Interrupted

Breakfast on Tuesday was fun as we celebrated a birthday in the vicarage, but then on my way around to the Abbey for Morning Prayer I remembered that I was in a bad mood with somebody and it rose to the top of my priorities— aren’t we dim? Anyway, we gathered quietly in St Aldhelm’s Chapel and at 9am the liturgy began and shortly we arrived at the psalm for the day, Psalm 36. It was all about the wicked, oh excellent I thought, it’s all about that person who’d put me in a bad mood. But as I read on, even in my coffee-free daze, I realised that the wickedness the psalmist sings about is not just everybody else’s wickedness and by the end of verse 4 I was in that ‘guilty as charged’ place that we often inhabit devotionally. Fortunately the psalmist changes tack in 5, your love O LORD reaches to the heavens, and by verse 7 I was approaching restoration through how priceless is your unfailing love. God is kind.

I turned into a schoolboy during the Old Testament reading. Most days at Morning Prayer Annette is there with us, but not last Tuesday—until Micah 7:2. ‘All men lie in wait to shed blood, each hunts his brother with a net’ or ‘each hunts his brother with Annette’ as I heard it. That’s where she is, hanging out with King Hezekiah. Snigger.

But the set readings weren’t finished with me yet. We sat down from the hymn and in the silence of the Abbey John 19 was read; Christ was crucified, and Christ breathed his final breath.  John 19 is much easier packaged on Good Friday, in late October it is horrendous. Somehow in Holy Week we shape the rhythm of the week to make a place for the cross on the Friday, but last Tuesday it was a holy interruption of God. Think each thought with the cross in mind, live each moment with the cross before you. And of course we don’t, and I didn’t, and perhaps one of the greatest sins of the church is our forgetfulness. But with Christ before me, as I hope he is before you now, for just a moment I remembered that his humanity was lost that I might recover mine, and his breathing stopped, that I might breathe again.

That Blue Book

It was 1990, I’d been singing professionally for a number of years, and working with some decent companies like English and Welsh National Opera. But now the big boys had come knocking and I was on the London Underground, on my way to one of my first performances as a soloist at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden—Beethoven’s Fidelio—the big time. However something much bigger was going on, without costume, make-up or orchestra— I had recently become a Christian. I had grown up in a typical, local C of E church, but nothing had taken root, nothing had grown and a few years at university had left my new found atheism in robust health. But then in 1990, as Marilyn and I took our first daughter for a Christening (hey, I was an atheist without integrity), at that point I heard it.  The good news that eluded my soul for year after year in my childhood suddenly took hold of me, and the doctrines and creeds all seemed unproblematically true. One day I mocked the virgin birth, the next day I believed it—go figure.

And so I found myself sitting on a tube, on the way to Covent Garden station, a shiny new Christian with a problem—I didn’t have a Bible.  The people I’d met at church seemed to mention the Bible and even pay attention to the readings and the sermon; weird. So I figured out that if I was going to be a proper Christian I should have a copy of the Bible. I dashed into Waterstones, ran to the spirituality section and was horrified to find that there was more than one Bible. I picked the blue one, because Leicester City play in blue, and later discovered that whereas the NRSV was a good choice; Leicester City wasn’t. But then I hit another problem as a went through security at the stage door: sure I had my pass, but maybe just this once they’d search my bag, maybe they’d find my new blue book.

In truth it was my identity I thought they might discover. That they might see a man who had decided that to sit with that ancient book was to sit with the voice of God, and to live by that ancient book was to walk the path of God. Well they didn’t search me, and over time the blue book made it out from my bag and onto my dressing room table next to a strong cup of tea, an opera score and some extra strong mints—all essential ingredients for a good performance. And eventually my colleagues would come off the stage, sit down and ask me to pray with them, because they too thought  there was something about that blue book.  ‘Scripture is God’s word to us, not human words about God...the intent of revelation is not to inform us about God, but to involve us in God.’ (Eugene Peterson)

More tea?

