Meat the Future

Sermon preached by Ray Anglesea at Frosterley Methodist Chapel, Weardale -

 

22-September 2103

 

Frosterley Harvest Festival 2013

Harvest is one of the most wonderful times of celebration in the church’s year and particularly here in this beautiful and picturesque Dale. There is just unbridled joy at the beauty of the dale in field and orchard and on the heather moors. At harvest time we thank God for all the gifts which have been given to us, those mentioned in our psalm and opening prayers this evening and more; we thank God for all the opportunities made available to us from the world and its resources. Well almost that is!

I say almost because harvest-time presents us with salutary questions about how we provide for and share those resources given to us by God, about how we care for the world and its peoples. Tonight I want to suggest some innovative and perhaps revolutionary ways in which hungry people might be fed in the future. I often feel embarrassed when shopping in our High Street supermarkets by how much foodstuff choices we have on our shelves; I think back to the time I worked in Kenya where many of my staff and in the church I attended lacked even the most basic food products. It’s not easy either having a son who is a Michelin star chef who can command a three figure sum for a taster menu/evening dinner in one of his restaurants - beautiful food of course but uncomfortable prices. And another son who owns a very successful coffee house in Durham. No wonder I need to spend time in the gym!

The workhouse waif Oliver Twist’s comment – “Please sir, I want some more,” penned by Dickens in 1838 echoes down the years and is a strap-line/advertising slogan for many relief agencies - Christian Aid, Tear Fund, Oxfam – how to feed the world’s poor who want more. The Bible Society’s summer magazine entitled “Food Matters” suggest that the world’s population is projected to peak in 2050 at between 8 -10.5 billion; the present world population is 6.8 billion so that means that over the next 40 years world agriculture will have to produce food for an extra 4.5 billion people. Of that 6.8 billion, a sixth, nearly one billion, already go hungry. Every night more than 870 million people go to bed hungry. That number is equivalent to every person in America, Canada, Australia and Europe. And as we know for those living with hunger not just in the developing nations of the world but here at home through our Food Bank Appeals, every aspect of their daily life can be affected if he or she is hungry.  Sadly, the uncomfortable truth is that we’re not able to cope with the current demand for food let alone being able to meet the needs of an increasing global population. But there are some positive and hopeful signs of progress being made in our livestock and food industries that may go some way to help feed future generations – some, it may be said, by unusual and unconventional methods – so here are two examples from our arable and livestock industries you may wish to consider tonight.

I was fascinated, encouraged even hopeful by BBC 2’s Celebration of the British Harvest shown on television over 3 nights last week. The new series followed the stories of 3 farmers over a period of 12 months - from a broccoli field farmer in Lincolnshire, a wheat farmer from Essex to a cherry farmer in Hertfordshire. The science and technology now available to these farmers to provide food straight from the field to our High Street supermarket and onto our plate was truly amazing – awesome in fact – the immense scale of harvesting 24 hours around the clock of potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, broccoli, and wheat was simply astounding, even breathtaking. Harvesting on a mega scale appeared like a high-tech revolution – the cherry farmer alone had 30 miles of poly-tunnels covering his trees, he employed hundreds of migrant workers mostly from Eastern Europe and imported millions of bees from Slovakia to fertilize his cherry blossom. Futuristic farming indeed for a supermarket age! What I picked up from this new television programme was that farmers can benefit immensely from a science that is pioneering new techniques of crop/fruit production with new technological aids in the form of agricultural machinery worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.  Farming efficiency it appears is all important if the nation’s population is to be fed. Of course this creates great challenges to farmers who act as suppliers to the food chain. Add to that the competition for land and water, climate change, maintaining biodiversity and a host of other environmental issues, it becomes clear that science and technology, is the key to increasing our food production.

But if science and technology is helping to improve grain and fruit production in 30 miles of poly-tunnels and glass houses the size of 30 football pitches what about the farmers counterparts in the livestock industry? Well I said there were unconventional methods of food production and here it is. Feeding the world’s growing population is a big challenge which has led scientist in the Netherlands to create the first laboratory cultivated beef burger. The burger was reared in a Dutch lab in trays of temperature controlled pink fluid. It was given texture by tiny hooks to which each strand of artificial muscle attached itself and was dyed blood-red with beetroot juice. A lover of roast beef, steaks and BBQ’s chicken I can’t say that something made from muscle tissue from a cow’s stem cells sounds awfully appetizing, but last month that burger was brought to London, cooked and eaten at a news conference. Even the scientists said it didn’t taste all that good; not surprising since the burger has never seen a cow.  With the first bite £40,000 and a fortnight’s work disappeared into the taster’s mouth. Could there be a future time when stem cells taken from Weardale Cattle located in this beautiful North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty find their way into a British laboratory?

One of the reasons for this innovative research is a growing human demand for meat; the potential environmental damage caused by large increases in livestock production is another. Some people argue we have too many people in our world as my statistics have revealed and that’s the problem; but our world is also a world where huge amounts of food is wasted or thrown away while, as I have pointed out earlier, nearly a billion people are undernourished and go to bed hungry. Vegetarians are quick to point out that the hungry could be fed without the need for meat at all – it is estimated that factory farms kill an astonishing 1,600 animals world wide a second, often reared in conditions that are deeply troubling.  But it is true that the systems of supply and affordability of food will remain crucial whatever the new food technology.

