Exeter Blog

I have never been to Exeter but to slightly compensate for that character flaw I'm posting a link to Neil's new blog.... HERE .... brought to you - surprise surprise - from Exeter! I haven't been down to that neck of the British woods for a long time and am trying to remember how near I've ever managed to get to Exeter... hang on, I have a handy map here somewhere.... Ah, it would have to be Minehead I reckon, followed by bits of Cornwall! Still at least if I do get down there I'll now know which pubs to go to and which street to particularly look where I'm walking!

Teapot Ramblings

Well on this Sunday evening here I am wandering back to the dear old Teapot. For those of you who come here through some totally unconnected-to-church-and-Christian-things route then be assured that I am fully intending to post something other than sermons... most often in the past it has proved to be something not quite so eternally significant (not that my sermons are eternally significant, but hopefully the God they point to!) - like the London train system, Cadfael books and VW Camper Vans (what a bizarre collection of interests I have!). But your patience is appreciated when on a Saturday night I hang around here with the RevGals, going through what-I'm-offering-tomorrow-angst and hoping that someone will come and post glowing encouragements about what I'm planning to hit my congregation with the next morning! Of course this is the real world and it doesn't work that way - for one thing I suspect God's been trying to teach me for many years to depend on him for encouragement and look to him for confidence - but I'm better at being convinced of his worth than mine in his service. Isn't it funny how you can have such a desire to get across to the wonderful bunch of people that meet with you Sunday by Sunday as church, that THEY are of such value and worth to God, that he loves them and can see all they are and all they can be - but at the same time you can feel completely inadequate to the task because you all too easily forget it yourself! Now if only God had managed to find the blogspot comments box and pop in... Anyway, perhaps while this is resembling something more like a mini sermon and before I move back to trains or other momentous topics I will just add at least that I hope (and pray) that when I tell them of this love and worth and value that they hear it because I'm privileged to serve such wonderful people who deserve to really know this deep down and with all of their being!
It's quite good actually to stop on one of the rollercoaster days when the coaster is dipping downwards and discouragements outweigh perceived achievements, when the music was a bit stodgy and the numbers were low and the sermon seemed dull... that Jesus was still in it!
"The Lord is here!" "His Spirit is with us!" how amazing was that... and not being a mind reader I now have to leave it all with God and pray that he'll stick close to his people (sometimes through me or others) and keep hold of them as they journey on through the week.

Now, as for those trains....

Oh Yes, it's another Saturday Night Sermon!

Late addition... this is without the Sunday morning amendments and tweaks which turned the sermon into something resembling one that would make your 'hearts burn within you' (as some disciples said on a famous road as Jesus opened the Scriptures to them!) - oh what, this isn't a dream...

Sermon - 29.6.08 – Acts 12: 1-11 & Matthew 16: 13-19

I’d like to continue that theme of prayer for a bit longer…

Recently I’ve been reading again from Ezra and Nehemiah – two books in the Old Testament - and Nehemiah is a wonderful example of a man of prayer. In Ezra and Nehemiah we find the people of God returning to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple. The Temple was the place of worship and sacrifice for the Jewish people, as well as the place where it was believed God had his dwelling on earth – where heaven and earth meet. (As they certainly did in Jerusalem when Jesus was there!).
In Ezra the people return from exile to rebuild the Temple, and in Nehemiah we find this man of God calling out to the Lord because the walls of Jerusalem have been destroyed leaving it unprotected and bringing shame on God’s people. He prays from his heart to God for Jerusalem and for the opportunity to be allowed to leave his job as the king’s cupbearer for a time and go back to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. And he also prays what we sometimes call ‘arrow’ prayers – shooting up a spontaneous prayer to God as he speaks to the king and seeks his goodwill.

