Matthew 26.36-46

I wonder what you pray when things are looking tough and the future appears to be rather a gloomy one. Or when you’re in trouble and everything’s going wrong.

If you’re anything like me, and like, I’m sure most of the rest of the population, our prayers when we’re up against it go something like this:

Dear God, please help me. Please take away the pain. Don’t let this bad thing happen to me, and so on. Give me strength.

The human inclination naturally wants us to avoid hardship and difficulty. But I’m always struck by Jesus and his example. We heard earlier some of his prayer. How different from many of our own. And, yet, how alike too.

In the run-up to the crucifixion, I think we see the humanity of Jesus, and the vulnerability of the human Jesus, perhaps in a way that we don’t elsewhere. We see the Jesus who asks his Father to take away the cup of suffering that he is undergoing.

Jesus is praying just before his betrayal and arrest. Judas’s betrayal has been foretold, and Jesus has some idea of what he is to do. He has also just told Peter that he will deny him three times. What must it be like to know that your friends are going to desert and betray you, right at the hour of your greatest need?

Jesus is clearly suffering heavily - we’re told that his prayer is agitated and that he is deeply grieved (check translation), that he has thrown himself on the ground to pray, and that the friends who were with him have fallen asleep. The abandonment that he faces on the cross when they all run away has already begun.

But where Jesus differs from many of our prayers is that he doesn’t continue to focus on his suffering but then moves his thoughts and focus on to doing God’s will. He follows his plea for an end to suffering with those haunting and powerful words: “Yet not my will, but yours (check translation).” And then his prayers continue - “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.”

God’s will at this point involves Jesus’s great suffering. It’s one of the paradoxes of the Christian Gospel that the loving, compassionate God allows his Son to suffer so greatly, indeed needs that suffering to take place in order for his plan to be fulfilled.

And Jesus could have walked away. But he didn’t because he always put God’s will before his own human desires.

He was the man who is God - a God who limits himself in order to become human and experience the life we do, and much worse, in order for the resurrection to take place and for our salvation.

We pray frequently in the Lord’s Prayer - Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

But our prayer can only really be a true one, if as well as saying the words, we live it out in our actions. Our Lent Group was talking last Monday about how we discern what is God’s will, for if we are to do God’s will, we need to know first what it is. And at heart that comes back to our relationship with God.

We only get to know someone by spending time with them, by listening to what they think and feel.

It takes time to build up strong friendships with people - and it’s only those whom we know really well about whom we can ever say we know what they’re thinking about something.

It’s a bit the same with God. We discover God’s will by spending time with God, through reading Scripture and spending time in prayer.

Of course many of the things we wrestle with our not talked about explicitly in the Bible, but there are patterns and principles we can find there which can help us make decisions about God’s will. We know, through Jesus’s teaching what the values of the kingdom of heaven are. Those are God’s values.

We see those values in the example of Jesus and how he lived his life and the people he enjoyed spending time with.

And, of course, once we know what God’s values are, we then have to put into practice living according to his will, so that we can, with Jesus, say about everything we do - yet not my will but yours.

There’s a story of an elderly Scottish woman - I don’t think her being Scottish is particularly significant - who is making her way through the countryside.

Each time she comes to a crossroads, she tosses a stick into the air. Whichever way the stick comes down is the road that she takes. At one intersection, however, an elderly man saw her toss her stick into the air not once but three times before resuming her journey.

He was curious. “Why are you throwing your stick like that?” he asked.

“She looked at him and replied: “I’m letting God direct my journey by using this stick.”

“Then why did you throw it three times?” asked the curious man.

“Because,” the woman replied, “the first two times God was pointing me in the wrong direction.”

Sometimes where we want to go and what we want to do is not the same as God wants. I wonder if you are aware of times when God has been prompting you in one direction but you’ve constantly tried to go the other way or to make God’s plan fit in with yours.

We need always to ask ourselves: is my life following God’s will, or not? Or do I make compromises? Do I long for honour for myself? Do I shut my mind to things that seem too hard or too big even though I know them to be God’s way because the sacrifice seems too great?

Do I tell just a little white lie because I’m afraid to be honest with someone? Do I end up being rude to someone because I’m in a bad mood? Do I end up being less than polite because I’m in a hurry?

There are all sorts of ways in which our lives reflect a lack of God’s will, often without us even realising it.

It’s not always easy to know what God’s plan is, and often we only discover later when we can look back and see the direction in which God has taken us, sometimes against our will.

Sometimes we will get no clear signals and will have to rely on God to close seemingly open doors.

Sometimes we just have to step out in faith and trust that God will lead us to do the right thing or go the right way.

At other times we will feel as if we’re floundering around not knowing where we’re going or what we’re doing. In my own life, I’ve had several times where I’ve not really known what God was playing at, and it’s only been in looking back that I’ve seen how God’s hand was guiding me. But that’s not made it any easier at the time. Sometimes we just have to say to God, we don’t understand where you are leading, help us to trust in your will.

So it’s not easy, but it is something that each one of us is called to do, to be aware of God’s guidance, to fit our will with God’s and not try to make God’s will fit in with ours. And it’s important for the little decisions involved in the way we live our lives, as much as for the big life-changing decisions: how we use our money, what time we make for God and for other people, how we rate the needs of others compared with our own.

I find it endlessly interesting to see what people nowadays consider essential for life, with many getting in to debt because of things they feel they can’t live without - the new television, the exotic holiday, the expensive party or wedding. Of course, all these things are nice to have, but compared with the basic essentials of life - shelter, food, clean water, medicine, love - not really a high priority.

But God is not like the mother of three notoriously unruly teenagers who was asked whether or not she’d choose to have children if she could live her life all over again. “Oh, yes,” she replied. “Just not the same ones.”

That’s not God’s attitude towards us. We’re told in John 3.16 that God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten Son so that all who believe in him might not perish but have eternal life.

We’re not told that God gives up on the children who misbehave or who are not able to put his will first in everything. We’re told that in spite of that, God keeps trying to call us back.

God doesn’t send us back when we don’t meet the standards. God continues to love us. And our response to that love matters.

I suspect that where many of us struggle is in receiving God’s love. We make that initial response of faith. We strive to be good Christians. We beat ourselves up when we go wrong. We feel desperately guilty - or some people go the opposite way and make excuses - for their lack of prayer or service. We haven’t got time is a constant cry.

We need to allow ourselves the time and space to discover what it really means to be loved by God. We need to allow that to sink deeply within us.

