read was one of the items most in demand during the early panic buying associated with the Covid-19 crisis.

This basic commodity, in one form or another, has been a staple across all cultures throughout history and is rightly considered an important food. It was, and is, a food that many throughout the world simply rely on everyday in order to maintain life.

It features throughout the Bible, of course. According to Google it’s mentioned 492 times.

There was the manna from heaven, the miracles of the loaves and fishes, the Last Supper of course, and, not least, Jesus’ memorable declaration in Matt4:4.

Jesus famously refers to himself in John 6:35 as “the bread of life”. He is the Daily Bread referred to in the Lord’s Prayer in that he is available to us always, whenever we simply call on him, pray to him or read and study his Holy Word.

Richard McPhail

B 17th – 24th May 2020

COVID 19 In light of the government guidance the Church of England has suspended all services and the buildings are to remain closed for the foreseeable future.

This sheet includes our sermon for Sunday, by John Clegg. Please use it for your

own personal worship.

The sermon is also available (as video or audio file) on out youtube channel at:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyfZeMWItDiPU3ggBoLDLTw

This sheet is also available from our website at: www.christchurchchadderton.co.uk should you want to pass it on, virtually to any of your friends.

Other helpful links for while the church buildings are closed are: Bible App at https://www.youversion.com/the-bible-app/ : gives you tools to seek God’s heart daily: listen to audio Bibles, create Prayers, study with Friends, explore 2,000+ Bible versions, and much more

Online church: www.clayton.tv (for morning worship plus much more)

Daily Hope: 0800 804 8044. Free phone line offering hymns, prayers, and reflections 24 hours a day

Online Sunday services: From Christ Church Fulwood: fulwoodchurch.co.uk From Emmanuel (Loughborough): https://www.emmanuel-loughborough.org/ From St Clements, Openshaw: https://www.stclementschurchmanchester.org/

There is a short video link on the website by Rob Brewis that you can use with friends to possibly start evangelistic conversations. (Do take time to watch it first, before sending to your friends)

The Parish Office will be closed except for Wednesday mornings until further notice. If anyone is having difficulty due to the social distancing or self-isolation, please contact Cathy on 01706 849128 (in office hours) or one of our wardens (Dave 07931 500207 or Margaret 620 5115) and we will try to organise some help.

Regular giving Thank you to everyone who has been putting aside their giving envelopes since lockdown began. We have decided to try to get them in and counted, so if you are able please would you put them through the church office letterbox over the next few days. If you can’t get to the office please contact the office, preferably by email, and request a ‘pick up’ and we will do our best to get to you sometime soon. Thanks.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyfZeMWItDiPU3ggBoLDLTwhttp://www.christchurchchadderton.co.uk/https://www.youversion.com/the-bible-app/http://www.clayton.tv/http://fulwoodchurch.co.uk/https://www.emmanuel-loughborough.org/https://www.emmanuel-loughborough.org/https://www.stclementschurchmanchester.org/

We will collect in the Smartie tubes for Nekempte when we are back in the church buildings.

Parish Prayer Following on from the last parish prayer hour it has been suggested that we join together in prayer, although apart, each Thursday evening at 7.30pm. The suggestion is for us to use the pray hour outline supplied last time as our basis and that we make a point of stopping and praying together up to the “clap for carers” each week.

Anyone interested in joining together virtually for our prayer hour on 21st needs to let Margaret Parrett know, please do get in contact.

Keswick Convention This Summer, following the cancellation of the usual Keswick Convention due to the Covid-19 crisis, there will be an exciting, new five-day online event called Virtually Keswick Convention. While we can’t be in Keswick this year, we can meet together online.

The theme of Hope has been chosen as, at this time of great uncertainty and sadness, there is hope in Jesus Christ. A Christian is not a prisoner of the present moment. Even in the midst of struggle, hardship, suffering, pain, tears, we can, by the power of the Holy Spirit, know joy and peace from the God of hope.

The virtual Convention will run from Monday 27th to Friday 31st July. It will feature teaching, sung worship and seminars for adults, youth and children. All the sessions will be held online. More details of the programme will be published on the Keswick Ministries website in coming weeks. Please do take this opportunity to get involved; it opens the convention up to many who would normally be unable to attend.

