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 - April 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 2008 A selection of sermons preached at St. Cuthbert's. Sermons are only included here (a) if the preacher lets us have a script, and (b) if there is a script! That's to say there are quite a few occasions when the sermon is delivered in a way we can't reproduce here. So to get the full flavour, join us in person! The Epiphany - recognising God's glory in Christ Feast of the Epiphany of our Lord 6th January 2008 The Revd. Martin Jackson Vicar of St. Cuthbert's, Benfieldside Isaiah 60.1-6; Ephesians 3.1-12; Matthew 2.1-12 It’s 12 days since Christmas - and today’s Feast of the Epiphany of our Lord takes us back to the crib. On Christmas night it’s angels who sing out the praises of God, and shepherds who leave their flocks to come and worship before the Christ-child. At Epiphany it’s a star shining in the heavens that proclaims this most special of all births, and mysterious visitors from a far-off Eastern land come seeking a king - and find him, and kneel before him, but not where they had expected… What have you been doing in the 12 days since Christmas? What has life been like for you? For so many of us the twelve days of Christmas are the season of over-eating and -drinking, the time perhaps to catch up with family and friends, and (sadly) that winter interlude when we watch too much television and get too little exercise. But today’s Feast of the Epiphany takes us back to Bethlehem - and there we find the Holy Family of Mary, Joseph and the child Jesus. In the light of St. Luke’s Gospel that might seem a bit surprising. Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph had come from their home town of Nazareth and were in Bethlehem simply because they were required to go there for a census organized by the Roman Governor, Quirinius. So you might think that by now the registration would have taken place and that Mary and Joseph would have returned to Nazareth with their new-born son. But that’s not the case. In fact Luke himself will tell us that they were still in Bethlehem 40 days after the birth of Jesus, when they go up to the Temple in Jerusalem to present their first-born son and for the rites of purification which Mary would undergo. And from this morning’s reading from St. Matthew’s Gospel there’s an insight that Mary and Joseph were planning that Bethlehem should be their home - because when the star leads the wise men finally to their true destination we’re told that “entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage…” The scene has shifted from what we might have expected. So now our crib scene here in St. Cuthbert’s looks a bit wrong. The shepherds are removed from the stage - that’s right. But still there are animals and lots of straw. And really the stable which houses our crib scene should have by now been transformed into a house. A new “take” on the nativity scene can be found this year in St. Peter’s Square in Rome, where Jesus - in his crib - lies on the floor of Joseph’s workshop. While we are just emerging from the over-indulgence of the season, Joseph is back at work; a new life has begun and already the rhythm of living as a Holy Family has been established. So as we look at the home first established for Jesus in Bethlehem, perhaps we can think about the lives we lead in our own homes. As we get ready to throw out the Christmas tree - if it hasn’t gone already - and to take down all those cards, perhaps we can ask what sustains me in my daily living? What life do I lead in the midst of family and friends - or alone? And whether we feel surrounded by other people or lonely - or both - how do I do my living as part of a wider community? I hope that as people take down their Christmas cards, they take the trouble to read them again - see what they mean, and what the greetings written on them mean, and what the people who sent them mean to you - and you to them. At Morning Prayer yesterday I was struck by the impact of the New Testament reading, which was from the Letter of St. Paul to the Colossians. It was the final chapter of that letter, which is basically a string of greetings - from Tychicus who’s carrying the letter to Colossae on Paul’s behalf; from Onesimus, who’s travelling with him; from Aristarchus, Mark, Jesus Justus, Epaphras, Luke the doctor, and from Demas. And then Paul asks that the letter should be sent on and shared with other Christians too, including Nympha and Archippus. Most of these are people we never hear of again. But all of them are bound together by the care they give each other. They are what makes life worth living for each other. So I hope that the greetings that people have sent out this Christmas will bear real meaning and be acted on during the year to come. At the back of the church you can’t miss the parish Christmas card which was put out for people to sign - and the piles of cards which people have left for each other (please pick yours up, if you haven’t done so already!). All of this - those greetings at the end of Paul’s letters, those cards we send each other - speaks of the Church as the community of Christ’s people. They are a reminder of where we are coming from. And the start is with this birth at Bethlehem. So today we get another look at the Christ-child. We’ve moved on since Christmas. It’s 12 days later. This is not a picture frozen in time, and anyone who has experienced a child’s development will know how rapidly they grow. Mary still nurses this child, Jesus. But she also needs to be able to put him down and to get on with the tasks of daily living. That’s our calling too - that as we return to routine, perhaps with some New Year’s resolutions, we do so ready for the new growth of Christ in us. But today as well, when we look at the child growing in the Christmas crib, we’re aware that we are not the only onlookers. This is the day of that disturbing visit by the Magi. Perhaps this is the time of year when we’re most likely to encounter those people we see only rarely, perhaps just once a year… And the Magi come out of the blue, or at least those mysterious lands which are called simply “the East.” The truth is that we don’t know really where they came from, how many they were or who they were. “We three kings…” fits well in the carol, but the number “three” is the number of the gifts - gold, frankincense and myrrh - rather than of those who bear them. As for their being “kings”… “Wise men” is probably a bit better as a translation of “Magi” - but you might also call them philosophers (people trying to find meaning in what they observe), astronomers or astrologers. Perhaps these days they might describe themselves as “consultants” - and their speciality as consultancy to royals and rulers. Because their journey takes them first not where God might intend but to Jerusalem. If the star is about the birth of a “king of the Jews,” then for them the obvious place to offer their services is in Jerusalem. There’s never any shortage of good advice where money is to be made. Is this what they hope to offer when they tell Herod they have come to pay homage to the new-born king? Herod himself says that he would like to pay homage to this child if the Magi can find him - but we know that his motives are far from well-intentioned. And the fact is we don’t really know why these mysterious visitors from the East made their journey… Except we can say that they found what they truly needed, even if it wasn’t what they had expected. Not in a capital city, but in an outlying village. Not in a grand palace, but in what was at best a modest home. And not one who bore the appearance of a King’s son, but true royalty in the child whose first crib had been an animal’s feeding trough. In the palace of King Herod, the Magi had come with questions and received only partial answers from scribes searching through scriptures. But now - as they find the Holy Family in a humble Bethlehem dwelling - they are simply “overwhelmed with joy.” What they thought they knew with their heads is now revealed to their hearts. The dignity they bore with their wisdom has to be put off so that they can find the truth in humility, kneeling in worship before Jesus. As we see the glory of the Christ-child revealed to them, so we can worship beside them as fellow-Gentiles, people called from afar by the love of God which beckons us. As we see them offer their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, we can make our own offering to Jesus of our hearts and lives. And then they leave. They rejoice at what they have seen, but we know that the darkness of the world is closing in as Herod plots to remove the threat he perceives to his kingship. It’s a foreshadowing of the injustice and the violence which we know all too well in today’s world. The Magi recognise in the child of Bethlehem the one they call “the king of the Jews.” Bishop Tom Wright points out that the next time that phrase will be used by Gentiles in St. Matthew’s Gospel is almost at its end - by the Roman soldiers who crucify Jesus. At his birth and at his death Jesus is seen for who he truly is. The invitation to us today is to perceive his glory also. And Christian discipleship means working out our faith in daily life, seeking the simplicity of faith in the complexities of the world, knowing God’s love even when appearances deny it. Leaving behind the Twelve Days of Christmas it shouldn’t be to look back on them as merely a time of escape. The true meaning of Christmas is the revelation of God’s glory in Jesus, the truth of the Incarnation - that God is with us. Baptism of Christ - 8a.m. Eucharist Feast of the Baptism of the Lord 13th January 2008 The Revd. Martin Jackson, Vicar of St. Cuthbert's Isaiah 42.1-9; Acts 10.34-43; Matthew 3.13-17 Today, we celebrate the Feast of the Baptism of Christ. It’s part of the season of Epiphany… The word Epiphany means revealing or showing something to some one. So the season of Epiphany starts as the wise men are shown the Christ-child. Or so western Christians have reckoned. In the Churches of the East, Epiphany has always been celebrated as the Feast of Jesus’ Baptism. Here, they say, we see Christ for what he truly is, for as Jesus comes out of the River Jordan, the Holy Spirit descends upon him in the form of a dove and the voice is heard from heaven, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’ So the onlookers come out first to listen to John the Baptist, perhaps intrigued by John’s eccentric appearance, wondering what can drive a man to live out his pattern of life in the desert. But then they see someone who they may think looks just like themselves enter the water of Baptism – just as they do – but emerging to be called God’s Son. And this is the point of Jesus’ Baptism. Christ is among his people. He lives in their – in our – midst. There is nothing to distinguish him in looks or feeling or the difficulties of daily living he may face. This is a man born as any one of us into the vulnerability of human flesh, and he comes to John seeking Baptism along with all those other people who know their need of God. Here we see that he is one with us. Yet at the same time we recognise that he is one with God – in the power of the Holy Spirit, in the love of God his Father. Jesus’ Baptism is the very real sign that he shares in the fullness of God’s divinity but without that sharing taking anything away from the real nature of his humanity. Our Baptism in Christ gives us the hope that our humanity will not get in the way of our call to share in the divine nature of God. It leaves its mark in the prayer used by the priest at the altar as water is mixed with the wine for the chalice: ‘By the mystery of this water and this wine may we share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.' Everyday things like water in Baptism or wine in Communion become the means by which we as ordinary everyday people may find our way to God. But will we recognise it? Orthodox Christians celebrating this Feast see the power of Christ at his Baptism spread throughout the whole of Creation as the water in which he is immersed is sanctified and with it all the waters of the whole earth. So on this Feast they go out to pray for God’s blessing upon the waters and all that is in them – by the side of rivers, at the sea’s edge, even in Russia breaking holes in the ice that they may do so. We need a similar sense of the divine nature of Christ seen at his Baptism, and the difference it can make to us in our daily living and to the whole of Creation. Today we focus on Jesus as he makes his way into the waters of the Jordan for Baptism. Water which can be a source of blessing, essential to life, but also a place of danger. St. Paul speaks of our Baptism, our immersion in the waters as being a sign of death and burial – we are buried with Christ so that we might rise with him into the resurrection of new life. But first we need to see that Christ stands alongside us. John protests that he is the one who needs to be baptised by Jesus, not Jesus by him… But Jesus says, “Let it be so…” This is God’s way. He comes in human flesh. He is to be found in Jesus, who is all that we are in terms of what it is to be human. Where is God to be found in this world of ours? The answer is that he is standing here with us in Jesus. He is standing alongside us in the water of the Jordan and at the font - at the place of baptism in each and every community. He tells us that to follow God’s way is to recognise where our humanity must take us, that God’s way is to take our humanity himself. At Jesus’ Baptism we recognise his divine nature, and the nature of our calling. We recognise that Jesus is one with us so that there is nothing human which can be alien to him. We can hold onto our faith in his power to bring blessing to all Creation – and that blessing may start in the human response we make to the humanity of others. As the Orthodox prayer for the Blessing of the Waters puts it: ‘Today the waters of the Jordan are transformed into healing by the coming of the Lord…. Today earth and sea share in the joy of the world, and the world is filled with gladness.’ So may we be transformed as Christ comes to us, and may we play our part in sharing his good news for the gladness of the world. The Baptism of Christ - 10a.m. Eucharist Feast of the Baptism of the Lord 13th January 2008 Paul Heatherington, Reader at St. Cuthbert's Isaiah 42.1-9; Acts 10.34-43; Matthew 3.13-17 When we last looked at Matthew 3 last December, we met John the Baptist. John was the first prophet for centuries. His ministry was in the wilderness of Judea. In today’s reading, Matthew introduces us to the adult Jesus at his baptism in the Jordan. This is the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, when he takes up the work that God has for him. Today’s reading shines a light on Jesus, but also hints at events to come. This church year we are focusing on Matthew’s Gospel. You may remember last December that I said that Matthew’s Gospel is the most noticeably Jewish of the four Gospels. In it, Matthew sets out to show to his readers that Jesus took up the hopes and expectations from scripture. There are therefore echoes of the Old Testament present in today’s reading. Psalm 2:7 First, there is Psalm 2:7 ‘I will tell of the decree of the Lord: He said to me, ‘You are my son; today I have begotten you.’ Psalm 2 is song about Israel’s kings. Like the little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead, some of the kings were horrid. But when the kings were very, very good, their rule was an expression of God’s rule and they embodied God’s presence among his people. Matthew shows us that Jesus is a royal son, bringing God’s kingdom near Genesis 22:2 Secondly, the words ‘beloved son’ hark back to Genesis 22:2 and Abraham’s near sacrifice of Isaac. ‘He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.’ This phrase ‘beloved son’ is a wonderful recognition, but it also sends a shiver down our spines. These words see Jesus as a son of sacrifice, which will lead to suffering and death. Isaiah 42:1 Thirdly, there is a resonance with Isaiah 42:1. ‘Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.’ Even though this will be painful, the servant is faithful to God. Through his pain people will be brought help and hope. Genesis 1:2 And the final Old Testament echo is of Genesis 1:2. Just as in the Genesis account of Creation the Spirit then hovered over the waters, God’s Spirit is present here in this scene. The Spirit of God descends like a dove and alights on Jesus and a voice from heaven says, ‘This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.’ Through Jesus, the world will be remade. The words from heaven provide God’s seal of approval that God has confidence in Jesus Although our baptism might look like Jesus’ baptism, the two are not the same. John’s baptism was for sinners. If Jesus is who we believe him to be, he did not need forgiveness from God. Why then was Jesus baptized? This is what happened at Jesus’ baptism. • Jesus’ identity was revealed. After Jesus’ baptism, John continued to point people to Jesus. When some of John’s disciples saw his followers leaving for Jesus, John said, ‘He must become greater, I must become less.’ • Jesus was baptized to give us an example to follow. Jesus’ invitation to us is, ‘Follow me’. Jesus always leads by example. He never asks his disciples to do anything He was not willing to do. • Jesus’ baptism marks an important transition in His life – from a life of preparation, to a life of public proclamation. • Jesus was baptised as a means of underlining the fact that He was fully human. Jesus didn’t come to the earth to be above us, but to be ‘God with us.’ Some of you may recall my encouraging you to look at the illustration of John the Baptist at the back of church. Well today you have a photograph of that window. Let’s look at the picture. By the time of the Renaissance there was a well-established formula in Italian and northern painting of Jesus wearing a loincloth standing ankle deep in the river. John the Baptist is on the bank in the act of pouring water (baptism by affusion) over Jesus’ head. The vessel in John’s hand may be a shallow cup or a shell. In Netherlandish painting the landscape shows the river winding away into a vista of northern woods and fields. All of these elements are present in this stained glass window. Note also... 1. The rough clothing of John the Baptist. He wore camel’s hair, and a leather belt – standard clothing for Old Testament prophets. 2. The halos around John and Jesus. Jesus is often pictured with a cruciform halo as He is here. 3. Crosses are also present in John’s left hand. Images of this scene invariably show John with a cross made of reeds. The cross symbolises Christ’s sacrifice, the work Jesus has to do. 4. According to Mark’s Gospel, Jesus sees heaven split open and the Spirit descend on Him like a dove. Jesus has a private vision. Luke 3:22 has the same account. In Matthew 3:17, God addresses the entire crowd. Can you spot the dove, also with a halo? There’s another illustration of a dove in the organ aisle. What are we to learn from Jesus’ baptism? I suggest that we learn three things. We learn about obedience, about the Holy Spirit, and about God’s love for us Obedience: We learn that obedience means that whatever God requires, we are to do, as Jesus did. The Holy Spirit: We learn about the Holy Spirit. We need the Holy Spirit to walk in the steps of Jesus or to minister in His name. God’s love for us: We learn about God’s love for us. God wants us to know that we are loved children and when we obey Him, He is pleased with us. God offers us his assurance and the help of the Spirit. Our task is to continue to walk in his ways. Some day when our lives our over, and we stand before God, we want to hear from Him, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant, come and enjoy eternal life.’ Behold the Lamb - Behold the Man Epiphany 3 Year A 20th January 2008 The Revd. Martin Jackson Vicar of St. Cuthbert's Isaiah 49.1-7; 1 Corinthians 1.1-9; John 1.35-42 “Look! Here is the Lamb of God,” says John the Baptist in today’s Gospel reading. And he points at Jesus – this is, John tells his own disciples, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” Other translations of the Gospels give the Baptist’s words as, “Behold the Lamb of God.” And when you hear those words you can’t miss an echo in some words which appear at the end of St. John’s Gospel: “Behold the man.” Again, someone pointing at Jesus – but in this case it’s Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor, and he says those words about Jesus after having him flogged and humiliated before sending him to his death on the Cross. Almost a whole Gospel fits in between those two injunctions to look at Jesus: “Behold the Lamb of God,” at the start of St. John’s Gospel; “Behold the man,” at the Gospel’s end. And what do we see? Will we look upon Jesus? I was in another priest’s Vicarage the other day - and he had a large poster of a sculpture with words in large print asking the question, “Who is this man?” The sculpture had first been used over the turn of the Millenium, from September 1999 and some months into the year 2000, when it stood on the empty fourth plinth of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square. There had been a number of commissions before it, and quite a few since. Statues of subjects whose names most people can never remember occupy the other three plinths. The fourth has never been permanently occupied in nearly two centuries, so it was thought a good idea to try out a variety of ideas. And that’s how that particular statue came to be placed there, a statue of a man – life-size, though of course that meant it looked rather under-sized against its monumental surroundings – and with the name “Ecce Homo”. People didn’t need to be told who it was. “That’s Jesus”, passers-by would say if they were asked about it. They said that despite the fact that he didn’t look particularly the way Jesus is normally depicted. No beard, and he had short hair. Plain marble, so you couldn’t tell whether his eyes were Anglo-Saxon blue or Mediterranean brown. And the sculptor, Mark Wallinger - who recently won the Turner Prize for his protest work, “State Britain,” and for a video in which he walked round an empty art gallery dressed as a bear - himself admitted that he himself had no real Christian understanding of faith. But you couldn’t miss who the sculpture was. Some people thought he looked sad,… and his arms were bound behind his back and his eyes looked out across the square from beneath a plaited crown of thorns. Some felt he should have been bigger or match more closely the way Jesus has been traditionally portrayed. Many wanted the statue to be retained, because this showed Jesus who was the true subject of and reason for the Millennium. Nearly everyone was moved. And people would stop and look – in a way that people simply didn’t notice the heroes of war depicted so epically around and above him. “Ecce Homo – (literally) Behold the man.” And for the first time many people did notice him, and were made to think. And seeing him looking as “just a man”, life-size and rather unremarkable in his features, challenged many about their assumptions, perhaps made some people think about who Jesus really was and is. “Behold the Lamb of God” – Ecce Agnus Dei – says John the Baptist about Jesus. Some scholars have argued over what John means by those words “Lamb of God.” We repeat them week by week in this service, but they’re really not that clear as to what they mean. The Baptist says these words twice, once followed by a phrase familiar to us, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” But what do those words we sing before Communion mean? Sacrificial lambs were offered in the Jewish Temple, as an on-going sacrifice to be repeated day after day. But they weren’t offered for the purpose of taking sin away – more as a sign of the community’s relationship to its God, perhaps with an element of thanksgiving, or in recognition that the people knew their place… to be obedient, offering this sacrifice day-in, day-out, because they’d been told to, whether or not it seemed to accomplish anything. So what good was it to speak of someone – of Jesus - being the Lamb of God, if the lambs used in the practice of Temple religion serve their purpose only when they are dead? Perhaps the people who hear John the Baptist speak of Jesus as the Lamb of God need to hear the words with a new meaning,… like those people who saw the statue under Nelson’s Column had to look at Jesus and in a sense see him for the first time. John’s disciples would have known all about how sacrifices were to be offered for religious purposes – and the general opinion of Bible scholars is that John the Baptist and the people he mixed with weren’t too impressed by Temple worship. It represented a dead end. It was so often a matter of going through the motions without ever really getting anywhere in a relationship with God. So they wouldn’t have seen the offering of lambs as a very high priority. Perhaps if we’ve got all-too-used to singing “Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world,” three times every Sunday in the Agnus Dei, and before that during the Gloria – then we need to ask, what are we saying? what does it mean? what do we expect Jesus to be doing? And is sin of very much relevance to most people’s thinking these days? “Look, here is the Lamb of God,” John tells two of his disciples. Perhaps John was thinking of the lamb which is eaten in the Jewish Passover meal, the reminder of how God had brought his people out of slavery in Egypt into a new way of life and a new relationship with him. But too easily people can just look back. As John speaks he points to a break from the past – God will work something new through this man, Jesus. John himself has completed his own work, he has brought the people out in crowds to hear him speak, and to be told most of all what was wrong with the way they were living. John was an angry man, indignant with so much that was rotten in the lives of individual people, of society and religion – so perhaps it wasn’t surprising that when he called Jesus the Lamb of God, he also talked about deliverance from sin. And I suspect that maybe John just didn’t know where Jesus would take people if they were to follow him. It’s as though John can see what is wrong with everything around him, but doesn’t have the answers. Does that ring a bell for us? – it’s so easy to criticise, and show people their shortcomings; rather more difficult to set a positive direction. But in saying what he does, John at least points two of his disciples towards Jesus. They hear what John says, and go off to spend time with Jesus. They follow him, we’re told. Jesus asks them what they are looking for, and their reply is to ask where he is staying. And his invitation is “Come and see.” That’s what is necessary – not to know what they are looking for, but to be ready to discover it. And it takes time and willingness. They go and see – they stay with him for the day. And we don’t hear anything of what Jesus says or what they may learn. Simply that it is the encounter, and the readiness to spend time in Jesus’ presence which changes them. Now they can say “We have found the Messiah” – this is the man who will make a difference, but they can only tell people what it means to them by saying “come and meet him for yourself!” Which is exactly what they do. “Behold the man”… “Behold the Lamb of God”. It doesn’t seem to me to be an accident that these words frame almost the whole of St. John’s Gospel. How are we to make sense of what God is saying to us? The Gospel writer’s answer is “Look at Jesus… Come and meet Jesus… Come and spend time with Jesus…” At present we’re in what the Church calls the Epiphany season. “Epiphany” means showing something so that it can be seen for the first time, manifesting God’s presence, letting the light shine. It’s seen dramatically as the wise men worshipped the child of Bethlehem, the glory of God revealed in the vulnerability of a baby. But the Epiphany continues for us all if only we let Jesus meet us as he met those first disciples – who knew him, not because they understood what they were searching for, but because they came to him to learn… and simply to be in his presence. The words, “Behold the Lamb of God…” find their place not only on the lips of John the Baptist, but in the invitation to share Christ’s body and blood in Holy Communion at the Eucharist. It’s an invitation from Jesus himself: to come to him, meet him, feed on him, learn from him, know him and love him… even as already he knows and loves us. Holding it all together 4th Sunday of Epiphany Sunday 27th January 2008 Rosie Junemann Reader at St Cuthbert’s Isaiah 9. 1-4 1 Corinthians 1. 10-18 Matthew 4. 12-23 “Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you should be in agreement and that there should be no divisions among you, but that you should be united in the same mind and in the same purpose.” St Paul doesn’t pull any punches, does he! He’s writing to the young church in Corinth at a time when they were really struggling to stay together. Far from being the close-knit family Paul had hoped for, the Christians in Corinth were arguing amongst themselves about the merits of different teachers. Paul himself had visited Corinth and there were some Christians who were trying to follow his teaching. Hot on his heels had been Apollos, a powerful preacher. Cephas, or Peter, was such an influential leader that his teaching had also spread from Jerusalem to Corinth. Human nature being what it is, people chose their preferred style of teaching. Some would say ‘I’m with Paul’. But others claimed ‘I’m with Apollos’ or ‘I’m with Cephas’. Yet others, clearly believing themselves to be the only true believers, smugly claimed ‘I belong to Christ’. We tend to idealise the early church, to think of it in terms of Christian perfection. Nothing could be further from the truth. These early Christians were as prone to arguments and divisions as we are today. Just think of the churchgoing people of Blackhill, Bridgehill and Shotley Bridge. Most would claim to be Christians but surely they would also want to assert: ‘I’m an Anglican’, ‘I’m a Methodist’, ‘I’m a Catholic’, ‘I’m a Baptist’ or ‘I’m a Congregationalist’! This year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity ended on Friday. Sadly, our local shared service had to be cancelled due to the bad weather. In 2008 we’ve celebrated the 100th anniversary of this special week of prayer, which was first marked by Father Paul Wattson, an American priest, in 1908. Christians throughout the world join together with Christians of different denominations to pray for the unity of all Christian peoples, to pray that we ‘may be one’. Whatever our hopes may be, however fervent our prayers, it’s hard to imagine the reality of a united church. The leaders of the various denominations do meet together to discuss how unity could be achieved. But there are enormous hurdles to overcome. Especially when you consider the current divisions even within the Anglican church over issues such as homosexuality. At the local level, issues of churchmanship, or style of worship, probably over-ride all other considerations. During Unity Week the General Secretary of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, the Reverend Bob Fyffe, said that we should no longer pursue the idea of a Church which speaks with one voice. “God meets people differently in different generations.” We should acknowledge and accept diversity. We should give voice to different voices. What, then, is the glue which is going to hold Christians together? What we should perhaps be working towards - what is perhaps more achievable - is, in the words of St Paul, that we should be ‘united in the same mind and in the same purpose’. We are all, as Christians, called to ‘follow Jesus’. In today’s Gospel reading Matthew begins the story of Jesus’ ministry. He tells us that, after he heard about the arrest of John the Baptist, Jesus left his home town of Nazareth and began his work in Capernaum, by the Sea of Galilee. But he’s keen to tell us, too, how Jesus, the Messiah, fulfilled the prediction of the prophet Isaiah, about the dawning of a new age. Jesus has come to bring, not only the light of consolation to a suffering people, but also enlightenment, a new understanding of the kingdom of heaven. “Repent”, Jesus proclaimed. “For the kingdom of heaven has come near.” The effect of Jesus’ personal presence must have been powerful. The two sets of brothers, Simon Peter and Andrew, and James and John, responded immediately and positively to his call. One moment they were pursuing their everyday work as fishermen, mending their nets, or casting them, and the next moment they were following Jesus throughout Galilee, as he taught in the synagogues and healed people with all kinds of diseases. These are the first four of the twelve disciples, who all abandoned family and security for a challenging and unpredictable lifestyle as followers of an itinerant preacher. You might have expected them to hesitate before taking such a drastic step. But they didn’t! You might have expected them to have had second thoughts when they were tired or hungry, or challenged by the Pharisees, or terrified in a storm at sea. But they didn’t! The twelve appear to have had no doubts or uncertainties. You might say that they were “united in the same mind and in the same purpose”. At the very simplest level it is the call of Jesus to follow him, and our response to that call, which binds us together as Christians. Like Peter, Andrew, James and John, some people are called to serve Jesus in a very special way. One such person, who we’ll be remembering especially this year, is Martin Luther King. We’ll be commemorating the 40th anniversary of his assassination on the 4th April. Martin Luther King was born in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1955 he became pastor of a Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. In the same year he became known throughout the United States when he helped to mobilise the black boycott of the Montgomery bus system. In those times, black people could only sit at the back of a bus. The boycott started after Rosa Parks, a black woman, refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white man. After more than a year, the bus company changed its rules and such segregation was declared unconstitutional. Martin Luther King continued to be active in the struggle against discrimination. In 1963 he led a mass protest in Birmingham, Alabama, and was arrested and put in jail. Later the same year he took part in an enormous civil rights march in Washington and delivered his famous ‘I have a dream speech’. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965 and was instrumental in obtaining the right to vote for black people in the southern states. He then started to campaign against the war in Vietnam and against poverty in the United States. Sadly there were people who did not support his ideals of peace, equality and freedom. He was assassinated in Memphis on the 4th April 1968 at the age of just 39 years. When Peter, Andrew, James and John were called by Jesus to follow him, they could not have foreseen the great events that were to follow. They could not have foreseen that Jesus’ ministry of teaching and healing would lead to the horror of his arrest, trial and crucifixion. They could not have foreseen the joy of the resurrection or the power of Pentecost. They could not have foreseen their future lives of travel, mission, and ministry in the young church. We know that James met a violent end, at the hands of Herod Agrippa. It is thought that Peter, Andrew and John may also have died as martyrs. When we are called to follow Jesus, we don’t know where that path is going to lead. We’re a bit like a small child who puts his hand into the hand of a trusted adult to take a roller coaster ride! Life, we can be sure, will have its ups and downs, its thrills and spills, but all the time we can cling on to the hand of Jesus, which guides, comforts and consoles. Today’s reading from St Matthew’s Gospel is really about transformation. Jesus calls us first to ‘repent’ – to make a complete change in the motivation and direction of our lives. We must turn away from evil and turn to God. When he then calls us to ‘follow’, he is asking us to be like him and to do like him. We must adopt a Christian lifestyle rich in love and compassion, peace and hope, being prepared to respond to the call to teach, heal and proclaim the good news of the kingdom - holding on to the vision of the kingdom as we work for its fulfilment. Martin Luther King proclaimed: “I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.” Jesus calls each and every one of us to follow him. Brothers and sisters, may we all be ‘united in the same mind and in the same purpose’. Jesus knows what temptation is 1st Sunday of Lent 10 February 2008 Paul Heatherington Reader at St. Cuthbert's Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 Romans 5:12-19 Matthew 4:1-11 Auntie Bessie was my grandfather’s younger sister. Auntie Bessie and Uncle Billy never had children. Uncle Billy was larger than life, an eccentric. Auntie Bessie and Uncle Billy were always at family get-togethers. On one occasion, my mother took me as a child to visit my grandparents, then living in Mansfield. Stuart, my younger brother stayed for a few days with Auntie Bessie and Uncle Billy in Low Fell and Dad and Eric, my elder brother, stayed with Dad’s parents in Medomsley Road, Consett. After a few days, Auntie Bessie wrote to my grandmother (no mobile phones then) saying that Stuart was homesick, so Dad was dispatched to pick up Stuart. After he was brought home, Stuart was asked what was wrong. He explained, ‘I could not be good any longer!’ C. S. Lewis would have been sympathetic to Stuart’s plight. He said this about temptation: ‘No man knows how bad he is until he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. That is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is....Christ, because He was the only Man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only Man who knows to the full what temptation means.’ For hundreds of year the readings for the first Sunday of Lent have focused on the temptations of Jesus. A group of clergy were discussing which biblical quotations were the greatest help to them to avoid succumbing to temptation. Fresh from theological college, a curate quoted Romans 6:23 ‘For sin pays a wage, and that wage is Death, but God gives freely, and his gift is eternal life, in union with Jesus Christ our Lord.’ A recently ordained priest preferred the love of God in John 14:15. ‘If you love me, you will obey my commands, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another comforter, who will be with you for ever - the spirit of truth.’ An elderly priest, listening in silence, then congratulated the others for being able to avoid sin by relying on these passages. ‘But for me,’ he said, ‘the words which are of most use in resisting temptation come from Hebrews 12: 1: ‘Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses ...’ Jesus withdrew by himself and went alone into the desert to prepare for His public ministry, where he spent forty days – an echo of the Exodus of the children of Israel in the Hebrew Bible. Physically Jesus is alone. Spiritually He is not alone. Inside Him the forces of good Good and Evil are operating. Twice the devil taunts Jesus, ‘If you are the Son of God’. In all, the devil taunts Jesus three times. Three times Jesus resists. The first: You are God’s Son, speak the word and turn these stones into bread. Jesus answers: ‘It takes more than bread to stay alive. It takes a steady stream of words from God’s mouth.’ The second: You are God’s Son. Jump! As Psalm 91 says, ‘He has placed you in the care of angels. They’ll catch you. You won’t so much as stub your toe on a stone.’ Jesus answers: ‘Don’t you dare test the Lord your God.’ The third: The devil points to the riches and glory of all of the earth’s kingdoms. Look at all of this! Go down on your knees and worship me, and they’re yours, lock, stock, and barrel. Jesus answers ‘Worship the Lord your God, and only him. Serve him with absolute single-heartedness.’ (Jesus was quoting from Deuteronomy) I want to draw attention to four things in today’s reading. • The devil. • Angels. • Bread and • The Lords’ Prayer First, The devil We affirm in the Nicene Creed that Jesus was made man. It does not mention the devil or angels. You may prefer not to think of the devil or Beelzebub, Satan or Lucifer. Nevertheless in ordinary language we hear expressions like: ‘What possessed me to do that.’ ‘You are out of your mind’ ‘He behaved like a monster.’ Matthew’s account of this visionary experience of Jesus, starved of food, is that the devil recited scripture with evil intent. Call the devil by any name, the power of evil is at work in the world Secondly, Angels Look at the passage we heard read. It ends with, ‘…the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.’ The first Christians lived among Angels. They are part of the story of Jesus. Angels are present when Jesus came down from heaven – the Nativity – and when he returned – the Resurrection and Ascension. Jesus was alone in the wilderness and when He was strengthened by angels praying in Gethsemane. Our accounts of these two events can only come to us from Jesus himself. It follows that Jesus himself spoke about Angels. God is at work in the world. As Teresa of Avila reminds us of our role, ‘Christ has no body now but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours, yours are the eyes through which He looks compassion on this world.’ Thirdly, Bread Bread and water are life’s two basic staples. In the Bible, bread is associated with the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread; the bread of the Presence, the manna in the wilderness (Exod. 16:14-30); the Lord’s Supper (Matt. 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:14-23; 1 Cor. 11:23-26) when it is sometimes called the ‘breaking of bread’ (Acts 2:42, 46; 20:7, 11). ‘Bread’ can mean food generally or earning a living (2 Thess. 3:12); sharing in the future kingdom (Luke 14:15); the word of God (Isa. 55:2); and Jesus as the bread of life, the true food from heaven (John 6:31-51). Fourthly, The Lord’s Prayer. Put together what Jesus said in the wilderness, and you get: ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Do not put the Lord your God to the test. Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’ Notice the echoes with some petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread ... Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil… For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours now and for ever.’ Temptation is that feeling that says ‘Go ahead and do it – nobody’s looking’. In Lady Windermere’s Fan, Oscar Wilde puts these words into Lord Darlington’s mouth ‘I can resist everything except temptation’. Today’s Gospel reading reminds us that Jesus resisted temptation, even when no one was looking. This Lent, in what ways might we follow Jesus’ example? Tracks of Faith Lent 2 17 February 2008 The Revd. Martin Jackson Vicar of St. Cuthbert's Genesis 12.1-4a; Romans 4.1-5, 13-17; John 3.1-17 Yesterday was the first occasion this year that Rowan and I have managed to get out on our bikes. And it was a great day to do it. It was cold - but that meant we didn’t overheat. The sun shone, the sky was blue, and - most importantly - there was practically no wind, which made the going far easier as we cycled over Waskerley Moor on a stretch of cycle path where it can be so windy that the birds appear to fly backwards. One of the things that’s good about living where we do is that it’s so easy to get out into the countryside - and we’re particularly fortunate to live more or less on the crossroads of a number of paths and cycle-ways. Once you’re on the path, you can’t really lose your way. Someone did actually ask directions of me yesterday, and I could say quite simply, “Just keep going for another three miles, and you’ll be there.” That’s because all these paths are built over old railway lines. A train, once on its tracks, is going to reach its destination, so long as all the points are correctly set - it just needs to keep going. In daily life we can find ourselves from time to time saying, “If only I knew what to do… If only I knew just which way to go.” When we have difficult decisions to make, when we’re in the midst of life’s quandaries, we become particularly aware of the need for direction. And that’s nothing new. One of the things we find in the Old Testament is the need of the people of Israel for guidance. And they find it above all in what became known as the Torah, the Law (with a capital L) which they traced back to its being received by Moses from God on Mount Sinai. Christians tend to think of that meeting as the occasion for the giving of the Ten Commandments, but there were far more than that - traditionally over 600 - with all sorts of guidance on everything from how to resolve disputes to appropriate clothing, from the way men should cut their hair to matters of ritual in the Temple, from what you should and shouldn’t eat (foods which were kosher or not) to the action you should take if someone accidentally kills someone else (for example if the axe head flies off the handle while he’s cutting wood). And what the Jews found in all this was a sense of real guidance. Much of it - you could say - prefigures what we would call these days “Health and Safety” legislation. But for the Jews there was the deeper understanding that what they studied and shared with one another was a means by which they could be drawn closer to God. The Law - the Torah - was God speaking to his people, showing them the way. So the very first of the Psalms begins: Blessed are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked, nor lingered in the way of sinners, nor sat in the assembly of the scornful. Their delight is in the law of the Lord and they meditate on his law day and night. The longest of all the Psalms - Psalm 119 - is just such a meditation, and might be summed up with some of the Psalmist’s words: “Lord, how I love your law...” Its 176 verses might be a bit daunting. But when they’re used in worship - as we use them at Morning and Evening Prayer - then the feeling begins to soak into you from these people who saw a divinely-given Law at the heart of the understanding of their faith. If you like, it was about being on the right track, knowing the proper sense of direction. The Jewish Law provided a framework for daily living, and upon it the rabbis sought to erect a whole edifice of guidance for every occasion. The problem for us is those times when we just know we’re on the wrong track, going in the wrong direction, or when there just doesn’t seem to be the guidance that we need. I had that experience in map-reading terms not long ago in the Lake District. We knew exactly where we wanted to go, what path to follow and something of what to expect. The only problem was that we couldn’t find the start of the path (after eventually completing our 10-mile walk in exactly the opposite direction to that we’d intended, we discovered the hidden start lurking behind a rather over-large 4x4 parked across it). So what do you do in life when the signposts fail, the path is indistinct or you simply know that everything is going badly wrong - and try as you might, there’s nothing you can do about it? That’s the problem that St. Paul wrestles with in his letter to the Romans, from which we take our New Testament reading today. As a Jew he rejoices that God gave his people the Law of Moses to follow. But then he knows just how he fails so miserably to keep to it: “the good that I would I do not, and the evil that I would not that I do. O wretched man that I am!” he declaims elsewhere in this letter. Try your best… yet you’ll always fall short of perfection - so if you rely on the Law, you’ve got the problem that you’ll never live up to your own expectations of what God expects. But then he finds himself writing to Gentiles, people who by definition don’t know anything about the Jewish Law. So what chance have they got of living God’s way? These are the questions Paul wrestles with - and it’s not an easy read. But his conclusions are vital. The Law which he loves as a Jew is a good thing, but it’s never going to get him all the way to God. What is best about this Law is that it shows him that he simply can’t get it right - he’s always going to fall short of the ideal - but God knows this. What’s important is to know that God loves us regardless of our inadequacies. It doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to get things right. But our consciousness of what we get wrong can bring us to understand just how big God’s love is. And we see that love revealed for everybody in Jesus. Jesus is God’s Son who comes looking for us, wherever we may have strayed, however we may have gone wrong. And if we believe that, then we can depend on that faith that the power of God’s love is greater than evil. Faith makes up for every way in which we fall short of the demands of Law. It doesn’t mean that you can just go around doing what you want - St. Paul deals with that elsewhere in this letter to the Romans. But it does mean that you shouldn’t simply despair and give up. And for the Gentiles who had never had anything like the Jewish Law, that Law becomes a sort of gift - a new framework for understanding, but one where we realise that we can’t legislate for everything, and even if we could we’d never be able to keep all the rules. So this is all a sort of pointer to the faith we need, and to the overwhelming love of God which is the guarantee of that faith. Well…. that may be rather inadequately put - and having spent two years at university studying Paul’s Letter to the Romans I can tell you it is! But the point is that ours is a faith with which we need to wrestle, which doesn’t always come easily - but which in the end depends on God’s love, not our feeble action. And that’s the message too in today’s Old Testament Reading and Gospel. In the Gospel, Nicodemus