To behold

Sermon preached by Ray Anglesea at Wolsingham Methodist Church Covenant Service

Sunday 19^th January 2014

The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew: Matthew 4 v18-20

                       Caravagio (1603 -1606) 

One of the joys of working in the circuit is the beautiful scenic car drive from Brancepeth village along Stockley Lane to the B6299 through the former pit villages of Stanley along the ridge at Billy Row, to Sunniside then on to Tow Law and the B6297 down Redgate Bank passing the John Duckett Martyrs Memorial Cross to Wolsingham. Whatever the season, Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall as Carole King’s song goes the view of Weardale from along this route is spectacular, with farmland, dry stone walls, sheep, stunning views of rich green agricultural land, redundant limestone quarries, small historic villages, significant buildings, footpaths and a train service. I often stop the car at the War Memorial at the top of Billy Row bank to drink in the sheer beauty of this striking valley; the valley certainly has what my children would call the “Wow” factor.

I wonder what your wow factors might be, sunsets at the beach perhaps, a beautiful meal with friends, a graduation ceremony, sitting by a cascading waterfall, an international holiday, reading a poem, standing in front of a masterpiece, holding a grandchild, standing by Seaham Harbour lighthouse at the waves crash over the stone pier? Some friends of mine recently celebrated a significant birthday drinking champagne in the Grand Canyon, Arizona; they flew into the striking and awesome Colorado River Canyon by helicopter from Las Vegas. They have never stopped talking about it since. It was a wonderful and memorable holiday indeed. Wow!

In our gospel reading this morning we hear of a “Wow” moment. John the Baptist sees Jesus coming, and in the translation offered by the King James Bible says, “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him and saith “Behold, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.”

The word I love most in this reading this morning is the word Behold – John says “Behold , the lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” Behold. Not a word we use too much these days, rather old fashioned you might say, but the bible is full of beholds – “Behold, A virgin shall conceive and bear a son,” “Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy” – you can almost hear the tunes of The Messiah ringing through the acclamations. And that notion of beholding - that’s what I feel like when I drive into Weardale, to “Behold Weardale in all its beauty,” a breathtaking momentary experience. I wonder whether Prince William had a wow moment when he beheld Kate Middelton, his bride at his wedding in Westminster Abbey. A couple of seasons ago I sung with my Newcastle choir Vaughan William’s Sea Symphony; the chorus starts with a majestic and stately opening “Behold the Sea - itself,” the majestic fanfare of an introduction of Walt Whitman’s poem. It is music to arrest your attention, to make you listen. At Crook last Advent the chapel community looked at a number of Advent poems, one of which was Edwin Muir’s poem The Annuniciation. The 19^th century Orkadian poet too has a wow moment; he asks the reader to focus and gaze intently at the moment of the annunciation. He addresses the stillness and the holiness of the moment when an angel brings the news that heaven and earth are to be united in the body of an ordinary woman. He uses words like “bliss,” limbs and “trembling” which hint at the importance of this religious moment as he focuses on the two faces of Mary and the Angel, their mutual gaze and the sense that they increasingly reflect each other. Next Sunday we shall look at the call of the disciples from Matthew 4, the calling of Andrew and Peter, James and John. The early seventeenth century Italian painter Caravaggio painted the scene in 1603 or there abouts; the painting was purchased by Charles 1 – an avid art collector – in 1637. Sold during the Commonwealth it was re-acquired by Charles II after the Restoration. It has since remained in royal possession, and is today owned by The Queen. Kept in Hampton Court Palace it was long believed to be a virtually worthless copy of a lost original, but after six years of restoration and examination the Royal Collection declared on 10 November 2006, that this was, in fact, an authentic Caravaggio. The verdict has been corroborated by external experts, and the painting is now probably worth more than £50 million. A Wow moment indeed 

The words that John ‘seeth Jesus coming unto him’ makes me imagine the way they are viewing each other, eyeing each other up, holding each other in their gaze, not just a walking towards, but with a look that says it all - John is the one seen and chosen by Jesus. To behold then is to see with complete attention, to see the remarkable. To “behold the lamb of God.” Here is a phrase so rich in meaning. ‘Lamb of God’ – for the Jews, here is a word with a whole history of powerful symbolic meaning.

