Choices, choices

Taken from my sermon that I offered at St Chad’s, New Moston and St Mary’s, Moston this morning, using today’s Lectionary readings (Acts 1. 15 – 17, 21 – 26 and John 17. 6 – 19).

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen

Life is full of choices isn’t it? We almost have too much choice these days, and choosing things can give us enormous stress if we’re not careful, and to help us navigate it all, we can often turn to different methods to help us.

On Monday this week Kevin and I were trying to sort out things in our loft. We have saved all sorts of things up there, from when the children were little (first shoes and first curls!), schoolwork, awards, certificates, artwork… plus all my study stuff from my bachelor’s and master’s degrees… plus a load of craft materials, half finished projects, Christmas stuff… you know the kind of thing.

Well, we need to decide what we are going to keep and what doesn’t need to be kept any more. Choices choices choices! I have ended up throwing away my study notes, but not my text books (compromising with Kevin there… ) but it is so hard making that decision.

But we have choices every day too, not just those special occasions when we need to clear the loft out.

What are we having for tea? What shall we watch on the telly tonight? You will have your other things to add to my suggestions.

So, I’ve devised a bit of a way to help us make a decision. It involves biscuits – always a good idea!

Have a go at my flowchart to see if it will help you what type of biscuit to choose.

Good fun!

But there’s a serious side to this.

Sometimes we are faced with having to make some really difficult decisions, and some choices are hard to make, and we have to rely on some form of routine or ritual to help guide us into making those decisions.

And it makes me wonder what Jesus’ thought processes were when he chose his disciples.

Over the last seven weeks we have heard what they all got up to in the immediate aftermath of Jesus’s death and his resurrection, but we don’t know how he decided to choose them out of all of the other people he could have chosen. We know that Jesus chose a mixture of people – men and women, grafters, those who worked with their hands and those who were clever with counting money – he chose from the lowly and the outcast, the shunned and the spurned – and he chose someone who he knew would ultimately betray him.

Judas.

Judas Iscariot was chosen to be one of Jesus’ closest friends and followers – a disciple – even though Jesus knew full well that it was his ministry to betray Jesus to the authorities, to hand him over to be crucified.

Jesus knew that, and yet he still chose him.

In our Acts reading today we learned about how the remaining eleven disciples chose the replacement for Judas in their group [after he had taken his own life]. And not unlike the way we just chose which biscuit to have with our brew later, they had a method to it.

First of all they chose a shortlist from those who were one of the followers – those who travelled with Jesus to hear his teaching. Not one of the chosen few, but one of those who felt the call to follow and to hear for themselves what Jesus was teaching.

The shortlist was down to two men: Joseph Barsabbas (aka Justus), and Matthias. These men had been following Jesus right from the very start, right from Jesus baptism by John in the Jordan. They were witnesses there and they were with the disciples here.

And the disciples drew lots for which of them would earn their place as an Apostle with them. Matthias was the winner and he was named the 13^th Apostle, taking the place of Judas.

I had a bit of a chuckle at bit yesterday when I heard that, because it reminded me that our Test cricketers are numbered in the same way. There was the original eleven in 1877, beginning with number 1 (Tom Armitage) who were then gradually replaced as they retired or left, and we are now at number 713 with Shoaib Bashir taking that number this year. If you are interested, W G Grace was number 24 joining in 1880, and the 100^th person to join the team was in 1896. Norman Cowans was number 500 in 1982.

But there’s something in that numbering system isn’t there? In all of that time since Jesus appointed his first disciples and they became Apostles, that numbering system might have carried on, and I wonder what number you or I would be at now if they kept on with that?

It’s sobering to think that the fellowship we enjoy today as followers of Jesus stretches back over 2000 years, and there are millions of us in that one community the living body of Christ, left behind to carry out God’s mission.

