abbotsford.org.uk

Perspective

Jonathan Freedland has an interesting article in the Guardian today that poses the idea that if we reported on the US the way we report on Africa then over the last decade we'd know that there were fiercely disputed elections, that there was a major terrorist attack and there was a shocking hurricane. Other than that we wouldn't know much about culture, ideas, people, relationships etc.

The writer goes on to say that he was judging broadcast awards from developing countries and each film was almost unwatchable because it was unbearable . The interesting point he makes is that we perceive people in developing countries as people to whom life happens. The implication of that, of course, is that in the West we perceive ourselves as very much in control of our lives judging by all the on-going daily routine stories about ourselves and neighbours compared with only the big disasters from the developing world. We never get a full story from Africa but just a once-off. No follow through. No real interest.

Perhaps more news about daily events from developing countries that illustrate how we are all connected or how the stories of slavery in Africa for example are as much stories about us because what we want to buy and who produces it is linked more than we would like would bring a better more honest perspective on who we are and what we are like.

Just a thought.

Chocolate Teapots (off lectionary)

We are off sinning during the summer and going off lectionary. We've chosen to pick out the big stories, some of which we know and some which we don't often hear about and explore one each week. We're starting with Noah and then Moses in bull-rushes and then Samson and David and Goliath and then Daniel in the furnace and then Jonah. We move to the new testament doing stilling of storms, and woman at the well. That should take us up to the end of August and we'll be back on lectionary then.

So, in case anyone would like to journey with us or would like to tamper with these stories later, Chocolate Teapots will still be around, only the heresies will concern non-lectionary passages.

Then, let's begin with Noah, that great environmental gospel. Fine we can go for the sinning angle, corrupt lives, only one righteous person. Or we can reflect on it as God's second environmental manifesto. Here the covenant is  not with eight solitary human beings but with the earth. That's significant. Here the Earth is not a play thing, a piece of land that humans have ownership of, but a living organism. Everything is given it's unique place. 

Rainbows are conspiratorial because they remind us of our place, which is not at the top but alongside all of life and as the earth breaths again after flood, so can all living things. There is a balance here. That word again: balance. It suggests equality but also fragility. It is deeply ingrained in the whole planet: balance. Do we have a theology of balance? Better write one for next week. Noah is the oldest story in the world and it is an eco-story. Doesn't that tells us something?

Solas

Solas has been great. We've had people there all through the event and I was there yesterday. I'm even more scared of the church than I was because it seems very, very small. I think I knew every second or third person there. Surely it's not that bad... yet! Or is a festival that speaks into social justice, that offers broad progressive thinking as much as any other thinking just not as popular to the mainline church?

It was real gospel stuff going on, tangling with nuclear power and art, alternative worship streams and controversial bishops all of which have heaps of love to offer to the people on the edge of the church and yesterday again I noticed how many of them there were.

Music was broad too, real music that you didn't need to clap your hands to but came from stories and experiences of people as much as the story and experience of the world. It's great when the church gets to be the church proper without the sunday morning snash but the real stuff of what we are called to be involved in, from ecology to Palestine, from social justice to art and faith. 

Certainly it inspired enough of us to find ourselves sitting at a table last night in North Star, one of the venues, with a paper table cloth that we covered in pen drawings and mind maps with ideas for our own congregation to bring passion and enthusiasm again into it's life. So when you can get inspired and feel the need to think creatively again not in terms of an end product but in terms of a process of being, then you've found where the life is. Life brings life and enthusiasm brings enthusiasm, and Solas provided enough of that for us to get on the journey again.

Get next years tickets now.

Solas

Solas has been great. We've had people there all through the event and I was there yesterday. I'm even more scared of the church than I was because it seems very, very small. I think I knew every second or third person there. Surely it's not that bad... yet! Or is a festival that speaks into social justice, that offers broad progressive thinking as much as any other thinking just not as popular to the mainline church?

It was real gospel stuff going on, tangling with nuclear power and art, alternative worship streams and controversial bishops all of which have heaps of love to offer to the people on the edge of the church and yesterday again I noticed how many of them there were.

Music was broad too, real music that you didn't need to clap your hands to but came from stories and experiences of people as much as the story and experience of the world. It's great when the church gets to be the church proper without the sunday morning snash but the real stuff of what we are called to be involved in, from ecology to Palestine, from social justice to art and faith. 

Certainly it inspired enough of us to find ourselves sitting at a table last night in North Star, one of the venues, with a paper table cloth that we covered in pen drawings and mind maps with ideas for our own congregation to bring passion and enthusiasm again into it's life. So when you can get inspired and feel the need to think creatively again not in terms of an end product but in terms of a process of being, then you've found where the life is. Life brings life and enthusiasm brings enthusiasm, and Solas provided enough of that for us to get on the journey again.

Get next years tickets now.

Mantle

 

Three readers needed for this and a piece of black cloth to be used as Elijah's mantle. Also a table and some chalk. The readers hold the mantle, speak and then pass it on to the next person. Following this, everyone is invited to draw their hand-print on the mantle as a symbol of picking the mantle up in the tradition of the prophets and proclaim God's justice in the world. The examples used can be changed to suit culture, context and community.

The voice of God still goes out to all the world.
Hear the word of the prophet for the gulf of Mexico:

We are in danger when we speak of financial profit
from our oil industries
and speak in billions of pounds
with numbers we cannot conceive
and imagine this is good,
this is prosperity.
This profit to the shareholder
is a debt to the environment,
and the Gulf is paying heavily.
That is the shape of our debt.
The prophets of God still speak today;
we bear the mantle to speak truth to power.
Hear the word of God.

