91Èȱ¬

Please note:

This script cannot exactly reflect the transmission, as it was prepared before the service was broadcast. It may include editorial notes prepared by the producer, and minor spelling and other errors that were corrected before the radio broadcast.

It may contain gaps to be filled in at the time so that prayers may reflect the needs of the world, and changes may also be made at the last minute for timing reasons, or to reflect current events.Ìý

Sunday Worship 5 January 2013 - A Service for Epiphany

Good morning.Ìý I’m standing on the steps of All Souls’ Church, Langham Place, just north of Oxford Street in London’s West End – and next door to the recently greatly extended Broadcasting House – headquarters of the 91Èȱ¬.Ìý It was from this church that the Daily Service was transmitted for many years until the early 1990s.Ìý But in the mid seventies, there also took place in this church a series of lectures entitled ‘Christ and the Media’ given by the journalist and author, Malcolm Muggeridge.Ìý Throughout his life, Muggeridge fascinated, provoked and sometimes infuriated his audiences.Ìý Indeed a former distinguished Rector of All Souls, John Stott, said of him: ‘While Christian civilisation seems to be crumbling around us in the west, Malcolm Muggeridge is again and again a voice crying in the wilderness.’Ìý

During these lectures in November 1976 Muggeridge put forward an intriguing fantasy – The fourth temptation – when Jesus is approached with the offer of a worldwide television network.Ìý Not surprisingly, said Muggeridge, Jesus turned it down. ‘Future historians,’ Muggeridge went on to say, ‘will surely see us as having created in the media a Frankenstein monster which no-one knows how to control or direct, and marvel that we should have so meekly subjected ourselves to its destructive and often malign influence.’Ìý Now tomorrow is the Feast of the Epiphany – and that Greek word meaning disclosure, showing forth, revealing, is one of the themes of our worship this morning.Ìý But tomorrow is also the 90th anniversary of the first church service ever to be broadcast by the 91Èȱ¬.ÌýÌý So was Malcolm Muggeridge right when he surmised that Jesus would have rejected religious broadcasting? Whatever the answer, our task as Christians is surely beyond doubt – to proclaim God’s good news as our first hymn robustly affirms.Ìý

CD - Hymn: We have a Gospel

I’ve now walked into the foyer of the original Broadcasting House built in 1931.Ìý The use of the word ‘broadcast’ brings back an old term into contemporary use.Ìý The sower in the parable scattered the seed, casting it broadly over the land.Ìý And the first thing that catches my eye in here is the larger than life, Portland stone statue of the sower by Eric Gill with its Latin inscription ‘Deus incrementis dat’ – ‘God gives the increase.’Ìý Through the inventive genius of broadcasting – used sympathetically - words and music can penetrate shut windows and closed doors and come right into our homes.ÌýÌý

So Lord, you have given much to your children.Ìý Give one thing more – a grateful heart.Ìý Not thankful when it pleases us as if your blessings had spare days, but a heart whose pulse may be to live your praise.Ìý Amen

ÌýThe most distinctive mark of our humanity is the ability to exchange ideas.Ìý In order to live there must be some communication between us - and our ability to respond thankfully to what we hear and see places us high in the scale of creation.Ìý And that’s what we do when we worship.Ìý So it was on 6th January 1924 that an act of worship was relayed for the first time from St Martin in the Fields in Trafalgar Square.Ìý The vicar, Dick Sheppard, was willing to undertake the experiment, but he was doubtful whether the music in his church was good enough to be transmitted on the wireless.Ìý He was concerned too that some might think he was striking some sort of partnership deal with John Reith’s new Broadcasting Company.Ìý He wanted to make it clear that the request to broadcast a service came from an Advisory Committee – the first one of its kind – representing more than one denomination.Ìý But he needn’t have worried.Ìý There were so many letters of appreciation that a series of services was quickly arranged for the second Sunday of each month at 8 o’clock in the evening.Ìý Dick Sheppard described these monthly relays as an endeavour to provide a simple act of worship for all – a proclamation of the Gospel to all who have ears to hear.Ìý Indeed, this was literally true, because crystal sets and earphones were in general use at that time, and it was said that eighty per cent of the population within crystal range would get an earful of religion by radio!

Music/Archive recording of early Daily Service

The services from St Martin’s weren’t the first religious broadcasts in this country though.Ìý That honour goes to the Revd John Mayo, Rector of Whitechapel, who gave the first religious talk for the British Broadcasting Company on Christmas Eve 1922, little more than a month after the start of regular transmissions.Ìý This is how he began:

Ìý

Archive:Ìý I have just come from my church in Whitechapel, a great church situated in the midst of all the noise and the turmoil and the dust and the slums and all that Whitechapel connotes.Ìý And it is my privilege, by the aid of Mr Marconi, in this wonderful house to speak, as I understand, to many thousands of people.ÌýÌý Surely no man has ever proclaimed the Gospel from such an extraordinary pulpit as I am now occupying.Ìý Having preached sometimes in cathedrals and sometimes in the kitchen of a doss house, I notice one great difference.Ìý Whether in the cathedral or the doss house, I could at any rate see my audience.Ìý Here I cannot!

