Listening to the stones

Leave the tomb alone

the hallelujahs are broken
they have been shattered on the cross
and buried in the tomb

the good news
has been folded away
and death
has filled the void

and when the void is filled
there is no space for hope
when the tomb is filled with broken body
there is no space for life

the tomb
needs to be empty
in order to make space for hope

and by lingering among the dead
filling the tomb with unsuccessful longing
and what might have beens
we mark a space where death has become the victor
a place that marks the success of death

but let us not linger here
let us tarry here no longer
among the gravestones
and the dead

we fill it with sorrow
and it needs to make room for hope
and our tarrying here
does not allow for that

let us go
and leave the tombs to the dead
and give God room
to make room
for life

Easter Story

Here's a wee retelling of the Easter story we'll use on Sunday. One voice and one word at a time. Lots of pause. Speak each word deliberately.

Dawn.
Quiet.
Still.
Footsteps.
Running.
Disciples.
Gasp!
Empty!
Where?
Panic.
Whispers.
Shouts.
Scramble
Depart.
Fading.
Quiet.
Still.
Silence.
Breathing.
Woman.
Looking.
Gardener.
Asks.
Where?
Pause.
Waiting...
‘Mary!’
Stare.
Confound.
Hesitation.
Tears.
‘Jesus!’

Palm Sunday

Always interested in feedback from services especially ones like today which try to be both adult and child-friendly at the same time. You have the story of Holy Week playing out (it's not exactly a children's story) with all-ages present for some of the time. So trying to find the balance between story telling and reflection on our entire theological framework can be 'interesting'.

It is interesting that the foundation of all we believe is focused mainly on this one Sunday (given not many come to the holy week services) and the celebration of next week. At the same time we've made Palm Sunday a children's service often when in truth that is the last thing we ought to make it. Too much goes on in this week and you have to roll it all out in one service.

So it is always good to know how we might get the balance right between story telling and theological reflection on this hugely important week.

The image is the cloth we've been weaving together trough Lent which, each strand a different story over the last 5 weeks, which have been becoming a cross. The Sunday School made purple crosses during the service and came in with them today and made a circle round the lenten cross.

Wait till next week...

May this cross...

A prayer we'll use on Sunday. It comes after a whole lot of paper crosses have been paraded in and stuck to a table cloth that has had strips of cloth added to it throughout Lent shaping a cross.

Loving God
each cross is a prayer
a prayer for you
as you turn towards the cross

each cross is a hope
a hope for the world
as easter comes close

each cross is a person
a person in this world
hurt as you were by others

each cross marks a place
a place where love is given
for the sake of others

each cross is a mark
a mark of where God is
with those who need God

each cross is a signature
a signature of God
that says ‘I love you all’

May each cross
we place in this world
be a place of new life for all

So be it
Amen

Sermon Taster

From Sunday's sermon (there's not enough here that you don't need to be there on Sunday!)

Jesus too comes across these times when you wonder… when you get knocked a little more than normal… when bad news makes you think a little too much… (if ever you can do that)… When it happens to him… he refuses to stray into bad theology in order to find an easier way of coping with things… You know the sort of phrases we use… what’s for you won’t go past you… there’s a time and place for everything… you never go before your time…

But Jesus says ‘No!’ to this kind of thinking… of rewriting the truth in order to make things easier…

That tower that fell on 18 unsuspecting souls… They were bad people were they…? They got what they probably deserved… The moral arc of the universe has paid back their sins…?

No… says Jesus…

txt the message

Here's this weeks quiz: can you turn this into txt: (I need it for Sunday. First with the whole thing gets a prize - maybe.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

Bet you can't!

Unfinished

Here's the beginning of the nativity story but it is unfinished. On you go and add the next part. Just click 'comment' below and write the next part. Please!

There was a knock. It was Simon's turn to go to the door. All day and into the evening people had been knocking to find out if there was any room in the inn and the inn-keepers wife couldn’t take it any more. She had handed the responsibility over to her husband. After a hour of turning people away, he couldn't take it and said to his son Simon that he was next to go to the door.

Simon wasn’t looking forward to this. Normally he loved people coming around: he loved recording their names and finding out where they had travelled from, but tonight all he heard his mum and dad say was that there was no room, sorry.

He felt for each one of the visitors who had to find other lodgings. Now he was going to have to tell them himself, so as he went to the door, he hesitated, drew a large breath and swung it open.

