Thursday 31 January 2013

Renewal of Marriage Liturgy


Below is a simple liturgy that we will be using in our services on February 3rd at Malmesbury Abbey as our services focus on the renewal and strengthening of our marriages. Our teaching will be drawn from 1 Peter 3 and Matthew 5:1-10 and will be available online the following week at www.malmesburyabbey.com.

Naturally not everybody is married in our community, and for some February 3rd may be difficult as they long for marriage or mourn the loss of a life partner. But each of us, of every generation in our church and our community, is affected by the quality and resilience of the marriages around us, so we have chosen to address the issue as a church just as St Peter chose to in his letter.

This liturgy replaces our prayers, and during it, apart from a final prayer, all will be invited to pray, either saying the liturgy for their own marriages or saying it on behalf of others known to them who are married or living together. Could I particularly encourage married couples to prayerfully read these words together as a preparation for Sunday. God bless.


A Liturgy for
the Renewal of Marriage


Blessed are you, heavenly Father.
You give joy to wife and husband,
You are the source of love.

Blessed are you, Lord Jesus Christ.
You bring new life to humanity,
You are our salvation.

Blessed are you, Holy Spirit of God.
You are our comfort,
You lead us in the most excellent way.

Blessed be Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
One God, to be praised
now and for ever.  Amen.

Living God,
pour out your Spirit
that we may be forgiven in our sin,
strengthened in our weakness
and renewed in our commitment.

Silence is kept

For hardness of heart
and a spirit of criticism
Lord forgive us and heal us

For the failure to make peace
and walk in the way of forgiveness
Lord forgive us and heal us

For taking our love
and our lover for granted
Lord forgive us and heal us

For being led astray by
the attractions and affections of others
Lord forgive us and heal us

For relentless over-busyness and
living with work and diary as king
Lord forgive us and heal us

For absence and separation
for aggression and indifference
Lord forgive us and heal us

For pride and selfcentredness,
unkindness and vanity
Lord forgive us and heal us

For vows forgotten
and covenants broken
Lord forgive us and heal us

May God who loved the world so much
that he sent his Son to be our Saviour
forgive you your sins
and make you holy to serve him in the world,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.


In each day and moment,
every time and season
Renew us in our love

In each place of work and labour,
rest and worship
Renew us in our love

In times of friendship and family,
in tenderness and intimacy
Renew us in our love

In times of plenty
and in times of struggle
Renew us in our love

In youth, middle age
and in our final years together
Renew us in our love

Bring us at the last
to that great marriage banquet of your Son in our home in heaven,
where, with all your saints and angels,
in the glory of your presence,
we will for ever praise you;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Amen.

As our Saviour taught us, so we pray

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours
now and for ever.
Amen. 

Married couples pray together

Heavenly Father,
we offer you our souls and bodies,
our thoughts and words and deeds,
our love for one another.
Unite our wills in your will,
that we may grow together
in love and peace
all the days of our life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Amen.


God the Holy Trinity make you strong in faith and love,
defend you on every side, and guide you in truth and peace;
and the blessing of God almighty,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
be among you and remain with you always. 
Amen.

  
Liturgy: Common Worship & Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire. February 2013

Wednesday 23 January 2013

Live Worship


Malmesbury Abbey Skate 2013 is fast approaching. This year the advertising and T-shirts have the strap-line ‘Live Worship’ based on Romans 12:1 where St Paul urges the church to offer everything to God as a living sacrifice - including our skateboarding. MAS 2013 is the Body of Christ in unbelievable committed action – everybody necessary, everybody playing a part. We need you. It’s fun.




Contact Clare Cork (cafe@malmesburyabbey.com) to volunteer in the café or bake; contact Chloe Hasler (chloe@malmesburyabbey.com) to offer accommodation to the skate team travelling from over the south west; contact Sandra Chin to be involved in the catering for the skate team (san.chin@talk21.com ) ; contact Sarah McGrory to get involved with admin, bookings and welcome (sarah@malmesburyabbey.com); and contact Tristan Cork (tristan.cork@btinternet.com ) to get involved in the blood, sweat and tears of transforming a 12th Century Abbey into a 21st Century Skatepark at these times:

Monday Feb 11: Afternoon, early evening
Anytime from around 1pm, but the bulk of the work happens from 4pm-ish (after work). Job: carrying boards from Tolsey to abbey. Laying the floor, screwing it down. Bring gloves, power tools/drill things if you have them. Many people needed.

