Sunday 11th May - Pentecost
10.30 a.m. United Benefice Holy Communion, St Mary’s, Reed, with sermon by Christina Rees
5.00 p.m. Discover Sunday - Happy Birthday, Church - St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Monday 12th May

Tuesday 13th May
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
10.15 a.m. First Incumbents’ meeting, North Mymms
7.00 p.m. Barley VC School governors meeting
8.00 p.m. Barkway VA School governors meeting
8.00 p.m. Deanery Chapter, Great Hormead church

Wednesday 14th May
8.15 a.m Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Thursday 15th May
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary’s, Reed
7.45 p.m. Reed VCC, Queenbury

Friday 16th May

Saturday 17th May
9.00 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
11.30 a.m. Interment of ashes of Andrew Paddick, Reed churchyard

Sunday 18th May - Trinity Sunday
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary’s, Reed
5.00 p.m. Spring Sing Service, with Royston Town Band, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

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

Tuesday 20th May
8.00 p.m. Deanery Synod, Weston Church

Wednesday 21st May
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Prayer Group, Fern Cottage, Therfield

Thursday 22nd May
8.00 p.m. ICES Worship and Psalms, The Rectory

Sunday 25th May - Trinity 1
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion + Junior Church, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Thursday 29th May
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Group Council, High Bank, Reed

Sunday 1st June - Trinity 2
9.00 a.m. Parish Comunion, St Mary’s, Reed
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion = Junior church, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
6.00 p.m. BCP Evensong, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Monday 2nd June
7.30 p.m. Barley PCC,in church to start

Wednesday 4th June
10.30 a.m. Holy Communion, Margaret House, Barley

Thursday 5th June
10.45 a.m. Holy Communion, Wheatsheaf Meadow House, Barkway

Friday 6th June
10.15 a.m. Church Mice, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Sunday 4th May - Easter 7
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion (said), St Mary’s, Reed
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion baptism of Libby Hills + Junior Church, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
11.30 a.m. Blessing of John Pattison’s grave, Barley churchyard
6.00 p.m. BCP Evensong, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Monday 5th May

Tuesday 6th May
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Wednesday 7th May
8.15 a.m Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
10.30 a.m. Holy Communion, Margaret House, Barley

Thursday 8th May
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary’s, Reed
8.00 p.m. ICES Worship and Psalms, The Rectory

Friday 9th May

Saturday 10th May
9.00 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
all day Barkway Street Market
7.30 p.m. Concert by Ros Holbrow, John Witchell and friends, St Mary’s, Reed

Sunday 11th May - Pentecost
10.30 a.m. United Benefice Holy Communion, St Mary’s, Reed, with sermon by Christina Rees
5.00 p.m. Discover Sunday - Happy Birthday, Church - 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)

Tuesday 13th May
10.15 a.m. First Incumbents’ meeting, North Mymms
8.00 p.m. Barkway VA School governors meeting
8.00 p.m. Deanery Chapter, Great Hormead church

Thursday 15th May
7.45 p.m. Reed VCC

Saturday 17th May
11.30 a.m. Interment of ashes of Andrew Paddick, Reed churchyard

Sunday 18th May - Trinity Sunday
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary’s, Reed
5.00 p.m. Spring Sing Service, with Royston Town Band, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Tuesday 20th May
8.00 p.m. Deanery Synod, Weston Church

Wednesday 21st May
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Prayer Group, Fern Cottage, Therfield

Thursday 22nd May
8.00 p.m. ICES Worship and Psalms, The Rectory

Sunday 25th May - Trinity 1
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion + Junior Church, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Acts 1.6-14; 1 Peter 4.12-14; 5.6-11; John 17.1-11

Today’s Gospel reading comes from John’s account of the Last Supper. After the meal, Jesus first teaches his disciples and then moves into prayer to God his Father. Today’s words came from that prayer.

We need to take seriously the themes of that prayer - in some ways it is Jesus’s last testament to the world. In his conversation with the disciples he foretells his betrayal, gives the new commandment to love one another as he has loved them, he predicts Peter’s denial and talks of his forthcoming departure.

