Be Open

The third sermon in our 'I will tell' series was preached by Angie Milne, the newest member of the Living Brook ministry team, on the first two Sundays in February 2019.

Julia and Steve have already started our Sermon Series with the theme of I Will Tell.

I – meaning each of us

Will- doing something even if it feels a little uncomfortable

Tell- tell the story of Jesus and all his wonderful deeds

Julia spoke to us about her meeting with the distressed young man in the park that led to a journey of faith for him. And Steve spoke about the Monk and his retreat and how rather than shouting about his faith he developed a quieter existence that drew people to him.

So where do I begin…..I Will Tell started long before Jesus arrived.  A few weeks ago, a reading from the book of prophets Isaiah chapter 62 started “I will not keep silent”, what was Isaiah refereeing to?  Isaiah chapter 35 verse 4 tells us “be strong do not fear, your God will come to save you. Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped”. Was this the talk of a Messiah that will come. 

Mark shares with us in his gospel the wonderful miracles and deeds carried out by Jesus in his early days of ministry, Jesus’ disciples witness his miracles and listen to his wisdom and correctly identify him as the messiah.

 Healing the deaf and mute man just as predicted by Isaiah.  The gospel of Mark chapter 7 verses 31-37 tells us ‘Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went into the region of Decapolis. There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and begged for Jesus to place his hand on him.

Jesus took the man aside away from the crowds, Jesus put his fingers into his ears. Then spat and touched the man’s tongue. He looked up to heaven with a deep sigh said to him ‘Ephphatha’ which means BE OPEN. The man’s ears opened his tongue loosened and he began to speak plainly.

Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone, but the more he did, the more they kept talking about it. People were overwhelmed with amazement. He has done everything well they said. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak’.

Why did Jesus command them not to tell, was it because he did not want to draw attention to himself with large crowds forming around him having just arrived in a new region, he didn’t want to cause trouble, especially with the leaders of Jerusalem. Was Jesus worried, that the messages about his miracles would somehow change and not be accepted for the miracles that they were. But how could they not tell of Jesus’s good deeds, they had just witnessed something amazing they were overwhelmed, why would they not share this news?  Why would they not BE OPEN.

Perhaps Jesus asking them not to talk was a way of getting them to talk more, you know it’s one of those occasion’s, when your best friend calls you to one side and says, ‘I’ve got something really important to tell you but you’ve got to promise me you won’t tell anyone else’   what goes through your head … who can I tell first or perhaps I won’t tell them all of it, just a bit of the story. Whilst you listen as the story unfolds, in your head you decide if you should keep it quiet to yourself or tell everyone else.  There’s always that person you know that if the story is told to them then everyone will hear about it. We are all very good at spreading the news about something amazing that we’ve seen or heard.  

So why should spreading the news of Jesus be any different? We are all disciples called to spread the good news, are we sometimes embarrassed about our faith or is it that some people just don’t get it, how can they after all we didn’t witness these miracles? Every week when you come to church and listen to the readings, gospel and sermon your ears are being opened to the teachings of God   sometimes, there is a message in them that really affects you, it may be a word, a sentence but something. Do you then go home and talk about that message and how it affected you.  Or is it that you’ve never spoken about your faith or shared it, are you by not sharing denying everyone of this amazing relationship that you have.  What I’m asking you to do is BE OPEN at home, at work, with friends, family with people you meet. BE OPEN about the good deeds that Jesus did but also about your relationship with Jesus.  When was the last time you asked a friend to come along to a service with you, maybe they are just waiting for you to ask?  I’m sure we all ask friends to come along and support our amazing church events and cream teas but how about a service?

 In our Gospel reading Luke chapter 5 verses 1-11 Luke tells us -  Jesus was in the fishing boats with Simon Peter preaching just from the edge of the shore. When he had finished he said   “put into deep water and let down your nets”.  When the nets were cast and a bounty of fish was caught, Simon Peter was amazed. He fell at Jesus’s knees and said ‘go away from me Lord I am a sinful man’– but Jesus said don’t be afraid, from now on you will fish for people.

A few weeks ago in a Sermon from Beverley she asked us to choose slips of paper with words on – mine was COURAGE – Well  I believe that’s what we all need, the courage to BE OPEN speak and share the news about Jesus, there are some people that won’t listen, some that will question you and that’s fine.  We have to trust in all the stories in the bible, even though we didn’t hear or see them unlike Simon Peter but he also needed courage to BE OPEN and follow Jesus. If our ears are opened to the teachings of God will our tongues be loosened to share them…will you have the courage to BE OPEN?

 Jesus is sometimes called Immanuel – God with us, that’s what God had in mind for Jesus to be with us and that’s what he has in mind for us – to just be with other people and talk, BE OPEN and have the courage to tell. So, when you’re standing in the queue at the shop or in the school playground that might just be the place where God need’s you to be and start talking, sometimes it’s just about what’s in your basket or the weather but occasionally the conversation goes a bit further….  maybe it’s the day that you talk to that person and it’s the spark or invitation they needed.

So that’s what I’m asking you to think about and do – BE OPEN – about your faith and your relationship with God – BE OPEN to Jesus – and tell.  Tell the good news of Jesus.

So what’s my story……..

My best friend has two daughters neither have been baptised my friend wanted her children to choose, she comes from a semi practising catholic background and her husband is Church of England.  As families we go on holidays and camping trips together and whilst the men sit around drinking and playing music us ladies and children tend to go off to the local towns for coffee and always a visit to the local churches- they call that part the Angie pilgrimage. My friend has always been aware of my faith and the children are just beginning to recognise it. They have started to question me about bits in the bible and things we see on our visits to the churches, wow Lucky for me my work with Gill and the school’s team has helped me to remember a few bits from around the church I’ve even impressed myself!!!!

 Her eldest daughter is now at university, we don’t see her as often. We met for coffee during the Christmas holidays where she couldn’t wait to tell me about a trip, for her mum’s birthday.  A 3-day Angie style pilgrimage to Rome. To explore and learn more about her faith ……. And when she’s home she want’s to come to an Elevenses service.