(Pass the mantle on to the next person)

The voice of God still goes out to all the world.
Hear the word of the prophet for asylum displacees:

We are in danger when we speak of home without welcome,
for the children of God are many hued.
It is not true only we
have the way the truth and the life.
Without welcome to the stranger
we have no gospel worth proclaiming,
for our neighbour remains unloved.
This is the shape of our welcome.
The prophets of God still speak today;
we bear the mantle to speak truth to power.
Hear the word of God.

(Pass the mantle on to the next person)

The voice of God still goes out to all the world.
Hear the word of the prophet concerning justice:

We are in danger when we do not see ourselves among the hungry:
those who use their lands to grow our food
while our fields remain fallow.
Our food will always taste of injustice
while trade is tipped in our favour
and our ethics are decided by bargains and taste buds
rather than our hearts and faith.
This is the shape of our justice.
The prophets of God still speak today;
we bear the mantle to speak truth to power.
Hear the word of God.

(Pass the mantle on to the next person)

The voice of God still goes out to all the world.
Hear the word of the prophet for God’s prophets today:

As people of faith may we continue to speak truth to power:
to speak justice to injustice,
speak peace to conflict,
and pick up the mantle
and let God use our voices in the world.

As a sign of that, you are invited,
only if you wish to and only if you feel comfortable,
while we sing our next hymn (Will you come and follow me)
to come to the mantle here
and with chalk
draw round your hand
as a sign and symbol
that we pick up the mantle today
and keep the tradition of speaking truth to power
of being the prophets of God
in a world who keeps spelling prophet in a different way.

This, and other liturgical/worship pieces, are published free in Mucky Paws which is a monthly mailing of various bits and bobs from worship that attempts to engage us more fulling with the gospel. You can subscribe for free by emailing here.

Called and Named

We have a Baptism this week which links nicely into the story of Elijah and Elisha. Here's the gathering rite. We pour water into the font with each of the fist six and last stanzas.

Called
to be prophets and pilgrims

Called
to be friends and companions

Called
to speak truth to power

Called
to be justice keepers and love makers

Called
to live out who we are

Called
to worship and adventure into God

Welcome to the calling place
where each of us has a place
where our names are known
and used often
by the one who gave us names of
love maker
justice keeper
grace sharer
peace makers
hope giver
truth teller

Called
and named
the body
of Christ
in the world

Solas

It's tomorrow and Saturday and Sunday.

Just in case you didn't already know.

Solas Festival

Chocolate Teapots (27th June 2010)

2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14

O to be a prophet of the real kind. None of this temple lark, with all the mode cons and a ready audience. Elijah and Elisha following on, come from the earthy authentic variety who seem to be the more David Bellamy type of person, not precious in any way, just gets in there, going where angels fear to tread, not scared of the mud and stoor and in fact quite enjoys it all.

There's something about a prophet in the raw. You don't know what is coming next. it is all a bit unpredictable. What they say seems so authentic because it isn't tied to the receiving of an income, or having the ear of a particular king. It is just as it it. WYSIWYG.

But here, Elijah is off and Elisha picks up the mantle. The great hand over. Reading the text there is a bit of Elijah wanting to be on his own and Elisha seems just a little annoying following him everywhere. And Elijah jumps on his chariot and off he goes leaving the mantle behind. This is all Elisha needs, some sign, some artifact, some security blanket that affirms for him that he is the one and with that mantle he parts the water and performs the miracles. Does that mantle really have such power?

My questions is about what have we been handed that affirms in us we are the ones of the Gospel now: a cross, a bible, bread and wine, water, light, so many things. But do any of us believe the power they contain. Or, perhaps, are any of us able to conduct through them the power already in us? Is that not what Elisha is doing? There is nothing magic in the symbols of God. But there is power in the people of God.

No silence

When Elijah find silence...

When the words are done and the noise all used up
may we be still in the silence
and know
you are God

When the questions are intense and confusion overbearing
may we find silence
and know
you are God

When the world goes mad and no one seems able to pull us free
may we grow into silence
and know
you are God

When creation seems crushed and economy gives way to love
may we protest with silence
and know
you are God

When words are sharp and conflict too easily
may we make silence
and know
you are God

When suffering is painful and we long to give in
may we clasp silence
and know
you are God

Nothing is too noising that silence cannot hold
no doubt too big that silence cannot embrace
no suffering too great that silence cannot pierce
no conflict too sharp that silence cannot defy
no word too big that silence cannot speak into
no madness too frenzied that silence cannot calm

no creation too broken that silence cannot renew

May we draw a silence
in all our living
and know
and believe
and trust
you are God

So be it

Voice: Still & Small

A gathering reflection for Sunday. Possibly remove objects from the communion table to leave a blank empty space and a word off-stage speaks the reflection. Based on the Elijah passage.

begin with a silence

to hold and handle silence
is to hold and handle all of god:

the mystery that shapes us
with no word of explanation
the grace that frees us
with no line of limit
the love that names us
with no name yet understood

the shame that convicts us
that uses no word of blame
the pain that slows us
that speaks no word of shame
the question asked by us
that has not yet been formed

only in still small utter silence
is truth heard

to hold and handle silence
is to hold and handle all of god