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
This moment is holy,
This time is sacred,
This space is precious,
Turn aside for a brief time from the business and busy-ness of the days and weeks just gone,
and all those to come,
And be present to the here and now.
God is here, may you come to notice,
To respond,
To be transformed by the presence of God’s grace.
Amen.
(Taken from The Vine)
Reflection from 6 October
Readings – Isaiah 11: 3b- 9 and Matthew 5: 1-12
There are plenty of mountains in the Bible. I wonder what your favourite biblical mountain is; I love the one we read about in Isaiah with the little child. Here’s a roll call, not necessarily comprehensive. We heard a few verses from Proverbs 8 as our call to worship. In this chapter, the Wisdom child sings of her companionship with God, even before the act of Creation. This child is older than the everlasting mountains, older than the timeless hills and I guess that as Wisdom, as the Holy Spirit, she also outlives them. She’s joyful and playful and loving. I find that comforting.
Early in Genesis we come to rest on the top of Mount Ararat in Noah’s ark as the flood waters begin to recede, the new phase of life with God begins with a mountain-top and there’s a new covenant with humans and with all living beings. There’s another covenant after the people of God escape from slavery in Egypt after the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea while they are living on manna provided by God and from another mountain, Sinai, the holy mountain, comes the giving of the law by God via Moses in cloud and thunder and mystery and awe. It starts with the Ten Commandments and then goes on into detail about how the people are lived to live together as a new people as a new nation.
Much later, the prophet Elijah seeks refuge on Mount Horeb when his life is threatened by King Ahab (best known for his horrid wife Jezebel) after he’s carried out God’s commands and, like the people at Sinai, he’s greeted by the elements: wind, earthquake, fire. The voice of God comes to him not in those things, but in a still, small voice, otherwise translated as a gentle whisper.
Fast forward to Isaiah and the passage we heard just now which describes a peaceable kingdom, a kingdom that is so different from the corrupt Israel of the time, and which God wills for God’s people. The animals are surely symbolizing powerful human beings, the animals rejecting violence under a small child, think of the Wisdom child, leading them and the location of this peaceable kingdom: my holy mountain.
There are lots of mountains in the Psalms and we sang a favourite one – Psalm 121: I to the hills will lift mine eyes, a quote my not very religious father-in-law chose for his memorial bench looking out to the Lake District. The hills in the Bible are associated with God’s protection; we are watched over like a child by an adoring parent.
On to the New Testament. I looked up the shepherds of the Nativity and found that they’re not actually on the hills. Luke locates them in the fields; it’s the cows that put them on the hilltops. When Jesus comes to teach his new law in the Sermon on the Mount, which we heard, he goes up a mountain side just as Moses did. If you visit the site in the Holy Land, it it’s a gentle hill but nevertheless there’s a real echo of the story from Exodus and the new law calls not for mechanical obedience but for deep heart wisdom: blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the pure in heart, blessed are the peacemakers.
Lastly you probably remember the story of the Transfiguration, and you may replay it personally when you have your own mountain-top experiences with God. Jesus takes Peter and James and John up a high mountain and there they see him bathed in light and chatting with our friends Moses and Elijah and they come to realise from them that Jesus is indeed the Saviour of the world.
So what are these mountain stories telling us about God and about ourselves? I think the biblical mountains tell us something about God’s nature. They’re very high for a start, so to the imagination that sees God’s home as being in the sky, they are nearer to God than people at ground level. Like God they are permanent, unchangeable, immovable, or so people thought then before science told us otherwise. They see all sorts of changes: day and night, sunrise and sunset, cloud and sunshine, storm and gentle breeze, but they are themselves unchanged; they are reliable and yet unpredictable, stern and full of peace. They give protection above all.
They’re places from which God gives messages to God’s people. “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news” we sang earlier, so we have the account of the giving of the law from the top of Mount Sinai and Jesus giving the Beatitudes from that gentle mountain setting. “Pay attention,” the mountain setting tells us, “your life depends on what God is about to tell you.”
God gives orders, but God also gives visions, like the vision of the peaceable kingdom in Isaiah where even the animals stop preying on each other, where a toddler is the commander-in-chief. I love it and I long to see it fulfilled. I think it is meant to motivate us to seek peace and pursue it. God brings messages from the mountains and visions, but more than that God gives the gift of God’s own presence. It’s on a mountain that Elijah experiences the still, small voice that is so much more powerful than wind, earthquake and fire. It’s on a mountain-top that the glory of Jesus is revealed to Peter James and John.
Mountains take our breath away, they fill us with awe and with wonder, they sink our pettiness into their majesty, they change us in the best possible way. In the mountains, from the mountains, God speaks to us; we are silenced and we are changed. Thank God for the mountains of the Bible and the mountains of our own experience.
