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“The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and all who live on it.” Psalm 24:1

As the techbros vie for lunar dominance and contemplate life on Mars, the earth bakes in record temperatures, the seas rise, the heat raises more and more aggression in the middle east and Africa, using oil as a bargaining chip, even as they blow up refineries, sending toxic rain from Ukraine to Vladivostok, from Tehran to Beirut and Abu Dhabi. Betting on the markets as the world burns. On the one hand, the earth seems to be a discarded plaything that we’re a little bored of. We kick it around and leave it abandoned at the bottom of the toy chest or behind the sofa. Tech has new things to play with – data centres blossom on our already polluted river banks, swans give way, only one cygnet this year? The water notches up another few degrees, as the industrial needs of AI and data take precedence over the beauty of creation. Soon, we’ll play in parks on Lunar City, go on holidays to Mars-a-lago. Who cares if we leave the blue planet black and brown?

The psalmist (King David perhaps) had a different focus when he wrote the lines at the top of this reflection three thousand years ago. It was a declaration that the earth is so special because God the creator cares for it, causes it to flourish, it is his garden, his paradisium. It’s an attitude to the world which we could learn a lot from. An attitude which calls us to cherish the earth, to care for the earth, to slow down and see the wonder of what God has created. The other day we were out gardening and a green beetle about the size of a 50p landed on my wife. It was iridescent, green-golden, with white flames down its back – a rose chafer. We wondered at it. Took pictures. Slowed our lives down for a moment. Gazed in awe. And when we eventually put it safely on the plant pot near us it scurried down into the soil to hide itself from us.

In the busyness of modern life, with all the pressures on so many of us, perhaps we can try to slow down for five minutes a day and reflect on the world around us. Its beauty, its resilience, its bounty. Perhaps as a reflection of our own needs to know how beautiful we are in God’s eyes, to know how much resilience he has built into our hearts and the potential for the world to meet our own needs. Since the techbros’ lunar mansions won’t have room for all of us, perhaps we could choose a better path: to re-make the world as a paradise for those of us who live here today. To make it a better place for our children to inhabit into the future…

“The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and all who live on it.” Psalm 24:1

Pete Phillips,

Minister at High St and St Mark’s Crescent Methodist Churches

High St is a thoroughly modern Methodist Church. Well, perhaps that’s overdoing it.

In our mission statement we call ourselves a “caring Christian community in the heart of Maidenhead”. We manage one of the loveliest buildings in Maidenhead – a 19^th Century chapel with a high roof, balcony and stained-glass windows. We have a suite of premises with rooms where we host meals for the elderly, the warm space drop-in, junior church, meetings for those with various conditions to come together for love and support.

Each Sunday we hold worship services for all ages and all types of people – from Breakfast Church to Early Morning Communion, from All Age Worship to a Praise Service celebrating with contemporary worship, preaching and prayer. We have a choir leading anthems, and huge celebrations at Christmas and Easter to celebrate major festivals.

We meet in small groups to share together. We bake cakes and have meals. We enjoy one another’s company in the Bromley Room at the heart of the Church buildings every Sunday after service. We support one another and our wider community through a system of pastoral visitors and groups.

We hold baptisms, weddings and, sadly, funerals.

We seek to bring the love and care of God to our community. We seek to represent God’s love in all we do and to spread the hope and joy and challenge that Jesus proclaimed through his life and death.

Why not come along, you’d be more than welcome!

Pete
Minister, High St Methodist Church

Christmas is here again! But we might be thinking, “Who can afford another Christmas?”. Presents and food, events to enjoy. And sometimes credit card bills getting higher and higher. I mean, the telly is always telling us that Christmas is best if we splash the cash! Is that true?

The first Christmas happened in a small village in distant enclave of the Roman Empire. A place that had history but not much to speak of itself when the first Christmas happened. Somewhere living on its past glory. A couple make their way there on a donkey of all things. Imagine that poor woman, the baby almost due – a donkey!!! They find a space to sleep in someone’s spare room, where animals were usually kept.
No presents except the cry of a new born baby. No food except what the relatives and neighbours could share. Shepherds banging at the door late at night. The sky riven with lights, strange songs like the angels singing and a star bright up in the midnight sky. A saviour born for us all.

This Christmas we look forward at High St to celebrating Christmas! We will have time to celebrate lots of good times with different members of the congregation – lunches together, the Christmas Fair, special services with Carols and laughter:

• 7th Dec 2.30pm – Messy Christmas – live animals, crafts, worship, St Mark’s Methodist Church
• 21st Dec 10.30am – Scratch Nativity Service
• 21st Dec 6.00pm – Gathered – A Carol Service for all
• 24th Dec 11.30pm – Midnight Communion Service, St Mark’s Methodist Church
• 25th Dec 10.30am – Christmas Day Celebration at High St and St Marks Methodist Churches
  You’re welcome at each and every one. It’s free. There may be food. There will certainly be a warm welcome.

