Sharing Salvation

A sermon preached by Revd Ray Anglesea at St Andrew's Dawson Street, Crook
Sunday December 18th 2011

A few years ago I had the privilege of conducting the funeral service of my wife’s midwife. Marie had attended my wife throughout her pregnancies; some of the children were born at home, some in the local hospital. Marie’s no- nonsense approach, her support and care, her professionalism was excellent in every respect. Having held my wife’s hand during the birth of our children I often wondered who whose hands Mary squeezed? Who helped Mary with her breathing exercises 2,000 years ago, who fetched the water, the towels and swaddling clothes? In an age when 1in 3 babies and 1in 4 mothers died in childbirth, giving birth must have been a frightening and dangerous procedure in 1st century Palestine (what a risk God must have taken!)

Early theologians of course were quick to defend the virgin birth - as well as conception – it was so easy. Alas for some conception is far from easy as Alex Smallbone, the longsuffering wife played brilliantly by Olivia Coleman from the BBC2 sitcom Rev is experiencing. Will St Saviour’s in the Marsh be blessed by a new baby this Christmas I wonder?

Early theologians, generally the fathers of the Church were less sure about whether Mary, or Jesus, really needed any help conceiving of giving birth. In classic Christian thinking, iconography and paintings, which we have looked at this morning, it is normal to see the infant Jesus as the saviour-in-waiting, with Mary as a worshipping witness rather than a woman who has just given birth. No one is there to really aid the mother and child. A midwife is not mentioned in the birth narratives, unlike the Hebrew midwifes at the time of the birth of Moses, who feared God and as a result “the people multiplied” says the bible and “became strong.” A Christmas card sent a couple of years ago from the synod moderator showing 1st century Palestinian midwifes attending the birth of Jesus created quite a discussion amongst synod ministers – it was a beautiful card from the collection of Barbara Marian’s Nativity Project - where in the birth narratives is a midwife mentioned? rather like the other presumed characters who appear at this time of the year......the innkeeper, soldiers, donkey, Little Drummer Boy, ox and ass, Cliff Richard, robins and Santa Claus. This year the synod moderator has sent to synod staff her Christmas card showing three wise women attending the birth of Jesus. I guess that will provoke comment too.

In the recently critically acclaimed exhibition at the National Gallery “Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan,” the 15th century exquisite portraits of the Virgin, painted to convey a sense of awe-inspiring mystery gives no hint that Mary ever had a contraction, required gas and air......... the epidural must have been a knock out - literally! There she is in her classic blue gown, radiant with motherly bliss, baby Jesus sleeping peacefully, no crying he makes.

Well if childbirth as recorded in the gospel appeared a pretty easy and straightforward affair then at face value the complicated business of Jesus’ growing up appears equally uncomplicated. It must have appeared a doddle to the daily rollercoaster life of the Brockman family and their children Jake, Ben and Karen from the comedy sitcom Outrnumbered. The gospel stories inform us that Jesus' path and destiny from stable to cross is already marked out. The more spiritually alert folk - his mother, the wise men, Simeon and the shepherds - all seem to know what is happening. Salvation is coming through this one child sleeping tenderly in the manger: it will cost God everything, and you nothing. You cannot help God but he has come to help you.

But looking at the gospels closer they paint a more subtle picture. The bringing of salvation to the world, the title of another major exhibition some years ago at the National Gallery, London turns out to be a work in which the cost of salvation is shared amongst many. Other people are involved in the process. It’s not just all down to baby Jesus, sweetly sleep, do not stir. Mary the teenage mother must say "yes", the Annunciation is her sacrifice. Jesus escapes the wrath of Herod, but thousands of infants do not. Others, such as John the Baptist, lose their lives for Jesus before He can sacrifice his. God's salvation incurs sacrifice on behalf of other, it incurs cost.

And I say the cost deliberately. You may remember the Sunday School pneumonic – what does Grace mean – answer - God's Riches At Christ's Expense – well older and wiser now the pneumonic is not actually quite right. In bringing heaven to earth, light into the darkness, joy to the world – the Lord has come - Jesus' is not the only sacrifice. In short, God cannot do it alone; Mary's "yes" is of course needed, but help is needed too from the unknown helpers on the refugee trail to Egypt, the shepherd, the innkeeper, the wise men. God, in coming as a child, invites the many people who were around at the time, to help from the very first in the bringing of salvation.

And it is these people that the children so loving portray in their nativity plays every year, shepherds with tea towels, wise men in dressing gowns, Mary in her blue dress. The nativity players to be sure are characters and studies in Christian virtue, discipline and generosity which we may wish to look at during the Christmas season. (I always like Mary to have started her contractions on the 24th December before the church enjoys its nativity plays and the singing of Christmas carols). Some of the characters like the presumed innkeeper extends his boundaries to find one more room; very like the mansions of God, there is room. The wise men – or as the synod moderator would have it on her Christmas card – the Wise ones - bring extravagant gifts, speaking of the foolish generosity so rarely found in kingly power, but especially bestowed in God's kingdom now coming to birth.
People like the lowly shepherds, irregular temple worshippers who mirror the spontaneity and searching of Christ; you may find him, but he will come looking for you anyway. And the people of Egypt, this great ancient civilisation, too often unsung, are also part of the salvation adventure, they sustain the asylum seekers the holy family on their journey into their country. Small wonder that, as an adult, Christ preached on the importance of welcoming the stranger.

So, looking at this big complex word salvation in terms of God solely bearing the cost and not needing our help, is by no means simple and clear cut. The complicated Christmas salvation story is far richer in depth and meaning. Grace should really be seen as something that is expansive as it is expensive rather than costly. God involves many people in that work of "gathering up all things in Christ", as St Paul’s puts it, that great ambassador for the Gentiles, and allows all sorts of folk to participate in his saving work. Remember last year’s sermons from Matthew’s gospel. The birds of the air that make their nests in the mustard tree, the eagles, the wrens, the robins, people of all shapes and sizes, cultures, diverse backgrounds including the stranger - He invites his followers to share in the expenditure of salvation, and to distribute the rewards. We are partners in this extraordinary business, in which everyone can receive a full and equal share of God's riches. This is generosity defined.

The wonderful thing to remember on this the 4th Sunday of Advent, before Mary goes into labour and Joseph begins to panic is that in coming to save us, God reaches out to us, because God is partly dependent upon us to bring salvation to the world too, to bring his love for all humanity to share. In so doing we may not only receive the message but can begin to live it, even before we have understood it. This is God's true wisdom, coming to us as a helpless child who reaches out to us. The Christmas story is ultimately one of midwifery as it is the sharing of salvation.

