Epiphany

Sunday was our first week back after Chrismas,  being well into the season of Epiphany that seemed like a good place to begin – how had God revealed himself to us since we were last together? Over the evening people were invited to go into the chapel space and spend some time at each of  three stations exploring the gifts that were brought by the wise men to Jesus

Gold – on the altar were a collection of watches (including a gold watch) and an invitation reading  “The Gift of Gold” 

Gold was probably the most precious and costly gift that was brought to Jesus. But in a rich society like ours, what is precious and costly to us?

For me, and probably many others, it’s time. We’re cash rich, but time poor. Rushing around, hankering after the future, trying to fit too much into every day, hour, minute…  Sit and look at the watches on the table for a while. Watch the seconds and minutes pass. Try to still your mind and think about committing this short time which is passing to God.

To one side of the chapel there was a table with a bowl of incense burning.

Frankincense was one of the gifts brought to the infant Christ by the magi. In a long religious tradition, it has symbolised the prayers of the people ascending to the throne of God. It is thought that the magi gave Jesus the gift of frankincense to represent his divinity and priestly power.

In front of you is some burning frankincense. Let the scent of the fragrance fill your nostrils and, as it does, as it does, form a prayer in your mind. Write something to represent that prayer on a piece of paper and put it into the incense burner.  Reflect on the prayer as it rises before you.

There were also some verse from Psalm 41 “Let my prayer rise before you as incense, the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.”

On the other side of the chapel was a small table with a lamp on it and a collection of small handmade books that explored both the use and meaning of myrrh and why it might have been given to Jesus.

Texting the incarnation

The challenge of how to keep meeting as Cafe Church while everyone is away for the vacation ended up with me promising to send everyone a Christmas sermon via text. It was something that was picked up by Fresh Expressions and the church press – so the sermon when it came wasn’t that much of a surprise. “Christmas A time of being with family, gr8 or not Even in a manager Jesus is born in the heart of family. Whatever 2day brings remember Emmanuel, God IS with us”  The follow up text was more interesting – asking everyone who had received the text to have a go at creating their own text sermon. Several rose to the challenge.

Vicky sent – “I’ve been thinking about the obedience of Mary. Thankful even in the midst of uncertainty. This Christmas what will we store up to ponder in our hearts?“.  Joe responded with “Mary stored it all in her heart. the shepherds were sent to proclaim God’s favour. They were the first evangelists. What are you proclaiming this Christmas?“

James took a different direction “He came un2 his own… God becomes 1 of us, shares r humanity & mortality-not jst a 1st century 1 off, we shud watch 4 where He comes 2 us & the church“.

John brought a late afternoon reality check. “Many of us have eaten too much. I’m experiencing pain because of my stomach is too full! Yet i rarely get spiritual indigestion because i’ve been studying or praying too much. What will i fillup on this Christmas?“

As I sat and received texts and forwarded them on to others I realised that cafe church was happening where ever we were – sat with our family, or out for a walk, or on our own. Being church didn’t depend on a particular place, a certain liturgy or even having coffee and cakes. We were able to worship together as a community with God in our midst.

If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb…

The challenge was to bring something that made a connection for you to the Christmas story. James brought a Choir! Much to the amazement of the few of us who weren’t asked to be part of it the evening started with the beautiful “This is the truth sent from above”, which is a brilliant setting out of salvation history in a few simple lines. 

Annie took the theme of the Light of Christ and reminded us of the Advent service (see last week’s blog) and Christ’s light coming into the world with a short refelction from the Iona Community. For James it was a photo of the family, with a missing sister replaced by a snowman! Caroline brought us back to Advent with a look at the Advent Conspiracy website with its challenge of giving less and refocusing our preparations for Christmas on giving time to others and to God.

Joe brought a plain cardboard box. The front side dropped down to reveal a  nativity scene. It was set in a shopping mall and all the usual crib figures were wrapped up in christmas paper. For Joe too the challenge was to step away from the consumer focus of December. Julie shared a piece of music from Norway that for her spoke both of home and tradition as well as Christ’s coming into the midst of that.

