One for the road...

Advent reflection: what if God was one of us...

Heres the vid i pulled together to introduce the advent reflection that I did...

Who are the 21st century western riders of the apocalypse???

I have just written a guest post for Jason Clark's site on why I am sick and tired of being sick and tired (you might guess i've been ill this week!:)

As part of my post I speculate on what the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse might be for us 21st century western types.  Traditionally based on the desription of the riders in revelation chapter 6, they are known as war, pestilene, famine and death. 

My own take on  rechristening these fab foursome was: sick; tired; stressed and busy.

I'd be interested in hearing if you have your hobby horse candidates to go riding on into town with this possy..?

Good friday...

I used the following reflection from Henri Nouwen in our Good Friday service today:

"I look at your dead body on the cross. The soldiers, who have broken the legs of the two men crucified with you, do not break your legs, but one of them pierces your side with a lance, and immediately blood and water flow out.

Your heart is broken, the heart that did not know hatred, revenge, resentment, jealousy or envy but only love, love so deep and so wide that it embraces your Father in heaven as well as all humanity in time and space.

Your broken heart is the source of my salvation, the foundation of my hope, the cause of my love. It is the sacred place where all that was, is and ever shall be is held in unity.

There all suffering has been suffered, all anguish lived, all loneliness endured, all abandonment felt and all agony cried out.

There, human and divine love have kissed, and there God and all men and women of history are reconciled. All the tears of the human race have been cried there, all pain understood and all despair touched.

Together with all people of all times, I look up to you whom they have pierced, and I gradually come to know what it means to be part of your body and your blood, what it means to be human."

Following Jesus through the cross...

image © www.lamazone.be http://www.flickr.com/photos/lamazone/261296590/

I am leading the reflection at our Good Friday service.  I have drafted my talk and would welcome your feedback/thoughts...

What does the cross mean to you

What does the cross mean to you?  Do you wear a cross? Do you ever make the sign of the cross? Have you observed how frequently the symbol of the cross is the defining image of Christians and Christianity - even our VCS logo as the cross as central to it.

Would it be odd to put an electric chair round our necks? a picture of a hangman's noose as a sticker in our cars? Maybe feature a beheading as our new church logo?

The cross was one of the cruellest forms of death reserved for rebels and traitors to the empire, designed to kill slowly, painfully, inflicting the maximum amount of public humiliation.  It was a form of death that broke the body and the spirit. All to remind the population what happens when you mess with Caesar - he literally makes a mess of you.

Is the symbol and celebration of the cross a reminder not just of who died - Jesus Christ – god and man, but also the manner of man/god that is revealed in his death?

Life in death

Here we have God who chooses death.  Who chooses the most public, painful and humiliating of deaths?  It is not a choice that Jesus takes lightly - in the garden of Gethsemane, tired, late in the night, he spends hours questioning the choice in anguish prayer - why God, why this way, any other way, anything else, please - not once, but three times he prays in the blackness.  Three times he chooses to God's way and to embrace the oncoming tide of suffering rather than run from it.

Maybe you know what that is like?  To pray in the darkness, to pray exhausted, to pray fearful and alone. Questioning God, begging for a different way, any other path but the one you are on?

Maybe you are like me, more likely to run away, to try and escape pain, hide from humiliation, to fake it until i can make it. Desperately medicating my pain, denying it, papering over it, rather than facing it, too afraid of what it will cost me.

Jesus, like us, knows pain.  Jesus, like us, knows what it is to be abandoned by his friends.  Jesus, like us, knows what it is like to be hated, rejected, denied, mocked, tortured, laughed at, and to be judged. Unlike some of us to he freely gives up the right of reply, his right to revenge, his right to resent and hate – instead even in death he embraces love.

Finding our true humanity

In Jesus words on the cross we see his humanity and catch a reflection of our own.  This was not some superman dying but flesh and blood:

"I'm thirsty" Jesus cracked and parched lips and mouth could barely speak let alone feed himself, pour himself a drink or care for himself in any way. The cross denying him the basic right to human needs – on the cross Jesus knows what it is like to be a paraplegic, to be totally dependent on others, completely vulnerable.

