abbotsford.org.uk

Update to Chocolate Teapots

At the beginning of the week there is no way you know how the service will shape up the following weekend. Sometimes you go off on a completely different tangent (which saves you going round in circles all the time) but also sometimes you get a completely different insight. In fact usually you get a completely different insight.

In the middle of the Season of Creatio you can run out of language about the earth until you get to Psalm 19 which is where we are this week. Here's the scripture introduction for the service:

We’ve been moving through the season of creation over the last few weeks… focusing on different aspects of our cosmos… It can get a wee bit predictable I suppose because we have a very limited language when it comes to ecology… mainly because it is a new thing for us… we haven’t fully developed… or indeed understood what we mean when we talk about caring for the planet… and the responsibility and cost that involves...

Well the secular world hasn’t yet… People of faith have had a language to talk about the world since day one… We’ve been giving the cosmos meaning from before time was invented… investing it with promise… seeing in it resurrection… finding a relationship and respect that comes from believing in a God who loves it all… and created it all from love…

Psalm 19… which is our focus passage… is case in point… beginning with the great and famous phrase… the heavens are telling the glory of God… Big statement about what we believe… Belief doesn’t mean we give a nod to something… belief means we stake our very lives on it… which is the only right way to do ecology…

So let’s sink into the splendour of this poet who wrote 2,500 years ago... and whose words still have room in them for mystery and wonder and… dare we proclaim it… still have room for belief… the same belief that asks us to stake our very lives on what we say…

Frittata Church

Move over 'mixed economy'. Say good-bye to 'fresh expressions'. Welcome 'Frittata Church'.

Italian omlettes have a lot to teach us about doing church: you can't make one without breaking eggs, it's got all sorts of ingredients, it's known as a crustless quiche so there is no sharp edge that defines it clearly, it's made in a frying pan and then the grill: frying pan to fire...

We had a discussion about offering different streams of church culture to the community at a meeting tonight. One of the things that came up was the fear that we become so diverse with out mixed economies that we loose coherence. It's a good point. So a frittata is a complex mixture of different blobs of church, wee spots rather than highways, that contain some of the flavour of the faith. Maybe mixed economy (many different streams) don't work but lots of different moments and opportunities: social and discussion based, sporting and entertainment, worship and alternative offer a more chaotic but community based model. How could that work?

Church can't die. It just can't. But I'm stressed that the church locally is too easily and without putting on any sort of breaks, becoming unviable. But people of faith believe in the ability for transformation, for hope, we really believe in the future and that the church is an agent of change.

Perhaps we can take opportunity to strip ourselves down to the bare essentials and work out what we are about and, while leaving Sundau mornng as it is, build something new on those basics. An interesting way into this would be to sum up the faith in 10 words. What sentence would you construct? Possibly these could be the starting blobs for a frittata church...

Chocolate Teapots (September 20th 2009)

Psalm 19:1-6

It is Sky Sunday this week if you are following the Season of Creation, or our version of the Season of Creation. I've never before had 'sky' as a theme for anything. Psalm 19 is good with the heavens tellng the glory of God (or is that Hyden?) but then slips into stuff about the law, however the Creation Season lectionary doesn't go that far.

So what can we say? Just provide praise? Or something aou recognising te vastness. In Psalmic days the sky was heaven. That close. God was really only a footstep away. But we know heaven isn't 'up there' in any georgaphical sense. And we know God doesn't live 'just beyond the clouds'.

Perhaps rather than see the sky as a place where God lives, it is more about hints of God. God is more illusive, more mysterious than having a house in the sky. God is atmosphere, God is seasons, God is thunder and rainbows, God is space, hecrates of it. God is blue and God is fragile. I know these are all analogies and God isn't just an analogy. But in what way does the great space above us unfold God in us?

Do you know any sky hymns, sky symbols, sky music (other than stuff by Herbie Flowers but you'll need to be a Sky fan, and I was in my younger days, to get that one)

The Study

Sit back. Something remarkable has happened.

It took a day. That's all. And a decade worth of determination.

My study is tidy. And I mean TIDY. Like, I've got a carpet, a desk and room to move around in; there is no wee path from the door to my desk, books are on the shelves, folders are folded away, one recycle bin is filled with paper, the other  with rubbish and, you know, it feels like there is an entire extra room in the house rather than a wee guddle filled cubby hole.

And the point of letting you know all this?

There was only one thing, just one thing that I found unexpectedly. Despite being in a 'guddle', the room was organised (now I can't find a thing). There was no pile or drawer or shelf I cleared where I found something and said, "Oh, is that where that went." except one CD. So tidyness is not necessarily next to godliness. I don't think God is at all tidy. Love isn't tidy. Fjords aren't tidy. Eco systems aren't tidy. Tidy is lifeless. It's just a matter of understanding.

But it is nice to have it all put away... and create new opportunity to watch the slow beauty of my room sprawl out all over the place once more. Ah, the inevitable pull back to God!

A little lower, a little higher

This more or less done but is still a bit awkward so any hep would be appreciated. It is the contemporary reading for Sunday taken from the question posed by Psalm 8: what are human beings.

What makes us human? That’s the question philosophers and theologians and sociologists have tangled with for millennia. The Poet says: what makes us human is that we are just a little lower than the angels. This contemporary reading uses symbols of bread and water and light and music from the Psalm itself to confess that humanity can act more like gods when you consider some of the global injustices there are, yet we are called to live more sacramentally with the earth, a little lower than the angels.

