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On the 10th May this year I was on the Isle of Sark, one of the Channel Islands, a tiny island 3 mile long, and a half of a mile wide; a place where doors are not locked and there are no cars. All transport is horse and cart; tractors for farmers, bicycles, most of the time you walk! It was the day of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the island from the occupying German Army. At 11 O'clock in the morning a short service was held in St Peter's Church. Members of the British Army, who had liberated the people on the 10th May 1945, were there, Chelsea Pensioners, originally from Sark, in their scarlet coats; dozens of flags carried by the other services; local people and the Signor of Sark who owns the Island. It was his grandmother - Dame Hathaway - who had been a tower of strength to the Islanders and a formidable lady dealing with the German officers, during the occupation. The Channel Islands suffered terrible hardship. On Sark their houses were taken, often destroyed, their animals were eaten, their horses worked to death (literally) and when things got really bad towards the end, the Germans shot the local dogs and ate them. Many of the Islanders were deported to Germany, and diaries written on the Island or in Germany, secretly, (it would have been death if they were found) tell of heart breaking, dangerous and unpredictable times for these people. The only hymn in the church service was Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, King of Creation but there were two verses I had never seen before, which summed it all up. Praise to the Lord, Who, when tempests their warfare are waging, Who, when the elements madly around thee are raging, Biddest them cease, turnest their fury to peace, Whirlwinds and waters assuaging. Praise to the Lord, Who, when darkness of sin is abounding, Who, when the godless do triumph, all virtue confounding, Sheddest His light, chasest the horrors of night, Saints with His mercy surrounding There was one reading from the New Testament. You will all know it, from Corinthians 13 which begins - Love is patient and kind - and ends Now faith, hope and love abide, all three, but the greatest of these is love. It was read by a Sark survivor, and I heard a whisper behind me to another local person, Didn't she read that beautifully. It was at that moment I realised that all the things I had heard and read about the people, the War and how they coped with it was true. They have faced everything with courage, patience and quiet dignity - but also with love, unselfishness and good humour. The exhibition in the Village Hall had newspaper cuttings, photographs and lists of people for deportation with dates (all yellow with age) and people themselves speaking freely about life then and now. At eleven thirty came the highlight of the day. A fly-past consisting of a Spitfire, A Lancaster Bomber and a Hurricane flew over the cemetery, the War memorial and all of us. This was especially poignant, as aircraft are banned from flying over the Island. The aircraft turned and came over us three times, leaving everyone elated, profoundly moved by the experience of that, and of the day itself. So how does that fit into rain, floods, wind bearing down on that House - and it not falling down? It's about strong foundations and good bricks. It’s about the right cement and a skilled brick-layer!! The Foundations that kept the people of Sark together in the war, and is still present today, is love. Love for each other, their environment - for everything. Everyone and everything matters. And their love of God is in all this. In the war - if it was some ones birthday, even though no one had very much, people brought tiny gifts, such as an apple, and it was given and accepted with love. This concern, at the end of the war even extended to the few German soldiers who had been abandoned and left behind. They were destitute - very hungry. That is real down-to-earth love and forgiveness. The bricks that built and sustained that community, especially during the ware, are love, forgiveness, honesty and truth. They are the same bricks that build the Kingdom of heaven in the hearts and minds and souls. The bricks that are still the foundation of the Sark community, are cemented with compassion, hard work, sharing and love for all creation. The building of the kingdom of heaven here on earth should be done with the bricks of integrity, patience, humility, vision, sensitivity for others, open-mindedness and sharing - and being prepared to be the bricks that nobody sees in the foundations. Brick laying is a very skilled business. We only have to look at the inner walls of this church to see the wrong consistency of cement a long time ago when repairs were done, has resulted in a very serious problem. However, important as it is to maintain this building we must never lose sight of WHY WE ARE IN THE BUILDING. It is BECAUSE WE ARE THE REAL BRICKS. Being a brick means caring - supporting each other. It’s about loving God, and following his son Jesus Christ, through all the difficult imprisonments and freedom that life throws at us - with love - faith and hope - not only in this world, and this life, but in the life to come. AMEN Link to the web pages for Sark liberation Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Sunday June 19th 2005 Trinity Four - Bridget "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground unperceived by the father." In Luke's version (CH 12 v6) it reads "Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies. Yet not one of them is forgotten in God's sight." So if two sparrows are sold for a penny the fifth is thrown in as a bargain, and therefore has not value at all. God cares even for the ordinary little sparrow that means very little. Even a forgotten sparrow Jesus tells us is precious to God. When we read the word fall we think of death - but probably it meant also, landing on the ground, hoping about - being busy and cheerful - as sparrows are. The Jews who Jesus was talking to, knew how God cares for his creation - how he loves and values everything in it. It is a great sadness to me that the church over the centuries has lost sight of this concept. The Early Saints, the Desert Fathers, the Celtic Tradition, all cared deeply for the natural world, the animals, the birds, the whole of creation was sacred to them and they worked and lived in communion with their environment. They lived - rejoiced and suffered together. Thomas Aquinus and other later had a different view. Animals and Birds, putting it bluntly, had no worth at all. This view is still infiltrating our thinking today. For example, the only time I have seen anything about animals in the Diocesan Newspaper we have each month was during the foot and mouth crisis, and some clergy went out to farms - to find the horror and implication of what was happening practically, mentally and spiritually to the Farmers - and the carnage of thousands of perfectly sound stock - any yet still we have intensive farmer on an even bigger scale. In the National Press - the only clergy who we have heard on the law to Ban Hunting with dogs is from those who are absolutely for it and go hunting themselves. We have all the wastage that goes on - on Factory Ships. We still have Battery Hens. In Europe - we still have long-distance travel of livestock. (Some horses are taken across Europe for 10 days). We still have enormous ships carrying sheep from Australia, despite being stranded for months on the high seas - it all STILL goes on, and on!! The other day, yet another article in the National Press about the thousands of sea birds (including the endangered Albatross), and marine animals, and sea turtles, dying in the Southern Ocean because of illegal fishing with long line vessels. People who don't go to Church, often say to me - how they cannot fathom why the Church is so silent on these matters. this is one of the reasons why many people find the Church irrelevant - and out of touch with things they think important. This is one of the reasons that people like myself within the Church have got together in a Society that despairs of the negative attitude only people matter. The Society is the Anglican Society for the Welfare of Animals and numbers are growing all the time. There is more concern, more campaigning and positive action by people outside than inside the Church. Because they care for Animals doesn't mean they don't care about people - of course they do!! The difference is they care about the Sparrows - they care about everything!! And it's about time that the Church started taking the natural world seriously - caring for it, loving it, sustaining it - as God does, before it is too late. Jesus is saying stern things about how we must love God, and what we must do. It's about carrying his cross and walking in his footsteps. In the world today we have so many contradictions. We have grinding poverty - and on the other hand we have self-indulgence, affluence and a very high standard of living at the expense of the poor - and the environment. We have been warned for a long time about the danger to the ozone layer, about melting of the ice caps - possible extinction of animals and birds. And we as Christians need to take these warnings seriously - for God's sake. Austin Farrer who died in 1960 and who was one of the most brilliant preachers of his generation wrote this : It must never be forgotten that God is the God of hawks no less than Sparrows, of microbes no less than Man. After all that - I think you all need a bit of light relief! Something that happened over the last month to a pigeon that had definitely fallen. It was on May 20th, Friday Afternoon, when I spotted a pigeon sitting on the shelf of the wall of the Yorkshire Bank on Stockton High Street. The "Big Issue" seller told me it had been run over. It had a broken tail and two broken legs, so I picked it up and brought it home - on the bus - in a Traid Craft cardboard box that Carolyn in the office, emptied ready. I made it comfortable in the Old Stable at home, with fresh hay to sit on, gave it food and water with a syringe and over the next few days it moved like a seal with its wings. It was a cheerful little thing, determined to get better. By Monday, it was still alive, so I took it to the Vet in Yarm I've known for a very long time - and we both agreed it deserved a chance. It stayed at the Vet's, in