And I wonder how they all arrived at the decision to follow Jesus? Was it something that they were conscious of, or for many, was it something that was simply just “done” as part of the culture of the people they lived with? It is tempting to think that they would have all actively made a choice to follow Jesus, to share the gospel, to sing his praises, to worship him, to pray in churches and worshipping communities together, but maybe they were like we are, and sometimes, coming to church is just something done out of routine or habit, and it’s something that we don’t ever remember making a choice or a decision about.

Not everybody, but there will be people who from one Sunday to the next don’t consider what Jesus means in their lives, and who just come week by week because this is a bit of a social gathering where we sing nice tunes and have a good cup of tea (with or without the biscuits!).

Maybe it’s not every week, but I wonder if that rings true with you now and again?

I confess that there have been times in my life when coming to church was just another thing on the list – it’s different now, and I’ll happily talk to you about it sometime – and there have been times when I chose to do other things than come to church, or to join with other Christians reading the bible together or praying together.

We all have a choice, just as the Apostles had a choice in who they were going to admit into their group. They could have chosen both of those candidates; they could have put them to some sort of test; they could have done any number of things to try them out to see who would fit best; one of them could have even stepped back if the numbers had to be exactly 12… but they chose to choose Judas’ successor this way.

They had a choice – we have a choice.

Jesus has called you to follow him, and God has given us the free -will to respond to that call. We can choose to ignore it, or to respond to it, or more realistically, we choose to respond at a time and in a way that is convenient to us, not necessarily as Jesus asks of us.

That response can be a spontaneous thing, welling up, from inside us,… or it can be an intentional thing… something that we actively choose to do. Like we did with the biscuits, we could, if we choose to, run a similar flowchart for intentional acts of love and faith.

You can see that there are some simple choices to be made here, but ultimately, there are lots of different ways in showing love for one another as Jesus taught us.  

So, how are you going to choose to serve Jesus this week?

Is it through a renewing of your commitment to reading Scripture maybe?

Is it through having that difficult conversation with someone about faith?

Is it to pray more, to be more aware of God in the everyday things that you do?

Is it to put yourself out by doing something for someone else?

There are all sorts of ways in which you can choose to serve Jesus this week, and it’s up to you in your own circumstances to decide what service looks like. You may be at school or work and someone needs a bit of support from you. You may be with your neighbour who needs a listening ear. You may be the one who needs to ask for help yourself.

Whatever you choose to do for Jesus this week, know that he chose you to follow him, just as he chose his original 12 disciples. He chose them not for what they thought they could offer, but because he knew what they could offer. He chooses every single one of us in the same way. Not because we think we are unworthy, but because he knows us and he loves us, even though he knows that from time to time, we choose to do things that take us away from him.

Jesus chooses you; will you actively choose him?

Amen

A Prayer for St George’s Day

The Church of England prayer for St George

Pursuing Peace – Remembrance Sunday 2023

On the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month, the guns fell silent. Peace was declared; the “war to end all wars” was over.

Millions had lost their lives; and millions more had injuries so severe that their lives were permanently changed. Millions more still received husbands, brothers, fathers, uncles and sons whose mental injuries caused them so much trauma they were never the same men again. They never spoke about their experiences and some of them lived with the suffering of what they witnessed in silence.

The 11th hour, the 11^th day of the 11^th month 105 years ago, and we still commemorate and give thanks for them today.

But why do we do this? Why do we stand in the pouring rain, freezing cold, year after year on Remembrance Sunday to commemorate and give thanks for those who have died?

The answer is that we commemorate and we give thanks because peace is a treasure, and it’s something we all must search for. It is never too late for peace.

We talk about things happening at the 11^th hour all the time don’t we?

• An 11^th hour agreement was reached and the trade union strikes were called off
• At the 11^th hour, a buyer was found for Wilkos and the brand name will continue
• He signed for City at the 11^th hour.

The 11^th hour means the last minute, just in time, high time, the last moment, zero hour, the nick of time, and I don’t know about you, but all of these ways of thinking of the 11^th hour give me hope.

