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

Touching the Numinous

Last Saturday evening we attended a recording in the BBC Radio Theatre at Broadcasting House.  The show we ‘saw’ was Radio 4’s Museum of Curiosities in which three panellists ‘donate’ something which is important to them to this ‘virtual’ museum of the airways.  It was a fascinating night with lots of banter on stage with a recording that took 1 hour 45 mins – even though the programme is just 30 mins long – so a lot of the chat will end up on the cutting room floor!

Jo Band was participating and she was great fun – but the shining star of the evening was, for me, Sir Tony Robinson – otherwise known as the man with a ‘cunning plan’, Baldrick of the Black Adder programmes.

He was funny, quick witted, brilliant with words and had a presence that simply dominated the stage.

His ‘donation’ to the Museum of Curiosities was that final programme from ‘Black Adder Goes Forth’ – the episode that had Private Baldrick, Captains Darling and Blackadder going over the trenches of Flanders in WW1.  What was so moving was hearing from John Lloyd – that evening’s show host but, by coincidence, the onetime Producer of Blackadder – the story behind this sequence.

It was filmed in the days when the lighting crew had to be off set by 10pm.  The scenery was badly prepared and at times looked like the polystyrene it was.  That ‘over the top’ shoot was filmed at three minutes to ten and looked shambolic.

Well, what happened next transformed a piece of badly rehearsed and staged film into one of the iconic moments of 20^th Century T.V.

In the cutting room John Lloyd and his colleagues tweaked the footage by turning it into black and white, slowing it down, overlaying music, freeze framing the soldiers just before they fell and then turning the mud of the battlefield into a field of red poppies.  If you have ever seen this piece of T.V. perhaps, like me, your response has been a profound, silent appreciation.

John Lloyd said as they watched the finished production for the first time the cutting room team also feel silent.  He said only three or four times as a T.V. Producer had he felt he had ‘touched the numinous’ – and this was such an occasion.

‘Touching the Numinous’ – what a great phrase!  Describing those moments when we intuitively know we are witnesses or participants in something immensely life affirming or life giving.

I guess in the bible such ‘Touching the Numinous’ moments happened as Moses ‘meets’ God in the burning bush or as Mary ‘meets’ the gardener on the morning of Easter Day and then realises he is Jesus.

When have we, I wonder, ‘touched the numinous’?  For some it’s in worship, for others it’s whilst out walking in the country.  For some it’s a time of prayer, whilst for others it’s during a time with family.

I think I had it once when singing Bach’s St Matthew Passion with the Malvern Festival Chorus.  We had a long ten-week rehearsal schedule as we practiced it in ‘bits’.  It only really came together at the last rehearsal on the Saturday afternoon of the concert, the first with the orchestra and boys’ choir.  I remember overwhelming moments that afternoon when I opened my mouth and nothing came out because I was so taken up with the beauty of what I was hearing all around me – a moment of touching the numinous.

We take such times and treasure them in our hearts – they give dignity to our humanity and whisper to us of the depth of the Divine.

Best wishes,

Ian

Ps. Blog holiday next week!

Collegial Creativity

I spent the first half of this week at our annual Ministers’ Conference.  Within minutes of arrival I felt I was among good friends (some going back almost thirty years!) with an endless supply of conversation because we talked, and talked and talked!!

So much about these three days was positive and affirming; and nothing more so than the last presentation before the closing communion yesterday morning.

One of our colleagues took us through Psalm 55, a Psalm of Lament.  She reminded us of the different types of psalms in the bible: some upbeat and confident whilst others are like Psalm 55 expressing honest, even ‘complaining’ prayer, ‘naming’ life as it really is and asking ‘why’?  Yet every Psalm of Lament in the Jewish Psalter (apart from Psalm 88) finds faith in God by its concluding verses.

Well it was a great and perfectly pitched bible study and then came the ‘activity’!  We split into groups of about eight and together wrote our very own Psalm of Lament.  To be truthful I’m not much of a ‘small groups’ sort of person but I loved our time together yesterday morning.  Our group seemed to ‘click’ very easily and creativity flowed!  The Psalm we came up with is not to be taken too seriously – yet there is an honesty behind the humour.  We entitled it: ‘The Pastor’s Lament’ and I suppose it’s a reflection on our struggle with difficult members of the congregation- and it’s perhaps not surprising that all eight ministers in my group seemed to have the same issues though we serve in different congregations.

Well, we didn’t take ourselves too seriously (and I hope you won’t take this psalm over seriously either!) but I loved this collaborative process of composing a psalm and here’s what we came up with:

I know you’re really busy, but can you fit me in!
I feel tired Lord.
 My faith is challenged by your inaction.
I’m disappointed in you!
I did not want an absentee God!
Day and night my inbox swells with their petty complaints.
If  only they had something worthwhile to moan about.
Strike down the grumblers Lord.
Empower the spam filters.
And send the complainers off to the Anglicans!
But you Lord called me here.
Help me to be loving and gracious.
Give me, O Lord, your heart.
For you never tire in doing good.

Well – we only had fifteen minutes!!!

Best wishes,

Ian

The salmon and the grizzly bear

Recently at AFC we sang what was for me a new song: Creation sings the Father’s song.  Just like the hymn I’ve chosen to sing at the start of this Sunday’s worship: All creatures of our God and King – it celebrates ‘experiencing’ God in nature.

Tomorrow I’ll be attending a Ministers’ Book Group and we’ll be discussing Places of Enchantment in which the author, like many people, is just so inspired by the beauty and wonder of the natural world that he finds no problem in singing with the psalmist ‘The heavens declare the glory of God’.

And, of course, we have just celebrated Harvest which, I suspect, is one of the most accessible festivals of the church year because for many it resonates with that popular maxim: One is closer to God in a garden than anywhere else on earth.  So on Harvest Sunday church and garden combine and this blended spirituality rings true for lots of people.

All well and good – until I sit down yesterday evening and watch a wonderfully filmed and truly beautiful programme about Autumn and I just can’t get one scene out of my mind.  It showed the tenacious salmon swimming upstream to spawn – having to jump some two metres up the rapids.  There to greet them at this point, as they flung themselves into the air, were half a dozen grizzly bears who caught them in their jaws, instantly crushing them with their teeth.  After catching and eating around thirty salmon each these bears retired to the bank for an afternoon snooze!

I love the rolling hills and wooded glade as much as the next person – but I’m increasingly aware of the harshness of nature, ‘red in tooth and claw’ – that the only thing that really matters is ultimately the ‘survival of the fittest’.  And I’m left pondering – does ‘Creation sing the Father’s song’?  Is God just on the side of the winners?  Does God condone aggressive violence in order that one species becomes dominant over another?

Nature, it seems to me, sends out an ambiguous message if aligned too closely with the character of God and I need more than the heavens to see God’s glory.

For me God reveals himself most in the character and teaching of Jesus.  I am totally inspired by his stories – about looking out for neighbour, forgiving enemies, offering kindness to the marginalised – and serving others because in doing this we are serving God.  I’m totally inspired by the cross when Jesus broke the supremacy of the ideal that only the fittest and most powerful prosper – and instead offered humanity an alternative model of self-sacrificial love -  that of giving up your own supremacy for the sake of another.

I think I would have to say that for me faith finds its brightest star in Jesus Christ – not the night sky.

With best wishes,

Ian