Mothering Sunday 2020

This could very well be the oddest way any of us have spent Mothering Sunday. Now I’m not always in church because of my job as a nurse, but if I were working we’d celebrate on another day. For many of us it’s a time to celebrate, gather with our families, eat together, and for us Christians we celebrate as a community, often relaxing our Lenten restrictions a little bit. I don’t tend to drink alcohol in Lent but that Mother’s Day gin is something I look forward to!

What do celebration and gathering look like today? I’m luckier than many people in my age group- I still live with my mum! Or rather we live together, but even for us we’re celebrating apart as we avoid each other’s parts of the house in an effort to protect her as she’s in a high-risk category. We’ll be eating the same meal later but in separate rooms.

One thing we learn from today’s gospel (John 19.25b-27) is that family doesn’t always follow a traditional pattern. Jesus directs his mother Mary to form a new family unit with his beloved disciple, probably John himself. A mother-son bond is created between two people who aren’t related but who have been drawn together in the most remarkable circumstances.

So for us, looking to the gospel, our gathering and celebration are not going to follow a traditional pattern today. For some this will mean phone calls, for others skype where they can see each other. It’s possible that whole families may be gathering using online video conferencing. Some may simply be choosing to do the same thing at the same time, like watching a favourite film.

The hospital unit I work on treats patients with impaired immune systems and through this I’ve watched many patients share in family celebrations because of technology. I’ve seen father of the bride speeches delivered from hospital rooms, special anniversary meals, spouses on different continents connect with each other, important exam results shared, school performances watched, and wedding receptions attended via a laptop. 

Technology is something many of us may take for granted, we may despise or adore it but maybe it’s only now that it’s ability to truly connect, for all the right reasons, is only just being fully appreciated. And this is what our churches are finding out.

Mothering Sunday is traditionally the time to return to your “mother church” or home parish, but the best definition I’ve found of mother church is depicting the Christian Church as a mother in its ability to nourish and protect. Hopefully this is how we can be mother church for you now.

We want to protect by closing our doors, as alien as that is to us, and we want to share good, factual information to support your continued protection whilst we can’t gather in person. We want to nurture by exploring ways of connecting and worshipping which work for as many people as possible, the way we’re doing this is still evolving.

A few days ago Pope Francis shared the following Message:

Tonight before falling asleep

think about when we will return to the street.

When we hug again,

when all the shopping together will seem like a party.

Let’s think about when the coffees will return to the bar,

the small talk, the photos close to each other.

We think about when it will be all a memory

but normalcy will seem an unexpected and beautiful gift.

We will love everything that has so far seemed futile to us.

Every second will be precious.

Swims at the sea, the sun until late,

sunsets, toasts, laughter.

We will go back to laughing together.

Strength and courage.

Until we can gather in person again, until we can hug our parents without fear, we will continue to be, as we have always been, Mother Church. To protect, to nurture, and to love as God loves. A different church, but one forever filled with hope. Amen.

Intercessions 

"As truly as God is our father, so just as truly is God our mother. In our father, God Almighty, we have our being; in our merciful mother we are re-made and restored. Our fragmented lives are knit together and made perfect. And by giving and yielding ourselves, through grace, to the Holy Spirit we are made whole." ~ Julian of Norwich

Holy One, we gather in your presence to give you thanks and to celebrate the gift of your love; a love that supports, nurtures and challenges us in ways that strengthen and transform us. We offer you praise and thanksgiving for your unfailing presence in our lives and all of the blessings that you so generously offer us.

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

Today, as we celebrate Mother's Day, we give thanks for mothers the world over. We give thanks for all those who have nurtured and care for us, remembering especially, birth mothers, adoptive mothers, surrogate mothers, aunts, grandmothers, teachers, neighbours and all women who have shared their faith with us.

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

We pray, compassionate God, for those mothers who have been hurt, disillusioned, or disappointed in their role as mother. We pray for those who have been denied a longed for chance at motherhood, and for those whose years of mothering have been cut short by the loss of a child.

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

We lift up before you, O God, the members of our human family around the world—for those who are afflicted or suffering at this time—for those who need healing, for those who require bread or shelter, for those who live in violent homes and communities, for those who are grieving, and for those whose needs are known to you alone…

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

We remember before you the mothers we have lost who now rejoice in your kingdom. We pray for those who mourn them, whether the loss was recently or long ago. We pray for all who have died recently…

And those whose anniversaries fall this week…

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

Holy Mother and Father of us all, touch us with your healing peace and gentle  embrace that we may walk in your ways bringing dignity, justice and peace to all corners of your world. All of this we pray in the strong name of Jesus.