Could it then be possible in future years that we and our children could be eating laboratory cultivated meat, a burger or lamb steak perhaps wedged in a bap made from the super wheat fields from Essex with a side dish of Lincolnshire broccoli, and that this meal could be multiplied world-wide to help feed the hungry in a campaign of food justice? –  all very well for a future dream to feed the world’s hungry but what are the implications for our Christian faith of all this possible futuristic food?

It may be an odd thing to think about at a harvest festival but food and faith are often connected. What you eat and don’t eat varies according to your religion. Dietary rules are commonplace for Jews, Muslims and Hindus – listen to comments and concerns already coming from English Football supporters about what they would eat and drink at the Football World Cup in Qatar 2020, one of the richest Muslim countries in the world.  Alcohol is often forbidden outside the Judean Christian tradition and as we all know cannot be consumed on Methodist premises. I remember Rabbi Lionel Blue once saying that in Western religions God comes to them through their thoughts and feelings whereas in many other regions he come to them through their taste buds.

Think of the Passover meal when the bitter herbs remind Jews of their ancestor’s captivity and suffering while the salt water is a reminder of their tears. We are, so they say, what we eat. Walter de la Mere turned this thought into a little ditty – “It is a very odd thing, as odd as can be that whatever Miss T eats turns into Miss Tea.” All of which makes it the most surprising that of the entire world’s faiths Christianity is so indiscriminate about food – there are no clean and unclean foods. Christianity is astonishingly easy going what its followers can eat, yet its main ritual is a simple meal of bread and wine, the one means by which the followers of Jesus were to remember him. Sharing that meal is for most Christians the way of deepening their relationship with God and with each other and an impetus for service too.

So I am not inclined to reject the scientific work undertaken from the farmers of Lincolnshire, Essex and Hertfordshire or of those Dutch scientists as unnatural or unwanted. This research may yet have a part in feeding the hungry. Public acceptance will of course be gradual but sooner or later it will come. Meat cultured from cows’ stem cells, fruit, vegetable and crops from high-tech futuristic farming methods may take decades to reach the check out but such methods are a compelling answer to a problem that world population growth poses on a similar timescale. At the end of the century there will be close to 10 billion mouths to feed!

 

Amen

An Unknown Journey

Talk given by Ray Anglesea to the West Durham Methodist Circuit Pilgrimage -

 

21 September 2013

 

In a couple of weeks time my wife and I will be taking our long-awaited holiday to North America; we are heading out to the Florida peninsular, later to the Grand Canyon, Nevada and Las Vegas for a birthday party ending in Ontario, Canada at my sister-in-law’s home at Niagara-on-the Lake. Yet we know very little about the details of the break; all we know is that we have to be at certain airports at a certain time on a certain day for flight connections. It is rather like a mystery holiday; it will be left to Ki and I how we spend the days. Although I suspect there may be a programme of sorts it will be left to us to make our own choices of what to do during the day; we will be left to make our own decisions.

Our journey through the Christian life is often likened to a pilgrimage. Setting off on a pilgrimage may be compared to our journey to America. There are often no clear detailed signs, we have to infill the details of daily life trusting that we make the right decisions, the right major choices. The various models of a pilgrimage/journey are of course endless – one can keep journeying in circles around many roundabouts; we can park ourselves in a quiet lay-by for many years: we can be on an amber hold, don’t want to journey forward, yet don’t want to stop. As I said in a sermon at my niece’s recent wedding “marriage is a joining of two people to the unknown; you do not know the road, but you have committed your life to a way, with each other and with God.” In the English playwright Robert Bolt's play, A Man for All Seasons, Thomas More says: "God made . . . man . . . to serve him wittily, in the tangle of his mind." We are not called to robotic compliance, but to intelligent, lively discipleship, and the Bible paints a sometimes messy picture of the outcome. This type of faithful journeying is dynamic, it involves a constantly evolving relationship with God. There is no travel plan, no detailed itinerary.

How then do we find guidance for our Christian journey? I like the story of a young missionary who was always looking for clear divine guidance. He said he had gone to work in South America because when he was seeking guidance he had suddenly seen a bar of chocolate with Brazil nuts in it. He was, therefore, clear that God was guiding him to Brazil. His sceptical friend asked “What would he have done if it had been a Mars bar?” Or the synod moderator who wrote to a minister to offer him a new post. The minister replied that he must go away and pray about it. The minister’s wife went upstairs to pack. The way that some Christians look for God’s guidance suggests that you might need to have a kind of code-breaker mentality, as if God loves setting cosmic codes or a series of puzzles for us to solve as we journey from A to B. Prayer is an essential part of finding our way ahead of course, but God isn’t hiding some vital clue until we crack the code. I like to think that guidance can be explained in this way -  God, I believe,  opens up possibilities on our journey; he is with us at every juncture of our pilgrimage journey helping us to make our decisions and then working with us to make the most of the choices we have made. Perhaps then it is worth thinking that God has a vision for us, more than a plan. Plans expect no real variation while vision allow many routes to their fulfilment.

