Greetings to Everyone

How good it is to see some of you in church in person on Sundays now and be able to say hello and chat afterwards. It is also good to be able to hear everyone present, whether on zoom or in church, greeting each other with the kiss of peace.  Thanks so much to Tony. We are always very grateful to him for making it possible.
 
This week we have a miscellany of items relating to our neighbouring churches who have had some interesting and celebratory events. It is good to know what others are doing and to celebrate with them.
 
Archdeacon John was celebrating last Sunday, the 25th Anniversary to the priesthood of Prebendary Marjorie Brown, who is the vicar of St Mary’s. Marjorie was one of the first women to go forward for ordination and a neighbour of ours . She and Donald were great friends. John kindly sent his sermon to us. He was thinking about us and thought what he was saying was relevant to us as a congregation. He talks of how a church should be, how it can be, a SAFE touching place where Christ shows his face and gives his embrace and how, as we gather around the altar, we create in our hearts and minds, with our hands and lips, a touching place where Christ can enter and transform our lives. He then goes on to talk about how Jesus used his hands to touch and heal. His sermon in full is below.
A couple of weeks ago I was invited to Hampstead Parish Church, NW3, to their commemoration of Evelyn Underhill (6 December 1875 – 15 June 1941) who was a distinguished writer, well known for her work on spirituality and mysticism.  I have written something about her life and the guidance she gave to many people.
Many congratulations to Helen S, All Saints Child’s Hill, who is being ordained deacon in a week or so and will be serving her curacy at Emmanuel Church, West End Lane, with the Revd Jonathan K. What very good news. We wish her much fulfillment and happiness in her role.
 
Love and good wishes – Sally

 

 

 

Please join us on Wednesday evening for our time of prayer at 7.30pm. The link is in Tony’s update.
It is so good to come together to pray for the appointment of our new incumbent and for all those issues that are on our minds; to give thanks for the good things we are experiencing and those that are troubling us. We think of Tony, Pam, our Area Dean Julie, Archdeacon John, and Bishop Rob, who are all involved in preparing to interview those who have been shortlisted. Looking forward to seeing you. 
 
 

"In my readings today in Scripture, God reminds me that I can plan things.  He says through Solomon in Proverbs 16
The plans of the mind belong to mortals,
    but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.
2 All one’s ways may be pure in one’s own eyes,
    but the Lord weighs the spirit.
3 Commit your work to the Lord,
    and your plans will be established.
 
God invites me to plan, to bring my plans to Him and to see what he will establish.  In fact in planning I should seek His plans and see Him establish them.  This got me thinking as we look forward to a new incumbent - we laid plans to choose one under His guidance.  We still operate under His guidance.  We have 4 people to interview in a few weeks time: so could I encourage us all to pray for these interviews.
 
But I also want us to think about what plans we have going forward.  What plans have you got?  We should begin to think about what plans we believe God has for us as a group of believers in Golders Green.  We have plans to improve the front of our building.  We have plans for our toddler group.
 
What else do we need to do?"
 
 

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Chorus of Touching Place:
 
To the lost Christ shows his face
To the unloved he gives his embrace
To those who cry in pain or disgrace
Christ makes with his friends a touching place
 

I guess there are many ways of talking about a church and maybe the poetry of John Bell from the Iona community is as good as it gets – the church should be, can be, must be a SAFE touching place where Christ shows his face and gives his embrace.

 

This morning as we gather around this altar we will create in our hearts and minds and with our hands and lips a touching place where Christ can enter and transform our lives.

 

Today as we gather in this touching place, we have an opportunity to show our love and gratitude for the ministry of Mthr Marjorie who celebrates her 25th anniversary of priesting today.

 

As we do this, I am so aware of the ways in which Marjorie has been able to create a touching place for God’s people. A place where God’s children have either discovered their heavenly Father or reacquainted themselves with his love.

 

The church is a touching place and at its heart is Jesus to whom we reach out to touch the hem of his garments.