And the thing that struck me afresh as I read Nehemiah was regarding how he expressed what God had lead him to do. In chapter 2 we hear Nehemiah’s words: “I had not told anyone what my God had put on my heart to do for Jerusalem.” He had a definite sense that God had put it on his heart to do this thing; and you see, God does that – he did it then and he still does it today. He lays on the hearts of his people an urge to do something for him, a particular need, a particular place, a particular task – and then we respond. That response needs to come first as prayer. Just as Nehemiah turned first to prayer – speaking back to God that new desire of his heart. Often it takes a long time for that thing to actually come into being, but our task is to walk with that burden, keep praying and listening and responding at the right time. And of course it’s as we pray earnestly that we learn to discern something that God has lain on our hearts from our own rush of ideas. And if you’re sitting here this morning thinking, “well that wouldn’t be me… I’m not knowledgeable enough, or good enough, or holy enough, or loving enough, or spiritual enough…” then think again, because God makes us all those things, not ourselves, and he can and does speak to any and all of his people.

You may remember back to the recent visit we had of V and S from the orphanage in India? V spoke of how that ministry was started and it began with his father seeing two children rummaging around in a dustbin for food, and from that sight God laid on his heart the desire to do something. And from that beginning, over much time, with much prayer, much generosity and much effort the expanding ministry of that place came about. God laid it on V’s father’s heart and from there he prayed. I expect many of those early prayers were something like, “what do I do Lord?”

Of course, one of the roles of your vicar is to be praying and asking God what he wants us to do and be in this place, and I'm committed to seeking God for these things. But often God puts somrthing on YOUR heart – sometimes about something he specifically wants you to do – sometimes in the church but not always – perhaps in your neighbourhood, perhaps in your place of work, perhaps in your lifestyle, and sometimes it’s about something for the church to pray into being. And that’s what I’m here for too – to talk with you, pray with you and discern with you what is from God.

Don’t be discouraged if the first response of the vicar to your suggestions is ‘go and pray earnestly for a time about that – as will I’ because first we need to patiently wait on God and we also need to be humble to test what we sense is from God. And also, we need to consider prayerfully the resources – people, time and money, to do what we hope for and dream of. We can come up with many of our own ideas and if we try and bring them all into being ourselves we’ll probably expend much time and energy, but not necessarily in the most kingdom affirming ways. So when a burden is laid on our hearts from God, He will provide all that’s needed – and most often he’ll expect us to be a big part of the provision. Does he want you to be involved with making it happen? Does he want you to give generously towards it, does he want you to keep praying for it? If we want to really be a church that lives out the things we’ve affirmed as our purpose: to worship God, to lead people to Christ, to grow in our faith, to build a loving Christian community and to serve a world in need, then we each need to make that happen with our time, our commitment, our money, our prayers, ourselves offered to God. It can be a challenging lifestyle but there’s none better as we live out this life of love and faith, following Christ as Lord!

What wonderful examples we have before us of the people of God through the ages and how God interacted with them. We’ve revisited Nehemiah, and today is the day in the church when we particularly remember Peter and Paul and we can take hope and inspiration from seeing how their lives of faith worked out and what God did in and through them. We have the privilege of seeing the whole story –
watching Paul change from murderer of the Christians to making Christ known as a great missionary and church planter, and watching Peter turn from the bumbling fisherman who was always getting things wrong (just read through one of the gospels again with it in mind to revisit the Jesus and Peter story!), to becoming the leader of God’s church, the one who stood up and spoke on the day of Pentecost – the one whom Jesus called ‘the rock on whom I will build my church.’ And Peter (as we also heard in our gospel reading) was the first to affirm the truth of who Jesus is – recognising him not only as a good teacher or as one of the prophets of old, but as the Messiah – the anointed one from God who would usher in God’s kingdom. Even so, and even having declared, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!” he probably didn’t have the whole picture at that stage – it was only after the resurrection that the followers fully realised all that Jesus had been telling them about himself – but Peter did know that Jesus was ‘the One’, the one whom God said was coming!

