St Stephen’s Church – South Dulwich

28 February 2010

Happy St David’s Day.

When I was much younger I always thought that it was odd that the Welsh should have an Old Testament King for their Patron saint.  It somehow went together with my prejudice – long since abandoned – that the Welsh are rather different people, with their incomprehensible and Old Testament sounding but nevertheless actually very beautiful language.  Little did I know then that St David was actually a sixth century holy monk, who also went by the name of Dewi, and who founded Menevia (now St David’s) monastery and probably more than a dozen other monasteries in Wales.  He is said to have based his Rule for his monasteries on that of the Egyptian desert monks, with a strong emphasis on hard work, abstinence from alcohol and a refraining from unnecessary speech.
He died in about the year 601 and has been regarded as the patron saint of Wales since at least the twelfth century.  Since then Welsh Christianity has contributed much to our understanding of how our faith can in fact be ‘Good News’ for our lives and for our society around us.  Methodism flourished in Wales, with its profound emphasis on the renewal of personal faith and lay leadership in the church.  This kind of Welsh Methodism has much to offer when it finally re-merges with our Anglican tradition in due course.  The Anglican Church in Wales is disestablished, and again, we may want to learn from that experience!  Contemplating the lives of Christian saints helps me to reflect how it can be that we also – in our contemporary context – need to uphold Christ and be prophets and peacemakers in our own homes and neighbourhoods.

Bernhard Schünemann

21 February 2010

An idea for Lent by Robin Lane

As we prepare for Lent, let us remember the prophecy of Isaiah; “Make ready the way of the Lord, make his paths straight”.  As Jesus fasted 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness, he was beset by temptation. We know only too well that temptation brings with it a powerful urge and resisting it can be difficult.  However, Jesus taught us to resist temptation, but resisting it is only the beginning. We must learn to live without that which has, in the past, tempted us.  Going without something which we like for 40 days is admirable, but giving it up completely should be our goal.  Jesus taught us, `Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God`.  Those who free themselves from temptation shall be free of the burden which holds us back from the path of righteousness.
When Daniel was captured by the Babylonian king, he asked that he and his friends receive only plant-based food, and from God they received both knowledge and wisdom. Lent is a time for renewal, a time to reassess, to make our path straight.  What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly with God.

Robin Lane is a member of our congregation and promoter of the ‘Christian Alliance for Love and Fellowship’.  He is also nephew of Joan Stewart.

14 February 2010

The other week I went with the youth club to see the film ‘Avatar’ which looks set to strike gold at the Oscars this year.  At a rumoured cost of $500m it is a spectacular 3D exploration of our relationship to nature.
Set in the future, an inter-galactic mining company is digging up a planet to get at its mineral deposits.  Whilst the company claims to want the best for the local population, its private army and armour plated excavators tell a different story.
The film introduces us to a paradise world in which the local population communicate with their ancestors through the trees and with animals by linking their minds and uniting their wills.  This includes the ability to fly through floating mountains on the backs of pterodactyls and in 3D that is quite a ride!
Meanwhile, the private army cannot breathe the same air and seem able to bond only with machines and terrifying robot soldiers.  It all comes to a head when the richest mineral deposit is found underneath a gigantic tree where one of the tribes has its ancestral home.
Now I won’t tell you any more because you should really go and see it for yourself.  If, however, your recollection of 3D films is of those funny green and red glasses that didn’t really work, then think again.  I found myself gripping the seat to stop myself falling and batting away floating objects that seem to have drifted out of the film and into the cinema.  All in all, this is a film which offers a stimulating perspective and that is quite apart from the special effects.

Nick Davies .Curate.

7 February 2010

The Presentation of Christ in the Temple

The story we celebrate today is quite a simple one.  Mary brings the forty day old infant Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem in order to make the sacrifices she feels are necessary.  Jesus is her first born son and therefore, according to ancient custom, belongs to God.  By making the sacrifices she believes she can keep Jesus with her to bring him up.
But once she arrives at the temple she meets two old people called Simeon and Hannah.  Simeon takes the infant in his arms and recognises in him the saviour and the light of the world.  We learn today that Jesus, though he is the Son of God and our eternal Christ, did live as a real flesh and blood human being subject to the strange rules and regulations of his time.  We learn today that Mary did not flinch from bringing Jesus and presenting him so that he would light up even the darkest corners of this world, hearing that her own heart would be pierced also.
And quite by chance we learn from Hannah today – if we listen to our gospel reading carefully – that women have been prophets right from the beginning of Christian history and before.  Simeon also has a message for us: having experienced the presence of Christ we can contemplate our own departing in peace.   We can learn today that old people are sometimes the ones who have deepest insights.  But above all we celebrate today: we celebrate that Christ lights up our faces because in him can be found truth that is beyond speaking.

Bernhard Schünemann

31 January 2010

Today is the last Sunday in the Christmas and Epiphany season, next week we celebrate candlemass; let’s spare a thought for Joseph:

Joseph’s Lullaby

Sleep now, little one,I will watch while you and your mother sleep.
I wish I could do more.
This straw is not good enough for you.
Back in Nazareth I’ll make a proper bed for you
Of seasoned wood, smooth, strong, well-pegged.
A bed fit for a carpenter’s son.

Just wait till we get back to Nazareth.
I’ll teach you everything I know.
You’ll learn to use the cedarwood, eucalyptus and fir.
You’ll learn to use the drawshave, axe, and saw.
Your arms will grow strong, your hands rough-like these.
You will bear the pungent smell of new wood
And wear shavings and sawdust in your hair.

You’ll be a man whose life centres on hammer and nails and wood. But for now, sleep, little Jesus, sleep.

Ron Klug (20th century)

24 January 2010

This Sunday falls in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity; an event which Fr. Ted might have described as, “an ecumenical matter”- a box into which tricky issues could be placed- rather than explained.
The word ecumenical has a Greek root meaning ‘the whole world’ and it has been used to describe the movement which seeks the unity of all Christians.  The idea being  that the unity of the Church should act as a signpost for the wider reconciliation of the whole of humanity.
Now you may feel that the multiplicity of Churches mean that we are not doing a very good job, however, unity and uniformity are not the same thing.  When I attend other churches I am often struck by the particular gift of differing traditions and that is something which might be lost if we all tried to be the same.  Instead we need to realise that when it comes to faith, we only ever possess part of the picture.  Indeed, through learning and sharing with other Christians we often gain a deeper and richer vision of the glory of God.
These ecumenical practices do, I believe, have something to offer to the wider world.  A world in which we need to do more to celebrate our global diversity, exercise humility and be better at giving and receiving from one another.  Indeed, as we are beginning to see in Haiti , these are far from abstract ideas but are in fact powerful forces which can save lives

Nick Davies . Curate

17 January 2010

The meaning of prayer.

During these next five Sundays we will contemplate the meaning of prayer in our lives, we will hear five sermons on prayer from five our regular preachers.   Archbishop Rowan Williams finds John of the Cross (16th century Spain) helpful as a guide:  “With St John of the Cross I think what went deep was precisely an understanding of prayer as more than feelings.  Now you can misunderstand that – you can say that prayer is nothing to do with feelings, it is all a matter of will and practice, but that I think is not what he is saying. Prayer is a habit of being. It is a sinking of your own identity into something deeper which goes on whether or not you think you are consciously praying, which means that how you feel is not unimportant but it doesn’t tell you all you need to know about prayer. You may be feeling terrible and God may be active; you may be feeling nothing in particular, but God may be very active; you may be feeling wonderful, and that may have nothing at all to do with God’s doing.  So a little bit of distance from your feelings, not hostility to them, but a realism about them, and an ability to tell the difference between what God is doing and how you are feeling – that is, I think, fundamental in St John of the Cross…  The two axioms which he wrote throughout his writings – pray as you can and don’t try to pray as you can’t, and the less you pray the worse it gets – does tell you a great deal.”

Bernhard Schünemann

10 January 2010

The words of Christina Rossetti’s hymn, ‘In the bleak mid winter’ were ringing in my ears this week as the snow came down, “snow on snow”.  A development which our  Spaniel, Oscar, greeted with his usual enthusiasm.  Indeed, his limited ability to walk calmly to heel disappeared completely in his rush to plunge muzzle-long into this strange white powder and romp for the sheer joy of it.
Of course, Oscar is not alone in being strangely affected by snow.  This week I guess that most of us had our plans thrown into disarray as meetings were cancelled, cars abandoned and buses slid to a halt.
In the disoriented pause which follows, we are left to wonder at this strange new world of brilliant white, we end up reflecting that perhaps that deadline was not as absolute as we had first imagined and the lure of snowmen and snow ball fights can somehow seem strangely appealing.  Walking more, we end up also chatting more as we share in our unsteadiness on ice and wonder at the scene before us.
Now I realise some may have good reason to curse the snow this week, particularly those who have had a fall or have been stuck indoors.  But I cannot help feeling that the ability of snow to enable us to see the world in a different light is a gift.  One that somehow puts a new perspective on our own aspirations and limitations.   Indeed, I wonder whether this might just be one last Christmas gift from on high?

Nick Davies

3 January 2010

The Epiphany of our Lord, 6th January.

The Epiphany, or the Manifestation of Christ, has been celebrated in the Christian tradition in a variety of ways.  The Feast of the Epiphany on January 6th, completes the ‘twelve days of Christmas’, and it inaugurates a period where the declaration of the arrival and manifestation of our saviour in and to the world becomes increasingly public and universal.
In the Eastern Churches the Epiphany is Christmas, in the Western Church the feast is associated with the arrival of the magi in Bethlehem.  The magi, mentioned in St Matthew’s gospel, are sparingly described and are meant to be wise sages or astrologers from the world beyond the Jewish horizon, underlining the significance of the birth of Jesus for the whole universe.
The three gifts they bring has given them an entirely folkloristic identity as three kings.  In continental Catholicism Epiphany also celebrates the feast of the Baptism of our Lord, with water being blessed and the faithful publicly renewing their baptismal vows, covenanting themselves anew to God, as God has covenanted himself to us anew in the sending of his son.  The plethora of themes for this coming season focusing on the significance of Christ in our lives and in the life of the world should give us enough to contemplate and not forget what happened to us at Christmas.

