Still remembering the bible: local and national

Yes, I promise I have been doing it - RB of course - since I last posted here. Often indoors, sometimes outdoors, it has been a week or so of creative RB and still some more to come with a visit to SW Synod this week.

Last week was Durham and Lindisfarne with the members of the Thames North and Eastern Synod Ministers' Spring School. Here are some of us eating bar-be-qued fish on the beach as part of remembering post resurection stories - yum yum.

This morning Clive James had a go at RB too in his point of view on Radio 4, with a reference to the Sermon on the Mount. Some of the members of the congregation at Moldgreen URC had heard that as we came to our own rememberings of a wide range of gospel encounters that leave us with scars. So it has been a moving time doing RB and as I get on a train to the SW tomorrow I will look forward to moving a bit further.

Cross-wards through the cross woods

On Good Friday about 20 folks associated with Waverley URC aged from 10-80 years walked 7 or so miles through West Yorkshire countryside to Castle Hill for a service of witness. They were joined at the hill, which shows signs of human activity since 4,000 BCE, by about 30 other less energetic people. Along the way we often went through small woodland areas. Just breaking into bud, these woodlands were small oasis of wildlife undergoing to natural process of regeneration. Last years fallen leaves were still a blanket in some hollows. Twisted roots and fallen branches, the odd dead hedgehog, all witness to the life and death of the woods. On this edge day there was a fresh awareness of the path between life and death as we trod our way through these woodlands. On the hill we heard the story of the hill far away and the Suffering One. Amongst those who gathered on the hill to listen, some were not associated formally with any organised Christian fellowship. These are the Good Friday people of our age, who walk cross-wards through woods and up the hill to remember and who still count.

Christ of the Easter Vigil,
as you hung on for us,
help us to hang on
to and for each other.
Remind us that we all still count,
in that endless crowd of witnesses.
Confirm us as cross people
as we take the steps that lead us
from death to life.

copyright Janet Lees: 12.04.2009

Remembering the bible with football fans

It was the morning after Shearer's first game in charge of Newcastle and the team had gone down 2-0 to Chelsea, when I preached my Shearer Walks on Water Sermon. Even in deepest Essex there was one Newcastle fan in the congregation. This is a suprise in a place made up of ethnic old Londoners, the majority of whom are Spurs supporters like me (there was one Chelsea fan there). The congregation was about one quarter members of the local congregation and three quarters family and friends of the baptismal party. I began the remembering the bible session with the Jesus life-line activity you will find on the Vision4life website. This is usually a good place to start. We had some good ideas: Wise men who visited the baby Jesus (one 5 year old remembered), the Last Supper (one 8 year old): as usual the children are quickest off the mark to shre their remembering as active learners. They seem less inhibited than the adults on the whole. This is clearly one of the main factors affecting our monogenerational ageing churches. We lack the energy and action that these younger ones contribute. Many of us can remember attempts to drive these kind of tendencies out of us as young people. Unfortunatley in most cases it worked and drove almost the whole generation out too. Those of us that did not go are left hanging on by our fingertips in the 'We don't do it like that here' churches.

Eventually we had a shared remembered life in which the Life Giver was also remembered for getting lost in a temple at 12 years of age, getting baptised, turning water into wine, feeding a lot of people with a small amount of fish and bread, telling parables and yes, for walking on water. Afterwards over the tea and coffee more inhibited adults suggested other rememberings including 'the one where he turned over the tables of the bankers in the temple'. So its true, even in deepest Essex, just down the road from where Jade Goodey was married those few short weeks ago, the Life Giver is still remembered and celebrated. Let's hope Alan Shearer lives long enough to keep Newcastle in the Premiership as well.

Well spotted

I'm spending the weekend in Hatfield Broad Oak, in Essex, with my Dad. I've just seen a seven spot ladybird in his garden and a comma butterfuly in his backgarden which is a few miles from the end of the runway at Stansted Airport. Comprising about half an acre of mature woodland it is currently full of purple and white violets, primroses and celendines. The Chestnut tree that I planted as a 12 year old child is breaking into leaf. This is one of the best times of the year in the garden, which has grown pretty much wild over the years. Dad calls it his nature reserve.

Jesus saves but Shearer....

... gets the job at Newcastle United for eight games only. However, the whole episode is replete with religious language. They say some folks take this game of two halves very seriously indeed. A BBC reporter said of the unfolding events: 'For these fans, Shearer walks on water'. More examples of remembering the bible? Is it possible to understand the image of Shearer walking on water without remembering who the description originally refers to? Also known as 'The Angel of the North', is Shearer only a God by reference to that other God-human, Jesus? Or is it enough that humans can't walk on water so we must be referring to Shearer's God-like qualities whether or not some minority group still remembers another water-walking bloke two thousand years ago? Bearing in mind the remembered events of the week coming up, I only hope Alan Shearer makes it to eight games and doesn't find himself nailed to the cross-bar in untimely fashion. He's a very nice bloke (even to a Spurs fan).

Still remembering the bible

There's this website about the bible: http://betterbibles.com/
and they've got a poll there about how often people read the bible.
Now, if I was clever enough I could find out how to put a poll on this website to find out how often people think they remember the bible. But just for fun see what you think when I ask:

How much of the bible do you think you remember?
A lot
A bit
Not much
None

[most people I've asked before think they don't remember any of the bible].

Do you remember any of the following:
The Lord's prayer?
How many days it took for God to create the world?
What happened on the first Good Friday?
What happened on the first Easter Day?

If you remember any of these, Congratulations! You are remembering the bible!! (Ok, so not all of it - try not to be so hard on yourself).

Do you remember things from the bible
often
sometimes
never
only when asked by polls like this on blogs like this?

Do you notice other examples of people around you remembering the bible?
In newspapers
on the radio
in films
on TV
in conversations
in your dreams
in other places?

If so please tell me about it.

Remembering the cross

Harry, aged 85, keeps this cross in his pocket. It was given to him 15 years ago by Constance, who died three weeks after she gave it to him. He keeps it in the pocket where he has his loose change and every time he puts his hand in his pocket he feels it there. It reminds him of his friendship with Constance, a disabled woman from Jamaica who he used to give a lift to church to each week, and of his committment as a Christian.
Baptised as an Anglican, he tried the Baptists as a teenager, before become a Presbyterian after the war, like his late wife, Ruby. Apart from when he had a virus last year for a couple of weeks, he never misses going to Waverley URC, where he is the oldest male member.

You can find plenty of these little crosses to make or for sale on the internet. As we approach cross-week I thought I'd make a video piece about crosses. I've been using some photos of crosses in the school assemblies I've been doing for the last few weeks. Today it was year 7 and they were a bit braver/less self-consious than some of the other groups, so a few people offered their views and opinions. On Friday there's an Easter bonnet competition.

Cross-wise Christ,
with us still
in love, loss and memory;
as we approach your cross-week
keep us mindful of you and each other,
in life and in death.

JAL: 01.04.2009