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)
During the school summer break, Look-In will be produced fortnightly. The next issue of Look-In will be on 13 September.
We would like to warmly welcome our new minister, Revd Wilbert Sayimani, and his family to Christ Church as Wilbert begins his ministry at Christ Church and Ickenham URC at the start of September.
Opening Prayer
Use the following words to help centre yourself in the moment. Say them out loud, or speak them in your mind:
Jesus, open my heart.
Prepare yourself to hear God’s word in a new way.
Jesus, open my heart.
Listen for God’s voice, calling you to serve others and love radically.
Jesus, open my heart.
Hold the joys, regrets and frustrations from the week, and look ahead to the opportunities next week will bring.
Jesus, open my heart.
Hold the people you share your life with, and the challenges that come with relationships and friendships.
Jesus, open my heart.
Rest a moment in the quiet.
Jesus, open my heart.
Amen.
(Taken from The Vine)
Reflection from 18 August
Readings – Psalm 100 and 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
Now, I don’t know whether you like romcoms – romantic comedies. They’re not really my thing, but I do have several on DVD and I can be known to watch them when either bored, or need something that might not require a lot of brain power, or perhaps when I’m feeling just slightly under the weather. The popular ones of the early 2000s seemed to always star Colin Firth or Hugh Grant. ‘Love Actually’ stars both Hugh Grant and Colin Firth and a few other well-known actors and is all about a number of scenarios of romantic love. The stories run at the same time and some of them interchange, and there is a bit of brain power required just to keep up with the change of about seven different scenarios all going on at the same time.
It’s a bittersweet comedy with some of the stories ending up in a successful love situation, and others not so successful – at least, that’s my opinion. It starts with a rather uncouth character played by Bill Nighy who is an aging pop star who has released a new version of the classic pop song ‘Love is All Around’ as a Christmas potential number one. It also features a wedding where the fanfare is the Beatles’ ‘All You Need Is Love’ with an ever-growing orchestra playing as the song progresses. The fanfare has been organised by the best man, who later in the film professes his love for the bride. Of course, the film is fiction and relates to romantic love which is fine, but not the be all and end all, as my father would have said.
There are so many uses of love and we all use the word love in our daily vocabulary: ‘I love you’, ‘I love that shirt’, ‘I love that coffee shop’ or ‘for the love of all things holy’, which incidentally has been defined as something people say when they’re exasperated, or can’t believe something. It’s often used in place of swearing or bad words. We live and learn.
One of today’s readings is well-known, popular and often used at weddings. “Love is patient, love is kind…” is part of a teaching on spiritual gifts. The purest and highest of all God’s gifts of the Spirit is the grace of divine love. All the other gifts of the Spirit Christians may exercise lack value in meaning if they aren’t motivated by love. The Bible teaches that faith, hope and love come together, but the greatest of these is love. Spiritual gifts are appropriate for a time and a season, but love lasts forever. Let’s take apart that passage verse by verse which will help us understand the concept of God’s love:
Love is patient. This kind of patient love bears with offences and is slow to repay or punish those who offend. However, it does not imply indifference, which would ignore an offence. Patient love is often used to describe God.
Love is kind. Kindness is similar to patience, but refers to how we treat others. It especially implies a love that reacts with goodness towards those who have been ill-treated. This kind of love may take the form of a gentle rebuke when careful discipling is needed.
Love does not envy. This kind of love appreciates and rejoices when others are blessed with good things and does not allow jealousy and resentment to take root. This love is not displeased when others experience success.
Love does not boast. The word boast here means ‘bragging without foundation’. This kind of love does not exalt itself over others. It recognises that our achievements are not based on our own abilities or worthiness.
Love is not proud. This love is not overly self-confident or insubordinate to God and others. It is not characterised by a sense of self-importance or arrogance.
Love is not rude. This kind of love cares about others, their customs and their likes and dislikes. It respects the feelings and concerns of others, even when they are different from our own. It would never act dishonestly or disgrace another person.
Love is not self-seeking. This kind of love puts the good of others before our own. It places God first in our lives above our own ambitions. This love does not insist on getting its own way.
Love is not easily angered. Like the characteristics of patience, this kind of love does not rush towards anger when others do us wrong.