Tuesday Feb 12: Early morning (around 7am)
Job: lugging straw bales off a trailer, bagging them in porch and taking them into the abbey. Traditional breakfast afterwards. Many people needed

Tuesday Feb 12: During the day. (anytime)
Job: prepare abbey, secure bales, banners, erect barriers/staging etc. Several people needed

Tuesday Feb 12: Evening (time to be confirmed, but usually around 7pm...)
Job: helping Christian Skaters carry skatepark into abbey and setting it up. (Gloves again!) Many people needed.

Friday Feb 15: Evening until late (probably around 9pm-11pm)
Come and watch the skate competition then…Job: Dismantle skatepark, help carry to trailer. Take out bales. Unscrew floor and carry back to Tolsey. Tidy and put back chairs. Eat curry. Everyone in Malmesbury needed. You can either let Tristan know you are coming when, or just turn up and be a lovely surprise in human form.

We're happy to get exhausted because God’s love is inexhaustible. Sign up now please or contact the parish office 01666 826666 to get more contact details.

Thursday 17 January 2013

Slave


Below is the approximate text of a sermon I preached in January 2012 on Ephesians 5:21-6:9. It’s published here as I prepare to preach from 1 Peter 3 at Malmesbury Abbey on February 3rd; in order that we might not entirely go over old ground together.


I’m a very, very important man, or is the phrase self-important? Yes. With my responsibilities as Vicar and Area Dean, with Marilyn working at Malmesbury School, and with daughters back and forth at University and studying, well it’s been pretty hard keeping on top of things at the vicarage, and finally…finally I’ve found a solution. I’m going to get myself a slave. It’s cheap, it’s efficient and it’s reliable. However, one question did occur to me:  ‘is it OK for a Christian to have a slave? Does the bible say have to say on this?’

Well in the Old Testament it says ‘God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as sand on the seashore’ (1 Kings 4:29). Now I think that’s a pretty good reference, and Solomon conscripted a slave labour force (1 Kings 9:20.)

Paul says in 1 Corinthians, ‘Each person should remain in the situation which they were in when God called them. Were you a slave when called? Don’t let it trouble you…’ (1 Cor 7:20,21)

And more significantly writing to the church, yes the church, in Ephesians 6:5 and Colossians 3:22 St Paul doesn’t tell slaves to escape from their masters or masters to free their slaves, Paul assumes that slavery will continue in the Christian era, and that the church will be a place with both slaves and masters –sitting next to each other on a Sunday morning. So I think I’m OK to get a slave. Life will be a little easier, and that’s a tremendous relief.
And when William Wilberforce and his allies were fighting for the abolition of the slave trade in the late 18th century there would have been similar, lazy, biblically-based arguments floating around for maintaining the status quo on slavery. Just as the Bible was wrongly used to justify apartheid, or segregation in the United States, or the oppression of the Jewish people.

Today, tragically, there remains a battle against slavery, but not a single Christian leader on the planet would stand up and argue for slavery, even though St Paul clearly permits it, even expects it, in the local church. So why wouldn’t I defend slavery? Because the great OT picture of salvation, the Exodus, is the mass releasing of slaves from captivity in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land. Because in Christ, in the Body of Christ, in the Kingdom of Heaven Paul writes that ‘there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free.’ (Gal 3:28) ‘You were called to freedom, brothers and sisters’ (Gal 5:13) And because in St Paul’s very short letter to Philemon, we see his heart regarding slavery, that in God’s Kingdom, slaves should no longer be slaves, but brothers. (Phil 16)

So what’s going on here? How do we handle, if you like, both Pauls? The Paul that culturally assumes slavery and the Paul that tells us that when the kingdom of heaven comes, barriers come down, and equality comes. We handle it using the theological principle of accommodation – which in essence is this: time and time again God works with what he’s got, for the good of humanity. He accommodates the world as it is, in order to lead us to the world that is to come.