If we know truly what God’s love means, we will have a sense that we are valued and worthwhile, because we are created and loved by God. I know more Christians who struggle with issues of worth than those who don’t. And when we know deep down that we are loved by God, then it become easier to do God’s will in everything.

When our security is found in God and not in the good opinion of others or in material things, then it becomes easier to do the will of God. Sometimes it will mean standing out against the world, or against those whom we love, or against possibly even our fellow Christians. That’s not easy.

In order to do that we sometimes need to let our defences down. We need to accept time and time again that it is God not us who is at the centre of the universe. That God loves us in spite of our imperfections.

That is so hard for most of us - because it goes against our natural inclination to want a good life for ourselves. It goes against much of the flow of our society which lives by a Gospel of what I want I will get. It’s hard for children in this day and age, who live with those messages, to learn to accept the boundaries. I know too many parents, with whom I have sympathy because no one enjoys putting up with whining and moaning children, who admit to giving in to their children’s demands just because it’s easier to do that.

A young police officer was taking his final exams at Hendon Police College in north London. He was faced with this question:

“You are in patrol in outer London when an explosion occurs in a gas main in a nearby street.

On investigation, you find that a large hole has been blown in the footpath, and there is an overturned van lying nearby. Inside the van is a strong smell of alcohol. Both occupants - a man and a woman - are injured.

“You recognise the woman as the wife of your Divisional Commander, who is away in the United States. A passing motorist stops to offer you assistance and you realise that he is someone currently wanted for armed robbery. Suddenly a man runs out of a nearby house, shouting that his wife is expecting a baby, and that the shock of the explosion has made her go into labour. Another man is crying for help - he’s been blasted into the canal but cannot swim.”

Bearing in mind the provisions of the Mental Health Act, describe in a few words what action you would take.”

The officer thought for a moment, picked up his pen and wrote: “I would take off my uniform and mingle with the crowd.”

Rick Warren in the Purpose Driven Life says this: “Nothing shapes your life more than the commitments you choose to make. Your commitments can develop you or they can destroy you, but either way they will define you. Tell me what you are committed to, and I’ll tell you what you will be in twenty years. We are what we become committed to.”

It’s our decision whether we want to become more like Jesus, whether in 20 years’ time or even 20 days’ time, people will look at us and see that what is distinctive about us is our commitment to Jesus. If our commitment is to God’s will above all else, then that will shape and change us and transform us. Many people fear change, but I can assure you that any changes that come about because we seek to do God’s will will ultimately be for our benefit.

They might involve some opposition. They might involve others not understanding our position. Christians often get bad press because they are seen to be judgemental or to be always saying no to things that everyone else thinks are acceptable. But we are called to be different. We are called to live with different values. And it’s not only those outside the Christian community that need to take note of those values. Jesus’s fiercest criticism was reserved not for the sinners and prostitutes, the unclean and the outcast, but for the religious authorities.

Are we different? If so, what is it that is different about us? Is it our disapproval of the world around and our standing apart from it? Or is it our willingness to get involved with that and transform it? Jesus didn’t stand on ceremony. He didn’t avoid the people whom others thought might contaminate their pure lives. He was right in there, talking to them, building relationships with them.
He didn’t stand apart from the world - his whole life was given to seeking to transform the world, which led to the ultimate sacrifice of his life and an agonising death, both physically and emotionally and spiritually. Just think of that cry from the cross which echoes the words of Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Do we, like the police officer in his exam take off our uniform and mingle with the crowd, or do we always wear the armour of God: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, shoes that make us ready to proclaim the Gospel wherever we go? Do we take with us the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit?

When our time comes and they write our obituary, what, I wonder, will they say about us? Obituaries often sum up where the commitment of a person lay.

God doesn’t expect us to be perfect - he knows so well that we are not. After all, it’s his world and his people that we sin against. But God does ask us to centre our lives around him and his will - the greatest commandment of all is to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and being.

We don’t need to be perfect to stand out from the crowd, we need to be in tune with God, willing to be open to doing God’s will, seeking God’s help and recognising our dependence on God for everything we have, everything we do and everything we are.

Of course, we’ll get it wrong at times; of course we’ll go our own way.

But that’s why God sent Jesus, that’s why Jesus went through that agony in the garden - because we couldn’t make ourselves perfect, in spite of what Jesus said in Matthew 5.48 - be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.

Christians are people who are not perfect, just forgiven. And we see this lived out in Jesus’s trust of the disciples after the resurrection. The disciples who fail him. The disciples who fall asleep in the garden while he wrestles in prayer. The disciples who ran away when he was on the cross. The disciples who included Peter who denied Jesus three times. And yet, it was those very same people to whom Jesus entrusted his commission to go and make disciples of all nations.

So let’s sum up.

First we have Jesus’s example to follow - in great agony he was able to put the will of God first, but we can know that he knows our struggles to do just that, because he too was tempted.

Second, we need to know God’s will. That discernment comes from a life of prayer and a knowledge of Scripture. There is no one who cannot make either of those things part of daily life. Even people who cannot read can pray and nowadays the Bible is available on tapes and CDs and so on, so that all may listen to it read, even if they cannot read it themselves. There is always time to pray, even if it means getting up ten minutes earlier in the morning.

Thirdly, when we know God’s will, we need to do it. That’s not always easy, but God will help us, we have the support of other Christians, their encouragement and prayers, and best of all, we know that if we fail, we can trust in God and his forgiveness, we can trust in God’s love knowing that God will not reject us but help us to stand up when we fall, brush ourselves down, and start again.

Loving God, give us open hearts to you. Inspire our lives by your Holy Spirit. Increase our faith and trust in you, so that, with Jesus, our cry may always be: “Yet not my will, but yours.”

We give thanks for his example, that even when he was suffering the greatest agony, he was able to put your will first, and we pray for strength that we might always have the courage to follow his example.

We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, your Son, our Saviour. Amen.

Exodus 17.1-7; Romans 5.1-11; John 4.5-32

There’s something wrong. There’s something most definitely wrong.

Jesus and his disciples are in Samaria, a place Jews normally avoided like the plague, preferring to take the longer route through Jericho when they were travelling from Judea to Galilee in the north.

The disciples have gone into a Samaritan town to buy food from, presumably Samaritans. But Jews and Samaritans have no dealings with each other.

There’s something wrong. There’s something most definitely wrong.

It’s midday but a woman is out collecting water. People just don’t do that.

They don’t come out in the hottest part of the day to do a heavy job. Women usually fetched water in groups, enjoying the chance for a chat and catching up with the latest gossip. But this woman is on her own.

There’s something wrong. There’s something most definitely wrong.