Love keeps no record of wrongs. This kind of love offers forgiveness, even when offences are repeated many times. It’s a love that doesn’t keep track of every wrong thing that people do and hold it against them.
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. This kind of love seeks to avoid involvement in evil and helps others stay clear of evil too. It rejoices when loved ones live according to truth.
Love always protects. This kind of love will always expose the sins of others in a safe way that won’t bring harm, shame or damage, but will restore and protect.
Love always trusts. This love gives others the benefit of the doubt, sees the best in others and trusts in their good intentions.
Love always hopes. This kind of love hopes for the best where others are concerned, knowing God is faithful to complete the work he has started in us. This hope-filled love encourages others to press forward in the faith.
Love always perseveres. This kind of love endures even through the most difficult trials.
Love never fails. This kind of love goes beyond the boundaries of ordinary love. It is eternal, it is divine and will never cease.
The best gift God gave us is himself: even before the foundation of the earth, God was. Before ‘let there be light’, there was light: the light of the world. We can always rely on God being stable, consistent, keeping his word reliable. Pure love, unselfish, desiring the best for each and every one of us. God does not love us just today and sings our praises, then tomorrow says ‘I changed my mind about you.’ God does not ignore us, play games with us, cause confusion, or try to embarrass or humiliate us. God is not mean, or mean-spirited, or flaky. God is not unkind, rude, intrusive, pushy, hateful, or without compassion. God actually cares about our dreams, our hopes, and our desires. He cares for all of us in that way, but above all, God is not selfish. God does not just show up when he has something to do for us, nor does he give gifts to try and convince us to do something.
He gives us pure love. God just loves us unconditionally, and we know from John 3: 16 that God so loved the world, he gave his one and only Son. God leads by love. God is kind, merciful, compassionate, holy, beautiful, and gracious. Because God so well loves us and infuses our hearts with his love, we desire to love him with all of our hearts, our souls and our minds. We serve because we love God. We lay our lives down because we love God. The love of God compels us to pour love back onto God and infuses our covenant.
Before mankind was, God existed. He is the Alpha and the Omega; he is the reason all of life has its being, so we truly believe he alone is worthy of our worship. We truly believe his love is the love most worthy of pursuing and worthy of knowing. There is no greater love than the love God flows out to us. Some go looking for love in all the wrong places with all the wrong faces, and it can sometimes lead to heartache. He fills us to overflowing with his unconditional love. He satisfies completely; he is the living water that quenches our thirst and satisfies our greatest cravings. Nothing in this world can surpass his great love.
Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father, except through the Son.” He gave his life as a compensating sacrifice so that we could put on him his righteousness and stand before a holy God. We cannot thank God enough for everything. He is amazing, he’s beyond amazing. May we know the height, depth, width, and vast expanse of his love. Amen.
Jeremy Day
Reflection from 25 August
Readings – Joshua 24: 1-2a, 14-18 and John 6: 60-69
“Take the money or open the box.” Remember that? Well, that was the choice given at the climax of a very old TV game show which was called ‘Take Your Pick’. It is of course a format that has been repeated with various variations by many other shows. Contestants had to decide: do they take the safe option – the money they’ve accumulated – or do they gamble by opening the box, which might give them something of more value or might give them nothing at all. And of course, the emotions of such decisions are heightened by the lighting and the music and the suspense and the careful timing to create that almost unbearable moment when we’re all just on tenterhooks wondering which are they going to decide. It’s very compelling and often it’s hard to remember that they come into the show with no prize money whatsoever, so it really isn’t the end of the world if they leave it with no prize money whatsoever.
Well, we could regard this morning’s readings from scripture in the same way: presenting people with a decision that involves a similar sense of risk and uncertainty. Do we take the money, or do we open the box? Before that section of John’s gospel that we’ve just heard this morning, the crowds around Jesus had been embroiled in debates about his claim to be the bread of life after he had miraculously fed all 5,000 of them, and as we heard in the passage that’s been read for us, they had now reached a moment of decision; a moment that was vastly more significant than whether to take the money or open the box. Could they accept his teaching or not? Many of them, as we heard, said that the teaching was hard. Not hard to understand, because Jesus had spent considerable amounts of time explaining what he meant, but it was hard for them to accept this teaching about eating his flesh and drinking his blood and thus gaining eternal life.