Ray Anglesea

Advent: The coming of the Kingdom of God

An Advent Sunday illustrated sermon preached by Ray Anglesea at Sedgefield Methodist Church, Sedgefield, 27^th November 2011

For those who commute regularly on the East coast mainline to Kings Cross you will swiftly pass  some of England’s great churches. These spectacular historic buildings look like haunting and majestic apparitions as their towers and spires emerge out of the thick mist on dark November mornings. York Minster with its Saxon foundations and Benedictine community now a 15^th century architectural masterpiece;  St George’s, Doncaster rebuilt by George Gilbert Scott in the 19^th century; the parish church of St Mary Magdalene at Newark which has one of the tallest spires in England; the large medieval 13^th century parish church of St Wulfram, Grantham, built of Lincolnshire limestone and finally to Peterborough Cathedral, another Benedictine Abbey dedicated to St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew - the cathedral will shortly be celebrating its 900^th anniversary.   These historic and architectural significant buildings with vast spaces, filled with music reveal the human imagination at work on glass, stone, and other fabrics. The buildings are perfect stages for the contemplation of the ordered universe and the transcendent beauty of traditional holiness.

The best church I kept till last. Durham Cathedral, where I work and much admired by passengers – views from Durham railway viaduct reveal one of the photographic icons of north-east England. “Grey towers of Durham, how well I love thy mixed and massive piles, half church of God, half castle 'gainst the Scot, to quote Sir Walter Scott.” But of course, the view is not just admired by train passengers with Cannon cameras, it is well-liked by people across the world, many of whom see it as the greatest Romanesque building in Europe. The celebrated vista of Cathedral and Castle set on the acropolis of their wooded peninsular is unforgettable, as is the interior of this wonderful church. For this reason the UNESCO World Heritage Site, of which the cathedral and its environs are a major part, was one of the first to be inscribed. Epithets like “Britain’s best loved building” try to capture what it is that gives the Cathedral its unique place in the affections of so many. Its beautiful setting and its architectural purity, the spirituality imparted by the long history of prayer and worship certainly play a part.

These mainline churches were built as if to last for ever. They remind me of Ken Follett’s popular novel The Pillars of the Earth, set in the middle of the 12^th century. The novel traces the development of Gothic design out of the preceding Romanesque architecture and tells the fortunes of the Kingsbridge priory, Priory Philip and his master builder, Tom.  But do these buildings last forever? King Henry VIII set the administrative and legal processes in the sixteenth century by which he disbanded England’s monasteries, priories, convents and friaries – only the local ruins of Fountains Abbey, Finchale and Tynemouth Priories now remain. Many of our nonconformist chapels have been demolished or converted to furniture warehouse, carpet shops, antique sale rooms and restaurants. And if they haven’t been demolished or converted to other uses they may well have been robbed of their lead - payouts from metal theft from places of worship have increased by 70% nationally and are expected to reach £5.5 million by the end of the year. One of the Durham cathedral community members, the widow of the late Bishop of Peterborough, was in Christ Church Cathedral New Zealand in February this year when the earthquake destroyed the spire and part of the tower – and severely damaged the structure of the remaining building. She was shaken by the event but mercifully not hurt. The Cathedral in New Zealand was deconsecrated on Wednesday November 9th in an emotional ceremony as it was returned to secular use while long term options are considered.

 Listen again to the opening words of today’s Advent Sunday gospel from Mark. The disciples are admiring the splendour of Herod’s temple: ‘Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!’ And Jesus says to them: ‘Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another: all will be thrown down’.

It’s as a consequence of this alarming prediction that they question him further: ‘Lord, when will these things be, and what will be the signs of the end?’ The warning of this ‘little apocalypse’ is clear: be ready, for you do not know the day or the hour’. Taken at face value, these Scriptural images in this tense and edgy gospel with which we begin Advent - traditionally a time that reflects on the four last things: death, judgment, hell and heaven, make little sense to the 21st century mind. They are profoundly disturbing ones - signs in the sun and the moon; stars falling from the sky; the powers of heaven shaken and the Son of Man coming on clouds with power and glory. For most modern day Christians they bring us face to face with uncomfortable questions. How do we live with all this talk of judgement and the second coming? How can we relate to the call of the prophets that God might tear open the heavens and come down and cause the nations to tremble at God’s presence?

 It’s tempting to dismiss or ignore these images, or to moderate that language into something more palatable to modern thinking. But to do so is to lose sight of the difficult but vital truths those images convey. Paula Gooder, in the Advent book “The Meaning is in the Waiting” a line take from the Welsh poet R S Thomas poem “Kneeling,” which we read ealier in the service comments that only by engaging with what she calls the “end-time” theology of readings such as those we’ve just heard can we begin to understand the big Biblical themes of salvation, resurrection and the Kingdom of God. The big cosmic feel of Advent invites us into a world of unpredicted time and place which is unfamiliar and uncomfortable but which ultimately speaks across the centuries to those common human experiences of questioning and puzzlement in which faith is challenged and honed and brought to new realities and new understanding.

As we look back over the last Christian year no-one could accuse 2011 of being a slow news year. Some of a more radical disposition with end-time thoughts in mind might say it has been a year of disaster, catastrophe, a day of reckoning, judgement day. We have had protests and regime change in Tunisia, in Egypt, in Libya - not to mention political demonstrations in Jordan, Yemen, Morocco, and Palestine. We are beset with the on-going massive Eurozone debt crisis, with a bailout in Ireland, a bailout in Portugal - a second bailout in Greece, which appears to have been as inadequate as the first – and rumours of bailouts in Spain and Italy abound. 

Turning closer to home we have had - the slow and painful unfolding of a media phone-hacking scandal that not only beggars moral belief –but also has heralded the extraordinary spectacle of two of the most powerful media men in the world appearing before a Parliamentary Select Committee. There has been the explosion of rioting in numerous UK cities, motivated by little more than violence and greed. You might want to add to this potent mix - rape charges made and then dropped against the head of the IMF- a massive tsunami and fears of a nuclear meltdown in Japan - massive famine in the horn of Africa - a massacre in Norway- the killing of the world’s most wanted terrorist. And yes the church in the form of St Paul’s Cathedral has hit the headlines, built as it is on a deep theological fault line where the two powerful tectonic plates, God and mammon, meet right under Wren's magnificent baroque masterpiece." If cathedrals are seen as monuments to transcendent beauty and traditional holiness, then in the life of Jesus, holiness is redefined as justice. Rowan Williams in a speech to the Lord Mayors Banquet, London last week drew attention to the “alarming instability being played out in the cities across the world as the economic crises deepens and called for repentance as a way to restore trust or credibility.” 