And we could go on. Jesus starts a conversation with the woman. Men just didn’t do that in those days. Here’s a quote from rabbinic law: “One should not talk with a woman on the street, not even with his own wife and certainly not with someone else’s wife.” And another one: “It is forbidden to give a woman any greeting.”

And the woman he’s chosen to talk to is not only a Samaritan and an outcast, she’s cast in the story as immoral, living with a man who is not her husband, having already been married five times. And Jesus is on his own with her. Not the done thing.

It’s a bit like those children’s puzzles where you have to spot what’s wrong with the picture. There might be someone hoovering the floor but the plug is not in the socket but trailing behind the vacuum. There might be a picture of a bicycle without a chain or a piano with no keys.

If this story were such a picture, we would find lots of things wrong.

The contrast between the woman at the well and the person Jesus encountered in last week’s Gospel reading could not be greater.

Last week those of us in church heard about Nicodemus, a man, a learned teacher, a respected Jewish leader, member of the Sanhedrin, the council, a man who followed the law strictly.

But there is something the two have in common - an encounter with Jesus.

It’s an encounter with Jesus that God longs for each one of us to have. And sometimes that encounter will take us to places that we’d perhaps rather not go to.

When Jesus started talking about the woman’s marital situation, she changed the subject rather rapidly and started a conversation about where worship should take place.

I expect many of us have things we’d rather not talk about, things perhaps in our lives of which are ashamed, or things that just hurt too much to be reminded of them, things that might bring the tears welling up to our eyes, or the resentment building up inside.

Jesus offers the woman living water - the word used for living is the same as running. She’s a bit confused to start with since there is no river or stream nearby. But she’s pretty keen for it; “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
Without water, no one can live. Without Jesus’s water of life, no one can be fully alive.

But encounter with Jesus can allow that living water to seep into our lives.

I wonder how we, twenty plus centuries later, can also have such an encounter. We’re not going to go to a well and find Jesus sitting there, but I guess many of us long for more in our lives.

Perhaps we long to feel God’s presence more closely, or to sense that deep joy that some others seem to know. Perhaps we long for a deep hurt to be healed or for God’s comfort in a time of loss.

So, how can we encounter Jesus today?

I think there are a number of ways.

Sometimes people experience Jesus’s presence out of the blue and as a complete surprise. The woman was not expecting to meet Jesus when she went out to get her water.

But for most of us, that’s not how it works most of the time. We need to set time aside away from the busyness of daily life. We need to put other demands on hold so that we can give priority to God. We need perhaps to reassess what takes first place in our lives.

We can encounter Jesus through the pages of Scripture. That’s something we can do each Sunday here in church as we hear the Gospel reading, but it’s also something we can carry on during the week.

If you find it hard knowing where to start with reading the Bible or difficult to understand, why not try using Bible reading notes. The Bible Reading Fellowship is well experienced at these and produces different types of note for different levels of reading - as does Scripture Union. If you’re interested in knowing more, come and have a chat at some point. They can be a helpful way in, especially if you’re not sure where to start.

Through reading our Bibles each day, we can grow in faith and learn more about what it means to follow Jesus and to receive that living water.

And we can use our Bibles in different ways. We can read them as we would any book, perhaps using notes to help us understand more. But we can also read in a different ways.

We can take the stories of Jesus and read them reflectively, perhaps concentrating on one story for a whole week. Read it and mull it over. Ask whether there is anything Jesus might be saying to you through it.

A Reader at a church I used to attend would liken it to eating a boiled sweet. When you have a boiled sweet, unless you’re very impatient, it takes a while to eat it. We roll it around our mouths, licking and sucking it, and letting the taste develop. We stay with it for a while before we crunch it.

One way of reading a Bible story which often leads to an awareness of encountering Jesus is to mull it over, reflect on it, pray through it, ask what it might mean for me today, ask what God’s message might be for you. Take time to know Jesus through the Bible’s pages.

But there are, I believe, other ways too in which we can encounter Jesus. The woman stepped aside and took time to talk to him. She could have ignored him or given him the drink he asked for and gone on her way. But she didn’t. She took time to listen and respond to him. If we want an encounter we Jesus, perhaps we too need to step aside and take the time to talk and listen to him.

Deepening our spiritual life takes effort. So often we see God as an add-on to our lives, when in fact, the first commandment is to love God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength.

Only we can make that decision for ourselves. We can decide that we haven’t got time to make the effort. We can decide that coming to church on a Sunday is perhaps enough for us. Or we can decide like the woman at the well that we’re going to allow our whole life to be affected by our encounter with Jesus.

At the end of the story, the woman leaves behind her water jar and dashes back to the city to tell everyone about Jesus. Commentators see symbolism in her leaving the jar behind. It’s a sign that she has left behind her former life and started on a new path. She has been transformed from outcast to evangelist.

What I wonder might we have to leave behind if we are to allow space for a life-changing encounter with Jesus?

Lent is a good time to think about where our priorities lie. It’s a good time to ask whether we want those springs of living water welling up with in us. It’s a good time to pay attention to the spiritual side of our life.

It’s a good time to assess our priorities and to ask where Jesus fits into our life and think about whether we want more.

It does take effort and time, but the riches that we gain, as the woman discovered, are immeasurable and beyond anything we might have to leave behind.

And we don’t have to do it alone. We have each other and we have the Holy Spirit to help us along our journey to a deeper encounter with Jesus.

Amen.

Sunday 24th February - Lent 3
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
10.30 a.m. Joint service at Barkway Chapel

Monday 25th February
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
2.00 p.m. Lent Course, The Rectory

Tuesday 26th February
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
12 noon Deanery Chapter, Buntingford Church
2.30 p.m. Funeral of Jeff Bradford, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
7.30 p.m. Barkway VA First School RE information evening

Wednesday 27th February
8.15 a.m Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
12 noon (- 2p.m.) Lent Lunch, Town House, Barley
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Group Lent Course, Rushden Village Hall

Thursday 28th February
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary’s, Reed
8.00 p.m. ICES Worship and Psalms, The Rectory

Friday 29th February

Saturday 1st March
9.00 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
7.30 p.m. Barley Village Supper, Town House

Sunday 2nd March - Mothering Sunday/Lent 4
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary’s, Reed
10.30 a.m. Mothering Sunday service with communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley, followed by PCC accounts meeting
6.00 p.m. BCP Evensong, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

THE COMING MONTH
(Morning Prayer usually takes place each day: Monday and Tuesday in Barkway; Wednesday and Saturday in Barley and Thursday in Reed)

