Hello everyone,
Welcome to the latest issue of our church newsletter. Our newsletter is sent out regularly to share reflections from services, Bible readings and church news with our church family. You can find previous issues on our church website here.
We would love to hear from you and are always looking for uplifting and encouraging content to share in future issues of this newsletter. If you have any ideas or content that we can share, please do email them to Louise (publicity@christchurchuxbridge.org.uk)
Opening Prayer
Lord of all, we come to offer all that we have and all that we are – body, mind and spirit.
We come to offer you our joys and struggles.
We come to celebrate your extravagant love and abundant gifts,
and to give thanks for your unending promises to us.
Lord of all, teach us to hold nothing back
and to give our all as we serve you in the world. Amen.
(Taken from Roots)
Reflection from 7 July
Readings – 2 Samuel 5: 1-10, Ezekiel 2: 1-5 and Mark 6: 1-13
On Friday lunchtime, I was having lunch, surprisingly, but I was catching up on the live coverage of the election, and I happened to watch Sir Keir Starmer’s first speech as Prime Minister, which I actually found really quite moving. He said, “My government will serve you. Politics can be a force for good, and we will show that. And that is how we will govern: country first, party second. Yet if I’m honest, service is merely a precondition for hope.”
As a nation, we have given Sir Keir Starmer and his new government a commission through the election. Technically, the King gave him the commission, but it was the result of the vote that that happened. It was the people through their vote and it’s interesting that his first words, actually his first words after so graciously acknowledging his predecessor – I thought that was, frankly, really lovely that both Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer acknowledged and thanked one another as the first things they did in their speeches, a real sense of decency there. But his first kind of moving forward was to declare this will be a government of service.
I want us to reflect on how we take the gifts that God gives to us and how we serve in our lives; the commission that he has given us. So, starting with our first reading, we hear God’s call on David. When was this? This was around 1000 BC, before Christ; the period when the period of judges was coming to the end as Samuel was the last real judge, and Saul had been anointed the first king. Although he was strong, he was also deeply flawed and there were stories of him hiding amongst the baggage, refusing to fight the Philistines, being paralysed before Goliath. So that Samuel declares God’s word to him: “You acted foolishly. You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you”. And although he continues to reign for a few years, his leadership is diminished.
And then in we hear that in David, the Lord sought out a man after his own heart. He was the youngest of eight brothers from an unimportant family, from an insignificant village called Bethlehem. And yet, in today’s reading, we hear that the people had recognised David’s leadership, that the Lord had affirmed his leadership, and he anointed David as king at the age of 30. David went on to reign for 40 years, becoming more and more powerful because the Lord God Almighty was with him. So, David heard the call of God, received the gifting from God and did great things for God. So it should be with us. We should be using what God gave us and doing great things for him through us.
In the second reading, the calling of Ezekiel, we jump forward in time. We jump forward about 400 and a bit years to about around 592 BC at a time when the Jewish nation had for some time failed to follow old ways. And God had allowed the Babylonian Empire to overrun them, to destroy their temple, Solomon’s temple, and to take many of them into exile. You might remember if you’re of a similar age to me growing up in the 1970s, the Boney M song: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yeah, we wept, when we remembered Zion. But how could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” I was a bit mystified as a child about what on earth these words were all about, but I came to learn later that they’re actually a retelling of Psalm 137, a lament from the Jewish people about being taken into exile. That’s the setting.
In our reading from Ezekiel, we hear God speaking to Ezekiel, sending him to a rebellious set of Israelites, to tell them what the sovereign Lord says. And interestingly, we’ve got that delightful line “and whether or not they take any heed.” Whether they hear what God is saying to them, they will know that a prophet of God has been amongst them. And it should be like that with us, you know, whether people are obstinate and stubborn towards God, they should know that they encounter God through us.
Let’s go forward another half a millennium or so to the time of Jesus. In the third reading, we hear Jesus struggling in his hometown, and it’s kind of interesting. There’s not many stories where Jesus is limited in some way. This is a fascinating one. Put it into context. Mark has previously told the stories of Jesus going through a crowd, and the woman with the issue of blood reaching out and touching him in a crowd and him knowing who it was. So great miracles have been happening, and then he comes back to his hometown, and we find him getting a pretty rough reception. When we read, ‘he was in his hometown’, think less of the physical location, but think about him being with his own people, the community that knew him; where he grew up, the people that he’d grown up with that knew him, saw him as a child, knew his family.
