Parish Annual Report 2015

This is prepared in advance of the Annual Parochial Church Meeting - which will be held at 11.45a.m. on Sunday 10th April.

To see the formal report / parish accounts click on this link!

Easter Day 2016

I rose early and went out into the fresh, brilliant morning, between six and seven o'clock. The sun had already risen some time, but the grass was still white with the hoar frost. I walked across the common in the bright sunny quiet empty morning, listening to the rising of the lark as he went up in an ecstasy of song into the blue unclouded sky and gave in his Easter morning hymn at Heaven's Gate. Then came the echo and answer of earth as the Easter bells rang out their joy peals from the church towers all round. It was very sweet and lovely, the bright silent sunny morning, and the lark rising and singing alone in the blue sky, and then suddenly the morning air all alive with music of sweet bells ringing for the joy of the resurrection. "The Lord is risen" smiled the sun, "The Lord is risen" sang the lark. And the church bells in their joyous pealing answered from tower to tower, "He is risen indeed".

This is Francis Kilvert, the Victorian diarist and country parson, recording Easter morning the way we want it to be: bright, fresh, the sun risen, the lark singing into a silence then further broken by the pealing of church bells which declare “The Lord is risen!”

That’s the message we declare today. It’s a message which is true however late the sunrise, however dismal the weather, however disturbed may be our thoughts or wretched our outlook on life, however troubled our world and however fearful its peoples. “The Lord is risen indeed.”

Easter follows only after Holy Week. And Holy Week is a time of encroaching menace in which the forces of fear and terror close in upon that which is good and true to work violence upon it. Hailed as a King on Palm Sunday, Jesus on Good Friday will be reviled as worse than the criminal Barabbas and then crucified – and in between there are plots against him, betrayal by a disciple, desertion and denial by his friends, a record of faithlessness on the part of those who said they would follow him. In our world today, these days of Holy Week have seen still more horror and savagery visited upon innocent people in the atrocities committed in Brussels. The cause of the terrorists is a perversion of religion gone wrong. It’s a perversion not restricted to so-called Islamism as the conviction and sentencing of Radovan Karadzic for war crimes against Muslims in Bosnia reminds us. And should we be tempted to blame religion in general we then need to ask where lack of conscience and sensibility takes people when selfish desire and denial of humanity lead them to grooming and abuse.

The world can seem bleak, god-forsaken and far from the beauty of Kilvert’s Easter morning.

But the faith we declare at Easter is true. In the words of Archbishop Justin Welby, “On Good Friday terror and oppression are met by love, with Jesus praying for the forgiveness of those who caused his death.” Against savagery, bitterness and perverted reasoning there stands in sharpest contrast the sacrifice of Jesus. And on Easter Day we see the triumph of his love.

The sun was shining already for Kilvert as he walked out on Easter morning.

The women who went out to seek the tomb of Jesus on the first Easter morning left home at early dawn. You can imagine them leaving their home before it was properly light. They go with the expectation of finding only death – to do for the body of Jesus what they had been unable to do before his hurried burial, taking spices which should have been wrapped into his shroud. They find the tomb – but not the body. The stone is rolled away. The one they loved has gone.

With hindsight it may seem strange to us that their response is not of joy but perplexity. They don’t understand – in fact St. Luke’s Gospel tells us they were “terrified.” They find two men dressed in dazzling clothes – but there’s no ready assumption that these are angels. They can only be reminded that Jesus had spoken of his death – and that he would rise again. Now go and tell other people about it!

So they do. And what happens? The disciples don’t believe them. Only Peter goes off to see for himself. He finds no body – only cast-off grave clothes. We’re told simply that he is “amazed” – nothing more.

That’s something that may speak to us. Resurrection faith does not come about just because a grave is found to be empty. People don’t necessarily believe merely on the say-so of other people. Empirical evidence and argument only go so far. Knowing Christ to be risen is something that goes much deeper – it grows out of a sense of encounter and relationship… and in St. Luke’s account these are still to occur. The Resurrection needs to be made real in the hearts and lives of people called by Jesus.

The story doesn’t end at an empty tomb. Luke will take us on to relate how two disciples fail to recognise Jesus on the Emmaus Road until he breaks bread with them and shares his blessing. Mary Magdalene fails to recognise him until she hears him speak her name. The remaining disciples continue meeting in fear behind locked doors until Jesus comes to stand in their midst, to show them the scars of his wounds, to share food with them.

