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OBLIGATION

05/03/2010 by Simon Marsh

CHURCH TIMES IS AN ALTOGETHER  GOOD READ THIS WEEK. (Enjoy warm wisdom from Richard Burge in the back page interview). And whilst I can’t quite say with Harriet Baber (page 14) that “Only the Church has the resources to feed those sheep” (our local Deanery Synod minutes this week record the suggestion that perhaps “Interfaith” is to be the new “Ecumenism” – and I really hope so)  I nonetheless sounded more than one glad AMEN! as I read her closing paragraphs:

Sheep Need More Than Bullet Points

Evangelical megachurches such as Saddleback have no place for transcendence. For the past 30 years, the Episcopal Church has worked hard to expunge every trace of mysticism and awe from its liturgy. During the 1990s’ Decade of Evangelism, churches looked to successful Evangelical megachurches such as Saddleback as models. Romantics, mystics, and unchurched seekers yearning for transcendence were written off in the interests of attracting a secular clientele. But the projected influx of young families avid for “community” and convenient parking never materialised.

For more than three decades, some mainline churches have operated on the assumption that spirituality was a minority taste that they could not afford to accommodate, and extended themselves to cater for people who were not interested in religion, with secular programmes and activities, blandly cheerful services, and endless friendliness. Meanwhile, the other sheep, in whom the religious impulse was alive, wandered aimlessly — sampling New Age products and seeking spirituality on hiking trails and in cinemas.

Only the Church has the resources to feed those sheep, and it is charged with that obligation. So long as it reneges on this duty, the sheep will not be fed; and the Church, prepared to trade-off every principle and practice in the interests of institutional survival, will surely die. Dr Baber is Professor of Philosophy at the University of San Diego, California.

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INVITATION …

04/03/2010 by Simon Marsh

TIME AND TIME AGAIN THIS LENT I’ve come across some wonderful people who’ve told me of the strong sense of invitation they’ve received from God. Invitation to a new quietness and time for reflection. Invitation to a new sort of “loving as (God) loves”. And I delight in engaging with people who, in the very midst of “being healed” in the wilderness are nonetheless, just like me, forever planning the exit route. Forever planning the next reason to avoid just being.

And I delight in these encounters because we can encourage each other, you see. The more of us who recognise the call to “be led by the Spirit into the wilderness” – to “be led into times of contemplation, reflection, self-examination, a facing up to our own demons”  the more of us will experience healing Life. Over 50 people entered into that kind of quietness with me yesterday. Right here in midweek Lenten Pause in St Michael’s, Bramhall.

This “wilderness”, this place “not interfered with by human hands” is the very home of prayer. This is the place of direct encounter with God. This is where we meet Life “in all its fullness”. This is where we encounter the ladder between “heaven” and “earth” and the angels of God ascending and descending upon it. Or within it.

And experience of this Life, this Divine Life, makes us more willing instruments of it … makes of learners in God’s Kingdom, makes of disciples (from the Latin word for “to learn”) what has been called “the Body of Christ” … or to widen the language circle – wider still and wider – a body of “Anointed” people. (Christos = “anointed”). So what Mary, see below, calls “a basic Christian”, is what all of us are called to be. Mary’s right. It does all boil down to loving God and loving other people (together with all created things).

How do we get to the “heart of the matter”? Well, by following the example of Jesus, and just about every great spiritual teacher that ever lived: we start, like them, by “going into the wilderness”. Whether we understand it in the church-type language or not, we start by entering into Lent. And the word Lent, of course, originally spoke of the “lengthening” of the days. The Spring event. Wilderness lengthens our view of God’s world. Lent stretches us.

I’m a basic Christian. For me it boils down to loving God and loving other people. Whenever I talk about God at church or with family, friends or in the community I always talk about his love. Recently I was leading prayers at the day centre and my prayer included a confession that we have failed to love God properly – and failed to love other people. I’ve been thinking about this since then, and it is the reason I’m entering into Lent. I want to love better. When I became a Christian my prayer was “Teach me to love as you love.” I’m a very very long way from getting close to that.