I am hopeful that despite the grief, the pain, the violence of war that still goes on around us today, it’s never too late to want peace.

The peace that was achieved at the end of World War I held for about 20 years. A very uncertain, shaky, threatening 20 years, but it held. Sadly, as we know, the war that should have ended all wars seems really to have been the start of a century of war that shows no signs of slowing down. At some point or another ever since then, the world has been at war. Sometimes involving the whole world, as it did in the Second World War, sometimes, it is within a single country fighting against itself like the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.

We all know about the conflicts in the Ukraine, in Israel and Gaza just now, and it pains us to think that the lessons that ought to have been learned from past wars just don’t seem to have been learned, and war just goes on and on.

But that’s not to say that we can’t start to try. We think about how many times war has broken out in the last 105 years, but we forget to think about how many times peace has broken out too.

When we search for peace, when we commit to trying to achieve peace in our own lifetimes, the 11^th hour is always just ahead of us, because it is never too late to want peace; there is always hope. It is never too late to strive for lasting peace – never too late to draw together as God’s children and instead of fighting one another, pulling together and loving one another instead.

Jesus said, “there is no love greater than one who lays down their life for another”. Love is greater than anything, and it is only by loving one another as God loves us, that peace will ever be found.

And that takes action now. Not tomorrow, not next week, not after Christmas when there’s nothing on the telly… NOW.

Image by Freepik

Each and every one of us [here] is capable of making peace with people close to us. Those we have fallen out with, those we have hurt, those who have hurt us, those who have let us down. And from the small seeds of individual peace come the bigger shoots of community peace, national peace, global peace.

It has to start somewhere, and so I urge you to start today.

Those who have laid down their lives in past and current conflicts gave their lives in the love of peace, and we owe it to them, as well as to each other, to find ways of building peace.

The 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month may have come too late for them, but it is not too late for us. We are still in the nick of time, if we but commit today to building peace with one another.

Make today your own 11^th hour ceasefire in whatever troubles you may have, and if we all do that, we begin to sow those seeds of hope and peace for everyone.

Amen

Address offered at the Angel Monument in Boggart Hole Clough, Blackley on Remembrance Sunday 2023
By Rev Pam Smith

Hate What Is Evil, Hold Fast To What Is Good

Hi everyone, I offered a sermon yesterday in two of my churches reflecting on Romans 12: 9 – 21 and Matthew 16: 21 – 28 (the given lectionary readings for the 13th Sunday after Trinity in Year A). There was plenty to unpack and reflect on, and since I wrote it and then offered it both times there has been something that my mind has kept on coming back to and I wanted to write about it here for you too, to see what you make of it.

In the Romans reading, Paul writes a list of “how to be a Christian” instructions. It starts with a very short and to the point statement – “Let love be genuine”. I explained to my congregations yesterday that when we get a new gadget or appliance, say a kitchen mixer for example, we get out the instructions and begin to read them. Quite often though, we don’t get past the first one or two before we say to ourselves “I’ve got this, I don’t need to read any further”. To be fair, the first instruction is “remove all packaging”, so that’s understandable. But how many of us don’t read on because it looks so easy? When Paul says “let love be genuine” we could perhaps be excused for thinking “ah, we’ve heard that before. If that’s all there is to following Jesus then I’ve cracked it”. If we stop reading at that point, we lose the whole depth and width of what it means to follow Jesus and to call ourselves Christians, just like if we don’t make our way down to the end of the Monopoly instructions, we can quickly find ourselves bankrupt.

It’s the next bit that has got me chewing over things. Paul says “Hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good”. On the face of it that is another rather obvious thing to say, and of course we would want to hate what is evil and hold on fast to what is good in life – who wouldn’t??