 

Lovers old and young have come to their priest to hold hands and make vows
 
Bishops have come and with gentle hands baptized and confirmed the faith of God’s children that Marjorie as their priest has prepared
 
Those who have shed the shackles of this life have been brought into this Church, and those over the last 25 years where Marjorie has ministered, All Saints, St Thomas St Matthew : often carried by their loved ones at the end of their life’s journey
 
Here Heaven and earth touch, whenever a priest, whenever Marjorie stands at the Altar and Gods life is released into the world through her hands and in her voice so that all of us can open our hands and touch the living God in the sacrament of his body and blood.
 
Yes, it is truly a touching place.
A place of memory and love: a place for forgiveness and peace.
 
And how appropriate to have for our thoughts and inspiration this morning a story of touch and encounter in our gospel reading.
 
In these two stories, two people come to Jesus with their needs.  They are very different people.  Jairus is an important man.  V22 says ‘a synagogue ruler’.  He is a man, he is a ruler, he has power: he has a family, status and respect and lives out his faith, not as a priest or rabbi, but in his everyday life.
 
The woman is not even named.  Jesus calls her ‘Daughter’ in v34, which is even better than telling us her name.  But as the story begins she is an unnamed and unclean woman.  She has an unstoppable flow of blood which made her perpetually, ceremonially unclean, untouchable even in her home for 12 long years.  This woman knows the real meaning of isolation and “social distancing.”
 
She is very different to Jairus.  Jairus, we can imagine, has had 12 years of joy with his 12-year-old daughter.  But now with his daughter at death’s door, Jairus and the women are driven by the same need to touch God.  They are both needy beggars coming to Jesus. Both take a journey to reach out and touch the only one who can give them their hearts desire.
 
In Verse 22 this respectable man falls at Jesus’ feet in a public place and pleads earnestly with Him.  This was very dangerous for Jairus to do.  We know from chapter 3 verse 6 that the religious authorities have been plotting to kill Jesus.  So, for this synagogue ruler to fall at Jesus’ feet could well have cost him his job and his reputation.  But what is that compared to the life of your 12-year-old daughter?
 
So Jairus and the woman, very different, and yet also very similar - both come to Jesus in their need.
 
 And both of them think they know how Jesus is going to help them.  They both have very particular expectations of Jesus – one he will not meet but change.
 
Jairus thinks Jesus ought to come and lay hands on his sick daughter, he practically tells Jesus what to do and expects him to act immediately. He probably does this because Jesus had performed other healings where that is what He did – He laid hands on people. 
 
The woman also thinks she knows how to get a healing.  She thinks if she just touches Jesus’ clothes she will be healed. 
 
Why did she think that?  Well quite probably it was because of an Old Testament prophecy. There is a verse from Malachi chapter 4 and verse 2 that speaks about the Messiah as the Sun of Righteousness who would rise up with healing in His wings. 
In Hebrew, the word for wings is the same as the word for the end of your garment.  Where we might talk about coat tails, they would talk about wings.  And so, there was this expectation that when the Messiah rose up, there was going to be healing in His wings, His coat tails.  And this woman thought ‘if I just touch His clothes, I will be healed.’ 
 
But for both of them Jesus frustrates their plans and responds in ways that they were not expecting.
 
For Jarius –It is now too late, there was too much delay the girl is now dead. There is no point. He has made the journey for nothing, he has risked everything only to fail – or so it would seem when Jesus finally enters the house.
 
For the nameless woman she is not allowed to get away with the anonymity she desires, touching Jesus means that she is now in a very public place. She has stumbled into the loving compassionate heart of God, a touching place and at a centre of a crowd in which she hoped to remain hidden, skill she had no doubt developed over the last 12 years.
 
Jairus’s story is our story. 
The Nameless woman’s experience is ours
 
Every one of us either has:  had or will have moments like this in our Christian lives.  We have come to Jesus.  We have real needs.  We are sure we know the best way He can help us.  But Jesus does not always act in ways that we expected, Jesus does not always follow our plan.
 
And as we see when a woman reaches out to touch Jesus and when He reaches out to touch a small child something miraculous does occur – life is given, is strengthened, is healed, is renewed.
 
And at the end of the story Jesus has saved both daughters. Everyone thought the bleeding woman could wait while Jesus healed the dying girl.  But no – Jesus saved the woman with the flow of blood, and He is saved the dying girl.  He calls the one ‘daughter’, He calls the other ‘Talitha’ lit. little girl – both terms of great affection. 
 