Six days into Lent I think I am learning some stuff. I am learning how very weak I am and that I can’t sort this out for myself. Rather than asking for God to give me strength I am asking him to come into my weakness. I am telling him all my feelings all the time and not running away when things are painful. He has given me an amazing amount of calm and healing and has helped me to where I am now, despite me wanting to follow the signpost pointing out of Lent and back to the World of Mary. Even as he is with me healing my wounds I am looking for the exit.

via All Now Mysterious.

The whole of Mary’s LENT post is worth a good long read … maybe with a cuppa close at hand, maybe with a lighted candle nearby, or in the company of  someone else engaged in silent prayer, any of which might help keep your attention focused in the one place, just for a while.

Thanks Mary …

Posted in Christ, Christian discipleship, Christianity, Lent | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment »

WORLD CLASS SOUP

03/03/2010 by Simon Marsh

St Thomas’ Stockport

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FORTY YEARS AGO CHARING CROSS METHODIST CHURCH introduced me to the concept of shared Bread and Cheese Lunches during the Church’s Season of Lent. No bread, cheese or soup tasted finer than that on offer to a hundred or more diners, 11 year old me amongst them, at Charing Cross. Some of my least religiously-minded peers actually “got religion” during Lent, ‘cos lunch was on offer. We were like 11 year old vacuum cleaners, and were always welcomed, our (not very Lenten) appetites notwithstanding.

I blessed God for Charing Cross Methodist Church today as I spoke at a Lunchtime Lenten Pause at the stunning Grade 1 Listed Georgian “Commissioner’s” Church, St Thomas’ Stockport. The welcome and enthusiasm was as warm as that at Charing Cross so long ago. Pause for Prayer a welcome oasis in the very midst of a bustling modern town on the A6.  Conversation with Annie who proudly produced her (gorgeous) Baptismal Certificate from 1926, and with several of her kind friends, was enchanting. And then the Lenten lunch, with world class soup!

The Power of Pause reminds us of simply magnificent simple things, of enough to go around, and of baskets left over where that came from. Thanks, so much, for the invitation and for glad hospitality. The Bishop will be in the pulpit next Wednesday at 12.30 so the Lenten talk will be better than this week’s. But I doubt that the soup’ll be bettered. Next Wednesday. Just off the A6. 12.30 …

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BE PREPARED

02/03/2010 by Simon Marsh

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SIXTEEN YOUNG TEENAGE SCOUTS, male and female, around the altar tonight. And I’m impressed, as ever, both by the leaders and by the Scouts themselves.

There’s hope for all of us when young teenagers have so patently grasped, with next to no prompting beyond warmth of welcome, that

“God’s about Love”. “Not a man, not a woman. But God”.  “Seen in people”. “Light, bread and drink”. “Everything we need to stay alive”. “Hope”. “Someone, Jesus maybe, who’s there when we’re scared”. “Good: in human beings, animals and nature”. “Creator”. “One who helps me make things, like sense, or bacon for tea”.

Hope when teenagers  describe the parish church as

“WOW! big! expensive, beautiful, art, craftsmanship, beauty, something that people have made to help them worship someone bigger than themselves. Something that people give or create because they think it’s important to celebrate community. A place that encourages all people to create good things. A bell that sounds so good I want one for home.

Hope when one lad, having ascended the pulpit to try out the microphone said: “Welcome in the name of God and the Holy Christ”. Hope in the attentive silence that waited upon a young girl’s reading Psalm 23. Hope in many of them understanding the origins and meaning of their names … Samuel, Judah, Grace, Sarah, Elizabeth, Jo …

Hope in their unselfconscious accounts of the things they’d created today: an apple pie, homework, breakfast, 10 made beds, bacon for tea, a model of a Matisse work of art, a friend, a fool of myself, a good conversation.

The second time this week that I’ve found myself looking forward enormously to the next breath of fresh air. Next week there’ll be another sixteen around the altar. And one or two of tonight’s “may come back to have a go at reading the Psalm”.