"My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" - Jesus soul is laid bare, the anguish of his suffering he felt so utterly alone – today some of us know what it is to ask why has God abandoned us? Why does God feel so far away? Where is he?  At the height of our suffering why does it feel like he is not with me?

"It is finished" - was this just the relief of approaching death, the end of the pain and suffering - or something more - a sense of closure, of the debt being paid, the price being worth it.

"Father into your hands i commit my spirit" – Just because we can’t feel God does not mean he is there or does not care and even suffer with us. With these words Jesus expresses his trust in our Father; his hope that God is there even if he can't feel him.

Suffering with those who suffer

But Jesus was not alone - we might not be suffering as he was but we may be like Jesus' mother - watching someone we love and care for go through such pain and feel powerless to do anything about it. Mary chose to her own cross experience - back at the birth of Jesus the prophet Simion in the temple foretells that her heart will be pierced.

Mary has known this moment will come all her life, maybe forgotten it at times, maybe prayed that it never would but now at the end she is there, her heart pierced as she watches her son die.  She has been there for Jesus throughout his life and she will be there with him throughout his death. Sometimes love is waiting with some as they suffer, when we know we can do nothing else to be there when we would rather be anywhere else.

Giving not getting

Jesus shows us one more thing in his suffering - yes he reveals his humanity, his identification with us in our pain but he also refuses to become self absorbed in it.  He is honest but not full of self pity, he is hurting but he refuses to lash out.  Instead even in his death he reaches out.

Jesus asks his father to forgive the people who have done this to him - they don't know what they are doing Jesus says.  They are just hurt, broken, angry, insecure, lost people, lashing out - that's why i need to die for people like these, like you and me.  For those of us who seek to get ahead at the expense of others, who delight in the downfall of those hailed as the next big thing? We who are quite happy to defend our rights at the expense of others...

Jesus asks his best friend to take care of his mother but also gives his mother another son to look after and care for - giving them both a purpose and a source of comfort in the days ahead.

Finally, Jesus talks to the rebels either side of him, those who are literally are in the same boat as he is.  For one of these rebels this death will be about trying to save face, trying to win back some of his lost pride by mocking Jesus along with crowd - even in his death he can't help his addiction to power, to needing to be wanted.  For the other rebel, his death is the ultimate awakening - he recognises the hole that he is in and stops digging.  He can't save himself, he will never be king, and he will never see Caesar fall but he will make one last chance - to give the last few remaining hours of his life to Jesus.  Remember me Jesus, he asks, not like this, not in our death together but in the life I will find in and through you when we come into your kingdom.

How our bandages can become eternal badges of honour...

For as we know the story does not end here - although we still have the darkness of good Friday, the abandonment and grief of Easter Saturday we have the luxury of knowing Easter Sunday is coming.  But even we cannot get to the joy and life of Easter Sunday without facing our own pain together with each other and God.  Jesus reminded his disciples then and now that if we seek to save our lives we will lose them but if we lose our life in Jesus we will find it.

The resurrected Jesus, the ascended Jesus, the eternal Jesus will carry forever with him the scars on his hands and feet from the nails of the cross, the scar in his side from the thrust of the spear.  The suffering and shame inflicted on him at the cross are the marks now of his glory and honour - this Jesus invites us to let him put one pierced hand around our shoulder whilst his other pierced hand is around the shoulder of our heavenly father. Jesus understands us, a compassion and empathy that comfort us and confronts us together to find our true humanity. We can choose to face the way of the cross in our own lives, the only way Jesus knew how – to surrender our will to his, to lose the right to run our lives, in order to find life.

Falling is the new flying?

My friend Neil sent me these wonderful words and kindly agreed for me to be able to post them here...

It's a question of altitude...

"Why is it that I set out to be as Christ-like as I can but at some tipping point, not one particular thing but one of any number of things, such as impatience whilst driving, envy over money or material possessions, lustful thoughts, whatever….  I find myself on the imperceptible but inevitable gravitational pull away from Christ towards the sludge of everyday living. 

