Archive for November, 2008

Posted on November 30, 2008 - by Tim L

On the occasion of a confirmation

Meditation

(Everyone has brought a favourite mug or cup or one is provided with one)
Take up your glass or cup or mug.

Hold it in your hands

Feel the texture

How heavy does it feel in your hands?

Look at the colours.

The shape of the glass

Why is it your favourite? What makes it so?

What makes it memorable to you?

Is it chipped or cracked?

Is it clean? Are there stains in the bottom from so much use?

No one else knows why it is so special to you, why it is your favourite

This mug, this glass – they are just ordinary.

God is the potter – he takes the clay and shapes it, moulds it, with love a and care.

And it is into this ordinary mug or glass, that God is willing to pour his love, his grace, his power,

Will you come and get your ordinary glass, mug filled? At this special meal together will you come and discover a drink that means you are never thirsty again.

Communion words

We are going to celebrate communion together

Let me go over with you again exactly what goes on in the Lord’s Supper and why it is so centrally important. I received my instructions from the Master himself and passed them on to you. The Master, Jesus, on the night of his betrayal, took bread. Having given thanks, he broke it and said,

This is my body, broken for you.

Do this to remember me.

After supper, he did the same thing with the cup:

This cup is my blood, my new covenant with you.

Each time you drink this cup, remember me.

What you must solemnly realize is that every time you eat this bread and every time you drink this cup, you reenact in your words and actions the death of the Master. You will be drawn back to this meal again and again until the Master returns. You must never let familiarity breed contempt.

1 Corinthians. 11: 23-26 (The Message)

Words of invitation

Jesus invites you, welcomes you,

Draw near with faith

Receive the body of our Lord Jesus Christ which he gave for you and his blood which he shed for you

Eat and drink in remembrance that Christ died for you and feed on him in your hearts by faith with thanksgiving.

If this is part of your story, if you would like to be part of the community that tells this story, if you want to remember, then come. Come with family, come with friends, come as you are, for all is ready.

There are four tables each with bread and wine. If you would like to be served by someone please use the ones on the LHS – front or back. If you would like to serve yourself please go to a table on the right – front or back

Posted on November 16, 2008 - by Tim L

God the Gardener

¹“I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer. ²He cuts off every branch of me that doesn’t bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing he prunes back so it will bear even more. ³You are already pruned back by the message I have spoken.

⁴“Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me.

⁵“I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a thing. ⁶Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. ⁷But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. ⁸This is how my Father shows who he is-when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples.

John 15: 1-8 (The Message)

I love to garden.  Specifically I love to grow fruit and veg.  I keep an allotment, I have a greenhouse and couple of patches of ground at home for the summer crops.  I love being outside, I love buying the seeds, I love planting and watching them come up.  I love digging up potatoes, the smell of fresh carrots, the sweetness of freshly picked peas, a crisp leek, the smell of home grown garlic, a pepper in a Chinese stir fry, lentil, smoky bacon and pumpkin soup.

It is partly a distraction for my days off when I can get away from the house, the phone an d enjoy some peace and quiet.  When I can do some physical activity, hard digging, weed pulling, cutting back a hedge.

I try to grow organically as much as I can.  I have a whole variety of techniques to try and combat the pests.  But there is nothing like sitting down to a meal and count up how many veg have been grown at home or down on the allotment.

God is a gardener - he is in the business of the fruit and veg production.  The fruit he longs to see is the fruit of the Holy Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.  There is no law against any of those things and lets face it the world needs more of them - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.

If God is a gardener where are you?

Are you a fertile soil?  Ready that God might come and plant in you and grow a vine that will bear much fruit.

Are you an established plant but in the bed full of weeds and you are in danger of being choked?

Have you just fruited, produced your first crop of lovely delicious crisps apples?

Are you a full grown tree, you fruit every year but you need some pruning?

God is a gardener.

He looks for soil that he can work with and that can produce fruit.  All you need to do is ask him to come and help you bear fruit

Do you feel that you are in danger of going under in a veg patch that looks like it has never seen a gardener for a few years?  It might be time to ask God to help you with some of the hard choices you need to make about the priorities in your life, your friends, how you devote your time, ….

If you have begun to produce your first crops - well done.  But don’t relax and think you have arrived.  God asks you to be more fruitful.

Have you born fruit year after year and consider yourself to have reached maturity.  God will want to prune you.  There are some things which need to be taken out, cut off so you can bear even more fruit.

If God is a gardener where are you?

Fertile soil

Being choked by the weeds

In need of some pruning

If God is a gardener where are you?