Bernhard Schünemann

13 December 2009

John the Baptist

I had a friend who was a teacher and he treasured the ‘howler’ about John the Baptist served up to him in his school teaching days.  The exam question had been “What did John the Baptist eat?”  The answer received was, “Crocuses and wild honey.”  It is an oddity of the Gospels that we are told what John the Baptist ate and wore but we have no such biographical information about Jesus.  John’s food and wardrobe – locusts, the wild honey, the camel hair coat – are mentioned so that readers who knew their Bibles would make the connection with Elijah, whose diet and dress were the same.  John is an Elijah figure, Elijah who, the story says, did not die properly and so was expected back as the herald of the Messianic age.  John would probably not have approved of a Sunday in Advent devoted to him or of having his own feast day.  His work was to point beyond himself to the one to come.  That work done, his wish was that we should lose sight of him.  “He must increase. I must decrease”.  But of course John’s work is not done.  In the wilderness of our days we do not notice the approach of the Lamb of God. John is still crying to us: “For God’s sake look who’s coming!”

Lord Jesus, Light of the world,
John told the people to prepare,
for you were very near.
As Christmas grows closer day by day,
help us to be ready to welcome you now.

Bernhard Schünemann

6 December 2009

St Nicholas’ Day

Saint St Nicholas, Bishop of Myra lived such a long time ago (fourth century) that very little is known about him.  But he is one of the best-loved saints in the whole of Christendom.  Many legends have attached themselves to his name.  He had a reputation of being a wonderworker.  He is said to have given three bags of gold to three girls for their dowry, and thus saved them from a life of prostitution.  He raised three boys back to life after they had been tortured and killed by having been put in a tub of brine by a naughty butcher.  He saved three men who were unjustly condemned to death and he also saved three sailors from drowning near his native coast of Southern Turkey.  He is claimed as patron saint of Russia, numerous countries. and towns, unmarried girls, merchants, pawnbrokers, apothecaries, and perfumers.
But we know him best because he is the patron saint of children and for us in England St Nicholas has variously become ‘Santa Claus’ or plain ‘Santa’ and even Father Christmas.
For us he is associated with the magic of giving gifts.  St Nicholas conveyed the love of God through his giving of gifts.  For him the giving of gifts was a real symbol for the love that God has for his creation.  Everything that is available from God for us is in the nature of a gift: be it our life, our life in Christ through the most precious gift of baptism, our redemption, our ability to love, our own ability to give gifts and ultimately our participation in his kingdom – all gifts.  Gifts, if they are real gifts, come with no strings attached, but they do come wrapped.  Unwrapping them and cherishing them is our responsibility.  Giving and receiving gifts is what St Nicholas has come to represent for us, skills that are close to the heart of our Christian faith.

Bernhard Schünemann

29 November 2009

The other week, on my way to morning prayer, I passed a young man sleeping rough in the woods.
I went back after prayers with a couple of mugs of tea and we had a chat.  He explained that things hadn’t worked out where he was living in Crystal Palace, that he had been homeless for four months and that he wasn’t sure where he would be sleeping that night.
Last week, at the Churches Together in Dulwich (CTiD) Advent service, we heard about a project which works to help people like the young man that I met.  It is called the Robes Project and is a network of seven Churches who each commit to providing a night shelter, for one night of the week, during the coldest months of the year.
It is one of several local projects supported by the CTiD homelessness appeal, (details of which can be found in the enclosed leaflet).  St. Stephen’s is part of this appeal and will be having a special collection in aid of it at our Festival of Lessons and Carols on 20th. December.  That doesn’t, of course, stop you from making other donations of money, time or any of needed items which they list!
This morning we enter the season of Advent when the Church begins to look towards Christmas.  Advent is traditionally a time of prayer and reflection as we prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ; a child who was born in a stable and grew up to be an adult who had nowhere to lay his head.
As we prepare for his coming, I would commend this appeal to you.

Revd. Nick Davies. Curate

22 November 2009

Time to Pray

It’s hard to find time
At dawn? At dusk?
Five times a day? Or just before meals?
It’s hard to find time;
For church or synagogue, mosque or temple.

We ask for help in trouble, sorrow, guilt and fear.
But it’s hard to find time when things go well.
It’s hard to find time
when our hearts are hard
and when God seems far away.

But time is eternal and each life a prayer.
Enjoy the first rays of dawn,
Rejoice in your every breath, step, sound.
Listen to His word in the silence of the night.
Remember you are in Him and He in you.

You might not have time for God,
But God certainly has time for You.

Jane Wenlock, facilitator of the St Stephen’s Prayer Fellowship, which meets on the third Monday of the Month at 2.30pm at 15 Ferrings. – Newcomers are welcome.

15 November 2009

This penultimate Sunday of the Christian year is a day when all those working and volunteering in England’s prisons have asked the churches to pray for prisoners, and the world which they inhabit.  On the one hand, when we think of increasing crime, and when fear of crime all around us is exaggerated, our thoughts are with prisons and how shorter and shorter sentences appear to encourage lawlessness.  But on the other hand, once they are in prison we tend to forget those inside.  But as Christians we must remember that Jesus, unusually, singled out prisoners for our attention and prayers.  And it is Christian-inspired organisations that campaign for prisons to be reformed and for those inside to be visited and not forgotten.   In fact prisons have the potential to be places of redemption and transformation.  True justice must produce a positive outcome for the victim, for society and for the offender.  It must give every opportunity for criminals to come to terms with what they have done, to recognise their own guilt, and to acknowledge the need for remorse and penitence.  In atoning for their past they recognise the human dignity of their victims and they also help to redeem themselves. It must be possible, within such a system, for an offender to make different choices from those that they have hitherto made. The system must make it possible for that transformation to take place, and be assisted, at every point during the offender’s sentence and life thereafter.
And finally when we think of prisoners this Sunday we might also remember our own imprisonment, all those areas of our lives which have not been liberated by the power of God that he has offered in his son Jesus to us as individuals.  We also need ‘redeeming’, perhaps not as drastically as some prisoners, but nevertheless we are allowed to believe that he died also for us.

Bermhard Schunemann

8 November 2009

In Flanders Fields.

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army.

First published in Punch on 8 December 1915.

1 November 2009

I have vivid memories of one Halloween party which I attended as a child…

This involved hearing a scary story interspersed with opportunities to reach into bags and boxes containing jelly, cabbages and the like which were tactile props for an unsettling tale.  It’s probably done me no lasting damage but it has certainly stayed with me for many years.
Last night, together with the Kingswood Estate Tenants Association, myself and members of the youth club ran an alternative Halloween party at Langbourne school.  This tried to offer a different take on All Hallows Eve with a fancy dress competition themed around saints, angels and superheroes.  As well as saving the estate from marauding bands of ‘trick or treaters’, it also tried to offer a more positive way of celebrating this ancient autumn festival.
Its roots can be found in the pagan rite of ‘Samhein’ in which Farmers sought to placate evil spirits so that their crops could be safely gathered in for the winter ahead.  In a shrewd piece of missionary one-upmanship, the Church took over this date for the celebration of All Saints and the commemoration of All Souls.  These offer us important opportunities to remember the faithful departed and to gain a deeper understanding of the heavenly glory to which we are called.
Indeed, the truth that underlies both of these services is that death is not the end because ours is a resurrection faith in which our Heavenly Father is both our beginning and our end.

Revd. Nick Davies

25 October 2009

The last Sunday in October, when the clocks go back and the shorter days and longer nights settle in, is sometimes also called ‘Bible Sunday’ to remind us of the central importance of Holy Scripture in our lives.  Clearly it is not enough to hear the Bible read in small portions on Sundays in church.  The Bible needs to be a witness to the living word of God.  We need to find time to read in it and live with it in such a way that God’s word becomes the fountain from which our lives are refreshed.
Reading and studying the Bible is a form of communion with God through which we are fed.  St Paul makes the distinction between treating the Bible as a written code, full of wooden and dead words and – on the other hand – letting the words come alive through the Holy Spirit in our lives (2 Corinthians 3,6).  Whether we read the Bible in groups or alone, we must not remain at the dry surface meaning of individual words and sentence but we must enter ourselves into the story and meet God as we do so.  Chiara Lubich, the founder of the ‘Focolari Movement’ and winner of the Templeton prize for fresh approaches to religion, said once that if all Bibles were lost or burnt one day, people ought to be able to re-write it simply by observing the lives of Christians!  This is the ancient prayer for this Sunday as written for the Book of Common Prayer:
Blessed Lord, who caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning: help us so to hear them, to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them that, through patience, and the comfort of your holy word, we may embrace and for ever hold fast the hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God now and for ever.
And after the communion we are encouraged to pray:
God of all grace, your Son Jesus Christ fed the hungry with the bread of his life and the word of his kingdom: renew your people with your heavenly grace, and in all our weakness sustain us by your true and living bread; who lives and reigns, now and for ever.

Bernhard Schünemann

11 October 2009

This week the season of ‘mists and mellow fruitfulness’ finally seems to have arrived.  Whilst walking in the woods, Oscar and I have noted the changing colours, acorns constantly dropping around us and a particularly good harvest of chestnuts.
The chestnuts have also caught the attention of our growing Parakeet population and one evening last week I witnessed a flock of fifty fly over our house.  These bright green arrivals with their vivid red bills and high pitched call do tend to divide public opinion.  Indeed last week I read that, whilst currently protected, in future people will be able to apply for a licence to shoot ‘problem parakeets’; so much for all things bright and beautiful!
The poet and priest Gerard Manley Hopkins had a few things to say about such colourful wildlife.  I am guessing that he probably never saw a Himalayan Parakeet but I can’t help wondering whether he might have welcomed their arrival?  Whilst we may not want to thank God for this particular species, autumn nevertheless remains a vivid season to praise God for pied beauty…

GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

Pied Beauty - Gerard Manley Hopkins

Revd. Nick Davies

4 October 2009

The 4th of October is also the Feast Day of St Francis of Assisi.
I wonder what St Francis would have thought of our Harvest Festival? Would he have remarked upon the bounty of our cupboards? Or been bemused by the distance our food has travelled?
The dilemmas the modern food gatherer faces are very different to those of the thirteenth century.  But his perspective of our relationship with God’s creation may be helpful; “Praise to my Lord God, with all his creatures and specially our brother the sun, who brings us the day and who brings us the light.”I wonder how I might make my shopping choices if I considered all of creation as my sister and brother?
As well as our Harvest Festival, today is also the Churches Together in Britain and Ireland Climate Change Day of Prayer. We are urged to reflect upon the issue of global warming ahead of a crucial summit on cutting carbon emissions this December in Copenhagen. The current climate change story is often a tale of guilt and gloom, but again St Francis may help us to challenge this. He was a man of hope, simplicity and joy.
His simple way of life was not the result of miserable choices made by a lonely hermit, but a radical call to set aside the unnecessary materiality of ‘normal’ life, and to focus on being a community following Christ’s footprints to God’s kingdom.
Eight hundred years later, his joyful challenge could be the answer to our prayers – asking us to set aside unnecessary carbon consumption and instead choosing to revel in finding our own simple path to God.