It’s like when you fly and you get above the clouds, it always amazes me that up there, there is always a beautiful day, golden sunshine and clear blue skies.   

Maybe because I fly quite a bit, that’s how I’ve come to see my Christian life.  Striving for the altitudes of a better way of life, where the view is better andthe horizon seems reachable; but at the same time believing the scientific notion of “what goes up must come down” I realise that I can’t stay up there indefinitely.  So sooner or later I start to descend, my perspective becomes more macro, time seems shorter and regular life takes over as I land. 

Some day’s that alternative way of life becomes totally obscured, by a blanket of misperceptions and earthly interference; and I forget about the sun and the blue, I just get stuck in the grey and the overcast.  I want to stay up “there” but all my worldly reasoning tells me that this isn’t possible. 

But then again God isn’t bound by our small and limited views, so just may be there is hope after all."

Neil's words reminded me of one of my favourite verses in the bible:

"God lives forever and is holy.
       He is high and lifted up.
    He says, "I live in a high and holy place,
       but I also live with people who are sad and humble.
    I give new life to those who are humble
       and to those whose hearts are broken."

The idea behind that verse that the Father is not a distant God, that he inhabits the highest place because he also has indwells in the lowest of the low places as well. 

That Jesus knows the splendour of the Godhead and also what it is to be born human, into a backwater country, to be hated, a refugee and then a rebel, hunted and haunted, despised and forsaken, bloody and broken - he too has been lifted up, in abandoment and in triumph. 

The spirit indwells us and teaches us to fly, to rediscover our humanity and the endless  horizons of a world of love, justice, peace and plenty... but that same spirit comforts us when we crash and our crushed. 

Is it a question of altitude or attitude or both? That our christian faith is about living and walking in the high places and the low places, through the suffering and the glory - and the bit in between the ordinary rising or falling.  Or is that just flying?

What do you think/feel as you read Neil's words..?

The saints are coming...

I am leading the reflection on sunday to celebrate All Saints day. We use the church calender to tell the story of our faith throughout the year and this sunday we remember that we are part of a great chain of faith and celebrate those who have faithfully followed God.

Below is what I am proposing at the moment, showing this presentation (we're losing starwars music and sticking to U2/Greenday "the saints are coming"), getting folk to make a huge paperchain and telling the story of us as God's people.

All thoughts, critique, suggestions would be welcome.  And if anyone can think of a prayer for the church to finish with that would be fab! Thank you...

Today we are remembering the Sunday in the church calendar called all saints day. In doing so we are joining with churches across our world to celebrate being part of the people of God and also to celebrate the great family of God who have lived in faith and therefore made possible for us to be here as Christians today.

St Paul as the clip shows talks about us being cheered on in the present by a cloud of the saints from the past. King David in the Psalms gives us another picture of this, in psalm 145 he says

One generation will commend your works to another;
they will tell of your mighty acts

It is if he imagines a flowing river or a great chain of faith, running from way back in the past, through the present and on into the future.

Symbolic activity – making a paper chain

Explain paper chain:

• Take paper strip,
• write down on it the name of a Saint,  person from the past or present, from the bible or your life who has inspired and/or influenced you and your faith.
• Staple your paper in a loop and then let the person on your right loop theirs through it, and so on, when you get to the end of the row link it to the row behind you.

Whilst you are doing that, I’ll remind you of God's story, our story, of the chain of faith that he is creating just as we are creating this paper one…

God’s story/our story…

It is a story of how God chose one man and woman, Abraham and Sarah, who were childless and gave them a vision that through them they would have a family that would be more than the stars in the sky or the grains of sand on a beech.

This old couple conceived a son, Isaac, who in turn had a son Jacob, who had 12 sons. This family grew and moved to Egypt as refugees from a feminine in their own land.

That family were there for 400 yrs and in that time grew to be a numerous people, the Hebrews. The Egyptians who had welcomed them now feared them, persecuted them, enslaved them so the Hebrews cried out to their God.