But we do travel from A to B in faith. Like Abram we walk by faith, not by sight. Faith is a relationship, not an abstract construct. We strengthen our faith as we set our lives in the context of the Bible's overarching story."Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. By faith Abram . . . set out, not knowing where he was going." He had no sat-nav, no daily schedule, no travel programme, no plan. Having left a settled city life, at God's call, to become a nomad, childless Abram believed God's promise that his own son would be his heir. Despite many further childless years, he kept going, his vision before him, sometimes having vigorous words with God about his doubts. This was faith. It was not merely the spiritual equivalent of following a plan, no robotic formulas, no codes, no maps.

Faith is a response to an invitation to adventure. It is not mind-over-matter blind faith, or (to quote the White Queen in Through the Looking-Glass) believing "six impossible things before breakfast". Neither does living by faith involve sitting around waiting for a vision or step-by-step instructions to emerge from heaven. It is our active, informed, and loyal response to the bigger story of God's ways with the world. We nurture it each time we recognise signs of God's activity, the signs confirming that we are on the right path; and we express it, by being dressed for action, waiting to respond and do our duty even at inconvenient times.

If we are to nurture our faith, it is good to have an ample supply of faith-engendering memories.  I always find it helps my journey of faith to hear these memories, often from older people up and down the circuit, who I find have remarkable faith in God, because they have more history to draw on to remind them of God's past faithfulness. It is never too soon, or too late, to start laying down memories of God's power, shown in God's mercy and pity towards us.

This approach to our faith journey applies whether we face life in general, specific decisions, or entrenched difficulties such as ill-health, family problems, unemployment, or bereavement. Living faithfully requires tenacity, and sometimes is as unglamorous as doing whatever the next thing in front of us is, keeping on keeping on, doing the best we can in the circumstances.

We all have to start somewhere; even Abraham, the man held up to us as a model of faith, had to set out afresh each morning. So I pray that God may accompany you today on your circuit pilgrimage. 

A Berkshire Belle

A sermon preached by Ray Anglesea at the wedding of Lucy Heath and Craig Rundle, All Saints Church, Binsfield, Berkshire, Friday 30^th August 2013 (Lucy is Ray Anglesea’s niece)

 Prayer:
Come Holy Spirit of God, pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love, love in our thinking, love in our speaking, that thinking and speaking in love we may grow more like Jesus. Amen.

 

Lucy and Craig – congratulations to you both on your wedding day – your family and friends are overjoyed to be with you to share in your happiness; we bring into the circle of our delight, Craig’s mother, Colette, at home in Port Elizabeth, South Africa whom today we remember with love and affection. We have longed for this day, it is the highlight of our families social calendar, so much more so than this year of great British sporting victories from Mo Farrah’s double double, the new King Andy of Wimbeldon, to Chris Frome  - Le Roi Jaune, the Ashes Test to the Lion Irish Australian triumph -  even Madjeski goals at the back of the net for Reading. This is your day, you are together, you love each other dearly. Darling Lucy you look so beautiful, radiant and happy, a sparking jubilant D major day for fanfares and trumpets, a day for a crescendo of noblimente, a volce vivace, a prima bella cantabile. Today you have found an engineer who will carry your double-bass, today you have earned your vintage Girl guide proficiency badge for organising a wedding. Lucy you are Craig’s cyberspace star, he is your Shakespeare’s wandering bark, from the bard’s sonnet you are an ever fixed mark, you are his L prompt on his engineer’s screen, word perfect 5.1, he is your hard and floppy disc, your laser jet, you press return and he’ll be there. Do not delete this file. 

 

The story is told of a Minister who noticed the bride was in distress so asked what was wrong. She replied that she was awfully nervous and afraid she would not remember what to do. The Minister told her that she only needed to remember 3 things. First the aisle, because that is what you'll be walking down. Secondly, the altar because that is where you will eventually arrive. Finally, remember a hymn because that is a type of song we will sing during the service. While the bride was walking in step with the wedding march, family and friends of the groom were horrified to hear her repeating these 3 words...... Aisle, altar hymn (I'll alter him).

 

Words applied, misapplied, in context, out of context: the meaning of marriage begins in the giving of words – Lucy and Craig you have joined yourselves to one another in the giving of your word before God and amongst us as witnesses, an unconditional giving, joining yourselves to the unknown.  You may find lots of sound bites, prose and poetry about marriage; the internet is surprisingly a good place. Memorable words from the Bishop of London’s advice to a royal couple in 2011; Nicky Gumbel tweets are exceptional, particularly his 7 key words to a great relationship.  But today you have chosen to listen to words from an ancient letter written at Ephesus by St. John the Evangelist, the main themes of which are love and fellowship with God.  To quote that great 14^th century English mystic Julian of Norwich “Love is our meaning today” that love found in this beautiful wedding service which you both have put together. Love is the central word of our faith and the truth for which we live and die. To be alive is to be loved and to love. Not to love is to die. Lucy and Craig you have chosen to be married in the sight of a generous God who so loved the world that he gave himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ, his incarnate son who came to us and joined in a wedding party at Cana for, as we say in our Reformed Communion Service, because words weren’t enough. Where do we find love? In the tiniest hazelnut, says Mother Julian: it exists because God loves it. In the entire sweep of the universe, says Dante, because it is ‘love that moves the sun and the other stars’. But today love has a human face in Lucy and Craig. And to their young memories we bring our own to offer today: memories of those who have loved us into life, whose lives are interwoven with ours and made us who and what we are.