Helen Wolfson

27 September 2009

On Tuesday this week, 29th September, we celebrate St Michael and All Angels also known as Michaelmas.

Angels are not something that we in the Church of England have recently given much thought to.  This seems a pity, really, since in the Bible they are quite important heavenly beings.  Jesus Christ is surrounded by angels at some of the most important points: They announce his incarnation (Matthew 1,20&24) and his birth (Luke 2,9-15).  They minister to him in the desert (Matthew 4,11), they strengthen him in his agony (Luke 22,43), they would be ready to defend him when he is captured (Matthew 26,53), and they are the first witnesses to his resurrection (Matthew 28,2-7 & John 20,12ff).  In the Old Testament they are there at the heart of the struggle between good and evil, and in the Book of Revelation St Michael fights against evil and the angels provide the choir for the proper worship of God.
Angels reflect something of the awesome glory of God and their force is a force towards the good.  They are not the harmless cherubs with wings we sometimes see depicted in well-wishing Christmas cards or in Bavarian and Italian baroque decorations. – Indeed whenever we encounter them in the Bible we are instructed not to be afraid.   In our church there is a sculpture of one standing half way up every pillar, and an effective photograph of these adorns the cover of Michael Goodman’s book.  Angels come in all shapes and sizes, and sometimes we are told that we might be ‘entertaining angels unawares’.  It is those hardly noticeable angels, which we are most likely to encounter in our daily lives: messengers from God in unlikely situations.  It may be an encounter with a person who gives us courage or who radiates warmth and the love of God, it may be in an event in our lives where we might have felt the presence of a guardian angel.

Bernhard Schünemann

20 September 2009

In our service this morning we will hear the story of the prodigal son.  He famously demands half of his father’s wealth and leaves for the big city and a life of wild parties.  Soon however he runs out of money, his friends desert him and he is left feeding pigs – just to survive.
One year on from the collapse of Lehman Brothers, this cautionary tale of living beyond one’s means sounds familiar.  As commentators have reminded us this week, a decade of cheap credit led governments, banks and individuals to borrow far too much.  And so, like the hard times faced by the prodigal son, we are now experiencing the biggest economic crisis for 100 years.
This week the debate has been whether we have learnt the lessons of our, ‘irrational exuberance’ or whether we are still pretending that it is business as usual?  Are each of us saving more, have the banks changed their ways, might capitalism be renewed?  Joining the debate, the Archbishop of Canterbury suggested that there remains a lack of closure and a need for repentance.
Indeed, repentance is what the story of the prodigal son is really about.  As it continues we see the son, coming to his senses, returning to his father and asking forgiveness.  Seeing his son in the distance, the father runs to embrace him and welcomes him home.
Realising our mistakes, saying that we are sorry and mending our ways may not sound like much of a macro-economic strategy but, as this gospel story reminds us, repentance does have the power to liberate us from self pity, to enable us to take responsibility and to help us to move on.

Revd. Nick Davies

13 September 2009

If music be the food of love, play on, give me excess of it.
(The beginning of ‘Twelfth Night’ by W Shakespeare)

Our choirs are back in rehearsal and soon we will have the benefit of their singing in our services.  It seems that music has been part of the worship of God since before even the time of Christ, for there is evidence that the psalms, the most ancient of all prayer books, were sung in worship, and even that they were accompanied by all manner of blowing, plucking and rhythm-beating instruments (see Psalm 150 for example).  Thanks to my children I have recently expanded my own repertoire of listening beyond the rather narrow (but nevertheless glorious) confines of Radio 3 and Classic FM to a station I had never even heard of before called Radio One.  Here one comes across such joys as ‘Lady Gaga’, ‘Lenka’ or ‘Just  Jack’ singing about the deepest of emotions of love, life and death in electronically highly processed tunes and rhythms.  There is no doubt that music engages our deepest emotions such as sadness, love and joy. By listening, playing and singing we can even have our emotions subtly changed.  In worship music gives us the space to become transformed, sometimes to leave anger behind us and to be flooded with positive emotions and a desire for new beginnings and for God to fill a larger space of our inner being, so that we can become free and more truly ourselves.  At best music in worship brings something of ourselves into service, and in the liturgy, in the joint singing and listening, the music itself and we are transformed into something greater.

Bernhard Schünemann

6 September 2009

Did you have a good summer?’
As many of us return to work or school and catch-up with friends this is a frequent enquiry.  Whether you had a ‘staycation’ at home, a trip to the country or a holiday abroad, I guess that many of us can look back on the summer with fond memories.  Of course with the arrival of September our minds swiftly turn to our autumnal ‘to do’ list, however, it is worth pausing for a moment and giving thanks for what we have enjoyed.  The prayer of General Thanksgiving, derived from the Book of Common Prayer, is useful for many occasions but I would particularly commend it to you as you flick through your holiday snaps and recount your summer adventures.

Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we your unworthy servants do give you most humble and hearty thanks for all your goodness and loving-kindness.  We bless you for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for your immeasurable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.
And give us, we pray, such a sense of all your mercies that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful, and that we show forth your praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives; by giving up ourselves to your service, and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with you and the Holy Spirit be all honour and glory, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Revd. Nick Davies

23 and 30 August 2009

“The Peace of the Lord be always with you.”
For the last twenty years in English Churches this little saying in the middle of our service has not only triggered the simple response “And also with you” (or sometimes “And with thy spirit”!), but it has led on to a general hand-shaking and even hugging and kissing amongst all those attending the service.
Many find this moment a welcome relaxation of our formality, a chance to greet people and to catch up with urgent news!  Others, however, do not look forward to this moment, and it may even put them off from ever wanting to come to church again.  Not all of us are natural ‘handshakers of strangers’ or even ‘huggers of strangers’!  And, like so many of the words we say in our services, we are never far from being hypocritical.  Because, to wish the ‘peace of Christ’ to our neighbour may sometimes be more of an aspiration, rather than something we have actually achieved!
What is behind this moment in our service?  It is a deeply Biblical moment.  Jesus urges us never to partake of the Holy Communion unless we have made peace with our neighbour:  “So if you are about to offer your gift to God at the altar and there you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar, go at once and make peace with your brother or sister, and then come back and offer your gift to God” (Matthew 5,23-24).  One might even say that the essence of the Good News that Jesus brings to this world is his message of peace and reconciliation: peace between God and his creation, and peace between his human creatures.  The New Testament is steeped in this message.  When we greet each other and wish each other “the peace of Christ”, just before the offertory and the Holy Communion, we express the mystery of peace that Christ has made possible for us.  Christ can transform us, each one of us, into lovers of peace!  At best this moment in our service has the capacity to break down our barriers and inhibitions and it will enable us to enter more fully into the relationship between God and his people.

Bernhard Schünemann

9 and 16 August 2009

August is a month for holidays!  If you have ever travelled in areas where the Christian Orthodox Church is more visible during the month of August, you will have noticed that on the 15th of August the orthodox church celebrates the great festival of the ‘Dormition’ (the ‘falling asleep’) of the Virgin Mary.
In the western church (including the Anglican Church) this festival has gone rather out of fashion because it was called the ‘Assumption of our Lady’ (implying that Mary, instead of dying naturally, had just been ‘assumed’ into heaven).  Mary is in all things like us and we can be like her.  In particular she brought Christ into the world and so must we.
In her death she showed us that we don’t have to fear anything.  She showed us the way a Christian will die: It is a falling asleep, it is a being welcomed by all the saints and it is the moment when Christ will strive to receive our soul.  All this is depicted in the traditional icon of the dormition.

Bernhard Schünemann

26 July and 2 August 2009

I’m sure that along with many in the congregation, I have been worried by the recent serious decline in the country’s bee population. Some estimates suggest that we have lost a third of that population over the last three years.
In recent months, as I have walked through the woods to Morning Prayer, I have come across a number of bumblebees in difficulty and on more than one occasion have gently moved them off pathways with an encouraging word, usually along the lines of, “Go bumblebee, go!”
Now you may fear that your Curate is losing his marbles but a world without bees would be a very different place.  Indeed, as they pollinate 70% of the food we eat, some suggest that humanity could only outlive bees by four years.
If you are interested to know more, I can recommend the ‘Save the honeybee’ campaign by the Soil Association (www.soilassociation.org)  which is collecting signatures to ban a particularly strong pesticide- neonicotinoids.  Whilst this pesticide has been banned in France, Germany and Italy our own government is yet to act.
Whatever the causes of this decline, it is impossible to deny our connection with our natural world.  This connection was famously highlighted by St. Francis of Assisi who spoke of ‘Brother Son’ and ‘Sister Moon’.  For Francis the world around us is something to which we are spiritually related and which God wishes to redeem as much as he does humanity.
Such a  medieval insight may yet save not only the bumblebee but also ourselves.

Revd. Nick Davies

19 July 2009

The curate writes;  Yesterday I conducted my first two weddings,not that I told them that until it was all over!

As I prepared for these last week, I was struck by the privilege of being able to preside at such joyous occasions, the beauty of the language and how marriage stands as an enduring sign of faith, hope and love.  In stark contrast none of us could open our newspapers this week without having been struck by the grief of families affected by war, the spread of swine ‘flu and the latest figures on the state of our public finances.

It’s hard to know where these two realities meet and one wonders whether they can both be true at the same time?  In my wedding preparations, however, I found a  prayer that seemed to address this very question and which offers marriage as a sign to the world;

Almighty God, in whom we live and move and have our being,
look graciously upon the world which you have made
and for which your Son gave his life,
and especially on all whom you make to be one flesh in holy marriage. 
May their lives together be a sign of your love to this broken world,
so that unity may overcome estrangement,
forgiveness heal guilt,
and joy overcome despair;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Nick Davies

12 July 2009

When it comes to depravity and corruption you cannot sink much lower that Mr and Mrs Herod.  In the gospel reading set for this Sunday (Mark 6,14-29) we hear an unexpurgated story of an alluring teenage dancer being manipulated by her mother to have an innocent man’s head cut off and presented to the assembled  party on a platter, a story that has not only inspired low-brow retellings but also an opera by Richard Strauss using the text of a play by Oscar Wilde.
But what if this is not primarily a story about the depravity of Herod at all (which of course in one sense it is)?  What if it is really a story about John the Baptist?  Jesus once remarked that John the Baptist is really Elijah come back from the dead to continue and bring to a head his prophetic resistance to the wickedness of kings and rulers.  What if it is really a story about a hero who valued truth more even than even his own life?  A story also of his disciples who had the courage to ask for his body and declare to all the world their loyalty to the truth kept alive in his death.
What if this is really a story about John the Baptist, who is the true fore-runner of Jesus. Who even in his death continues to fore-shadow the way in which Jesus would die, unjust judicial murder in which God himself opposes and overcomes human wickedness?