God heard their cries and raised up Moses to lead them to the land he had promised them. God liberated them from Egypt and dwelt with them as they journeyed through the desert.

This people of God settled in the land and grew in number, they reached the zenith of their power in the glittering rule of King David and his son King Solomon. But after that the people turned from God, prophets begged them to return but they were ignored, the kingdom disintegrated, they were conquered, exiled, returned and were ruled over by foreign empires.

For almost 400 yrs silence from God. The prophets had promised a messiah would come to save the people and everyone was waiting, yearning for this saviour, this liberating king who would restore the people. No one expected that this would be God’s son, that he would be born as a baby, a weak human in an inglorious stable.

Jesus who was both man and God, he lived his life in obedience to the Father, and challenged people to lay down their lives for others rather than for live for themselves. Jesus who called a group of disciples together and taught them that God was still on a mission of restoring our humanity by gathering a people who would bear his family image, a God that wanted to liberate through them the poor and the oppressed, to heal the sick and to find the lost.

Jesus, was crucified by a conspiracy of the religious establishment and the Roman occupiers. But he overcame death and after three days God raised him from the dead.  Jesus returned to heaven but sent the Holy Spirit to lead his church. From a handful of people in an upper room the Spirit descended as fire on them, giving them courage and the power to speak in every language of those who were passing by. St Peter stood up in front of a disbelieving crowd and preached the sermon of his life resulting in 4,000 people believing in Jesus and joining the fledgling church.

That was just the start of a fire that once lit has never been quenched From there the church met together, shared life, broke bread and worshipped together. At first it was Jewish men and women who believed the good news about Jesus the liberating King. But this revolutionary good news about Jesus was bigger than race, gender or religion. The news of Jesus as liberating King spread, across the known Roman world, people were declaring that Jesus was Lord and not Caesar, that life was about loving, giving, serving others because God had first loved, given of his own and served them.

As the church grew it faced tremendous persecution, as the transforming power of the good news spread people were killed, tortured, shunned for being Christians but still they kept on loving and serving. At the height of the plague it was the Christians who took in and cared for the sick and this radical act of love changed the perception of people until Christians were welcome and Christianity became the official religion of the empire

The church grew in numbers and diversity. The doctrines of the Christian faith set out in the creeds were formed over 400 years of prayer, debate, thought and the leading of the Holy Spirit. In the same manner the texts of what today we call the bible were chosen, old and new testament, the stories of people of God following God.

As with any gathering of people doing life together, we get to see each other at our best and our worst. Sin happens, divisions occurred, first between east and west and then between protestants and Catholics. But still the church grew, for most people it was not these heady matters but getting on with the mundane everyday life of faith in Jesus, praying, serving, loving and passing this faith on to their children.

The church though flawed as been about these people gathering together to share their faith and then going out in the world to serve their friends, families and communities. We still follow this rhythm, trying to follow God together as a community in the face of the joys, hardships and ordinariness of life.

We may not face the persecution that the church has faced in the past or still does in parts of our world today. Instead in our time we face apathy and an individualism that tempts us to follow a private and personal faith that is about making us happy as long as we don’t stop anyone else doing what makes them happy.

Our faith is personal but it can never be private.  Our faith is personal but it can never be individual, we are called to be part of the people of God. If belief in Jesus was a private faith, an individualistic faith, we would not be here today. As a church we are here because of the public faithfulness and service of the saints of the church past. Our mission is to take what we have received and live it out, so that we pass on a living and loving faith in Jesus to the next generation. And in doing so, when we are history we will still be found cheering on the future generations of Christians to come who in turn will remember us as a faithful link in the chain.

One day this great chain of living faith will be united. Beginning, middle, end, all united together at the end of all time before the throne of God who is beyond time and every other limit of the ages. We will all be joined together in joyful home coming celebration; the greatest family reunion the world has ever seen taking place on a renewed heaven and a renewed earth.

