Reflections and Prayers
Sunday 13 May 2013: Prayers based on John 15 v 9-17 - Karen Stallard
Jesus is preparing to leave...
Leaving his disciples with these words ...
They are being left behind, to follow on afterwards.
Gracious God;
For those who have been abandoned
May they know the words of your faithful love dwell within them
May they know the presence of one who chooses to love them beside them
May they know the arms of one who calls them a friend around them
May they know a sense of purpose and connection in a loving community.
For those who know little of what it is to be loved
May they begin to experience a love which is untainted by human mistakes
May they open their hearts to become vulnerable to a love which will fill their unlovely gaps
May they begin to love as they are being loved
May they believe in their hearts and minds that they are loved deeply and sacrificially.
For those who feel directionless and without purpose
May they join communities which love others through words and action
May they build relationships with those who have direction and purpose and learn from them
May they discover within themselves their gifts to be shared in the world
For those who feel unequal and subservient to others
May they know the joy of an equal friendship
May they experience powerful people acting in humility before them
May they be set free from any chains of slavery
May they know in their hearts that they are held equally with others in your eyes.
For those who feel like they have never been wanted or chosen
May they know a sense of your calling in their lives
May they experience friends choosing to be with them and know the reality of that choice
May they rest assured in the knowledge that they have ultimately been chosen by you and given life because they are loved.
Amen
Wednesday 2 May 2012: Thoughts on the Departed - from a Church Member
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Kenneth. Brian. Jenny. Friends lost within too short a time. We pray this morning for Jenny, whose funeral takes place this afternoon. Beloved by family, friends and neighbours, by colleagues and associates, by those who had known her since schooldays, forgive us Lord that we feel robbed and cheated of her charm and good cheer. Jenny loved the natural world, where she could grow fresh fruit and vegetables. You tell us in scripture of Your Father's house being a mansion with many rooms. Please, Lord, find for Jenny one that opens onto a garden. |
Sunday 29 April 2012: Prayers (Based on Psalm 23) - Karen Stallard
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The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.
My needs are great sometimes, Lord and they feel unmet. Thank you that as my good shepherd you provide for me when I am ragged and tired. You make me lie down in green pastures when I am anxious and thirsty. You lead me beside quiet waters. You restore my soul, O Lord.
He guides me in paths of righteousness.
At times I stray away into darkness and need a light, but You O God guide me. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil. I know you are with me, Your light is Your presence, and even when I am blind and cannot see your light, I know the comfort of Your guiding hand. |
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You prepare a Table before me, in the presence of my enemies.
Imagine that, eating and enjoying with those who are a threat to me! You give me all I need to be able to flourish in a cruel world. You give me soothing oil for my head. I have more than enough, indeed my cup overflows!
Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life. All the while I inhabit Your house, I know I am secure. I am a sheep in Your pasture; I am a wandering sheep who is overseen by my shepherd - I know His voice and He knows mine. He protects me from the wolves, and fences me in when I need to be kept safe. Oh may those sheep without a shepherd join our fold, so that they may know the Good Shepherd in their lives too. Amen |
19 April 2012: Holocaust Memorial Day - Andrew Gardner
If the names Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belsen, Sobibor, Theresienstadt – and there are many others – don’t send shivers down your spine, please take some thought with you from this service.
This week has seen people across the world mark Holocaust Memorial Day. The Holocaust is known in Hebrew as the “Shoah”, in English “destruction”. It recalls the concentrated effort during the Second World War, to exterminate the Jews from the face of the Earth. So ferocious, so furious was it, that the Nazis pursued it to the detriment of their own war effort.
Genocide is a worldwide phenomenon. We have seen it under Stalin, and Pol Pot; and in Rwanda; and in Yugoslavia. What sets the Holocaust apart is its method, and efficiency, in techno-industrial slaughter. Never before or after has death become an organised factory process.
Out of nine million Jews across occupied Europe, almost six million were transported East, where they perished. Man, woman, teenager, child, infant, all were put to death. With them were taken intellectuals, dissidents and dissenters, Jehovah’s Witnesses, cripples, the mentally ill, homosexuals, gipsies. Anyone who didn’t fit the Nazi ideal.
And Nazism was not confined to Germany.
Our remembrance is for the innocent, who had done no wrong; those rounded-up, ghettoised, then liquidated; and those who were hidden by the good but betrayed by others.
Peace be upon their souls.
15 April 2012: Three Reflections - Andrew Gardner
Darkness and Light - 1 John 1 to 2:2
What do we mean by darkness? As a child becoming interested in physics, my father asked me: “What does it take to create a shadow?” The answer is light, for without light, shadow cannot exist. I was reminded of this when working on a production of ‘Peter Pan’ – when Peter first met Wendy his shadow had become detached, and the kind-hearted Wendy sewed it back on for him. He needed the darkness as well as the light, and with one missing he was paralysed. We each have our dark and light sides, and it is important to be in touch with both of them, and not deny them.
“Darkness” is used in scripture to encompass sin, emptiness and hollowness, a detachment from God. It contains a lot of pain, physical and psychological. “Darkness” is used too in secular poetry to denote loneliness and depression – which are difficult to cope with when one is secular, more so when one is of faith.
John’s gospel gives us hope. He tells us of communion with each other, and of our individual relationship with our Saviour.
Before and After - John 20 v 19-31
Jumping the centuries a little, Pink Floyd sang, “Ticking away, the moments that make up a dull day; we fritter away the hours in an off-hand way”. I imagine Thomas felt empty and hollow in the days after the resurrection, not believing for a moment that the teacher he had placed such faith in might see him again. Scripture holds tales of many miracles, but having seen your guiding light crucified, would you have not doubted? Thomas did, and his name has since been much abused. Historians ought to cherish him, for he wished to have evidence of truth before giving testimony. Thanks to his wariness of being deceived, we have one of the strongest testimonies of all in the New Testament.
