Mike's musings

Fantastic sermon

(backposting) Sometimes, you turn up for a service, and get a brilliant sermon thrown in, too. Today was one of those days. I went with Kate to the 0930 at St Mary's, East Leake, and the preacher gave us a sermon which that she really cared about. It was about the careful line that the 1662 Book of Common Prayer (which we were using) trod between the Catholic and Protestant theological camps and the language it employed, particularly in the Eucharistic Prayer. It was a subject which she clearly cared about a lot, and she had me in tears at one point. At the end, I wanted to stand up and applaud. After the service, I went to tell her how much it had meant to me, of course.

In the afternoon, Kate and I took the girls to a Harvest Festival service at All Saints', Rempstone. I'd been prevailed upon to sing in the choir, and the girls joined us there. Miri had a little accident (of the liquid kind only, luckily), which led to some hilarity, but they did very well (despite Jojo falling asleep on me).

An OK drive back home, and then to bed, pretty tired.

Labels: preaching, sermon

Preaching and driving

(backposting) So, the sermon. I'd done some more work on it last night, and written some notes. It went OK, but I find it more difficult to create a good narrative when I've got too many notes, and I'd let my nervousness get to me, which had encouraged me to write more notes than I'd intended. I'm also currently in a place where I'm trying to develop my sermon-writing, and need to move to a stage where I'm a little more confident in the things I'm learning. It's all good stuff, but it'll take a while.

We headed home after the girls' supper. I was hoping for 3.5-4 hours max, but it was more like 5. Moo took the latter stages, which was very helpful. More friends and family needing prayers. My capacity for prayer is being stretched, but God is providing.

Labels: home, sermon

Middleton church, Essex
Originally uploaded by MikeCamel

The gout was somewhat better today, luckily, and I headed off to Halstead church for the 0800. 8 other people there, which isn't bad for that service. I preached on the Messianic Secret, as the gospel reason was Mark 7.24-end. Why, I asked, was there a point in having a Messianic secret at all? Only if Jesus were so obviously a man _first_ to those who met him would it make any sense at all. And although the more extreme emotions - anger and sorrow - are maybe quite easy to associate with Jesus, the gospel reading show him tired, wanting time to himself, telling people not, please not to say who he was, and even maybe a bit grumpy. This helps me to appreciate the humanity of Jesus, particularly as I've been very tired recently.

After the service in Halstead, I went to this lovely church in Middleton, deputising for a colleague in a nearby benefice. I preached the same sermon, which seemed safe, and several people said how much they enjoyed it (always nice).

In the afternoon, once Nina had taken her two home (Jim had headed off even earlier than me to watch the cricket with Dad), I took the two girls swimming. Jojo managed a whole length (25m) on her own, with which I'm very, very impressed indeed.

Labels: sermon, swimming

Services - and hoovering

(backposting) I took two services today - both Holy Communion - one in Greenstead Green, and one in Gosfield. I preached the same sermon in both churches - or, more accurately, the same two sermons in each. I was preaching on the Gospel, John 6:56-69, where some of Jesus' disciples start to leave him, saying that his teaching is too hard. I first preached about how we have it pretty easy, and surely we have little excuse for finding living as a Christian hard. What one thing can we point to over the past week that we've done which we think is worthy of being Christian? And, after all, Peter said "to whom else can we turn?" And then I remembered that Peter was the same one who denied Jesus three times, and was then crucified. And then I thought how presumptious it was for me to tell people that they have it easy. There are many people in the world, maybe even in our pews, where people struggle not only with being Christian, but even with what it means to be human. And it's presumptious of me to suggest that I have answers for them. But Christ can help, and maybe doing one thing a week that we can point to, even when things are bad, is good in this instance, too. I've not explained it very well, but people responded well to it on both occasions, so I'm pleased.

Oh, and the hoovering. I started doing it, and then the hoover broke. How sad.

