All Souls: Hopeful remembering

This is the address from our All Soul's Service on Sunday evening. I read the poem "A Scattering" by Christopher Reid. I can't reproduce it all here for copyright reasons, but you can read some extracts from it towards the end of this review on dovegreyreader's site (which is a lovely site and well worth reading for its own sake! )

The footage of elephants, referred to in the poem can be seen here. 
https://youtu.be/C5RiHTSXK2A


Christopher Reid’s poem – the poem that gives the title to a collection he wrote after the death of his wife – evokes images which you may be familiar with. As he says “ I expect you’ve seen the footage…”  The footage he’s referring to probably comes from one of those David Attenborough documentaries, which filmed a group of elephants through the year. At one point they came across the remains of a long-dead elephant – mostly just dry bones by this stage. They stopped and fell silent, running their trunks over the body, smelling and gently touching it. They picked up the bones and held them for a while, then dropped them down again. It was impossible to think they were doing anything other than remembering and grieving. They didn’t treat the bones of other animals that way, and it was clear that this individual, whoever he or she had been, mattered to them, and hadn’t been forgotten.

As Christopher Reid says in the poem, there’s nothing really that they could do about it. They couldn’t put the elephant back together again, they couldn’t take the bones with them, they couldn’t dig a grave or do any of the things humans might do with their dead, but it seems that they couldn’t just walk on by either. All they could do was turn the bones over and over, then put them back again, rearranged a bit by the process of grieving. It was extraordinarily moving footage – and similar scenes have been filmed by others, so this is obviously common elephant behaviour.

For Christopher Reid, still in the early stages of grieving for his wife, Lucinda, who had died from cancer, this image seemed to echo his own feelings. What could he do in the wake of her death? Nothing would bring her back. But, of course, he couldn’t just move on, leaving all that she had been to him behind. He couldn’t forget her, even if he had wanted to.

Remembering is one of the most important elements of grieving. At a funeral, we remember the person who has died. We tell their story and recall them in other ways too; through pictures, flowers in their favourite colours, music they liked. Sometimes it’s the small details which bring back their memories most vividly.

After a funeral people may find other ways of remembering too – a headstone in a graveyard, or an entry in the memorial book for example. Or we might plant a tree or make a donation to their favourite cause or run a marathon in their name.

This church, like most old churches is full of memorials. As well as the gravestones outside, inside the church there are tablets on the walls and floors to people long gone. The oldest is for  Sir William de Bryene, up by the altar, who died in 1395. Then there’s Clemence Theobold, above the vestry door, who was mother, grandmother and great grandmother to 115 children by the time she died. There’s the first Earl Camden in the Lady Chapel, a prominent politician who was closely tied up with the debate which led to the American War of Independence, and little Elizabeth Mills, whose lovely monument, in the shape of a child wrapped around in angel’s wings, stands by the Lady Chapel altar. Some of the memorials aren’t nearly as obvious though. Many things in the church have been given over the years in memory of those who died. Some of the kneelers were worked in the memory of loved ones. There are prayer books with dedications in them. Some of the pews themselves carry dedications too. We are surrounded, whether we know it or not, by a cloud of memories here.

Remembering can be comforting, but it can also be painful, especially when we’re caught by surprise.. A song, a sound, a smell can suddenly ambush and overwhelm us. Sometimes we might long to forget for a while, but life’s not like that. Just like those elephants in the poem, sometimes we might not be sure what to do with the memories we stumble across, but we can’t ignore them. They intrude on our lives, whether we like it or not. We turn them over and over, unable to put them down.
What the poem hints at, though, is that this process of remembering – whether we choose it or not – can help us gradually to shape and sort our memories, to see them in a new light, to rearrange them into new patterns, bit by bit, gently and slowly. We place our “sad thoughts in new, hopeful arrangements.”

It’s the word “hopeful” which is the key. The grief of the elephants in the poem seems futile up to that point. It just makes them feel sad all over again, raking up feelings which would be better left untouched. But the act of remembering is also an act of love. It says, “this individual matters – human or elephant.” Yes it hurts that they are not here, but our love is greater than our hurt and in the end love makes the hurt worthwhile.  In time it might even help us to find a measure of peace, acceptance and joy within the hurt,  we realise that there is a sense in which love – and the people we love – are never really lost. Their gifts are ours to keep, and they are in the safekeeping of God who heals what is broken and wipes every tear from their eyes.

The Bible reading we heard underlines that message too. What looks like an end to us may not be as final as we feared and that for all of us, living and departed, there is a future – a “new, hopeful arrangement.”

“Beloved, we are God’s children now,” says the letter of John, an early Christian leader writing to a small group of Christians in a time of persecution and danger.  “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.” Our present grief, confusion and fear, is not the whole story of our lives. God is with us in it – we are his children - he cares about us. And as he walks with us through the days and months and years he works in us, if we will let him, to heal, comfort and transform us.

So tonight we bring all our memories to God. Memories of love, memories of pain, memories we treasure, and memories we wish we could forget. Like those elephants, we simply spread them out before God, turning them over to look at them again in his presence, and pray that he will help us to place them into “new, hopeful arrangements” so that we can go forward into the future with joy.
Amen

All Souls: Hopeful remembering

This is the address from our All Soul's Service on Sunday evening. I read the poem "A Scattering" by Christopher Reid. I can't reproduce it all here for copyright reasons, but you can read some extracts from it towards the end of this review on dovegreyreader's site (which is a lovely site and well worth reading for its own sake! )

The footage of elephants, referred to in the poem can be seen here. 
https://youtu.be/C5RiHTSXK2A


Christopher Reid’s poem – the poem that gives the title to a collection he wrote after the death of his wife – evokes images which you may be familiar with. As he says “ I expect you’ve seen the footage…”  The footage he’s referring to probably comes from one of those David Attenborough documentaries, which filmed a group of elephants through the year. At one point they came across the remains of a long-dead elephant – mostly just dry bones by this stage. They stopped and fell silent, running their trunks over the body, smelling and gently touching it. They picked up the bones and held them for a while, then dropped them down again. It was impossible to think they were doing anything other than remembering and grieving. They didn’t treat the bones of other animals that way, and it was clear that this individual, whoever he or she had been, mattered to them, and hadn’t been forgotten.

As Christopher Reid says in the poem, there’s nothing really that they could do about it. They couldn’t put the elephant back together again, they couldn’t take the bones with them, they couldn’t dig a grave or do any of the things humans might do with their dead, but it seems that they couldn’t just walk on by either. All they could do was turn the bones over and over, then put them back again, rearranged a bit by the process of grieving. It was extraordinarily moving footage – and similar scenes have been filmed by others, so this is obviously common elephant behaviour.