But it’s not that easy. As I said to my congregations yesterday, hating evil is all well and good when it is blatant and obvious and punches you in the face in all its horrific reality, but what do we do when evil sneaks its way into things without us knowing? Because it does, you know. When evil presents itself in the sadistic behaviour of people like Jeffrey Dahmer or Peter Sutcliffe, everybody is quick to point the finger and say “that’s evil!”. The behaviour of Mick Philpott, or the actions of Fred and Rose West, or what Myra Hindley and Ian Brady did together all punch us in the face with evil and it is easy to hate that behaviour.

But evil is not always quite so blatant or obvious. Sometimes, evil lurks in a nurses uniform on a neonatal unit, showing itself in the actions of a person who we trust to be caring and loving, protecting and nurturing towards those too fragile and vulnerable to protect themselves. Even to this day some of Lucy Letby‘s friends and colleagues refuse to believe what she did, and are of the belief that it has all been a fabrication and a miscarriage of justice.

Evil isn’t confined to actions like hers though, nor of the others I mentioned above. Evil is craftier than that. Evil is sneakier than that, and it insinuates itself into the cracks far more easily than we can understand.

Evil shows itself every time we gossip about one another, or moan about someone else behind their backs. Evil is in those times where a “bit of banter” or some “teasing” is anything but funny to the person on the receiving end of it. It’s in bullying; it’s in wilfully excluding people; it’s in overlooking those or attacking those who are different from us. When we think about it, if we define evil as something that divides, breaks apart, harms or injures people, or that is intent on destruction, desolation, fear and hurt then evil lurks pretty much everywhere.

It can be easy to be overwhelmed by that thought, which is why what Paul says next has to be said in the same sentence: “hold fast to what is good”.

It’s all very well being on the lookout for evil, and discerning where it will strike next, or where it lurks in the cracks between people, but if we spend so much of our time doing that then we miss all the beauty, and the wonder and the love that abounds in the world instead.

Maybe we should be on the lookout for evil – absolutely yes – but we should not let that awareness stop us from spotting and holding onto the overwhelming good that is in the world. Because that’s the point isn’t it? Evil will always win if we let it get on top of us, or blind us to the good and the beauty that surrounds us. By all means root it out, look for it, be aware of it, don’t dismiss it out of hand just because it doesn’t look evil because it’s wearing a children’s nurses uniform, but look for the good too. Hold onto that just as tightly because if we don’t then the splits and divisions between us will only get bigger and evil will grow in the gaps.

How would we do that? Well, for evil to win all it takes is for people (that’s you and me!) to do nothing. So if that’s the case, then to tackle evil, we need to do something. Calling out “banter” and “teasing” for what it is when it hurts people – bullying; by not engaging in gossip or spreading rumours and lies about people, especially when it is going to cause them pain and hurt; by seeing bad behaviour for what it is and not being afraid of speaking to truth to power (Ephesians 4: 15) if needs be. There were colleagues of Lucy Letby’s who did try to speak out against her actions and her behaviour, but those in authority at the hospital refused to listen. The world needs more of them, and less of the unbelievers and the “sweep it under the carpet” people.

Not all of us will be in the position where we have the opportunity to stop someone killing babies, but we all do have the opportunity to speak up for the marginalised and the oppressed (Luke 4: 18 – 19), to concentrate on loving people instead of excluding them and to reframe our own sense of self-importance.

I guess, going back to my earlier analogy of a kitchen appliance and its instruction manual, if we don’t read past Paul’s first instruction to “let love be genuine”, then we don’t get to grapple with the bigger complexities of spiritual warfare that the verse “hate what is evil” presents to us. Just as with a bread-maker, we would be forever making that one loaf of white bread from a recipe on the flour packet instead of the enriched hot-cross bun dough that the instruction manual lists on the last page, and so we need to delve deeper into scripture to find deeper levels of understanding about what following Jesus means, and how it affects us and what we are called to do in the world.

And at the root of it all, it begins with that simple instruction to “let love be genuine”. There can never be too much love in the world, and the more there is, the less chance evil has to take root and get between us.