Amen.

from the World in Prayer website. http://www.worldinprayer.org/

Feast of St Joseph- stay connected

This is rather an odd day. I’ve led communion services where there’s only been 2 of us before, that’s usually the case when we hold a eucharist at the hospital chaplaincy; but I’ve never presided over a eucharist in a situation like this, of course very few of us could even imagine such a time and situation as this. 

There’s Paul and myself here now but I have no idea how many people will share in our communion today as we attempt our first St Michael’s service recording. As many of you will now be aware the church as a whole has taken the unprecedented step to suspend all public worship, so our challenge and call is to find alternative and creative ways of sharing our worship with you and continuing in our communal life even though that communal life is being lived out apart for now.

You might be wondering why, half-way through Lent, we're back at Christmas in our gospel reading today (Matthew 1:18-end), but today is in fact the feast day of St Joseph, so he is central in our gospel. And there’s two things I take from this reading in our current situation.

Firstly about Joseph himself. We really know so little of him. After Jesus' childhood he completely disappears and so most of the year, outside of the Christmas story, he's completely overlooked, and yet he is so important. I remember I mentioned this briefly in my midnight mass sermon; Jesus and Mary have Josephs name and therefore his protection. With Mary, Joseph creates a home and a family in which Jesus grows and is nurtured and in which they go on to welcome further children.

It’s reminding me of all those people who are important- central- to the crisis we find ourselves in right now. The overlooked, those labelled as unimportant until there importance is central to the well being of each and everyone of us; care staff, domestic staff, delivery drivers, supermarket workers, porters, lab staff and so many others whose worth to the functioning of society is only now becoming clear to so many of us.

Secondly the reading is a reminder of the most central truth of our existence; God is with us. Emmanuel. It may not feel like it, but through all of this mess God is and always is with us. For our highest of highs and lowest of lows we have a God who chooses to be alongside us and experience our hardships, pain, our grief and confusion. All of it.

And we're reminded of the angels words to Joseph, the words we need right now; “do not be afraid". I believe this is the most common phrase communicated to us from God within the scriptures. I don’t know if it’s true but I have read that it’s written 365 times- once for every day of the year.  Whether that’s true or not doesn’t detract from it being something God wishes to get through to us more than anything else. God is with us, do not be afraid.

That is of course much easier to say than do, and for many of us this is a time of disruption, fear and unknowing. We’re still in the Lent wilderness but none of us could have imagined this is the place we were being led to. 

As people of faith we’re called to be different, and whilst we must live within these new boundaries I implore each of us to use our fear of the unknown and channel it into making connections, of finding new ways of being church, new ways of serving and supporting our community. God is with us. Do not be afraid.

Intercessions

Let us pray for the Church and God’s world

and, inspired by the example of Joseph,

for grace to grow in faith and holiness

and to follow ever more closely in the way of Christ. Joseph was the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah: may we value our family life at home and in the wider family of the Church. We pray for all the members of our community and the wider church who are actively seeking out new ways of being church in our daily changing world. We pray for churches coming together to support the most isolated and the most in need.

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer

Joseph was asked by the angel to not be afraid and to trust in God’s will: may we have no fear when we hear God’s call to his service. We pray for all those called to serve others. We pray in particular for NHS workers and those working in shops selling vital provisions. We think of those who cannot work right now and those who have lost their jobs.

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer

Joseph was a man of integrity, protecting Mary from the societal disgrace she may have experienced. May we lead lives of integrity and be concerned for others.

We pray for those leading communities and nations right now, that they be people of truth and integrity.

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer

Joseph protected Jesus and Mary from the wrath of Herod: may we always seek to shield those who are weak and vulnerable.

We pray for those who are ill, those who are suffering with mental health conditions, those who are frightened, the most at risk groups and those who are isolated and lonely. We offer our prayers for those on our church healing list.

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer

Joseph took his family and returned to his native land: we remember those who have died recently and those anniversaries fall this week. May we, with them and all the departed, be welcomed to the banquet of eternal life.