So the message I would like to leave you all with today is

Have Courage

BE OPEN

And Tell

I Will Tell

In 2019 Living Brook Benefice is encouraging everyone to tell their stories of God in their lives, and to pray for people to meet Jesus. We begin the year with a sermon series given by the Lay members of the Living Brook Ministry Team.What follows is the first sermon launching our year given by our Home Groups Leader Julia Javes.

SERMON for 6 and 13 January 2019

Psalm 9 v 1

You may have noticed that in recent years, Beverley has given us posters, cards and book marks with theme verses on them.

This year the theme verse is Psalm 9 v 1

“I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart;

I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.”

The three words I want to concentrate on today are “I will tell”.

The first word “I” – who does that refer to?  Does it mean just the writer of this Psalm?  Does it mean just the people who have been ordained, like our Bishops Donald and John or Beverley?  Or does it mean people like you and me?  I would suggest that all of us, who know and love the Lord, have a responsibility to tell others of the Good News.

“I will” suggests a definite intention to do something.

In the NIV bible Jesus said “If you love me you will obey what I command”. 

Why should we love Jesus?  Do we know the Good News of what Jesus did for us?

Listen and I will tell you.

Humankind was designed to have a relationship with God, our heavenly Father.

Humankind found it very easy to disobey God and become sinful.  God is holy and this meant that humankind was separated from God because of sinful ways.  The rift started and as time went on the chasm that separated God from humankind became huge. 

Then God decided that this could not continue and, as it says in the bible “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

We know the story.  Jesus died on a cross, he stretched his arms wide and became the bridge across the chasm which enabled humankind to repent, to say sorry, to turn back to their heavenly Father and be reconciled to Him.

What should our response be when we hear, understand and believe what Jesus did for us? 

I would suggest that we express our thanks by showing him that we love him, and we make a definite intention to obey his commands.

Our last word – “Tell”.  Jesus commands us to “Go, tell….” The great commission in Matthew 28.

We know to whom we have to tell this Good News, don’t we?  Yes, anyone  and everyone who will listen.  It can be a very scary and challenging thing to do.

About 35 years ago, I can remember doing a course on how to tell others about Jesus.  There was a video in which we were shown how not to do it.

The video showed a man who had decided to tell his next door neighbour about Jesus.   So when the wife of his neighbour opened the door, he asked to speak to her husband.  She, being a busy lady, told the man that her husband was in the loft and pointed to the stairs.  The man started up the loft hatch steps and as he popped his head up through the loft hatch he shouted “Have you been washed in the blood of the Lamb?”  Now the husband was so shocked at this that, turning round to see who had asked this weird question, he lost his footing and fell in between the loft joists and landed in the bedroom below.   Needless to say the neighbour made a hasty retreat, mumbling profuse apologies to the wife.

So if that is how not to speak about Jesus, what do we say and how do we do it?  Well, we can learn and soon we will have the opportunity to do just that.

This year’s Benefice Lent Course will be about Telling Others about Jesus.  Beverley and others will, in the coming weeks, be telling you more about the Benefice Lent Course.  There will be two opportunities to learn this most important command that Jesus asks of us.  During Lent on Monday evenings at Quinton Village Hall and on Thursday afternoons as part of the Bible Study Home Group.

So, how and who do we tell about Jesus?

We don’t have to make an appointment or carry bibles about with us.

If we are open and make ourselves available to the Holy Spirit to tell of this Good News, the Holy Spirit gives us opportunities to speak to people about what we know.  

I want to finish by telling you about a young man.

The story of James

  In the village where I used to live before I moved to Quinton, there is a large park area surrounded by houses.  One afternoon I decided to prayer walk around the park, praying for the people who lived in the houses overlooking the park.

As I prayed, coming towards me I noticed a young man who seemed very distressed and was weeping.  I stopped in front of him and as he looked up I asked him what was troubling him and if there was anything I could do to help.

The young man told me his wife had just had a baby girl but both his wife and his baby daughter were very unwell and he was extremely worried for them.  I laid my hand on his forearm and asked if I could pray for him.  He hesitantly said yes, and so I prayed for this little family, for peace and hope and healing.  When I stopped I asked what his name was and he said “James”.  I invited James to come to our Sunday morning service assuring him I would be there to welcome him.  We parted and I continued to pray for James and hoping he would turn up at Church.

Sunday came and to my relief, James walked through the Church door.  I went over to welcome him and invited him to sit with me.  He quietly sobbed throughout the service and slipped out before the end.  But he continued to come to church and I and the whole church family prayed for him and his family and gently witnessed to him about the love of God.

Time moved on and James brought his daughter and later on his baby son to join our Church family.  He began to say the intercessions during our Sunday services.  He became a PCC member and continued to grow in faith, serving the Lord in many ways.

Time has moved on a bit further and now this young man is Chief Inspector with Northamptonshire Police.  What is James doing with his faith now?  

Beverly knows, perhaps she will tell us some time.

“I will tell….”

My challenge to you today and for the weeks to come is:

Let the “I” be you.  The Benefice Lent Course will be your opportunity to learn how.

Let the “will” be a promise of your definite intention.

Let the “tell” be the start of your witness to others of what Jesus has done for you.

AMEN

Run to Win

1 Corinthians 9

There are plenty of scholars who suggest that what we call 1 Corinthians – and the same applies to 2 Corinthians - is not just one letter but a number of letters redacted together, though there is plenty of disagreement about how many. It isn’t as straightforward as chapters 1-8 forming one letter, chapters 9-12 forming another. It looks more like the result of a redactor dropping a pile of papers and not picking them up again in the right order. Take that alongside possible later additions by other redactors, and the problem that modern readers have with Paul becomes larger than the one that his original readers had, because we see letters that are longer, and that jump about thematically, in a way that Paul almost certainly didn’t. Chapter 9 is a case in point. It breaks into a discourse on food sacrificed to idols that should flow on from chapter 8 to chapter 10. Suddenly Paul is protesting about his rights as an apostle and the way that apostles are financially rewarded. This, I believe, is a section of a different letter, part of a dispute that we know Paul struggled with in his relationship with the churches of Corinth. Paul’s right to be rewarded for his work, but not to be treated as if he was a mere client accepting the usual rules of patronage. He wasn’t at the Corinthians’ beck and call, or that of certain local patrons, and if that was what they wanted then he wouldn’t take their money. The results of Paul’s thinking continue today in the acceptance that clergy are officeholders, given a stipend to free them for the work they do, and not salaried staff working for the reward of pay rather than the rewards of the kingdom of God.

