FATHER, FORGIVE
Luke 23.32-43

I’m sure most of you will know that in the early 20th century the people of Armenia suffered greatly at the hands of the Turks. Estimates of how many Armenians were killed range from one to two million, but no one now denies that this was genocide, though it took many years for it to be recognised as so officially.

A story from the time tells of a Turkish officer who raided and looted an Armenian home. He killed the parents, and gave the daughters to his troops - it takes little imagination to know what happened to them. The eldest daughter he kept for his own pleasure.

Eventually she managed to escape, and trained to become a nurse. Sometime later she found herself working in a ward for Turkish officers. One night, by the light of a lantern, she saw the face of that Turkish officer who had treated her family so badly. He was terribly sick. Without exceptional nursing he would soon die.

That nurse was in a very difficult place. In such a situation, the desire for revenge would have been understandable. But she worked hard to restore him to health, and as a result of her ministrations, he began to recover eventually.

One day the doctor and nurse stood by the officer’s bed. The doctor remarked that without the nurse’s devotion the man would be dead.

The officer looked at the nurse and said, “We have met before, haven’t we?”

“Yes,” she said. “We have met before.”
There was silence. Then he asked, “Why didn’t you let me die?”

She replied, “I am a follower of him who said, ‘Love your enemies’.”

Jesus was a man who lived not only by his words, but also by his actions, and we are called to follow that example. Forgiveness is a living-out of love.

We see him now, hanging on the cross, in total agony, surrounded by his enemies, by those who want him dead. Crucifixion is a brutal and undignified method of execution.

The soldiers were carrying out just another day’s work; there had been other crucifixions in the past; there would be more in the future. They had no idea of what they were really doing, killing the Son of God. No doubt to them, Jesus was a trouble-maker and what they were doing would help to keep the peace - certainly that’s what their Roman master believed.

An ordinary day. But the ordinary becomes exceptional. Jesus, in the midst of the brutality and lack of dignity, responds with grace and goodness. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

These soldiers did not know their guilt. And, we too are not always aware of the sins that we commit. Sometimes we are all too aware of them. But Christ’s message of forgiveness crosses the centuries and is for us too. Christ is our King; Christ is also the example and pattern for our lives.

Forgiveness is not easy; receiving forgiveness is not easy; forgiving ourselves is not easy. But Christ’s message from the cross shows that he desires us to be liberated from our guilt. Guilt is a destructive emotion. It eats away at us and corrodes us. It grips us and torments us. Guilt can be a force for good, since it is what enables us to accept that we have sinned. It helps us to know, unlike the soldiers, that we are doing wrong.

But guilt that becomes too dominant denies what Christ has done for us. Christ’s suffering was to enable us to be freed from the effects of sin. Christ’s suffering brings forgiveness. When we are unable to receive forgiveness, from God, from others, from ourselves, we are rendering the sacrifice of the cross powerless.

It is not easy. It requires us to accept that we have failed and then to let go of that failure and the harm that it has done. We may need to make amends, to put our forgiveness into practice, to make efforts to restore broken relationships.

Jesus’s was innocent of his crimes; the criminal hanging with him recognised his guilt. Jesus’s response - today you will be with me in Paradise - should give us hope. Jesus’s forgiveness knows no bounds; it is there for us to receive.

As we watch him hanging on the cross, let us open our hearts to receive his forgiveness, and ask him for his love to flood us so that we might be helped towards forgiving those who have done us wrong and caused us pain.
 

BEHOLD YOUR SON
John 19.19-27

I wonder, if you could look forward to your dying moments and plan your final words, what they would be.

Of course, that’s a pretty impossible task, for none of us knows the circumstances in which the ending of our lives will come. We don’t know whether the end will be sudden or drawn out; we don’t know whether we will be prepared or not; we don’t know whether we will feel at ease with the thought our death; we don’t know whether we will be in pain or at peace; we don’t know whether we will be with those whom we love or whether there will be no one at all with us to hear those final words.