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer

Almighty God,

we give you thanks for Joseph

and for the whole company of your saints in glory, with whom in fellowship we join our prayers and praises; by your grace may we, like them, be made perfect in your love; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

2nd Sunday in Lent 2020

We’re well into Lent now aren’t we? Are any of you doing anything special for Lent this year? Given anything up and taken something up? I find I’m really enthusiastic at the start, I absolutely love Lent, which I realise is a bit weird, but it can get to the point where it starts to feel really hard depending upon what it is I’ve taken on or given up.

I doubt any of us have gone to quite the extreme, whether due to Lent or because we’re Christians, of giving up all or possessions like Jesus says in our Gospel reading this evening.

Now it’s really hard to say exactly what Jesus means here, some have taken it literally, like the Franciscans and other religious orders who take a vow of poverty, some have said he’s talking specifically to this particular group of people and others have pointed out that Jesus often uses extravagant and exaggerated language to emphasise a point. Whichever of those you believe Jesus is telling us it’s not an easy path to follow him, there may be a cost to us and we need to weigh that up.

Lent gives us the opportunity to explore this in a safe way. We’re invited to follow Jesus into the wilderness and spend time with him. To understand and deepen our commitment to this Lent journey we may choose to deny ourselves something or take up a discipline that asks something of us.

But we know Easter is coming, we know we get to celebrate at the end of the 40 days and nights. What if we didn’t know how the story ended? Would Jesus’ teachings be enough? What are we prepared to sacrifice, what are we willing to go through or even give up for our belief in those teachings? My answer is I don’t know, I don’t know how far I would go, but each Lent I try and take time to explore these questions, to ask myself can I carry the cross? What is the cost of my faith? What is Jesus asking of me, today, here and now.

I believe that the sacrifice we’re asked to make, the cost to us, is love. That doesn’t sound difficult on the surface, not like a sacrifice at all, but the love that’s asked of us is deep and unconditional, and I struggle with it every day. 

We’re asked to love those who don’t love us, those whose opinions and actions we find hateful, those completely unlike us in every way. Because we’re not just asked to love people we know, or good people, we’re called to love those who’ve committed crimes, those who’re racist, those who hurt women or children. And to us that probably seems impossible. It’s so much easier to not love, or feel justified in not loving someone because of the awful things they’ve done.

But if we believe Jesus’ teachings then we believe that God loves each and every one of us equally, God loves me as much as someone who’s committed a hate crime or murder. A difficult and inconvenient truth. Every person made in God’s image has the capacity to reflect God’s love. Our challenge through Lent is to ask ourselves what are our barriers to unconditional love? What are our prejudices and who do we feel we can’t love? And can we lay these aside to more closely follow Jesus? If we can leave some of them in the wilderness at the end of Lent maybe we’re a little bit closer to reflecting God’s love in the world.

Luke 14.27-33 (Evening Prayer New Testament reading for today)

Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, “This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.” Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

1st Sunday in Lent 2020

So we find ourselves once more at the beginning of Lent. I’m going to be completely honest- I love Lent. It’s probably my favourite part of the liturgical year. Maybe because I like routine and orderliness. I love structure and Lent gives us structure – a structured way to enter into the wilderness (like Jesus in the gospel reading), which is anything but orderly; yet Lent gives us a way of entering the wilderness with Jesus and a way to confront what we find there.

We start on Ash Wednesday with a service that moves us to ask ourselves “who am I?” by exploring our choices, the things we’ve done and thought and said, and examining which of those choices didn’t come from a place of Godly love. We also confront our inevitable death, and if we’re going to die how then do we want to live? Who are we and what are the things which have the capacity to draw us away from God?

We have readings this morning all about temptation, and a reminder of the things which do have the capacity to draw our eye from God and move us out of or away from our relationship with God.

There’s been a shift in our language in that we often talk about sins, plural; individual activities or acts which are bad or wrong and by these actions we ourselves become sinful or have committed a sin. Jesus (and Paul) most usually talks about sin, singular, no s on the end, which Sarah Heaner Lancaster defines as anything which takes us out of relationship with God.

This much broader understanding I feel is perhaps a more helpful thing to take into the wilderness with us during Lent. 

I said on Wednesday in that solemn Ash Wednesday service of remembering that one of the things we remember and apologise for are the times we forgot we aren’t alone, because they're the times, when we forget that God is with us - the very meaning of the word Emmanuel – that’s when we fall out of relationship with God, and make the choices that don’t mirror God’s love that is very much within us.