He then explains that when he goes he will not be leaving them on their own for the Holy Spirit will come, and moves on to a reflection on the vine and the disciples’ need to remain rooted in him.
After that he concentrates for a bit on the fact that they will face opposition, moves on to what the Holy Spirit will do and acknowledges that his disciples will feel pain and will suffer, but that joy will come again.

And then he moves into the prayer from which we heard this morning. At the end of today’s passage, Jesus ask for God’s protection for his disciples “So that they may be one, as we are one”. Jesus clearly recognised the threat to unity that existed for the first disciples and has exited throughout history for Christian.

Christians frequently disagree with each other. We only have to look through the pages of the New Testament to see how this has been part of Christian life from the beginning.

There were the disputes about circumcision and whether it was necessary; there were arguments in the Corinthian between those who followed different leaders; there were problems between Jewish and Gentile Christians; between rich and poor; people fell out with one another, and truly struggled with unity.

And this has not changed through the ages - churches have split and divided; Christians have left one church and gone to another; or stopped going altogether for reasons such as “we didn’t like the vicar”. I find it comforting to know that Jesus recognised that unity was going to be hard.

And today we are facing a lack of unity, not only between people of different Churches, but also within our own Church, the Anglican Communion.

As I’m sure you are all aware, the key issues splitting the church at present are the role of women - whether they may be priests and bishops; and the debate about homosexuality and whether gay people can be accepted as part of the Church or not.

I’m not going to talk this morning specifically about those issues, but I hope that we can reflect together on what causes disunity and divisions, and what behaviour contributes to unity.

First, some of the causes of division. One major source of disagreement is how one should interpret the Bible.

Some believe that it must be taken literally at every turn, particularly the New Testament.

Others believe that interpretation is much more a question of looking at the context in which words were spoken and written originally and then addressing how those words might be applicable to us today in our very different society.

Others would say that what was relevant for the first century is not relevant for us today so we shouldn’t take too much notice of biblical injunctions.

And it is hard to see how people who interpret the Bible differently from each other will ever come to agree. But agreement with someone and living in community while accepting difference are two separate things.

Splits come when people decide that they can no longer live with those who disagree with them. The differences in ethics or doctrine mean that they think Christianity is being watered down by those with whom they can’t agree, so they leave to form their own community, where they can be sheltered from those whom they see as not real Christians.

But difference in belief is only one part of the problem. There are people in churches - many of them - who live happily side by side with people who have differing views on interpretation of the Bible, on doctrine, ethics and so on. So something else must also be causing disunity.

I had a think about this as I was writing this sermon, and some of things I came up with were: a fear of those who are different or believe different things; a sense of feeling threatened by those who believe different things; being hurt by the attitudes of others; impatience; closed minds; self-righteousness; pride; an avoidance of the other.

There may well be many more. But all these things pull people apart. Fear and feeling threatened by those with whom we disagree can lead us to want to have nothing to do with them.

Being hurt by others can lead to wanting to run away and avoid those who have hurt us. Impatience leads to an unwillingness to talk and listen to those who have something to say.

Closed minds means that we have trapped ourselves by an unwillingness to learn and change and grow in faith.
Self-righteousness is a fault of those who are very quick to judge others, but unable to take, as Jesus said, the log out of their own eyes.

Pride can lead to an ability to accept that we might be wrong. Avoiding those with whom we disagree means that all dialogue is halted.

Clearly Jesus though that unity was important. So, what can enhance our unity with others. The starting-place must surely be acknowledging what we have in common. That’s not sweeping under the carpet the fact that we might disagree with someone, but we may realise that we have more in common with each other than what separates us.

For Christians our unity is in Christ.

All Christians are part of Christ’s body - think about Paul’s words to the Corinthian Church - “The body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot would say ‘because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it less a part of the body. And if the ear would say ‘because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.” And Paul goes on to stress that it is the weaker members of the body that should be treated with most honour. Usually when a church splits, it is those who see themselves as strong who take themselves off elsewhere.

Unity is enhanced too when we recognise that what we have in common is also the grace of God. And God shows no impartiality when it comes to grace.