Put like that, perhaps we understand why it was so difficult, and Jesus doesn’t really make it any easier because he goes on to say “does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?” Some of them clearly found it impossible. As John puts it, they turned back and no longer went about with him but when the twelve disciples were confronted with the same stark choice, “do you wish also to go away?”, Peter answers for them all, saying, “Lord, to whom can we go?”
“Lord, to whom can we go?”
At the risk of making this reminiscent of an English grammar lesson, let’s just consider that question in sections. It starts with that word ‘Lord’, a form of address that already implies a strong, dependable relationship. no matter what comes next, that word ‘Lord’ establishes the context in which the disciples are working out their faith. Remember that it’s also in John’s gospel where we find Mary encountering Jesus after the resurrection, and that wonderful moment when she recognises him when he utters her name. “Mary.” That’s all he says. That’s all it took for her to know that it was him, and that meant that whatever she would have to face from that day onwards would be faced with that strong relationship underpinning it.
One of the highest privileges that a person can have is surely to give a name to another person, and perhaps that’s why we all tut with disapproval when celebrities think up even more weird and wonderful names for their children. We wonder how they’re going to travel through life with the burden of such names, but every name, however peculiar we might think it to be, conveys a relationship, a sense of connection, and, we hope, also of love and support and care, and that means that even when a parent is yelling that name with all the fierce anger they can muster because their child has done something wrong or dangerous, it still conveys to that child a certain context within which they can work out what life is all about.
Well, that word ‘Lord’ gives something similar for the disciples. “Lord,” said Peter, “to whom can we go?”
“To whom?” Peter seems to be asking Jesus what the alternative is to believing in him, almost as if they believed in him because he happened to be the best option around at the moment. The Israelites were faced with a similar choice in the reading from Joshua. Joshua effectively was telling them to get off the fence and to decide who they are going to worship: to stay with the Lord or to go back to serve the gods who were worshipped by their ancestors. Their answer was as definite as Peter’s: what else could they do, they asked, than to worship God because of what he had done for them bringing them out of slavery in Egypt, protecting them from the perils of nature and the powers of other nations. Their choice was based entirely on a sense of gratitude and indebtedness. God had proved to their satisfaction that he would care for them, he would protect them, and therefore they would believe in him.
Maybe we actually long for that sort of faith where there are clear examples of God’s presence in the world that would simply make it a logical decision for us to believe in Him, but in fact that would not be faith, that would be certainty, and that could so easily have left the Israelites with a belief that everything will be sweetness and light with very little effort on their part. Joshua, though, would have none of that, because immediately after the passage we heard, he spells out to them exactly what a declaration of faith in God would really mean. “If you forsake the Lord,” he says, “and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm and consume you even after doing you good.”
So we come back to that question asked by Peter: ‘To whom?’ What are the alternatives facing people today as they try to make the same choices that were offered by Joshua to the Israelites and by Jesus to the disciples. Well, perhaps one option is a just-in-case sort of belief where, because none of us can actually ever be totally sure, we pay a certain respect to religion just in case there is something in it, but Jesus demands more of us than that.
Another option is no belief at all, a confident certainty that myself is all that matters, I can go through life focusing on my comfort and my convenience, but what happens when an external event punctures that self-absorbed balloon; when this self-satisfied person suddenly is faced with life-threatening illness, or a deep sorrow, or confusion about the future, or a decision that goes wrong, or redundancy, or disaster, because then they’re thrown back only on their own resources. Without a sense of the deep love that is there in ways we cannot fully understand, they can easily flounder and face despair and even breakdown.
Other people counteract that by creating the sort of belief system that suits them, picking out bits of one form of spirituality and bits of another, perhaps consulting astrologers, or practicing meditation, or using crystals, or considering horoscopes; all ways of trying to get in touch with something otherworldly that might make sense of the lives they are experiencing.