But whatever we think of recent global events and the fear and uncertainty that they provide,  this dark and difficult passage is, let me remind you, about a building. Even the temple, says Jesus, will not last forever. When you visit Jerusalem, as I have done, and place your hands in the crevices of the western wall which is all that is left of Solomon’s magnificent and beautiful temple, and pray, you cannot help being reminded that man’s grandest designs are subject to the same law as everything else: earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Advent is the time in the Christian year when we come to terms with the facts of our human condition. Mortality is a fact not only of our personal social and economic lives but also of our institutions. And that includes church buildings. To take our Gospel reading literally this morning would imply that one day, inevitably, but hopefully not soon, not one stone of our great buildings will be left standing upon another? I think that the monks who put up Durham cathedral 900 years ago knew that while they built as if forever, it was not forever. They built for God and his kingdom; they knew from the rule they followed that his kingdom was not of this world. In this, it stood in sharp contrast to the earthly kingdom to whose ruthless power this cathedral was also a monument: the Norman conquerors. Like Herod’s temple, even the buildings that stand most powerfully for spiritual aspiration can also represent ambition, power and hubris.

I think this ambivalence is good for us. Listen to the voice of the New Testament. ‘The things that are seen are transient; the things that are unseen are eternal.’ ‘We have here no abiding city, but we seek that which is to come.’ In today’s passage from St Mark, we are faced with the stark realisation of how provisional everything is: our possessions, our relationships, our institutions, our achievements, our lives. All this, says the apocalyptic Jesus, will be swept away at the coming of God that will wind up history and bring in the reign of his kingdom. And even if we step back from the imagery and ascribe it, as we must, to the feverish, end-of-the-world milieu in which 1st century Christians believed they were living in, we can’t escape the vividness of Jesus’ teaching, its urgent summons to look afresh at things and consider what we rate as truly important in this life.

It is very good and sobering for people like me, a former URC synod Listed Buildings Advisory officer as well as Methodist property stewards and custodians of magnificent church buildings to be reminded every so often that there will come a time when not one stone will be left standing upon another. I pray that you and I never see it. And yet, doesn’t that prayer betray the possibility that I might love these stones too much, the symbol rather than what it points to, the creature rather than the creator?

The coming of God’s kingdom exposes to his just yet loving scrutiny all our fears and longings. Advent is our opportunity to cultivate what the gospel calls ‘purity of heart’. This means willing the one thing necessary for our happiness, for the salvation of our race, for the healing of our world. That one thing is God’s kingdom. It is the only hope we have. If we are true to the One who is not only in all things but above and beyond all things, then we shall have understood our great building aright, and shall cherish our stones all the more because of him for whose glory and kingdom they, and we, exist. And if one day tower and temple fall to dust, it is to make way for something greater, when death and hell have fled before the presence of Light and Love, and the holy city, the new Jerusalem has come, of which it is foretold: ‘I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light.’

Isaiah 64: 1-9; Mark13: 1-8, 24-end

Ray Anglesea is a self supporting minister working in St Andrew’s Dawson Street LEP, Crook and in the wider West Durham Methodist Circuit

At the Cenotaph

A sermon preached by Ray Anglesea at a Civic Remembrance Day Service, St Catherine’s Parish Church, Crook.  Sunday 13th November 2011.

Remembrance Sunday is a symbolic day in the life of our nation. We remember and honour the lives of service man and women who, for our freedom, fell in the trenches and wastelands the length of the Western front; we remember and pay tribute to the memory of those who fell in the second global conflict that took such a terrible toll on humanity; we remember those who fought in more recent campaigns, Korea, the Falklands, Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan. And finally we remember those drawn into the maw of war from the Empire; we are proud to honour their citizen’s sacrifice for Britain. Today in this service and later, we honour and pay tribute to the memory of all the fallen and particularly those who fell in the line of duty from this town. The best tribute to those who died and are still dying for their country comes today around the town’s cenotaph. It will take the form of silent, reverential homage. In the words of Lawrence Binyon’s poem “For the fallen”.....we shall remember them.

But remembrance is not static – it’s a constantly growing and evolving action which gives us the opportunity to take hold of the past and transform it. As a result of military conflict and the horrors of war we humans have a choice, we can either generate destruction through the practice of hate or generate peace through the practice of love. Many of our fellow country men and women have chosen the latter way, to reach out with grace, understanding and healing, a way not of denial and revenge, but a way of love, of trying (and I like that humble little world) to love one’s neighbour. Such is the power of love that our fellow countrymen and women reach out with ever greater acts of love and compassion. And by their action life is regenerated and people miraculously thrive and are healed. So today, I with you, would wish to salute  and remember not only the fallen but to give thanks for the many individuals, groups and organisations who as a result of military conflict are making a positive difference to our world, our country and community, who are finding ways of providing healing, hope and peace.

 A way of love shown by the Royal British Legion which this year celebrates its 90th anniversary. To celebrate this milestone a new portrait of the Queen produced by Yorkshire artist Darren Baker has been unveiled. The painting shows the monarch seated in a blue dress – the Royal British Legion’s official colour, her watch set at 11am, she wears a spray of five poppies. The Royal British Legion is committed to the welfare, interests and memory of Service families. The current number of potential beneficiaries for the Legion’s welfare services is estimated at £9.5 million, reaching out to the 500,000 service personal that are in the greatest need. Over this year, the Legion aim’s to raise £90 million, £1 million for every year of its existence.

 A way of love shown by the organisation Help for Heroes, a British Charity launched in October 2007 to help British servicemen and women and founded by Bryn and Emma Parry. To date the charity has raised over £40 million pounds, £47,000 per day since it was launched. Prince William at the opening of the Hedley Court Rehabilitation Centre last year stated “very occasionally – perhaps once or twice in a generation – something or someone pops up to change the entire landscape. What has been achieved at Hedley Court, the defence medical rehabilitation centre is in truth the tip of the iceberg.”

A way of love shown by the inhabitants of Wooten Bassett; a royal title has been bestowed of the small Wiltshire market town. The honour came in recognition of the years when the bustle of everyday life stopped on 167 occasions to honour the repatriated bodies driven through its streets.

A way of love shown by the England football team’s personal response to wear poppies on their black armbands at yesterdays match against Spain.

