We bid a fond farewell to our amazing curate Rev’d Mike Fitzsimmons who is leaving us to take up his first post as Team Vicar in Leek and Meerbrook, Diocese of Lichfield. Mike has been wonderful to work with and has brought much to our parishes and we will truly miss him.
As requested by some people, here is his sermon and beautiful blessing from his last Sunday with us:
Readings
Jeremiah 17:5-10; 1 Corinthians 15:12-20; Luke 6:17-26
Sermon
We hear in the Bible readings today about blessings in Jeremiah and the gospel of Luke. We also hear about curses and woes. I want to think about blessings today but we have to hear the difficult language too. On my last Sunday in these parishes, I am paying attention to when Jesus says: ‘Woe to you when people speak well of you!’
A benefit of being a curate: don’t have to make unpopular decisions or say no to things that people really want to happen. (All that is to come!)
We hear difficult language in Jeremiah: curses. Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord. …They shall live in…parched places.
Bit like saying, cursed are those who keep trying to drink from a glass that’s empty. People who look for the source of life anywhere but the one God, won’t find sustenance or life; they will shrivel up because they are not drawing on the true source.
But those who trust in the Lord are like a tree right by the flowing river, always drawing on the true water of life. Even through dry times when circumstances are against them, they will find they are sustained.
And Jesus gives the words of woe: woe to all of us who trust in what we gain by being part of a world that is broken and corrupted. Woe to us if we make our happiness depend on being comfortable in this world of injustice and where people are treated as if they are of less value than others. Where people who have power use their power to keep what they have and gain more at the expense of others. Woe to us when what we
value most is things that are temporary and not of eternal
worth.
But blessed are those who put their trust in the Lord.
And blessed are the poor and those who grieve, because by being empty they can see where things of real value are. By being powerless, they can see where the enduring
power really lies.
We are encouraged to recentre our attention on God; to reset our priorities to those godly qualities that will outlast all wealth and power on earth; and to allow God to give us hope and peace that can sustain us through every storm that may come in our lives.
Thanks
So, in line with the scriptures that we’ve read today, I wanted to leave you with some words of blessing that I wrote for you, the people of God in Clowne and
Barlborough. This is what I hope for you as I have to leave you. And it is in gratitude for all that I have gained for being with you here in Clowne and Barlborough. I came here firstly to learn – from Rev Bryony and from you and all those I have been around.
And I have learned a lot and grown in the time I have been here. Bryony has been an amazing training priest to learn from. And this has been an excellent place to serve my
curacy and prepare for leading the churches where I will be in the future.
So I want to say thank you to all of you who have been part of my learning and growing. It has been a privilege to be alongside everyone, whatever times we’ve been going
through. Thank you for welcoming me and being open to working with me and sometimes trying different things together. These three and a half years in Clowne and Barlborough will, I know, stay with me throughout the rest of my life in ministry.
Words of Blessing
As I leave you today, we find ourselves in a world that feels very fragile. Many things that we may have thought were secure in the past are now threatened with change. But we have a God who is faithful and whose love for us is secure.
So I have written words of blessing that I will pray at the end of the service today.
I will pray that God goes with you from this place
and accompanies you in all your days –
Sometimes we arrive in places where we are more aware of the presence of God – this church may be one of those places. But we are never away from the presence of God.
What we do in church is a bit weird compared with what we do the rest of the time. And it can feel that this time is about God and other times are not, or not so much. But
God is interested in all of our lives and who we are all the time. And I will pray that you are aware of God in all the days of the week and that you are each one of the people
that God wants to spread peace through. I will pray that the kind and loving God will walk with you, hold you by the hand and give you confidence and strength through all the light and heavy days to come – I know that God is faithful and never walks away from us or loses focus on us. We can be tempted, when circumstances or our emotions are really difficult, to feel like we have been abandoned – I know I can. But even when we can’t feel God with us, God loves us and accompanies us just the same. When the journey of our life feels heavy, when we feel short of strength, we have a God who is right beside us, feeling our struggles and pains, sharing our tears and who will give us what we need to endure.
I will pray that you may trust God to hold your questions and doubts kindly, I believe that God is pleased when we bring our questions and doubts, when we bring our real selves to God. And my experience that God is kind with us in holding our questions and gently guides us to what we need to discover. As we discover more of God, we open up more questions rather than close them all down. God honours our seeking and turning our gaze towards the source of all truth.
And I will pray that God may gently help you unravel the tangle of your heart; Because we all navigate this world with the wounds and scars of our experience; we are all a mixture of good and bad motives. I believe it is God’s will to lead us towards wholeness and peace. If we allow God to work with us, even if sometimes the way is painful, God will be faithful in leading us towards healing.
Brothers and sisters, wherever our different paths lead, may we stay close to the God who can be trusted with all that we are. Amen. ||
Blessing
May God go with you
from this place,
and accompany you all of your days;
may the kind and loving God
walk with you and hold your hand,
give you confidence and strength
through all the light and heavy days to come;
may you trust God to hold your
questions and doubts kindly,
and may God gently help you unravel
the tangle of your heart;
and the blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you this day and always. Amen.
0 Comments