The Story that Shapes Us

Methodist Recorder Article (for May 3^rd)

The Story That Shapes Us

Alderney

One of the great privileges of being the President of Conference is to visit Methodist Districts across the Connexion. This year the visits to the island districts have fallen close to one another – Bala and I have visited the Isle of Man, Shetland and the Channel Islands in a four week period. It has been wonderful to meet Methodist sisters and brothers who live in island communities and, whilst many people consider island dwellers to be on ‘the margins’, those I met are at the very heart of vibrant, caring networks of love and grace.

The Bus of Blessing

The identity of the people I have met has been formed in no small part by the history and the landscape of the places they live. In the Isle of Man I visited a set of manx crosses in the churchyard at Maughold. These crosses and other carvings reflect the Celtic Christian tradition which resembles those that can be found in places such as Iona and Lindisfarne - but there were some unique features. One of the crosses featured the figure of Loki – who in Norse tradition was the mischief-making brother of Thor. The Viking and Christian history of the island blend together in the carvings. The modern shaping of the Manx people owes a great deal to the financial industry that employs a significant number of residents and to the TT races, the infrastructure for which is an all-year-round presence in the roads all over the island. A new feature on those roads is the Bus-ny-Bannaghtyn or ‘Bus of Blessing’ – a mobile pray vehicle. A camper van has been transformed into a space that can be used for mission and ministry anywhere in the District, helping shape people and communities through prayer and love in action.

Shetland

Shetland has become famous recently for two television series – one ‘Island Medics’ which follows the lives and work of people in the islands through their hospital and community health service. The other series is the fictional ‘Shetland’ which falls into the Nordic Noir tradition of detective stories. Like the Isle of Man, a great deal of Shetland’s character is found through its history with Scandinavia. The people are shaped by a beautiful yet bleak landscape, by treeless peat moors and crashing seas. Sea-going for fish and trade is a part of the history and I was stunned to come across a connection with one of my own ancestors in Lerwick. 

My husband and daughter joined Bala, Sylvia and myself on the visit (huge thanks to generous hosts!). Sandy and Tamsin went for a walk to the harbour in Lerwick and came across a memorial to the Whaling Ship, Diana. The stunning memorial gave thanks to God for the ‘providential’ return of the Diana. The Captain of the ship was John Gravill and he is my first cousin, seven times removed. I knew about John, who was a Wesleyan preacher from Hull, I hadn’t realised that the Diana had called in to Shetland to pick up crew on the way to the Artic. Her final voyage was a disaster, she became icebound and many of the crew, included Captain Gravill died on the ice or on the journey home. In travelling to one of the furthest points in the Connexion I found a part of my own identity and added another chapter to my family’s story. 

Alderney

I was struck when visiting Guernsey and Alderney, how much the identity of people and the community there is shaped by the history of occupation during the Second World War. For some the story is living memory, children evacuated, people with no choice but to stay and try to live under occupation and the whole population of Alderney who left their homes and island until after the war had ended and on returning home had to build a society from scratch. There are many stories, told and untold which shape the people of the Channel Islands – some are found in memorials, others in the physical remains of tunnels and battlements and some are told in museums, archives and literature. It is difficult to put oneself into the shoes of a whole society that is shaped and traumatised by a particular set of historical events. How does a liberated people find liberation from that story and shape a new future? When is it the right time to take down some of the physical reminders and to begin to tell a new narrative. Does an old story continue to shape a people today? 

The Divers' Inn. JW stayed there after his ship was blown off course.

What the people of ‘island Methodism’ share in common, alongside all the uniqueness they enjoy from context and experience, is that they find their identity in Christ. The story of Christian faith, of God’s grace and love is told in the landscape, through crosses and ancient Keeills (Manx prayer chapels) and through modern chapels such as the new church at Haroldswick. In Alderney the Methodist Church is being refitted to be more welcoming, inclusive and flexible to serve the community. In only eighteen months the small congregation have raised over £300,000, with support from the Connexion and District and especially from the local community which recognises the importance of the Church in the life of the island and its people.