As Paul reminds in the letter to Romans - “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” A counteraction to self-righteousness is the recognition that we too are in the wrong.

Something else that helps unity is when we come together with those from whom we hold different opinions. By coming together, we can learn from each other as we listen and come to a deeper understanding of the others’ point of view and why they think what they do.

When we understand more, it is usually easier to be more compassionate, and not just condemnatory. I’m always saddened that it isn’t only the conservatives who condemn the more liberal - often people at the more liberal end of the church can be just as vitriolic in their condemnation.

A humility and a willingness to learn from others is also important when we disagree with people. We may not change our views but we then again may. It is always worth holding in our minds the fact that we may be wrong.

But I think the three most important builders of unity are love, forgiveness and prayer. When we face those with whom we have difficulties with an attitude of love, the love for another becomes more important than the difference of opinion.

The New Testament contains injunction to encourage one another. Nowhere does it say knock down people not the same as you, tell them they’re useless, moan about them. Always it is about loving and encouraging others.

When we are willing to forgive those who are perhaps insensitive to us and what we think and feel, we can begin to build community again.

And prayer is the most important of all, for what sustains us in our faith is our relationship with God. What ensures that we can be held together by God’s grace and our trust in Christ is prayer. It is the starting-point of our relationship with God for it is how we sustain that relationship. And it is through sustaining that relationship and growing as a Christian that we will become more able to love those with whom we disagree, to care for those who are different from us, to encourage and not condemn.

Being at unity is about more than not falling apart. It is about creating a community where all are valued, where all are loved, where everyone is equal because they are children of God.

And as a unified community, we will be far better witnesses to the world of Christ’s love and Christ’s reconciling work than we ever will be falling out with each other.

Acts 7.44-60; 1 Peter 2.2-10; John 14.1-14

I wonder whether you have ever had the experience that I frequently encounter where you are in the car in a place you don’t know, quite happily following signposts to where your destination or a specific place on the journey that acts as a marker from which you want to go on, when suddenly that one place disappears from all the next lots of signs - and the next one. Perhaps you’re at a roundabout and there is no indication at all as to which exit you should take.

And, if you’re anything like me, you pick the wrong one and end up getting lost. And, because you’re lost and don’t know where you are, the map doesn’t make a great deal of sense, either, since in order for a map to work, you need to know where you are starting from.

It reminds me of that old Irish joke, which I’m sure you’ve heard before about a man asking for directions. “Well, if I were you,” comes the response, “I wouldn’t start from here.”

The feeling of being lost, whether we are talking about physically being lost in a place we don’t know or an emotional sense of lostness where we’re not sure where our life is leading, is an unsettling and disconcerting one. It can be quite a frightening experience - I will admit to several occasions where I’ve ended up in tears because I’ve been driving on my own in the dark and have ended up thoroughly lost. Being lost certainly can induce in us a sense of being our of control.

Jesus is talking with his disciples in our Gospel reading about going home. He talks about being in his Father’s house and preparing places for his disciples so that he can take them there too.

It’s a reading that is very often read at funerals - it’s one of the standard ones given in the Common Worship order for the funeral service, and if we look at it carefully we can see why it is appropriate for such a service. The idea that there is place prepared in the Father’s house is a comforting one that gives hope that though there has been a death in human terms, the life of the person who has died still goes on elsewhere.

I was told by a funeral director of a clergyman who had three funeral sermons. The first involved a train. When we leave a station on a train, the people on the platform wave us goodbye and we disappear from their sight. They know we are still there, but they cannot see us. His second sermon made the same point, though the image was a boat sailing over the horizon. And I’m sorry to say that I can’t remember what the third was except that it involved a dog - don’t ask me - but also relayed the same message as the boat and the train. What that cleric was trying to do, of course, was to get across the message that, though death is a separation, life goes on elsewhere.

Jesus went home so that we also have a home to go to. What is a home? A home is a place in which we belong; a place of security and freedom; a place, if we’re lucky that we share with those whom we love.