You will probably have worked out by now, if you have looked through the order of today’s service, that I have chosen to focus this year on Jesus’s final words.

There are seven sayings in the Gospels uttered by Jesus while he was hanging on the cross. The headings of the sections in this service derive from those sayings - the two not explicitly mentioned will pop up in my talks - one has already done so - so we will in some way reflect on all seven of Jesus’s last words.

Much of what happens while Jesus is on the cross is public, but this scene is a private moment, between Jesus, his mother, and the Beloved Disciple. It’s a moment in which Jesus’s compassion and care are seen, in contrast to the taunting and mocking crowds around him.

Jesus looks down from his lofty position and sees his mother and his friend and understands their pain. Death is always hard, but facing the death of one’s child must be one of the most profound sorrows that human beings ever face.

In the midst of the brutality of the situation, Mary’s presence and Jesus’s words add some humanity. In his dying moments, as he watches his mother’s pain, Jesus can do nothing more than to show his love for her. He cannot come down from the cross and take her home. He cannot reach out and put his arms around her in a deep embrace. All he can do as he hangs there is tell her that he loves her.

And he does this by creating a new family. In the moment of separation, Jesus creates community. Mary and the Beloved Disciple are the beginnings of the new Christian family. In effect, what he is saying to them, is “I love you, Mother”; “I love you, friend”; “Love one another.”

In our fractured and fragmented society, where communities are struggling to retain a sense of neighbourliness and friendship, where people live in suspicion of their next door neighbours, the church and its people can make such a difference by continuing to emulate the example of Jesus.

In this country, we have to accept that the reality of church life at present is that numbers are declining, commitment is diminishing and faith in God for most people is of little or no importance.

But, I wonder, how much we help ourselves. What an impact it would make if you said and acted as Jesus has done, if we said to those we meet - I love you. Now, clearly we’d have to be very careful about how we did this - in our sex-mad age, the word love sometimes loses its true meaning. But many, many people never hear the words of love. Many, many people never experience the actions of love. And, it doesn’t take much.
Jesus’s love for the world was the ultimate sacrifice. Sometimes that is what is asked of us, but mostly all we need to do is utter that loving word of care, or notice when someone is struggling with life - I’m always struck by the story of the stranger who uttered in the ear of the dying Stephen Lawrence - You are loved. You are loved.

That is what Jesus is doing from the cross. That is the message we are called to give to the world. And, even when we struggle to love people, we can still offer them the words of God’s love, of Christ’s love on the cross.
 
WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?
Psalm 22.1-8, 14-15; Matthew 27.45-47

Forsakenness, abandonment - it’s something that many people experience for a variety of reasons.

Perhaps they are grieving the death of someone they love. A very common part of the grieving process is a sense of abandonment by the one who has died. Sometimes this leads to anger at the deceased for leaving the living person alone.

Perhaps the sense of abandonment comes for a child whose parent has, for whatever reason, deserted them, whether physically or emotionally.

Perhaps it comes from the desertion by one lover of another.

The sense of abandonment can lead to very profound feelings - emotions that are almost too painful to put into words. Abandonment can leave one with a sense of deep, deep pain that nothing seems to be able to take away. It can lead to a sense of isolation, a deep hole within oneself that nothing can fill. The loss affects the whole of one’s being, it can be overwhelming. It can manifest itself in physical pain as one longs for the friend who has gone. It can bring a person to a point where utter desolation is all they feel, where life has lost its meaning, and their overriding wish is obliteration, for it is existence itself which causes the pain to go on.

The deep hurt experienced by those who are abandoned can be healed, but more often than not, it isn’t. Certainly it takes time - months and years - to get over an abandonment, and many people are left with deep wounds and scars that nothing can alleviate.

The more intimate the relationship between the abandoner and the abandoned, the deeper the pain.

