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The Speechless Sing - Page 42

  • St. Andrew's & Moorhouse 16 July 2006

    Ephesians 1:3-14
    Amos 7:7-15
    Mark 6:14-29

    ‘Amos, what do you see?’ And I said, ‘A plumb-line.’ Then the Lord said,
    ‘See, I am setting a plumb-line, in the midst of my people Israel;

    Amos saw a wall that was so far from true that it was on the verge of crumbling away - and he spoke out, he showed people, he pointed out all that was wrong and he is told to flee - for Israel can not bear to hear his words. - how plumb is Israel’s wall today? - as we hear of the escalating violence in the Middle East - is the targeting of civilian targets, the killing of innocents a justifiable reaction to the capture of two soldiers - is the wall a legitimate defensive strategy or an act of aggression against an oppressed people? Is the refusal to grant travel passes to a group of children traveling to the UK the action of a people whose plumb line is true?

    “The first casualty of war is the truth,”  - and so it is hard for us to really know the truth and there are no easy answers to any of the above - we will each start from our own perspective and arrive at a variety of views. But God begins and and ends with truth, and it is God who has set the plumb line and God who will judge just how plumb is the modern State of Israel.


    Speaking the truth has always been a dangerous occupation - John spoke against Herod - ultimate crime was to point out his moral failings, but John has been speaking about the Kingdom of God and in doing so contrasting the justice and righteousness of the God’s reign with the power-grabbing injustice and oppressiveness of Herod’s reign - speaking the truth provokes fear and reaction - and a rash drunken lustful promise - that doesn’t release Herod from the John problem - he is haunted by his fear throughout the gospel. Herod’s plumb line was so far from the vertical that it was horizontal - The kingdom of God is a kingdom where justice and peace kiss. It is a kingdom built on compassion, where the least is first so that there can be no possibility of people being used as instruments or cannon fodder or as a means to some (alleged) “greater good”. In a climate where we are told that “security” justifies killing and making war on the people, we are confronted with Jesus who is murdered for “reasons of state security”. http://wolabcd.wordpress.com/2006/07/15/pentecost-6-year-b/

    Where is God in any of this? - Where are we? do we have any relevance? any voice? any role? In Ephesians our individual story is set within the context of God’s whole story, we are part of creation, connected to the whole of humanity and chosen, adopted, precious to the one who made all things. “In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit” - having heard the word of truth we must live the word of truth - the plumb line falls on us just as  it falls on those in power - we must live with honesty and integrity, seeking the truth, speaking the truth, living the truth - sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. - in doing so we assist in holding up the plumb line to those who hide the truth, who use their power and their influence to create a Kingdom of injustice and unrighteousness.

    How do we know truth in our own lives - later in Ephesians Paul calls on the people to live as the children of the light - for everything exposed by the light becomes visible. Perhaps that is the clue - are their parts of our lives that we would not wish to be exposed to the light? Are these the areas of life that we need to deal with as individuals, as a community of God’s people, so that we can be the word of truth? By God’s grace, by God’s goodness each person, each community, each nation, the whole of humanity is valued, chosen, loved. None are beyond the reach of God’s love - each can know new life through Jesus.

    “God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” Ephesians 1:20-23

  • Hallfold & Bamford 25 June 2006

    Genesis 1:26-31
    Job 38:1-11

    This is a reflection on last weeks Summer School - a couple of days spent visiting various locations around Cumbria from a Hill farm, to some small environmental projects to a wind farm to Sellafield. The connecting theme was creation and the environment and from a reflection on Blakes The Tyger, set to music by John Taverner we ask the question "Did he who made the Lamb make thee?"

    How are we to use the power of creation? Hill farms creating a managed pastoral landscape seems like a natural use of creation - yet the economics may be unsustainable, the social conditions make it difficult for future generations. Small communities using sustainable energy like ground heat source, micro wind and solar energy - consuming less energy using renewable energies.

    How do we react to other forms of renewable energies? Wind Farms, tidal barrages, nuclear power stations. Is this creation, this technology to be used? If we are concerned about global warming, limited goal and gas resources then these solutions are better than conventional power stations - but each has problems and the environmental lobby are divided about the way forward.