A home is a resting-place, a place to which we can retreat from the busy-ness of life. Now some of those boundaries become muddled, because our lives are so complicated and many of us these days work from home, which confuses the boundaries. But at heart, a home is a resting-place.

Our heavenly home is something to which we can look forward. We know that Jesus has gone before us. Thomas is worried about getting there - he hasn’t got a map, he doesn’t know even really where the destination is.
And Jesus responds with those famous words: I am the way, the truth and the life.

Our map for the journey is Jesus. If we continue to follow Jesus, we will reach our destination without fail.

Death is something that none of us can avoid. But we can have some say about how we approach death. None of us knows the time or the date when we will die. But we can do everything in our power to ensure that we are prepared for it.

And the way to prepare for death is through prayer and relationship with God and living out the Christian life.

Stephen, in our first reading, was facing death. It was not a death he sought, but a death that was imposed on him because of his witness to Christ. He was willing to give up his life for his God. I wonder whether we would ever make that sacrifice, if we were required to.

It’s very different from the idea of the suicide bomber. Stephen accepted his death but it wasn’t sought, it was a consequence of his living for God.

Similarly with Jesus - he faced his death with courage but he didn’t kill himself as the suicide bombers do. And people continue to give up their lives for God because they know that their home awaits, the home where Jesus has already made a place for them. The Great West Door at Westminster Abbey depicts ten of these.

Many of us do not think about death until it stares us in the face. But part of the Christian life is about preparing for a good death and for the life beyond. I suspect if we knew that we were going to meet our Maker next week, we would sharpen up our discipleship. Being a Christian is not just about going to church on a Sunday or  being nice to our neighbour. The decision to follow Christ is a life-changing decision, since it should involve the whole of our lives.

Being a Christian means we always have before us the path and pattern of Jesus, and our destination - that place that he has prepared for us.

That destination is a great and wonderful one. Death is something that people try to avoid, except in extreme circumstances - either through suicide when life gets too much or similarly through euthanasia. We try to stop the ageing process - just think how many pills and potions are out there that claim to arrest that process.

We try not to think about our own mortality too much. We live so much of our lives in there here and now. But in the same way that Jesus’s life led constantly towards his death, so ours do too. Every day we live is a day nearer to the time when we shall find ourselves in that place prepared for us by Jesus.

Somehow we have to embrace the fact of death rather than to flee from it. For through death comes freedom and peace.

Some words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

Come now, highest feast on the way to everlasting freedom, death.
Lay waste the burdens of chains and walls
which confine our earthly bodies and blinded souls,
that we see at last what here we could not see.
Freedom, we sought you long in discipline, action and suffering.
Dying, we recognise you now in the face of God.

Death brings freedom. Our deaths will bring us life in its full abundance and glory. That’s one of the great paradoxes of Christianity that in order to receive life in all its fullness, we need to die.

And, before our physical death, we need too to die to self, to put on Christ’s clothing of love and care and compassion, of loving God above all else, of making everything in our lives secondary to our love for God. And when we love God with all our heart and soul and mind and being, we discover that the fulfilment of Christ’s second commandment - to love our neighbour as ourselves - follows naturally on.

So let us pray for the courage and strength to face the fact of death, not to run from it, but to keep in mind always the promises of Christ, that he has prepared a dwelling place for us. Let us live each day as if it were our last. Let us know deep within our hearts that we have a map and a guide in Jesus - Jesus the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Stephen faced his death with courage - his final words were active words “Lord, receive my spirit.” Words addressed to God; words that echo Jesus’s self-giving: “Lord, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

May we too be prepared by following Christ with all our being for that moment when our death brings us the true freedom of eternal life. Amen.

