Preaching trees pilgrimage worship

In response to requests, Rowena Francis and David Herbert have made the following material available. It represents the main services of worship shared during the three days of the Synod Pilgrimage in Coquetdale, August 3-5 2012.

Friday 6 Aug:
Gathering and opening worship  (REF)

Introduction:

Rivers and trees form the basis of our pilgrimage as we walk up the Coquet Valley to the preaching trees over the coming days.

Introduce yourself by sharing your name, where you come from – a river and / or tree that are significant to you and briefly why.

Hymn:  Guide me O thou great Jehovah  (v 2 sung in Portuguese)

Selected verses Psalm 104:

Praise the Lord my soul!

O Lord, my God, how great you are!

You are clothes with majesty and glory;

You cover yourself with light.

You make springs flow in the valleys

And rivers ruin between the hills.

They provide water for the wild animals;

There the wild donkeys quench their thirst.

In the trees near by the birds make their nests.

From the sky you send rain on the hills,

And the earth is filled with your blessings.

I will sing to the Lord all my life;

As long as I live I will sing praises to my God.

May he be pleased with my song

For my gladness comes from him.

Praise the Lord, my soul!

Praise the Lord;

Reading: Genesis 2: 10-14 

Comment:

We start not from the source of the river and walk down to the sea but over the next days we will be following the river Coquet. Rivers and water are a significant part of creation and the story of God involvement with us. As we have heard from Genesis the garden of Eden at the beginning was watered by a river that had significant trees by it and when we come to the preaching trees on Sunday we will reflect on the end of the bible when God’s kingdom is realised and there again there is a river with trees for the haling of the nations.  As we walk together let us consider the significance of rivers and trees as places of encounter with God and as places where the liberation we have in God is perceived.

Prayer:

Creator God

At the beginning of creation

You planted a garden, watered by a stream.

Join our walking along the Coquet River

Enlivening our love and hope.

Jesus Christ,

Baptised in the river Jordan

Offering living water to a woman at a well

Bringing salvation in blood and water

Be present with us on our journey.

Holy Spirit

Spring of power within us

Refresh us through this pilgrimage

Flow into the world through our lives

With compassion and justice. Amen.

Lord’s prayer.

Song
Peace is flowing like a river...

____________________________

 Fri 6 Aug  5.30 pm
at St Mary the Virgin, Holystone  (DAH)

“My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour”
(Luke 2: 46 – 47, Mary’s Song)

Opening Sentences: Isaiah 44: 3 – 4

Hymn:  The king of love my shepherd is

Reading:  John 19: 25 - 27

Mary and flowing waters at Ephesus

Reading:  John 7: 37 – 44

Bowl of water passed – we make sign of dove on one another’s foreheads

Hymn:  O Lord you are the life of the world

Silence

Prayer

Hymn:  Tell out my soul

Benediction:

Go in peace to serve the Lord:

May the eye of the Great God be on you,

The eye of the God of glory;

The eye of the Virgin’s Son;

The eye of the gentle Spirit,

The kindly eye of the Three be on you,

To aid you and to shepherd you.Amen.

________________________________

Sat 7 Aug
10.30am  at Ladywell  (REF)

This Special Place

Here at Lady's Well clear, clean water bubbles out of the hillside and this is a place which has probably been special since human beings first ventured this far north.

Legend has it that it was a Holy Place on Easter Day in the year of grace 627 when Paulinus, Bishop of York, made use of the water that flows here to baptise many people. But it was probably a Special Place long before that.

Perhaps those early Stone Age men and women who lived on fruit, nuts and seeds and the wildlife which abounded here and whose descendants carved the cups and rings that adorn rocks in this valley, drank at this well and gave thanks to their gods as they drank.

Maybe the Bronze Age people who buried their dead in stone-built kists, watered their flocks here and gave thanks to their god of the water.

Their time passed and they were succeeded by people who worked iron, who built camps upon the hilltops and who worshipped the goddess they called Bridgit.

The Romans tramped this way, drank at this well, and here they honoured their gods.

And for generations after Paulinus, this remained a Holy Place. A group of nuns built a priory, probably where the church now stands, and may have used this well as a source of water. Perhaps it is from the name they gave to their priory - St Mary the Virgin - that we get the name "Lady's Well".

And so Lady's Well has remained, a Special Place upon the hillside.