Greater Manchester Bereavement Support Service Greater Manchester Bereavement Service can help to find support for anyone in Greater Manchester that has been bereaved or affected by a death. No one needs to feel alone as they deal with their grief. On this site at https://greater-manchester-bereavement-

service.org.uk/ you can find out about support in your area and nationally, as well as advice for practical issues that losing a loved one may bring. Or call us on 0161 983 0902 for help in finding the right support for you. Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm (except bank holidays) Wednesday, 9am to 8pm

https://greater-manchester-bereavement-service.org.uk/https://greater-manchester-bereavement-service.org.uk/

National Dying Matters Week: 13-19th May The week aims to bring awareness to members of the public about the importance of talking about death, dying and bereavement. Particularly poignant at this time of the pandemic. Tony and Dorothy Bonser are good friends of Kim Wrigley’s and do amazing voluntary work in this sector They visited Cake and Chat ladies last May, for Dying Matters Week. He has kindly written this reflection for us.

DYING TO BE HEARD

THOUGHTS FOR DYING MATTERS WEEK 2020

I remember Easter Sunday 2009 especially vividly. Just six weeks earlier, our son

Neil, had died 5 years after his first cancer diagnosis, but, as far as my wife Dorothy

and I were concerned, unexpectedly. We had not been able to face church for those

six weeks. In my case it was a mixture of being out of contact with a God who had

let Neil and us down, and a reluctance to cope with re-establishing relationships

with so many good friends. But that morning we both felt a powerful urge to go

back. It was communion, and as I knelt at the rail, for the first time, I felt a

commanding sense of being in the presence of an immensely powerful but

immensely caring force, around me and within me. For the first time ever I

understood the meaning of communion. Union with God. Completely sensing His

presence around and within me. I have experienced it once or twice since, always

with a feeling of wonder and amazement.

Dorothy and I both joined the National Society for Palliative Care and soon became

involved in Dying Matters, set up at the instigation of Dame Cicely Saunders to

promote speaking and planning about end of life care and planning for death. Their

annual Dying Matters Awareness Week aims to highlight in public the end of life as

a normal, indeed inevitable part of living. An early theme was “Talk, Plan, Live” and

we were soon devoting our time to helping people to open those delicate

conversations about what really matters to people at the end of their lives.

For me, as a Methodist Local Preacher, it was also the start of a spiritual journey to

try to make sense of my relationship with a God who had apparently let Neil and

our family down, but whom I experienced as being intensely loving and caring. It

started from that experience at the altar on that Easter Sunday morning. I

remembered Gerard Manley Hopkins’ words, “Christ plays in ten thousand places,

lovely in limb and lovely in eyes not his, to the Father, through the features of men’s

faces.” I started to realise, as Bev Jones, Methodist Mission and Ministry co-

ordinator says in “Bound by the Spirit,” His presence is in us wherever we are, and

wherever we go. (A special message for these times when our churches are closed.)

We don’t need to look outside, or through other people, for a God to intervene and

put everything right. He’s right there with us, always.

This year’s theme for Dying Matters Week is “Dying to be heard.” I’m very aware

that so many people around us want, need to be heard, especially now that we so

often can’t visit in person. I have an increasing list of people who want to talk

through the internet to me, or with whom I want to share so many things.

Especially, though, over the last decade I’ve realised I don’t always need to set aside

special times or places to talk to God. I can listen and respond to Him anywhere,

any time.

As the hymn says, “So shall no part of day or night from sacredness be free, and all

my life, in every step, be fellowship with Thee.”

Total communion

Tony Bonser

Vice-chair of Trustees, St Catherine’s Hospice, Preston

Dying Matters website can be found at: https://www.dyingmatters.org/

https://www.dyingmatters.org/

Patched Up, Signed Up

(Propping up a tottering wall!)

Grace mercy and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

Bible reading: Nehemiah 9.38 – 10.28

Welcome back to the mid-fifth century BC and to the continuing saga of Ezra-Nehemiah.

This week we have reached Nehemiah 10 and the pledge to which the Jewish leaders and people signed up, to keep the Law of Moses and to be faithful to God. This was their response to the reading of the Law by Ezra (Neh. 8:18) and their recognition that they, just like their predecessors, had failed to keep it.

Now (9:38 [10:1 MT]) they drew up this written, sealed pledge to change their ways (10:28-end). In effect, they were renewing their commitment to the old covenant, as delivered by Moses: the old covenant which their ancestors had failed to keep, which they had failed to keep, and which they would again fail to keep, as Nehemiah himself discovered when he made a later visit (Nehemiah 13*)!

[*Assuming some sort of chronological order: Ezra-Nehemiah is notoriously difficult to unravel as chapters often contain material from completely different decades.