A place that encourages all people to create good things? Well you’d expect me to mention “Church”. But another such place is “Scouts”. They’re familiar with gathering around an altar. Familiar with what Barbara Brown Taylor calls “An Altar in the World“. Scouts. Bethel. A house of God. “Surely the Lord is in this place. This is none other than the gate of heaven”.

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A BREATH OF FRESH AIR!

28/02/2010 by Simon Marsh

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JUST HAD A DELIGHTFUL HOUR with some startlingly gifted and inspiring young people. A fitness ‘motivator’ and football referee, a mountain-biker, a sailor,  flautists, saxophonists, a keyboard and a bass player. All interested in community. All interested in the things of God. All bright enough to know that God is not confined within the walls of a church, but is to be found inside churches as well as outside them. All interested enough in one another, in their peers, in me, and in humanity generally, to celebrate both unity and diversity. All open to learning something about depth in matters of faith, about listening to the other members of an orchestra (or a football team, say) in order to make one’s own contribution the best it can be, and about not being too quick to leap in and take things (maybe especially religious things) just at face value. It’s absolutely wonderful to have people like these in our neighbourhood.  I asked them to let me know if they’d like to meet up again. I hope they do. They’re as life-giving as the wind in their sails and their orchestral instruments. They are a breath of fresh air!

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EXCITEMENT & IMAGINATION

24/02/2010 by Simon Marsh

THANKSGIVING TONIGHT FOR KATH, who died peacefully on Valentine’s Day. Thanksgiving for a gentle-woman who never stopped loving her late husband, or her children, grandchildren, or a host of friends. Thanksgiving for a person whose heart offered hospitality and who was possessed, her son-in-law told us, of excitement and imagination, all her life. What a thrilling reflection at funeral thanksgiving, and then again in making Eucharist tonight, upon a person’s having possessed (or been possessed by) excitement and imagination. What a thrilling thought that Kath and Neil will have revelled in reunion on Valentine’s Day! How could we not offer thanks to Almighty God who is Excitement and Imagination in its unimaginable fullness. Lift up your eyes, said Jesus. And people’s imaginations blossomed and they became excited about life again. Here and now and for ever and ever.

THANKSGIVING TONIGHT FOR ESTHER, who one year ago led us in the first of our 2009 Lenten Studies by calling us to prayer. Thanksgiving for a young and energetic priest whose excitement and imagination showed us that Jesus is standing right next to us, loving us unconditionally, even whilst He is the breath within us. Until her own prayer, and her own response to it, led her on to exciting and imaginative times among other disciples in Holy Trinity, Knaresborough. How could we not offer thanks tonight? Dozens of us will never embark upon Lenten studies again without recalling Esther’s bracing, challenging, chuckling, energetic, straight-talking, all-including loving. We blossomed and became excited about life again. We thanked God for her new fellow pilgrims and imagined Knaresborough come the Spring.

THANKSGIVING TONIGHT FOR ALISON who followed the path of love to Australia and who, even whilst celebrating love and a host of life-affirming gifts from God, knows also the pain of being far from “home” and the universal wrench of having to let go of some gifts only she was ever aware of. And I found myself able to give thanks for love’s ups and downs alike. For Alison, too, is gifted with excitement and imagination. Flowers will bloom about her paths and many a surprising blessing lies ahead of her. Dominus flevit – Jesus wept – before his eternal Spring came tumbling into the world, showing us forever that eternal Spring was created for those on earth “as in Heaven”.

TWELVE MODERN-DAY LEARNERS – twelve modern-day disciples – gathered around our family table, gave thanks for Eucharist being made at family-tables and sofas in “every continent and island”. And we took the bread and wine that Jesus gave, to us and to all humankind, and He, and we, and Kath, and Esther, and Alison were caught up in a holy communion.

Posted in Christianity, bonds of faith | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment »

ALIMENTOS GRATIS

23/02/2010 by Simon Marsh

The videos in this blog are great FULL SCREEN. Click the four arrows button before you click PLAY …

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TIME TO GET OUT THE FACULTY APPLICATION FORMS AGAIN! – we don’t have pews in my parish church, but (what do you think?) I reckon we’ll have to dispose of the chairs! Our Growth Action Planning is bringing me to my knees every day. And on every occasion I implore “what are we here for?” – a question addressed first and foremost to the Fount and Source of my life (and of ALL life) – and then echoed dozens of times in my daily encounters with other human beings – some of them churchpeople, many of them not. Some of them women, some men, some teenagers and young children. Some gay, some straight. Some “rich” and “powerful”, some “poor” and “without hope”.

