Matthew

A reflection prepared for today, the feast day of Matthew the Apostle :-

Today the Church honours the apostle Matthew, whose name is attached to the first of the four Gospels. In fact, the Gospel of Matthew we know was written by a later hand, but in part it probably depends on sayings and stories of Jesus that we’re told were assembled by Matthew, and then expounded by others.

There was no need for a written account of the life and teachings of Jesus when the Church was very new – not least because the first followers of our Lord expected the day of judgement would arrive at any moment. They were already in the last days. But as the Church grew, and time went on, and those who led the church in each place hadn’t necessarily known or heard Jesus themselves, that it became important to write things down.

Matthew should no doubt be honoured for his part in beginning the work of assembling the written Gospels, but today I’d like to concentrate on Matthew the disciple rather than Matthew the evangelist. Like Peter, Andrew, James and John, he wasn’t an obvious candidate. To be honest, he was a much less obvious candidate than the other four, now that I come to think of it. They were fishermen, an honourable enough occupation; he was a tax collector, and no-one likes them, do they?

Now I’ve known a few tax collectors fairly well, and all the ones I’ve known have been really nice people. And I have a fairly positive feeling about paying my taxes, because that’s part of how we ensure a society in which all members can find a level of provision and care and have the chance to live together in peace. Although that’s not to say I agree with everything the government chooses to do with the money it takes from me.

But at least it is my government, and if I don’t like what it does, then every five years or so I get the chance to cast my vote and maybe effect a change. Tax collectors at the time of Jesus were working for a government that was imposed on the people from outside, and which was hostile or at best dismissive of their faith and therefore their law. Israel had been a free kingdom with kings of the line of David; but now they were part of the Empire of Rome, and that’s where their taxes went, and that’s who the tax collectors who received their taxes worked for.

You could make a good living as a tax collector. You could in fact pretty much collect as much as you liked, provided you remitted to the Roman exchequer the amount the Romans had assessed. So really you had permission from the authorities to be extortionate; the downside of that was that anyone who took the job was going to be hated by his own people, and treated with suspicion and contempt. By definition a tax collector was likely to be a man who cared more for money and for the trappings of wealth than he cared for community or friends or even family. And since his hands were fatally tainted by being in league with the godless Romans, no man of religion, no priest or Pharisee, would have anything at all to do with a tax collector.

But Jesus did. In the Gospel stories we find Jesus quite deliberately meeting with tax collectors, eating at their tables, and treating them as though they hadn’t completely and utterly excluded themselves from God’s favour. You’ll remember the story of little Zaccheus, the tax collector who climbed up a tree to see Jesus over the heads of the crowd. Jesus called him down and invited himself to have tea at Zaccheus’ house. You’ll remember too the anger of the Pharisees when they saw this rabbi, teacher, sitting to eat with tax collectors.

I suppose Matthew – or Levi as he would have been then – must have been at such an event. Or maybe like Zaccheus he’d been jostled by the crowd as he strained to hear what Jesus had to say out on the streets. And then one day Jesus called him, there as he was sitting at his seat of custom, doing his books, collecting and counting the money. Why would Jesus call a tax collector, though? Why would Jesus want someone like that? What would Jesus expect to do with him?

Jesus called Matthew for the same reason that he called Peter and the others; because he could see that Matthew was ready to follow. That’s exactly what he did: he left his seat straight away, and didn’t hesitate for a moment. Then as now, for Jesus qualifications or status or suitability (in the way that society might assess it) – these things aren’t important in a disciple . . . the important thing is that they’re ready to follow, ready to listen, ready to learn.

The words of the traditional collect for St Matthew’s day speak of Jesus calling Matthew “from the selfish pursuit of gain”. So we’re talking about a life turned upside down, and a radical changing of priorities. Matthew’s good life as a tax collector had turned out not to be good after all. He might have thought money would compensate for the rejection and abuse and cold shoulders – but I think he’d found that however much money you got, and however much money you spent, there was an empty space in the middle of him that mere money could never fill. A God shaped space, if you like.

So Levi became a disciple, left his old life, left his money behind, I suppose, started afresh. And from being Levi, which means “attached” or “pledged”, he became Matthew, which means “gift of God”.

I think that at the point of Jesus’ call to him, Matthew had come to realise the truth of that simple but profound statement, attributed among others to William Ruskin, that “he who gives God second place in life gives him no place.” If our priorities are wrong, whoever and wherever we are, the God shaped slot remains empty and unfilled, and, however rich we may like to think we may be, we are in fact fatally poor.

But here for me is the crux of the matter, and here’s why the story of Matthew matters to me, and not only to the bankers of Canary Wharf or the City of London: let me put it as a question – what’s the difference between Matthew the tax collector and the Pharisees and priests who were so quick to condemn Jesus for spending time with Matthew and his like?