a cage with a nest of hay , food and water, surrounded by dogs recovering from anaesthetics, cats - people in and out. A little over a week ago, we decided I should bring it home. He wasn't sure it would walk again, but there was something about this bird - that kept us hopeful. Back home on the bus in the cats' basket, to the stable. I found it partial to Cheddar Cheese! A Robin and the Sparrow shared the food; in the rafters swallows roosted at night. Next day I gave it a bath. By this time it was called Plucky!. It was wonderful how it splashed in the warm water in the bathroom. Dried with a hair dryer and put back into the stable - visited and talked to and held and stroked, over the days. The next day I thought I saw it stand up and wobble. The day after that it took three wobbly steps. Over the next couple of days, it was walking properly. Then I found her (I'm sure she was a she) sitting on the partition between the stalls, looking very pleased with herself. It was a small miracle, but the rest and quiet had let nature mend the two smashed legs. The Vet can't believe it. The day before yesterday - exactly a month after I found her, she flew out of the stable and into the outside world- completely mended!! But she left something behind. On the clean hay, right in the middle - where I would easily see it - was one large, beautiful, clean feather - which I shall keep - because I'm sure it was to say Thank You!! Words from Dostoevsky, the great Russian writer in the 19th century from his book The Brothers Karamazov. Summing up what I am trying to say:- Love all God's creation, the whole of it, and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. And once you have perceived it, you will begin to comprehend it ceaselessly, more and more every day. Any you will at last come to love the whole world with an abiding, universal love. Love the animals. God has given them the rudiments of thought and untroubled joy. Do not therefore, trouble them, do not torture then, do not deprive then of their joy - Do not go against God's intent. Amen. Link to the RSPB for further information Thank you God for Leon and Lacey Sunday July 3rd 2005 Trinity Six - Andrew Today two babies are going to be baptised. They both have very special and interesting names: Leon and Lacey. The two babies in that first bible reading that we’ve just had were also given very particular names. Esau means hairy, which is what he was. And Jacob means heel, because he grabbed hold of Esau’s heel when they were being born. Sometimes babies are named for what they are like or what they do. Sometimes they are given an old family name, or the name of someone famous, someone we admire. Sometimes there are connections to be made that we don’t even realise. For example, there are only two Laceys that I can think of – Cagney and Lacey the detective series, and a Fairport Convention song, Mr. Lacey, which was all about an inventor. When it comes to Leon, I can think of four. From the world of politics there’s Leon Brittan and Leon Trotsky; and then there’s Leon Redbone and Leon Russell who are both musicians. Maybe this Lacey will grow up to be something big in the police force, or maybe she has a wild imagination and will go on to invent useful things. Maybe Leon will grow up to be politically astute and manage to change the world or at least his constituency for the better. Maybe he’s already singing beautifully in tune and will become a remarkable composer or performer of breathtaking music. And maybe none of those things but something even better. Who knows. What we do know is that baptism is a time to wonder. To look at these babies and wonder: After the bombs last Thursday to wonder what sort of world they are growing up in. And to take seriously our responsibility to make the world a better place for them. After the announcement on Wednesday that the 2012 Olympics are to be held in London, to wonder about the sporting nation that they will grow up in. To wonder as well at the trust they put in you, their parents and family and friends. That you will care for them – that you will do your best for them, that you will do without so that they can have. Being parents means carrying huge responsibilities. Being parents is wonderful and awesome and amazing. Being parents is also hard work. And, those are the main reasons for being here today. Because, baptism comes down to two things: saying thank you to God and asking God’s help. Thank you is what you’ve been saying ever since Leon, ever since Lacey was born. Thank you for the wonder that is your child. And also, there have been those occasions when it’s all got a bit much, when you’ve said things like God help us, and probably much worse. Here in this house of God, we don’t say God help us because it sounds a bit rude, instead we ask for God’s blessing, which means God help us. Of course, there’s lots more about baptism, all of it important – do this and don’t do that, believe in this and follow that path. All of that IS important. But the two key things in baptism, without which it’s all a waste of time, is thank you God and God help us. Back in today’s first reading, which is a family story from two and a half thousand years ago, Isaac and Rebekah gave thanks to God for their children Esau and Jacob, hairy and heel. Read the next couple of chapters in that family saga and you’ll discover that God’s blessing was indeed upon the two boys. Both of them, despite a number of family difficulties grew up to be great people. That was then. Right now, here in Stockton, along with their parents we say: Thank you God for Lacey. Thank you God for Leon. And, God bless them and their families as they grow up to do and to be themselves. Too many brave deeds and not enough medals Sunday 10th July - Trinity Seven - Andrew This is a great occasion: the Royal British Legion County Rally and a celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War. It is therefore a particular honour and privilege to be wearing this stole, presented to me earlier this year by the local branch of the Royal British Legion. Today, with you the custodians of remembrance, we look back and remember. We listen to the reminiscing, to the stories, and remember before God the heroism, the horror and the terrible cost of war. We also give thanks to God for the welfare work of the Royal British Legion, and of the many other organisations: caring for ex-Service personnel and their dependents. Today is also an occasion to face the present and future. The hope that the second world war was the war to end all wars is still a long way off. The world’s need for peace is no less urgent today than it was 60 years ago. Which brings us to today’s readings. The first one, psalm 46, was all about putting our faith in God. In the face of wild seas, like the tsunami six months ago, faith in God. When nations rage and countries collapse, faith in God. Faith that wars will come to an end, that there will be a time of universal peace. In theory, I would guess that most of us can go along with that. We are astonished at the courage and faith of people who have survived the tsunami, who lost family and livelihood, who still have nothing and yet still dare to hope. But we are also aware that they are the exceptions, that for many many more, hope has long since been lost. In the heat of the battle, having faith that God will rise above the corpses and rubble of war and establish his kingdom of peace is all a bit pie in the sky. Faced with the enemy, kill or be killed is surely the issue. Universal peace is the hope, – when we are at a safe distance from the action of war. Combat that is up close and personal has no time for thoughts about peace – which is why that second reading is so hard for us to listen to. I don’t think we can begin to imagine God’s peace without attempting to imagine the pain that’s there in that story. And, every one of us here today has experienced or been told similar stories. Different people, different circumstances, but the same elements of remarkable heroism and terrible anguish. Imagine, for a moment that bullet-ripped photograph of his wife. His life shot dead. Her life irreparably torn. Now, I’m not suggesting we should wallow in the horrors of war, but I do think we should face them. And, face them with integrity. Which is why, incidentally, I think the re-enactment of the battle of Trafalgar the other day with its blue team and red team was so misguided. There was the British fleet and the combined fleet of French and Spanish. It wasn’t a team game, it wasn’t an entertaining spectacle, it was warfare between neighbouring countries. People were killed. Lives were ripped apart. The role of the Royal British Legion as custodian of remembrance is vital if the present generation is going to give peace a chance, the peace that passes all understanding, the peace that comes from recognising our common humanity. Remembering takes us back to great comradeship and adrenalin-fuelled life on the edge. Remembering takes us into dark places. This is Group Captain Peter Townsend reminiscing: Let us be honest – we felt satisfaction in the destruction of an enemy. More often than not there was a rare, dramatic beauty in the sight of an aircraft, even one of ours, on its last, headlong swoop towards earth, or a watery tomb. There was the thrill of the chase, more gloriously stimulating, let’s admit, than any notion of defending the last barriers of the free world. Finally there was the simple contentment that any professional feels in a job well done. All this seemed mundane enough, but terrible reactions, which we even managed to hold in check long after they made themselves felt, were building up in our minds and bodies. Sooner or later came the moment when we, the surviving witnesses of this sporting carnage, had had our fill; and fatigue, with its by-products fear and revolt, blunted or destroyed our natural (or should we say professional) impulses. And we became infected instead with a morbid terror of dying, filled with a morbid terror of killing, saddened by the endless departure of friends to their lone home, repulsed by the futile boasting claims of the wiping-out, the annihilation of the enemy. Lauded as heroes, hung with medals, we only longed to withdraw into the mountains – or the marshes – where we could ‘forget yesterday and tomorrow’. To forget because the remembering is so painful, because the price of honesty is so high. But in time, to remember and to tell the stories so that those of us who weren’t there might begin to understand. To listen to the stories is to acknowledge the darkness as well as the heroism and comradeship and good humour. And by facing the darkness, the hope of peace becomes possible. Remember the past and it’s possible to remember the future. That’s the theory. In practice, it’s much harder. Even after 60 years the second world war still casts a shadow over us. Which is why you custodians of remembrance ensure that we return time and again to these stories. Each time to say thank you for the courage, to ask forgiveness for the evil of war and to commit ourselves to peace and justice among all people. May God help us. VE/VJ Day readings A reading from the Psalms 1 God is our refuge and strength,a very present help in trouble. 