'Nice Day for a Goth Wedding' - transcript of sermon, prayers and grace...

Joe & Jen Wedding 23^rd September 2015

I claim no originality for the Grace, I found this on the internet.

The 'Prayers' are from the Anglican Church web site for Weddings. 

The poem 'It is a Gift' is mine so please recognize copyright.

Song of Songs – 8.6 & 1 John 4: 7 -12

‘Songs of Love’

‘Love is all around us’ – but just what does this little word mean.

In the Greek language of the New Testament there are four words used for love.

Eros – and I would hazard a guess you may not know ancient Greek but you will know what that one means.

Philia - which is a kind of ‘brotherly love’ – a love between equals and gives a name to an American City, but has nothing to do with cream cheese!

Storge – which is the kind of love a parent would have for their children.

And then Agape, which is often considered to be the highest form of love.  This is a word still used today by some Christians as they gather together and share a common life with each other.

Should you want to know more, then C.S. Lewis, he of Narnia fame, wrote a book called ‘Four Loves.’ 

Now as rich as the English language is, we have to make this one word do an awful lot of jobs and explain a whole raft of ideas and emotions.

The hope is that we will understand the context and make the necessary accommodation.

For example, later on Joe might be downing a nice pint of Doombar in the bar and say, ‘I really love a nice pint of ale.’ 

We should know that he means something different from the covenant love he is now declaring for Jen.

Similarly, when Jen says that she loves her Irregular Choice shoes – well, Jen loves her Irregular Choice shoes!

This short poem seeks to encapsulate something of this small and yet very powerful word.

                                ‘It Is a Gift’

     Love is word

     Often spoken

     Seldom heard

     ‘I love you’

     Means what;

     A feeling, a desire?

     Does it mean, ‘I give?’

     Does it mean, ‘I always will?’

     Does it mean, ‘yours forever?’

     In the market it is cheap,

     Ten a penny, or even less;

     But in life, real life!

     So say it only once or twice,

     And enjoy every word,

     Like a jewel, precious and rare.

     Because, ‘I love you’

     Should never mean,

     But now I don’t.

     © Gordon Banks 1981

It is a Christian belief that all love emanates from God.

We heard something of that in our second reading from the 1^st Letter of John.

1 John 4:7-12

 My dear friends, we must love each other. Love comes from God, and when we love each other, it shows that we have been given new life.

God is love.

There is a story told of someone asking God just how much he loved them…

And God stretched his arms and said, ‘this much.’

Again from John’s Letter… ‘

God showed his love for us when he sent his only Son into the world to give us life.

A Christian marriage is called to reflect something of this deep, committed, covenantal  love that God has for the world and supremely for the Church, often referred to as the Bride of Christ.

So much so that in another New Testament Letter written to the Ephesians we read…

A husband should love his wife as much as Christ loved the church and gave his life for it.  (Ephesians 5:25)

That’s a good quote to remember…

However, one quote worth forgetting is from ‘Love Story’ 

"Love means never having to say you're sorry"

Yes it does and a thousand times over.

We human beings are a complex mix of fears, foibles and funny bits.  The real joy of giving yourself totally to another person in a deep, committed covenantal relationship is that you can be utterly honest.  However, you will mess up and to use a modern phrase, ‘when you mess up - fess up.’

Joe and Jen, today you are embarking upon a remarkable journey and you have called your friends and family together to bear witness to the solemn vows you are to declare to each other.

You have invited a Priest of the Church of God to bless and sanctify these solemn vows.

That’s the right place to begin such a journey.

It is also the place to continue that journey.

A journey that will bring it share of joys as well as sorrows. There will also be a huge amount of simple getting on with life bits, that may at times seem simple boring and very ordinary.

However, from my own experience I can tell you that having God at the very heart and core of that deep, covenanted commitment you make to each other is the most important thing you could possibly do. You have made a good start; my hope and prayer is that you both continue to look to God to guide you on your journey through life together.

A message we could all do to heed!

‘A Fathers Blessing’

THE PRAYERS

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we lift up our hearts to you
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Through Him, you have made a covenant of grace with your people
by the outpouring of your Holy Spirit.

We praise you for the gift of marriage
in which the love of husband and wife
reveals your purposes of love for the world.

We thank you today for Joe and Jen
for leading them to each other
in friendship and love, commitment and trust,
and for bringing them here for the blessing of their marriage.

Living God,
by the presence of your Holy Spirit,
may they know the risen Christ to be with them now,
as they celebrate this covenant together.
May their lives be a witness to your saving love
in this troubled world.