That’s all very interesting, but it’s not the chosen topic for this fifth sermon, which has been developed with one of the Inspire Leaders in the benefice, Anjana Austin, and with the benefice children’s work leader, Julie Austin. The theme which Anjana has chosen is ‘Run to Win’, and it is based on the final few verses of the chapter, 24-27, which stand alone within this letter and offer a challenging message.

The people of Corinth would have been very familiar with the pan-Hellenic games, most especially the Isthmian games, which they had hosted every two years since the re-founding of the town as a Roman colony under Julius Caesar. For us, as we imagine the games, we should visualise a cross between a modern multi event sports competition and a festival. Competitions included not only sports but also arts. Competitors entered a wide variety of disciplines. A famous example is the female athlete Hedea, whose name appears on an inscription in Delphi. She competed in games across the country and won the war-chariot race at the Isthmian games, the 200m at the Nemean and the Sicyonian games and the prize for young lyre-players in Athens.

For Hedea, and athletes like her, winning mattered. She ran for glory, the only prize being a crown of celery. She ran to win because it was winners who gained the interest of patrons, who got invitations to give after dinner speeches or play their instruments at events. She ran to win because if you did not win you were a loser. There was no glory in coming second, and much less chance of winning the patronage that brought an income and the freedom to train hard and to keep on competing and winning. In that, a classical athlete was not so very different from a modern one. Hedea won glory, and that is how we come to know her story. Her hard training brought plaudits that made her worth remembering on a monument in her home town. She worked hard for it. Each day would have doubtless involved running, riding, chariot practice, lyre practise to keep her at the top of the field. And her hard work was symbolised by a circle of wilted celery.

Paul compared being a follower of Jesus to the discipline required of an athlete in the games. We need to have the same determination and dedication in honing our skills as followers. We need to be equally focussed on being the best, not settling for anything less. The prize is a much better one though: not a short-lived, wilting crown of salad, but the eternal crown of glory that is being received, forgiven, into God’s presence forever. That is a prize so much more worth training for. Paul demands that we work as hard on our spiritual disciplines as the very best athletes. We need to be as committed in our training as Mo Farah is in his, to practice as hard as Lang Lang does at the piano.

But that raises the question: what are the disciplines we are practising hard at?

Perhaps you might consider these:

• ·       prayer – in all its forms, listening hard to the Holy Spirit of God
• ·       deepening your knowledge and understanding of scripture
• ·       building up the church in unity and love
• ·       caring lovingly for each other, inside and outside the church family
• ·       telling others about Jesus
• ·       caring for creation
• ·       seeking justice and being agents of mercy, peace and reconciliation

(and if you spot the five marks of mission embedded in that list, well done).

Hedea wouldn’t have done it alone, of course. Someone taught her how to ride and to race, showed her the fingering on the lute. Someone coached her at the gym, perhaps someone else encouraged her and cheered her on, and someone else made sure that she had a good meal at the end of a training session. So what about us? We don’t train alone either. Who are our supporters?

First of all, we are members of Team Jesus. The team is owned by God, and the Holy Spirit is an active, hands on manager. God has called people to be local managers across the nations. Depending on our traditions, we might call those people bishops, archbishops, apostles, chairs, moderators, senior pastors… they are there as vision setters, teachers, example givers, supporters. They in turn encourage and enable local leaders in churches who might be compared to the coaching team. Your parish priest or church minister or pastor is joined by elders or deacons or readers or lay ministers or leaders of teams, and they are able to help with that practice that is so vital every day.

Like anyone in training, we also draw a lot of support from those training alongside us. We encourage each other, spur each other on, and perhaps shame each other into turning up for training sessions, whether that’s a cell group, prayer group, house group, team meeting or simply turning up to a church service.

We draw some help from experts in the field too. Watching films, reading books or articles, listening to podcasts, attending courses or going to events beyond our own churches – a diocesan bible day, for example – all help us to improve and grow in our discipleship. And of course, we must always pay attention to the best help God has given us that we can handle, our bibles.

So, as you reflect on your training needs if you are going to train in such a way that you run to win a lasting crown, perhaps you can prayerfully reflect on these questions:

• ·       who do you need to talk to and get help from in order to improve your training programme?
• ·       are there people you can help with their training? Who should you be praying for and/or actively helping?
• ·       who is in training alongside you? who do you pray with, study with, go out to visit with? How can you support each other?

Prayer for reconciliation

The Living Brook benefice is marking Lent with a series of talks on aspects of prayer. We began on Ash Wednesday with the theme of reconciliation.

 Good relationships depend on good communication. And good communication means both talking (or whatever variant of sharing information is being used) and listening. The talking should be clear, honest, unambiguous. The listening should be open hearted, focussed, and should be the more important priority. 

In our relationship with God, the relationship that is the most important of all relationships, we call that communication prayer. And prayer, as we all know, takes many forms, just as any kind of communication does. Our Lent course will touch on some of them, and give us the opportunity to look in greater depth at a few. We begin, since it is Ash Wednesday, with prayer for reconciliation.