The sacrificial lamb, the unblemished lamb whose blood was smeared on the two doorposts and the lintels of the Jewish household as a sign of God’s liberating saving power, a covenant sign that God had chosen to enter into their history. The Jews believed no one could see the face of God and live. But now John the Baptist calls us to behold – to behold the one who becomes our liberator, the saviour, the friend of sinners. We are called to look on the face of God.

We will be called later in this covenant service to behold with all our attention the sacrament of Holy Communion  - for some Holy Communion is the living presence of God shown forth in bread and wine, for others it may be a picture or representation of God in bread and wine, which is of itself a wow moment.  ‘Beholding the lamb of God’ at Holy Communion is to look into the presence of God. It is being filled by it. It is to see salvation.

John the Baptist in our Gospel today makes space for the one he beholds. He does not try to convince or explain. In fact as soon as he sees Christ, he gets out of the way himself: “Behold the lamb that taketh away the sin of the world.” John opens himself to the one who comes. He really sees. He is suddenly aware of the blessing of God breaking into the world. He sees the heavens opened and sees the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove. He knows the Son of God is here with us.

There is a brave humility in this recognition. John does not cling onto this blessing or attempt to possess it, or to seize it for himself as a mark of his own authority or power. There is no attempt to control or manipulate or possess. Here is an example to each one of us and to the Church at the start of his New Year. This blessing of God is for all to behold; it is not the possession of the institution to dispense. It is the love of God like sunlight falling on each one of us. How then must we respond? John lets go. He opens his hands. He responds to Christ with a generosity which mirrors the grace of God. He tells his disciples to “behold the lamb of God” – he points towards Christ and allows them to follow. “Where are you staying?” they ask Jesus. “Come and see,” Jesus replies. And over a meal and drinks which lasted at least till four o'clock in the afternoon; there appears another wow moment for Andrew – he experiences a new calling, a new walk with God. His first response was to find his brother, and, with extraordinary certainty asserts that he had found the Messiah. And so Andrew and his friends answer the call and offer their lives for renewal, without knowing the outcome.

As Andrew and Peter were different people who were called by Jesus, it is worth remembering at the start of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity God does not call any one type. God calls all types. The gifts are not competitive, but rather complementary. The gifts are bestowed from grace, so all may be of benefit. The unity of the Church flows from diversity, not uniformity. From the very beginnings of the Gospels, the story about vocations is a testimony to the extraordinary range of people that God uses to share in the work of the Kingdom, it is about a God who uses our weaknesses – the foolish and base things of the world to bring about change. Which is why he says to each and every one of us today, as he did to the fisherman at the beginning of the Gospel today – Come and see.

Perhaps that is the best New Year’s resolution any of us could make: to behold Christ in one another, and to behold Christ’s presence in our own lives; a beholding which means becoming aware of blessing, to “behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”

Amen

Isaiah 49.1-7; 1 Corinthians 1.1-9; John 1.29-42

MP 728 We have a gospel to proclaim

MP 65 Brightest and Best (tune: Epiphany Hymn)

MP 67 Breathe on me breath of God

MP 755 When I survey the wondrous cross

MP 501 O Jesus I have promised

A Call to Unity

A reflection by Ray Anglesea for St Andrew's Dawson Street, Crook:

Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Jan 18-25 2014

One of the highlights of my ministerial training was a visit to the Holy Land. I remember being driven by the Sea of Galilee and walking in the hills above, in the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali as mentioned in the Old and New Testaments. It is a particularly beautiful part of the world. Being in Israel of course reveals the contrast between the New Testament land of the mind and the New Testament land of physical reality. To walk in the synagogue at Capernaum, a later building than the one Jesus would have known but on the same site, and from there just to stroll a few yards to the Galilee shore where he met and called Peter and Andrew, James and John is to make the New Testament feel very close in the town that Jesus made his home.

