Thoughts on Trinity 18

Mark10.14-16

But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant andsaid to them, ‘Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it isto such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. 15Truly I tell you, whoeverdoes not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.’16And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

This has been a painful, destructiveand depressing week, I am referring to the three headlines that have dominatedthe news this week.

15 year old Megan Stammers ,5 year old April Jones  and theallegations surrounding Jimmy Saville. These stories have brought back in tothe full glare of the media and the sight of every one of us of the dangersthat our children face.

Hearing Jesus tell us that weare to receive the kingdom of God as a little child, reading how he took themin his arms and laid hands on them to bless them is in stark contrast to somany children’s experiences, maybe even our own childhood experiences. 

It seems that with theterrible catalogue of children whose abuse has lead to their death, even with awhole host of new laws seeking to safeguard our children the image of Jesus isone that mocks our own desire and ability to love one another and cherish everyliving person as we know we can.

It was wonderful day togetherin NW4 and NW9! Congratulations to

Gbenga and Mopude on their birthdaywhich we celebrated at St John’s Church and following the example of Jesus laidhands upon them and blessed them anointing them against and asking our Lord toprotect them from the dangers that they face in this world. It was also a joyto meet and welcome Raymond and Deirdre and their two children who havemoved to this part of London from Kingston Jamaica to work for the JamaicanHigh Commission. At St Matthias it was good to see Rae and Nisha and Jasmine inchurch – its been a while so don’t leave it so long! And congratulations toStephen and Eliza who are expecting their second child, a girl in December. 

So often we talk about how weneed to believe in this God of love;

but what we celebrate todayreminds us of a different fact, it reminds us that even when we don't believein God,  God believes in us.

     I am sure most of you have seen WaterfordCrystal.  It is

     beautiful to look at.  The only problem is when you drop it, it

     shatters into a thousand pieces and nomatter how hard you try to

     glue the broken pieces back together itnever looks as beautiful

     as before it was dropped.

     Sometimes we get the idea that as humanbeings we are like leaded

     crystal. We are lovely until we make a mistake - and we all make

     them. Then life shatters into a thousand pieces and can never be

     put back together just right - never putback the way God meant

     it to be.

 But if we are to compare human life to anyobject around us, we are better compared to the children's toy Silly Putty orplay dough than to leaded Crystal.  Like SillyPutty or Play dough , we can be pulled apart, rolled into little balls, flungagainst the wall, or smashed flat. 

But like Silly Putty or playdough we can always be scraped back together again, forgiven, reworked,remoulded, and reshaped into someone that is even more beautiful than before.

God believes in us,

     God believes that we are not beyond help

          God loves us,

               and God, in Christ, has come,and still comes today,

                    to forgive us, to scrape usback together again,

                         and mould us intosomething even better

                              than that whichwe were before.

It is this that we celebratetoday,

It is this that will givecourage and hope and strength to us and those around us as we struggle to buildand love in the face of destruction and loss.

It is to children that thekey to understanding the kingdom of God is given rather than those who love tobe right and indulge in endless argument and debate about how we should live. Isit of no significance that in response to the debate around marriage anddivorce that those around Jesus seemed most interested in, that Jesus takes achild and commends their dependence upon love and their trust in those aroundthem as a key to the Kingdom of God?

God has made us his family,

     a family that stretches around the world,

          a family that is called to love as wehave been love,

               to forgive as we have beenforgiven,

                    to give as we have beengiven too.

Some more pictures from our harvest songs of praise

Rosary talk at St Matthias, 26th October

Just as September is traditionally associated with the Holy Cross, October is traditionally associated with the rosary.

Finding the time, the words, and the way to pray can be very difficult. At the same time, prayer is an essential part of our Christian lives. The rosary is a way of praying which many Christians have found useful over the years. You can find out more about it here.

On Friday 26th of this month, we'll be hosting a talk on the rosary at St Matthias. Deborah, a Roman Catholic Lay Dominican, will be speaking at the the vicarage, 48 Rushgrove Avenue, starting at 7:30. The meeting will take about an hour, refreshments will be provided, and we'll end with Night Prayer.

If you are interested specifically in finding out more about the rosary, or are wondering about your prayer life in general, please come along!

Harvest Festival at St Matthias

 Thank you for a lovely day together at St Matthias celebrating Harvest festival

 A big thank you to Angie for all her work in cooking Lunch today and of course those who helped to serve and wash up

We raised Money this year for the work of Christian Aid and their partners working in India to help local people regain their land rights.

Support Malcolm Park!