Monday 3rd March
2.00 p.m. Lent Course, The Rectory

Wednesday 5th March
10.30 a.m. Holy Communion, Margaret House, Barley
12 noon (- 2p.m.) Lent Lunch, Town House, Barley
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Group Lent Course, Rushden Village Hall

Thursday 6th March
10.45 a.m. Holy Communion, Wheatsheaf Meadow House, Barkway

Sunday 9th March - Passion Sunday
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion, with talk by journalist Rachel Harden, St Mary’s, Reed
5.00 p.m. Discover Sunday - Rhinos and Rainbows, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Monday 10th March
2.00 p.m. Lent Course, The Rectory
7.00 p.m. Barley VC First School Governors meeting

Wednesday 11th March
12 noon (- 2p.m.) Lent Lunch, Town House, Barley
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Group Lent Course, Rushden Village Hall

Thursday 12th March
8.00 p.m. ICES Worship and Psalms, The Rectory

Saturday 15th March
5.00 p.m. Steve Price, Gospel Illusionist, Greneway School, Royston

Sunday 17th February - Lent 2
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
5.00 p.m. All-age Service, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Monday 18th February
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
2.00 p.m. Lent Course, The Rectory
7.30 p.m. Commissioning of Margaret MacCormack, BRAVE youth worker, Edwinstree School, Buntingford
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Prayer Group, High Bank, Reed

Tuesday 19th February
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Wednesday 20th February
8.15 a.m Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
11.45 a.m. Funeral of Philip Austin, Harwood Park Crematorium, Stevenage
12 noon (- 2p.m.) Lent Lunch, Town House, Barley
8.00 p.m. Friends of Barkway Church AGM, Manor Farm
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Group Lent Course, Rushden Village Hall

Thursday 21st February
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary’s, Reed
2.30 p.m. Sarah to speak at Barley Over-60s, Town House, Barley

Friday 22nd February

Saturday 23rd February
9.00 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Sunday 24th February - Lent 3
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
10.30 a.m. Joint service at Barkway Chapel

THE COMING MONTH
(Morning Prayer usually takes place each day: Monday and Tuesday in Barkway; Wednesday and Saturday in Barley and Thursday in Reed)

Monday 25th February
2.00 p.m. Lent Course, The Rectory

Tuesday 26th February
12 noon Deanery Chapter, Buntingford Church
2.30 p.m. Funeral of Jeff Bradford, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
7.30 p.m. Barkway VA First School RE information evening

Wednesday 27th February
12 noon (- 2p.m.) Lent Lunch, Town House, Barley
7.45 p.m. North Buntingford Group Lent Course, Rushden Village Hall

Thursday 28th February
8.00 p.m. ICES Worship and Psalms, The Rectory

Saturday 1st March
7.30 p.m. Barley Village Supper, Town House

Sunday 2nd March - Mothering Sunday/Lent 4
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary’s, Reed
10.30 a.m. Mothering Sunday service with communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley, followed by PCC accounts meeting
6.00 p.m. BCP Evensong, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Monday 3rd March
2.00 p.m. Lent Course, The Rectory

Wednesday 5th March
10.30 a.m. Holy Communion, Margaret House, Barley
12 noon (- 2p.m.) Lent Lunch, Town House, Barley
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Group Lent Course, Rushden Village Hall

Thursday 6th March
10.45 a.m. Holy Communion, Wheatsheaf Meadow House, Barkway

Sunday 9th March - Passion Sunday
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion, with talk by journalist Rachel Harden, St Mary’s, Reed
5.00 p.m. Discover Sunday - Rhinos and Rainbows, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Genesis 12.1-4a; Romans 4.1-5, 13-17; John 3.1-17

Today’s Gospel reading is jam-packed full of things that are important within this Gospel of John. You will realise how different John’s Gospel is from the other three, which are known as the Synoptic gospels. John is sometimes called the spiritual gospel, and, to my mind, it shows a much greater sense of the symbolic than Matthew, Mark or Luke.

There are themes which come up time and time again in John’s, sometimes explicitly, sometimes hidden under the surface, and today’s reading is full of these.

Nicodemus - a respected Jewish leader, a Pharisee - comes to Jesus by night. That he does so in darkness can be taken to be symbolic. Darkness symbolises in John the things that are not of God.

Think back to the Prologue, that wonderful opening section to this Gospel, which says “In him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

So, right at the beginning of this story, through its setting at night, we are being told that there is a contrast between Jesus, the one who brings light, and Nicodemus who is furtively seeking to discover more about that light, but who at the present is in darkness.

In our reading from Genesis, we hear God telling Abraham that his descendents will be a great nation, through whom the earth will be blessed. Jesus and Nicodemus are both descendents of Abraham, but one of the messages Jesus was keen to get across to those who heard him was that that provided no guarantee by itself of entry into God’s kingdom.

Nicodemus has recognised something in the signs that he has seen Jesus do, but he’s still cautious, not willing at this stage to take the risk that becoming a disciple would mean. Unlike Abraham himself, who took a massive risk when asked to do so by God, but a risk that he knew could not fail because he trusted in God’s goodness. When God told Abraham to uproot everything and go and live in a new country, he did just that.

Darkness and light - key themes in John’s Gospel. I’ve already mentioned the Prologue. Later in chapter one, we are told that John that Baptist’s role was to testify to that light. A few verses after those we read this morning continue in this way “this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.”

A rather damning verdict on the behaviour of Nicodemus, creeping to Jesus in the dark.

And, of course, this is the Gospel with the great “I am” sayings, including the one “I am the light of the world.”

But there are other Johannine themes also in our passage. In order to be born again, Jesus says, we need to be born of water and of Spirit, Both water and spirit feature heavily in this Gospel.

Water is what is used by John to baptise; it is turned into wine; Jesus offers the water of life to the woman at the well; he carries out a healing at the pool by the Sheep Gate; he walks on water; he uses it in healing and in washing the feet of the disciples. There are two ways in which the reference here could be understood. Jesus could be referring to Nicodemus’s actual birth, when his mother’s waters would have broken and he entered the world.

But, of course, for Christians there is also great symbolic significance about the waters of baptism. Being born of water looks back to John’s baptisms, and represents healing and cleansing. Some see very definite sacramental imagery in Jesus’s words here.

So, entry into God’s kingdom requires two births - first a birth in water - either literally, which appears to be how Nicodemus interprets since he then asks Jesus how anyone could possibly go back into their mother’s womb to be reborn - or more symbolically referring to baptism.

The second birth is a birth of the Spirit, a birth from above, from God, a spiritual birth. This is where the idea of confirmation stems from. Traditionally at baptism both water and the Spirit were associated with the ceremony, at that stage carried out by bishops.

