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Author: Robb

Chaotic Good.

Greenbelt

Apologies for my absence on the blog.  It has been all go round these ‘ere parts.  One thing that I have been doing is preparing for Greenbelt festival.  I thought I’d let you all know what’s happening and where you can find me if you are coming to Greenbelt this year.

This has involved a long distance trip for Fr Simon who came all the way up to God’s Country to rehearse for the Blesséd Mass on Friday night.  Metanoia (the band for the Rock Mass) have been preparing for the live music aspects of the opening service of the festival.  It has been fantastic working with Fr Simon and the Blesséd and we’re really looking forward to worshipping together.  I’ll probably grab two minutes to say more after the service itself.  Please come along to the Big Top on Friday evening at 5:30 to be truly Blesséd.

I will also be helping out with the social media surgeries for Graham Richards.  I may also be in The Jesus Arms.  It’s just possible.

If you are going to Greenbelt this year, please come along and say hello.  I’ll probably be tweeting throughout.

Rioting on Sunday Morning

It seems only two minutes since I found myself standing before the congregation as a “community leader” to talk about the headline news from Norway.  And yet, here I find myself once more.  It is a strange place to be as people look to me to try and make sense of the world around them.  The church can sometimes just stick its head in the sand on a Sunday morning and carry on regardless.  “Riots you say?  What riots”?  I find myself unable to do that.  Perhaps it is a failing of mine and I should add it to the ever-growing list.  No matter where I turn I can’t escape the incarnational God who gets his hands dirty.  I can’t skirt around the God who told us to pray “Your kingdom come, your will be done on Earth as in Heaven”. 

You may have noticed that I have been strangely silent on the blog this week.  Mostly this has been because I have felt a bit numb.  Living in the UK and watching it descend into chaos is all too reminiscent of The Dark Night.  Fortunately we live in a part of the city that hasn’t seen any unrest.  West Yorkshire police dealt with any flickers of trouble around Leeds and Huddersfield brilliantly and we did not see the same level of unrest as others.  However, the whole country seems to be gripped by fear.  I spoke to my brother earlier in the week about the football match we are going to this afternoon.  He was wanting to call it off.  The mood in our community is troubled. 

Some how tomorrow I will stand up and try to help our community make sense of all of this.  I will try to encourage them to be part of the future.  To start to bring that kingdom to our communities. 

I have put together some simple prayers that we will use.  Then we will pray the prayer from the CofE website in solidarity with our nation wide community.

Father in heaven,

In our homes.

Your kingdom come, your will be done.

In our families

Your kingdom come, your will be done.

In our communities

Your kingdom come, your will be done.

In our cities

Your kingdom come, your will be done.

On our streets

Your kingdom come, your will be done.

In our parks

Your kingdom come, your will be done.

In our schools

Your kingdom come, your will be done.

In our police forces

Your kingdom come, your will be done.

In our town hall

Your kingdom come, your will be done.

In our government

Your kingdom come, your will be done.

Gracious God,
We pray for peace in our communities this day.
We commit to you all who work for peace and an end to tensions,
And those who work to uphold law and justice.
We pray for an end to fear,
For comfort and support to those who suffer.
For calm in our streets and cities,
That people may go about their lives in safety and peace.
In your mercy, hear our prayers,
now and always.

Amen

The Fifth Gospel

Yesterday I was asked to give a talk about the time I spent in Uganda. Five years ago I spent a month on placement at Kampala cathedral. It was the first time Dr Ruth and I had really travelled together and we didn’t know what to expect.  I bought a new camera and took a notebook.  I’m glad I did as preparing for this talk made me dig it out and rediscover some of my memories of our big adventure.

On the page after I had written the profound statement “[expletive deleted] a rat just came into my room”, there was this:

There is a vicar staying at the hostel whilst he is studying. He just said something that made me think.

“People come to church not because of what they have heard but because of what they have seen.

People think there are four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. If they read them they probably won’t do it in-depth but they may read them and think that is it. They forget about the fifth gospel, their lives”

9 years ago I went to a baptism service to see an 83 year old lady take the plunge. She had decide to make the leap of faith and start following. Before she was baptised she stood up and gave her testimony.  She told us exactly how she had come to believe in Jesus and why she wanted to follow him.

She explained that she had started coming to church after a conversation she had with her landlord a few months earlier.  He was the caretaker at the church and also owned the small flat that she lived in. Her landlord had come around to visit to check that she was alright.  The weather had been atrocious for a couple of weeks with heavy snow all over the North East.  She explained to him that everything was alright but she had locked herself out of the flat a couple of days ago. She had left her little terraced flat and the latch was on as the door closed behind her.  She was stuck in the deep snow until her husband returned.

She explained that the young kid next door had arrived home and asked if she was OK.  They had never spoken to each other before but he wondered if she would like to come inside to the warmth and wait. In the conversation it transpired that the landlord knew the young kid because they both went to the same church.

The thing is, I had no idea who was being baptised that day.  I was flabbergasted.  From my perspective, I knew the other side of the story.

In my third year at university I was sauntering through the thick falling snow back to the little flat I shared with Dr Ruth after a hard day’s slog through a Johannine literature lecture.  There was an old woman standing in the snow next to a flat door.  When I asked her if she was OK she said yes but she wondered if she could just stand inside my door.  Of course I said yes.  In fact, I struggled to convince her that it wasn’t too much trouble for her to sit on the sofa and watch my TV.   I actually had to pretend that I wanted a cup of tea so that she would have a hot drink. I wandered back around to her flat next door a couple of times to see if her husband was back. When he was she left.

No blinding lights. No miraculous healing. No talking about “religion”. Just a cup of tea with no strings attached.

What does it mean for me to become that fifth gospel?