	A	What are humans that you are mindful of them
	B	Humanity that you care for them
	A	You have made them a little lower than the angels
	B	And crowned them with glory and honour
	A	Lower than the angels
	B	But higher than greed
	A	Lower than the angels
	B	But higher than the covetousness that causes hunger
	A	Lower than the angels
	B	But higher than the vanity of wealth and infamy
	A	Lower than the angels
	B	But higher than the objection to break bread with others We are higher than these things and in sacrament, we break bread with the hungry and do this in remembrance of Jesus.
	Music	While music is played/sung, the bread is broken again and again and left on the table.
	A	What are humans that you are mindful of them
	B	You have made them a little lower than God
	A	But higher than lust
	B	Lower than God
	A	But higher than the fondness for low prices and unfair trade
	B	Lower than God
	A	But higher than the politics that famish the land of water and life
	B	Lower than God
	A	But higher than the reluctance to pour water for others We are higher than these things and in sacrament, we pour water and we bless the world with the grace of God.
	Music	While music is played/sung, the water is poured drop by drop and left in the bowl on the table.
	B	What are humans that you are mindful of them
	A	You have made them a little lower than the heavenly beings
	B	But higher than self-centredness
	A	Lower than the heavenly beings
	B	But higher than the pride that has us living for self
	A	Lower than the heavenly beings
	B	But higher than living unaware of justice
	A	Lower than the heavenly beings
	B	But higher than the frugality of truth We are higher than these things and, in sacrament, we light a light and set it free for the darkness can never put out
	Music	While music is played/sung, the floating candles are lit and set on the water.

Between the Lines of Psalm 8

From Psalm 8, a Creation Time reading for Sunday.

Hold back on being god’s O people,
hold back:
it is a bigger role than you can manage.
Hold back,
bless the world
with words of grace
and acts of humanity,
of fearlessly living
and living fearlessly,
never in fear of something
but in fear for the other.
Destruction is not the way.
Encouragement of the lesser
and holding back of the powerful,
this is the way of godly living,
but do not live as god’s,
for those who can only see this much
it will only consume you.

The Sermon

If you never heard another sermon in your life, would it change anything?

What would you prefer to do instead?

Do you feel more righteous having listened to a sermon rather than do anything about it?

Do spiders sing?

I've no idea. I'm more concerned that they can move at all and particularly this one that spins a web between its front legs and traps people underneath it. Or perhaps that's just insects but I'm sure if it really wanted to...

Anyway, at the end of September (which is rather closer than I thought) we're having a wee songs of praise based round creation/environment. It is with a bit of a difference I think and I'm looking for a top ten list of people's creation hymns.

So anyone like to start us off? A wee explanation would be good too, or a story of where you heard it that you remember, or a favourite line etc.

I'm not saying we will definitely sing them all, but there's a good chance we might, perhaps, maybe. And if there is a song about spiders singing, indeed a hymn at all that mentions spiders then we'll close our eyes and sing it very quickly.

By the way the images comes from a new species of jumping spider found in the Lost World volcano in New Guinea and is from the BBC news website.

Chocolate Teapots (September 13th 2009)

Psalm 8

Working through Season of Creation at the moment so not fully on Revised Common Lectionary. Along with this we're (not just the royal 'we' whcih is fabulous) writing our own Sunday School material to fit the season which might work well too. Gets into full swing this Sunday coming.

Anyway, what can we say about ourselves through Psalm 8: a little less than angels. Just a little? When you look at the stars then we aren't exactly masters of the universe (perhaps we are. Kind of lonely). But then size isn't important. Even a blue whale isn't significant, and we get very caught up and impressed by yet a bigger number or size of something. They've just discovered, for the first time a planet in another galaxy. It's 4 times the size of Saturn. That fascinates me. The size! And if there are 4 billion galaxies...

Anyway, size isn't important. Possibly depth is: how deep is our humanity? Possibly breadth is: how inclusive are we with strangers and foreigners? Possibly grace is: how generous are we to the planet? Possibly intent is: how just are we in our lifestyles and community and sharing of this world? That sets us apart in this universe, but don't worry, size isn't important. But if the depth of our humanity is significant then that's a bigger problem than size.

Hymns, images, music, thoughts...

Genesis One

This is completely based on The Message paraphrase of Genesis 1. This is a paraphrase of that paraphrase, shortening the passage somewhat.

First: God created. Earth was a soup of nothingness, emptiness, vastness. But God’s Spirit brooded like a mother-dove in labour ready to respond to the creator’s word.

"Light!" said the voice
And light appeared.
It was good
God named the light Day,
and the dark Night.
   Evening, morning
   Day One.

"Sky!” said the voice
and the water separated with sky above
The sky was named the Heavens;
It was good
   Evening, morning
   Day Two.

"Water, Separate!” said the voice
and the water gathered into one place
and Land appeared   

“Growth” said the voice"
and Earth bore seed-bearing plants,
And fruit-bearing trees
It was good
   Evening, morning
   Day Three.

“Sun, Moon” said the voice
Separate Day from Night.
Mark seasons years,
And there it was.
It was good.
   Evening, morning
   Day Four.

“Swarm” said the voice
And so the water
and the air
were filled with life.
It was good
   Evening, morning
   Day Five.

"Prosper” said the voice
And there it was:
wild animals of every genus,
Cattle of all kinds, every sort of reptile and insect.

"Our Image” said the voice
God created human beings;
Reflecting God's nature.
male and female.
Fill Earth! Take charge!
Be responsible
for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth."
everything that moves and breathes,
it was good, very good!
   Evening, morning
   Day Six.

“Finish!” said the voice
On the seventh day
God rested and blessed the seventh day.
made it a Holy Day

And from here on in
from now on
is the story of how it all started