Think of the Birth of Christ for a moment. There was no perfect marriage between Mary & Joseph (actually there wasn’t a marriage at all); there was no benevolent empire with wise rulers, but Roman brutality and crucifixion; there was no perfect Israel, but this hopelessly fractured and powerless nation; and there was no maternity ward, no midwife, just a manger. But God accommodated His greater salvation purposes in this mess of humanity. And when Paul writes his letters to churches in the 1st century he writes similarly. Kingdom values articulated in a non-Kingdom context. So how does he handle slavery?

In his tiny churches, Paul recognises that slavery is inevitable. To call for its abandonment would be futile and would damage the mission of the church irrevocably. But to call for the transformation of slavery is possible, so listen to Paul’s challenge to slaves and masters in the church…

Slaves obey your earthly masters… as you would obey Christ (Ephesians 6:6)
Masters do not threaten your slaves, because He who is both their master and yours is in heaven (Ephesians 6:9)

But nevertheless, Paul holds on to the Kingdom truth that in Christ there is neither slave nor free, and that all Christians are to submit to one another – even a master to a slave.
So I won’t be getting a slave in the vicarage.

And that’s how we properly read Paul in Ephesians on slavery.
An accommodation of slavery in culture.
An aspiration to the freedom of the Kingdom.
So then, how do we read Paul in Ephesians on husbands and wives?

Please note that in our passage Paul is contrasting two groups, the powerful and the powerless. In Ephesus men, parents and masters have the power, and women, children and slaves don’t. When Paul is writing women are second-class citizens.

Aristotle the 4th century BC philosopher and tutor to Alexander the Great described the female as a ‘deformed male’ (Generation of Animals p.175) who must be ruled by their husbands (Politics, 1254b13-14) and taught gymnastics so they are more useful around the house. (ref. North Carolina State University) The first century Jewish scholar Philo of Alexandria, who was a near contemporary of Paul, wrote that while man’s soul is directed towards God, the woman's soul “clings to all that is born and perishes” (Philo On Special Laws 3.178). The man is rational he claimed, the woman is…irrational. There is a lot more that could be quoted, but in this context just saying men and women are even approaching equal is going to make you sound like Germaine Greer.

And Paul has the Bible in his hand where Genesis clearly tells him that men and women were created equal, in the image of God, and that the dominion of men over women, patriarchy, is a consequence of sin and the fall. The words of Genesis 3:16 ‘Your husband will rule over you’ are not a description of the original design of God but a symptom of a broken sin-drenched world.

If we have ears to hear, and let’s be honest many men haven’t, all over Paul’s writing we hear his egalitarian position:
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.  (Eph 5:21)
The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. (1 Cor 7:4)
And in Christ there is neither male or female (Galatians 3:28).
There are no second-class citizens in the Kingdom of God, but 2000 years ago, in the swirling mix of Greek, Roman and Jewish cultures, there were: slaves, children and women.

So Paul goes for broke at the beginning of our passage: Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ (Ephesians 5:21) – that is glorious, that is the Kingdom of God, and that is an astonishing punch in the gut for patriarchy.

But then Paul, the realist, accommodates the broken world, he speaks to the powerless
(5:22) Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord
(6:1) Children obey your parents in the Lord
(6:5) Slaves obey your earthly masters as you would obey Christ

And then he accommodates, he speaks to the powerful
(5:25) Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church
(6:4) Fathers, bring up your children in the training and instruction of the Lord
(6:9) Masters…you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven.
                                                                                
Because of our baggage it is possible to read St Paul and miss his astonishing gifts as a pastor and teacher. He holds out Kingdom values for all to see, he accommodates the prevailing cultural norms, and he calls for their transformation in the church, that over time the church might infiltrate and transform society.

