Monday, 12 October 2026  Waldensians Origins

 
Jeremiah 20: 7 – 12
 
O Lord, you have enticed me,
    and I was enticed;
you have overpowered me,
    and you have prevailed.
I have become a laughing-stock all day long;
    everyone mocks me.
For whenever I speak, I must cry out,
    I must shout, ‘Violence and destruction!’
For the word of the Lord has become for me
    a reproach and derision all day long.
If I say, ‘I will not mention him,
    or speak any more in his name’,
then within me there is something like a burning fire
    shut up in my bones;
I am weary with holding it in,
    and I cannot.
For I hear many whispering:
    ‘Terror is all around!
Denounce him! Let us denounce him!’
    All my close friends
    are watching for me to stumble.
‘Perhaps he can be enticed,
    and we can prevail against him,
    and take our revenge on him.’
But the Lord is with me like a dread warrior;
    therefore my persecutors will stumble,
    and they will not prevail.
They will be greatly shamed,
    for they will not succeed.
Their eternal dishonour
    will never be forgotten.
O Lord of hosts, you test the righteous,
    you see the heart and the mind;
let me see your retribution upon them,
    for to you I have committed my cause.
 
Reflection
 
12^th Century France underwent an economic, social, and cultural transformation with the rise of cities and the growth of what we’d now call capitalism.  In around 1174 Valdo, a rich citizen of Lyon, had a conversion experience.  Unable to read Latin, he had extracts from the Gospels translated into Occitan.  Anxious for his soul, he followed Jesus’ instruction, to the Rich Young Man, to give away all he had.  Valdo then lived amongst the poor subsisting only by begging and preaching.  
 
A fire in his belly as strong as the one which inflamed Jeremiah meant Valdo’s preaching becoming an effective counter against the Cathars; here was a good Christian who knew his Bible, rejected wealth and power, yet stayed faithful to Christianity.  Followers soon came and became known, at first, as “the poor of Lyon”.  Whilst a useful as a tool against heresy, Valdo insisted his followers needed no licence from the Church to preach.   Despite a very orthodox confession of faith Valdo and his followers were excommunicated by 1184 for their failure to submit to ecclesial authority.
 
Knowing all that comes next, it is hard not to have sympathy with Valdo who probably knew more of the Gospel stories and had a livelier faith than those he was asked to be accountable to.  Yet he was uneducated, ignorant of the era’s academic language, was theologically untrained, and soon faded into history.
 
We shouldn’t sneer though, URC Assessment Conferences do not warm to people who believe themselves called to an office they are not willing to train for!  Accountability in ministry is important; short lived is the ministry of those who refuse to play their part in the Church’s Councils.  There’s always a tension in the Church between the pioneers and the settlers; the energy of the entrepreneur and the stability of the established.  The Church, however, needs both; the tragedy is that the 12^th Century Church and Valdo did not recognise this.
 
Prayer
Lord, You seduce us,
and we were seduced!
We cannot help but speak of You,
Your greatness and Your love.
Give us always the energy to speak of You
and utter your uncontainable word,
in season and out of season.
Amen. 

Waldensians

Dear Friends,

I hope you found our wander through Cathar history and ideas interesting.  The next medieval reform movement we will look at is the Waldensians. 

We have very few details of their founder, Valdo, a rich merchant from Lyon.  Eager to read the Gospels in his native Occitan he paid for selections from the New Testament to be translated.  Reading of the Rich Young Ruler he followed Jesus’ words and gave away all he had and dedicated himself to preaching.  He soon gathered followers and remained, at first, loyal to the Catholic Church.  However, a refusal to gain preaching licences from the Church led to excommunication.  Later Waldensians called him Peter – a name linked with the Apostle Peter the keystone of the early Church.  For a long time Waldensians believed themselves to be the spiritual ancestors of a supposed party in the Church which rejected the wealth and status delivered by the Emperor Constantine.  As we shall see that myth made them irresistible to the Protestant Reformers in the 15th Century.  At the Reformation they helped bolster the new Reform movement by a longer history and were buoyed up by being part of something larger. 

