abbotsford.org.uk

An Act of Confession

A contemporary thing which is an act of confession for tomorrow;

The communion table has six strips of white communion cloth laid across it. After each stanza, some music is played: When I needed a neighbour, which is a time to reflect and confess and renew ourselves. During each stanza one of the communion cloths is wrapped round the appropriate object representing what we want to confess.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength and you’re your neighbour as yourself.

Let us wrap up those times we have not loved our neighbour. We use the communion cloths from last week for they speak about sacrifice and grace, about forgiveness and hope, about renewal and a transformed future. The cloths themselves are a symbol of confession transformed as we confess our neighbourliness.

(Hold up loaf of bread and then wrap)
Let us wrap up those times we do not love our neighbour
When we do not break bread with the hungry

(Hold up goblet of wine and then wrap)
Let us wrap up those times we do not love our neighbour
When we do not share the cup of suffering with those who suffer

(Scoop up pile of earth and let fall through fingers and then wrap)
Let us wrap up those times we do not love our neighbour
When we imagine we are separate from creation and that is does not need sharing

(Hold up candle and blow out, then wrap)
Let us wrap up those times we do not love our neighbour
When we do not notice the stranger and offer a place of welcome

(Tear pieces of paper in the air, let fall, and then wrap)
Let us wrap up those times we do not love our neighbour
When we find division in our diversity rather than unity

(Scoop up nothing and let it go, then wrap)
Let us wrap up those times we do not love our neighbour
When we hold silence when we ought to speak out

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength and you’re your neighbour as yourself.

Hear our confession

The great commandment

Gathering words for Sunday

it starts as the smallest flicker
an imagining inside you
a hint that pulls towards justice
and like a heartbeat it never goes away

and is grasps you
your whole soul
heaving with the longing
the deep intent for justice and life

and then the thought
the working out
the decision to choose
the mind wrestling with the longing

which leads to the movement
the action that turns longing into an event
that pushes you out with strength
and makes God into a verb

and all this is for neighbour
neighbour
which is the other word for God

come now all God’s People
to love with heart and soul, mind and strength
and neighbour as self
and set God loose in the world

Communion without the formality

Sunday last we had all-age communion. As always it gets a mixed reaction between what people have grown up with and what other's haven't. I find it always focuses on what we are comfortable with. Theology doesn't become part of the discussion when people react to it negatively. The reaction comes over as more about how it looks rather than what it is. But people have been brought up with a particular style which has often been set against other traditions of eucharist which means our particular variety has been engrained as the right way to do it and the other traditions... well that's just not the way we do it. (and none of them are anything like the way Jesus did it!)

However others really liked it, they connected with the all-age elements, being a whole family, and enjoyed the chance to rediscover what communion can be about. What seemed to go down particularly well according to feedback was the institution, the story telling leading up to the breaking of bread where the song was sung in pieces. O, and the communion samba. That was good too. It makes you think.

Carbon Ink Print

Here's another wee way of reducing carbon footprints: Eco Font. It is a font that is made up of lots of holes so your printer uses less ink but you don't notice the quality but you notice your ink cartridges keep longer. It's just won an award. So if you go to Eco Font then you can download for Mac as well as PC and know that the holes are wholesome.

Think Tank

Emerging Church is the catch word of the theological day. It's about faith communities rediscovering a new intent to survive when the mainline, established church fades away. It's about renewing the sacred within community through lifestyles that catch the culture of the time and discover God doing fine and dandy in amongst all the things the church traditional isn't. It's about using culture and the arts and questions and reality and politics to touch things holy in the world.

We're on the bandwagon too. We're beginning to explore this, or will be next week. It's an all-comers invitation to pull together stories of intent and dreams of faith, to use new words and invent new traditions, to break bread from a different standpoint: this time with the seekers and the people on the street who won't be at the table in any traditional sense and claim for them, the Good News that has passed by, or stood still in our traditions since we caged it in formality.

Emerging church isn't for everyone. Church enables us to seek God in different ways except too many now find the church doesn't help them seek the holy at all. God is set loose and on the streets and people are running to try and catch the spirit of life. That's where we find emerging church.

Monday 2nd and Wed 18th at 7pm we'll begin the journey that will take us across a whole year to explore, pilot, challenge, question, plan, invite, worship, break bread and then see where we find ourselves. We're not touching Sunday morning. This will sit alongside, inform, be informed by, dance with, fall out and make up with church as we've always known it but it is a work of mission and invitation to seek out ways and means and partners to explore faith and mystery, meaning and culture and what God could be among us and between us and those we haven't yet met.

We have a separate blog for this purpose which has just gone on line. there we can comment, question, wonder, talk as well as look up some resources that will inform us further and question us more.

The Wave

The Wave is Scotland's biggest ever demonstration in support of action on climate change. Glasgow 5th December 2009. The only other one is in London on the same day. Reduce your carbon footprint and come to Glasgow's (only if you live near).