Amen

I Stand Amazed

I have had another full-on, spirit filled, intense day today and have been reminded time and again that life is so precious, so fragile and so worth fighting for.

I had breakfast with my closest friend, a treat we enjoy now and again where we catch up over a brew and some bacon, and then I met a family who were planning the funeral of their brother. Several phone calls with congregation members and arrangements made to visit one in hospital next week with a colleague, followed by a drop-in visit to one of our funeral directors for an update and a chat. While I was leaving there I had a call to say one of my flock was nearing the end of her life and it won’t be long before she goes to glory, and as I was hanging up from that call I had a call waiting from another congregation member to tell me an update on someone we are all worried about. I decided to visit them in hospital this afternoon, but when I got there, they had been moved and it was not possible to see them, and furthermore, they were now injured in a different way, which could mean a difficult recovery ahead.

I had to come away, but surprisingly in the way out, I bumped into an old school friend who I haven’t seen face to face since we left school in 1987. We had a brilliant natter about stuff just as if we’d only last spoken a few days ago. Magical stuff!

I then had another call about another person coming to the end of their life, with a request that I am in standby to go and pray with them when the time is near.

And throughout all of today – and this week to be fair – I’ve been so aware of the privilege I have in ministering to people especially at their hour of greatest need. I can’t do this on my own, and I thank God for his gifts so that I can answer his call, and be the person he’s called me to be in this place.

There’s a song that has accompanied me for the last few days, and it has really helped me focus and appreciate what I am and what I’ve been given. It’s an old hymn which lends itself so well to contemporary worship, and this version is one of my favourites at the minute.

I hope it offers you some comfort, reassurance and peace as it does me.

Blessings,

Pam

PS – in case you’re wondering, yes I spent some downtime tonight working on my gnome cushion. Pictures soon!

Faith

I have been preaching this week about faith, and my sermon this morning was about the faith demonstrated by the Canaanite woman who knelt before Jesus and asked him to heal her daughter. Now, before we get too far, I’ll just say that there is lots to be explored in today’s gospel reading (Matthew 15: 10 – 28) but I want to concentrate simply on this woman’s faith.

Because her faith is an example to anyone of us who has felt on the outside of things at any time in our lives and who feels lost. At the time and place that Jesus was speaking – in Tyre, a place that had had a somewhat chequered history with regards to its loyalty to God – Canaanites were seen a “other” to the Israelites living there. They were racially and ethnically different, and as Jesus says, he was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel and so she shouldn’t really have had a leg to stand on and the disciples were quick to point this out. “Send her away!” they moaned, “tell her to shut up!”. But this is Jesus, and he doesn’t do that. He pushes her a little, reminding her that she is not one of his lost sheep, but she pushes back, saying that God’s word is for everyone, not just the children at the table.

For this, Jesus commends her and he restores her daughter immediately to full health again. His words “Woman, great is your faith” are what stand out to me in the whole of this encounter because the act of kneeling before him and asking for help are quite small really but the significance of what she did is what is great. Knowing herself to be on the edges of the society there, knowing herself to be “other” to the ones who were the political and social leaders as well as her neighbours, knowing herself – a woman – to be less than the dogs under the master’s table and yet still she made a small act of faith, knowing that Jesus would respond to her.

Earlier this week, I spoke to my congregations about the great acts of faith of the Old Testament heroes such as Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Rahab, Ruth and so on, and how we are not asked to do those big things as they did in order to please God. Small acts of faith, like this woman who spoke to Jesus here, are all that he asks from us to be pleased with us.

So what does a small act of faith look like to you today?

Maybe your faith is as strong as an oak tree – a whole forest of them for that matter! – or it may be as fragile and shaky as a small mustard seed being blown around from pillar to post. No matter. Your faith in God, who has promised that through his Son Jesus Christ we are all called his children, will be rewarded with huge acts of love and restoration.

