Practical Love

 

In this month’s edition of The United Reformed Church magazine, Reform, there is a reflection on this painting of The Good Samaritan by Van Gogh.

The style is typical of his later period with vibrant colours and flowing movement and the content is challenging. 

This gospel story is often cited as one showing how one person places another in ‘professional’ care; in that the Samaritan paid the Inn Keeper to look after the injured Jew until such a time when he was healed.  It’s surely a story that brings comfort to those who feel they have no option but to place people they love into ‘care’.

Yet Van Gogh’s painting precedes this moment.  It portrays the initial encounter between them.  The Samaritan struggles to lift the Jew onto a horse in order to take him to safety.  The helplessness etched onto the Jew’s face is matched by the struggle displayed on Samaritan’s.  Kindness and generosity of spirit is often hard work.  In this painting we glimpse practical, down to earth love.

So, different phases of the Jew’s suffering called for different responses.  At the beginning the help was ‘hands on’, in the end it was ‘hands off’ because another was paid to care.

I find that fascinating because Van Gogh was a painter, who in his own short life, went through many stages and phases.  When visiting the museum in Amsterdam which houses so much of his work it’s clear how his style and perception of life changes.  In the beginning, in works like The Potato Eaters the canvas is filled with dark, foreboding shades.  Then comes the sunlight and his study of blossom trees and eventually paintings like this one, crafted at a time when he himself was receiving care for his troubled mind in an institution.

None of this detracts from this wonderful work, presented to us in this month’s Reform magazine. One that reminds us that love and kindness is often costly and demands that ‘we roll our sleeves up’ and get involved.

And so, a few items of news now for our Church Focus:

I want to thank everyone who contributed to this year’s Harvest Appeal last week.  A car-load of dried goods was taken this week to a New Hope centre in Watford and our monetary gifts will time be sent off to both Operation Agri and New Hope.

Last week we published the final Website Reflection for the time being.  They are now taking a break before returning for the season of Advent and Christmas.

It was a delight last week to hear from Jochen Vogel.  Jochen is the father of Hauke, our Time for God Volunteer from 2017 to 18.  Like us, their church in Rohrsen had Harvest Thanksgiving last Sunday.  All is well with them on the farm and in the family.  Jochen and Rosemarei’s daughter, Dorothee has just started a year’s Master’s course in Truro – it’s lovely to keep contact with this family who have adopted us as their English church.

Family News is available this weekend and our thanks to everyone whose made this month’s edition possible.

Sunday’s service will be one of Holy Communion.  The elements will not be distributed by the elders put placed in the chair communion holders. 

We often support The London Churches Refugee Fund through our Communion Offerings at AFC.  They have sent us details of their fund-raising Christmas Card for 2020.  Further details of this and how you may obtain copies can be found at: https://lcrf.onlineweb.shop/

Renewed Appreciation

 

I’m not a great lover of supermarket shopping, hence our weekly order with Tesco on-line.  Over recent years I’ve taken their delivery service foregranted; that is until Lockdown.  Early in April we cancelled all our existing orders, thus freeing up slots for those shielding, and we got used to once again visiting the store with trolly and a list.

Half way through the summer Tesco contacted us and invited us to ‘come back’ online.  I remember the renewed appreciation I had of once again making an order just by clicking a few buttons.  Members of my family tell me they love choosing their fruit and veg in store, I love getting the order done and dusted in ten minutes at my desk!

We have all had cause to re-evaluate our priorities since March.  Activities we once took foregranted we might now view with a deeper appreciation than ever before.

I was half expecting that the permission to worship ‘in person’ would be withdrawn this week and the fact that it wasn’t will, I think, be appreciated by many who have loved returning. Although I know it might very well change in the future it was touching to read these words on the Church of England website yesterday: The Prime Minister emphasised that we can draw comfort from the fact that places of worship are staying open.

Last week, o Radio 4's Thought for the Day, Chief Rabbi Mirvis reflected on the theme of gratitude and renewed appreciation.  He told a story (as all good Jewish prachers do!) of a boy's reaction to being given a half filled glass of water.  How would he answer that age old conundrum of whether it was half full or empty?  The young lad answered with a wisdom above his years by saying: I think I'm just grateful to have a glass...!  Now, that's gratitude!

And so, to a few items of Church news…

Thank you for all your dry food contributions to New Hope.  After Harvest Festival these will be delivered to one of their centres in Watford.

The Partnership in Mission Committee meets this coming Tuesday morning.  We would value your prayers as we discuss together the ways our church can prayerfully and financially support various mission agencies both at home and overseas.

Next Sunday the 10.30 service will be one of Holy Communion.  This will be quite a significant moment for us as it’s the first occasion we’ve held such a service in the Sanctuary since March.  It will be different from our usual form in that the bread and wine will be available to you in the chair communion holders.  The elements will be prepared by a single person wearing gloves.  During the service you will be invited to take the cup, which will be surmounted by a small plate containing a square of bread, and eat and drink as invited.  Of course, this will be an optional part of the service – and if you wish to remember the love and grace of God without taking the bread and wine at this time please do so with our blessing.