I'm going. Anyone want to come along?

Chocolate Teapots (November 1st 2009)

Mark 12:28-34

It's in the timing. Jesus hardly draws breath between 'Love the lord your God with all you've got' and 'and love your neighbour with all you've got'. Well, he actually says 'as much as yourself' which, in my opinion, mounts to the same thing. If you could speak punctuation, Jesus wouldn't have any full-stops between these two sayings but just run them together.

We say 'Man's chief aim is to glorify God' and God says: "Go and never bother about that, just love your neighbour.' The second leads to the first but the first doesn't always lead to the second. It's massive: the whole gospel is in this one bit. Throw out the rest. Go on! I dare you (I dare myself) and just get to grips with this. Everything else, as Jesus says, is just commentary. We turn it into racism, prejudice, theology, rules, dogma, pro-this and anti-that. Jesus just needs us to let go everything else and get down to this bit of gospel. Love God/neighbour. Bin the rest.

But how do I love the assylum seeker? The same way you love yourself! How do I love the Protestant, the Catholic, the gay minister, the racist politician? The same way you love yourself! How do I love... well you fill in the blanks because you know the answer: the same way you love yourself! Get that sorted and the rest really doesn't matter much. Our books of doctrine and theology and regulations would be a lot thinner if we just did what Jesus says here. How did we let them get to big? Let's all go and rip out some pages right now!

Communion

A few requests for this. This was the institution for our all-age communion today. You'll need to pick a Sanctus to sing through it at the appropriate times and then incorporate it in the Thanksgiving prayer.

Once God wrote a song and when the world was made, the Spirit sang it in celebration and as she sang world’s were made and life was brought together and humans began walking the earth and she passed the song to them to sing. But very soon things began to go wrong and eventually the song fell silent with no one wanting to sing it. It was a beautiful song, a sad song, a happy song, but it’s music was never heard, so it remained silent for a long, long time.

Every so often someone would find a verse and sing it, Holy, holy, holy God of power and might but people didn’t want to hear that kind of song because it called them back to God and challenged the way they lived and so they threw out the singers, these prophets, and the song died away and fell silent again for a long time.

One day a man who lived in the desert found the song and began to sing it. He was a baptizer and would sing the song loudly and coarsely calling people back to God: Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Some people listened this time and joined in the song. (2^nd) Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna in the highest. But many more decided not to sing it and turned away.

Then there came a man who picked up the song and sang it his whole life. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. He was a gentle but strong man, he was a healer and rebel, and when he found folk who had no friends he ask if they’d like to be his. Hosanna, hosanna. When he found people who were ill he’d go over to them and touch them and help them (1^st) hosanna in the highest. When they were hungry he’d feed them, when they were sad he’d love them, when they had done wrong he’d forgive them (2^nd) Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna in the highest.

Then came the time when he shared his last meal with his friends, the special 12. The song that was sometimes happy, was tonight sad because he took a loaf of bread and told them it was a picture of him, and he broke it and let all the crumbs fall and said: this is what is going to happen to me, but never forget me. Holy, holy, holy. and he took a cup of wine and said this is a picture of me, I am going to die, and this wine is like my blood. When you drink together never forget me, God of power and might.

His friends all wondered what he meant and they were sad because they heard the song and it was sad. They knew a terrible thing was going to happen and as they left the meal the song lingered in the air sad and lonely. That night their friend was taken by leaders and was punished and killed, but the song clung on and as the friends wondered what to do now they listened and heard the song change from sad to happy as if there was another bit of the story to tell, as if the sad ending wasn’t the end. Holy, holy, holy and it got stronger and stronger God of power and might. And only three days later, when the friends went to where their friend was buried the tomb was empty. Heaven and earth are full of your glory. The song was practically laughing now because right there in the place was their friend Hosanna, hosanna, and he was laughing because he was alive again (1^st) hosanna in the highest and the friends shouted: Jesus you are alive! And Jesus said: Yes, and I’ll never ever leave you again. Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna in the highest And the song hasn’t stopped being sung since.

Communion Blessing

A wee all-age communion on Sunday. Here's the blessing, perhaps...

May the bread always break open with heaven for us,
   And the hands that break it be hands that embrace us.
May the table always be a place of justice for us,
   And the hands that set it be hands that welcome us.
May the community always overflow with love for us,
   And the hands that hold it be hands that hold us.
May creation call our name sand celebrate our worth,
   And the hands that created it, embrace us within it.

 

Question Time

Just watched the BBC Question Time where Nick Griffin from the British National Party appeared for the first time. It was all about him. Every question was aimed at him and to be honest, he came across as dithering, without substance, silly, racist (of course) and certainly didn't do the BNP any favours whatsoever. I think his party will be mightily embarrassed.

There were feel good moments when people were so clearly anti-racist. I think that's true.

My thought was however, is this caricature we had tonight the sort of way the church is seen when it still argues in the way it has about ordaining gay people?