But what does it mean for you? How do you need to be reassured of God’s love? What is it that you pray will change in order that you live your life to its fullest?

For me at the moment, I have an uncertain future in terms of where I am being called to exercise my ministry. As a self-supporting curate, my employment within the diocese is not necessarily a given, and so as I approach the end of my curacy with the six churches I serve being in vacancy, things are feeling very uncertain at the minute. There are all sorts of questions and hurdles to be overcome, and if it were not for my faith, my heart would be in my boots at the thought of all of the potential upheaval and starting again that will be happening.

As you can see, for someone of my age (52) with my health concerns (dodgy bones and nerve damage in my spine) who has lived in my home for the last 26 years, that might be a big ask. But I have faith that whatever happens, God is there and he will not call me to do something for which he is not going to equip me. Maybe my demonstration of faith isn’t even as big as the Canaanite woman’s faith, because I don’t feel “other” here in Blackley, and it certainly isn’t as big as Noah’s, who put himself in the path of mockery from his neighbours when he built the ark, but it’s personal to me, and that’s what matters. I trust the promise that Jesus made that even the smallest demonstration of faith is pleasing to God.

There’s a line in the hymn In Christ Alone that kind of sums it up for me, and it’s a line that is taken from Romans 8: “from life’s first cry to final breath Jesus commands my destiny”. That doesn’t mean that Jesus is in control, but rather, that my destiny will be fulfilled if I keep my eyes on Jesus and keep my faith in him.

How about you? Is there something you’d like to share? Are you holding on to something that needs to be let go, or perhaps there’s something that is stopping you from stepping out in faith? Drop me a line either on here or through direct messages if you’re reading this on Facebook and maybe we can explore it together.

Praying God’s blessing on you,

Pamster x

Lessons in Love

I offered a sermon today on the subject of “Love”, with close reference to 1 Corinthians 13 and John 15: 9-17. It was the final part of our six-week sermon series on Jesus Shaped People. Here’s the text (with illustrations) if you want to have a read.

Jesus talked about love a LOT. It was the central lesson in everything he said or did. Love one another.

And it sounds so easy to do, doesn’t it? Just love one another. Simple!

But what does love really look like? I did an assembly with KS2 children this week and we looked at different expressions of love, and they gave their reactions (mainly saying “yuk!”).

Perhaps it’s this? People who hold hands in public may love each other very deeply, but this picture doesn’t really help us understand what love does.

Is it this? Drawing love hearts for someone? (They said yuk to this one too!)

Or it might be this. Sisters and brothers love each other – even though they may fight as they grow up… (they laughed at this one)

This is a kind of love isn’t it? We love nice things to eat, or we might say that we LOVE hot chocolate

But love looks like these things too. Helping someone to eat if they can’t do it themselves… Taking someone for a walk in the fresh air and sunshine in a wheelchair… Or like this… caring for our environment by picking up the litter…

There are lots of ways of showing and experiencing love.

Jesus teaches us that when we love one another, when we show love for one another in any of these ways, we are showing love for him.

All of these things represent something of love, and in our reading from 1 Corinthians today, we are reminded of what Paul says love is. We usually think about love in terms of our relationships with one another – our spouse, our children, our parents, our friends – but there’s more to it than that.

Paul does a great job of listing things that love is and isn’t, does or doesn’t do. There are seven things on each side: Love IS/DOES patient, kind, rejoices in the truth, protects, trusts, hopes, perseveres, and Love ISN’T/DOESN’T be boastful, proud, dishonour others, self-seeking, easily angered, keep a record of wrongs, delight in evil.

We’re familiar with these terms aren’t we, and they kind of speak for themselves.

In a loving relationship, being patient and kind, protective, hopeful and full of perseverance are kind of the bedrock aren’t they? Relationships that are easily angered, or where wrongs are recorded and brought out and dusted off in times of conflict, just… aren’t that good are they?