Join ends of the paper chain together 

Every tongue, every tribe, every nation, every age will be there, alive, resurrected, our bodies restored, recognisable and yet transformed. There we will embrace, laugh, dance, and share stories together, marvel at the interconnectedness of our lives, how are small actions inspired by Jesus blessed so many people that we never even knew about across generations. 

This life of faithful love, service and sacrifice we lived on earth preparation for this new life that will echo on into eternity of this eternal fellowship, with God the Father, the Son and the Spirit and are eternal family of all the saints.

Help! - prayer needed to close...

Let us speak then of love...

I lead our time of worship/reflection in our small group last night on the theme of love:God's love for us, our love for God and each other.

The format of the reflection was a reading, a thought/question and then a response, by way of playing a song that people could sing/listen to/pray through (and then repeated again). The first set was to focus on how we love as receive love from God and the 2nd set was about loving others in the same way that we've been loved by God...

Reading: God Is Love

“My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn't know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can't know him if you don't love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they've done to our relationship with God.

My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!

God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we're free of worry on Judgment Day…

We are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. God loved us first.”

Exerts from 1 John 4

Thought:

As people of grace we love because we are loved. Loved by God so that we can love him back and one way St John suggests that we do so is by loving each other. Let us now receive God’s love and commit to loving him in the same way that he loves us…

Response:

Go on loving you

This is my prayer, this is my cry
I want to go on loving you
All through the joy, all through the fire
I want to go on loving you
I want to go on loving you

Seasons may change, people depart
I want to go on loving you
In times of pain, when life is hard and when the journey seems so long
I want to go on loving you

Your love for me
New as the dawn, older than time
Stronger than death, greater than life
This love is mine

In everything, through all my life
I want to go on loving you
This is my prayer, this is my cry
I want to go on loving you
I want to go on loving you

Your love for me
New as the dawn, older than time
Stronger than death, greater than life
This love is mine

I’ll go on loving you x4

Reading 2: Let us speak of love

"Let us speak then of love. What does it mean to love something? If a man asks a woman, I'm quite open to other permutations of this formula, do you love me? And if after a long awkward pause and considerable deliberation, she replies with wrinkled brow "well up to a certain point, under certain conditions to a certain extent;" then we can be sure whatever it is she feels for this poor fellow it is not love. And this relationship is not going to work out. For if love is the measure, the only measure of love is love without measure.

One of the ideas behind love is that it represents a giving without holding back, an unconditional commitment which marks love with a certain excess. Physicians council us to eat and exercise in measured moderation and not to overdo either but there is no merit in loving moderately, up to a certain point, just so far all the while watching out for number one. Which is alas what we are often advised by a certain decadent new aged psychology.

If a woman divorces a man because he turned out to be a failure in his profession and just did not measure up to the salary expectations she had for him when they married. If she complains that he did not live up to his end of the bargain, well that is not the sort of till death do us part unconditional commitment that is built into marital love and the marital vow. Love is not a bargain but unconditional giving. It is not an investment but a commitment come what may.

Lovers are people who exceed their duty, who look around for ways to do more than is required of them. If you love your job you don't just do the minimum that is required, you do more.  If you love your children what would you not do for them? If a wife asks a husband to do her a favour and he declines on the ground that he is really not duty bound by the strict terms of the marriage contract to do it, that marriage is all over except for the paperwork. Rather than rigorously defending their rights lovers readily put themselves in the wrong and take the blame for the sake of preserving their love.

Love, St Paul said in his stunning hymn to love, is "patient, kind, not puffed up or boastful, it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. A world without love is a world governed by rigid contracts and inexorable duties, a world, God forbid, where the lawyers run everything.

The mark of loving someone or something then is unconditionality and excess, engagement and commitment, fire and passion…” Jack Caputo [HT to emergent village podcast on theological, philosphical conversation]

Thought/question:

We all follow God up to a point. We all love God and each other up to a point.  Jesus calls us to go with him beyond that point.  Where and with whom is the Spirit asking us to go and love unconditionally, love maked with an excess?

