew’s Gospel, all the law and the prophets are summed up in the command to ‘love God with all our heart, soul and mind, and to love our neighbour as ourselves’. Old Testament scripture constantly reiterates the need for justice and especially for the care of widows, the poor and the needy. Jesus, of course, extended the ideal of ‘love of neighbour’ to include love for enemies and persecutors, and he emphasised that love must be expressed in practical help for those who need it. Jesus himself was a man of words – a teacher - but he was also a man of action. Hearing his Father’s word and knowing his Father’s will, he showed his love and compassion for people by feeding them when they were hungry, healing them when they were sick, and bringing back life to the lifeless. The ‘good news’ of the Gospel is all about love in action. Its hard to find much ‘good news’ in the media today! You can read, and hear, a great deal about the greed, aggression, injustice and callousness of the world we live in. But if you look closely there are also a few stories about people who are ‘doers of the word’ and the impact they have on the world around them. There’s been a story, for example, about the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, who recently undertook a week-long vigil of prayer and fasting for peace in the Middle East. For a week, he camped in a purple tent in St John’s Chapel, within York Minster, sleeping rough on the floor and drinking only water. He led public prayers in the chapel every hour and people crowded in, in response to this ‘rallying call’ to try to bring the Middle East conflict to an end. I’ve read, too, about the airport chaplains who offered help to the thousands of passengers who were delayed or stranded at British airports during the recent terror alerts. Reports told us that the chaplains provided round-the-clock support and made themselves available to help out wherever airport staff needed them. The chaplains said that prayer requests had increased and the chapels had been well used. But they were also giving more practical help such as acting as interpreters for foreign passengers and looking after vulnerable people who needed help. We are really not very different to those first readers of the Letter of James. Imperfect people living in an imperfect society, we too are engaged in a struggle between desiring to sin and desiring to do what is right. But as Christians we are called to make a difference by putting our faith into practice – by living the Gospel. We may not be as saintly as Aidan. We may not perform the great deeds or acts which make the news headlines. But we can be ‘doers of the word’ in our daily lives – in the way that we relate to, and interact with, our neighbours. We can, for example, demonstrate our compassion for poorer people in developing countries by buying Fair Trade goods, or by giving to Christian Aid. We can show our concern for future generations by conserving the earth’s resources and recycling our rubbish. We can share the pain of people around us who are suffering, by taking time to visit them or give some practical help. There’s a 19th century hymn which sounds a little trite by today’s standards, but nonetheless still expresses a truth: “Little deeds of kindness, little words of love, Help to make earth happy, like the heaven above.” Don’t listen to the Word... Do what it says! Trinity 14 - Sunday 17 September 2006 Paul Heatherington, Reader at St. Cuthbert's Over a five-week period, we are focussing on the Letter of James… Some academics and theologians are sniffy about the Letter of James. Martin Luther wrote in his general Preface to the New Testament that if he were compelled to make a choice of dispensing with either the works of Jesus or the preaching of Jesus, he would rather do without the works, than the preaching. Luther considered that the first Epistle of John, St Paul’s epistles, especially to the Romans, Galatians and Ephesians; and St Peter’s first epistle are the books that show Christ to you. In comparison with these, the Epistle of James was an epistle full of straw, because it contained nothing evangelical. I want to put Luther’s judgement of James into some context: • Only one paragraph in Luther’s Preface to the New Testament contains the famous ‘judgement’ on the Letter of James. • Luther included this comment about James only in the first edition of the Preface to the New Testament. • Luther had a great deal to say in favour of the moral teaching in James. • Luther reminded readers that the Letter of James was accepted into the canon of the New Testament quite late because of doubts about its teaching. • Whilst there is no clear proof available as to who wrote the Letter of James, its author was someone who was well known to the early Church. James, the brother of Jesus fits this profile and traditionally Christians have identified the author of the Letter of James as James, the brother of Jesus. • Few books are better known or more popular among Christians generally than the Letter of James. It is one of two or three of the most popular NT books, mainly because James is down to earth and practical. • The overall message of James is  ‘Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only’ OR  ‘Don’t listen to the Word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says!’ (a modern translation) In the extract from Letter of James, which we heard read, James emphasises that it is important for us to control what we say. This is not the first mention in the Letter of James of the need to control the tongue. In Chapter One, James writes … be quick to listen and slow to speak or to get angry…. If you think you are being religious, but can’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and everything you do is useless. [I asked myself what I could learn from James on controlling my tongue. These sayings sprang to mind. Think before you speak. Put your brain into gear; before opening your mouth. I recall that Jim Callaghan once said ‘A lie can be half-way round the world before the truth has got its boots on.’ And also on lying there’s this Churchill quote, ‘There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true.’ So it’s a good idea to resolve to avoid all conversations that begin, ‘I don't wish to spread gossip, but...’. Other thoughts I had were that where there’s a choice between being right and being kind, to choose kind. That led me to resolve that the next time someone is factually inaccurate, I must resist the temptation to correct. These sentences from the Nun’s Prayer then came to mind. • Lord, keep me from the fatal habit of thinking I must say something on every subject and on every occasion. • Release me from craving to straighten out everybody's affairs. • With my vast store of wisdom it seems a pity not to use it all, but thou knowest Lord that I want a few friends at the end. • Teach me the glorious lesson that – occasionally – I may be mistaken. • Give me the ability to see good things in unexpected places, and talents in unexpected people. And, give me O Lord the grace to tell them so. These are all lessons I thought about in avoiding foot in mouth disease, that is opening my mouth and putting my foot in it.] As Rosie explained two weeks ago, the early Church was a group of baptized believers who formed a sect within Judaism who called their faith ‘The Way’. In Judaism, a Rabbi was not allowed to take money for teaching. He was to support himself by working at a trade. Often a family took in a Rabbi and supported him. A Rabbi was regarded more highly than a person’s parents. Parents brought a person into this world. But the Rabbi’s task was to take him into the world to come. It was easy for a Rabbi to get to enjoy the deferential respect shown to him. In the early church, the apostles moved about and did not stay long in any one congregation. However, teachers worked within a local church. They had the responsibility of instructing new converts in the Gospel and the Christian faith. Huge prestige attached to being a teacher. Teachers of ‘The Way’ had a similar standing as Rabbis in the Jewish community. From what James writes, it seems that some teachers tried to teach before they knew anything and were not intellectually or morally qualified to teach. These were men who wanted the status of being a teacher and all that went with it, but they talked the talk, but did not walk the walk. There were also teachers who wanted to turn Christianity into another kind of Judaism by attempting to introduce to those who were not Jews (the Gentiles): the keeping of the Jewish food laws, Sabbath day observance and circumcision. James maintains that people ought not to be over eager to be a teacher. He saw teaching as a hazardous occupation. Greater knowledge carried with it a greater responsibility to practise what you preach. James warns that teachers will be judged more strictly than others. They were responsible for the spiritual wellbeing of those to whom they ministered. James was addressing people who were really only after the prestige of being a teacher. The modern expression, don't talk the talk if you can't walk the walk means: talk is cheap. James does not see teaching as cheap. He insists that people must remember their responsibility is only to talk the talk, if they walk the walk. He does not so much want to put people off becoming a teacher. He wants people to become teachers for the right reasons. We know that from what he wrote that James knew about horses, ships, forest fires and taming animals. To illustrate his point, he said: A bit in the mouth of a horse, means a horse can be turned in different directions. Only a strong wind can move a large sailing ship, but a small rudder can make it go