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Unbounded Love, Bound Up

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“So the soldiers, their officer, and the Jewish police arrested Jesus and bound him.”

“Then Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.”

John 18:14 & 24

Over the season of Lent 2024 I’ve been journeying with the theme ‘Unbounded Love’, a phrase that appears within Charles Wesley’s Hymn ‘Love Divine’, and the title of the 2024 lent resources from The Methodist Church.

So as I began to prepare worship for Holy Week, I have been struck by the way John 18 refers to how Jesus was bound by those who arrested him, leading me to write this meditative reflection.

It could be used on Maundy Thursday or Good Friday, as a tool to reflect on the arrest of Jesus, and the uncertainty this would have left his followers with.

Unbounded Love, Bound Up

They bound him,
After they arrested him,
After the betrayer had kissed him,
After he had told Judas to do what he had to do.
What now?

They bound him.
The one who said come to me and I will give you rest.
The one who said he had come to give us life in all its fulness.
The one who said he would quench our thirst.
What now?

They bound him.
The one who showed compassion to the marginalised.
The one who offered release to those bound by evil.
The one who healed the sick and brought hope to so many.
What now?

Jesus – the one who came and showed us what real love looks like,
Compassionate, caring, nurturing, welcoming,
Love unconditional,
Love unlimited,
Love unbounded,

And his unbounded love angered them.

And so they bound him.
Unbounded love, bound up.
What now?

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Letting go of jumble on the jumble sale

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After my wife and I married, we spent 6 happy years as part of Mount Charles Methodist Church, St Austell, Cornwall.

Among the congregation was a wonderful lady named June. She played the church organ and, she was also the proud and seemingly life-long custodian of one of the brik-a-brak stalls at every church fayre. if my memory serves me correctly, it was jewellery, broaches and necklaces and earrings and other shiny things.

As every church fayre approached, the boxes of goods would come out of wherever June stored them, she would lovingly unpack and display the goods on the table ready for sale.

Then at the end of each event, she would equally as lovingly box the remaining items up, and take custody of them until the next church fayre.

The problem was, that bar the odd item, the same items went back into the boxes that had come out. Much of what I would lovingly call ‘jumble’ never got sold, but was kept hold of.

I’ve been thinking about June and her stall this week following last Sundays lectionary reading of John 2:13-25. It is the episode in the gospel story when Jesus upturns the tables in the temple, and lets the animals go free declaring ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’

In a dramatic story, Jesus declares the temple had become a marketplace, challenging the unjust trading, and the way was distracting people from God.

The passage goes to to share how Jesus talked of his own body as a temple (verse 19 & 21). The physical temple in Jerusalem was the place God dwelt with Gods people, but Jesus suggests he himself, his body, is a temple, and points us to see that Jesus was a person in whom God dwelt.

Elsewhere in the bible, we read a further reflection on ‘temple’ places where God dwells. In the book of 1 Corinthians 6, we read “do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?”.

Which brings me back to June and her brick-a-brak. If we are temples of the Holy Spirit – people in whom God dwells – is there jumble on the jumble sale of our lives that needs upturning and taking out? Is there stuff in our lives that distracts us from God?

Sometimes we know there are things in our lives we need to let go of, but we hold on because they are familiar, comfortable, certain, while also knowing they distract us. Perhaps there may even be times when we hold onto the jumble because it is a distraction, and we’re fearful and what God will say when we remove them.

‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’

Are we ready and willing to allow Jesus to help us remove the distraction inducing jumble, to make space in our lives and our hearts, for Jesus?

Are we ready to allow ourselves to experience the depth & breadth of his love?

May we be willing to allow Jesus to upturn that which needs upturning, that we might turn to be more fully who God calls us to be.

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Does God watch The Traitors?

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This week, the hit series The Traitors returned for it’s second UK series. It’s described as an ultimate murder mystery game, where more than 20 people compete in challenges to add money to the prize pot, and try to live to the end of the game  to win the money.

The twist – among the contestants, are the faithful – and the traitors. The faithful meet at the round table each day for banishment – voting out who they think is a traitor. Then, each night, the traitors meet to decide which faithful they will murder.

Early on in episode 2 of series 2, while gathering at breakfast, Charlie, one of the contestants is talking about how she dealt with her first night wondering who would be murdered, and says:

“cos I’m a Christian and I’m like please (puts her hands together in prayer). I mean, I don’t know whether God watches the traitors”

Another contestant, “I’m sure he does, or she.”

