Murdoch and Anne MacKenzie
  • In Memoriam Murdoch MacKenzie
  • Funeral, Thanksgiving, Family Reflections & Obituaries
    • The Funeral Service
    • The Thanksgiving Service
    • Family Reflections
    • Scotsman Obituary
    • Guardian Obituary
    • Peter Millar Obituary
    • Related Obituary Websites
  • Murdoch's Ancestral Grave
  • Introduction to the Website
  • St Andrew's Bicentenary
  • Bossey (Switzerland)
    • Bossey Students' Projects
    • Images of Student Life
    • Leaving Bossey
  • Christmas & Advent Letters
    • Advent Letter 2014
    • Christmas Letter 2012
    • Christmas Letter 2011
    • Christmas Letter 2010
    • Christmas Letter 2009
    • Christmas Letter 2007
    • Christmas Letter 2006
    • Christmas Letter 2005
  • India
    • Kirkspire Articles Chennai >
      • Village Project in India
      • How it All Began
      • What Happened Next
      • Our Social Worker
      • Independence Day
      • Rural Development
      • Some Setbacks 1976
      • Up-Beat Assessment
      • Rural Project Visit
      • Integrated Development
      • Caledonian Chair
      • Symbols as Signs
      • Stargazers
      • Symbols and the Kirk
      • The Eagle Lectern
      • The Pulpit
      • The Baptismal Font
      • Newbigin Centenary
      • Love Nature as Yourself
    • The Riber Memorial Centre >
      • The Origins
      • The Official Opening
      • The Rev Harold N Riber
    • Rev Roy Manson: An Appreciation
    • Rev Roy Newell: A Tribute
    • A Gift of a Chalice
    • Acorns into Oaks
    • The God of Small Things
    • A Week in the Life of a Missionary Family
    • Bishop Lesslie Newbigin
    • Video of Bishop Newbigin
    • Christmas Letter 2010
    • New Year in Chennai
    • Pilgrimage to India
    • Images of St Andrew's Kirk
  • Lectures
    • People not Paper
    • Methodist Synod Lecture
    • Christianity Must Change
    • Maitland Memorial 2004
  • Macdonald Collection
    • Video of the Collection
    • Murdoch's Inventory
    • The Macdonald Sisters
  • Meditations
    • Roots and Fruits
    • St Colm's Reunion 2006
  • Moderator's Letters
    • 1998 >
      • Home Thoughts from Abroad
    • 2001 >
      • Creation & Environment
      • Evangelism
      • Unjust Structures
      • Christian Aid
      • A Roundtable
      • Unjust Debt
      • Christian Normality
      • Partnership for Mission
      • Remembrance
      • Christmas
    • 2002 >
      • Vocation
      • Prayer
      • Organic Unity
      • Christian Aid
      • Venerable David Goldie
      • Personal Covenant
      • Christian Declaration
      • Book that Reads Me
      • Terrorism
      • Palestine
    • 2003 >
      • Yuppies
  • Oban FM Broadcasts
    • Thought for the Day >
      • 2010 May 2
      • 2010 August 1
      • 2010 December 19
      • 2011 March 13
      • 2012 May 1
      • 2012 June 9
      • 2012 September 9
    • Sunday Broadcasts >
      • 2011 July 17
      • 2011 August 28
      • 2011 November 27
      • 2012 November 11
      • 2013 January 27
      • 2013 March 3
      • 2013 June 9
  • Occasional Papers
    • Coracle Summer 2014
    • On Being an Elephant
    • Meaning of 'Naturally'
    • Expedition to Wales
    • Four in a Boat
    • Trotternish Thesis
  • Photo Galleries
    • Golden Wedding 2014
    • The Ascent of Ben Nevis
    • The MacKenzie Family
    • The Road to the Isles
    • Images of St Andrew's Kirk
    • Family Tree
  • Poetry
    • Under Hallwood
    • Tennyson Travels
    • Father's Day Hymn
  • Reflections
    • Appin and Lismore 2007
    • Hugh Drummond
    • United Nationas Day 2012
    • Fair's Fair
    • Advent 2012
    • St Colm's College 1965
    • Trick Or Treat
    • Leipzig Group 2012
    • Bishop Lesslie Newbigin
    • The Iraq War
    • Good Friday Meditation
    • Christingles
  • Reports
    • Justice and Diversity
  • Reviews
    • From Crisis to Creation
    • Every Blessed Thing
    • Seeing the Good
    • Christian Faith Today
    • Finding Hope Again
    • Mission in the 21st Century
    • Pentecostalism South India
    • Axis of Peace
    • Living Spirituality
    • Mission Partnership
  • Sermons
    • Oban Cathedral >
      • Oban: Good Friday 2003
      • Oban: Good Friday 2005
      • Oban: Good Friday 2009
      • Oban: Good Friday 2010
      • Oban: Good Friday 2012
      • Oban: Good Friday 2013
    • Milton Keynes Farewell
    • St Oran's May 2013
    • St Oran's Maundy Thursday
    • Orchy & Bridge of Orchy
    • Muckairn Church 2013
    • St Cuthbert's Edinburgh
    • About Prayer
    • Trinity Sunday 2005
    • Trinity Sunday 2012
    • Taynuilt October 2012
    • Racial Justice 2002
    • Racial Justice 2004
    • Iona Abbey 2006
    • New Year in Chennai
  • Travels
    • Madras to Edinburgh
    • Children's Journey to the UK
  • Useful Links
  • Copyright
This Collection of his Writings and Photographs is a Memorial
​to the Life and Work of Murdoch MacKenzie              