More scrapbook than orderly account!]

For now (10:29), they thought that they had fixed the problem... Some hope!

In those dim distant days before the Covid-19 lock-down, I was watching a report by a BBC Science Correspondent who was visiting a research station in Antarctica. The scientists were drilling down through the ice to study how the ice-sheet was melting in contact with the water below. They hoped to learn more about the effects of global warming on the environment.

What caught my interest, however, was what was standing on the ice airstrip: it appeared to be a Douglas DC3 Dakota!

The DC3 (or C47, its US designation) is one of the most famous aircraft ever to fly, having been developed from the 1930s DC2 passenger 'plane. It became the legendary aerial workhorse of WW2, being used to transport supplies, materials and personnel; it was used for air-drops, as a launchpad

for paratroops and for towing gliders. Look at footage of D-Day or the disastrous Arnhem offensive and you will see the skies full of Dakotas. They were 'go anywhere, do anything', just like the land-based Jeeps, and the crews loved them. They could suffer quite a bit of damage, yet still be patched up and returned to active service. They went on to be used extensively during the Korean War and in Vietnam where they were employed less honourably as aerial gunships. Surplus DC3s were snapped up after the war by national airlines to restart their flights and by those with an eye for business and for a quick profit who established new companies. Many remained flying well into the twenty-first century.

But to see one in Antarctica? In late 2019?

And still in regular use?

I had to investigate! And lo and behold! When I looked up 'aircraft operating in Antarctica', there was the familiar outline of the DC3... Except that it wasn't! Not according to the report. It was a 'Basler'. So I looked up 'Basler' and was duly informed that it was a re-engineered DC3!

What happens, apparently, is that an original aircraft is stripped down and its main structure is thoroughly examined and tested and renewed where necessary. All joints, bolts, rivets and links are replaced, as are the electrical systems, avionics, radar and so on. As it is re-assembled, an extra section is added to the fuselage to provide more capacity and new leading edges are fitted to the wings to improve handling. New turboprop engines replace the wartime radials and what emerges is in effect a new aircraft, even though about 60% is still WW2-vintage DC3! It looks the same (more or less!), but yet is different, completely renewed. Very different from a patched up, battled-scarred 75-year old wartime veteran.

In Nehemiah 10, the people are trying to patch up a covenant scarred by their failure to keep it! What is really required is a renewed, 're-engineered' covenant.

It is possible, of course, to patch up, to support, repair old structures and make them serviceable for a few more years.

On the road from Littleborough to Todmorden, as you pass through Walsden, look out for a large former chapel on the left as you go down towards the station. Immediately next to the chapel is a terrace of tall houses

which lean back precariously at the top. They give the leaning tower of Pisa a run for its money! Yet there are no signs of reinforcement or external support. Presumably they have settled on their foundations and are deemed safe to live in. I'd love to see how they look inside.

Other old buildings show more obvious signs of support: as a small child growing up in post-war Canterbury, I was fascinated by the crosses and disks which adorned the walls of some Georgian buildings which had survived the Blitz and the council's wanton bulldozers. They were the end-pieces of tie-bars which ran through the building to hold bulging walls together and to prevent collapse. You can see some around here, especially on old warehouses and farm buildings.

Other structures are propped up or supported: if you look at the great railway viaduct at Dinting near Glossop you may notice that there are two distinct sets of piers. The original wooden deck was not strong enough for heavier trains and a new metal platform was installed, together with the additional piers to provide extra strength.

Or the wonderful Marple Aqueduct which carries the Peak Forest Canal over the Goyt Valley: this was recently reinforced with metal braces which, for some reason, have been painted an ugly black!

Running repairs, strengthening, patching up, ensuring it was usable, habitable for a bit longer. That's what the people were signing up to do in their commitment to keep the Law of Moses.

Rebuilding of the Temple had begun rather earlier with those who returned from exile with Zerubbabel (Ezra 3), although some of those who had seen the former Temple were sad because it was not a patch on the one that had been destroyed. Nevertheless, it was a start. When Ezra and Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem, however, they found a sorry state of affairs: a city and a Temple In need of repair and support; a people who needed to be cleaned up and sorted out.

They set about their task with a will.

Nehemiah found the walls falling down and houses on the point of collapse. After conducting a survey, he organized groups and families to undertake the work of repairing, patching up and rebuilding, to make the city habitable again, so that it could be re-peopled with those who had settled in the land. They made the place fit to live in for another 400 years or so, and there was a Temple, the Second Temple, in which worship and ritual could take place.

