The Feast of Creation in Christ

Dear <<First Name>>,

General Assembly this year commended the observance of the new Feast of Creation in Christ to be observed on the first Sunday of September each year and to create and curate resources. I’m pleased to say that there is a suite of resources on the Worship Notes page – the normal Notes we produce and links to ecumenical resources too.   

Grounded in an ancient, 5th Century, liturgical tradition of the Orthodox Church, the Feast of Creation in Christ is a day to praise God as creator and ponder the great mystery that everything was created in and through Christ.  In response we are inspired to care for the created world in these times of ecological crises.  In 1989 the Ecumenical Patriarch, His All-Holiness Dimitrios I, invited churches around the world to join in prayer for Creation – many churches responded leading to this new Feast being adopted.  New readings for the Lectionary have been offered too.   

We’re not often used to hearing the term “Feast” in the URC in relation to church events.  Yet the major celebrations of the Church’s year – Christmas, Easter, Pentecost and Trinity are all “feasts”.  We probably only feast now at Christmas but there’s no reason why we can’t have a feast on the other celebrations too.  For early September crisp varieties of apples and pears have started to appear, blackberries and autumn raspberries are at their peak, and plums, damsons and figs are abundant.  Cakes, crumbles, homemade ice cream and yoghurt could all be made with these ingredients.  Why not have a whole meal after worship? Beans and sweetcorn are in season as are salad and tender crops, beetroot, carrots, kale and leak – and you might just have some pumpkins and winter squash in the south of the UK. 

Why not encourage your congregation to bring and share food made from these ingredients (and more) as we celebrate the Feast.   

With every good wish

Andy

The Rev’d Andy Braunston
Minister for Digital Worship
 

1 Timothy 6:6–10 

Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it;  but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.  But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.  For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

Reflection

I wonder how many times between us we have said, thought or heard, ‘Money is the root of all evil.’ Like all the best proverbs, it is pointed, concise, and memorable – yet I imagine you are already thinking: “But that’s not what the text actually says.” And that is hugely important, for at least two reasons. First, to blame all evil on money would stop us recognising many other evils for what they are – such as the desire to inflict pain, for example. And second, to equate money and evil so closely could lead us towards the idea that money is inherently bad, and that we should have nothing to do with it. Both of those are mis-steps, though sadly easy to make. It is the love of money which is the potential problem, not money itself.

The point is surely that in a world where we employ money as a means of exchange, we need to be very careful about how we use it, because money very greatly amplifies the things that can go wrong in our thinking and our behaviour.  It’s harder – though obviously not impossible – for wickedness to creep in when ‘buying and selling’ simply consists in exchanging something which I have, and that you want, for something that I want, which you have—let’s say, a bale of straw for a basket of fruit.

The door to evil and our own sinfulness is opened much wider when money becomes the thing that we desire for itself, rather than as a mechanism for exchanging our labour for whatever home or lifestyle we may be able to afford. That is to say, the evil arises when we desire money because of the power and security that it seems to offer. In sufficient quantities, as we see daily in media reports, money can lead rich people to the blasphemy that their wealth puts them above the judgement not only of their fellow humans – but also of God.

Prayer

Lord, 
on each payday bless me with the knowledge 
that money is simply one of the tools 
which enable me to live a life which is fulfilled in you – 
and when my purse is empty, 
give me gifts of wisdom, strength, humility, patience and faith, 
so that I may see my path clearly 
and walk it without falling away from you. Amen.

Acts 8:14–22 

Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. The two went down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit  (for as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus). Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.  Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money, saying, “Give me also this power so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”  But Peter said to him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain God’s gift with money! You have no part or share in this, for your heart is not right before God. Repent therefore of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you.”

Reflection

Before he met Philip, Simon had made his living practising magic. From the perspective of the 21st century, we might say that he had been a con artist, taking money off people that he was playing tricks on – and soaking up their admiration and respect. But when Philip arrived, proclaiming the good news and baptising people in water, Simon became a believer. He stopped ripping off other people and instead stayed with Philip, in awe of his works.

So you might feel that Peter is being pretty harsh when he condemns Simon’s request as wickedness. Isn’t Simon simply living out the parable of the Pearl of Great Value, and offering his savings to obtain the most amazing and precious gift imaginable? Why is it so very wrong for him to want to share in the work of Peter and John and baptise believers in the Holy Spirit?

It is not as if there is any suggestion that Simon plans to return to his former ways and make a living by charging people for the laying on of hands; rather, he seems to want simply to share the gift of the Spirit as widely as possible, with the enthusiasm and zeal of the new convert.

And yet he gets slapped down by his namesake, Simon Peter, because he has failed to understand that it is not money which he needs to give up in order to walk the same path as the apostles. He needs to leave his former self wholly behind; to step away from the person who not only fleeced his customers but basked in their adulation.