As you pour out your love,
may they grow together in your sight,
and each be to the other
a companion in joy, a comfort in sorrow and a strength in need.

As you blessed the earthly home at Nazareth
with the presence of your Son,
may their home be a place of security and peace.

And bring us all at the last
to that great marriage banquet of your Son
in our home in heaven,
where, with all your saints and angels,
in the glory of your presence,
we will for ever praise you;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

'Our Father' to be said in whatever tradition or language you choose...

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your Kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom,
the power and the glory are yours.
Now and for ever.

Amen.

THE GRACE

Let us give thanks for this beautiful day – for the love between Joe and Jen which has brought us all together, and for the meal we are about to enjoy.

Let us remember those who cannot be with us today, and always be thankful for their part in our lives.

Let us be grateful for the joy of this occasion, and grant us the grace to always offer our love and support to Joe and Jen.

May they always have love, strength and happiness in their marriage.

We offer our thanks for all the good things in our lives and in the world, and ask that this day and all present be blessed. Amen

 

'Mind your language' - transcript of sermon All Saints Chebsey 13/09/15

Chebsey Benefice 13^th September 2015

James 3.1-12 & Mark 8.27-38

As I among friends this morning I would like to confess that I am living with a married woman whom I really love.

Her name is Jane and she is my wife!

It very easy to see how words spoken could be misheard and then if repeated incorrectly can easily cause an awful lot of trouble.

You may recall that old saying ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.’

It is a load of course rubbish, unless perhaps the ‘words’ are empty.

Words are powerful and can change things in a very dramatic way.

Think of the story of creation in Genesis.

‘God said’ or God spoke and the power of God’s word brought creation into being.

Couple that with the prologue to John’s Gospel – that great Christmass reading.

‘In the beginning was the one who is called the Word. The Word was with God and was truly God. From the very beginning the Word was with God. And with this Word, God created all things. Nothing was made without the Word.’

Words have power and James piles up the metaphors to try and help us to grasp what damage the tongue can do, albeit it is such a small part that makes up the human body.

So it is like the rudder of a ship or the bit in the mouth of a horse.  It gives direction and control.

Out of control it becomes a small spark that sets a whole forest ablaze. 

It is with our tongues that we bless or curse.

It is with our tongues that we speak words of peace and encouragement, or we speak words that are designed to cause harm, hurt or destruction.

I recently watch the film ‘Selma’ which is about Dr Martin Luther King. He is one among many whose words stirred the souls and passions that led to direct actions.

Those directions actions in turn led to the Administration passing a bill to allow African-Americans to vote without any molestation.

There are many more people we can think of who by their words spoken brought about great changes.

On the other side of the coin we think of Hitler. Whose words spawned hatred and violence and the subsequent death of millions.

Or even in our day those radical Muslim clerics who speak words of violence and destruction of the infidels.

Words are very powerful and the tongue needs to be brought under control.

Today of course we would add all forms of communication. 

I think ‘twitter’ was still something birds did back in the days James wrote this Epistle.

And apples and blackberries were something you ate.

Jesus is mindful of the power of words. How it is that words can be misheard and misinterpreted.

Take the word ‘Messiah’ – which to some degree we have become very familiar with and we have lost the power and significance of that word, especially to a 1^st century Jews.

We really don’t have the time to even begin to talk about what the word Messiah meant in the 1^st century.

Partly that is because there was no one fixed idea and several of the proposed ideas had peoples grouped around them.

For some the Messiah would come and be a warrior king and boot out the hated Romans and restore the Kingdom of Israel to its former glory.

For others the Messiah would be a great teacher and lead Israel in a new moral crusade.

There was not one fixed idea except perhaps the one overriding thought that when the Messiah came a new order would begin and Israel would be restored.

In Mark’s Gospel scholars have noted that Jesus in the early chapters is constantly telling people not to speak out about him. It is known as the Messiah Secrecy Motif.

Jesus was following an agenda he was setting – he didn’t want to pre-empt anything by being dragged off and proclaimed king or anything like that.

Mark 8.29 and Peter’s confession mark a watershed moment.

It is very hard for us to begin to even imagine what it must have been like for a good solid Jew like Peter to declare Jesus to be the Messiah.

The Messiah was the hope of the nation, spoken of by prophets, especially Isaiah, but also the Psalms.

The Messiah would lead a new exodus out of slavery and bondage to a new promised land. This was their hope and their dream and had been so for thousands of years.