As we give thanks for Marjorie’s ministry- so much has been on the edge, the fringe, as a woman of the laity in a church that did not accept that women were being called by God to be a priest.
In her ministry in Poplar and Stamford hill and NOW here in Primrose hill there is evidence of the beautiful work that she has enabled others to do especially in dreaming dreams and seeing visions for this building and the children of this city whose blood to often flows in these cold and indifferent streets of London.

 
Chorus of Touching Place:
To the lost Christ shows his face
To the unloved he gives his embrace
To those who cry in pain or disgrace
Christ makes with his friends a touching place
 
 

 


I love birds, I love their song, I love the numbers that come into the garden, to eat the seeds and perch in the trees.  I suppose, living near Hampstead Heath, I get a wider variety than I expect to see as, one day, I saw (and heard) a green woodpecker making the most of drilling holes in a nearby tree which was a great surprise. I think of them all as, “God’s Winged Messengers”, (I am sure I have stolen that line from some famous poet, but I cannot find out who!), but, best of all as I was sitting in the garden last week just thinking, I was suddenly aware of a little rustle of sound and a consciousness that something was very near to me.
I looked up and there on the seat of the chair next to me and so close was a tiny, very young robin (pictured above). It was not afraid and stayed very still with its head on one side looking at me and I looking at it. I talked gently to it and held my hand out and, while it did not hop onto it, it looked as if it might! Now whenever I go out into the garden, it flies down and follows me around getting closer and closer, even the dogs do not bother it.  I am so glad that it is not old enough to be afraid of humans and has become a companion, whether I am working or just sitting, it is constantly there. What a pleasure birds are and how uplifted they make you feel.
 

 
 

 

Thomas R, the Project Officer for “Together in Barnet” (TiB), has appealed for the following supplies that are badly needed.  If you are able to help out, please send or deliver these items to the HAB centre (36b Woodhouse Road, London, N12 0RG) between the times of 9am-3pm, Monday-Friday, or, you could drop them off at the Church office on either a Tuesday or Wednesday and we will arrange for someone to take them to HABs. With many thanks.

Thanksgiving Medley
https://youtu.be/6v4UQc4z0LA
 

                 

Evelyn Underhill (1875- 1941) was well known for her numerous books and lectures on religion and spiritual practice. She was extremely famous in church circles and beyond for her spiritual insights and guidance. She had a large following in her lifetime which continues on into the present day.
She became one of the most widely read writers in the first half of the 20th century. She was a prolific author and published over 30 books either under her maiden’s name, Underhill, or under the pseudonym "John Cordelier", as was the case for the 1912 book The Spiral Way. Her best-known work, Mysticism, was published in 1911. It is still in print and much used by those who follow her spiritual direction. Initially Evelyn was an agnostic but became gradually drawn to Catholicism against the objections of her husband. As a result, she stayed in the Church of England becoming a prominent Anglo-Catholic.  She achieved many firsts at a time when women were actively discouraged, if not prohibited, from being a public voice in the Church. However real gifts can never be hidden; there are always those who recognize the value and worth of a person’s insights and encourage them. As a result, she became the first woman to lecture to the clergy in the Church of England, as well as the first woman officially to conduct spiritual retreats for the Church. She was also the first woman to establish ecumenical links between churches and one of the first woman theologians to lecture in English colleges and universities, which she did frequently. Such influential roles.
 
There are many people in the present day who read her books and are guided by her spirituality. When she died in 1941, having achieved so much in and for the Church, she was buried in her husband’s grave in Hampstead Parish Churchyard, under her married name, with no acknowledgement of her achievements or work.  Passing by the grave you would not have known this was the resting place of a great woman. A group of admirers decided that, as it was nearing the 80th anniversary of her death, it was time to rectify her anonymity. A subscription appeal was opened in order to provide a ledger stone to be placed in front of her and her husband’s grave as a dedication to her life’s work. On Sunday 13th June, the 80th anniversary of her death, a service of commemoration was held for her at Hampstead Parish Church, followed on 15th June when, the by now in-place Ledger Stone with its skillfully engraved inscription around the sides, was blessed and prayed over. At last, all that she had done was fully acknowledged. It was a beautiful, sunny day with a champagne reception afterwards and an opportunity to meet up with and thank those who had worked so determinedly to make sure such a distinguished woman had finally received the acknowledgement she deserved.
 

