In our Lent groups this year I invite you to spend some time with Stanley Spencer’s series of Wilderness paintings. There are eight completed works, though Spencer prepared sketches of 40, one for each day of Lent. Spencer started this series ( 1939) at a time of great turbulence in his own life, not only had he separated from his beloved wife, Hilda but he had become entangled in a loveless relationship with another woman. Professionally he was out of favour as a result of a series of erotic paintings that were not well received. He was forced to move away from his home in Cookham to a small flat in London cut off from friends and family. The looming war brought back to him the traumas of his own experience in the first world war in which he had served both as a medical orderly and a rifleman in the Berkshire regiment. The painting is set against the barren landscape of Salonika where he fought, recalling the wilderness in Judea where Jesus was tried and tested in preparation for his mission. ‘Driven by the Spirit’ The first in the series ‘Driven by the Spirit’ takes us to the moment captured by Matthew and Mark in their gospel accounts. Mark uses strong language here, whereas Matthew says Jesus is led by the Spirit Mark tells us he is ‘Driven’. Maybe Spencer thought that the word driven reflected better his own experience as an outcast, but it is more than the storms of life that drive Jesus in this painting. Jesus is pictured clutching at the branches for support but there is no wind in the trees instead his feet are planted firmly on the ground and his eyes are fixed at the far distance looking at his destination. He has set out on this journey into the desert with the knowledge of his Father’s love, but knowing that he was to be tried and tested, he is resolute in facing the future. In the silence of the wilderness, he will listen to his Father’s voice guiding him in his mission. This is no pale, pious nor divine figure, but a bulky, bearded man grounded in life’s experiences in a divine way. He has come to show humanity how to live in the midst of testing and trials in a life-giving way. Matthew 4:1 - 11 In our reading today Matthew gives us a glimpse of Jesus under pressure. We are reminded that he was very human, as the writer to the Hebrews tells us: ‘We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin’ Hebrews 4: 15. In fact, the writer goes further and tells us that it was through testing that Jesus learned obedience and became perfect. ‘Although he was a Son he learned obedience from what he suffered and once made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.’ Hebrew 5: 8/9. How encouraging for us as we face the daily trials and temptations of life. The passage we read today was only a foretaste of what Jesus was to go through in his life but it proved one thing, he was confident of the love of his father God that would sustain him through the turbulent years of his ministry. “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” Matthew 3: 17. This was the relationship that was the bedrock of his life, through all the ups and downs and even in the last dying moments of his life he knew he could rely on God’s love for him. The relationship was tested and tried to the limit but God never failed him or forsook him. Whether like Jesus we are tested to doubt God’s love in times of hardship, danger, or prosperity God’s love remains constant, a reminder that even when we fail, he will not fail us. We may sink or shine under pressure, but in all the ups and downs of life, we know that ‘Underneath are the everlasting arms of God. Through trials and tests, we will have the chance to grow in grace and strength. Like Stanley Spencer, we can turn our trials into works of art. Rev. Simon Brignall Rory Young passed away peacefully last Thursday morning. He lived his life to the last full of the energy and enthusiasm that inspired his work as an artist and friend to many. May he rest in peace and rise in glory. We continue in prayer for Ray and give thanks for the recovery of Tim and Ceri. Prayer for Ukraine God of peace and justice we pray for the people of Ukraine today, and the laying down of weapons. we pray for all those who fear for tomorrow, that your spirit of comfort would draw near to them. We pray for those with power over war and peace, for wisdom, discernment, and compassion to guide their decisions Above all, we pray for all your precious children at risk and in fear, That you would hold and protect them. We pray in the name of Jesus, the Prince of Peace. Amen I am contactable from Thursday to Sunday.