Alas our country is still at war. Our nation is beset with deep uncertainties. Security pervades our daily lives on an unheard-of scale making us feel even more insecure; and if that were not enough, a global economic crisis that is probably the worst for more than a century and which will take years, maybe decades, to recover from. The world is not the same as it was. We live in precarious times which make us very afraid for the safety of our world and the future of our children.

 

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a 20th Century Roman Catholic theologian, shifts our focus from why things happen to asking “how will we respond” to the sadness and destruction of war and to an uncertain and insecure world.  As we all know, enmity, hatred, revenge and bitterness are almost inevitable consequences of violence and war. Jesus Christ was the first human being in history to make the divine revelation: ‘Love your enemy, pray for those who persecute you.’ This might sound unrealistic, almost ridiculous and certainly extremely difficult to follow.  Every one of us has the choice: to surrender our hearts to anger and revenge, or to allow the risen Lord to help us fulfil His commandment to love our enemy and to remember always that love never falls. That is our choice: to repay evil with evil or to show the humility to repay evil with an act of love. The Royal British Legion, Help for Heroes, the inhabitants of Royal Wooten Bassett and countless thousands of individual members of the British public in their dedication and fund raising efforts have found another way, a way of love that leads to peace. Beloved Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, “Goodness is stronger than evil, love is stronger that death; victory is ours, through Him who loves us.”

To remember, then, is to engage in an activity that reconstitutes us. By recollecting and recalling, we make and pledge ourselves anew to each other, and to God. So remembering is not a dry duty. It is a vital and hopeful form of recall that reshapes us for the better. Remembering the dead is really all about facing the task of living anew. It is about hope, and about recommitment. However, there is a world of difference between reminding people of the past and remembering it. Reminders simply recall, and can all too easily lead, if one is not careful, to the perpetual contemplation of pain (and the anger that evokes). The wounds never heal; they are left open, and are prodded and poked on a regular basis, so that others may participate in the pain afresh.

But remembrance is different. It is a faithful and engaged act of recollection, which is both constructive for the present and hopeful for the future.

God is love and when we translate this love into action, we become rooted in God and God becomes rooted in us. We imitate the one whose words and works were life-changing for those on whom he turned the light of truth and looked with the gaze of love. For then we find that as his heart speaks to our hearts we begin to face the future with equanimity, and even with hope. In bewildering times, we are right to be suspicious of easy speeches, grand designs, quick fixes. If we think this is Christianity, we have not been paying attention. Yet we can be sure of Love’s great ways. We are more than conquerors through him who loved us. We remember. We do not loose heart.

As one Jewish sage put it, while dining with his friends and with his betrayer at hand: "Do this in remembrance of me."

Amen

Ray Anglesea is a self supporting minister working in St Andrew’s Dawson Street LEP, Crook and in the wider West Durham Methodist Circuit

Signs of love

A Baptismal sermon preached by Ray Anglesea at St Andrew’s Dawson Street, Crook, Sunday 16th October 2011.

Paul and Frances, your family and friends, welcome to church today for your darling infant’s son’s baptism. It is lovely to have you with us: I and the church here at Crook hope you have a happy and memorable day. Baptism can be a nerve racking experience for the family as well as at times for the minister – well at least the organist did not play the theme music from Jaws, I did not have to wear scuba divers outfit and the coast guard was not involved.

I wonder if you put your Sat Nav on to find the church this morning or followed directional signs? At my son’s recent wedding the vicar gave the happy couple the wrong post code for the church so that many guests arrived in somebody’s private drive. Signs are very much part of our lives - shop signs, lighted signs, advertising signs, neon signs, school signs, restaurant signs, toilet sign, speed limit signs, disabled parking signs, no parking signs as the parking attendant slaps a £30 parking fine on you windscreen. “What do you mean, sir, you didn’t see the double yellow lines?”

We too have our signs; we wear signs all the time. Perhaps the gentlemen in either their red and white, black and white football shirts might prefer some David Beckham lookalike tattoos, a crucifix on the back of the neck perhaps, a guardian angel between the shoulder blades and an angel on the right shoulder. The guardian angel is there to overlook the names of his three children, Brooklyn, Romeo and Cruz. Not quite sure what David will do for Seven his newborn daughter – will Prince William be a godfather we wonder. No David the minister will not use a flame thrower – it is not a baptism of fire! Perhaps the women would prefer signs of Gucci sunglasses, Vivienne Westwood jewellery, a naughty off the shoulder Armani something or other, Jimmy Choos nude shoes, a Mulberry designer handbag, why not go for something from the Sarah Burton Alexander McQueen wedding dress collection. Sorry.... that one is a one off.......... already worn!

As we look around us the church too is full of signs, a wooden cross on which Jesus died, a sign we say in church speak - a sign of our salvation, a rainbow arch around the organ, symbol of the church’s openness to diversity and inclusion, as well as a sign from a Genesis story, Judy Garland’s theme song, And of course a font where Jacob was baptised a few moments ago. Baptism is a sign too, it is also one of the sacraments of the Church; a sacrament is a sign also ‘an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace,’ as the old prayer book stated. In a nutshell, through baptism we’re made children of God’s grace, we become members of the Church. Jacob has been baptised as a Christian. This ceremony has obligations foremost of which is to live the Christian life. The sign at Jesus baptism in the River Jordan was a dove descending out of the sky and a voice from heaven which said: “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased, listen to him.”

Paul and Frances just as your wedding rings given in Cyprus on your wedding day is a sign of your enduring love for one another, so Jacob’s baptism this morning is a sign of God’s promise to Jacob. God will be with Jacob and his family forever. But more than that. God will love Jacob forever.

Paul and Frances – God is committed to the flourishing, well being and happiness of your family, you have embarked on this great journey of love, not only of loving each other but of loving Jacob. As parents you are going to be a sign, an electric spark to Jacob of what human love is like, you are going to be the role models of what God’s love is like. Having five children on my own you I can assure you will be in for some challenging times and experiences. Jacob may not need a media bedsit where he will have his own TV, internet, game consoles and a new apple iphone. But he will need you to be there for him, to support him, to run the line at the football match, to sit at the poolside during swimming lessons, to listen to him experiment with a drum set, to help with the maths homework, to let him borrow your car for the first time. You are going to be signs of love for Jacob. But like the BBC 1’s roller coaster life of Sue and Pete Brockman’s family from South London, you may be outnumbered! The Jake, Ben and Karen’s of this world will see to that.