Peter doesn’t condemn him because of what Simon offers, but because of what Simon withholds: Simon wants to hang on to his status as he follows in the footsteps of Jesus.

I think we are allowed to hope that Simon’s story has some chance of a happy ending: he asks Peter to pray for him so that he may truly be saved.

Prayer

Lord, 
help me to understand 
how much I depend on what others think of me – 
and how little I should.  
If I am able to be generous in gifts of money, 
remind me constantly how wrong it is to expect 
or ask for anything in return, 
whether that is status or influence – 
or even gratitude. Amen.

Resources

Dear Friends,

Having been back from sabbatical for 6 weeks now I think I’m starting to catch up!  

I wanted to remind you of various resources we offer, and how to access them.

First, you’ll know there’s a service which goes out by email every Sunday morning.  You get the text via email and a link to click where you can hear it.  Those who prepare these services also produce Worship Notes to help those who prepare services.  These can be found here.  We try and ensure they are up at least a month before they are needed and you’ll see that September’s are up.  October’s will go up in the next week or so.  The first Sunday of September is the feast of Creation in Christ and there is a wealth of resources there to help those who plan worship for this General Assembly commended feast.

We also send the material for the services out early – an audio recording of the whole service, the full text of the service, a PowerPoint file with all the prayers and hymns recorded along with the video of the leader introducing themselves, preaching, and offering the blessing is also available around a month beforehand.  You can access this material via this link and you can sign up to get this via email by completing the form here.   Here is the email containing September’s material.  Churches use this material as a form of pulpit supply – the first link explains the different ways it can be used – and as a way to include housebound folk.

Since my return from sabbatical I have started to offer monthly sessions for Lay Preachers to go deeper and help them prepare worship.  I assume participants have read the Worship Notes before the session and come prepared to think about a ‘wider reading’ of the texts, ideas, liturgies and hymns.  These sessions are offered via a video conference normally on the last Monday of the month but because some parts of the UK will be enjoying a public holiday then, it will take place on Monday 24th August and we’ll be looking at October’s material.  You can sign up to receive notification of these here.  The next one, looking at November’s material will be on Thursday 17th September.

Finally, we turn the Daily Devotions into booklets which are sent out in advance for local churches to print off for those without access to the Internet or who would prefer a larger print version.  These are good ways to keep in touch with housebound folk too.  We send them in booklet format ready to be printed and in A4 format for large print versions.  I’m about to send out the booklets for September.  If you’d like to receive these then enter your details on this form and you’ll be added to the mailing list.  

With every good wish

Andy

The Rev’d Andy Braunston
Minister for Digital Worship
 

Theology and Money

Dear Friends,

I hope you found David Cornick’s two week exploration of Reformed spirituality rewarding.  (Remember if you’ve not read his Letting God Be God book it’s still around on various online bookshops).  We turn now to a new series.

Money, they say, makes the world go round.  Our societies are structured on money, and debt, as an efficient way to regulate the exchange of goods and services.  Whilst some political philosophers, a 1970s sit-com, and some science fiction imagines worlds without money it seems to be something that’s always with us.  Scripture warns us about a love of money, Jesus was asked trick questions about taxes, and those who collected taxes for the Roman state were generally despised – in Israel and across the Roman world.  Tax collectors get a better deal these days but we all grumble if we think the taxes aren’t used well. Over the next week the Revd Dr Romilly Micklem, a URC minister and convenor of the Wessex Synod Trust will guide us as we ponder money. 

With every good wish

Andy

The Rev’d Andy Braunston
Minister for Digital Worship
 

Saturday, 8 August 2026 
A Marian Spirituality 
 

Luke 1:26-38
 
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth,  to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.  And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.’  But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.  The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.  He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.  He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’  Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’  The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.  And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren.  For nothing will be impossible with God.’  Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her.
 
Reflection
 
In September 1888 a pioneering Presbyterian woman Biblical scholar, Agnes Smith-Lewis, visited Lourdes with her husband Samuel (an Anglican priest) and her sister.
 
‘Clear in the evening air, encircled by two brilliant rows of flaming gas-jets, stood a terra-cotta image of Mary on a lofty pedestal, her white robes relieved by a broad sash of blue light, by the huge silver rosary depending from her clasped hands, and by the tall golden diadem on her head ….One and all were singing a hymn of which we could only catch the Chorus: “Ave, ave, ave, Maria”….[T]heir voices rising and falling in perfect cadence the incense of their worship seemed to rise to the placid motherly face of the image, the incarnation, as it were, of feminine goodness.’
 
It was a moment that entranced and shocked her in equal measure – the Reformed had good theological reasons to be suspicious of such worship, yet in its own way it was glorious and good.
 