 

It is easy to be platitudinous about love, focus on good feelings and warm glow. We clergy are especially good at that. So it’s important to pay attention to how Jesus defines love, gives it shape and character. There is only one test of love, he says; and it is this: to be loyal to its covenant, to keep its truth with integrity, to be self-forgetting. How do we learn to love? Slowly and with difficulty, if you’re like me. But from time to time we glimpse life’s joyful mysteries; sometimes they take us by surprise and we catch our breath at the sheer wonder of them, particularly here today at your wedding service. Dear Lucy and Craig you have both undertaken to show us today what your life together will be….. a sacrament of the unity of love and truth in committed faithfulness. You both are going to be a sacrament for us, but even more powerfully and richly, you are going to be a sacrament to each other of astonishing, wonderful acceptance, compassion and involvement from which we all live and without which we should all starve in the prison of guilt and doubt. You have found your love in each other and offer it to each other. Hold on to it, safeguard it, grow into it and treasure one another for the rest of your lives. For this is how you will grow, this is how you will  become Christ-like, by giving your minds, bodies and spirits to each other, in moments of strain and hollowness, in moments of delight and generosity, for richer and poorer.

 

So Lucy and Craig are offering us today a picture, a glimpse of who God is and what he is like; a better picture perhaps than Joelene and Kenton of Archer’s fame, the poet Rodolphe and the seamtress Mimi, a Nanki-Poo and YumYum, a Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. The trick of course is to see this picture and hear him. God has no Phone but you can talk to him. He has no Facebook but he is still your friend. He does not do Twitter but you can still follow him. All we need to do is open our eyes to see his joy, to drink in his beauty, to smell the fragrance of love, listen to the profound silence of two people in love with all its exhilaration, magic and madness that that implies. The love of a new husband and wife is as close as we will get to understanding the love of God for one another and for humanity. For there is something sacred about the joy we feel at a wedding, as we sense the power of love to bathe human beings in its radiance and make gentle the life of this world. 

 

Lucy and Craig, with trust and awe and respect together with your gold rings you are setting off in your beautiful pea green boat on the great adventure of married life, it is going where the two of you – and marriage, time, life, history and the world will take it. You do not know the road, but you have committed your life to a way, with each other and with God. Who knows what marks you’ll leave behind, what music you will make, who will write the words of your life story.  Always remember - don’t look back - you are not going that way. I love the story told by Agatha Christie who married an archaeologist – “the more I get older,” she said “the more interested in me he becomes.” And the story from my neck of the woods, of four elderly Geordies enjoying a lunchtime pint in a Newcastle Scotswood road pub and discussing everything from Alan Pardew, football, the economy, to the weather, to how things used to be in the "good old days."  Eventually the conversation moved on to their wives. One bloke turned to the guy on his right and asked, 'Eh, Billy lad, aren't you and your lass celebrating your fiftieth wedding anniversary soon?'  'Sure, man, we are,' Billy replied.  'Well, are you gonna do anything special to celebrate, man?' another bloke asked.  Billy pondered this for a moment, then replied, 'For our twenty-fifth anniversary, I took Hazel to Sunderland. Maybe for our fiftieth, I'll go down there and get her back.'

 

It takes years to marry completely two hearts, even the most loving and well assorted. A happy wedlock is a long falling in love. So here are my words to you both, if I may – I have been married for 36 years, Lucy grandparents, great grandparents have over 200 years of marriage between the eight of them – I don’t have any secrets on how to keep a relationship like yours fresh. I want you to promise me, though, today, that you will always try and do three things. Always say to one another “I’m sorry;” and always say to each other “I forgive you” and always, please, always keep telling one another “I love you.” I pass it on to you both with hope and much affection.

My final word from my favourite Welsh poet and priest RS Thomas:- 

“Some ask the world and are diminished in the receiving of it.

You gave me only this small pool, that the more I drink from,
the more overflows me with sourceless light.”

Amen.

Genesis 2 v4-9, 15-24.

I John 4 v7-18

 

 

Thanksgiving for the return of the Lindisfarne Gospels

Liturgy for a Service of Thanksgiving for the return of the Lindisfarne Gospels to the North East Region, Summer 2013

Submitted by Ray Anglesea, St Andrew's Dawson Street, Crook

Please find set out below a liturgy which you may wish to use/adapt in the coming weeks whilst the Lindisfarne Gospels Exhibition is held in Durham. I am very happy to forward to you my power-point presentation which I used for this service. I am grateful for the office of the Dean of Durham for permission to use the hymn written by Dean The Very Reverend Michael Sadgrove “We praise you God, great Lord of time and space,” and a special thank you to the Cathedral’s Education Service for use of Children’s Props for the children’s address.   -   Ray Anglesea

Call to worship: Blessed are those that are undefiled in the way: and walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are they that keep his testimonies: and seek him with their whole heart. Psalm 119

Introduction: We come together to welcome the visit of the Lindisfarne Gospels to Durham, their earliest home, to celebrate the Christian Heritage of North-East England, and to rejoice in St Cuthbert, in honour of whom the Lindisfarne Gospels were created and the Cathedral Church of Durham was built. We ask for God’s blessing on the Gospel Exhibition and all who visit it.

Hymn:  R&S 38 Thou whose almighty word.