Persecution since their earliest years only stopped in the 19th Century with civil liberties in a unified Italy though the war years under Mussolini were difficult and, even now, they are careful to want a secular state free from Church interference.  Unlike the Cathars, Waldensians remained Christian and are now a vibrant, and radical, part of current Church life in Italy.  URC links with the Waldensians are strong and, this week, we will look at their history and mission.

So we journey now to Lyon and then to the mountainous valleys in what is now north Italy.

With every good wish

Andy

The Rev’d Andy Braunston
Minister for Digital Worship
 

Dear Friends,

The Revd Dr Phil Wall writes:

“The strain on the UK’s criminal justice system is no longer hidden but frequently reported on in our headlines. Given that the UK has the highest per capita prison population in Western Europe, the overcrowding and poor conditions of our prisons is perhaps unsurprising. Yet God calls us to care for the prisoner. In fact, Jesus even suggests we’ll be judged on this! (Matthew 25:31-46).

“Tomorrow, Prisons Sunday (October 11^th this year) marks the start of Prisons Week – an annual, interfaith programme which aims to encourage prayer and awareness of the needs of prisoners and their families, victims of offenders, prisons staff, and all those who work within the justice system.

“Those wanting to know more are invited to look at the Prisons Week website – Campaign Page – Prisons Week and/or to consider this year’s General Assembly resolution which encouraged churches to explore joining the Welcome Directory – The Welcome Directory.

“Rather than me offering some carefully scripted prayer for this, I invited my amazing 16-year-old foster son, who has experience of having family in prison, to lead a prayer for us:
 
Perfect, all-knowing God,
 
We pray for all those in prison and we ask for you to give your divine love to them.
We think of those who feel so isolated, that you help to keep them sane.
We pray that anger doesn’t get the best of them.
We pray that all prisoners might find some of your peace
and that they find a better path when they leave.
 
We pray for those who work in prison.
We pray that you keep them safe and that they find joy in helping others.
We pray that they might show and teach kindness to the prisoners.
 
We pray for those whose family members are in prison.
We ask that they keep talking to them while in prison and can make new bonds when reunited.
We ask you to comfort those who are standing by their loved ones.
 
We hope one day there will be no more crime or prisons and that everyone will live a good life.
This we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

I hope you take a moment to pray for prisoners and all who make social policy in this area.

With every good wish

Andy

The Rev’d Andy Braunston
Minister for Digital Worship
 

Friday, 9 October 2026

 
St John 15: 1 – 13
 
Jesus said: ‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you.  Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.  I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.  Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.  If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.  As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.  I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends
 
Reflection
 
For over 50 years the Church tried to slow Cathar progress through preaching and persuasion.  The successes were few and far between.  Pope Innocent III, elected in 1198, was determined to do better but Cathar nobles protected their people and local bishops resented over-mighty papal representatives in their dioceses.  St Dominic started a preaching campaign holding “Zeal must be met by zeal, humility by humility, false sanctity by real sanctity, preaching falsehood by preaching truth.”  Whilst well received, he observed that only preachers who displayed real holiness, humility, and asceticism stood a chance.  The Church, it seemed, didn’t have many of these at its disposal.
 
In January 1208 a papal legate who had excommunicated Raymond VI, the Cathar protecting Count of Toulouse, was murdered.  Innocent ordered a crusade against the Cathars and urged the French king to take part (Raymond’s lands were not then part of the French state).  Over the next 20 years the king allowed some of his nobles to wage the Albigensian Crusade.  French nobles fought the nobles of the Languedoc.  Dreadful massacres took place with an apocryphal story of an abbot commander instructing “kill them all, the Lord will recognise his own” in response to a question about Catholics living and fighting alongside Cathars.
 
Whilst such acts were barbaric, and clearly outwith any sense of Christian morality, texts like today’s were used to justify the wounding and burning of those seen as heretics.  The French Crown’s desire to expand territory united with the Church’s desire to rid the land of heretics.  An unholy alliance of power and persuasion led to murder- and a hatred of the Church which lasted for hundreds of years; the new cathedral in Albi had to be heavily fortified to protect the clergy from the people.
 
Whilst we look at these events with horror and disbelief, it is not too difficult to see contemporary parallels.  When negotiations fail, and faith and fear become entwined with politics, the bombing soon starts. 
 