Reflection

If U had a vineyard

Theology Sinead O'Connor

On a fruitful hill
And U fenced it and cleared it
Of all stones until
U planted it
With the choicest of vine
And U even built a tower
And a press to make wine
And U looked that it would bring forth sweet grapes
And it gave only wild grapes
What would U say?
Jerusalem and Judah
U be the judges I pray
Between me and my vineyard
This is what God says
What more could I have done in it
That I did not do in it?
Why when I ask it for sweetness
It brings only bitterness
For the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts
Is the house of Israel
And the men of Judah
His pleasant plant
And he looks for justice but beholds oppression
And he hopes for equality but hears a cry
Jerusalem and Judah
This is God’s reply
Sadness will come to those who build house to house
And lay field to field ’til there’s room
For none but U to dwell in the land
Oh in the land
And sadness will come to those who call evil good
And good evil
Who present darkness as light and light as darkness
Who present as sweetness only the things which are bitterness
For the vineyard of The Lord of Hosts
Is the house of Israel
And the men of Judah his pleasant plant
Oh that my eyes were a fountain of tears
That I might weep for my poor people
For every boot stamped with fierceness
For every cloak rolled in blood
Jerusalem and Judah
I’d cry if I could

If I had a vineyard by Sinead O’Connor from Theology, 2007

Final comment

The song by Sinead O’Connor talks about God’s chosen people being vineyard but despite all of the best attentions of a faithful gardener the fruit is sour.  You cannot make wine from the fruit of the vineyard.  This is not a threat but it is a comment on what God the gardener is like.  If you don’t bear sweet grapes for fine wines he will dug you up and root you out of the vineyard.

Posted on November 9, 2008 - by Tim L

God - Chairman of the Board

When we think of the Board room we generally think of older men, suits and serious discussions.  If we think about the Chairman of the Board we think of someone who people fear or respect.

To be a good Chair you need to be able to let people have their say, to keep your eye on the main business that needs to be discussed, ensure that people are motivated for all the right reasons to keep on building your business and you need to make sure that everyone is aware of the decision that has been made.

The closest many of us may have come to seeing a Chairman at work is in The Apprentice.  Alan Sugar grills and tests 16 candidates over a number of weeks to see who he will ultimately hire.  The job interview from hell he calls it.

Over the weeks of the programme we see all of the candidates jostling and vie-ing for his attention. Some get it for all of the wrong reasons.

Those of who watch it get hooked to see who will get fired each week.  Maybe we think if we got the chance we could better and we watch with bemused attention as one by one the candidates ultimately hear those words - you’re fired!

We tend to focus on this side of the story line, trying to distance ourselves from the unfortunates to get dismissed week.  You know it’s so easy to fill in the blanks about other people without knowing the full story.  Listen to these, how quickly do you jump to stereotypes and assumptions.

Really old and wealthy man marries a young beautiful girl

Telemarketeer calls you to offer exciting new opportunities

A celebrity checks into hospital again for undisclosed reasons

The guy who slept though every lecture gets an A on his final paper

Someone pulls up next to you at the lights in a BMW series 5

It’s easy to fill the blanks in with our assumptions.  It’s even easier to do it with God. Because of his otherness, his mystery his power it’s easy to assume that the pictures we have of God are the correct ones.

¹¹While he had their attention, and because they were getting close to Jerusalem by this time and expectation was building that God’s kingdom would appear any minute, he told this story:

¹²“There was once a man descended from a royal house who needed to make a long trip back to headquarters to get authorization for his rule and then return. ¹³But first he called ten servants together, gave them each a sum of money, and instructed them, ‘Operate with this until I return.’

¹⁴“But the citizens there hated him. So they sent a commission with a signed petition to oppose his rule: ‘We don’t want this man to rule us.’

¹⁵“When he came back bringing the authorization of his rule, he called those ten servants to whom he had given the money to find out how they had done.

¹⁶“The first said, ‘Master, I doubled your money.’

¹⁷“He said, ‘Good servant! Great work! Because you’ve been trustworthy in this small job, I’m making you governor of ten towns.’

¹⁸“The second said, ‘Master, I made a fifty percent profit on your money.’

¹⁹“He said, ‘I’m putting you in charge of five towns.’

²⁰“The next servant said, ‘Master, here’s your money safe and sound. I kept it hidden in the cellar. ²¹To tell you the truth, I was a little afraid. I know you have high standards and hate sloppiness, and don’t suffer fools gladly.’

²²“He said, ‘You’re right that I don’t suffer fools gladly-and you’ve acted the fool! ²³Why didn’t you at least invest the money in securities so I would have gotten a little interest on it?’