But there were unpleasant memories of that pilgrimage too. Swimming in the Dead Sea was not an agreeable or pleasurable experience. The other disturbing recollection was when a small group of ordinands, myself included, took an early Sunday walk to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the possible site of the crucifixion and burial of Jesus. We heard a Greek Orthodox Service clashing with an Armenian one, and with other Christian groups each with some stake in different chapels in the church holding their own services. Christian Unity was not obviously evident. But then has it ever been?

In the 16^th century the Christian church in Western Europe was torn apart. The events are well known. Rome’s slothful response to allegations of its corruption and failures provoked vigorous reaction. The need for reform seemed overwhelming. The Augustinian friar Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses to the door of the church in Wittenburg, Ulrich Zwingli’s influences had soon swept through Zurich, and in due course John Calvin controlled Geneva. King Henry VIII was at first an ally of the Pope but, frustrated by the failure to have his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled, he severed the English Church’s bond with Rome and had himself proclaimed head. The Roman Catholic Church’s reaction to these initiatives led to the summoning of the Council of Trent. It met for three extended periods between 1545 and 1563 and renewed the Church’s teaching, spirituality and discipline. It articulated the stand of the Counter-Reformation. Positions became fixed. Controversy flourished and persecution became common. People were put to death. Everyone of whatever persuasion could appeal to martyrs. The outlook was bleak.

There was more to come. As a result of the Act of Uniformity in 1662 priests in the Church of England sought freedom to live and worship outside the bounds of the established English Church; the concept of non-conformity was borne and the Presbyterian and Congregational churches later came into being. In the 18^th century the Methodist Movement/Church was founded by John Wesley; it became a highly successful evangelical movement in Britain and later in the United States. Wesley’s work also helped lead to the development of the Holiness Movement and Pentecostalism. The search for unity amongst the Anglican, Reformed and Methodist traditions continues to this day with some, albeit small, progress.

At his Last Supper, Jesus had prayed to his Father that all those who believe in Him “may become completely one.” This prayer has a purpose. Jesus longed for the unity of believers “so that the world may know that You have sent Me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17 v23). The unity of Christians was to be a sign to the whole human race of God’s love for everyone.

When I am tempted to get despondent by the state of the church today and reflect on its history as briefly outlined above I just sit down and read the epistles of Paul to the Corinthians. I realise the search for unity in the church is as old as the hills. Against the fractious background of the early churches Paul’s plea that they should be of the same mind and the same judgement is paramount. The epistle shows just how complicated the idea of Unity had become. All those in the church of Corinth no doubt felt they were following Christ, they had responded each in their own way to his call, but we also discover from Paul’s letter that, nonetheless, even then the church was fractious and divided, with various factions competing for pre-eminence. 

And so ever since Paul’s time different churches have gone their own way. But then perhaps it was inevitable, especially if you do not think that unity implies uniformity. Each of the churches represented down the ages of history has had its own history, its life moulded by events often outside its own control, the debates and discussions that have taken place over the years among its members, each making its contribution to their life today. We should not be surprised that 2000 years of diverse experiences and debates and temperaments have produced diverse churches with different emphases. And even within our own local churches in Crook there are assorted traditions and practices; high and low churches, Evangelical and Catholic, conservative and liberal, social activists and those more quietist in their approach; we all rub up against one another with much of our history in common.

But I do not believe that diversity matters as long as we all recognise what unites us. We have in our respective traditions heard a call to follow Christ. A clue to our unity therefore might be found in our Gospel reading appointed for the Sunday after the week of Prayer for Christian Unity, when we bring to mind the calling, by the Sea of Galilee, of Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John (in the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali). We are not simply hearing a story of something that happened two thousand years ago in a part of the world far distant from Crook, that same Jesus addresses each of us now (in the present tense) as he did to Simon and Andrew, James and John by the Sea of Galilee, and he says to us now as he said to them then: ‘Follow me’.