But, as numbers of Christians grew by the fourth century AD, baptisms of water began to be carried out by others, and then when the bishop visited the community at a later date he would lay his hands upon those who had been baptised and pray for the Holy Spirit.

Of course, less structured forms of Christianity have their own sense of birth in the Spirit - a charismatic experience that often involves speaking in tongues. This point in such circles is seen as the moment when a person becomes a Christian.

And I want us to think a little about that now. Nicodemus at this stage does not become a disciple. He has approached Jesus in the dark but goes away still not understanding, still not entirely convinced of who Jesus is - in stark contrast to the Samaritan woman of the next chapter.

A common theme - that those who are part of the religious establishment are often much slower to see who Jesus really is than those who are outsiders or on the edge in some way, as the Samaritans were seen to be by the Jewish people.

But, as John’s story continues, we have other glimpses of Nicodemus. In chapter 7 he stands up for Jesus against those who wish to arrest him; and by the end of the story it is Nicodemus who brings 100lbs of myrrh and aloes with which to embalm Jesus’s body. His conversion seems to have been made. Nicodemus’s journey from darkness to light has been made.

We often hear the phrase “born-again Christian” and think of a particular type of Christian, someone who has had perhaps a dramatic experience of God and turned their life right around.
There is a temptation among those who have had long-standing faith and no particular awareness of a special life-changing point in their lives to be somewhat disparaging about this phrase. But we must not forget that it is one that originates with Jesus himself.

All Christians must be born of water and of the Spirit. For some that rebirth is a cataclysmic event - a point of crisis. For others, faith and belief in God are a much slower process, a sense of deepening awareness of the love of God. But at some point, whichever is our experience, a decision needs to be made for Christ. At the point of our story Nicodemus was not ready to make that step of faith. He came in the dark to question Jesus, and left not fully understanding.

The point of birth is an important one, but as Tom Wright, the Bishop of Durham points out, in future life we don’t tend to dwell much on the moment of our physical birth, which, of course, we were far too young to remember. What is important for our lives is that we move on from that point of birth, growing and developing.

And it’s the same with the Christian life. However our faith comes into being, whether through a significant one-off encounter with the living God or through a slower process, what’s important is how we continue to grow and develop. A baby does not remain a baby, but learns and grows. In our Christian life it should be the same.

We see in John’s Gospel part of Nicodemus’s journey. I wonder where you are on your journey of faith.

Lent is a good time to stop and pay attention to this pilgrimage, to take time to pray and to think about one’s spiritual life, to look at where we are growing and at where we seem to be stunted in our growth, to look at what needs lopping off, if we are to continue growing in a positive way, in the same way that gardeners prune in order to strengthen the plant and its future growth.

What matters is that we are children of Abraham, not in the way that Nicodemus was, Jewish by birth, but through the love of God in Christ Jesus. Eternal life now comes about, not for those who have a direct physical line of descent back to Abraham, but for those who recognise Christ.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

That’s one of the Archbishop of York’s favourite Bible verses - and little wonder - in one short sentence, it encapsulates the heart of the Gospel, the good news of Christ.

And that is what we are called to live out as we grow and develop our relationship with the Lord Jesus. May God’s new birth enable us to worship truly, to love Christ and to serve on another. Amen.

Thank you, Sarah, for inviting me to speak today.

As a member of the upper sixth of a large Wolverhampton comprehensive school in 1970 I did this sort of thing on a regular basis but have not done anything like it since. I can tell you that it becomes even more terrifying with age! On balance, Sarah, I think I’ll stick to my day job!

Perhaps a bit of background on me may help set the scene a little. I have always been part of the Church of England into which I was confirmed at around 11 years old. However, my teens were rather ecumenical. At 9 o’clock on a Sunday morning I went to a bible class called Crusaders in which I eventually had the opportunity of teaching, at 11 o’clock I went up to the local Congregational (United Reformed) church where I was a member of the choir and, for a short time, on Saturday evenings went to a Methodist Church Youth Club called Questors. I would like to say that my connection with the Methodist Church was solely due to the fact that my uncle was a Methodist Missionary in South Africa but I think it was more to do with the opportunity to chat up a girl I was particularly interested in at the time.

Like many people I believe I have a close relationship with God and I try to understand this through looking at what Jesus said and did.
 
Lent is a time for reflection and for making the odd sacrifice. Communion is an opportunity to be refreshed spiritually ready for a new beginning. I hope, in the next 10 minutes or so, to provoke some thoughts and stimulate some ways in which we as medical and church communities can all work together.

Sarah and I share so much in our jobs. Sarah has a Benefice of 4 churches and serves a concentrated population around those churches. My (let us call it) “Medical Parish” is more dilute but over a larger area: some 7,000 people with at least 30 Anglican churches on the patch. There is a great variety of people within my “parish” and this makes my life particularly interesting. One minute I may be seeing a multimillionaire businessman and the next patient could be a single mum coping with heroin addiction and a new baby in a dingy bedsit.

Nothing escapes us in our medical parish. We see the many chronic diseases and cancers but also get involved with work stresses, relationship and family difficulties, divorce and grandparents struggling to cope with their new role in childcare.

Many of the problems faced by the communities Sarah and I serve are a result of the confusion by us all between what we want versus what we need; between wanting to have rather than concentrating on being ourselves. Some have likened this to a global infection, a virus and have called it Affluenza. Its sufferers are dissatisfied with themselves and want to live idealised lives they have seen portrayed in the media or lives designed for them by their parents in order to please their parents and prove their worth. Sufferers of this condition adopt the values of others rather than trying to discover the truth about themselves. This mismatch of values creates psychological illness such as eating disorders, alcohol dependence, drug addiction, anxiety and depression.

Jesus had so much to say about developing the different strands within ourselves that make up our values, such as our emotional and moral intelligence, and much to say about achieving higher levels of spiritual awareness and peace within ourselves. The frustration is that if only we could help ourselves and others to achieve these values and this inner peace so many of our own and society’s problems would be solved and Sarah and I would be redundant!

The trouble is that neither we as a medical profession nor the church are particularly helpful in achieving this.

We as a medical profession often collude in maintaining these damaging values. We counsel and support people in order to allow them to continue the behaviour that is hurting them and others such as continuing to overwork so that they can have that second holiday or bigger house or make it OK to continue having that affair with the office secretary. We use drugs to make our patients feel temporarily better without encouraging the changes that need to be made.