is a Pharisee who has immersed himself in teaching the Jewish Law, and he recognises in Jesus a fellow-Rabbi whose very teaching declares the presence of God. Yet for all his deep knowledge, Nicodemus falls short in understanding - there are things that he simply does not “get.” And the Gospel doesn’t tell us what the outcome is to this dialogue of Jesus and Nicodemus. Only we’re left with that sense of what can’t be grasped, yet what is real and there for us if only we would look. On our own - left to our own devices - we’re hopeless, but there is no condemnation: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. How do we find that out? The answer is in all our journeyings of life, which may seem to have us straying far from the path at times. Yet in our midst there is Christ, whose coming - whose lifting up - declares that God is already here. Jesus Christ is the end of the journey, but already he is alongside us on our way. To end, we can simply take note of today’s Old Testament reading, which shows us the beginning of a journey. Abraham is called to leave the security of his home where he had security, wealth and possessions, and to travel as God directs. He travels without maps, but with faith. And the hope set before him is that he will be father of a great nation and through him “all the families of the earth will be blessed.” The great nation would, of course, be the Jewish people. But the promise made through Abraham is not only to them. That would be seen as Abraham becomes the father not only of Isaac, the ancestor of the Jews, but also of Ishmael, the desert-dwelling forefather of the Arab peoples. And Abraham lives in the time before the Jewish Law is given through Moses. For him, if he wants guidance, there can only be faith. For us there are frameworks for living, the example of lives lived before ours, and faith too - faith in the God who led Abraham to give up security for a still greater blessing, faith in the God whose Son Jesus Christ comes looking for us even as we stray from the path. The Well of Life 3rd Sunday of Lent Sunday 24th February 2008 Rosie Junemann Reader at St Cuthbert’s Exodus 17. 1-7 Romans 5. 1-11 John 4. 5-42 At the beginning of this month I was ill and unable to leave the house for several days. I decided to take advantage of this enforced rest to catch up on some reading. As a child I liked nothing better than the chance to read for hours without interruption. But as an adult it’s much harder to do that without a huge sense of guilt! Shouldn’t I be making myself useful in some way? So, having some unexpected free time I chose to read something that’s been on my wish list for quite some time – Philip Pullman’s trilogy ‘His Dark Materials’. I thought I might have time to read the first of the books, ‘Northern Lights’, which has recently been made into a film. But, in fact, I became so engrossed that, within a week, I’d finished all three books! Philip Pullman’s books were written for young people, but they are certainly not childish. The story is a gripping adventure set in a series of imaginary parallel worlds which are peopled with witches, angels, talking bears and other mystical creatures, as well as people. It’s a strongly moral tale, too. You may not agree entirely with Philip Pullman’s view of the world, the universe and everything. But you can’t read the books without questioning some of your own beliefs and attitude to life. One of the ideas in the book which fascinates me is the concept of ‘daemons’. The heroine is a young girl called Lyra. In her world the human soul is manifested throughout life as an animal-shaped daemon that always stays near its human counterpart. During childhood, the daemon can change its shape at will, but at adolescence it settles into one form. The final form reveals the person’s true nature and personality. The daemon makes the human soul visible to all. What form, you can’t help but ask, would my daemon take? What do other people see when they look at me? Thinking about today’s Gospel story, we might well ask ‘what did Jesus see when he looked at the Samaritan woman he encountered beside the village well?’ The Samaritan woman had come to the well in the heat of the noon-day sun. It’s possible that she was trying to avoid the company of the other women, who would have gathered there at a cooler time of the day. She must have been startled by the presence of a stranger and, recognising that he was a Jew, even more surprised to be asked to give him a drink. But there were more surprises to come! The Samaritan woman knew the stories associated with Jacob’s Well. Not only was this well given to the people by their ancestor Jacob, but there was also a legend which associated Jacob with a miracle, in which the water in the well would bubble up to the top and continuously overflow. Now she was confronted by a man who told her that the water he can give will become for those who drink it ‘a spring of water gushing up to eternal life’. Could he be even greater than Jacob? But it wasn’t until Jesus impressed her with his insight into her personal life that the woman realised that Jesus was someone very special indeed. “He told me everything I have ever done”, she proclaimed to her neighbours. The Jesus of the Gospels often seems to have a heightened sense of perception about the people he meets. It’s as if he looks at people from the inside out and knows their innermost thoughts and feelings. No need for people to wear their hearts on their sleeves. Jesus sees all their deepest emotions. No need for a visible display of their true nature. Jesus knows each person’s soul. Remember how he greeted Nathanael when Philip first brought him to Jesus: ‘Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit’. Nathanael asked him ‘Where did you come to know me?’ Jesus answered ‘I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you’. Remember how Jesus understood that Judas would betray him. Remember how Jesus knew that Peter would deny him. I wonder what Jesus sees when he looks at me? There’s simply no hiding place from God. The Psalmist knew that only too well: “O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely.” (Psalm 139) Lent is a time for us to take a long look at ourselves, to take stock of ourselves and of our lives. Getting to know ourselves as God knows us takes time, honesty and courage. How far short have we fallen of Christ’s law of love? Remember we are called to ‘love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our strength, and with all our mind’ and ‘ to love our neighbours as ourselves’. This Lent, for the second year running, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York have given their support to the Love Life, Live Lent Campaign. They say: “Jesus calls us to love our neighbour as ourselves. And ‘neighbour’ includes those we might not notice as we hurry by – the homeless, the prisoners, the enslaved – even the ones who in our eyes look ‘alright’ or have ‘made it’. Offering such love and compassion needn’t be overwhelming. We can all start somewhere.” The Love Life, Live Lent campaign encourages people to be good neighbours - to try, during Lent to take 50 small actions that can have big effects. There’s a ‘Kids’ Version’ as well as an adult version. It has some really good ideas like: - pray for the people who live either side of you - send a thank you card to your local police station - pass on a smile - offer to help your teacher with a task - learn to say thank you using British Sign Language - sort out your old clothes and toys and take them to a charity shop Little acts of kindness can have big effects. That we need to be reminded and prompted to perform them, says something about our everyday failure to meet God’s standards. To see ourselves through the eyes of Jesus is to see ourselves as we really are, to acknowledge our weakness and our shortcomings, to hear his call to repent, and to renew our commitment to follow him. In the words of one of the collects set for this Sunday, we might pray: ‘Eternal God, give us insight to discern your will for us, to give up what harms us, and to seek the perfection we are promised in Jesus Christ our Lord.’ Jesus, who knows us inside out, who knows our every weakness, who could tell each and every one of us ‘everything we have ever done’, also loves us and yearns for us to turn to him and accept his gift of living water. When the woman of Samaria met Jesus at the well, she began to see herself, through his eyes, for what she really was. But Jesus showed her, too, how she could be cleansed and revived. “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” Just as water is essential to life, so that living water is essential for our spiritual well-being. Without it we become parched and wither away. With it we blossom and flourish. As the prophet Jeremiah said: Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is in the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; In the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit. It doesn’t matter what you call it – a gushing spring, a crystal fountain, a life-giving stream – that living water is there for everyone. All we need to do is turn to Jesus and trust in him. God loves us - an interactive address for Mothering Sunday! 2 March 2008 Paul Heatherington Reader at St. Cuthbert's Exodus 2.1–10 John 19.25b–27 It's hard to appreciate just how this came over - a real instance of the need to be there for a sermon, rather than simply to read it... These are fifty pound notes. Check them out. Now we’ll rub some soil into one to dirty it. We’ll pour some oil over it. Water it. Stamp on it. Crumple it. Toss it about. Now is this note worth any less than the other £50 note? No Even though it’s dirty, it’s been stamped on, crumpled up and tossed about, it’s worth just the same. The love of God is like that. God loves us ‘whatever we do.’ If you are stamped on, does God stop loving you? No He doesn’t’. God loves us ‘whatever we do.’ If we are crumpled up does God stop loving us? No He doesn’t’. God loves us ‘whatever we do.’ If we are tossed about does God stop loving us? No He doesn’t’. God loves us ‘whatever we do.’  Moves to Rood screen Does anyone know what this screen is called? The Rood screen separates the chancel (the area with the main altar) from this part of the Church known as the nave. ‘Rood’ comes from a Saxon word meaning ‘cross’. Before He died on the cross, Jesus thought of Mary, his mother, who first loved Him. Jesus thought of her future needs by asking the disciple whom He loved to take care of her. Let’s hear part of today’s Gospel reading When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. The term ‘Woman’ is nowadays not the way to speak to your mother. Then it was a term of respect that recognised Mary’s position as His mother. Most of the Ten Commandments are ‘You shall not do’. But one commandment is a ‘do’. It tells children … Honour your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. Exodus 20:12 This commandment, however, is not just for children; it is for all children throughout their lives. Honouring your Mother and Father goes beyond doing what you are told to do; it includes love, appreciation and respect. Today are you honouring your Mum in some way? Now let’s hear another part of the Gospel reading… Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother… Mary, Jesus’ mother, lived most of her life in history’s shade. Once Jesus was grown up, the Bible tells us little about her. At the end of Jesus’ life, soldiers beat him and nailed Him to the cross. His friends abandoned Him. Religious leaders heckled Him. The crowd poked fun at Him. A thief goaded Him. Mary stood at the foot of the cross. To see her Son on the cross must have been devastating. Mary may have thought about what Simeon said to her in the Temple when Jesus was a baby, This child of yours will cause many people in Israel to fall and others to stand. The child will be like a warning sign. Many people will reject him, and you, Mary, will suffer as though you had been stabbed by a sword. Luke 2:34-35 Jesus was dying on the cross but… • Did Mary dissolve into a shivering wreck? No she didn’t • Did Mary faint at what she saw? No she didn’t • Did Mary run away? No she didn’t This cross is empty (referring to the cross on the rood screen). It reminds us that Jesus overcame death on the cross and is risen, ascended and glorified. Jesus told his disciples to remember Him when they shared bread and wine. We shall do that shortly when we shall meet Jesus in bread and wine. Let me sum up: • Mary shows us the love of a mother. • Jesus shows us the love of a child for His mother. • We are all God’s children, and as we said at the beginning, God loves us, whatever we do. Womens’ World Day of Prayer Friday 7th March 2008 Rosie Junemann, Reader at St Cuthbert’s Job 28. 