Last week there was a brief conflict in my mouth. A molar, which had been minding its own business, suddenly took offence to a piece of rock-hard dried fruit in my breakfast cereal. The breakfast cereal won, noisily, and my molar was suddenly two thirds of a molar. A trip to my dentist for a filling proved totally painless, mainly because of the humongous injection that I was given, which numbed one side of my mouth for many hours, which happened to include a one to one with the Bishop of Bristol. Drinking tea proved a bit of a challenge and  I now realise that when I do drink tea I tend to use both sides of my mouth, as the resulting Niagara down my clerical shirt proved.

Anyway, as the preacher would now say, ‘God’s a lot like that.’ Well of course He isn’t, He isn’t remotely like that, but what is a tiny bit like that is Christian discipleship—you need both sides to make it work properly. The two sides in question are the small group and the big group.

Big group—the congregation, the celebration, the service, the gathering (ekklesia in Greek); where we come together and worship and pray and encourage one another and are inspired by speakers and break bread and share wine. Big Group Church has occupied Sundays for two millennia and right now you might well be sitting in it. Small Group Church is that vital other side of the jaw, without which the nutritional and refreshing value of Sunday can simply dribble out. There our communion becomes more intimate, our learning gets earthed in the reality of our lives and thinking, and our pastoral care of each other (aka Love) goes deeper. I need both; so do you. Join one, and join us next Sunday, Bible Sunday, at 10.30am and 4pm, when our guest preacher, Revd Tim Hastie-Smith, Chief Executive of Scripture Union, will be with us, to highlight the need for us to gather in small groups around the Bible together, and to be pastored by our brothers and sisters. At both services we will also be commissioning our growing team of small group pastors— who will pastor over 150 people in the coming year.

Breathed

Luke 16 was an interesting challenge for us all last week. Preparing to preach on the Parable of the Dishonest Manager I became quickly aware that the noted scholars were pretty conflicted, that the text was avoided and on first reading I didn’t really like the parable—not a good place to find yourself as a disciple of Jesus; albeit a non-perfect one. Turning to one of the authorities on Middle Eastern Culture and poetry I soon found myself wishing that I hadn’t dropped Aramaic at school; or R.S. for that matter. (I dropped R.S. because Mr Lomax wore corduroy; it seemed a oddly substantial reason at the time, and because Music was the alternative.) What surprised me though was you lot,  because so many of you could recite verbatim the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal Son, but were saying things like ‘I had no idea that there was a Luke 16 between Luke 15 and Luke 17’, ‘I’ve never heard a sermon on this in all my 93 years’ or ‘is there any chance we could rewrite this bit?’ 

Sometimes we get lost in texts; whenever I read John 1 at Advent or Christmas I always feel that I am walking into something far greater than Malmesbury Abbey, or myself. Sometimes we get really annoyed by texts; Jephthah is one of my favourite pieces of music, but one of my least favourite passages in the Bible (Judges 11.) And sometimes, like Luke 16, we feel the distance of 2000 years and a very distant culture, and we wrestle together with it.  But however we receive a word of scripture, perhaps the key is humility. What we have in front of us is, yes, written by ancient hands, but breathed by God; and in that breathing each human being that connects with it has the potential for transformation—learning, correcting, inspiring, equipping.

So we’ll finish our journey in Luke next month and then in Advent we’ll prepare for Christmas with texts from the Old Testament and Matthew. Then in 2014 as a community it’s a year with St John—John’s gospel, John’s letters and Revelation. And as we look at the words on the paper this is the question—are we reading it, or is it reading us?

Update from Kenneth Twinamasiko

Below the most recent update from the Kigezi Diocese Water & Sanitation Programme (KDWSP) which is receiving our harvest offering at the Abbey through Tearfund. We are a Connected Church to this project, and the Kigezi Diocese is linked with the Deanery of North Wiltshire.

Dear Supporting Churches

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. On behalf of KDWSP I take this privilege to thank you for your financial and spiritual support through prayers for KDWSP’s continued work. I thank the connected Churches that have in addition to raising resources, sent representatives to live the life we lead, work and experience life in a developing country. They have been a great encouragement to us and the communities that we work in. Their kind words, prayers and selfless commitment while daring the bad roads to hard to reach areas and their promise to come back and share their stories, give us the great hope for a stronger partnership and link. They have been wonderful teams and we encourage more churches to send teams from whom we learn a lot too.

An update from the last 3 months.

