As you prepare for worship this week you may wish to simply enjoy this offering of Psalm 145:
Hello, and welcome to this Bradford North Circuit service for Sept. I am Kerry Tankard, the Chair of the Yorkshire West District, and I am pleased to be able to lead our reflections and worship this month. As we share in worship today, we are continuing to develop our understanding of how a Methodist Way of Life can shape and inform our discipleship.
Today our focus is within the theme of Learning and Caring, and we will consider how WE WILL LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR FAITH.
As we begin, we hear words from the Psalm 145 (New Living Translation):
1 I will exalt you, my God and King,
and praise your name forever and ever.
2 I will praise you every day;
yes, I will praise you forever.
3 Great is the Lord! He is most worthy of praise!
No one can measure his greatness.
4 Let each generation tell its children of your mighty acts;
let them proclaim your power.
5 I will meditate on your majestic, glorious splendour
and your wonderful miracles.
6 Your awe-inspiring deeds will be on every tongue;
I will proclaim your greatness.
7 Everyone will share the story of your wonderful goodness;
they will sing with joy about your righteousness.
Singing the Faith 8 – God with us
A Time of Praise and Thanksgiving
Holy Father,
in you we live, in you we are,
and in you we become signs of your hope for creation.
As the earth proclaims her love for you, the sky echoes her joyful songs of life.
Holy Father, we join the choirs of praise that delight in you.
Incarnate Son,
whose redeeming grace gives hope to the world,
you have shown mercy in the face of violence
and undone the world with love.
Your free and infinite grace remains our hope
as your voice calms our restlessness and grants us peace.
Incarnate Son, we join the choirs of praise that delight in you.
Spirit of holiness,
your sacred energy brings blessing to the people of God.
You are the treasure of life, the wealth our hearts crave,
and the comfort they receive.
You give voice to the praise of our lives and offer the promise of perfection,
that we might serve our Father in spirit and in truth.
Spirit of holiness, we join the choirs of praise that delight in you.
Eternal God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
perfect beyond imagination and at whose feet we lay all,
we join the choirs of praise that delight in you. Amen.
Gracious and Holy God,
we thank you that your love has named us in the night of our birth,
made us captives of grace, free to worship, live, work, and think for you.
We celebrate that you have not neglected us, but instead have found us in Christ,
transformed us by your Holy Spirit and prepare us for heaven
where we will greet you with joy and boldness because of all you have done.
Let the music you have given us, be the servant of our praise today.
Let the words you have left, through the pens of our ancestors,
be a voice for our love, a challenge to our lives,
and a place of renewal, through your all sufficient love and grace. Amen.
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and for ever.
Amen.
Reading: Matthew 13.1-16
If you appreciate visual communication, the animation in this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guDeSYcwRYg will share a familiar story (Matt 13.3-9) with you in a different way. If you watch it after which you may also wish to read the passage.
Reflection:
I don’t know how familiar you are with the motto “Faith seeking understanding”. These are the words of St Anselm of Canterbury, though he wrote them in Latin (fides quaerens intellectum)! Some people would have encountered his thinking in school, if you ever had to learn the arguments for the existence of God, but don’t worry we won’t be looking at that here. Instead, I mention his words to simply remember that what they meant for Anselm was that while faith in God comes first, that faith creates a desire to understand, to know, and to discover more about God because that shapes who we are and what we do. It is a reminder that faith isn’t simply a state of the heart, or the spirit, or the mind, but as Jesus teaches us, it is rooted in all those things, because “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”
So, what does all this mean for us as we consider what it means for us to learn more about our faith.
I invite you back into the teaching of Jesus here in Matthew’s gospel. We all know this story, we have all heard it numerous times, so much so that it is almost too familiar to us. If you watched it, one of the things the animation captures is that good growth is rooted in faith. The ideal conditions of faith are not the hardened path, the weed ridden ground, or the rocky places, but the soil which has already been cared for and prepared, and will continue to be attended. The land in which faith grows, needs to be a place that is cared for and prepared, and which is kept that way for the good of growth into something new and more fruitful.
