Sunday's coming!

Welcome – Christ’s radical call What does it really mean to be made welcome? I had a great example on holiday of being made welcome at a church (actually I’ve been lucky enough to be made welcome at a number of churches this summer – but I want to share one example in particular..). “We” were a funny group – my friend Susan & I (who are fast learning to think of ourselves as middle-aged), our friends Nigel & Glenda (just into their 60s), Susan’s daughter Grace (in her 20s) & her husband & 2 children under 3. We were staying in a quiet village in Devon – and spotted that the local Anglican church had an all-age service with baptism on the Sunday we were there. Perfect! We would be lost among the guests for the baptism & could just slip in and out without too much fuss. When you’re a minister on holiday you dread the ‘where are you from and what do you do?’ questions – maybe everyone does! So our funny groups trickled into church about 10 minutes before the service wa...

So the readings for Sunday August 29th are: Jeremiah 2:4-13 Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16 Luke 14:1, 7-14 And the theme seems to be 'welcome'. Jesus (it seems) wants to be a bit more radical than simply saying 'be nice to people'. So our sense of hospitality, as a church needs to go beyond just how to be smiley and welcoming. As I've spent quite a bit of the summer as a welcomee, rather than a welcomer, I hope I can say something about what it means to be made welcome. The main service will be for all 4 churches here, so maybe the sense of radical hospitality also needs to embrace a new enthusiasm for working more closer together and seeking new ecumenical links. I also have Cranmer's 'prayer of humble access' running through my head "we are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table, but it is your nature (or even 'property') always to have mercy, and on that we depend...". God models for us the grace to embrace others full...

I'm not used t having so long to prepare - as I'm off again this Sunday & then back on 22nd. But I thought I'd better make a start: Readings are: Jeremiah 1:4-10 - 'before I formed you in the womb I knew you' & call of Jeremiah Hebrews 12:18-29 - a rather impenetrable bit about the worship of God (I think!) Luke 13:10-17 - the healing on the Sabbath of the woman bent double So - first thoughts. What keeps us bent & crippled - & how do we allow God to release us? And what is our worship about - hoe does it seem to others.. how do we ofer worship that allows people to meet with God? That's the trouble with holidays - too much time to think about big questions...

Apologies to regular readers - last week I was on holiday (Devon - lovely!) & I'm back this Sunday for just one week before 2 more weeks off - normal blogging will resume for August 22nd. But here's this week's: Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23 Luke 12:13-21 Priorities I’m delighted to have had a reading from the book of Ecclesiastes this morning. It has long been a favourite of mine, since discovering chapter 12, verse 12 whilst studying for school exams: “there is no end to the writing of books, and too much study is wearisome”. That could, of course, be the end of this sermon: but I think it’s worth our risking getting weary for a little while, to look at what our readings have been saying about priorities. A few weeks ago we were looking at the story of Martha & Mary. Martha complains to Jesus that Mary is not helping to prepare the meal as she should, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to get on with the work all by myself?”. In today’s gospel re...

Mary & Martha Who doesn’t know the story of Mary & Martha? It’s one of the gospel stories that I don’t think we could forget if we tried. Every part of me longs for Jesus to say ‘Yes, poor Martha, let’s both come & help you & we’ll all carry on talking in the kitchen’ – and he never does. So if it’s such a familiar story, how can we get something fresh from it? I hope so, if we put three different things alongside the Gospel story. First of all, I’d like to put the story alongside a modern-day experience. My daughter Ellie is home for the holiday now, and doing what all self-respecting teenagers do – as little as possible. Whilst lying inert on the sofa the other day she was watching a programme called ‘Come dine with me’. Basically a group of strangers take it in turns to have each other round for dinner every night for a week, and they each give each other points out of ten – and the one with most points at the end of the week wins £1000. In the episode Ellie was wat...

Luke 10:25-37 - If Jesus is the Good Samaritan. This has to be one of the most familiar stories the Bible has to offer us. Jesus tells us about 3 potential helpers who find a man, robbed and beaten, on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. Just as we have jokes which begin ‘There was a Scotsman, an Irishman and an Englishman…’ so in the time of Jesus there were jokes which began ‘There was a Levite, a priest and an ordinary Israelite…’ – and the hero of the joke was always the ordinary Israelite. When Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan he takes this familiar pattern and changes it, to make his listeners sit up and think. So the hero, the third person to come along, is not an Israelite, the one like his listeners, and liked by his listeners, but the hero of Jesus’ story was the Samaritan, a person who would have been ignored and even hated. We are used to hearing this story, we know it tells us that everyone is our neighbour, that we must ‘go and do likewise’ – and r...

Lectionary gospel reading is Luke 10:25-37 - Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan. As I've just come back from a thought-provoking General Assembly, I think I want to say something about where we're at, as a church. At General Assembly this weekend we acknowledged the closure of more than 20 churches, and welcomed just 3. We heard stories of exciting things happening in some places: but I also spoke to plenty of people living with fear, decline & near despair. I am reminded, in re-reading this story, of an Orthodox understanding of the characters involved. In some icons of the Good Samaritan, he is shown with a halo. Maybe that's not so surprising, as he is described as 'Good' - but in icons halos are not for good people, but for God's people - the Saints - and particularly, of course, the halo points to Jesus. In some icons (above) the Good Samaritan figure is even named as Jesus Christ. Our reading of the story changes dramatically as we rem...