in any direction. The tongue is like a single spark that can start a forest fire. It has an evil power that spoils the body and sets a person’s entire life on fire with flames that come from hell itself. Animals, birds, reptiles, and sea creatures can and have been tamed but we lose control of our tongues. Tongues are evil, and never still, always spreading deadly poison. Tongues can be used to praise and swear. With one tongue, we praise God and we curse people made in God’s image. James compares olives and figs, and fresh spring water and salt water. A fig tree cannot produce olives and a grapevine cannot produce figs. The same water spring cannot produce clean and dirty water. Fresh water cannot come from a well of salt water The ultra-practical James says that a teacher’s tool of the trade is his tongue. He says that you are mature and able to control your whole body, only if you can control your tongue. Don’t just listen to the word… Do what it says. I offer these thoughts to you recognizing my own frailty. ‘The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens – wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught...’ (Isa 50:4) The Golden Jubilee - of a "Golden Cleric" 15th Sunday after Trinity Year B Eucharist – 24.ix.2006 The Revd. Martin Jackson Vicar of St. Cuthbert's, Benfieldside Jeremiah 11.18-20; James 3.13 - 4.3.7-8a; Mark 9.30-37 Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. (James 3.13) We’ve been making the letter of James the focus of our preaching during September – and I’m struck today by the aptness of the opening verse in today’s reading from James for this occasion. Here we are celebrating Harry Lee’s 50th anniversary of ordination to the priesthood – his Golden Jubilee. And here in these words James tells us what must be at the heart of Christian living – a good life, where what we do stems from gentleness born of wisdom. Can we doubt the wisdom that has grown up in Harry, there for us all to share? St. James goes on: the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. But having said that I think I run the risk of sounding terribly pious. James tells us what to aspire to. Harry matches up because he has grown in wisdom, his life is a life of holiness,.. but I don’t want to see him cringing under heaped paeans of praise, because – as he shows above all – holiness goes with humanity and humour. Above all Harry makes us laugh! And that’s the way he points us on the path of wisdom and holiness. I feel quite humbled to be asked by Harry to preach this morning. I do it in large part simply because I am, as he puts it, his Vicar. There are other people who could do it better, people who’ve known him much longer. So we should all welcome the people who’ve come specially for this occasion: members of his family, including in-laws from Wales; life-long friends (and that’s certainly the case with Ken and Noreen Bates). We think of those who are not here, who’ve been a part of his life. We tried looking up Harry’s college contemporaries, and I’m afraid there aren’t many left in Crockford’s Clerical Directory. Of his former curates, Harry had been hopeful that Desmond Leaming (who was ordained with me) might make it, but I’m afraid he was already committed to taking three services in Weardale today (it should be said that Desmond was a late vocation and is now 85, which makes Harry look a spring chicken and makes me feel like I’m barely emerging from the egg – let’s wish Harry many more years of enlivening our parish). And so we’re all here for Harry. How do you go about giving recognition to someone who has made it to their Golden Jubilee? I’m afraid that as I started to think about this what came to mind was the episode in the surreal television series “Father Ted” in which the eponymous Fr. Ted Crilley wins what is called “The Golden Cleric Award.” Harry knows how much I love this series set in a parish in rural Ireland where the clergy are the long-suffering parish priest, Fr. Ted, his terrifyingly innocent Curate, Dougal, and the grouchy retired drink-sodden Fr. Jack – there are absolutely no parallels with this parish, except for the beleaguered air so often worn by the parish priest! And it’s actually Fr. Ted who wins the Golden Cleric Award, not for long service but for rescuing the Church from scandal as he leads eight other clergy to safety from what is termed “the biggest lingerie section in Ireland” in which they have inexplicably become stranded. For completely different reasons we should think of Fr. Harry as our Golden Cleric, but then we would need to be wary of what Fr. Ted does with the honour. The honour goes to his head. “Things start with the Golden Cleric Award,” he says. “People listen to you then.” “But they listen to you already when you preach a sermon,” his Curate says. “Ah no, Dougal. I mean people I respect.” He gets hurt when he asks his