Episode 2, Series 2, The Traitors UK

Hearing that conversation has set my mind thinking.

The Traitors, with its treachery and deceit, isn’t the sort of place I would naturally expect to find a Christian – but perhaps that’s my own unconscious bias talking. So where is God in all this? Does God even have time to watch TV? Does God watch The Traitors?

Given how much the games is actually about power, influence and deceit – it is perhaps not the sort of thing I would intially expect God to want to watch. The Traitors is a game about winning money, and players are there because they want to win that prize. It is a programme that tests players, seeing what lengths they will go to to win. In that light, it is about materialism and greed.

But it also a programme about people’s positions power and influence among the group.

The only thing a faithful player knows, is that they are faithful. So as players try to work out who are the traitors, they have no idea who to trust – or how much. They may try to work with others. They may build alliances. They may plant seeds of doubt in one another minds.  But those relationships are always fragile – for players also, know that those with whom they consult and collaborate might actually be traitors themselves, and could end up using those conversations against them. Alliances don’t tent to last long.

The traitors, they known who is a traitor, and who is faithful. In that they have an upper hand – but that doesn’t mean it is easy for them.

They have to carefully calculate ways to influence the group, where to thrown subtly suspicion, where to keep ion the background, where to take a lead. And when it comes to their night-time murdering in traitor tower, they have to carefully analyse their best choices of who to kill off – mindful that each morning, remaining players will analyse who has been killed off as a potential clue to who the traitors are. If they are not careful, a traitors own treachery could be their downfall.

So ultimately, The Traitors is quite an unhealthily place. Where trust, if existent at all, is fragile. Where deceit is abounding. Where treachery is never far away. And all that is a long way from the sort of community God wants humanity to live in.

So for me, there is an element of watching the Traitors that teaches me what sort of community God calls me to live in, by presenting an opposite. It is nothing like the post-Pentecost community we find in Acts 2, where generosity, togetherness and shared life together are characteristics of the community of believers. The Traitors shows the damage that happens when a community is plagued with suspicion and treachery and selfish use of infleunce and power.

Surely God doesn’t want to watch that.

yet, as I watch The Traitors, I also see a game that demonstrates the importance of relationships. It shows that without trust, relationships are often superficial and fragile. It shows how hard it can be to live in community with others, and work with others, when trust is lacking or absent. It shows human diversity in the different personalities, approaches and responses players make.

The show as we watch it, is inevitably influenced by it’s producers and editors, alongside what I think is a brilliantly played protagonist role by Claudia Winkelman. But I find the way the programme tells stories of individuals tussling with choices fascinating, as players wrestle between selfishness or selflessness, truth and lies, friendship and suspicion, trust and distrust.

Players are not just playing a game, they are living this game, and as time goes on and relationships strengthen and deepen, those choices get harder. While not extensively unpacked, there are hints of how such intense environments impact on individuals anxieties and mental health – espeically when genuinely faithful people are suspected as traitors, or the traitors themselves choosing to deceive or cross people with whom they have build relationships.

While remembering this is a game show, a humanly constructed environment and to some extend a directed community – it is still a community – a community where people show real emotions and real struggles with trust and truth.

So, does God watch The Traitors? Who knows, but i don’t think that is actually the important question. Not for me anyway.

For me, the question is: Is God speaking to me as I watch the Traitors? And to that, my answer is a resounding yes.

Because as I watch, I find myself challenged to think afresh about what healthy community looks like. Reminded of the importance of trust for a flourishing community, of the negative impact the selfish use of influence and power can have. Of the  imapct of my personal choices on others.

I am not living in the midst of a murder mystery game – but I do live in community. Community where relationships matter. Community where I, and the people I meet, are also living with the real struggles of life, of truth, of trust.

The Traitors is challenging afresh to reflect on my life, my relationshiops, my interactions with others. That who I am, how I behave, how I utilise the power and infleunce I have, will be, not for my glory – but the glory of God.

Header Image: The Traitors UK logo, sourced from http://www.bbc.co.uk.

More about The Traitors: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2xRtJpWRbKcwPdXs7bZnxxH/the-traitors-how-the-show-works

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Where I want to live.

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I want to live in a world which cares for the lost and the lonely.
Which gives company to the isolated.
That gives hope to the displaced.
That gives welcome to the marginalised.

I want to live in a world that looks after creation.
A world that cares for the planet,
With people who are attentive to how waste is disposed of,
In community which thinks about what world it is leaving for the next generation.