Sunday 27th April
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion with baptism opf Henry Hall, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Monday 28th April
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
10 a.m. Discover Sunday planning group, The Rectory
2.30 p.m. Funeral of Edna Burr, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Tuesday 29th April
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
8.00 p.m Deanery Standing/Pastoral Committee, Therfield Rectory

Wednesday 30th April
8.15 a.m Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Thursday 1st May - Ascension Day
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary’s, Reed
10.45 a.m. Holy Communion, Wheatsheaf Meadow House, Barkway
3.30 p.m. Interment of Maisie Gilham’s ashes, Barkway churchyard
8.00 p.m. Holy Communion, St Mary’s, Reed

Friday 2nd May

Saturday 3rd May
9.00 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Sunday 4th May - Easter 7
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion (said), St Mary’s, Reed
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion baptism of Libby Hills + Junior Church, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
11.30 a.m. Blessing of John Pattison’s grave, Barley churchyard
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)

Wednesday 7th May
10.30 a.m. Holy Communion, Margaret House, Barley

Thursday 8th May
8.00 p.m. ICES Worship and Psalms, The Rectory

Saturday 10th May
all day Barkway Street Market
evening Concert by Ros Holbrow, John Witchell and friends, St Mary’s, Reed

Sunday 11th May - Pentecost
10.30 a.m. United Benefice Holy Communion, St Mary’s, Reed, with sermon by Christina Rees
5.00 p.m. Discover Sunday - Happy Birthday, Church - St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Tuesday 13th May
10.15 a.m. First Incumbents’ meeting, North Mymms
8.00 p.m. Barkway VA School governors meeting
8.00 p.m. Deanery Chapter, Great Hormead church

Thursday 15th May
7.45 p.m. Reed VCC

Sunday 18th May - Trinity Sunday
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary’s, Reed
5.00 p.m. Spring Sing Service, with Royston Town Band, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Sunday 13th April - Easter 4
10.30 a.m. United Benefice Holy Communion, St Mary’s, Reed, followed by Annual Parochial Church Meeting (Barkway/Reed) and bring-and-share lunch

Monday 14th April
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Tuesday 15th April
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
12 noon Deanery Chapter, Cottered Vicarage

Wednesday 16th April
8.15 a.m Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
8 p.m. North Buntingford Prayer Group, Aylwins, Roe Green

Thursday 17th April
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary’s, Reed
11.30 a.m. Women in Theology Group, The Board Room, Holywell Lodge

Friday 18th April

Saturday 19th April
9.00 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
10.00 a.m. - 12 noon Friends of Barkway Church Plant Sale, Barkway House
7.30 p.m. The Romance of Spring, Concert by Rebecca Starling, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Sunday 20th April - Easter 5
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley followed by Annual Parochial Church meeting and bring-and-share lunch
2.30 p.m. St George’s Day Parade service, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
5.00 p.m. Discover Sunday all-age worship - Edible Eden (the story of creation) - 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 21st April
8.00 p.m. ICES Worship and Psalms, The Rectory

Tuesday 22nd April
12 noon North Buntingford Group Clergy meeting, Barkway Rectory

Wednesday 23rd April
8 p.m. Barkway VCC, The Manor

Sunday 27th April
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion with baptism opf Henry Hall, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

6th April - Easter 3
Barkway: Acts 2.14a, 36-41; Psalm 116.1-3,10-17; Luke 24.13-35
Barley: Acts 2.14a, 36-41; Psalm 116.1-3,10-17; 1 Peter 1.17-23; Luke 24.13-35

13th April - Easter 4
Reed: Acts 2.42-47; Psalm 23; 1 Peter 2.19-25; John 10.1-10

20th April - Easter 5
Barkway: Acts 7.55-60; Psalm 31.1-5,15-16; 1 Peter 2.2-10; John 14.1-14
Barkway: Discover Sunday tba
Barley: Acts 7.55-60; Psalm 31.1-5,15-16; 1 Peter 2.2-10; John 14.1-14

27th April - Easter 6
Barkway: Acts 17.22-31; John 14.15-21
Barley: Acts 17.22-31; Psalm 66.7-18; 1 Peter 3.13-22; John 14.15-21
Reed: tba

1st May - Ascension Day
Reed: Acts 1.1-11; Psalm 93; Ephesians 1.15-23; Luke 24.44-53

4th May - Easter 7
Barkway: Acts 1.6-14; Psalm 68.1-10,33-36; John 17.1-11
Barley: Acts 1.6-14; Psalm 68.1-10,33-36; 1 Peter 4.12-14; 5.6-11; John 17.1-11
Reed: Acts 1.6-14; Psalm 68.1-10,33-36; 1 Peter 4.12-14; 5.6-11; John 17.1-11