2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; 3 though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. 4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. 5 God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns. 6 The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. 7 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. 8 Come, behold the works of the LORD; see what desolations he has brought on the earth. 9 He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. 10 Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth. 11 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Here ends the first reading "Too Many Brave Deeds - Not Enough Medals" This is the story of Edward John Trevett’s death, killed in action just six weeks before the end of the war. He was 38 years old. Trevett, who was a Lance Corporal, and a young Lieutenant, Kenneth Hill, were in an armoured car at the front of the troops pushing forward into Germany. They were regularly reporting on their position back to HQ and were being told “Well done lads, but push on, push on”. Suddenly they realised that they had over-run the German lines and so they got out of the armoured car and took cover. But they then realised that they had left maps with markings showing the British Forces, and also they’d not changed the radio frequency. So the two of then went back to the car where they were surprised by German troops and both were shot dead. The photo of his wife that Trevett carried in his chest pocket was torn by a bullet. This story of Trevett’s death came from the Colonel of the Regiment who went with his wife to visit Trevett’s widow on VE Day. “They should have had a medal”, he said, “but you know how it is – too many brave deeds, too few medals.” Trevett’s widow had another visit soon after, from the parents of Lieutenant Hill. He was very young, had recently graduated from Sandhurst and was their only child. His parents were devastated to discover that the soldier who died with him had a wife and three young children and worried that she would blame the deaths on their son’s youth and inexperience. But that was not in her nature – for more than forty-five years she planted two crosses each year in the Garden of Remembrance at Westminster, one for her Eddy and one for Ken. She died in 2003 at the age of 91 and their daughter continues to remember, placing two crosses in the Garden of Remembrance in Salisbury, each November. Here today we are all-ages from all-over Sunday 17th July - Trinity Eight - Andrew And the occasion, to a small degree, is my last Sunday here after six years. But our purpose is entirely, the worship of God – It’s what I’ve said time and again after each act of remembrance at the cenotaph: Deputy Lieutenant, Members of Parliament, Mister or Madam Mayor, Uncle Tom Cobley and all, I invite you on this BofB Sunday or Remembrance Day or whatever, I invite you to the Parish Church to worship God. We are here to worship God, but inevitably we’re going to be doing a bit of reminiscing. Think back for a moment over the last 6 years, back to September 1999 and identify the significant events in your life, the important decisions in the life of this borough and this church, momentous occasions at national and international levels. How much water has flowed under the bridge, how much has stayed the same. And now, a short pause in which to reflect on where we are at now, today – in our personal and professional lives, the great national and international issues that we face. And then the last big think at this point: to wonder what next: our hopes and fears, aspirations and frustrations; to think of the delight in our lives… All of that then is an important part of the context for our worship of God this morning. We don’t know any of the hymns this morning but the tunes are very familiar and we have two knockout readings: Jacob, on the run, first time away from home, having just ripped off his brother’s inheritance, has a dream and sees a ladder stretching from heaven to earth; and then that utterly outrageous parable from Jesus about the wheat and the weeds. Details about today’s barbeque and any other notices will be given at the end of the service. We now stand to sing our first hymn, God beyond knowledge Jacob has just passed a huge turning point in his life. From being a mother’s boy, happily living at home, he now finds himself taking a walk on the wild side on his way to who knows what. And he has his dream of angels walking up and down a ladder. This is definitely a house of God he says when he wakes up, this is definitely a gateway to heaven. In our own waking moments, there is the dawning realisation that this building, this church on Stockton High Street, is also a house of God. Stepping into it, we cross the threshold, come through the gate into heaven. Here in this holy place we are surrounded by angels and archangels and saints and all those who have gone before us, the plaques and memorials and memories all around us – in the shadows and in the pools of light. And we might want to ponder as to where the ladder is here. Is it inside the porch, up through the ringing chamber and out onto the tower roof and beyond? Does it take off from the chancel into the wild blue beyond? Maybe it’s just in front of each of us, or just behind us. Somewhere in this house of God the air is thin, heaven and earth connect and we meet on the ledge with God. With all that in mind, we now turn to the parable of the wheat and the tares, the wheat and weeds, to try and figure out what on earth Jesus was on about. There is, a few verses later, a seriously plonking explanation, this equals that, and that equals the other. But there are more dangerous possibilities. Our context this morning is, I suggest, three fold. The London bombings, the next stage of the journey for this church, and what’s going on in our own lives. The farmer sowed good seed. And all was well. But then in the darkness, an enemy sowed bad seed. And, there’s hell on. Let’s go and rip it up the servants say. No says the farmer, leave them to grow together. Sensible farmers know that leaving the weeds to grow will mean the corn getting choked and leaving the weeds to go to seed guarantees a much worse problem the next year. But of course this is not a story about agricultural technique, it’s a parable about living and loving and hope. What the farmer is saying is leave the bad, let it be. Let the bad live in amongst the good. The Greek word for weeds is zizania: which is lolium temulentum – which is a type of grass that looks very similar to wheat. The good wheat and the bad zizania look virtually the same. It’s very hard to distinguish the bad from the good. People, are neither all bad nor all good. The mix of good and bad, that’s how life is. Paul Weller began his performance at Bradford the other night by saying This is dedicated to all our brothers and sisters who lost their lives in London last week. But in a strange sort of way I’d also like to dedicate it to the f….. cowards that were responsible. And he then lashed into a song called Savages. Now, just in case you’re beginning to think I’ve lost the plot, I know that half the punchline is about binding the bad in bundles and burning it. Gung-ho, old fashioned armageddon retribution. However, that’s half a line after a very long paragraph that’s saying something very different. What most of the parable is about is letting be. Not giving in, but letting be. Standing together in silence out on the street for two minutes last Thursday. Refusing to get caught up in cheap offensive bigotry. Determined to confront our own prejudice. Promoting multi-cultural life. Now for a bit more New Testament Greek. The Greek word for "let it be". Let's rip it up say the servants. Leave it be says the farmer: aphes. Let it be. Forgive us our sins, we say in the Lord’s prayer, as we forgive those who sin against us. Aphes our sins, as we aphiemen those who sin against us. It’s the same word. Let it be, we say. Forgive us, we say. Aphes. We don’t know what is going to happen at the end of time – whatever will be will be. In the meantime, aphes. Before the end of time, we have the long paragraph to walk through, the paragraph which is our journey through this life. What the parable may be suggesting is that good and evil are very closely bound up together and that discipleship is about learning how to live with that complexity, that dilemma. Not a lie back and think of England sort of living with it, but an active learning how to grow through life without strangling others with our badness or being strangled by their badness. Which demands wise patience, a letting-be, forgiveness – in our national and international life, in our own daily lives, and in the life of this church – in the coming days and weeks and through the whole of our lives. Jesus never said it was going to be easy. John Lennon said the same thing: Give Peace a Chance, he sang. Imagine, he sang. It’s not easy, but it is our calling: to have wise patience, to let things be, to forgive, to live faithfully in the mixed-up Technicolor world that is the field full of wheat and weeds, full of the all too human mix of evil and good. May God give us grace The Kingdom of Heaven Sunday 24th July - Trinity Nine - Tim The Kingdom of Heaven - Matthew's phrase for 'the Kingdom of God.' This does not equate to 'the church', though we may hope that the church will exhibit the values of the Kingdom. God is bigger than the church, and is everywhere at work in His world. This is the meaning of Incarnation (Christmas). Jesus tells us two things about the Kingdom 1. It is often small - like the mustard seed; and the yeast. But the seed can become a bush in which many may find a home. And the yeast is God at work in all of us, creating more beauty and usefulness, making us perfect. 