KDWSP runs a functional rain water centre that provides an opportunity for organisations with training needs in rain water harvesting technologies. Over the last 3 months KDWSP has conducted skills based training for 80 trainees (40 from Rwenzori Diocese, 20 from Diocese of Muhabura Water and Sanitation Programme and 20 from Muyebe Archdeaconry) in construction of rain water facilities, rain water tanks of capacities ranging between 4000 – 30,000 litres and jars of 420 and 1500 litres.

The 4 week training entailed theory of rain water harvesting - rationale and importance of rain water harvesting, facility sizing and location setting, assessing the catchment in regard to yield, criteria for selection of the technology, assessing materials and entrepreneurial skills to enable them to market their skills.

The trainees were passed out on two colourful functions presided over by the Bishop of the Diocese of Kigezi, Rt. Rev George Katwesigye, who blessed and commissioned  each person to go out and become agents for increasing accessibility to clean water. Bishop George has pledged continued support to the Dioceses of Muhabura and Rwenzori to enable them to start vibrant water and sanitation programmes in their Diocese.

Women from Kagorora are empowered.

KDWSP have being training women from Kagorora Church to construct rain water collection tanks to improve the community’s access to safe water. They are now very busy installing water points and are working on a 4000 litre capacity tank to help households in the area access safe water easily. Previously women had to travel over 3 km to fetch water but now they feel empowered and able to put this burden to an end. Through the training provided by KDWSP women have not only benefitted from access to clean water but have also improved their incomes and livelihoods as they are paid to construct the tanks. According to their chairman, Agness, they have been able to build improved houses and pay school fees for their children. Alongside their husbands they have also been able to begin other income generating activities because during their training they looked at resource mobilisation and learnt entrepreneurial skills.

This work has helped to improve the status of women in their communities and improved their relationships with their households. Across the community they have been elected to leadership positions and given roles in managing church affairs too. They are grateful to Kigezi Diocese and Tearfund for the training opportunities and technical follow up that has enabled them to produce quality work.

The training of women from the local churches and other Dioceses has enabled the local church to spread the gospel through actions which are helping to eradicate poverty.

Praise God.

• God has helped us to secure two new vehicles for our field trips
• We have had His protection, guidance and favour in all we do that is great we return the glory back to  Him
• We prayed for a new Bishop and we have a Bishop elect Rev. Canon George Bagamuhunda who is currently working as Provincial Secretary and is a former KDWSP Coordinator
• We were able to accomplish 3 gravity flow schemes and 2 have already been commissioned and one more is yet to be commissioned.
• Thank God for all the groups who have been able to visit us, for their encouragement to us and for all they were able to see and do.

Prayer requests.

• God’s protection and continued grace and unity as they continue to work to maintain facilities and use them in a lucrative and sustainable way
• See beyond water points to realise holistic development
• To be good examples to others in their communities and show love for Christ through sharing water to promote oneness and togetherness in their community
• Mr. Wise Musinguzi, our senior plumber, lost his wife during child birth, please remember him and others who have lost their loved ones
• A smooth transition between Bishops, we strongly believe that the new Bishop will be supportive to our work. Pray for a calm, ordered and God centred transition process.
• Strength  and means raise local contribution to both rain water harvesting and gravity flow scheme projects
• God’s favour upon these communities so that they are able to overcome abject poverty and other communities be able to learn from them
• The un-served communities to get the opportunities to be served with water projects so that they have sufficient clean water and time to engage in other productive pieces of work

We continue to remember you in our prayers and are most grateful all of your support for our work

With love in Christ,

Kenneth Twinamasiko

Kenneth works for Kigezi Diocese Water and Sanitation Programme as a communications and advocacy officer and lives in Kabale town. He and his wife Queen Immaculate have 3 children, Dianne (7), Keith (6) and Kerry Jeremaiah (3 months). Dianne in P.2 and Keith in P.1 are completing their school term in May so please pray that they enjoy learning.

The Kigezi Diocese Water and Sanitation Programme (KDWSP) is part of the Anglican Church of Uganda and works in communities in Uganda’s mountainous south-west to provide safe water and sanitation facilities. The project has improved general health, and children who previously had to fetch water (mostly girls) can now attend school. KDWSP also trains community members to maintain the facilities, to ensure sustainable and long-lasting change.