abbotsford.org.uk

Chocolate Teapots (6th June 2010)

Sometimes it seems to find God's justice you just have to get out of the place you'd think you'd find it and look for it in the last place you'd expect to find it and if come right up and smacks you on the face.

Jezebel is a (bad) queen who has married a (no bad) king and corrupted him. The good kind was of course a Hebrew and the bad queen was of course a foreigner. She brought Baal with her and made the good king set up shrines to Baal. Elijah a (good) prophet does some righteous ranting and raving and before he get's his head cut off God sends him out to the desert. Big drought. So God moves him on to Sidon. Now, Sidon was the very home of (bad) queen Jezebel and there Elijah finds a (good) widow who probably worships the (bad) god Baal but the (good) God Yahweh performs the biblical irony thing with sheer poetry and all sorts of things begin to happen because once more those who are on the edge become the centre of God's grace and God's vision..

Now read the passage: 1 Kings 17:8-16

And so it becomes a series of really important events where history is made by the no-important folk. Instead of the great power politics and lifestyles of the beautiful people making headlines here, it is yet again the little ones who begin a ball rolling as all the best stories in history do. Everyone i on the cusp of death here: Elijah coming out of the desert hungry, the woman with enough flour and oil for one more loaf of bread before they prepare to die, and indeed the death of her son. So much aiming towards death and when you are so low, emptied of the world, then the new world of hope and God's intent can fill you up. There is nothing else. 

Sometimes when we are too full of stuff and too comfortable to be able to hope (because we don't need to), we are aiming towards death. This story on the other hand, when we get rid of the snash of stuff offers an insight into the life-giving, genesis-making abilities of hope.

Trinity Gathering

A first scratch at a call to worship for Sunday.

Turn your face towards us, O God
In love, love us
with justice, shape us
with fire, renew us

Turn your face towards us, O God
With longing, call us
With redemption, forgive us
With grace, renew us

Turn your face towards us, O God
With anger, challenge us
With compassion, hold us
With freedom, renew us

Turn your face towards us, O God
each one acknowledging a different need in us
that responds and changes
with each moment of our lives

Turn your face towards us, O God
As Creator, heal us
As Saviour, suffer with us
As Spirit, renew us

Chocolate Teapots (30th May 2010)

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

I've been debating what passage to use this Sunday. The Psalm is glorious but this is even more so. I love this piece of the bible where Madame Wisdom is found at the crossroads of some city interchange, leaning against a green flyposted lamppost watching a disinterested and conceited city go by.

I imagine her in an old shabby fur coat that has seen better days with a cigarette in one of these holders aka Cruella DeVille and the smell of drink on her breath. Her make-up is overdone, her lipstick scarlet but not very accurately aimed. She's the spitting image of Grizabella the Glamour Cat from AA Milne's Practical Cats: had her day and now a bit battered and unloved.

Why this image? Who knows, but perhaps it's what the world does to the life-wise, the love-wise and the faith-wise. Wisdom is never in vogue. It stands at the street corners in the shadows and watches as the world descends into a thoughtless, selfish oblivion and with every descent, she takes a knock. But battered and bruised she still calls out, muttering the words: 'watch yourself you fools', 'you've lost the head', or as Eugene Peterson has her say 'Listen up you idiots, you blockheads- shape up!'

This is the hard lesson of wisdom: life is easier not to hear her call to us with the rusty throat that is smoke scarred. I don't know if you can do Extreme Make-over with Madame and I tend to think what we would get  would be unrecognisable. But still in that dull beauty she is full of passion, has a spiritual glamour, a deep connection with grace and an allure that can still bloom with intense truth and wonder.

Lady Wisdom. There is no other choice.

New Life

On the cusp of Pentecost we hear of scientists creating artificial life. What are you theological, ethical, political thoughts about that.

It's totally massive. Imagine what being able to create artificial life could result in. What does it mean?

Who is God? And didn't we always know that already?

