Will you still love me tomorrow?

Last Saturday, I attended the wedding of a friend. It was in a church, in north London. And it was his second marriage.
The first (for both parties) was a dreadful mistake and ended in divorce within 18 months.
Now there are churches which wouldn't allow this remarriage to happen there.
And they would have good reasons. They could say they uphold the ideal of marriage's permanence in a world where much is too temporary. They could point to Jesus's injunction not to divorce in Mark's Gospel. They could point to the fact that, if you view marriage as a sacrament, it's not something you can undo. Like you can't undo your baptism.
And yet...
What I witnessed on Saturday did not feel like some sop to modern trends. It did not feel like an impossibility built on a falsehood. It felt utterly right. And utterly real.
It truly wasn't entered into lightly. I think his first marriage and subsequent divorce were utterly traumatic experiences. He considered this seriously. He was just lucky enough to meet a woman again with whom he wanted to form a serious relationship. And he wanted this relationship given God's blessing (as did she). And does God's love not stretch to giving him a second chance?
Do we not believe that God is at work in this new, loving relationship?
It is the passionate belief that this is possible that means we at St George Christ Church St Paul will not automatically refuse divorcees to remarry in church. In fact, it may be just the sign of God's grace that can strengthen a relationship.
We perform many marriages every year here, and each year, some of those we marry have been married before and those marriages have ended in divorce. Of course, this is an issue. Yet it's something which God's love for humanity persuades us to look on as something to be dealt with and rethought, rather than something that will cause a barrier.
If you're considering marriage, whatever your status, and you live in our parish, come in and talk to us between 10.30 and 11.30am on Saturday morning. you won't need an appointment: just turn up.
Fr Robert
PS Other upcoming events.
Term starts soon, and all the cubs, brownies, scouts and beavers restart activities.
Youth Talk restarts on Sun Sept 16th (for year 7 and upwards).
Confirmation classes will start in late September: sign up soon.
The Youth residential weekend happens Friday 12th to 14th October

Easy like Sunday morning...

This coming Sunday, we're thinking about the Sabbath. Resting. Ceasing.
Jesus didn't cease. He healed people on the Sabbath day. But that was then: would he be keen on what today's Sundays have become?
The level of rest there is around (or isn't).
And, after all, God did 'cease'. He created the world in six days and on the seventh day, he "ceased": Shabbat. Sabbath (depending on how you transliterate the Hebrew).
It can't have just been because he was feeling a bit tired and needed a lie down. It must mean something more than that.
But how can it mean more in our busy lives?
That's what we'll be thinking about this week.
Looking further ahead, look out for Harvest festival, Oct 14th, which will be the day we particularly invite people back to Church for this year.
Fr Robert

Green, garden, organics...

Unless you've been living on another planet, you will have noticed that there's a greater emphasis today on being green than there has been for years.
Where does your household energy come from? How many food miles did it take to bring those mangoes to your hand? Did you take a flight to go on holiday? How much do you recycle?

I guess everyone does something, but very few people do everything that they could do. (If you want to calculate your own carbon footprint, then you can do so here:
http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.html)

And there are theological implications too. It's about how we humans use the creation which God has given, for us to be stewards for him. It's about how we relate to one another, recognising that a rainforest destroyed in Brazil, can help lead to a flood in New Orleans, or a load of flights from London to New York can help cause deserts to spread in the Sudan.

And of course within this, there's a lot of complex science and a lot of uncertainty.

At St George Christ Church St Paul, we're thinking about this issue in a variety of ways. One is taking on the big picture: a few months ago, we screened "An Inconvenient Truth"; we are part of the Diocese of Southwark's environmental audit; we pray about the environment.

Yet there's also the small things, and one of these small things is taking a little bit of space from our church garden, and start growing vegetables in it. it won't be much, but it will reintegrate us a little with our own small patch of environment.

Once upon a time, it was natural for the Church and farming to be linked: think about why Harvest Festival is one of the most popular services of the Church year. But, now, there's a disconnect in our cities: we buy food from supermarkets but don't know how it got there; we eat lots of meat but we don't know where our local abattoir is. Perhaps our garden, where we will grow our plants organically, will begin to help put us back in touch with the world that helps us to survive.