Last Monday's Pause for Thought

Pause for Thought
The darkness and light are both alike to you.

Sermon for Notting Hill Methodist Church following the Grenfell Fire.

Sermon: Notting Hill Methodist Church

(with thanks to Rachel Lampard and Roger Walton for their statement, which informed this sermon.)

18 June 2017

Since Wednesday morning many words have been written in news columns and on social media. Words have been spoken on radio and television. Words have been shouted in protest and pain. Words have been whispered by those who have wandered dazed past this building, lost, frightened and bewildered. Perhaps too many words have been spoken and we cannot bear any more but it is the role of the preacher to use words to hold up a mirror to what is happening, to paint a picture of what might be if the kingdom of God were to come to reality and to point people to the glimpses of God’s presence somewhere in all the mess.

I find myself lost for words today – how do we honour those who have lost their lives? How do we do justice to the grief of the bereaved? How can we express our righteous anger? How do we respond to the unholy horror of it all?

The prophets of the Old Testament lived among a people from whom everything had been taken and they responded to horror and injustice by joining in the lament of the people. That is where we as a faith community find the beginnings of a response – to be alongside people and hold silence. To sit with people. To listen to them. To pray and lament for and with them. To offer care and to be silent as we feel the loss, the pain, the fear, the anger. Many people have been doing just that in these last few days. The space outside our church, the public boards and gathering points, covered in candles, flowers, messages, drawings from children – all this is how we join in the lament of the bruised, the broken, the lost and the dismayed.

Listening is no passive thing – listening honours the other person, it allows them to be, it gives space to hear their story, it says “You matter and what you have to say matters to me.” Listening can lead to change. It can motivate action, it can begin to shift the narrative and bring justice and compassion into the centre of the picture. Many people in our community have not felt listened to – have felt ignored – not necessarily by individuals but by the combined weight of a system that seems designed to work against them.

The rich and powerful of the prophets’ time did not listen to the calls of the poor for justice, because to listen would have been to put their own desires aside in order to respond to the call for a righteous society, where the widow, the orphan and the refugee would be offered shelter, would be given access to the law and would have a share in the resources of the land.

We as a community share in the role of the prophets – firstly to share in the lament of the people – to give space for grief, for dismay, for anger. We are also called to share in the prophetic task of speaking truth to those in power, to hold a mirror up to our society that reflects back just how things are. The prophet Amos railed against those who offered empty gestures and platitudes but continued to oppress the poor – he demanded justice, he painted a picture of what the world could look like if people paid attention to the needs of others. He, like the other prophets, was filled with righteous anger.

And today we are angry. Anger is not to be dismissed or condemned. There is much to be angry about. People will feel angry at God. Angry at those who had the power to act, but didn't. At a society which values less those who are the poorest or most disadvantaged.

We are often afraid of anger. We too often cling to an image of Jesus as "meek and mild". But we also see Jesus in the temple, who was angry to the point of overturning tables. Yet this was not an act of violence but a symbolic expression of anger in the prophetic tradition, disrupting the actions of those who would discriminate against and exploit the poorest at the door of God's house.

We should be angry at the kind of injustices emerging from this catastrophe: the underinvesting in the well-being of the poorest and the ignoring of their concerns. And we should all repent where we have been complicit with injustice in the past.

We need to find a way to channel our anger that will give us the energy, passion and commitment we need for the long road towards healing that lies ahead. The anger of Jesus is focused not on retaliation but on the righting of injustice. Matthew tells how, after the overthrowing of the tables, the blind and the lame came to Jesus, the very people who had been excluded from the temple by those with power. They came to Jesus and they were healed. Jesus's anger led to justice. It showed that a different way was not only possible, but was required of the people who followed him.  

In the midst of lament – God is with us, weeping, knowing what it is to watch helplessly as his child was brutally disposed of at the hands of the Roman war machine.

In the midst of anger – God is with us, roaring with pain and frustration that over millennia humanity is still getting this so wrong.

In the midst of our actions for justice and our longing for the world to be different – God is with us.

I know you will want to shout at me – how can God be in the midst of this? I have asked the same question and I do not have a simple answer to that – as a person of faith I can only look for those glimpses of God’s presence in the midst of this godless mess.

I see God in the actions of the firefighters and the police – in the willingness of people to risk their own lives to save others. I see God in the skills and devotion of the medical teams who were on the scene and in hospitals and of those who ran towards the Grenfell Tower to help in whatever way they can.

I see God in the mountains of clothes, toys, toiletries and rivers of bottled water that arrived in this building and other centres, and in the many thousands of pounds people are donating – these are the love gifts of those who like us all feel the need to do something in the midst of helplessness.

I see God in the faces of the volunteers working endless hours to move goods, to drive vehicles, to make gallons of tea, to do what needs doing.

I also see God in the work of those quietly getting on behind the scenes in supporting families, in setting up the infrastructure that will be needed to care for them.

It is not for us as a faith community to offer platitudes about God’s love in this time – those words will seem empty – it is our job to demonstrate God’s love in action. We have done that already, side by side, with this community – our community. It is our job to stand in solidarity with those who call for justice. It is our job to be in this for the long haul; there are wounds that do not heal and we will need to keep tending those who carry the loss and the trauma of these days for many years to come. The cameras will leave, the gifts will dwindle and stop, the strange glamour that draws people to travel miles to stand and watch will fade. We will remain, listening, lamenting, naming injustice and working out how we play our part in making this world reflect God’s desire for a righteous and inclusive community of love.

