The Bright Field
I have seen the sun break through 
to illuminate a small field 
for a while, and gone my way 
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl 
of great price, the one field that had 
treasure in it. I realize now 
that I must give all that I have 
to possess it. Life is not hurrying 
on to a receding future, nor hankering after 
an imagined past. It is the turning 
aside like Moses to the miracle 
of the lit bush, to a brightness 
that seemed as transitory as your youth 
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

R S Thomas © Elodie Thomas

Exodus 3: 1-4
Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, ‘I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.’ When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ 

Reflection
It might seem at first glance that the burning bush of Moses and the bright field of RS Thomas are very different things. Moses receives a dramatic sign that God is with him, and hears God speak from the bush. Meanwhile, RS Thomas describes the often-sighted, common-place but fleeting joy of a bright field.

These two very different experiences are linked by the concept of turning aside to look, and so truly to perceive.  If Moses had seen the burning bush and simply shrugged and moved on with his father-in-law’s flocks, he would have failed to engage with God. I wonder sometimes whether the burning bush was the first attempt by God to get Moses’ attention – or had Moses already missed the amazing patch of green in the desert, the sun glinting off rocks, the clarity of a desert pool…? But it is in the burning bush that Moses’ attention is caught, so that he turns aside and begins to converse with God.

RS Thomas calls us to focus on what is right beside us, if we are to grasp the truth of God’s presence with us. Thomas also helps us remember Jesus’ parables – of the pearl of great price and of the treasure in the field. When God was alongside us in Jesus he excelled in using the things around to help people perceive God’s kingdom.  Longing for the past or yearning for the future will not do us any good. If we want to be attuned to the things of God in this world we need to look, to listen, to attend: to nature, to other people around us, even to be alert in a church meeting. 

If we pause today and look at what is around us, we will find that God is waiting for our attention.

Prayer
God who is always beside us,
help us attune our hearts and our lives to your love
so that we may attend to your world
and the ordinary things in it.
So may we find your love beside us
today and everyday.
Amen

R S Thomas

Dear Friends,

I hope you found last week’s Devotions exploring themes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer interesting and useful for your own discipleship journeys.  This week we turn to 6 poems from the Welsh priest and poet R S Thomas.

Ronald Stuart Thomas (1913-2000) was a priest of the Church in Wales and a noted poet.  He was a Welsh Nationalist concerned about the increasing Englishness of Wales.  He read Latin at the University College of North Wales and later trained for ministry with the, Anglican, Church in Wales.  After ordination he began to learn the Welsh language but felt he’d started to learn too late in life to write poetry in it; he served in Welsh speaking areas from the 1960s onwards. 

R S Thomas started to publish poetry in the 1940s.  After retirement, in 1978, he became more vocal in his advocacy of Welsh Nationalism; he never supported Plaid Cymryu as it recognised the Westminster Parliament and so, in his view, fell short in its opposition to English dominance.  He died in 2000. 

This week we look at 6 poems chosen by Susan Durber, Ruth Whitehead and Michael Hopkins who explore the spirituality  of the poems to help us in our discipleship. 

With every good wish

Andy

The Rev’d Andy Braunston
Minister for Digital Worship
 

Could You Record Podcasts?

Dear Friends,

I am seeking another 30 or so volunteers to record the Daily Devotions we send out each day and material for the services we send out each week.  We already have around 30 volunteers who record for us and I’d like to have a few more – might you be interested?

Most devotions – the reading, reflection and prayer – come in around 5 minutes in length.  Prayers and readings for services will be shorter than that.  Each month we record the Daily Devotions and service material ahead of time (currently we’re recording October’s and November’s material).  Volunteers gain access to a Google Document online, pop their name against the item they agree to record, record it and email back to me.  We hope to have enough volunteers to that you might only have to record one devotion and one prayer a month so the task shouldn’t be too onerous.  We normally ask people to send the recording back within a week but sometimes it’s a shorter turn around of just a few days.