Ìý

The Revd John Mayo.Ìý Well, over ninety one years later, I still can’t see my audience – or perhaps I should say my congregation.....Ìý But that doesn’t matter because the beauty of radio is its intimacy.Ìý I can speak into this microphone as if I’m speaking to one other person, and I – and all of us who are privileged to lead broadcast worship from a studio or from, say, Emmanuel Church Didsbury during the week -Ìý have taken encouragement from the response we’ve received.Ìý That’s what’s sustained the Daily Service over 86 years since it started on Monday January 2nd 1928 as an experimental broadcast from a 91Èȱ¬ studio in Savoy Hill.ÌýÌý We’ve been humbled time and time again by being told that the services have helped them – indeed, more strongly than that – they’ve been an indispensible life-line.Ìý In the words of one listener, during periods of severe illness, when the body and brain cannot bring themselves to form the words of a prayer, the broadcast service filters through the hospital headphones like an angel of light, turning unspoken longings and fears into prayer.Ìý And because there are no denominational divisions, bridges are built – between the worshipping life of different Christian churches and those who wouldn’t call themselves churchgoers at all.Ìý Pauline Webb is a Methodist local preacher and the first Organiser of Religious Broadcasting Overseas on the 91Èȱ¬ World Service.Ìý She’s led broadcast worship in many forms for over 40 years.....

Pauline Webb

CD - Anthem – God be in my head

Provoking moving response alone by heartfelt prayer is not only what broadcast worship is all about.Ìý There needs also to be, I believe, exploration and interpretation of God’s grace.Ìý Listen now to part of the letter to the Ephesians which is one of the set readings for this Feast of the Epiphany.Ìý Paul the Apostle acts as an ambassador.Ìý He himself was a Jew and he was fulfilling Jewish prophecy by reaching out into the world’s darkness with the light of God’s saving grace.Ìý The full, rich extent of God’s promise had taken quite a time to dawn on Paul - and the dawning had been traumatic.Ìý But once enlightened, he worked fervently to spread the Good News.Ìý This is Chapter 3 of the letter to the Ephesians:

I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles, pray to God.Ìý Surely you have heard that God in his grace has given me this work to do for your good.Ìý ÌýGod revealed his secret plan and made it known to me. (I have written briefly about this,Ìýand if you will read what I have written, you can learn about my understanding of the secret of Christ.)ÌýÌý ÌýIn past times human beings were not told this secret, but God has revealed it now by the Spirit to his holy apostles and prophets.Ìý The secret is that by means of the gospel the Gentiles have a part with the Jews in God's blessings; they are members of the same body and share in the promise that God made through Christ Jesus.Ìý ÌýI was made a servant of the gospel by God's special gift, which he gave me through the working of his power.ÌýÌýI am less than the least of all God's people; yet God gave me this privilege of taking to the Gentiles the Good News about the infinite riches of Christ,Ìýand of making all people see how God's secret plan is to be put into effect.

CD - Praise him o ye people

I’ve now come to St Martin in the Fields where that first church service broadcast in January 1924 took place – and rather than standing in the church which is so familiar to listeners over the last 90 years, I’ve come down to this plain simple chapel in the busy crypt named after Dick Sheppard, the vicar of St Martin’s led that first broadcast and took the risk of disclosing the riches of God’s kingdom to thousands of listeners.Ìý And that’s what the letter to the Ephesians we heard earlier on is all about – God’s secret plan.Ìý Paul had been taken into God’s confidence by a dramatic disclosure on the way to Damascus and since that spectacular incident his enthusiasm for mission never seemed to wane.Ìý So he sets about his given task of proclaiming among the Gentiles the so far hidden – or secret – purpose of God as revealed in Jesus.

Most of us have our own secrets which we disclose to no-one.Ìý Sometimes there are secrets between individuals.Ìý We call them confidences too.Ìý The important thing to notice is that they are valuable only when they are kept secret.Ìý Paul though is convinced that this secret of God’s, which never before has been told, is now ready to be disclosed.Ìý And the secret is about changing the whole world scene.Ìý What before has been so exclusive – a God disclosed only to a select few – the Jews – is now ready to be shown to the whole world – Gentiles and Jews alike.Ìý It really is a tremendous moment and Paul sees himself right in the centre of the limelight.

So what we see here is a secret that has to be told to reach its true value.Ìý The Good News has to be disclosed.Ìý Too frequently we keep our faith a secret – afraid to share it in case we’re unpopular or even ridiculed.Ìý But this is a secret we just cannot keep to ourselves.Ìý If we try to do that with it, it ceases to have any value at all for the world which needs to hear its message.Ìý And that is where broadcast services can be so powerful. They can keep alive the tenuous link of experience between a largely non-church-going public and the worshipping life of the Christian churches.Ìý Canon Angela Tilby has been a religious programmes producer in radio and television before she was ordained and now she regularly leads radio worship and presents Thought for the Day.

Angela Tilby

CD - Music: O worship the Lord in the beauty of Holyness

I’ve now come back into the church where I’m joined for our prayers by....

Prayers and Lord’s Prayer

CD - Bethlehem Down – Peter Warlock

I’ve now come out of the Church of St Martin in the Fields and I’m standing in the porch beside the sculpture of the baby Jesus still attached by its umbilical cord and looking out onto Trafalgar Square and the great world beyond.ÌýÌý The Feast of the Epiphany is a good time not only to celebrate the contribution that broadcasting can make towards the rich and rewarding experience of prayer and worship.Ìý It also alerts us to the task set before all of us - to respond to what we see and hear around us, to recognise God’s grace working through us, and to proclaim the glories of Christ’s kingdom in the world.

Father and Lord of all, you have spoken to us in your Son Jesus Christ who day by day wrought your will, discerned your truth and revealed your grace.Ìý Grant us, in the same Spirit, to offer our worship that we may receive your blessing, share your love and know the mystery of your peace all our days.Ìý And may your blessing rest upon us, on those we love and those for whom we pray, today and for ever.Ìý Amen. Ìý

CD - Hymn – Joy to the world

Ìý