11th May - Pentecost
Barkway: tba
Reed: Acts 2.1-21; Psalm 104.25-35,37; 1 Corinthians 12.3b-13; John 20.19-23

18th May - Trinity Sunday
Barkway: Isaiah 40.12-17,27-31; Psalm 8; 2 Corinthians 13.11-13; Matthew 28.16-20
Barley: tba
Reed: Isaiah 40.12-17,27-31; Psalm 8; 2 Corinthians 13.11-13; Matthew 28.16-20

25th May - 1 after Trinity
Barkway: Leviticus 19.1-2,9-18; Psalm 119.33-40; 1 Corinthians 3.1-11,16-23; Matthew 5.38-48
Barley: Leviticus 19.1-2,9-18; Psalm 119.33-40; 1 Corinthians 3.1-11,16-23; Matthew 5.38-48

1st June - 2 after Trinity
Barkway: Deut. 11.18-21,26-28; Psalm 31.1-5,19-24; Matthew 7.21-29
Barley: Deut. 11.18-21,26-28; Psalm 31.1-5,19-24; Romans 1.16-17;3.22b-28; Matthew 7.21-29
Reed: Deut. 11.18-21,26-28; Psalm 31.1-5,19-24; Romans 1.16-17;3.22b-28; Matthew 7.21-29

8th June - 3 after Trinity
Barkway: Hosea 5.15-6.6; Psalm 50.7-15; Romans 4.13-25; Matthew 9.9-13,18-26

15th June - 4 after Trinity
Reed: Exodus 19.2-8a; Psalm 100; Romans 5.1-8; Matthew 9.35-10.8

22nd June - 5 after Trinity
Barkway: Jeremiah 20.7-13; Psalm 69.8-20; Romans 6.1b-11; Matthew 10.24-39
Barley: Jeremiah 20.7-13; Psalm 69.8-20; Romans 6.1b-11; Matthew 10.24-39
Reed: tba

29th June - 6 after Trinity
Buckland: Acts 12.1-11; Psalm 125; 2 Timothy 4.6-8,17-18; Matthew 16.13-19

Grief and pain

The month of April this year falls entirely within the Church’s Easter season. This extended period helps to remind us that Christ’s resurrection is not just an event that happens one day, but that his life and power remain with us.

So it perhaps seems strange that the focus of my thoughts this month is death. It is little surprising that I have thought much about death in recently. Between January and Easter Day, I conducted more funerals in the benefice than in the whole of 2007; some of my closest friends have also been coping with bereavements following deaths of those whom they love. In the midst of life, there is always death and grief.

Some of the funerals I have taken have been almost straightforward, in the sense that the person who has died was seemingly at a natural end to their life - they had lived many years and died peacefully, ready for whatever comes next. There is sadness, but grieving family and friends are able to reconcile themselves to living with that.

But others have followed tragic events or led to young children losing parents. Some have been so sudden that relatives and friends have struggled to understand why or have faced relatives and friends with the suffering and pain of someone they love - something that is hard for anyone to experience.

Because Christians believe that death is not the end, there can sometimes be a tendency within the Church not to face grief properly. Yet, we only grieve because we have loved. Love is a great and wonderful thing, but it makes us vulnerable too. When we love, we open ourselves up to pain as well as joy, and the pain of death is often a very deep one arising from the separation from the one we love. That pain can be overwhelming.

Death raises all sorts of questions. It leads to agonising cries of Why? Sometimes it sparks anger and rage against God or the one who has died, feelings of abandonment and desolation, deep sadness and confusion. This is all natural, but often people are ashamed of sharing these thoughts with God in prayer. God can take it! God is bigger than our grief and more loving than we can imagine. And, though we may not be aware of it, God will be there alongside us, sharing in our suffering and pain. God knows what it is like to lose a beloved child. Let God share your pain, and hear your anger.

With best wishes, Sarah

Jeremiah 31.1-6; Acts 10.34-43; John 20.1-18

A rather grouchy husband made it into heaven along with his wife.