Response:

Multiply your love

Multiply your love through us
To the lost and the least
Let us be your healing hands
Your instruments of peace
May our single purpose be
To imitate your life
Through our simple words and deeds
Let love be multiplied

Multiply your love through me
To someone in need
Help me Lord to freely give
This grace that I’ve received
Let my single purpose be
To imitate your life
Through my simple and deeds
Let love be multiplied

Let us see your kingdom come
To the poor and broken ones
Let us see a mighty flood
Of justice and mercy
Oh Jesus
Let love be multiplied
Let love be multiplied.

Multiply your church through us
To the ends of the earth
Where there’s only barrenness
Let us see new birth
Use us as your labourers
Working side by side
Let us see your harvest come
Let love be multiplied

Let us see your kingdom come
To the poor and broken ones
Let us see a mighty flood
Of justice and mercy
Oh Jesus
Let love be multiplied
Let love be multiplied
Let love be multiplied.

Multiply your love through us
Multiply your love

Lord have mercy...

I came across this litany in the divine hours - I found it very powerful and am thinking about including it in the communion service i am preparing for our faith community...

The litany

For the peace from above, for the loving kindness of God, and for the salvation of my soul, I pray to the Lord.

Lord have mercy.

For the peace of the world, for the welfare of the Holy Church of God, and for the unity of all peoples, I pray to the Lord.

Lord have mercy.

For my city, for every city and community, and for those who live in them, I pray to the Lord.

Lord have mercy.

For seasonable weather, and for the abundance of the fruits of the earth, I pray to the Lord.

Lord have mercy.

For the good earth which God has given us, and the wisedom and will to conserve it, I pray to the Lord.

Lord have mercy.

For the deliverance from all danger, violence, opression and degradation, I pray to the Lord.

Lord have mercy.

For the absolution and remission of my sins and offences, I pray to the Lord.

Lord have mercy.

Defend me, deliver me, and in your compassion protect me, O Lord, by your grace.

Lord have mercy.

Worshipping the self revealing God - a reflection using the seven I AM statements of Jesus

Intro...

I lead a time of worship in our small group last night.  I am aware that I often adopt a style of worship that starts where I am and tries to spiral up to God.  The danger of that is I often end up creating God in my image, or trying to add him into my agenda.  I tried in the reflection to reverse that, to start with the revelation of who God is and that self revelation, spiralling down to me and sweeping me up into God's story rather than trying to put God into mine.

I was inspired to use the seven 'I AM' statements of Jesus - not least because Jesus is God revealing himself - through his humanity and divinity he has one arm around the Father and one arm around us. 

The format I used was to have:

• a creative action to help people focus/experience,
• reading out loud the I AM saying of Jesus read out,
• spending some time in silence to reflect on those words,
• a prayer read by me as a response; and
• inviting people to make it their worship by saying out loud 'in your presence we worship you.

The reflection...

I am the bread of life

action: take loaf of bread, break and pass round for people to have a piece.

Verse: Jesus said, "I am the Bread of Life. The person who aligns with me hungers no more and thirsts no more, ever. I have told you this explicitly because even though you have seen me in action, you don't really believe me. Every person the Father gives me eventually comes running to me. And once that person is with me, I hold on and don't let go. I came down from heaven not to follow my own whim but to accomplish the will of the One who sent me.

Response: Jesus we choose again to align our lives with you.  Thank you that in you we find our fulfilment, not in serving ourselves but in being a servant like you.  You know where we are empty, where we hunger and thirst, please satisfy us, fill us, and consume us. 

All: In your presence, we worship you.

I am the light of the world

Action:  light a candle

Verse: I am the world's Light. No one who follows me stumbles around in the darkness. I provide plenty of light to live in.

Response: Thank you Jesus that it is you who is the light of the world.  Help us to live in your light.  Search us and fill us with your light so that the darkness in us is pushed back.  Make us your lights in the worlds we live in to the people and places we know.

All: In your presence, we worship you.

I am the gate

Action: fold arms, cross legs – as I read uncross them, relax open your body and self up.

