Readings for Sunday 12 July: Isaiah 55.10-13; Romans 8:1-11; Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23.Take a look at this picture. It’s a bit small, but look closely. It’s a picture of my back garden. It’s a bit rubbish, isn’t it?Look at the earth in front of the fence. It definitely doesn’t look like a good garden – there are no nice plants, just a few weeds, and there are lots of rocks and stones and bits of rubbish. I’ve put the picture in this letter because today in our readings we hear a story Jesus told to his disciples, the parable of the sower. You can read about it in Matthew’s Gospel, but you can also watch a child-friendly video or this lovely animation.In the parable we hear about seeds falling on a path and being eaten by birds and that other seeds fall on rocky ground or in the middle of thorns and that those seeds die. Take another look at my horrible garden and you can see why – surely no plants could grow up strong and healthy there among the bricks and stones and weeds.But some of the seed in Jesus’s story falls in good earth and grows and becomes an amazing harvest. Then Jesus explains to the disciples that the story is about how some people hear about Jesus and God but somehow, because of one thing or another, they don’t take it seriously and it doesn’t take root in their souls and their hearts. Only a small number of people – the good earth – hear about Jesus and understand, and turn to follow him.Here’s a question about this story for you - do you think you are the good earth? Do you think the good news about Jesus has fallen in rich earth in your heart?Sometimes I think that might be true about me, but sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I remember all the ways in which I am a bad follower of Jesus and think maybe I’m more like the rocky earth. And actually that might be true of all of us. We go to church, read the Bible and we pray – but then sometimes we ignore what Jesus asks of us, we forget to love God and love other people, or we get distracted. And in those moments we are more like the rocky earth or the weed patch.But this picture was taken a few months ago, at the start of lockdown. My garden doesn't look like that now - it looks very different. You can still see some of the rocks in there, but now there are also flowers. It looks lovely now. And it reminds me that actually, even rocky bits of garden can grow into something beautiful. We are all of us a mixture of good earth and rocky, stony, thorny bits - and Jesus loves us just as we are, rocks and rubbish and thorns as well as flowers and seeds and harvest. And it doesn’t matter – God’s love for us can take root in the nooks and crannies of our hearts and help us grow and blossom. So hurray for flowers blooming in rocky gardens and for the love of God. Amen.
Fourth Sunday after Trinity - reflectionReadings for Sunday 28 June: Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67; Romans 7:15-25a; Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30. Hopefully by now you will have received in the post a little booklet of prayers and readings for every day next week, Monday to Saturday. I put it together because several people have asked me for something to help with their daily prayer and I hope you find it useful. It isn’t always easy to keep up daily prayer, or to keep up daily Bible reading – as St Paul reminds us in today’s reading, “I want to do what is right, but I cannot always do it”. To do right we need the help of God, the grace of God and the love of Jesus Christ. But we can also help one another, which is why I’m sending out this booklet. I put the booklet together and printed it for you, but I didn’t write it myself – it is the Church of England service of Prayer During the Day. There are lots of resources around, online and in books, so you should feel free to use something else if you prefer, but I almost always stick to the Church of England prayer services. That’s partly because it’s what I know best, but also it’s because I really love the way our Church uses the Bible in its services. This is a legacy of the history in which our church was founded in the 16th century, in the Reformation in which churches across Europe, including the church in England, broke away from the Roman Catholic Church. When the Church of England was going through its first stormy centuries, a desire to focus on the Word of God was absolutely central. So when it came to guiding the faithful, the Church of England didn’t start with a doctrinal tract, it didn’t start by nailing its theology to a door or writing out a set of beliefs – the Church of England started with the Bible and from that Bible it built a set of prayers and services which could be used by any individual and had to be used by every church – the Book of Common Prayer. The Book of Common Prayer, the BCP, defined the Anglican faith. But it’s not a historical document – it’s living liturgy, still in constant use in the Church of England and at St Aldhelm’s we use it for Holy Communion every Thursday. If you know the BCP you will know that everything you need is found there – all the prayers, all the Bible readings, the daily psalms, all contained in one book, small enough to pop in a pocket. That is also the principle behind this little booklet – everything you need for daily prayer and Bible reading, in one small package. Life is tough for lots of us at the moment, and it might feel like daily discipleship is too much to expect, so let’s make it easy for one another – because as Jesus reminds us, his burden is light and if we turn to him, if we agree to take on the yoke of faith in him, we will find it easier than we expect. I will be praying these services every day this week at 8am and you are welcome to join me. Those of you who have the technology, on Monday to Thursday I will be doing the services on Zoom – see below for instructions on joining me. Otherwise, feel free to say the service wherever you are, whenever you want, knowing that our prayers are joined in God. Life is tough at the moment, but God’s yoke is easy and the burden is light. Let’s grow together in prayer and discipleship. Amen