Strangely, though, he still seemed to be rather grumpy.

“What’s wrong now?” asked his wife. “Can’t you see, we’re in heaven? This is beautiful — the music’s great, the food is out of this world, the mansion has everything and more we’d ever dreamed of, the golf course is the best we’ve ever seen, there’s no fees, no taxes, our health is fantastic, why aren’t you happy? What’s wrong with you?”

The husband replied, “you we hadn’t made me eat that miserable oat bran, we could have been here ten years ago.”

What a sad view of one’s experience of heaven! The husband is so bound up with what he’s previously missed out on that he has lost all sense of celebration and thanksgiving for all the joys in his new existence.

The Christian Church too so often loses sight of the resurrection and the life and joy that it brings. We keep the 40 days of Lent, but it seems that once Easter Day itself is over, the 40 days of Easter pass us by. People go back to work after a long weekend off, the Easter eggs eaten, and life returns to normal.

Life never returned to normal for those first disciples who rushed to the tomb that first Easter Day. Mary Magdalene, according to John, was the first to arrive, early in the morning. She is panicked by the fact that the stone has been removed. We’re not told that she gets as far as looking inside, but she’s obviously made the assumption that the body is not longer there.

So, not sure what to do, she rushes off to find Peter and the other disciple. They dash to the tomb to see what has been going on. The other disciples, who is never named, peers into the tomb, notes that the linen shroud is still there, but then hangs back from going inside.

Peter, though, is never one to hang back. He goes straight inside the tomb, and spots not only the linen wrappings but also the cloth that had been around Jesus’s head. Then the other disciple follows Peter in and believes.

We’re not told exactly what it is that he believes. John wrote his Gospel in order that people might believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing they may have life in his name. And that, for John, is what faith is about.

But what the disciple believes in this story is made somewhat ambiguous by the sentence that follows about them not understanding the scrupture that Jesus must rise from the dead. The two disciples go back home, believing that the body has gone, but as far as we know, not that Jesus is alive again.

But Mary is too upset to go anywhere. She stays where she is weeping. And now she too looks inside - something she hadn’t done earlier. She sees two angels there. They ask her why she is crying. She explains that Jesus has been taken away and she doesn’t know where he is.

And then she turns round and finds a man standing there, who also asks why she is crying. Her mind can only cope with rationality - her conclusion that this is a gardener makes absolute sense in some ways - who else would be in a garden?

And if anyone was going to have moved a body, then the most likely person would have been the gardener.

It takes only one word to transform her perspective from the normal sphere of human thinking to the joyful recognition of the resurrection. “Mary.” There must have been something in the way that he said it. I imagine it was a bit like the way in which a mother, in spite of a clamour of noise from other children, will always know the cry of her own child.

Mary, in spite of the clamour of voices going on in her head, knows immeditely who this gardener is once he has spoken her name.

And now he has returned she tries to cling on to him. She doesn’t want to experience the pain of separation from him again so tries to hold fast to him in the hope that he won’t disappear.

But he won’t let her, and gives her a message to take to the disciples and bids them hurry to pass it on. “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”

The resurrection is important, it is a sign of God’s decisive action in our world, it makes a difference. However, we are not to spend ages staring at the marvel of the empty tomb, but to carry the message of the resurrection to others.

Mary does as she is asked, although the initial message she gives to the disciples is somewhat different from the one Jesus asked her to convey - I have seen the Lord, she tells them - though she then goes on to tell them what Jesus has said.

We come to this scripture so many years after the events it describes. But it has not lost any of its power. It has transformed lives, brought hope, joy and salvation to millions of people down through the ages from the time of those first disciples.

Our reading from Acts is a speech given by Peter in Cornelius’s house. We become aware of how he has been transformed by the power of the resurrection. Just a few days ago, we heard how he denied Jesus three times in the courts of the High Priest. All through the Gospels he has seemed an unlikely figure for Jesus to have chosen as the foundation stone for his church.

He’s the one who so often get sit wrong, or speaks out before he has really though about what he is saying.