For Christopher Reid, still in the early stages of grieving for his wife, Lucinda, who had died from cancer, this image seemed to echo his own feelings. What could he do in the wake of her death? Nothing would bring her back. But, of course, he couldn’t just move on, leaving all that she had been to him behind. He couldn’t forget her, even if he had wanted to.

Remembering is one of the most important elements of grieving. At a funeral, we remember the person who has died. We tell their story and recall them in other ways too; through pictures, flowers in their favourite colours, music they liked. Sometimes it’s the small details which bring back their memories most vividly.

After a funeral people may find other ways of remembering too – a headstone in a graveyard, or an entry in the memorial book for example. Or we might plant a tree or make a donation to their favourite cause or run a marathon in their name.

This church, like most old churches is full of memorials. As well as the gravestones outside, inside the church there are tablets on the walls and floors to people long gone. The oldest is for  Sir William de Bryene, up by the altar, who died in 1395. Then there’s Clemence Theobold, above the vestry door, who was mother, grandmother and great grandmother to 115 children by the time she died. There’s the first Earl Camden in the Lady Chapel, a prominent politician who was closely tied up with the debate which led to the American War of Independence, and little Elizabeth Mills, whose lovely monument, in the shape of a child wrapped around in angel’s wings, stands by the Lady Chapel altar. Some of the memorials aren’t nearly as obvious though. Many things in the church have been given over the years in memory of those who died. Some of the kneelers were worked in the memory of loved ones. There are prayer books with dedications in them. Some of the pews themselves carry dedications too. We are surrounded, whether we know it or not, by a cloud of memories here.

Remembering can be comforting, but it can also be painful, especially when we’re caught by surprise.. A song, a sound, a smell can suddenly ambush and overwhelm us. Sometimes we might long to forget for a while, but life’s not like that. Just like those elephants in the poem, sometimes we might not be sure what to do with the memories we stumble across, but we can’t ignore them. They intrude on our lives, whether we like it or not. We turn them over and over, unable to put them down.
What the poem hints at, though, is that this process of remembering – whether we choose it or not – can help us gradually to shape and sort our memories, to see them in a new light, to rearrange them into new patterns, bit by bit, gently and slowly. We place our “sad thoughts in new, hopeful arrangements.”

It’s the word “hopeful” which is the key. The grief of the elephants in the poem seems futile up to that point. It just makes them feel sad all over again, raking up feelings which would be better left untouched. But the act of remembering is also an act of love. It says, “this individual matters – human or elephant.” Yes it hurts that they are not here, but our love is greater than our hurt and in the end love makes the hurt worthwhile.  In time it might even help us to find a measure of peace, acceptance and joy within the hurt,  we realise that there is a sense in which love – and the people we love – are never really lost. Their gifts are ours to keep, and they are in the safekeeping of God who heals what is broken and wipes every tear from their eyes.

The Bible reading we heard underlines that message too. What looks like an end to us may not be as final as we feared and that for all of us, living and departed, there is a future – a “new, hopeful arrangement.”

“Beloved, we are God’s children now,” says the letter of John, an early Christian leader writing to a small group of Christians in a time of persecution and danger.  “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.” Our present grief, confusion and fear, is not the whole story of our lives. God is with us in it – we are his children - he cares about us. And as he walks with us through the days and months and years he works in us, if we will let him, to heal, comfort and transform us.

So tonight we bring all our memories to God. Memories of love, memories of pain, memories we treasure, and memories we wish we could forget. Like those elephants, we simply spread them out before God, turning them over to look at them again in his presence, and pray that he will help us to place them into “new, hopeful arrangements” so that we can go forward into the future with joy.
Amen

All Saints Sunday: Saintly stories

Audio version here.

Daniel 7.1-3, 15-18, Ephesians 1.11-23, Luke 6 20-31

Everyone loves a story. Well, I do, anyway. As anyone who knows me will realise I’m a sucker for a good yarn – I love listening to stories and telling them too. Somehow, stories can convey things to us that a dry set of instructions or ideas never would. They engage our imagination, take us into a world in which we can try out new emotions, or make new sense of our own lives.

It’s no surprise, then, that stories have been used extensively to pass on Christian truths. There are the stories of the Bible, of course, but it isn’t just these which Christians have treasured. The stories of the saints have also been a bedrock of faith, and these stories were told and celebrated in many different ways. There were written accounts – hagiographies, as they are known - but the stories of the saints were also told and celebrated in drama and ritual, through symbol and art and pilgrimage and local customs, and some of them are still widely celebrated today, even in our secular age.

There’s St Lucy, for example, celebrated, particularly in Sweden for some reason, on December 13^th.  Allegedly, Lucy was a young girl who was martyred in the early 4^th century for feeding Christians as they hid in the Roman catacombs. She wore a candle on her head so she would have her hands free to carry the food she brought them. That’s why the Swedish celebrations involve processions of girls wearing white robes and crowns of candles – I don’t even want to think of the health and safety aspects of that!

Or there’s St Valentine, another ancient saint who is widely remembered, in name at least. The story which links him with romance was that he was martyred for conducting the weddings of Christian couples. It wasn’t really about love, though. Married men weren’t allowed to be Roman soldiers. Christians were mostly pacifist, so this enabled them to avoid killing.  

And of course there’s St Nicholas of Myra, a fourth  century Turkish Bishop, famous for throwing money bags through the window of a man who was so poor he thought he’d have to sell his daughters into slavery. The money landed in the girls’ stockings, which were hanging to dry overnight.  Let a few centuries pass, give him a red cloak, some reindeer and a “ho, ho, ho” and we all know how we celebrate this particular saint…

The Protestant Reformation was supposed to have stamped out the celebration of the saints, but it’s hard to keep a good story down. In some shape or form many of them carried on, or were revived later. The shrine of St Edith in Kemsing, which stood in the churchyard and allegedly protected local crops from mildew is gone, but her well survived, and celebrations to mark her feast day were revived in the twentieth century.  

Some of us travelled up to St Albans last year to be part of the celebration of their local saint, a Roman soldier killed for his faith in the city – the first English martyr. His story is told today using giant puppets in a procession through the streets. It is a modern twist on the ancient practice of telling the stories of the saints, and it has become a real crowd puller.

How much historical truth do these stories contain? Maybe not much. But there were early Christians who showed, courage, generosity and faith like these and in a sense these famous stories gathered their anonymous lives into memorable forms. The more vivid the story, the more likely it was to be remembered and repeated. It may not be the case that at the spot where St Alban’s severed head came to rest a spring miraculously rose up. The story of St Edith, sitting up in her grave and punching King Canute on the nose for digging her up because he doubted her sanctity may not have happened exactly like that. But those are the hooks which make the stories stick in our minds, and that was what their tellers thought mattered. The “embroidery” helps us to remember the stories, but it’s not the main point of them.