Luke’s account of the Annunciation is a breathtaking piece of spiritual poetry, for this is the point at which God’s intent for the salvation  and redemption of the world rests on the will of a teenage Palestinian peasant girl. What would have happened if Mary had said ‘No’? God would have found other ways, Calvin thought. But after questioning ‘How can this be?’, Mary said ‘Yes’. Is this free will? Is this God’s choosing and election?  The gospel reads as if Mary was indeed making an active, conscious and free choice. One modern Reformed theologian impishly noted, ‘Mary elects God’s election of her’.
 
In an era where we have learnt to value so profoundly feminist theology and the gifts of women to the Church, might it be time for the Reformed to ask again what they might gain from re-visiting the place of Mary in their theological and devotional life?
 
Prayer
 
Eternal God
You chose Mary to be the mother of our Lord.
We praise you that her ‘Yes’ made salvation possible,
and as we too try to say ‘Yes’ to you,
we ask that we might be open to explore
how she might help us grow in faith and love.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen

Friday, 7 August 2026
An Ecumenical Spirituality 
 

John 17:20-24
 
 Jesus said “‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word,  that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us,  so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one,  I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.  Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
 
Reflection
 
Paul experienced the reconciling work of Christ in the creation of one Church made up of both Jews and Gentiles. In today’s reading, John takes us deep into the inner life of the Trinity and shows us how those who are ‘in Christ’ are united with him, and (in a post-resurrection perspective) sharers in the glory God gave him before creation’s dawn. It is a picture of intimacy, wonder and service. Its purpose ‘…that the world may know that you have sent me…’ (v 22). Unity was Christ’s passionate desire.
 
It is to the shame of the Reformed tradition that it has a history of division and splintering which is second to none. There are structural and theological reasons for that, but it is also true that since the Edinburgh Missionary Conference of 1910, the Reformed have been amongst the most passionate and committed advocates of ecumenism, reconciliation, and unity. Our own denomination was born of that passion.
 
In the red heat of the reformations, when violence, hatred and fear divided Catholic from various forms of Protestant, Calvin asked what the true marks of the Church were. ‘Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to Christ’s institution, there, it is not be doubted, a church exists.’ (Institutes IV.i.9) That was an incredibly radical paring back to essentials. He even went so far as to say that he doubted not that there were true churches (he meant individual parishes) within the Roman Catholic Church – and this at a time when most Protestants regarded the Pope as Anti-Christ.
 
The last hundred years have seen the most remarkable convergence of Christians, from Orthodox to Pentecostal, as we have learnt by the grace of God to see Christ in each other’s faces, and set our hearts to pray that we may be truly one.
 
Prayer
 
God of surprises,
no church can contain you,
no theology can explain you,
no tradition can capture you.
When we think we have tamed you,
You explode with new life and vivacity
from the margins beyond our vision.
Grant us grace to recognise you
and welcome our Lord Jesus
whose love knows no boundaries. Amen

Thursday, 6 August 2026    
A Catholic Spirituality 

Ephesians 2: 11-22
 
So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called ‘the uncircumcision’ by those who are called ‘the circumcision’—a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands —  remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.  But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.  For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.  He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, so that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace,  and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it.  So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near;  for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father.  So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God,  built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.  In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord;  in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling-place for God.
 
Reflection
 
This is one of Paul’s great expositions of the unity which Christ brings. For Paul the reconciling work of God, which began on the Cross, was working itself out in his life-time in the bringing together of the ‘uncircumcised’ (the Gentiles) and the Jews. Those two irreconcilable groups were now visibly one in Christ – ‘…he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.’ (2:14)
 
To be Reformed was to be catholic, to be a member of that one Church of Jesus Christ whose work was to break down divisions between God and humanity and between different peoples. In his Institutes Calvin wrote, ‘The Church is called “catholic” or “universal”, because there could not be two or three churches unless Christ be torn asunder – which cannot happen!’ (IV.i.2), and he followed that with a description of the Church as a mother which could have come from any medieval or patristic writer. Indeed, Calvin himself is still regarded as one of the finest scholars of the early fathers of the Church.
 
Tradition, being part of the one Church of Christ mattered. Heinrich Bullinger, Zwingli’s successor at Zurich prefaced his Decades with eleven creeds from the early centuries, affirmed the first four ecumenical councils (from Nicaea to Chalcedon) and in the fifty sermons which made up the book sought to show that his church was in continuity with the Church catholic. That continuity mattered. To be a Reformed Christian is to be part of the Church catholic, to share in the glories of the early martyrs, to value the Church fathers and to inherit the faithful witness of the medieval Church. Our churches were born at Pentecost, not when Luther issued his 95 theses in 1517.  The tragedy of course, is that the quest for reform ended in division.
 