Disunity and Unity - Isaiah 65: 17-25
The major and minor prophets in scripture write of Babylonian captivity and separation; of dispersal; and division. The Sephardim travelled from North Africa to Spain and Portugal; and the Ashkenazim found their pale of settlement in Eastern Europe. Some would later reach England and the Americas. Many would, later, reach unity only in death, and we will think more of that next Sunday, following Holocaust Memorial Day.
Within church we mark unity with communion, in a building of our own, where once we would have celebrated privately and secretly in each others’ homes. Our pre-Constantine ethos of self-governance continues: if I were to sum up non-conformism in eight words, they would be “You do not have to agree with me”. In non-conformism we are not bound by the strictures of Canterbury, or York, or Rome. We talk to each other, encouraging questioning of doctrine, and supporting and encouraging each other in our interpretations of scripture. We might go on to reach the same conclusions, but we find our own paths as we are ready. What we have is a shared faith that over-rides differences that may sometimes come between us.
15 April 2012: Meditations on the Seen and Unseen - Graham White
I John 1:1 - 2:2 We are told to walk in the light"; be aware, that is, of where we are going. But we can all see, surely? And even if we are blind, we can compensate: we can come to know where we are going by other means. Is this not obvious?
But this walking in the light is metaphorical: we are talking about our life before God, and talking of whether we know where we are going in that sense. Whether we can see what is in front of our moral or spiritual eyes: whether we can see reliably what is in front of us, whether we want to, whether we can see the people in front of us { their needs, joys and sorrows, that they are all loved by God - and whether we can see that God is with us. Whether, indeed, we want to see.
John 20:19- 31 Whoever wrote these words could, he says, have gone on for much longer: there is far more to be said. Maybe so: but what is written here is what is essential, essential, that is, for our new life as disciples of Jesus. And it seems an odd mixture: one story of empowerment, one story about, it might seem, lack of faith. But in the context of the first reading Thomas had at least got one thing right: he wanted to see. And Jesus reveals himself to Thomas, with the reservation that those who haven't seen (but who believe) are blessed (more blessed than Thomas? Who knows: Thomas was, at least, blessed in that he had seen the risen Jesus).
But the disciples (and, by extension, Thomas) have also been tremendously empowered: they can forgive and retain sins, and they also have life in Jesus' name. As I've said, an odd mixture: we should probably not divide up the disciples into good disciples and bad disciples, and we should probably not simplify matters by turning this into a story about two stages of life (the doubting, pre-conversion life and the believing, post-conversion life); all of our lives are made of this strange mixture.
Isaiah 65:17- 25 There is something rather paradoxical about the statement in the first reading: “I am writing these things so that you do not sin. But if anyone does sin . . . ". So this letter has a purpose, but the author is tacitly admitting that this purpose will not be fulfilled. We should remember this: we are told throughout the bible to aim for peace and unity, and we read a good deal of stuff about how empowered we are, but we should not forget how difficult this is. It is not something that we can just do: peace and unity are described as simply miraculous in Isaiah. Rather, the sort of peace and unity that is described here is something which will always be frustrated by what the Bible calls sin, which does not mean simple naughtiness, but rather separation from God, blindness, being unable to go ahead with the opportunities that God offers us. So there is some point, after all, to this letter, failure though it may be: the Christian life is a life of perpetually reminding each other, and ourselves, what we are called to.
For Children Everywhere, at Easter - Andrew Gardner
Joy! Life! Spring!
Do things sometimes make you sad? They do me, sometimes they make me cry. Grown-ups are allowed to sometimes. But I'd like you to think about all the things that make you happy, that make you laugh, or dance, or fall about because you love life so much. If you like, and I'd like you to, you can jump up and down every time you think, "Spring!"
Joy! Life! Spring!
We praise you Lord for the hope in life You bring.
Let us be upstanding in our worship,
With Joy! Life! Spring!
The winter months are fading now, at last,
The relief of daylight greets us as we wake,
With Joy! Life! Spring!
Life unfading, never ending,
You promise
On this Earth, that was Your own choice to provide
And in the world to come.
We praise Your gifts
With Joy! Life! Spring!
Bless us Lord on this happiest of days,
With Joy! Life! Spring!
God in All in Things - a prayer from a church adherent
Loving Father
Let us remember today the different places that we come from when we gather together to worship and praise you
Let us be still for a moment and be silent in the quietness of our hearts, to be with people here and with people whom are absent
Let us reflect outwards and equally to all today in a spirit of your grace.
To our wider community beyond the multifaceted life of the chapel, to the business of busy Upper Street, the surrounding residential areas, affluent and in dire need, to schools, local government and local services just beyond the doorstep
Jesus
We call to you to gather here in your presence, in a spirit of compassion, all who doubt the presence of hope and a our curious to discover the presence of a resurrected God in their lives
Come, let us be with all hearts, minds, souls and bodies, present and absent, who desire to seek an everlasting life, a life beyond all knowledge
Jesus
We call to you to gather here in your presence, in a spirit of humility, all who rejoice in the promise of an eternity with you and the strength that your salvation offers
Come, let us be with all hearts, minds, souls and bodies, present and absent, who desire to seek a place to share the joy of eternal faith, an everlasting love
Jesus
We call to you that you may equip and enable each one of us in different ways to be a sign of light and signifier of your salvation within our relationships, homes, workplaces, church and at leisure
Come, let us all enter a space where we are able to be in the presence of another person, in true grace, listening and being, asking and seeking, giving and loving, leaving all judgements aside and being the free people we are called to be, without a moments doubt.
Amen