 
Message from Margaret: Such good news from Margaret who sends grateful thanks to everyone for all the prayers you have said during a very difficult time when she suffered from ulcers that did not heal and her operation was suspended. She has felt very upheld by you all. She is now completely healed, and her left hip replacement operation is booked for 21st July. We all rejoice with her and continue praying that her operation goes well, and she will, at last, be able to walk more freely.  
 
 

 
I wonder if you sometimes listen to, “Thought for the Day”, at 8. 45am on Radio 4.
Last week Bishop Richard H spoke about the forgotten women of history, of which there are so many. He asked us if we knew that David Livingstone’s wife, Mary, who we never hear of, was an accomplished linguist who travelled with him on many of his missionary journeys, spoke the languages of the people he met, and helped him in so many valuable ways. But all we hear about is of her husband. It was heart-lifting and affirming to hear Bishop Harries, a wise man who knows his history beyond the conventionally taught and internalized, acknowledging the work of hidden women. It made me think of all the women in the Bible who played prominent parts in the lives of people and nations but are rarely named. In his talk he mentioned the poetry of Carol Ann D, poet Laureate from 2009- 2019, in “The World’s Wife” which is a collection of her poems on the unknown women who were married to famous men of history and myth.  It is a real gem; witty, subversive and often deeply ironic and made me laugh a great deal. If you enjoy poetry, especially this kind, it is a book worth getting.
 

 

Why not support online Christian bookshops and buy them from one of these:
https://www.eden.co.uk/christian-books/gift-books/christian-poetry-books/hearts-time/, or
https://spckpublishing.co.uk/heart-s-time-pb, or
https://shop.northumbriacommunity.org/product/the-hearts-time/

 
*  Bishop Richard H is giving the Donald B Memorial Lecture this year at St Peter’s organized by the Hampstead Christian Study Centre. Several of you have asked as last year’s talk had to be cancelled for obvious reasons. This will be (we hope) an in-person afternoon event in November. Further information of the date, time and topic will be given later.


Daily Hope - The Church of England Phone line church service - is available 24 hours a day on 0800 804 8044 – has been set up particularly with those unable to join online church services during the period of restrictions in mind.

We at Golders Green Church will continue to offer a number of ways we can and will keep in contact though emailing and phoning each other, the use of Facebook and the website, sending out updates by supporting those who need shopping, prescriptions fetched, letters posted and anything else you may need if you are isolated at home, whether you are in the over 70-year-old age group, or, have underlying health conditions.
The important thing is, PLEASE LET US KNOW by emailing churchwardens@gg-pc.co.uk .

You may wish to join in worship during this time through television and radio.
Check online, in the Radio Times and elsewhere for details:
Songs of Praise BBC 1, Sunday afternoon, variable times
Sunday Worship BBC Radio 4, Sunday, 8.10am Choral Evensong BBC
Radio 3, Wednesday Daily Service
BBC Radio 4 (Longwave only), weekdays, 9.45am
Big Sunday Service Premier Christian Radio, Sunday, 7am, 8am, 10am Easter Sunday Eucharist A service is usually broadcast on the BBC on Easter morning
Free 24 hour telephone church service 0800 804 8044
Online resources Church of England Daily Prayer https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/join-us-service-dailyprayer
https://mailchi.mp/b9d86a4acdc7/coming-up-from-st-pauls-cathedral-1274047?e=377e26b1db St Paul’s Cathedral have a number of resources available for us to use.
Church of England Online Resources during this time https://www.churchofengland.org/more/media-centre/coronaviruscovid-19-liturgy-and-prayer-resources
Go On-line to " ps://www.achurchnearyou.com", put in Area or post code and find a local church that broadcasts Worship.
Prayers from Christian Aid https://www.christianaid.org.uk/pray/churches/coronavirus-prayers
https://pray-as-you-go.org/ Pray as you Go (a short service each day in the Jesuit Tradition)
LICC have some great resources on their website https://www.licc.org.uk/
Especially on Covid-19 https://www.licc.org.uk/ourresources/prayer-journeys/presence-pressure-purpose/