Minister’s Message – December 1, 2024

Bible reading: Jeremiah 33:1-9, 14-16.

Message.

This, of course, was no ordinary tree. It had been planted in the late 1800s by the landowner John Clayton. It was a favourite of both walkers and photographers. It had featured in the film “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” although it was many miles from Sherwood Forest. It was the setting for marriage proposals, sentimental moments and the scattering of ashes. And in 2016 the Woodland Trust named it “English Tree of the Year”. You might say that this tree was iconic – and now it was gone. People felt bewildered and bereaved as they contemplated the loss of an old friend: how could anyone have perpetrated such a senseless act? The Police and the National Trust began investigations and two men accused of committing it are due to stand trial this week. I’ll return to this story later.

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Minister’s Message on Remembrance Sunday

Bible reading: Isaiah 65:17-25.

Message.

Memories are tricky things. We may think we have a perfect recollection of something that happened five minutes – or fifty years – ago; yet that memory may be inaccurate or completely wrong. To take a trivial example: Moira may say to me, “I asked you to bring me the biscuits” and I may reply, “No, you didn’t”; this leads to an argument. Each of us may be 100% certain of what we said or heard, yet one of us must be mistaken. Much more seriously, there have been cases of parents and carers being taken to court because the children they looked after have powerful memories of being abused by them many years before. Those children, now adults, are convinced that their memories were genuine when, in fact, nothing ever happened. How hard it must be for judge and jury to sift the evidence and come to a verdict.

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Minister’s Message – October 27, 2024

Bible reading: Job 38:1-7, 34-41.

There’s an old chestnut of a story which goes like this. A small child is painting a picture. Like most small children’s pictures, it’s just a mishmash of colours, so the child’s teacher gently asks what it’s supposed to be depicting. The child of course knows what they’re painting and confidently states, “It’s a picture of God”. The teacher is rather taken aback and says, “But no-one knows what God looks like”. “Well”, comes the response, “They will know when I’ve finished”.

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Minister’s Message – October 13, 2024

Bible reading: Job 1:1 then 2:1-10.

Message.

I’m sure that there are many reasons which lead to people losing their faith. Some folk simply stop believing in God, possibly because they never graduated from the faith they were taught as a child and can’t cope with the issues thrown up by the grown-up world. Others start questioning the truth of the Bible: did Jesus and Mary, Moses and Joshua, Adam and Eve, really exist, or are those stories just fables? Some people give up on faith because of the corruption, abuse and bad behaviour they see in churches: how can believing people behave in such appalling ways? Yet others find the pressures of family, life and work squeezing the time for church and faith until none is left.

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Minister’s Message – September 29, 2024

Bible reading: James 5:13-20.

We often read the Bible, especially the New Testament, in a very personal way. When Jesus says. or when Paul (or any of the other authors) writes, “You should do this” or “You shouldn’t do that”, we tend to think that they are speaking to us as individuals. Indeed, we may even believe that God himself is trying to tell us something – and perhaps he is! We need to make sure that we are listening to him.

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Minister’s MEssage – September 22, 2024

Bible reading: James 3:3-4:3, 7-10.

Message.

The Christian Church has an amazing ability to tear itself apart! Even in the New Testament we read of an almighty row over whether new Gentile believers had to follow the Jewish food laws: some established Christians saw this as vitally important while others said, “No, of course they don’t have to do it”. In, I think, the third century there were debates about Christians who had denied their faith during a period of persecution while others had remained firm: should they be allowed back into the Church or not? A bit later on questions were raised about a tiny clause in the Creed: the decision to include it or not irrevocably split the churches of the western Roman Empire from those in the east, a division which still exists today.

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Minister’s Message – September 8, 2024

Bible reading: James 2:1-10.

Many of us will have seen the homeless man who’s camping in the bus shelter in front of St Philip Evans church; I know nothing about him except his name which, I believe, is Matthew Chapman. I do know that the relevant social services have been called to offer him support, I know that the Food Bank people who meet in the church hall have helped him, I know that the volunteers in the Churches Together Shop have invited him to have a free lunch whenever he wishes, although he hasn’t taken them up on that. So he hasn’t been ignored.

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Minister’s Message – August 4, 2024

Bible reading: 2 Samuel 11:26 – 12:14.

When Bathsheba heard that her husband had been killed, she mourned for him. When the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to the palace; she became his wife and bore him a son. But the Lord was not pleased with what David had done.

The Lord sent the prophet Nathan to David. Nathan went to him and said, “There were two men who lived in the same town; one was rich and the other poor. The rich man had many cattle and sheep, while the poor man had only one lamb, which he had bought. He took care of it, and it grew up in his home with his children. He would feed it some of his own food, let it drink from his cup, and hold it in his lap. The lamb was like a daughter to him.

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Minister’s Message – July 28, 2024

Bible reading: 2 Samuel 11:1-17

The following spring, at the time of the year when kings usually go to war, David sent out Joab with his officers and the Israelite army; they defeated the Ammonites and besieged the city of Rabbah. David himself stayed in Jerusalem.

One day, late in the afternoon, David got up from his nap and went to the palace roof. As he walked around up there, he saw a woman taking a bath in her house. She was very beautiful. So he sent a messenger to find out who she was, and learned that she was Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite. David sent messengers to get her; they brought her to him and he made love to her. (She had just finished her monthly ritual of purification.) Then she went back home. Afterward she discovered that she was pregnant and sent a message to David to tell him.

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Minister’s Message – July 21, 2024

Bible reading: 2 Samuel 7:1-15.

When King David was settled in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies, he said to the prophet Nathan, “See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent”. Nathan replied, “Go, do all that you have in mind; for the Lord is with you”.

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