Prayer
 
Holy God,
when preaching fails,
persuasion falters,
and persistence stumbles,
calm us lest our fear increases,
that we remain open
to dialogue and discernment,
in faithful discipleship.
Amen.

Thursday, 8 October 2026

 
St John 20: 11 – 18
 
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet.  They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.  Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’  Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher).  Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”’ Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
 
Reflection
 
Holding that bodies were sinful, the Cathars were indifferent about biological sex.  Believing in reincarnation, they held that one’s spirit might be reborn as a man or as a woman.  Women and men could receive the Consolamentum, preach, and hold high office in the Cathar Church.  However, there were social restrictions on women travelling unaccompanied by men and so houses were formed for Cathar women to live out their faith.  In an age where childbirth was dangerous Catharism, like the convent, offered a chance for women to live longer and more independently. 
 
Cathars saw the dualism they believed in within John’s Gospel.  They believed that Mary Magdalene was of greater importance than St Peter (hardly a welcome thought in Catholicism which saw Peter as the first pope!).  They believed Mary Magdalene was a key teacher in the Early Church and so provided a model for women in their own age.  Whilst Catharism offered leadership positions to women many, of course, stayed away from it and that great medieval mystic Hildegard of Bingen preached firmly against them having found her own voice in a patriarchal world. 
 
It is useful to remind ourselves how pioneering the URC is, and our antecedent traditions were, in ordaining women.  Whilst we are used to women in leadership, it is still very unusual in the Church with the vast majority of Christians around the world not seeing women in ordained roles.  We also see Mary Magdalene was an apostle – the first witness of the Resurrection – without accepting the dualism that sees bodies, male or female, as sinful.  The Church has, however, been trapped by dualism seeing the spirit as good and bodies as places of sin and temptation.  Our contemporary world, also, is both fascinated by (young, fit, beautiful) bodies and loathful of (older, fatter, disabled) bodies.  Maybe there’s nothing new under the sun, but we can learn from the Cathar equality of the sexes whilst rejecting their distrust of the body. 
 
Prayer
 
Jesus, enfleshed God,
You touched the earth,
walked on water,
ate and drank,
blessed and healed,
and felt pleasure and pain,
so that we, in our bodies,
might know and love You
for ever.  Amen.

Wednesday, 7 October 2026

 
St Matthew 7: 17-18
 
In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.
 
St John 18: 36
 
Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.’
 
Reflection
 
One of the most powerful, and moving, objections to faith in God is the existence of suffering.  Why would an all-powerful benevolent God allow children to die of cancer.  Such questions have troubled believers throughout the ages. 
 
The Cathars’ answer was to adopt a dualist position meaning they believed there were two gods – the good God of heaven and the evil god of this age (see 2 Cor 4:4).  People’s (good) spirits were trapped in (bad) bodies in an endless cycle of reincarnation.  Only through living simply, rejecting the wealth and power of the world, and receiving the Cathar sacrament of the Consolamentum could one be freed.  The ritual was seen as a way of separating from the world and the Evil One who controlled it.  They believed that God could not bear bad fruit and that Jesus’ words about his Kingdom not being of this world were clues from Scripture suggesting a division between good and bad, light and dark, spirit and flesh.  After receiving the Consolamentum the Cathar perfects were required to eat only vegetables and fish, to be celibate and to dedicate themselves to an itinerant ministry of preaching.  Not all Cathars became perfects in life, though one aspired to receive the Consolamentum before death.    The simplicity of Cathar lifestyles stood in stark contrast to the wealth of Church dignitaries and gave credence to their message.  They were known simply as “good Christians” which rather implies a contrast with the Church of their age. 
 
There are no easy answers to questions about evil and suffering and one can see how it is tempting to take a dualistic position.  Instead, we are invited to accept that, in the Incarnation, God’s own self became flesh recognising it as good.   We wrestle with the painful mystery of suffering navigated only by the horror of the Cross.  Instead of separation from humanity’s messiness, God – in Christ – joined our pain and suffering and offers the hope of eventual redemption.
 
