Rev’d Vicci Davidson’s ‘Thought for the Week’ & Details of meeting to discuss Ukraine situation and our response

Friends

As I write, the talk in the Davidson household is largely around Will Smith. Is it or is it not okay to hit someone for disrespecting your wife? Everyone on the news and on social media has an opinion, and my own family is no different. For those of you who missed this riveting piece of scandal from the Oscars the salient points are as follows: Will Smith, who is a very well-known American actor, was at the Oscars, waiting to see if he had won the Oscar for which he had been nominated, when the compere made a joke at the expense of his wife who has alopecia. Will jumped onto the stage, slapped the man around the face and said, “Keep my wife’s name out of your mouth.” The compere has declined to press charges and the two have made up. Will Smith went on to win the Oscar and in his acceptance speech, whilst apologising to the audience for having caused the disruption, said that he felt he was put on this earth to protect the women around him.

And what would Jesus do?

That’s a difficult one if we look at his story. On the one hand “He gave his back to the smiters and his cheeks to them that plucked out the hair. He hid not himself from shame and spitting” and on the other hand, he over-turned the tables of the money changers in the temple and set about them with a whip saying: “It is written ‘My house shall be a house of prayer’ but you have made it a den of robbers.’” Scholars tend to see his anger as being focused on the fact that the sellers of animals and the money changers were making it very difficult for people to actually get to God. Jesus it seems was meek and mild when it came to himself, but not so much when it came to others.

For me, the most interesting thing in the whole sorry incident was that fellow actor Denzel Washington told Will Smith: “At your highest moment be careful, that’s when the Devil comes for you.”

For what it’s worth, my own belief is that physical violence is rarely the right answer. However, in our own lives where we are less likely to be thumped, but where people, accidentally or on purpose, can say quite hurtful things, it is worth our while to reflect that the Jesus response is both “turn the other cheek” and also, “do not be the one to get between God and another person.” As we seek to grow our own congregations it is worth wondering whether we are sometimes less encouraging than we could be, less kind than we should be.

God bless, Vicci

Message from Rev’d Vicci - Regarding an invitation on 13 April

Friends

We have continued to watch with horror the unfolding situation in Ukraine and the churches in the Circuit have responded through donating goods which have been sent to Ukraine and the Polish border, with donations via All We Can and I know in other ways as well. However, we are now moving to a new phase in the conflict and I know that many of you are wondering about how and whether to engage with the government's plan to host refugees from this war. I have spent the last two weeks researching this and discussing with a number of colleagues in the District the Connexional response and how we can help. Anne, Margaret and I all have experiences of some of these issues from different wars and conflicts which we also bring and so we would like to invite you to attend a meeting by zoom on the 13th of April at 8pm. This meeting will start with a briefing on the response, the rules, risks and opportunities and we will then move into break-out rooms to discuss further, before returning to the main group to decide what actions we want to recommend to the Circuit Meeting in May, if and what actions we want to take earlier than that, and the best ways to do that. These break-out rooms will be facilitated and so it will be helpful to have an idea of numbers so that we know how many facilitators we will need. Please RSVP to Circuit Secretary.

Rev’d Vicci Davidson’s ‘Thought for the Week’ & Ukraine donation update & Pancake Event - good news!

Friends

Throughout my life as a Christian, I have been encouraged to ask myself the question “Where was God in that?” or “Where did I meet with God today?” I have tended to think of it as a comforting question; a question that acknowledges that some days feel quite ordinary, perhaps even a little bit boring, and some days are horribly difficult, but if we ask the “Where was God in that?” question and are able to answer it, then “our fears may be dispelled, our loneliness eased and our hope reawakened” as the Methodist Worship Book puts it.

But perhaps I am wrong, or at least, not altogether right. Perhaps the question is not “Where was God in that so that I may feel comforted?” but “Where was God in that so that I might join him in action?”

As we look around us now at a world reeling from the effects of two years of global pandemic, war between Ukraine and Russia, rapidly rising energy prices, to say nothing of the cost of fuel at the petrol station, increases in food bills and so on, we see people of all faiths and none rising to the challenge to join in with those who are seeking to help. Food banks, baby banks, work among the homeless, the housing of refugees from Ukraine, or working with refugees and asylum seekers from other situations and other wars fill the time, effort and thoughts of a startling number of people. How do we identify where God is at work and join in? And how do we join in when many of our congregations are feeling worn and over-stretched? We may feel as if the last mountain-top experience was a very long time ago and that we have been travelling through the valley of the shadow of death for far longer than we care to think about.

In Matthew 11:28, Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.” Now is the time to come, not when we have got through it all and feel at peace again, not when we know that “all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well” but right now, while we feel weary and burdened and fearful. It is time for us to regather ourselves as individuals and as the church family, to meet together, to pray together, to seek God and to find out where he is and what he is doing so that whether he is leading us further into the valley, or out onto the mountains, we need not ask the question “Where was God in that?” because the answer can only be “Walking beside us.”

