With all that’s going on in our world, from major conflict, economic pressures, headline criminal events and debates on free speech, right to protest etc. my thoughts have taken something of a serious turn with little space for what I might call humour, accepting others might disagree!
In every life the question of God’s presence is raised at some point. For many it is an academic issue related to the existence of evil in the world. But for most, it relates to our own personal struggles and pain, and our need to connect with something bigger than ourselves. Unfortunately, we may fall into thinking that God’s presence is available only to a select, chosen few. Sometimes we may imply that God cannot be found except within the walls of our church buildings. We may even fall into the view that those who suffer do so because of God’s judgement, and those who have much are “blessed” by God’s presence and provision. The result of this is that we make God into a fickle, partisan deity who favours some over others, and who cannot be turned to for refuge in our darkest times. What a pity this is – and what a travesty of the Gospel.
The Scriptures make it clear that God’s presence is everywhere, and that God draws close to all who need refuge and protection and comfort. Every human being “lives and moves and has their being” in God’s presence. We need only to recognise this. God’s gift of the Spirit is not some kind of spiritual “merit badge” for a chosen few. Rather it is available to all and offers comfort and strength for all. Our calling, as followers of Jesus, is to learn to see that God is at work and present in the most unexpected and surprising places, and then to help others to see it for themselves and enjoy the healing and empowering that this spiritual sight brings.
​
Mike

When I was a young boy growing up in Ireland, Holy Week and Easter were hugely important in every social context. All forms of entertainment during Holy Week were unavailable, and almost all programmes on radio and television had religious themes. Easter brought an outpouring of joy – and everyone knew on what that joy was based. What we would call the events of our salvation were well understood.
Not just in Ireland, but pretty much everywhere in western countries, that is no longer the case. The market research firm YouGov recently conducted a survey on this in the UK. They found what while 60-70 per cent of people knew that Easter was a Christian festival (meaning that 30-40 percent did not know!), only 40 per cent knew that it related to the Resurrection of Jesus. Some thought it was a general spring festival.
While most churches will tend to see more people coming through their doors on Easter Sunday than on other occasions, we are nevertheless now a fairly small minority of people of faith, and sometimes that can seem depressing. But it shouldn’t be. In the Gospel account of the Resurrection, and indeed the accounts of the early Church in the Acts of the Apostles, the people of faith whose stories we read were in a much smaller minority. Unlike most of us, they did not just face the ignorance of the wider society, they also had to fear serious persecution. And yet their courage, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, ensured that we, some two and a half thousand miles from the Holy Land two thousand years later, are able to give thanks for our redemption openly in our churches.
Here in Aberdeenshire, we are not on the whole called upon to proclaim our faith in dangerous settings. We should not be depressed. God is with us still, and the Holy Spirit is guiding us also today as we try to live lives that show the wider society the immense gift of our salvation. As we say every Sunday in our eucharistic prayer, Christ’s blood was shed for all, including those not currently aware of it, and his Resurrection continues to redeem a ransomed world. We are blessed indeed.
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Ferdinand

It has been a dark February so far – the longest recorded period without sunshine, each day seeming as wet as the day before, but thankfully without the drama of major flooding.
 
The darkness outside is overcome by the light within and this February started with “Happy are they….” The Beatitudes, immediately followed by Jesus clarifying his relationship with the Law of Moses.  He had not come to do away with the Law but to fulfil it, to help God’s people to live the Law as it was originally intended – not as a set of legalistic rules to be ticked off a list, but as signs of a heart that was devoted to God and filled with love for other people.
 
For Jesus it was all about the heart, because when the heart is right, this overflows into our whole lives. When Jesus taught about God’s reign, he started with calling us to love and then explained what a love-filled life looks like by referring to the law which, as he taught, can be summarised in the twin commandments to love God and love our neighbour.  It is easy to make faith about what we think, determining whether we are “in” or “out” by certain ideas that we consider to be “essential” to faith.  It is also easy to make faith about a list of rules that we either do or don’t do, and to view those who fail to follow our rules as “out” while we, who obey the rules, are “in.”  These approaches were as common in Jesus’ day as they are in ours, but he taught a different path in which we seek to have our hearts so captured by the dream of God’s reign that it becomes the motivation, the pattern and the guide for all our thinking, doing, interacting, choosing and loving.  
 
When we are captivated by God’s reign, our lives reflect the character and purpose of Christ to those around us in ways that bring life and blessing to them.  Discovering this motivation, the pattern and guide we know as discipleship, something to be explored as we enter the period of Lent - exploring what it means to be captured by God’s reign so that we become salt and light in this world.
 
Mike

As we moved into the month of December it seemed to me that there developed an increasing sense of urgency about the things of everyday life. Were the christmas songs (small c) playing in the shops going a little bit faster? Was there just a bit more desperation amongst the shoppers as they hurried around the aisles? A trace of panic as the decorations were hastily established along the street and within the houses? And still the church year calls us to slow down a little during the season of Advent; to pause and think of both the remembrance of Christs’ nativity and of his promise to return, to come again establishing his kingdom for eternity. To reflect on what it means to each of us that the Word of God is made ‘flesh’, that Christ promised he would return, coming “like a thief in the night” but with trumpets, angels and glory! Reflection is a deeper form of learning that allows us to retain every aspect of any experience, be it personal or professional — why something took place, what the impact was, whether it should happen again — as opposed to just remembering that it happened. It’s about tapping into every aspect of the experience, clarifying our thinking, and homing in on what really matters to us.
 