You might know this phrase well, or be more familiar or comfortable with phrases like ‘confession’ or ‘prayers of penitence’. In one of the variants of the four or five parts of prayer, confession comes first, and generally that is the case in liturgies. That variant, incidentally is STAR – sorry, thank you, adore, request. It’s a sensible order for those conventional kinds of prayer. If communication is at the heart of relationship building, then when a relationship is damaged, two-way work on repairing that relationship is going to be needed before any other kind of communication is truly effective. Admission of fault, exploring what needs to be done to put things right, accepting the apology, actively forgiving, all are needed, often repeatedly.

In the modern church what was called the sacrament of confession is now called the sacrament of reconciliation, and that is a much more helpful way to see it. This kind of prayer is two way, as any prayer should be, and reconciliation as a name reminds us that it is about relationship and that God has a part to play. It isn’t only about being hauled before God to say sorry, but about approaching God with an awareness that our behaviour in so many ways impairs our relationships with him and with each other, and wanting to put that right, and to allow God to be a part of putting it right. 

Perhaps you can remember as a child being taught to say sorry by being stood in front of an adult and told ‘say sorry’. You may have been seething with resentment because the crime in question was actually committed by your little brother, or you’d been goaded into it. You didn’t feel sorry at all. At the other end of the scale, those of you brought up to go to the sacrament of confession may remember desperately trying to think of things you’d done wrong because you had to say something to Fr. John… Some of us find we are stuck with this approach to penitential prayer. It is a thing we do because we must, a hoop that must be jumped at the beginning of the service before we can get on with things. We know in our heads that it is important, but most of the time we’re saying the words without a great deal of thought, hearing the priest pronounce the absolution and moving on. The moment passes in the service so quickly that there is barely time to actually think about the things that
might have affected our relationships.

Ash Wednesday is one of those days that challenges us to think about confessional prayer – the prayer that seeks to restore our relationships – more deeply. It is a day
when we make a point of acknowledging that in so many ways we do not give God
the attention we should, we put ourselves before God and before others. We do all sin, and the things we do affect others, whether we like to admit it or not.

There is a traditional story called 'the wise thief' (which can be found in Wisdom Stories by Margaret Silf), in which a thief persuades the King and his ministers to let him go by demonstrating that every one of them has done something dishonest at some time in their lives. The story includes admissions of fiddling a national treasury and of adultery. For most of us, our sins are not as dramatic as the ones in the story, but they are there, nevertheless, every time we cherish a selfish thought or harbour a grudge or take out our bad moods on some innocent person who crosses our path at the wrong moment. Richard Coles writes this about prayer:

‘In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus teaches us how to pray. Go to your room, he says, and shut the door, and there pray to your Father who is in secret. In all of us there is such a room, with a tightly closed door, windowless. We want it that way, because in it we keep those things that shame us, the humiliations we endure, our foolishness and cruelty, the very worst of us. That’s exactly where Jesus wants to meet us, and we dread it because his grace falls on us like a judgement; but in his revealing light we find not a misbegotten horror, like the Monster of Glamis, we find ourselves, nothing special, nothing dreadful.’

The prayer of reconciliation then, is prayer that allows Jesus to see us as we really
are, and to address ourselves. To seek to change and to live in his ways more closely. To keep on trying to do better. The wonder is that Jesus helps us to make this
change. His forgiveness is greater than words. His forgiveness teaches us how in turn to forgive. Reconciliation is not only about acknowledging when I have wronged, but dealing generously with this who have wronged. Henri Nouwen puts it this way:

‘God’s forgiveness is unconditional; it comes from a heart that does not demand anything for itself, a heart that is completely empty of self-seeking. It is this divine forgiveness that I have to practice in my daily life. It calls me to keep stepping over all my arguments that say forgiveness is unwise, unhealthy, and impractical. It challenges me to step over all my needs for gratitude and compliments. Finally, it demands of me that I step over that wounded part of my heart that feels hurt and wronged and that wants to stay in control and put a few conditions between me and the one whom I am asked to forgive.’

I think a lot of us learn as small children about those conditions that we expect to be there. So many of us as small children were told – not necessarily in so many words, but by example – that forgiveness involved having to go through an action. I will forgive you for throwing mud around if you clean my car; I will forgive you for breaking that ornament if you sit absolutely still in the chair for the rest of the evening. Even the stories of the confessional seem to have conditions attached – go and say the Lord’s Prayer and six Hail Mary’s. We can’t help imposing a set of standards on
others, standards we often would not like imposed on us – standards that expect
others to behave like us, to conform to our social or cultural norms, to see the world
as we do, and when people don’t conform, the temptation is to withhold forgiveness. Relationships are damaged and become increasingly impaired. We might not even
realise that that is what we are doing, but where there is resentment against others who don’t fit in with our ways of thinking, or who we know or believe to have wronged us, even in minor ways, withholding unconditional forgiveness itself becomes a sin, because that withheld forgiveness damages a relationship. The one not forgiven may not realise that they have committed a wrong – the prayer of reconciliation reveals to us wrongs we did not see as wrongs. When Jesus told us to pray ‘forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us’, he was asking us to be mindful of those times when our withheld forgives damages relationships.

The reason we cannot place conditions on forgiveness is because God does not. There was a time when the people of God imagined that there was a condition – a price to be paid – for the freedom of being a forgiven people. Sins were to be atoned for – an eye for an eye, a life for a sin. The inherited sins of the fathers were invested in eldest sons, and the firstborn male, animal or human, paid for these sins dearly. In the case of animals, by being sacrificed. In the case of humans, the life was redeemed – paid for – with the death of an animal. For those who could afford it, that meant a lamb, but the poor could substitute two young pigeons. This was the price paid for the life of Jesus when he was presented at the temple as a child. He was
redeemed – freed form the inherited sins of his fathers, but the death of two birds.

But Jesus taught a different kind of redemption. He asked us to forgive freely, without cost, without expecting a price to be paid, a bargain to be struck or a condition met.
He reminded people that everyone of us sins. The story of the sinful woman in the temple in John 8, who escaped with her life because of Jesus’s challenge to the crowds – ‘let the one who is without sin cast the first stone’ – like the wisdom story we heard earlier, reminds us that all of us need forgiveness.