It was a man and a woman. The woman was young and having a baby. Before the man could say anything Simon blurted out, "Sorry we’ve got no room!" and quickly shut the door again

He leaned his back against the door, breathing deeply, disappointed in himself, but really what else was he to do? His mum and dad would go mad if he had brought them in and where would they go anyway.

But then his eyes lit up and he smiled. He had an idea. He opened the door expecting the couple to still be there but they weren’t. He looked to the left and to the right but they had gone and with all the people in the crowded street he couldn’t see them among them.

Just at that moment his mum called him. He hesitated for the second time but stepped out into the busy street and ran off after the couple. He asked people he passed if they had seen them but they all looked blank for it is in the busiest streets people are most lonely

Simon continued to run through the crowd still looking for them. No one recognised them at all…

Psalm 8.1

Here's today's update on our community written psalm adding ideas from others. Its not finished yet. Please add your own thougts to it. Might read this on Sunday. Just copy the line(s) into the comment box and then your version of it. I'll post all changes (anonymously) tomorrow.

O, One who represents the heavens,
The mighty seas,
the abundance of nature- flora and fauna,
the warmth of the sun,
the gift of water:
all contribute to our source of wonder:
every atom and creature, every mountain and waterfall
wordlessly praises your name:
‘Beauty’;
‘Wonder’;
‘Majesty’.

And as the galaxies stretch across the heavens
between them, your wonder and love dance together.

Even the youngest of us finds an eternal cry within us
enough to silence those who want to defeat beauty

For, look!
The heavens!
Worked on by your very fingers:
the moons and the stars you have imagined and loved into place
beside them all, by size, we humans are dust
yet in wonder we can stand among them
tall enough that our lives are held and loved by you.

May you laugh at our god-ideas!
the sense we have some divine right in this universe.
We are not gods for we do not make stars or covenants
Better than that, we are filled with stardust and made of promise.

We are creatures of creation too
and beside the geese in their flight and the sheep on their trails
the fish in their ocean and the pastures on their land
we have responsibility
never to dishonour but always to glorify your name:
‘Beauty’;
‘Wonder’;
‘Majesty’.

Sermon Nightmare

Thursday nights have always been sermon writing nights. No matter how late in after meetings or whatever, the sermon ALWAYS gets written (first draft at least) on Thursday evening. So three cheers that it has completed its first draft tonight.

But, it is one of these moments when you are scared to look at it again because in your heart of hearts it just doesn't feel worthy to be preached even in an empty room. It is more meditative this week: a one way conversation (how different is that from every other week?!).

I remember being relieved when a previous minister from this congregation who taught me at university said that for him some weeks it is a real struggle. The words and hook just don't come together.

It is so true because at times like this you don't have to wrestle the word out of the text, you have to wrestle yourself out of it and while the text is not hugely difficult, choosing the way to make it live, is. It gets all tangled up (and rightly so) in what is going on, what questions you have now that you didn't have before, the experience of the growing relationships you have with other people you live among, learning what needs to be said and the love that is born between you.

Such is the Word of God: alive to the moment and ready for it. If only the preacher was as well!

Vows

We have six people professing their faith on Sunday and I've been looking at the vows. You can't change them, apparently but I find them a bit cold. There nothing intriguing about them and perhaps the faith ought to be a bit intriguing. So with each vow there will also be an invitation made for them to trust the intent of the vow knowing these aren't prescriptive but invitations. Here are the invitations:

We invite you…
to create God’s family here
with this community of followers in worship
when we gather and journey together in faith

which is what we mean when we ask you:
Believing in one God
Creator, Saviour and Spirit
and confessing Jesus Christ as your saviour
do you promise to join regularly with your fellow Christians
in worship on the Lord’s Day?


We invite you:
to let the Bible’s truths shape you
and to work through prayer and action
for the purpose and growth of God’s Realm

which is what we mean when we ask you:
Do you promise to be faithful in reading the Bible
and in prayer


We invite you:
to live fully in the world
through the way of serving others
giving of yourself for another's need
that you may be a blessing in the world

which is what we mean when we ask you:
Do you promise
to give a fitting proportion
of what you have in time, talents and money
to the Church’s work in the world?


We invite you:
to trust in grace and speak out in the spirit of Jesus Christ
following the journey in every act and word you give the world

which is what we mean when we ask you:
Do you promise
depending on the grace of God
to profess publicly your loyalty to Jesus Christ
to serve him in your daily work
and to walk in his ways all the days of your life?

Comments?