Bernhard Schünemann

5 July 2009

This Sunday our curate Nick Davies is presiding for the first time at the celebration of the holy Eucharist.  A special moment for him and for us.  These two Sunday services are both ‘masses of the Holy Spirit’ hence the colours around the church are red.  We pray in thanksgiving to God who gives us “gifts of grace for every time and season” as God “guides the Church in the marvellous ways of his providence.” God’s gifts of grace, which St. Paul refers to as the fruits of the Spirit in the Letter to the Galatians, are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  It is good to think of these gifts at the beginning of a new ministry, indeed to think of them as gifts that need to be longed for and desired, to make the ministry of the church distinctive and holy.  Today we pray with him and for him that his ministry will be filled with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and that together we are led by the Spirit ‘into all truth’, the function of the Holy Spirit described especially in St John’s gospel.

Bernhard Schünemann

28 June 2009

This Sunday evening, 28th June 2009, our curate Revd Nick Davies will be ordained priest, in addition to the job-description given him at the time of his deacon’s ordination this is what the Bishop will say to him tonight by way of reminding him of the core responsibilities of a priest:

Priests are called to be servants and shepherds among the people to whom they are sent. With their Bishop and fellow ministers, they are to proclaim the word of the Lord and to watch for the signs of God’s new creation. They are to be messengers, watchmen and stewards of the Lord; they are to teach and to admonish, to feed and provide for his family, to search for his children in the wilderness of this world’s temptations, and to guide them through its confusions, that they may be saved through Christ for ever. Formed by the word, they are to call their hearers to repentance and to declare in Christ’s name the absolution and forgiveness of their sins.
With all God’s people, they are to tell the story of God’s love. They are to baptize new disciples in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and to walk with them in the way of Christ, nurturing them in the faith. They are to unfold the Scriptures, to preach the word in season and out of season, and to declare the mighty acts of God. They are to preside at the Lord’s table and lead his people in worship, offering with them a spiritual sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. They are to bless the people in God’s name. They are to resist evil, support the weak, defend the poor, and intercede for all in need. They are to minister to the sick and prepare the dying for their death. Guided by the Spirit, they are to discern and foster the gifts of all God’s people, that the whole Church may be built up in unity and faith.

Bernhard Schünemann

21 June 2009

This Sunday we are passing through the longest day of the year.  Even though June with its long days has not yet decisively provided us with much of the traditional summer weather that we like to associate with this beautiful month, nevertheless we have seen some wonderful summer days.
In Nordic Europe this season is even more pronounced because around this time the nights are very short, in fact in some regions it doesn’t get really dark at all and celebrations are held lasting all through the short – nearly non-existent – night.  And while these countries are largely Lutheran and Protestant, they have a special love for the festival of “The Birth of St John the Baptist” ,on 24th June on Wednesday this week.   This falls exactly six months away from Christmas Eve, for it says in the Bible that John the Baptist was conceived six months before Jesus (cf. Luke 1,26ff).
No one really knows what day exactly Jesus was born, we only know for certain that he was born, and that it was around the year zero.  The exact day of John the Baptist’s birth is therefore equally uncertain.  But I am glad that we have certain days on which we celebrate these great Christian events, even if they have become linked to the heathen winter and summer solstice.  It is with these festivals as it is with our faith: we need to link what we know with what we believe.  Our faith is grounded in the certain knowledge of Jesus walking upon this earth and we know that his most important and earliest witness John the Baptist pointed to him as our saviour.  Our faith is grounded in this fact of history, but it comes to life through what God helps us to believe: that Christ died for us so that we can have eternal life.

Bernhard Schünemann

14 June 2009

This last week the Church celebrated ‘Corpus Christi’, a day of thanksgiving for Holy Communion.  As I approach presiding at my own first Mass, it is a sacrament that I have been reflecting on much recently.
Down the centuries, the Church of England has not wanted to restrict believers to one interpretation.  Indeed, our differing words for the sacrament witness to its richness of meaning.  For some it is the ‘Lord’s Supper’- a memorial of Jesus’ Last Supper with the disciples, for others it is ‘Holy Communion’- a place where we meet God in a very special way, others use the term ‘Eucharist’- a word that comes from the Greek for thanksgiving, and still others use the Word ‘Mass’- from the Latin words at the end of the service which sends us out into the world.
In a typically diplomatic observation Elizabeth I famously said, “His was the word that spake it, He took the bread and brake it; and what His word doth make it, that I do believe and take it.”  In many ways each of these understandings have something to offer us as we hear of Christ’s actions of taking bread, blessing it, breaking it and giving it to his disciples.
Like me, you too may have had moments at the altar rail that have been particularly powerful yet which you struggle to define.  And so, as we mark Corpus Christi , I would not worry too much about exact definitions but would commend to you the advice of Cyril of Jerusalem (c.350AD) who encouraged communicants to, “Make your left hand as a throne for your right hand, as you prepare to receive a King.”

Nick Davies (Curate)

7th June 2009

Stephen is the first Christian Martyr, to whom this church is dedicated and whose life, work and memory we cherish especially today.  The fresco by Sir Alfred Poynter on the chancel wall depicts the trial and the stoning of this saint.  It’s both colourful and thought provoking.  The rich blues, the depth and strength of the scene together with the animated facial expressions make it feel as if one’s actually present at both these significant events.  The very heart of the picture rests on the undiminished profundity of Stephen’s Christian faith as he endures verbal insults and physical, fatal, cruelty.
We see Stephen’s absolute certainty of God’s heavenly presence with “the Son of Man seated on his right” firmly fixed in his mind and heart.  Our Patronal Festival is a special time of celebration and thanksgiving.  We celebrate the life of all who share in the spiritual, earthly and heavenly well-being of this house of God. The people, the parish and all who help to make up the fabric of our faith-built lives. We give thanks for the inspiration and prayers of those who passed this way before us, for those of the present day, together with all those of the future.
There are many saints on earth as we travel our lives.  People who, like Stephen, are examples for us to respect and follow.  Do we recognise them?  Do we draw some ideals and hopes from any we meet on our daily path?  Perhaps if we pause, ponder and pray we might be able to identify one – maybe more than one.
In our fresco Stephen wears a gold dalmatic lined with a rich blue material. Today all Church of England Readers wear a scarf of that same blue. In May 1969 – 40 years ago – canon law welcomed women into this ministry and the black scarf worn by all Readers, men only, was changed to blue.  Our preacher today wears the blue scarf.

Trot Lavelle, Reader

31 May 2009

Apart from fire and water, it is a bird, and more particularly a dove that is used in the Bible and in Christian art to represent the Holy Spirit of God.  It all stems from the very good press that doves and pigeons have in the Old Testament.  God’s creative power is said to hover over the chaos of the world like a bird during the earliest moments of creation (Genesis 1,2).  Doves are reliable and deeply loyal in their long flight patterns: Noah famously used two of them in determining whether God’s flood was finally receding (Genesis 8,6ff), the dove here becoming the bringer of hope and new life.
 Doves can be symbols of our longing to be close to God: O that I had the wings of a dove (Ps 55,7), and they inspire meditations on beauty, elegance and faithfulness: most often in this context it is mentioned in the wonderful Song of Songs (e.g. 1,15 & 6,9).  Job names his daughter Jamimah (Hebrew for ‘dove’ and not ‘puddle-duck’!, Job 42,14) full of promise and hope.
 The noise they make is often compared to the lamentation on the human condition.  They are symbols of innocence (Matthew 10,16) and finally their image is used to describe the descent of the Holy Spirit on Jesus at the time of his baptism in the Jordan.  The Holy Spirit will never be contained in just one image, but the image of the dove is certainly a good place to start.

Bernhard Schünemann

24 May 2009

Pussy cat, pussy cat where have you been?
I’ve been to London to visit the Queen.
Pussy cat, pussy cat what did you there?
I frightened a little mouse under the chair!

The implication in this nursery-rhyme is that the cat, despite his adventurous excursion, remained preoccupied with the usual cat routines of life, and so failed to glimpse the sight of majestic glory that had been the object of his journey.
He failed to look up beyond the level of the skirting board.  At Ascension tide we are invited to glimpse the whole of the ‘Christ experience’ in one majestic moment.  The ascension holds together everything about Jesus Christ: his becoming human at Christmas, his human suffering on Good Friday, his wonderful and mysterious resurrection and his being lifted up to sit beside God his father.
Our humanity, taken by Christ at his birth in Bethlehem, is now deeply within God.  Jesus’ earthly ministry is no longer limited to the first half of the first century, it is now available to all people in every place and in every age.  The cat may after all have looked in the right place, but may have just missed something.  In Luke’s gospel the disciples are told to stop gazing into an empty sky but to look around them for the evidence of Christ’s glory, the world around us is redolent with Christ’s glory, let us take another look.
On Thursday this week we celebrate Christ’s Ascension.

Bernhard Schünemann

(after an idea by Christopher Irvine)

17 May 2009

The oil of gladness                                                                                                                            
As we are all waiting to celebrate the great festival day of Pentecost in two weeks or so, six of us are being confirmed this evening by our diocesan Bishop at our neighbouring church of St Barnabas.  The Bishop will address each of our candidates by name and will confirm them with the words ‘Confirm O Lord your servant with your Holy Spirit.’ and after this the Bishop will use the oil of ‘chrism’ and he will anoint our candidates, making the sign of the cross on their foreheads.  At that moment our candidates will become followers of Christ in a very special way, because ‘Christ’ means nothing other than ‘anointed one’ (in Hebrew ‘mishchah’ meaning smearing or anointing gave rise to the word ‘Messiah’).  In general in the Old Testament oil is seen as a source of strength, vitality and life, and in particular, already in those days, those who were anointed had created for them an intimate relationship with God and they were brought into the divine sphere of holiness.  Whether we use holy oils for healing (as we will do at our healing service on Pentecost Sunday) orwhether we use it at important junctures in our lives (such as baptism and confirmation), at all times it serves as a real sign that God’s Holy Spirit is at work in us, bringing us into the sphere of God and giving us joy and gladness in our faith.