I don’t want to go through these so much today, because I think there’s a bigger question to be asked, and I want to focus on something quite specific today if I may.

If we are to be truly Jesus Shaped People – that is, modelled on the behaviour and attitude and values of Jesus Christ – then we have to work a bit harder than simply being patient or kind, and we need to be a bit more intentionally protective, hopeful, persevering when we love.

And the kind of love that Jesus calls us to demonstrate is radical… risky… and costly.

His life was a whole demonstration of radical love – showing the world that the established human ways aren’t the ways of the Kingdom. Last week we heard how he cured the man of the withered hand on the Sabbath against the “rules” – showing a love that was radical and overturned things.

His is a risky love too.

It risks rejection – “shake the dust off your feet” as he said to his disciples; it risks pain, loss, but it risks transformation too. We don’t like change do we? Generally I mean. And what is transformation, but a huge change? Yet, loving as Jesus asks us to, risks transforming the world.

And those risks come at a cost don’t they? When we love like Jesus loves – selflessly, trusting, hopeful – the cost to us can be huge. We give bits of ourself away when we put others first, when we go out of our way to serve them, to go out with litter pickers and clean up our environment, when we make choices about our lifestyle to help conserve resources.

My question to you is – what are you willing to risk in the name of love?

Love is patient – yes, it is, but didn’t Jesus lose his patience? That time with the money lenders in the Temple? What will push YOU to lose your patience in the name of love?

Love is kind – yes, it is, but it doesn’t allow bad behaviour to flourish in our community just because we want to be kind to one another. Anti-social behaviour that wrecks people’s peace; vandalism; noise pollution – all things that we can be tempted to turn a blind eye or ear to in the name of kindness. How much are you willing to risk in being kind to others?

Love rejoices in the truth – yes it really does! But how many of us shy away from speaking the truth because we want to be “nice”, or going back to the last point – “kind”. We talked about speaking truth to power last week didn’t we, challenging those structures in our society that keep people in oppressive systems, but we live in a society where “truth” is subjective. “My truth is the truth” and so on. How can we rejoice in that?? How do we as Christians speak up for THE truth, the truth of the love of God for his people and the reconciliation he offers through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? How much are you willing to risk in rejoicing publicly in THAT truth?

Love protects – yes, of course it does. As a mother hen protects her chicks, love protects. I don’t think there’s anyone here who doesn’t want to protect other people from harm, but how far are you willing to go to protect others? Taking in refugees – Syria, Ukraine; fostering children without families…? What are you willing to risk in order to protect others?

Love trusts – difficult one this one. Trust who? What? How? Trust another person not to hurt us? Trust between our nearest and dearest is almost a given, but trusting strangers is something else indeed. But Jesus’ love calls us to trust doesn’t it. How can we ever come together and build if we don’t trust each other? How much are you willing to risk in trusting and being trusted by people you don’t know?

Love hopes – we’re getting down to it now aren’t we? The hope we have in Jesus is the thing that underpins our whole Christian life. So let me ask you – I know we have the hope in the resurrection, but what else figures in your hopes today? Something for yourself? For someone else? How about hoping for something that isn’t a person? Maybe you’re hoping for something to happen, to change, to stop… What are you willing to risk in following it?

Which brings us to the last one that Paul talks about – love perseveres.

So far we’ve been thinking about the love that we are called on to show as Jesus Shaped People, but what about the love that God shows for us? All those qualities we have just listed – patience, kindness, rejoicing, trust, protects, hope – are exactly the qualities that he demonstrates towards us.

He is infinitely patient with us – individually and as a church community, a parish, a city

Kindness – he provides everything that we need, not because we deserve it but out of kindness.

Rejoicing – we are told aren’t we that whenever we do good stuff, the Lord rejoices with the angels and all the heavenly saints. There’s something to think about!

Trust – we are entrusted with the guardianship of the whole of creation. Everything!