‘You are what you eat’ has become a popular catchphrase as we become increasingly worried about obesity in the western world. Fast food and fast lives have become part of our culture as we attempt to keep up with the demands of our busy lifestyles. In response, a whole new movement has emerged. ‘Slow food’. The focus is not so much on the food as on the pleasure of eating. One of the chief pleasures is, of course, the company. We eat, as Jesus ate to enjoy the company of others, and we need time to do this. Modern wisdom and ancient wisdom agree here that food has always had an important social function. In the Middle East, the sharing of food is part of a culture of hospitality and human dignity. This is the thought behind Jesus' words: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you eat or drink, or about your body, what you wear”. Matt 6:25. Pieter Bruegel painting the Peasant Wedding, 1567, celebrates not just the social function of food but brings dignity to the ordinary lives of everyday people and the simple food they eat. The food and drink are made from the produce they harvest. The Beer is made from Barley and the broth from Oats but here it is transformed into a sacramental meal in celebration of a wedding. We can see the Bride, centre stage in front of a green drape. She is not eating or talking but sitting modestly under her bridal crown, waiting for the bridegroom to arrive at nightfall. This was the custom in Flanders at the time, and as we can see through the doorway there is still sunlight coming through the door, so she waits patiently. This is a community event with all strata of society present. To the far right is the Landowner, dressed in a rich black velvet outfit, talking to a Franciscan friar who will be present to bless the marriage. To his left is the Notary, sitting on a high-backed chair who will witness the wedding. All around them are the peasant labourers who have produced this simple feast enjoying a rare moment of joy in their hard lives. The Peasant wedding recalls the many meals that Jesus enjoyed together with the rich and poor. It is probable that Bruegal has in mind the Wedding in Cana and the transformation of water into wine, every day turned into an occasion for celebration, and poverty turned into riches. Eating, drinking, and clothing have important social functions that set us apart from animals. We are made for more than just eating, drinking, and keeping warm! The command not to worry about these things calls us to consider the purpose of human life which eating drinking and clothing serve. They are symbols of the dignity of human life and serve to enrich our social relationships. These areas of our life should occupy our thoughts because they determine what we are rather than the food we eat or the clothes we wear. Jesus in fact attaches the highest importance to eating drinking and clothing for they point us to the purpose of life itself. Eating, drinking, and clothing are all used by Jesus as symbols of the Kingdom of God. ‘But seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well’ Matt 6: 34. The purpose for which we eat is then to nourish our inner life not just our bodies. The apostle Paul puts it like this: ‘So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God’ 1 Cor. 10: 31. As we eat and drink the bread and wine today we remember the purpose for which we were made and the communion which we share with each other and with God through this holy meal. The secret of a worry-free life is to focus on those things that are of lasting value, like friendship and generousity. The things that truly make us what we are. ‘Is not life more important than food and the body more important than clothes?’ Matt 6: 25. Rev. Simon Brignall We hold in our prayers those who are experiencing ill health, those awaiting operations, or recovering at home. Prayer for Ukraine God of peace and justice we pray for the people of Ukraine today, and the laying down of weapons. we pray for all those who fear for tomorrow, that your spirit of comfort would draw near to them. We pray for those with power over war and peace, for wisdom, discernment, and compassion to guide their decisions Above all, we pray for all your precious children at risk and in fear, That you would hold and protect them. We pray in the name of Jesus, the Prince of Peace. Amen I am contactable from Thursday to Sunday.
Awake, awake: fling off the night! For God has sent his glorious light. How did you feel as you woke up this morning? Was the sun shining through the window opening your eyes to the frost glinting on the trees, or was there a heavy mist that hid the sun and turned everything into ghostly shapes? No doubt that the light would have affected your mood. When the days are dark and the nights are long our mood becomes darker too. Some people are so affected by this loss of light that they become depressed, suffering from what is now called, Seasonally Affective Disorder (SAD). Our emotions are not the only element of our lives governed by light. Our sense of distance, and our conception of shapes and sizes, owe more to the light that falls on objects than the objects themselves. As described by the contemporary American artist JamesTurrrell: “Light is not so much something that reveals, as is itself the revelation” The masters of light were, of course, the Impressionists, and one artist above all the others studied the way light changes the way we see and feel. Claude Monet captured the subtleties of colour and light in his series of paintings of Rouen Cathedral, completed between 1892 – 1893. If we compare the painting of Rouen Cathedral in bright afternoon sunlight with one painted in the early morning mist, the sharp outlines of the cathedral dissolve into a soft gradient of blues giving the building a completely different character. The words used by Jesus ‘Salt and light’ point us to an understanding of faith that mirrors the experience of artists. The author and poet C.S Lewis describes his faith in this way: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not because I see it, but because by it I see everything else” To live by faith is to see the world in a different light, in the light of a loving God who in his love comes among us to show us how to live. The salt Jesus refers to was not our table salt but a rich mixture used as fertiliser to nourish the soil. It was probably a form of Nitrate- ‘Salitre’. It was dug up around the Dead Sea and then spread onto the land where it released its mineral wealth. It was no good keeping it in a heap somewhere because then all that goodness would leach away, instead, it must be spread out where it can do the most good. The picture is an excellent one to describe a life of faith today. It is not just a part of the culture that shapes us and makes us the people we are but also holds the vision and the values of that culture. When Jesus uses the image of light he speaks of something not hidden away in the soil but set apart on a hill, shining out brightly as a beacon to the rest of the world. This speaks to us of the challenge that the Christian faith brings to every generation not just to work for a better world but to challenge the culture of the world we live in. As light by its nature brings life so it also exposes darkness. Faith not only holds the values and vision of a healthy society it is also a ‘counter-cultural’ message! The words of Jesus challenge us to see the world in a different light and by our lives to bring a distinctive vision of the ‘good life’. To live in such a way makes a difference in the world around us. Jesus reminds us that we face in two directions and are citizens of two kingdoms, the earthly and the heavenly, sharing in the life of the world and the life of heaven. If the church is to continue to serve the world we must make sure our lives are lived in the light of Christ’s revelation of faith, hope, and love. As the hymn expresses it: “ Awake and rise, with love renewed, And with the Spirit’s power endued. The light of life in us must glow, And fruits of truth and goodness show” Rev. Simon Brignall We continue to pray for those recovering from an operation or waiting for an operation. Prayer for Ukraine God of peace and justice we pray for the people of Ukraine today, and the laying down of weapons. we pray for all those who fear for tomorrow, that your spirit of comfort would draw near to them. We pray for those with power over war and peace, for wisdom, discernment, and compassion to guide their decisions Above all, we pray for all your precious children at risk and in fear, That you would hold and protect them. We pray in the name of Jesus, the Prince of Peace. Amen I am contactable from Thursday to Sunday.