Bernhard Schünemann

10 May 2009

Christian Aid Week
This year images of the refugees from the conflict in Sri Lanka are on our television screens and Christian Aid Week gives us an opportunity to not only help them but millions like them around the world.  Those donations may help communities recovering from an emergency or might enable training for people to learn new skills.  Elsewhere donations might provide loans to enable people to start small businesses.  Whatever the project, Christian Aid provides small scale aid, delivered through local partners which gives communities a leg-up, rather than a hand out
As we continue to celebrate Easter, however, Christian Aid Week can be seen in another context as well.  As we are hearing in our readings and sermons, Easter is a proclamation that life is stronger than death, that hope conquers cruelty and injustice and that despite the inequalities and injustices of this world God has already proclaimed the victory of love in the resurrection of Christ.
Now if you have been out collecting, that may seem a long way from red envelopes, lame excuses on the doorstep and the bark of a large sounding dog the other side of the letterbox.  But Christian Aid Week is part of our Easter proclamation to our local community.
So this Christian Aid Week, whether you are collecting, sponsoring or filling an envelop yourself (with some foldable generosity!) it is worth remembering the Easter blessing;

May the light of Christ,
Rising in glory,
dispel the darkness of our hearts and minds.
Amen.

Revd. Nick Davies

3 May 2009

In His Love our life is everlasting – Julian of Norwich a saint for Easter.
Norwich is a great Cathedral City, but if you choose to walk a little away from the magnificent cathedral and town centre through a derelict area of decaying industrial buildings, you will find a small church.  It has a simple room attached.  It is a place of deep and prayerful holiness.  Every day a few pilgrims come and sit and pray in this small side chapel.  A sign on the wall tells us that it is the cell where Julian of Norwich lived her life as an anchoress, her day falls on Friday this week.

“From this place Dame Julian enriched the world by her writings.  Her book ‘The Revelations of Divine Love’ sets out the meaning of visions she had received on May 8th 1375.  From the window of her cell, too, she gave counsel and comfort to the burdened and perplexed.”
In this holy place we can almost hear her saying: “God said not ‘Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be afflicted’, but ‘ thou shalt not be overcome’.”  Another of her beautiful sayings is “Our falling hindereth him not to love us.”  She had found that truly the key to all religious experience is this – “Love was his meaning – I saw full clearly that ere God made us he loved us; which love was never slacked, nor ever shall be.  And in this love our life is everlasting”.
Julian’s fourteenth century world was as marked by aggression, insecurity and change as is ours today.  Her most famous words – born of intense personal suffering – “All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well” are as needed and as true now as when she wrote them.
Go on your way rejoicing: “live gladly and gaily because of His Love”.

Bernhard Schünemann

26 April 2009

As the presence of the cubs at our 10.00 service this morning reminds us, we have just celebrated St. George’s Day.

It is a day which seems to be having something of a resurgence recently with the Archbishop of York being amongst others encouraging us to be proud of our patron saint, our British identity and the riches of our culture.

If, however, you imagine St. George as some flaxen haired Anglo-Saxon knight, you would be sadly mistaken.  He was a soldier  however, according to legend, he was a Roman who lived in Palestine and was martyred following his conversion to Christianity in 304.  A fate that was feared by many early Christian converts.

He became known in the East as ‘The Great Martyr’ and I have worshipped in Churches named after him in Jerusalem and Addis Ababa, as well as Windsor!  So why the interest in our own country?  Whilst St. George was known in Britain before the Norman conquest, it seems to be the tales of knights returning from the Crusades that really led to his popularity.  Indeed he soon became linked to the Order of the Garter and our patron saint.  Not that we have a monopoly on him, he is also patron saint of Russia, Palestine, Ethiopia and Greece.

As part of the celebrations last week, I was delighted to receive an email offering me a free pint of Bombardier Ale at the Dulwich Wood House.  If you were not so fortunate, why not raise a glass to him today?  St. George, soldier, martyr and a very well-travelled patron saint.

Revd. Nick Davies

12 and 19 April 2009

The empty tomb, the empty grave of Jesus, though recorded in all the gospels, was not the thing which gave the disciples faith in the resurrection of Jesus.  We may regard the empty grave as an important fact, and journalists tease us by reducing the question of the resurrection to questions about the empty grave, but this fact alone did not satisfy the friends of Jesus.
In all the stories we hear, the empty grave only served to deepen the sadness and the despondency of the disciples.  Their faith had gone cold, all that they could share was disappointment and memory.  The walk by ‘two of them’ to Emmaus is particularly instructive in this respect (Luke 24,13-35).  They had set out with a heavy heart and with dragging feet and they came back skipping and running, full of the exciting and good news of the resurrection.  What had happened to them along the way?  They had encountered Christ without knowing it at the time.  “Were not our hearts burning, as we talked with the stranger?”  They did not recognise him, but they were met by him and comforted by him and he left them with their hearts burning.
That is New Testament faith in the resurrection: being met by the risen Christ and being accompanied by him in our journey of faith.  We may not know it at the time, but our hearts may be set on fire and we will be comforted.

Or as TS Eliot puts it in his poem the Wasteland:

Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead, up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you,
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
–But who is that on the other side of you?

Bernhard Schünemann

5 April 2009

Last week I attended a lecture at St. Paul’s Cathedral entitled, ‘My word is my bond’, Rebuilding trust- the G20 and beyond.  The unconfirmed speakers turned out to be Gordon Brown and his Australian opposite number, Kevin Rudd.

Ahead of the G20 summit, they spoke of the current financial, environmental, developmental and security crises which we face.  Gordon Brown suggested that these crises require a joint international response, based upon shared global values of care for others.  Kevin Rudd went on to speak of the need to build an economic system which all can trust; a system which encourages each and cares for all.

The lecture was held on Tuesday, the same day as the memorial to my ecclesiastical hero John Donne who was, of course, a Dean of St. Paul’s and is buried there.  As I listened to the speakers and their hopes for the summit, I couldn’t help feeling that John Donne, though long dead, might well have made a good third member of the panel…

“No man is an island,  entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were;  any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

Devotions upon emergent occasions. Meditation XVII

Revd Nick Davies

29 March 2009

This extraordinary small medieval painted wooden panel hangs in the Birmingham Art Gallery.  It’s anonymous painter conveys in visual terms what is almost inexpressible in words: how on earth is it that through the suffering of Christ we can live in peace, harmony and joy.

Jesus stands in the dark space created by the curtains held open for him.  The curtains represent the stuffy divisions between creature and creator which are healed by his wounds.  But the angels are not just holding curtains they are holding a sword and a lily respectively, the symbols of mercy and justice, two essentials of salvation that can only be held together by Jesus.   In the centre of the picture Jesus himself graphically showing his wounds, but intriguingly where is his pleading gaze directed, is it at us or is it at the one he calls his father?

Bernhard Schünemann

22 March 2009 - Mothering Sunday

Although Jesus was a man and he was not married, he knew how central ‘motherhood’ was toeverything that he stands for.  He uses the image of a mother hen gathering her chicks protectively around her (Luke 13,33 ff) as an expression of his longing for protection of the church.  But, perhaps most remarkably of all, he extends the concept of ‘mother and childhood’ beyond the natural bonds of a family.

For him, the church, the community of believers, can and must be distinguished by the tenderness of relations normally associated with those between a mother and child.  That seems to be behind his remarkable words from the cross when he entrusts his relationship with his own mother to his beloved disciple (John 19,27).  In his dying he bestows this grace on the new family of the church.  If you look carefully at paintings of the crucifixion you will often find these two figures huddled together under the cross, just very occasionally holding hands with the stem of the cross between them and Jesus looking down on them.  Motherhood whether metaphorically or actual, is central to our faith.

(illustration by Elo Allik-Schünemann)
Bernhard Schünemann

15 March 2009

In case you failed to switch on your TV, go to the supermarket or open a newspaper last week we have just marked Red Nose Day.

This ancient feast of the Church, began in Alexandria in the 3rd. century with Bishops blessing all those who had red noses.  OK- so that bit isn’t true but Red Nose Day and other charitable activities do have some strong roots in the Christian faith.

From the Good Samaritan onwards, it is clear that helping others is a key part of our faith.  Indeed down the centuries, inspired by love or ‘caritas’ Christians have set-up many charities.  We often forget that until the advent of the welfare state many social services in this country were Church-run initiatives.  So it was fitting that our very own youth club, ‘Da best of da best’ chose to celebrate Red Nose Day last week.

We raised money at school, bought ourselves Red Noses, went swimming in pyjamas and as the slogan suggests we all did ‘something funny for money’.  Now you may not have wanted to make a fool of yourself on Friday and may now feel a little left out from the fun.  But do not despair because this morning we are hoping to raise even more money by our young people taking a retiring collection at the main door (and at the door to the Hall!)

So dig deep and see what you can do.  Go on, just for a laugh!

Nick Davies & Youth Club

8 March 2009

Travellers’ tales

Every life is a journey, but when you’re diagnosed with a serious illness, it’s as if you start on a quite different journey – to places where God is perhaps the only guide you can trust.
Being on this road sometimes encourages travellers to create their own milestones: remember Jane Tomlinson, who ran marathons and even cycled across the USA to raise funds for charity; or Maggie Keswick Jencks who saw a need for places of healing and sanctuary, leading to the wonderful Maggie’s Centres.
You will all know of someone who has done something special. Others just quietly get on with their lives. I’m never going to be a runner, or cyclist or designer of buildings. But I did want to write about my travels, to share some of these new and surprising experiences. Or to put it another way, to leave a few footprints in the sand. ß

Journeywoman

I hadn’t planned to go travelling
when – without warning – they sent me
on a journey to a land with no maps.
Sometimes I go on foot, climbing
slow stairs to the top of towers.
On other days I find myself blurring
through stations with unreadable names.

The lack of a guidebook disturbs me
at first. I want to know my destination,
time of arrival, will there be a bed?
But I’ve grown to like the unexpected:
a butterfly resting on a blue-painted door,
a walk on sand and seagrass.
Once I saw an eagle soar.

Alison Michell - March 2009

1 March 2009

This Lent our two Archbishops have asked us to focus our Lenten prayers on the desperate situation in Zimbabwe and our own Bishop together with other UK church leaders has published some penitential ‘prayers in a crisis’ that are suitable for use during the recession that is now beginning to affect so many people around us.

God of forgiveness
have mercy on us
as in dust and ashes we repent
of our misuse of money
and our distorted relationship with it
We admit our share in the blame
we place on others for the crisis we are in.
We confess our love of money
which we knew was the root of all evil.
We regret the debt into which we have entered
rather than the debt we owe to you.
in your mercy hear us;
in your love save us;
by your grace enable us to live differently;
for Jesus’ sake.
Amen.