Christmas is a time to connect – with the past with the present, with friends and family, with each other. Come and join us and make the party even more special.

Season’s Greetings to you all,
Pete Phillips
^{(minister at High St Methodist Church)}

I went to hospital the other day for a procedure. They were going to inject some steroids into my neck. While there, one of the nurses heard that I was a minister and asked me whether I hear the trumpets. On the surface that seemed a rather strange question to ask. But I understood the question to be about the end of times.

In both Jewish and Christian prophecies of the end of days, we are told that there will be trumpets. Judaism has a Feast of the Trumpets linked to the turning of the year festival (Rosh Hashanah) when the shofar is blown. In Christianity, 1 Corinthians 15:52 talks of the trumpet which will raise the dead and signal the transformation of those still alive to their spiritual bodies. In Revelation 8.2, there are the seven angels blowing their trumpets.

So, when the nurse asked me if I heard the trumpets, I knew exactly what they were asking. Did I think this was the end of days? Well, there are wars a-plenty, and rumours of wars (Matthew 24:6). Alongside, we might see famines and earthquakes as well as seeing the arrival of false prophets and the decline of the church…but all this is just the beginning and we’re a long way from the day of the Lord in Matthew’s
retelling.

The day of the Lord is a time for us to reach out to Jesus. A time to reflect on our own lives and on his love for all. A day to stick close to faith and to our Saviour. Matthew 24:32 gives us a warning “from the fig tree”. On the one hand, this is a simple image that when you see the leaves budding on the fig tree you know summer is at hand. Therefore, when we see global disturbances, you might think the end of days is at hand. The response though is not to start panicking, the response is to draw closer to God who can protect us through the storm, who loves us and shelters us (Psalm 23, among many others). A God who cares for the sheep who is lost and not just those running about in panic.

I think I can hear trumpets. The trumpet call of God calling us to witness to Jesus. The trumpet call of the messiah calling for all to be saved. The trumpet call of justice seeking to save the lost. And if, in his mercy, God brings about the day of the Lord, then my hunch is that’s something to be welcomed not feared, in any case.

Pete Phillips
Minister, High Street Methodist Church

It is perhaps an understatement that we live in “interesting” times. Of course, we’re told that is an old Chinese curse – it’s not – it’s just a slighter older English term. But you get the meaning. So much is happening. Times are changing. Global politics are shifting rapidly. But, at the same time, you might notice how the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and those at the bottom are getting trodden on by everybody. I know a few people who have closed down their social media accounts – too horrified to read the latest take from America or turned off the news appalled by the state of our own politics. We can easily shift inwards, into solitary confinement in “interesting times”.

But the Christian year has now shifted into Lent as it has every year for around the last two thousand years. A time to reflect on Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, a time to fast in fellowship with him as we prepare for the Feast of Easter. A time to reflect with less stuff around us. Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Tuesday, ‘Mardi Gras’ was about eating up all the fat in the larder – eating up the rich provisions to prepare us for the fast. A time of reflection, as Jesus showed us, to think about ourselves, our own resources, our reflections on God and power. The Bible tells the story in Matthew 4:1-11. At the end of the forty days, Satan took Jesus to the top of the highest point of Herod’s Temple in Jerusalem and showed him all the kingdom’s of the world – “worship me and you can have all of this”. Jesus turned him down: “Scripture says, ‘Worship the Lord your God, he is the only one you should serve.’”
It’s an interesting take on politics. Don’t crave power and wealth that the world offers but turn instead to the God who loves you.

The temptation in the desert is the prelude to Jesus’ ministry. He left the desert and began preaching a message of hope and equality to the people of Israel/Palestine living in territory occupied by the largest superpower in their world, Rome. He taught in the Beatitudes to love our neighbours, that humility was supreme, that those who hunger and thirst for what’s right, would gain their reward. A message of challenge to the powerful in terms of armed might, finance and land. In the end, Jesus was crucified on a cross for his challenge to the Roman powers. Christians believe three days later he rose again.

On Good Friday (April 18^th), the local churches will hold a march through along High St, pausing to pray and sing at a number of places along the route. We’ll gather outside High St Methodist Church to sing praises to God before going inside where those marching (and anyone else) will be invited to pray for Maidenhead, for our council, for our leaders, for the poor and unwell, for the elderly, for those new to our town, for the peace of the Lord over our community. Please join us to end our fast and celebrate all the God can do to bring us to less interesting times.