Follow me implies in our traditions seeking to see the world not though our own so often self-centred eyes, but try to see the world through God’s eyes, and to see what it means to live in a universe that has a loving God at its centre and running through it all, giving it, and us, life. Jesus says follow me, in putting that truth above all others in determining the priorities of our lives. He says follow me in putting the needs of others, including the needs of the poor, the disposed, the infirm and the persecuted at the very least on a par with our own needs and wishes. And above all he says follow me, if necessary even in the path of self-sacrifice, because it is in giving our lives for the sake of others that we find our own true life. It is a compelling but demanding call that Jesus addresses to each of us now, but then, as the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews wrote, “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

That is the glue that holds us together, for all our diversity. Inevitably it will mean different things for different people in different circumstances, but the core remains the same, a response to the call to follow Christ.

Christmas Day Sermon

preached by Ray Anglesea at St Andrew's Dawson Street, Crook - 25-December-2013

 

Every year in Advent the good folk of Barnard Castle United Reformed Church decorate their church with an advent theme; this year the church was decorated with a fresco of stars. The stars of the night sky reminded me of a Christmas card the Bishop of London sent to his clergy and a colleague of mine in the London Diocese a couple of years ago. At first sight the Christmas card looked like one of those wonderful and spectacular star pictures from the Hubble Telescope, but on closer inspection the Christmas card picture turned out to be of light, not from some far-distant supernova exploded star, but the lights of London seen from the International Space Station. Such breathtaking space pictures of the Earth have taken Twitter by storm during the last couple of months; they were posted by the Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield aboard the International Space Station. His astonishing pictures taken from 250 miles above the earth’s surface included pictures of Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle. If we had a giant magnifying glass to look as these astounding light pictures I am sure somewhere in that luminous central spot in the North East we would find Crook.

The journey of Christmas began 4 weeks ago here in chapel with Dorothy’s granddad, alias David Dixon, feverishly looking into the night sky, waiting, longing, looking for a sign – had he not taken his tablets we thought, had he not been to spec-savers. Grandad Dixon had been like the watching and waiting sentinels, the sentry guards on lookout high up on Jerusalem’s city walls taken from Isaiah’s reading this morning, straining to see and hear, preparing to receive the good news of this light coming into the world. We too have been on the look-out for God again this year as we shared our Advent journey in Crook Churches Together, wisely led by Robert (Revd Robert Fisher).

And our Advent journey has brought us to today, to this morning’s worship, the birth of Christ who is the luminous centre of Christmas; his light shining like a supernova star in our darkness. We hear the familiar story again that seems to come to us like the light of that star, from far away. Mary and Joseph travelling, a census, a birth in an out-of- the way place, angels bringing good news, rough irreligious shepherds brought in from the pitch darkness of the fields to see and hear things that bring them light and a new vision; wonder and joy and peace for all the world. We see, hear and feel the light of this familiar story but we wonder where the source is. Is it close by or is it far away? Is it light coming at us from a stable 2000 plus years ago or a light of new life that burns intensely among us here and now on this Christmas morning; wonder and joy perhaps emanating in this small town of Crook, wonder and joy in our lives perhaps as we contemplate the great mystery of the Incarnation, for it is indeed a mystery?

Today we in Crook and other small congregations are illuminated by that light of the Christ child born among us 2000 years ago, revealing God to us, in his vulnerability, in his openness, his humility and weakness – just where we are – perhaps to uncertain futures and jobs, to vulnerable and fragile communities around our chapel, to hopes of stable families and circumstances perhaps not yet fulfilled but longed for. The good news of the gospel is that he is with us here in Crook to bring light and love and healing, where love and freedom and healing, reconciliation and peace are needed.

And because of this wonderful story which we celebrate this morning, we have good news to tell and share with the good folk of Crook. Good news in action which has brightened up our community and the world outside Crook. Good news of light shining like the stars because we are bringing in his kingdom...................... 

·         In the innumerable acts of kindness and concern shared together in and amongst our congregation and friends

·         in the sheer goodness of people from Crook Churches Together who have given over 6 tons of foodstuffs to the poor, vulnerable and hungry of our community.  