Jesus was referred to by his cousin John as ‘the lamb of God’. This title is a reminder of the redemptive lamb killed to save the firstborn and of the other redemptive lamb killed to save the Hebrew people from the angel of death, and then killed again annually in a ritual reminder of that saving moment. So many lambs – uncountable, since the ritual demanded repeating again and again. One was not enough. Until Jesus, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Jesus taught us to forgive – repeatedly, unconditionally, and he showed us that forgiveness no longer required a price. In forgiving, he paid the price himself, once and for all. Jesus poured himself out for us, gave all he had for love of us. As innocent of sin as the lambs killed in place of the sins of others, Jesus died rather than give up on us. He was condemned by the same people who slaughtered those ritual lambs, and even from the cross prayed ‘Father, forgive them, because they don’t understand what they are doing’.

As we approach prayer of reconciliation, our challenge is to be as generous in our
forgiveness of others as Jesus is towards us. It is also to come to understand what we are doing, so that we can learn not to do it. John V. Taylor, in ‘The Go-Between God’ writes: ‘it is of the essence that the healing which we call reconciliation that it
always includes both the recognition and the containing of the wrong, and by a strange alchemy this happens both in the one who forgives and the one who is forgiven.’

So what can we actually do?

Confession.  Whether we choose to share our confession with another human being or not, confession to God is all important. Anything that affects our ability to pray, to live as God wants us to, to love as God wants us to, should be named before God, faced up to – and as psalm 139 tells us, not only that, but we ask God to look at us intently and see what needs to be changed. God leads us in the way that is everlasting – in God’s own ways.

Psalm 139. 23-24

Search me, God, and know my heart;

    test me and know my anxious thoughts.

 See if there is any offensive way in me,

    and lead me in the way everlasting.

Thankfully for most of us, our sins are not made public. But we daily read about the sins of others, spread across the television, newspapers and increasingly social media makes publicising of the slightest failing part of a general shaming process
that society seems to delight in. The recording of sins for public consumption is not new. It served across time to shame those who were not popular, or to serve as object lessons for others. David, celebrated as a great king chosen by God, founder of the royal dynasty and ancestor of Jesus himself, knew that public humiliation well, and chose to publicise his repentance. Psalm 51, the great psalm of penitence, was written as he made his own prayers of penitence following the death of his child after his adulterous affair with Bathsheba.

Psalm 51

For the director of music. A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.

1 Have mercy on me, O God,

    according to your unfailing love;

according to your great compassion

    blot out my transgressions.

2 Wash away all my iniquity

    and cleanse me from my sin.

3 For I know my transgressions,

    and my sin is always before me.

4 Against you, you only, have I sinned

    and done what is evil in your sight;

so you are right in your verdict

    and justified when you judge.

5 Surely I was sinful at birth,

    sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

6 Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;

    you taught me wisdom in that secret place.

7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;

    wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

8 Let me hear joy and gladness;

    let the bones you have crushed rejoice.

9 Hide your face from my sins

    and blot out all my iniquity.

10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,

    and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

11 Do not cast me from your presence

    or take your Holy Spirit from me.

12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation

    and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,

    so that sinners will turn back to you.

14 Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,

    you who are God my Saviour,

    and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.

15 Open my lips, Lord,

    and my mouth will declare your praise.

16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;

    you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.

17 My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;

    a broken and contrite heart

    you, God, will not despise.

18 May it please you to prosper Zion,

    to build up the walls of Jerusalem.

19 Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous,

    in burnt offerings offered whole;

    then bulls will be offered on your altar.

The images of washing and the contrast of dirt with the whiteness that represents purity is often used in penitential prayer, just as David does in this psalm. We see this
in the origin of baptism as a rite for adults who had fallen away from the Jewish faith, and who repented of their lack of faithfulness. They would wash, or be washed by a leader such as John, as a sign that they were being made clean. The rite of baptism has moved away from that penitential aspect now, especially in the baptism of infants, but water remains a strong symbol of penitence and absolution. Modern prayers often include writing words representing sin onto stones using chalk, and then washing the words away, or dropping stones into water and retrieving white stones as signs of the cleanliness that comes with being forgiven.

St Luke emphasised the task of those who preach the gospel as preach a gospel of repentance for the forgiveness of sins in the name of Jesus. The ultimate image of our forgiveness by Jesus is the instrument of his condemnation: the cross. Jesus had been symbolically redeemed or saved as a baby when he was presented at the temple and two pigeons were sacrificed in his place as a firstborn son. Jesus ended the requirement in religion for such sacrifices when he took the place of not only every firstborn son but every human being and every animal that ever died on a human being’s behalf. As David wrote in psalm 51, God does not require sacrifices, but he does look for a broken and contrite heart. Jesus, so determined to tell us the good news of God’s love and forgiveness for those who accept it and repent, risked his life rather than keep the news of salvation from us. So it is fitting that we often choose to bring our symbols of penitence to a cross.

On Ash Wednesday the cross as a sign of penitence is made in ash, a reminder of our humble beginnings, made by God from the dust of the ground. Humans often behave as though we are grander than other parts of creation, and in some ways we are – but only because God chose us, called us in a particular way to be stewards of the rest of creation and loves us so much that he became human in Christ. That privilege of being is a gift of God, not a right, and it is good for us to remind ourselves that we are lowly, and dependent on God’s grace for our salvation. We cannot earn our way into heaven, or talk our way in, or rely on the reputation of our relatives. We are but dust, sinners, needing to repent and turn to Christ, who is the only source of grace and salvation. On Ash Wednesday we practice an act of penitence at its most deliberate, taking the symbol of our humility – dust or ash – and the symbol of the way humans humiliated Jesus – the cross – and wearing it as a reminder that we need to turn to Christ at all times, to continually seek to repair our relationship with Jesus and with each other; and as a reminder that we are a forgiven people, granted life out of dust and salvation out of death on a cross.