So why all this bother:

1.      Because I want us to read the Bible better. We can’t just read headship, patriarchy, submission and male leadership in Paul to prove our point. And we can’t just read equality, mutuality and freedom in Paul to prove our point. They are both there: an aspiration to Kingdom equality, and an accommodation of cultural patriarchy.
2.      Because I don’t want the church to seem ludicrous. In a society where men and women are broadly equal, which is a Kingdom of Heaven value itself, to argue for men’s headship in the home, the church or society, is a hopeless anachronism, and I don’t believe St Paul would be with you.
3.      Because the church needs better husbands. Listen husbands, 2000 years ago in a society when women submitted to men, St Paul tells men to love their wives as Christ loved the church and to submit to them. If your energies are expended on anything other than submitting to your wife, you are wrong. In a Kingdom household, nobody wears the trousers.
4.      Because I believe our marriages will be stronger if there aren’t unhealthy power and control issues running below the surface
5.      And because I want to teach my daughters well. They are young adults now, and I will teach them that, if they marry, that a Christian marriage should be characterised by equality and mutual submission; that obedience or headship has no place in a 21st century Christian marriage; and if they want to lead a company, a school, a diocese or a nation, well the Bible is fine with that too.

  
FOOTNOTE
The swirling chaos of my theology and thinking were greatly helped, inspired even, by the created order of John G Stackhouse’s book ‘Finally Feminist’ as I prepared this sermon.

Marriage


At Morning Prayer last Thursday it seemed to me that the prophet Amos in Amos 4:1 was actually likening the wealthy, drunken, poor-oppressing wives of Israel to Samaritan cows. Really? Are we allowed to say that sort of thing – a biblical prophet calling women ‘cows’? I rushed home to look into this further in a studied commentary on Amos, and yes it seems that Amos is indeed likening women to cows and my commentator adds that the striking image of the cow is linked to the overt voluptuousness of the women of Israel. This of course left me even more confused and wondering when was the last time I last saw a voluptuous cow? And if I did consider a cow voluptuous might I need strapping down and medicating immediately? (Incidentally a balanced Amos is pretty hard on fathers and sons drinking and sleeping around too. Amos 2:7,8)

A more glorious image of a man and woman, wife and husband, is found in Revelation where the bride and husband in their beauty and passion is the image that St John uses to give us an idea of what Christ and the heavenly Jerusalem will look like. At its most glorious and most intimate a marriage says something about eternity, and about Christ.

This is all a way of coming in the back door and allowing me to raise in advance the subject of marriage and relationships, coming our way in our 1 Peter series on Sunday February 3rd.  That Sunday at our 10.30am and 4pm services, using a simple liturgy, I’d like us all to corporately express our regret for any failure and shortcomings in our marriages and to renew our commitment to working together for holier and stronger marriages. I’d also like to invite those who aren’t married to participate both as an act of solidarity and  also as an intercessory action for others. Do I think that marriages are particularly bad at Malmesbury Abbey? No. But in a world all too familiar with the painful breakdown of marriages and divorces we can look back honestly over the last few years and say with sympathy, not judgement, that the church is not an immunisation from the complexity and fragility of contemporary western marriages.

Nevertheless, in the reality of our relationships we are called to be holy, distinctive, different. We proclaim that grace is sufficient in weakness. So I invite us all to look back with gratitude and openness and prepare of a time of rededication and renewal in our relationships on February 3rd.

(NB In January 2012 I argued from Ephesians 5 & 6 for mutual submission in marriage, and against male headship. As I won’t be covering this ground again in detail, should you wish you can read it online on my blog or pick up a copy from the back of the Abbey.)


Monday 7 January 2013

Prayer 2013


As 2013 begins some dates for your diary as the Abbey congregation gathers to pray for our world, our community, and ourselves. Below you can find details for both Intercessory Prayer (when after a time of extended contemporary worship we ask the Holy Spirit to lead us in intercession) and Workers Prayer (when after our worship we pray and prophesy in small groups with the intention of building up and strengthening the church for ministry.) Each begins at 7.30pm and ends around 9pm. On the evening of June 18th we will join with Bishop Mike at Lea Church as he spends the day in prayer in North Wiltshire Deanery.