You would need to have a phone, tablet, or computer, with microphone, which you are confident enough to use to make a recording on and able to email it back to me.  Most smart phones have an app on allowing recording.  You’d need sit somewhere quiet to record, not breathe into the microphone, and speak at a steady pace.  We can send further instructions to those who volunteer.  I maintain a separate mailing list for volunteers who wish to record. 

It might be you’d like to have a go before committing, it might be you know what you’re doing and are ready to go, it might be this isn’t for you – if that’s so don’t worry!  I hope to recruit around another 30 people which from a mailing list of 4,000 shouldn’t be too hard.  So, if you think you might be interested please drop me an email and I’ll send you material to record!

With every good wish

Andy

The Rev’d Andy Braunston
Minister for Digital Worship
 

Wednesday 20th August 2025

Bonhoeffer 3

Psalm 8:1-5
O LORD, our Sovereign,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
    to silence the enemy and the avenger.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
    the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
    mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
    and crowned them with glory and honour.

Reflection        
In February 2002 the then United States Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, gave a news briefing about lack of evidence linking the government of Iraq with supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups. He stated ‘that there are…known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.’ Historically, God has been seen by some people as an explanation for things we do not know; the so-called ‘God of the gaps’ – the gaps in our knowledge.

From his prison cell on 29th May 1944 Bonhoeffer wrote ‘how wrong it is to use God as a stop-gap for the incompleteness of our knowledge’. To do this means that as the frontiers of our knowledge are being pushed further and further back (and that is bound to be the case), then God is being pushed further back with them and is constantly in retreat.’ Rather than thinking this way, Bonhoeffer argues that ‘we are to find God in what we know, not in what we don’t know; God wants us to realise his presence not in unsolved problems but in those that are solved.’ 

The amount of knowledge has increased tremendously in the eighty years since Bonhoeffer wrote, from astrophysics and space exploration, on the one hand, to microbiology on the other. The extent of God‘s (ever-expanding) creation is beyond our ability to measure, let alone to comprehend, but Christians believe that the God who created and sustains all that exists was revealed most clearly and completely in Jesus as one who loves every person in a personal way, whether or not they know it.

Prayer        
Loving God, 
help us to experience You in what we know. 
Guide those who are involved in research and exploration. 
And may fresh discoveries, of whatever kind, 
only serve to deepen a sense of wonder 
at your greatness and your goodness, 
both for ourselves and for others. Amen.

Exodus 20:1-17    

Then God spoke all these words:
I am the LORD your God…you shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself an idol…you shall not bow down to them or worship them.
You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God…
Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy…
Honour your father and your mother…
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.
You shall not covet your neighbour’s house…or wife…or anything that belongs to your neighbour.

Reflection        

The first two of the Ten Commandments forbid having other gods before the Lord and making and worshipping idols, which means much more than making ‘graven images’ in the familiar phrase. In our culture one such idol is success. In his work for ‘Ethics’, which he intended to be his ‘magnum opus’ but, sadly, never finished, Bonhoeffer wrote ‘where the figure of a successful person becomes especially prominent, the majority fall into idolising success. They become blind to right and wrong, truth and lie, decency and malice…Ethical and intellectual capacity for judgement grow dull before the sheen of success and the desire to share in it.’ Although these words were written over eighty years ago they have a strangely contemporary ring to them. Not the only occasion when Bonhoeffer proves to be prophetic!

If this is the problem, what is the solution? Christ is at the centre of Bonhoeffer’s theology and spirituality so we should not be surprised to read him saying, ‘The form of the crucified disarms all thinking aimed at success, for it is a denial of judgement. Jesus is certainly no advocate for the successful in history, but neither does he lead a revolt of the failures against the successful. His concern is neither success nor failure but willing acceptance of the judgement of God.’ He goes on to say ‘Over against the successful, God sanctifies pain, lowliness, failure, poverty, loneliness and despair in the cross of Christ…The Yes of God to the Cross is judgement on the successful. But the unsuccessful must realise that it is not their lack of success…that lets them stand before God, but only their acceptance of the judgement of divine love.’ Whether we regard ourselves, or are regarded by others, as successful or unsuccessful, we all stand under the judgement, and we all experience the grace, of God’s love. Perhaps success should be measured by the degree to which we show it in our lives.