God of plenty
you have provided so much for us
yet we have sought so much more for ourselves.
We have trusted in treasure on earth
when you have given us treasure in heaven.
We have built on sand
when we should have built on rock.
Open our eyes to recognise
what is of true and lasting value
and help us to invest
all we have and all we are
where true riches are to be found;
in Jesus’ name.
Amen.

God of compassion
your son worked in the carpenter’s shop
and moved among working men and women.
Strengthen those who have no work
those who have lost their job
those for whom the future of work seems uncertain.
Sustain their families
restore their dignity
and give them hope
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

22 February 2009

This week sees the beginning of Fairtrade Fortnight – an annual opportunity to draw attention to the need to pay farmers in the developing world a fair price, for a fair day’s work.  Through my previous jobs with Christian Aid and Save the Children, I have been able to see the very real difference this has made to people’s lives around the world.  On a trip to Nicaragua I met coffee growers who sell beans to Café Direct and have now built a school and a hospital from the money their co-operative has saved.

Over the last twenty years, fairtrade has come a long way.  From the early days of coffee that seemed a bold blend of sawdust and caffeine, we now have high quality honey, bananas, wine and cotton all bearing the fairtrade mark and gracing the shelves of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and others.  Indeed fairtrade sales in the UK now stand at over £492m. and are doubling every two years. The Bible probably ought to carry a Fairtrade mark as it has a lot to say on the matter.  Leviticus demands fairness in the marketplace from those who wish to live righteously before God.  Meanwhile, prophets like Micah scold those who cheat the poor; “Am I still to forget, O wicked house, your ill-gotten treasures and the short measure, which is accursed? Shall I acquit a man with dishonest scales, with a bag of false weights?”

With the downturn in the global economy, this fair-trade fortnight is perhaps more important than ever.  Indeed if (like me) you struggle to give-up things in Lent, why not try a different challenge and see how many fairtrade goods you can include in your weekly shop?  For more information visit: www.fairtrade.org.uk

Reverend Nick Davies. Curate

15 February 2009

“And now the soap”

These were the words my four year old brother piped up with at the very moment when the church was at its quietest just after the priest had baptised me.  This is somewhat reminiscent of the remark Peter is said to have made when Jesus wanted to wash his feet “Lord not my feet only but also my hands and my head”.  ’Out of the mouths of very babes and sucklings’  (Psalm 8,2 quoted by Jesus in Matthew 21,16) perhaps, full of wisdom and insight certainly.

Being washed of one’s sin alongside the symbolism of dying and rising with Christ are powerful components in the meaning of Holy Baptism.  Baptism is first and foremost a gift to us from God administered by the Church.  But in handing over this gift, even the Church does not necessarily know the whole story.  It is the recipient of baptism who has the opportunity to discover what exactly this gift entails.  Like any gift it takes a moment to unwrap and a few moments more to discover how to play with it. It is in the nature of a gift given freely that it may end up being discarded or unused.

God in giving us this greatest of all gifts makes himself vulnerable to our rejection.  For these reasons alone I remain firmly committed to the practice of infant baptism.  And that is why we are so very moved today as Emma-Jane and Dean bring their little baby Luke for Holy Baptism to this church during our main parish eucharist.

Bernhard Schünemann

1 February 2009

Last week I had the opportunity to spend a couple of days at a Benedictine retreat house at Alton.  It was a refreshing time and the gentle rhythm of prayer, work and study is a helpful corrective to my inclination to rush from one thing to the next.

In recent years there has been increasing interest in what such communities have to offer to those of us in the wider world and the recent Worth Abbey documentary did much to raise the profile of monastic spirituality.  Many such communities have associations of those living everyday lives but who seek to live out something of that spirituality in the midst of the world. Such associations go under various names including ‘Companions’, ‘Oblates’ or a ‘Third Order’.

I am a member of one such association, as a Companion of the Society of St. Francis. When I joined I was encouraged to develop a ‘Rule of Life’.  Such rules address areas such as prayer life, going on retreat, living simply, time for relationships and limits to work.  Set at the level of what seems realistic, such a rule is meant to aid a balanced life rather than add to the ‘to do’ list!

If you are curious to know more, I can recommend two very readable books; ‘Franciscan Spirituality’ by Brother Ramon and the Benedictine ‘Finding Sanctuary’ by Abbot Christopher Jamison.  Alternatively, a day trip to Alton can let you experience it all first hand! (www.altonabbey.org.uk)

Nick Davies – Curate

25 January 2009

25 January the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul.

St Paul is a very special Saint.  He is so special that he doesn’t actually get a day for himself in the calendar of Saints.  He has to share one with his great fellow saint St Peter, with whom he  not always got on well during his lifetime, and that is putting it mildly, they fought hammer and tongs for the heart and soul of their faith.

Paul also gets remembered on this day (25 January), when we specifically remember just one split second of his life-time: his conversion.  This ‘conversion’ was not only spectacular, but also perhaps the most important event in Christian history after the resurrection of Christ.  Paul suddenly became a Christian after he had been haranguing, killing and persecuting those very early Christian groups that had formed around the friends of Jesus.

Paul did not only become a Christian, he became a most important leader in the early Christian church.  It was his vision, and he fought for it tooth and nail, that the Christian faith should become available literally to ‘all nations’,  to all classes, to all races and – most surprisingly for his time – to all genders.  He wanted the Christian Church to turn from being a mutual support society for like-minded people to being an international force for salvation for the whole world.  Naturally such a radical vision unsettled many and it caused deep division amongst Christians.  But in causing all this division for the sake of truth, Paul also pointed us to the way in which unity might one day be achieved.

He gave us the picture of the Christian Church as Christ’s body, with different parts having different functions but being dependent on one another.  The only thing that really matters in Christian Unity is that Christ is at the centre and as we draw closer to him, we draw closer to one another.

Bernhard Schünemann

18 January 2009

Week of prayer for Christian unity.

Most Christians would agree on a lot of things.  They agree, for example, that unity amongst them is an absolutely necessary sign of God’s work amongst them.  Jesus prayed for it, God works for it and we hope for it.  Many would also say that much unity between the different Christian churches has already been achieved, and that going any further in the direction of organic unity would take so much energy that the churches’ other main tasks would have to be neglected: the task of making new Christians, the task of healing, the task of working towards the spreading of God’s justice.  Some might say that the only differences remaining are healthy and competitive differences: differences of tradition, practice, style and taste, not fundamental differences of the teachings about Christ, God and the Spirit.

The leaders of our churches seem to have done all they can, the final push for unity is not going to be attempted by them.  The only progress that can be made is by church members: pushing at half opened doors, asking awkward questions, networking amongst themselves across denominational boundaries, praying and celebrating their common faith together.

During this week of prayer for Christian Unity we join Jesus on his knees, but gazing into heaven and praying that we may all be one!

- stop press -

On Tuesday this week (20 January) the new American President Barak Obama will be sworn in.  The controversial Anglican Bishop Gene Robinson has been asked to say the prayers, we will join them both and pray that in the years to come ugly divisions in our broken world may be overcome by God’s healing power.

Bernhard Schünemann

11 January 2009

Well done!  You have got to the end of what is apparently the most depressing week of the year.  A week that has the combined gloom of taking down Christmas decorations, struggling back to work and generally coming to terms with the new year.

In our worshipping life we are also changing gear this week, as we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany.

Today marks the beginning of four Sundays which focus on the manifestation of Christ and give us an opportunity to explore the universal implications of Christmas.  It is as if Christmas is so big that it takes us a while to come to terms with it all.

This week we hear the story of the wise men, as Christ is revealed to the nations.  This is followed over the next few Sundays by Christ’s revelation as the Son of God in his Baptism, his call to the first disciples and his first miracle at the wedding at Cana.

As our own lives get back to normal (and we work out where the pot plants went before the Christmas tree arrived) Epiphany also allows us a time of spiritual transition.  It is an opportunity to make connections between our work-a-day lives and the good news of Christmas.

So although we have put the decorations away, the Christmas theme continues.  Indeed, the season of Epiphany give us a chance to let the message of Christmas sink in and to ask ourselves ‘what has changed?’

Nick Davies. Curate

25 December 2008

It was Christmas day. The rush of services in the church had died down, the church was quiet and it smelled of candles that had just been blown out. The Vicar was in the sacristy clearing away the vestments and filling in the service registers. It was then that he heard footsteps in the church.  These were the footsteps of a five year old girl. With great determination the girl was heading for the crib. She looked at the Christ child for a moment and then proceeded to take him out and slip him delicately into her jacket pocket.

The Vicar resisted the temptation to step out and prevent the girl from leaving, reflecting briefly that this did not look like malicious theft.  He followed the girl out of the church.  Outside the girl mounted her scooter and started to scoot around the church.  Not once, not twice but three times did he see the girl scooter around the church and with great gusto.  After that the girl parked her scooter at the door, went back into the church and stood before the crib. She took the baby Jesus out of her jacket pocket and with great tenderness placed him back in the crib, making sure that he was positioned comfortably in the straw and replacing the piece of torn sacking to cover him for warmth.

It was then that the Vicar stepped out of the shadows and asked the girl what she was doing.  The girl was not in the least bit surprised to be confronted. ‘I had promised him that if I got a scooter for Christmas I would give him a ride on it, and promises are there to be kept!’  ‘That is true,’ said the Vicar quietly as girl scooted away, full of joy about the promise that had been kept.

Christmas is a time of expectations, wishes, desires and promises, a time teetering on the thin edge between the joy and pain of this world.  Children especially expect many hopes to be fulfilled.  For some it is a new scooter or a new bicycle.  For others it is perhaps a visit or some attention that we have long promised and that we make a special effort to give.  We need such periods in our lives. We cannot constantly rush around always giving attention to urgent matters and never to the important ones.  The wonderful thing about Christmas is that at one point the rushing stops and the holidays start. It is at these moments that life can be surprisingly empty, because we are just not used to giving attention to the joy that the promise of Christmas holds.

For Christians this festival is the celebration that God himself kept his promise, the promise of his own presence in the misery and the joy of his creation.  In the Bible there is a story about Simeon who also took the baby Jesus in his hands, just like the girl in my story above, and he looked him in the eyes and he said: Now I can depart in peace, I have seen the salvation of the world so beloved by God’ (Luke 2).  Peace is the great promise of Christmas.  This year I would like to take this opportunity to wish you a peaceful Christmas.