Consumer nativity set

Vicky brought a piece of music too – Bob Chilcott’s arrangement of The Shepherds Carol. The extraordinary piece is really the Shepherd’s explanation to Mary as to why they’ve ended up coming to see Jesus. Matt offered a brief refelction on some words from Britten’s Ceremony of Carols and the Poet Laureates 12 days of Christmas poem.

As we relaxed into more music from the Choir it seemed that  it’s not what we brought that mattered but how we offered it seemed. The last line of the Shepherd’s carol seemed to sum it up.

“And so we have come, Lady, our day’s work done. Our love, our hopes ourselves we give to your Son.”

Cafe Church weekend away November 2009

Advent weekend has come to signify the annual cafe church weekend away. Once again our venue was Lockton Youth Hostel, near Pickering in North Yorkshire.

We had a varied programme which included walking, eating and sightseeing! We also had a varied programme of worship, ranging from a beautiful compline service in the tiny church next door led by James, through to a liturgy of thanksgiving led by Joe and Caroline over a meal on Saturday night. Below are some of the thanksgiving prayers we put together on Saturday night.

The real highlight of the weekend was a trip to York Minster for the Advent carol service. Beginning Advent in a candlelit cathedral with the sound of Advent antiphons and carols was truly amazing. As ever, it was all helped along by some fantastic company, so thanks to everyone who came along.

Dear God, thank you for the pate, bread and wine and all the food you give us to share. Thank you for the sunlight shining through the mist and for the communities we are part of, especially the community round this table.

Yahweh, thankyou for supplying our daily bread. Thank you for the fog clearing and the sun shining, for the beauty of the forest. Thank you for the diversity of your creation.

Almighty God, thank you for an abundance of good things. Through our fellowship we worship you as we love one another. Thank you for giving us our friendships and relationships. We thank you for the love and sense of community found in the world today.

Dear Jesus, thank you for those who have grown our food. Thank you for the golden sunlight reflected on the trees and hills. Preserve the beauty of our world, giving us the desire to love all your creation.

Remembrance

You hardly notice it. As you hurry into the library focused on finding your card to get through the barrier it’s easy to miss the pale marble slabs that form the University War Memorial. In neat text carved into the cold stone are the names of students who were killed in the 2 world wars. To current students they are simply names. To their contemporaries they were friends who were sadly missed.

Remembrance Sunday is complicated. As we see tv images of flag draped coffins unloaded from RAF planes our thoughts about current conflicts are often confused. To get us engaging with the issues of war and peace and remembering there were a number of installations around the chapel.

In one corner was a table -  laid for lunch that had been abandonded half eaten. At one end a simple note said “on the first day of World War 2 19-year-old V’s mother locked all the windows and made her hide in the litchen, convinced the family was about to be gassed” At the other end a vintage laptop. On the screen was a message “as the 2003 war reached Baghdad S wrote on his blog “people are sitting in homes hoping a bomb doesn’t fall on them and keeping their doors shut”. People were invited to type their expereinces of war on the screen.  It was clear that war isn’t abstract. Friends and family had been involved in warfare. People had experienced the environmental results.

The other installations each drew us in to thinking about what war really means – images of war memorials asked who were these people? A powerpoint of images of war questioing us as to how shocking war really is.  All the stations  also asked us to think what peace really is. With Britten’s War Requium playing in the background we heard Jesus promise of his peace to his disciples.

All Saints

Who do you think of when we talk about Saints? Everyone was invited to bring an object or story about a Saint that they connect with. There was a pretty varied response – Basil the Great from someone who’s middle name is Basil, Jude from someone who thinks they may be a lost cause, Fursey from someone who’d grown up where he had founded his monestry. We shared why these people were important to us and our faith while in the background images of other Saints appeared on the screen. As we talked it came clear that the Saints all bring something of Christ’s light into the world. That was true whether they are those who appear in stained glass windows and are formally named Saints, or those who are ordinary people we’ve known who’ve lived extraordinary lives.