Jesus has already faced a series of abandonments. One of his closest friends has betrayed him. Another has denied that he even knew Jesus. The crowds who hailed him as their king on Palm Sunday have since cried out for his death. As he hangs on the cross, his friends have fled, leaving only a very faithful few.

But that’s not the end of the forsakenness. Jesus utters a cry of such anguish that it pierces the heart - “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

The relationship between Jesus and God was the most intimate relationship ever experienced. The sense of dereliction apparent in that cry from the cross is so great because of the closeness of the relationship.
In using the words of Psalm 22, he also brings to mind the silence of God, to whom he cries out. Psalm 22 expresses the feelings of one who has been forsaken. It communicates his feelings that he is no longer human, because of the way that others treat him.

And it is no surprise that that is how the Psalmist sees it. For one of the things that marks human beings out is their ability to give and receive love. Love, of course, is a risky business. Those who do not love will never experience the pain of love going wrong. Those who do make themselves vulnerable to the loss of love.

For any of us to be abandoned by those we love brings deep desolation. What it means for Jesus to be forsaken by God, his creator, his source of life, his Father, the object of his total love cannot be expressed in words, so deep is the dereliction. In that cry from the cross is Jesus’s own agony, which has been echoed by others through the years.

What stands out, and those who have experienced abandonment will probably recognise this, is that the one to whom Jesus cries out is the one by whom he has been forsaken. In the midst of his desolation, he calls out to the one by whom he has been deserted, longing to be heard, yearning for a restoration of the relationship.

At the heart of his sense of loss he is still crying out to God, still communicating, which implies that God is there to hear his cry, but at this point chooses not to act.

Since we believe in a loving God, we know that God’s own heart would have been breaking at this point too. For within the very heart of God, a deep separation is going on between Father and Son, a ripping apart of a unity, a whole. For Jesus is not only God’s Son, but God himself. The integrity of the godhead is being challenged through the crucifixion. The pain of separation is felt on both sides.

There is a trite saying - if God feels far away, guess who moved? The Bible teaches us through this story, through the words of Psalm 22, through the story of Job, how little truth there is in that saying. The horror of the crucifixion is that in some profound way God had abandoned Jesus. But Jesus was not a mere puppet in this sacrificial work; it was a path he chose to take.

It was an abandonment that needed to happen if the power of resurrection and life was to be complete. Only a total darkness and death could bring about completely new and restored life. For the whole of creation to be redeemed, the sacrifice needed to be complete.
 

I AM THIRSTY
Psalm 69.13-21; John 19.28-30

Without water, we shall all die. Dehydration is one of the fastest ways towards death.

Physically, Jesus will have been extremely thirsty by the time he utters these words. We are not told, but it is possible that he has had nothing at all to drink since the cup of wine which he took and blessed at the Last Supper. In chronological terms, that was not that long ago, but if we think about what he has undergone since then, the hours seem to grow longer.

There is a profound contradiction in all this. These three words, “I am thirsty,” show the extent of the sacrifice and separation from God that Jesus is undergoing.

John’s Gospel says a lot about water. Right at the start we see John baptising in water. Then at the wedding of Cana, Jesus uses the water, to bring new life to a jaded celebration by turning it into wine. He tells Nicodemus that new birth comes from water and Spirit.

His next encounter, in John chapter 4, is with the woman at the well. He offers her water that will put an end to thirst for ever - Jesus said: “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

After the feeding of the five thousand in chapter 6, he reiterates what he has previously said; “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

And at the Festival of Tabernacles in chapter 7, he again returns to this theme: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink.”

Water means life. Life in all its fullness. Water means physical life and spiritual life.

Back in Isaiah chapter 55, the call is issued - Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. Even further back, during the Exodus, water is brought forth from the rock.

Water is symbolic of the life that God gives.

And now, Jesus is thirsty. That life, physical and spiritual, is slipping away from him. The one who provided for the thirsty is in need of a drink. Yet again, Jesus’s abandonment is brought home. In John 7, Jesus follows his words by explaining that the living water comes in the form of the Holy Spirit.

