| End the Week with CME - June 20, 2008 | 19th Jun 2008 | Download | Email to a Friend |
Welcome to End the Week with CME! This weekly email is sent automatically to Clergy and Readers in the diocese (if you don't want to receive it, please send an email to CovEW-unsubscribe@lists.covlec.org) but anyone is welcome to subscribe to the list, and we are especially keen to pass it on to any interested lay people, especially those who may have responsibility for preaching. To subscribe they simply need to email CovEW-subscribe@lists.covlec.org.
Two for the price of one this week! We're 'off-air' next week as Sarah is away and it is the ordination weekend.
Ordination Sunday, 29 June
Please pray for those to be ordained next week in the Cathedral:
Priests
Diane Bussey; Alan Cartwright; Marc Catley; Martin Hayward; John Horton; Barry Jackson;
Sharon Jones.
Deacons
Richard Bromley; Philip Bullock; Rich Burley; Lynnette Clarke; Peter den Haan; Clive Hogger; Mary Kent; Margaret Simmons.
Also for Ellie Clack who will be ordained deacon at St Mark's Leamington on Monday 30 June at 7.30pm.
Further details about the candidates can be found at http://www.coventry.anglican.org/news/pressreleases/opt/1/item/353
Offa House Vacancy
Offa House, the Coventry Diocesan Retreat House & Conference Centre, has an immediate vacancy for a part-time Cook / Chef to:
- Prepare, cook meals and bake, using mainly fresh ingredients
- work efficiently and with high food hygiene standards
- offer some flexibility in working hours, including weekends
- fit in with a friendly and supportive team
If you are keen to begin work in catering we can provide training.
For further information contact: Eleanor Godber, Offa House, Village Street, Offchurch, Leamington Spa CV33 9AS. Telephone 01926 423309 Email: offahouse@btconnect.com
Coming Up
Warwick International Festival
There will be two guest speakers at the Collegiate Parish Church of St Mary during the forthcoming annual arts festival in Warwick.
On Sunday 22 June at the 10.30am Choral Eucharist, the preacher will be The Rt Revd Lord Richard Harries of Pentregarth, former Bishop of Oxford.
On Sunday 29 June at the 10.30am Choral Eucharist the preacher will be The Revd Prof Ben Quash, Professor of Christianity & the Arts, King's College, London.
Reader Fellowship Evening
Thursday 3 July, 7.30 - 9.30pm at Offa House.
The next Fellowship evening will be 'Music on a Summer Evening', lead by Mr Chris Farr, a first year Reader-in-Training. Chris was organist and choirmaster at his previous church of St John and St Philip in The Hague, and also a Professor of Harpsichord at Zwolle and The Hague Conservatoires. There will also be an opportunity to pray with, and for, each other.
If you wish to attend the evening please contact Chris Haines at chris@haines.uk.com or on 01788 576279, so that Chris can inform Offa House of numbers for catering purposes.
One World, Many Faiths - engaging with global spirituality
Saturday 12 & Sunday 13 July 2008
9am - 5pm both days (with optional Saturday evening 6pm - 9pm with meal)
St George's School, 31 Calthorpe Road, Edgebaston, Birmingham B15 1RX
Looking at the following:
- Foundations - fears and questions; culture and worldviews
- Common Ground - shared valued between faiths
- Truth & Transformation - as understood in Animism and Judaism
- Peace & Conflict - as understood in Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism
- Power & Authority - as understood in Humanism, New Age and Nihilism
- Salvation & Destiny - as understood in Buddhism and Christianity
- Uniqueness of Jesus - exploring the claims of the New Testament
Price £80 (£40 for students and unwaged). For more information visit www.workshop.org.uk, email admin@anvil.org.uk or call 0114 288 8816.
Ministry Where You Work?
Sunday 13 July 2008, 2 - 5pm at St John's Church Centre, Westwood Heath.
An invitation to all Readers, OLMs and NSMs in the Coventry Diocese. Come and discuss:
- Could you have a ministry at work?
- How might God be calling you to expand your ministry?
- An opportunity to explore possibilities beyond your parish role.
If you would like to attend, or find out more information, contact Felicity Smith (chair of the Coventry Ministers in Secular Employment group) on 01926 492452 or at felicity@fandi.me.uk.
