Purple magnolia

A sermon preached by the Rev’d Natasha Woodward At All Saints', Orpington 6.30pm Evensong, Sunday 14 September 2008 (Holy Cross) Isaiah 53.1-16; 1 Cor 1.18-25 We have heard from many scientists in the media this week, and journalists trying – with more or less success – to understand and communicate what they are saying. I think it's fair to say that scientists – and most especially nuclear physicists - can't communicate to the vast majority of the world the vast majority of what they are doing. There is a sense in which what they are doing is just incommunicable to most of us – we simply do not have the will or ability or time to get to grips with this highly complex, and developed sphere of knowledge. I have sympathy for the scientists, in their difficulties of communication, for religious truths and ideas are also very difficult to communicate. But I think it's in a different kind of way. Religious truths have something about them – because they are about God –

A sermon preached by the Rev’d Natasha Woodward At All Saints' Church, Orpington 9.30am Eucharist, Sunday 3 August 2008 , Genesis 32.22-31; Matthew 14.13-21 This is the 4th instalment of the story of Jacob. Some previous parts of his story – edited highlights - have been read in church on the Sundays in July. If you read the whole story of Jacob from chapter 25 of Genesis, you might notice that wrestling is a theme of Jacob's life. Looking back, he struggled with his brother Esau, literally from the womb. He struggled with his father-in-law, Laban, he struggled with his domestic situation – he had a good old rant in chapter 31 listing all the difficulties of his adult life. The bible even uses the word "wrestling" in relation to his wife Rachel, who struggled to have a child. Here We have heard now about Jacob wrestling with this strange man – and this seems to be an image of the way that many things were struggle for him. We all know, I think, that sometimes li

A sermon preached by the Rev’d Natasha Woodward At All Saints' Church, Orpington 9.30am Eucharist, Sunday 8 June 2008 , Dedication Festival 1 Kings 8.22-30; 1 Peter 2.1-10; Matthew 21.12-16 Two weeks ago we gave thanks for this church in a grand, glorious way. We gathered together many people who have been associated with this church over the years, and received greetings for many more. There were reunions and celebrations. We gave thanks for the work that has taken place, and dedicated the church afresh. Today – it is a little more homely. We also celebrate a dedication, but one going a little further back – 50 years ago – a golden anniversary. In a strange way, though, this occasion is perhaps even more about the future than that celebration 2 weeks ago. This occasion, today, is a good time to think about what it was that caused the people who were here in the 50s to think it worth the effort of building such a large extension for the purpose of serving God's mission.

A sermon preached by the Rev’d Natasha Woodward At the Church of Unity, Ramsden 11am Eucharist, Sunday 22 June 2008 , Year A, Proper 7 Genesis 21.8-21 The background to our Old Testament reading is the promise of God to Abraham. God promises that his descendants will be more numerous than the stars, and then, more specifically, that Sarah would have a child although she was too old for it really, and that child would be such a blessing to Abraham, that child was Isaac. God promised a child, and the child came. Our story today is the dark underside of that story. Before the promise of Isaac was fulfilled, Sarah and Abraham were desperate for a child. It looked like God's promise that Abraham's descendants would be more numerous than the stars wasn't going to work out, since Sarah did not become pregnant, and she was getting old. So Sarah and Abraham took action. Sarah suggested that Abraham father a child by her slave, Hagar. This child would be Abraham's heir. So

A sermon preached by the Rev’d Natasha Woodward At All Saints' Church, Orpington 9.30am Eucharist, Sunday 8 June 2008 , Trinity 3, Year A, Proper 5 The Lord said to Abram, 'Go'.... So Abram went. Jesus said to Matthew "Follow me" and he did. It all seems so simple! How often are we able to respond to a request – a demand – so easily, so automatically? No "he thought about it a while", "he consulted with a few people", "he worked it into his life plan". No, he just got up and followed Jesus, in response to an invitation of love. For Abram, and possibly for Matthew, following God meant leaving home. What is home? We naturally think of wherever it is we live, the buildings where we live. But I wonder if we get misled by the fact that our homes are so solid, so physical – places surrounded by walls where we live for a year or 10 years or 50 years or a lifetime. This is what having a 'home' means in this country. Having a p