Protection – I talked about that image of a mother hen earlier, and that is how we are protected by the Lord. He spreads his arms out and gathers us in, protects us from all manner of evils…

And hope – we all know that God’s hope for us is that we will return to him from the exile of sin.

But the last one of these qualities that Paul lists – perseverance – is the biggest one. We are tasked with persevering with love because God himself perseveres with us, no matter what.

Relentless doggedness in not giving up on us. Through all that we do, God’s love for us perseveres.

If we truly want to be Jesus Shaped People we need to model ourselves on the love that the Lord has for us, by trying to emulate these qualities in every aspect of our lives.

Because when we love one another, we make the world a better place; and Jesus asks us to love one another like he loves us, so that the world is a better place for all of us.

Amen

Small Steps

I took my first steps back to ‘normality’ today, and went to my first church service since the end of November.

It felt very strange.

It has been the longest I have not been in a church in the last 8 years or so, and as this was my first Advent and Christmas as a priest, it has felt very strange being absent for so long. I have been praying and reading Scripture at home, and my lovely friend G brought home communion to me on Christmas Eve, but not sharing worship and fellowship for so long felt very odd.

But the strangeness wasn’t down to me being absent from church, but that it was the first time other than at the hospital that I’ve seen people other than my family face to face. It was also the first time in over 6 weeks that I went anywhere or did anything on my own. Up until this weekend I have needed someone with me while I shower because my legs don’t behave properly yet, and there has been at least one other person in the house with me at all times since I came home from hospital. So going to church, on my own, with non-family folk today was a pretty big deal.

But do you know what? It was OK. Honestly, it was…OK.

I was a bit apprehensive driving, but it was fine.

I was a bit apprehensive crossing the main road outside church, but that too was fine.

I was a bit anxious opening the church door – me who is a minister! – but that too was…fine.

I’m underselling it a bit there, because it was more than fine. I had a lovely welcome from the people already there, and nobody made a big thing about me or my surgery or anything. I was glad of that, and their gentle reception was like a balm to my soul.

I’d chosen not to wear clerical dress today because I wanted to be there as a congregation member rather than an on-duty minister, and because I didn’t feel ready to signal to the world that I was back at ‘work’ just yet. After joining them at St Mary’s this morning I do feel that I’ve taken another step – albeit small – towards my new ‘normal’, and I feel less apprehensive about the next.

Stepping Out

Small steps matter, and even the most difficult of journeys can be taken by simply putting one foot in front of the other. They can be painful, but ultimately, they are so worth the effort.

What small steps are you contemplating at the minute? Who is there by your side cheering you on as you take those initial steps towards your goals? However you step out, I pray you feel the presence of Jesus guiding and strengthen you.

Blessings

Pam x

Season’s Greetings

It’s approaching dusk on Christmas Eve 2022 here in the UK, and I wanted to wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and to assure you of my prayers as the last days of 2022 give way to the first days of 2023.

This year will have been tricky at times and it will have been fun at other times. It will have been sad, and it will have been happy, and no doubt there will have been times where you have felt overwhelmed by loneliness or stifled in the company of others. There will have been times where you will have struggled and there will have been times where you had the green-light corridor all the way. I just want you to know that whatever your year has been like and whatever joys and sorrows you have experienced, you have not been alone and God our Father has held you in his hand throughout it all.

I wish you all a blessed and joy-filled Christmas time, whatever that means for you personally, and I pray that the light of the Christ-child shines in the dark corners for you.

With every blessing,

Pam x

Words that say so much

I was introduced to this song today by my friend and colleague Eddie who was leading worship this morning. We were talking about Christ the King, and how his life and death and resurrection means that we are saved, and this song is just so beautiful and sums up everything Jesus is to me. I hope you find solace in this as much as I do.

With God’s blessing, here is “I’m justified by Grace” by Jeremy Smith and found on dumbrocks.com.

Peace and love

Pamster xx