Meeting with Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem
Monday 14 July 2008, 7.30pm (venue to be confirmed)
Bishop Suheil Dawani (the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem) and his wife, Shafeeqa, will be visiting for the Lambeth Conference in July, and have offered to meet with people in the Coventry Diocese to share something of their experiences of life in Jerusalem. (Mrs Dawani is actively involved in reconciliation ministry herself.)
If you would like to attend the meeting, please contact Warwick House by Tuesday 24 June. If numbers are small, the meeting will be held at Warwick House, but otherwise, a larger venue will be needed. If you are able to offer the use of a church hall, please let Warwick House know. Telephone 024 7641 2627 or email Bishop.Warwick@CovCofE.org.
Unity in Diversity: celebrating the breadth of Reader Ministry
The Central Readers' Council National Conference will be held Friday 12 - Sunday 14 September 2008 at the University of North Wales, Bangor.
The keynote speaker will be Canon Dr Christina Baxter CBE, and the Principal of St Johns College, Nottingham will be leading an exploration of 1 Corinthians 12. There will also be a number of seminars, led by Readers who are involved in different aspects of ministry outside the church, such as prisons, hospices, bereavement, education etc.
A core part of the weekend will be worship and fellowship, and throughout the weekend there will be an exhibition of various resources relevant to Reader Ministry.
Cost: £170 per head if you book before 30 June / £180 per head for bookings after 30 June.
For more information, contact Heidi Cartledge at hcartledge@fightingclose.freeserve.co.uk or on 01926 641751. If you are planning to attend, or have already booked, please let Chris Haines (Warden of Readers) know at chris@haines.uk.com or on 01788 576279.
Notes on the Gospel Readings for Trinity 6 (Sunday June 29, 2008)
Matthew 10. 40-42
Angels come from earth
After the cost, the privilege. Matthew Chapter 10 is composed of Jesus' instructions to the disciples as he sends them out to spread his message of good news (10.5). The costs may be high (10.36-38), but in these three verses which end the block of teaching there is different theme: 'Anyone who receives you, receives me' (10.40). Joachim Jeremias says, 'God himself enters the house with Jesus' messengers. What a statement!' (New Testament Theology, SCM 1971, p.239).
The word for messenger in Greek was angel. In the resurrection story, Matthew tells us that 'a messenger came from heaven' (28.2). But here the messengers are the ordinary people Jesus has called (10.2-4): angels from the earth. Their role is to announce the coming of the kingdom, as their heavenly counterparts do in Revelation. However, there are no trumpets here, just the faithful slog through the towns and villages of Israel, telling the stories of Jesus, bringing both peace and judgement as Jesus himself has done (10.13, 34-36). It is an onerous responsibility, but a remarkable privilege too. These were, after all, simply ordinary fishermen and craftsmen, with a rather suspect tax-collector thrown in for good measure, alongside one who would turn bad. Yet their vocation is to announce the arrival of the kingdom so long waited for. They must have looked a pretty funny kind of angels, yet that is what they were.
The impact of this on the later church and the disciples themselves was amazing. In Jesus' words they are 'prophets', 'righteous' and 'little ones' (10.41-42). These are three big claims. They are prophets because they announce the kingdom of God. They are righteous because they follow Jesus' ethic of the kingdom which sees the root of righteousness as being in tune with God, showing the mercy and compassion which are the guiding principles behind the Law. And they are 'little ones' because Jesus' love and affection is upon them.
'Little ones' is usually used of children (see Mark 9.42), but here it is clearly about the disciples. They are part of Jesus' own household and when they are welcomed, he is welcomed. The cup of cold water they are offered is a matter of simple courtesy and hospitality, to be taken for granted. Yet here it signals a welcome to the kingdom, in the person of the disciples, and so carries with it a great reward (10.42).
Because in the West we often have a sense of entitlement, we can miss the radical nature of a short passage like this in a class-dominated society. These disciples were chosen by Jesus to occupy the thrones of Israel with him (19.28). It was an extraordinary privilege, to do with grace and not merit. And while I certainly would not want to go back in time, it does seem to me that it is easy for us to overlook the importance of this theme. The old hymn 'It is a thing most wonderful,' captures the thought, 'Almost too wonderful to be/That's God's own Son should come from heav'n,/And die to save a child like me.' A large part of the appeal of the early church was that it offered a gathering where all were accepted, rich and poor, slave and free, men and women, black and white. The radical equality stemmed from the grace of God in choosing these ordinary people to be his angels. In our more equality-conscious times, how can we keep that sense of awe and amazement alive as we see that God chooses us - even us - to do his work?