It’s been pointed out that if a first century writer had been making up the story of the Resurrection he wouldn’t have women be the first to discover that the Tomb was empty. With all the prejudices of the time and the value placed on the witness of a woman who would take them seriously? Who would believe them? It’s not the way the world worked then. It’s not the way it works now.

Bishop Michael Curry, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States, reminds his people that the Easter story is not a fairy tale. Against all our efforts to be strong and keep control, the Resurrection is “the revelation of ultimate reality.” Let me use his words:

The truth is, the way the world very often operates is not working out. It’s not sustainable. It’s not the way to life. Jesus has shown us the way. He has shown us that unselfish, sacrificial love, love of God, and love of the other, is the way to life. That, my friends, is the ultimate reality. And that’s not a fairy tale.

When Jesus was executed, He was tried and convicted of crimes He never committed. He willingly gave His life. Not for Himself, but for others. And in so doing, He showed us what love looks like. That’s what we call the Way of the Cross. And that Way is the way of life and hope. And when He died, His closest followers feared that maybe the strong do survive. Maybe might does make right. And maybe we better look out for number one. ‘Cause maybe the world has won.

But three days later, something happened. Unexpected. Undreamed of. Unheralded. Three days later their world turned upside-down which is right-side up. God raised Him from the dead. And you could almost hear God thundering forth in that resurrection. Love, in the end, love wins! Love is the way! Trust me! Follow me! Believe in me! This resurrection is real! This is not a fairy tale!

This is a truth we need to lay hold of. We can start today with those women who went early to the tomb with no real sense of hope but would find their lives transformed.

Let’s make these words of Janet Morley our prayer:

When we are all despairing;

when the world is full of grief;

when we see no way ahead,

and hope has gone away:

Roll back the stone.

Although we fear change;

although we are not ready;

although we’d rather weep

and run away:

Roll back the stone.

Because we’re coming with the women;

because we hope where hope is vain;

because you call us from the grave

and show the way:

Roll back the stone.

Holy Week at St. Cuthbert's

At the right time…

One of the questions I have to answer for myself at this time of year is: “When do the clocks move forward for British Summer Time?” I’m afraid the answer is, “Early on the morning of the last Sunday of March.” For those who haven’t worked out just what that day is… it’s the morning of Easter Day, 27^th March.

Somewhere in my head I thought there had once been established a principle that the clocks were to be altered on the last Sunday of March except when that day was Easter Day. If that had been the case it is so no longer! So please make sure you get your clocks sorted out – so that together we can celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord at the right time.

It’s very inconvenient isn’t it? In fact all this having to work out when Easter is each year is very inconvenient. It’s almost as early as it can be this year – near the end of March. But it can be as late as the end of April and all dates in between. There are complaints that it messes up the length of school terms and works holidays as it shifts about year by year, the date determined by the appearance of a new moon in relation to the spring equinox. In the 1920s Parliament actually legislated to fix the date of Easter – until it was pointed out that the will of the House of Commons wouldn’t necessarily find ready acceptance from the rest of Christendom.

Now it’s been in the news that the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Pope and other church leaders are having another attempt at fixing what might seem to many a more sensible date – probably just to observe the second or third Sunday of April. I’d be surprised and rather sorry if they succeeded. The wandering date of Easter is a reminder of its relationship with the Jewish Feast of the Passover, another moon-fixed festival. And still more fundamentally it’s a reminder that beyond our attempts to fix everything to fit in with human “convenience” there might be a concept of God’s time.

Why did Jesus go to the Cross? By human reckoning it’s not the easiest way God could have worked out the world’s salvation. But “the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Corinthians 1.25). Not the way of power but of vulnerability. And “while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5.6). That’s where we find our hope. And if we complain about that lost hour as the clocks change this Easter, remember that it was “very early on the first day of the week” that the women went to the tomb to find that Jesus had risen. Let’s be renewed in that faith!       

Martin Jackson

From the March issue of our Parish Magazine - find it all by clicking here

Teach us to care and not to care…

These are words from T.S.Eliot’s poem, Ash Wednesday. In past year’s I’ve quite often found myself reading the poem on that day itself – and am never much the clearer for understanding what it is about! But poetry – rather like the parables of Jesus – is not really for explaining. When we try to explain things there’s always the danger that we’ll explain them away. Poetry – again like the parables – is to engage the imagination. At its best it takes us to places we hadn’t expected to go.

