1st Sunday in Advent: The Light of The World

It looks like a cold night maybe with the dawn about to break in midwinter.

It also looks as if Jesus isn’t too sure if this door will actually be opened – yet still he knocks.

Holman Hunt painted three versions of this painting, the original he donated to Keble College, Oxford but incredibly they didn’t want it in the Sanctuary and placed it instead in a side room charging people for the privilege of viewing it.  So he painted a second, life sized version which today hangs in St Paul’s Cathedral.

Jesus – God – seeking us out, looking for us, longing to greet us if only we would open the door.

I wonder what the story might be behind the door and the reason for the delay in opening?

In a season when we remember the Coming of God – I look at Hunt’s work and I am comforted, inspired and immensely grateful for the idea that God is seeking me out, longing and searching for me – wanting my company.  Mind blowingly wonderful that still The Light of the World knocks on our hearts door.

The Adoration of the Magi: Peter Brueghel 1525-1569

Over the next few weeks my church in Amersham will once again be travelling through Advent with some wonderful paintings as our companions on this journey to Christmas.  These paintings will be shown at our services, displayed on our vestibule monitor and be on a special Advent leaflet given to the congregation, and shown on this Blog!! I think it’s a great way to help us along the way to Christmas.

The first painting is The Adoration of the Magi by Brueghel the Elder and it’s a chaotically crowded scene; I love the people on camels!

Is this a noisy or hushed crowd?

Here are people from all nations; it’s as if the whole world is coming to see the baby called Jesus.  Yet every crowd is made of individuals and Brueghel is a master at painting the details of so many different faces.

There is a momentum, from family expectation to the jingles played over and over in shops, that forces us to walk towards Christmas.  Yet I long for this year’s journey to be different from last year’s.  I’m a year older and the Road to Bethlehem, and maybe even the significance of what I’ll find there, is not quite the same as last year.  It’s a personal journey – I come as an individual.

Brueghel paints princes and paupers, all life is here.

Yet there are two characters with their backs to us and to Jesus who seem detached form what’s going on around them as they talk to each other and look at the river! 

And there are people at the back of the crowd who cannot possibly have a clue at what the front row people are looking at! 

Christmas has a chaos all its own.  Yet somewhere, and at some time, it holds the potential to thrill and amaze us and see life with a new wonder.

Maybe I’m on a camel, perhaps I’m looking at the river or possibly I’m still at the back of the crowd wondering what is going on.  I’m in there somewhere – perhaps you are too!

Order! Order!

St Columba's, Woking

I belong to an Order!  It’s a religious one and it’s called The Order of Baptist Ministry and this afternoon I returned from its annual two-day Convocation, which this year was held at St Columba’s Conference and Retreat Centre in Woking.

This ‘Order’ has been in existence for some six years and I’ve been part of it since its inception.

It’s loosely based on groups like The 3^rd Order Franciscans – that is we have certain ‘monastic’ principles which bind us together but we are a dispersed community rather than a residential one.

I suppose for some it might seem strange that a Free Church movement like the Baptists has such an Order – but I have to say that for me this recent initiative has been one of the most appropriate and nourishing to come out of my parent denomination.

To belong to the order – and two ministers took their vows today at our concluding Communion Service – you have to pledge yourself to five core activities – here they are:

1) To regularly use the Order’s Daily Office
2) To meet in Cell about once every six weeks with other members of the Order – to say the Office together and be ‘accountable’ to one another as to how one’s spiritual life is going
3) To meet in Convocation once a year with all the other members of the Order
4) To have a Spiritual Director with whom one meets regularly
5) To go on retreat once a year

I took my vows three years ago – but I was reminded at the Convocation that I have forgotten to pay this year’s membership fee!!

I have benefitted beyond words by the supportive and sustaining fellowship of my Cell Group and attendance at Convocation alongside like- minded colleagues is a real joy.

One of the most precious pieces of thinking to come out of the Order for Baptist Ministry is the ‘Foundation Document’ that we all sign up to.  We read it together at the beginning of our time in Woking on Wednesday afternoon – here it is – and I think in reading it you’ll get a flavour of this group to which I’m so happy to belong:


                                                                                            

We dream of an Order, a community of equals

                                                                                         

Where we are gathered and dispersed

journeying together even when alone

rooted within the Baptist story.