Unchangeable, awesome, protective, yes, but the messages coming from scientists and mountain dwellers today is that climate change is changing mountains even faster than the rest of the world and we need to switch roles to protect them. Of course, it makes sense, mountains are higher than the rest of the earth so changes to earth’s atmosphere affect them first of all; they act as an early warning system. What happens there we can expect elsewhere a bit later. Warmer temperatures mean a loss of stability, landslides, rockfalls, avalanches, wildfires. Warmer temperatures mean that the glaciers high in the mountains are melting, and melting fast. Initially this tends to cause flooding as the water surges downwards, and with that flooding comes death and destruction and change to the landscape which may become in many places a barren wilderness. Then, when the water is gone, there is drought; no more gentle trickle down from the glaciers. As permafrost melts, dangerous quantities of greenhouse gases are released. Mountain villages are disappearing as mountain dwellers can no longer sustain even the very simple lifestyles they’ve known for countless generations.
Floods and drought affect a much wider area too, and there’s huge loss of animal and plant life, of biodiversity. Animals such as snow hares and snow leopards, adapted for very cold temperatures, lose their habitat, and of course for the very privileged, ski slopes are shrinking year by year. There’s plenty of lament in the Bible. I believe it’s appropriate in our day and age to lament for the mountains we all love so much and for all that lives on them: plant, animal and human. We can’t stop the process of global heating, it’s too late, but we can we must do what we can to slow it down.
The Methodist Church and the URC have started on that path with drawing up policies to help us become more eco-friendly in our own lives and in our church life. Some churches have signed up for Eco Church, some have undertaken carbon literacy courses, some have made thoughtful and effective adaptation to their buildings, and of course we’re all, I hope, to some extent trying to reduce our personal carbon footprint that’s making a contribution, tiny though it may be to the slowing of global heating and the protection of the world’s mountains and the lands at their feet.
I have to remind myself, as I remind you, that there isn’t time to rest on our laurels; that we need to carry on informing ourselves and taking action and calling on our government to do more. Our love of the mountains, the awe we feel in their presence, their beauty, our knowledge of the Creator’s goodness and love can be our motivation. We can’t stop the process, but we can as a world do something to repair the damage, to help mountain dwellers adapt to the new conditions they find themselves. That may be costly, but it’s fair. What mountain dwellers have contributed to change is minuscule and what they’re suffering is huge. Conversely here in the West, what we’ve contributed to climate change is enormous and what we’ve suffered so far is very little.
Isaiah’s vision of the mountain of God as a place of peace, justice, harmony and beauty is as relevant for us as it was for the people of his day. May it be ours. Jesus’s new law of humility and simplicity and peace-making is for us as well as for those who listened to him on a hill above the Sea of Galilee. May we give whatever it takes to fulfil his law and to bring the vision to realisation.
Revd Maggie Hindley
Readings for 13 October
Mark 10: 17-31
The Rich and the Kingdom of God
17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honour your father and mother.’”
20 “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
21 Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
22 At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
23 Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”
24 The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
26 The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?”
27 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”
28 Then Peter spoke up, “We have left everything to follow you!”
29 “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel 30 will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
Further readings from the lectionary this week are as follows:
- Amos 5: 6-7, 10-15
- Psalm 90: 12-17
- Hebrews 4: 12-16
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 a parade and enrolment service led by our minister, Revd Wilbert Sayimani. 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
13 October – Revd Wilbert Sayimani – parade and enrolment service
20 October – Neil Mackin (Christ Church member and URC lay preacher)
27 October – Revd Wilbert Sayimani – Holy Communion
3 November – Christ Church worship group
The Wind in the Willows
Wednesday 30 October – Saturday 2 November 2024
Winston Churchill Theatre, Ruislip
Take a trip down the riverbank with the musical of this family favourite.
Based on Kenneth Grahame’s best-selling children’s book, with a script by Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, The Wind in the Willows follows Mole, Rat, Badger, and the impulsive Mr. Toad, whose insatiable need for speed lands him in serious trouble. With his beloved home under threat from the notorious Chief Weasel and his gang of sinister Wild Wooders, Toad must attempt a daring escape leading to a series of misadventures and a heroic battle to recapture Toad Hall.
Full of wit, a gorgeous, soaring score from Stiles & Drewe, and heartwarming lessons of friendship, this riotous comedy is perfect for family audiences.
Several people from Christ Church are appearing in this production: Louise (Mole), Sophie (Hedgehog Child/Ensemble), Lawrence (Mr Squirrel/Ensemble) and Caitlin (Horse/Ensemble).
Tickets can be booked online at www.wos-productions.org.uk or by phone (07391 988077) (booking fees apply). Audience members requiring wheelchair spaces should contact the WOS Box Office (07391 988077).
Show times
Wednesday 30 October – Saturday 2 November 2024
Wednesday – Friday times: 19:30
Saturday times: 13:30; 18:30
Tickets cost £18 for adults, £16 for concessions and £14 for children. A group family booking is available – groups of 6 or more that include at least 2 children will receive £1 off each ticket. Contact the WOS Box Office to find out more!
Children’s Corner
Dates for your diary
| 2024 | |
| 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
This week we hold the following churches in our prayers
- North Harrow Methodist
- Holy Trinity, Perivale (URC/CofE)
- Churches Together in Uxbridge
Closing prayer
On each day of the week,
look for God, and find him:
in your friends,
in your family,
in the people you pass by,
in your quiet times,
in laughter,
in the natural world;
for he is everywhere,
and look inside yourself for he is there!
Amen.
(Taken from Roots)
