The sacramental church

Jesus said the end of days will come like is a thief in a night, we shall not know the appointed hour only the Lord God in heaven did. His advice was that we should prepare, that we should live and breathe for it, that the end of days was not something to be feared but celebrated. Celebrated because it was a day that the Lord and his creation will be joined together; the physical world and the spiritual world of the Lord thy God of Israel would at last be one.

The day of judgement did not come, the end of human history did not arrive on time, man’s reign upon this earth did not ebb but grew. As the kingdom of man grew so the kingdom of God shrank, firstly God’s spirit was replaced by man’s will via man’s Church. Then the authority of the holy Church itself was displaced by the authority of man’s kingdom aka the state and then God’s truth was replaced with man’s truth. Finally in these end days we see God’s wisdom replaced by the wisdom of man by humans and philosophy morality and science.

Who needs God any more in a world where miracle are replaced by medicine, when Gods singular truth is replaced with a plurality of ideas were all division is resolved into meaninglessness. What need do we have to adhere to the laws of Lord thy God of Israel when we have for the philosophy of the self of philosophy that asked nothing but self justifies and self glorifies the time of man.

So what of the church, this stinking falsehoods that dares to call itself the church, this rotted limb this insult to the glory of the gospel still exists but it does not exist in truth.  It exists only as an expression of the man. It exists only as an expression of community in which going to church is merely part of the process of life. Grace has been replaced by reason, miracles replaced by hermeneutics and the words of Jesus locked behind doors and buried, so can never rise again; and The church’s acts like a spiritual damn preventing and controlling any spiritual faith that could threaten the reign of man.

It is replaced the choir of angels, the celestial throne of God, the wisdom of the disciples, the suffering and the striving of the first Church with bureaucracy and paperwork and man’s law. As a Methodist I get a ticket of membership to show that I am a member of the church. A ticket! Seems the Methodist church has long since accepted it is empty but for the show, more historical re-enactment then faith, more society then church, more man than God. We have abandoned God, we are buried beneath ourselves.

We do worse than this we reject God we deny him we question his word, his wisdom, we have usurped his throne and put ourselves upon it. We find it odd that anyone would perish for God, that anyone would be moved by him. How could anyone see anything beyond our endless repetition of what was, how could anyone find meaning in our historical Society. We are not here for the faithful, we are here to contain them, we not here for the Lord thy God, we are simply here to ensure that the stone never roll from the tomb so he can never rise again.

This ever since the church entered into a covenant of man it has been meaningless but the kingdom man has grown so great so beyond the kingdom of God that the church serves no purpose anymore. The kingdom of man has no rival any more than is no one challenging for its crown; For even if the end of time came it would merely rate and mention on the third page of the newspapers whilst everyone gossiped on about some celebrity scandal.

So what of us who really do believe in the Lord thy God, those of us betrayed and imprisonment by man’s Church? While we must continue in our belief, we must continue to reject a world where man pretends to sit on the throne of the father; we must never mistake the son for the father. We must wait and wait and believe and believe we must not weep for the church and sold its soul centuries ago. When it was tempted by the devil, with the devil took it to the highest mount and showed all the kingdoms of the Earth and offered it Dominion over them the church took the knee and submitted to Earth authority.

We must give up this fake corrupted church, sacrifice to the world of man as a sacrament of confession and a sign of our contrition. I tell you brothers and sisters nail it to the cross, forsake it, abandon it, and weep not for it: for in this sacrifice it may finally achieve something meaningful, it may finally be worthy of its inheritance. It is time for the church to make way for the kingdom of God, it is time for the Church of man to die and the church of God to rise up from the tomb and be brought into the world.

Let us keep faith then. A faith in a church is not controlled by man, that a church which embraces and lives the gospel of Christ is coming, let us keep faith that the spirit will establish it and work towards this end of days. In the meantime let us be God’s church, let us reject the wisdom of man, and let us this reject man’s truth and his fads and obsession. We should join with the Angel in heaven they alone are our world, the Lord our God of Israel alone is our monarch. We will be rejected, will be mocked we will be derided but we will be a sacrament to God; Worthy of his divinity, worth of his mercy and worthy of the sacrifice of Christ but knowing that it is only in the mercy of Christ that we are redeemed.

The empty bag

I was watching the television programme “the wonder of life” in which an eminent scientist said that life was nothing but kinetic energy, no more significant than the rolling of a rock down a hill. So I ask a question, are we nothing more than empty bags of energy and impermanent presents which leaves nothing behind but the energy which started it?