As I said they didn’t all agree how exactly this was to come about, but for most Jews this was their heart longing and passionate prayer.

And immediately Peter makes this startling confession Jesus begins to speak about the kind of Messiah that he is.

Messiah Jesus will become the sacrificial lamb that inaugurates a new Passover and the beginning of a new exodus out of the bonds of slavery, sin and death.

This didn’t fit in with Peter’s perception of a Messiah and he is quick to tell Jesus 

so.

Jesus is also quick to respond and speaks to Peter sharply about how he has not understood the journey Jesus is taking and the kind of Messiah he is.

It is worth noting that just before Peter’s confession Jesus had healed someone of blindness. However this healing took mud and spittle and the man to be twice prayed for.  

Move on and look at the healing of blind Bartimaeus in chapter 10.

The pace is picking, the secret is out and the Word is being spoken openly – and now blindness is healed instantly.

No more groping around – seeing things dimly, with men like trees walking.

All is being revealed as the Messiah Jesus steps ever closer towards become the one true sacrifice offered for the sins of the whole world – not just Israel.

There would be a new Passover lamb sacrificed, there would be new exodus and there would be a new people of God.

James again - ‘with the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the image of God.’

People of God – what are you offering to the world?

Today we are praising our Lord and our Heavenly Father – what are we going to do tomorrow.

What happens when somebody cuts you up on the road, or pushes in front of you in the supermarket queue? Or says something unkind to you – do you give back as good as you get?

Proverbs 15.1 says ‘A gentle answer turns away wrath.’

As those who are in the Messiah - the people of the Messiah how are we to be out and about in the world?

Jesus warned Peter not to say anything – in case people got the wrong idea and things spiraled out of control.

Now it is time to speak out with words and in our actions that Jesus, Messiah, King of King and Lord of Lords has brought the Kingdom of heaven to the realm of the earth.

Our task is to help make that a reality – to make real the Lord’s Prayer in our world, in our communities, in our own lives and in our churches.

Your Kingdom come, your will be done – on earth as it is in heaven. 

Those who are blind and beggarly like Bartimaeus need to know that there is now one who can help them see, one who opens up a whole new way of   living.

We are to be those who say as they did to Bartimaeus ‘Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.’

Our words have power and so let us take these words into the week ahead…

Take my voice and let me sing

Always only for my King

Take my lips and let them be

Filled with messages from Thee.

Amen

 

'We Need A Holiday' - transcript of sermon St Thomas & St Andrew Doxey 6th Sep 2015

St Thomas & St Andrew Doxey – 6^th September 2015

James 2.1- 17 & Mark 7.24-37

Today I would like to use these two Gospel stories as a way to explore something of the work and ministry of the Church Army and the call of God upon all the Baptised to be about the business of sharing faith in words and deeds.

I also would like you to keep in mind the ever practical James – faith has to make a difference to life lived in the present.

Most of you will be old enough to remember Cliff Richard inviting us to climb aboard a red London bus and go on a Summer Holiday.

Some if you may even remember Madonna’s 1983 song ‘We Need a Holiday.’ 

And then, although not a song, we have a recent Pastoral Letter from Bishop Mark, talking about the value and virtue of a holiday.

I love optical illusions, paintings and photographs that look like one thing but then viewed from another angle reveal something else.

Sometimes there is value of looking at piece of Scripture like this, viewed from a different angle, rather than front on.

The story of the Syro-Phoenician is one such story.

We begin by considering the journey – ‘Jesus left that place and went to Tyre.’

‘That place’ if we take the last placed mentioned, was Gennesaret, just a few miles from Capernaum on the North West shore of Lake Galilee.

That’s a journey of around 40 to 50 miles and from Tyre to Sidon was another 20 – 30 miles. When you add up the miles into a round trip it works out at approximately 250 miles.

Tyre is on the North West Mediterranean coast well outside the borders of Israel, deep into Gentile territory.

It wouldn’t be that difficult to see this as a beach holiday for the disciples. In all probability the first time they had seen a real sea and tasted salt water on their lips.

And as fishermen are fishermen and it could well have been that Peter struck up a conversation with the local fisherman and soon they were out for a boat ride in the open sea, a new experience for them.

Allow your imagination to play around with this idea – can you see them on the beach late at night with a small fire, some flagons of wine and charcoaled fish, talking late into the night.

We are used to modern day celebrities trying to get a break away from the press, and this looks a bit like what Jesus was endeavouring to do.

