Food eaten together seems to be such an important part of the life of our Churches.  Was Methodism, for example, really “born in song” as the hymn writer puts it or, as a sceptic suggested “floated on tea”?  Whatever the history of our Churches, recent architectural changes tell their story.  In many Church halls up and down the length of country (including at Ingatestone URC and the Belfast Church in which I grew up) stages have been torn out, to be replaced by enlarged kitchens.  In others, kitchens have been refurbished (as at Billericay recently) or even brought up to professional catering standard (as at Brentwood).  Is it that our Churches are just mirroring the greater interest our wealthier society has exhibited in culinary matters in the past few decades?  Perhaps there is something in that but I am sure it does not tell the whole story. Food, whether eaten together at times of celebration, at times of sadness, or just as part of a regular get-together carries a lot of significance beyond just taking aboard the necessary calories to keep body (and soul?) together.  Food eaten in the context of Church is inescapably about sharing with each other.  I recently heard one Church member who declined to rush forward to be first at the food table comment that they were not worried as in several decades they had never yet attended a Church event where too little food was provided for those who turned up.  Meals, eaten in Churches that have emphasised the word, spoken and heard, and the use of the intellect in the service of God, are a welcome opportunity to exercise those other senses of taste, smell and touch that might otherwise be a bit neglected in our tradition.  Food, available to us in plenty in the context of a world where this is not always the case, can function as a reminder of God’s generosity to us and of our wider responsibility to share with others. 

Food shared together should be important to us Christians.  After all, it plays a significant role in the life of Jesus.  In the Gospels Jesus is often at the table, in the houses of friends like Martha and Mary, of sceptics or inquirers such as a Pharisee called Simon, or invited to a celebratory banquet thrown by a repentant Zacchaeus.  He feeds the hungry by the thousand and, of course, shares that meal with his closest disciples just prior to his arrest and crucifixion.  Quakers, so I understand it, do not have the Lord’s Supper as part of their worship because they understand the life itself as sacrament – a gift from God that demonstrates the grace of God to us – so every meal can be a sacramental event.  I would not wish to drop Holy Communion from our worship but neither would it hurt to recognise every meal as reminders of what God gives us through creation and the salvation that God offers to us through Jesus.  Bon Appetit! Trevor

The Prime Minister stated, “Of course the 300th death is no more or less tragic than the 299 that came before. But it is a moment, I think, for the whole country to reflect on the incredible service and sacrifice and dedication that our armed services give on our behalf. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/david-cameron-britain-should-reflect-on-role-in-afghanistan-2006415.html Genesis Speaks Today is the title for a series of sermons I have been preaching during 2010 at the 5:00pm services at Brentwood United Reformed Church on the third Sunday of each month (to which all are welcome). I must admit I chose the title because it was the catchiest I could think of whilst working against the deadline set by church magazine editors. I did not expect it to describe reality quite so well. In previous months we learned that, like Adam and Eve, we human beings are created for company, both with each other and with the rest of creation. Later, we pondered that John Venables, like Cain, the biblical murderer of a younger child, is a ‘marked man’. Then the biblical flood confronted us with the implications of contemporary climate change and an appropriate human action. On the next occasion God’s covenant with Abram impelled us to consider human response in terms of pushing Christian Aid envelopes through letter boxes. Most recently, in June, we arrived at Genesis 22, the instruction from God to Abraham to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac. 

For Christians who read this story it is packed with intimations of another death, one that it is yet to come in the biblical timeline. It is hard to read Genesis, which speaks of a father’s beloved son, forced to carry the wood on his shoulder that will be used to create the instrument of his death; a death due to take place on a hill and understood as a sacrifice, and not think of Jesus. 
Many Christians are comfortable with the language of sacrifice concerning the death of Jesus – the death of one living creature in order that others might live and flourish. Some Christians are not so happy, saying that we should not describe Jesus’ death in ways now alien to our society. Yet we today do use the language of sacrifice, as the quotations above concerning the sad death of yet another British soldier in Afghanistan demonstrate. Concerning the death of Jesus there is little point in detailed questions asking who is being sacrificed by whom and to whom (can God really sacrifice himself to himself?). ‘Sacrifice’ here is a metaphor, trying to describe a reality, not the whole reality itself and there are other images which can also be and are used to describe the significance of Jesus’ death. What matters is that ‘sacrifice’ speaks of the reality that Jesus’ death brings life to others. The changed lives of Christian believers provide evidence that this is so. Concerning the ‘sacrificial’ death of soldiers in Afghanistan, there are times when soldiers have died, sacrificing themselves to save the lives of others. More widely, our Prime Minister is correct; each death of military personnel is not just a tragedy but represents for us an opportunity, a duty, to consider to what extent their deaths bring life to others, both in Afghanistan and in the wider world. Careful consideration of such costly sacrifice, balanced against what is achieved is the true basis for political decisions about the way forward. We should pray for our political leaders as they proceed to make these life and death decisions. Trevor