Prayer
 
Console us O God,
when confronted with suffering and pain;
help us to sit with those who suffer
offering not answers but love,
not surety but hope,
not our own efforts but grace,
that, as we comprehend the violence of the Cross,
we find healing and peace.
Amen.
 

Tuesday, 6 October 2026

 
St Luke 22: 24 – 30
 
A dispute also arose among them as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest. But he said to them, ‘The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves. ‘You are those who have stood by me in my trials; and I confer on you, just as my Father has conferred on me, a kingdom, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
 
Reflection
 
By the year 1,000 the Church was, at one and the same time, the dominant institution in Europe and under the control of rulers who would appoint relatives to clerical posts – both high and low – and steal its wealth.  Clerical marriage meant the Church’s possessions and money might be left to children.  After all, supine clergy encourage only supine vocations.  Seeing the danger, the Church reformed itself (and raised standards for ordination).  Religious orders were founded, or renewed, free from secular control; clerical marriage was outlawed and the prestige and power of the Church rose again.  Cross and crown made alliances bolstering each other’s position.  Internal dissent, heresy, was seen as a danger to the Church and the state was pressed to help with efforts at suppression – even, as we saw last week, leading to torture and execution.  The 12^th Century reform movements rejected power; they didn’t have much choice as the powerful rejected them. 
 
At the Last Supper, however, Jesus told his disciples of a different way of using power to the “kings of the Gentiles” who “lord it over them.”  Yet Jesus also told the disciples they would have a kingdom conferred on them.  The Church preferred the latter verses to the former. 
 
The temptation to power is strong within the Church, from nostalgia about when the Church had more influence to the (to me at least) bleating line in a hymn observing that Christians are “a people without recognition”.  Yet little thought is given to whether we should ever have had power.  Could the bishops have thanked Constantine for his kind thoughts but stressed that they would not run his empire for him?  Could they have resisted his wealth and interference?  Would we have survived being marginal?
 
Historical questions might amuse but now we are marginal; do we resent that or see it as an opportunity?  Do we hanker after the past or look to a future on the margins back to where we began?
 
Prayer
 
God of the margins,
help us to see our world more clearly from the edge,
to understand the social movements that oppress,
to see the great engines of evil,
and spoke their wheels,
that with the marginal,
we may welcome Your Kingdom.
Amen.

Monday, 5 October 2026

James 5: 1 – 6
 
Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days.  Listen! The wages of the labourers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts on a day of slaughter.  You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you.
 
Reflection
 
The Church’s wealth stands in contradiction to Jesus’ poverty.  The Church’s roots were poor – whilst some converts may have been wealthy enough to house congregations, many were slaves and of no account.  A movement which was pacifist, objected to Roman state-imposed paganism, had a stricter morality than the Roman society, and which undermined slavery – the economic system of ancient world – was hardly at the centre of things. 
 
Yet, growth was the Church’s greatest success and deepest failure.  After Constantine, emperors endowed the Church with wealth and prestige.  Buildings were given and constructed, bishops became part of the ruling classes and gained secular as well as religious authority and the rest, as they say, is history.  Time and again women and men sought to reject all this wealth and went to the edges of society and lived in simple communities.  Their holiness attracted patrons who gave them land and wealth; soon these great monasteries became ensnared in the very wealth they had tried to reject.
 
The 12th Century reform movements all rejected wealth seeing it as a snare – as did the writer of James.  Existing on the margins allowed the earliest Church – and the various reform movements – to see the world differently, to value the edge, to question common values and to point to the coming Kingdom which would overthrow empires.  Yet there’s an irony that,  even in a declining church, wealth increases as we sell off surplus buildings.  Would a poorer Church be more faithful to Jesus’ example? There’s a deeper irony in that I personally value the URC having enough wealth to pay me each month!
 
Obscene levels of wealth trouble our contemporaries – whether that’s in billionaires who refuse to pay their taxes and share their wealth or institutions, like the Church, which don’t use their wealth well.  Pray, today, for the wisdom to use your own wealth worthily, and that the Church might have that wisdom too!
 
Prayer
 
God of the poor,
You count the hairs on our head,
and not one sparrow falls without You knowing it;
help us to trust in Your goodness,
to store up treasures in heaven and,
where we have to manage earthly wealth,
help us to do so with Your values.
Amen.