Prayer    

Loving God, 
help us to have no other gods before you, 
including that of success, 
but rather to worship and serve You alone, 
as we seek to live as disciples of Christ. 
Help us to follow his example 
in showing your love 
for those who are not successful
in the world’s eyes, 
for whatever reason, 
and may those who feel themselves to be failures
know your affirming love and acceptance.
Amen.

6 Daily Devotions with Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dear Friends,

I hope you found the devotions led by some of our Church Related Community workers refreshing.  We now have a set of 6 Devotions written by retired Baptist minister John Matthews weaving Biblical texts and ideas from Dietrich Bonhoeffer together.  John wrote a series for us last year and it’s a pleasure to have another series from him on this widely respected, and often misunderstood, twentieth century theologian.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and anti-Nazi dissident.  He was a key figure in the ‘Confessing Church’ which resisted Nazi attempts to control the State Lutheran and Reformed Churches in Germany and involved himself in a plot to Hitler.  He opposed the Nazi euthanasia programme and their genocidal persecution of Jewish people.  Arrested in April 1943, he endured prison for 18 months or so before being executed in the final months of the war. 

Bonhoeffer studied in both Germany and America where he encountered, and loved, black majority churches.  He also worked in London.  He helped establish an underground seminary training men for ministry in ways untainted by the Nazis.  He taught there too.  Best known for his views of “cheap and costly grace” in his Cost of Discipleship his theological work also included material on ethics and the idea of a “religionless Christianity” as he had seen how the 19^th Century liberalism in theology had opened the door for Nazi ideology to infect the Church. 

His deep friendship with Eberhard Bethge (they shared a flat and bank account and sent joint Christmas cards) led to some surprise amongst family and friends when he became engaged to Maria von Wedemeyer.  Historians think his execution was prolonged and brutal as he was deemed an enemy of the regime.  He is commemorated as a 20^th Century martyr above the West Doors of Westminster Abbey in London.  

I hope you find them stimulating in your own journeys of discipleship.

With every good wish

Andy

The Rev’d Andy Braunston
Minister for Digital Worship
 

St Luke 10:25-37

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’” “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?” In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.  A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.  So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.  But a Samaritan, as he travelled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.  He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’ “Which of these three do you think was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
 
Reflection

Jesus understood the power of story – and this is a good one.  A point clearly illustrated using a story.  Church Related Community Workers do the same thing in our communities – we listen to, and gather up, the stories of those we work amongst. We allow people to give voice to their concerns by telling us their story.  I wonder if Jesus knew his story would still be relevant 2000 years on?  He probably did – he’s the son of God after all!

Whenever I hear a story, I often wonder – what would I have done? With this parable, it seems quite relevant to my job – so what, as a Church Related Community Worker, would I have done? I hope I would have had the courage to help the injured traveller; we’re often called to find the courage to work outside our comfort zone. I also think that perhaps I might have been quite cross about what had happened and had a conversation with the innkeeper about how often these attacks took place. If it was a regular occurrence, what was wrong that might need addressing? Did other people feel the same about that stretch of road? Would I be able to start some kind of community action so that people could travel safely?

Of course, if the story was brought up to date then a badly lit stretch of road that was used by people walking home at night definitely calls for some community action around streetlights!

Working with communities helping each other to change lives for the better is our calling, and as a CRCW mine is a privileged position. There are people who think I do what I do to increase church numbers – but I do what I do because it needs doing. Only then can I build the trust of those outside church. And after all – Jesus never said that the Samaritan went on to persuade the injured man to become a Samaritan.
 
Prayer

Loving God,
help us to find the courage to step up,
the courage to step out,
and the courage to speak out
against everything that makes people less.
Help us in our desire to build your Kingdom
here and now, Amen.