Water began the life of this well and, though human beings, frail creatures of the passing day, come and go, water remains, water bubbling up from the earth through guessed-at geological formations in the rocks and soil below.

And this remains a Special and a Holy Place, a place able to touch our inner souls.

Praise responses    (Touch Holiness p139 Duck and Tirabassi adptd)

We are a people of the water!

We worship a God whose love flows through water.

Love, like little drops, drips from fingertips to forehead.

Through baptism, the family of faith makes room for one more

Love, like a rain shower, awakens the sleeping seed within the soul

and lures it to blossom.

We worship a God whose love flows through water.

Love, like a wading pool, inspires the delight of children, jumping,

splashing, spraying each other, shivering with wet joy.

We worship a God whose love flows through water.

Love, like a hot shower after a long day's work,

cleanses us, reawakens us.

We worship a God whose love flows through water.

We are a people of the water!

We worship a God whose love flows through water.

Song :  As the deer pants for the waters

The story of Genesis 16: Hagar meets God at the spring/well

Reflection

Water is a blessing and sign of new birth. The waters break cleansing the birth canal before a new baby is born. The waters of baptism purify a person as they die and rise with Christ – a new being. The waters of rain bring an end to drought bringing forth fruit and crop for the nourishment of people bringing life. For all this new life we give thanks.

We invite you to reach into the pool, a pool similar to where Hagar in her distress met God and was called to return home to Sarah and Abraham and gave birth to Ishmael. A pool of water signifying possibly a refreshing of your baptismal promises. A pool of water showing the fruitfulness of the earth that we are called to give thanks for and share.

In quietness let the water run through your fingers and give thanks for life, yours and that of the whole earth.

Prayer

Gracious God,

It is from water that life came forth.

It is with water that your Spirit signifies your claim upon us in baptism.

It is water that quenches our thirst, and without it, no life is possible.

For those children for whom water is a luxury, we pray.

For those who rely on dried up wells; who sit parched and find no relief.

For those whose water is contaminated by industry or ignorance--who sit by the water but cannot drink.

For those whose water is tapped by others for profit. What once was a gift to drench the fields and to supply the table and the bath is now a commodity sold at a price.For those whose water is a dwindling resource --
where streams that once watered cattle and fields are now a source of violence and conflict--
for who owns this gift will survive.

Gracious God,

Drench us with your Spirit.

Saturate us with your grace.

Enable us to see the world as you see it; to see all of your children as our own.

In your Spirit make us wise, that we may show well what you have given us so that all may be sated. Amen.

©Presbyterian Mission Agency PC(USA)

Blessing: (based on Brian Wren I have no bucket and the well is deep)

God of the living waters

Refresh our longings with your Word.

Liberate us with your love.

Raise us to new life.

Bless us with springs of -

Unending joy and worth.

Renew us with your life

Tonight, tomorrow and always. Amen.

Song:    Peace is flowing like a river..

___________________

Sat evening 7 Aug
at Little Church Rock  (DAH)

“Let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never failing stream!” (Amos 5: 24)

Opening Sentence: Exodus 17: 5 - 7

Rock, springs, pools, mountains, lambs, rams… familiar landscape to our spiritual forbears, early dissenters, who may have well worshipped here, and sung:

Hymn:   All people that on earth do dwell

Reading:  Psalm 114

Cuddy’s Spring – last year’s pilgrimage on St Oswald’s Way

Reading:  Amos 5: 21 – 24

Dissent and nonconformity often go hand in hand with prophecy and a hunger for justice

 Hymn:  Father hear the prayer we offer

Prayer for a river of justice and righteousness

Build a cairn – mindful of that rich stream of faith in which we stand,
and upon which we build.

Hymn:  Glorious things of thee are spoken

Benediction

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Sun 8^th Aug 
at Rothbury Church   (REF)

Theme:
Encountering God and experiencing liberation at trees.

Call:

To the people in exile in a strange land God says:

You will leave Babylon with joy

You will be led out of the city in peace.

The mountains and the hills will burst into singing

And the trees will shout for joy.

Cypress will grow where now there are briars;

Myrtle trees will come up in place of thorns.

This will be a sign that will last for ever,

A reminder of what I, the Lord have done.

Prayer of approach and confession:

The trees shout for joy

And sing your praise

As now your people do.