·         by church members in their passion for justice and a voice for those who are affected by government cuts, with the poorest and most vulnerable most at risk.  

·         in the love at a beautiful wedding here in chapel in May this year, the new Mr and Mrs Dixon 

·         in the hundreds of pounds raised for local and national charities during our August coffee mornings, our fund raising efforts, and the start of the refurbishment of the URC Ministers Training College at Westminster, Cambridge  

·         in our world after a year when a number of natural disasters have swept people off their feet, in the Philippines, and continuing war in Syria and now in the Southern Sudan and other places that we know.  

·         In our pain and suffering, in the darkness and mystery of life, for we know even in the darkness his light is not extinguished 

We each have had lovely experiences this last year where we have seen and known and heard God’s love. The good news we receive today, of Christ come among us, touches our deepest yearnings for light in darkness, for fulfilment of our hopes, for a different kind of world. It is light that is real and alive. 

Like the luminous centre of the earth’s cities lights taken from the international space station the luminous heart of the good news is our relationship with God who comes to be born in us, to bring light to the centre of our lives. Like the shepherds he calls us from inside, from the cold to the warmth of a real relationship with him. His love comes to birth in that stable place of our lives. 

Like Mary we treasure the experiences of light and goodness we see reflected in the lives of those around us as we ponder this beautiful awareness of Christ who comes to be born in us again this Christmas-tide. Like the Shepherds who returned glorifying God for all that they had heard and seen we cannot help becoming ourselves those messengers of light sharing what we see and hear. For the town of Crook is never in darkness because Christ has come to be born in us and it is his light which is the light source at the centre of our lives, the centre of our town, the centre of our world.

And that is:- 

Good news of great joy for all the people

 

Readings: Isaiah 52.7-10; Luke 2.1-20

“Be strong, do not fear. Here is your God”

Sermon preached at St Andrew's Dawson Street, Crook by Ray Anglesea -
3rd Sunday in Advent, 15-Dec-2013

Isaiah: 52: 7-10; Hebrews 1: 1-4; John 1: 1-14

 

After the certainty, the bravado, the swagger we read in the gospel this morning that John the Baptist has a wobble. Last week, we heard about his ministry in the desert, his fiery, hissing angry voice, his name calling and his serpent like rhetoric. We heard his clear, prophetic voice crying out, ‘Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’ This week, we hear a very different voice, a quivering questioning voice. John has been imprisoned. Calling the religious leaders of his day a brood of vipers may not won him any favours. Doubt had begun to creep in. John baptized Jesus because he recognized in him God’s Messiah, his messenger; now John shackled in a prison cell has begun to wonder was it all a big mistake. Was he having second thoughts, new doubts, mixed feelings, that feeling we sometimes have that nothing feels right anymore, something has gone dreadfully wrong?

The way Matthew tells the story raises several puzzling questions. Here’s the first. We are told, ‘When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” It’s not clear whether this use of the word ‘Messiah’ – ‘what the Messiah was doing’ - is John the Baptist’s way of speaking about Jesus or Matthew, the Gospel writer’s way of reminding us, despite John’s doubts, that Jesus is indeed the Messiah. If it’s John’s way of speaking, is John now saying that, so far as he is concerned, Jesus is the wrong sort of Messiah? John had warned the people that God’s messenger would bring God’s wrath and he would be separating out the good from the bad. But Jesus seems to have reserved his wrath for the religious leaders of the temple, and he deliberately sought out bad company to share his good news with. So here’s John’s dilemma. John has been left wondering whether he got the wrong message and or the wrong man.

Jesus’s reply to John is clear: He tells John’s disciples - ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone – including John – who takes no offence at me.’

Both Jesus and John would have known the passage from Isaiah which Caroline read as our first reading; ‘Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear. Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you”. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.’ Isaiah was talking about the wonderful day when God would set his people free from exile, when ‘the ransomed of the Lord [would] return, and come to Zion with singing’ – but he was also talking about more than a return from Babylon. He was talking about a great deal that hadn’t yet happened. Jesus says it is happening now, and so he sends a coded message to John. ‘Do not fear. Here is your God.’ There will be judgment, there will be recompense, but not without healing and joy.