When the disciples asked that question “to whom can we go?”, the assumption was that there was only one answer. Not for them the insurance-policy-just-in-case sort of belief, not for them the option of no belief at all and not for them either was that sort of pick and mix option, because what Peter was saying was that there was no one else. No one else other than Jesus who they could in all conscience follow, and we get this sense that it was almost as if they could not help but follow him. They could not help but worship the Lord their God, so it wasn’t a sort of intellectual choice in their heads between one thing or another, a logical, thought-out, planned decision, this was a compulsion felt deep in their hearts, deep in their souls, deep even in their guts.
Which brings us to the last part of that question, “Lord, to whom can we go?” When John mentions the other disciples who had turned back, he said they no longer went with him. Going about with somebody was a concept that meant much more than physically being close to them. It implied a relationship of a disciple to their master, it involved devotion and commitment. It’s a bit like the phrase ‘to go out with someone’ or the rather more old-fashioned ‘to walk out with someone’. These concepts are about a close relationship being explored and enjoyed.
I asked my 28-year-old niece the other day what phrases people use. In my day it was “so-and-so going out with somebody” and that was a great source of great debate amongst communities of young people at the time, and she said to me that they do still sometimes say that, but actually more often someone is just said to be ‘seeing someone’. That seems to be the phrase at the moment so there you are, but you know what I mean, that sense of having decided to be with somebody. It’s a relationship, it’s that strong sense of being together.
So, when Peter says, “to whom can we go?” there is also that sense of relationship. He was asking who they could possibly go about with, who they could be devoted to, who they could follow, who they could believe in if it was not him. The disciples’ faith and the disciples’ action were all wrapped up together in their response to Jesus and, in the way that John presents this in his gospel, it’s as if they never even thought that those two things could be separated. No one was simply saying the words ‘I believe’ or ‘I don’t believe’, they were exhibiting what it meant through their actions to stay there with Jesus and continue in that relationship, going about with him, or to walk away back into their old life, and this is, in the end, why insurance-policy religion or pick-and-mix religion or self-centred religion are never adequate options.
The belief that was offered to the disciples by Jesus is offered to us all, and in accepting it, we are compelled to ask ourselves ‘what difference is this going to make to me?’ Words and heads are never enough, this must involve actions and hearts, and I believe that here at Christ Church you know all about that. In every conversation at Welcome Wednesdays, or at the coffee mornings; in everybody helped through the counselling service; in every activity that addresses a need; in every moment when someone stops to notice someone else and listens deeply to their story, all of that is creating an environment of real deep inclusion.
Perhaps sometimes it seems so much easier for the disciples who were called to leave their old way of life and travel on into a whole new way of being, because so often we are trying to work out our faith from within the context of the lives we are living, rather than launching out into a totally different life somewhere else, but our faith can, and must, also be lived out in our actions. Just think about all those occasions in our daily lives when we might ask ourselves whether we are following Jesus’s example in the way we are treating another person. Whether we are looking for God’s activity in the people around us and in the world we experience, it’s a challenge for every one of us, but surely it’s a challenge worth getting hold of by the scruff of the neck, if a challenge has a neck, but you know what I mean! If we could learn to see belief so intertwined with action as the disciples did then perhaps we might discover that our faith has grown and that we are seeing the world through new eyes.
So we’ve reached the end of our little English grammar lesson this morning and thought about each element of that question asked by Peter: “Lord, to whom can we go?” Taking the money or opening the box in the game show was offering the temptation to gamble, to take a chance, but there is no element of chance when it comes to God’s relationship with us. To whom can we go is not an easy question for anyone to answer, just as it was not easy for the disciples around Jesus, but let us never forget that it begins with that word ‘Lord’.
God’s relationship with us is solid and dependable even when we flounder around trying to work out what it means. May God help us all to face the challenge of belief with the surety of his constant love as we each ask and answer the question, “Lord, to whom can we go?” God help us all. Amen.
Revd Dr Claire Potter
Readings for 1 September
Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-23
That Which Defiles
7 The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus 2 and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. 3 (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. 4 When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.)
5 So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?”
6 He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
“‘These people honour me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
7 They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.’
8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”
14 Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. 15 Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.”