We know what is required of us – we need the courage to take up the task. What does the Lord require of us, but to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God? Now is a time to cling to those words, realise that they demand of us repentance for our past actions and present privileges, and to commit ourselves to love without measure, act for justice whatever the cost, and do so whilst walking humbly with a God of love and justice.

Amen.

Michaela Youngson

Statement in response to the fire at Grenfell Tower

Statement and Prayer from the London District Chairs in response to the fire at Grenfell Tower

It is with shock and dismay that we woke up to the news of the fire at Grenfell Tower in Notting Hill this morning. This has taken place in a densely populated, vibrant part of our city and the tower block has been the home of many families. Notting Hill Methodist Church is close to the fire and within the cordon established by police. Superintendent Minister of the Notting Hill Methodist Circuit, Mike Long, visited rescue centres this morning to see what help the Church might offer. The facts of the cause of the fire and the events that followed will take time to emerge and the effects on the local community will be long-term and far-reaching. As a District we will do all we can to support the local church as it works with the community in the weeks and months to come.

Gracious God

We pray for those caught up in the fire at Grenfell Tower,

for casualties, for the wounded, for the missing and the traumatised.

We pray for the emergency services and for those who are responsible for co-ordinating the response to this major incident.

In despair bring hope

In injury bring healing

In fear bring comfort.

In our helplessness be our strength.

In your mercy hear our prayers.

In Christ’s name.

Amen.

Michaela Youngson and Nigel Cowgill

Chairs of the London District of the Methodist Church

Easter Day - he is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Easter Message 

The biggest challenge is how to live with joy.

Across the world in every language, in churches, chapels and cathedrals – the shout will go up – Christ is risen. The whole body of Christ – the church – will declare that love has defeated hate, hope has danced on the grave of despair and life has overcome death. We will sing, some will dance, some will dress crosses and others will eat chocolate eggs (some of us will do all this and more!) – and at the heart of the celebration is the joy at the very centre of our faith. God does not abandon us, has not abandoned us and will not abandon us. The contrast with the bleak horror of Good Friday could not be greater – God’s good will for a newly created world has been made real.
What next? After the party, the singing, eating, dancing and wearing our Easter Sunday best, what do we do now? What does it mean to live as people of new life – to be those who live in the light of the knowledge of the resurrection? This is the challenge for us – the painful events of Holy Week are not where the biggest challenge lies – the biggest challenge is how to live with joy. How do we share good news, joyful news, and new-life news with a world that seems mesmerised by death? The cross we take up is to be bearers of joy to a world that is drawn to pain; to be bringers of glad tidings to a world that only notices disaster; to be hopeful where there is no hope. When the world thinks that the story is finished and all is done, we know things are only just beginning. How will you and your church be bearers of joy in your community and in the world? Do get in touch and let us know how you live as people of resurrection hope and have a very blessed and peaceful Easter.
Written as the London District Chairs' Easter Message

At The Foot of the Cross: Here is grace

Orlando: Good Friday.
Fused glass panel by Michaela Youngson

At Foot of the Cross

Here is Grace.

Here is grace, in all its humbling power – that love, so free and so creative, is willing to stoop so low, to ask so little, to give so much. And we look upon love’s face and find ourselves rooted to the spot. It would be so much more comfortable to deny, to hide, to run away – yet with the mothers and lovers and disciples and friends, we stay here. We look upon grace and we search our hearts, asking ourselves again ‘how can this be, that the creator of all, hangs, choosing helplessness, that I and all humanity might be loved this much?’

Here is grace, in our world where power warps the human heart, where the power-grabbers and status-hoarders will sacrifice anyone but themselves to cling on to wealth, false dignity and empty status. Here is one who lets go, who does not grab or cling or lord divinity above all others – here is one who empties himself of all power and pours love into the world. We live in a time where truth seems to be a fluid commodity and facts are cut, like cloth, to fit the desires of the story-teller. And before us hangs a person who offered truth, not fake news but good news – not for the comfortable but the poor, not for the complacent but for the passionate, not for the perfect but for those who know they need help, not for the holy but for those who long to be whole.

Here is grace, in the place where heaven reaches down and touches earth in blood-stained hands, where creation is embraced by arms outstretched, and the monarch wears a crown of thorns. All the accepted wisdom of the noblest and grandest, the student and the teacher is turned upside down, as all that to the world seems foolish, humiliating, hopeless is in fact the way to true wisdom. To be emptied of all ambition, is to be filled with all possibility; to let go of certainty is to ask new questions, to die to one’s self is to be made alive with the glory of God.

Here is grace, that love works to break down the barriers between the holy and the mundane. Love is active in freeing us from the fear of death, from the fear of hardly living at all. Love pays the price of releasing us from our limited perspectives and opening our minds and hearts to the fullness of God’s love.

Here is grace, Jesus Christ is love’s endeavour – the work of God. Jesus Christ is love’s expense – paying the personal price of loving without limit, that we might grasp a tiny insight into the enormity of God’s love for us and for all creation. So, we remain, watching the drama unfold. We remain, wondering at such grace, such love. We remain, here at the foot of the cross, because where else would love have us be?

Michaela Youngson, Good Friday 2017

Service of Reflection at Methodist Central Hall Westminster