God bless,

Vicci

Donations for Ukraine; feedback received 20 March “The donations have been delivered to the Hub of “British Ukrainian Aid” charity in London. Monday 21st it will be loaded onto the lorry to Ukraine. We want to say thank you to all and everyone who contributed to the donations. We all hope that it will be of great help to the people in need there.”

Further good news re Pancake day fundraiser with our friends at St Edwards for Christian Aid Emergency Projects in Ukraine, Afghanistan & hunger in Africa. It has since reported the final money raised was £688, plus a generous donation of £200, so nearly £900! A BIG THANKS to everyone who helped and who attended.

Rev’d Vicci Davidson’s ‘Thought for the Week’

Friends

In “High-Flying Geese” by Browne Barr we are told the following story: A child who was late returning from an errand explained to her worried parents that she had come across a friend who had dropped her beloved china doll and it had smashed to pieces on the sidewalk. “Oh,” her father said, “You stopped to help her pick up the pieces.” “No,” the child answered, “I stopped to help her cry.”

Over the last three weeks, we have been stopping to help the people of the Ukraine cry, and for those of a generation that can still remember the Blitz, old emotions are being re-released by pictures on our television screens of bombed-out buildings and rubble-strewn streets. We haven’t just stood in solidarity metaphorically either. We have donated money and goods to organisations, particularly in Poland and Moldova where refugees are either passing through or remaining and of course the Ukraine itself. Meanwhile we hear that we have not, through lack of ability or political will, been able to help all those we had hoped to from the wars still raging in Syria and Afghanistan. Humans it seems, are not a peaceful people.

For we who are Christians, following the one whose name is “Wonderful, Counsellor, Almighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace”, the call to peace is strong, but also difficult. “Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end” we are told in Isaiah chapter 9, and yet we struggle to follow in this way, not because we don’t think that peace is a good thing, but because it is an impossible thing. We have tried. We may know people who have refused to fight; we may have looked at countries that have successfully remained neutral; we may wonder what price that has demanded.

We cannot simply say that we think that peace is a good idea, we need to consider how peace can be achieved. We should pray, we should where possible act, we should speak to our children about our diplomats as if they are the super-heroes of the modern world, as perhaps they are, and imbue in them a desire to follow in such footsteps. And when we, like the little girl in the story above, take time out of our lives to help others cry, we should remember that after we have cried, it is necessary to get back up. Like Elijah in the desert cave, we need to listen for the still, small voice, and then we need to get up, go out and follow.

God bless,

Vicci.

Ukraine - what can we do to help?

The great sadness facing the Ukraine - A message from Rev’d Vicci As we watch the unfolding of the horrific situation in the Ukraine many of us are wondering what we can do to help. Some of you will already have responded and others will be wondering what is the best way to respond. As in many other difficult and dangerous situations across the world, the Methodist charity “All We Can” is working in partnership with people on the ground to do the best we can in all the ways that we can. Churches and individuals who wish to support their work in the Ukraine can find more detail here:

https://www.allwecan.org.uk/ukraine-emergency-appeal/

God bless,

Vicci

or

The Government is offering to match personal donations through the Disaster Emergency Committee which is working through partners from major charities eg Save the Children, Unicef, The Red Cross and others.

or

Locally…….

The Clewer Scouting & Guiding Association are leading the initiative for the people of Windsor and surrounding areas
by working closely with Slough Polish Association. we are arranging a collection for the people of Ukraine who have fled to Poland
The items we are collecting are:
Toiletries (inc sanitary products, nappies)
New clothes for children & adults
New shoes for children & adults
NO food please
Drop off is at the Clewer Scout & Guide Hall, Maidenhead Road, SL4 5EY
Please drop off outside the hall, there will be a bin for drop off and we will be monitoring and visiting the hall evert couple of hours and move the items inside
Any time from 9am Wednesday 2nd March to 5pm Friday 11th March
The Polish Association will be driving these items to Poland on Saturday 12th March, hence the deadline of 5pm Friday 11th March
Many thanks for your support and please feel free to pass on and spread the word.

Circuit information from Rev’d Vicci

As part of our preparation for Easter this year, the various choirs of the Thames Valley Circuit will be coming together to present Stainer's Crucifixion, an oratorio with congregational hymns, as a Circuit service on the evening of Palm Sunday. Also known as Passion Sunday, we often focus on the Palms and not the Cross on the Sunday before Easter, and it is hoped that this special service will redress that balance. Stainer's Crucifixion is one of those works that many of you will have sung during your lifetime, and if you would like to join with the High Street Choir (weekly on a Friday), the Windsor Choir (fortnightly on a Wednesday) or Thames Valley Voices (fortnightly on a Tuesday) in order to be part of the Circuit Choir on Palm Sunday, please contact Pippa, Vicci or Anthony for details and music.

God bless,

Vicci

Rev’d Vicci Davidson’s ‘Thought for the Week’

Friends

“I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord. “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

Perhaps by the time you read this, the sun will be peeping through again, although at the moment, apart from a brief respite on Thursday, my weather forecast app is predicting rain all week. We had a promise of spring last Saturday. The sun was out, the sky was blue, and although it was still quite chilly there was that freshness that hinted at better weather to come.

In the same way, we have been in and out of lockdowns and semi-lockdowns and the decision taken by the government to try now to live with the virus is understandable, but perhaps also somewhat worrying. Stress levels, depression and anxiety are high across the country as people wonder what the future holds.

Yet we have been here before. The country and indeed the world have faced bubonic plague, tuberculosis and Spanish flu, to mention but a few, and out of these have come stories of survival, of perseverance, of heroism and of medical evolution.

We can perhaps take comfort in this as we look at our churches and wonder about dwindling membership and lack of interest in a life of faith in the wider community. The whole Biblical account from Creation onwards is a story of ebbs and flows. The people defy God, as with Adam and Eve, the building of the Tower of Babel and various events in the desert Exodus, and they ignore God, both in the lead up to the Flood and the various events and times challenged by the prophets in between David and the birth of Christ (about 1500 years). Subsequent to that first heady Pentecost, the Church has continued to rise and fall, and Methodism grew up as a movement to spread Scriptural holiness across the land because it was needed and not just because John and Charles Wesley thought it would be a good idea.

Matthew 24:35 tell us that Jesus said: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” As we journey towards another Lent, another Easter and another hope for a more normal summer, we also journey in the knowledge that however confusing, worrying and stressful these times are, God is with us.

God bless,

Vicci

Notes by the late Rev Dr Selwyn Hughes based on The Sermon on the Mount

Matthew 5 v 1-13

“How happy are those who know their need for God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs!” (Matthew 5 v 3). The reason why the principle of humility is presented first is because unless we come to grips with this then the others are beyond our reach.

From there I go to the fourth law of the kingdom, which is this: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (v 6).

The message contained in this statement is that each one of us needs to have a healthy spiritual appetite for the things of God, which is developed through prayer, reading His Word, and living by the principles of His Kingdom.

One of the very first symptoms of spiritual ill health is avoidance of our daily Quiet Time and study of the Bible - things which are vital to our spiritual growth and development. When our relationship with God through prayer and the reading of His Word is intact then every other relationship is affected by it. I know of nothing that cultivates a spiritual appetite more than spending the first minutes of the day with God in prayer and in the study of the Scriptures. When I have a Quiet Time then I experience a quiet heart, but when my Quiet Time goes then my quiet heart goes with it.

Some Christians struggle with this matter because although they know a daily Quiet Time is essential for their spiritual development, they lack the will-power to make time for it. It’s rather like someone rapidly losing weight because of the lack of appetite and being unable to remedy the situation because they just do not feel like eating. Doing what is necessary, even though you don’t feel like it, is important not only to physical health but to our spiritual health also. Sometimes people say to me, “But I don’t feel like praying or reading my Bible every day.” My advice to such people is this: do it anyway. It may seem mechanical, but as you persist you will find it becoming medicinal.”

Prayer:

Father, forgive me if I skimp the time I need to spend alone with You. Help me be a more disciplined and dedicated person. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Grace abundant: notes by the late Rev Dr Selwyn Hughes based on Romans 5:1-17 ‘

How much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace ….. reign in life ….’ (v 17). We cannot know what situations and circumstances we will face in the year that lies ahead, but one thing we can know is that, whatever happens, there is grace available to sustain and support us. Often, we try to live our lives in our own strength, but our reserves of energy, determination and patience soon run out. We can feel as though we’re ‘running on empty’. Yet we can take hold of God’s grace, which is flowing freely towards us, giving us everything we need to live life to the full.

Over the years I have noticed that Christians often fall into two categories: those who appear to be thriving and those who are merely surviving. Maybe you have noticed this yourself – some people just seem to travel faster along the journey of Christian discipleship that others. We may grow old at the same rate, but we do not all seem to grow spiritually at the same rate. Some people, even though they have been on the Christian pathway for 50 years or more, appear to travel at a snail’s pace, while others have covered the same distance in five. Why is this? There are many possible answers, but I am sure that one of the major reasons is this: they have appropriated for themselves what our text for today describes as ‘God’s abundant provision of grace’. They have opened themselves to God’s grace and thus they stride along the Christian pathway at speed. They are walking free, unhindered by the world’s distractions.

Has there been a slowing down in your spiritual life lately? Do you feel constricted and restrained? Then tell Jesus now that you want to get back in the race again, moving forward with the most ardent believers you know. Decide now to walk free in the coming year.

Prayer:

Yes, Heavenly Father, I long with all my heart to move forward with the most ardent believers I know. I don’t want to just amble along the path of Christian discipleship. I want to move at speed. Please help me to do so. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Community Youth Worker - job advertisement

An exciting new opportunity has opened up in the Thames Valley Methodist Circuit. Looking to start after Easter, reporting to the Superintendent Minister. The prime focus of the role will be to engage with families and young people across the circuit, which covers Maidenhead, Slough and Windsor. This is a part time appointment, averaging 20 hours per week, to include running an after school drop-in club for year 7 and upwards from 3.30pm – 6.00pm term time in Maidenhead, and supporting a Toddler Group in the Lent Rise Church in Burnham one morning a week. The successful applicant will have a real understanding of being with young people and helping them to be the best they can. They would be self-motivated and able use their imagination and local knowledge to set up and run holiday activities across the Circuit. Full details of the Role and Person specification can be obtained from Pauline Poole, Circuit Administrator. tvmc6off@bt connect.com or 07875 717730

Closing date for applications: 15 February. Interviews will be held first week of March.

Rev’d Vicci Davidson’s ‘Thought for the Week.’

Friends

I was a bit stumped for ideas this week, but on looking back at last year to see if there was inspiration to be had, I discovered that we had been talking about Jonah and that I had reflected on coming out of lockdown being somewhat akin to coming out of the belly of the whale and wondered what it might look like for us as Christians, what distinctiveness we might bring to a post-covid world. A year later, we are as a country having another stab at the same question and some wag has posted “2022 – 2020’s third attempt to actually happen” on my social media.

It’s tempting, in the face of apparent governmental disregard for rules, horrific stories of child abuse, threat of war in Ukraine and a steady rise in knife crime to think that what we bring that is distinctive is an ethic – a Christian morality that speaks against such things. However, it is not exclusively the domain of Christians to speak out or act against immorality, illegality and social breakdown, and the belief of the secular world that this is what exercises us is in itself part of why we are not perhaps as genuinely popular as one might imagine a faith built on the premise that “We love, because God first loved us” might be. God loves people and so we love people may be our strapline, but the world tends to see it as “God judges people and so Christians judge people and we don’t want any of that.”

The ethic-based, Christian morality model is not in and of itself a bad thing, but it is a temple model, based on the law and not on Christ. Christ after all tells us that we are going to fail, that we are imperfect beings in an imperfect world. In the face of the temple model, with its rules and regulations, Christ offered to wash his disciples’ feet, to walk with the most marginalised in society and to promise love and forgiveness for all who sought it from God, through him, strengthened by the coming of the Holy Spirit.

Our call as we try once more to leave the belly of the whale and speak truth to Nineveh is perhaps not to point out all that is bad in society – after all, most can see it for themselves – but instead to underline that which is good: to tell the stories of those who have sought to help, who have found new purpose, who have loved in the face of adversity and brought hope to those who feared they had none.

God bless,

Vicci

Rev’d Vicci Davidson’s ‘Thought for the Week.’

Friends

I’ve recently rediscovered those wonderful detective stories by Dorothy L Sayers, whose hero, Lord Peter Wimsey is always charming, apparently vague and frequently incisive. One of the short stories, is about a man who had an unknown, long-lost twin who was running around London committing terrible crimes while pretending to be him. In the story, the twins meet in a doorway and the one, believing himself to be looking into a mirror, fainted in shock when the reflection as he thought, turned around and walked away. I think I too might have fainted in such a scenario!

It did, however, remind me of our calling both to follow Christ and to reflect him in the world. In the story, it was easy for the twins to reflect each other, they were each the mirror image of their brother. For us, who call Christ brother, it is harder. When do we find the time to study the stories of Jesus deeply enough to find the truth which we should reflect? How do we build our relationship with him strongly enough to develop in ourselves the personality of Jesus? How can we welcome the Holy Spirit into the very depths of our being in such a way that we too speak God’s truth into a broken world?

Here at the start of the year, not long after we have promised anew to serve God and reflect his Son in the Covenant service, we are once more called to spend time in reading and prayer, in meditation and contemplation and in action as we seek to be Christ’s hands and feet in this world. There are days when the reflection is poor, and there are days when we might be told we are made in God’s image, but it is hard for us to believe it. Still, as we walk towards the door, it is not our self that comes to meet us, but the living, loving Lord Jesus, seeking to show us such love, such truth, such faith and hope that we reflect him not because we have promised to try, although we have, but because in the face of such light, in the face of such love, we can do nothing else but share it – there is too much for us to hold selfishly to ourselves.

Centred in such love, it is hardly surprising that Jesus should say “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). I must admit to you that I have yet to achieve such heavenly perfection, but aspiration is a wonderful thing, and perhaps 2022 will be my year!

God bless,

Vicci

Thought for the week from Rev'd Vicci

Friends

Another Christmas and New Year has been and gone and I don’t know about you, but for me and my family, it all seems to be a long time ago already. The work of the Circuit continues apace, and as the senior circuit steward and I grapple with still more paperwork around stationing, and boilers stop working and roofs start leaking and things that have been planned are cancelled and future plans are made, the first few days of the year are flying by.

In the lectionary, everything has moved on apace also. The shepherds may still be wondering over the event they witnessed less than four weeks ago, the Wise Men are almost certainly still wending their way homeward, but the Gospel reading has moved us speedily to the early days of Christ’s ministry when, having already started to build his team of disciples, Jesus’ hand is tipped by his mother and he starts his ministry with the miracle of the water becoming wine.

We too, here at the start of the year wish to be filled with the transformative power of Jesus’ Spirit, do we not, to bring something special to the feast that is the life we have all been given. It’s not easy, especially at the moment, yet sometimes we see hope for the future in the very thing we thought was a worry. At Windsor, we have had to cancel the planned Burns’ Supper on the 22nd of January, but this has freed me up to attend the District Candidates Selection Committee where I have been asked to give due thought to becoming District Candidates Secretary. The hope for the future is surely strong when there is a need for someone to organise those who are exploring a call to ordained ministry.

We have very little information about Jesus between the birth and the reappearance on the world stage at around 30 years of age. We see him in the temple when he was a few days old, and then again at about 13, and then not again until he is ready to start his ministry. What was he doing? If he had not been working his family would not have survived. If he had not been praying, his relationship with God would not have seen him through all that was to come.

If he had not been studying the scripture, he would not have been able to understand and interpret all that was to come. As we too study, work and pray, may his example guide us in the coming days.

God bless,

Vicci

New Year message from Rev'd Vicci

Friends

As we start the New Year, with its round of New Year’s Resolutions, Covenant Services, hopes and fears, we wonder if by next year we will be living with a Covid that has become manageable. We may also be wondering what a return to normal will look like. What is normality in the context of a world that has been so changed over the last two years? We can look back in the history of the country, or indeed the world, to see how everything returned after previous pandemics and two world wars, but it is still hard to imagine what it will be like in our time. Our exit from the European Union has also been murmuring along in the background, but it has not been as front and centre as it would have been if it was not overshadowed by the international efforts to manage this massive health crisis and we still don’t know what further impact we will experience from this.

It is all to easy to ask “But what is God’s response? What is God doing? Why is he allowing this? Where is his redemptive act in all of this?” We want to see God at work now, and we are faced with other people who, having always challenged the idea of a loving Creator God, now feel that their scepticism is borne out. And yet…

Two thousand and twenty years ago, give or take a couple of years, a baby was born and laid in a manger because there was no room for him at the inn. In that single act, all of the answers were given and the events that were set in motion, events we will follow in the lectionary between now and Pentecost, tell us that the answer is the work of God through God’s people, enabled by the indwelling Holy Spirit. We cannot ask what God is doing about the pandemic because he has already done it. And setting in place this chain of events, he equipped us to respond to all the exigencies of life leaning on his power, following the pattern shown to us by Jesus, strengthened and led by the Spirit. Not a magic, wand-waving, three wishes and all your problems are solved sort of response, but a way of life set out and enabled by a loving parent.

Jesus was able to live that life perfectly and we should certainly aspire to do so also. However, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” * and aspiration is usually all we can manage. Someone who has always been honest about his “fallen shortness” and yet who has spoken with great eloquence about his love of God, is the singer Johnny Cash. At the end of January, when all the Covenant services are complete, we are going to do something a little unusual. On the 30th we are going to have a morning Circuit service, which will be at High Street, and also streamed, and which will be led by a Christian band who use the songs of Johnny Cash to speak into the life of faith. For those of you who would find that too challenging or not conducive to worship, we are asking the churches to offer a low-key local arrangement, but the hope of the staff team is that as many people as possible will attend, either on site or online, as we explore something different in our worshipping life.

High Street is the ideal church for this because of the tech support it can offer and I am grateful to them for agreeing to host this. Although parking is always an issue in this circuit, the Nicholson carpark is free on a Sunday and the staff team and I hope to see you there. In the meantime, may I wish you all the very best for a wonderful 2022 and may God’s blessing rest upon you this Epiphany and always.

God bless

Vicci

*Romans 3:23

Christmas thoughts from Rev'd Vicci

Brothers and Sisters

“Do not be afraid” the angel sang, “Do not be afraid” the hilltops rang. Round about was filled with glory, drawing them into the story Saying “Do not be afraid, do not be afraid.”

“Do not be afraid,” they sing today. “Do not be afraid,” oh hear them say.

For the world is turning onwards, God has got his hands upon us Saying, “Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid.” “Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified.” Luke 2:9

Sheila Cassidy writes in the book: Confessions of a Lapsed Catholic – “Christian society in Britain has domesticated the Gospel. It is geared to loving God in moderation. We may give alms to the poor, visit the sick and the lonely, hold annual bazaars and flag days for those in need – in fact do any good works that do not threaten the pattern of our society. But to demand justice at the expense of people’s comfort or security – that makes us troublemakers.

” Well, you can decide for yourself whether or not you think she’s right. But we have domesticated our thoughts about angels. We make cutesy little figurines, we put on annual plays in which tiny little four-year olds in white pillow cases with a sprinkling of silver tinsel stand before the congregations and proclaim with varying levels of confidence “You don’t need to be afraid.” No, of course I don’t need to be afraid! You are a third of my height, you weigh a tenth of what I weigh, if you do something I don’t like, I merely have to pick you up to stop you doing it – why on earth would l be afraid?

But the shepherds were afraid. The messengers of God inspire awe and the glory of God is both fearful and wonderful. Let us stand for one moment today and allow ourselves to feel the fear that we would feel if that angel stood before us and we, with no knowledge of how the story was to unfold, felt the glory of God around us. Have a wonderful Christmas.

God bless,

Vicci

Live Nativity this Saturday 11 December from 11 - 2pm & Thought for the week from Rev'd Vicci Davidson

On the third Sunday of Advent, we light the Joy candle.  Advent is a solemn time of fasting and preparation, and yet also we have the joy of what is to come, the birth of a baby who changed the world. 

At this time of year, we are urged to remember that not everyone finds Christmas a happy time.  There are those who have suffered at this time of year and find the memory of old hurts and deep griefs amplified by their contrasts with the gaiety of Christmas.  There are those who are worried that they cannot fulfil the hopeful wishes of expectant children and who may end up getting into debt and struggling to try to manage.  There are those who are lonely and who, faced with the television’s relentless reminder that, according at least to the programmers, Christmas is all about family and coming home for the season, feel depressed and anxious that their lives do not look like that.

We are not wrong, and we are never wrong, to remind ourselves that not everyone sees the world as we do, and that things that may be lovely for us may be less so for others.  However, we might also remember that we celebrate Christmas as the birthday of our Saviour, Lord and King.  That we celebrate Christmas as the beginning of a 33-year story that culminates in Good News for all, joy to the world and death is not the end. 

Joy is a more deep-rooted experience than happiness and can, I would suggest, exist even alongside sadness.  It is an experience that recognises that when Julian of Norwich said “All will be well, and all will be well and all manner of things will be well,” she wasn’t being trivial but deeply, truthfully speaking out an absolute belief in the depth of the care of God for God’s people.  Joy is a grateful optimism that believes that this is true not just for Julian of Norwich but for all people and at all times.  That we are loved, and cared for and that because of this love, Jesus was sent. “God so loved the world, that he sent his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)  It is in the recognition of this faith that we light the Joy candle this week, as we prepare for the moment when the angels sang “Joy to the world and on earth peace and goodwill to all people.”

God bless

Vicci  

Thoughts for the week by Rev’d Vicci Davidson

Brothers and Sisters

“The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” (Luke 3: 4b – 6)

In the middle of the Lamlash village green where I grew up, there is a small hillock. It makes no sense – the rest of the green is flat – and apart from small children climbing to the top and rolling down, it has no function. Or so we thought. Until one night a local farmer who was plagued with a pointless hole in the middle of a field that was almost exactly the size of the hillock came and took it away smoothing down the green and simultaneously removing the enormous pothole in his own land.

The valley was indeed filled and the hill made low. However, the ensuing furore was immense. We may have all thought that it was a pointless hillock, but actually, it was the vantage point from which the local minister had blessed those about to sail to Canada in inadequate ships having been forced to emigrate by English landowners during the time of the clearances, when small-scale tenant-farmers were thrown off the land to allow for sheep to be farmed. The little hillock was representative of a massive mountain that these people had to climb in order to survive on the other side of the world. The farmer had solved the visible problem – the lumpy green and the holey field – but the underlying history of a people who were dispossessed because of greed could not be dealt with by removing the memory. Such things need long healing and careful conversation, repentance, sorrow and a determination to learn from the past. The promise of Jesus is like this: The valley will be raised up and the hill be smoothed over and the road will become easier, but not in a casual, fly by night sort of way, but through the long care, the self-sacrifice, the determination of a caring God to bring redemption and healing to those who would turn away from greed and love of power and towards his kingdom values of mercy and justice and a humble walk with a loving Father. May this Advent be for us a time to understand this truth more deeply than ever before as we prepare for the coming of our Lord.

God bless,

Vicci

Thoughts for the week by Rev’d Vicci Davidson

Brothers and Sisters At this time of year, with Advent calendars being opened and Christmas trees going up in at least some homes, with early Christmas celebrations vying with Advent we are perhaps more aware than any other time of the cost of everything. The presents, the food, the crackers, the extras, the parties and the staff lunches, the Christmas cards or the notice on Facebook to tell all your friends that you are not sending cards this year but have instead purchased a flock of chickens or a goat for a family being supported by Oxfam. It all costs, and we complain or at the very least note, that the cost of living is going up and up.

The cost of a life in the time of Jesus was 30 pieces of silver – that’s why Judas was paid that much, 1600 years earlier in the time of Joseph, his brothers sold him for 20 shekels of silver. A shekel was worth around 60p and a piece of silver was around £18 so over 1600 years, price had gone up from about £12 to about £540. When we look at the lives of so many of our brethren who are being impacted by deforestation, by flooding, by lack of water, we may want to say that the cost of living has indeed gone up, but the cost of a life has never been lower.

Over the next few weeks, as we consider how to celebrate with and for our own loved ones, we can perhaps also wonder about how to speak to the value of every life in this world. It may be that we choose to shop from one place rather than another, or to adopt an animal or support a village or one of the other myriad ways in which we can try to make a difference. Perhaps most importantly though, we can in our own thinking and conversation remember that all people matter. God made all of us in his own image and that must mean something more than just a saying – it must mean that we treat all people, even those we don’t know, as important.

During this first week in Advent, we remember that the first candle is associated with God’s people and with hope. As God’s people we hope for the promised return of Christ, but also the coming ever nearer of the perfecting of God’s kingdom. A perfection that can surely only be when all people matter as much to us as they do to God.

God bless you this Advent-tide.

Vicci

‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. '

With the permission of Dr Micha Jazz, author of Every Day with Jesus, here are his notes based on Matthew 11:25-30.

‘Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.’ (v28-29) ‘At times, we feel the weight of life heavy upon our shoulders. It takes the edge off everything. There are remedies, many quite debilitating. Those in management roles tell me they get home and reach for a glass of wine to relax them. I’m not critical, I’ve had my flirtations with alcohol dependence, both the buzz and to quieten my anxiety.

Burden is an idea that originates from the drone we associate with bees. What starts as a background sound we can easily ignore, eventually dominates and becomes all we can hear, interrupting our peace of mind and the focus of every waking moment.

Any of us can be subject to a dominant theme that grows into an intolerable burden to wear us down. Many marriages lose their way, distance grows between child and parent, work pressures no longer lift on our commute home.

Again God invites us to respond to His invitation to lay our burdens on Him. In exchange, we yoke ourselves to God so that now we work in concert in managing them better. Whilst solutions aren’t immediately apparent, we can find confidence, despite our worst fears, and experience inner peace.

This is a process we improve as we move through life. We can learn to exchange fear and anxiety for the presence of God as we are joined in heart with our loving Father.

A prayer to make:

‘Lord, teach me to bring my burdens to You daily, and find my promised rest. Amen.’

Community Youth Worker

An exciting new opportunity has opened up in the Thames Valley Methodist Circuit. Reporting to the Superintendent Minister the prime focus of the role will be to engage with families and young people across the circuit, which covers Maidenhead, Slough and Windsor. This is a part time appointment, averaging 20 hours per week. For further details please see the Church notice board.

Windsor Foodshare:

Because of the increasing demand on Foodshare, our church has restarted weekly collections. The basket can be found at the front of the Church and your contributions will be most welcome.

Thoughts for the week by Rev’d Vicci Davidson

Brothers and Sisters,

Only a few weeks after the brutal killing of Sir David Amess MP, I find myself less inclined than usual to mark Guy Fawkes Day. Part of me enjoys the fun, the fireworks and the opportunity for one last sausage and soup picnic before the year really is too cold, and part of me finds that which we are remembering is too close to the knuckle. Of course, we are celebrating the failure and not the success of Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators, but faced with this recent assassination, with the inevitable memories of Jo Cox and before her of the bombing of the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton, it puts me slightly on edge. And then of course, there are the dogs who are petrified of the “big bangs” and all those who, having escaped to this country from a place where bombing and shootings were commonplace may be re-traumatised by what we see as a celebration.

On the other hand, it is a very British response to tough times. We take them, we laugh at them, we subvert them, we make them into something else. Ring-a-ringa-roses was a song about dying from the plague; Baa baa black sheep was about workers’ rights and Georgie-Porgie, Pudding and Pie was about inappropriate sexual demands made by someone who was too powerful to refuse. Songs that have become children’s ditties were originally reminders, teaching tools and a way of claiming back some power.

This upside-down, back-to-front way of seeing the world is perhaps a reflection of our understanding of the upside-down of Kingdom values; our interpretation of teaching that says “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you”, and takes the cursed death of hanging on a tree, mixes it with the ritual uncleanliness of blood, and declares it to be God’s way of washing clean the sins of humanity. Whether the back-to-front nature of taking the Great Fire of London and writing a song about it to be sung as a four part children’s round is in fact Godly, or simply a particular way of healing difficulty through dark humour, it is true that we are called to live in this strange world of God’s where the first will be last and the last will be first, where it is easier for a small child to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than a rich and educated ruler and where the blind can be healed, but the priests and the Pharisees see less and less of what is going on.