21 For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come – sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”
Further readings from the lectionary this week are as follows:
- Deuteronomy 4: 1-2, 6-9
- Psalm 15
- James 1: 17-27
Readings for 8 September
Mark 7: 24-37
Jesus Honors a Syrophoenician Woman’s Faith
24 Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret. 25 In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an impure spirit came and fell at his feet. 26 The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.
27 “First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
28 “Lord,” she replied, “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
29 Then he told her, “For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter.”
30 She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
Jesus Heals a Deaf and Mute Man
31 Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. 32 There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged Jesus to place his hand on him.
33 After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. 34 He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means “Be opened!”). 35 At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.
36 Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. 37 People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”
Further readings from the lectionary this week are as follows:
- Isaiah 35: 4-7a
- Psalm 146
- James 2: 1-10, 14-17
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 our covenant and communion service and will be led by Methodist minister, Revd Dr Claire Potter. 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
1 September – Revd Dr Claire Potter (Methodist minister) – Holy Communion and covenant service
8 September – Christ Church worship group
15 September – Catherine Wells (Methodist local preacher) – Harvest and parade service
22 September – Revd Wilbert Sayimani – Holy Communion
Harvest service – 15 September
Our Harvest service this year will be on 15 September and we will be donating our Harvest gifts to Yiewsley & West Drayton foodbank. If you would like to bring a donation of food to this service, these are the items that they are currently most in need of:
- Jam/Honey
- Rice Pudding
- Custard
- Tinned Fruit
- Tinned Soup
- Tinned meat or fish
- Tinned sweetcorn
- Tinned pulses
- Sugar (500g or 1kg)
- Microwave rice packets
- Pasta sauce
- Tinned Potatoes
- Instant coffee (small jars)
- Long life milk (ideally full fat or semi skimmed)
- 1L Fruit squash
- Biscuits
- Dried noodles
- Tinned spaghetti
- Long grain rice
They are not currently in need of baked beans, pasta or nappies.
Induction service for Revd Wilbert Sayimani
Saturday 21st September, 2.30pm at Christ Church
The induction service for Revd Wilbert Sayimani will take place at Christ Church on Saturday 21st September at 2.30pm. The service will be led by Revd James Fields and refreshments will be served following the service. If you are planning on attending this service, please let Joanne know.
There will be a sign-up sheet available at church for providing food items for the refreshments after the service, please do sign up. We are also looking for a volunteer to manage the kitchen and ensure that the tea and coffee flow and the washing up is done, and a member who would like to read some prayers during the service. Please let Joanne know if you are able to help.
Parking will be limited to the church car park only for those with disabled badges and access needs, or those who are bringing large and heavy items for the event. If you need a parking space at church, please email Joanne. There is parking available nearby in the Cedars, Grainges and Chimes car parks.
Children’s Corner
Find the following words in the word search:
| GOD
FATHER TRUST PERFECT SPEAK
|
LISTEN
ANGRY WORD SEED PLANTED
|
FREE
BLESSED CARING PEOPLE HELP
|
Can you also spot how many times the word ‘DO’ appears?
Dates for your diary
| 2024 | |
| 4 September | Welcome Wednesday |
| 8 September | Congregational Meeting |
| 18 September | Welcome Wednesday |
| 21 September | Induction service for Revd Wilbert Sayimani |
| 2 October | Welcome Wednesday |
| 16 October | Welcome Wednesday |
| 30 October | Welcome Wednesday |
| 13 November | Welcome Wednesday |
| 24 November | Congregational Meeting |
| 27 November | Welcome Wednesday |
| 11 December | Welcome Wednesday |
| 2025 | |
| 8 January | Welcome Wednesday |
| 22 January | Welcome Wednesday |
Praying for other churches
w/c 1 September 2024
This week, we hold the following in our prayers:
- Pinner Methodist
- Ickenham URC
- St Margaret’s, Uxbridge
w/c 8 September 2024
This week, we hold the following in our prayers:
- Eastcote Methodist
- St Andrew’s URC, Gerrards Cross
- St Andrew’s, Uxbridge
Closing prayer
Act in us, O God.
Care through us, O God.
Teach us to be gentle with the whole of creation.
Inspire us to live as Jesus taught us.
Open our hearts to your ways.
Nurture us in your compassion.
Amen.
(Taken from Roots)