Paul and Frances. You are surrounded by loving families with offers of help and support, sleep-over, shopping, and grandparents. Use them. We as a church are here to help you too, our doors are open, you have our telephone numbers, we too can provide help and support, education and teenage training. Alas human beings live in a world of good and bad and that makes our lives and relationships painful and complicated but not so with God. God will never give up on you, even if you run away from him. Paul and Frances never stop loving each other - you are for Jacob a sign of what human love and family life is like and can be for the rest of his life – he will learn from you, you will be his example. As the late Steve Jobs co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc said, “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, and as with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.”  And so it is with our relationship with God.

And in all this we, as we are able, together, will do everything possible to keep our promises to love, help and support you.

So before we complain too loudly about David Cameron’s Downturn Abbey Britain, a world of Kelly Rowland’s x factor wannabees, (I wish she could pick me! ), the future of Arsene Wenger, the slow goodbye of Coronation Street’s Becky McDonald, the price of Apples’ new iPhones,  and Sienna Miller’s phone hacking payoff, we should remember today that we have cause for thanksgiving – God has committed himself yet again to one more human family, the Moore family here from Douglas Terrace, Crook, and in the lives of this lovely family with whom today we join in celebration, we see the sign of God’s embracing, renewing vision of God’s faithful love.   

Paul and Frances may God bless you on your journey, and may Jacob’s baptism be a sign to live the faith more fully.

Amen

Ray Anglesea is a self supporting minister working in St Andrew’s Dawson Street LEP, Crook and in the wider West Durham Methodist Circuit

Suffer Little Children

A Baptismal sermon preached by Ray Anglesea at St Andrew’s Dawson Street, Crook, Sunday 2^nd October 2011

Congratulations to Barrie and Joanne on Emileigh’s baptism. May the welcome your child has experienced today here in church infuse your family’s faith life for all time! 

Here’s a delightful story. At the recent wedding of Zara Phillips and Mike Tindall, the bride’s cousins, Princes William and Harry, read an extract from Margery Williams’ classic children’s story, The Velveteen Rabbit.        The story is about a boy who receives a Velveteen rabbit for Christmas.  The Velveteen Rabbit is snubbed by other more expensive or mechanical toys; they fancy themselves as real. One day while talking with the Skin Horse, the rabbit asks the horse what it means to be “a real person”. The horse replies that it means being loved. “It doesn't happen all at once. You become real. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.” “Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are real, you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand – once you are real, you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”

Well it is a long time since I read that story to my children. Years later Hollywood still tells the same tale in children’s movies like Toy Story and Shrek, which is why they speak to parents as well as children. Love transforms. It makes us beautiful in the eyes of those who love us. It makes us real.

That is the great truth at the heart of the Christian faith. God’s love makes us beautiful in His eyes – and in ours when we see ourselves reflected in His. That is what makes us real: not physical beauty which fades over time, but spiritual beauty which can grow over time. We allow ourselves to be made real by God’s love, with all our imperfections, pain and limitations. It was the poet W.H. Auden who said:-

Beloved, we are always in the wrong, handling so clumsily our stupid lives................

One thing that always strikes me is how little Jesus himself has to say about sin. He seems much more concerned with lack of love. Perhaps that is really what sin is ultimately, the failure of love. It was at Jesus’ baptism in the River Jordan that God’s said “This is my son whom I love, listen to him.” Here was a moment of sheer intense intimacy, a moment in time when God’s heart was revealed to his son. God’s greatest command is that we should love one another. Where do we find love? In the tiniest hazelnut, says Mother Julian: it exists because God loves it. In the entire sweep of the universe, says Dante, because it is ‘love that moves the sun and the other stars’. But today love has a human face in Emiligh. And to her very young life we bring our own memories of those who have loved us into life, whose lives are interwoven with ours and made us what we are.

Barrie and Joanne – God is committed to the flourishing, well being and happiness of your family, you have embarked on this great journey of love, not only of loving each other but on loving Emiligh and Jordan. As parents you are going to be their role models of what human love is like, you are going to be the role models of what God’s love is like. Having five children on my own you I can assure you will be in for some challenging times and experiences. Let’s face it - recent UNICEF reports on the upbringing of British children are not very encouraging; Britain according to this international agency is the worst place in the developed world to be a child; parents and their children are locked into a consumption cycle where mothers and fathers rarely say no to their children’s’ demands; children sit in media bedsits where they have their own TV, internet, game consoles and phones. Oh really – is our popular modern British culture as bad as all that? As couples say in rocky relationships in popular B movies – it’s not us UNICEF; it’s you.

Well who said bringing up children would be easy? In every serious relationship there will be ups and downs, moments of tension, discord, in human terms there will be nights with a crying child, falling out, tears, naughty children may have to be disciplined, there will be  frustration about the lack of employment opportunities, insufficient funds and days when we just feel down, tired and bored. And with all the pressures of family life it is often difficult to make headway. But Joanne and Barrie you are surrounded by loving families with offers of help and support, sleep-overs, shopping, grandparents love giving their grandchildren back to parents. Use them. We as a church are here to help you too, our doors are open, you have our telephone numbers, we too can provide help and support, education and teenage training. Alas human beings live in a world of good and bad and that makes our lives and relationships painful and complicated but not so with God. God will never give up on you, even if you run away from him. Joanne and Barrie never stop loving each other  - you are for Emileigh and Jorja what human love and family life is like and can be for the rest of their lives – they will learn from you, you will be there examples. And in all this we, as we are able, together, will do everything possible to keep our promises to love, help and support you.

So today I want to give thanks for our popular modern culture, children no longer go to work up chimneys or go down mines when they are out of trousers, we do not require children to enlist as soldiers in military campaigns, work in sweat shops making trainers and clothes. I want to say a great yes for children growing up in a free Britain, in our welfare state, the greatest act of communal generosity in history. Here in Crook magnificent Sure Start Children's Centres provide a variety of advice and support for parents and carers from pregnancy right through to when children go into reception class.  Four/fifths of children are literate, 40% will go to university and many in Emileigh’s life time will live to be a hundred. We are a nation that gives ever more to charities, we are increasingly tolerant of class, colour, gender, race, religion and sexual preference, advances in medicine and scientific discoveries take our breath away, just think in Emileigh’s life time men and women may have reached and have set foot on Mars. But our greatest cause of thanksgiving this morning is that God has committed himself yet again to one more human family, the Rayner’s here in Crook, and in the lives of this lovely family with whom today we join in celebration, we see that embracing, renewing and hopeful vision of God’s faithful love, a love that like the Velveteen rabbit discovered makes us real.

