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4th September – Wednesday

10am Morning Prayer – led by Judith Rigby

7th September – Saturday – Car Boot Sale

Open to the public 10am – 2pm, Entry 1€ – Please note, dogs not allowed

8th September – The 15th Sunday after Trinity

11am Sung Eucharist – Celebrant & Preacher Mtr Fiona Jack

FUTURE DATES

Sunday 13th October – Harvest Festival

Harvest Festival lunch at the Church. Join us after the Sunday Service on Sunday 13th October. 1pm for 1.30pm.
Ploughman’s lunch with Sweet, Wine and Water.
Tickets €12 from Jane Stewart. Tel: 676506957 WhatsApp, or after the Sunday Service.

SUNDAY 15th DECEMBER after the 11am service

PARTY FOR WENDY SANDERSON IN RECOGNITION OF HER YEARS OF SERVICE AS TREASURER AND CHURCHWARDEN.

ALL WELCOME. PLEASE RESERVE YOUR PLACE VIA JANE STEWART – Tel 676506957 (WhatsApp) OR AFTER THE SUNDAY SERVICE

SUNDAY 22nd DECEMBER

Please note: the Christmas Lunch is now sold out.

If you would like your name on the waiting list, please contact Jane Stewart as below

14th Sunday after Trinity – Sermon 1 Sept 2024 – ADVENTURE

When did you last have an adventure?
When did you do something new or risky or scary?

Something that made your heart beat fast and your adrenalin rush, that challenged your ideas and took you way beyond your comfort zone into a new place.

Many young people and some not so young, are really good at having adventures – off on gap years, travelling the world, working for charities, backpacking, leaving home and learning new things regularly.

Many people relish the thrill and the challenge of adventure. We see many adventurous persons paragliding off the cliffs of La Paz here in Puerto. Or trekking on the steep slopes of El Teide, If only more of us could have such opportunities.

There is another adventure: The Christian faith is an adventure – a challenge, a thrill, a quest. A journey on which new things are learnt, new places discovered.

I wonder how many people who are not Christians would look at us and see the excitement, commitment and passion that adventure demands.
Is that what others see in us? I wonder?

We read of Adventurous encounters In Mark’s Gospel – just before the passage set for today – Jesus has been travelling in the countryside and wherever he goes ordinary people rush to him, reach for him. Just by touching the fringe of his cloak, Mark tells us, they were healed.

What adventures! Life-changing moments for ordinary people, not educated in the ways of the Hebrew Scriptures, Gentiles, many others not welcome in the Temple, many deemed unclean. Compare this with the Pharisees and scribes in our passage: the religious leaders of the day, the educated keepers of tradition; knowing the Scriptures by heart, faithful at worship and prayer.

Do they reach out to touch Jesus’ cloak? No, they don’t.

Do they seem eager for an adventure with this man of God? It seems not.

But they have noticed that the disciples don’t wash their hands before eating, and they are here to challenge Jesus on the matter.

Adventures with God have got lost, we read, in the pots, pans and bronze kettles of tradition.

Jesus is exasperated with them – it’s not what goes into a person that makes them unclean and out of favour with God, but what comes out.

Evil intentions come from the human heart and are displayed to the world in unworthy deeds. Jesus lists them: theft, murder, sexual immorality, pride, slander, foolishness. These are the things that make people unclean: unrighteous in the sight of God.

Adventurous actions – James, in his letter to the Hebrews, builds on this. It’s not enough to hear the word of God, Christians must be doers of the word of God. It’s no good hearing the call of Jesus, listening week in and week out to the Scriptures, or Ministers droning on from the pulpit, if it makes no difference to the way you live moment by moment. You can’t call yourself a Christian, says James, and then let your tongue betray you every time you open your mouth.

How often do we speak words that exclude, judge, tear down and destroy others? If we do, then our faith is worthless, says James. Acts of charity are what’s needed. Acts that reflect the generous giving of God to us in his Son Jesus Christ.

So we should give ourselves in service to the most vulnerable, ‘widows and orphans’ says James.

Who are the most vulnerable in our community?

Asylum seekers, refugees, the homeless, those with various addictions, those whom society has turned against.
It’s quite a long way from those pots and pans of tradition, isn’t it?

It’s a challenge, an adventure with God, which I fear has yet to be entered into for many churchgoers. Adventurous living – The reading from Song of Songs is filled with challenge and adventure too. There are various ways of approaching this great love poem. Some see it as a poetic celebration of love, passion and human sexuality. Others an allegory of the divine love for God’s chosen people. For Christians, it can be seen both as the marriage between Christ and the church, also a reflection of the relationship between each individual soul and God.

All these approaches have value. In this passage, the lover calls his beloved to arise and come away with him. Away from the walls, and windows. Away from the tapestry of humdrum life into a new and fertile place.

It’s a call into liberation – into adventure. It’s a call out of winter, out of rain, out of Calima, into spring, where there are flowers and birds, blossoms and fruit – new life: the season of singing has come.

The call is filled with joy and delight for lover and beloved – that adrenalin rush I mentioned at the beginning. This is what the Christian faith should be like for us. Jesus loves us passionately and he calls us to rise and come to him, into a new place, into a fresh beginning – breaking out of our old life, away from those pots and pans and bronze kettles into a new way of thinking, a new way of being, and a new way of doing which is Christ-shaped, modelled on the word of God.

That often means taking risks, being flexible, being curious; willing to move deeper in and further on. Faith is a journey, a pilgrimage, a quest. Listen to God, hear the call of Jesus, respond to the nudges of the Holy Spirit seeking you in love for a new adventure. Be brave, be courageous, take risks, try new things, but think before you speak. Rise up, come away with God on a new quest and be amazed and delighted by the treasures that await.

I am minded of the old Celtic Prayer for the adventurer:-

May the road rise to meet you, May the wind be always at your back, May the sun shine warm on your face, May the rains fall soft on your fields. Until we meet again may god hold you in the hollow of his hand.
Amen

Peter Lockyer – Reader

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