Log in Subscribe
The week in focus

Connecting to the world right now

In touch

Check-in

Intercessions
In touch begins
immediately below		 Scroll down
or click for Check-in		 Worship Together subscribers only:
see intercessions

 

In touch

Up-to-the-minute jumping-off points for sermons, linking the reading to the latest news and global issues

 

Hope to care

How can we hope to best be Church – faithful in worship and loving concern for others? (Hebrews 13:1-8,15-16)

 

Context

 

Ideas for sermons or interactive talks

Driving home from Greenbelt Festival at the end of the bank holiday weekend – tired, needing a shower, but wonderfully invigorated from having been immersed in the multi-talented glory of God for a long weekend – I was surprised to see England flags hanging from some of the bridges as we travelled north on the M1. I assumed that these had been displayed by early enthusiasts for the Women’s Rugby World Cup! Having had my mobile data switched off and my phone eventually dying over the festival weekend I had not kept up with news media. Upon returning home I was disturbed to discover the reason for the display of flags bearing the St George’s cross was seemingly due to something entirely different.

National flags are so often associated with world sporting events, such as world cups. However, whilst for many they are also a sign of respect or celebration, for others they have become more associated with far-right demonstrations and organisations. A recent BBC article asks whether the St George’s (and Union) flags that have been appearing recently are statements of pride or prejudice.

It is intriguing that this debate is happening around the same time as many people in the UK have been arrested for protesting about the situation in Gaza by displaying the Palestinian flag. One can’t help but wonder if those who have recently displayed or graffitied the red and white cross of St George know that legend has it that he was of Cappadocian Greek origin, served in the Roman army, or that his father was from Turkey and his mother from Palestine. He was martyred for his Christian beliefs and, as well as being the patron saint of many churches and countries, including Ukraine, he is also venerated by Muslims.

One of the highlights of Greenbelt festival for many is the Sunday morning communion service. If you’ve never tried sharing communion with 10,000 other people in the middle of a field then you really should! For the communion gathering at the festival in 2024 Daoud Nassar from the Tent of Nations, just outside Bethlehem in the West Bank, was meant to be part of the worship in person, but it was too dangerous for him to leave their farm, so he and his community joined us via a live link. A year ago he was asked what he does when things seem hopeless – surrounded as his family farm is on all sides by illegal Israeli settlements. He said, “I go out and I plant a tree.” Daoud and his community still have enough hope to care for the place where God has placed them and to care for others.

This year one of the leaders of the communion service was the Reverend Sue Parfitt. She embodies today’s passage from Hebrews. Sue is now 83 and may be known to some of you, as she was among the first women to be ordained as a priest in the Church of England. The church doesn’t currently allow her to minister because she is facing charges following her activism on Palestine and the climate emergency. Sue has been arrested 30 times! In the eyes of many, Sue’s humble faith and activism makes her a real-life hero. Christians like Sue encourage us through the way they live out their Christian calling, rooted in the love of Christ. Through the demonstration of loving care for others by the likes of Sue and Daoud, we are reminded of our own calling to care for others through God’s care for us.

Like Sue, Hebrews 13:3 asks us to remember those who are undergoing persecution by placing ourselves in their shoes. At Greenbelt this year, this was translated into an immersive installation by Empathy Museum in the form of a giant walk-in shoebox. People were encouraged to listen to an individual’s story – Syrian refugee, sex worker, neurosurgeon – whilst literally walking in their shoes. These were real stories of loss and grief, of hope and love. How can we reach out to others in the messiness of their lives in love? How might we envisage planting seeds of hope in the soil of our faith, then work to make something good grow?

For me and for many other Christians and faith explorers Greenbelt is church as we dream it could or should be. One festival goer called Louise said: “Greenbelt: the most welcoming, inclusive and non-judgemental place I have ever been.” Former Archbishop, theologian and poet Rowan Williams said, “Greenbelt is part of my mental furniture.” Dara McAnulty, author and Greenbelt speaker, said: “This festival has healed my inner autistic child, and even my inner Christian. It’s the first time I’ve been somewhere and realised I’m okay.” How can we work to make sure that our churches are the kind of places which also live out that sentiment? Hebrews 13:1 begins this week's Bible passage, ‘Let mutual love continue.’ How can we live out an attitude of hope and care for all people?

Shining at the heart of the Greenbelt festival village this year was a scale replica of the symbol of resistance and resilience that was the Gaza Lighthouse. The original tower was built from rubble by Gazan artist Shareef Sarhan as a testament of grief, memory and fierce creative resistance, and was destroyed in the aftermath of the 7 October 2023 attacks. We should give thanks for those who make themselves like living lighthouses, through faithful worship and loving care for others. 

In Luke 14:1,7-14 Jesus uses the illustration of a wedding banquet to teach about humility and hospitality. How can the Church model humble, open hospitality in the world today? Do we, as Jesus instructs, ensure that we do ‘invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind’? The conflict in the Middle East is just one place where humanity struggles to reach its full potential to be human. But the potential for different peoples to live alongside one another here could be a story of hope for all the world – a place of hope, against all hope.

As a statement on the Greenbelt act of communion order of service puts it:
“We choose to orientate ourselves towards a future that is good. We choose to live into the best possible future, not the worst one. We choose to build hope with our bare hands – not because we have given up on God, but because we have grasped that our hands are God’s implements.”

Hope is in our hands!

 

Questions for discussion

  • Over the past few years many churches have displayed the blue and yellow flag of Ukraine in a sign of solidarity with those they see as being persecuted. Many Christians similarly protest about the situation in Gaza by displaying the flag of Palestine. How does this and the recent wave of St George’s flags make you feel?
  • With all that we witness going on in Gaza, Israel and the West Bank, how is God calling us to still have hope and to care for our brothers and sisters throughout the world? How is your church a place of hope – a lighthouse in the darkness?

Tim Lowe is a minister of the United Reformed Church, serving in the Leeds URC Partnership. He has been going to Greenbelt since his teens (this year with a fractured ankle!) and has secured a ticket for the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 final.

 

Check-in

Connecting faith with everyday, real-life issues for young people

 

Confidence to care

Hebrews 13:1-8; 15-16

We’re reminded in today’s passage from Hebrews to ‘keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters’ (Hebrews 13:1). That sense of keeping on loving – to do it again, and again, and again, and again.

That can seem like a chore or a bind...or quite exciting. Why exciting? Because we have the opportunity to give it a go; learn from what goes well – and not so well; to experiment; try new ways of caring; and to learn from how other people care for us and for other people.

It also means we don’t need to get it right first-time round; nor do we need to have it all together in order to care for someone else. We don’t need to have money to care for other people - it can be as simple as giving a smile or popping a homemade card or note through someone’s letterbox.

It’s quite easy to get disenchanted about helping others when we watch the news and see what’s around us. What difference does caring for my neighbour make when people are dying in Ukraine or starving in Gaza? And yet humanity at its best is so diverse, so creative and so caring for each other – as events like the Notting Hill Carnival show us each year.

As we keep on caring for those around us, we may find that our confidence to care increases at the same time.

So...who are you going to care for today? Or tomorrow? Or the day after? Go on...give it a go. Get creative. Tell someone what you’ve done. Ask them what they’ve done. Be co-conspirators together to care for those around you. And see how your confidence grows as you do so...

Jonathan Buckley, Youth Development Worker at YMCA White Rose and Redevelopment Manager at St Paul’s, Parson Cross, Sheffield.

 

Views expressed are the authors' own. Hypertext links to other websites are for the convenience of users only and do not constitute any endorsement or authorisation by Roots for Churches Ltd.

The week in focus is also available via facebook and Instagram.

Roots publishes weekly lectionary-based worship and learning resources online and in two magazines. FIND OUT MORE.