When Jesus uttered his words of abandonment, we became aware of a split in the very nature of God between Father and Son. His words of thirst reveal now another split, between Son and Spirit. Again we see the godhead ripped apart.

And why? Why does Jesus suffer this agony, this abandonment, this tearing up of the bonds, this rift at the very heart of his being?

He does it for us. It was for us he died on the tree. It was for us he suffered separation from God. It was for us that he thirsted.

It was his love that nailed him to the tree. It is his love that is offered to all of us, a love shown through the greatest gift and grace he offers - forgiveness.

Forgiveness is the heart of the Gospel. Forgiveness is not cheap. Forgiveness is something distinctive about the Christian way that we can offer to the world.

For forgiveness does not condemn, but recognises that we have all failed and fallen short of God’s glory, all of us, that is, except the one whose sacrifice was perfect, the one who deserved no punishment, for he had done no wrong.

Jesus’s thirst highlights the separation from God’s living waters that he experiences on the cross. For John, water is life. In order for us to flow with living water, with the life of God, Jesus undergoes a loss of life.

This was no false separation from God and God’s life, as some would have us believe. That would have been ineffective in conquering sin and death. Only a true separation could bring about our salvation; only a true death could bring about our life.

That is what Jesus is undergoing on the cross, a total separation, a true death.

Our sin no longer condemns us to a future without hope, but because of Jesus’s taking on himself a hope-less situation, our future remains strong. We do not need to take upon us the thirst of Jesus, for the living waters are there for us to tap into, flowing with life and God’s grace.

As Jesus thirsts, may we open ourselves to drinking from the water that enables us never to thirst again.
 

IT IS FINISHED
John 19.30; Luke 23.44-47

Two different endings to this story, depending on which Gospel one reads.

In general, Jesus’s cry from John’s Gospel is considered to be the penultimate thing he said, while the words in Luke are the very end of the story.

Most of us live lives full of unfinished business: the phone call not returned, the letter to which we haven’t responded, the book half read, the diet not kept. Right at this moment I can answer yes to all four  of those charges.

Some of these unfinished things may not seem large in themselves, but in a particular context they might take on serious consequences.

The unfinished diet for someone at risk of heart attack because of their weight is a serious proposition. The telephone call to which we haven’t responded may mean the ending of a relationship. The letter we didn’t reply to might have been the last one we ever received from someone who then died.

Much of our unfinished business affects not only us but others too. The marriage that is wrecked because the row was never mended, the evicted tenant now living on the street because the bills were never paid and help was not sought, the broken promise that smashed someone else’s trust in us and so on.

What unfinished business is lurking in our lives? We may never get a chance to complete it, if we don’t address it today.

So much guilt arises when someone dies and leaves unfinished business behind them - the words of love never spoken, the forgiveness never offered, the wounds not healed. Unfinished business that goes to the grave leaves a lasting impression on those who have been failed. The grave also may prevent us from finishing what we have to do with the one who has died. It is little wonder that Jesus warned people to sort things out with others before they approached the altar with their gift, leaving it there if necessary while they went away to make amends.

Our unfinished business so often leads us into sin - so much of it reveals a lack of love for another who has perhaps hurt us, so much of it depends on sins we have not forgiven, so much of it depends on our pride or sloth - those deadly sins.

Our unfinished business matters because it leaves things in a way that is less than loving to the one with whom the business is to be conducted or sells ourselves short.

By contrast, Jesus was able to go to his death uttering the words: “It is finished.” A cry of triumph and of victory, not of work left undone. Jesus’s work has been completed, accomplished, and is now finished.

To say that something is finished can mean one of two things - it can have a negative meaning - it’s all over, we’ve finished, can imply a relationship that is broken; a life that is over unfulfilled; a dream that has died.