2. It often has to be looked for and sought out - like the treasure and the pearl. We have to be alert to this as the church, ready to affirm any sign of God's Kingdom (his presence) wherever it may be found. We are not alone in this task. God does not leave it to us. He engages. And Sunday by Sunday at the Communion we hear what God's love is like, and are fed by him. As we face the daunting task of interregnum, we need to be affirmed in our faith, in our story. Memory is and odd thing Sunday 31st July 2005 Trinity Ten - Ian Memory is an odd thing. There is a huge debate going on about the nature of memory. Most of us will have experienced remembering something which happened to us many years ago and then thinking, “Was it really like that?”, being unable to be quite certain. Some memories are extremely vivid and there is no doubt what so ever. That what we remember is exactly how it was. Memories can bring comfort and joy. Memories can bring sadness and regret. Whatever a memory means to us, as people we do talk about memories to share those things with other people, who may or may not have been involved. They are a link with the past, a past we can not revisit in any other way. When stories about Jesus were circulated before they were recorded as the Gospels we know, they were circulated by people who were there passing on their experiences, memories of the event, if you prefer, by telling the story. Someone’s personal memory or perhaps that passed from person to person, to be recounted at some point. The Gospels were passed around by people talking about what had happened. It wasn’t until those who had experienced those things first hand were starting to die out, that the stories were collated and recorded in writing. The Gospel reading for this morning is a well known account of a miracle event. The feeding of the five thousand. No doubt the oral traditions had all sorts of little anecdotes but the Gospels record the event purely as one of the miracle stories. The bread and fish blessed and made to feed five thousand people gathered to hear Jesus. To experience Jesus walking among the ordinary people of a region, taking to them and healing them and teaching. When they were hungry he fed them from whatever resources were around him. Five loaves and two fish supplied by a boy. Miracle stories are not so popular these days. Most people tend not to believe in miracles. We are taught today that there is a reason for everything and that just because we don’t happen to know what it might be, it doesn’t make it miraculous, simply not understood. The feeding of the five thousand can be viewed from different perspectives. It could be seen as part of the creative power of God It could be seen as Jesus is God living in his World with all of the power of God at his command. An earlier story has Jesus resisting the temptation to turn stones into bread during the temptations in the wilderness. There would have been nothing to stop him from harnessing that power then to satisfy his own hunger. We know from the story that Jesus chose not to demonstrate his power in that way. Matthew’s account of the feeding of the five thousand records Jesus using the power he could have used to save his own discomfort to satisfy the hunger of those people who had gathered together to hear him speak and to experience him walking around among them. The circumstances surrounding that were accepted by the Gospel writers as fact. If we were to be more sceptical and wish to read the story as a myth containing an underlying message, which would not invalidate it at all, we could consider Jesus to be an inspirational figure in the hearts and minds of the people. Through that charisma he has the ability to stimulate the desire to do good things within those gathered there. So much so that they are happy to share anything they had with them in common. He sets the mood and suddenly everyone seems to have food. It becomes a miracle of sharing. The miracle is in the inspiring to share and the response. It might also be seen as a story about the idea of sacrament. God uses the very ordinary things of life to feed us. We commemorate our Eucharist with very ordinary things. We use bread and wine because we are told that they were used at the Last Supper when the disciples were told to remember him in that way. The sacramental life of the church is built around that instruction. All of these ways of looking at this story are perfectly valid and we could use any one of them to make sense out of something the Gospels record as a miracle. None of them diminish the power of what is being recorded. We could also take the story as being a literal record of an event exactly as it happened. However we take the story, something right at the heart of it from any perspective is that it is essentially about people coming to Jesus and his response. Jesus feeds people. Jesus’ ministry wasn’t out there somewhere, it was among everyday people and recognised and satisfied the needs those people had. This applies to our time. If we believe it of those people we have to believe the same applies today. Incarnation is all about God being human and living in his world. Being a part of the everyday world, using very ordinary things to provide what people really needed and extending that to today, what people actually need. Not necessarily what they want but rather what they need. There can be considerable confusion over that. Daily experience is often quite far reaching. Home, work, leisure, joy, sadness, the awful things we see through the media of television or read in newspapers. Pain, sickness, death, worries over family or friends, difficulties with finance or whatever it might be. Those kinds of things we can experience every day. Here we are concerned with the worship of God. Prayers, reading of the Bible, being brought close to God in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. These are not separate from daily experience. The whole point of Jesus’ ministry was to demonstrate the closeness of God in the everyday concerns of people. The two if separated sometimes make no real sense, Sometimes become almost overwhelming. Together one as a part of the other. One image might be to consider the everyday experiences as being held in one hand and the spiritual experience being held within the other. Apart they are incomplete, together they are brought together as one hand meets the other. It is an old analogy, not mine but never the less a good one because it is a simple way to demonstrate how the two are united and become a whole experience and not just one or other aspect of it. It is like, bringing together the hunger of the 5000 people with the person of Jesus, who took, blessed, broke and gave, just as in the Sacrament of our Eucharist One aspect of our experience in isolation is never sufficient. It needs to be both aspects, the worldly and the person of God, to make it whole. The use of physical elements, the bread and the wine or the bread and the fish and then joining them with the spiritual elements brings a clarity and a wholeness into the world. And our church is a building full of people but joined with the person of God it becomes the extension of Christ’s ministry on earth and if Jesus was God living in his world his ministry was among ordinary people in their lives Then so it is with the church as the representation of that ministry. It is no good having one aspect of the church’s life without blending it with the other. Perhaps I shouldn’t mention the word interregnum Some see it as stagnation, a time in no man’s land, the time between the end of an episode in the life of a community and the start of a new episode in the life of a community. But some see it as an opportunity to think carefully about the purpose and the ministry of the community of Christ in a particular place within a particular context. Easy for an itinerant type to say, one who ekes out a living elsewhere and just dips in and out of the life of a community But when Jesus commissioned his followers his intention was quite clearly that his ministry would continue on beyond his Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension. Sacramental ministry did not end with those events it simply moved into another phase of being. This morning’s Gospel is an absolutely brilliant example of the creative power of God and it doesn’t matter how we make sense of it. It represents the presence of Jesus with us and importantly for us, the presence of Jesus with us in our time. Jesus among us in the sacramental life of the church. It is both about sacramental things and the the miracle of sharing and it is an example of the creative power of God. It is a model for a ministry within our world. He looked up to Heaven and blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to the Disciples and the Disciples gave them to the crowd. Amen..... Life is arguably all about perspective Sunday 7th August 2005 Trinity Eleven - Ian Life is arguably all about perspective - for some people the pot is half full while for others the pot is half empty - actually which ever perspective feels right - the pot has half the amount of content it will hold - it is all about perspective Biblical scholars look at today’s Gospel reading from differing perspectives. Some might well look at Peter’s actions and ask if he was simply being foolish to try and emulate what Jesus was doing. Nobody can walk on water without the appropriate set of floatation devices and even then balance is not that easy Some might take a completely different view and claim that this action by Peter was nothing more than a demonstration of his deep faith in Jesus Whatever the danger, he was prepared to step into Christ’s footsteps. And according to the account, even if just for a moment he stayed above the water One perspective would see Peter as an idiot while the other would see him as a man of faith, willing to take a risk. Faith involves a risk. My old rector of years ago would assert that something he quoted from the bible proved something. I could never go along that line because faith by its very nature involves an uncertainty on the one hand while on the other a belief that something was so to the extent