Peter Phillips

Minister, High St Methodist Church and St Marks Crescent Methodist
Church

John Betjeman’s famous Christmas poem begins with advent and describes well our
own experiences today – indeed doesn’t that last line sound like a couple of places
perhaps up near Cookham (actually they are colours of water paints!).

The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.

The preparations for Christmas are well under way with lights blazing in the streets,
shopping trips being made, mince pies on sale since August! Those poor people in
their vans delivering our online shopping must be worn out…and I wonder whether
all the cable-related roadworks will be finished in time? Of course, daily life goes on.
Amidst all the preparations, those of us who are in a job still have to work, those
retired must play golf (???), those who are poorly must fill in their e-consults, and the
kids have the nativity plays to rehearse!

But advent, the time to prepare for Christmas, hopefully also gives us time to
contemplate the meaning of the season. Many, by the sounds of the fireworks, have
already celebrated Diwali which reminds us of the triumph of light over the darkness,
the bringing in of the harvest and divine gifts to us as mortals. But Christmas isn’t
just about plenty of wonderful food, piles of presents and a few days off work.
Christmas is when Christians celebrate the birthday of Jesus – a man revered
across different religious traditions, a man who fought for the rights of the outside, of
the poor, of the meek. A man who challenged the authorities and wandered the
length and breadth of what we might call today Israel/Palestine with his group of
friends. A man who would show how much he loved us by dying on a cross on Good
Friday and rise again on Easter Day.

One of the amazing things about Jesus was how often he spent time with people
around the meal table. His enemies called him, rather unfairly, a glutton and a
drunkard (Matthew 1:19). He didn’t just have meals with his friends, but also with tax
collectors (do you know the story of Zacchaeus), with his friends (???) in the Jewish
leadership, at weddings and village celebrations. Indeed, his established the
traditions around church services as a time to eat bread and drink wine. He even
said that where two or three believers are gathered today, he is there among them.
Why not pop in over Christmas and have a chat about that with us?
Perhaps, as well, if you are facing a lonely Christmas, you might pray that Christ will
be known to you whatever Christmas brings. Many churches and many other places
around Maidenhead will be offering hospitality this Christmas. Hopefully, there is
space for all to celebrate and to remember that Jesus came to bring hope and joy
and peace to all humanity. As Betjeman finishes his poem:

And is it true? And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue,
A Baby in an ox’s stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?

…And is it true? And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue,
A Baby in an ox’s stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?

Merry Christmas

Pete Phillips, Minister at High St Methodist Church and St Marks Crescent Methodist
Church.

Do you remember that old Fawlty Towers episode when Basil tells everyone in the hotel not to mention the war because they have some German guests as residents? The problem is that none of them, Basil especially, can then get the war out of their heads. Comedy ensues. Ministers of churches are often told to be political but not party-political. So, it’s bad practice to support one party from the pulpit. Don’t mention the vote! But that’s not to say that the church and people of Christian faith and other faiths are not political. It could be argued that religion is, at its core, about caring for our neighbours and seeking to live in harmony both with them and with the world in which we live. Religion is about us reaching out beyond ourselves to make connections with others, to support those in need, to bring healing into our broken world.

Across that world, we have seen a gradual shift away from that concept with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, alongside China’s aggression in Hong Kong and the South China Sea, and the Houthi aggression in Yemen. War has made a come back – although did it ever disappear. The horrors which have followed on from Hamas’ atrocious attack on Israeli citizens last October have horrified the whole world. The tensions and disruptions caused by such wars ripple out across the world, causing economic deprivation and hardship and yet more political upheaval. Indeed, the shift in European politics a harder line against those in need, against the neighbour, against refugees, could all be seen as a defence mechanism in the face of war.

Religion is at its core about love for our neighbours, care for those in need, living in harmony with the world around us. Such concepts reach beyond political party designations and reach deeper into who we are as human beings. Perhaps it gives us a guide about who or what to vote for in our own general election. But it needs to act as a guide for how to be better humans, here in Maidenhead.

Revd Dr Peter Phillips

High St Methodist Church, Maidenhead

In her song “Feeling Good”, Nina Simone declares: “It’s a new dawn, it’s a new life, and I feel
good.” For many of us approaching the new year this year, we may not feel as optimistic.
Our world is riven by wars and international stress. As I write this, the Israel/Gaza war
continues – a war most likely precipitated by Irano-Russian training/support for the terrorist
organisation controlling Gaza, Hamas, as a way to deflect the global community from the
longer and now entrenched war in Ukraine. The horrors inflicted on the people of Israel on
October 7th will stain humanity for ever. Indeed the stains of war will stain humanity – war in
Ukraine, Yemen, Syria, Gaza, South Sudan, Somalia. The political tensions still in
Afghanistan, the South China Sea, now in South America too. We are at a difficult period in
the life of our modern civilisation. Difficult times, both on the world scene and at home with
homelessness, rough sleeping and waiting lists on the rise. Our own council faced with
massive debt as central government has sought to balance the books.

After all the pomp of Christmas, the angels, and shepherds, the wise men, Jesus and his
family found themselves on the road to Egypt, so Matthew’s Gospel tells us, fleeing the
wrath of the government. The saviour of the world seeking refuge in a foreign and
unfriendly place before returning north to Nazareth where he would grow up. Indeed, we
hear a good deal of Jesus walking the roads of Palestine, raising the dust, with his disciples
in train. It wasn’t a very settled life for him and eventually the Romans would kill him as a
rebel leader, a pretender from the North. Wars, refugees, rebellion. Part of the Christian
story and part of what Jesus came to bring to an end – the Prince of Peace.

There’s a poem by Minnie Haskins which lots of us will have read before – about putting our
hand into the hand of God to offer us a safe way into the future. God knows, we all need
some help and may God be there for all those who reach out to him in whatever
circumstances they find him this New Year.

Last year my Christmas message began with asking what Christmas in Palestine, 0 AD might have been like. This year, I am wondering what Israel/Palestine in December 2023 AD will be like. The news has been full of war – the horrendous terrorist activity of Hamas and the brutality of the Israeli response. But, of course, Jesus was born into a similar kind of political situation. The Romans ruled Syria/Palestine as an occupying force fighting a terrorist-like opposition. One of the classic Roman arguments about Jesus and the disciples were that they were a bunch of thieves and murderers from up north in Galilee who deserved to die.

This clashes massively with the idea of Jesus, the baby born in a manger, as the one who brings peace. After all, it’s even part of the angels’ chorus – “Peace on earth and good will to all”. Jesus’ name means “one who saves’ rather than “one who blows things up” and we remember his life as a time of healing, helping the poor, providing for the needy. Indeed, even on the cross, we are told he gave comfort and wise advice to the people crucified on either side of him.

Jesus, a Jew born in what is now the West Bank. Jesus who travelled across borders to proclaim the good news of peace and liberty. Who made it absolutely clear that peacemaking was what brought blessing. Who seemed to know well that the doctrine of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth simply leads to a world of sightless, toothless idiots. So perhaps this Christmas we need to focus on the peace that Jesus brings. To offer peace to our neighbours, to those we meet through work or at school. To see peace as the greatest gift we can bring to the Christmas celebrations.

Jesus, the Prince of Peace, is the reason for the season! We would love to see you at any of our services over the holiday period – you’d be truly welcome.

God bless us all this Christmas

Pete Phillips, Methodist Minister

1 Corinthians 12:12-27

The Church is something which is communitarian – made up of many parts. It’s not a blob, not one mass; not a voice, but plural voices. Each part is special and has a part to play in the making up of the whole. Indeed, Paul goes to some lengths here to make the point that the less public parts are just as important as the more public parts. The role of the person who serves us tea is no less important than the preacher; the one who prepares the powerpoint, no less important than the one who broadcasts it; the one who sings their praises is a quiet voice at the back of the church hall, no less important than the one who is given a microphone.

But the point Paul is stressing in this passage, is that we need to own up to being part of the body and not going solo. He talks of an eye or an ear going off on their own and asking how would that one part survive without the rest. Crazy idea – eye sitting on the floor – it needs the rest of the body to be an eye. Isolationism doesn’t work – we can only be a body by all of our body working together to assist the other parts. A dissected body is a dead body.

But being together means that we share experiences. If one part suffers, we all suffer. If one part rejoices, we all rejoice. Being part of the body means we share the experiences of the other parts, we join in community with one another. Power of the Whatsapp Group, with fellowship groups, with prayer groups. An opportunity to share together in our joint experience of being a Christian community.

This feast reminds us that the body of Christ isn’t just an earthly thing – we join with all the saints, with the hosts of heaven, with the heavenly court. We join with the saints who have gone to glory and with those who praise God on the earth. We are part of a larger body. High St is just one organ in something much much larger and indeed universal. We believe that we join here with the saints who have gone before. We join here with the church around the world. We join here with those in freedom and those who are locked in jail for their faith. We are one with them as we share bread together. One with the worldwide body of Christ across all ages.

Pete