Prayers As an open bible is brought forward to rest on the communion table, candles are lit beside the bible in thanksgiving for God’s word and the following prayers are said:-

Your word is a lantern to our feet

And a light upon our path

 

Blessed are you, Lord our God

How sweet are your words to our taste,
Sweeter than honey to the mouth.
How precious are your commands for our life,
More than the finest gold in our hands.

Enlighten our darkness by the light of your Christ.

May his word be a lamp to our feet and a light to our path;
for you are full of loving kindness for your whole creation,
And we your creatures glorify you.

 

A Collect for St Cuthbert: Almighty God, who called your servant Cuthbert from following the flock to follow your Son and to be a shepherd of your people: in your mercy, grant that we, following his example, may bring those who are lost home to your fold; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

 

Music: The Lord is my shepherd (Goodall) with Bryn Terfel.

Powerpoint Presentation: A collection of sights and sounds of the Lindisfarne Gospels, local attractions, theatre, music, talks and merchandise

Children’s Address: Cuthbert’s Story: This short story of the life of St Cuthbert was made into a short play, children dressed in monks habits with soft cuddly toys – lambs and otters, one dressed as a bishop with mitre, ring, and Cuthbert necklace/cross who later walked around the church stopping off at various city signposts held by members of the congregation. 

Cuthbert was probably born in the Scottish Lowlands around the year 640. At the age of 8 a prophetic remark from a playmate turned his mind to sober and godly thoughts, and his upbringing as a shepherd gave him ample time for prayer. One night he saw in the sky a dazzling light and angels carrying a soul up to heaven, and resolved to dedicate his life to God. Some years later Cuthbert came to Melrose Abbey asking to be admitted as a monk. It was from here that he began his missionary work, which he continued from Lindisfarne when he became abbot there. Once when he was at Coldingham Abbey (a special monastery that contained monks and nuns) he was spied on in the middle of the night praying in the cold North Sea. The story is told of two sea otters that came out of the sea to dry Cuthbert’s feet.  Consecrated Bishop in 685, he remained an indefatigable traveller and preacher, walking all over his diocese and spending time as a hermit on Farne Island in between. After only a year, however he felt his end coming and resigned his office dying on the Farne in the company of a few of his monks.

The Monks of Lindisfarne following Viking Raids set off on a journey with Cuthbert’s body and left Lindisfarne walking to to Whithorn, Carlisle, Ripon, York, Chester le Street, eventually arriving at Durham where he was later buried in Durham Priory, later to be called Durham Cathedral.

Props for children’s address provided by the Durham Cathedral Education Service.

Offertory, Offertory Prayer

Hymn: We praise you God, great Lord of time and space (Tune Engelberg STF 731)

           (Produced with kind permission, office of the Dean of Durham Cathedral)

1.We praise you God, great Lord of time and space
For all the saints of this and every place
Whose stories tell of light and truth and grace:
Alleluia!

2. We sing of Cuthbert, old Northumbria’s pride
The island saint who trod these landscapes wide
As humble teacher, healer, friend and guide:
Alleluia!

3. Your Spirit called the boy from keeping sheep
To guard your people and to rouse from sleep
All those a shepherd’s care would find and keep:
Alleluia!

4. He cherished all that lives and moves on earth,
The birds and beasts, your creatures brought to birth,
In whom he saw your presence, gift and worth:
Alleluia!

5. You made him bishop, gave him gifts to lead;
He told the news of grace in word and deed,
Restored your church and bound the wounds of need
Alleluia!

6. The lonely hermit, holy man of prayer
Went forth to fight the demons of despair,
With strength divine to struggle, risk and dare:
Alleluia!

7. Teach us, good Lord to serve with heart and soul;
Like Cuthbert, make us sound and whole;
And bring us with your saints to heaven’s goal:
Alleluia!

8. We sing of Cuthbert, saint, companion, friend;
To you our God all thanks and praise ascend
Now at this feast, and till all ages end.
Alleluia! Amen

Michael Sadgrove, Dean of Durham                            

 

 

Gospel Reading: Matthew 5. v1-12

Sermon

Prayers of Intercession

We remember with thanksgiving the life of St. Cuthbert and the making of the Lindisfarne Gospels in honour of him. We pray for our County and region, the cathedral church of Durham and its university, that rejoicing in our heritage, we may work together for the common good. We remember for all who will visit the Lindisfarne Gospels exhibition and all who will visit his shrine. We pray that we may all be inspired to seek those good things which belong to our flourishing and to which the gospels bear witness.

Creator God, help us to read into the minds of those who write. May we glimpse their insights as we rejoice in their words. Let the things we read and learn inform our thinking and lead us to balanced views and deeper thoughts as well as enjoyable moments. Let your love shine through the prism of the printed page and the magic of the screen.

Lord of spirit and truth, surround our thoughts and hopes with meditation and contemplation. As we seek to make sense of the word through poetry and prayer, through word and deed, through music and song, may your spirit spark exploration of the gift of imagination, in writer, reader and viewer alike.

