Congratulations to Angela, our Lay Minister who was commissioned as our Anna Chaplain during this morning’s service! Anna Chaplains offer care to older people in the community. 🙏 With thanks to God for calling Angela into this very valuable ministry.
Lord, direct our thoughts, and teach us to pray. Lift up our hearts to worship you in spirit and in truth, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.‘Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory.’ (Ps 24:9,10)Hymn: Thou, whose Almighty word...Psalm 24:1-10The Spirit of the Lord fills the world and knows our every word and deed. Let us confess our sins: Most merciful God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we confess that we have sinned in thought, word and deed. We have not loved you with our whole heart. We have not loved our neighbours as ourselves. In your mercy forgive what we have been, help us to amend what we are, and direct what we shall be; that we may do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with you, our God. Amen.May the God of love bring us back to himself, forgive us our sins, and assure us of his eternal love in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.Prayer for the day: Lord Jesus Christ, light of the nations and glory of Israel: make your home among us, and present us pure and holy to your heavenly Father, your God, and our God. Amen.Luke 2:22-40Please see the Message from the Minister.Let us join in prayer, asking for the light of the Lord to be known to everyone:We pray for St Peter’s Church and the Church throughout the world, that people will be drawn together by and share with others the love of God;We pray today for Angela as she is commissioned as an Anna Chaplain, and for her ongoing ministry;We pray for our planet, that lessons will be learned so that the Earth and all of its creatures will thrive, and that people will work together in peace;We pray for our friends, families and neighbours - that we may build relationships;We pray for people who are sick or suffering, and for those on our hearts and minds today, that they will know our Lord’s healing presence;We pray for the departed, remembering all who mourn.Let us pray for the coming of God’s kingdom in the prayer that Jesus taught us: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory for ever and ever. Amen.Hymn: Purify my heart, let me be as gold and precious silver...May Christ’s holy, healing, enabling Spirit be with us and guide us on our way at every change and turn; and may the blessing of God Almighty who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit rest upon us and remain with us always.Let us go in peace to love and serve the Lord, in the name of Christ. Amen.
Candlemas - the Presentation of Christ in the TempleHere endeth Christmas!The Christmas Season has taken us from the Birth of Jesus in a stable at Bethlehem, through the visits of the Shepherds and the Wise Men, then onwards through those moments of the Epiphany Season when we come face to face with our God. At first seen through the eyes of others but always raising the question, where do you and I meet our God. Today is the final Epiphany moment with Jesus being taken to the Temple in Jerusalem where his parents, Mary and Joseph, will give thanks to God by offering a sacrifice for their new-born son. Then two unexpected things happened: first the blessing of Jesus by Simeon, but note it was not all good news; second the prophetic words of Anna.As Simeon said to Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”And as Anna said, “she began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.”One of the reasons why Simeon and Anna were listened to by his parents and the people in the Temple was that they were elderly. In Jewish Society at that time there was a belief that with age there came wisdom. Wisdom was not just elderly people knowing more but that they had walked with God and had had their own Epiphany moments where they had experienced God being with them in their own lives and as a result had grown closer to God. In many ways I think the church has lost its way in this area both because we don’t encourage people to meet with God in their prayers and in their daily lives and also because the church then doesn’t want to hear what these people have to say. But for those of us who are elderly, age does not guarantee wisdom it is only when we allow God to be the centre of our lives and then allow him to guide and change us to be his disciples in this complex world. At least the Gospel writer understood words of wisdom when he heard them and recorded them so that through the ages, right down to this present day, we might give thanks to God for our Epiphany moments and the growth of wisdom they bring. Andrew SSL
Could Paul go to Heaven?It’s quite a flippant question and deliberately so. If you were to join a group of the earliest Christians, shortly after the death and resurrection of Christ and asked them, I expect they would find that much harder to answer.How would they react to the idea that someone like Paul could be forgiven? Because I don’t imagine that many of them would have been particularly pleased.If you look at the book of Acts Paul is described as “ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women”, he is “breathing threats and murder against the disciples” and he is involved with the execution of Saint Stephen. Our early introduction to Paul does not present him as a nice man. Hardly the sort of person you would expect to find making such a vast contribution to the church, yet the fact that he does demonstrates just how big a change was coming.Paul’s contribution to Christianity is vast. He is undoubtedly the author of seven books of the New Testament with a further six up for debate. Even if those six were not by him, such was his importance that their authors did their best to emulate him. Saint Paul’s writings even give us the earliest reference to Christians remembering the Last Supper.But Paul comes to us from the position of being an oppressor of those who believed in Christ. It’s important then that we recognise that God in Christ saw something in Paul that the earliest Christians would have struggled to. God saw to the future, beyond all our possible imaginings.It all seems to have been a challenge for Ananias, who questions the Lord when he is sent to go and heal Paul. It must have been an incredibly difficult time for Ananias. He was a disciple of Jesus from Damascus, a city that was now seeing early Christian refugees from Jerusalem. He knew of Paul’s actions; he probably, personally, knew some of those who were persecuted by Paul.Yet he did as he was asked, greeted Paul as ‘brother’ and healed him. A remarkable demonstration of forgiveness, love and faith. A remarkable acceptance of the coming of change.This is what I find particularly interesting about Ananias. He takes this action after being told God planned to use Paul to bring the Good News “before Gentiles, kings and before the people of Israel”. In other words, things were going to change, and Paul was going to be spearheading it. Christ’s love was to be spread to all people, even those who had no cultural, religious or familial links to the faiths of Abraham and Moses. It must have given Ananias a feeling that mixed both excitement and fear.The change comes. And it’s big. Paul’s letters demonstrate just how widely and how quickly Christianity spread across the empire. Everything was opened up to all people in ways that hadn’t been seen before. Let’s take a small example, which is a description of Christianity by the governor of Bithynia and Pontus in the reign of Emperor Trajan. He describes Christians gathering on a fixed day to chant verses in honour of Christ. To bind themselves by oath to refrain from sins and share food “of an ordinary, harmless kind”.There is even the description of the torture of two slave women “whom they call deaconesses”.Let that sink in for a moment. The early Christian Church wasn’t just opening itself up to the Gentiles: those who were slaves were on an equal footing with the Roman citizens. Women could even serve as clergy, a thing unheard of in the rigid and tradition-based structure of Temple Judaism (something that the church seemed later to forget in a somewhat pointless and protracted act of patriarchal oppression and self-harm).This is the radical faith that Saint Paul would help bring to people. A church that can and would change to ensure that the love of and worship of God was open to all. Change that aims to bring in and include everyone. It is a process that is never finished and is always ongoing.That process of change might be painful, confusing or hard to bear. It would have been at the time, and Paul’s letters are full of examples where he was trying to sooth relations between different groups.It is still difficult even today. We still have churches who will not allow women’s ministry. We still have churches who try to block anyone celebrating the love between LGBT couples. We still have churches who exclude disabled people, the elderly and children.Yes, change can be painful, but change is what the Church must always be capable of doing to fulfil its mission and purpose.To share God’s love with as many as possible. To be open and inclusive, just as that early Church with the slave women serving as deaconesses was. Just as Ananias was in obeying the call of God to baptise and heal Paul.Just as Paul was in opening himself to being transformed by God into a champion of the same church he had worked so hard to oppress.Paul’s story of conversion and transformation is an example of Peter’s declaration in today’s Gospel of leaving everything to follow Christ. And he reminds us of Jesus’s response: that our focus should be not on the things of this life but on the forthcoming Kingdom of Heaven and the love God has for all.The Revd Iain Grant