One reason we find such children’s stories childish is that, in them, things work out the way we hope they will. The good win, the wicked are vanquished and the heroes live happily ever after. Life isn’t like that, we tell ourselves. But it could be less unlike it than it is. Which is why it is not naive to see the world through the eyes of love, for that is how God sees us.

May God bless you on your journey, and may your child’s baptism open your eyes to live the faith more fully.

Amen


Ray Anglesea is a self supporting minister working in St Andrew’s Dawson Street LEP, Crook and in the wider West Durham Methodist Circuit

Welcome!

WELCOME to the new Worship Blog


This blog is offered to members and friends of Northern Synod churches as a place to share worship resources. We've tried this once before, and it sort of petered out - but sometimes life gives us second chances, and this is one of them.

You will see that the Worship Blog is linked to the home page of our synod website, and is now differentiated from the synod blog, which is principally a forum for current synod concerns. (Which isn't to say that worship isn't to focus on current matters.)

So please send in your stuff - sermons, prayers, hymns, reflections, whatever.... Send them, like all website material, to Colin Offor or John Durell at our synod addresses - and keep coming back to the Worship Blog. And don't be afraid to post your comments: they will be moderated, but posted asap.

Most of the material that follows has been transferred from the Synod Blog - please start adding some new material now!


John Durell

Trouble at Vineyard

From a sermon preached at St Andrew’s Dawson Street Methodist Church, Crook, Sunday 18th September 2011 by Ray Anglesea





How many trade union members does it take to change a light bulb? Fourteen. One to screw in the bulb. Two to hold him on the step ladder. Four to hold the step ladder steady. One to flick the switch to test the bulb. One to make sure that the other bulbs in the room will need fixing. One to supervise. Two to take a coffee break, one to eat lunch, and one to sleep!


We may laugh at this Trade Union joke but one of the great inventions of modern Western society according to the theologian and writer, Tom Wright, former Bishop of Durham, has been the trade union. A trade union, as many of you know who, like me, have been paid up rank and file members, is an organization of workers who bargains and negotiates with its employer for better working conditions, wages and benefits. At last week’s annual TUC congress held in London, Union activists discussed calls for co-ordinated industrial action in protest at the Government's controversial policies on pensions and spending cuts. Despite Ed Miliband’s pleas to forego strike action to his union colleagues that helped elect him, disruption is likely this November. Three million state employees are to be balloted about strike action, bringing schools, colleges, universities, courts, ports and job centres to a standstill. It will be the strongest industrial act of defiance yet against the government's cuts programme.

The British Trade Union movement can trace its origins back to the Dorset Tolpuddle martyrs. Five of the six 1834 martyrs who risked the wrath of landowners calling for better wages and conditions were prominent Primitive Methodists, village men of faith.“Their trade unionism grew out of their faith,” said the Rev'd Dr. Leslie Griffiths, The Lord Griffiths of Burry Port, former President of the Methodist Conference and Superintendent Minister at Wesley’s Chapel London. Primitive Methodism has always been marked by a strong tradition of political activism especially for its allegiance to the Labour Movement; it served as a kind of midwife in the birth of English socialism. You will remember the saying that the Labour party owes more to Methodism than it does to Marx.


It was during the industrial revolution that trade unions became popular. Here in Crook the town’s fortunes changed in 1844 when the first pit was opened by Messrs Pease & Partners; by the 1860’s there were a total of 26 mines in and around the Crook area. By the end of the nineteenth century Crook had been transformed into a thriving town. Our own James Robson from West Auckland was a prominent British trade unionist; elected President of the Durham Miners' Association, serving until his death in 1934; he also served as Treasurer of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain and was a member of the Methodist New Connexion. Peter Lee was another. A preacher and a primitive Methodist he gave his name to a new town in County Durham. And here too we pay tribute to the late Geoff Waterfield chair of the Redcar steelworks multi-union committee who spearheaded the campaign to save steel-making in Redcar.


But over the course of the twentieth century trade union activity was set to change. The Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher, rightly or wrongly, was determined to break the power of the trade unions. Even so, trade unions are still the largest voluntary organisation in the country but with declining membership together with the central question of British politics today - the need to reduce the deficit – this has placed the trade union movement in an invidious position. If the trade union movement is to survive it needs to find a way to reinvent itself or else decline will be terminal. The role of the unions has become something quite different from what our Primitive Methodist fathers and mothers envisaged. Today we live in difficult economic times; health service managers who don’t know whether there will be a job next year; employees in welfare charities whose central government and local authority funding is being cut at the very time when demands are increasing; armed service personnel who will gradually be made redundant in the next few years. It can’t be an enviable job to be a government minister who, in coping with the extent of the deficit, has to trim budgets and deal with the backlash from people whose livelihood suddenly comes under threat.


Today’s trade unions would have been horrified at the story Jesus told about the employer we find this morning in Matthew’s gospel and the workers who laboured at various times of the day. I am sure if what we just read in the Gospel took place today, there would be a huge hue and cry. Salaries are linked to hours of work; a skilled worker gets more than an unskilled worker; if workers have the same skills, the same hours of work and similar responsibilities, we expect them to get the same wages.


Matthew sets the parable in the context of the Palestinian September grape harvest. This picture was the kind of thing which could happen in the market place of any Jewish village or town. If the harvest had not been gathered in before the rains broke then it would be ruined. To get the harvest in was a frantic race against time. The kingdom of heaven is likened to how a landowner treated his day labourers during the grape harvest. By agreement they all get the same, one denarius, a subsistence wage for a family for one day; standard pay but not generous. What is surprising is that the landowner does not ensure he has a full workforce at the beginning of the day. He is prepared to accept fresh workers almost up to the end. These get paid first – one denarius – a financial symbol of what is enough to provide food, clothing, and shelter — the basics of human dignity for a worker and the worker’s family. It also gives the others hope that they will get a fat bonus. But no they get what was agreed, one denarius, they have no reason to complain. Some are treated very generously but none are treated unjustly. The story we read this morning asserts the value and worth of human labour. It is good and right that we should work. The story also suggest something more than trade union law, employment law or equal opportunities.


We can of course read the parable on many levels. We can see something of the comfort that God gives. Whether you discover, rediscover God late or soon, in the first flush of youth, the amber years of mid age, or the shadowing of lengthening years, you are equally dear and precious to him. We can see something of the compassion of God – there is an element of human tenderness in the story. The vineyard owner gives the labourers work emphasising the right of every man and woman to work and to expect a living wage.