The approaching season of Lent is an opportunity to embark on a journey not knowing quite where it might lead us. Traditionally it’s the time we remember Jesus’ 40 days spent fasting in the desert. He does that straight after his Baptism and before he embarks on his public ministry of teaching, preaching and healing. Before we speak we should listen – Jesus knew that and it’s a lesson for us continually to re-learn. If we’re going to use Lent as a time to journey and listen, we have to recognise that we can’t pre-determine the outcome and final destination.

For which reason I’m glad that this year our Bishop of Durham is coming to our Deanery to give a series of Lent Talks. Bishop Paul is speaking on the subject of “Blessing” – how God blesses us, how we may bless God, what it means to share God’s blessing with the communities in which we live. For clergy it’s good not to have to think about a Lent Course and what might work in our parishes. We’re going to be on the receiving end. We want to be sitting alongside our parishioners as we listen and learn together. So please do make it a priority to come to the three Thursday sessions at Christ Church, Consett on 18 & 25 February and 3 March.

Perhaps we’ll do something else in the parish in the remaining weeks of Lent. But for now I want to think of it as a time not to plan, but in which to receive. Activism can make us all too restless – too full of care for our own good. As Eliot wrote in his poem:

And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain…

Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.

From the February issue - St. Cuthbert's Parish Magazine

Equal Marriage - and a Wedding at Cana

At weddings I frequently find myself saying to people that they won’t find much in the Bible about marriage – not a huge amount that might actually commend it as an institution anyway. Adam and Eve are described as man and wife; but there’s nothing to say that they entered into their relationship with the intention of marrying each other – they’re simply there for each other. Noah is the next character where we get some insights into his family life – but as a husband he falls short of many of the ideals we might hope for. Abraham conceives a child with a servant girl when his wife fails to give him a son, and when a legitimate heir is born he comes to the conclusion that it’s God’s will to get rid of both mother and child. Jacob, Abraham’s grandson, fathers his twelve children with two wives and two concubines. After that we get characters like Samson whose lack of regard for faithfulness in marriage is matched only by lack of regard for human life and his ruthlessness in dispatching anyone who gets in his way and incurs his enmity. Move on to kings like David and Solomon and you find them taking multiple wives and concubines and cheating whenever the chance arises.

So what do we make of this statement by the Primates of the Anglican Communion last week? – that “the traditional doctrine of the church in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds marriage as between a man and a woman in faithful, lifelong union.” Well… I agree that it’s the traditional doctrine of the Church. I want to say it resonates with me – I get a real thrill when I read out the Preface to the marriage service in these words:

Marriage is a gift of God in creation

through which husband and wife may know the grace of God.

It is given

that as man and woman grow together in love and trust,

they shall be united with one another in heart, body and mind,

as Christ is united with his bride, the Church.

But I have to say there’s a problem when the affirmation of a traditional doctrine gets used as a stick to beat a particular Province of the Anglican Communion – the Episcopal Church of the United States – because it’s seen as not toe-ing the line after having given its approval to so-called “Equal Marriage,” what most people would call same-sex marriage. I have to admit that the action of the Episcopal Church has made me uncomfortable. I want to go on taking weddings the way I always have. I love those words about “husband and wife” knowing the grace of God through marriage. But even as I say that, I have to say as well that the Bible shows us an awful lot of examples where marriage falls short of the ideal, where it’s far from a monogamous faithful relationship, where people use and abuse it. The only really clear teaching in the Bible on marriage as a life-long committed relationship between a man and a woman comes from Jesus – and even then the Disciples question who could measure up to that ideal, and St. Matthew’s Gospel straightaway qualifies Jesus’ words by allowing divorce on the grounds of adultery.

Jesus’ teaching was just too direct for most people. St. Paul would write about marriage breakdown and whether there were circumstances where a husband and a wife might separate. And while the Roman Catholic Church still struggles with the issue of how to use its annulment procedures, most people – most Christians – are simply pragmatic about marriage and divorce and re-marriage. What could be more Christian than to pray for people whose relationships have failed, welcome them and give them a second chance?

If that’s the case for a man and a woman – that they need mercy, forgiveness, healing and grace – then there is a real issue to attend to when it’s the case of two people of the same sex who wish to live together in a committed loving, faithful relationship. I’ve been reluctant to say that that should be described as the Sacrament of Marriage. But it’s an issue that isn’t going to go away. And we need to ask – why should our Anglican Communion use sanctions against one member Church for taking a different approach on the grounds of sexuality but fail to discipline other Provinces where Christians have been complicit in the persecution of minorities on the grounds of their sexuality or have permitted the continuance of polygamy amongst their members? How do any of us measure up to the teaching of Jesus… as opposed to the more general Scriptural evidence that marriage so often is about people relating to one another in the midst of failure – at their best trying to make something good out of very messy situations?