The tree of life

Brings healing and peace

To all in its shade .

Fruit bearing trees

Replace the thorns

As your people hope too.

Forgive our sin, Holy God,

Prune the dead and living growth

Bring a new harvest.

Gather us home from exile

To a land of living water

Where we can grow in your Word.

Hearts overflow with thanksgiving

Roots drink up your forgiveness

The tree of our lives grows strong in you.

We thank you, creator

Praise and glorify you, Christ.

Rejoice in you, Holy Spirit. Amen.

 Lord’s prayer

Hymn :  Think of a world without any flowers

The tree of life

Reading:  Galatians 3: 10-14

Reflection on the tree on which Christ died.

Discussion on what trees can mean to people?

 In the Bible there are two words – cross and wood in the original language that is translated as cross. Sometimes the word for wood is translated by the word tree. Artists have often used that as a means for depicting the cross as a tree.

From the tree of life in the garden of Eden at the beginning of the bible, through to the tree on which Christ was crucified, through to the tree with leaves for the healing of the nations in Revelation at the end of the bible trees are a significant part of the history of God’s relationship with humanity as part of creation.

It is difficult to understand and explain the power of the cross for our healing and salvation today. Yet we can trust that God acted in Jesus voluntarily undertaking to die on the cross and let humanity do the worst it could do to him so that through that vulnerable self-giving love it would become clear that nothing anymore could separate us from the love of God that desired for each of us and all creation life in all its fullness. We are reconciled to God by Christ being lifted up on the tree. We are forgiven and liberated from all that enslaves us. We are freed to live as God’s beloved children and in the power of the Spirit to be part of the coming realisation of God’s kingdom today.

Hymn:   When you prayed beneath the trees, it was for me, O Lord

              (Singing the Faith 339  Tune Kelvingrove RAS 558)

Announcements

Offering and prayer of dedication.

Preaching trees

are significant like church buildings as sacred ground.  On mountain top and by the tree people have met with God, been called, entered into covenant relationship, cried and laughed and experienced liberation.  Let us hear of an early preaching tree when God himself visited Abraham and Sarah with a message for them.

 Reading dramatic: Genesis 18 v1-16   Trees of Mamre

Reflection on preaching trees in black American history

Janie McGee is an artist who present black American history in various media and who has done some work on preaching trees in the history of her people. She speaks of how on the plantations where black people were often enslaved they would have a tree which was where services would be held. Often men would work at a different plantation to avoid seeing their wives and children raped and suffer. Services became a time for families to meet. The preaching tree then was a place for slaves to gather and encourage themselves in the midst of trials and where God was present for them.

Many revivals took place at the tree far away from the white man’s house. But also they were a sign of much suffering. One of Billy Holliday’s early protest songs tells of the lynchings of many black folk on the trees so that their bodies hung like fruit. It is called strange fruit in the trees.

Janie McGee says ‘The preaching trees have an intense history: lynchings and revivals.  The preaching tree is the place of birthing, praying, giving, sharing, loving and believing that brighter days will come.

Foundational to the understanding of the preaching tree is the Christian faith. Again McGee says ‘And yet through 400 years of oppression .. we are still here. We are wounded, but will be healed. We lived in poverty, but through God were made rich. We were torn apart and yet we still stand together. It is the distant tree 2000 years old that gave us shade, hope and faith.

Janie likens the suffering people to the preaching trees and to Christ in these words:

The jails could not hold us. We marched with Martin, Sang with Mahaila Jackson, and cried for Emett Till’s. Over the last 400 years we have survived lynching, beating, Jim Crow, slavery and hatred.

Our family birthed writers, scientists, jazz musicians, artists, and engineers the jail could not hold us.

Freedom is more than a reality, it is a journey of the heart, the dreams and people trusting God…

we are the preaching trees.

Reflection on preaching trees in our own churches history

Some 350 years ago in 1662 the newly formed government after civil war passed the act of uniformity. This required everyone to use the same prayer book, pledge obedience to the King and to the authority of the  Bishops.  Some felt that this do not go far enough in establishing good order. Others felt that an opportunity to reform the church and bring it back into faithfulness with Christ and the word of God had been missed. The consequence was pain and conflict.