that one might actually step out of the metaphorical boat. Peter was one of those characters whose life seems to have been full of peaks and troughs. He was impulsive and often spoke or acted without really thinking. But he was the only Disciple to realise that Jesus was really the Son of God, at least as far as we are aware. A Peak if ever there was one. Then almost immediately he rebukes his Lord for saying that he will be handed over to the authorities and killed. He has such insight but yet fails to grasp so many things. He also denies knowing Jesus very deliberately on no less than three occasions as he stands in the courtyard after Jesus’ arrest in the garden. He is far from perfect and yet he holds such a central place within events. So, different perspectives of the same event. Peter the bumbling buffoon who is always impulsive and always putting his foot in it. Peter the man of faith who although is far from perfect, is willing to take a risk. Tradition tells us that he fled the persecution in Rome but outside of the city he had a vision which effectively turned him back and face the persecution he fled from. He was killed eventually. What would make someone do that? It has to be a deep faith that all will be clear even though it is not so at present. He took a massive risk for the sake of what is described as a vision. The Gospel writers had far less scope to interpret as we do. What they wrote was far more immediate. But Jesus insists that the Disciples leave him alone to pray. There are numerous accounts of Jesus withdrawing to be alone for a while. They obey and set out to cross the lake. Squalls can whip up very quickly in that area. When they set out the weather was fine. Unlike sailors of today there were no weather forecasting facilities or weather radar or whatever else. They had only the weather as it was and their own experience. All looked well and so off they went without Jesus who was having time out. The account doesn’t tell how long they were in the bad weather before they saw Jesus, even though they didn’t recognise him at first. I can’t imagine being confronted by that scene. Jesus walking on the water when I know that the laws of physics and chemistry tell me that people sink in water because they are denser in mass. The Disciples probably didn’t think how odd this was because it contradicted the natural laws. They were simply terrified. They had seemingly forgotten how Jesus had calmed a storm in contradiction to the known physical laws. They were simply terrified and thought they were experiencing a ghost. And the feeding of the five thousand had slipped their minds, even though it happened less than a day ago. They were simply terrified and all else had left them. They were so terrified that they didn’t recognise Jesus through the fear. Peter was probably just as terrified as the others but when Jesus spoke he recognised something of his master and friend and the story that follows we know. Again as in the feeding of the five thousand there is a clear message about God using the ordinary to get across something very important. Peter was an ordinary, uneducated, impulsive man, who one wouldn’t pick out in a crowd. Very ordinary. Very imperfect, yet God uses Peter to show what faith is possible. God demonstrates what Discipleship is all about by using this ordinary, imperfect, uneducated, unreliable man. But he also shows something else about Discipleship and that is the absolute importance of remaining focused. We read that as soon as Peter takes his focus from Jesus he saw all of the things that disabled his faith and he sank into the water, only being saved by Jesus who questions his doubt. A powerful demonstration of what faith can achieve as well as what can disable it. Sometimes it does not take a lot to disable faith. I guess Peter will never have forgotten that episode from his life, what it had felt like at the time, what it felt like later when he remembered it and what he had learned from it. Perhaps every time he remembered the episode he was encouraged in his faith, that the power of Jesus was always there with him, to strengthen him in the midst of the many difficulties his Discipleship brought to him, up until his own violent death at the hands of the persecutors. What we need to remember, without sounding too pompous, is that the Gospels are not records of perfection. They are absolutely littered with imperfection and are refreshingly honest about the various failings of the Disciples. And that is absolute relief to me, that I don’t have to be absolutely squeaky clean to have a relationship with God through Jesus. I don’t have to get it right all of the time to be accepted. I can get it wrong and God still wants to know me, even if others do not. If we go right back into scripture, Adam and Eve got it very wrong. Cane got it very wrong. Abraham was an absolute womaniser and chased anything breathing. Jacob stole his brother’s birthright. King David had his commander sent to his death just so he could have free access to his wife. The great King of the Nation got it very wrong. But God still wanted to know them and worked through them, however much they themselves tried to confound that process by being larger than life human beings. And we who wouldn’t dream of such impropriety can take heart from that and thank God we can! If we try to do anything for God we will face difficulties because god’s work tends not to be popular over all. Just as the Disciples facing that squall in absolute terror and forgetting all of the other things they had seen Jesus do, we too will get it wrong or forget our faith at some point. The message of this morning’s Gospel is quite clear. Jesus is standing by, ready to help us when we start to sink into the mire and despite our inevitable failures from time to time we learn much more and become much more rounded people by trying to follow in his footsteps as Peter did, more so that we could ever do by remaining within our own comfort zone, even though that is where we would really rather be. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came towards Jesus but when he saw the wind he was afraid and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord Save me” Amen Not just me and mine Sunday 14th August 2005 Trinity Twelve - Ian Today’s Old Testament reading brings us the last stage of the story of Joseph and his amazing technicolour dream coat. The story of Joseph is like a delicious Shakespearean reversal. The bumptious daddy’s favourite, Joseph, gets his brothers’ backs up, and they throw him in a pit and try to sell him as a slave. But in Egypt he becomes the Lord Chancellor and holds their futures in his hand. God takes even the evil that people do and weaves it into his own good purposes. That does not mean that we should do evil in order that God may be able to do his good, but it does mean that God can turn even evil to good and is not defeated by it. Joseph is able to see beyond his ill treatment by his brothers to the greater purposes of God to save the people from famine. Here was a lesson about salvation not being just for a little nomadic family, a separate religious group keeping itself apart, but salvation being for them within a larger society, and salvation for the larger society only when it includes them. God’s purpose is bigger than just me, bigger than just my family, bigger than just my religious or cultural group. Northern France is full of names like Arras and the Somme and as you drive through you can’t help thinking of all those who were killed in the first world war on those flat plains. However, today car number plates from Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Holland, Britain all follow each other along the roads, and though we have our differences within the European community, it is more like the squabbling of brothers than the opposition of enemies. We have moved on, in contrast to the bigger issues relating to our immigrant communities, especially recently the pressure on Muslim communities caused by the London bombings and the response to them. We must be cautious here. We each have different sacred texts and each have as many different ways of interpreting them, and a country which has lived with Northern Irish terrorism for decades needs to be careful about pointing the finger to other faith groups. However, the important thing is to recognise that God’s purpose is with the whole and not only with a particular part of humanity. The gospel reading also begins to tease this out. It is not an easy passage and here perhaps Jesus is going through a learning process himself. He has been sent to the people of Israel, but when a non-Israelite woman asks for healing what is he to do? On this occasion he is unable to resist the faith and the persistence and the need, and he allows the blessing to go beyond Israel. If we had read the epistle we would have seen St. Paul wrestling with exactly the same issue. If God’s people were the Jews, but now Gentiles ‘by faith’ have been admitted into God’s kingdom, does that mean that God has rejected his own people the Jews? No, Jew and Gentile are included in one new, whole deal. All have been disobedient, all can be shown mercy. So there are lessons here for us in the church. We can easily settle into our own little family groups, perhaps less so in Stockton Parish Church than in some churches, because you have so many visitors and guests and because you relate to the town centre. But we have to accept that most of our population have become apathetic to religious faith and in the face of that we can be ourselves discouraged. But remember that God works through a remnant, like Joseph, like the nation of Israel. (We are sometimes told that sportsmen and women, like footballers, lose confidence and stop believing in themselves when they have a spell of losing games. It can seem like that for us.) We need to be faithful. We cannot assume responsibility for everything because that is God’s business, but we can pray to be open to God’s overall purpose, and pray for partners who know their need of God. We can easily feel like Joseph in prison, but after all he was able to interpret the dream. Where the King saw meaningless jumbled symbols, Joseph was able to relate the dream to reality and transform the world. He was also seen as trustworthy, principled and visionary. The church needs to cling on to its principle, its vision, and show itself trustworthy in