housekeeper, Mrs. Doyle, “Am I one of the best priests in the country or maybe the best?” and gets the reply, “I’ll say you might be the second best.” Picking himself up from this rebuff he sets about writing his acceptance speech for the Golden Cleric Award: “I’ve got this for my own initiative and hard graft, so there’s no one else to thank except myself. In fact, I think I’ll thank myself…” And along the way he names all the people who’ve rubbed him up the wrong way: “I’ll take them down a peg or two.” I could go on quoting: “It looks like I’ve had the last laugh on those people who didn’t think I had it in me to be a top priest… All I can say is look at me now!” Could we get our Fr. Harry a tee-shirt saying “Top priest”? I think we should be wary of that. Look at today’s Gospel reading. Jesus asks the disciples: ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. To quote Father Ted one last time: “At last I have a chance to shine, to stand out, to be recognized for my achievements…” And Dougal’s reply: “Oh… what achievements are these?” This is where we need to hear the words of Jesus to his disciples: Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all. In the Kingdom of heaven, the one who hopes to be top must recognize his place firmly at the bottom of the heap. Priesthood needs to be about sacrificial living: taking the way of the Cross because it is the way of Christ and the way of the Christian; following Christ and leading others to show the way… and running behind them to gather up the straggler… and walking beside them to support them on the journey. It’s about the pursuit of God’s glory but the renunciation of our own. It’s a task undertaken conscious of our humanity… of our fallibility: knowing that we muck things up with the best of intentions,.. and we go on doing it day-by-day, making wrong decisions, calling people by the wrong names and looking for them at the wrong addresses. St. Paul puts it well in his 2nd Letter to the Corinthians: We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies… and as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything. It’s all possible because we bear a “treasure in clay jars.” Common clay pots that we may be, we can nevertheless carry and share an extraordinary power which belongs to God. That’s the way that St. Paul puts it. A ministry such as that which Harry has exercised these last 50 years (and one more if we count his Deacon’s year before that) is only possible if we recognize that we are simply human, but God is God and works in us and through us. I know that I often refer to Harry as “the real Vicar” when we are at parish functions. He turns up and looks the part. Well-pressed, properly black clerical shirt, tweed jacket, a venerable air which we “junior” clergy simply can’t match. But he doesn’t just look and play the part. He is the genuine article. I think it was at Ian’s ordination that Harry let on to me just before the service began that he knew the preacher. “He was in my confirmation class when I was a Curate,” he said. “I hope he doesn’t recognize me.” Well… we went on into the Cathedral in separate processions. The preacher went into the pulpit, and began by declaring what a privilege it was to stand in such a hallowed place back in his home city of Durham, amongst the people of his youth, “and most of all,” he continued, “what a pleasure it is to see amongst the clergy today Father Harry Lee, who all those years ago prepared me for Confirmation.” Harry is a priest who down the years has touched so many lives. He doesn’t boast about it, barely mentions it, but that day everybody heard about it. Harry has a history. “I was at your ordination, you know,” he told me when we first met in this parish. Not there particularly for me, but for one of a number of curates he trained, whether they proved amenable or not. And I think of him preaching from this pulpit at a Deanery Service for Ascension Day – the occasion he now refers to as “the night I died in the pulpit at St. Cuthbert’s.” Having served long and happily in the parish of Medomsley and known so many people in local parishes, he started his sermon by seeking to greet any who might be there. “Who’s here from St. Mary Magdalene’s?” he asked. But there was no reply. “Well, who’s here from Christ Church, Low Westwood.” Still no reply. “From Consett?” I think there was someone but she didn’t put her hand up. But that says more about the progress we’ve still to make in working together between our parishes, rather than about Harry. Harry had been there for them in his ministry, and so we are here now for him as we can all celebrate it with thanksgiving. But we don’t preach sermons simply to praise individuals. What does Harry’s 50 years of priesthood say about the discipleship we must all live out, the vocations which need to be formed in us? One of Harry’s favourite poems – or