abbotsford.org.uk

Eco month

It's eco month in Abbotsford during October. Here's the first draft of the call to worship as a wee step for a hint.

A farmer went out to sow
and sowed a field of maize,
and as the farmer scattered the seed
it bounced as it landed on the earth.
Some fell on the pathways where the soil was packed hard
from the long walk of refugees,
some whose land was now dry and infertile,
others whose land was now owned by large industrialist for mono cropping.

Some fell on rocky ground where there was little soil.
Ancient forests had been removed for ranch farming
and while the corn grew for a year or so, soon the soil was exhausted
and the land became a desert, and no crops could grow.

Some fell among thorn bushes that choked the plants,
because there no one was there to farm the land.
Conflict or subsidy had left this land fallow
letting those in other countries export their crops to the fallow lands
while they had little enough for themselves.

But some seed fell in good soil,
and the plants produced corn,
some a hundred grains, others sixty, and others thirty
and this was used to produce ethanol for cars
and high quality feed for cattle and chickens.

And the world sowed the seed
but was listening to the wrong kind of profit.

Economic Armageddon

I haven't a clue what's really happening in the stock market at the moment. I find it exhilerating and confusing and totally stressful. I am quite sure most of the problems could be solved if everyont just turned off their TVs and radios and never opened a newspaper. No one would know, loose confidence and just get on with life. Is that not what we're meant to do to solve the problem.

This must surely be the case when a whole country (Iceland) could be wiped out. It's incredible. The BBC even have a daily moment by moment financial crisis timetable. I'm not talking about monthly or even daily headlines but hourly headlines. It must be bad.

I go here to try and get a grasp of it each morning and then discover it's all changed by lunchtime. So in order to save the entire global economy and prevent biblical soothesayers proclaim Revelation literally true here's this weeks quiz.

If you had a pound (and it's a big if, I know) what would you rather do with it rather than put it into the stock market? Or, in other words, where would you hide it (which I know is a bit of a pointless exercise since we'd all be round digging it up)?Jesus has a story where two folk invested it and got more back (remember those days) and one dug a hole and hid it. Funny how something come back to haunt you, even Jesus. Context is clearly everything.

Safely gathered in...?

And so Harvest is completed and everyone seemed very happy this morning. lots of great comments, unexpected joy broke out in places least expected, some folk who never say anything said good things. And we filled the time and then some quite the thing. I looked at my watch at 12 noon and thought, 'how did we get here so quickly'.

I thought the band was excellent this morning. Good songs to sing and everyone joined in quite the thing.

The words from Job really were straight from Job (chapter 38) without any poetic licence. Aren't they just fantastic. One of my top five favourite passages in the Bible. Here they are again:

Were you there when I made the world?
Who decided how large it should be?
Who laid the cornerstone of the world?
In the dawn of that day the stars sang together
Who closed the gates to hold back the sea?
Have you ever ordered the dawn to seize the day
Who dug a channel for the pouring rain?
Who is the mother of ice and frost?
Who is wise enough to count the clouds and tilt them over and pour out the rain?

A good balance of actions in the statement of faith and songs along with visuals (Do you like my new projector. It's the size of your hand and not much more).

Even the Gap liked the service and indeed sang some of the songs.

It's a songs of praise next week so not quite back to normal and then its the rest of eco-month. So chocolate Teapots will appear next week sometime. For the moment we can just relish the harvest and know it isn't safely gathered in until justice is established. So that won't be soon then.

The blessing from today:

May we find heaven in the wildness of creation;
may we seek justice in bread for the world;
may we know resurrection in the sunsets of autumn;
and may we find God in the sharing of it all.