It is an absolutely glorious day in Glasgow.  Cold, but lovely.  For me, it is a day when it feels good to be alive but of course it is not so for everyone...

Craig posts here about the potential deportation of a minor from Glasgow.  The smallness of the world and the interconnectedness of Baptist and Iona Community life means many readers know at least some of the people involved.  For Craig, for Rima and her family, the weather man may say fine today but it's raining in their hearts.

Likewise for Clare and Tim in Manchester, watching the demolition of the little chapel where they have faithfully exercised ministry for ten and twenty years respectively makes even the brightness of this day a little more chill, a little more bleak.

In moments like this I find myself reminded of the little phrase tucked into Paul's 'body' metaphor for the church that says 'when one part suffers, the whole suffers' (too lazy to look it up, hence the paraphrase.)  It does not diminish my joy in the sunshine or my delight in the full moon that hangs in the sky at night but it does mean that I am touched by the pain of their suffering.

On Sunday one of the passages I used was Ecclesiastes 3 - a time for everything.  Too readily we slip into a kind of dualism (or I do) of seeing the pairs as alternatives, one experiences either one or the other.  Actually part of the mystery is that birth and death, building and uprooting, gathering and scattering are intertwined and often roughly-speaking coincident.  Rather than 'either/or' this is 'both/and'.

Among my favourite prayers is the Jewish ghetto prayer that says (roughly)

I believe in the sun though it does not shine;

I believe in love though I don't feel it;

I believe in God though God be silent.

Today, when the sun is bright, and my heart is glad, and I have even seen glimpses of divine activity in apparently inconsequential decisions, so too I know that for others the shadows are chill, the heart breaks and heaven seems a resounding void... Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayers.

A search in Hymn Quest showed a real dearth of stuff for Fairtrade.  Some very worthy unpoetic stuff but nothing that I would want to sing.  Looking back over past years I've mostly used creation type stuff or justice type stuff, or a mixture of the two.  This year I've picked some things from Common Ground (but not saying which to keep an element of surprise for local readers) and have re-worked a banal ditty I wrote about eight years ago (scary) to follow the 'All Together' part of the service (I sneakily changed it from 'children's talk' when no one was looking).  It constitutes doggerel but is sung to the tune of 'when I needed a neighbour' so hopefully most people over about 35 will know the tune... see what you think.  (Only polite comments allowed!)

Fairtrade Questions

When you’re buying bananas do you care, do you care,

When you’re buying bananas do you care?

Where they’re from,

What the price is,

Or what’s paid to the farmers,

Is it fair?

When you’re drinking your coffee do you care, do you care,

When you’re drinking your coffee do you care?

Where it’s from,

What the blend is,

Or what’s paid to the growers,

Is it fair?

When you’re munching your chocolate do you care, do you care,

When you’re munching you’re chocolate do you care?

Where it’s from,

What the brand is,

Or what’s paid to the workers,

Is it fair?

When you’re buying a tee-shirt do you care, do you care,

When you’re buying a tee-shirt do you care?

Where it’s from,

What’s the fashion,

Or what’s paid to the weavers,

Is it fair?

When you choose Fairtrade products then it’s fair, then it’s fair,

When you choose Fairtrade products then it’s fair!

And the price,

And the choices,

That bring hope for the future

Show you care.

Catriona Gorton 2010

Yesterday we concluded our series of services thinking about stewardship.  On the whole they seem to have been well received and certainly generated some good questions from those who heard my sermons.  That stewardship is a whole of life issue should, by now, be firmly planted in people's minds; how they make that a reality is something they must determine for themselves.

Yesterday in my service on the theme of 'time' I ended by sharing some thoughts I've played with on and off for a number that draw together some of the principles from the mandates for tithing and for Shabbat.

When we looked at money, I had worked with a whole series of biblical material but began in the Torah where there are, it seems to me, three purposes to which the tithe is put...

1. The practical support/maintenance of the priesthood
2. The great feast before God
3. One third to be set aside for widows, orphans and foreigners

I postulated (as I have done before, elsewhere) that this might form a model for church finances whereby we spend a third on cost of ministry, a third on the worship life (including fabric) of the church and a third on mission and charitable giving.  Since in my church ministerial costs and maintenance costs are similar that would give a hint of what extra would be necessary to achieve that ideal.  I didn't say that we must or even should do this, merely I thought it was a good ideal.  Since, like many churches, we don't actually quite meet the cost of the first two, there's a long way to go.

And then to our time.  Some ideas I have played around with over a number of years, on and off, which draw together the principles of the tithe with the mandate for Shabbat.  If time is viewed as a 'commodity' that can be employed (not a model I especially like but it works for this purpose) and if we take seriously the mandate for a complete day of rest and the idea that time could be tithed, what might that look like?

One week = 168 hours, less 24 hours as Shabbat leaves 144 hours.

Suppose we choose to commit one tenth of that explicitly to conscious Christian activity, what might that look like?  I choose my words carefully, the idea of 'time for God' and 'time not for God' is not one I endorse but at the same time not every moment of every day is consciously God-centred.

So, a tithe of 14.4 hours, of which on average around a third will be sleep!  To keep the sums simple let's say that leaves 10 waking hours...

Public worship will probably occupy around 2 hours a week, and daily devotions the other six days say 30 mins each, making a total of 5 hours.  That leaves five more hours to be consciously employed.  Now suppose 2.5 hours were given to work in/for church (possibly including mission) and a further 2.5 to charitable endeavours (and/or mission in many modes) beyond the church.  What impact would that have?  Again, not saying anyone must or should, just what might it look like, what might it achieve?

After the sermon yesterday we sang Fred Pratt Green's hymn 'When the Church of Jesus Christ shuts its outer door' (BPW 614) which seems to me to offer some important correctives both to individualist pietism and smug social action...

When the Church of Jesus

Shuts its outer door,

Lest the roar of traffic

Drown the voice of prayer:

May our prayers, Lord, make us

Ten times more aware

That the world we banish

Is our Christian care.

If our hearts are lifted

Where devotion soars

High above this hungry

Suffering world of ours:

Lest our hymns should drug us

To forget its needs,

Forge our Christian worship

Into Christian deeds.

Lest the gifts we offer,

Money, talents, time,

Serve to slave our conscience

To our secret shame:

Lord, reprove, inspire us

By the way you give;

Teach us, dying Saviour,

How true Christians live.

F Pratt Green (c) Stainer & Bell

So, on into March and a set of 'one off' services looking at Fairtrade, Children in the Church, a free Sunday visiting my little sister and then Palm Sunday... where is the time going? ;-)