Verse: I am the Gate for the sheep. All those others are up to no good—sheep stealers, every one of them. But the sheep didn't listen to them. I am the Gate. Anyone who goes through me will be cared for—will freely go in and out, and find pasture. A thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.

Response: Jesus we confess that we often kill, destroy and steel life away from ourselves and others.  We have chosen other places for our safety and security and hidden behind the gates of our fear.  We have felt the pain and loss as life has broken in and stolen us away from you and our humanity.  Thank you Jesus that we have that promise in you of real life.  That with you and each other we can go through this real life of tears and laughter and find freedom and hope.

All: In your presence, we worship you.

I am the good Shepard

Action: whisper in the person to your left’s ear as if voice of Jesus: ‘I love you and delight in you' so it goes round the whole circle [think chinese whispers]

Verse: I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own sheep and my own sheep know me. In the same way, the Father knows me and I know the Father. I put the sheep before myself, sacrificing myself if necessary. You need to know that I have other sheep in addition to those in this pen. I need to gather and bring them, too. They'll also recognize my voice. Then it will be one flock, one Shepherd. This is why the Father loves me: because I freely lay down my life. And so I am free to take it up again. No one takes it from me. I lay it down of my own free will. I have the right to lay it down; I also have the right to take it up again. I received this authority personally from my Father."

Response: Jesus you are our good shepard, you know us and allow us to be know you and each other.  You call us by name and care for each one of us.  Help us to hear your voice and know we are truly loved. Let us live in your love, free to tend and care, guide and serve.  Jesus help us to freely lay down our rights, our lives and let us be known as good because we are known as yours.

All: In your presence, we worship you.

I am the resurrection and the life

Action: close eyes then when you are ready open them, take in your surroundings anew.

Verse: "You don't have to wait for the End. I am, right now, Resurrection and Life. The one who believes in me, even though he or she dies, will live. And everyone who lives believing in me does not ultimately die at all. Do you believe this?"

Response:  Thank you Jesus that in you our lives are resurrected.  That our life starts now with you and that death is not the end of our story.  Help us see our life as you see it in preparation for the life to come.  Help us live this life with our eyes open to see and our hands ready to help.  Thank you as our resurrection and life we have become part of your story and so in you our stories will live forever.  Thank you Jesus that we will be like you, you will restore our humanity and we will one day be raised from the dead - alive in spirit and flesh with you for all eternity.  We believe it even as we don't understand it.

All: In your presence, we worship you.

I am the way the truth and the life

Action: give everyone a spoon.  Ask them to look at their reflection in it and see how it is like them but not like them, how they are distorted and changed.  Put a mirror on the floor and a cross on it.  Ask people to look in the mirror and see their reflection now, that that through the life, death and resurection of Jesus our life, our humanity is being restored - no longer distorted images of humanity but in, through and with Jesus, the perfect image-bearer, we are being recreated in God's image]

Verse: Jesus said, "I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him. You've even seen him!"

Response: Thank you Jesus that the way to the Father is about living  like you, through you, because of you.  Jesus in your humanity you were the perfect image bearer of God's image and in you we find the true image of our humanity.  You have made the way and through the cross to embrace the pain and help restore the broken humanity in us and the world around us.  Jesus thank you that you are the truth, not an abstract set of rules to possess and control but a person we can know, love and relate to, as you as fully human can relate to us.  Holy Spirit help us know and be known more and more so our lives become truth filled and alive.   

All: In your presence, we worship you.

I am the vine, you are the branches

Action: pass round a ball of wool, each personwrap it around their hand pass on it on to the next person, until everyone in the circle is connected together by the wool.

Verse: "I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you're joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can't produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is—when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples.

Response: Jesus, thank you that we are one branch of your vine. You have chosen us, call us and connect us to you and each other.  Let your life flows in us, through us and out of us as we abide in you.  Father, like Jesus, may the Spirit produce an abundant harvest in our lives of love, kindness, patience, peace, generosity and self discipline.