January 30th  Intercessory Prayer
March 6th       Workers Prayer
April 24th        Intercessory Prayer
May 22nd        Workers Prayer
June 18th       Prayer with Bishop Mike (Lea Church)
July 24th         Workers Prayer
Sept 25th        Intercessory Prayer
October 23rd Workers Prayer
Nov 27th         Intercessory Prayer

Most days at 9am there is a short service of Morning Prayer in St Aldhelm's Chapel in the Abbey finishing about 9.25am.


Sunday 6 January 2013

Plug


plug  (plug) n.
1. An object, such as a cork or a wad of cloth, used to fill a hole tightly; a stopper.
2. A dense mass of material that obstructs a passage.
3. A usually cylindrical or conic piece cut from something larger, often as a sample.
4. Electricity
a. A fitting, commonly with two metal prongs for insertion in a fixed socket, used to connect an appliance to a power supply.
b. A spark plug.
5. A hydrant.
6. a. A flat cake of pressed or twisted tobacco. b. A piece of chewing tobacco.
7. Geology A mass of igneous rock filling the vent of a volcano.
8. Informal A favourable public mention of a commercial product, business, or performance, especially when broadcast.
9. Slang Something inferior, useless, or defective, especially an old, worn-out horse.
10. Slang A gunshot or bullet: a plug in the back.
11. A lure to which hooks are attached, used especially in angling.


See definition number 8 above; this is one of the shameless variety. You can download the new EP from Sally Archer here. Sally has performed at our last two Holy Week Festivals. Her father is an outstanding guy.



Thursday 3 January 2013

Rhythm


One of the odd things about Christmas is that, even with our very best intentions, the focus of our celebrations can drift from Christ to Christmas itself. It’s way easier in Advent. During our morning prayer in St Aldhelm’s Chapel, at 9am each day, we read the Old Testament prophets longing for the birth of the Messiah and the New Testament epistles anticipating the return of the Christ; it would have been pretty hard not to have been Jesus-focussed by the time we arrived at Christmas Eve.

Lent and Easter, similarly, have a devotional depth in readings and worship that keeps us journeying to the cross until we at last shout ‘He is risen indeed’ at the empty tomb. I think for many Christians they love Lent, fasting, Holy Week and Easter because of the personal significance of the desert, the cross and the resurrection; but actually, part of it is that they love those 6 or 7 weeks because their discipleship and devotional lives work pretty well. Forgetting for one moment the secular pseudo-Christmas that society leads us through, even in our services at Christmas we can end up entering deeper into Christmas, not deeper in our relationship with God.

As 2013 begins, like many years, we will start with an opportunity at the Abbey to get our rhythm back, to re-become disciples. To join with our community each week in worship and prayer, to commit to serve regularly in the life of the Christian community, and to reignite our discipleship with a teaching series that places our eyes on Christ and allows everything else to flow from that.

This year our recovery series is Living: Studies in 1 Peter (see below). You can probably guess who wrote it, you can go away and read it in less than 30 minutes, but we are going to spend nine weeks looking at it. Peter famously said to Jesus ‘You are the Christ’. Living: Studies in 1 Peter helps us to live in light of that statement: What is our hope? What would a holy life look life and how do I live it? How do I follow Jesus at work or in unemployment, and how are Christian relationships and marriages to be distinctively different? How when life is difficult or blatantly unfair should I respond? Is the devil real? Over time we’ll get our rhythm back together; but in the meantime the question is actually pretty simple: Jesus loves me, now what?


Jan 6                1 Peter 1:1-12             Living Hope
Jan 13              1 Peter 1:13-2:3          Living Holy
Jan 20              1 Peter 2:4-12             Living Stones
Jan 27              1 Peter 2:13-25           Living in the World
Feb 3               1 Peter 3:1-12             Living Relationships
Feb 10             1 Peter 3:13-22           Living Confidently      
Feb 17             1 Peter 4:1-11             Living for God alone              
Feb 24             1 Peter 4:12-19           Living Resiliently
Mar 3               1 Peter 5:1-14             Living Community