‘He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it…’

Yet, probably through traders, he was known and was sought out in particular by one woman in desperate need who had heard something about Jesus and the extraordinary powers he displayed.

Today we are used to living privately but there was no such thing for most ordinary people in the 1^st century, everybody lived in a semi-public way.

Therefore, breaking every convention, this woman came and prostrated herself before Jesus and begs for help because her little daughter was ill.

We then have this most extraordinary conversation.

If ever you train in acting or even public speaking one of the exercises is to take something like a familiar Nursery Rhyme and then try acting it out or saying it in different styles.  

For example as someone who is angry, or sad or full of pathos or even full of teasing and fun.

The point is we simply do not know the way this conversation was conducted and that could make all the difference to the way it is read.

As an aside, we were discussing this Passage recently in our Home Group and talking about being on holiday and asking if we go ever go  ‘off duty’ as Christians.

It also worth noting, not that it makes a huge amount of difference, but the word ‘dog’ is better translated as ‘puppy.’

Personally I like to see a bit of gentle humour and Jesus drawing the woman into deeper faith.

Interestingly her words are now part of our Eucharistic Liturgy.

‘

We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs from under your table.’

The Syro-Phoenician lived out on the edge, on the margins, and certainly at this time, ‘a Gentile puppy, not worthy of being fed.’

Jordan was such a person, living on the edge, in and out of prison. Until that is he met Captain Nick Russel a Church Army Officer working out of the Greenwich Centre of Mission. Through a developing relationship and friendship Jordan has found new life and new hope, he has found that he is invited not to simply gather up the crumbs from under the table but as we read in Revelation 3.3.

Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.

https://vimeo.com/128117456

For over 133 years the Church Army has been reaching out to those on the edge and beyond the margins, seeking out the least, the last and the lost.

Our other Gospel story is about a man who was deaf and mute.

Again I invite you look behind this story and I want to suggest one particular thing.

Imagine that this man had never heard the praises of God sung or the trumpets sounds or the loud clashing cymbals praising God.

He had never been able to lift up his own voice in praise of Yawheh, the God of his ancestors.

Now he can! 

When you ask what is the purpose of the Church many will say it is to offer praise and worship God.

They may even quote the Shorter Westminster Confession – ‘man’s chief aim is to worship God and enjoy him for ever.’

I wouldn’t argue against that.

However I would want to place alongside this a passage from Romans 10.14 and following…

"Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved." How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring Good News of good things!"…

 How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed?

And does it not follow - How then will they worship Him in whom they have not believed?

Evangelist are those of beautiful feet because they bring the Good News. 

And where do they bring the Good News?

Well yes, here in building such as this. But far more importantly they take the Good News to the many, many thousands who will only ever been seen dead in a place like this.

That is the work and the ministry of Church Army.

However it isn’t the work and ministry of Church Army alone.

While not everyone is called to be an evangelist, all are called to evangelize and one of the prime roles of the evangelist is to enable, equip and encourage God’s people to ensure their feet are shod with the Gospel of Peace.

To be out and about as heralds of Good News in the highways and the byways, wherever you go and with whomever you meet along the way.

And should you be concerned that you will not be able to sing an appropriate Gospel message then heed our last story.

‘He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.’

If invited God will open your ears to the cry of those on the edge, the least, the last and the lost.

The Syro-Phoenician woman, the Jordan’s, and those who are deaf to the call of God and as yet are unable to sing out His praises.

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."   Acts 1.8

Well, here you all are in Jerusalem...

But where is your Judea, your Samaria and your ‘ends of the earth.’

People of God, the song of the world may sound loud but it is often discordant.

But the song of the Gospel is by far the sweetest and brings hope, joy and peace.

People need to hear a very different song and be invited to belong to a very different choir.

Are you willing to become a Gospel troubadour and sing out the Good News?

‘For all your goodness I will keep on singing, ten thousands reasons for my heart to find.

The Founder of the Church Army, Prebandary Wilson Carlile was known affectionately as ‘The Chief.’ 

This is the Chief’s Consecration Prayer – can I invite you (if you are able) to stand and say this along with me as we dedicate ourselves afresh to fight against, sin the world and the devil and to continue as Christ’s faithful soldiers and servants to the ends of our lives.

‘Now and here I give myself to you,

 and now and here you give yourself to me;

 and now and here I find your love within.

Break through me Lord,

 that others I may win;

Your wounded body and your life blood poured

 impel me forth to live and preach you, Lord.