Readings for Sunday 28 June: Genesis 22:1-14; Romans 6:12-23; Matthew 10:40-42.“‘Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.”Welcome feels like a pretty tricky concept right now, don’t you think? Who are we supposed to be welcoming? We can’t even invite our own families into our homes, so a Gospel reading about welcome seems particularly badly timed right now.Of course, it won’t always be like this. As we ease out of lockdown, as pubs and restaurants get ready to open up, as even shielding comes to an end, we will start to socialise again. The day will come when we can welcome people into our homes, when we can see friends and family and throw open our doors to let people in and throw open our arms for the hugs we’ve been missing.And what about church? Hospitality and welcome are an absolutely fundamental part of our faith and of church life. When we gather together for a cuppa and a biscuit at the end of the service, we are living out God’s invitation to us, to come and be loved and welcomed and nurtured. The Eucharist service is an invitation to God’s table, and we echo that invitation after the service too.Our faith is one of welcome and invitation, because we want to share God’s love with other people. When people come into our church services we have people whose job it is simply to welcome them, because welcoming the stranger is a fundamental part of who we are. We want people to feel at home among us and also to hear the good news about Jesus, who calls us to the Father, and through whose death and resurrection we are made part of God’s family.Which is why it has been so hard to see church doors closed since March. We are still a church, still God’s family – but it has been so difficult for us not to meet, and just as hard to be closed to other people, to be unable to welcome them into the church we love and show them the invitation God has waiting for them.You will have seen in the news that churches are now able to open, at first just for private prayer but eventually for services as well. You may have been wondering when St Aldhelm’s will be open and when we will get together again. You may be mentally dusting off your Sunday Best, looking forward to walking through those doors, saying hello to your friends, singing your favourite hymns, hearing God’s Word proclaimed and sharing in the mystery of the Sacrament.I hope you are. I really hope you are, and Jesus knows that I am. It won’t happen immediately, though. We have a lot of work to do before the church can re-open. We still have coronavirus to contend with, still have social distancing, still have a lot of people in our church family who need to take extra care to protect their health. As a matter of principle, the PCC has agreed that we won’t open the church until we can do so safely – and that means looking long and hard at things like cleaning and sanitisation, at ways to maintain social distancing and minimise virus transmission. And it may be that when we do return to church, it will look very different from how it was before.But we will re-open and we will once again extend God’s invitation and God’s welcome to one another and to the community around us. Because we are God’s people and that is what we do.Click here for Notices
Readings for Sunday 21 June: Genesis 21:8-21; Romans 6:1b-11; Matthew 10:24-39.Today’s reading from Genesis reminds us of what a messed-up bunch God’s people are. Here we have Abraham, the patriarch, the founder of the people of Israel, who, you will remember, was told by God that he would father a nation - and just look at the messy, disastrous family situation he finds himself in. A child with his wife, another child with his wife’s servant – what kind of a situation is that? And even if we allow for the very different models of marriage and family households that we find in Scripture, even if we accept this strange family as not too dissimilar from our contemporary blended families, with children from previous relationships alongside children from a current marriage, even then, I think we might all agree that literally throwing the ex and the first child out into the wilderness is a pretty grim way to go about being a Dad.And then in our Gospel reading we have something equally challenging for our expectations about what it means to be a Christian family – Jesus telling us he has come to split up families, and demanding that we love him more than we love our own flesh and blood.What are we to make of all that?Well first of all, it is helpful to remember that Jesus talks all the time in metaphors – when he says “I am the vine” he doesn’t mean he literally grows grapes, and similarly here he isn’t literally going to be showing up with a sword and separating us from our loved ones. It is up to us to find the truth he is speaking here and your truth may be different from mine, but one way in which this metaphor speaks to me is in reminding me that often we have a choice between following God and doing something else. And that the choice we should always make is to follow God. Sometimes that does actually mean putting God before our families, even if it is only in little ways. Anyone who has ever forced a toddler into the car at 9.30 on a Sunday morning or made a teenager get up to go to church is making that choice –the children might not want to go to church but you insist on it anyway, because God comes first.And when you do make that choice, God is faithful. As Jesus says, “those who lost their life for my sake will find it” – another metaphor for us, reminding us that God is faithful to those who are faithful to God. We are the children of a crucified, resurrected God and our sacrifices, however tiny, mean that in some small way we share in God’s self-sacrifice and then in God’s great glory. As Paul puts it in the second reading, “as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life”.But what to make of Abraham and his messy home life? Here, too, God is faithful. Abraham and Sarah fight and argue and try to force God’s hand and in doing do cast out Hagar and send her into the desert with her son. But despite that, despite their shameful behaviour, God is faithful – to both them and Hagar. Hagar and her child are saved. Both of Abraham’s sons, both Isaac and Ishmael, go on to found nations. God is faithful.And so my prayer today is that we might all make the choice to follow God – that we might be faithful to the God who is always faithful to us. Amen.