Labels: sermon

Canonisation

(backposting) Oh, the other thing that I really, really should have blogged about yesterday was that we went over to Mark and Jen's for a lovely barbecue last night. Andy, Zae, Si and D were all there, and we were joined by Andi Chandler, though he took some time to arrive. We tracked him with Google Latitude, though, so had a good idea of where he was. We're sad. Maybe even more sad was my exclamation "I don't have a backtick!" when I tried to put Mark's auto-generated WPA key into my phone. We had a good time, and a good deal of alcohol was consumed, though luckily not by Moo (who got a bit bored of my driving "suggestions" on the way home).

More work in the garden today, and I also took the girls to the 1000 at Halstead. In the evening, I went to my training incumbent John's installation to a non-residential canonry in Chelmsford Cathedral. I wasn't very impressed with the sermon, which took the title of the book "If you meet George Herbert on the road, kill him." It's a reference to a story about the Buddha, and is supposed to deal with the unreal expectations that are put on clergy by his "The Country Parson". I take the book to be written not in the spirit of expectation, but of aspiration, particularly given his poems such as "Aaron" and "The Collar". My bishop, who I happened to mention it to, agreed...

Labels: geekery, poetry, sermon

Dementia and belief

At Moo's suggetsion, I listened to the podcast of a recent Beyond Belief from Radio 4. It was about dementia, and how religions - and their adherents - deal with it. It was excellent, very thought-provoking, and extremely moving. I came across the phrase "Ubuntu theology", in relation to Archbishop Tutu, and it really struck a chord. I'm aware of the word "ubuntu" because I use Ubuntu Linux, and its overtones of community, but Ubuntu theology, which apparently was formed at least partly in response to Afrikaaner theology which was defending apartheid, has been summed up by Tutu as "I am because you are". This works very well for a sermon I'm going to be preaching at Boo's baptism. I've been wondering how to centre it, and now I know.

Labels: baptism, sermon, theology

Three issues to cover

You (that's the thousands of readers I have, of course) don't often get 3 issues in one posting. Well, actually you often do, but I don't usually bother to separate them out. Today you do, and I am. Lucky you.

Jo

It's really hard having a child who's ill. In fact, Jo had finished throwing up by the time I got back home from church, but she had thrown up 4 times between my leaving at 0720 and my return around 1210. Moo had to deal with it. This is one of the nightmares about having multiple commitments - particularly ones I care about - is having to leave Catherine to deal with problems which a) it's not fair that she has to deal with on her own; and b) that I want to be involved with myself.

Anyway, Jo was much better by this afternoon, and managed to keep a simple supper down. Hopefully she'll sleep well. Hopefully she (and Miri) will sleep through past 0800. Yeah, right. Past 0600 would be a miracle.

Stewardship

I preached on stewardship today. It was a very hard sermon to prepare, and pretty hard to preach, but I was quite pleased. I gave a shorter version to the 0800, and the full version to 1000. I based it (to the surprise of James, the other curate!) on justification by faith alone. It's not an obvious starting point, I grant you, but for me, it made sense. The people who built - or caused to be built - our church in Halstead paid the church in tithes, and gave money in gifts, partly because the doctrine of the medi&aedigraph;val Catholic church was that doing good works helps in getting to heaven: alongside faith, of course. I won't go into current Roman Catholic teaching, but I'm firmly of the opposite view: that we are justified by faith alone.

I noted that as citizens of England, we have rights to use the church - the parish church in Halstead - for marriages, baptisms, funerals, and other services- as do all the other people who live in the parish. And I pointed out that we have a set of responsibilities that go along with those rights: to maintain that set of rights of ourselves, for those who don't usually exercise them, for those who came before us, and for those who will come after.

But more than that, we have a covenant with God - a new covenant, a new testament - and there are responsibilities entailed with that. And that's where we start with thinking about or financial responsibilities to God's church. And its people. And its God.