Revd Bernhard Schunemann – Vicar of St Stephen’s Church, December 2008

21 December 2008

On the fourth Sunday of Advent we traditionally remember the role of Mary in the incarnation. In honour of this, some Churches light a rose coloured advent candle and wear rose coloured vestments.

For well trained protestants such practices can be a step too far.  Formed as we are by inherited memories of the Reformation, the English have an in-built suspicion of any focus on Mary.

Well sorry – but without Mary, Christmas would be cancelled.  Indeed this is a good day to reflect on the fact that God chose to be born in this way and that Mary chose to say yes to the angel.  This biblical witness was studied by the early Councils of the Church which saw the role of Mary as ‘Theotokos’ the one who gave birth to God.  And that is a role in our salvation that it is worth pondering.

But if this still sounds all too continental for you, let me leave you with some words from a very English poet and priest (and personal hero of mine) John Donne.  In his second Holy Sonnet he addresses Mary and reflects on the paradox of such a birth for the creator of the heavens;

“Ere by the spheres time was created, thou

Wast in his mind, who is thy son, and brother,

Whom thou conceiv’st, conceived; yea thou art now

Thy maker’s maker, and thy Father’s mother,

Thou hast light in dark; and shutt’st in little room,

Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb.”

Nick Davies – Curate

14 December 2008

Celebrating Advent means learning how to wait. Waiting is an art which our impatient age has forgotten. We want to pluck the fruit before it has had time to ripen. Greedy eyes are soon disappointed when what they saw as luscious fruit is sour to the taste. In disappointment and disgust they throw it away. The fruit, full of promise, rots on the ground. It is rejected without thanks by disappointed hands.

The blessedness of waiting is lost on those who cannot wait, and the fulfilment of the promise is never theirs…

Who has not felt the anxieties of waiting for the declaration of friendship or love? The greatest, the deepest, the most tender experiences in all the world demand patient waiting…

Not all can wait—certainly not those who are satisfied, contented, and feel that they live in the best of all possible worlds! Those who learn to wait are uneasy about their way of life, but yet have seen a vision of greatness in the world of the future and are patiently expecting its fulfilment. The celebration of Advent is only possible to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, murdered at Flossenburg concentration camp 9 April 1945

7 December 2008

What are we waiting for?

Advent is a time of waiting, but waiting for what?  Sometimes one feels that one’s whole life is spent waiting in one way or another: waiting to grow up, waiting to leave home, waiting to find a job, waiting to fall in love, waiting to have children, waiting to have enough money to go on a decent holiday, waiting to get over a long illness or a bereavement, waiting just to feel a bit better, and finally waiting to die.  Is waiting for Christ’s ‘appearance’ in Advent like that?

Yes and no.  Yes, because somewhere deep in us is a wellspring of desire that seems to motivate all the other, nagging, wants we have and that only Christ can fill; so that all the restlessness we feel in the other longings is underneath a terrible yearning for the One ‘in whom all our desires are satisfied’ – the human face of God.  But no, too, because this waiting isn’t like the endlessly disappointed gratification of the other longings:  He is always on offer, always pressing on us from unexpected quarters, but – as Jesus puts it intriguingly – always too ‘coming at an unexpected hour’.  Advent then isn’t just waiting (in the ordinary sense) for Christmas; it’s a preparation of a different order – an invitation to look at all our ‘waitings’ and wonder at what desire finally propels them all.  If it is truly Christ that we long for, then He is already standing at the door.  Our task, and prayer, is to welcome Him, to invite Him in.

Revd Sarah Coakley, Professor of Theology, Cambridge

30 November 2008

If you were left in a room with a plate of marshmallows and asked not to touch them, what would you do?  I know my answer.

Apparently this was a serious experiment conducted with children in the 1960s.  Tracking them in later life, scientists concluded that those who could wait turned out to be more successful.  Well now we have a similar experiment, right here in Church.

Sorry, there are no marshmallows- but I can offer you the season of advent which starts today.  Advent invites us to wait, before we enjoy the celebration of Christmas.  Looking down the high street or flicking through our own diaries may make this seem a forlorn hope.

Despite this background noise, however, Advent demands patience;  patience to wait for the coming of Christ at Christmas and patience to wait for his return at the end of time and the ultimate fulfilment of the Kingdom of Heaven.

I have never been very good at waiting but according to one new book, it is an important Christian virtue.  ‘The meaning is in the waiting’, says Paula Gooder in her book of the same name, containing daily reflections for advent.  Through such active waiting, she suggests that we can learn to savour the present moment, to recollect God’s promises from the past and to yearn for their ultimate fulfilment in the future.

As a gentle chant from the Taizé community puts it:  “Wait for the Lord, whose day is near, wait for the Lord, keep watch, take heart!

Nick Davies – Curate

23 November 2008

This Sunday, the last Sunday of the Christian year, we meet Jesus as Christ our king, ruler over all things earthly and heavenly.

In western Christianity we have not really known what to do with this image of Christ as king, but in the orthodox churches of the east, the icon of Christ the Pantocrator (ruler over all things) is one of the key images through which Christ is known.  In this depiction Christ holds the book of the Gospels in his left hand and blesses with his right hand.

The icon (Pantocrator of Sinai) portrays Christ as the Righteous Judge and the Lover of Mankind, both at the same time. The Gospel is the book by which we are judged, and the blessing proclaims God’s loving kindness toward us, showing us that he is giving us his forgiveness.

Although ruler of all, Christ is not pictured with a crown or sceptre as other kings of this world. The large open eyes look directly into the soul of the viewer. The high curved forehead shows wisdom. The long slender nose is a look of nobility, the small closed mouth, the silence of contemplation.

The oldest known Pantocrator icon is preserved from the sixth century. It is used and kept in the monastery of St. Catherine in the Sinai desert.   Icons from this location are currently on show in the Royal Academy of Arts Byzantine exhibition.

- Bernhard Schunemann

16 November 2008

Once upon a time there was an Abbot of a monastery.  This Abbot was becoming a bit disheartened about the state of his monastery.  Major repairs were needed, the place could do with being painted, the gardens were not tended very beautifully, and, what was the worst of it, some of the monks were beginning to drift away.

The Abbot decided to go into the nearest town to consult with some of the other religious leaders in the town. He knocked on the Rabbi’s door, and when the Rabbi saw the disconsolate and sorrowful figure on his doorstep he asked him in and gave him a cup of tea.  The Abbot began to tell him all his worries, he painted a gloomy picture of his monastery, and when he had finished he was hoping very much that the Rabbi could give him some advice.  But the Rabbi remained silent.  Finally the Abbot asked him, ‘haven’t you got any ideas of how one could get some new energy into that old monastery of mine?’  And the Rabbi shook his head and confessed to him that he had no idea at all.  Just as he was leaving the Rabbi said, ‘there is just one thing, I have heard that the Messiah has re-appeared in your monastery’.

When the Abbot got back all the monks were waiting whether he was coming back with some new ideas.  But he told them that no one had had any ideas.  Only an old Rabbi had told him that he had heard that the Messiah had come back and was to be found in our monastery.  The monks were mystified, and each one began to reflect about the monk next to them.  They began to take notice of each other.  Was it old brother Abelard? or, was it our Father Abbot, he is not particularly dynamic, but he has served us pretty well all these years.  Slowly and surely the place began to wake up: monks were listening to each other.  Some of the younger monks, who had left, were coming back.  And bit by bit the place started thriving again.

- Bernhard Schünemann (word of mouth story)

9 November 2008

In my day, we as children used to chant remember remember the fifth of November of gunpowder treason and plot.  We were chanting something which meant little to us, of a plot to destroy the king and parliament hundreds of years before we were born.

Today, we remember those who died in two world wars – some 90 and 69 years ago long before some of us were born.  So today we must now think and remember of those who died in the Falklands and of those who have died and indeed are still dying in Afghanistan and Iraq.  We should remember, not only our gallant and courageous troops but also those innocent civilians, men, women and children who have been caught up in the conflicts.

My outstanding memory is the awful sight as, standing on the top of my tank I clanked my way into Hamburg in 1945.  The sight of wretched ragged figures emerging from holes in the ground and the sight of a city reduced to piles of rubble – a wilderness – a scene of destruction such as I had never before seen. Thus, this year let us remember, not only those soldiers of 1914/1918 and 1935/1945, but the soldiers of more recent and living memory and all the civilians who have died as a result of war.

- George Key – 9 November 2008

2 November 2008

Today is Bible Sunday. This year, it has coincidedwith the Bible Society’s translation of the Bible into Caribbean patois.

Whilst some traditionalists may disapprove one local pastor, on hearing the story of the stilling of the storm, said “I can see it! For the first time, I can see it! It was like I was there.” See if you can follow this famous passage…

“Di man se, ‘Lov di Laad Yu Gad wid aal yu aat, yu suol, schrent an main, an lov yu nieba laik ou yu lov yuself.”

Reading the Bible is a central part of our Christian life- or it should be. We all have Bibles, we hear Scripture read on Sunday but how much it informs our lives is another matter. We read so much each week; books, papers, adverts, magazines, documents for work but how often do we sit down to read our Bible?

Well, help is at hand with a new pocket size set of Bible notes written by mainstream Anglicans which is accessible and has reflections for daily prayer. All suitable for reading while commuting or for your post-school run moment of calm. ‘Reflections for Daily Prayer’ is published by Church House Publishing (020 7898 1451) and costs just £3.99. I have put some copies on the bookshelf by the Church door. Do have a look and perhaps buy a copy for the weeks leading up to Christmas.

St. Jerome, who first translated he Bible into Latin put it this way: “I beg you, my dearest brothers, to live among these sacred books, to meditate on them, to know nothing else, to seek nothing else. Does it not seem to you to be a little bit of heaven here on earth?”

- Nick Davies, Curate

26 October 2008

Almost anything that can be said about prayer can sound pious or it can fill us with guilt. But ultimately we learn about prayer only through experience and sometimes from the experience of others. As we can see from the words below (quoted anonymously in the Oxford Book of Prayer) even the word “I” can be a good word to use in prayer:

I asked for strength that I might achieve;
I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health that I might do greater things;
I was given infirmity that I might do better things;
I asked for riches that I might be happy;
I was given poverty that I might be wise.
I asked for power that I might have the praise of men;
I was given weakness that I might feel my need of God.
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life;
I was given life that might enjoy all things.
I received nothing that I asked for;
But everything that I had hoped for.
Almost despite myself my unspoken prayers were answered;
I am, amongst all men, most richly blessed.

- Bernhard Schünemann

19 October 2008

This week the Church remembers several important ‘martyrs’ amongst them Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer. They were both Bishops, important figures in the English reformation and ultimately victims of it’s tumultuous politics.

