Faith Goes Walkabout

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Lent Course, A Journey to the Holy Land

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On March 16, 2019

In Faith goes walkabout, Lent, pilgrimage, theological

 

As part of our discovery about our own journeys we are looking at parts of the Holy Land; Galilee, Nazareth, Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

Sacred places, walking in the footsteps of Jesus, 2000 years on in our own time with changes and challenges but still a deep sense of God’s presence.

The Holy Land is the place in which Jesus grew up and carried out his ministry. It is an area about the size of Wales, although it has many different parts.

Physically it is set on the edge, the edge of the Mediterranean and Europe, the edge of The Middle East and Africa.

The valley of the River Jordan is a rift valley and is the deepest valley in the world. It develops from the Sea of Galilee and continues to the Dead Sea. Further south it reaches the Red Sea.

It is featured many time in the Old and New Testament. It continues to this day to be a place of friction and war.

Read more at Lent Course 2019 as the journey evolves over four weeks in Lent

Rev’d Sue Martin

Happy Christmas

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On December 26, 2018

In Christmas, church seasons, community, Faith goes walkabout

And all the bells on earth shall ring

On Christmas Day

On Christmas Day

And all the bells on earth shall ring on Christmas Day

In the Morning

Happy Christmas to All

Rev’d Sue Martin

 

Remembrance 2018 – 100 Years

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On November 16, 2018

In community, Faith goes walkabout, Remebrance

Poppies made by the Girl Guides,Gayton

One hundred years ago the Armistice was signed between the Allies of World War 1 and the German Empire. The cessation of hostilities took effect at 11.00 am on 11th November 1918.

This year marks the centenary and Remembrance Day is commemorated across the UK.

In our Benefice on Norfolk, we held two main services with packed churches and two minutes silence at 11.00am. Even the traffic stopped on the road for us this year. In the evening  two large bonfires were held and again huge numbers of people gathered to watch and the church bells rang out at 6.50pm to join in across the UK.

This was followed by singing the old songs and enjoying a glass of wine and some cakes and listening to stores of people from our village who went to war and never returned.

The first verse of the poem by Rupert Brooke, written in 1914, is a reminder of that time and the young men who gave their lives in the trenches in France and Belgium.

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there’s some corner of a foreign field

That is forever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,

A body of England’s breathing English air,

Washed by rivers, blest by suns of home.

 

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt if friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Rupert Brooke 1914

Rev’d Sue Martin

The Bread of Life

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On August 8, 2018

In church seasons, Faith goes walkabout, Sermons, theological, Trinity

 

What does it mean I am the bread of life?  John 6:24-35

Jesus had left the disciples behind for a while and they had found him on the other side of the lake, Lake Galilee is very large so it would have taken some time to have found him.

You know those times when you just fancy a few minutes on your own to have a coffee or to have time with your thoughts, and then someone comes along and finds you.

And then what do they do, they invariably ask you a question.

The disciples did the same with Jesus, “When did you come here?”

Jesus had just performed the miracle of making the five loaves and two fishes  feed a crowd of five thousand.

Presumably he had slipped away when the disciples were busy handing out the food, everyone was hungry.

Jesus doesn’t answer directly to the question from the disciples, that was not the important question. The answer that Jesus gave was about bread, but not just the bread that we eat with fish, but about the bread of life…

Read more on Sermons 2017-2018

Rev’d Sue Martin

Happy Easter

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On April 3, 2018

In Easter

What is Easter all about? Why do we have so much chocolate?

 CBBC explains the history of Easter, eggs and chocolate. 

 A weekend of wet weather in the UK could certainly turn us all into eating chocolate.

But the real Easter message is about Jesus, risen from the dead, alive and with us, here, now and forever.

The cross that we wear and the cross that he bore gives us the light to walk out into the world and proclaim him Lord, It takes away the power of darkness, it takes away the things that we do wrong and leads us in to an eternal life.

It is a love proclaimed, God who sent his only Son to be with us to show his love for all his people.

We are  lucky indeed

Rev’d Sue Martin

Joy to the World

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On February 17, 2018

In Lent, Papua New Guinea

From Papua New Guinea to England, there is joy in every place. Sometimes we just do not see it!

At a community school, where all the staff are volunteers and life is quite hard, the chair of governors welcomes our pilgrimage from Diocese of Norwich in 2015, with joy and happiness in her smile.

Sometimes we just do not recognise the happiness and joy in our lives. So let’s go out there and spread the joy!

The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.

Psalm 24, verse 1

Bishop’s Lent Appeal, Norwich Diocese is to Simbai in Papua New Guinea

Rev’d Sue Martin

Joy in Lent

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On February 14, 2018

In Faith goes walkabout, Lent, Uncategorized

Kalpana, brothers and sisters in the Himalayas. We support them.

