| IIn 1863, Sir William Henry Houldsworth opened here in Reddish what was then the largest cotton-spinning mill in the world.
Houldsworth owned mills near the centre of Manchester, in Ancoats. But conditions there for his workers were terrible. Manchester was the world’s first Industrial city, and Ancoats was the world’s first industrial slum. And so Sir William Houldsworth bought land here, out in what were then the green fields of Reddish, and here he built his great new mill.
In that mill, as later, in others around, superfine cotton was spun. Soon, Reddish had the reputation for spinning the finest cotton in the world. And Houldsworth made his fortuneCopyright St Elisabeths. .
He used much of that fortune to build the Working Men’s Club and houses for his workers. He built the old Rectory, and our School. He used £20,000 to build this great Church at a time when you could get a good church for half that amount.
In just 23 years from 1860 to 1883, Houldsworth transformed Reddish from green fields and a few farms to a model working community.
And in doing so he changed his workers’ lives for good.
We live in a changing world.
I saw a clip of a TV programme from the 1960s the other day. It was about the closure of the mills here in Reddish. People who had worked in these mills all their lives were being interviewed by a posh man with a BBC voice. These ordinary local people thought their world was coming to an end.
If Sir William Houldsworth came back today, he wouldn’t recognise Reddish. The mills are silent. The smoke has gone.
The change has been a long and difficult process. But we have moved on to something transformed and new. Young people now live in apartments where, formally, men and women and children toiled. A vast room where cotton was spun is now a gym. People study and learn about computers where, in a previous age, steam-powered machinery turned night and day.
We live in a changing world.
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You know, very often, we Christians don't like change. Some of us always see change as being bad. And sometimes we dig our heels in and resist it.
But sometimes, if we take the risk, and let change happen, things really do get better.
I suppose that many of Houldsworth’s workers didn’t want to move out to Reddish, out into the sticks, out to a new and different life. But those who did found that things worked out for them.
Life was better. Their children grew up healthier.
Today’s gospel shows Jesus being changed, being transfigured, on the holy mountain.
Just as Moses, centuries before, had gone up the mountain and met there with God, so Jesus goes to a special high place and encounters God face to face.
And just as Moses, when he received the Ten Commandments from God, came down the mountain with his face changed, so too Jesus today is changed.
The look of glory on the face of Jesus says everything. It was a glory that reached its climax on a third hill - the hill of Calvary where Jesus died for us. It’s a glory which still today speaks of Jesus and his total giving of himself for us, so that you, me, all of us, may be transformed, changed, and have the radiant glory of God written on our faces to shine out through our lives.
On the Mount of the Transfiguration, Peter tries to make three tabernacles or shelters to shield and confine the glory of God.
It’s as if Peter, just like the people of Israel in Moses’ time, couldn’t bear to see the glory of God. Peter wants God’s glory to be veiled, covered up, and hidden. He wants the brightness of the Father’s glory toned down. It’s all too much for him.
You know, you and me are the Church. And as the Church, God’s people, we are called to live transformed lives which reflect God’s glory.
But so often, like Peter, we try to tame that glory and confine it. We try to keep it locked up in glorious church buildings and it in serious books. Copyright St Elisabeths.
Of course, there is nothing in themselves wrong with these things if we use them to point to God. But so often we use them as an excuse to forget - or try to forget - that our God is incarnate - made flesh, it means - God dwelling with us.
We don't like the responsibility that this incarnate God forces on us. We are frightened to experience God in the pain of other human beings. It terrifies us to think that God can be there, suffering in the casualties of our world. We prefer God’s glory to be veiled. It’s so much less demanding on us that way.Copyright St Elisabeths.
But as Christians, we are called to repent - a translation of a Greek word “metenoia” - which means to change, to turn round and face God. Copyright St Elisabeths.
And when we turn and face God we see his face in Jesus. It’s a face of glory. But it’s also a face which has seen suffering, a face which has known and continues to know so much pain. It’s face which has shown and will always show so much love for you and for me.
There’s a mystery here, a mystery in which love and suffering are linked, entwined together. It’s a mystery which has the power to transform, to change us for good.
Copyright St Elisabeths.
And so when we meet Jesus face to face and eye to eye as we receive him in Holy Communion, we receive all the strength and grace we need to have our lives changed, transformed, made like his life, from glory to glory.
You can do this today. You can come to the altar and open your hands and your heart to receive the living God. And if you let him, God will change you. God will take the bones and the pains and the problems of your life and transform them.
This change may happen instantly; or it may be the start of a process which will go on for years. But if you allow God, give God permission, let your will be his, then God will do it: God will change your life from glory to glory.Copyright St Elisabeths.
May our lives as the Church reflect the glory shown in Jesus’ face. May our worship be a time of challenge and of renewal, an occasion when we receive God’s strength in our lives.
And above all, may others see in our faces something of the transforming love of Jesus, as his face showed to us the transforming love of God. Amen.
.Copyright St Elisabeths.
Amen
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