Many Priests of the Church of England were ejected, hence it was called the ‘Great Ejection’ from their parishes and pulpits because they could not agree with it. For many years they were denied civil rights such as a university education and government office. Some were martyred as traitors. Folk who dissented from this act could not be buried on consecrated church of England ground and were not allowed to worship within a certain distance of a Parish church.

Thus preaching trees such as those at Windy Heugh came into being. Dissenters to the act and therefore to government travelled away from the parish churches and worshipped and were buried in distant places. Great Bavington United Reformed Church is one example of an early building far away from another Parish church that was built at that time.

The Preaching Trees at Windyhaugh are part of the Coquet Valley’s tradition.  They, like the United Reformed Church in Great Bavington, are in an isolated place, some 6 miles from the nearest formal place of worship, the Church at Alwinton.  There are two other places in the Valley where it is possible that Dissenting Preachers are believed to have led worship.  We do not know when any of these were first used - even whether they were in use before the Act of Uniformity made worship at un-licensed premises illegal.  In the Medieval period, the valley was much more densely populated than it is now under the auspices of the monks of Newminster Abbey in Morpeth.  Though the area became deprived in the time of the Border Reivers, the area became re-populated until the 1950s when changing economics made farming in such isolated places unrewarding.

But the tradition has persisted that, here at the Preaching Trees,  Dissenting Services were held, when as the Valley’s historian, David Dippie Dixon reports, “the vigorous voices of the hill-folk sang metrical Psalms and Scriptural paraphrases, surrounded by the dark shadows of the everlasting hills, beside the murmuring ripples of the Coquet river and with the clear blue canopy of heaven above them”.

This afternoon, the Pilgrims will visit this once holy place and you are welcome to join us for our final act of worship - meet by the Barrowburn bridge at 4 o’clock and join the final steps of our pilgrimage and make this place a holy place again.

For, as we have heard, Preaching Trees are holy.  They are places of encounter with God. They are places of gathering for God's people to meet.  They are places where Christ on the cross with all its pain and suffering is found.  But also they are places where hope for liberation and where healing are found.

We sing of that now as we prepare to join in prayer by singing

Hymn:  We meet you O Christ

Prayers of intercession, thanksgiving dismissal and blessing

(with leaves to write prayers on in the quietness that can then be hung on a prayer tree during the singing of the final hymn – with some led prayers)

Christ we bring to your tree

The simple and wise,

The governments of the world and unemployed.

The rich in their palaces and poor in their sleeping bags.

May justice be realised here.

Christ we bring to your tree

Prisoners of conscience and the disappeared

Those trapped in abuse and addiction

The financial and political systems that cage us

May freedom be realised here.

Christ we bring to your tree

Protesters and campaigners who will not be silenced

Artists and writers who bring issues to light

Those in the public eye for good or for ill

May your Word be realised here.

 Christ we bring to your tree,

The new lives and those dying today

The sick and the troubled in body and mind

Ourselves in whatever pain and need we bear

May your new life be realised here.

In quietness we add our prayer to the leaves we have been given....

Let us go forth with joy and peace

Shouting for joy and clapping our hands

Giving thanks for our God, who meets us at the tree

And blesses us with new life, love, justice and peace.  Amen.

Hymn:    You shall go out with joy

_____________________________

Sun 8 Aug  4.30 pm
at The Preaching trees  (DAH)

Jesus began to preach,
‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.’
(Matthew 4: 17)

Opening Sentences:   Matthew 13: 31

 Hymn:    O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder

 Unveiling of the plaque

 Prayer of praise

Reading:   Ezekiel 47: 1 – 12

Reading:   Revelation 22: 1 – 5

Hymn:   Jesus is Lord, creation’s voice proclaims it

Reflection:  Kingdom living – an end in itself, or a process?

Hymn:   God’s spirit is deep in my heart

Prayer activity – watering can –

pouring God’s blessing into lives lifted up to God in prayer                                           

Hymn:   You shall go out with joy

Benediction

 and then maplets distributed  (old map of Northern Synod cut up into small squares with the text ‘On the Edge, Synod Pilgrimage 2012’ printed on reverse)

Inspire a Generation

A sermon to celebrate the closing of the London 2012 Olympics preached  by Ray Anglesea at Howden le Wear and Frosterley Methodist Churches, 12 August 2012.