But look at the last group of workers, the ones who were hired when only one hour of the day was left. The vineyard owner questions them: why haven’t you been working? There answer is revealing: nobody has hired us, nobody has given us a job. Nobody in other words wanted them. In today’s terms these are people who are long-term unemployed. Most frightening of all is the evidence that, in some places, unemployment is a third-generation issue. Work is simply not available. What does this say about the dignity and self-esteem of a household, a family, a neighbourhood? From my own experience of working in the inner cities this life is a social reality, the combined result of shifts in government policy and the forces of global markets. It is not a symptom of local indolence or moral turpitude. There are whole neighbourhoods where, for years, no one has said: “I have a job for you, and it will pay a living wage.” The twist in the parable’s tale is not simply that those who worked the shortest time got the same as the others; it is that these were the people whom no one else wanted, the bottom of the social pile. But they, too, received the living wage, and the dignity of the opportunity to labour for it. As Christians, our voices should be heard asking for an account from those who manage economies in the Eurozone as leaders battle to keep the faith as the Greek rescue descends into chaos amidst bankruptcy fears, as well as nationally, particularly as our jobless total soared to 2.6 million this week as the cuts begin to bite. Our standard of measure is the generosity of God, not the meanness of market forces.


But the thrust of the story in chapter 20 for me is not so much about the nature of God, his compassion, his goodness, his comfort, or the need to manage economic and financial markets and trade union reform. The parable is intended more of a warning to the disciples, that those at the front would end up at the back and those at the back would end up at the front, the last first and the first last. Jesus warns his disciples - just because you’ve been close to me so far, don’t think you are now the favoured few for all time, just because I am in bringing in the kingdom of heaven - don’t think that you are going to become rich and famous. That’s not the sort of thing I am about, that’s not the sort of thing God’s kingdom is about. You may well have set out with me from Galilee from the beginning but others may well come in much later and end up getting paid just the same, the regular daily wage.


There is always the danger that we get cross with God over this. People who work in church circles can easily assume that they are the special ones, God’s inner circle. I see it all the time as I work in the cathedral bookshop, ambitious clergy climbing the candlestick who use their power and influence to promote their own status and a pretty rectory, those who name drop, “when I was speaking to the Archbishop of Canterbury the other day” “Oh Rowan this and Rowan that,” “and yes of course, my dear, I already have an invitation to sit in the choir stalls for the enthronement service for the new Bishop of Durham.” And it is so easy to run the church without God, as if it was our club, in our own strength with our own skills.


The point of the story this morning is that what people get from having served God and his kingdom is not actually a wage at all, it’s not strictly a reward for work done, an honoury title, a seat in the choir stalls. God doesn’t make contracts with us like our trade union stewards as if our Primitive Methodist fathers and mothers in the faith could bargain or negotiate for a better deal. He does make a covenant with us. He promises us everything and asks of us everything in return. When he keeps his promises he is not rewarding us for effort but doing what comes naturally to his overflowing nature. In reality, God is out there in the market place, looking for people everybody else tried to ignore, welcoming them on the same terms and surprising them with his generous grace – all that God gives is grace. We cannot earn what God gives us, we cannot deserve it, we cannot put God in our debt, what God gives us is given out of the goodness of his heart, out of his grace, what God gives us is not pay, but a gift, not a reward but grace.



Psalm 145:1-8; Philippians1:21-30; Matthew 20 v1-16


Ray Anglesea is a self supporting minister working in St Andrew’s Dawson Street LEP, Crook and an authorised Methodist Minister working in the wider West Durham Methodist Circuit.

Mourning after the Riots

(originally posted on the Synod Blog 5-September-2011)

From an illustrated sermon preached at Stanhope Methodist Church, Stanhope, Sunday 4^th September 2011 by Ray Anglesea

This is a special time of the year in Weardale. A time of beauty; purple heather moorland, harvested golden wheat fields, ripening berries, brambles, rowan and elderflower, the twittering of excited migrating swallows and the cry of the curlews. The annual Stanhope show, now in its 170^th year, is a display case celebrating the best of agricultural and county life, the main ring the hub for the exhibition of local sheep, cattle and industrial produce, show jumping, horse and pony classes. It will rain of course, warm, soft rain that will make the cake stall cover up. Looking out over the fields and River Wear it is difficult to think that we belong, in the Prime Minister’s recent words, to a nation that has lost its way, a broken society, a sick society that is near breakdown, a society in a state of moral collapse. The August disturbances in the nation’s inner cities seem a million miles away from our beautiful dale, the town enclosed and surrounded as it is by the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, quite simply one the most lovely and unspoilt parts of England.

The peace and quiet of this nineteenth century Methodist chapel may seem like another world, but it is not. For here we come to encounter a God not of make-believe but of reality, not of other-worldliness but of this-worldliness. This holy space is a sanctuary of worship where our prayers and praises are not words that signify disengagement but connection.

That violent disorder should break out on the streets of London and other major British cities last month was a profound shock. For three unbelievable days, violent and lawless events ran horribly ahead of the collective ability to control or anticipate them once they erupted. We looked on in horror as we witnessed thuggery, vandalism and theft, murder, and the vicious and ferocious malice shown towards the police. The events and actions revealed the presence of a serious social disease, posing threats to the common good for which society was wholly unprepared. For most of us it was deeply unnerving to realise how fragile the veneer of civilised urban life really is. The Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks writing in The Times said “What we witnessed was a real deep-seated and frightening failure of morality; rebels with or without a cause - it was a moment when the nation caught a glimpse of its soul – and it was not a pleasant sight.” Whatever the reasons for this violent behaviour, they can never be excuses. For my own part I was relieved that the media did not blame my profession, the planning profession, for urban design solutions that have made the cities crooked places straight and the narrow ways wider to speed police access to trouble spots. 
 

In the wake of these shocking events, it’s important to avoid, knee-jerk reactions and trite answers. Politicians and social policy commentators including Lord Sacks have, nevertheless, thrown in their two pennyworth. Already the analysis and debates have continued about the erosion of public values. Many people realise that the causes of the recent civil unrest and disturbances in our inner cities are complex; the problems have hitherto been politically managed and contained. Deprivation and measures of austerity are likely to have played their part as well as high levels of unemployment, dysfunctional families, ending of education maintenance allowance, the discarding of Sure Start programmes, attacks on social housing tenancies – all of which may have given rise to tension and anxiety - but it would be too simplistic to place sole blame there. But clearly something has gone badly wrong. Whether we talk about an underclass or social exclusion or simply poverty it should be clear that the problem may have been ameliorated, but it was not solved by the Labour government throwing money alone at the inner cities, however well intended their social and economic policies may have been; and credit here must be given to the magnificent success of the Sure Start programmes. But let’s be clear - the tone adopted by Mrs Thatcher following the Faith in the City report in 1985 still continues in this present administration. For Thatcher personal responsibility and wealth creation were the keys to a healthy and peaceful society, and the welfare state was undermining these – hence her famous remark that “there is no such thing as society,” and her memorable reinterpretation of Jesus’ words in which she argued: “No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions; he had money as well.” Revd Dr Michael Northcott, Professor of Ethics at Edinburgh recently stated in the religious press “that what we saw on the street of England 3 weeks ago manifested not only a moral crisis, but a spiritual crisis; market and money are the gods of this new religion.”
 