Look at the parable attentively, for a moment. Those areas which are the path, the rocky shallows, or the weeded ground all tell us that the some of the places we are expecting faith to grow, and seek understanding, are ill prepared to do so. Any of you who are gardeners, good, bad, or indifferent, know that any flourishing area in your garden needs attention. Simply planting and standing back and ignoring it doesn’t work. This year, had you taken that approach, most of what you planted would have either died through lack of water, been overwhelmed because of weeds, or gone wild because dead heads were not removed to promote new flowers or further growth. In my own garden, a small apple tree in a pot got me excited this year because it had a little crop of apples on it. However, being away at the wrong time meant that they fell off far too soon, either through a lack of water, or maybe because of the squirrels – it is hard to know sometimes! What I am trying to say is that the commitment to learning in our faith is an essential part of how God guides and directs us. As Paul directed, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12.2) to learn of God is to learn what to do with, and for, God! Faith seeking understanding is about a lifelong commitment to growth, fruitfulness, pruning, harvesting, and re-seeding and a transforming of our minds.
Let me ask: who, or what, has been important to you in shaping your own faith? What has resourced you as you’ve grown in faith? Take time to list down some of the people, resources, moments, that have helped shape and develop and enrich your faith and understanding? {Either pause the video here or leave, a 1-2 minute space with the question on screen}.
Did your list include any of these things?
Preachers giving worthwhile sermons, bible study groups or bible notes, religious writings, journals, books of theology, commentaries, conversations? Your eyes maybe, or ears, or hands even? Music, art, creation, your own sense of wondering and imagination? Was it talks you have attended, Christian conferences or festivals? Was it Safeguarding training, devotional works, dense academic writings, quiet days, even silence? Was it a wise person who helped you see something that you had never seen before?
We are all different, and we may learn in different ways, but at our disposal are an amazing plethora of materials and resources, all of which have a part to play, and this is something we appreciate in Methodism, and always have.
John Wesley is often quoted as being a man of only one book. The thing is, he might have said that, but it isn’t strictly true. You see, this person, who was a man of only one book, also published what he called The Christian Library – these were writings that he felt would be good for the preachers and the people called Methodists to be familiar with. He also criticised preachers who did not read more widely, to learn and develop and be challenged. Also, if you read his sermons and writings, you will discover that he cites all kinds of early church and later Christian leaders, even one or two who some others would have questioned.
On top of this drawing on the resources of our Christian past, Wesley was a man trained in the use of logic. Thinking, interpreting, reasoning, were all part of what he did to interpret the bible for daily living and to understand the intentions and purpose of God for creation. He never saw it as simply, the bible says “x” so “x” it is. Instead, he looked at the world and asked what the bible and his tradition had to say to the world in which he lived. The bible might seem to have accepted slavery as part of the New Testament world, but Wesley read the bible and discovered the dignity of all human beings and therefore campaigned against it. He also read in the bible the call to care for the sick, the widow, the orphan, the poor, the excluded, and it informed his work, mission, and ministry. Wesley also looked at his experience, and that of others, and sought to test it against scripture, or to dialogue with scripture because of it. This man of supposedly only one book was a man committed to learning and developing, because the more he learnt of God, the more it moved him to action!
You may have heard reference made, from time to time, about the Wesleyan Quadrilateral: scripture, reason, tradition, experience. It is probably more properly named the Methodist Quadrilateral as it is more about how the Methodist Church has sometimes done its theology, its learning about God, rather than how Wesley always did his. Whatever we call it, it is a resource for our calling to faith and action.
However, as I suggested earlier, learning is not just what we do from books, it is what we do through a myriad of things, in worship, in singing and silence, through art and word, through doing and acting. And more than this, it is something we do with others. It is something, in our practice as Methodists, that is linked to our action – Learning and Caring go hand in hand!