This raises another intriguing question. If the blind are receiving their sight, and if the lame are walking and if the dead are being raised’, surely it wouldn’t have been difficult for Jesus to have paid Herod back for imprisoning John and to have set John free. We know what happened later: when John denounced Herod for marrying his brother’s wife, the wife told her daughter to ask for John the Baptist’s head on a dish. John was left in prison to face a lonely and painful death. Sometimes the ways of God are very hard to understand.

In our Gospel reading Jesus goes on to speak to the crowds who went out to see John in the desert. Jesus tells them straight that John was the last and greatest of the prophets, the one Micah wrote about when he said, ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ Then Jesus says something really surprising, ‘Truly I tell you among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.’ Is he saying that John is not in the kingdom of heaven? Apparently so. Jesus seems to be saying that the Kingdom of heaven begins with the Messiah. The signs of the Kingdom are that the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised and the poor have good news brought to them. John never claimed to be bringing in this kingdom, but Jesus did. And this is what Christians believe: ‘When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death thou didst open the kingdom to all believers’ including, no doubt, John the Baptist.

One question in all this that intrigues me comes from Jesus’ words ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see.’ The Gospels bear witness that during Jesus’ ministry the blind received their sight, the lame walked, and many wonderful things took place. There are so many stories in the Gospels about miracles like this that if we are to take the New Testament seriously we have to accept their testimony. Jesus was more than a holy man and if God was uniquely at work in him it is not surprising that extraordinary things happened. Jesus said, ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see.’ We live in a different age and we see different things. Or do we? What I hear and see of the wonders of God could always, it seems to me, be spoken of in a purely natural way: this wonderful event that could so easily be a coincidence; that brilliant recovery, which amazes the doctors, could be attributed to outstanding medical care. And yet when you or I have prayed, hoping against hope, in a seemingly impossible situation, and the impossible has happened – when someone you love has made a fantastic recovery; when a life has been spared; a disaster has been averted; a new way forward has opened out – what can we do but say that these are indeed for us with eyes of faith, the wonderful works of God? Often, we say little about these experiences because they are personal and very precious. This is holy ground. Yet, there may be times, as in this story of John the Baptist, when something should be said, when we should tell what we hear and see of God at work in his world.

At Durham Cathedral where I work I hear many stories from customers. I think, for example, of the chaplain who met someone who had once prayed in the cathedral for the gift of a baby, when, apparently, conception was not possible. The family was in the cathedral to celebrate that prayed-for child's graduation from the university. Their comment? "We are here to say thank you to God." Or the lady who bought a rosary for her father suffering from severe dementia, but with a rosary in his hands he remembers his family and his prayers, or the undergraduates who fell in love at the university now back in Durham with their family to celebrate their golden wedding, the priest from Malawi who came to Durham St John’s to say thank you to the college for sending a missionary priest to his country to preach the gospel, the soldier from who had served in Afghanistan for eight years now training for the ministry.   

So often our deepest experiences of God’s working leave intellectual questions. Why in this situation was there something like a miracle and why in that situation was there not? Only this week I have heard of two friends who have heard they have inoperable cancer and only months to live and the tragic news of Matthew my son’s best man – his wife lost her baby 36 weeks “in utero” last Wednesday. Heartbreaking news. There is nothing one can say. Searching for intellectual answers is beyond us in such situations. And yes faith can be badly eroded by life tragedies. God seems to go silent; the lines are down, he maintains radio silence.  Hope has gone. The night and day are black. Today’s Sunday’s poem Dover Beach written by Matthew Arnold remains one of the most powerful expressions of the intensity of a loss of faith.