Lent is a time for reflection and for giving things up. But why can’t it also be a time for joy!

This year as part of a Lent Reflection I will be posting about joy.

 

Joy can be seen all around us, it is infectious and children share it very easily.

But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy. It is for all the people“.  Luke 2, verse 10.

What better news could there be.

Joy, happiness and blessings in abundance.

Rev’d Sue Martin

 

 

 

 

 

 

Epiphany

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On January 7, 2018

In Epiphany, theological

The Visit of the Magi

To show or to make known, to be made manifest, the meaning of Epiphany.

It is also a revelation or an ‘epiphany’, when all becomes clear.

In church it is marked by the colours of gold and white and is best known for the visit of the three wise men to the stable on the twelfth day of Christmas.

An interesting fact is that, around January 6, the symbol +C+B+M+ with two numbers before and two numbers after (for example, 20+C+B+M+12) is sometimes seen written in chalk above the doorway of Christian homes. The letters are the initials of the traditional names of the Three Magi: Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. These letters also abbreviate the Latin phrase Christus mansionem benedicat, “May Christ bless the house.” The beginning and ending numbers are the year, 2012 in the example above. The crosses represent Christ.

Read more in Epiphany,Faith goes Walkabout

 Rev’d Sue Martin

Rocky ground, thorns and good soil

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On July 15, 2017

In Faith goes walkabout, Sermons, Trinity, Uncategorized

The Parable of the Sower – Rocky ground, thorns and good soil. We all have time with rocky ground, thorns and good soil.

I would like to tell you about my garden.

Living in a new house for nearly a year now, and builders are great but they are not gardeners! The garden is, well let’s say it’s getting there!

On visits and walks in this village and other villages I see gardens of all sorts.

I have a little categorisation going on in my mind about gardens:

There are those where everything seems to remain in neat and tidy order all the time. How does that work? I’m never really sure how that can happen?

And then there are gardens where disorder has taken over completely, it could be in design, or not sure how to make a garden, or that life has become hard and the long worked over garden has just got out of control.

And then there are  gardens where plants are purchased from the garden centre at least twice a year and order is restored, or the gardens where shrubs and everlasting plants are intertwined with gravel paths and maintenance is very low, but the effect is okay, nothing needed to be done.

And finally the garden where children’s games and toys are everywhere, plants are battling with the  Buzz Light Year toy in the shrubs or tennis balls and footballs long ago punctured scattered across the garden. A grass lawn is usually there too, but with patches and areas where too many ball games have even worn down the grass.

The Parable of the Sower is a bit like modern day gardens. Jesus tells the story of how and where God can find his word present and alive. Jesus used parables as a way to explain the unexplainable, to give a picture in people’s minds of how God can be alive in everyone and how sometimes we are all a little deaf to His voice.

Read more in Sermons 2017

Rev’d Sue Martin

PS The swing is very important for daily reflection… and for looking over the hedge!

Mary Magdalene and the women by the cross

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On April 22, 2017

In Faith goes walkabout

Mary Magdalene from Aeon Byte The God AboveMary Magdalene is of high importance in the story of Jesus, not just for the role she played as one of the women by the cross , but throughout all the gospels she appears and is seen with Jesus and the disciples.

This week, after reading the Easter story again and again, I have been wondering even more about Mary Magdalene, who she was, what did she do and do we have a good image and picture of her?

I came across a very interesting website, The Junia Project,with a recent blog, called The Women Who Stood by the Cross, by Gail Wallace. The words below are taken from the blog, which makes excellent reading;

“Some women were watching from a distance, including Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and Salome. When Jesus was in Galilee, these women had followed and supported him, along with many other women who had come to Jerusalem with him.” (Mark 15:40-41)

We know from all four gospel writers that a number of women were present at the crucifixion and death of Jesus, and that some of those women were also at the burial and the empty tomb. Who are these women who stood near the cross, and what can we learn from their example of discipleship?”

It has long been argued that Mary Magdalene is wrongly portrayed and the emphasis has been on her femininity, rather than in her devotion and support of Jesus in his teaching and throughout his life.

There is a recorded Gospel of St Mary, which was found in Egypt in  1896, and was not included in the canon.

It is widely though that Mary went to France after the crucifixion and from the book Mary Magdalene by Esther de Boer it concludes that many of her relics are at the Benedctine Abbey in Vezeley, France.

Mary Magdalene remains for me a central character, disciple and apostle of Jesus. Worthy of spending some time in research to look at her role from a woman living in Magdala on the shores of the Sea of Galilee to follower of Christ.

Rev’d Sue Martin

 

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