With the greatest goodwill in the world; it would not be to a scientist that I would turn the answers about the nature of our existence. Humanity cannot be boiled down to an equation; it is not suffering times wisdom that equal soul. It is trite but true to say that we are more than sum of our parts. I cannot prove this; I can show no evidence for this I cannot give you a calculation which is even infers it. I believe with this question we have come to the edge of science we have come to the end of the path where only fact can take us. It is time to take the leap beyond mere facts to the deeper truth.

Science often tries to justify religion by describing it as some sort of advance fear mechanism but religion contains within it a truth beyond the sciences conception of this truth is this. That though we may just be bags of energy, we are more than this. Religion knows that our Lord and Master made as to become greater than we were, he let us to strive towards perfection as we stagger towards him open armed.

It seems ridiculous to have to repeat this but I will, the value of one man is beyond calculation his purpose beyond fathom and his glory beyond the counting for it has pleased the Lord thy God of Israel to anoint him as a child of God and forge him up on this earth. It is God’s well to give each of us a sole and eternal essence like his are part of ourselves that is beyond the laws of physics beyond the shackles of this world and which will escape when this bag of nothing finally ends its role down the hill of life.

In conclusion I would like to remind you of an old saying. I am nothing but dust in motion for a light came from dust and will return to dust but all that I am will survive. All that I am is eternal, and all that I am is pleasing in the sight of God for he thought me as I am him and him in me. Let science calculate their empty bags in letters and let us preach the truth of the eternal soul. For no man is saved my calculation but only through making that leap from fact to truth.

How to save the Tory party

It is with the deepest regret, that I have recently had to see the decline of my beloved party. There was once a day when Tory party policy advantaged all, when we sought to raise all people up. There was a time when we would have wept in his same to overseen a stagnating economy, with unemployment so high.

This was before the dark day when the do nothing’s, when the so-called ultra-liberals took over the party. Their fundamentalist beliefs that government intervention in any form is only self-defeating has led us not to be the party of governance but to be the party of inaction. It is simply not good enough to very, very slowly reduce corporation tax and take a few poor men out of taxation in these harsh times. To put it bluntly, it is not enough to have a no policy, policy on the economy any more.

It is time for the Tory party action once more, to gird our loins and actually have a policy for growth. It is time for tax breaks for exporting businesses, it is time to build houses and for the government to guarantee loans to house builders . It is time to cut corporation tax and to cut tax on all capital investment in this country. Alongside this we need a three year tax-free period for all new businesses, and a five-year one for all new physical retail businesses. It is also time to end all tax credits (apart from those for childcare) and take more people out of taxation altogether. It is also time for the government to provide start-up capital in areas with limited childcare capacity.

We should also guarantee housing for people who move out of the low employment areas into areas of higher employment, alongside a new intensive course for all people who seek employment, eventually extending this scheme to all people who wish to improve their current standard of living. We need to abolish the job centers as they stand and replace them with online application and intensive job training centers targeted to find people employment regardless of length of time unemployed.

We will refund this from a scrapping of Trident and a ruthless suppression of all official expenses and luxuries. We will fund this with debt if necessary and cuts if possible. We will also seek to legalize as many currently illegal substances as it is prudent to do so. Alongside this we will legalize prostitution. We will scrap H2S and give half the money to train firms to do as they wish as well as allow private road construction, funded through tolls. We do not take these measures lightly, but when UK plc needs new revenues it is silly not to explore them when there are already people taking and using these things.

10 Predictions for 2013

1: The euro crises will rumble on but slowly resolve it self

2: The US / EU grip on international organisations will be further weakened

3: The EU will go into a recession reducing the most of the Euro

4: EU leaders with threaten exit but not do anything

5: Japan’s economy will continue to stagnate

6: China will increase her economic influence in the US and EU

7: More talk but no action on Syria

8: Coalition will threaten to split but remain together

9: UK sluggish recovery will continue

10: Basically 2012 mark 2 

Reporting service

Order of service for Reported service

Call to worship: Psalm 22: 3-5

3 Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;

    you are the one Israel praises.[]

4 In you our ancestors put their trust;

    they trusted and you delivered them.

5 To you they cried out and were saved;

    in you they trusted and were not put to shame.

Hymn: StF 351: In Christ alone

All age address: Have you ever been really ill?