Where we hold a view of Baptist ministry

as a way of being that mediates the presence of Christ,

particularly expressed in word, sacrament, pastoral care and mission.

Where we seek to be attentive

to Word and Spirit

contemplating in silence and conversation

in stillness and in service

the Triune God -

known and unknown

mystery and revelation -

present in Christ

within us

between us

and around us.

Where we offer safe space 

cradling, nurturing and holding us

that we may risk and explore

think aloud

hear and be heard

value dissent and freedom of conscience

walk together and watch over one another.

Where we live within the disciplines of this Order

committed to prayer

committed to gather

following the rule of Christ

with hearts set on pilgrimage

makers of peace

pursuers of justice

lovers of mercy

bearing witness to Christ.

We dream of an Order

committed to the way of Christ

faithful to the call of Christ

discerning the mind of Christ

offering the welcome of Christ

growing in the likeness of Christ

engaging in the mission of Christ

in the world that belongs to Christ.

We dream...


Best wishes,

Ian

Words! Words!

Well what a week it’s been!  The election of the 45^th President of the United States has been like something from the pages of fiction – but you can’t make this stuff up!

We join our prayers with our American friends as they prepare for Mr Trump’s Inauguration on 20^th January 2017.

It has struck me over these last few months just how important words are in any political campaign. 

I think all our leaders have a responsibility to use words carefully and thoughtfully.  Trading insults and peddling fears is unworthy rhetoric from anyone seeking public office.  We look to those on the national and international stage to take the longer view yet inspire us with words of hope and speeches of encouragement for today.  Sometimes, in these panic stricken, soundbite crazed days, we hear our leaders trade insults with each other even as they seek our trust and confidence. Our hearts sink with such a blinkered methodology.

This week I had cause to visit Southend and the onetime church of my former ‘boss’ Donald MacKenzie.  I served my ‘curacy’ under Donald when I was Assistant Minister at Fuller Baptist Church in Kettering between 1987 and 1992. Donald served in this Essex church way back in the 60’s and 70’s.  Whilst visiting there this week I asked the current minister if anyone in the congregation might still remember my friend and senior colleague.  Yes, he said, we were only talking about him this morning in the Team Meeting and someone said: During Donald’s day, because so many loved his preaching, on visiting preacher Sundays the church would regularly be half full!

I just loved hearing that because Donald’s words from the pulpit during the five years I heard him preach were always profound words of loving encouragement, accessible scholarship, delightful story- telling and relevant, down to earth application.  This was a man who never ever used a snide comment or made a negative observation about a fellow human being – and this man’s sermons lifted our spirits and gave us hope week by week.

Words are precious – and our leaders have a responsibility to use them with grace – Donald taught me that!

All best wishes,

Ian

A Great Sermon!

What, I wonder, makes for a good sermon?  In my thirtieth year of being a minister you might have thought I would have worked that out by now!!

Whilst on holiday in the New Forest last week my mother-in-law (a licensed Anglican Lay Reader herself) and I talked about this.  She prepares for her sermons by writing out trigger notes – she genuinely doesn’t quite know how the sermon is going to proceed as she goes into the pulpit.  I, on the other hand, take ‘word for word’ notes with me. We didn't ask family members present whose sermons they preferred - that's not the best way of surviving a week long holiday together!

I seem to remember my Pastoral Studies tutor at College defined a good sermon as something to do with preaching for twenty minutes and preaching about God.

Well, I thought I’d take a risk this week and tell you of a sermon that I listened to recently which I thought was truly inspiring – I know it was about God but I can’t be sure if it made or overshot the twenty minute benchmark!

It was preached by the Presiding Bishop of the United States Episcopal Church, The Most Revd Michael Bruce Curry.  He was preaching on October 23^rd this year at the installation of The Revd Randy Hollerith as Dean of Washington Cathedral.  And here’s the thing – you can listen to it to on You Tube!!! Here’s the address: www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8XEczAxB94

I was so touched by this message, it was:
Funny yet Serious
Full of wit yet Full of Pathos
Biblical yet Contemporary
Recognised the Church as it is yet Longed for the Church to be more Loving and Christ-like

I’m grateful for these internet sermons!  If you are able – why not check this one out?!

And now, talking of sermons, I have one to prepare for Sunday!

Best wishes,

Ian