I want to live in a world where people live in peace,
Not just striving for it, not just hoping for it,
Not just holding peace as a golden, yet unattainable aspiration
But wholeheartedly embracing the challenge of living in peace.
Living it out within their communities,
with friends and enemies,
Family and neighbours,
Those we love, and those we struggle to love.

I want to live in a community of love.
Where grace and forgiveness are present in abundance,
A society where sacrificial hospitality and costly generosity are always practiced.
A community which lives in perpetual gratitude and thankfulness.
A community which lives in equality and equity.
Where all human beings are given the dignity and worth that they deserve.

What sort of world do you want to live in?
What sort of society do you want to be part of?
What values do you hope it would live by?

I want to live in a God-soaked community.
A community of love. Of truth. Of hope. Of peace.

An extract from a beginning of sermon for Sunday 12th November 2023, Remembrance Sunday.

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A home to belong

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The last couple months have been a bit of a whirlwind for me and the family.

In July 2023 we completed the final ‘lasts’ in West Sussex – saying goodbye to churches, colleagues and friends. A painful and difficult experience!

then through August we finished packing, saw all our worldly possessions loaded – and then unloaded – and we began to unpack everything again.

In September our girls started a new school, and I began serving in my new appointment, serving in the Dorking and Horsham Methodist circuit two-thirds time, and serving one-third time as an assistant chair in the South East District of the Methodist Church.

Threaded throughout that whirlwind of a journey has been a rumbling question I’ve been pondering and praying about – where do I belong?

This week someone ended an email to me with the following words:

Hope Leatherhead is beginning to feel like home!

And actually, I can say it has – but it’s been a bit of a journey!

Coming to terms with God’s calling me to move on from my ministry in West Sussex was a challenge to come to terms with. Even as I made the decision in May 2022 and told congregations, it wasn’t really what I personally wanted. I was 100% sure it was what God was calling of me, and I was willing to follow God’s lead – but it took a long time to come to terms with this myself.

West Sussex, and particualrly the communities of Bognor Regis, Westergate and Felpham, had become family to me. We’d journeyed through so much together, and coming to the decision to say I would be moving on felt like I was severing the ties that bind us. The decision to move on began to impact my own sense of belonging… and I began to feel adrift at sea, not sure what my heading was.

It wasn’t until November 2023 when I was invited to visit Dorking and Horsham circuit that I began to feel a heading, and re-finding my ships anchor! Despite the unexpectedness of the match – the role was not exactly what I’d been expecting, and the geography wasn’t exactly what we’d have intially desired either – we felt such a strong sense of God’s hand on us, that we knew it was where God was calling us to be.

Cue 10 months of preparation, lasts and endings, and comnig to terms with letting go on all that was in West Sussex, in readiness to take up ministry in the communities of Leatherhead, Cobham and Effingham, as well as the wider South East Methodist District.

By the end of July, I would say that despite the pain of goodbyes, I felt I’d ended well. I felt I had left the appointment in as strong a place as I could, and held felt such a strong presence of God holding me in those last months. I’d been able to spend 10 months encouraging, thanking and building up the amazing people I had belonged with, which had been a privilege. But letting go and moving on means belonging

Then, an interlude to all the moving – a week serving on team at Satellites, a youth camp and festival that was entering it’s second year. One might think going away for a week, just a few days before you move house is a foolish thing to do – but for me it was absolutely the best thing.

It took me out of all the letting go for a few days, and I got immerse myself serving with am amazing team of people to whom, despite never meeting many of them before, within hours felt to be a family. A family to whom, for a week of the year, we serve together and belong.

Driving home afterwards, felt weird. The move was a few days away, and I’d loved the week serving on team – and belonging to the Satellite family. As I drove into Bognor Regis, I felt weird. I can only describe it as feeling like I was driving through somewhere you used to live. There is a sameness, but yet a differentness to it. As i drove into Bognor, I felt like this wasn’t home any more.

It was as if, I’d sort of already moved mentally, emotionally, spiritually – and for me it was just the physical move left to do.

On the one hand that was really hard because I felt out of place. On the other, it felt like a gift, because through all the endings and lasts, God was helping me prepare to move on.

And then as I entered the front door – what greeted me but tear-inducing posters from my girls!

WELCOME HOME DAD

You love us and care for us and look after us. You are so kind.

You tell us what is going on whatever it is.

You don’t let us down at all.

You cheer us up when we are sad!

Dad, we love you loads.

As I walked through the door with the complex feelings of belonging driving in to Bognor Regis had brought – God immediately gave me the answer.