There are no explanations or are there? - perhaps, because the Kingdom of God is not an explanation. The Kingdom of God, as John had to learn, is life and health and peace and it is for those who desire above everything else God’s life and health and peace. Those who enter it are the shaken, the destitute, the doubtful and the lost. When John allowed Jesus to see how lost he had become in his prison cell he was perhaps closer to the kingdom than he had ever been before. When Jesus sent him the coded message, ‘Be strong, do not fear. Here is your God’ perhaps his eyes were opened to see as he never saw before, his ears to hear as he never heard before, the good news of the Kingdom. Once he got the message, I hope that in his prison cell John could at last say, like Simeon, that other early witness to God’s glory, ‘Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word. For mine eyes have seen thy salvation.’

So what then is the key phrase in this week's readings? "Strengthen" must be a strong contender. It is hard, but possible, to piece together the bigger picture when our own circumstances seem to challenge the faithfulness of God. Then we can strengthen ourselves and one another. Be strong, do not fear. Here is your God’ Advent is about learning to wait strongly.

 

Advent Signs

Read John 1 GNB (paraphrase)

 

‘Before the world was created LOVE already existed.

LOVE was with God and LOVE was God.

From the very beginning LOVE was with God.

Through LOVE God made all things; 

not one thing in all creation was made without LOVE.

LOVE was the source of life and this life brought light to humankind.

The light of LOVE shines in the darkness

and the darkness has never put it out……..

LOVE become a human being and,

full of grace and truth, lives among us.’

 

Sing: ‘God so loved the world’ by John Horman* (John 3 v 16)  [*Music Bank]

 

Reflection:  Word made flesh

How do you

     flesh out
          a word,
              God;

 Cover letters

     in sinew,
          skin?

Is it possible

     to produce
          pigment
              on paper;

Or life-lines

     and laughter lines
          in script,

So that the impact

     resonates throughout
          the mists of
              time?

 

In a word,

     Yes.

          L O V E!

                                       © Carol Dixon 

 

Sing:    Love came down at Christmas (R&S 614)

 

Meditation:   Give us a sign

          ‘Give us a sign’ they said.

          ‘Some token to show
          you haven’t abandoned us, God.’
          And God did.
          He sent a baby,
          born to ordinary parents,
          in ordinary circumstances;
          a child, who grew up
          in a small town,
          in a small country;
          a man, who lived and healed
          and loved people,
          who died on a Cross
          as a sign of God’s
          immense, eternal love.

          ‘That’s not a sign,’ they said.

          That’s just a human being,
          pretending to be God.’
          So God raised him from death
          and he returned to his home in glory.
          Later his followers were filled
          with his Spirit and witnessed
          to God’s Word in the world.
          ‘That’s not a sign,’ they said.
          ‘That’s fantasy – unbelievable.
          Give us a sign, God,
          a sign we can believe in.’
          And God said, ’My Word!
          It’s just as well I believe
          in You!’

                             © Carol Dixon 

 

Sing:     I am for you (R&S 180)

 

The Coming of the Kingdom of God

An illustrated sermon preached by Ray Anglesea at Crook LEP, Sunday 17^th November 2013

"The days will come when not one stone will be left
upon another; all will be thrown down." Luke 21 v6

Heading south to see my new granddaughter on the East coast mainline to Kings Cross I 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 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 and particularly in this year when the Lindisfarne Gospels made a 3 month return to Durham. 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 in hand 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. In our own tradition many of our nonconformist chapels have been demolished or converted to furniture warehouses, 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 three years ago 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 in an emotional ceremony as it was returned to secular use. This new cardboard Cathedral has been built as a temporary replacement whilst long term options are considered.

Listen again to the opening words of today’s gospel from Luke. 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 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;  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?

As we look back over the last Christian year no-one could accuse 2012/2013 of being a slow news year. In the last couple of years heads of great democracies have fallen. In France, Britain, Spain, Italy and many more countries, governments have felt the electorates disapproval of their failed attempts to shelter their citizens from economic chills. Jobs have been lost in their millions, incomes have stagnated, services have been curtailed, optimism has drained away and politics has become shrill and discontented. Some of a more radical disposition who read this morning’s gospel with end-time thoughts in mind might say it has been a decade 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, and the savage chemical and military slaughter of the innocents in Syria. And this week one of the most powerful storms in living memory struck the coastal town of the Philippine Islands of Leyte and Samar on Friday. It was one of the most powerful storms on record to make landfall with devastating consequences.

