It’s our Harvest Festival tomorrow!Our Family service at 10am will include harvest hymns. Please bring in donations of food which we can pass on to the Foodbank, and put them on the chancel steps.Our young friends are invited to be a part of the service.You are welcome to join us as we worship in St Peter’s Church, whoever you are.
I believe in AngelsToday is a good day to ask: ‘Do you believe in angels?’ Today is the day that the Church remembers ‘St Michael and all Angels’.On the one hand, there is a voice inside me, a very rational, sophisticated voice, which says that belief in angels is not a good idea. Angels are a throwback to a more superstitious age when religious people felt a need to populate the earth with imaginary beings. Just think of the elaborate speculations by medieval theologians as they classified and codified angels and argued over how many could dance on a pinhead. I hear myself saying, ‘Let’s keep our eyes on Jesus and not clutter our minds, piling up beliefs and added extras that add little to the faith.’However, another voice wants to say, ‘Not so fast’. The idea of angels shows up across all cultures, time periods and religions. Angels are part of Jewish, Christian and Islamic thought. However sceptical we might be about angels in medieval thought, and however trivialised and sentimental angels may seem as portrayed in today’s culture, angels still have a central part to play in in our lives as Christians.The more I think about it, and the more I listen to this inner struggle, the more that second voice makes sense to me. Angels are messengers of God, and the idea of angels is necessary within a belief system that starts with God as a divine mystery. It is the very transcendence of God that makes the idea of angels necessary - these spiritual beings that serve as ‘go-betweens’ between God and humanity, who speak for God and are sent by God to communicate and connect with the human race.Jacob’s dream of a ladder between earth and heaven on which angels descend and ascend gives us a powerful image of this ongoing interchange between the earthly and heavenly realms, between the ordinary world of solid matter, reason and logic, and the divine world that is beyond human perception and thought. Angels symbolise the way that the divine mystery we call ‘God’ is continuously interacting with us, constantly inviting and challenging, protecting and accompanying us. When our eyes are opened to this interplay of worlds, the interweaving of the human and divine, then, like Jacob, we too awaken from sleep and say, ‘surely the Lord is in this place…. This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven.’Today’s Gospel reading goes even further. Jesus Christ is what we might term our ‘ladder’ to heaven. As he says to Nathaniel, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.’ In other words, through the incarnation, Jesus has caught up in his very body the fullness of God and the fullness of humanity. He is the meeting place, the point of intersection, the place where earth and heaven, the human and the divine, meet and are woven into one. We live in a sacramental world. So, welcoming angels into our imagination is a way of welcoming Jesus himself, a way of opening ourselves to the infinite ways that we receive messages from God.With that in mind, I wonder how you notice messages from God? Maybe you tend to sense the message internally, from intuition or vision, from a dream or sudden insight that catches your attention and speaks to you a word from God. Maybe a friend shows up on your doorstep at just the right moment or calls you on the phone when you were thinking about that person. Maybe the natural world touches your soul on a cliff-top walk and you are immersed within it?You might call such moments ‘angel moments’. Why not? To the logical, analytical mind such moments may have no particular value, meaning or usefulness, but to the soul they give a glimpse of what it means to live life in a larger way, to be awake and responsive to the holy mystery all around us, and to live with a spirit of love rather than fear.Despite the sophisticated voice of ‘reason’, I know that I do cherish angels. Why? Well, it’s because welcoming angels keeps us attentive to the mysterious ways in which God meets us in the daily moments of our lives; it’s because they keep our imagination alive in a world that tends to squash our sensibilities and makes everything drab, as if the material world is all there is; it’s because, as Howard Thurman, a minister and civil rights leader, once suggested, there is a place in everybody’s life for angels, a beautiful place where despite the difficulties of life, the singing of angels can be found, and transformation is possible. No wonder we can’t keep from singing with ‘angels and archangels and all the company of heaven’.Every blessing,Christian
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.‘The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all. Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, obedient to his spoken word. Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers that do his will. Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul.’ (Psalm 103:19-22)Hymn: Angel voices, ever singing...Genesis 28: 10-17; Hebrews 1: 5-14Jesus said to his apostles, ‘You are my friends if you obey my commands.’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: Everlasting God, you have ordained and constituted the ministries of angels and mortals in a wonderful order: grant that as your holy angels always serve you in heaven, so, at your command, they may help and defend us on earth; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit,one God, now and for ever. Amen.John 1: 47-51Please see the Message from the Minister.Let us pray:We pray for St Peter’s Church and the Church throughout the world: for the strength and courage to share God’s love;We pray for the world: for reconciliation where there is conflict, for justice and peace;We pray for our communities, families and friends: for relationships to flourish;We pray for all who are sick or suffering: for healing in mind, body and spirit;We pray for people who have been bereaved: for comfort in their grief.Let us pray 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: Ye Holy Angels bright...May the love of the Lord Jesus draw us to himself, the power of the Lord Jesus strengthen us in his service, the joy of the Lord Jesus fill our hearts, and may the blessing of God Almighty who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit rest upon us and and be with us always. Amen.Let us go in peace to love and serve the Lord, in the name of Christ. Amen.