The Church is not much better! It is prone to making rules and creating exclusivity rather than the inclusiveness demonstrated by Jesus. This exclusivity creates barriers. Many a time I have been at a service and only heard half my sick patients prayed for. The other half, the non-churchgoers, only get a prayer from me! My sick churchgoing patients get people dropping in all the time. The non-churchgoers have to put up with the odd district nurse or healthcare assistant. 

Some in the Church use coercion by creating fear of the consequences of not living in a prescribed way rather than celebrating the very positive benefits of embarking on a journey to find out what Jesus was really trying to say. This message can be buried in lots of pomp and ceremony, what some call religiosity, and substituted by institutional navel gazing and political wrangling. We’ve seen a bit of it this week. The only sin the poor chap committed was not realising that we are not all as clever as him! I often wonder what Jesus would say about it all…..

The barrier set between religiosity and the message of Jesus was starkly demonstrated to me some years ago. It was a Sunday morning and I was enjoying a day off, playing on the floor with my sons and wearing an old pair of jeans with holes in the knees….genuine holes, not designer ones! There was a knock on the door and I opened it to a very smart chap with tie and overcoat. He told me that there was a service occurring in the local church and that a lady in her 80s had collapsed. He quickly departed and I gathered my black bag and drove up to the church, holey jeans and all!  I walked in to find the service continuing with lots of singing and praying and my patient lying on her own behind the assembled congregation on a pew. I did my medical bit and then suggested she go home to bed. I helped her up and out of the church into my car while every single member of the congregation continued to pray and sing! I took her home. She had been incontinent so I cleaned her up, gave her a bath and put her to bed. I popped in to see her later and, as far as I’m aware, not one of her fellow members of the congregation had been to see how she was! It was not this parish and I’m sure it would never happen now!
 
One thing both Health Service and Church are guilty of is fragmentation. The Health service seems determined to destroy continuity of care and personal relationships between professionals and patients by adopting a call centre, supermarket and production line approach to medicine. This fragments care with the inevitable consequence of reducing patients to a collection of organs.

Fragmentation of the Church is equally catastrophic. If anyone wanted to reduce the power and effectiveness of a Christian community he would design a system in which there were multiple churches run by one vicar and ensure that neighbouring parishes and Benefices were divided by ancient boundaries with separate bishops resulting in very little contact. Sounds familiar! As I mentioned earlier, in my Medical parish there are around 30 churches. Imagine the power and impact of all of those people regularly coming together!

We can’t force changes in values through laws and fear. The best way is to do as Jesus did. Live the values you wish to see adopted. I recently went to India and in the arrivals hall of a very impressive Bombay domestic airport is a large sign quoting Mahatma Ghandi: “You have to be the change you wish to see”.

The good news is that there is a huge appetite for change, for finding someone to follow and for finding a spiritual home. There is a spiritual vacuum to fill and an appetite for something more than what is superficially on offer. Unfortunately, many of the people I see feel disenfranchised by the Church. They either find it unappealing or feel hypocritical about reaching out to the Church and God at a time of crisis and need. This is particularly sad at the end of life. So many people would like to talk about their genuine beliefs and faith and their concerns about death but, as non-churchgoers, feel unable to ask for help.

This is where you as a Christian community can help. I mentioned the way in which as a result of the historical multiplicity of churches and parishes those literally singing from the same hymn sheet are divided up. This causes fragmentation of those within the same community who believe that the message and values expressed by Jesus are just as relevant today as ever, if not more than ever, and the power of such a potentially influential group of people is therefore lost. Even if such a group of like-minded people was gathered together I suspect that it would perform the usual trick of having large gatherings praising the Lord and imploring others to come and join this happy band. They would have created another exclusive sect and in my opinion done things the wrong way round. It would be like playing a piece of music you find particularly uplifting and spiritual to someone and telling them how they will feel. 

Would it not be better if that united group of people who are all on a journey to find out the true nature of God simply became the change they wished to see. Such a group could use their entrepreneurial skills to organise, innovate and provide practical help to those in a crisis such as pregnant teenage girls, those with work stress, those suffering as a result of family breakdown, single parents, those with depression and drug addiction, those struggling to help a relative die at home. Sometimes all that people need in this situation is a baby sitter or night sitter, someone to do the shopping or collect the prescriptions or someone to simply drive them to the doctor’s. This is being the change we wish to see. In other words, not playing them the music that gives us an insight into that spiritual level but exposing them to lots of different music and hoping that the spiritual uplift will follow.

There is a tendency for us to pay our taxes and feel our job is done. Appoint a vicar and leave it all up to her! The trouble is Governments don’t have the same values as those who are trying to create a better society. They are often more interested in control and getting elected next time! I suspect that similar politics exist within the Church of England. If we want to change things we have to do it ourselves so why don’t we unite and innovate. Surely that is what Jesus would have wanted.

A family was sitting with their children in a restaurant.

The baby was in a high chair, and, as the mother looked around, she noticed that everyone was quietly sitting and talking.

Suddenly, the baby squealed with joy, and made a baby happy noise. He banged his hands on the high-chair tray, and giggled and smiled.

The mother looked and saw that the source of the baby’s glee was a man whose baggy trousers had their zip at half-mast. The man’s toes poked out of holes in the end of his shoes. His shirt was dirty, his hair uncombed and unwashed.

She was too far away from him to smell, but was convinced that he would. He was talking and waving at the baby, smiling and enjoying the baby’s response.

‘What should we do?’, the mother asked her husband, concerned about this man who was communicating with her baby. He wasn’t the sort of person that they wanted their precious child to be associated with.

Other people in the restaurant began to notice the man and the baby. Especially once the food had arrived, and the man began calling out - “Boo! Hey, look, everyone this baby knows how to play peek- a-boo.”

Everybody felt embarrassed. Other diners wondered what the family would do. The man was obviously drunk. The family ate their meal in silence, feeling uncomfortable, but not wanting to leave the food for which they were paying.

Eventually, they finished and headed for the door. The husband went to pay the bill, while the rest of the family went to the car park to get settled for their journey home.

But the old man’s seat was by the door, so they had to pass by before they could reach the street.

“Let us just get out of here,” the mother silently prayed, “without him saying anything or drawing attention to us.” As she drew closer to the man, she turned her back trying to sidestep him. But the baby had other ideas. Before his mother could stop him, he had reached out to the old man, who had taken him in his arms.

In an act of total trust, the baby laid tiny head upon the man’s ragged shoulder. The man closed his eyes, there were tears hovering beneath his eyelashes. His old, dirty, creaking hands patted the baby on the back.