“Inspire a generation.” That was the slogan launched at Kew Gardens 100 days before the start of the 2012 London Olympics. It was a bid to encourage more young people into sport. The slogan was not just confined to the UK; it has been used to promote and encourage social change through some 20 countries involving some 12 million people under its International Inspiration programme. Lord Coe said "The slogan is the heartbeat, the very DNA of this organisation and a rallying cry for the athletes to come to the UK to perform at their very best and inspire the world."

Howden le Wear

Who will inspire the next generation of young people? – the Olympians perhaps.....Rocket Man Usain Bolt? Michael Phelps, the greatest of all Olympians, a human dolphin who can manipulate water like no human since Moses. The Mansfield Mermaid, Rebecca Addlington? Queen Victoria Pendelton? King of the Road side-burn superstar Bradley Wiggins, or Scotland’s greatest Olympian Sir Chris Hoy? Possibly Ennis, Farah and Rutherford who gave GB athletics its greatest Olympic hour on Super Saturday. Maybe the new British boy band of male gymnasts who stood on an Olympic podium with bronze medals around their necks and wonderment on their faces. What about Lizzie Armistead, the silver medallist of the women’s’ road race, from Otley United Reformed Church whose grandfather is a retired URC minister. I don’t know but Heather Stanning, Royal Artillery Offer and Helen Glover who stormed to victory in women's pairs rowing cheered on by Heather’s soldier friends in Afghanistan was truly inspirational. Perhaps it was the British Armed Services who at the end of the day, inspired us and were the real heroes of the Games after they filled in for a security company. I could go on with our British Olympians, suffice it to say that as Britain revelled in easy going-patriotism, the London Olympics has brought stories of sporting triumph, often against the odds, of gracious athletes and infectious good humoured welcoming volunteers in a spectacular parkland setting.

If the British Olympians have not inspired you then cast your minds back to the opening ceremony, a ceremony that was inspirational, adventurous, self-confident, playful, entertaining with a sense of history. The opening ceremony showed Britain at its best, for its care and compassion, inclusivity and diversity, flair and creativity, modesty and understatement, the confidence to be at ease with ourselves, our ability to question ourselves, our enjoyment of life. It was an astonishing technical feat that left so many unforgettable images. Who will forget the nostalgic rural idyll being torn apart, those industrial chimneys forcing their way out of the ground, the Wagner-like forging of the Olympic ring, or the Olympic cauldron being born out of fire? When church people think about the Transfiguration of our Lord, the gold feast that was celebrated last Monday they may be forgiven for still having in the back of their minds the theatrical tour de force that formed the first part of the opening ceremony.

But the young people were there too. In line with the Olympic slogan, an 11 year old disabled school boy from South London was selected to sing the first verse of Jerusalem, unaccompanied, immediately after the bell was sounded to launch the £27million greatest show on earth. There were children’s choirs from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland; and then The Kaos Signing Choir for Deaf and Hearing Children performed in front of more than a billion people, to sing the national anthem as the Union Flag was raised. And then the finale, seven young athletes representing Britain's hopes for the future lit the Olympic cauldron at the end of opening ceremony. Inspiring a generation indeed!

For up and coming aspiring student architects, planners, transport engineers, landscape -architects The London 2012 Games provided inspiration for a once in a lifetime opportunity to regenerate the Lower Lea Valley, providing new homes, work space, schools, health and other community facilities - and of course world class sporting facilities. Prior to 2005 the Olympic Park site in east London was fragmented, polluted and divided by pylons and railways, a derelict industrial wasteland. Today the spectacular Olympic park contains world class permanent sporting venues and the Olympic village as well as 45 hectares of wildlife habitat. Local waterways and riverbanks have been cleaned and enhanced as part of the process.

For those students who wished to be inspired by more cultural endeavours, 'Hatwalk' - the brainchild of flamboyant mayor Boris Johnson provided just the trick - 21 of the city’s most famous statues donned hats designed by the best young milliners in town. The Royal College of Art students created the stylish Olympic medal bearers' costumes .Walk around the Olympic Park in years to come and you’ll find poems waiting for you. There’s Tennyson – some lines from “Ulysses”, ending with, “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield” – as a reminder that our poets have already left quite a legacy, and whatever else happens to the place generations from now, there will be evidence that the Olympic Games of 2012 inspired some poets to leave their words for the future.