The message the stories of the saints conveyed was that God had done extraordinary things through ordinary people, maybe in your own backyard. Death and destruction didn’t have the last word. Of course , you could hear that message in the stories of the Bible, in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, but that could seem long ago and far away. In every age, we also need to know that God is at work here and now too. Having a local saint told you that your village could be a holy place. God was at work in people who might have been your neighbours, and if he could work in their lives, he could work in yours too.

In our second reading today, St Paul talks about saints, but he’s not talking about the people we now find in these dramatic tales. The saints he refers to are simply the members of the churches to which he wrote, like the people at Ephesus who would have read this letter. The Greek word he used literally meant someone who was holy, set aside by God for a special purpose. To him though, that wasn’t just a select band of spiritual heroes; it was everyone in the church - you and me.

He commends his hearers for their love “towards all the saints” – that is, towards one another. He reminds them that they all share in the “riches of God’s glorious inheritance among the saints”. His prayer is that they’ll learn to trust that God is at work in all of them, with an “immeasurable greatness of power”, the same kind of power which raised Christ from the dead. He wants “the eyes of their hearts to be enlightened”, for them to see themselves and each other as holy people, beloved, chosen, called.

It’s easy to read the Bible as if it is really written for someone else, someone better, braver, more loving than we are. How can we ever dream of living up to its demands? “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you…”  Can God really mean us? We often have enough of a struggle loving our friends, and doing good to those who like us, never mind reaching out to those who hurt us. But the message of the Gospel is that we are all called to do this, or at least try, with God’s help. If we don’t, who will? If no one does, then nothing will ever change.

In our first reading, the prophet Daniel has terrifying visions in the night, visions of things far greater and more powerful than he is, visions of stormy seas and great beasts coming out of them. They are kings, he’s told, mighty rulers. Daniel’s a member of an enslaved nation, exiled in Babylon. What hope has he against the mighty political and military forces these beasts represent? But the heavenly figure he talks to tells him that in the end, these kings won’t,win the day. Instead “the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom for ever – for ever and ever”.  Who are these holy ones? Those who try to live as God has called them to. The struggle that Daniel and his people are going through isn’t futile.

It’s hard hanging onto such a hope when the obstacles seem so great. If we’re going to do so, we need all the help we can get. The witness of others who have stuck to their faith, loved those who hated them, kept on trusting God can be a mighty encouragement. I don’t need to believe that St Alban’s severed head caused a spring to well up. But his story challenges me to ask whether I believe that God can provide living water even in the midst of a desert of failure. I don’t need to know whether Nicholas really threw bags of gold through poor people’s windows late at night, but his story inspires me to trust that whatever I give to others can make a difference.  

“Do to others as you would have them do to you,” finishes the Gospel reading. It’s sometimes called the Golden Rule, and it appears in some form or another in most religious traditions. At its simplest it’s an appeal to enlightened self-interest.  If we want people to be kind to us, then we need to be kind to them. But it can also be read as a call to something very much larger. What kind of world do we want to live in? What kind of society do we want to create? It should be nothing less than the kingdom of God in all its fullness, a kingdom of peace, joy and love for all. But to build that kingdom we have to live it, and that takes more strength than any of us have on our own.

We need the encouragement of those around us – the communion of saints. That includes those who lived long ago, but it is also about the people sitting next to us in the pews today. God can be just as much at work in each of us as he was in the lives of Lucy or Edith, Valentine, Nicholas or Alban. Our stories may not be as dramatic as theirs, but they are stories which are just as important to tell and hear.

That’s why I am delighted at the growth of home groups at Seal – a new one starts this week - and in all the other ways we can come together to share our faith.  We all have stories to tell, struggles, joys, blessings and questions to share, and in them we can see God at work in one another, if “the eyes of our hearts are enlightened”. All Saints was never meant, you see, to be about those famous saints, whose stories are already known, however much I might enjoy telling them. They all have their own feast days. It was meant -  and is meant - to celebrate those who aren’t known or named, the people who have, throughout Christian history, simply got on with the business of loving and serving others. It was meant to celebrate those who’ve built God’s kingdom where they are, through small, faithful actions that maybe no one notices. It’s meant to celebrate you, and me, if only we have the faith to believe it.  

Amen

All Saints Sunday: Saintly stories

Audio version here.

Daniel 7.1-3, 15-18, Ephesians 1.11-23, Luke 6 20-31

Everyone loves a story. Well, I do, anyway. As anyone who knows me will realise I’m a sucker for a good yarn – I love listening to stories and telling them too. Somehow, stories can convey things to us that a dry set of instructions or ideas never would. They engage our imagination, take us into a world in which we can try out new emotions, or make new sense of our own lives.

It’s no surprise, then, that stories have been used extensively to pass on Christian truths. There are the stories of the Bible, of course, but it isn’t just these which Christians have treasured. The stories of the saints have also been a bedrock of faith, and these stories were told and celebrated in many different ways. There were written accounts – hagiographies, as they are known - but the stories of the saints were also told and celebrated in drama and ritual, through symbol and art and pilgrimage and local customs, and some of them are still widely celebrated today, even in our secular age.

There’s St Lucy, for example, celebrated, particularly in Sweden for some reason, on December 13^th.  Allegedly, Lucy was a young girl who was martyred in the early 4^th century for feeding Christians as they hid in the Roman catacombs. She wore a candle on her head so she would have her hands free to carry the food she brought them. That’s why the Swedish celebrations involve processions of girls wearing white robes and crowns of candles – I don’t even want to think of the health and safety aspects of that!

Or there’s St Valentine, another ancient saint who is widely remembered, in name at least. The story which links him with romance was that he was martyred for conducting the weddings of Christian couples. It wasn’t really about love, though. Married men weren’t allowed to be Roman soldiers. Christians were mostly pacifist, so this enabled them to avoid killing.  

And of course there’s St Nicholas of Myra, a fourth  century Turkish Bishop, famous for throwing money bags through the window of a man who was so poor he thought he’d have to sell his daughters into slavery. The money landed in the girls’ stockings, which were hanging to dry overnight.  Let a few centuries pass, give him a red cloak, some reindeer and a “ho, ho, ho” and we all know how we celebrate this particular saint…

The Protestant Reformation was supposed to have stamped out the celebration of the saints, but it’s hard to keep a good story down. In some shape or form many of them carried on, or were revived later. The shrine of St Edith in Kemsing, which stood in the churchyard and allegedly protected local crops from mildew is gone, but her well survived, and celebrations to mark her feast day were revived in the twentieth century.  