20-28 Luke 10. 38-42 John 15. 9-17 “Where then does wisdom come from? And where is the place of understanding?” As some of you already know, I celebrated my 60th birthday at the beginning of this year. I’m now officially old! Old enough, at least, to merit a pension and a bus pass. Older, but not necessarily wiser! I’ve worked hard all my life to learn new skills and to acquire knowledge - and I’ve got a few certificates to show for it! But the speed of change in the modern world is such that I’m constantly being overtaken by the need for newer skills and newer knowledge. Between you and me, I don’t think I’m the only one here who struggles to pre-set the DVD recorder. Or to read the text language which springs so fluently from the fingers of children and young people. I’m afraid that nano-technology is simply going to pass me by! Oh, and by the way, since it became more than just the fruit of the bramble, what exactly is a Blackberry? And I’m none the wiser when it comes to answering some important ethical questions. In fact, because today’s world offers us so many complex choices, it seems to get harder and harder to have a clear sense of direction. At Christmas I hesitated to buy cherries from the supermarket because they were imported from South America. We’ve been urged to count the food miles and consider the carbon footprint! But in the same week there was a news item on the television about the plight of farmers in South America, whose families and communities would suffer if we stopped buying the cherries which they produce for the Western markets. Which is the lesser evil – to buy or not to buy?! And consider medical ethics. Where do we stand on the testing of new drugs on animals? Or on brain stem research? Is it always wrong to terminate a pregnancy? Can our society really afford to make treatments costing thousands of pounds available to all who need them? The truth is, I’m much better at asking questions than answering them! In our first Bible reading this evening we encountered Job. Job lived thousands of years ago, in a much more primitive world than ours. He was a wealthy and influential man, the owner of large flocks and herds. For part of the year he would be at home in his village. For the rest he was a nomad – on the move with his cattle. His life, in many ways was much simpler than ours. And yet Job and his friends were plagued by one of the most challenging questions of all time: If God is just and good, why does he let innocent people suffer? Job was about as good a man as anyone could hope to be. And yet calamity overwhelmed him. He lost his family and his possessions – and then suffered a grim and painful disease. According to the prevailing beliefs of their day, Job and his friends believed that prosperity was God’s reward for good living. Suffering spoke of God’s judgement on the sinful. If Job was suffering, then he must have been a wicked man. In his anguish and confusion Job cries out to God “Why me?”. This must, I think, have been a question asked frequently by the people of Guyana, as they have struggled along the difficult path towards freedom, political independence and economic stability. Until this week I didn’t know much about Guyana - but it sounds like the kind of place many of us would like to visit. Here’s how one writer describes it : “At the point where the Caribbean meets South America on its North Atlantic seaboard, lies an almost unknown but incredibly wonderful land of unspoilt beauty, where the virgin rainforest leads to the Amazon basin, and where the jungle is still unexplored, rivers uncharted and mountains yet to be climbed.” Guyana has a chequered history. It was first colonised by the Dutch in the 17th century and later taken over by the British. The native people of Guyana are Amerindians. Both the Dutch and the British transported African slaves to work on the sugar plantations. [We’ve all heard of Demerara sugar. Well, it comes from Guyana!] The abolition of slavery in 1834 led to a labour shortage and so to the introduction of new ethnic groups, from Portugal, India and China. So today it is very much a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural society. We don’t hear very much about Guyana in the news. But if you look for it, there’s plenty of up-to-date information on the Internet. The Embassy publishes a monthly Guyana Diary and it’s interesting to read about current developments and concerns. Here are some from February’s edition: Guyana relies heavily on foreign aid and investment. Amongst projects recently funded - wholly or partially - in this way are the improvement of water supply and sewerage systems, and road construction to improve links between Guyana and Brazil and to improve access to medical and educational facilities for those in the hinterland. There’s also been funding for a new hydro-electric power project and construction of a new packaging plant for a sugar factory. Amongst current concerns are the need to improve drainage to minimise the risk of flooding, and the provision of clean water and electricity to isolated communities. There’s a shortage of both schools and health centres. And there’s a desperate need to increase awareness of sexual violence and people’s rights, and to establish special courts to deal with sexual offences. The people of Guyana have long struggled – and are still struggling – against violence, discrimination and poverty. Like Job, the people of Guyana may well ask “Why me?” Where are any of us to turn in the face of the problems we encounter in today’s world? We probably have safer, more comfortable, lives than most people in Guyana. But each one of us will have, at one time or another, our own experience of loss, pain or despair. And we seem daily to be more and more aware of the shifting, suffering world around us. Since we live increasingly in a ‘global village’, the problems, which the media deliver right into our sitting rooms, become as immediate as our own. Our neighbours in Zimbabwe and Kenya, Iraq and Afghanistan, Palestine and Darfur, come knocking on our doors for help and support. We feel as if we are not personally to blame for their problems. We feel impotent to resolve them. But our human nature and our faith drive us to compassion and concern and an urgent desire to alleviate their suffering. Each year the Women’s World Day of Prayer gives us an opportunity to share in the experiences of our world-wide sisters and to unite in prayer for one other. We seek a spirit of mutual understanding and a strengthening of our faith in God ‘whose love is beyond our knowledge and whose peace is beyond our understanding’. We turn to Christ, in whose face we see only love and compassion - who calls us to abide in his love and to love one another. And we call on Him to relieve suffering, to strengthen us to face challenges, and to give us wisdom to find the answers to life’s difficult questions. In the midst of his distress, Job came face to face with God. God was with Job in his problems and his struggle to understand. He didn’t offer comforting words or a rational explanation. The message of Job’s story is that there are many things in life that we do not understand. God is working on a different plane from human beings, one that we can only glimpse and never fully comprehend. There was a happy ending, of sorts, for Job. He was restored and given a new family. There’s a lot to learn from his experience. We mustn’t give up on God because bad things happen in the world, because there are challenges to face. Rather, in holding on to faith, we will reach a deeper level of understanding and a stronger sense of God’s presence with us. “Truly, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.” And so we pray: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” Amen. Easter Day - Roll Back the Stone! 23rd March 2008 Martin Jackson, Vicar of St. Cuthbert's Acts 10.34-43; Matthew 28.1-10 The ‘angel of the Lord came down from heaven, rolled the stone away, and sat on it.’ It’s St. Matthew in the Gospel reading we use today, who tells most directly that the message of Easter is the triumph of Christ’s Resurrection. To say that Christ is risen is to affirm that death is defeated, and how can we picture it better than with that image painted by Matthew? – the angel who rolls the stone away from the grave and sits upon it! It’s only Matthew who puts it quite so wonderfully, but all the Gospels see that stone which blocks the mouth of the grave to be a real problem. All the Gospels end the account of Jesus’ crucifixion on Good Friday by referring to the witnesses who see him taken down from the Cross and laid in the tomb. This man, they say, hailed as a Saviour of his people, is truly dead. Matthew and Mark tell how a great stone is rolled before his tomb – no way can he escape death’s bonds, they are saying. And Mark puts the question on the lips of the women who come to his grave that first Easter morning: ‘Who shall roll away the stone from the door of the tomb?’ Luke and John’s Gospels don’t tell us how the stone was put in place – but their silence is all the more testimony to the fact of its reality: they take it for granted, because their account of the first Easter begins with their telling how the stone was found to be rolled away. But it’s Matthew who paints the most graphic picture of Christ’s victory over the powers of death. For the other Gospel writers there is silence as to the events between Good Friday and Easter Day – a silence mirrored in the practice of the western Church which treats the day known as Holy Saturday or Easter Eve as a sort of non-day. Only one small part of the Gospels is read that day, yesterday - and it’s from Matthew, the only Gospel writer to tell us what happened after Christ’s burial… Matthew tells us that on the day following Jesus’ burial, the command was given that a guard should be placed upon the tomb to ensure that no one and nothing can get in or out. Death is not to be cheated of its victim, and the Jewish and Roman authorities are shown to be in partnership to this end. Perhaps some readers of St. Matthew’s account will object that he might have made this part of the story up. Matthew seems to show real dislike of the Jewish authorities, and comes dangerously close to anti-Semitism at times. As for the Romans, we find Luke and John especially keen to let them off the hook as far as responsibility for Jesus’ death is concerned. But this shouldn’t be a matter of attributing blame about something that happened 2,000 years ago: the plain fact that we cannot avoid is that we live in a world where so many forces continue to conspire to give victory to death and destruction. It’s not surprising that the authorities of ancient Jerusalem should have wanted Jesus dead – it’s not surprising that they should want his grave sealed and guarded from his followers. Because we live in a world that isn’t much different, and might be even worse. It’s all over the front pages of our newspapers, where we see violence and murder perpetrated on a massive scale by vicious people desperate to keep control of others. The tools they use are the weapons of death and destruction. And until they reach the point where they can no longer be bothered to cover up their deeds, they guard themselves by burying their victims in unmarked graves. As we have seen in so many dictatorships through the twentieth century and into this one, the greatest category of the victims of this world’s violence might be called simply the ‘disappeared.’ What more could Jesus’ enemies wish than that he should disappear? But it was not to be. The power of God is such that death could not hold him. The ‘angel of the Lord rolled the stone away, and sat upon it.’ And here there is hope for this mortal world of so much death, despair and destruction. Hope first for those women who came to mourn at Jesus’ grave that first Easter morning. These are the women who stood by his cross when the other disciples fled, who helped to lay him in the tomb. These are the women who persevered when all seemed lost, and at last they find their reward. How shall they roll away the stone? They find the question does not need an answer, for God’s purpose is being worked out. I read of those women who persevered, and I think of other women in Iraq and so many other lands, who have seen their menfolk taken away and perhaps murdered, but who persevere as they seek to bring their families to a safe refuge. I read of those women who stood by the Cross, and I think of those women in Northern Ireland who dared to speak out against the atrocities perpetrated by men, who persisted in their call for peace and reconciliation in their land. I read of those women going to Jesus’ tomb, and I think of the women who have maintained vigils in Chile, Argentina and so many other Latin American countries as they sought an answer to the fate of loved ones taken from them by unlawful dictators. It’s no chance thing that the first witnesses to the Resurrection are women who prove themselves by their dedication – and if there is to be hope in our world now, it must be in answer to the efforts of those who follow their example today. And we realise how desperately we need such witnesses still in Tibet, Burma, Iraq, Palestine, Darfur and Zimbabwe - the list seems to keep on growing… How can we build upon the Resurrection hope? ‘The angel rolled away the stone and sat upon it.’ Later in the Bible Jesus will himself be described as the stone rejected by the builders which has now become the chief cornerstone. Stones can be dead things, or they can be put to constructive use. There’s a photograph I recall from some years ago which shows a little girl in the bomb-blasted devastation of Beirut, carrying a shiny new brick out of the ruins of a street, in order to start building again. Life is stronger than death. We refuse to allow death to destroy us. We are going to live. And that is why Jesus came in the first place – to give us life, life in all its fullness. This is what the first Christians so quickly realised. A practice of many in the civilisation of Jesus’ time had been to bury their dead in tombs which faced west, towards the setting sun, because for them death meant the close of life’s day and a passing into eternal night. But when they received the message of Christ they began to face their graves towards the east and the rising sun, because Easter Day speaks of radiant promise and a rising to new life and light. The change is especially noticeable in the catacombs of Rome. In one chamber going back before the time of Christ, there are tombs which speak of pagan gloom and hopelessness with inscriptions that are cynical of the gods or bitter in their complaints. But, nearby, another chamber contains the remains of Christians who suffered the extremes of persecution, torture and death for the sake of what they believed: and there the tombs have inscriptions of joy, with carved lilies – the Easter flower and symbol of immortality. Decked out as if for a wedding, this chamber declares the living presence of Christ which cannot be held by the bonds of death. And this is what is declared in those few words which describe the rolling away of the stone from the tomb of Jesus. It is not easy to comprehend. The women who witness it cannot take it in except to grasp a message to share with the other disciples that Jesus has been raised from the dead. And they leave the tomb in a hurry, in fear, though at the same time in joy. Only then – in the midst of their confusion and with so many mixed feelings – do they find the risen Christ meeting them on their way. And so we come here today. The joy of those women at the tomb is not something we can just put on. They go there in the midst of grief and sorrow. And we cannot come here without bearing also the world’s sorrow, our hurts and our personal needs. But the promise is that God is at work even before we arrive, he brings new life and hope, he bids us look beyond the cruelties and limitations of this life. The ‘angel of the Lord rolled away the stone and sat upon it.’ As Janet Morley’s prayer so well puts it: When we are all despairing; when the world is full of grief; when we see no way ahead, and hope has gone away: Roll back the stone. Although we fear change; although we are not ready; although we’d rather weep and run away: Roll back the stone. Because we’re coming with the women; because we hope where hope is vain; because you call us from the grave and show the way: Roll back the stone. Thomas & first steps in Baptism Second Sunday of Easter Sunday 30th March 2008 Rosie Junemann, Reader at St Cuthbert’s Acts 2. 14a, 22-32 John 20. 19-31 I’d like to offer my own very warm welcome to everyone who is here this morning, and an extra special welcome to Ben, Joseph and Terri, who are here today to be baptised into our church family. Last Sunday we came together at St Cuthbert’s to celebrate Easter and the resurrection of our Lord, with joyful hearts and with flowers and candles, music and alleluias. This morning we are still in party mood for this very special occasion, as Ben, Joseph and Terri respond to God’s call to join our community of faith. In our Gospel – our second reading from the Bible - this morning - we heard part of the story of Thomas. Thomas was a faithful disciple who, for three years, had been a loyal and loving follower of Jesus. Like the other disciples, Thomas had left his home and family to follow Jesus as he travelled through his home country teaching about the kingdom of God and healing the sick. This story tells us about a time just three days after Jesus had died. The disciples were huddled together behind locked doors for fear that they, too, might be arrested and suffer the same fate as Jesus. Then suddenly, miraculously, Jesus appeared amongst them and spoke to them. For some reason – we don’t know why – Thomas wasn’t with his friends at this time. And when they told him that they had seen Jesus, he couldn’t believe it. Is it really all that surprising? Put yourself in his place. Only two days ago, with the other disciples, he had watched in horror as Jesus was put to death on the cross. A soldier had pierced Jesus with a spear to make sure that he really was dead. And his body had been wrapped in cloths with burial spices and laid in a sealed tomb. Only this morning it had been discovered that the tomb was empty. The disciples had locked themselves away for their own protection. So how could Jesus have come among them? A man coming back from the dead? It’s unbelievable! Thomas wanted proof! A week later, when Thomas was with the other disciples, and they were still locked away together, Jesus again appeared amongst them. Now Thomas could see Jesus with his own eyes and feel his wounds with his own hands. Now he believed. And in believing he became the first person to acclaim Jesus, not just as his master and teacher, but also as God. In this story we see Thomas at the very moment when he takes his own first steps in faith. Moving from doubt and fear to faith and joy, he was then able, with the other disciples, to join in the first public proclamations of the Christian faith - to declare, as we heard Peter declare in our first reading this morning: “This Jesus God raised up and of that all of us are witnesses”. It is said that Thomas, through faith, was able to become one of the first missionaries. He carried the good news of the Gospel to the people of India, where he later died for his faith and was buried near Madras. This morning, Ben, Joseph and Terri are taking their own tentative first steps on their journey in faith – the journey which a gospel song calls ‘The highway to heaven’! What will this journey mean for them? What is baptism really about? What happens in a church service often seems quite mysterious. We believe in a God who we cannot see – at least, not in the way that we see the other people around us. Faith is very much a matter for the spiritual world, rather than the physical world. It’s an elusive reality. So the church gives us symbols, or images, to help us to understand what it’s all about. In baptism we use three powerful symbols. First of all, as we will see this morning, those who come to be baptised are marked with the sign of the cross. They are called to walk ‘in the way of Christ’. To walk in the way of Christ will mean, first of all, to get to know Jesus well. If we want to see God more clearly, we need to look closely at the Jesus of the Gospels, to learn who he is and what he teaches us by word and by deed. To walk in the way of Christ is also to walk in the shadow of the cross on which Jesus died. The Christian life is not always easy. There will be times of doubt, and times of suffering, and times when our lives are touched by sin. But – remember - the cross is also a sign of God’s love and forgiveness. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” Water, of course, is of central importance in our lives. Not only do we need to drink it in order to sustain life; we also need it to keep ourselves, our clothes, and our homes clean. In baptism, we use water as a symbol of cleansing from sin. Those who come to be baptised are called to walk ‘in newness of life’. To follow Christ means dying to sin and rising to new life in him. To enter the kingdom of heaven we must be ‘born again of water and the Spirit’ and baptism is the ‘sign and seal’ of this new birth. Finally, at the end of this service Ben and Joseph and Terri will each be presented with a lighted candle. Those who come to be baptised are also called to walk ‘in the light’. As Christians we travel from the darkness of ignorance and sin into the light of God’s love and goodness. During this service we will pray that all who are baptised may walk by the light of faith and be filled with the light of God’s presence. And those who have been baptised are challenged to walk in this light all the days of their lives – to “shine as a light in the world, to the glory of God the Father”. So the cross, the water and the candle show us that the journey in faith is to be walked ‘in the way of Christ’, ‘in newness of life’ and ‘in the light’. People who set out on this journey in faith do not walk alone. We are all travellers together on the same road. Like the pilgrims of old, we are headed in the same direction, sharing our experiences, supporting those who are weak and vulnerable, and gathering up others to join us as we pass by. Ben and Joseph have parents and godparents who will undertake today to guide and help them in their early years. But all who have been baptised need the help and encouragement of the Christian community - to keep coming to church, to follow Jesus in their everyday lives, and to show God’s love for other people. This morning we will be praying for Ben, Joseph and Terri and for all who are here to welcome and uphold them in their faith journey. My special prayer for them will be that they may travel beyond doubt to the certainty of faith which Thomas knew. In the well-known words of a very old prayer: “May they see God more clearly, follow Him more nearly, and love Him more dearly, day by day.” Amen. Marks of the Church 4th Sunday after Easter - Year A Sunday 13 April 2008 Paul Heatherington Reader at St. Cuthbert's Acts 2.42–47 The Lectionary tells us that in the season of Easter we are to read from the Acts of the Apostles and so this morning I am going to focus on that reading. The Acts of the Apostles explores the story of the early church, from its beginning in Jerusalem to the heart of the Roman Empire. The Holy Spirit had come upon the apostles, and they successfully preached the Word of Christ in Jerusalem. Many were converted to faith, and a church was born. The early church firmly believed that it was not a new religion, but the realisation and fulfilment of Judaism and its Scriptures. Acts 2 44-47 is an account of the first church. It had yet to learn to that central to the fulfilment of the hopes of Scripture was the inclusion of all persons, Jews and non-Jews, into the people of God. The first Christians therefore were Jews who attended the Temple in Jerusalem. This reading shows that the early church was alive. It shows evidence of five timeless features of a church of God: fellowship, discipleship, worship, ministry and evangelism, which are as relevant today as they were almost 2000 years ago. Fellowship. That’s what the church was doing. Look at verses 44-46: 44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, The first Christians were devoted to fellowship. They were sharing their lives with each other. They were becoming a family. Discipleship. Look at verse 42: 42 ‘They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching.’ These first Christians wanted to learn about Jesus so they could become like Him. ‘Devoted’ means ‘committed to’. They were committed to learning what it meant to follow Jesus. These Christians wanted to grow as Christians. Worship. Verse 42 talks about how ‘they broke bread at home’ which probably refers to celebrating communion together, ‘and to prayer.’ And verse 47 talks about how they were ‘praising God’. These early Christians were worshipping God. Ministry. The apostles were doing signs and wonders, but the people were letting God use them to take care of each other’s needs. Evangelism. The Christians in Acts told others about Jesus, because verse 47 says, ‘And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.’ And so what can we learn from this reading from Acts? New Testament Christianity was about fellowship where people found a place to belong, where loneliness evaporated. It was about discipleship learning about Jesus and striving to become more and more like Him. It was about worship - people worshiping God with how they lived their lives and meeting Jesus in the breaking of bread each week. It was about ministry, giving themselves in service to God by using their abilities to serve God and one another. And New Testament Christianity was about evangelism sharing the news that God loved them and Jesus died to save them. Now let’s look at the world today. Fellowship. Many long for a return to a time when families took care of each other. Some of us may have families like that, many don’t. Families are fragmenting and disintegrating. Divorce is an ever-present reality. But families also separate for other reasons. Today’s world is a mobile society. Children grow up and move away. People move in and move out of areas because of redundancies, job transfers and new opportunities. Many of us have lived in North West Durham all of our lives, but there are increasing numbers of people who now live here who did not grow up here. Their families may be far away. We live in a world, because of our mobility and failed marriages, where for many people ‘family’ is no longer important. Many people who feel disconnected, who long for closeness with other people, but they don’t know where to find it. That’s a role for the Church, a family where fellowship can be found, where members can count on each other for back-up, support and love. Discipleship. This means, ‘to learn to follow Jesus.’ God wants the Church to be like that, to grow in their understanding of His word and apply it in their lives. Worship helps us to feel better; gives us renewed energy to face the coming week. Worship, though, is more than singing songs in Church, it is about being sent out ‘to live and work to God’s praise and glory,’ which leads to the fourth point. Ministry. Some think the vicar is here to do all the work of the church. There’s a problem if ‘ministry’ or ‘service’ is defined too narrowly. Ministry in the church means that every one of us is to use the talents God has given us. The only way the church can work is if every Christian discovers what his or her gifts are and begins using them for God and to meet the needs of others. That’s what was happening in the early church. Evangelism. The Bible makes clear that the one reason the church exists is to tell people about God’s offer to forgive them because Jesus died to take our punishment. Every church should be a church that is reaching out to its community and proclaiming the gospel in a way that draws people to Jesus. CONCLUSION What should the church really be like? We get a hint from the sentence that introduces today’s reading from Acts: When Christian communities live out Christ's teaching, working together for the common good, in every aspect of life, they attract people to join them and find God. The church is the only organization that exists for those who are not members, healing broken lives, pointing people to God. In the Church the unwanted are accepted, sinners are forgiven and the friendless know love. When it works appropriately, the Church is the hope of the world. Here we find friendship with others: Fellowship Here we learn how to be the people God calls us to be: Discipleship Here we discover the purpose of life: Worship Here, when the church is working as it should, every member uses his or her talents and abilities to serve one another and the world outside: Ministry Here the Gospel is preached and those who have no relationship with Jesus may come to accept Jesus come: Evangelism This is what God wants in his Church: Fellowship, Discipleship, Worship, Ministry and Evangelism. Seeing Jesus - Keeping God in the picture 5th Sunday of Easter – 20th April 2008 The Revd. Martin Jackson Vicar of St. Cuthbert's Acts 7.55-60; 1 Peter 2.2-10; John 14.1-14 I think what I want to do today is to begin where Paul Heatherington left off in his sermon at the Eucharist last Sunday. This was his last sentence: This is what God wants in his Church: Fellowship, Discipleship, Worship, Ministry and Evangelism. And I hope we can all agree with that. Paul preached from the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles where we see the early Christians engaging in just those activities. And they are things which should still be going on today. The problem is we don’t always do them very well - or we do them, but still feel rather dissatisfied about them… as though something is missing,.. but what can we do? And my answer to this is that we often cause the problem ourselves. We think that success in all these aspects of church life is down to us and to our strategies and to what we put into it by way of our effort. If only we could get it right, then everything would go marvellously, and people would come flocking in. But actually it seems that what we find in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles is just a sort of snapshot picture - this is how it was for a time, and then the problems began… or perhaps resumed… Has there ever been a time when the life of the Church has been perfect? - and the answer must be, “No,” because the Church is made up of people like us, people who are human, people who by definition are imperfect and who get it wrong and keep getting it wrong. Yes, we can say, all these good things are what God wants for his Church, but we find that we just can’t deliver. So is the snapshot picture of an apparently idyllic time in the life of the Church merely a sadly brief episode which we try in vain to recover? I think the point is that it’s not simply down to our efforts. To take just two of those features to which Paul drew our attention… Evangelism is so often characterised as having the right strategy to draw people into our churches - and in many ways it is. If you go along to the “Just 10” series of addresses which begin this Tuesday in Gateshead, you’ll be addressed by one of the most successful of today’s evangelists, J John. He’s a man of undoubted gifts with a charisma that few people can match - and there’s been a well-planned build up over months and months which will hopefully get thousands of people along to hear him. But in the final analysis, says the author of the Book of Acts, “the Lord added to their number….” It’s God himself who calls us into the living relationship which we can have with him. Leave God out of the picture, and however hard we work at all the good things we want for our church, there can be no true evangelism. And evangelism as a word means telling people about the “evangel” - literally the “good news.” There needs to be good news there for the people who hear, and good news about God, not simply wishful thinking, guilt and hard work. Keep God in the picture - or let him in… Worship is the other thing that we work hard at, trying to get it right. But we need again and again to be reminded of what it is at its simplest - as the Book of Acts puts it: “The breaking of bread and the prayers.” Worship and prayer are made valid because God himself comes into our midst. It doesn’t all depend on us. We break bread and share wine, and Christ is with us… so real that bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ. Worship is finally not what we do, but what God does in us. That’s why next Sunday we’ll be welcoming 11 of our congregation’s children to share in Holy Communion for the first time. Not because they have in the last couple of months acquired the ability to understand what is going on in the Eucharist. But because this most profound of mysteries is revealed to us in the simplest of ways as we break bread and find Christ in our midst. Knowledge of the presence of Christ with us is what we need, and what Christians have always needed. And to bring that home to us today all our readings have a sort of common refrain with the word “see." Seeing where Christ is is their common theme. It’s there in today’s Gospel reading with the disciple Philip at the Last Supper asking Jesus, “show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied.” (John 14.8) It’s Philip who, a couple of chapters earlier in St. John’s Gospel, has been approached by a group described as “Greeks” - either Gentiles or Greek speaking Jews - and they tell him “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip gets together with Andrew and together they go to Jesus to fix the meeting… and annoyingly we never find out whether it takes place! But now Philip is echoing this request: “We want to see Jesus,” they’d asked - and now as Jesus speaks about seeing the Father (14.7), Philip himself asks “then show us him and that will be enough for us.” To which Jesus replies, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” So it was the people who’d first made their request to Philip who had it right all along - seeing Jesus is the one thing necessary. Make Jesus your focus and you’ll find the way to God. That’s what we need to be doing here - recognising that amid all the other reasons which may draw us to church, the one thing necessary is to find Jesus welcoming us and drawing us to God. If only we might see! Our second reading, from the 1st Letter of Peter, seems to be part of a sermon preached to 1st century candidates for Baptism - and it’s packed with quotations from the Jewish scriptures, not least that first one in chapter 2 verse 6: “See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious.” It’s a different word that’s used in the original Greek for “see” - but this time it’s even more direct: “Behold” is the archaic word often used to translate it, but it’s got the sense that this is the one place you must look. Take a good look and you’ll see that the Church is not just a pile of cold stone artfully laid, but made up of its members, the “living stones” who all depend on the one precious and chosen stone who is Christ. Jesus is the “cornerstone” keeping all the others in place. That’s why today we sing “Christ is made the sure foundation” and “The Church’s one foundation” - not just for the tunes, but so that we have the understanding reinforced for us that everything depends on Jesus - if only we will “see.” And perhaps the most dramatic use of that word, “see,” in today’s readings is in our first reading from Acts chapter 7. Stephen, one of the first seven deacons, chosen to serve the needy people of the early Church, who has got himself into a dispute with religious opponents and who has been none too gentle in the words he has used against them, now declares: “Look… I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” For his enemies it’s the final straw and they drag him out to stone him to death. But for the Church which regards Stephen as its first martyr, there’s the sense that what he sees is the vindication of his faith. Jesus who has made sense of his life, now welcomes him at his death. Not that we’re all called to be martyrs like Stephen was. But when we feel generally comfortable with the way we lead our lives - though perhaps a bit dissatisfied about what we think is missing in church or when we try to say our prayers - then we might think about Christians who live in those countries where the practice of their faith isn’t the easiest of options… but who persist in the face of petty impositions, real threats or actual danger because they “see” the difference that Jesus makes for them. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” says Jesus to his disciples. We have to remember that he tells them this before his betrayal and death upon the cross. Before the night is out the disciples will all have run away and deserted him. And so often we fail and fall short. But the words remain true - as the disciples recognise the risen Christ in the days which follow, and try to live out his message as something in which 2,000 years later we may share. It’s when we see this - as one of the Desert Fathers put it - that we can “fall and get up, fall and get up.”  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 - April 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