Here’s an immediate and obvious difference. Matthew had chosen money, and the Pharisees had chosen religion. But that’s a bit of red herring, not least because religion and faith are not necessarily the same thing. Religion can in fact become as much of a self-seeking thing as any pursuit of wealth or power. Just look at the amount of misery and conflict religion causes in our world today. Do you imagine God wants any of that? Do you imagine God is calling people into any of that?

The difference between Matthew and the Pharisees, the difference that matters, is this: Matthew knew he needed to be saved and repaired and healed by God. The Pharisees didn’t. And for us too, as for Matthew, we are here gathered today not because we’re good enough, not because we’re sorted out and are getting it all right, but because we know we need God to fix us, and that there is inside me and you a God-shaped hole that only the love of Jesus can fill. And he knows that, which is why he calls me and you as he called Matthew that day, to put him first, to leave the other stuff behind, and to follow.

Mr Twistleton and the Football

A Sunday talk to tie in with this week's CL readings . . .

Mr Twistleton was in his favourite place: in his own back garden, on his sun lounger, good book, cold drink, lovely sunny afternoon. It would have been absolutely perfect had it not been for the thump, thump, thump from next door. Those blasted children were out there again, playing with a ball. Mr Twistleton tried to put the sound out of his head, but he didn’t find it easy.

And then it happened. Just as Mr T had managed to close his eyes, the ball sailed over the wall and landed straight on his stomach. Mr Twistleton got up and grabbed it. He was not best pleased. “Really sorry, Mr Twistleton,” came a young voice. “Can we have our ball . . .” “NO, you may not!” Mr Twistleton responded. “It’s on my property, so it IS my property!” And he stomped off into the house with it, opened the cupboard under the stairs, flung the ball inside and slammed the door on it.

Fine minutes later, he was back outside, lying once again on his sun lounger, and this time there were no noises from next door to stop him drifting off to sleep.  He’d had quite a snooze when, rat-a-tat, he was woken by a peremptory knock on his front door. He got up, went to the door, and there stood a postman. “You need to sign for this, sir. Important letter.” It did look important, too. Large, brown, well-stuffed, and marked ‘Department of Revenue and Customs’.

Mr Twistleton’s heart sank. He had been a little worried about his tax return. He opened the letter to find he was wrong to be a little worried; he should have been a whole LOT worried. There were sheets and sheets, all filled with figures in red ink. “How on earth did I come to owe this much?” Mr Twistleton wondered. “And how on earth am I going to pay it?”

He hadn’t been wondering that for very long when there came another knock on his door. The postman’s knock had been peremptory. This knock was merely brutal. He opened the door to find a smallish man there in a black jacket, pinstriped trousers, bowler hat, briefcase marked ‘DRC’. Perhaps the man wasn’t really that small - he just looked it, compared to the two immense guys stood either side of him. They didn’t look very friendly.

“Good afternoon, Mr Twistleton,” said the man in the middle. “My, er, friends and I felt we should call to discuss your account with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, and to see if we can’t work out together some way of - er - settling your outstanding balance with us.”

“But it’s only just arrived,” said Mr Twistleton anxiously. “I’ve only just this minute seen the figures. Surely you can give me some time to get things organised?”

“Oh, I hardly think so,” said the man from the ministry. “After all, this is a debt built up over quite some time, and, well, frankly, sir, when we’re talking this sort of money, we do feel it’s best to come to an early and swift arrangement.” Mr Twistleton noticed that one of the bailiffs seemed somehow to have acquired a baseball bat, which he was smacking in a meaningful way into the huge palm of his other hand.

Mr Twistleton fell to his knees. “Oh, please, please, please, please just give me a bit of time, sirs. I’ll do anything, I’ll work every hour I can, I’ll scrub floors, just give me time, I’ll pay it all, I really will . . .” His voice tailed away. “If you scrubbed floors for fifty years you wouldn’t raise enough to pay off this amount,” said the revenue man. “But I hate to see a grown man cry . . .

“Tell you what. I’ll let you off. It’ll be as though this bill never existed. You tear up your copy. I’ll tear up mine. Clean slate; start again. How’s that?”

Mr Twistleton could hardly believe his ears. “Thank you” hardly seemed enough of a reply - but, before he could say anything, the door under the stairs edged open, and a ball tumbled out, bounced a couple of times, and rolled down the hallway to rest at the feet of the man from the ministry. He looked down, and picked it up. “Is this your ball, sir?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Mr Twistleton, “er - I mean no, er yes, er no, er.” “Doesn’t this ball actually belong to the children next door? Oh dear. That puts rather a different complexion on things. It’s difficult to see how we can let you off, after all.” The two minders stepped forward purposefully, both of them now with baseball bats in hand, and that’s when . . .

. . . a second ball sailed over the wall, landed like the first on Mr Twistleton’s stomach, this time knocking him off his sun lounger and waking him up. There was a sort of horrified silence from the other side of the wall.

Then a rather frightened voice said, “Sorry again, Mr Twistleton! But can we please have our ball back, if we promise to be really extra specially careful from now on?” “Of course you may, both of them, of course,” Mr T replied - much to their surprise, but then of course, they didn’t know about his dream.