As one Christian writer puts it: “Christian faith causes us to do more than think. Faith sings, confesses, rejoices, suffers, prays and acts. When faith and theology are exhausted in thinking, they become utterly questionable. This is because the understanding that is sought by faith . . . illumines life and service” (Daniel Migliore)
The commitment in a Methodist Way of Life is to learn more about our faith, because when we do so it not only deepens our relationship with God, but also our commitment to the transformation of the world.
As we rest with that thought, we share in the song “All I Once Held Dear”.
Singing the Faith 489 – All I once held dear
Having spent some time sharing what I think about the call to learn more about our faith, and why, let me ask you – where is your learning happening now and how is it for you?
Earlier, I asked you to list the things that informed and resourced your faith. Now I want to ask you to consider these questions:
- What have you done in the last day, week, and month that has helped your learning in faith?
- If you look at your answers to that question above, where do you recognise your faith life of learning, in the story of the parable of the sower:
Is it on the path? Why do you think that? | Is it among the weeds? Why do you think that? |
Is it in shallow ground among the rocks? Why do you think that? | Is it in the fertile field? Why do you think that? |
- Is there anything you feel you might need to change following your reflections above?
Other Questions you might want to explore:
- Who are the important people you share with, in learning more about our faith? How have they helped you, and how have you helped them?
- What have you learnt about God that has caused you to change?
- How has something you have learnt in your faith caused you to seek change in the world?
- What would you like to see develop in your church to help you, and others, learn more in your faith and help you to take action?
Let us pray:
A Time of Confession
Saviour and Deliverer, you surrendered heaven for us and for the world,
emptied yourself of all but love, that we might know God’s desire for all.
Forgive us that we have tried to govern your grace, diminish the cost and consequence
of what was done and given through your life, death and resurrection.
Forgive us that we have divided your people;
taken from the wealth you have given, rather than sharing the fullness of all you offer.
Forgive us that we have lost ourselves in personal piety and neglected that holiness
that can only be found, through grace, in living in communion with all your people.
Come, Heavenly Guest,
And purify my heart;
Come, O great and glorious King,
And cleanse my life by entering.
For yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory.
Amen.
A Time for Others:
O God of our forebears, hear our prayer, and make your faithful mercies known.
Your Spirit has never ceased from your mission, from sharing your good news.
She has not abandoned anyone, but allows your grace to be known
in profound and subtle ways.
Help us, your people, chosen by name to participate in Her work with Christ,
to share your good news with a world scarred by violence and despair,
disease and war, consumerism and selfishness.
Silence
O God of our forebears, hear our prayer, and make your faithful mercies known.
Your words of judgement hold themselves before us.
“When I was hungry did you feed me?
When I was sick and alone did you comfort me?
When I was imprisoned did you visit to me?”
Help us, your people, to find our place in your full creation.
Help us not to be deaf to the sounds of hunger, of poverty and neglect,
but to be open to those who cry out, or curse the day of their birth.
Help us to comfort the sick and suffering to be touched by their need
and not to be immune to their generosity.
Help us to heed the call of the prisoner; those imprisoned because of what they have done
and those imprisoned because of what has been done to them.
Silence
O God of our forebears, hear our prayer, and make your faithful mercies known.
You wrestle with those of faith and those without.
You change people by your presence, by your nature of love.
Help us to be open to struggle in our own lives and that of others.
Fit us for heaven by shaping our lives today in the company of friends and strangers.
Make us a holy people by our care for you and for the world.
Let us listen to voices that have not been silenced by history and ignorance,
to learn how we grow in your likeness.
Silence
O God of our forebears, hear our prayer, and make your faithful mercies known.
And confirm, by your Spirit, our desire to work, and speak and think for you
til death completes our calling and perfects us by grace.
In the name of Christ we pray. Amen
Singing the Faith 507 – O For a Heart to Praise My God
The Blessing:
May God illumine our lives, that we may we glimpse the mysteries of love in Christ,
in creation, in scripture, in each other, and learn to live that love in the world.
And may the blessing of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be with us now and always,
Amen.