Yet it is one thing to rebuild a city, to replace a Temple. It is quite another matter to reform what goes on in that city, what goes on in the Temple.

On Channel 5 there is what sounds like a ghastly so-called 'reality' TV programme (the sort which seems to be an excuse for the viewer to sneer at the mess other people make of their life) called Filthy House SOS. The 'blurb' says that a team goes in to clear out and to clean up the house of someone who is living in cluttered squalor. [Surely they'd be better employed supporting the occupants to keep the house clean themselves.]

Be that as it may, what Ezra and Nehemiah were effectively engaged upon was a 'Filthy House SOS' mission: seeking to clean up what was going on among the people; to clean up what was going on in the city; to clean up what was going on in the Temple.

What they found was that the returning exiles who were supposed to be re-establishing God's nation in the land and city and Temple were largely ignoring the Law and the call to be God's people: They were marrying wives of other cultures, bringing alien practices into

their homes (Ezra 9, 10). Some were exploiting their poor neighbours by lending money at high

interest (usury!) and even making fellow Jews their slaves (Neh. 5). They were neglecting the Sabbath by dealing with foreign traders who

came into the city (10:31), and ignoring the Sabbath year when debts were to be remitted and the land allowed to rest.

NB: Just because these things were written in the Law, we assume that they, like the Jubilee, were kept: they weren't! - As one commentary points out, one of the reasons given for 70 years of exile was that the Land could receive all the Sabbath years it had missed: 70 times 7 = 490 years! (2 Chron. 36:21)

Similarly the great pilgrim feasts such as Passover, Weeks and Tabernacles were more often ignored than kept: King Hezekiah had been the first to keep Passover since the time of Samuel, and even Hezekiah didn't keep it properly (2 Chron. 30); that was left to Josiah (2 Chron. 35:18).

So it was that Ezra insisted on reading the Law and the people undertook, with this pledge, this commitment, to keep the Law of Moses once again.

Or, at least, a version of the Law! Because close scrutiny of Nehemiah 10:30-39 reveals that not everything they signed up to do was exactly as the Law required: some was interpretation, trying to apply the Law to the situation they faced:

Whilst the Law warned against marrying foreign wives, it did not say what to do if people did! Both Ezra and Nehemiah demanded that foreign wives should be sent away (Ezra 9, 10; Neh. 13).

The Law made no mention of buying on the Sabbath, because it was written for those who were supposed to observe Sabbath. Now, there were foreign traders who were not subject to Sabbath and the people were required to stop trading with them (10:10:31a).

The Law required half a shekel for the upkeep of the sanctuary (Exod. 30:11-16; cf Mt. 17:24): the settlers were asked only for a third (10:32), probably because of their widespread poverty.

No doubt for the same reason, the tithing of cattle was quietly omitted, although the offering of the firstborn cattle was included (10:36).

That said, the people, men and women, nobles, leaders and other officers, all those who could understand, signed up, under oath and under threat of curse, to this commitment, this pledge to keep the Law and the terms which are spelled out in Nehemiah 10:30-39. In effect, they were re-signing their commitment to the old covenant. And if Nehemiah 13 is to be dated later to than this chapter, they had broken and forgotten this very pledge in a matter of a few years!

For the moment, however, they signed up, thereby patching up the old structures of the Law for a few more years, rather like propping up a crumbling building or supporting a sagging bridge. That was how matters stood for the next 400 years or so, until about the time of Jesus, by which time the whole edifice was showing signs of imminent collapse. This was what John the Baptist warned about as he took those who would listen back to the Jordan opposite Jericho, where Israel had first entered the Promised Land, and declared that it was no longer possible to make do and mend the old ways. They had to make a completely new start as God's people by undergoing a baptism of repentance.

What did Jesus himself find? When he came to the Temple, no longer the modest Second Temple that Ezra and Nehemiah knew, but Herod's grandiose reconstruction which had already been in progress for some forty years and would scarcely be finished before the Romans destroyed it in AD 70, what did he do? Far from admiring it, he declared it a den of thieves, a marketplace! (Mt. 21/Mk. 11/Lk. 19/Jn. 2) And sweeping it clean [another 'Filthy House SOS'?], he effectively shut it down. When challenged, he said that if the Temple were destroyed, he would rebuild it again in three days. And John adds, 'He was talking about his own body'. (Jn. 2:21)

What did Jesus notice about the keeping of Sabbath in his day? Far from being a day of rest and worship, it had become an unholy burden, a grinding chore. Being challenged after daring to heal on the Sabbath, Jesus was bold to say that 'The Father is working still, and I am working!' (Jn. 5:17) Jesus thereby redefined Sabbath to show what and how it ought to be: a day for experiencing a foretaste of Paradise in the presence of the Creator who rested on the seventh day, in his new creation. In his ministry, Jesus was inaugurating this new Sabbath, the new creation. But for now, his message remained unheard.