OBAN FM

THE 10-MINUTE SERVICE FOR SUNDAY 27 January 2013

MURDOCH MACKENZIE


Good morning Breege and good morning to all our listeners. This has been quite a week, beginning with the Inauguration of President Obama on Martin Luther King Day, last Monday, and leading up to today, 27th January, which is both homelessness Sunday and Holocaust Memorial Day 2013, the theme of which this year is ‘Communities Together: Build a Bridge.’ It is the day on which we are asked to remember and stand by those who are homeless and also those who were made homeless when their  communities  were destroyed in the Holocaust, under Nazi Persecution, and in subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur in which 170 million people were killed. My son-in-law is a Bosnian refugee and I have been to Bosnia and have seen the devastation and seen the bridge, the famous Mostar Bridge, which was destroyed in the war but is now restored. Thus today the words of  Paul Lowe come back to haunt us:‘He who builds a bridge will join two worlds but he who pulls it down will lose them both’

Jesus spent his life building bridges between rich and poor, between Jew and Gentile, between women and men. He began his life in the poverty of a stable, and as we read in Matthew chapter 2 and verse 16 when he was born he became homeless immediately becoming a refugee, having to flee into Egypt to escape the holocaust of King Herod, who killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old and under. Later in life, as we read in Luke chapter 9 and verse 58  Jesus famously said: ‘Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests but the Son of man has nowhere to to lay his head.’ Later in Matthew’s Gospel he described how the people of all the nations would be judged and that includes each one of us listening today. Jesus said: ‘I was hungry and you gave me food, thirsty and you gave me drink, an immigrant, an asylum seeker, and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, sick and you visited me, in prison and you came to me.’ And, of course, the good people said: ‘But when did we see all this happen to you?’ and Jesus replied: ‘In as much as you did it to the homeless and the refugee, you did it to me.’

When I look into the eyes of my grandchildren who are a quarter English, a quarter Scottish and half Bosnian I think of the rebuilding of Mostar Bridge. I think of Jesus who gave his own life as a bridge, quite literally between heaven and hell, between war and peace, between Jew and Gentile, between Christian and Muslim, between Protestant and Catholic, between rich and poor, between Ireland and Northern Ireland, between England and Scotland, between the Highlands and the Lowlands, between all that diminishes our common humanity and especially between the poverty of homelessness and the greed of those like me who sit at ease in Zion. And I think of the words of John Donne who in 1583 at the age of eleven studied at my old college in Oxford and wrote these famous words: ‘No man is an island,Entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. As well as if a promontory were. As well as if a manor of thine own Or of thine friend's were. Each man's death diminishes me, For I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee. 

Like Jesus, like John Donne, we are involved in mankind, involved with the homeless, involved with the refugee, involved with Europe and with the United States of America, involved with the cry of a man called Martin Luther King who, like Moses, had a dream and cried out: ‘Let my people go’.

So let us pray:

Loving God help us, each one of us, to have a dream, for Oban and for Argyll, for Scotland and for Ireland, for England and for Wales, for Europe and for Africa, for India and for China, for the Pacific and for America-north and south, for the whole of Asia – for all humanity – that the hungry may be fed, the naked clothed, the homeless housed, the refugee made welcome, that broken bridges may be restored – that the love of Jesus, whose broken body has become the bridge – a bridge of love restoring all humankind may restore us also. But you already know all this O God and we ask that we may know it too.  

Amen
‘I have a dream’, a man once said,
‘where all is perfect peace;
where men and women, black and white,
stand hand in hand, and all unite
in freedom and in love
in freedom and in love.’

So dream the dreams and sing the songs,
but never be content;
for thoughts and words don’t ease the pain:
unless there’s action, all is vain;
faith proves itself in deeds
faith proves itself in deeds.

Lord, give us vision, make us strong,
help us to do your will;
don’t let us rest until we see
your love throughout humanity
uniting us in peace
uniting us in peace.

Words Pamela J Pettitt
Tune ‘Repton’ Charles Hubert Hastings Parry

Celtic Blessing

Deep peace of the running wave to you
Deep peace of the shining stars to you
Deep peace of the flowing air to you
Deep peace of the silent earth to you
Deep peace of the Son of Peace to you.
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.