Each and every day I encounter what Richard Holloway calls simply DOUBTS AND LOVES. Each and every day I encounter people who can make neither head nor tail of a Church in / of England that preaches “All are welcome” in the same space and with the same breath put to use in keeping huge tranches of the population either out or “in their proper place”. (Maggi Dawn, among others, has posted observations about the two clerical gentlemen who have recently been in the headlines for their enthusiam for the Scriptural text  “Women submit to your husbands” – that have been described variously as “hilarious” and “tragic”. I’m hard pressed to see the “hilarious” myself.)

Every day I encounter fellow Christians who are staggering along the road beneath the weight of the millstones around their necks. “I don’t believe in closing churches” I hear a church leader cry. Lucky old you I shout back. I DO believe in closing dead ones. I DO believe in a gospel that shouts from the rooftops “stop living the lie”. 500 seater mausoleums are choking the life blood out of the dozen people who sit in so many of them for a not altogether very inviting hour a week, the people who  are pouring their ever decreasing resources straight down the drain of the temple’s voracious appetite … with not a soul willing to challenge the idolatry involved … and a “gospel” that’s so much more to do with who needs to be kept out than with those who ought to be encouraged to “get in”.

I’m haunted, still, by the cruel irony of the sight and sound of the Lambeth Bishops assembled in our beloved Mother Church in England, heartily singing “All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place” – either not knowing, or having “just forgotten for a moment”, or (surely not) having chosen to ignore, the plain truth of that day: that some were not welcome, some were not welcome, some were not welcome in that place.

God help me! I’d love to see every church building in the land packed to capacity, filled with a thankful people, of every race and creed and colour and gender, gathered to give praise to our life-giving, life-enhancing, compassionate, forgiving, welcoming Creator. And that kind of growth doesn’t arise out of box ticking exercises. That kind of growth doesn’t start with an interest in numbers.  That kind of growth doesn’t arise out of “evangelical” proclamations of a “good news” that’s  actually bad news for many people, and that in plain sight. That kind of growth doesn’t arise out of the kind of barking preaching that insists that people must “opt in”.

That kind of growth arises when women and children and men have been helped (by countless gifts and means – churchy and unchurchy) to understand that GOD has “opted in” FOR THEM. God has breathed life into the very dust out of which every atom in the Universe comes into being. And still breathes it. That kind of growth arises of out “two or three (or maybe – “in Christ” an apostolic 12) gathered together in my name” … knowing that they’ve one heck of a lot in their numbers-saturated lives to be thankful for.

Now I guess I’ve no choice but to submit a faculty application for getting shut of our (perhaps 500 and frequently sat-upon) chairs. And I wouldn’t be overly hopeful of having one granted. But I can at least ask “please stop asking me to manage my church” … though I’m NOT completely thick,  and I believe that with customary clarity Nick Baines makes the point about false dichotomies very well indeed …

There are some in the church who wish to divide the words ‘pastoral’ and ‘managerial’. Apparently, Tom Butler is a managerial bishop – and some have accused me of being the same. Well, I see it as a compliment in one sense. Why? Because the dichotomy between ‘pastoral’ and ‘managerial’ is a false one – and a dangerous one. What some people mean by ‘pastoral’ (when asking for it in a bishop) is someone who won’t challenge, who is malleable and won’t interfere too much. But pastoral care begins with getting the administration, communication and ‘business’ right: how do you respect someone who says they care for you pastorally when they then double-book you, fail to reply to letters or emails and don’t do what they promise to do?

A bishop is called to be an accountable steward of the resources of people and stuff/things. He is not called primarily to be ‘nice’ or popular. If niceness and popularity follow, then that is fine; but episcopal leadership and ministry are not good for people who want to be everybody’s friend. The alternative to good management of the resources God gives us is, presumably, bad management. Can anybody show me how bad management equates to good pastoral care?

via Nick Baines’s Blog.

