Pewsheet for 27th December 2015 – the First Sunday of Christmas

Christmas, Pewsheets

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From the Curate…

Clergy

As we approach the New Year – we have as a Church gathered on several occasions to celebrate the birth of the Hope of the World – Jesus Christ.  I preached before Christmas at St Nicholas’, that if we choose to really follow the teaching of Jesus Christ then -‘how quickly our world could change’.  Our world could change if we said words like “I’m sorry” to those we were estranged from, “forgive me” to those we had wronged, “use me”, “guide me” or “cleanse me” to God in order to make him the centre of our lives. That is quite a challenge, and if you felt that after too much Turkey the challenge of the Gospel – good news, would simply disappear amongst our own overeating and tiredness – then think again!

Our reading from Colossians  doesn’t lower the bar so we may, in our post-Christmas heavier state, just limp over it. No  – it raises the bar even higher by issuing us with the challenge of the Christian life. ‘Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other’. Clearly this is written by a man that has never spent a Christmas Day with the in-laws!  But there it is in black and white – followed by the words ‘above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony’. As Christians the bar seems high and it is – for we can only achieve it with the help of the Holy Spirit.  But if we do aim high and invite the Holy Spirit to help us then we might also grow as Samuel and Jesus grow in wisdom, stature and favour.

Blessings,
Steve

From the Rector…

Pewsheets

Have you every missed a bus or train for which you were waiting because you were so engrossed in doing (or thinking about) something else?  This week, I read an Advent meditation by Paula Gooder – a theologian for whom I have considerable affection and respect.  She wrote about two kinds of waiting:  an active waiting that demands we are alert, with our senses finely tuned to what is going on around us, looking keenly for the signs of the arrival of that for which we wait; and a passive waiting that is simply about the passing of time, with senses dulled or focused on something else.

Advent is supposed to be the former, but too often we can become so engrossed in getting ready for Christmas (writing cards, buying presents, planning and cooking meals …) that when the great feast comes – that moment when we celebrate God becoming flesh amongst us – we are so tired, or bored or still so focused on those preparations that the moment passes us by.  Let’s not let that happen to us.  Rather let us follow the example of Elizabeth and Mary in our gospel reading.

Here two pregnant women, Elizabeth who has waited almost too long for her pregnancy and Mary who bears the long-awaited Messiah.  As they meet their dynamic, active waiting gives over to a deep recognition (shown by John’s leaping in the womb) of God’s blessing.  And, significantly, that recognition flows out into praise.

Paula’s prayer is mine too: “may each one of us experience this kind of Advent waiting: a waiting that ends not in a whimper of exhaustion, but in joyful recognition and praise of him for whom we wait.

Every blessing for the rest of Advent and a joyous Christmas when it comes,

Anthony


Nine Lessons and Carols, Sunday 20th Dec, 18.30

Christmas

We’d love you to join us for the traditional Nine Lessons and Carols service at St Nicholas’ Church, Worth, this Sunday 20th December at 18.30, followed by mince pies and mulled wine.

The music will include popular carols for all to sing, such as O little town of Bethlehem, The first Nowell and Hark! the herald angels sing and the choir will be performing the pieces including:

  • Remember O thou man, Thomas Ravenscroft
  • Adam lay ybounden, Boris Ord
  • Lullay my liking, arr. Phillip Lawson
  • A babe is born all of a may, William Mathias

 

From the Curate…

Clergy

John the Baptist would have been a difficult character to be around. A camel-hair shirt-wearing, locust-eating prophet whose words came straight from the hip.

If I was preaching this weekend, I might seek to avoid the Gospel reading and concentrate much more on the more palatable Philippians reading – Rejoice and pray. Now I can do that – and it will cause me little harm – I can rejoice and pray with the best of them.

However, would John the Baptist be shouting at me and others  – ‘you brood of vipers’? Would he be saying just because you come to Church and wear a dog collar what makes you think that you are safe?  John the Baptist makes us feel uncomfortable just as he made King Herod uncomfortable enough to have him beheaded.  So rather than ignore John’s words in our Gospel, I think Advent is time to lean into the readings to help us prepare to celebrate the coming of the King.

Advent has become a word that lost its power and seems old and archaic.  However, to me Advent should be an important season of preparation and anticipation. Preparation – that we are able to do by leaning into the words of John’s warning and checking our own hearts in the light of them, to ensure that we are not sitting smugly behind a dutiful type of faith but have hearts that are transformed by the following of Jesus Christ.  If we have self-reflected, as some did on our Quiet Day and prepared properly for Advent – then we can be full of joyful anticipation for the coming of Jesus.

It is only when we are prepared and in a state of anticipation that we are more likely to see God’s glory now in the everyday and in the ordinary. To see God’s glory in those that God has placed around us.

Steve

Pewsheet for 13th December 2015

Pewsheets

Click here to see this week’s pewsheet.

Tip: If this, or any other, PDF document opens at too large a size, here’s what you do:

  1. Open Adobe Reader, for example, by opening a *.pdf document you have on your computer.
  2. From the Edit menu, click Preferences.
  3. With Page Display selected in the left hand list of Categories, on the right hand side of the window, choose a Page Layout and Zoom level that suits you, for example Single Page and Fit Page.
  4. Now any time you open a PDF, it will open at this zoom level.