‘For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’ – Matthew 6:21
 
Despite the need for planning and preparing and packaging with the urgency that a shortening calendar produces take a deep breath, sit still with a cupper, or perhaps a long drink, and ask “where is my treasure?” Where is my heart? Invested in the current must have gift, the perfect roast dinner, the most convivial gathering? All good things but transitory. Or am I invested in in the hope of what is to come, the joy of the reconciliation humanity to God, the love of Christ that achieved this and the peace, that is beyond our full understanding, given and promised, in us now and yet still to come, eternally?
 
Mike

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St Andrews Scottish Episcopal Church
(Scottish Liturgy 1982)
 All are welcome to join with us . . . 

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​Not wanting to invoke some country-wifie lore but at the last full moon we had a skene of geese fly over the cottage, honking as they do. A full month earlier than we have come to expect and leaving just a little foreboding of the winter to come. Their flight also brought forward thoughts of autumn and the harvest being brought in – the turning of the year bringing thoughts of dark nights to come. Such first thoughts risk dwelling on the passing of time and the gloom of things ending. Perhaps that is partly why, in the church year, we are entering what has become known as ‘Creationtide’ or the season of creation.
 
Genesis 1:1 states: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
 
 These famous opening words of the Bible set the scene for all that is to come: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. All that was, all that is, all that will be, all this comes from God. Right from the off the Bible speaks of a God who is not passive or distant, but active and involved. The opening chapter goes on to describe the scale, the diversity, the goodness of God’s creation, but here it is enough to simply reflect on the one who creates. The creation of the world was not a one time burst of energy that left God exhausted, rather it was a pouring out of something deep within God—a desire to create, to bring about beauty and order and all that is good. God created because God is creative, and God’s creativity does not run dry. This creative heart has left its fingerprints throughout the creation: in the wild evolution of nature, in the instinctive desire of our earliest ancestors to make art on the walls of their caves, in the stories that we tell to our children. The world is filled with creativity because it was created by a creative God whose art and talent are inexhaustible. We can be distracted away from the wonder of creation by what we might take as portents in the world around us, the gloom of headlines reciting tales of pain diming our sight of all that is good or fear of what seems like long nights ahead. Against these shines to light of God and if we listen we can hear that quite voice citing promises of hope. As the season of creation opens before us we are called to remember - In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth—and that was only the beginning!
 
Mike

​St Andrews Scottish episcopal church – this week
(02 June)
Collect for the week
 
O Lord, mercifully hear our prayers:
loose us from the chains of our sins;
and keep us from all adversity;
through Jesus Christ, our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, world without end. Amen.
 
This Week
 
Thursday – 09:000
Morning Prayer & communion
 
 
 
      18:30 - Friday Compline
(Zoom)
 

For the Diary
 
 
Saturday 8th June
Choral Come & Sing
Workshop led by Paul Mealar
Fountianhall Cross Church
Aberdeen
(See notice at rear of church for details)
 
Wednesday 26th June
Open Table Discussion
St Drostan’s Church Hall,
Insch
 
Next Sunday
9th June
 
3rd Sunday after Pentecost
 
09:30 Holy Communion
 
10:30 Morning Praise
Next Sunday’s readings
 
1 Samuel 8:4-20
Psalm 138
2 Corinthians 4:13 – 5:1
Mark 3:20-35
 
 

 

June Ramblings
June – halfway through the year, days warming, the sun shines brighter (when we see it) and greenery is bursting out all over. Listening to the presenters of Beechgrove Garden now is the time to plant out that bright summer bedding that has been nurtures through the colder months ready to enjoy the bright and uplifting colours of blooms that have such an effect on us. For the experienced gardener there may be quiet excitement in waiting for some new variety to flower, in the vegetable plant a different kind of produce to be tasted or for the newcomer to gardening the satisfaction of planting up a container (no matter how small) watching the green grow and then the buds opening to glory. So many metaphors have been built on this demonstration of creation by far better commentors than me that I’m not going to try but as the church year moves into the long period of Ordinary Time between Pentecost and Advent I’m always drawn to wonder what spiritual seeds have been planted by God through the celebrations from Christmas to Easter, have they responded to the careful nurture of Christ in my life and what fruit will the Holy Spirit bring forth in due time. That perpetual cycle of our life in Christ and Christs life in us. Perhaps as we enter this time of exuberant growth all around us it is worth giving a few moments of stillness to reflect on the words of God proclaimed by Isaiah:
See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland.
                                                   (Is 43:19)
 
God keeps his promises so what new things are sprouting in your life? What new path will you follow in his footsteps, and will your thirst be quenched by the living water poured out for all?
 
Mike