… but really: I feel less called to manage “my” church and more to love her. That’s why I owe a profound debt of gratitude to one of the finest parish priests in our diocese who sent me a link to these stunning videos from St Gregory’s in San Francisco. Perhaps you’ll notice the lack of chairs in the worship space. Perhaps you’ll understand the lack of them, and hopefully sense EUCHARIST going on. Holy Communion. Church growth, with action, and planning.

My wife and I are of one mind: tonight we just sang “Are you going to San Francisco?”. As soon as possible became our shared refrain. As soon as possible. And by the way, we understand now why San Francisco’s Cathedral is called simply and prophetically “Grace”. With all my heart: thanks for the lifeline, brother.

The videos in this blog are great FULL SCREEN. Click the four arrows button before you click PLAY …

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Posted in Anglican Communion, Christian discipleship, Christianity, Church of England, Eucharist, Holy Communion, Lambeth Conference, You Tube, angels, church, discipleship, diversity, inclusiveness, liturgy, love, ministry, mission, parish life, peace, people and society, relationships, religion, saints, vocation, worship | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

CHILCOT

03/02/2010 by Simon Marsh

ONCE AGAIN I’M GLAD that Bishop Nick Baines takes the risk of being “a bit silly to write too much here.”  His is an humane,  incisive, truth seeking and reflective eye and ear. What he writes about the Chilcot Inquiry below may infuriate some nearly as much as others have been inflamed by Tony Blair himself. But we need to read / hear it. Especially this year. And maybe a quick trip round to our local (whichever) party office with an offer of help might set any one of us on the path to a day and a time when we really COULD “do better”. Maybe in the UK. Maybe in Jerusalem?

It may just be that these impossible wrangles, where there’s not a single simple answer, where thousands of simple answers are demanded, it may just be that you really could do better? And it’s really important that we all know about you because the need for folks to “do better” shows no signs of going away.

Millions of words will be banged out today following Tony Blair’s appearance before the Iraq Inquisition yesterday, so it is a bit silly to write too much here. I’ll limit it to three observations that have the virtue of being honest, but run the risk of running counter to everyone else.

1. I think the war was wrong on every front: politically, militarily and morally. The premises as presented were false and it still appears that the Brits were too keen to be in Bush’s pocket. Nothing said so far in the Chilcot Inquiry has demanded a change of view on these matters.

2. The Inquiry is not a trial. Hectoring inquisition may satisfy the blood lust of would-be interrogators, but might also illicit less information than otherwise. Let someone talk: the more they say, the more words they use, the more holes they will potentially dig either by saying too much or too little. Shouting at people or questioning every detail is not necessarily the best way of getting to the truth. We must wait until the report is published to see what conclusions are being drawn.

3. Thank God the baying crowds or the foaming commentators don’t run the country. Blair’s appearance before the Inquiry Panel has been built up as a trial when it can be no such thing. The Inquiry is there to discover the truth – and they can only do this by looking at the matter from very different perspectives. This requires patience, attention and a willingness to hold judgement until all the evidence has been heard. Yet, already the Inquiry is being written off as a whitewash and a failure by the establishment to beat up one of its own.

via Nick Baines’s Blog.


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FRESH EXPRESSION (dated 1662)

31/01/2010 by Simon Marsh

THERE ARE MOMENTS OF PURE JOY in parish life. What better gift, what better way to celebrate the first of our Parish Centenary events across 2010 than a Sunday Candlemas – the Feast of The Presentation of Christ in The Temple. Better begin (in these days of Growth Action Planning and “He’s turning the world upside down”) with a “fresh expression”. So we did. With (1662) Prayer Book Choral Evensong, a mixed choir of thirty, robed and unrobed, ‘traditional’ and ‘music group’, and the nave filled row after row. And it’s one of the seven deadliest sins, I know, but of all of them tonight, of all of us, of the entire parish family here, I’m proud as Punch! We’ve been helping each other along the road to glory for years and years and years …

A blind man recognises a beloved face by barely touching it with seeing fingers, and tears of joy, the true joy of recognition, will fall from his eyes after a long separation.