What is peace?Perhaps your first thought is the relief people felt in 1945 when the horrors of the Second World War came to an end. That moment when a feeling of safety, security, and perhaps even disbelief descended. When people could once again look towards a hopeful future.Perhaps you’re drawn to that feeling of putting your feet up after a busy day. Taking the chance simply to ‘be’ as you begin to unwind and relax.Perhaps you’re reflecting on the wars of today, Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Palestine, wishing and praying for peace.Or is a longed-for feeling of peace closer to home? You may have a sense of turmoil or strife that won’t disappear.Regardless of where our minds are drawn to, we all understand that ‘peace’ means more than just the absence of conflict.For example, a ‘just’ peace in Ukraine would see more than an end to ghting. It would surely include the return of land, reparations and support for the bereaved on both sides, as well as the repatriation of those captured or kidnapped.A ‘just’ peace might fulfil many legal and ethical responses to a terrible conflict. Yet the spiritual and holistic nature of peace may still be elusive.Inner peacefulness, inner harmony and outer acceptance of events and people cannot be forced through a legal process.For some people, that broader sense of well-being and peacefulness may always be elusive. So, what do we mean when we talk about wanting to achieve peace and praying for peace? If we look at our understanding of the word peace we go through a few stages of development.Our understanding of peace develops, in part, as a translation for the Hebrew word ‘Shalom’. Before the Biblical exile of the Israelites, Shalom could be used to refer to good personal health, nationwide justice or prosperity. It could refer to victory in war or represent the victory of Yahweh over chaos. After the Israelites returned from exile in Babylon, however, something changed in their understanding of Shalom. There are even hints in Jeremiah with denunciations of false Shalom.(1) Shalom becomes a term for a longed-for and hoped-for dream.A humble dream of unity amongst all people with God above all the nations. (2) A vision of a world where, as you might have heard it said once before:They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. (Is 2:4) That dream of Shalom has a far greater scope than just relationships between nations. Peace and Shalom speak to our responses to each other, friends, family, strangers and even ourselves. This idea of shared peace amongst all was arguably central to the early church. In the second or third century, an unknown author wrote the Epistle to Diognetus, which describes Christians living their faith in their words and actions. It says: “They display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking way of life. They dwell in their own countries but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others and yet endure all things as if foreigners.” In other words, they showed a dedicated love to others and shared in the suffering of those on the margins of society. Regardless of where those people came from.Tertullian writing in the second century is astonished at how Christians showed love to one another. Seemingly regardless of social divisions. They shared peace.Just as Christians in services throughout the world take part in sharing peace. God challenges us continually to share His peace.What other message can we take from the calling of St Matthew?In the Gospel reading today (Mt: 9:9-13) Matthew is collecting taxes in a toll booth. These were taxes levied on the transport of goods. Despite what you might think, a toll collector like Matthew is unlikely to have been rich. While many tax collectors ultimately became rich through rather unscrupulous means, someone working in a toll booth would not have had the same opportunity to set tax rates or pocket excess for themselves.It is more likely that Matthew was on the front line of tax collection, facing hostile merchants who were unhappy about paying levied rates on their goods. Anyone in Matthew’s position whodid become rich would probably have been perceived as dishonest. (3) Honest or not, tax collectors have never been popular. This was especially true in the province of Judea.When it came to picturing the promised Messiah, many Jews of the time viewed them as a warrior king who would drive o the hated occupiers and restore Israel to the glory days of David and Solomon.Those collecting taxes on behalf of the occupying regimes were seen as collaborators, betrayers of their culture and faith, and people to be reviled. Into this world of people rejected by society and pushed to the margins comes Jesus. Who greets Matthew, tax collectors like him and sinners with peace.Jesus’s offer of “follow me” isn’t just a literal invitation to come with him. It’s also the same invitation that Jesus o ers to everybody to follow His ways. To love one another as He loves us. To greet one another with peace. Especially those whom society so often rejects.Others will always try to condemn Jesus because of His love for those on the margins.Look at the words of the Pharisees, questioning why Jesus eats with the tax collectors, seeking to condemn Christ by association with these supposedly dreadful people. Just as people today condemn others for sharing peace with those on the margins.Yet Jesus continues to eat with the tax collectors. Jesus continues to share His love and peace with all those whom society tries to reject. It is through a hated tax collector that we are blessed with one of the Gospels.According to Christian tradition, Matthew will go on to bring the Good News to Ethiopia, which will lead to his martyrdom. It will also lead to Ethiopia being counted as one of the first regions of the world to adopt the Christian faith officially.Ultimately, Matthew’s humble calling reminds us, in the words of Pope Francis, that “we must be peacemakers and our communities must be... places where we learn to overcome tensions, foster just and peaceful relations between peoples and social groups, and build a better future.”When you share the peace in this service, think of Jesus’s invitation to Matthew. Think of Jesus’s call to share His peace with those on the margins. Think about God’s love for you and those around you, and share His gift of love and peace.ٱل ساُماعلاْيُكْم-As-salāmu ʻalaykumשל ם- šālōmPeace be with you.Amen.1 Andrew Shanks in the Oxford Companion to Christian Thought, 2000, p5242 Ibid3 Social sciences commentary on the synoptic gospels, p81