There are some moments of life that are forever engraved on our hearts and in our memories. Somehow a place or a person or a smell or an atmosphere has been captured and recreated in our heads in a way that we can visit again and again. That at least is my experience. There are certain artists who in their handling of light and colour convey a sense of eternity, a moment in time captured forever in paint, and Vermeer is the master of this art. ‘The Little street’ c1657 – 1661 is a time capsule in which Vermeer has distilled the essence of life in Delft. In our minds, we can almost walk into the scene and peer into the house. In fact, that is what Vermeer was doing, as it is thought that the house depicted was opposite his own, and he is painting from his studio on the top floor. It reminds me of a Chilean artist who captures the street life of Valparaiso in bold woodcuts. They too recreate a moment of time but seem to contain eternity at their core. At the bottom of each woodcut in this series he writes ‘Como si la vida fuera a durar para siempre’ - as if life were to last forever. George Herbert, 1658 – 1633, an Anglican clergyman, talks about glimpsing ‘High heaven …through a stable door… and calls me through the voices of the poor. Herbert is speaking of the humble God we know in Jesus Christ, a God whose glory is hidden in the ordinary and everyday. Vermeer captures the same quality of ‘Heaven in ordinary’ a sense of the eternal in an earthly home. ‘The Little street’ is an elegy for a moment which—unless Vermeer had captured it—would have slipped away forever: the women busy with their chores, the children entranced by their game, the clouds filtering the sunlight, two doors and one window open, and air wafting through the house. It also reminds me of another George Herbert poem, ‘the elixir’ which we sing in Church as ‘Teach me, my Lord and King’. It has that memorable line: ‘A servant with this clause makes drudgery divine: Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws, makes that and th’ action fine’. The drudgery of the housework that we see the two women engaged in is transformed into a sacred moment. The ‘Little Street’ captures quiet, contemplative moments of a day, and although there is no religious imagery we too are quietened and calmed as if in meditation or even worship. You may well ask what on earth has this to do with the wedding at Cana? The story is a familiar one and has even become a byword for turning the ordinary, water, into something special, wine, but there is a disturbing episode in the story that never fails to make me stop and try to imagine what is going on. Whatever may have been the cause of the shortage of wine, Mary the mother of Jesus feels responsible and goes to Jesus with a plea for help. This gives rise to a strange exchange between them. Jesus answers her with a rebuke! “Woman, why do you involve me?”... “My time has not yet come” John 1:4 Jesus, who Mary knows can help, wants to remain in the shadows rather than perform a miracle that would draw attention to himself. “This is not the time” he says to reveal who he is. That time will come, a day when the world will see what the glory of God looks like but it is not now. Silence: When God hides and we confront this silence we must first remember that Jesus himself came up against the silence of God, his Father. In the garden of Gethsemane, he prayed: “If it is Thy will let this cup pass from me”. Luke 22: 42. At the centre of our Christian lives, we will discover the silence of God, but the silence is not a rebuke but an answer. The response of Jesus in the Garden was: “Not my will, but yours be done” Luke 22: 42. Prayer: This was also the response of Mary. Mary gives us the perfect model for our prayers. In response to the apparent refusal of Jesus, she teaches us what it means to trust in God ‘His mother said to the servants “do whatever he tells you” John 2: 5. There will be many times in our lives when we are asked to trust God in the silence. Glory: So what was God doing on this occasion? The answer comes right at the end of the story. ‘This was the first of his miraculous signs ... He thus revealed his glory.’ John 2: 11. Jesus reveals himself now, though in a hidden way, through the ordinary stuff of life. Wine at a wedding becomes a sign of God’s Kingdom transforming the ordinary into the Eternal. The moment when all seemed lost, as at the Wedding in Cana, is in fact the moment when God reveals His Glory. The first of Jesus' miracles points to the Cross, the ultimate disaster when all really did seem lost. The Cross experience lies at the centre of our Christian experience. It is usually in times and places like loss or disaster that we often find God opening our eyes. It is often in the humble and ordinary that God’s glory is revealed. The Best: Mary’s prayer is answered, but not in the way she expected. That is usually true of every experience of God, revealed in the unexpected places and people we meet each day. The silence of God takes us to that place where we like Mary and the disciples learn to wait on Jesus to see what he will do. Rev. Simon Brignall We pray today for those preparing for an operation and those recovering from one. Prayer for Ukraine God of peace and justice we pray for the people of Ukraine today, and the laying down of weapons. we pray for all those who fear for tomorrow, that your spirit of comfort would draw near to them. We pray for those with power over war and peace, for wisdom, discernment, and compassion to guide their decisions Above all, we pray for all your precious children at risk and in fear, That you would hold and protect them. We pray in the name of Jesus, the Prince of Peace. Amen -- Best wishes Rev Simon Brignall I am contactable from Thursday to Sunday.