Often in the Eucharist we use the Greek phrases: Kyrie eleison, christe eleison, kyrie eleison. Lord, have mercy, Christ, have mercy, Lord have mercy. We cry out to our Lord to have mercy on us, sinful people, using words that echo the two blind men we find in Matthew 20:

As Jesus and his disciples were leaving Jericho, a large crowd followed him. 30 Two blind men were sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was going by, they shouted, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!”

31 The crowd rebuked them and told them to be quiet, but they shouted all the louder, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!”

32 Jesus stopped and called them. “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.

33 “Lord,” they answered, “we want our sight.”

34 Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes. Immediately they received their sight and followed him.

The men asked the Lord to have mercy. In their case his mercy gave them sight, and restored them to the possibility of full and beneficial lives. They chose to use that merciful gift wisely, by following Jesus. Our response to the Lord’s mercy should be the same, to respond to his grace and forgiveness with thankful hearts and to follow him wherever he leads.

So reconciliation is a hopeful, happy and marvellous part of prayer. It heals and restores. It gives us hope just as David was given hope. It leads us through the way of the cross into the light of Easter life. The prayer of reconciliation is always completed by the prayer of absolution, the words that assure and remind us that we are forgiven, over and over again, if we repent and turn again to Jesus with all our hearts. The words that remind us of sin are burned away, or washed off, or rendered silent by the absolute sanctity of the confessional. The white stone, the wet forehead, the lightened heart lifts us as we move on, having sought to reconcile and restore our relationship with God, to pray for our needs and those of others.

Things to rejoice about

In my last blog post I suggested that Paul’s command to the Thessalonians – and to the Philippians, and basically part of his expectations of any church – rejoice always, was an essential approach to Christina living today as much as it was in the first century. So I’m asking the people in the benefice I have the privilege of leading to take a rejoicing attitude. I want us to resist the regular temptation to see the worst in things and to look for what is good. God is doing marvellous things amongst us, and so often we miss them. I’m just as likely to do that as anyone. When I feel stressed or tired, or got at, I can describe things as though they aren’t great at all. And when I do that, I’m wearing grey tinted specs and putting everyone else off while I’m at it. Not good. So I repent of that attitude and hope to do better in future, remembering the example of a great priest who lives very close to me and counts his blessings every day. So what have I got to rejoice about?

I’m not going to put personal things into tis blog, though I have a huge amount to rejoice in personally. Instead I want to celebrate the third anniversary of my licensing as priest in charge of what is now the Living Brook benefice by looking back at what God has done in this little place in this short time. Yes, alright hair-splitters, we’re still waiting for the final union document, but we’ve been living out this reality for some time now. And perhaps that is a starting point for the rejoicing. When I was licensed it was to four parishes, one of which had been part of a different benefice. One church was closed and that became official very rapidly, leading to the merger of two parishes to become one larger and much more lively parish than the two had been separately before. I came to parishes in a wilderness place, desperately needing change, affirmation and love. There was a small choir, PCC’s that needed direction, churchwardens who had laboured, in some cases for many years, and were tired and yet still working doggedly to turn things round.

As I went into retreat in November 2012, I remember well God’s command to me which was a variant on the theme of this blog. He told me to celebrate, to tell the wonderful people here what was obvious to me but not to them – that they are truly special, brilliant people, loved and worth loving. The theme verse for 2013 was to be John 10.10b:

I have come that they may have life, life in all its fullness.

And as the year went on celebrating wasn’t difficult because there is much to rejoice in. The people of this benefice are great and as they worked together they started to see change. The consecration of the Magdalene chapel in Piddington church was a symbol of a new family of God’s people coming together in his love.

In November 2013 the command as I prayed on retreat was about vision. Where 2013 had been a year of celebrating and rejoicing in that abundant life God gives us, 2014 was to be about vision – a vision that would help us to share our joy with others. The theme verse for the year was another set of Jesus’ words from John’s gospel, from John 7:38:

Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.

I came back to the licensing of our Lay Reader, and during 2014 saw a vision day bring people together with loads of fantastic ideas and a new energy for acting on them. I started calling people into leadership in new ways and challenged some people to take up new areas of service in the church – sacrificially in some cases.

In November 2014 the theme and direction for the coming year emerged out of the clergy conference. It was clear to me that in 2015 I had to draw together a new core leadership team as well as encouraging the benefices leaders in the wider, task oriented grouping that had come together the year before. That meant a change to a new way of leading for me. As 2015, a year focussed on building teams, began, the theme verse that has underpinned it all was drawn from Matthew 16: 18, again Jesus words, summarised on our benefice posters as:

Jesus says ‘I will build my church’.

Now, on retreat in November 2015, and preparing to introduce some words of Paul rather than Jesus as our theme verse in the coming year, I can look back and see just was Jesus has done in these three years as he has built his church. Because now I’m able to look and see around me a Living Brook Ministry team with not just me and my lay reader, but also three lay ministers who have studied for diocesan certificates, and also a stipendiary curate of very high calibre. And close around that team I see more teams and groups of people doing amazing things for God. There is a pastoral care team doing such loving work; a children’s and families team transforming our approach to the much larger number of service and events for children; a schools team going into our two primary schools and doing assemblies, lessons and big events in churches too; the choir is growing all the time, and attracting children; the bellringers may not be doing so well on the surface – but that’s because people can’t yet see the novice learners in action. Then there is the youth fellowship, a place where inspiriting leaders are emerging and making a difference to the life of the church, as well as transforming our fifth Sunday services. There is the new elevenses services at St Edmunds, and the growing sense that our open churches are a place not just for prayer but for really gathering community in harmony. There is the knit and natter group, the new handbell ringing group, the stunning regular transformation of St Edmunds by the Toddler Praise children and by the local school. There are church members making an impact as school governors and one of the loveliest church schools out there, and alongside that the beautiful relationship with the academy school in Hardingstone, and another very hardworking school governor who still somehow finds time to make an impact on the church. There are churchwardens, two of them now very new to the job, who deal with lead taken from roofs and the subsequent leaks and still come up smiling, and still understand that our priority is not a building, but the gospel.