the interpretation of what is going on around us, and remember that God’s purposes are far bigger than our own small self-interest. You, we are just part of God’s loving purpose towards all his creation, and we must play our part, even when we are cast into prison and then asked to interpret an obscure dream about the world around us. But who do you say that I am? Sunday 21st August 2005 Trinity Thirteen - Bridget When you get to a crossroads there has to be a definite decision about the way forward. For Jesus, Caesarea Philippi was the crossroad, and Jesus chose the hard option. At this point he was focussing towards Jerusalem and the agony of what was to come. For Jesus this was the point of now return. There was no turning back Up to this point, his ministry had been healing and teaching in the villages and open places. Caesarea Philippi was also a place of confrontation for the disciples. Until this point following Jesus had been fairly laid back. They would probably never have imagined, standing there listening to Jesus on that autumn day six months before the Crucifixion of Jesus, what they, themselves were capable of, or what their role would be in the future. I doubt if they had ever thought that death was imminent for Jesus. That was another pain and agony that Jesus had to bear on their behalf. They just weren’t going to be ready! Jesus must have gone through all sorts of agonising questions in his mind at this point. But he took the road of the least travelled; the one no one would have wanted. Jesus knew all his disciples inside out. Peter, flawed and ordinary in his job of leadership. Now comes the crunch, for his disciples - a learning curve that from now on was going to get harder – and more extraordinary. Suddenly they had to answer a direct and difficult question. And Peter did remarkably well with is reply – considering Jesus did not enact the role of the Messiah, certainly not in Jewish eyes. And then Jesus chose Peter, who most people would have thought totally unsuitable to lead the future church. There is a tremendous fragility and risk in all of this. Peter, headstrong, bold, enthusiastic, but also flawed and weak enough to deny Jesus when his back was against the wall. For all that, his future role was one that demanded great strength and commitment and at the end of his life, great bravery. During an interregnum, people faults, failings, strengths and aspirations, all come to the surface. As with peter it is not always the ones you expect, who have the vision and strength of leadership that God chooses. God doesn’t make things easy, but he does give opportunities for and enriched and inspired going forward. But we have to listen and go for it. During this time tough decisions have to be made. It is easy to fall back into a situation of safety, familiarity, ‘how things used to be’ – where nothing is challenging, where there is no moving forward. This is not the way of Jesus. The early church was built with love; but also with sweat and tears and hardship, not knowing what the next day would bring. In Jerusalem those first Christians shared everything, helped each other – in their strengths and weaknesses. Most important, they were the people first like and you an me. When we hear of Christians in other parts of the World, facing death, torture, hardship for what they believe in - we know the struggle goes on, every day. Jesus is still being crucified day after day. Every day – in our life and work we should answer the question: But who do you say that i am? Jesus took the hard road, and the disciples after Jesus’ resurrection did get their act together and worked totally for him – with commitment and dedication and suffering for his church and the future – for you and me A poem by Robert Frost, the American poet, The Road Not Taken , is about two paths that diverge in a wood. As he looks down as far as he can see, one is more grassy – and more overgrown that the other, which is obviously used more often. He has to make a decision which one to take. He writes: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth. Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same. And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. AMEN The life and times of Robert Frost Why we should continue to remember? Sunday 18th September 2005 Trinity Seventeen Battle of Britain Sunday - Ian It is always difficult to speak about something outside of our experience - I guess the best that can be done is to imagine what it must have been like to have the experience. Being a young man - knowing that the probability of being killed - or - injured - that day - was very real ----- born out by friends who left with you the previous day - or - sortie - and never returned. There would have been no doubt in the minds of those young men that they could be next. It was pointless planning for a future - life was just that moment ----- that might sound dramatic - but I am guessing that kind of philosophy would have been quite common - living for the moment. Sixty five years on - it is or course - history --- we know what happened - we have heard the stories - seen the films - we have read the books. But what we have not done is experienced it - most of us that is - some of course – survive. We do owe a massive debt of gratitude - to those young men - and - also to everyone else who supported them - on the ground - in the many - many - roles - necessary to the operation overall from a daily log - 20th September 1940 enemy losses confirmed - 6 (two by ground fire) probable - 1 damaged - 2 our losses - 7 aircraft - with 4 pilots killed or missing From the logs I glanced at was a relatively quiet day, it could be argued that they did what they had to do - it was war - everyone made sacrifices but - the fact remains - whatever the motivation - we owe them a debt of gratitude for ensuring that the British Isles remained independent and free from an invading nation which would have changed the face of Europe and brought a dictatorship to a free thinking people. I am not - in saying that - glorifying war - or - wallowing in the victory. War - is ultimately a failure - it is the result of a failure to be able to tolerate difference - and respect human rights - it is a failure of communication - of - a resolve to perpetuate equality - and - dignity for all - and - it is probably a lot more besides. I know from my experience as a police officer - the trick is to talk situations down - but - there are those who just want to fight - and - talking is an absolute waste of time and sometimes the more dangerous option. Something believed strongly enough --- however the distortion - that - force is an appropriate way of bringing that belief to reality - sometimes does not respond to reason. All the talking in the world is not going to convince everyone, sadly sometimes force has to be met with force As a species we don't seem to have grasped the lesson yet that is a long time coming. The best things often are a long time in coming and - where there is life - and - a vision - there is always hope. The academic – Mercia Eliade - said something in a book The Sacred And The Profane To remember is to exist - it is more - it is to re-enact the primordial event ------ to forget is to consign the world into chaos Remembering is a part of being human. We need to remember people - and - events - significant to us - directly - or - perhaps not so directly - but never the less part of the cultural heritage. As a bereavement counsellor - I am aware that difficulties in the bereavement process come from blocking the memories - and - the emotion rather than being able to accept - and - confront ---- simplified ------ yes ----- but essentially - what causes delayed or complex reactions - which disable people completely. We remember for a number of reasons. None of which is to glorify - or - justify - or to wallow in a sense of prevailing - or - not prevailing. There may be distortions as to what remembering is really about - and - from experience we know there are some who will see a victory as something to hit someone else with I would argue that - remembering is not about that --- and ---- particularly remembering something like a war - or - a battle within a war. I would argue that remembering is about - on the one hand - making sense of something - to fit it into a context - to see it in reality - and - as reality; on the other - about - education - and keeping alive the experience. Not because it is a good one - and - something to flaunt ---- but precisely the opposite - in the hope that - future generations will resolve to never allow it to happen again. The survivors of the first world war are all but gone now. The survivors of the second world war - and of - particular campaigns - the Battle of Britain - being one - are around - they have that experience they carry with them. There will be a time when there are no living people who had first hand experience of it - most will now be in their 80's - or approaching that sort of age. In commemorating an event - formally - as we are doing this morning, we remember those who were a part of that event and who sacrificed a good chunk of their younger lives - or - lost that life. This has the effect of keeping that experience alive and - giving those who have not had the experience - an - opportunity to learn about it - and - to see the horrors to incorporate that learning into contemporary life - to ensure that it does not happen again ---- to prevent the chaos - as Eliade puts it - it is often the only thing to connect the past - and - the present - together - to allow both to be taken into the future to positive effect Where is the evidence for this? - someone might say and in truth we seem to make the same mistakes time - and - time again - there are still armed conflicts the world over. Force is still met with force - the world over; the same issues are around - one group dominating - or - seeking to dominate another. So where is the evidence that remembering - can somehow bring learning and change hearts and minds. If we want to go along that path ------where is the evidence for god's effective intervention in the world? After two thousand years of Christian belief and a world wide church - Christians still fight with each other over who is right - rather than focusing on the kingdom of god. After all ---- it is god's church - the extension of the ministry of Christ. If so - where is the