at least one which he is fond of quoting – is R S Thomas’s “The Country Clergy”. Let me read it: I see them working in old rectories By the sun’s light, by candlelight, Venerable men, their black cloth A little dusty, a little green With holy mildew. And yet their skulls, Ripening over so many prayers, Toppled into the same grave With oafs and yokels. They left no books, Memorial to their lonely thought In grey parishes; rather they wrote On men’s hearts and in the minds Of young children sublime words Too soon forgotten. God in his time Or out of time will correct this. It’s a poem of wonderful imagery that seems at first to be disparaging of both priest and people. Dusty, mildewed clergy and parishioners described as oafs and yokels, all toppled into the same grave. But that is the point. In what seems to achieve so little, in a common end, the priest is with his people, serves them, writes on their hearts and in the minds of their children. It may seem to be forgotten. But “God in his time / Or out of time will correct this.” It’s to eternity that we look, and we start looking here and now, in lives that we might ourselves count unexceptional, but lives which can bear fruit for the Kingdom. Harry did not take on his priesthood as a job. Priesthood is not something to be relinquished at the point of retirement from being a Vicar. “Being a Vicar” is doing the job. Being a priest is being a particular person. I’ve found how important it is not to make a supposed distinction between “active” and “retired” clergy. It’s those who are drawing a pension who do so much to encourage the rest of us. Harry keeps up his discipline of study and reading, and there are the times I know when I have called and disturbed him from his prayers. Praying is at the heart of priesthood. You don’t get paid to do it, and you don’t stop when the Church Commissioners stop paying your stipend. For that example I am truly grateful. But I must be stopping. One thing I can say about today’s service is that if you don’t like the hymns, you can’t blame the Vicar! I didn’t choose them – Harry did. I think we ruined one of them for him the other evening when some of us were practicing “O for a closer walk with God.” “Do we know it?” some people asked. “Do we have to sing that tune?” And the answer was “Yes!” And I’m afraid that I was a bit wicked about verse 2: What peaceful hours I once enjoyed, how sweet their memory still! but they have left an aching void the world can never fill. Well… you can read the words as 18th century sentiment, but that’s to miss the point. The point is about a life with God, lived out here and now but with its goal in eternity. What do we do with our lives now, and what does that tell us about our calling as Christ’s people? The hymn we absolutely had to have today is the one we’ll sing at the Offertory, “Angel-voices ever singing / round thy throne of light.” It’s a vision of glory, something so important to Harry. We lose sight of it at our peril, as Michael Ramsey, former Bishop of Durham and a spiritual hero to Harry and to me, reminds us. Look to the glory of God which beckons us, but remember that on the way you can – like Harry – take in music hall, pantomime and Shakespeare. We need to be deepened in prayer and study, in our sense of the holy; and that requires all the more that we keep our humour and our humanity with us on the way. As that hymn we’ve yet to sing puts it: In thy house, great God, we offer_ of thine own to thee; and for thine acceptance proffer all unworthily hearts and minds and hands and voices in our choicest psalmody. Let them carry on... 16th Sunday after Trinity - Year B – 1.x.2006 The Revd. Martin Jackson, Vicar Numbers 11.4-6,10-16,24-29; James 5.13-20; Mark 9.38-50 Moses said to Joshua, ‘Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!’ (Numbers 11.29) That’s the last verse of the Old Testament reading appointed for today. I think we’re given that reading because of its resonance with the opening verses of today’s Gospel reading. The disciples have come across someone doing what’s described as “casting out demons,” he’s claiming to do it in the name of Jesus, and Jesus’ own disciples – the real disciples – want to stop him. I can understand why… If you’ve got Sky Digital television and you use your remote control to tune into the mid-to high 700s, you’ll come across a dozen or so television channels carrying non-stop Gospel stations. Some of them are boring, some are frightening, some leave you incredulous, not many will grip your attention span for more than a few minutes – though I confess to a sort of macabre fascination with three personalities in particular. One is Pastor John Hagee, who undoubtedly has a large following and quite a compelling quality in his presentation. His is a message which I can only hope is wrong. It focuses on Jerusalem and the people of Israel as