Weekly Blog 

Here our minister shares a weekly reflection: 

Sunday 11th May 2024 - Change
In the Gospel of John, Jesus spends a lot of time during the Passover meal, preparing the disciples for change (Chapters 14-17). He seeks to reassure his followers, as he knows that his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension draw near. He promises that he goes ahead of them to ‘prepare the way’, then appeals to them to continue abiding in him as they share in God’s love together. He warns them that they will face persecution, but explains that following his departure they will receive the Spirit, or Advocate, to support them. Then, Jesus looks up to heaven and prays for them.

Jesus covers all the bases here, reminding the disciples of key elements of this teaching, encouraging them to remain faithful, to build good and loving relationships together, and promising them God’s ongoing presence with them whatever they will face. He then intercedes for them, asking that they will know God’s joy, stay rooted in his truth, and be protected against evil.

We always live in times of change. Society, cities, churches, and people, all change as time passes by. Often, we don’t like change and resist it, preferring to stick with what is familiar. However, if we are to continue to share the love and truth of Jesus Christ with the world around us, as we are called to do, it demands flexibility and a willingness to change over time so that the gospel can continue to be heard, and we can continue to relevantly challenge those who wield earthly power.

The approach that Jesus provides is a helpful one. We will be well placed to adapt to needs for change if we are reassured that Christ prepares the way for us and continues to be present with us through the Spirit. Strong, loving, and restorative relationships, rooted in Christ, place us in good stead to support each other through challenging times. We should remember and be encouraged that Christ continues to intercede for us, and seeks our protection from harm, as we seek to live by God’s values rather than conform to the ways of the world.

In a changing world, may we hold Christ’s truth to heart, as we seek to abide in God’s love together and share his truth with those around us.

Amen.

Sunday 4th May 2024 - Abiding in God's Love
In our readings from the gospel of John and 1 John this weekend, we come across passages that help us understand what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Often, I think the way we think of God and imagine our role as Christian believers is shaped by a hierarchical understanding. It places God the Father at the top, looking down on earth from heaven, and we tend to think of ourselves as servants, with Jesus Christ and other ‘holy’ people, such as ministers, interceding with God for us.

In such a hierarchy, we then have to follow the rules, we fear judgment, and the possibility that we may in some way be able to lose God’s favour. Yet, through Christ, as he reveals God’s love for the world, this top-down way of conceiving the world is shattered. We hear that those who abide in Christ and abide in his love are not servants, but friends of God. In 1 John, we hear that all those in share in faith and abide in God’s love become children of God.

As we live in faith, and journey together as Christian believers, we do so not as servants, but as those who are lifted up into the loving purposes of God. We abide in God’s presence, coming to understand, and know, the loving will of God that courses through the whole of the created order.

All that we do is to be defined and shaped by this love. This is the new commandment, to love one another, it is the starting point and only building block for any journey of Christian discipleship. We often like to define ourselves in more clearly defined ways, either through pointing to statements of faith, or clearly outlining ‘who we are not’. Yet Christ calls us to be those who simply abide in his love, and then to share that love with others.

When we abide in God’s love, then we can share that love with others, and lift them up into it alongside us. When we focus on law, exclusion, and setting boundaries, then we do the opposite of that, and unwittingly cut ourselves off from experiencing God’s love in all its fulness in the process. May we be those, who first and foremost, seek to abide in God’s love as we participate in the mission of God here in the city of Oxford and beyond.