Frosterley

But for me the people who have inspirational were the torchbearers that carried the Olympic torch on an epic 8,000 mile trip around the British Isles; in ten weeks some 13 million people had cheered it on its jubilant, gilded way. The procession, the pilgrimage if you like was a triumph, an elation of human glory. It excitingly showcased the accomplishments of British people and brought communities together lifting the nation’s spirits at a time of economic di. 8000 runners took it through over 1000 villages, towns and cities, it travelled by 68 different forms of transport including plane, helicopter, narrow boat, canoe, punt, horse, ski lift, balloon and tube. But it was the spirit of the torchbearers not the mechanics of the relay that so impressed me. There were big names, celebrities galore, men and women of genuine sporting or artistic achievement; but there were also the extraordinary ordinary people, the legions of local heroes nominated by their community, inspiring teachers and coachers, champions of good causes, people who have refused to be broken by tragedies, injuries and disabilities. The torch in that way was colour blind and impervious to social strata. It went to wealthy suburbs and inner city ghettoes and everywhere the torch went astounding numbers of people greeted it; it was welcomed by orchestras, choirs, Morris-dancers, brass bands, bagpipes, hip hop artists and Indian drummers – it brought the whole nation together, it brought smiles and cheers and squeals of delight. Perhaps it was a Canterbury Tales for our age, a chronicle of the nation at a moment in its history.

Who will inspire the next generation? Think of you your own life, and the people in it. Who has inspired you the most? Who gives you the strength to work the hardest, to never give up on your dreams and to keep going? I can think of the people in my life who have inspired me and I am sure all of you have a list in your head, too. But there is one name that should inspire you the most: Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth, the pale Galilean, the young prince and son of a virgin, the itinerant field preacher whose story is told in the New Testament. Some 2000 years after his death the world still doesn’t seem to be finished with Jesus of Nazareth. What inspires us about Jesus? Not his theology, far less the behaviour of “Christian” sinners like us. It is the character of Jesus that inspires me.

The first century Jew from Galilee is without doubt the most famous and influential person who ever walked the face of the earth. Two billion people identify themselves as Christians. Jesus himself was an Asian; he became an infant refugee in Africa, lived all his life in an Eastern backwater of the Roman Empire. He was a person of simplicity and wisdom, so secure that his words and actions spoke to the very core of our being. He visited towns and farms and villages attracting thousands wherever he went. He had no time for religious pomp and amazed people by his unique ability to heal and provide for those who came to him but had no ambition of social and political reform. He clearly disappoints some followers by talking instead about a kingdom of God that is already breaking into our world. He comforts and heals in equal measure; he is authentic in a way that exposes any trace of hypocrisy or self importance. And yet in every place people crowded around – to hear and touch him, to meet an electrifying man and a message that buzzes with life. Jesus cuts through the nonsense and puts his fingers on what really matters. “Listen,” he says to his critics, “what really matters is not dotting the religious I’s and crossing the T’s but what come out of the human heart.” It’s true, He could be angry. He was capable of condemning. He even talked of Judgment. But it’s not for this that we remember Him. We remember a Man who loved a sex-worker for indecently wiping His feet with her loose hair. Who publicly befriended a fraudster worse than any recently discredited banker. He loved to the uttermost. Love was his cure. Not medicine, or science, or technology, not even the Olympic glory of sport. It is love for which this God is known above all, extending an invitation into His kingdom to a terrorist hanging by His side.

The world is moved by all sorts of motives – personal power, prestige, status, wealth, sporting success – but Jesus chose as his primary motive that of love. He even used a word not known in the ancient world. His word for ‘love’ was the deep caring and abiding concern for another person. It was an unselfish, positive, universal and creative care for another.

That love of God, expressed in our loving action towards our neighbour, was the motive behind all that Jesus did. This included caring for others whatever their need and accepting others whatever their background or race. Jesus strongly emphasized that a forgiving attitude towards others would be part of our loving concern for them. This is the essence of the radical alternative lifestyle of Jesus that is so attractive to young people. It is this legacy that endures. Jesus is a voice for the unemployed young people of our region, the counter culturalists and highly trained professionals.