Do you remember that parable that Jesus told about the unclean spirit which was cast out of a man and which wandered around in desert places, only to discover that the 'house' from which he had driven out had been swept clean and left tidy? (Lk. 11:24-26)

Ezra and Nehemiah had done a good job in cleaning out the mess and the rubbish and putting the city and Temple and nation back in some sort of order. But was that enough?

How did that parable of Jesus continue? Seeing that the house was clean and tidy, the spirit went and found seven other spirits worse than himself and they occupied the house, so that the last state was worse than the first.

Jesus had swept out the Temple, but that had not been enough. The Temple building had to be demolished stone by stone (which it was!) and completely rebuilt on a new and firm foundation. Jesus declared that he was the stone which the builders had rejected and which would become the key cornerstone of the new (living) Temple.

What the city, the Temple and the nation really required, in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, just as in the time of Jesus, was not a bit of patching up and sweeping out to make them fit for a few more years.

They needed reconstruction: to be taken apart, tested and examined, renewed, rebuilt, 'reengineered' if you like just as the Dakotas in Antarctica have been re-engineered as Baslers, the same but different, better, so that they would be fit for a new age, a new creation. Props, supports, a bit of plastering here and there, tie-bars through the walls, will keep a building upright for a while, but there will come a time when the crumbling foundation has to be dealt with. The Law had done its work, but now it was tired and time-expired as the people repeatedly failed to keep it.

In Nehemiah 10, they put their names once again to the old covenant...

..Which they would again break.

What was needed would be the new covenant foreseen by Jeremiah and Ezekiel: Law not imposed from outside but written on the heart (Jer. 31:31-34); not a heart of stone, but a heart of flesh with the Spirit given to enable them to walk in God's ways (Ezek. 36:24-27).

In so many ways, Jesus redefined what was meant by Temple, City, Sabbath, People, Law (cf N. T. Wright: History and Eschatology – 2019): the little parable about the Wise Man and the Foolish Man (Mt. 7:24-27) is so familiar that we may miss the point Jesus is making. It is HE who is the only secure foundation for a renewed Temple, City, Sabbath, People and Law: the secure foundation for the House of God.

Ezra and Nehemiah encouraged their contemporaries to sign up again for the old covenant and it sufficed perhaps for a little while. But it could not struggle on much longer.

Jesus, risen, summons us to find in him the one who makes all things new. And like the risen Jesus himself, we discover that the New Covenant, alongside the Old, appears the same, yet is radically different, re-engineered:

Fit for the new creation!

And to make US fit to be part of that new creation

Prayers Take time to pray for our world, our country & leaders, our church and community.

Please remember:

the frontline NHS and care staff in care homes etc

Key workers including supermarket workers, delivery drivers, food manufacturers, school teachers and public transport providers

our Muslim friends as they celebrate Ramadan.

You may end each time with: Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

Prayer requests: Wendy (Heather’s sister, now home & recovering) Baby Arlo & family – now only receiving palliative care; please pray for comfort, strength & support for the family. Rob Brewis Sienna Grace (for continued improvement) Esmee (Derek & Audrey Newton’s granddaughter) as she faces invasive surgery whilst intensive care beds are in short supply Ashleigh

Tina Doreen Green Shirley Anderson (cancer) Linda Mushiko: for protection for her and her family as she works with COVID19 patients at the Royal Oldham Hospital Sylvia & Elsie Harrop in Bickerton Court: for strength to keep going Michelle, Greg & Ripley (Alison & Graham Beswick’s daughter and family) Struggling with self-isolating due to health condition and 20 month old who simply doesn’t understand. For strength and for God to uplift them at this time Mildred West (recovery after recent operation) Edith West

The Lord’s prayer Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and for ever. Amen. The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord; and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be upon us and remain with us always. Amen.

Christ Church and St Saviour’s Parish office: 624 2326

Emails: office@christchurchchadderton.co.uk Website: www.christchurchchadderton.co.uk

http://www.christchurchchadderton.co.uk/