Where do I belong? Among the people God places me among. For a time it had been in West Sussex, now it was to be among people in Surrey, but always it is among the family which God has gifted me.

I don’t think my girls will ever know just how powerfully God worked through them that day. Louise, my wife, had had nothing to do with it aside from taking the photo’s. She wasn’t allowed in the room which they did their secret project! God is amazing, my girls are amazing. My family is such a special gift, to whom I can belong.

So is Leatherhead beginning to feel like home?

Definitely! We’ve been so wonderfully welcomed, and the month of firsts has been another whirlwind – but a whirlwind of joy, affirmation, encouragement and anticipation for the journey with God that is ahead of us.

But more than that, home is among the people – the people God has called me to serve, and the among the family God has gifted me. And I commit to cherish both.

All the while – being constantly assured that God is always with me, and will never leave me.

NB – header image is of our first homecooked meal in our new home.

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Praise the Lord! A Call to Worship

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A Call to Worship based on Psalm 149.

PPT and PDF downloads also available below.

Praise the Lord!
Sing to our God a new song.
Sing praise as you gather as God’s people.

Faithful ones, rejoice in your Maker.
Praise with dancing,
Sing for joy!

Worship with tambourine and harp,
Exalt our God with all you have and are,
For God delights in us.

This is the glorious privilege
of being part of God’s family,
the company of the faithful.

Sing to God a new song.
Praise the Lord!

PPT Download – CW Psalm 149Download
PDF Download – CW Psalm 149Download
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Compost for the vegetable patch

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You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.

Matthew 5:13

Developed from a sermon preached at Felpham Methodist Church, West Sussex, on 5th February for their Vision Sunday. The full audio recording of the sermon is available below.

Audio recording

Compost for the vegetable patch

When we moved into our home, the garden was a mess. the bushes and weeds hadn’t been pruned regularly, and so it had all become rather overgrown. but one day, as we cut back some of the overgrown bushes, I was delighted to find a compost bin.

That compost bin now sits proudly on the corner of the vegetable patch, and in it we collect the grass cuttings, vegetable peelings and the occasional mouldy orange – and over time the worms do their thing and it all becomes compost, which has helped to boost the soil and grow great plants and crops on our veggie patch.

In the last weeks, all the autumn’s offerings have meant the compost bin has been overflowing, and I recently had to dig out some from out of the bottom to make space for more to be added.

Compost is great for the garden, but only when it is used. My compost will never serve its purpose if I leave it in the compost bin. it needs working into the soil to fulfil its purpose.

Jesus’ words ‘you are the salt of the earth’ in Matthew 5 are often understood as calling us, as salt, to flavour the earth, the world, will God’s goodness. But sometimes this can also lead to seeing the world as other than ‘us’, and something to not be directly engaged in, for fear of being tarnished by an unsalted world.

But, while the idea of being people who bring the flavour of God to the world can be a helpful metaphor – I find another interpretaiton equally helpful, if not more so.

Because in Jesus day, I don’t think they had table salt as we do today. So the word we read as ‘salt’ might have meant something slightly different to Jesus first hearers.

In the dead sea area of Palestine, minerals we now know as phosphate were plentiful, and used to fertilize the ground and were spread and dug into the land.

So when we read Jesus saying you are the salt of the earth, could Jesus actually have been saying you are the minerals of the soil? The compost for the vegetable patch?

In many ways I find that a comfort and encouragement. That might seem odd… why would I find encouragement in being told I am a mouldy orange or pile of potato peelings?

But for me, I find that an encouragement because it reminds me that despite my own self-doubt, my imperfections, my brokenness, my humanity, my own feelings that I can never live up to what God wants for me – God says you have great potential.

Even in the mess of my life,
there is goodness and fruitfulness to be discovered.

Jesus doesn’t want perfect human specimens, stored up in a salt cellar of equally human specimens, looking out on the world.

Jesus wants us to be real. Human.
Jesus wants us, calls us, loves us, warts and all…
And invites us to be salt of the earth,
the mineral for the soil,
potato skins, banana peels and grass cuttings – compost for the veggie patch, with great worth, purpose, potential and goodness.

So Jesus invites us to get out and live on the earth, dug into the soil of the world. Getting stuck in and living as people of God.

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The thin place. ‘There is Room for Revelation’

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We’ve reached the final week of There is Room – and our theme as we conclude this journey is ‘There is Room for Revelation’.

The Christmas story is full of it – so much of it in fact – that I wonder if we to easily gloss over the breadth and height and depth of revelation we encounter in our journey through the Christmas story.