We can inspire our young people by living by example. To try to live the way Jesus wants for us. We treat others with love and humility. We pray for them. They will see how we treat others and will be inspired to explore their own relationship with Jesus. To go back to the Olympic metaphor, it is not the winning so much as the keeping our eye on Jesus which is important, remembering that our faith is not first and foremost built on teachings or doctrines, rules and regulations but around a person, the person of Jesus. We run the race of life as we mentioned in our call to worship, with our eyes fixed on Jesus, knowing that our race, our journey and pilgrimage isn't for winners but rather for finishers.

Central to the London Games is a desire for its legacy to inspire, and one year on from last year’s summer riots, sport as the Olympic Games have shown can give a very different picture of what life can be about. During these last two weeks Team GB have inspired a new generation. As the Olympic flame begins its journey tonight from this country to Brazil, the 2012 Games will pass into legend from this great country of ours. It is already possible to sense, years hence, the recollection of those distant days of London 2012 when the trains ran and the sun shone and the city came alive and all those wonderful athletes ran and rowed and sailed and jumped and swam and rode and shot and tumbled their way into a golden history which we are unlikely ever to forget. It has been a fantastic experience. And for all that has happened in the last two weeks we give thanks to God.

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

Heritage and History

A sermon preached by Revd Barry Hutchinson
at Barnard Castle United Reformed Church,  5 August 2012

A few weeks ago I attended a Quiet Day at Durham Cathedral, in the company of Anglican brethren and led by an Anglican priest.  Because I was reading for this sermon I happened to ask if anybody knew anything about the Great Ejectment of 1662.  Not one of them could recall ever hearing anything about it, not even the leader/priest who was a very well educated and well informed man.   I am not a historian – in fact I had forgotten much of what I had learned about dissent in Britain during my training –the story had then been just another load of facts to process and if necessary turned into an essay. 

But just recently a couple of experiences have led me to appreciate how much heritage and history can mean to human communities.  I come from Bishop Auckland originally but very early in life we moved to Fishburn where my dad was a pitman.   When I was a teenager I couldn’t wait to get out of the Northeast and so I moved around for many years until eventually settling down, now that I’m retired, near Durham City having been surprised a few years ago by a sense of being drawn back home. My wife and I went a few weeks ago to Durham Big Meeting, the annual Miners Gala – and what a day we had.  There was a huge sense of being grounded back into my own community, of taking in a new and proper sense of community pride and of the recovery of community self worth and value in what we have accomplished, politically and socially and economically in the North East, often against the odds and perhaps especially during the 1980’s which was a dark and depressing time on the Durham coalfield.  Yet here were people (over 100,000 of them by all accounts) from mining stock celebrating their heritage, defying the odds in an area where no coal mines exist anymore.  It was a remarkable day.

The other experience was watching the Olympic Opening Ceremony, which admittedly began slowly and patchily but ended up by being a huge celebration of what it means to be British, which is not easily indefinable yet  here included the back breaking and sometimes soul destroying toil of ordinary people as they worked in factories and mills during the industrial revolution, suffered during times of war, drew strength from their religion conviction to see them through dark times – and not forgetting Rowan Atkinson, Mr. Bean, who presented what had to be the funniest and quirkiest interlude in the history of the modern Olympiad;  typically British ironic humour.  There was a huge sense of national pride that British people pulled that ceremony off so well and did something so utterly different and compelling without being arrogant and proud in the wrong sense of that word.

So it was a sadness when I came across this piece by Tristram Hunt in the Guardian in 2006 as I swotted up for  this sermon, around a topic I only tackled because I was asked to:

The stories, monuments and myths that traditionally linked progressives with their heroic past have steadily retreated from public consciousness. This amounts to something akin to a loss of collective memory. And so it should come as no surprise that we have difficulty rallying any broader, popular enthusiasm for our political process when we lack an appreciation of our democratic heritage.

Hunt is speaking largely about political dissent which championed working class causes and struggled for the freedoms of democracy - but his statement can easily be attached to the history of religious dissent in our country which at different and many times has been the catalyst for the search and fight for equality of political representation,  access to education for all British people, access to health care for all people, and social care for the vulnerable, the search for which was often grounded in religious dissent.  Listen to this paraphrase:

And so it should come as no surprise that we have difficulty rallying any broader, popular enthusiasm for our religious process when we ourselves lack an appreciation of our religious heritage.