Their legacy to the English Church is significant. Ridley was Chaplain to Cranmer when he was Archbishop of Canterbury and had an important influence on the Book of Common Prayer. Meanwhile, Latimer was a great preacher and eventually became Bishop of Worcester.

Eventually, when Mary Tudor came to the throne and restored Roman Catholicism, both Ridley and Latimer were burned at the stake in Oxford. According to tradition the older Latimer cried out to Ridley as the flames grew higher, “Be of good comfort master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace in England, as I trust shall never be put out.” Over four hundred years on, it seems his final wish was granted.

Today, we understand martyrs to be those who have died for their faith or for a cause. Interestingly, the ancient Greek word, ‘martyros’ refers to ‘a witness’. It was only later within the life of the persecuted early Church that it became clear that to be such a witness sometimes called for the ultimate sacrifice.

St. Paul tells us that we must all stand ready to give an account of what he describes as “the hope that lies within”. So whilst none of us are likely to be martyrs, all of us are called to be witnesses.

- Nick Davies
12 October 2008

Today a young child by the name of Daniel is receiving Holy Baptism in our main parish service. For a while now we have had many more children taking part in and enriching our worship. There is no doubt that this has an impact on how we can worship and how we can pray in this church.

As so often we could do worse than listening to the words of Jesus on this matter: ‘“Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them’ (Mark 10,14b-16).

The picture (above) is actually a large and very colourful oil painting entitled with these words of Jesus (1910) by the artist Emil Nolde. The light emanating from the children hugged and blessed by Jesus mysteriously illuminates the darkness of the adults who are described as stern in their ignorance. The children reach up to him, excited and full of expectation.

What is it that sometimes prevents us from receiving this cleansing illumination of God’s kingdom in our lives?

- Bernhard Schünemann

5 October 2008

Harvest Festival

While some of us may have gardens, some even may have an allotment, most of us don’t plough the fields and scatter any more. And yet ‘Harvest Festival’ seems to be one of the most important observances in our annual church calendar. It feels as fixed and as important as Christmas and Easter. In the Church of England it has only been a church event for about 130 years. It goes back to an eccentric Cornish Vicar by the name of Hawker, who took the liturgical year into his own hands and introduced a Harvest Thanksgiving Sunday for his rural congregation in Morwenstow in Cornwall.

And yet religion itself, let alone our Christian Faith, has its roots in people’s desire to give thanks for the apparent miracle of a good harvest. The fruits of fertility, the mysterious way in which nature propagates itself so abundantly, have always been regarded as a sign of God’s goodness. The Old Testament is full of praise and descriptions of such thanksgiving festivals.

We still sing the hymns, we still bring the miraculous produce, we still want to thank God, but most of us are far removed from the processes which are between the ploughed field and the full plate on our tables. And most of us, living – as we do – in the middle of Europe’s biggest city, would be shocked to learn the details of industrial food production which goes into making up what we finally eat.

Harvest thanksgiving is about giving thanks to God for all our productivity, which supports or sustains our lives. But it is also a new commitment on our behalf that we want to live up to the vocation of being good stewards of God’s fertile resources, rather than destroyers of the same.

For Jesus ‘harvest’ was a metaphor for the drawing near of God’s Kingdom, the breaking in of God’s judgement, terrible and merciful, world changing and unimaginably generous.

- Bernhard Schunemann

28 September 2008

As the bell peals at St Stephen’s this Sunday morning fifteen of the congregation will be answering the same call to prayer at the Shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham, a truly beautiful spot on the North Norfolk coast.

Its beauty is not just in the luscious landscape of sea and sky that surrounds the Shrine. It’s also within the rich texture of the Shrine itself. The flint and brickwork of the buildings, the hospitality of the custodians of the holy place together with the purpose of pilgrimage combine to make it all especially memorable and meaningful.

Pilgrimage is an important part of life and living a Christian journey. It opens the opportunity for shared travel experiences – Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales perhaps spring to mind. A group of 14th century pilgrims who shared their stories as they travelled from Southwark to Canterbury.

We too will meet with fellow pilgrims. With them we will share the sacred feast at the Holy table. We will share stories and as fellow travellers on our Christian journeys be enriched by the sharing of prayers and spiritual experiences. But we are all pilgrims whether at home or away. As 21st century pilgrims we all have stories to tell and prayers to share.

When morning gilds the skies, The sacred minster bell

My heart awakening cries It peals o’er hill and dell,

May Jesus Christ be praised: May Jesus Christ be praised:

Alike at work and prayer O hark to what it sings,

To Jesus I repair; As joyously it rings,

May Jesus Christ be praised. May Jesus Christ be praised.

German 19th Century; Tr Edward Caswall

- Trot Lavelle (Reader)

21 September 2008

14 September is HOLY CROSS day. The cross on which our saviour died replaced the fish as the universal symbol of allegiance to Christ (though the fish has recently come back into fashion). Helena, mother of the first Christian Roman Emperor, is said to have found the original cross while digging in Jerusalem and she built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which was dedicated on this day in the year 335. This is the prayer for the day:

Almighty God, who in the passion of your blessed Son made an instrument of painful death to be for us the means of life and peace: grant to us to glory in the cross of Christ that we may gladly suffer for his sake; who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. – Amen.

On Wednesday (17 September) we are commemorating the day of Hildegard of Bingen. She was mystic, composer, foundress of monasteries and Christian leader. All her life she suffered from serious illness and she died in 1179. Her music is some of the earliest music ever performed at a recent Prom concert. The prayer for her day is:

Most glorious and holy God, whose servant Hildegard, strong in the faith, was caught up in a vision of your heavenly courts: by the breath of your spirit open our eyes to glimpse your glory and our lips to sing your praises with all the angels; 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.

- Bernhard Schünemann

14 September 2008

This week (11 September) will see the seventh anniversary of the unprecedented attacks on the World Trade Centre and Washington through the great inhumanity of terrorism. At the time we were told that the world will never be the same again. And yet during the last seven years strenuous efforts have been made to resume life in much the same vein as it had been lived before these events.

But all seem to agree that forgetting and resuming normal service is not an option. There is something Christians can and must do on occasions of remembering like this. First of all we can pray. We can pray for the souls of all those who have died, most of them completely unprepared, and many of them leaving behind them grieving wives, husbands, children, parents and friends. As religious people we must also acknowledge that these terrible, terrible deeds were committed in the name of religion.

Our world has become a very confusing place. Many people turn to religious fundamentalism to give content and meaning to their lives and young men especially find the idea of dying as heroes or martyrs for their religion attractive. We need to examine our own faith: does it give content to our lives, does it answer the deep spiritual longings of those around us?

And finally we may remind ourselves of the words of our Lord Jesus as he spoke them in his famous Sermon on the Mount (especially Matthew chapter 5!): “blessed are the peacemakers” and “turn the other cheek”. This is not just ‘doing nothing’, but neither is it answering violence with violence. Christians want to break the cycle of violence, they want to introduce a new language, they want to speak of love, of trust and of justice.

We don’t necessarily need to speak this language with words, but we need to spread it by living. All our lives offer opportunities for this kind of quiet, daily heroism!

7 September 2008

This week we have our bell back. It is not yet in the belfry where it belongs and where it will be re-located after this Sunday’s services, it is in fact standing on two logs in the middle of the church where wedding couples normally stand to make their promises. It cannot ring today, but at least we can see it from the comfort of our pews, once it hangs in the tower it may not come down again for another 150 years, which is how long it lasted before it needed this its first refurbishment now completed. During the 10am service today we will re-dedicate and bless this bell, hoping and longing that it will become again a central instrument of our mission, the words of these blessing prayers were composed by our curate Nick Davies and the special verse of the hymn was written by Dr Teresa Morgan:

We all reach out our hands towards the bell and say together…

Creator God,
Bless this bell we pray.
Let it sing your praise and witness to your power and glory.
May it ring with joy in times of gladness,
And toll our sorrow in times of sadness.
And may it stir the hearts and call to worship
The people of this parish.

The bell will then be anointed and the bell and congregation are blessed for mission of the church

August 31 2008

What do a Church and a helicopter have in common?

It doesn’t matter how far back you stand, eventually you get sucked in by the rotas.

Apparently, the dreaded rotas and being asked to volunteer are one of the biggest fears of those visiting a new Church. But rotas may well be a necessary evil for getting things done. I have to say since arriving at St Stephens, I’ve been struck by how many people give generously of their time and talents.

In my experience rotas need three things to be successful. Firstly, people need to volunteer. Secondly, they need to turn-up. Thirdly, volunteers need to be allowed to step down when circumstances change.

This morning’s reading from Romans puts all of this into a Gospel context. For Paul, everyone in the Church has gifts and when we offer them to God it is part of our worship, as much as our singing and our prayers. For this is our spiritual sacrifice, a natural outworking of our thankfulness to God and a sign of our fellowship with one another.

At theological college, we spent a lot of time studying worship often reading great tomes on ancient aspects of ‘liturgy’. One of the more interesting facts that I discovered during these sessions was that one meaning of the Greek word ‘liturgeo’ is the ‘work or service of the whole people of God’. So next time you mark your diary for your turn to read, serve, intercede, arrange flowers or brew the coffee, remember- it’s not just a rota, it’s part of our worship.

August 2008

During the month of August the Sunday Gospel readings are extracts from chapters 14 to16 of St Matthew’s Gospel.  Many people see these chapters as Jesus laying down the foundation of the church.  As we would expect Jesus is not doing this by giving his disciples a ready made constitution a blue print mainly to satisfy bureaucrats of the Charity Commission or the managers of the Lambeth Conference.  No – instead – Jesus takes his friends on a hectic journey through Northern Palestine.  They are in and out of boats, up and down mountains, listening to sermons and witnessing miracles.  He teaches them about who he really is.  He warns them about hypocrisy.  He performs numerous healings especially on people whom the disciples would rather have him ignore.  He miraculously feeds thousands of followers.  He walks on water (and encourages Peter also to do so!).  And finally he reveals that all this will lead to his own suffering and glorification. Yes, let us not forget his glorification (chapter 17, especially celebrated in August as the festival of the Transfiguration on Wednesday 6 August).  What emerges from these pages is not a picture of the church as an institution but the church as a band of people.  People restlessly seeking a deeper understanding of Jesus as healer, teacher and saviour.  A group of people being on the one hand coaxed and encouraged and on the other hand set on fire with enthusiasm.  The church as a group of people that ultimately is to glow with the unspeakable glory of the cross.