Some of us travelled up to St Albans last year to be part of the celebration of their local saint, a Roman soldier killed for his faith in the city – the first English martyr. His story is told today using giant puppets in a procession through the streets. It is a modern twist on the ancient practice of telling the stories of the saints, and it has become a real crowd puller.

How much historical truth do these stories contain? Maybe not much. But there were early Christians who showed, courage, generosity and faith like these and in a sense these famous stories gathered their anonymous lives into memorable forms. The more vivid the story, the more likely it was to be remembered and repeated. It may not be the case that at the spot where St Alban’s severed head came to rest a spring miraculously rose up. The story of St Edith, sitting up in her grave and punching King Canute on the nose for digging her up because he doubted her sanctity may not have happened exactly like that. But those are the hooks which make the stories stick in our minds, and that was what their tellers thought mattered. The “embroidery” helps us to remember the stories, but it’s not the main point of them.

The message the stories of the saints conveyed was that God had done extraordinary things through ordinary people, maybe in your own backyard. Death and destruction didn’t have the last word. Of course , you could hear that message in the stories of the Bible, in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, but that could seem long ago and far away. In every age, we also need to know that God is at work here and now too. Having a local saint told you that your village could be a holy place. God was at work in people who might have been your neighbours, and if he could work in their lives, he could work in yours too.

In our second reading today, St Paul talks about saints, but he’s not talking about the people we now find in these dramatic tales. The saints he refers to are simply the members of the churches to which he wrote, like the people at Ephesus who would have read this letter. The Greek word he used literally meant someone who was holy, set aside by God for a special purpose. To him though, that wasn’t just a select band of spiritual heroes; it was everyone in the church - you and me.

He commends his hearers for their love “towards all the saints” – that is, towards one another. He reminds them that they all share in the “riches of God’s glorious inheritance among the saints”. His prayer is that they’ll learn to trust that God is at work in all of them, with an “immeasurable greatness of power”, the same kind of power which raised Christ from the dead. He wants “the eyes of their hearts to be enlightened”, for them to see themselves and each other as holy people, beloved, chosen, called.

It’s easy to read the Bible as if it is really written for someone else, someone better, braver, more loving than we are. How can we ever dream of living up to its demands? “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you…”  Can God really mean us? We often have enough of a struggle loving our friends, and doing good to those who like us, never mind reaching out to those who hurt us. But the message of the Gospel is that we are all called to do this, or at least try, with God’s help. If we don’t, who will? If no one does, then nothing will ever change.

In our first reading, the prophet Daniel has terrifying visions in the night, visions of things far greater and more powerful than he is, visions of stormy seas and great beasts coming out of them. They are kings, he’s told, mighty rulers. Daniel’s a member of an enslaved nation, exiled in Babylon. What hope has he against the mighty political and military forces these beasts represent? But the heavenly figure he talks to tells him that in the end, these kings won’t,win the day. Instead “the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom for ever – for ever and ever”.  Who are these holy ones? Those who try to live as God has called them to. The struggle that Daniel and his people are going through isn’t futile.

It’s hard hanging onto such a hope when the obstacles seem so great. If we’re going to do so, we need all the help we can get. The witness of others who have stuck to their faith, loved those who hated them, kept on trusting God can be a mighty encouragement. I don’t need to believe that St Alban’s severed head caused a spring to well up. But his story challenges me to ask whether I believe that God can provide living water even in the midst of a desert of failure. I don’t need to know whether Nicholas really threw bags of gold through poor people’s windows late at night, but his story inspires me to trust that whatever I give to others can make a difference.  

“Do to others as you would have them do to you,” finishes the Gospel reading. It’s sometimes called the Golden Rule, and it appears in some form or another in most religious traditions. At its simplest it’s an appeal to enlightened self-interest.  If we want people to be kind to us, then we need to be kind to them. But it can also be read as a call to something very much larger. What kind of world do we want to live in? What kind of society do we want to create? It should be nothing less than the kingdom of God in all its fullness, a kingdom of peace, joy and love for all. But to build that kingdom we have to live it, and that takes more strength than any of us have on our own.

We need the encouragement of those around us – the communion of saints. That includes those who lived long ago, but it is also about the people sitting next to us in the pews today. God can be just as much at work in each of us as he was in the lives of Lucy or Edith, Valentine, Nicholas or Alban. Our stories may not be as dramatic as theirs, but they are stories which are just as important to tell and hear.

That’s why I am delighted at the growth of home groups at Seal – a new one starts this week - and in all the other ways we can come together to share our faith.  We all have stories to tell, struggles, joys, blessings and questions to share, and in them we can see God at work in one another, if “the eyes of our hearts are enlightened”. All Saints was never meant, you see, to be about those famous saints, whose stories are already known, however much I might enjoy telling them. They all have their own feast days. It was meant -  and is meant - to celebrate those who aren’t known or named, the people who have, throughout Christian history, simply got on with the business of loving and serving others. It was meant to celebrate those who’ve built God’s kingdom where they are, through small, faithful actions that maybe no one notices. It’s meant to celebrate you, and me, if only we have the faith to believe it.  

Amen

Bible Sunday: Gracious Words

Audio version here

Romans 15.1-6, Luke 4.16-24

“All were amazed at the gracious words that came from Jesus’ mouth.”

You know how you can read something year in year out and not notice the detail? Well that’s what happened to me when I looked at the very familiar Gospel reading we heard today. It was that little phrase “gracious words” which made me suddenly sit up and take notice. “All were amazed at the gracious words that came from Jesus’ mouth.” “What does that mean?” I asked myself.  What are “gracious words”? I wonder what you think.

Today we tend to say that someone has spoken graciously if they’ve got a nice turn of phrase, or if they’ve managed to say something difficult or painful in a way that’s easier for others to accept. Responding graciously to an insult means not sinking to the level of your attacker, but finding something positive to say in answer to them.  It would be great to see some more “gracious words” in the US election campaign!

Thinking about graciousness might lead us on to think about other closely related words too – words like “graceful” and the word that gives rise to them both, “grace”. What do these words mean to us? The dictionary lists some synonyms – elegance, agility, refinement, polish.

Talk about grace and what do you think of? Maybe the kind of serene poise of Audrey Hepburn or one of those other old fashioned, impeccably groomed film stars. A good dancer might be called graceful too, someone who can place every step perfectly and effortlessly.

Gracefulness is often seen as a quality you’re either born with, or not.