Not just at the front

During intercessions today, I left my seat at the front of the church and went to be beside someone who was crying. The details aren't important: I supported this person and put my arm around them. I thought about it - for probably under a second - before I did it. But it was abundantly clear to me that if I can sit at the front of the church, up three steps, and leave someone to cry, then I'm not worthy to be a priest. Or even a deacon.

We serve. Or we dishonour the Father, and let down the Spirit, and sadden the Son.

Labels: death, diaconate, god, illness, Jo, sermon

Stewardship

I have to write a sermon for Sunday. It's on the issue of stewardship, as I mentioned a couple of days ago. This is a very difficult sermon for me to write: very difficult indeed. We, as a parish, are short of our parish share - what the Diocese of Chelmsford expects us to provide - by quite a lot of money. Not so much that we can't do it - in fact, it's a fairly small amount per family per week - but it's not a subject that resonates, and it's not a subject about which I have a strong moral or emotional feeling. It's not that I don't believe that giving is important - on the contrary, I do. But I don't have a strong attachment to tithing or any particular framework for giving that I can point to theologically. I tend to preach from the heart, and if I don't have a strong feeling about something, I struggle with preaching about it.

Oddly enough, watching The West Wing helps. The quality of the writing is astonishing, and there are lots of speeches. These are guys who really know how to write, and how to write about difficult issues in ways which allow the speaker to maintain his (or sometimes her) integrity. But to speak with inspiration, and emotion. And belief. I really enjoy preaching, and I always try to speak with integrity and with emotion, and rhetoric - often a maligned art - can help with that.

So, I hope that I can come up with something for Sunday. There'll be something, but what will it be, and how well will it glorify God? That's the gold standard.

Labels: sermon

My first sermon at Halstead

I preached on Peter's lack of faith giving him wet feet. I talked about how fear, and doubt, and failure don't seem to be very Godly, but how they're very human. And how Jesus was, arguably, the greatest human failure of all time (he started as Son of God, and ended up asking why God had forsaken him, after being betrayed by his friends). But how his resurrection means that faith never ends in failure. I was very pleased with it, and a number of people were very appreciative afterwards.

I'm still enjoying deaconing.

Labels: sermon

Sermon

I'm not going to be preaching it until at least the beginning of July, but I'm beginning to worry, already, about my first sermon as a deacon. This is silly, I realise, but that's just running round my head. Do you preach to the lectionary (something I'm not overly given to), or to the season, or to recent events, or speak about myself, or curacy, or the diaconate? I literally have no idea. And it's obviously, obviously too early to think about it.

I'm currently going through the "why isn't everybody else so enthusiastic about the Gospel, then?" phase. This, I'm given understand, is typical of nearly-deaconed ordinands. Expecting to enthuse everybody else is a dangerous fallacy, and I'm glad, at least, that I've seen it. And enthusiasm is good. But needs watching.

Now Moo's not well. Hope she gets better soon. I've done a part dog-poo clearance, and 90% of the ironing (ran out of coat-hangers), and cooked supper. And spent around an hour getting Jo to sleep. But I hate it when Moo's ill. Particularly as it's partly due to overwork.

Labels: diaconate, ordination, sermon, theology

Last day of holiday

(backposting) Polzeath - went body boarding (despite Jo). Jo decided that the body board was for her, not me. I had to sneak it away. The surf was much better than yesterday, and I actually managed it a couple of times. Really got it together, and it was pretty good.

Had a work call in the afternoon - changed out of wetsuit, obviously. Changed Miri whilst on a conf. call: put the phone on mute, as I'm a professional...

Two things made me cry on the TV: Natasha Kaplinsky on the BBC's "Who do you think you are?" (family involvement in the Shoah - the Holocaust), and Rhys Jones' funeral (an 11 year old caught in the crossfire between two Liverpool gangs, it seems). I expect to be preaching on this at some point.

Labels: holiday, sermon