Minister’s Message- October 15, 2023

Bible reading: 1 Samuel 4:1-11.

Message (i).

I want to draw your attention to two well-known Bible stories which have an extraordinary resonance today. The first is the story of the Israelites leaving Egypt, miraculously crossing the Red Sea, travelling through the wilderness, and finally arriving at the River Jordan prior to cross into the Promised Land. After centuries of harsh slavery in Egypt and decades of wandering around the desert, they are about to have a land of their own, a fertile land overflowing with milk, honey and other good things, a land which (they are told) had been promised to them by God, hundreds of years before. But there’s just one tiny problem confronting the eager Israelites: that land is inconveniently occupied already by pagan Canaanites, and they have no intention of moving out. So the story we read in the book of Joshua is of battle, bloodshed, carnage and destruction. Ultimately the land is secured as the Jewish homeland – at a terrible cost to its former inhabitants.

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Minister’s Message – October 1, 2023

Bible reading: selected from Genesis 3.

I’ll be honest with you: if it had been up to me, I wouldn’t have held a Harvest Thanksgiving service this year. And I certainly don’t have it in my heart to feel in the slightest bit jolly. That’s because the last few months have seen an appalling level of distress and disaster around the world, caused by hurricanes, flooding, wildfires and earthquakes. Communities and livelihoods have been wrecked, the landscape has been devastated, thousands have died. It almost seems patronising and cruel for us in Britain, still a relatively bounteous country, to be thankful – although even our own farmers have had a tough time with scorching heat and torrential rain coming at unexpected times. So we might well be wanting to ask, “Where has God been this year?” and say, “How can we celebrate when it seems that our so-called loving Father doesn’t really care about people?” Even though we know some of the answers to these questions, they still challenge our faith.

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Minister’s Message- September 24, 2023

Bible reading: Matthew 20:1-16.

I wonder how many of us knew that last Monday, September 18th, was “United Nations International Equal Pay Day”? No, nor did I! But in fact the principle of “Equal pay for equal work” has been enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights right from its start in 1946. Article 23 of the Declaration states, in part, that “Everyone has the right to just and favourable conditions of work; the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring an existence worthy of human dignity for themself and their family; and has the right to equal pay for equal work”. Equal pay is a founding principle of the European Union and it has been a part of British employment law since 1970.

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Minister’s Message – September 17, 2023

Bible Reading: Matthew 18:21-35.

I’ve never been to St Gwynno’s church in the village of Vaynor. It’s a quiet, rural place within the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park, yet only about three miles, as the crow flies, from the industrial world of Merthyr Tydfil. In the churchyard there is a huge gravestone, reputed to weigh ten tons and surrounded by railings. It’s the last resting place of Robert Thompson Crawshay, who inherited his family’s Cyfartha ironmaking business after his brother drowned in the River Severn.

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Minister’s Message – September 3, 2023

Bible reading: Matthew 16:13-28.

John McEnroe was one of the greatest male tennis players of his day. He won seven Grand Slam titles including three at Wimbledon and was No.1 in the world for 170 weeks. Today he is a respected senior commentator on the game, but back in 1981 he was just 22 years old and known as known as “Superbrat” because of his fiery temper. For many people he has always been defined by one brief moment during that summer, when he argued with the umpire over a line call and said, “You cannot be serious!”. He was fined £750 and narrowly escaped disqualification. In later life he said, “I’d call it a mixed blessing but more positive than negative, ironically. it was the only time I said it in my 15-year career; then all of a sudden when I played on the Seniors’ tour, I got paid a bonus if I said it!”

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Minitser’s Message – August 20, 2023

Bible reading: Matthew 15:21-28.

When I was a child, playing “Cowboys and Indians” was all the rage – probably fuelled by Wild West comics and television programmes. We loved to dress up in cowboy clothes or Indian feathered head-dresses, we’d brandish (and shoot) our cap guns and bows and arrows. And, if we couldn’t play outside, there were always model cowboy and Indian figures to arrange on the kitchen table – although the horses had an annoying habit of falling over! It was pretty innocent fun.

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Minister’s Message – August 13, 2023

Bible reading: Matthew 14:22-34.

There’s an old children’s hymn – some of you will know it – which goes like this: “Jesus’ hands were kind hands, doing good to all; healing pain and sickness, blessing children small; washing tired feet and saving those who fall: Jesus’ hands were kind hands, doing good to all”. I’m sure that the line about “healing pain and sickness” makes us immediately think of Jesus’ miracles, such as enabling lame people to walk, giving sight to those who could not see, healing a woman who had a persistent bleed, curing those with leprosy or other disfiguring skin conditions, even restoring life to people who had died. All these actions weren’t just signs that Jesus was the Son of God; they also demonstrated his care for people. For the folk he touched weren’t just cured medically but “made whole” and brought back into the mainstream of society which had often shunned them in the past.

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Minister’s Message – August 6, 2023

Bible reading: Matthew 14:13-21.

I can’t remember when I last ate at McDonald’s – it may have been when our son Alastair was still a child. Although I know that many people love tucking into a Big Mac or a Quarter Pounder with Cheese while their children enjoy a Happy Meal (they must do, otherwise there wouldn’t be 40,275 branches around the world), I dislike the whole experience and certainly wouldn’t call their outlets “restaurants”. To be honest, I prefer the chaos and hilarity of the Maelfa fish bar!

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Minister’s Message – July 30, 2023

Bible reading: Romans 8:18-27.

I’ve never found it easy to pray. Monks and nuns seem to spend entire days in fasting, prayer and meditation, John Wesley rose long before dawn so he could spend several hours in prayer before his busy day of ministry, Jesus sometimes went off to isolated places so he could spend an entire night praying to his Father. But I struggle: I soon find my mind drifting, I start repeating myself (or, alternatively, running out of words), or else I simply drop off to sleep. If you want to know what a good prayer life is like, don’t look at me! – although I do try.

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