Osip Mandelstam, The Word and Culture

Subtitled text from Haggai 2 announced reflection on The Future Glory of the Temple. And Romans 12 exhorted us to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship”.

What then is to be “The Future Glory of this Temple?” I wondered aloud in the pulpit. “What is the name of the song, the psalm, the canticle of praise that we would sing a hundred years from now?”

In Lent this year some of us will take up Terry Hershey’s “The Power of Pause”. It holds some clues as to the whereabouts of the Temple “not made by human hands”:

“… when I am present I am grateful. And gratitude is always a type of prayer.

… the entire region is bathed in sunshine. Now, at dusk, the cloud cover is scattered like tattered pieces of cloth … the sky is spring blue, baby boy blue … the water is ice blue and the mountains are blanketed with snow. In the clear winter air the mountains stand stalwart – enduring, comforting, and settling. they are bigger than any of my pettiness. And their beauty slows my breathing and eases my mind (page 27)

The well known priest and author, the late Henri Nouwen once wrote:

Too often I looked at being relevant, popular and powerful as ingredients of an effective ministry. Jesus sends us out to be shepherds and Jesus promises a life in which we increasingly have to stretch out our hand and be led to places where we think we’d rather not go. He asks us to move from a concern for relevance … to a life of prayer; from worries about popularity … to communal and mutual ministry. What is new is that we have moved from the many things, to the Kingdom of God.

Henri Nouwen, In The Name of Jesus.

Ah! To the Kingdom of God. Look, my friends. Look beyond our little Evensong. Look hard. Can you see him there, with Anna? They’ve been dreaming about mountains and hills, and valleys and plains, and rising up like eagles, and blue sky and a blue lake, and a Kingdom promised from the beginning of time. And whilst they’re waking from their slumbers, as though in direct response to the prayers of their patient waiting, one of the most beautiful women that ever walked upon the face of the earth came near. A young woman most pure, still seeking purification.

Simeon stumbled forward, barely able to see through tears of recognition. He touched Mary’s beautiful face, and she placed a small white bundle into the trembling arms of this old man of the Temple.

And a rainbow stretched out over Mount Zion. The elderly Anna gasped and knelt down at Mary’s feet and the old man said, a little croakily:

Nunc Dimittis

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace : according to thy word.

For mine eyes have seen : thy salvation;

Which thou hast prepared :

before the face of all people;

To be a light to lighten the Gentiles : and to be the glory of thy people Israel.

Luke 2.29-32

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son : and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be : world without end.  Amen.

Never was fresher expression uttered. All that we ever longed for has been made available to us. All that we ever feared about death, or life, has been put to flight. Though hearts may sometimes be seared by sword, yet may we hold the Saviour. Yet we may hold, in an infant then and in every infant littleness now, a Song, a Psalm, a Canticle of Praise that we would sing a hundred years from now, and that with heartfelt gratitude and awe:

Nunc Dimittis. Now I may die in peace. I’ve longed for a fresh expression.

So I came. Present. Really there. And I opened the Church’s ancient Prayer Book, and found the reason it was written. God be be praised.

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BRANGELINA

29/01/2010 by Simon Marsh

NICK BAINES, Bishop of Croydon, always seems to hit the nail bang on the head for me:

It is this ‘being human’ stuff that’s bothering me during my ‘reflective’ time. Take a couple of examples:

* Obama makes his first State of the Union address amid the opprobrium of those who know they could do his job better. Critics – some of whom have done nothing for the ‘common good’ other than take other people apart – scream how disappointed they are in him, how all the hopes of a year ago have been dashed.

One year. In the context of eternity that is not… er … a long time. People make unrealistic demands of leaders, then pull them down when they fail in one or two areas. Some of the hopes put into Obama were stupidly unrealistic and he was bound to disappoint before he even started.

via Brangelina and the real world « Nick Baines’s Blog.

The whole post is worth a thorough read

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