As he rocked and cradled the baby in his arms he opened his eyes and looked at the mother. Then he said in a firm voice, “You take care of this baby.”

Then he pried the baby away from his chest and handed him back to his mother. There seemed to be a look of pain in his eyes. “God bless you,” he said. “You’ve given me a precious gift.”

Later, when the mother reflected on that meal, she came to realise that what that man had shown to her child was the love of God. The man had seen a precious baby; all she had been able to perceive was an old, smelly, worthless tramp.

Simeon and Anna recognised that the baby brought to the Temple that day for his dedication to God was more than seemed at first sight. They recognised in that child that he was God’s salvation, that through him God would reveal again his love and light to the world.
Perhaps Mary and Joseph were a little perturbed when this elderly man in the Temple started talking to them. We’re told that they were amazed at what he said to them. And I wonder what they thought about the elderly woman who saw them and then began telling everyone else about what she had seen.

Simeon’s words “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” remind us that God’s light was a light for all people, that God’s love and blessing was for all.

In baptising Flynn today, we too are echoing Simeon’s thoughts and words. We are acknowledging Christ as the one who brings salvation through forgiveness.

In the water of baptism, we recognise that because of that baby in the Temple and what he became, when we get things wrong God can wash all the bad away and make us clean again from the effects of our wrongdoing.

At the end of the service when we give Flynn a candle as reminder of God’s light, we are reminding ourselves of what Simeon perceived that day in the Temple, that Christ is our light. Christ is the light, not just for a particular nation, not just for a particular type of person, but for all - baby, adult, respectable person, tramp, outcast.

Christ’s light and love extend to all, and we are asked to take that light and love out into the world to share it with others, with all types of people.

As Flynn grows, my prayer for him is that he will come to recognise God’s light in the world around him, and that he will be drawn to that light, and want to share it with others too.

Malachi 3.1-5; Hebrews 2.14-18; Luke 2.22-40

When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple
with a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
and satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m
tired
and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
and run my stick along the public railings
and make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
and pick the flowers in other people’s gardens
and learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
and eat three pounds of sausages at a go
or only bread and pickle for a week
and hoard pens and pencils and beer mats and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
and pay our rent and not swear in the street
and set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
but maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
when suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

I was introduced to this poem by Jenny Joseph a while ago by a friend who is somewhat older than me, and who is treading the path of losing her inhibitions as she ages. I can picture her now, chuckling away at the sentiments expressed in the poem.

Ageing is a troublesome business. Some people age well - they accept that the parameters of their lives may be shrinking, that their world is becoming smaller as their physical bodies and minds become less fit and sharp as once they were.

They look back and thank God for having brought them thus far, they reflect on the joys of their past life, and they still reach out to others with love. They become at peace with the world and with God. It was great to hear from a son with whom I was planning a funeral recently that his mother retained a playful sense of humour until her death, aged 98, even though her physical body had somewhat deteriorated.

Other people really struggle with the ageing process. As their bodies and minds begin to tire, they become frustrated by the things they can no longer do. They are bitter about their pains, they become very inward-focused and lose the ability to think about others. They find it hard to accept with good grace that they have now become dependent on others for so much of their life.

Of course, many people fall somewhere between the two. As an aside, I read this week that research undertaken recently in 80 countries apparently shows that one’s sense of well-being throughout life follows a U-shaped curve, with the peaks of happiness when we’re young and during the final years (The Times, 29 January 2008). As an aside, I have to say I was slightly disturbed to read that for women the trough of happiness is at age 40 - I hit that figure in June.

Back to our Bible readings, in which we see young and old together.

Mary and Joseph have taken the child Jesus to the Temple for his dedication as is required by Jewish Law.

Luke is always very keen to stress the continuity between Christianity and Judaism. Five times in today’s 18 verses he tells us that Jesus’s parents were acting according to the law.

The contrast is great between the small child at the beginning of his life, being dedicated to God, and the two elderly people in the Temple, Simeon and Anna. The Christ-child has his whole life before him; Simeon and Anna have lived most of their already.

We see in these two older people the results of a life dedicated to God. We are told that Simeon was righteous and devout; that Anna ever left the temple but worshipped there with prayer and fasting day and night.

When we dedicate someone or even ourselves to God, we can never know exactly how it will work out.

I suppose our equivalent ritual is baptism. When I baptise someone I can never guarantee that they will continue to live by the promises that they have made or others have been made for them. Some families make promises that they then become unable to keep; others bring their children up in a committed way. Some of those children in the first kind of family find their way back to God for themselves; some in the second type later make a decision to go their own way. Only time will tell.

But in Simeon and Anna we see the results of people whose dedication to God has remained and grown. Because of their faithfulness and prayerfulness, when Mary and Joseph bring the child Jesus into the Temple, they recognise who he is. Because they have given attention to their relationship with God, they have an acute sense of the holy.

Simeon and Anna remind us that you are never too old to be used by God. Even if your body and mind are failing - and we don’t know that they were at that stage, though Simeon’s words “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace” suggest that he is ready to die - you can still pray and grow in your relationship with God.

Simeon and Anna had spent lives of regular prayer and worship. They recognised who Jesus was because they were open and aware of the presence of God in their midst. They had been waiting, waiting for God’s action, and now it had arrived.

God transformed the moment for them. On the outside this was a normal family carrying out the normal Jewish way of life. But God transformed that moment because the child, of course, was no normal child.

Their response was different. Though both recognised the Messiah, Simeon related it to his own life. It was as if he said, “That’s OK, God, time to go. I’ve seen the long-awaited king, the light that will bring salvation. I no longer need to remain on earth because the thing I’ve waited for so long has now happened.”

But Anna responds in a very different way. She begins to tell the world about Jesus. She goes out and finds people to tell them what has taken place. She praises God and tells the world.

One is an internal response; the other an exterior. These are two different ways in which we too respond to God. In our silent prayers we respond to God as Simeon did. In our prayers about ourselves and our sharing and relating our own concerns to God, we share Simeon’s approach.

But in our coming together to worship on a Sunday, in our sharing our faith with others, in our proclaiming the works of God, we are responding in the same way as Anna.

We only see snapshots of the lives of these two people, but they help us to shape and become aware of the balance that is needed in our spiritual lives. Some of us will, by inclination and personality, feel more comfortable with Simeon’s way of responding; others, perhaps especially the more extrovert among us, will respond more easily as Anna did.

But whatever our personality, all of us need both in our lives. We all need the times of silence and space, of interior prayer and reflection, of relating the works and wonders of God to our own lives. And we all need the times of openly praising God, of sharing with others, of pointing towards God’s light as Anna did.