As we leave church on Sunday we need to be very conscious of the rule of six in the car park.  To that end we would ask you to look at for the circles, drawn in chalk on the car park and stand there.  Circle fellowship, socially distanced, in groups no larger than six.  It’s very important that we observe the guidelines.

And finally our love and prayers go out to the family of Mrs Tricia O'Connor, whose funeral service will be held at the Chiltern Crematorium on Friday 9th October at 11am.

Preparing for Harvest 2020

 

Next Sunday, 27^th September 2020, we’ll be celebrating our Harvest Festival.  

Once again we’ll hear the Harvest hymns and offer to God our prayers of thanks.  And once again we’ll have the opportunity to make a special offering, on top of our usual giving. 

This year’s Harvest Mission Offering will be split between two charities.

The first works overseas and it is Operation Agri.  Their Harvest Appeal for 2020 is called Trees for Tanzania.  The money we raise will help set up tree nurseries as well as helping to establish village community banks and providie fuel saving stoves.

Operation Agri, an organisation with a Baptist foundation, is working with the Anglican Church in Tanzania to do this and it is called the Imarika Project – and African word which means ‘to strengthen’.

The second charity is closer to home.  It’s the New Hope Trust based in Watford.

New Hope was set up in 1990 by two ladies who called themselves a couple of ‘ordinary housewives’.  They purchased two old coaches and turned them into Soup Kitchens that helped feed homeless people.

Today, New Hope has an operating budget of just over £2m a year, employs 60 people and has 160 volunteers.  It’s aim is to prevent homelessness.

It runs a night shelter than runs from 1^st Dec to 31^st March and operates 9 houses.  Homeless people who stay in these houses all have a key worker so that, together, they may make a journey from dependent to independent living.  Last year 271 people stayed in one of New Hopes houses and went through their programme.

So, Harvest Sunday is a day for us to give thanks, it’s also an opportunity for us to give money to these two wonderful projects.  We can do that using the pink mission envelopes in your offering pack, if you have one.  Or placing money in the basket clearly marked HARVEST OFFERING when coming into church on the 27^th September.  Or you could send a cheque to Bob, our treasurer.

Along with that, New Hope, are happy to receive the produce of our Harvest Display.  A list of what they need is on the website.  We can bring these gifts to church on either the Sunday 20^th or 27^th and leave them in the basket by the Sanctuary doors.

So, conscious of our many blessings, let’s use Harvest to bless others.

And so a few items of Church Life news now:

The September edition of Manse Talk is now on the Website, as is a new audio service of Holy Communion.

This coming Tuesday we have Team Meeting and would be grateful of your prayers as we gather to discuss church life at this challenging time.

As worship ends at the 10.30am service and we leave church we need to be aware of the new social distancing guidelines of not gathering in groups larger than six.  Further guidance will be given on Sunday once our denominations publish new guidelines.

This is the last week to send in your photos for our Harvest Project All Things Bright and Beautiful – we have received lots of wonderful pictures already and look forward to publishing them on 27^th September.

Matthew’s CD of Lockdown Worship songs is still available with all profits going to Trees for Tanzania, if you’d like a copy do get in contact with Rachel.

On Harvest Sunday we are accepting dry goods for the display.  These will then be sent on to The New Hope project in Watford.  They have sent us a list of what they require and that list is posted below.

You can drop off these goods into a basket by the back door of the church next week between 9.15am and Noon any morning of Monday through to Thursday, when it will be dealt with by our Church Administrator.

Or you can bring you gifts to church either this Sunday or next and leave them in a place guided by the welcoming steward.

Dry Goods for Harvest

 

A Conflict of Interests

 

As we commence our Elders’ Meetings at AFC everyone present has to declare if any items on the agenda gives them a Conflict of Interests.  If, for example, we were about to award a major church building project to a firm owned by a family member of mine, I’d have to declare a Conflict. In other words, my impartiality on this particular subject would be inevitably compromised.

I suspect the Pandemic has given us all quite a few Conflicts of Interest over recent months.  We’d really love to throw a family party or have all our friends round for a meal, but we know our moral obligation to physical distancing brings a conflict we have to weigh up and work through.  Any government in the world today knows the conflict it brings on a nation to both open up society for social and economic reasons whilst also trying to monitor and control physical interaction.

We are living, in what I sense, is the most confusing period of my lifetime.  We love community and many of us see it as one of the most important parts of faith.  Yet for six months now, and possibly for six more to come, our understanding and practise of community is much more restrained and measured than anything we’ve known before.  It’s summed up for me in the rather clever catch phrase they are currently using in Australia: Staying apart Keeps us together. If we had heard that before March of this year we would just have called it an oxymoron, yet now, in our present context, we know it’s truth and wisdom.

Those early days of a Spring Lockdown were relatively straightforward.  These days of early autumn are far more ambiguous. 