Let’s be re-inspired today as we look at what God has done and promises still to do. Let’s be a people who take prayer seriously just as the early church did when they prayed earnestly for Peter’s release from prison, and just as Nehemiah did when God laid that burden for Jerusalem on his heart.
Let’s rediscover the way God changed Peter and enabled him to do amazing things for him by revisiting those accounts in the gospels and trusting that God can also take us on an amazing voyage of discovery, faith and service.
Let’s be a people ready to respond with patience, prayer and then action when God lays his burdens for a needy world on our hearts.
Even here in (N) – within these walls and many more outside are young people who need the security and guidance of the Lord God in their lives, are people who are lonely, or sick or bereaved or broken-hearted, are many elderly folk with no-one to look after them, or just chat to, or sort out their garden, or drive them to the hospital, are people who are worried sick about debt or bound up in a spend, spend, spend culture, are people who carry burdens of deep shame and horrendous self image because they don’t know that God loves them and offers forgiveness and cleansing through the shed blood of Christ.

These are the things God wants us to care about as he cares, and to pray earnestly about – saying, “Here am I, send me!” Or if you can’t yet pray that prayer, then pray, “Lord, help me to want to pray that prayer and be willing for you to send me.”

Let's pray...

"Let the children come to me and do not hinder them."

29.6.08 – Children’s Talk – Acts 12: 1-11

Sign for each person involved as the story unfolds…

Let’s see (again) what was happening in that Bible story…

Peter had been arrested for being one of Jesus’ followers [we have a lot to say thank you to God for here, because we are safe and free to follow Jesus and talk about him]

But Peter was put in prison by Herod.

There were 4 squads of 4 soldiers guarding Peter (16 soldiers one sign – 4 watches) and Peter was bound with two chains. Herod wasn’t leaving anything to chance!

The next day (after the Jewish festival) Herod was going to deal with Peter – he was in great danger.
But while Peter was asleep an angel appeared (angels are God’s messengers).

The angel got Peter ready to leave: “fasten your belt, put on your sandals, wrap your cloak around you, follow me.”

Peter thought he was seeing things or dreaming it but when the angel got him away and left, Peter realised the Lord had rescued him!

Now, did you notice what was happening somewhere else while all that was going on?

While Peter was arrested and in prison the church (give out notes to all: Part of the praying church) was PRAYING EARNESTLY FOR HIM (‘earnestly’ means very seriously, they prayed hard!).

See the amazing thing is that though God is mighty and powerful he uses the prayers of his people alongside him to get things done. Like this time – the church was praying and Peter was rescued by God – and when he turned up at the house where they were, the Christians didn’t believe it could really be him – even though that’s what they were praying for!

Sometimes it’s hard to pray and we wonder why God sometimes seems to answer and sometimes doesn’t. Those early Christians had the same problem. Not long before, James had also been taken by Herod, and he was killed – surely the church was praying for him too? Our lesson is to learn to trust God whether he seems to say YES or NO or WAIT. And to make sure we keep on praying so God can do amazing things through us too. All of you are important because you can be God’s pray-ers. You just need to start by talking to God and asking him to help where people need help. We pray a lot of prayers together in church so every time we’re altogether listen to how we pray and learn to pray too. And each prayer is everybody’s not just the person saying it because when we say ‘Amen’ it means ‘let it be so’ – we agree!

Changing Trains

Towards the end of last summer we moved house. And along with the house move came the church and work and school to college moves. Obviously these are significant changes and for a while we were homesick, but now where we are feels like home and the people here are our familiar friends. But it wasn't just these obvious changes that caused a wrench - I also went into mourning for the passing of Liverpool Street Station!
Those of you who've been hanging around this Teapot for long enough may recall me talking a couple of years ago (3rd June 2006), with great affection for Liverpool Street station:

"Well, I'll begin with a confession... I love Liverpool Street Station! I have lived all my life somewhere or other on the Liverpool Street line - and am currently the furthest south on the line that I've been (the farthest away being when we lived in Cambridge for a couple of years)."

So when it came to moving to the Fenchurch Street line - well - I really couldn't get to grips with that for a while! I'd come to know 'my' station like the back of my hand, I had my favourite place to sit and watch the world go by and had an affection for the little bit of London in which it sat. I had my familiar tube routes in and out - and then it all changed. As it happens Fenchurch Street is only 5 minutes on foot from Liverpool Street so nestled fairly close by in the city. It can nowhere near compare in architectral appeal or bustle, and no tube station - well really! Those were a few of my first thoughts, and they remain, but now of course we're used to wandering round the corner to Tower Hill for the Underground, it's nice not to have to pay 20 pennies to spend a penny or fight the crowds to get to the few platforms. And the surrounding streets soon become familiar, I've even got a replacement favoured coffee shop for that world-going-by-view. And then there's the South Bank which I had given hardly a passing thought to in that previous life. Isn't it funny that in London a station only 5 minutes away can seem like another world? But it is becoming a part of my world, and I'm rather fond of it. The plain little Fenchurch Street station will never replace Liverpool Street in my affections... but I'm managing to create a whole realm of new ones!