The story of God’s grace is told through the people who faithfully worship and who, with commitment and imagination, find new ways to tell the story – through prayer buses, ‘God and Marmalade’, Food for the Way, ecumenical projects and a myriad of social projects that demonstrate God’s love in action. 

As Christians we are not only shaped by our oneness with Jesus Christ, we shape the world around us. Through our reflecting God’s love we can transform lives and communities and create new landscapes of love and grace in which all can find a place.

Good Friday - Pause for thought

Pause for Thought

Good Friday 2018

One of my favourite memories is, as an 18 year old, spending time on a camping holiday in southern France. I remember visiting the beautiful medieval citadel at the heart of the city of Carcassone. Ancient walls wrap around the citadel on top of a hill, and in between the walls are tiny streets full of stall holders and shops, selling crafts and fabulous French food to tourists who flock to the city in their thousands.

Carcassone has been in the news over the last week because of the heroic actions of one of its citizens, Lt Col Arnaud Beltrame, the gendarme who willingly took the place of a hostage in a dangerous siege in Trèbes. The gunman had already killed three people before setting up with hostages in a supermarket. Lt Col Beltrame, walked unarmed into the situation. Most of us can hardly imagine the courage it must have taken to do such a thing and we wonder what would motivate someone to lay down their life for another person. Things ended tragically for Arnaud Beltrame and the people of France have rightly been paying tribute to his heroism in the last few days.

Good Friday is the day when Christians mark the death of Jesus Christ and we remember his self-giving act of love, that ended in his crucifixion. I believe he was killed because he spoke up for those who were downtrodden, for poor and sick people, children and women. Those in power did not like such courageous honesty; they enjoyed their privilege and Jesus was a threat to their comfort and to the status quo. 

As with the French Gendarme, we wonder what would lead someone to be so brave – the only answer I can find is love. There is no greater love than to give one’s life for a friend – the love which motivated Jesus to be willing to die did not end when Jesus was laid in the tomb. I believe that beyond the resurrection, beyond the story that is now 2,000 years old, the same love continues. That love is in every act of kindness, every act of self-giving care and every time someone speaks uncomfortable truth to those in power. Surely it was love that was at the heart of Arnaud Beltrame’s actions – and it is love that makes it possible to keep going even in the face of great loss. The Christian festival of Easter celebrates that love defeats hate and, in the end, is more powerful than death. 

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

Reflection and prayer following the USA Presidential Election

From the Chairs of the London District of the Methodist Church

Following a fractious and divisive campaign, the results of the election are in and the world has woken up to the news that Donald Trump is President-Elect of the United States of America.

For many this is a victory, and the pundits and commentators will spend months speculating on what motivated voters to make the choices that they did. There will be those who feel vindicated and a sense of freedom in what seems like a new era in world politics.

For others the result is frightening and the world feels a less safe place, a place where the vulnerable are not protected and where the new era of politics is merely the same wolf of privilege and power in sheep’s clothing of a different flock.

It feels as if hate has overcome love. As Christians, we know that cannot be the end of the story. Love conquers hate, good overcomes evil, unity is always more Godly than division.

How do we respond to what we see in the world? People of good will and people of faith need to love more, love better and love with more fervour, more passion and more self-sacrifice.

As Methodist people, our tradition is to love like that, to roll up our sleeves and help our neighbour in need, to ask hard questions of the powerful and to be willing to risk our own comfort for the sake of others. It is also our tradition to pray.

A prayer following the 2016 USA Presidential Election

Gracious God
you hold all things together for good
and you long for creation to be restored
and all your people to live in peace.
We pray today for the United States of America
for all who voted in the election,
and for all who chose not to vote.
We pray for those who will take office in government
and for Donald Trump as he prepares to take on the role of President.

Grant all in power and leadership
your gifts of wisdom, compassion and humility
that those governed by them might live in unity and peace.
We pray for your world,
that barriers of hate, prejudice and fear be broken down
and replaced by bridges of love, openness and trust.
In the name of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.

Amen.

The Revd Michaela Youngson

The Revd Nigel Cowgill
Chairs of the London District of the Methodist Church