But the grace of Jesus’ words in that synagogue in Nazareth wasn’t anything to do with eloquence or elegance. The congregation there wasn’t amazed by his clever arguments or uplifting sentiments or sophisticated style.

To understand what they might have meant when they called his words gracious we need to dig back to the Greek and Hebrew words for grace – the ones Jesus’ congregation would have known and used.  They are charis in the Greek and khen in the Hebrew, if you’re interested. And once you start to look, you find those words all over the place in the Bible. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, it says. David found grace in the eyes of King Saul – at least at first. Ruth, a Moabite refugee to Israel, found grace in the eyes of Boaz, who ended up marrying her. The letters of Paul are full of prayers that people might know the grace of God. We use one of his greetings as a prayer we call the Grace – the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Some Bibles translate khen and charis as “favour” instead of grace. It’s the word Gabriel uses when he tells Mary she will bear Jesus. “Hail, favoured one, the Lord is with you.” “Hail Mary, full of grace” as older translations put it.

All this gives us a clue that for the people of the Bible, grace was much more than an Audrey Hepburn like polish. Fundamentally, it was something that had to do with relationships. Grace –or favour if you prefer – was something granted by someone who had power to someone who needed their help. It wasn’t an innate talent, something you were born with; it was something you were given. If you found grace in someone’s eyes it meant that they affirmed you and accepted you, supported you and sheltered you, gave you their protection and approval. In the Bible most often it is God who is the giver of grace – in fact it’s one of the things that defined God for the Jewish people   “The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” - that’s Psalm 145. Again and again when they were in need they cried out to God for grace. “Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted,” says Psalm 25.

 

In the New Testament, the gifts of the Holy Spirit are described as charismata – graces -  everything from dramatic things like prophecy and healing to the less obvious like administration and helpfulness. Charismatic people aren’t people who are charming or persuasive; they are people who are filled with the gifts of the Spirit, deeply connected to the life of God and dependent on him.

 

According to the Bible, then, being a gracious, or a graceful person, means being secure in our relationship with God, knowing that he accepts and loves us, confident that he’ll support and uphold us.

 

So let’s go back to that synagogue in Nazareth and those “gracious words” which Jesus spoke. The thing which amazed people that morning was not that he spoke fluently, but that what he said reflected enormous confidence in his relationship with God.  

 

He‘d read words some very familiar words from the prophet Isaiah. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor”. Isaiah was one of the best known, most quoted books of scripture at the time of Jesus, so his hearers would have known knew these words like the back of their hands. But who was Isaiah talking about? Interpretations varied.  Some people thought it referred to the whole people of Israel; others saw it as a prophecy about a particular promised leader, a Messiah – literally an anointed one. But people wouldn’t normally have applied it to themselves as Jesus did here. “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing”.  To do that would have sounded presumptuous, a bit mad maybe – unless, of course, it was true.

 

But the fact that these are described as “gracious” words implies that, to some of those who heard them, at least, Jesus claim seemed authentic, grounded, powerful. It rang true to them. And let’s not forget, these were people who knew him. In other places in the Gospels, people are amazed at the authority with which he speaks too, so it wasn’t just them. This is a man whose words are shot through with assurance that God is with him and for him. That’s why they are called “gracious”. He knows he is secure in the grace of God. He doesn’t just speak gracious words, he is the Gracious Word – God’s word of grace -who  “became flesh, and lived among us…full of grace and truth” said John (1.14)

 

So, we might say, that’s all very well – it tells us something about Jesus – but what difference does it make to us?

 

It makes a difference to us because this man, who was so secure in his Father’s love that he was prepared to die for his message, didn’t just believe that he was “graced”; he believed that we were too. “You are the light of the world,” he said. “It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” “Ask and it will be given to you”. The joyful, hopeful message of Jesus is that all of us are chosen, called, “graced” by God, brought into a relationship with him that is safe, certain, indestructible. All we have to do is to learn to trust it.

 

But of course, that’s easier said than done.  The disappointments and betrayals we encounter in life often damage our ability to trust. If we’re lucky, there’ll be people in our lives whose love we can rely on, but most people, in my experience, struggle at least some of the time to believe they really are acceptable and accepted, and for some it is a lifelong battle to feel secure.  Why should anyone – let alone God - be with us and for us? But according to the Bible that’s the message which Christ lived and died to proclaim, and if we call ourselves his disciples, which literally means learners, then this is the most important lesson we need to learn.

 

And perhaps  that’s where these Biblical ideas of grace do, in fact, connect with the images we started with.  Graceful dancers know where to put their feet because they’ve practiced, repeating the steps time and time again until they are secure in them.  Gracious speakers can rise above the level of those who insult them because they are sure of their own worth. They are sure of their ground. They have learned that they don’t need to put others down in order to win the argument. Gracefulness and graciousness aren’t magical qualities which some people have and some don’t, even if it sometimes looks that way. They’re things we have to learn and practice if we want them to be embedded in our lives.  

 

That’s true for the dancer or the public speaker, but it’s also true for us in our normal daily lives. If we want to be graceful, grace-filled people we need to practice, to take in day by day the truths God wants us to learn about him and about his love for us. We practice that through prayer, through coming together for worship and fellowship, learning from and with one another. We practice, too,  through reading the Bible – today is Bible Sunday – taking into ourselves the gracious words of scripture which were written, said our first reading so that  “by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.”  

 

Last week at our All Age Worship, I talked about Promise Boxes – boxes of cards printed with Bible verses. have a look on the red table if you’d like to know more about that. They are one way of taking in the gracious words of God day by day, but however we do it, it is important that we learn to recognise and own the grace of God that is given to us, that message of security – or salvation if you want to use a more theological word – which Jesus died to proclaim.

 

It matters because it’s the knowledge of God’s grace, his loving acceptance of us, with all our faults and failings, that gives us the confidence and courage to speak gracious words to others, even when they hurt us, insult us, let us down, misunderstand or ignore us.  And the world surely needs as many gracious words as it can hear today!

 

So today, on this Bible Sunday, as we give thanks for the gracious words of God, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all, now and evermore. 

Amen.

 

 

Bible Sunday: Gracious Words

Audio version here

Romans 15.1-6, Luke 4.16-24

“All were amazed at the gracious words that came from Jesus’ mouth.”

You know how you can read something year in year out and not notice the detail? Well that’s what happened to me when I looked at the very familiar Gospel reading we heard today. It was that little phrase “gracious words” which made me suddenly sit up and take notice. “All were amazed at the gracious words that came from Jesus’ mouth.” “What does that mean?” I asked myself.  What are “gracious words”? I wonder what you think.