Not a Miserable Park Keeper!

Well, so much for promising some trivialities about my twin joys of tea and Camper Vans... here's another sermon!
It's my offering for tomorrow which is an all-age baptism service where the guests will probably outnumber the regular congregation. It's turned into 'not a children's talk' but I am planning to have some print-outs of feet with space for a name and 'follow me' for the younger children to be filling in... or something like that! Anyway, here it is (comments gratefully received):

Sunday 8th June 2008 – ‘Follow Me!’
Matthew 9: 9-13, 18-26

I’m reading a book at the moment called, ‘Fat, 40 & Fired’ by an Englishman in Australia called Nigel Marsh, who, as the title suggests has turned forty, put on a bit of weight and been made redundant but he calls the resulting year, ‘The year I lost my job and found my life.’
He goes on an intriguing journey of challenging himself and rediscovering the things he most loves in life – not least his wife and four children. Of all the bits of the book I could quote to you this morning it’s a few lines that come up as he speaks of their new home city of Sydney that I want to read you:

“The love affair started on our very first visit to the country, when we came to look for a house before my job started. We were walking in the Botanical Gardens behind the Opera House when we came across a sign: ‘Please do walk on the grass’. I did a double-take and looked closer. Sure enough, the council had erected a sign saying, ‘Please do walk on the grass’. Underneath, in smaller letters, the writing continued: ‘And talk to the plants and hug the trees. It’s your park, it’s here for you to enjoy. Have fun.’ I was stunned and have never really been the same since.”[1]

And as I read that I thought – ‘that’s how God wants us to see the world’ – walking on the grass, enjoying what’s out there, living life to the full, as Jesus put it. But how often when God, or perhaps even more – his church is mentioned in the media is it more likely to be as a miserable old park keeper, chasing the children away from where they’re having fun; rather than the one that says, ‘walk on the grass, enjoy the plants and the trees, I made them’?

If you haven’t yet realised it, then understand today, that God isn’t the miserable old park keeper, but the source of all that brings deep satisfaction and delight in this life – the one who put all that beauty out there for us. Yes, of course, he has given us some guidelines and boundaries that enable us to live alongside one another in safety and respect and most of all love. We’re well aware of the need to give our children guidelines and boundaries, it’s the job of any responsible parent, so why not God? To take the picture another step on – no-one could enjoy the park if a few came along having a chain saw party and cut all the trees down because that’s what they really felt like doing, or even if they shouted from the rooftops that it was their right!

And in both of our Bible readings today there’s a call from this God to us. In the Old Testament reading from Hosea the call is: ‘Come, let us return to the Lord; he will heal us, he will bind us up, he will revive us, he will raise us up to live before him.’ Because ultimately, God – the Lord – wants us to walk through life with him and on into eternal life – what we call heaven. He wants you to walk through life with him, understanding him to be the one who heals you, binds up your wounds, revives you and raises you to be with him. But there are really hard words intermingled there too. These were addressed to the people who had experienced God’s presence and special blessing but who had turned away from him, had done evil and as a result had experienced what’s spoken of too – being torn and struck down. Sometimes only hardship causes us stubborn humans to turn back to God and cry out to him. All the way through the Old Testament there are examples of the people turning away from God and living evil lives opposed to how God has called them to live. (And his rules aren’t there to spoil our fun, but to ensure it doesn’t get perverted – and they’re summarised as ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength; and love your neighbour as yourself’. How we treat each other and how we treat God, really matters.)

But in those times of hardship, when the people cry out to God he responds according to his nature and character – not as the miserable old park keeper but as the one who heals, binds up, revives and restores.