The Bishop of Manchester, the Rt. Revd Nigel McCulloch, in a recent BBC Radio 4 broadcast suggested that “the disappearance of public values, some would argue, has led to a moral deficit in private and public life that has spawned acquisitiveness and dishonesty. It’s evident at all levels of our society.” To be frank, the riots are not the only recent examples of theft and greed. We are reaping what has been sown over the last 3 decades of creating a grotesquely unequal society, a society of looters created with MPs and their expenses, bankers and their bonuses, tax evading corporations, phone hacking journalists, bribe taking police officers. To create a false division between what we do in public and how we are in private is fraught with problems of credibility. This is not to condone but to understand the new forces of disorder emerging in our communities. 
 

How can faith communities and the Christian churches, in particular, and Matthew’s gospel this morning help to bring light and wisdom to the problem of conflict and unrest? I’m not sure that shrill demands for the Ten Commandments as suggested by some letter writers to The Times are likely to be heeded – even though I have a high regard for that moral code of unsurpassed clarity about not stealing and not coveting what belongs to others. By sheer coincidence as we begin a new month and a new school year, the lectionary begins a series today on teaching skills for practical living. As Christ calls us to live in community we think about how such skills might help us to resolve conflict in our midst. 

Matthew wrote his gospel some 80 years after Jesus’ resurrection to small church communities who were struggling to survive in scattered communities separate from the synagogues out of which they grew. Although Paul was the great founder of mixed congregations in Gentile cities, by the ninth decade the Pharisees had successfully banned Jewish Christians from participating in the synagogue for breaking the sacred laws of the

Covenant. It seems that Matthew needed to say something to the members of his own faith community to settle internal conflicts when such open conflicts arose. 

 
Whether this was an internal, specific and isolated problem in the early church we do not know, but history has shown that the church has not heeded Matthew’s instructions. Through the ages the church has not been immune to its own conflict, protest, demonstration, infighting, power and greed. And that is perhaps why we in the church still say on a daily basis ‘forgive us our trespasses,’ only wishing that others would join us in this penitence. For me reading this passage, Matthew 18 is the bedrock for the practical outpouring of basic principles of reconciliation; it is severely practical as well as ruthlessly idealistic. Reconciliation is a huge issue today; we see clearly the results of not doing it: in inner city riots, suicide bombs, campaigns of terror. That’s on the larger scale. On the smaller scale we see not only discord in our soaps, Coronation Street and The Archers, but also in broken marriages, shattered families, feuds between neighbours, divided churches.

 
Learning to live together whether in the church or city community with a great company of different others is the challenge that faces us more now than it ever has done in the past. Positive interaction and interdependence between peoples whether in Tottenham or Manchester are fundamental to the creation of community. Reconciliation and peacemaking I suggest begins with not blowing social, economic and racial issues out of all proportion; we can have a conversation about whether we think we live in a broken society or a society that is being broken up, but facebook and social media networks prompts us to say what is on our mind which often calls for instant knee jerk reactions and responses. Responsibility for peacemaking begins with the individual – with me - I need to work on my behaviour, my attitude, my heart to help the community to work. Remember G K Chesterton’s famous dictum? – “What is wrong with the world? – I am”. Matthew’s instructions in his gospel to the early church suggest that we should not only be peacemakers but we should tread softly on issues, getting to the root of the problem before it festers. We have to acknowledge that conflict is painful; in recent years restorative justice has been increasingly valued. The encounter between perpetrator and victim is not easy but it may offer a long term solution for both parties if they can face it. One of the most remarkable women in Glasgow is Karyn McCluskey, a single mother, nurse, forensic psychologist, and community campaigner. In response to the damage caused by violent gang warfare in her native city, she “treated violence like a disease and mounted a public health campaign against it”. Her courageous and amazingly successful campaign was essentially about setting up meetings between victims, their families, and perpetrators of bloodshed. From all quarters of the community, members of the most vicious gangs were bombarded with requests to give up their violence and channel their energy into something that enhanced life — theirs and that of others. 

 
Matthew through these instructions is offering not only the church but maybe civil society ways of developing strategies to access the grace needed to be good neighbours under circumstances of great disparity of both wealth and life chances: in modern cities where rich and poor live cheek-by-jowl and in the life of our churches.

 
Canon Stephen Cherry writing on the Durham Cathedral web site a couple of weeks ago indicated that the August riots were a disgrace - an absolute disgrace; evidence of the lack of the very grace that is needed for people to live together in community. He suggests “that grace becomes a force to be reckoned with when people freely open their hearts to their neighbours and to God, when they look to the interests of others rather than their own”. A society must measure success not simply in terms of material riches, but on its morality, its compassion, its concern for neighbour, its belief that the individual good is inseparably linked with the common good, particularly that of the most vulnerable. Our society will be judged by the values we teach our children and that applies to bankers and politicians as well as parents. And it is precisely that change, this strategy which needs to take place on a scale never previously imagined if our cities are to be good places for people to live in today and tomorrow. 

God is not remote from our concerns any more than we are remote from the forces unleashed in our cities. Our faith is that ultimately grace will triumph. Our action must be to do what we can to let grace triumph in our own lives, our churches, in our own communities. The question is ‘how well are we playing our own part in the ongoing spiritual struggle between grace and disgrace?’ Alas we live in a world of good and bad and that makes our lives and relationships painful and complicated. It’s a struggle from which no person or community is ever spared and that is why life is often so painful. But since our faith tells us where true victory lies our own struggle is informed by the confidence that, however deep the pain, however terrible the disturbance and carnage, grace will triumph in the end.

Psalm 119 v33-40;

Romans 13 v8-14;
Matthew 18 v15-20

Ray Anglesea is a self supporting minister working in St Andrew’s Dawson Street LEP, Crook and an authorised Methodist Minister working in the wider West Durham Methodist Circuit.