A while ago I wrote on a thought for the day about the importance of open-air preaching in Wesley’s time. Last Sunday I had the opportunity to join in the open-air service on Orford Quay, organised by Stephen Cayley from Orford Methodist chapel annually. I had never been before but am pleased I made it this year. The weather was perfect and a local brass band played the hymns bringing back memories for some of us of occasions in the past when brass bands had stirred our souls playing much loved hymns. Do any of you remember the old colliery bands?
The preacher was Rev Canon Julian Pursehouse and he chose the passage from St Mark’s gospel chapter 6 vs 30 to 45 where Jesus urges his disciples to travel across the Lake of Galilee by boat “to a deserted place all by yourselves to rest a while” after a busy period of ministry. The crowds however had other ideas and travelled on foot to listen to Jesus. He ends up feeding them at the end if the day from the 5 loaves and 2 fishes.
Julian talked about the significance of location and specifically the Sea of Galilee to Jesus. It was a place of rest and recuperation for the disciples and sometimes for Jesus too,. Being by water can help us to relax and be restored in a special way. It was also a place of work, for the disciples as fisherman, and also for Jesus and his disciples where he taught the people about the kingdom of God, and they helped to feed 5000 people. And it was a place of transformation, where lives were changed through encounter with Jesus.
I have had the privilege of visiting the Sea of Galilee and know what a beautiful place it is, and Orford on such a wonderful summer’s evening had many similarities. Through donations to the Jubilee Sailing Trust in the collection taken at the service there is the hope of enrichment to the lives of disabled people who will learn to sail on their boat “ The Tenacious”.
Thank you to all who made it possible to worship God in such beautiful surroundings and hopefully to witness to our faith as sailors came by and heard our singing.
Julian quoted from this hymn in closing.
“ Drop thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our striving cease.
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of thy peace”.