That’s what God’s like.
And what he’s like has been made even clearer for us in the life and death of Jesus; because Jesus is what we call ‘God incarnate’ – God having taken on human form to live among us and ultimately to die in our place so that we can go through death into life – and that life’s the unspoilt one, the unseparated from God one.

And so, having heard that call in the Old Testament, ‘Come, let us return to the Lord’; we now go to our second reading from the New Testament to hear Jesus’s words: ‘Follow me.’

‘Come let us return to the Lord’ and ‘Follow me’; is that what God is saying to you today, whether you’re as young as (N) being baptised this morning or as old as… some of the old vicars on that board?!

Jesus said those words, ‘follow me’ to Matthew who was certainly not an approved follower or dinner guest for Jesus to hang around with according to the religious people of the day.

But that’s the point, Jesus came to call all us ‘sinners’ all us who mess things up and need a new start to follow him. The church is full of people who’ve heard that welcome invitation and responded to it, not full of people who are so good in their own right that they have no need of God – far from it!

So Jesus was God on earth who we often call ‘the Son’, then dead on a cross, then alive again through the power of God and seated with him in heaven; is also by the same nature the one who heals us, binds up our wounds, revives us and raises us up. We saw a couple of examples of just that further on in the gospel reading where Jesus restored to life the daughter of the leader of the Synagogue and healed the woman who reached out to him and touched his cloak.

‘Follow me’ – two simple little words, but what do they mean – what do they require of us?

Well, in any game of ‘follow-the-leader’ the followers need to do the same as the leader, and in the church we follow-the-leader. The call is to be like Jesus and to reflect his compassion, his service, his life that ignored the social conventions to hang around with the ‘right kind of people’ but instead spend time with the ones who needed him.

It means that in our lives he is Lord, he is king, he is the boss and we offer ourselves so that we become people who get involved and heal, bind up and revive in God’s name.
It means offering him all we are, getting involved and being willing to share what we’ve been given – our time, our energy, our talents, our money – not just living for ourselves, but for others. In this church we do that by supporting projects overseas such as the Ebenezer Children’s Home in India and Mother Mercy (Orphanage) in Kenya; by being on the BarNBus team on Wednesday nights that’s in the car park for the teenagers of our community; by caring and praying for one another; by trying to make God’s love known in the way we act and speak wherever we are through the week; by looking out for the weak and vulnerable in our community; by giving to the work of the church – the more we give the more we can make a difference; by working with the children both in and out of the church in the children’s group and youth group and holiday club. There's even the potential for such things as local sports teams, hosting debt counsellors, serving in the community forums, standing up for the voiceless and challenging prejudice if we start to get creative. The more we are willing to follow and offer ourselves the more we can do for the people God has placed us among. The next ‘in Touch’ will be out very soon which will contain more ideas for getting involved.

And even when we decide we want to live this life we still get it wrong and we still need help – and God gives it – what he calls us to do he enables us to do because when we do set off following him he gives us a gift; and that gift is his Holy Spirit – God living in our hearts helping us to be Christ-like and do the things he did.

In the baptism in a few minutes we’ll be praying for (N) and his parents and godparents as they make promises on his behalf to help him grow up as a follower of Jesus. And one of the things we do is to give (N) a lighted candle that represents the light of Jesus in the world. And as we do that we say ‘shine as a light in the world, to the glory of God the Father.’ That’s what it means to respond to the call ‘follow me’, both for (N) as he grows up, and for all of us – to shine as a Christ-light in the world.
Think seriously about how you answer that call today.

You may be here as a visitor today having never heard that call before; you may be here having been a churchgoer for many years but have never responded ‘yes’ to that call; you may have been a faithful, following Christian a long time who’s being challenged to think afresh about what you offer back to God; you may be a young person who’s grown up in the church but has never said ‘ok Lord’ for yourself?

Jesus says ‘follow me’ – we each have to decide how to respond and whether we’re going to ‘walk on the grass’ and live life to the full!

Amen.


[1] Nigel Marsh, 'Fat, 40 & Fired', p76 (Piatkus Books Ltd 2006)