evidence? It comes from the events recorded in the gospels - from a time - from which nobody has first hand experience. So we commemorate the events - we remember them - in the hope that the learning will change the hearts - and - minds of people -and - that the kingdom of god - will be a reality and - the fact that it appears not to be so just at present - does not diminish the hope that in the fullness of time - it will ! The same applies to remembering conflict - we can despair that nothing seems to have changed - even after the sacrifice - death - and destruction and the suffering that goes on afterwards - through a whole lifetime of remembering the experiences - the damaged souls - whose wounds are not visible. The fact that we have not achieved a universal continuing peace - yet - does not diminish the hope that in the fullness of time we will ! As long as we do not let the experiences fade into the night ! As long as we do not allow the chaos to reign without challenge I would never be arrogant enough to assert that what I have said is the truth - merely - my view of it - simplified - and - truncated - to fit the occasion and - therein - may well lay the difficulty - the reason we differ - one from another even if there is a definitive universal irrefutable truth - we all see it through the filter of our understanding - and - experience Pilate said it as he struggled not to have to judge Jesus truth - what is that?. The best we can do is to try our very best not to consign the world to chaos - by - remembering the primordial event - and - keeping it alive in the collective consciousness - for the right reasons - not to forget to learn To incorporate that learning To move forwards ------ best we can To remember with true gratitude - those whose experience - we remember - those who by what they did - in a very real way - have brought us - as a people - to this point in history. In the final analysis, as people, we have only one thing we can rightly give ----- and - that is ourselves. Those young pilots - of the RAF - during those heady days of 1940 - gave of themselves - as did all those involved in that service. Some gave their lives and died, some gave their lives and survived, But all who did survive ----- each - and - every one of them - would never be quite the same again -even when the physical wounds heal. The invisible wounds remain. As those people go the way of all flesh - in the fullness of time ---- those experiences are lost unless we remember - the events - and - their part - and - what they meant - and - do mean – today. So we commemorate and remember those who gave their freedom for ours - and we pray - that in remembering we can learn the lessons of history - with the resolve to work towards never allowing the mistakes to be repeated which entails ensuring each generation has that knowledge - and - that learning - to be carried forward To remember is to exist - it is more than that - it is to re-enact the primordial event ---- to forget is to consign the word to chaos Amen The Battle of Britain History Site Harvest Thanksgiving Sunday 25th September 2005 Trinity Eighteen Harvest Sunday - Ian With all of the capacity available to us these days it is hard to believe that there are parts of the world still experiencing shortages of resources. But we know from the various media stories that come up regularly enough; there are massively poor areas and staggering numbers of people who often have absolutely nothing to eat and for the most part nowhere to settle to live. How can an industrialised, technologically advanced, socially organised people allow it to happen? There is poverty in this country for sure and the same applies to every nation, however rich they might be. But generally speaking the majority of people do not face hardship to the extent that they starve or freeze for want of shelter. The term ‘relative poverty’ always makes me squirm I would love a Mercedes 4x4 and because I can’t afford it I am relatively poor compared to the person who can Nonsense, I am not poor at all, in fact quite the opposite but to compare myself with someone else and almost place myself on a kind of continuum of affluence doesn’t help. I am of course generalising. The point I am labouring to make is that we try and control the world to provide us with what we want. Which is different to what we need. Those two things are very different but often become distorted and confused and conjoined. And the truth may well be the quest for that control is an illusion We are as much prisoners of the environment we inhabit as we ever were. Could anyone stop the two hurricanes that hit the southern Gulf States? No! Could we stop the tsunami? No! Could we stop the various volcanic eruptions or earthquakes in recent history? No! Could we stop the failures of the crops in those places regularly suffering from natural phenomenon? No! Could we prevent the starvation and the deprivation suffered by those and others? Yes we could! Do we do anything other than for the moment? A qualified no!. And I say qualified because there is obviously some effort to relive immediate need. I am wondering if anyone has heard of or is familiar with - Occam's Razor. Stephen Hawking the physicist calls it the economy principle - If I can remember correctly Whenever the obvious possibilities have been eliminated then what is left is usually true. In our industrial societies and emerging industrial societies layer upon layer upon layer gets added to the fabric until what is at the heart becomes lost or hidden. But we still add the layers age after age. Simple gives way to complex which gives way to very complex which gives way to so complex it has a life of its own. Self serving complexity which just goes on and on and on. And what is at the heart of this entanglement of structure and politics and the quest to master the planet? People are at the heart of it all. Without people there would be absolutely no point. Who would it be for? So why then do we fail time and time again to see the people and what prosperity for everyone could come from the affluence of a relative few who have the ability or power and will to generate it in the first place? We don’t seem to employ the economy principle using Occam’s Razor to strip away the layers until we are left with the heart of the matter We do it the other way round and add more layers, further hiding what lies at the centre of all endeavour – People. There are surpluses of resources in affluent countries but there are deficits of resources in the less affluent areas. What is the problem? Power, the quest for domination, the quest for wealth, the quest for control of something which can’t be, perhaps. Why is there poverty? Employ Occam’s Razor and we would probably conclude more or less those sorts of things. Strip away the layers and what we are left with may well be something like a lack of will to make it happen. A couple of weeks ago we talked about the feeding of the five thousand. There were a number of interpretations possible, if you remember? One was that Jesus was such a charismatic figure that he inspired people to share whatever they had. Suddenly everyone seemed to have some food and nobody starved. It didn’t need to be a miracle in the sense that masses of food was created from a little as if by magic. The miracle was in the sharing he inspired. People who didn’t even know each other. People who may have come from other areas. People who may even have been less than on good terms. Who knows? But the point is the layers, whatever they might have been were stripped away and the basic need was all there was left. And the need was addressed. And so far as we know nobody suffered as a result. In fact quite the reverse. Jesus as probably the first to use an economy principle. His talent was to strip away the layers and be left with something very essential that was being missed or ignored or simply hidden in shadow. Expose it and inspire people to be able to do the same. That is why, so far as I understand, he was so dangerous to authority. Black was black, white was white; there were no two hundred and fifty six grey scales between the two poles. Our problem is that we operate very much on the level of two hundred and fifty six grey scales between the two poles. Black is not black it is at the black end of grey. White is not white it is at the light grey end of grey And to reach either the layers of grey simply make it so difficult we either give up or are satisfied with dark grey or light grey or mid grey Poor is poor. It is not relative to anything. Poor is poor. Being hungry is being hungry it is not relative to anything. Being homeless is being homeless it is not relative to anything. The economy principle. Strip away all the possibilities or explanations and we are left with absolutes. It is the absolutes that kill. Not the relatives or the compared to or with. It is the poles which contain the need and scaling it grey between doesn’t help if you are at the pole. We complicate things so much. All Jesus ever really said was look beyond the layers and what you will find is what matters most. Everything else is an illusion. It is not real and it will not last. I am undoubtedly being unfair by generalising. There are many generous altruistic and philanthropic people in the world. But there are more who are not and become insulated within whatever they have carved out for themselves. Jesus said, “the poor you will always have with you”. The episode you will no doubt recall - and he was surely right. That phrase was used as part of a defence of democratic capitalism by Michael Novak in a book entitled The spirit of democratic capitalism. The idea is the trickle down effect as the rich get richer the economic benefits of increased affluence trickle down and generally make everyone else more affluent. Great in theory and an extremely well argued case. But if that is so where is the evidence around to substantiate that in reality. Perhaps the only way to examine something like that is to use Occam’s Razor and dismiss everything that cannot actually be observed. To be left with the observable; which has to be real. Would it be the poorer getting richer the world over or would we see what we have become accustomed to Two poles divided by two hundred and fifty six grey scales to allow debate either way? I am not attacking Michael Novak because what he writes about is a wonderful vision given that we have