Malcolm Park Friends Resident Group is working with the local authority to raise money from the Big Lottery Fund to upgrade the equipment in the playground and repair the fence and playing surface.

Support from local residents and playground users is crucial to a successful application. Please consider becoming friends with the Park on Facebook to show your support.

If you would like to join the Resident Group please email.

Harvest Songs of Praise - Homily

A summary of the homily at our Harvest Songs of Praise, St John's, NW4, 29th September

When I trained as a priest I did so alongside a load of people who, for some reason, were fans of ABBA. As a consequence, for three years of my life in my early twenties, I was exposed to the output of the Swedish pop legends to a greater extent than is sensible for any human being. The lyrics of most of their songs are etched indelibly into my mind.

This became frighteningly apparent when I was saying Morning Prayer this morning. Because today is not only the day on which we celebrate the harvest here at St John's, it is also Michaelmas - the feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, the great archangels we read about in scripture. So there was a lot of stuff in the Office about angels. Suddenly, after one psalm, horribly and involuntarily, the words came into my head, "I believe in angels, something good in everything I see".



We certainly do believe in angels. That is why we celebrate Michaelmas. Do we also believe in something good in everything we see?

The answer should be "yes". We read in the book of Genesis, "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. Everything that exists does so because of God. God is the reason why there is something rather than nothing at all. This is what the Church means when it speaks about Creation - not a rival theory to those suggested by science: of course we should believe our best theories of evolutionary biology and cosmology. No, by "Creation" we mean our conviction that everything, at the deepest level, for every moment of its existence, is loved into being by God. Everything - not just the flowers and trees we sing about at harvest time, not just the rural idyll beloved by Victorian hymn writers, but also the world of our day-to-day life in our 21st century city. The world in which we live, work, and play is created and loved by God. And however much we mess it up with our oppression, our injustice, and our violence, a core goodness remains precisely because of Creation - our Catholic tradition has never been prepared to accept that the blot of human sin can ever fully obscure the goodness of Creation.

The created order is good. And we should give thanks for it.

Harvest supper at St John's

But let's think about what is involved in giving thanks. Part of it is saying thank you, of course. But that's not enough. Suppose you bought me a Christmas present - I merely note that the Season is three months away. Let's say you bought me a bottle of premium gin. I'd say thankyou - I was well brought up. But if I then went straight home and used the gin to unblock my drains I would not be behaving in a thankful way. I would not be receiving the gift in the way it was intended, as a sign of your good-will towards me, intended to be drunk and enjoyed. I would be treating it, and by extension you, in a casual way.

Likewise, it is not enough to say thank you to God for the created order. How we use that order matters, because whether we use it well is the litmus test of whether we are genuinely thankful. And it has to be said that the human race does not use the created order well. We do not, systematically, use it so that we may flourish collectively. It is a disgrace that in a world of plenty people starve. It is a disgrace that, as we will hear later with our Christian Aid appeal, people are denied access to the land they need to live. And it is, I should, add an absolute disgrace that in a country as rich as ours, people are dependent on charity in order to survive.

Sometimes people are suspicious of Harvest being used to promote social concern. They suspect, I think, that it is the kind of thing thought up by trendy vicars in the 1970s. Now I am very much opposed to trendy vicars of all periods, but I think the connection between thankfulness and justice is an important one, and for that matter a deeply traditional one. Do we want to be thankful? In which case, we should pray and work for a world which promotes human flourishing. We have no other choice, because thankful children do not misuse their Father's gifts.

So let's commit ourselves anew to struggling for God's Kingdom of plenty until that Day when justice is done, peace reigns, and we - with all those angels in whom we firmly believe - give perfect thanks to the one Creator God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To him be glory for ever. Amen.

Is drinking tea together inefficient...

I came across an interesting article at work this afternoon on the Sydney Anglicans web page which explores the idea around structured and unstructured time in Church. Now Sydney diocese might be on the opposite side of the globe and on the othere end of the Anglican spectrum to us at St John's and St Matthias' but this reflection really made me think about how we spend time together as a Church family.

The writer suggests that when we meet in formal gatherings we aim to be organised and disciplined but that we alsoo create a space for unstructured, inefficient time in every gathering so that people can just be humans in company with one another and ensure we help each other to know that such a thing is a great blessing.

For example coffee mornings and tea after church are not just for stocking up on cake and quenching thirst, and church cleaning is not just about making the place sparkle. These are opportunities to build deeper relationships and through those relationships we deepen our understanding of humanity and of God. Perhaps, and just perhaps, then we can learn more what Jesus means about welcoming him as a little child - as Fr John talks about in Thought for Trinity 16.