Peter should give all of us hope, since God takes who he is and uses that - he doesn’t ask Peter to become something or someone else before he uses him to deliver the message of the resurrection. He uses Peter as he is. And God wants to use us as we are.

Of course, once God starts using us, transformation follows. After the resurrection Peter is radically transformed: he preaches Christ crucified and raised from the dead, so that those who hear him believe and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. He is no longer the simple fisherman with a gift for saying the wrong thing, he has insight and wisdom and he teaches with courage and conviction. But, at the same time, he is still Peter.

The message of Easter is in part about God’s mighty power: God’s power to raise Jesus from the dead, God’s power to save us from our sins and to bring us to eternal life. But it’s not just that.

It is also a message about a message: a story about the importance of passing on the story, of not delaying, of sharing the good news.

Jesus is risen, we do not need to be afraid. Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. So we are freed from our fears and our sins, freed to carry the message of the resurrection through our words, free to carry God’s love to others through our actions. God has shown that His truth and love are more powerful than sin and death, so we can have new confidence to live our lives so that they bear witness to that truth and they show that love in action.

On his return from 16 years spent in Africa, David Livingstone told the students of Glasgow University “What sustained me amidst the toil and hardship, and loneliness of my exiled life? It was the promise, ‘Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end.’”

That is the message that we too have to share with the world. Because of the resurrection, Christ is no longer confined to one place or a particular moment in time. Mary could not cling on to him and make him stay where she was, for he could not be confined. He is with us, right now, to the end.

He is with us in times of sorrow and in times of joy. He is with us when life is painful and when we are celebrating. If we believe in the power of the resurrection, our lives can never just go back to being normal, for once we have met the risen Christ, we too are transformed. It will affect everything we do - the way we live our lives, the way we react to other people, the way we conduct ourselves.

Christ’s life is our life. Christ’s life is blossoming all around us - we just have to look up and see it.

Tom Wright, Bishop of Durham, says this: “Where God’s people celebrate Jesus Christ’s resurrection, they discover new possibilities opening up in front of them.”

May we, like Mary, open our eyes to new possibilities opening up in front of us, as we celebrate the resurrection.

Christ is risen, alleluia!

Sunday 30th March - Easter 2
10.30 a.m. United Benefice Holy Communion, St Andrew’s, Buckland

Monday 31st March
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
11.30 a.m. Funeral of Peggy Downey, Cambridge Crematorium

Tuesday 1st April
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
8.00 p.m. ICES Worship and Psalms, The Rectory

Wednesday 2nd April
8.15 a.m Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
10.30 a.m. Holy Communion, Margaret House, Barley

Thursday 3rd April
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary’s, Reed
10.45 a.m. Holy Communion, Wheatsheaf Meadow House, Barkway

Friday 4th April

Saturday 5th April
9.00 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
evening Friends of Reed Church Race Night, Reed Village Hall

Sunday 6th April - Easter 3
10.30 a.m. United Benefice Sung Eucharist, St Maragaret of Antioch, Barley, with the Revd Mervyn Terrett
6.00 p.m. BCP Evensong, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway, with Frances-Mary Blydenstein

Monday 7th April
No Morning Prayer

Tuesday 8th April
No Morning Prayer

Wednesday 9th April 
8.15 a.m Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Thursday 10th April
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary’s, Reed
4.30 p.m. Churchwardens’ Meeting, The Rectory
8.00 p.m. ICES Worship and Psalms, The Rectory

Friday 11th April

Saturday 12th April
9.00 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Sunday 13th April - Easter 4
10.30 a.m. United Benefice Holy Communion, St Mary’s, Reed, followed by Annual Parochial Church Meeting (Barkway/Reed) and bring-and-share lunch
 

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 15th April
12 noon Deanery Chapter, Cottered Vicarage

Wednesday 17th April
8 p.m. North Buntingford Prayer Group, Aylwins, Roe Green

Thursday 17th April
11.30 a.m. Women in Theology Group, The Board Room, Holywell Lodge

Saturday 19th April
a.m. Friends of Barkway Church Plant Sale
7.30 p.m. Concert by Rebecca Starling, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley