Contents

A LETTER FROM KEITH

I wonder if, for most people, the prospect of the new Millennium has become an irrelevant bore? After all it is based on an inaccurate calculation of time, assuming 0 A.D. as the supposed year of Jesus' birth. For many it is just an excuse for a celebration. Or, like the Millennium Dome, a constructed edifice with man at the centre and God on the periphery.

Yet, for all our perceptions and misgivings, God is in all things.

I found the Prayer for the new Millennium in the Christian Aid material for One World Week (see below) particularly helpful - the assurance that God understands us as we have been; God knows us as we are; and God sees what we shall become. It sent me back again to ponder the words of Psalm 139:

'O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord.'

This reflecting on the past events in our lives in front of an all-seeing God; acknowledging who and where we are at this present moment; and sitting with the choices and decisions for the future, is an ideal way to begin a new Millennium. It helps put our lives into perspective, into God's perspective, and allows us, in the reflecting, to recognise the new and fresh beginnings that are there whatever stage we are at in our lives. Ready and waiting for us to reach out and grasp the creative opportunities to live life to the full in the abundance of His grace.

PRAYER FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM

(with acknowledgement to Christian Aid material for One World Week)

Go well – Grace and Love

Keith

NOTES FROM KEITH

We intend to offer a special Thanksgiving prayer for these gifts, received in Advent, during the service on Christmas morning.

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NEWS FROM THE ASTON TIRROLD CENTRE FOR REFLECTION

Centre Programme

However, our creative days are not at the moment creating a stir. We are intending to produce a leaflet with more details about the leaders and the content of these days in January, February and March so as to encourage people to come. Please help us publicise them more and if you think it might be for you or one of your friends do get in touch.

Keith

Centre Bookings

In December and January, bookings so far are as follows:
Tues 7 Dec Bible Study Group, 2-3.30pm
Thurs 9 Dec Art at Aston Tirrold, 2.30pm
Tues 21 Dec Village children's party, 2-6.30pm
Sat 15 Jan Reading & Oxford Elders Training Day, 9.30am-1pm
Sat 29 Jan Burns Supper

Pat Hardcastle, Bookings Secretary

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SERVICE THEMES

Evening service themes

26 September
Introit: Song of Love 753 (Rejoice & Sing)
Sung Response:
Lord we come to you, in love and prayer
Hold each one of us in your tender care
Reflection 1: Perceptions of Prayer
Psalm 139 v1-18 and 22-end
Reflection 2: The Breadth of Prayer
Musical Reflection on Prayer played by Julian Gallop
Reflection 3: Prayer Acts - Adoration; Confession; Thanksgiving; Supplication

24 October
I am still
At rest with God,
Who is deep within me and all around me.
Out of that deep centre I weave a prayer of God's presence,
Affirming that God is, that God is with the poor,
that God is with the outcast,
that God is with me.
Reflection 1: Meeting the disfigured
Reading: Luke 17 v11-19
Hymn 646 Help us accept each other
Reflection 2: Being the disfigured
Sung Prayer: Hymn 498 God be in my head
Reflection 3: The Invitation

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Readings
Psalm 46
Isaiah 10 v33-11 v1-9
Revelation 21 v1-7

Address
Psalm 46 v10
BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD

Be still – At the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month – silence – and in the stillness – We remember them.

Who were the people; the places; the images for you last Thursday and this morning round the war memorial?

The words of Psalm 46 are so powerful and for me, so relevant, speaking to my situation here and now – living with the past, experiencing this moment – the present and trusting for the days to come.

One of my personal memories brings me to the first words of this psalm –

God is our refuge and strength very present help in trouble.

I can remember Salford during the blitz – my mother taking me and my younger sister, who was in a pram, across the road to an underground bunker – it was dark. But to me a warm and embracing place – people sang songs and shared food and encouraged each other – comfortable reassuring place – a safe place. A Refuge – a place to go for protection. Nowadays we use the word refuge in connection with a place provided specifically for the homeless – when all else fails – when there is nowhere else to go – there is the refuge. In the situation of life or death – God is there as our refuge.

And our strength – when we are exhausted and at the end of our tether God is there to uphold us and to be our strength in our hour of weakness.

But not just there in time of war or crisis but Our very present help in trouble – whatever the trouble – however minor it might seem – he is ever present – always there with us – Emmanuel God with us – not against us or standing on the sidelines but there with us.

Therefore we will not fear – there are many reassurances throughout scripture – Do not be afraid – most common experience we have – being afraid of what might happen. God's presence is to reassure us and release us from that fear.

Part of my training course for ministry some ten years ago was to write about war so I started by talking to friends I knew in the village – war veterans – about their war experiences. I remember one man then in his eighties telling me he had not spoken to anyone before about the fear he experienced in the battle of El Alamein. When so many of his friends were killed around him and he expected to die any moment. Most of us can only imagine that terror – yet even in our everyday life now – there are reflections of that fear. We are afraid of so many things. Of old age and its limitations, of other people and their demands, of illness – our own health or sitting with a loved one who is suffering; of failing; of being made to look a fool – when our mountains shake the foundation of our lives are threatened –

How often are we overwhelmed by the images of war – Rwanda and Burundi – Kosovo – East Timor –now Chechnya – no sooner it seems that one war happens then another comes to replace it in the headlines. More images of children and refugees in pain and lost – It seems that nothing has changed except the time and the place – and today we remember those who died or suffered during the last two wars – and we remember the resolves that it would never happen again. Yet now we remember other wars since that time– as mankind continues to battle for land; for rights; for survival against greed and violence. Ten days ago I took a funeral for a friend who had joined the Guards at 18 and within a year had suffered a leg injury at Arnhem, which affected the whole of the rest of his life. What do we pray for when overwhelmed by the sacrifice and suffering of others - or when our own mountains are shaken? –

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God

A German professor and his students in the last century dug out a tunnel blocked by sand and mud out of which a small stream flowed into the Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem. They discovered half way in their excavation an inscription that described how King Hezekiah organised two teams digging out the rock from outside the city wall where there was a natural stream and from inside by the Pool of Siloam. The connection was made so that in a time of siege, in a time of war, when things were desperate there would always be a supply of water to those who lived in the city – it was called – Gihon which means ‘gusher’.

Life-saving water gushing out – This is the promise to us – this is what holds us in our memories and in the desperation of wars and rumours of wars.

Many of you will have seen that image in our Quiet garden – a large rock with water gushing out – living water – on offer to us. Not only is the Lord of hosts with us – but there is a river – the river of life whose streams make us glad. It is the living water that Jesus offered to the woman at the well. The water that gushed out of the rock that Moses struck. The promise of a God who gives the water of life.

God is a God who is there with us, in our mistakes, in our failures, in our pain, in our lostness and in our memories. And more than that – not just there with the offer of survival but the promise of gushing streams of the spirit bringing comfort and peace and love.

Come behold the works of the Lord – reflect on the Creator, the holiness, the power, the embracing and all-encompassing love of God and know. Empires pass away – wars cease – aggression – all fade away – he breaks the bow – he shatters the spear – he defies the missiles and defeats the tanks. How do we know this in a world seemingly focused on its own destruction?

Be still and know that I am God – stop rushing around, feeding fears about your own circles of anxieties and concerns about your own welfare and those of others. Be still!

Let be (in the translation in Revised English Bible) and learn that I am God

Give him time and space in your life – not just in worship Sunday by Sunday but in your daily life in the midst of your fears and aggressions and joys and sorrows

For the Lord of hosts is with us

Story of the missionary William Carey’s printing works. They were burnt to the ground – complete desolation– yet in that black time, in the face of disaster, people became more aware of its purpose. So the gifts came flooding in and rebuilding took place within a few months. From the past disasters and the atrocities has come a rising tide of people committed to peace; to the protection of creation; to the hallowing of this earth; to the gospel of love.

At the end of Isaiah 10 is the description of a forest of Lebanon burnt to the ground. Everything gone. And this is the setting of those words of promise at the beginning of chapter 11:

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit

And this new growth will come, not just in the face of physical desolation during wars, but in the desolation of creation around us and our spiritual desolation. One or two here gathered together in his name. Remembering – are we on the fringe? A small group who are irrelevant to non-church goers – non-believers? Is the worship of God an optional extra for those who like that sort of thing? No – We come from the stump – the one shoot from the stump left in the forest. From there comes new life – from there is the new creation the river flowing in the city of God – refreshing and watering bringing life not just here but in the life to come.

Whether a life is cut down on the battlefield at 20; taken in cancer at 40; lost drowned at sea; killed in an earthquake or a car accident; or released in old age from chronic pain and infirmity,

The Lord of hosts is with us – here and hereafter – Do not be afraid – I am making all things new – It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. (Rev 21 v5-6)

Out of the old comes the new – God did not just create in the beginning and leave us to get on with it. He is creating still every day in each of our lives. Recognise for yourself, and in yourself, this river, this stream that makes glad his people. For we are his people and he is our God.

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NOTICES

2000
2 Jan 10.30am Millennium Ecumenical Service of Light in South Moreton Parish Church led by Fr Christopher Walker and Revd Keith Green with Communion
9 Jan 10.30am Morning Worship led by Roy Weaver from Chilton
16 Jan 10.30am Morning Worship led by Keith Green, with Junior Church
20 Jan 10am-4pm Drop-In Day hosted by Rev Philip and Rosemary Mader-Grayson. Come for an hour or longer - no charge.
22 Jan 10am-4pm 'Colour Dance' - a day of painting and movement with Sheila Mitchell and Angela Coplestone. Bookings to Keith Green
23 Jan 2.30pm Drop-In afternoon followed by tea at 5pm.
6pm Evening Service with reflections, led by Keith Green
29 Jan Burns Night - an evening of celebration with host John Garvey. To book a place, contact John or a member of the Social Committee.
30 Jan 10.30am Morning Worship led by Rev Tony Rogerson from Radley
(Keith Green will be at Trinity Church, Abingdon)
7 Feb 10.30am Morning Worship with Communion led by Keith Green

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