And finally - Loving Father, help us to follow the example of Cuthbert, by the simplicity of our lives and by the power of our witness, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen

Communion Hymn: R&S 373 Lord Jesus Christ you have come to us

The Communion

Hymn: R&S 661 How shall I sing that Majesty (Tune Coe Fen STF 667)

Benediction: May God, who kindled the fire of his love in the hearts of the saints, pour upon you the riches of his grace. May he strengthen you to walk in the way of holiness and to come to the full radiance of glory.  And the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always.   Amen

 

 

Action for Children Sunday 2013

 Sermon preached by Ray Anglesea at Ferryhill Methodist Church, 4-August-2013

For many Christians the command to be a Good Samaritan is central to their way of life; the parable of the Good Samaritan is, after all, one of the most often repeated and much loved parables of our faith. These parables of Jesus are like open ended puzzles; they force the hearer to appropriate the story for themselves; they live with us, continuing to shock, and engage.  A parable asks us: ‘Where do you stand – with the priest?’ ‘Whose side do you take – the side of the Levi?’ ‘Which one of these characters is you – or are you all three?’ The stories engage with our own powers of empathy and imagination; they are ultimately meant to change not reassure us.  And yes parables still have the power to speak to us and the Christian church today. The independent, non-partisan public policy think-tank ResPublica created in 2009 by Phillip Blond found that in a recent report 90% of church congregations undertake some kind of voluntary activity, encouraged and prompted I suspect by the parable of the Good Samaritan. That compares with only 54% for the population as a whole.

But a willingness to serve in some voluntary capacity prompted by the story of the Good Samaritan isn’t the only social asset possessed by the Church. From the running of youth clubs to visiting the elderly, providing food and shelter to the homeless and raising money for the poorest people of the world, churches like the one here in Ferryhill and mine at Crook are determined to prove that there isn’t a social problem that isn’t being solved by someone, somewhere, modelled on the story of the Good Samaritan. It was reported in The Times last week, 27^th July, that the Trussell Trust has been named “Britain most admired charity.” It runs 360 food-banks across the UK, offering emergency rations to those in need. In 2012/13 the numbers of those helped by the food-banks increased by 170%.

 “Who is my neighbour?” asks the lawyer in the parable trying to test and trick Jesus. Jesus would know well the Hebrew Scriptures. Leviticus defines neighbour in terms of family, kin, and close friends. But would Jesus argue for a broader concept of neighbour? Would he dare to be ‘inclusive’? – an inclusiveness which was already causing scandal for this pale Galilean. ‘Is any Jew a neighbour, even a sinful one, a tax-collector, a prostitute, a woman, a person of questionable sexual history?’ Or, ‘what about non-Jews, those outside the covenant, the uncircumcised, the Roman occupier, the despised Samaritan, the unclean and immoral Gentile?” Jesus was for sure getting a name for himself.

Notice the way Jesus answers the lawyers question – he does not fall into the trap of answering the question. Instead, he reframes it – his parable turns the question from ‘who is my neighbour?’ to ‘To whom am I myself a neighbour?’ - it is a subtle shift from the question of ‘who can I choose to be my neighbour to a completely different emphasis which is fundamental to the Gospel: ‘how do I become neighbour, how do I stop pointing the finger and condemning and start becoming the Gospel myself?’ This is the means by which we do not seek to define neighbour but are ourselves defined by Christ’s call to love neighbour as we love ourselves.

 We know the parable well. To cut the long story short, a Samaritan comes to the rescue. The traditional hated enemy becomes the one who saves. We are not told who the victim on the road is. So this victim could be a Jew saved by a Palestinian, or in a different context the Tutsi saved by the Hutu, the evangelical saved by the gay person, the member of the Taliban saved by the British soldier, or the other way round. And the Samaritan does not just save. He goes radically beyond saving. He risks his own life and reputation in order to help, and he offers radical generosity, not just a little bit of help, but finance enough to pay for three months of care, with the promise of more on his return. The only motive we are given is that he sees him and has compassion for him. Yes, compassion – that goes beyond, race, or tribe, or religion, or sexuality, or ideology, minority group, or scape-goating, and sees not the categorisation, or the prejudice, or the learnt fear, but sees the human being. That’s it; that’s our Gospel, the Good News of the compassion of Christ which has the power and the healing to overcome the wrong done to the victim.

Today we celebrate Action for Children – children like Sean whom we heard about in our story and the wonderful work done by Action for Children, particularly in the field of neglect. Reading their annual report a few weeks ago it reminded me of a talk given by the Bishop of Jarrow recently to his diocesan synod. The Bishop found himself reading a book on the theology of homelessness. “The author talks about somebody called Caroline and he says “Caroline begins her story at the age of 7, recalling a dysfunctional family, divorced parents, her mother always out at the pub and sexual abuse;” at the age of 13 Caroline was shoplifting to buy food and at 15 she left home and moved in with a friend. After a number of unsuccessful relationships she was married at 18. Her husband assaulted her badly. She became addicted to Valium and attempted to kill herself. She was made homeless, she was evicted for non-payment of rent on the flat she was sharing with another boyfriend and so it goes on. The author tells of a number of similar stories of homeless people whom he has met.

 “My initial reaction to hearing the story of Caroline and telling Sean’s story this morning is to admit that in a way these sort of life experiences are something right outside my experience. I simply do not know people whose experience of life is like that. Yes, I’ve met people like that as part of the work I do but there somehow seems a really very big gap between those people’s experience of life and mine. “And yet my theology and Christian understanding of the world expressed in this parable this morning tells me that Caroline and this young man Sean is my sister and brother in Christ, somebody for whom Christ died, a member like me of the human family; Caroline or Sean  is my neighbour, a victim lying on the Jericho road. The sad fact is (and I am sure you know this more than me) that within our own circuit many people whose life experiences are unbelievably different from mine are living cheek by jowl with each other. We also need to acknowledge that often our congregations have very different life experiences from the bulk of those who live in the area in which they are called by God to serve.