Prayer
 
Christ came to end division
yet unwittingly we have multiplied it.
Christ came to break down barriers,
yet we have built walls.
Lord, we are ashamed and sorry,
raise us we pray
as members of your universal Church
and teach us how to break down walls
and live as one.
In Christ’s name we pray.
Amen
 

 
Proverbs 8:22-31
 
The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, 
the first of his acts of long ago. 
Ages ago I was set up, at the first, 
before the beginning of the earth. 
When there were no depths I was brought forth, 
when there were no springs abounding with water. 
Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, 
I was brought forth – when he had not yet made earth and fields, 
or the world’s first bits of soil.  
When he established the heavens, I was there, 
when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, 
when he made firm the skies above, 
when he established the fountains of the deep, 
when he assigned to the sea its limit,  
so that the waters might not transgress his command, 
when he marked out the foundations of the earth, 
then I was beside him, like a master worker; 
and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, 
rejoicing in his inhabited world 
and delighting in the human race.
 
Reflection
 
The main theological trajectory in Scripture is to be found in God’s covenant with Israel and its working out in history.  This reading reminds us of a different Jewish way of doing theology – the wisdom tradition which found God through the rationality of the world and the wisdom of human beings. Here God is imagined creating Lady Wisdom, beside him ‘…like a master worker’ as the world was made. This poem is about rejoicing in creation.
 
In its early centuries the Reformed tradition relied entirely on listening to the God who comes to us in the history of his people through the words of the Bible. It was a spirituality of the ear, of preaching and listening. It had its own quiet beauty – the simple white-washed walls of an elegant chapel with pulpit, table and pews, yet it devalued the visual. It wasn’t that they didn’t value art.  Calvin said ‘…sculpture and painting are gifts of God.’ (Institutes I.xi.12), but they were clear that God had forbidden idols (Ex 20:4). Art was fine, but outside the church.
 
One of the great flowerings of art was in the staunchly Reformed Netherlands in the seventeenth century. Rembrandt was, according to some historians, a thoroughly Reformed artist. A recent book argues that Vermeer might have been a member of a Reformed grouping known as ‘The Remonstrants’, and in the nineteenth century, van Gogh, a minister’s son, was for a time a missionary working alongside a Congregational minister in London. All of them reflected something of God in their art.
 
Mercifully, Reformed spirituality regained its balance in the nineteenth century, discovering again the beauty of holiness. The wisdom tradition might be a minor key in theology, but it is an important one. We are rediscovering the relationship between beauty, grace and truth, not least as we look out over landscapes of shanty towns and slums where economic sin and ugliness walk hand in hand.
 
Prayer
 
Lord
Your beauty flows in the Earth
and touches our imaginations.
Open our eyes that we may be delighted,
moved and motivated
by art and artists
to see more of you,
and be drawn back
to the amazing story of your love for us
seen in Jesus Christ
the good and beautiful shepherd.
 
Amen

Reformed Spirituality: A Spirituality letting God be God.  

But Moses said to God, ‘If I come to the Israelites and say to them, “The God of your ancestors has sent me to you”, and they ask me, “What is his name?” what shall I say to them?’  God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am.’  He said further, ‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites, “I am has sent me to you.”’  God also said to Moses, ‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites, “The Lord,  the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you”: This is my name for ever, and this my title for all generations.

Reflection

Moses, fresh from the mystery of the burning bush, called to be the liberator of God’s people enslaved in Egypt, asks God’s name. The answer, as Churchill once said of Russia, is ‘…a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.’  God is God  – ‘I AM WHO I AM’, or perhaps ‘I will be who I will be’. God’s ‘name’ is mystery. God is beyond human understanding, but God tells Moses to tell the people ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ In other words, God is known by what God does in the journey of faith from Abraham onwards.

Reformed spirituality and theology has always attempted to let God be God. Isaac Watts wrote of God ‘…immortal, invisible / in light inaccessible hid from our eyes’. Holy, majestic, juggling universes, playing with sub-atomic subtlety – God is God, free, sovereign. If we are to find God, we must do as God told the Israelites – look to the history of Israel, and to Jesus, for by a miracle of grace, God became God for us in Jesus Christ.

In a lecture tour in America in 1962, Karl Barth was asked if he could sum up the massive volumes of his theology in one sentence. He thought, and said ‘In the words of a song I learnt at my mother’s knee: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” ’ If we would know God, it is to Scripture we must go, and more particularly to the Cross of Christ, for it is in that awful suffering and death, in that moment of sacrifice, that we see with most clarity who God is – the God of unbounded love.

Prayer 

Holy God
You hold universes in being,
yet your signature
is also found in the sub-atomic.
Truly, You will be who You will be.
Direct our eyes we pray
to a distant hill and a gaunt cross,
for you are as you are in Jesus our Lord,
Your wounded hands
offering us bread, wine, and life eternal.
Amen