All: In your presence, we worship you.

For the other: A reflection on commitment - God's to us and ours to God and each other...

 

I am leading a reflection on Sunday and have chosen the theme of commitment.  Below is what I have written so far and I would  love any thoughts, comments, contributions please.  If you are interested I have used the prayer based on Romans 12 as part of a discussion on the prayers we use at Jason Clark's site.

I don't know about you, but I often start off with the best intentions of following Jesus only to realise at some point that I've stopped.  Sometimes i have stopped deliberately because i want to do my own thing in my own way.  Sometimes i don't even realise I have stopped, I am just overwhelmed and swept away by the deluge of life. 

Let us pause for a moment, to be still, to breathe God in. To allow the Holy Spirit to help us resurface from our thoughts, feelings and circumstances that so often smother us. 

Holy Spirit we ask you to show us the selfish places of our lives, those places where we have turned again to follow our own ways and desires rather than those of your Kingdom.

Inspired by the words of Paul in his letter to the Romans, let us pray:

Father, please help us to take our everyday, ordinary life—our sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before you as an offering.

Jesus, please help us to remember that embracing what you are doing for us is the best thing we can do for you.

Holy Spirit, please don’t let us become so well-adjusted to our culture that we fit into it without even thinking. Instead, help us fix our attention on you so that you change us from the inside out.

Amen.

Our God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, created us, loves us and searches for us one by one.  Just as in the story Jesus told, the shepard leaves the 99 sheep to seek out the one that has gone astray, the woman searches her house for the missing coin and the Father rushes down the road to embrace his lost son. 

But that is only the beginning of our story, for God does not leave us to remain locked in our prisons of self centred, private living.  We are liberated by Christ so that we can be for each other, just as in the story the lost sheep is carried back to the flock, the coin is returned to its purse and the son is restored to his place in his family. 

As his community we are being formed in the image of God. Our God, who in Jesus shows us how to live out a life for others, in obedience to the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit. 

Together as his community of new creations let us now commit together to live out the way of Jesus, a life in this world of radical, selfless, loving service to all of God’s creation.

Before we sing together, I want to read for us a poem by Adrian Plass about the life of commitment.  The poem is called ‘When I became a Christian.’

When I Became a Christian, by Adrian Plass

When I became a Christian I said, Lord, now fill me in,
Tell me what I’ll suffer in this world of shame and sin.
He said, Your body may be killed, and left to rot and stink,
Do you still want to follow me? I said, Amen! – I think.

But , Lord, there must be other ways to follow you, I said,
I really would prefer to end up dying in my bed.
Well, yes, he said, you could put up with sneers and scorn and spit,
Do you still want to follow me? I said, Amen! – a bit.

Well I sat back and thought a while, then tried a different ploy,
Now, Lord, I said, the Good Book says that Christians live in joy.
That’s true, he said, you need the joy to bear the pain and sorrow,
So do you still want to follow me? I said, Amen! – tomorrow.

He said, Look, I’m not asking you to spend an hour with me,
A quick salvation sandwich and a cup of sanctity,
The cost is you, not half of you, but every single bit.
Now tell me, will you follow me? I said, Amen! – I quit.
I’m very sorry, Lord, I said, I’d like to follow you,
But I don’t think religion is a manly thing to do.
He said, forget religion then, and think about my Son,
And tell me if you’re man enough to do what he has done?

Are you man enough to see the need, and man enough to go,
Man enough to care for those whom no one wants to know,
Man enough to say the thing that people hate to hear,
To battle through Gethsemane in lonliness and fear.
And listen! Are you man enough to stand it at the end,
The moment of betrayal by the kisses of a friend,
Are you man enough to hold your tongue, and man enough to cry,
When the nails break your body – are you man enough to die?
Man enough to take the pain, and wear it like a crown,
Man enough to love the world and turn it upside down,
Are you man enough to follow me, I ask you once again.
I said, Oh Lord, I’m frightened, but I also said Amen.
Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen,
I said, Oh Lord, I’m frightened, but I also said, Amen.