Simeon and Anna had spent a lifetime in touch with God. As we grow older we have the gifts of the life we have led, the things we have learnt, the experiences of God that increase in magnitude and number. As we grow older, if we have devoted ourselves to God, we will become more aware of God and the wonder of the life we have been give, and the great mystery of salvation.

Many people, as they grow older, sense that life doesn’t hold as much for them as it did. I certainly don’t want to do down the struggles that some people have adjusting to their ageing, and increasing frailty and decreasing mobility - I know it is hard - but there are positives about growing older too, which I hope we can draw out of this story of two elderly people used by God.

And all of us, young and old, can follow their example of openness and awareness to the things of God, so that we too might recognise God’s gifts and grace and all God’s blessings, in the midst if a world that sometimes hides them and overshadows them.

Simeon and Anna after lifetimes of prayer and dedication to God act as an example to us, showing how we too through a life that makes time for God, can be more aware of the treasures that God brings, and most of all, more aware, through the help of the Holy Spirit, of his Son Jesus Christ, and his presence in the world.

6th January - Epiphany
Barkway: Isaiah 60.1-6; Psalm 72.1-15; Matthew 2.1-12
Barley: Isaiah 60.1-6; Psalm 72.1-15; Ephesians 3.1-12; Matthew 2.1-12
Reed: Isaiah 60.1-6; Psalm 72.1-15; Ephesians 3.1-12; Matthew 2.1-12

13th January - Baptism of Christ
Reed: Isaiah 42.1-9; Psalm 29; Acts 10.34-43; Matthew 3.13-17

20th January - Epiphany 2
Barkway: Isaiah 49.1-7; Psalm 40.1-12; 1 Corinthians 1.1-9; John 1.29-42
Barley: Isaiah 49.1-7; Psalm 40.1-12; 1 Corinthians 1.1-9; John 1.29-42
Reed: tbc

27th January - Epiphany 3
Barkway: Isaiah 9.1-4; Matthew 4.12-23
Barley: Isaiah 9.1-4; Psalm 27.1,4-12; 1 Corinthians 1.10-18; Matthew 4.12-23

3rd February - Presentation of Christ
Barkway: Malachi 3.1-5; Psalm 24.1-10; Luke 2.22-40
Barley: Hebrews 2.14-18; Luke 2.22-40
Reed: Malachi 3.1-5; Psalm 24.1-10; Hebrews 2.14-18; Luke 2.22-40

6th February - Ash Wednesday
Joel 2.1-2, 12-17; Psalm 51.1-18; 2 Corinthians 5.20b-6.10; Matthew 6.1-6; 16-21

10th February - Lent 1
Reed: Genesis 2.15-17; 3.1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5.12-19; Matthew 4.1-11

17th February - Lent 2
Barkway: Genesis 12.1-4a; Psalm 121; Romans 4.1-5, 13-17; John 3.1-17
Barley: tbc

24th February - Lent 3
Barkway: Joint service at Barkway Chapel
Barley: Exodus 17.1-7; Psalm 95; Romans 5.1-11; John 4.5-42

2nd March - Mothering Sunday
Barkway: Exodus 2.1-10; Psalm 34.11-20; Luke 2.33-35
Barley: tbc
Reed: Exodus 2.1-10; Psalm 34.11-20; Colossians 3.12-17; Luke 2.33-35

9th March - Passion Sunday
Barkway: tba
Reed: Ezekiel 37.1-14; Psalm 130; Romans 8.6-11; John 11.1-45

16th March - Palm Sunday
Barkway: Isaiah 50.4-9a; Psalm 31.9-16; Philippians 2.5-11; Matthew 26.14-27.66 (Also Matthew 21.1-11)
Barley: Isaiah 50.4-9a; Psalm 31.9-16; Philippians 2.5-11; Matthew 26.14-27.66 (Also Matthew 21.1-11)
Reed: tba

17th March - Monday in Holy Week
Barley: Isaiah 42.1-9; John 12.1-11

18th March - Tuesday in Holy Week
Barkway: Isaiah 49.1-7; John 12.20-36

19th March - Wednesday in Holy Week
Reed: Isaiah 50.4-9a; John 13.21-32

20th March - Maundy Thursday
Barley: Exodus 12.1-14; 1 Corinthians 11.23-36; John 13.1-17, 31b-35

21st March - Good Friday
Barkway: tba
Barley: tba
Reed: tba

23rd March - Easter Day
Barkway: Isaiah 65.17-25; Psalm 118.1-2, 14-24; Acts 10.34-43; John 20.1-18
Barley: Isaiah 65.17-25; Psalm 118.1-2, 14-24; Acts 10.34-43; John 20.1-18
Reed: Acts 10.34-43; John 20.1-18

30th March - Easter 2
Buckland: Acts 2.14a, 22-32; Psalm 16; 1 Peter 1.3-9; John 20.19-31

Lent

Lent starts early this year, almost as early as is possible.

Over the centuries, Lent has been a traditional time for stopping and taking stock of one’s life and faith. It is a time for self-reflection and penitence in preparation for Easter. It is also a time when Christians reflect on their life of worship, prayer and how they live out their faith.

Faith is something that affects the whole of one’s life. What we believe in - whether that is the Christian faith or another faith or whether we are uncertain or have no faith at all - has a bearing on the rest of our lives. How we think and how we act is often dependent on what we believe.

For a Christian, faith is about more than going to church on Sundays. It is about being disciples of Jesus and living as his followers from day to day. For me, a “professional” Christian, my life, my work and my faith are very much bound together, but it can be less easy for those who work the outside the Church to see how it all fits together.

So, starting in Lent, there will be a series of occasional talks at the 10.30 a.m. service in the sermon slot given by Christians working outside the sphere of the Church. On the first Sunday of Lent at Reed, Peter Gough, known to many of you, will talk about how his faith and his work as a GP connect. On 9th March also in Reed, Rachel Harden will speak about her experience of working in the media. Rachel is a journalist who trained on a local paper in south London and since then has worked on the Liverpool Daily Post. Over the past three years she has contributed to the BBC RaW campaign (which helps people improve reading and writing skills) and currently also works for the Church Times. Later in the year, there will be other speakers, so do look out for them.

I like the phrase I came across about Lent on the internet last month - “disciplined excitement”. Lent is a time of discipline, but only because through it we can strip away the things that clutter up our lives and stop us from recognising God’s gifts to us and come back to the heart of what faith is about - God’s love for the world. That is not a static thing, and as we discover more about where God is at work, we can be caught up in the excitement ourselves.

With best wishes
Sarah