the means by which God is going to usher in some “end-time.” His analysis rams home a message of Islam as a threat to world peace, but he doesn’t seem particularly perturbed, because it’s when Jerusalem is surrounded by her enemies that God will be stirred to act. Never mind approaching Armageddon, he seems to say: Armageddon is what we want! The world may suffer violence and destruction, but that’s the way the Kingdom is going to come about. This is a man who gets thousands into his church each week, and who reaches out to still more hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) with his books, videos and television exposure. And it’s not just a passive audience that he seems to influence. There are serious indications that his line of argument makes itself felt amongst the policy makers in Washington DC. America may be a country where Church and State are officially kept separate. But you can’t help wondering how much public policy is being determined by supposedly private belief. The other two Gospel channel personalities might seem almost comic if it weren’t for the lives they touch. And these are people who you might describe as having a ministry of “casting out demons.” They are called Benny Hinn and Peter Popoff. Peter Popoff has seen better days, I suspect, and now inhabits the so-called “Gospel Channel,” which alternates his reminiscences of how he has worked healing in the lives of so many with advertisements for “free miracle spring water,” and extremely dull monologues by someone I haven’t identified in a programme called “The Gospel from Iceland.” I haven’t worked that last bit out, but I suspect it is because the studio from which they broadcast is in Iceland, in much the same way as the “God UK” channel used to broadcast from Sunderland before they got enough money from their viewers to build a new studio in Jerusalem. There’s a sense of the good times being past with Peter Popoff, and now he sits in a studio holding his wife’s hand showing clips of rallies at which he casts out demons and rebukes the powers of darkness – “in Jesus’ name” he insists, but you wonder where there’s any sense of Jesus’ presence in all this. And I ask myself how long ago he was doing this stuff? Because now it’s Benny Hinn who seems to have cornered the market in miracle working. With a permanent tan, wearing a suit rather like those worn by the puppets in Thunderbirds, and a grey coiffure so amazing that I wonder if his hair is implanted polyester, Benny Hinn jets around the world drawing huge crowds – in Africa, Asia, America and Europe, sometimes appearing on two different continents and two different Gospel channels at the same time. He is captivating, and his ministry is of one healing after another, of making the lame walk, but first pressing his palm against their foreheads and having them collapse into the waiting arms of his attendants… I don’t want to sound cynical or sceptical about such a ministry. And even as I fail to be convinced by what I see, I can hear those words of the disciples: ‘Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.’ And then Jesus’ response: ‘Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterwards to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us. I can see that much of what the first disciples of Jesus experienced must have been quite exasperating. Here they are following this man who is so patently good, whose works of healing are carried out in such an unassuming manner, a man who has the power to change people’s lives for the better, a man who has given direction to their own lives so that they have found themselves compelled to give up their livelihoods in order to follow him… and they have no regrets: he is the Messiah, the Christ, God’s chosen one. But now they have to see these other people rushing in, trying to steal the glory for themselves, developing their own ministries (or more likely crowd-pulling acts) in which they claim to cast out demons in Jesus’ name, but actually follow no path but their own. And Jesus says, let them carry on: “Whoever is not against us is for us.” But what about those other words recorded in the Gospel, “Whoever is not with us is against us”...? It’s apparent contradictions like these which strike me as one of the marks of the authenticity of the Gospels. Jesus speaks to people in particular circumstances. On different occasions he says different things. The telling thing is, what do we hear him say? What does Jesus have to say to us? Don’t rush in condemning other people, he says again and again. If they’re claiming to share the message of the Gospel, let’s see whether they will measure up. They may not start with the right motives, but perhaps they will end up converting themselves… Meanwhile look at your own life, and your own calling. What do you hear me say? What is going to make a difference in your life? That’s