·         Ask them what their parents do to look after them when they’re sick

·         How much better it is to be well

·         God – sent Jesus to heal the sick (all of us)

Hymn: StF 635: My Troubled soul, why so weighed down

Dismissal

Collective Psalm 22: 22,24,26-31

22 I will declare your name to my people;

    in the assembly I will praise you.

24 For he has not despised or scorned

    the suffering of the afflicted one;

he has not hidden his face from him

    but has listened to his cry for help.

26 The poor will eat and be satisfied;

    those who seek the Lord will praise him—

    may your hearts live forever!

27 All the ends of the earth

    will remember and turn to the Lord,

and all the families of the nations

    will bow down before him,

28 for dominion belongs to the Lord

    and he rules over the nations.

29 All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;

    all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—

    those who cannot keep themselves alive.

30 Posterity will serve him;

    future generations will be told about the Lord.

31 They will proclaim his righteousness,

    declaring to a people yet unborn:

    He has done it!

Prayer of adoration / thanksgiving

Hymn  287: When I survey the wondrous cross

Reading: Mark 15: 33-38

Reading: Mark 2: 13-17

Reading: Mark 8:34-38

Sermon:

·         We are all sick

·         We all feel forsaken by God

·         Jesus knows our pains

·         He heals the sick

·         Cross is strength not suffering

Hymn: Old rugged cross

Collective Psalm 22: 1-2, 6-11, 19

1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

    Why are you so far from saving me,

    so far from my cries of anguish?

2 My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,

    by night, but I find no rest.[b]

6 But I am a worm and not a man,

    scorned by everyone, despised by the people.

7 All who see me mock me;

    they hurl insults, shaking their heads.

8 “He trusts in the Lord,” they say,

    “let the Lord rescue him.

Let him deliver him,

    since he delights in him.”

9 Yet you brought me out of the womb;

    you made me trust in you, even at my mother’s breast.

10 From birth I was cast on you;

    from my mother’s womb you have been my God.

11 Do not be far from me,

    for trouble is near

    and there is no one to help.

19 But you, Lord, do not be far from me.

    You are my strength; come quickly to help me.

Prayers of confession / forgiveness

Prayers of intercession

Lord's prayer

Offertory

Hymn: 345: And can it be

Dismal

Oos 23122012

Order of service for December 23rd, Caversham heights, 10.30am

Call to worship: Titus 3 4-7

Advent liturgy

Hymn: H&P 232 Tell me the old, old story

Prayer of adoration

All age address: what is your favourite story?

·         This is a story of salvation

·         Birth of gods kingdom on earth

Prayer of thanksgiving

Hymn StF 627: Everyone needs compassion

Short welcome for peace candle: Isaiah 9: 6-7

Peace candle lit

Dismissal

Reading Luke 2 4-20 (can be done in two parts)

Prayers of confession / forgiveness

Hymn: StF 202 Hark the herald-angels sing

Sermon: true story of Christmas

Prayers for the coming of the kingdom

Hymn StF 216 See him lying on a bed of straw

Prayers for the housebound

Prayers of intercession

Lord's prayer
Offertory

Hymn: H&P 135 Go tell in on the Mountain
Dismal 

Harvest

What does harvest mean to you? (Symon)

Ask people about what the harvest means to them?

In the Psalm we were given a picture of God as gardener

He fills the rivers with waters

Blesses the its valleys and trees

And blesses it with his love and mercy

But there is one fruit it does not mention and that id the fristfruit

When I think of harvest I think of this

Luke 13:34

34 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.

We our also a creation of God

We our his first fruit

It is hard to think of us as fruit I know

But it is for us all other creation was formed

It is to keep us that God blesses the harvest

And just as we gather the fruits we grow

So God will gather us in

So when I think of the harvest I think of the day when God shall call me home

Deuteronomy 26:1-11

How do we offer back to God? (Symon)

In accordance with are reading we have:

Come from the world God made for us

We have marked the wonders of God

We have given thanks that ours is a land of milk and honey

And we have rejoice in all the good things

but what our we to give him?

I am reminded of a Christmas song: In the bleak midwinter

What can I give Him, poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;

If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;

Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

Fruit and vegetable our all well and good

Our time and money are better still

But what God really wants is You

You are his harvest

You his chosen person

Yes I know no of you think worth of it

Hardly the best of humanity

Hardly blessed in his sight

If I am fruit I am bruised and a bit mouldy

but so much dose he love you

That he causes the rivers to flow

He causes the sun to shine

And he even sent his first fruit

His own son

To call you home

So when you think God has forgotten all about you

Come be part of the harvest

And he shall rise you to be the first fruit