Here in Britain over the last year barley a week passes without a street demonstration by those claiming that their faith has been insulted, or calls for new laws to curb those abusing religion as an instrument of incitement. Debate in Britain has seemed to leap back at least two centuries to an age when religion lay not only at the heart of politics but was central to the clash of cultures, ideas and the struggle for liberty and was the cause of bitter divisions. Too add to these national difficulties the Vatican issued a statement in May that credible research has reached the shocking conclusion that every year an estimate of 100,000 Christians are killed every year because of some relation to their faith.

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.

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 Luke, 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.

Whilst places like Durham Cathedral and our own chapels in the District and Synod look to fresh challenges and opportunities of engaging with a secular society, of how to use their buildings for community purposes and in the public interest of religion, it is 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 of all our fears and longings. 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.’

Luke 21 v5-19

Combatants and Civilians - Armistice Day 2013

A Reflection shared by Ray Anglesea at St Andrew's Dawson Street LEP, Crook

 

 

The first official Armistice Day was held in the Grounds of Buckingham Palace on the morning of November 11th 1919. That day was to set the trend for a day of Remembrance for decades to come. Today, for many of us, the world will briefly stand still. At the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month, as for generations past, we will celebrate the armistice, when the most terrible war yet seen by history finally drew to a close. We will remember quietly and with reverence the British men and women who fought and died in that war and in other more recent conflicts. In those moments of silence as we remember our war dead we may wish to reflect on how fortunate we are to live in a country that is relatively prosperous and at peace – and how unlikely it is that we, our children or our children’s children shall ever be asked to make a similar sacrifice. And in the silence as flags are lowered, bugles play and autumn leaves swirl around town and village cenotaphs there may be a moment too to remember the civilian war dead of recent decades.

Remembrance Day is a profoundly British occasion, steeped not in jingoism but in solemn patriotism, when a nation given to pageantry and tradition honours its military dead. More subtly, it is tinged with nostalgia. The last living veteran of the Great War was Florence Green who died last year on the4 February 2012, aged 110; the last veteran who served in the trenches was Harry Patch who died on 25 July 2009, aged 111. These veterans together with their comrades of Flanders and the Somme have now gone to their eternal rest, their bravery, patriotism and that nostalgia of a sepia age have survived. Britain will still celebrate Remembrance Day. We will remember them.

War has however changed. Men still fight each other. Indeed, by the calculation of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, more than 100,000 people have died in armed conflicts over the last 12 months. But while the Great War may have been the first of World Wars it was also in a sense the last of the wars – the last major conflict in which the overwhelming majority of casualties were the soldiers who fought it (approximately 9.8 million military deaths). The balance had already tilted by the time of the Second World War. Today the ratios have been reversed.

A report by the non-profit group Action of Armed Violence, March 2012, suggested that in modern conflicts, 80 per cent of casualties are likely to be unarmed civilians. Casualties recorded in their recent report were caused by conventional military explosive weapons such as mortars, rockets, artillery and such improvised explosive devices (IEDs) as car and suicide bombs. Alas, most of the civilian dead perished not in wars between nations, but in dirty and brutal civil wars that are barely comprehensible to themselves, let alone outsiders. Today’s professional soldiers are more likely to be peacekeepers than warriors, so highly trained in computerised warfare that – unlike the cannon fodder of the trenches – they cannot afford to be lost. In modern warfare, the wrath of science has been turned on civilians, in the shape cluster bombs and landmines, drones, chemical and ultimately nuclear weapons, all designed not so much to destroy armies as to terrorise and, if need be, annihilate the civilian population that supports them.

None of this is to belittle the hi-tech soldier of today, still less those who went before him. As every year, we bow our heads to those who gave their lives for their country. But is does not dishonour their memory to argue that, in a global age, we should also remember refugees and the civilian dead of wars around the world, who died without medals, without cause and without honour. In that way we remember how dreadful war truly is.