²⁴“Then he said to those standing there, ‘Take the money from him and give it to the servant who doubled my stake.’

²⁵“They said, ‘But Master, he already has double . . .’

²⁶“He said, ‘That’s what I mean: Risk your life and get more than you ever dreamed of. Play it safe and end up holding the bag.

²⁷“‘As for these enemies of mine who petitioned against my rule, clear them out of here. I don’t want to see their faces around here again.’”

Luke 19: 11-27 (The Message)

Most times we hear this we focus on the one who got fired just like in the Apprentice.  We think we know he should have done better but we have a little bit of sympathy because well Alan Sugar or the King in the story can be obnoxious and rude.  We can assume that the King is cold, calculating and ruthless.  The servant was in fear so took no risks and yet perhaps that was the biggest risk.  Let’s say the servant is right in his assumptions about the king then he should have done better than this.  Just like the apprentices, they know Alan sugar is a hard task master therefore they do need to think through their answers.  I’m half Jewish but I don’t what Kosher is, how can you be half Jewish?? Springs to mind

But just may be we spend too long focussing on the ones that get fired and its true in this bible story too.  We let their sense of reality; their assumptions define our views of what the man at the top is like.

Lets for a minute think more about those that got hired.

Those that tried hard, were faithful didn’t just get a pat on the back; they got back five fold more, ten fold more.  The man at the top did take their profits for himself or play safe with them in a low risk bank account in Iceland!

No he gives them all that he entrusted to them and more besides; he gives away fifteen more cities from his new kingdom.  This blows our assumptions out of the water.  The man at the top is generous and yet also just.

How long have you imagined God as the fearful Chairman of the Board, glaring, self-righteous, just waiting for us to mess it up - so that he can say with great relish you’re fired.

Perhaps instead if we think about to what makes a good chairman -?

To be a good Chair you need to be able to let people have their say, to keep your eye on the main business that needs to be discussed, ensure that people are motivated for all the right reasons to keep on building your business and you need to make sure that everyone is aware of the decision that has been made.

Clues to God’s great generosity are all around but often we don’t want or can’t see them because our assumptions about who he is has blinded us.  Our relationships, those who love us and support us, a sunrise, or a crisp clean morning frost, sleep, food, sex, work.  These could all be mundane and ordinary and yet God in his great generosity has created them to be hugely pleasurable.  God is more good, more generous, more full of grace than we could ever imagine.  He want us all of the candidates to succeed, He’s longing to say you’re hired,

And what if the business is bringing about the kingdom of God, the rule of Jesus here on earth right now.  Then to those of who are faithful even if we think we have so little to offer then he is waiting with grace and generosity to say you’re hired!

Posted on November 2, 2008 - by Tim L

God the Talent Show Judge

When it comes to God do you feel like a you are in a talent show and he is the judge?
You are standing on the stage, the glare of the lights, it’s lonely, it’s just you, the judge, and maybe even ,millions of folks on National TV.

Your palms are sweaty, you have practised for weeks, this is as good as it will ever get.  The judge sits there, …..motionless, …..unsmiling behind the table, …….the judge jots a few notes and you wonder what they are,……..waiting, waiting, waiting,…..

We give it our best shot, we perform our heart our, as if our very life might depend upon it.  Our five seconds of fame, …the best we can be,……

The audience applause dies down, ……the silence is deafening as we wait,,    wait, wait,…….for the judges verdict.

“That was good but,…..not good enough.”
There is more for you to learn
There is more for you to read
There is more for you to give,
More, more, more, more,……..

Our dreams are shattered, we are deflated,

Then there is those of who,…..who dare not even give it a try in the first place because we are simply too afraid, believe that we are not good enough, or even worse firmly believe we have no talent at all.

God the Talent Show judge.

Always asking for more, not matter how much we have given,..The danger is that we have created a God who we can never please.  A God who keeps us busy with endless activity and piety without purpose.  A God who is never impressed.

And God, the Father in heaven says,

I’m after love that lasts, not more religion.
I want you to know God, not go to more prayer meetings.

Hosea 6;6 The Message

Going through the motions doesn’t please you,
a flawless performance is nothing to you.
I learned God-worship when my pride was shattered.
Heart-shattered lives ready for love don’t for a moment escape God’s notice.

Psalms 51; 16-17 The Message

God delights in you and says well done.  We do have a desire within each one of us to be approved and to be significant, even too be famous.

We can never please God enough.

We don’t need to perform for God.  We already have his approval.