A sermon preached by the Rev’d Natasha Woodward At All Saints' Church, Orpington 6.30pm Evensong, Sunday 25 May 2008 (Year A, Trinity 1, Proper 3 ) Amos 8.5-end, Ephesians 6.1-20 This passage from Ephesians invites us to consider the question: How can one who is a slave, be in any sense free? He suggests that slaves are indeed free: they are not free to do what they like, but they are free to think what they like. They are free to alter their will, they are free to consider their reasons for doing what they do, they are free to do what they do for people or for God – they are free to, if you like, consecrate their mundane, everyday lives to God, to make it holy. The slave is no less free to obey God in his heart than the freeman. The difference is in the motivation. The phrase of the authorized version: do it "not with eyeservice, as menpleasers". Ephesians 6.6-7 "Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the

A sermon preached by the Rev’d Natasha Woodward At St Andrew's Church, Orpington 7.30pm Eucharist, Thursday 22 May 2008 Corpus Christi (Deut 8.2-3 and 14-16; I Cor 10.16-17 and John 6.51-58) Jimmy Mizen is the child who was killed recently, the day after his 16th birthday, in Lee. His mother Margaret has, of course expressed great sorrow. But she has also done something extraordinary. She expressed her own sorrow, but also sympathy for the sorrow which the parents of the man who has been charged with killing her child must be feeling. She felt sorry for them – she felt sorry for the parents of the man who has been charged with the murder of her son. And too right – how sad they must feel. But an extraordinary thing for her to be able to say. In doing so, I think she was recognizing the importance of community. She recognized that community didn't just include her family, her church, her children's school – which were all tremendously important to her – community went

A sermon given by the Rev’d Natasha Woodward At All Saints' Church, Orpington 9.30am Eucharist, Sunday 18 May 2008 Year A, Trinity Sunday Isaiah 40.12-17, 27-31; Psalm 8; 2 Cor 13.11-13; Matt 28.16-20 At a time such as this, when we are faced with at least two major natural disasters at the same time, and the colossal human disaster unfolding as a result, we are all challenged. All philosophy, theology, and human attempts to understand or explain struggle to cope. We are all hurt and made speechless in the face of such things. Today is the feast of the Trinity. I believe at a time like this that this real jewel of Christian doctrine starts to show its true strength. I'd like to explore what a distinctively Christian theology – the way Christians describe God as being in some ways three and in some ways one – what the Trinity – might have to say in such extreme events as we witness now. One way of talking of God as Trinity is about three particular ways of encountering him.

A sermon given by the Rev’d Natasha Woodward At All Saints' Church, Orpington 9.30am Eucharist, Sunday 4 May 2008 Year A, Easter 7 Acts 1.6-14; 1 Peter 4.12-14; 5:6-11; John 17.1-11 A particular joy for me this year, my first spring in Orpington, has been experiencing the delights of things that grow: people's gardens, the parks and fields and woods, even the verges with their daffodils and fruit trees. There is a magic about gardens, about the life which seems to overflow from every nook and cranny – especially in my patio. Especially with the blossom out, in the early evening as the sun is setting, our gardens and streets can seem other-worldly – almost a faery land, like something out of a Midsummer Night's Dream, where the forest is the domain of faeries and magic, where mysterious things can happen, where mere mortal human beings can only see a half of what is really going on. In story a garden can be a place where this world and another, strange world come into con