Today we tend to say that someone has spoken graciously if they’ve got a nice turn of phrase, or if they’ve managed to say something difficult or painful in a way that’s easier for others to accept. Responding graciously to an insult means not sinking to the level of your attacker, but finding something positive to say in answer to them.  It would be great to see some more “gracious words” in the US election campaign!

Thinking about graciousness might lead us on to think about other closely related words too – words like “graceful” and the word that gives rise to them both, “grace”. What do these words mean to us? The dictionary lists some synonyms – elegance, agility, refinement, polish.

Talk about grace and what do you think of? Maybe the kind of serene poise of Audrey Hepburn or one of those other old fashioned, impeccably groomed film stars. A good dancer might be called graceful too, someone who can place every step perfectly and effortlessly.

Gracefulness is often seen as a quality you’re either born with, or not.

But the grace of Jesus’ words in that synagogue in Nazareth wasn’t anything to do with eloquence or elegance. The congregation there wasn’t amazed by his clever arguments or uplifting sentiments or sophisticated style.

To understand what they might have meant when they called his words gracious we need to dig back to the Greek and Hebrew words for grace – the ones Jesus’ congregation would have known and used.  They are charis in the Greek and khen in the Hebrew, if you’re interested. And once you start to look, you find those words all over the place in the Bible. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, it says. David found grace in the eyes of King Saul – at least at first. Ruth, a Moabite refugee to Israel, found grace in the eyes of Boaz, who ended up marrying her. The letters of Paul are full of prayers that people might know the grace of God. We use one of his greetings as a prayer we call the Grace – the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Some Bibles translate khen and charis as “favour” instead of grace. It’s the word Gabriel uses when he tells Mary she will bear Jesus. “Hail, favoured one, the Lord is with you.” “Hail Mary, full of grace” as older translations put it.

All this gives us a clue that for the people of the Bible, grace was much more than an Audrey Hepburn like polish. Fundamentally, it was something that had to do with relationships. Grace –or favour if you prefer – was something granted by someone who had power to someone who needed their help. It wasn’t an innate talent, something you were born with; it was something you were given. If you found grace in someone’s eyes it meant that they affirmed you and accepted you, supported you and sheltered you, gave you their protection and approval. In the Bible most often it is God who is the giver of grace – in fact it’s one of the things that defined God for the Jewish people   “The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” - that’s Psalm 145. Again and again when they were in need they cried out to God for grace. “Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted,” says Psalm 25.

 

In the New Testament, the gifts of the Holy Spirit are described as charismata – graces -  everything from dramatic things like prophecy and healing to the less obvious like administration and helpfulness. Charismatic people aren’t people who are charming or persuasive; they are people who are filled with the gifts of the Spirit, deeply connected to the life of God and dependent on him.

 

According to the Bible, then, being a gracious, or a graceful person, means being secure in our relationship with God, knowing that he accepts and loves us, confident that he’ll support and uphold us.

 

So let’s go back to that synagogue in Nazareth and those “gracious words” which Jesus spoke. The thing which amazed people that morning was not that he spoke fluently, but that what he said reflected enormous confidence in his relationship with God.  

 

He‘d read words some very familiar words from the prophet Isaiah. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor”. Isaiah was one of the best known, most quoted books of scripture at the time of Jesus, so his hearers would have known knew these words like the back of their hands. But who was Isaiah talking about? Interpretations varied.  Some people thought it referred to the whole people of Israel; others saw it as a prophecy about a particular promised leader, a Messiah – literally an anointed one. But people wouldn’t normally have applied it to themselves as Jesus did here. “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing”.  To do that would have sounded presumptuous, a bit mad maybe – unless, of course, it was true.

 

But the fact that these are described as “gracious” words implies that, to some of those who heard them, at least, Jesus claim seemed authentic, grounded, powerful. It rang true to them. And let’s not forget, these were people who knew him. In other places in the Gospels, people are amazed at the authority with which he speaks too, so it wasn’t just them. This is a man whose words are shot through with assurance that God is with him and for him. That’s why they are called “gracious”. He knows he is secure in the grace of God. He doesn’t just speak gracious words, he is the Gracious Word – God’s word of grace -who  “became flesh, and lived among us…full of grace and truth” said John (1.14)

 

So, we might say, that’s all very well – it tells us something about Jesus – but what difference does it make to us?

 

It makes a difference to us because this man, who was so secure in his Father’s love that he was prepared to die for his message, didn’t just believe that he was “graced”; he believed that we were too. “You are the light of the world,” he said. “It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” “Ask and it will be given to you”. The joyful, hopeful message of Jesus is that all of us are chosen, called, “graced” by God, brought into a relationship with him that is safe, certain, indestructible. All we have to do is to learn to trust it.

 

But of course, that’s easier said than done.  The disappointments and betrayals we encounter in life often damage our ability to trust. If we’re lucky, there’ll be people in our lives whose love we can rely on, but most people, in my experience, struggle at least some of the time to believe they really are acceptable and accepted, and for some it is a lifelong battle to feel secure.  Why should anyone – let alone God - be with us and for us? But according to the Bible that’s the message which Christ lived and died to proclaim, and if we call ourselves his disciples, which literally means learners, then this is the most important lesson we need to learn.

 

And perhaps  that’s where these Biblical ideas of grace do, in fact, connect with the images we started with.  Graceful dancers know where to put their feet because they’ve practiced, repeating the steps time and time again until they are secure in them.  Gracious speakers can rise above the level of those who insult them because they are sure of their own worth. They are sure of their ground. They have learned that they don’t need to put others down in order to win the argument. Gracefulness and graciousness aren’t magical qualities which some people have and some don’t, even if it sometimes looks that way. They’re things we have to learn and practice if we want them to be embedded in our lives.  

 

That’s true for the dancer or the public speaker, but it’s also true for us in our normal daily lives. If we want to be graceful, grace-filled people we need to practice, to take in day by day the truths God wants us to learn about him and about his love for us. We practice that through prayer, through coming together for worship and fellowship, learning from and with one another. We practice, too,  through reading the Bible – today is Bible Sunday – taking into ourselves the gracious words of scripture which were written, said our first reading so that  “by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.”  

 

Last week at our All Age Worship, I talked about Promise Boxes – boxes of cards printed with Bible verses. have a look on the red table if you’d like to know more about that. They are one way of taking in the gracious words of God day by day, but however we do it, it is important that we learn to recognise and own the grace of God that is given to us, that message of security – or salvation if you want to use a more theological word – which Jesus died to proclaim.