It’s perhaps helpful to understand this story in Mark, just to recognise something of the system of the culture of the day. There was a very strong kind of shame and honour culture and that’s kind of vital to understand how the society operated. In essence, if one person in the society received honour, another had to lose it. For one to be acclaimed, somebody had to be diminished. So, there’s kind of a tension here. Honour is sort of a limited good. You can’t make more of it. You cannot increase the amount. In order for Jesus to be recognised as a holy man of wisdom by his own people, others have to be downgraded. Hence there’s a tension. And the people react really quite negatively. Who is this? Who does he think he is? Isn’t this Mary’s son, the carpenter?
Now let’s unpack that a little bit. Isn’t it interesting that Jesus’s father is not named? So often in the Bible you get this is X the son of this father, the son of this father and you get great lineages naming all the fathers. But here, Jesus is referred to as Mary’s son. This being a fairly patriarchal society, unlike today where we have rather more equality (but not as much as we should), being named as Mary’s Son is, is really quite dismissing. He’s also called out as a carpenter. Now maybe, like me, you’ve got respect for carpentry as being a beautiful craft and you’re thinking of beautiful furniture. I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about here at all. I think it’s actually a little bit more like a jobbing builder, you know, somebody who worked with wood, but who is a lowly and uneducated man eking out an existence, moving from place to place to get work. And critically, not being there as the man to protect the women in the family. Shame on him.
At the end of verse 3, we get that line, ‘they took offence at him.’ The Greek word underneath all that is, is actually scandalise, so in short, they thought it was scandalous what he was doing.
And Jesus answers them. He answers them by arguing that others – but not his community, not his friends, not his family – others are in a better place to be able to assess a prophet than his own people. That’s quite a put-down.
Now in verse 5 we get that fascinating verse: “He could not do many miracles there except heal a few people.” Does anybody else yearn for Sundays where we only heal a few people? We don’t do many miracles. Well maybe shame on us for having such low expectations, such low faith. Maybe we should raise what we’re believing and expecting. We serve a powerful God. Why should we not be seeing miracles and healings every Sunday? But isn’t it really interesting that faith was a critical factor? The faith of the people in him limited and constrained him, or their lack of faith, and he was amazed that they were so lacking in faith, and he was somehow constrained by that, which is intriguing that faith is so critical.
We tend to think of faith in a very cerebral way – something in the head, a belief system – but instead I think we should be thinking of it more as a commitment. A people with faith in you. Then the essence is that they are with you. They are loyal to you. They are externally manifesting their belief in you, in an emotion filled way. They’re seen to be behaving with loyalty and commitment. It’s not just in their heads, it’s in their lives.
So Jesus turns to his disciples and began to send them out. Perhaps there’s a little essence here that he’s actually using his own limited success in his hometown as a lesson and maybe as a warning to his disciples. They will face rejection. They will face times when everything doesn’t go their way. A signal that there’s going to be good and bad as they go forward in their ministry. He gave them authority over evil spirits. He raised them up in the hierarchy of status. They took this gifting. And then they used it just like Jean Valjean in the video of Les Miserables, took the silver and went on in the rest of the film to use it for great things. He used his wealth to support many. They preached. They drove out many demons and more than that, they healed many people.
But let’s remember these disciples. We’ve learned from the previous stories that they weren’t the brightest of the bunch. They were sometimes a bit dim, a little bit clueless, and here we have them understanding enough to carry out this mission effectively. So wrapping this up and bringing it together, I’d just like to ask, how do we hear God in our lives and in our church? What’s the image we want for ourselves? Is it kind of a comfy slipper sort of place and a beautiful carpet that’s easy and comfortable and nice and serene on a Sunday? Or is it one with a bit more disruption as God’s power works through us and impacts this place? Are we hungry for more? Do we want to see God moving through us? Making very real what it says on our website to show the love of God in the heart of Uxbridge and to share God’s call for wholeness, justice, and peace for all?
As it was for Ezekiel, it should be for us, that in Uxbridge, those who encounter us know that a prophet has been among them, know that they’ve encountered God’s love and grace, though they may not accept it. And as it was for David. Do we know how mighty the few of us can be? Because the Lord God Almighty is with us. He can do mighty things through each of us.