    Blake contrasts the awesome power of the  - Tyger, Tyger, burning bright/ In the forests of the night,/What immortal hand or eye/Could frame thy fearful symmetry? - with The Lamb, the classic pastoral setting - Jesus the sacrificial lamb - “Did he who made the lamb make thee?” Is that pastoral setting the voice of innocence? -  Are those small efforts in village hall and suburban street, so worthy,  nothing more than quaint feel good efforts? The real decisions are about wind, tide, nuclear, coal, gas - are they God’s gifts to us? how are we to use them? Do we use our God given creative skill to exploit every resource available to us? Each has a cost - economic, social, environmental - can we include a theological cost? a creation cost? 

    Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

  • Hallfold 11 June 2006

    A celebration of God’s love 
    in song, art and a few words

    This hymns expresses something of the all-embracing nature of God’s love expressed through different aspects of the Trinity. It speaks of relationship within Godself and with the whole of creation

    God in relationship “dance of the holy three” as  Jo expresses it in Doctrine of the Trinity on Disclosing New Worlds

    Focusing on Christ we sing a salvation story - love expressed through the fullness of God but revealed in Jesus. That fullness is the Trinity and so we should be careful of ideas which suggest that OT God is nasty wrathful God and Jesus reveals the nicer NT God. The love of God is revealed through the whole salvation story from the beginnings of time into future days.

    The dance of the holy three in relationship with the dance of humanity?

    The Spirit was not something new at Pentecost, We are reminded that Moses met with this same Spirit in the desert, that the Spirit brings Kingdom Joy, freedom from earth-bound ways and through this Spirit we are new born - time and time again.


    How big is your God?

    Big enough to be the creator of all things yet personal enough to be in relationship with each of us?

    Big enough to create each living things and open enough to offer the freedom to each to live in their own way?

    Big enough to be understood in a million different ways or so small that you understanding has to be restricted and restrictive?

    To embrace Trinity can open us up to the  awesome, diverse nature of the “dance of the holy three” or can restrict us to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Male, authoritarian, regimented. 


    Mothering God, you gave me birth
    in the bright morning of this world.
    Creator, source of every breath,
    you are my rain, my wind, my sun.

     

    Mothering Christ, you took my form,
    offering me your food of light,
    grain of new life and grape of love,
    your very body for my peace.

     

    Mothering Spirit, nurt’ring one,
    in arms of patience hold me close,
    so that in faith I root and grow
    until I flow’r, until I know.

    Julian of Norwich

    Ego Sum 4, William Congdon, 1960. Christus Rex

    I am - Creator, Salvation, a bird in flight
    I am - created to think, create, explore, 
    to joyfully play, dance, sing,
    to relate holy three to all humanity

     She dances in fire, startling her spectators,
    Waking tongues of ecstasy where dumbness reigned;
    She weans and inspires all whose hearts are open,
    Nor can she be captured, silenced or restrained.

    A salvation story - God who lives in community with Godself, calls us to live in community with one another and to join with the dance of the holy three. God who lives in perfect love, perfect relationship, inspires us to love and to heal broken relationships. 
    We gather around this table to break bread, share wine, to commune with God and  with all who seek the way of God.
    At the heart of this salvation, this good news, this gospel is the cross and an empty tomb - a story of new life, hope, the offer to move from the past into the future - to be born again.

    When I survey the wondrous cross
    on which the Prince of glory died,
    my richest gain I count but loss,
    and pour contempt on all my pride.

    Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
    save in the death of Christ, my God;
    all the vain things that charm me most,
    I sacrifice them to his blood.

    See, from his head, his hands, his feet,
    sorrow and love flow mingled down;
    Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,
    or thorns compose so rich a crown?

    His dying crimson, like a robe,
    spreads o’er his body on the tree;
    then am I dead to all the globe,
    and all the globe is dead to me.

    Were the whole realm of nature mine,
    that were a present far too small;
    love so amazing, so divine,
    demands my soul, my life, my all.

    Isaac Watts (1674-1748), 1707


    Take, eat; this is the body of Christ, broken for you.

    Do this in remembrance of him.

    This cup is the new covenant in the blood of Christ,
    shed for you and for all, for the forgiveness of sin.

    Drink of it, all of you, in remembrance of him.