In all of those things, and so, so many more, Jesus is building his church and through his people that living water is flowing. Congregations have people in them who wouldn’t have thought of going to church three years ago.  All of the time I am seeing fantastic things to rejoice about, and hearing great things from the amazing team that lead this benefice.

So, now in 2016, after this whirlwind of transforming activity that has brought this benefice from an arid place into the place where the living water flows, things will slow down a bit. I want to take time for all of us to drink the water, enjoy the green pasture, and deepen our roots in the church that Jesus is building us into. The new leaders and the established ones need time to get used to their roles and every one of us needs time to rest in God. There will be new things this year, and changes to existing things, but much less of it. The big focus of the year will be on prayer, on reminding ourselves that unless we are individually and together people of prayer we can’t do anything. So 2016 will include a wide selection of prayer opportunities of all sorts and styles. Over the last three years a fast pace was necessary, to move from the desert to the waterside, but now that we have arrived, we can enjoy it. As we do, we will focus on Paul’s words to the Thessalonians, and putting them into action. I hope that we can start by looking at the wonderful things God has done so far – marvelling at what he might yet do – and rejoicing.

Rejoice always,

pray without ceasing

give thanks to God at every moment.

This is the will of God, your vocation as Christians.

Being Ananias.

Perhaps one of the most amazing miracles that God does is when He completely transforms a person's character. Never mind water into wine or healing leprosy- changing a person's fundamental beliefs and behaviour is a much greater challenge! We do tend to think that people can't change, but God really can do anything. This Sunday we remember the conversion of St Paul, an event which really shows what God can do! Saul, as he was at the beginning of the story, was legalistic and authoritarian. He studied hard under a very well respected rabbi, Gamaliel, and rose to a position of power in the faith. Saul used that power to hunt down and arrest and even have executed those he saw as opponents to the only true faith. Saul was acting from a position of deep and studied conviction, acting to defend the Lord his God from those who he saw as blasphemers. In some ways, there is a comparison to be made with those today who, out of real religious conviction, declare jihad against those who they believe to be blasphemers and bad influences to others against their faith. Saul would go to any length to purify Judaism and remove contagion. The revelation that he had got it wrong, and that his activities did not just persecute Jesus followers, but Jesus Himself, was an enormous shock to Saul.

In some ways, the more challenging person for us as we consider this story of Saul's transformation is Ananias. After all, conversions like the one that happened to Paul are rare, and those of us listening to the story in church pews are not likely to be candidates for this kind of conversion, because at the least we are already open to Jesus's message, and at best we are people who know and accept the Lordship of Jesus Christ over all aspects of our lives. But while Paul's example may not be one that most of us will follow, Ananias is an example that God is much more likely to ask us to follow. Ananias was not a great or famous leader (as far as we know), and what he did for Paul was quite simple, in a way. Paul was not eating or drinking, but was existing in a state of shocked reflection. Ananias did what Jesus asked him to do: he prayed for Paul, baptised him and made sure that he had something to eat and drink. Then he made sure Paul recovered his strength and introduced him to the rest of the fellowship. Like Ananias, we might be asked to help or support someone who has decided to change their lives and follow Jesus. Occasionally, supporting that person might feel as crazy and foolish as supporting Saul seemed for Ananias: a person whose life has been lived in such a way that spending time with them would seem risky to anyone other than a fellow disciple of Jesus.

More normally for us our Ananias role is to support people who have turned to Jesus in a much less dramatic way. Perhaps they have been gradually considering the faith all their lives, and are now realising that Jesus should play a more important part of their loves. Or they have had a moment of encounter. Not the blinding light of the road to Damascus, but significant to them: a request to become a godparent, perhaps, or the sense of hope and need of comfort found when dealing with a family funeral, or a need to make sense of life at a moment of midlife crisis. Whatever started the journey, each of us can only take the steps forward towards baptism and learning how to follow Jesus if we have an Ananias alongside us. Saul's new friend made sure he ate, and brought him into the company of the local church. All of us can care for another person in this way, looking out for their well being, inviting them to services and socials and coming with them to make it easier. Yes, Ananias also baptised Paul, and we don't do things quite that way these days, but you might well support someone who is preparing to baptism by prayer or even going to the Pilgrim course with them, or by introducing them to me!

I believe that most of us, if we think about it, would be able to name a collection of Ananias figures who have helped us in our own faith journeys. Even those of you who, like me, have attended church all of our lives, will have people who influenced and cared for us. In my case, my Ananias's include Walter Smith, the choirmaster in the church where I grew up, who saw me safely to church and told me stories about what the hymns meant, and teased me with a funny nickname; then there was Jean Liddicoat, who prayed for me as a teenager, listened to my youthful angst while she did her ironing, and gave me the confidence to go to the youth fellowship meetings; and Fen Strange who when I was learning about leadership in student days helped me to understand and support a student older than me with mental health problems. The list could go on. Like Ananias, these people came into my life for a while, and then were gone as I moved on in my discipleship.

So who were your Ananias people? As we pray today, perhaps you might give thanks for them. And here's today's challenge: who is God sending you to, to be an Ananias? Who needs you to pray for them, to encourage them, to believe in them even if no one else will, to help them have the courage to be disciples in a world where following Jesus goes against the grain? God might send you to help someone you don't know, maybe even - as Ananias to Saul - someone you fear or dislike. But a bit of practical support, prayer and some kind words will help that person become a follower of Jesus. And no one is too old or too young for this ministry! We can all offer prayer and encouragement. Let's pray that Jesus will show us who he wants us to support today. It might just be the next apostle Paul!

The news headlines

When God created the universe, breathing life into it all by his Holy Spirit, there was no preference for one nation over another. He made all with the same care, the same love. When he called Abram out of Ur to settle in Canaan and become father of a chosen people, that was not a rejection of the rest of the planet's inhabitants, but a message for them. God revealed himself through Israel with the intention that all nations would learn of him through Israel, and respond to him. This intention came to fruition in the person of Jesus. John the Baptist pointed everyone he met towards Jesus, the Son of God, present at the creation of the universe and bringer of God's saving love to every people. So the Jews baptised in the Jordan by John were part of Gods family, but the Greeks baptised in Ephesus by Paul were just as equally valued by Jesus and included in God's love.