Come And Be (What?)

(Drum roll growing ever louder beginning halfway through the last line of each stanza finishing with a double beat as the word ‘Spirit’ is said at the start of the next stanza. The idea is to build up the energy in each verse. At the end there are a series of double drum beats as people pass the peace or pass something to each other. IDEAS WILL BE GREATLY APPRECIATED)

Spirit
with water and with fire
come and be the renewal for our souls

Spirit
with word and with song
come and be the transformation in our worship

Spirit
with passion and with intent
come and be the stirrer in our faith

Spirit
with anger and with impatience
come and be the kindling in our justice

Spirit
with irritation and with outrage
come and be the energizing of our community

Spirit
with promise and with grace
come and be the enlivening of our church

Spirit
with love and with hope
come and be
among us

(Pass something - WHAT - between folk)

Build up to Pentecost

Here is a gathering rite for Sunday. People carry lit candles down aisle to the communion table where there is a bowl of flammable jell. The candles light the jell.

It started with one
Just one
a single person
who broke open a tomb
and gasped with life again
inhaled justice again
infused the longing for transformation again

But one became two
and two became four
and four became a group
and a group became a crowd
and the light spread
and gathered
and lit up injustice
and brought to notice oppression
and called out of the shadows inequalities and prejudice
and shone across untruth and deceit

the light grew
the light became a spark
the light became a flame
the light became…

…a fire
that spread through the disciples and followers
questioners and seekers
and fire
is spirit
burning with indignation
at what is wrong
and burning with hope
for what can be transformed

Gather round the fire
the spirit
and breathe the life in her
gasp with the justice in her
be infused with the longing of God for the world

here is the energy of heaven
and we celebrate it

Which Spirit?

Which spirit in Thailand today is the one born of heaven?
The one who provokes freedom?
The one who provides peace?
The one who generates anger at injustice?
The one who remains in the protester camp?
The one who brings silence back?
The one who makes for change?
The one who works for a higher authority?
The one who restores order once more?

Which spirit is the one born of heaven?
The same one celebrated in our churches?
The same one celebrated in our churches!

From the religious to the necessary

Talking of Pentecost our community arts project is looking for a microwave oven (obviously you need to be local for this). There is a link there between the two but if you have an old on that still works then you've just found it a new home. Just let me know if you do...

Chocolate Teapots (May 23rd 2010)

Acts 2:1-21

When those who trust love no longer wait for someone else to fix the problem of the church,

when faith is too important to hand it over to leaders to sort out,

when justice leaves behind those who think she is but a subset of the church's work rather than the whole thing,

when followers give up on those who procrastinate about inclusion,

when diversity is celebrated at table by people who no longer need to hide who they fully are,

when bread is broken by non-ordained women, children and men who know heaven won't implode when they do so,

when the doctrine makers use marker pens to write 'sorry' over half their words,

when creeds are written in questions rather than in statements,

when dandelions become the plant of choice breaking out just where the ground has been cleansed against it,

then it is Pentecost.

And I'm sure such a rich diversity of people as we have on this blog, could add a whole host of other alternative Pentecost images. On you go...

Chocolate Teapots (May 23rd 2010)

Acts 2:1-21

When those who trust love no longer wait for someone else to fix the problem of the church,

when faith is too important to hand it over to leaders to sort out,

when justice leaves behind those who think she is but a subset of the church's work rather than the whole thing,

when followers give up on those who procrastinate about inclusion,

when diversity is celebrated at table by people who no longer need to hide who they fully are,

when bread is broken by non-ordained women, children and men who know heaven won't implode when they do so,

when the doctrine makers use marker pens to write 'sorry' over half their words,

when creeds are written in questions rather than in statements,

when dandelions become the plant of choice breaking out just where the ground has been cleansed against it,

then it is Pentecost.

And I'm sure such a rich diversity of people as we have on this blog, could add a whole host of other alternative Pentecost images. On you go...