A sermon preached by the Rev’d Natasha Woodward at All Saints' Church, Orpington 6.30pm Evensong, Sunday 27 April 2008 (Year A, Easter 6) Zech 8.1-13; Rev 21.22-22.5 The calendar has included two festivals this week - St George on Wednesday, and St Mark on Friday. We know very little about who the original George might have been, in particular. There is a document from the 5th century mentioning George as being among those "whose names are greatly reverenced by men, but whose acts are known only to God." Even then, over 1500 years ago, they did not know what he had done, simply that he was remembered by people as pious. The story with the dragon and the maiden only appeared several hundred years later. For St Mark we have more, in that we have the gospel written by him, and can deduce, for example, that he knew Greek, but apart from that we know very little about his life, what he did. One might be forgiven for thinking, then, that they are not of much interest as s

A sermon given by the Rev’d Natasha Woodward At All Saints' Church, Orpington 6.30pm Evensong, Sunday 27 April 2008 Easter 4, Year A: Ezra 3.1-13; Ephesians 2.11-22 Our reading from Ezra was about rebuilding the temple. The reading from Ephesians talks about abolishing the law. It might sound like these two readings have been put alongside each other precisely to show that what was abolished was precisely what we saw being re-established in Ezra. But Ezra's understanding was that God had established the law which he was bringing back. And so we have to ask - Did God abolish the law that he had established? Did God change his mind? This has seemed a dilemma to Christians at different times. How can it be that a way of worship and understanding God which we might see reflected in the old testament could cease to be valid? Should we just throw the Old Testament away? But orthodox Christianity has always taught that the OT is just as much part of the Christian Bible as the

A sermon given by the Rev’d Natasha Woodward At All Saints' Church, Orpington 9.30am Eucharist, Sunday 6 April 2008 Easter 3, Year A Acts 2.14a, 36-41; 1 Peter 1.17-23; Luke 24.13-35 The disciples were walking to Emmaus when they met Jesus. They were on the move. Travelling, or journeying, is an important theme of this Easter period, of the Exodus – when the Israelites were freed from Egypt, that is not the end of the story. They are freed from slavery, a great liberation, but they're not home yet. They spend 40 years in the wilderness before they come to the land which is to be their home – being saved from slavery for them doesn't mean an instantly stable life. It means being on the move. And while they are on the move they encounter God, especially in the pillar of fire and the pillar of smoke which shows them the way. And in our gospel reading today, it is while the disciples are walking that they encounter Jesus. This idea of encountering God while on the move

A sermon given by the Rev’d Natasha Woodward At the Church of Unity, Ramsden 11am Eucharist, Easter Sunday, 23 March 2008 Acts 10.34-43, Matthew 28.1-10 Last year, the supermarket Somerfield did a survey, to find out about people's religious knowledge. It made a press release, making a very big deal of the fact that people were so out of touch, they didn't know that Easter eggs were about celebrating the birth of Jesus. Birth? Well – no – an employee of Somerfield made a mistake. You could perhaps say that Easter Eggs are about celebrating a birth, but a different kind of birth, a sort of new birth, but not quite – the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. But I don't think Somerfield was really thinking this through quite so thoroughly - if Easter Eggs were about Jesus's birth in the way that they suggested, we would have them at Christmas, not Easter. But it's understandable how one might make that mistake - eggs are about birth, actually – in an obvious way,

A sermon given by the Rev’d Natasha Woodward At All Saints' Church, Orpington 8pm Eucharist, Maundy Thursday 20 March 2008 We are here tonight worshipping in a church hall. This is not what this church community is used to. It's a hall where the heating is a little noisy at times, the air is a little dry, the chairs are – well – functional – the paint is coming off the walls in places. The church may have been in need of refurbishing, and I didn't see it beforehand, but I guess that even before the refurbishment, it was in many ways a more attractive building for worship than this one might seem to be. I have no doubt it will lift all our hearts when we move back into the church, such a fitting place for the gathering of God's people for prayer, fellowship and worship. But here we are, gathering in the hall. Here now, in this place, we have a church. We have the Church – expressed in this group of people gathered here today and who will gather here over the next f