The Ejectment of 1662 meant that around 2000 educated clergymen and teachers could not follow their calling and underwent terrible suffering because their conscience would not let them conform to an act of parliament which denied some of the fundamental human freedoms which Christianity sought, and still seeks at its best, to bring to all people.  They were added to a band of people who from Elizabethan times were already worshipping in small groups outside of the established church, having given up the idea that the Church of England would ever change.  Happily for the dissenters of 1662 they were supported and encouraged by many of their former parishioners, some of whom were wealthy professional people,  who called them back into clerical service when that became possible.  But even then, and throughout the 18^th C.  they could not be educated at Cambridge and Oxford, the only degree awarding institutes and until early in the 19^th C. dissenters, or independents, or none conformists, were among those who could not hold military, public or political office unless they were willing to dissemble and at least appear to be conforming to the practices of the established church. 

To answer the need for good, solid education dissenters set up Academies of learning, some of which were not quite the thing but many of which became highly regarded and turned out some of the most distinguished and highly regarded scholars of their day.  Indeed, the academies became centres of progressive religion, promoting the application of intellectual reason in religion as well as in the developing and increasingly influential scientific projects of the age of enlightenment.   This reliance upon reason in faith,  maybe too much trust was given over to reason, led in the 18^th C. to many Presbyterian  congregations becoming Unitarian in belief – though these particular Presbyterians were largely unconnected to the Presbyterian Church of England which is now part of our tradition and came into being in the 19^th C.

Congregationalism which, as you know, is another major precursor of the URC was all the time developing and strengthening its influence, supported by new Congregational Christian industrialists and entrepreneurs who were agitating for more democracy and the right to be represented in the governing of the country.  Our forefathers were not ‘squeeky clean’ and some of them were as oppressive towards their workers as the political and religious establishment were to them.  But many of them promoted wider education and so Sunday Schools took root. 

Much of this political and social dissent was underpinned by belief in the freedom that the gospel gave to individuals and to like minded local groups of Christians to answer the call of God, uninfluenced by government, and to make decisions which affected people locally at the local level. 

And so the call of God stretched to being actively involved in the development of society as a fairer and more wholesome place for all its inhabitants where governments did not oppress the little man but strove to enable each to reach their full potential.  So political and social action have always been part of the dissenting agenda. 

There is so much in our dissenting history that would make your heart swell with pride as you read it.  We’re in a time when our influence continues to wane and we seem to be increasingly marginalized, not only socially and politically but also as a faith community which appears to be having much difficulty finding its place in modern society.  We are in a crisis which seems to me to be every bit as big as the ejectment of 1662 – and crisise need tackling in different ways to the ordinary, run of the mill ups and downs of a steady community journey.  Can you imagine the soul searching and determination and continuing commitment which must have arisen amongst the dissenting communities after 1662?  It led, when times changed, to the establishment of new, vigorous  congregations of faithful Christians, living and worshipping in new and different ways, experimenting within the faith to allow the Spirit to move in them and through them into the world to bless it? 

Sometimes this led people astray.  More usually it re-invigorated and remodeled their faith and empowered the people to become who they were meant to become.  And through their dissent other people came into more human freedom than they had known before.
And so we can re-capture our history as a means to encourage ourselves in these less encouraging times.  We can explore and adapt our traditions, just as our forefathers have done before us, resting, as the Gospel story points us towards, upon Jesus who is the genesis of our faith and the completer of our faith and guardian of our faith.  We can continue to promote the freedom of conscience for all people engendered by the dissenting religious agenda and thus defend democratic values for the future.  

Free church traits such as voluntarism, an active laity, populist forms of church government, individualism, and suspicion of authority have nurtured the growth of democracy - and more importantly personal and community freedom and equality.

In the same way as our forefathers did we can take new looks at our faith, bringing to bear our time and energy to discover how to follow our Lord in a challenging age, an age when some people see the future of the churches being focused for a while at least upon a few centres of Christian excellence where resources can be concentrated and new ways of being, experimented with and developed.  There are signs in our colleges and amongst our leaders that we can be successful in the transition, that the Holy Spirit is still at work amongst us if we open our eyes and dare to follow, sometimes down some unorthodox and scary paths.  But the need to change and adapt to current conditions, however hard that might seem to be, is a constant lesson in our dissenting history.

Centering our life, faith and church community on the desire to do God’s will and to follow Jesus as our first priority, we can be sure that God will bless our efforts and the church will continue to be God’s servant and the servant of society which at its best it always is.