the poor always. But given our current state of thinking and political will, I seriously doubt it is real, at least for a significant number. So back to Jesus, back to the feeding of the five thousand, back to Occam’s Razor. Back to seeing black as black and white as white. Back to people Harvest thanksgiving is a tradition to say thank you for the harvest in all of its diversity and a time to pray that it will continue to sustain and nourish. Perhaps it should also be a time to remember the miracle of sharing on the hillside when five thousand people cared for each other with whatever they had, whoever they were. Our faith is not a complicated matter of deep academic theology collected and expounded down the ages. That is layering. Our faith is a simple matter of seeing to the heart of the matter and responding to it. Seeing through the grey scales to the black or white. Using the ‘economy principle’ enshrined in Occam’s Razor. What else did Jesus do other than that? A saying used by Jesus at the end of a lot of his teaching was -Then go and do likewise If we can see the miracle of sharing, the possibility of that, what would Jesus say? How about - then go and do likewise Amen Follow this link for more infomation on Occam's Razor St Luke and Healing Sunday 16th October 2005 Trinity Twenty one - Granville Today we are celebrating St Luke's Day. A church which only has services on a Sunday and a Wednesday can miss out on a lot of the special saints days. In fact it may be many years before it notices a given saint has his or her special day on a Sunday. You can miss out in not noticing these days. I ask you three questions What is a Saint? Who was Saint Luke? What is the relevance to Stockton Parish Church? A saint is not someone who never did anything wrong, rather a saint is someone whose example is relevant to generations after the life of the saint, in the eyes of the church. Such Saints are often painted on stained glass windows - generally dating to Victorian Times. I can see on one of the windows here commemorates Saint Oswald and Saint George - this is a particularly fine portrayal as the painter has managed to make both figures look like human beings instead of some strange knightly person with halos on. There is another fine window on the other side showing the baptism of Christ with again the figures looking like people. I have left my halo behind today, and I can see that you the congregation have left yours behind to., Maybe we all meet up in heaven (or wherever) we will see our halos again, for as Christians we are all saints, according to St. Paul. St Luke was a healer - and author of the Gospel bearing his name and The Acts of Apostles. You should read the Acts like a book - start at chapter 1 verse 1 and continue to the end. Its not a long book but relates about the great adventure as the new church started to gain its strength and grow - spreading out as an inclusive church. I remember my time as Archdeacon having to look at Parish Profiles in times of interregnum - a wordy document which your PCC will also be producing in the coming weeks. I recall one PCC sending in a Profile saying they wanted a Vicar that would not change anything, bring no new people into the church and leave everything as it was. I had to go to that PCC and advise them about the impracticality of their proposed profile. Luke was also a healer - like many churches I doubt if SPC has a healing service. Of course the vicars would perform the laying of hands and other acts but the concept of a special healing service has largely gone. In the church in Rumania they still have such services, many churches still have a special healing service every month, the monasteries have one more frequently and draw in large numbers of people for these services. It is a time of inclusion when all give thanks and praises. And what is the relevance to SPC - you should be praised for the way you are inclusive with the communion circle. The circle receiving communion, when all are welcome and equal is (I find) a wonderful moving experience. Why do churches have communion rails - acting as a barrier between the priest and the congregation. They go back to medieval times when they were brought in to stop dogs (and other animals) defecating against the altar. They have since become barriers - they destroy inclusiveness when we all can share at the holy table. You have been courageous in dispensing with the rails, bringing the altar to this open space and creating the inclusive circle to celebrate the Eucharist. I also do not see any signs of dogs doing whatever against your altar! So let us pull these bits and pieces together. Saint Luke , first and foremost a man whose influence continually affects the church, whose love of Christ lets the Light of Christ shine from him., St. Luke the Healer, calling the Church to be a healing body, and Stockton Parish Church, seeking to show the Light of Christ in this community, seeking healing within this community by its inclusive approach, and each one of us endeavouring day by day to follow St. Luke’s example, that we may shine in the world to the glory of God the Father. Love God and your neighbour Sunday 23rd October 2005 Last Sunday in Trinity - June Doesn’t time fly? Here we are again on the last Sunday of the long Trinity Season – in 3 weeks it will be advent. In today’s gospel reading, we find those Pharisees at it again, trying to trap Jesus with questions. This time it’s a lawyer who asks “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” No Jew would have been surprised at the first part of the answer of Jesus “You shall love the Lord thy God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.” Very familiar words – the first of the Ten Commandments, and very important, for the Jews, the opening sentence of the SHEMA – the “confession” of faith recited then (and now) twice every day, morning and evening by every adult Jewish Man, It began “Hear O Israel, the Lord the God is one Lord and you shall love…and so on”. As we read the gospels, we find echoes of it as the story of Jesus unfolds, Think, for example of his temptations in the wilderness when he rejects the devil’s attempts to persuade him to distrust God and take matters into his own hands. He finally dismisses Satan with the words “ You shall worship the Lord thy God, and him only shall you serve ”. In his answer to the lawyer, Jesus has not quoted from the Shema, but summed up the first five commandments, the basis for Israel’s relationship with God. God and God alone comes first in everything. But what of the other five commandments? Jesus sums them up with a quotation from Leviticus (Chapter 19, verse 18) “ Love your Neighbour as Yourself, I am the Lord ”. So Jesus puts together TWO great commandments, which have one word in common – namely LOVE – LOVE writ large, Love is the guiding principle behind the Jewish Law and therefore becomes the guiding principle for those who follow Jesus, We may ask “How is the commandment to love God, related to the commandment to love your neighbour?” Well is we read a couple of chapters in Matthew’s Gospel, we find the parable of the sheep and goats and the last Judgement of the King will declare as he separates the good from the bad, that what we have done for the least of our brothers we have done for him. There can be no true love of God without love our neighbours – yet LOVE of God comes first – from that everything flows naturally. We find the same thing reflected in the Old Testament in the story of Moses. Moses was at first reluctant to answer God’s call because he felt unable and unworthy for the magnitude of the task. – from that everything flows naturally. We find the same thing reflected in the Old Testament in the story of Moses. Moses was at first reluctant to answer God’s call because he felt unable and unworthy for the magnitude of the task. Yet in obeying God and increasingly placing his trust in him, he found strength to lead God’s people from slavery to freedom – time and again as they endured the hardships of the wilderness the people grumbled and rebelled yet Moses continued to love them and lead them and to plead for them before God. He set before then the vision of the Promised Land. Moses could have rejected God’s call and stay in Mideon with his father – but his obedience to God came first and instead of becoming a keeper of sheep, he became a keeper of God’s people. Today we find him on the threshold of the Promised Land in Moab. From the top of Mount Nebo he sees the extent of the land promised by God, a land that he will not enter, but for Israel the fulfilment of God’s promise. Moses is content that he had played his part in bringing his people so far and set the vision before them and he is content that Joshua will lead them on. Love and trust in God and love of your neighbour in action – unselfish and suffering love, wonderful qualities of leadership. Putting God first but including one’s neighbour. We who are hear today are commanded by Jesus to love one another as brothers and sisters in Christ – the peace which we share is an outward expression of this but we are also commanded to go out (strengthened by Christ in the sacrament as Moses was strengthened by his meetings with God) to love indiscriminately, friends and foes alike, just as God loves us. I wonder if you heard an interview with Dr John Sentamu our new Archbishop of York on Radio 4 on Friday. He was asked about the racist hate mail he has received including human excrement accompanied by the words This is what you are worth and there were other messages – Mr Nigger go home . His first response is to pray for God’s Love and mercy for those unknown cowardly people who sent them. For from displaying bitterness, he praises this country as more tolerant and welcoming of all he has been to and he said This tiny minority is not going to stop me from telling people that if we become a society that will discover the wonderful love of God in Christ, we have a chance of leading the nation in prayer” . A wonderful example – love of God and neighbour – we look forward to his leadership. Amen Our Sunday School came up with the following prayer Dear God We love you more than our toys. We love you more than presents. We love you more than books. We love you more than drawing. We love you more than painting. We love you more than our families. Thank you that you love us. 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