St Stephen’s Church – South Dulwich

 9 February 2012

Thank God for St Valentine!

Not much is known of the Roman martyr St Valentine. He lived in the third century, he was a Bishop, and he was killed for his Christian faith, his day has always been kept on the 14th of February and his grave is pointed out to you in hushed tones when you visit the earliest catacombs in Rome. Nobody knows for certain why his feast day should have become associated with the goings on between people who love one another. It is probable that the 14th of February was traditionally thought to be the day when birds started mating. For us as Christians it is an ideal opportunity to reflect upon our relationships. Our relationships are the single most important factor in shaping us into the people that we are. First there is the relationship with our parents or parent-like figures in our lives, then with our siblings, then we make friends and have lovers, then we have partnerships and sometimes we are married. The nature of love in these relationships is that they can build us up but they can also injure us and leave scars. Love on St Valentine’s Day becomes temporarily trivialised and commercialised into paper cards, but we all know that love has the capacity to hurt as well as to heal. And we all know that the experience of our relationships affects our ability to trust in friends and partners. But do we ever consider how our relationship with God, our friendship with Christ affects all our other relationships? Do we really believe that God’s love for us can restore in us the ability to trust, to love, to forgive and even to be forgiven? A good place to start is the famous 27th Psalm. Here the relationship with God is described as the only really reliable stronghold and it is here that all our other relationships are redeemed.

Bernhard Schünemann

2 February 2012

And Jesus entered the house of Simon Peter, where his mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and Jesus came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them. (Mark 1,30&31)
No wonder that Peter’s mother-in-law had gone down with a fever. Peter had left his steady job, putting his family at risk and followed that unknown quantity, that maverick preacher and healer Jesus. It was this fever that left her when Jesus took her by the hand. Could it be true that the normal lives we live are close to the feverishness that Peter’s mother-in-law was feeling? Our lives are often full of fear and uncertainty, feelings of insignificance and a sense of overwhelming powerlessness. We fill our lives with feverish activity and business, fleeing away from who we really are. We try and create certainty and increase our sense of self-worth by ambitious striving and filling our hands with things that we hope will steady us. We create order and probity around us that terrorises us and those around us. And Jesus came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Could it be that Jesus wants to free us from such feverishness, that Jesus demonstrates that God most wants us to be the people that we really are? Could it be that when we live in the nearness of Jesus we can discover that what we perceive to be our smallness and insignificance is in truth beautifully composed by God?
With our feverishness in mind let hear anew the familiar words of Newman spoken at the end of a sermon on 19th February 1843:
May he support us all the day long, till the shades lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done! Then in his mercy may he give us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last.

Bernhard Schünemann

 29 January 2012

2nd February – Candlemass – The Festival of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. The completion of the Christmas – Epiphany season
Candlemass is – amongst other things – a celebration of ageing well. Old age can bring wisdom and serenity. Listening to old people, if we take the trouble to do it, can be full of discovery and insight because what is being communicated is simplicity and wisdom condensed by reflection. But old age can also be frustrating. Those of us with elderly relatives are painfully aware of how difficult and sometimes cruel ageing can be as well.
The old man Simeon (age unknown) and the prophet Anna (84) had been waiting in and around the Temple for years (the story is told in Luke 2,22-40). They were waiting for God’s fulfilment. They saw it in the infant Jesus, brought to the Temple by his parents, forty days after his birth, to fulfil the Jewish law of purification. These two old people found fulfilment in the little baby who would become a light to Israel and to all the nations. Their own fulfilment was found in seeing the hope of God in child-form come into the world. They would not see the completion of this work themselves, but they were full of hope for God’s future. To live without hope must be the greatest curse of all. Candlemass, when the Church blesses the candles that shine in worship and illumine darkness, is the celebration of the light and blessings of Christ, a hope for all the world. It is on that note that we dismantle our crib today: Christ will illumine our world also!

Bernhard Schünemann

22 January 2012

We will all be changed.
Change is at the heart of our Christian faith. Saint Paul said that anyone who is in Christ is a new creation, and we are called to live as children in the light.
The theme for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2012 comes to us from the churches in Poland, who have reflected upon their own experience as a nation, and in particular how, as a nation, they have been changed and transformed by the many upheavals of their history, and sustained by their faith.
Change is also at the heart of the ecumenical movement. When we pray for the unity of the church we are praying that the churches that we know and which are so familiar to us will change as they conform more closely to Christ. This is an exciting vision, but also a challenging one. Furthermore, when we pray for this transforming unity we are also praying for change in the world.

Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (18th to 25th January)

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.

From John Donne’s Meditation XVII

15 January 2012

For the next two weeks we will be accompanied in our Epiphany journey by an exhibition of paintings by Francis Bridge a fine art scholar at Dulwich College. Francis is fascinated and influenced by visions in the Book of Revelation and modern fantasy and graphic fiction. Here is what he writes about himself:

 First of all I would like to offer my sincerest gratitude to Fr. Bernhard for allowing me to hold the exhibition here in St Stephen’s in the first place – I truly appreciate your trust and support.
Secondly, I would like to talk about why I feel a church is in many ways the best possible place for my work to be displayed, personally.
No artist is completely isolated from outside sources – it is almost impossible to find a person of wholly original output, and even if you did the chances are his creations would be bizarre but not quite as vibrant, as fully realised as those of the artist who cleaves to reference, to influence, who seeks observational as well as creative skill.
I myself was heavily influenced by religious iconography and associated symbols – the murals in country churches, the statuary of the Catedral de Milan, the perching angels of St Stephen’s itself. Every church I visit has some unique aspect, some beautiful crafted detail I can harvest, something I can internalise and make a part of my influences.
Thank you for attending the exhibition – I appreciate also your contribution in observing my work, in seeing through my lens the influences that have shaped me.

Francis Bridge – Sixth form, Dulwich College

 

8 January 2012

The Feast of the Epiphany celebrates the revelation of Christ to the nations.

Today we will read of the visit of the wise men and over the coming weeks will see Christ revealed in differing ways through his baptism in the Jordan, his miracle at the wedding of Cana and finally through his presentation at the Temple on Candlemas.
As we read of these events, we wonder why it was that those who were there did not immediately understand who Christ was. We imagine that if we had been there it would have been obvious to us and we would have immediately fallen at Jesus’ feet in worship.
But recognising the presence of God in our world is not always easy. Often we are too wrapped-up in ourselves to be able to notice the little miracles which surround us. Too often we fail to recognise the face the Christ in those we meet, particularly those in need. Indeed, it is perhaps the work of a lifetime to be alert to the presence of God in our daily lives, to allow ourselves to have moments of epiphany each day.
In the notice sheet this morning you will find a goodbye card from Helen and I. There are ten different ones and they feature memories we treasure and people and places which we will miss. These images are also reminders of presence of God with us, in this place, over these last years.

Revd. Nick Davies, Curate