So maybe a question to ask ourselves at the beginning of our wilderness journey this Lent is what are our temptations? And by that I mean the things which run the risk of taking us out of our relationship with God. Lent gives us a safe space to give space and time for these questions and explorations, knowing that like Jesus it’s the Spirit who leads us and sustains us in the wilderness. As we work towards Easter Day we can use Lent as a safe space to explore who we are and how we want to live our lives, hopefully in a way which mirrors Gods love to those around us.

Based upon Genesis 2.15-17; 3.1-7, Romans 5.12-19 & Matthew 4.1-11

Ash Wednesday 2020

I wrote this for this morning's school service where 90 children came to St Michael's to share in a pared down Ash Wednesday service with ashing. 

I decided to read it again at our main service this evening; we're told to come with the faith of a child and sometimes we need to hear something very simply put.

Ash Wednesday isn’t about thinking of the things we’ve done wrong so we can be reminded that we’re bad people; it’s remembering that God created us from goodness for goodness.

And we get to ask the question why; why, when we’re created good do we sometimes not act kindly, or why do we create space in the world for unkindness to happen?

Today isn’t about thinking that one day we’ll die so that we can be sad; Knowing we will die should help us to see how we should live now.

But we don’t remember our choices and our deaths on our own; we use this day to remember together, as a community, because we don’t live our lives alone, we live our lives together.

And today we apologise together for all those times we chose something that wasn’t loving, that wasn’t kind, and for when we forgot that we aren’t alone; when we forgot that not only do we belong to each other but to God.

Today we recognise together our good and bad choices. We recognise that like God’s wonderful creations the plants and trees we’re capable of amazing beauty if we choose to live lives based in love. Like holy soil nurturing the things which grow in it, we grow in love.

Lent begins today. 40 days and 40 nights to take us up until Easter. 40 days and 40 nights where we think about the best way to live in the world, the best way to use our wonderful gift of a life. 

Let’s just take a moment, a tiny snapshot of time, to stop, to remember and to think of our amazing capacity to love  and to live kind, beautiful, flourishing lives, lives which mirror the love God has for us.

Don't Worry...Take Action

I’m absolutely certain that at some point each one of us would have felt worried. That proper worry that feels like butterflies in your stomach and around your heart. Worry that feels like your blood in shivering in your veins. Worry that invades your every waking thought and stops you escaping it by preventing you from sleeping. Waiting for results of a medical test or exam result, money worries or waiting to hear about redundancy, switching on or reading about the news of political unrest, dangerous viruses or the climate crisis.

Worry it seems is simply part of our lives, we probably experience it every day to a greater or lesser extent. As we have more knowledge of the world around us we seem to be finding more and more things to worry us. 

And how many times does someone see or hear our concerns and say “don’t worry!” Does that ever actually stop us worrying? If those comforting us are Christians they may even remind us of today’s gospel passage. Oh to be one of those cheery or relaxed souls who seems to drift through life without a care, taking life a day at a time. Never stressed or anxious, never overwhelmed. How I would love to be that person.

I wonder if that’s how God created us to be? We hear the creation narrative once more today- order out of chaos, God willing something and it being so…and it being good! Finally God creates humankind and our existence not only makes things good but very good. In the wonder of creation that God is willing into existence humankind arrives and enhances things- our presence makes something wonderful even better. 

Everything is good and everything is blessed. And we begin our role as the stewards, the guardians of all the good things God has created. Only to us did God give not just the responsibility but the ability to care for the whole of creation. 

Yet by the time the Letter to the Romans is being written we can see how much our relationship with the world around us has deteriorated. Creation is groaning and even though labour pains are a sign of something coming to fruition, something about to be born, the process itself can cause a lot of distress. 

This area, where we live, has until very recently been semi-rural. It was amazing for me to grow up in a farming family. We had that relationship to the land, to the seasons and to animals. It never felt exploitative but reciprocal and respectful, as small-scale farming is. I feel that I gained so much from being around the farming community, an understanding of the world and the stewardship role intended for us.

It’s something I think many of us yearn for now with our disconnect from the food we eat, as due to necessity, availability and simply how our lives work we mostly eat and buy food we have no relationship to, no understanding of how and who produced it.

Yet we know that something is amiss in our relationship with creation. Even though it’s incredibly difficult to recognise individual responsibility in it, and often we campaign and work against it, but we see the exploitation of the earth by industry, 

there’s no chance for the world to renew itself as demand and financial markets mean more and more questionable methods are used to obtain and process natural resources, to create artificial resources, to grow more foods, and to farm and process more animals.