A Hung Church

Well, I am so glad you managed to get that situation sorted out.  After all, you would not want the country to go ungoverned for too long (unless you are a convinced anarchist).  As Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister I watched you stand in the Downing Street garden, elegantly clad and sporting your different blue and yellow ties.  This seemed to be the only jarring note.  Perhaps you need a coalition tie.  What would the design be?  Blue and yellow stripes seem to put across your message more clearly than mixing the two to produce a shared of green in my opinion.I must say it seemed odd to me that parties who denounced coalition as a bad idea (though embracing it is Scotland and Wales and even making it compulsory in Northern Ireland) soon sought coalition partners once the reality of a hung parliament hit home.  It certainly kept the political analysts and the 24-hour news channels excited, almost to the point of hysteria though the financial markets and almost everyone I know managed to stay calm  It seems that you will have to live with a hung parliament at least for a while, but take hear; some of us belong to a hung Church.Jesus may have prayed that his followers would be one so that the world might believe (John 17:21) but it just does not seem to have worked out that way.  We all know that there are different denominations and that although many of us get along better than we used to (just like you Conservatives and Liberal Democrats?) there is no immediate prospect of us all getting together to the point where we are doing the religious equivalent of wearing exactly the same tie.  Even if we could somehow resolve all the differences and reconcile all the denominations that have arisen since the sixteenth century we would then still have to look east to the Orthodox and a much older division between Christians.  Ecumenically speaking, we are a hung Church.Denominationally, we are no less a hung Church, a hung United Reformed Church.  There are some issues on which we just can’t seem to come to one mind.  In recent years the URC has had impassioned debates about human sexuality, to the point where exhaustion set in and we moved on to other matters.  We have to perform a tricky balancing act to respect the views of those who see infant baptism as acceptable and those who are committed to the practice of believer’s baptism.  One of the Elders Meetings in this pastorate (no names, but they know who they are) could tell you that discussing this issue touches upon deep feelings.  On Holy Communion, the three congregations of this pastorate even have different policies and approaches concerning the presence of children at communion and the presence of alcohol in the communion wine.The truth though is that we are not a hung Church so much as a “hang-together Church”.  In other words we are not defined by our differences but by what we hold in common; that we live in God’s world (Psalm 24:1); that even when the world has gone wrong God puts things back together again though Jesus Christ and our task is to share that message (2 Corinthians 5:19): I doubt if the current coalition will be around for anywhere near a s long as the United Reformed Church has managed so far but if your define yourselves by ideals and policies you share, one that benefit the nation and the world, rather than your differences that will generate party and sectional self-interest you might  just hang together for a while yet.Look forward to seeing how the new tie idea works out. 

 This is given a poetic form by the hymn writer Fred Kaan, a URC Minister who died during this past year: We pause to give thanksand focus our thoughton how far our Godhis people has brought.We pause for affirmingour ‘Yes’ to his call,pursuing his future:life’s fullness for all. The future is hereas Christ sets us free;we reach out in hopefor all that will be.We go where he leads us,to time’s furthest ends,to share in his missionas partners and friends.