Notes on the Gospel Readings for Trinity 7 (Sunday July 6, 2008)
Matthew 11. 16-19, 25-30
Seeking Wisdom
What is wisdom? The search for it is an important strand of the Old Testament, and it became a significant issue in the centuries between the exile and the birth of Jesus. The ancient wisdom traditions spanned the whole of the middle east, and the wise men were the scientists and intellectuals of their day. The Hebrew tradition looked back most of all to Solomon, king and collector of proverbs (1 Kings 4.29-34). Matthew's gospel engages with this tradition, especially of course in the stories of Jesus' birth, where the wise men from the east come to lay their treasures at his feet (2.11). It also presents Jesus as a wise man himself, but one who is not from the upper echelons of society, as might be expected. Instead his is wisdom from below, a wisdom of the people.
Some signs point to this. The hallmark of the wise man was the proverb, a pithy, witty saying, a riddle. In Hebrew the word for this was a mashal - the Greek version of the same word is parable. And of course, Jesus taught in parables, which would have marked him out as a wise man or sage and set him apart from those primarily devoted to the Law, as the Scribes and Pharisees were. His teaching often echoed the Book of Proverbs: for example, the sayings about doing good to your enemies (Matt. 5.44; Prov. 2.4-5); the treasure in the field (Matt. 13.44; Prov. 2.4-5). A good many other sayings have the 'feel' of wisdom literature of which the Book of Proverbs is just one part, perhaps especially the Sermon on the Mount.
When Jesus says that 'Wisdom is proved right by her actions' (11.19), despite the sniping of those who say he is not righteous because of the company he keeps, he is pointing to a deeper wisdom, as Paul was later to do when he spoke of how the foolishness of God was wiser than human wisdom (1 Cor 1.25). In fact the intellectualism of the wise may hide the truth (10.25). Jesus stands for an alternative wisdom, which overturns many of the normal assumptions of everyday life. So he pits his teaching against that of the past (or beyond it): 'You have heard it said, but I say to you...' (Matt. 5.21, 26, etc). His is a new wisdom which has a logic all of its own.
However, the claim to bring wisdom also goes further. For the implicit claim is that one greater than Solomon is here (see Matt. 12.42), when Jesus asks his followers to take upon themselves his 'yoke'. The inter-testamental book of Sirach speaks of the yoke of wisdom (6.23-31) and emphasises the need for a young man to study long in order to gain wisdom. But Jesus' yoke is easy, his burden is light (11.30). In other words, following Jesus is the way to true wisdom, and it comes on the journey not in the study, in practical action rather than abstract theorising.
As many have pointed out, a yoke is designed to fit a pair of oxen, it requires the two to team up. So the image is of the disciple paired with Jesus, this is how learning wisdom is to take place. But the image of being yoked with Jesus as the one who brings wisdom also carries with it, as Ben Witherington says, 'a transcendent self-understanding' (Jesus the Sage Fortress 1994) p.207) by Jesus. It was a large claim to make: that he himself could reveal the wisdom of God. But if it was true, how better could the disciples find wisdom by being yoked to the master himself?
And Finally...
An atheist was walking through the woods.
"What majestic trees!" "What powerful rivers!" "What beautiful animals!" he said to himself.
As he was walking alongside the river, he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. He turned to look. He saw a 7-foot grizzly bear charging towards him.
He ran as fast as he could up the path. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the bear was closing in on him.
He looked over his shoulder again, and the bear was even closer. He tripped and fell on the ground. He rolled over to pick himself up but saw that the bear was right on top of him, reaching for him with his left paw and raising his right paw to strike him.
At that instant the Atheist cried out, "Oh my God!"
Time Stopped. The bear froze. The forest was silent.
As a bright light shone upon the man, a voice came out of the sky. "You deny my existence for all these years, teach others I don't exist, and even credit creation to cosmic accident. Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer?"
The atheist looked directly into the light and said, "It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask you to treat me as a Christian now, God, but perhaps you could make the BEAR a Christian?"
"Very Well," said the voice.
The light went out. The sounds of the forest resumed. And the bear dropped his right paw, brought both paws together, bowed his head & spoke: "Lord bless this food, which I am about to receive from thy bounty through Christ our Lord, Amen."
(Thanks to Gemma North - who thought the standard of jokes needed raising!)
That's all folks!
Richard
Richard Cooke
Coventry CME
Richard.Cooke@CovCofE.org