The Parable of the Good Samaritan, therefore, challenges us to look at our own approach to life and to our involvement with people to see if we, like the lawyer ask unprofitable questions that stifle compassion, and also to go and be a neighbour to those in need. The words of Deuteronomy echo down the centuries (Chapter 30 v 11+14), “Surely this commandment that I am commanding you is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away. The word is very near you......in your heart to observe.” To which may be added, and where your heart is, there will your treasure be also.

God’s call on us in this situation is I believe is to put ourselves into each other’s shoes. Of course there is room for challenge not only about how we live our lives – including often why we are so ignorant in our churches about what is going on in wider society – but there needs first of all to be real attempt to put ourselves into the shoes of others as Jesus did. And Jesus was certainly willing to challenge – mainly of course the religious people! A society that rushes to judge and dismiss members of its communities is unlikely to be a healthy or Christ-like society.

 “I am struck by Pope Francis who, when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires, washed and kissed the feet of homosexuals with Aids in his home city  - a move as controversial then as washing the feet of Muslims and women after he became Pope. Here are some words of Pope Francis when he was a Cardinal in Argentina -

he said “The poor must not be perpetually marginalised. We cannot accept the underlying idea that ‘we who are doing well give something to those who are doing badly, but they should stay that way far from us’ That is not Christian. It’s indispensable that we integrate them into our community as soon as possible…

“And he goes on: A poor man must not be looked at with disgust: he must be looked at in the eyes. “God’s vision is for a vision of a human family.” We as churches are invited in this part of our nation to start to discover what it means to be part of that human family where so many of our lives are so radically different from so many other people.

 “I am very struck by something Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury wrote about discipleship a few years ago “Being where Jesus is means finding yourself in the company of the people whose company Jesus seeks and keeps. So, when Jesus goes to be in the company of the excluded, the wretched, the self-hating, the poor, the diseased, that's where you're going to find yourself. If you are going to be where Jesus is, if your discipleship is not intermittent but a way of being, that's where you are going to find yourself, in the same sort of human company that he is in. This is once again an important reminder that our discipleship is not about choosing our company beyond choosing the company of Jesus “So that is indeed why so many great disciples across the history of the Christian Church, and indeed now, find themselves in the company of people they would never have imagined being with, had they not been seeking to be where Jesus is.

 And who is your neighbour? Or to whom could you become a neighbour? Perhaps a neighbour to the one you find most difficult to accept. How can we go beyond our own barriers to live Jesus’ radical compassion and be changed by it?

 

Amen

 

Readings: Deuteronomy v9-14, Luke 10.25-37

 

Martha and Mary

Sermon preached by Revd Ray Anglesea at Howden le Wear Methodist Chapel, 21^st July 2013

 On the wall above my dining room table is this copy of a painting painted by the Spanish artist Diego Velazquez in1618. It was painted when the painter was 19 years old. The painting is called “Kitchen Maid with the Supper at Emmaus.”  Here we see not simply a kitchen maid, but a young African woman who is in all probability a slave, in a kitchen - the kitchen of the inn where two disciples and Christ have stopped for their evening meal. The painting depicts a moment in the Emmaus house before the disciples have recognized Christ; the maid looks to be in a state of arrested attention, does she have any idea who the guest is?
       

What I didn’t know is that Velazquez painted, in the same year, another painting where a kitchen maid is the subject of his painting. This second painting is entitled Kitchen Scene with Christ in the House of Mary and Martha, the subject of today’s gospel reading. Velazquez realistically depicts a 17th century Seville kitchen; the foreground is dominated by the face and demeanor of a woman who we take to be a cook; she is about her tasks, hands busy beating or whisking; sea bass lie on a plate, garlic on the table, eggs and red chilies, a flagon of water or wine on the table nearby; the foods are shown prepared in ways typical of Spanish cookery at the time.
 

In the background of the painting is a biblical scene, generally accepted to be the story of Martha and Mary. In it, as we discovered in our Gospel reading Christ goes to the house of a woman named Martha. Her sister, Mary, sat at his feet and listened to him speak. Martha, on the other hand, went to "make all the preparations that had to be made."Upset that Mary did not help her, she complained to Christ to which he responded: "Martha, Martha, ... you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.^” In the painting, Christ is shown as a bearded man in a blue tunic. He gesticulates at Martha, the woman standing behind Mary, rebuking her for her frustration.
 

The plight of Martha, worried and upset, clearly relates to that of the maid in the foreground. She has just prepared a large amount of food and, from the redness of her creased puffy cheeks, we can see that she is also upset. Emotion scuds across the woman’s face. Resentment, anger, tearfulness, so near to the surface that in the next moment we imagine she might throw to the ground the bowl she holds, turn to the old woman behind her and just let rip. To comfort her (or perhaps even to rebuke her), the elderly woman behind the maid seems to point out the scene in the background reminding the maid that she cannot expect to gain fulfillment from work alone. The maid, who cannot bring herself to look directly at the biblical scene and instead looks out of the painting towards us, meditates on the implications of the story.
 