This last week - Wednesday especially- seems to have been particularly violent and difficult, a week in which people with their own agendas have attacked innocent and undefended people. I have found myself concerned with the way that these events have been reported. The Jews of first century Israel would have been largely unconcerned with goings on in Greece, and would not have been willing to consider 12 people from Ephesus as worth their attention, and would not have wanted to include them in their care. St Paul was going very much against the prevailing mood - even amongst followers of Jesus- in working with Greeks. A first century Jewish news service would not have given much space to news from Ephesus, unless it somehow affected or attacked them.

Our news services seem to behave in much the same way. Now, I don't want to give the wrong impression. The events in France this week, the attack at Charlie Hebdo and the subsequent attacks and deaths, are sad, unnecessary, evil. To remember those who have been hurt, to stand by them in prayer and support, is important. But the priorities in reporting, especially on radio and tv, have been biased by our tendency to prioritise the local and the celebrity. We've been told the names of cartoonists who died in headlines, but I wonder how many of you would recognise the name of Frederic Boisseau? I had to search for his name, so I don't blame you if you don't recognise it. Frederic was 42, married with two children. You didn't hear about him in the headlines because he was the caretaker. I am grateful that at least one journalist considered him important enough to find out about. I believe that God values Frederic's life just as much (no more, no less) as the famous satirists and cartoonists who died, and his innocence in death is in some ways even harder to bear, because he did nothing to provoke a gunman to take his life.

While all this was dominating our locally focussed, Eurocentric news, and our Twitter feeds were filling with comments and 'je suis Charlie' statements (I understand that even the Arc de Triomphe is carrying that phrase in lights now), Islamic terrorists were killing others elsewhere in the world. If you rely on tv or radio you won't have heard much, if anything, of the other events, and that is sad. Because every life matters, and the betrayal of God and community by terrorists working in the name of Islam is just as bad whether it happens on our doorstep or somewhere far away.

On Wednesday 37 people were killed and 66 injured in a bomb attack using a minibus parked near a queue of people waiting to enrol at a Police Academy at Sunaa in Yemen. Did this news pass so many people by because it happened further away? Because the victims were mostly Muslim, so not like us? In offices in London editors were deciding that Charlie Hebdo's victims were of greater significance than Sunaa's, but I don't think God will have seen them as less important. The church issued prayers for France. Did it not write prayers for Yemen because violence happens more often there? The grief at loss of mother, brother, daughter, uncle is no less wherever you are. These two events happened on the same day. If you look at the Church of England website you will find prayers for Paris - and quite right too. But nothing for Yemen.

And also on Wednesday another group who claim to operate in the name of Islam, Boko Haram, went on a killing spree in Nigeria. The town of Baga, population 10000, has been razed to the ground, along with a number of nearby villages. At least 2000 people were killed, bodies strewn on the ground like litter. Thousands more, going wherever they could to save themselves, were stranded on nearby islands without any kind of supplies. Help cannot be got to them because of the forces of Boko Haram preventing others getting into the area. Many, many more might die before the crisis is over, and many many people are not accounted for. About 10000 people are believed to have got into neighbouring Chad, facing lives as refugees, having lost everything bar their lives. Perhaps you heard or read something of this, but it happened on the same day as the attack on Charlie Hebdo, and anyway, we are used to hearing news of Boko Haram's outrages : they aren't a novelty, so somehow they don't grab the attention. So perhaps you didn't hear. The prayer writers for the Church of England's website certainly seem to have missed it. The website headlines only offer prayer for Paris. Nothing for Nigeria, despite the severity of its situation. And yet, I believe that Jesus values every one of those 2000 people just as much (no more, no less) as the 17 killed in Paris.

I encourage all of you to read and pray more widely than the radio and TV headlines might direct. Look for the wider news of the places that might matter less to ordinary British people and to editors in their news offices trying to guess what British people will be interested in. Jesus cares about every single life and death, no matter what the nationality or religion or political stance of the person. He cares as much about the plight of the victims in Nigeria and the refugees of Boko Haram as he does about the people of Paris. He cares as much about the victims of the Yemen, and the people I have not mentioned because the length of this sermon would be just too long - those freezing in unusually cold weather in the Middle East, for example, where tens of thousands of people living under canvas having been driven room their homes in Syria, having already lost loved ones to terrorist violence, are now having to deal with freezing rain and low temperatures in situations where they don't necessarily have coats, jumpers or proper footwear. That hasn't made the top headlines this week either, and it would take a very slow news week for it to get there.

Read as widely as you can. Pray widely - you don't need the Church of England to write a prayer for you. I have every confidence that our leaders in the church are praying for all these places, and I hope that you will too. If you are not sure how to pray, keep it simple. Name the places and ask God to have mercy or to give his help - like a personal verse and response - I'll lead you in the sort of thing in a moment. If you are able to write letters of support or take other action, do that too. Charities like World Vision or the Foundation for Relief in the Middle East are working to get warm blankets, food and clothing to the Syrian refugees, and help to those in Chad. As followers of the Son of God, we are called to take an interest in the whole world, not just our bit of it; in all people, not just the celebrities. There are journalists out there reporting the news that we need to hear about, but we may have to dig deeper to find it, and to open our hearts purposefully in order to see the whole world, made and loved by God, and not just the bit of it that we most enjoy.

Prayer response: Lord, please help them and comfort them.

All those hurt or grieving by the attacks in France this week
All those hurt or grieving by the attack in Sunaa this week
All those hurt or grieving by the attacks in and around Baga this week
Those made refugee by the attacks in Baga this week
Those refugees suffering in the cold in the Middle East
Those suffering who we don't know because their news has not reached us, but are known to you, Jesus.