Go right back to the beginning of the gospel story. God revels through an angel to Mary she will bear a son. God reveals to Zechariah that Elizabeth will be with child in her young age. God reveals to Joseph through a dream that Mary was pregnant, despite him know the baby wouldn’t be his.

Then to shepherds on a hillside God reveals the wonder through choirs of angels, and to Magi who saw a star, and through diligent study find prophecy revealed.

And journeying on God reveals to the Magi through a dream not to go back to Herod, and to Joseph through a dream to flee to Egypt.

And all circling a baby in a manger. God revealed as man to dwell – Jesus our Immanuel.

There is so much of God’s revealing threaded through the Christmas story. Moments where the divide between heaven and earth runs thin. Where something more of God, God’s nature, God’s will, God’s plan, God’s faithfulness, God’s presence is revealed.

One of my most personal, most tangible moments of God revealing to me was in a field at Soul Survivor. 10,000 young people gathered in a massive big top. We’d been worshipping for some time, and then ther band struck up an acoustic version of Amazing Grace. Perse by verse the band began to drop out and leave the stage, until we came to sing the last verse:

When we’ve been there ten thousands years
Bright Shining as the Sun
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’ve first begin.

As we song that last verse, 10,000 voices, I could have heard a pin drop. In that moment I got a glimpse of what heaven might be like – I felt the divide between heaven and earth run thin and felt a certainty in the depths of my soul of God’s presence and love for me.

While that experience was a particualrly powerful one, I believe God is always speaking to us, revealing to us, moving among us – but we don’t always notice.

Speaking through dreams, angels,
Through putting a thought in our minds,
Through a conversation with someone else,
As we reflect on life’s events.
Moments when a mundane activity or an ordinary place becomes moments of divine encounter.

As we journey into a new year – let us make room to be ready to see God among us, to and experience God’s revealing. For God is with us. Alleluia. Amen.

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There is Room – for God

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A Grandparent was staying with one of their children, who were having building work done on the house.

They when into a bedroom to find their grandchild jumping up and down in a playpen, crying, reaching up their arms longingly saying, saying “Out! Please! Out!”

But they knew that their grandchild had been put in the playpen to keep them safe while builders were moving equipment around in the house. 

“I’m sorry my love, they said, you need to stay in.”

But the child kept crying. Their tears and outstretched arms reached deep into the grandparents heart. What could they do? The child needs to stay safe, but they were desperate to comfort them.

Finally – love found a way – the child couldn’t come out of the playpen – so they climbed in the play pen with them.

The Christmas story is one of a loving parent seeing those they love in need, and choosing to climb in with them.

God – chooses to become flesh – human, like us – and to be born as a vulnerable babe.

There was a time when God was seen as a more distant being, somewhat beyond our reach and understanding – and only interested in those who were descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That there wasn’t room for others.

But as God comes to live among us, God does the unthinkable, the unexpected, and shows that God is not above us or beyond us, or distant from us or even against us or only for a select few…

but shows God is with us and among us.
And loves all of us.

For Mary and Joseph, when they arrived in Bethlehem the usual places of hospitality were full – there was no room. But Mary and Joseph found room – they had to – Mary was about to pop! They made room for a baby, for some shepherds – and we think there would have been some animals around too. And later in the story – at the other end of the scale – magi come along too.

A right mix of beings – who all found room to come and meet the babe – who was the Son of God. And now, 2000 years later, that opportunity continues.

There is room for you in God’s story – because God in interested in everyone. God welcomes everyone. God makes room for you, me, us and all.

The story is told of a school preparing for their Christmas play. One of the focuses of the play was to reflect the radiance of Jesus. An electric bulb was hidden in the manger and all the stage lights would go off, except the one in the manger.

On the day of the performance the moment came, the lights went out.. and so did the one in the manger. There was a period of silence when a little shepherd loudly whispered – “Hey, you’ve turned of Jesus!”

As we discover There is room in God’s heart for you, for me, for us, for all, we are offered an opportunity to respond – invited to make room in our hearts for God…

In the festivities of the season,
Turkey shortages,
Delayed Christmas deliveries,
A new Christmas jumper,
That one last person on the Christmas gift list you just don’t know what to buy for
And working out who is going to have Aunty Marjorie for Christmas Day,
Let us not turn off Jesus.

Let us not forget the reason for this season.
Let us make room in our hearts and lives for the one who made room in the world to be with us, and say to us there is room for you, me, us and all.