Whatever the case, when we see those sparkling fountains in the night sky, let’s send up after them a prayer of thanksgiving for Jesus, the light of the world.

God bless,

Vicci

Thoughts for the week by Rev’d Vicci Davidson & a request to all knitters/crotchetiers (see below)!

Brothers and Sisters,

This Sunday falls on All Hallows’ Eve or Halloween as it has come to be called. The day before All Saints’ Day on the 1st and All Souls’ Day on the 2nd of November. It ushers in what has become a season of remembrance in the Church with Remembrance Sunday to follow.

In the very early days of the church, Christian martyrs were given a day to mark their martyrdom and so for example, St Stephen’s Day, marking the death of the very first Christian martyr is on the 26th of December, although we more usually call it Boxing Day. Eventually though, there were so many martyrs that we simply ran out of days in the year and so in the 8th century, the 1st of November was declared All Saints’ Day to mark the death of all the martyrs. It was then decided to designate the 2nd of November All Souls’ Day to mark those who had died in the faith. Over the years in various well-meaning sermons, I have heard preachers say that we are all saints and that All Saints’ Day is for everyone. I do believe we are all saints in one meaning of the word, and I do believe that when we sing “For all the Saints, who from their labours rest” we are talking about all those who have gone before us, but I sort of want to reclaim both days, because it is no small thing to have died because of your faith and although we do not usually run that risk in this country, still today there are countries where those who affirm Jesus as Lord are putting themselves at risk.

Perhaps because of Newton’s 3rd law (“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”) when faced with the celebration of All Saints and All Souls, the ancient Celtic tradition that ghosts returned to earth on the 31st of October before their New Year on the 1st of November, was marked by certain people as a time when the fabric between earth and heaven became thin, and people dressed up to scare off the ghosts or perhaps to confuse them. Who is to say? We are faced with the inevitable march of capitalism which requires that any and every day that can be turned into an opportunity to demand money shall do so and we now have the chocolate consuming, zombie-fest that is today’s Halloween. Like it or loathe it, it is here to stay for the moment, but whether we put up a pumpkin and offer the 6-year-old witch some sweeties, or whether we close our doors and curtains and pretend to be away, let’s take some time this week to remember all those who have gone before us and whose teaching and actions has lit for us the path that leads to Heaven.

God bless,

Vicci

Reminder of Rev’d Vicci’s request to all knitters/crotchetiers!

“As we move towards the darker evenings of winter, and thoughts of Christmas with Angel hosts singing of peace and praise, I wonder if members of the congregation would like to create angels to give away, as we did last year. The knitted angel project encourages churches to knit angels, attach a small label saying “A gift from Windsor Methodist Church” including our website, and possibly an invite to bring them to church to be blessed (to be confirmed) and then distribute them by putting them through neighbours doors, and leaving them on walls and trees to be picked up by delighted strangers passing by. So, will you join me in knitting (or crocheting) angels to spread across Windsor this Christmas, sharing once more the Good News that angels first sang to the world. The pattern can be found here:

http://www.christmasangel.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Christmas-Angel.pdf

Brothers and Sisters

The founder of our Methodist movement, John Wesley, considered there to be two types of holiness: personal holiness, which is growing your personal relationship with God and social holiness, which is showing love to others through caring for their physical needs.  This understanding takes very seriously such passages in the Bible as James 2:15-17 – “If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?”

I want to both challenge and affirm this.  On the one hand, when Wesley talked about social holiness, he was talking about holiness through worship, partaking in holy communion, Bible Study and hymn singing.  He felt that withdrawing from the world in search of a purely individual holiness was not the way to go.  Yet at the same time, he was passionate about social justice, which is what we have come to see social holiness as meaning.  Wesley and his friends visited the sick, the dying and those in prison, worked for social reform, education, abolition of slavery and against the distillers – not so much because he was anti-alcohol as because they unfairly exploited the poor.  John Wesley was all for social justice, but when he spoke about social holiness, that is not what he meant.

However, language and its meaning changes through the generations as we know.  The important thing is not so much which words John Wesley used to describe it, but what he intended Methodism to be about.  Written into our DNA is the singing, the preaching, the learning but also the caring, the social justice, the determination that we will not rest until our mother’s glib response to our cries of “It’s not fair” with “Life’s not fair” should cease to be true. 

Life at the moment is not fair.  We see it in the fear and the worry in the world around us where we are faced with political assassination, concerns as to rising costs and worries about shortages.  I would suggest however that a Methodist response to the reality that life is not fair, is to figure out why and for whom and dig down into how we change the story.  We will not be able to change it for everyone, but this winter, let’s strive to make life a little bit fairer for those who are put in front of us.  Whether we call it social justice, social holiness or living the Jesus way, it’s what we are called to do and who we are called to be as Methodists. 
God bless, Vicci