As a church we continue to offer Sunday worship that is both in person and on- line, and it will probably stay that way into 2021.  It’s our way of treating one another with gentleness and kindness for there is no ‘one way’ to walk through these days of Covid19.

It’s struck me recently that we have become a Eucharistic community in essence, even at a time when we haven’t been physically sharing communion together.  That is, we, like many communities, are experiencing something of being ‘broken’ and ‘fragmented’.  Yet, like our Lord upon the cross, it is precisely such brokenness that shows the depth and faithfulness of our love and God’s.

I long for the day when, once more, there will be one loaf on the communion table at AFC from which we can all share.  Until then, as broken and scattered pieces we live out our Eucharistic faith with thanksgiving and with God.

Just one or two pieces now of Church Life news:

Thank you for the pictures you have been sending in for the All Creatures Great and Small website project for Harvest – we’d love to carry on receiving them, photos that celebrate creation, and we’ll publish them on the EcoChurch page of our website on Harvest Sunday.

Matthew has put together a CD of the Worship songs he’s arranged and recorded, sometimes with Sara, over these last six months.  If you’d like a copy then please contact Rachel on rmgreen9497@yahoo.co.uk.  We’re suggesting a donation of, say, £10, which will cover costs and the remainder – around £8 will go to this year’s Harvest Appeal of Trees for Tanzania. Alongwith the CD you’ll receive a link, if you wish to use it, to also hear the songs through Spotify. If you contact Rachel she’ll tell you about how we might distribute the CDs.

And lastly… we were glad that Junior Church was able to meet up outside last Sunday afternoon and that they had a good time together

Returning

 

Our youngest son returned to his office (Transport for London) yesterday after six months of working from home.  He was so taken with the ghost like atmosphere of the building and the fact that papers on his desk were in exactly the same place as they were left in early March, that he Whatsapped this photo.

I received his message on my way to Chorleywood Common for the daily dog walk, passing, for the first time since the Spring, students from Clement Danes making their way to school; returning for a new academic year after one that was cut short half way through.

It’s a theme that’s been on all our minds recently: how do we ‘return’ to some sense of normal routine – or when will that be possible?

Since the first Sunday in July some of us have been able to return to ‘in-person’ worship at AFC.  Our numbers have been around 40 every week.  About 30 people are the same Sunday by Sunday, whilst others come and go.

In the next few weeks, like many churches and community halls and following government guidelines, we will be re-opening the premises for some user groups. It’s another small step back to normality.  Although all of this has to be ‘provisional’, depending on developments.

It’s been so important for us as a church community to continue with the audio service and add the video recording, as this enables folk who are, understandably, not ready to return to ‘in-person’ worship to be included in.  We must never get tied of defining ourselves for the current time as ONE congregation worshipping in three different ways.  The interesting thing is that if you tot up all the numbers of those attending, listening or viewing Sunday worship we are 55% up on where we were before Lockdown started (although I am well aware that when it comes to statistics it’s all about their interpretation!)

The bible often has stories of returning, such as Jacob coming back to Esau and the Prodigal Son receiving the embrace of his loving Father.

‘Coming Home’ can be experienced in all sorts of ways, not least in the spiritual one of looking once more to God for help and meaning.  I believe that whenever we do that, we find a ready welcome.

A few pieces of news as we think about Church Life:

This week the September edition of magazine, Family News has been published.  Our thanks to everyone who has helped make this happen.

We’d like, also, to express our continued gratitude to the church community for your generosity in giving.  Our Free Will Offerings have seen an increase during the Pandemic, and this has helped offset some of the loss of income from the lack of lettings.  Our thanks to everyone for the commitment this has shown to the ongoing life of AFC.

Our Bible Teaching Day, due to be held next month, has been cancelled for this year.  Terry Hinks, our speaker, has agreed to come and led us next year on the theme of Christian ecology.

Government and Scientific guidelines have been changed recently to allow a small group of singers to take part in worship services.  So, next week, a few members of our choir will sing one of the hymns at the 10.30am service.  This will be done, after careful thought and measuring, from the chancel area so that it fulfils the social distancing requirements.  It will be yet another small step back to normality.

Another little step will be the way the service ends.  From this Sunday we’ll return to leaving the church in our normal way, that is during the concluding organ voluntary rather than all of us waiting to its end.  We’ll still leave one row at a time from the back.  If you wish to hear the voluntary all the way through, just remain seated and leave at its conclusion.

And finally, during this Season of Creation, we are launching a Harvest Project.  We’d like to invite you to submit a photograph on the theme of All Things Bright and Beautiful.  It can be of a landscape, a flower on the windowsill, an animal in the wild or a pet at home.  The choice is yours, as is whether or not to include yourself in the photo. 

So many people have drawn great comfort from nature over these last six months, so let’s celebrate God’s wonderful creation with a set of photos, and perhaps a few words to accompany them, that will publish on the Eco Church page of our website on Harvest Sunday. 

Please send your photos to me, and I’ll format them and get them ready for publication.  Let’s make it an act of Thanksgiving.