 

It matters because it’s the knowledge of God’s grace, his loving acceptance of us, with all our faults and failings, that gives us the confidence and courage to speak gracious words to others, even when they hurt us, insult us, let us down, misunderstand or ignore us.  And the world surely needs as many gracious words as it can hear today!

 

So today, on this Bible Sunday, as we give thanks for the gracious words of God, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all, now and evermore. 

Amen.

 

 

Trinity 21 - Justice

Luke 18.1-8 & 2 Timothy 3.14-4.5 If we look around us examples of injustice both large and small are very easy to find, ranging from a leader of a poor country laundering corrupt money overseas to that person passed over for a job or promotion because of the prejudices of the decision maker. It’s the decision maker that holds the power, he or she may be the recruiter, the allocator of housing or as in today’s gospel reading, the judge. It doesn’t seem an unreasonable expectation that those appointed to positions of power should do all they can to make honest unbiased decisions and uphold justice, particularly for the poor and weak who may struggle to obtain access to the system. We know that problems occur, not when an honest error of judgement is made but when the system is corrupt, or remarkably, in today’s reading when the adjudicator really can’t be bothered. Perhaps he justifies his apathy by reasoning that the event is now in the past but we know that justice matters beyond logic, right to our very soul, even when there is no prospect of punishment of or compensation from the offender. There are so many high profile examples over recent years that I’ve had to limit my examples. One purpose of the parable must be to encourage us as Christians to persevere in our faith even in times when we feel it is against all odds. A man called Adria Tempany was in the stadium at the time of the Hillsborough disaster and only 27 years later was the account of both him and many others in attendance at the time 96 fans were crushed to death, and many others injured, believed. The jury’s decision meant so much to those who knew they were not responsible for the deaths, it could not change the sad situation but he was one of many who had to live with the state and popular press blaming them for what happened. Of course, some never lived long enough to see their version believed. Access to justice can be limited by money or comprehension of the process, a point many are arguing as many cuts to our legal system take effect. It would have been even more difficult for the lady in the parable. It is no coincidence that Jesus tells us that she was a widow. Not only were individuals required to bring their own case to the judge without a prosecution service, but a woman without male representation or support would have been right at the bottom of the pile, no doubt the judge thought such an apparently powerless person would soon realise they were wasting their time, as no doubt many others had done before her. In our parable the judge, admits to having no fear of God and no respect for anyone, not the sort of credentials you would imagine finding on a judges CV. But Jesus’ point is to illustrate the fact that those who are persistent in prayer and in their love of justice will not be let down by God. After all even this corrupt judge grants justice eventually, if only because the woman is driving him nuts and probably also to avoid the potential shame of his unsuitability and many inadequacies being exposed. But if this is the case how much more can we rely upon a God who loves both justice and his people. We are being told to keep going despite all the setbacks we may encounter, to keep pursuing the truth even if we may not see the conclusion in our lifetime. The message reinforces Jesus teaching about prayer found earlier in Luke’s gospel when he said "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (11:13). We might compare by interpreting today’s parable: "If even the most unjust of judges will finally relent to the relentless campaign of widow, then how much more will God, who loves justice, answer your prayers!" Jesus concludes the parable by asking ‘when the son of man comes will he find faith on earth?’ What do you think the answer is? Will we persist in prayer and maintain hope for justice or will we have given up like the lazy judge was hoping that the widow would? Similarly in Timothy’s community the people have ‘itching ears’, they hear of stuff which sounds easier than staying faithful, perhaps they can tweak their beliefs to suit their lives but it is for Timothy to keep them on the path that reflects consistent, long term faith in our unchanging God. It’s never going to be a clean cut business in our earthly lives but we have seen enough apparently hopeless situations change for the better to give us the sustenance to keep trying and keep in mind Jesus words ‘will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night?’ We each see our personal victories occasionally but also shouldn’t forget that, the Berlin wall opened, the apartheid regime crumbled, peace broke out, people were believed. We may be tempted to despair at the injustice of many things, not least war and poverty in the world, it’s hard not to. But Jesus message is clear, let our faith set us apart as people who pray persistently with real hope despite many signs of hopelessness and let us be people who play our part in a world where God delights in every act that builds justice. Amen Kevin Bright 16th October 2016

Trinity 21 - Justice

Luke 18.1-8 & 2 Timothy 3.14-4.5 If we look around us examples of injustice both large and small are very easy to find, ranging from a leader of a poor country laundering corrupt money overseas to that person passed over for a job or promotion because of the prejudices of the decision maker. It’s the decision maker that holds the power, he or she may be the recruiter, the allocator of housing or as in today’s gospel reading, the judge. It doesn’t seem an unreasonable expectation that those appointed to positions of power should do all they can to make honest unbiased decisions and uphold justice, particularly for the poor and weak who may struggle to obtain access to the system. We know that problems occur, not when an honest error of judgement is made but when the system is corrupt, or remarkably, in today’s reading when the adjudicator really can’t be bothered. Perhaps he justifies his apathy by reasoning that the event is now in the past but we know that justice matters beyond logic, right to our very soul, even when there is no prospect of punishment of or compensation from the offender. There are so many high profile examples over recent years that I’ve had to limit my examples. One purpose of the parable must be to encourage us as Christians to persevere in our faith even in times when we feel it is against all odds. A man called Adria Tempany was in the stadium at the time of the Hillsborough disaster and only 27 years later was the account of both him and many others in attendance at the time 96 fans were crushed to death, and many others injured, believed. The jury’s decision meant so much to those who knew they were not responsible for the deaths, it could not change the sad situation but he was one of many who had to live with the state and popular press blaming them for what happened. Of course, some never lived long enough to see their version believed. Access to justice can be limited by money or comprehension of the process, a point many are arguing as many cuts to our legal system take effect. It would have been even more difficult for the lady in the parable. It is no coincidence that Jesus tells us that she was a widow. Not only were individuals required to bring their own case to the judge without a prosecution service, but a woman without male representation or support would have been right at the bottom of the pile, no doubt the judge thought such an apparently powerless person would soon realise they were wasting their time, as no doubt many others had done before her. In our parable the judge, admits to having no fear of God and no respect for anyone, not the sort of credentials you would imagine finding on a judges CV. But Jesus’ point is to illustrate the fact that those who are persistent in prayer and in their love of justice will not be let down by God. After all even this corrupt judge grants justice eventually, if only because the woman is driving him nuts and probably also to avoid the potential shame of his unsuitability and many inadequacies being exposed. But if this is the case how much more can we rely upon a God who loves both justice and his people. We are being told to keep going despite all the setbacks we may encounter, to keep pursuing the truth even if we may not see the conclusion in our lifetime. The message reinforces Jesus teaching about prayer found earlier in Luke’s gospel when he said "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (11:13). We might compare by interpreting today’s parable: "If even the most unjust of judges will finally relent to the relentless campaign of widow, then how much more will God, who loves justice, answer your prayers!" Jesus concludes the parable by asking ‘when the son of man comes will he find faith on earth?’ What do you think the answer is? Will we persist in prayer and maintain hope for justice or will we have given up like the lazy judge was hoping that the widow would? Similarly in Timothy’s community the people have ‘itching ears’, they hear of stuff which sounds easier than staying faithful, perhaps they can tweak their beliefs to suit their lives but it is for Timothy to keep them on the path that reflects consistent, long term faith in our unchanging God. It’s never going to be a clean cut business in our earthly lives but we have seen enough apparently hopeless situations change for the better to give us the sustenance to keep trying and keep in mind Jesus words ‘will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night?’ We each see our personal victories occasionally but also shouldn’t forget that, the Berlin wall opened, the apartheid regime crumbled, peace broke out, people were believed. We may be tempted to despair at the injustice of many things, not least war and poverty in the world, it’s hard not to. But Jesus message is clear, let our faith set us apart as people who pray persistently with real hope despite many signs of hopelessness and let us be people who play our part in a world where God delights in every act that builds justice. Amen Kevin Bright 16th October 2016