Some scholars suggest that the whole painting is set in Christ’s time; the National Gallery say that following cleaning and restoration in 1964, it is now clear that the smaller biblical scene in the background is framed by a hatch or aperture through the wall, one looks into a dining room from the kitchen’s serving hatch. Some scholars suggest that the maid in the foreground is actually Martha herself and the lady standing in the background is just an incidental character.
 

But for me the moment captured in the painting is of the kitchen maid pondering on the words of Jesus to Martha that she has heard, reflecting on their implication in and for her own life. I have every sympathy for the Martha’s of this world – who like me, I suspect, have Type A  personalities –proactive people, always on the go, impatient, can multi-task, we push ourselves with deadlines, hate delays and ambivalence, we are organised and ambitious – compared to Type B personalities, rather like the Mary’s of this world  who generally live at a lower stress level and typically work steadily, who are in the main reflective and think about the outer and inner worlds, enjoy exploring ideas and concepts.
 

And so if like me you have a Type A personality what is it like to hear the words of Jesus when you are up to your eyes with work, e-mails to respond too, gardening to do, friends to visit, visits to the gym, soup to make, minutes to write, a rota to be filled and the many household tasks  that have to get done, when what is really needed if we are to understand the gospel story is stillness and focus and attention on Jesus? Being and doing, contemplation and action. It’s a very present tension in the lives of many people, both in the church and outside, whether we lived in17th century Seville, or 21st century Howden. The problem of where our focus lies  - the balance between actively doing and waiting and stillness doesn’t go away. We are distracted by our many tasks. No time to dwell on the word – the written word, and the word that God speaks to us in the life of his Son.
 

 

In the Gospel story that comes immediately before the story of Mary and Martha we heard how the lawyer was told by Jesus to model the actions of the Samaritan who helped his neighbour. ‘Go and do likewise’ he is told.  Almost in the next breath we hear Jesus telling Martha that Mary’s choice to ‘stay and be and listen’ is the best path. Jesus himself models this tension throughout his ministry. Times of activity and engagement with crowds, healing and teaching, are contrasted with time set aside alone or with his closest followers; to listen to his father, to contemplate and pray.
 

I think it is rather comforting to reflect that the early church struggled to find this balance too. In Acts we hear the disciples voice this dissonance, ‘It is not right that we should neglect the word of God to serve at tables’. As a solution they re-structured the community, choosing some to serve at tables, while we hear, they devoted themselves to prayer and serving the word. It is interesting that those chosen to serve were chosen because they were full of the spirit and wisdom and that the decision made to create this balance in the church pleased the whole community. They knew their need for both forms of ministry.
 

In his reply to Martha, is Jesus exalting contemplation over action, or saying that true disciples leave menial tasks to others? If Martha and Mary are both being hospitable in their own way it may be better to see different kinds of hospitality competing with each other for the limited resources. Jesus commends Mary for her desire to be hospitable to his teaching. By comparison, Martha’s anxious preparation of the meal is a distraction that falls short of what, in this instance, is her sister’s “better part.”
 

Earlier in the Gospel when Jesus sent off the seventy disciples he told them to receive the hospitality they are offered as they entered people’s homes; to eat and take what is given. He also tells the disciples to cure the sick and to say that the Kingdom of God has come near.  As he comes to this home of Mary and Martha, Jesus does the same. Jesus is a guest in their home, the Kingdom of God, in the form of Jesus is beside Mary and Martha, talking to them. But Martha is restless. Jesus repeats her name, as if to get her attention and steady her. We get the impression that she is working too hard, doing too much, so much so that her resentment, like the kitchen maid’s face in our painting is overflowing, consumed by what she is doing. There is no space around or within her; so that her activity is a barrier to the kingdom of God coming close, she cannot hear, she cannot respond, she sets us barriers to Christ’s love and to ways of receiving the kingdom at that moment – she thanks that these gifts will be given to her when everything else is done.
 

So what happens when we Martha’s of the world with our varied active personalities eventually stop and listen for God’s word? How can we achieve a balance of doing and being, of being active and submissive, still and attentive. How can we make space in our daily lives to be with God? Well, if you are like me, all sorts of distractions cross our minds and generally we would not wish to be in that place because we know we will be in unchartered waters and somewhat out of control and out of our comfort zone.
 

But to ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind’ is not submissive or passive, it is an active process; listening and stilling oneself requires attention and focus and desire. If we are able to still our souls, centred and listening then out of that listening and stillness and being known before God for who we are and not for what we do, then out of that will flow the deep concern for the well-being of other people and for all that is around us. That place of listening then becomes the wellspring from which we find life, not the place where we hide from it, which is good news for the Martha’s of the world. That space may be the source of great activity. But whatever comes from it, if we live from that place, we won’t be skimming through life, living at the surface but engaging deeply, with what we are about, with what is around us, and with who is around us. What you notice if you look at the original of the Velazquez painting, which is in room 30 at the National Gallery is that it is the product of a deep contemplation on life. Fish, garlic, eggs, the reflection off the glaze on the jug, as well as emotions on a woman’s troubled face, are an engagement with what is real, in that moment. If we take time to sit before God, listen to his word and gaze upon him, in the person and actions of Christ, we will find that when we pick up the ordinary things with which we have to do, engage with the people whose faces we contemplate, the activities that are on our lists, it will be with a sense that Christ is there, at the heart of it all.