I really enjoyed Holy Joe as a way into the Christmas story. Holy Joe was the primary school production for Christmas. Parents, family and friends packed into the church that adjoined the (non-church) school to watch the presentation. Written by one the teachers, Holy Joe was a retelling of the Christian Christmas story in words and song, but told from the perspective of Joseph. Perhaps the teacher had been reading Matthew’s Gospel in particular as the story there seems to see things more from Joseph’s point of view. Perhaps that would also explain why the wise men rather than the shepherds got such a starring role that year (Luke’s shepherds and heavenly host of angels got rather pushed into the background). Not that this was a traditional re-telling of the tale, as the magi’s theme song suggests: “We’re three wise guys on a star-trek enterprise”!  How far can you go and how much liberty are you allowing in re-telling the Christmas story? Productions that fail to mention Jesus entirely have probably missed the plot as far as most Christians are concerned. After that, however, all’s fair in love and nativities. It’s not as if what we call a “traditional” nativity play is entirely biblical. No one thinks that all those involved in the original events were children, though Mary may not have been many years beyond childhood if normal marriage customs were being observed with regards to the average age of brides at this time. Nor, as John Bell, the Scottish hymn writer has mischievously suggested is it compulsory for her to wear blue just because she is expecting a boy rather than a girl. Neither, do the two gospel writers who tell us stories about the birth and childhood of Jesus, suggest that the Matthew’s magi (wise men) ever even glimpsed Luke’s shepherds, never mind gathering all together with Mary, Joseph and various animals around a baby in a manger, though this will not prevent us setting out such a tableaux in many churches.  Not only is it permissible for Christians to have some fun with the plot (angelic messengers as “men in black”, suitably suited, eyes concealed by fashionable shades for example) but it is almost mandatory. We all know how reciting the Lord’s Prayer in church every Sunday can lead to the point where we are saying the words but have disengaged our brains (and possibly our hearts) from the content of the prayer. Just reading the very familiar Bible passages year upon year can begin to have a similar effect and a new twist or change of perspective could be just what we need to make us pay attention once again. If all the parts in church nativity plays were taken by adults this year might we find ourselves reminded that Christmas is not just for the children, but for everyone? I’m not suggesting we try this as I don’t think I could handle the conflict that might arise, though even that might remind us that this a story where King Herod plays a major role and it is set in a place (Bethlehem) where conflict is a very present reality. Oddly enough, I think it is Christians who are best placed to depart from the basic biblical story. In fact, only those who know the original story are capable of departing from it, much as you can only compose a variation on a theme is you are acquainted with the theme in the first place. That is why that during Advent and the Christmas season churches will not be totally dependant on nativity plays for remembering and re-rehearsing the Christmas story. We will hear the prophetic words from the Old Testament, the narratives of Matthew and Luke and the theological commentary of the opening chapter of John’s Gospel that “The true light which gives light to everyone was even then coming into the world,” (John 1: 9) In addition to the message we hear through the words I hope that there is also a nativity play, a Christmas movie or theatrical production, a Holy Joe, a personal or family memory or some other trigger that makes us re-think and re-discover the meaning of Christmas for each of us today.

I think of this situation every time I feel over-optimistic about the spiritual health of the nation. In the face of the Church’s numerical decline and diminishing social influence some people argue that interest in religious matters has not really declined all that much, it has simply migrated to less traditional areas of spirituality. Such commentators point to the growing interest in eastern religions and a whole host of spiritual practices, often labelled as “New Age”. Today’s spiritual seeker, so the argument goes, does not feel tied down to one tradition and is open to explore many different religious practices, sometimes even several at the same time. This large group of the population are spiritually open to the Christian faith if only we can find the argument or attraction that will make them choose our particular brand of religion. Even as I listen to this argument I think of the cookery programmes. Interest in cookery programmes does not translate in to getting into the kitchen and cooking. Interest in religions need not translate into commitment to Christian faith which combines both explicit belief and distinctive lifestyle.

So far, so pessimistic, but it does not have be all bad news. The Christian faith does retain some hold on the popular religious imagination. We are getting close to Christmas, the time when that influence seems strongest. Can we help people translate a sentimental attachment to childhood memories or the Dickensian image of a Victorian Christmas into a sense of deep joy that in Jesus’ birth and life God has stepped into the world we inhabit? At a local level our congregations retain a measure of good will among their many contacts – worshippers, friends, family, users of church hall and participants in church social projects. At a recent Elders Meeting at Billericay URC a quick totting up of people currently in contact with that congregation produced a figure of five hundred and fifty contacts! During the last year we have used material from the URC Vision4life Bible Year and soon we move into the Prayer Year, with the Evangelism Year coming along immediately behind. Perhaps our relationships with the people our congregations already know could form part of our exploration of prayer in 2010 and that in turn can inform our thinking about evangelism in 2011. Let’s hope we can turn our interest in prayer and evangelism into more actual praying and sharing good news in the coming days.

 Next month, October, it is time for Job to make a reappearance and those responsible for leading worship in at least two of our congregations will be gearing up for the challenge. I’m looking forward to coming back to Job just as we are all “coming back to church” after the summer break and somehow this feels appropriate. After all, why do we come (back) to church? Yes, firstly, we come to worship God but we also come for all sorts of human reasons, many of them good ones. We come for fellowship and friendship; we come for rest and recuperation from life’s stresses; but we also come in order to be better equipped to live life abundantly during the rest of the week. Exploring Job together is a real opportunity to face life’s realities together, a resource for living in the today’s world, just as troubled with pain and suffering as it was in the days when the Book of Job was written. Like Job, we may find few definitive answers but I’m confident that we’ll grow as seven-day-a-week disciples in the process of discovery and discussion.