Promise Boxes

In this morning's All Age worship we thought about promises and in particular the promises of God, which, unlike some of our promises are never broken. We thought about the faithfulness of God, shown to us in the life of Jesus, who showed us what God's faithful love looked like.

I introduced the congregation to the tradition of the Promise Box, which didn't seem to be something people had come across before. It seems to have originated in Victorian times, but was a very popular devotion, especially among evangelical Christians, through the 20th Century. It has rather dwindled now, but Promise Boxes, containing cards or scrolls, with Bible verses on them, can still be bought. I bought the ones I showed this morning (pictured ) here.

http://bit.ly/2dg3Ap8 - this one has cards with prayers on the back

and here...

http://bit.ly/2dY73dD - this one has tiny scrolls, and comes with some tweezers to pull them out with. 

Like many Promise Boxes both of these use the traditional words of the Authorised Version, but if you find this a bit difficult to understand you can always look up the verses in a modern Bible instead. I have put them on the red table at the back of church if you'd like to take a look and are in our neck of the woods.

I also printed out some Biblical promises on sheets of card for people to take home and cut up themselves to make their own Promise Boxes. The printable sheets are here, if you'd like one. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59103132/Promise%20box%20verses.docx
There are only 36 promises here, while Promise Boxes usually have hundreds, but I tried to pick 36 very good ones!)

I passed around these promise cards during the service and invited people to take one home with them to ponder. Jenni Pascoe kindly sent me some feedback after the service, which she gave me permission to share.

"Thank you for the promises stuff. The best one for me was the first one... the levelling of the mountains [I will go before you and level the mountains…so that you may know that it is I the Lord, the God of Israel who call you by your name. Isaiah 45.2-3] , I hope I pick it out every day!!! Often I need someone to do that for me. Please share on the facebook page if you wish. I wonder what other folk think. Jenni."

I got a lovely verse from Revelation 21 "God will wipe every tear from their eyes."

Promise Boxes have their limitations. It certainly shouldn't be the ONLY way we read the Bible - our Biblical knowledge will be a bit thin if it is - and taking Bible verses out of context can distort their meaning, so this needs to be balanced with more in depth, informed, thoughtful reading of the Bible. But there are times when we just need to hear one thing, when one verse - or even one word - can make all the difference, and a Promise Box is a lovely, playful, personal way to hear God's voice.

What do you think ? Are Promise Boxes a familiar devotional aid for you? If you were there this morning, did you get a promise that hit home to you or made you think?

If this has really piqued your interest, there is an interesting blog post here

http://www.graceiseverywhere.net/2015/02/26/the-promise-box/

and a more in depth article here about how Promise Boxes have been used. http://bit.ly/2dkySq1

Promise Boxes

In this morning's All Age worship we thought about promises and in particular the promises of God, which, unlike some of our promises are never broken. We thought about the faithfulness of God, shown to us in the life of Jesus, who showed us what God's faithful love looked like.

I introduced the congregation to the tradition of the Promise Box, which didn't seem to be something people had come across before. It seems to have originated in Victorian times, but was a very popular devotion, especially among evangelical Christians, through the 20th Century. It has rather dwindled now, but Promise Boxes, containing cards or scrolls, with Bible verses on them, can still be bought. I bought the ones I showed this morning (pictured ) here.

http://bit.ly/2dg3Ap8 - this one has cards with prayers on the back

and here...

http://bit.ly/2dY73dD - this one has tiny scrolls, and comes with some tweezers to pull them out with. 

Like many Promise Boxes both of these use the traditional words of the Authorised Version, but if you find this a bit difficult to understand you can always look up the verses in a modern Bible instead. I have put them on the red table at the back of church if you'd like to take a look and are in our neck of the woods.

I also printed out some Biblical promises on sheets of card for people to take home and cut up themselves to make their own Promise Boxes. The printable sheets are here, if you'd like one. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59103132/Promise%20box%20verses.docx
There are only 36 promises here, while Promise Boxes usually have hundreds, but I tried to pick 36 very good ones!)

I passed around these promise cards during the service and invited people to take one home with them to ponder. Jenni Pascoe kindly sent me some feedback after the service, which she gave me permission to share.

"Thank you for the promises stuff. The best one for me was the first one... the levelling of the mountains [I will go before you and level the mountains…so that you may know that it is I the Lord, the God of Israel who call you by your name. Isaiah 45.2-3] , I hope I pick it out every day!!! Often I need someone to do that for me. Please share on the facebook page if you wish. I wonder what other folk think. Jenni."

I got a lovely verse from Revelation 21 "God will wipe every tear from their eyes."

Promise Boxes have their limitations. It certainly shouldn't be the ONLY way we read the Bible - our Biblical knowledge will be a bit thin if it is - and taking Bible verses out of context can distort their meaning, so this needs to be balanced with more in depth, informed, thoughtful reading of the Bible. But there are times when we just need to hear one thing, when one verse - or even one word - can make all the difference, and a Promise Box is a lovely, playful, personal way to hear God's voice.

What do you think ? Are Promise Boxes a familiar devotional aid for you? If you were there this morning, did you get a promise that hit home to you or made you think?

If this has really piqued your interest, there is an interesting blog post here

http://www.graceiseverywhere.net/2015/02/26/the-promise-box/

and a more in depth article here about how Promise Boxes have been used. http://bit.ly/2dkySq1