something I need to hear again and again. I can easily work out where other people are wrong. I can deplore what I see on these so-called Gospel channels,… and especially what strikes me as missing is a spirit of prayerfulness, humility and reticence. You can be just too confident, too enthusiastic, too noisy and too full of yourself. You can be just too certain about the answers. But you also need to recognise that there are answers, we do have a calling to which we need to make a response. So we hear Jesus saying, stop criticising other people – think of what you should be doing yourself. As a Church we need to hear that. At national and international levels we seem just too pre-occupied with the wrong things. In our Anglican Communion there’s effective schism over the issue of sexuality as it bears upon the clergy, while there’s a failure to see the real difference in cultural assumptions which have brought this about, and a tragic silence with regard to the message the world really needs to hear. In the Episcopal Church of the United States, it’s the appointment of a woman as Presiding Bishop which has brought the arguing to a climax. More pragmatically in the Church of England, it’s the hole in the Pension Fund which is the current focus. And at parish level we so easily get bogged down over issues of maintaining the fabric, paying the bills, deciding who will decide to do what. But what is really important? In today’s New Testament reading from the Letter of St. James the author reminds his audience: Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. Prayer is central, and the life of prayer. And it’s prayer which will make a difference. Where does our confidence lie? Is it in having the money to cushion us from whatever blows fate may direct against us? In having a well-ordered life, a nice house with the mortgage paid off, and a family that doesn’t embarrass us? Or can we see that it’s God who is our true hope? It’s God who hears the prayer of faith, whether or not we can perceive his response to that faith. It’s God who brings forgiveness into lives which we fear are just too messy. And because God can reach out to us even in the turmoil and anxieties and uncertainty of our lives, he can use us too. Not only can God use us, God needs us. Who else is he going to use? Who else can do his work? It’s an odd feeling for me today as I get ready to start my sabbatical leave. The hope is that the next three months will be a time for me of learning, refreshment and renewal. I need to be able to focus again on what is really important. But the last few weeks leading up to this point have been important in themselves. Who is going to take on the responsibilities which I normally carry? We’ve produced list after list which says who is going to do what – other clergy, Readers, churchwardens… and others besides. We’ve looked at the calendar to plot our way through the most significant dates of the next three months. And we’ve talked about what to do if such and such an eventuality should arise. But the truth is that you can’t sort everything out. You have to let it happen and then make the response which is appropriate – and such a response is possible because you are God’s people and God calls us all, not just those who are clergy or who hold the bishop’s licence or who are elected by our Annual Meeting. He calls us to do more than simply make a response as well - don’t wait till you have to do something, but ask what God is calling you to do now! “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets…” says Moses. All of you can pray, says James. Anyone who speaks in my name is doing my work, says Jesus.  Email page  Feedback  Home Home Page |How to find us |Activities |Services & Times |How can we help? |Church Hall & Bookings |Who's Who? |This Sunday's Bible Readings |Parish News - May 2008 |Parish Gallery 2001 |Homilies: October 2001 - February 2002 |This Month's Calendar |Thinking about Baptism |Thinking about Marriage |Faith & Action - inclusiveness and opportunity |Aids to Prayer |Children & Holy Communion |Homilies: Easter-tide 2002 |Homilies: May - November 2002 |Parish Review 2002 |Photo Page 2002 |Homilies: December 2002 - February 2003 |Celebrating 2003 - people in pictures |Homilies: Lent & Easter-tide 2003 |Ordinary Time - Sermons 2003 |Pictures - summer 2003 |Sermons - Advent 2003 - Epiphany 2004 |Annual Reports 2007 (APCM 2008) |Sermons - Lent & Easter-tide 2004 |Sermons - Ordinary Time 2004 |Sunday School |Sermons - Advent + Christmas 2004, Epiphany 2005 |Sermons - Lent & Easter 2005 |Sermons - Ordinary Time 2005 |St. Paul - a series from St. Cuthbert's |Sermons: Advent 2005 to Trinity Sunday 2006 |Sermons - Ordinary Time 2006 |Sermons 2007 |Sermons 2008 |Contact Information for Parish of Saint Cuthbert, Benfieldside |Links for Parish of Saint Cuthbert, Benfieldside |Guestbook |Mail Form