But it can also mean that something has been accomplished - an artist putting the finishing touches to a painting, a poet writing the final word of a masterpiece, a Messiah who has fulfilled the work he was sent to do, to put an end to death by dying for us, to put an end to darkness by the conquering power of light, to put an end to despair by bringing hope, to put an end to hatred by never living in any way but the way of love.

That cry on the cross is a great cry of triumph - a cry of finished business. When Jesus speaks of his future a few days earlier, this is what he says: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

The death of the seed is necessary for life to continue. Jesus’s work has been completed, the seed is ready to die, so that greater life might ensue.

God’s work is nearly over. But there is one more sentence to be uttered: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” In that last utterance, Jesus makes clear that the property of death to induce fear has lost its power.

This is a death undertaken willingly. These are not words of resignation and powerlessness; these are words of power. These are words that express Jesus’s willingness to embrace his death for the sake of others.

These words sum up all his self-offering - in them is an act of will, an act of choice, an act of utter trust in God to make all things well.

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

Sunday 16th March - Palm 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. Holy Communion for Palm Sunday, meet at Barley VC First School

Monday 17th March
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
8.00 p.m. Holy Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Tuesday 18th March
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
8.00 p.m. Holy Communion, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Wednesday 19th March
8.15 a.m Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
12.45 p.m. Funeral, Joyce Fletcher, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
8.00 p.m. Holy Communion, St Mary’s, Reed

Thursday 20th March
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary’s, Reed
10.00 a.m. Barkway VA First School end-of-term service, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
1.45 p.m. Funeral, Maisie Gilham, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
8.00 p.m. Holy Communion and Watchnight Vigil, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Friday 21st March - Good Friday
10.30 a.m. All-Age Good Friday service, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
1.30 p.m. (-3.00 p.m.) Meditation on the Passion with hymns
7.30 p.m. The Way of the Cross, words and music for Good Friday

Saturday 22nd March - Easter Eve
9.00 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Sunday 23rd March - Easter Day
6.15 a.m. Sunrise service with holy communion and breakfast
9.00 a.m. Easter Holy Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
10.30 a.m. Easter Holy Communion, 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 24th March
No Morning Prayer

Tuesday 25th March
No Morning Prayer

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

Tuesday 1st April
8.00 p.m. ICES Worship and Psalms, The Rectory

Wednesday 2nd April
10.30 a.m. Holy Communion, Margaret House, Barley

Thursday 3rd April
10.45 a.m. Holy Communion, Wheatsheaf Meadow House, Barkway

Saturday 5th April
evening Friends of Reed Church Race Night, Reed Village Hall

Sunday 6th April
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

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

Tuesday 4th March
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Wednesday 5th March
8.15 a.m Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
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
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary’s, Reed
10.45 a.m. Holy Communion, Wheatsheaf Meadow House, Barkway

Friday 7th March

Saturday 8th March
9.00 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

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

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 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 16th March - Palm 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. Holy Communion for Palm Sunday, meet at Barley VC First School

Monday 17th March
2.00 p.m. Lent Course, The Rectory
8.00 p.m. Holy Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Tuesday 18th March
8.00 p.m. Holy Communion, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Wednesday 19th March
8.00 p.m. Holy Communion, St Mary’s, Reed

Thursday 20th March - Maundy Thursday
10.00 a.m. Barkway VA First School end-of-term service in church
8.00 p.m. Holy Communion and Watchnight Vigil, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Friday 21st March - Good Friday
10.30 a.m. All-Age Good Friday service, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
1.30 p.m. (-3.00 p.m.) Meditation on the Passion with hymns
7.30 p.m. The Way of the Cross, words and music for Good Friday

Saturday 22nd March - Easter Eve

Sunday 23rd March - Easter Day
6.15 a.m. Sunrise service with holy communion and breakfast
9.00 a.m. Easter Holy Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
10.30 a.m. Easter Holy Communion, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

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

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.

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