Neil Mackin
Readings for 14 July
Mark 6: 14-29
John the Baptist Beheaded
14 King Herod heard about this, for Jesus’ name had become well known. Some were saying, “John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.”
15 Others said, “He is Elijah.”
And still others claimed, “He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of long ago.”
16 But when Herod heard this, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised from the dead!”
17 For Herod himself had given orders to have John arrested, and he had him bound and put in prison. He did this because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, whom he had married. 18 For John had been saying to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” 19 So Herodias nursed a grudge against John and wanted to kill him. But she was not able to, 20 because Herod feared John and protected him, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man. When Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzled; yet he liked to listen to him.
21 Finally the opportune time came. On his birthday Herod gave a banquet for his high officials and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. 22 When the daughter of Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his dinner guests.
The king said to the girl, “Ask me for anything you want, and I’ll give it to you.” 23 And he promised her with an oath, “Whatever you ask I will give you, up to half my kingdom.”
24 She went out and said to her mother, “What shall I ask for?”
“The head of John the Baptist,” she answered.
25 At once the girl hurried in to the king with the request: “I want you to give me right now the head of John the Baptist on a platter.”
26 The king was greatly distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he did not want to refuse her. 27 So he immediately sent an executioner with orders to bring John’s head. The man went, beheaded John in the prison, 28 and brought back his head on a platter. He presented it to the girl, and she gave it to her mother. 29 On hearing of this, John’s disciples came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.
Further readings from the lectionary this week are as follows:
- Amos 7: 7-15
- Psalm 85: 8-13
- Ephesians 1: 3-14
Our worship
We meet at 11am for our Sunday services, which are also live-streamed on our YouTube channel. If you wish to view our services online, you can find them at https://www.youtube.com/@christchurchuxbridge
You can also view a recent service on our church website. Our service this week will be led by Christ Church member Joanne Mackin, and will be a parade service and a service of thanksgiving to mark the retirement of Stephanie, our Girls’ Brigade captain. You can find the order of service here.
If you are unable to join us in person or online for our Sunday services, but would like to receive a recording of them on a memory stick to watch at home, please let us know.
Forthcoming services
14 July – Christ Church worship group – parade service and service of thanksgiving to mark Stephanie Marr’s retirement as Girls’ Brigade Captain
21 July – Catherine Wells (Methodist local preacher)
28 July – Revd Margaret Dudley (Methodist minister) – Holy Communion
4 August – Christ Church worship group
News from BB and GB
Awards Evening – Friday 12th July
Our Awards Evening will be held in Christ Church from 6.30pm until 8pm. During the evening the Boys and Girls will receive the badges they have earned during the year and special awards for this year will also be presented. If you would like to come and join in the congratulations to our youngsters, you would be very welcome.
The Dragon & The Virgin: Religion in Uxbridge book launch
St Margaret’s Church
Saturday 20th July, 4pm til 5pm
Published by Britain’s fastest growing producer of local history books, this book covers the sweep of religious history in Uxbridge. While primarily focused on the parish church of St Margaret, we are introduced to St Andrew’s church, the Roman Catholic community and the non-conformist movements which emerged in Uxbridge. The next chapter to emerge in the history of Uxbridge will be the growing diversity of faith communities in the Hillingdon Borough.
Speakers include Fr Nicholas Schofield, Uxbridge historian Ken Pearce and author of The Dragon and the Virgin Reverend Andy Thompson.
Copies of the book will be available at a discounted price and there will be book signing by the author.
Tea and cakes provided.
Children’s Corner
Dates for your diary
| 24 July | Welcome Wednesday |
| 4 September | Welcome Wednesday |
| 8 September | Congregational Meeting |
| 18 September | Welcome Wednesday |
| 21 September | Induction service for Revd Wilbert Sayimani |
| 24 November | Congregational Meeting |
Praying for other churches
hold all those who give up their time to volunteer for church roles and responsibilities.
Closing prayer
God of all, send us out into the world you have made.
Help us to be the people you want us to be;
help us to live in ways that show your love
for us and for all people.
Keep us dancing, keep us singing
and keep us walking in your ways.
Keep us open, keep us generous
and keep us ready to give our all for you,
as you have given everything for us.
Amen.
(Taken from Roots)