For some it wouldn’t be All Saints day without celebrating communion – so we shared bread and wine – giving thanks for the lives of the Saints we had talked about, remembering that in them God had “kindled a flame to lighten the dark and drive all fear away”

What is Church to you?

It’s a difficult question to answer – what is church. There are so many different things that it could be, so many different things we’d like it to be and probably quite a few things we rather it wasn’t.

At the start of a new year we thought it was worth asking the difficult question. 

Vicky put lots of envelopes around the space. Each had a word on it and contained slips of paper with the word written on it. We were asked to go round and choose some words that said what we thought church should be about. These included things like community, singing, sermons, challenging, welcoming and inclusive. We also had the chance to come up with our own words about church. 

After a short time for reflection, we were asked to make our chosen words bigger on a ‘word cloud’ (powerpoint slide!) As we did this, we could see which words were most important to us as a group. The bigger they got, the more important they were. 

We finished with a short reading from Acts which describes how the first believers spent their time together. Someone commented that it was a challenging reading – perhaps that’s why ‘challenging’ came up as one of our most important words. Check out the picture of the slide to see what else we think church is about. Now all we have to do is work out how to stay true to that…

Light Night

Light Night is an annual open arts event that happens on one evening across the city of Leeds. For a couple of years we’ve been saying we must do something for it. This year we did. Back in the summer ‘Frin and Matt threw ideas about on an old postcard. A stairway to heaven began to take shape. Over the next few months, things started to come together. A graffiti artist here, a dancer there, and a few angels thrown in for good measure. Here’s a description of the end result…

As you enter the building you catch a glimpse of a dimly lit street, boarded up windows, graffiti and litter through some windows in front of you. A ladder rises out of the squalor towards a glass ceiling, illuminated by a shaft of light. You turn, ascending the staircase behind you, encountering a silent figure, with wings, descending beside you. You reach the top of the stairs, and are greeted by figures in white, welcoming you to the heavenly realm. Through the doors, you walk into a huge space filled with incense, smoke, light and powerful music.

An enormous figure looms out of the wall to your right, an angel, but with huge black wings and flowing hair. You walk forwards, looking down through the floor from the top of the ladder. Angels move around you, sometimes smiling, sometimes laughing, sometimes dancing. A figure stands in the stained glass windows, eerily staring around the room. Another figure sits at a desk, with computer, books and a lamp. The sign says ‘angelic helpdesk’. She is responding to requests for help, advice, and reassurance, all via Twitter – Heaven moves with the times… A video is playing. People are talking about their ideas of heaven – where is it, what is it, what it means to them. As you descend the staircase and return to the night, you take a glimpse of heaven with you.

People start arriving from 6pm, and keep coming right through until we close at 10.30pm – about 1,500 people we reckon. Not bad for an idea on the back of a postcard…

Where is the Kingdom?

Cafe Church was suddenly much busier than it’s been for a while. Joe had been leading and SCM retreat at Mirfield and encouraged quite a few people to come and visit cafe church. Along with our visitors we also welcomed some new students. The place was lively as Joe introduced us to R.S. Thomas’s poem The Kingdom. It’s a beautiful and challenging description of, well, The Kingdom.

With some simple questions to get us going we spent most of the evening talking about what the kingdom is and where we might see the signs of it’s breaking in to the world. We loved the contrasts of poor men who are kings and and blind men looking in mirrors and consumptives being healed. 

Of discovering the upside down nature of the Kingdom.

We were challenged by the lack of admission charge but the need to loose our own desires. We were intrigued by the freshness and vibrancy. 

It’s a poem worth spending some time with. Especially in such good company

How are you feeling?

A new academic year has arrived and the university has suddenly erupted in the chaos and enthusiasm of Freshers Week. Over the week some of us walked around campus with a sign that asked “How are you feeling?” People were invited to write how they felt on a white board. We took their photo and have now uploaded them to a photo sharing site. Sunday evening saw us asking ourselves the same question. A group of old friends and some new faces shared with each other, took photos of each other and then used Ecclesiastes and John’s gospel to help us reflect on where God is in those feelings.

How do you feel?