We weren’t created to use our power this way. And it’s all incredibly worrying.  The kind of worry that wakes us up at 2am and creates knots in our stomach. But then we read today’s gospel where we have Jesus saying “don’t worry” like that super-chilled-out friend who nothing seems to phase.

Thankfully he’s not just saying “don’t worry” but also giving a pretty good reason why. Because God is in charge, because God loves us, and because this isn’t what God created us for. Jesus is reminding us that worrying isn’t going to make things any better, but this isn’t just a call for us to chillax, take a chill pill or just calm down, it’s an indicator of how we should spend our time and energy instead of worrying. 

But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

I think that our responsibility as Christians is to discern how we can regain or renew our relationship to creation. At a time where some of the organisations seeking to raise awareness of climate issues are on the same government watchlists as terrorist organisations our church has become an important voice in encouraging us to examine this relationship. 

This week the General synod ripped up its original target for the Church of England becoming carbon neutral by 2045 and set a target of 2030. Manchester is committed to the entire diocese fulfilling the “eco church” criteria and we’re committed to that here at St Michael’s. The Archbishop’s Lent book this year is Ruth Valeo’s Saying Yes to Life, a book which addresses these concerns, and Love Life Live Lent has a new version with an emphasis on caring for creation. This relationship with creation is front and centre amongst the concerns of our church.

I don’t know about you but I don’t find this very easy at all- changes aren’t easy, and there’s still so much I need to do, changes to make to my every day life, and sometimes it feels incredibly pointless when I see the lack of work being done elsewhere, or even how difficult it is to stand by these principals working in a hospital environment.

But Christianity has a strong history of individuals living differently, living in a way we feel is in-line with that striving for the kingdom, in a hope that us as individuals may become a group, and that group becomes a community, and as more individuals, groups and communities form they may all strive to bring about that renewed relationship with creation.

As it groans with labour pains we still don’t know what the fruits of that labour will be, but I hope with all my heart that the results of our own worry, striving and labour will be to regain our role as the protectors of creation, that once again humankind’s presence in the world can make it not just good but very good.

Preached 16.2.20 at the main Sunday service, based upon Genesis 1.1-23; Romans 8.18-25; Matthew 6.25-end 

Shine on

I don’t know if you’ve been to a baptism service recently, it’s one of my absolutely favourite things to do. Right at the end of the service we give the family a candle, lit from our Easter candle, and we say these words:

God has delivered us from the dominion of darkness

and has given us a place with the saints in light.

You have received the light of Christ;

walk in this light all the days of your life.

Shine as a light in the world

to the glory of God the Father.

The idea of Jesus being the light of the world, represented by the Easter candle, is a central theme of the baptism liturgy, but then right before we send the newly baptised back out into the world we’re telling them that they carry the light of Christ with them. They too are the light.

We hear this from Jesus himself see in today’s gospel reading (Matthew 5.13-20) where Jesus tells those listening that they’re both salt and light.

My understanding of what it means for us to be salt is salts ability to enhance things. It brings out flavour and preserves, in the bible we see it used to seal covenants or sprinkled on sacrifices. Jesus's followers are to enhance God's world.

Then, as is the baptism service, Jesus tells his listeners that they, not he, are the light of the world.  We’re not mere witnesses to the light, as is John’s gospel, not just the recipients of the light but it’s bearers. It’s our purpose to shine wherever we find ourselves; to shine with the love which Jesus has commanded us to share in his name. 

This sounds like a mammoth task, one we don’t necessarily feel worthy of, we know our own imperfections and the darkness in our own hearts. I read a wonderful quote this week; 

Once you’ve been in the dark you learn to appreciate everything that shines. 

And it only takes a tiny amount of light to be seen in the darkness.

You may be thinking that you can’t be the light because of how much you need that light yourself. The people Jesus was preaching to here felt that way too; they were imperfect people, drawn to the light of God reflected and perfected in Jesus.

There’s a famous Leonard Cohen lyric, often quoted since his death; ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering. There’s a crack in everything.  That’s how the light gets in.

Through our wounds and cracks and brokenness Christs light comes to us and shines into our darkness, through our darkness and out into the world; it becomes part of us so we can’t help but carry it with us, to wherever we find ourselves. We have received the light of Christ; and we walk in this light each day of our life. And we Shine as a light in the world to the glory of God the, Father.