Within the Cloud: The URC’s Anniversary

Dear Friends,

Tomorrow we mark the URC’s birthday and the Revd Neil Thorogood, Assembly Moderator, writes:

“It’s pretty amazing what I entrust to the cloud. Photos, documents, emails, social media stuff all vanishes into an ether. There it waits, hopefully untampered with and unhurt, until the next time I wish to draw it by an invisible thread to settle gently once more upon my screen.

“Long before cloud computing, other mysteries of knowledge floated free. In the 14th century an anonymous writer penned The Cloud of Unknowing; a spiritual guide for those seeking after God. Human reason can never fully reveal the mysteries of the divine, only love can do so. God can “certainly be loved, but not thought.”

“As we come to 5th October 2026, we remember the formation of the United Reformed Church. Many things brought our denomination into being; high hopes and plenty of pragmatism, ecumenical excitement and no little uncertainty. Many of you were in at the beginning; reading proposals, debating possibilities, voting for change, shaping a new life within the global Body of Christ. Thank you for your courage and your vision. Others of us have joined in the story later. Thank you, too!

“Much thought went into the birth of the URC for sure. But we are, even more, an honouring of the love of God and a response in love to Christ and the Spirit.

“I think of another cloud. Many who formed the URC and cherished us into being have died. Across our congregations, we’ll think of friends who have gone. We honour and celebrate their share in shaping us: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.” (Hebrews 12: 1-2a).”
 
Neil adds this prayer
 
God beyond time,
thank you for working with us in the passing time that is our home.
We see you step from mystery into humanity in Jesus.
We feel you within and amongst us in the Spirit.
This day, we look back as unfolding years bring us to your moments of another creation and beginning.
Thank you for everyone who helped to bring the United Reformed Church into being.
Thank you for wisdom in no end of meetings,
for worship that surrounded decisions,
for debate that could be hard as the mind of Christ was longed for.
Thank you for the years of faith, love and hope that we inherit.
Thank you for the journey that continues.
Thank you for calling us into this amazing story.
Bless the United Reformed Church, we pray;
in Christ’s name and with the Spirit’s power.
Amen.

With every good wish

Andy

The Rev’d Andy Braunston
Minister for Digital Worship
 

Saturday 3^rd October And Now?

 
Ephesians 4: 14 – 16
 
We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.  But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,  from whom the whole body, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.
 
Reflection
 
We’ve thought about heresy this week as something found more in history – and a distant northern isle – than our everyday world.  In our contemporary society we, thankfully, are more interested in exploring what folk believe rather than trying to counter their beliefs to make them more like ours…or are we? 
 
There are some opinions which, if expressed would cause outrage – not just opinions which demean others.  Mr Trump recently signed an Executive Order mandating the separation out of the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella vaccines again due to (what scientists tell us are unfounded) concerns of a link between a combined vaccination and autism.  At one point to express a view against the combined vaccination was seen as a contemporary heresy.  Expressing views about gender roles and identities can quickly lead to anger, hurt, and a feeling that one side or other is psychologically unsafe with someone of a different perspective – is that so different to Pope Innocent IV’s observation that heretics were “as true assassins of souls and thieves of the Sacraments of God and of the Christian faith” as we read on Wednesday? 
 
Then those who reject the rampant individualism of our society by prioritising family duty or community over personal happiness may be seen as oppressing themselves. Even insisting there are moral absolutes is quite counter cultural – and maybe even heretical in our brave new world. 
 
Recently I have been reading a commentary on Matthew’s Gospel by the theologian Stanley Hauerwas who urges the Church to become more visible by refusing to blend in with the prevailing culture.  He does not urge a particular stance on any of the culture war issues but, instead, suggests we, as the Church, offer a vision of a different type of society where the Beatitudes are our hallmark.  Might we reflect peace making and mercy in our common life together?  It might be rather a radical departure from Christian history, and was something, as we’ll see next week, which proved impossible for the medieval Church when confronted with the Cathar heresy.
 
Prayer 
 
Help us, dear Lord,
to speak the truth with love
as we grow into maturity in You,
to not seek to prove our points
as much as to listen to Yours.
Amen.