I haven’t got the answer to this – but I have a traditionalist heart and I take heart from today’s Gospel reading and from the way it is used in the Marriage Service…

The Book of Common Prayer (1662) speaks of matrimony as a “holy estate” which “Christ adorned and beautified with his presence, and first miracle that he wrought, in Cana of Galilee.” The Prayer Book preface is written in magnificent language, but I’m afraid that our use of the language has changed in the last 400-odd years: to speak today of Christ adorning and beautifying a wedding by being there runs the risk of making him into something of an ornament, or at best saying that he was there as something of a celebrity guest.

The Alternative Service Book which was in use between 1980 and 2000 tinkered with the words and probably made things worse: “Our Lord Jesus Christ was himself a guest at a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and through his Spirit he is with us now.” I have to say they strike me as being rather an apology, even rather lame. I wonder what the majority of wedding congregations make of them: “Jesus.. was himself a guest at a wedding in Cana of Galilee...” – “so what?” I suspect most people must think, if they think about the words at all. Some people go to lots of weddings, some to very few – so what if we know Jesus went to one?

Which is why I’m glad that we now have the Common Worship Marriage Service. Instead of starting off effectively saying “Jesus once went to a wedding, so there” the reference to Cana comes in a summing-up of the purposes of marriage: “Marriage is a way of life made holy by God, and blessed by the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ with those celebrating a wedding at Cana in Galilee.”

In a way this takes us back to what the BCP is saying, that marriage is a holy way of life, because it’s a human way of living that actively fits in with God’s purpose. And then it goes on to talk about the blessing of marriage. Jesus blessed it by being there, today’s service says, but the celebrating was already going on. Celebration is something that God calls us to do, and when we do it he adds to the blessing. Dramatically so at Cana. There the wedding guests had celebrated so much that the place was drunk dry; and the contribution of Jesus is to turn water into wine so that the celebrating can go on.

Jesus’ miracle of changing water into wine at the wedding feast in Cana is something to do with excess. The partying already seems to have been going on quite long enough, some might say. But then Jesus takes these big jars, orders them to be filled with water, and changes it into wine – at least 120 gallons, perhaps as much as 180 gallons. Excess follows upon excess, and the partying goes on.

Some commentators on this passage have debated whether we should believe the literal truth of the story. Isn’t it too big a miracle?, some have asked. But in fact, St. John’s Gospel doesn’t call it a miracle. Not a miracle but a sign, “the first of his signs,” says John, and by it Jesus “revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.”

We need to ask, “do we see the sign – and where it points us?” A sign of excess that points us to a God who loves us to excess, a God who comes in Jesus and enters into the midst of our human celebration. And he does so when people may not be expected to know any difference. The steward at the wedding-feast doesn’t know where the new wine has come from – he doesn’t know what Jesus has done, but he is amazed: “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk,” he exclaims. “But you have kept the good wine until now.” Jesus is there and at work, but people don’t even notice – some of them are too drunk to notice. And the sign is that the best is still to come.

It’s a lesson to us, when we fail to see the signs of God’s presence in our midst, when we complain about how hard life is, when we think that things used to be so much better and now can only get worse. There was Jesus in the midst of the throng, working quite unnoticed, and the best was still to come.

Jesus calls us to the Feast. He calls us to celebrate. He calls us to live out the richness of human life – and hopefully to perceive the signs of his presence, the varieties of his gifts which, St. Paul reminds us, are nevertheless gifts of the same Spirit. He calls us to work for his Kingdom and to recognise that the best is yet to come.

Christmas at St. Cuthbert's

Sunday 20^th December            

4^th SUNDAY OF ADVENT

10.30a.m. Sung Parish Eucharist

                   - an All-Age Service

Thursday 24^th December        

CHRISTMAS EVE

6.00p.m.    Carol Service with Christingle – join us for this lovely service with candlelight and Christmas bells.

11.30p.m. Midnight Mass of Christmas

Friday 25^th December    

CHRISTMAS DAY

9.30a.m.    Parish Eucharist with Carols

                   - a service for all ages.

Sunday 27^th December          

ST.JOHN THE EVANGELIST

10.30a.m. Sung Parish Eucharist

No further services until…

Sunday 3^rd January                 

EPIPHANY OF OUR LORD

10.30a.m. Sung Parish Eucharist

May the joy of the angels 

& the peace of the Christ Child

be God's gift to you this Christmas!