There’s a simple message from that story, as there is in the story Jesus told in this morning’s Gospel. Christians should live generously and graciously.

We’ve been let off a mountain of debt, more than we could ever pay. We who deserve death have been promised life, we who deserve the pains of hell have been promised the joys of heaven. We are saved by grace and by the generosity of our Father God; as his people we should be generous to one another and we should live generously in his world. Day by day we pray “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We pray those words. Our task in mission and service is to make sure that we also live them. Amen.

Winter Visitors

My 'Nature Notes' piece for local community magazines . . .

Birds face a struggle to survive the rigours of a British winter. The darker days mean there is less daylight in which to find food, and frost and snow (and last winter, floods) can make vital feeding areas inaccessible. Our native species will spend the autumn building up their fat reserves to help cope, while many other birds, as I mentioned last month, will have headed south. But winters further north and east are much harder than ours, so many birds are also arriving at this time of the year.

Many water birds spend their winter here, including huge numbers of geese and arctic swans, mostly heading for coastal mudflats and marshlands. The wild geese we’re likely to see overhead are not migrating - they are the Canada geese that are here all year round, though in their native North America they do migrate. But numbers of winter ducks may be found in suitable places like Llyn Coed y Dinas, with the wigeon, with its distinctive whistling call, a particular favourite of mine. I’ll write more about ducks and other water birds next time.

Many winter garden birds are extras to our resident species: blackbirds and song thrushes, robins and starlings in our gardens are all augmented by visitors from abroad, from Scandinavia and as far east as Siberia. With them come birds that are special to winter, like the two winter thrushes: redwings, slightly smaller than a song thrush and with an orange flash on its flanks, and the larger fieldfare, elegant in grey and brown, and often in large noisy flocks. Redwings will come to gardens, taking yew berries but happy also to sample chopped up apples - why not leave a few on your lawn? Fieldfares are more typical of open fields, especially where a field has been newly manured, with plenty of worms and insects to find.

A colourful and unusual visitor is the waxwing, more likely to be found on the eastern side of the country, but occurring anywhere in harder weather. They love berries, and can often be found in such places as supermarket car parks, where berry-bearing bushes have often been planted. Finches flock together in the winter, the flock giving a better chance to find food and some protection for each individual bird from predators. Winter visitors like bramblings will join our native finches; this is a finch closely related to the chaffinch, but more robust-looking and with a distinctive white rump visible as it flies. Siskins and redpolls move down from wilder areas into our gardens, where they often flock with goldfinches. The male siskin, about the size of a blue tit, is an attractive bird in yellow and green with a black cap. 

One summer warbler, the blackcap, has started to be seen in Britain through the winter, visiting bird tables. These may well not be the birds that were here in the summer, but continental birds coming in. The male is easy to identify with its black cap,  while the female has a brown cap.  Our smallest British bird, the goldcrest, will also move into gardens in winter, from the conifer plantations that are its preferred habitat, to join tits in feeding from suet balls. Its close relative the firecrest is a winter visitor, but not I think to be found this far north.

I just hope his name is Gordon . . .

I turned up at the church at the right time for the meeting. Well, to be honest, a minute or two late, but I like a stylishly late entrance - it helps maintain the illusion of a busy man just managing to fit everything in. I could see Gordon outside, back to me, scanning the noticeboards, so, although it did seem awfully quiet, I presumed his wife was inside along with everyone else. "Evening, Gordon!" I said cheerily, and in I went, only to find an empty room. There were, however, noises coming from the smaller meeting room off, and as I walked towards the door a head popped round it. Sadly, not one I recognised. "Are you looking for us?"

Inside the room there indeed was Gordon's wife, but with a completely different set of people from the ones I'd expected, and obviously a completely different meeting. I had the right day, and (almost) the right time, but I was a week early, not having properly read the instructions sent to me. I made some comment about having seen Gordon outside. "I hope not," came the reply, "I left him at home, doing the dishes." There was much hilarity at my confusion, and I retreated to lick my wounds, and reflect that at least my foolishness had brightened up what might have been a boring meeting.

Back outside, I could see "Gordon" further down the street, looking now into an estate agent's window. I headed towards him, he turned round, and from the front, proved to be a complete stranger who looked a bit like Gordon from behind. Oh well. I can only hope his name was Gordon, too.

Making Up

An address given yesterday at Middleton and Trelystan (Chirbury Group) :-

How many people here have got brothers? Sisters? I have the fortune or the misfortune (I’ve used both words at different times) to be part of quite a large family, the eldest in fact of five brothers, plus one little sister who is the youngest of any of us. Fortune? Well, we don’t live in each others’ pockets, but we do know where we belong, and we’re all of us there for each other when help is needed. I can think of a couple of times in my life when I’d have been sunk without my brothers and sister, and I’m pretty sure each and every one of them could say the same.

Misfortune? Oh well, you know what they say – you can choose your friends but you get what you’re given as regards family. We’re all very different. We don’t vote the same way, we don’t go out to the same places, we don’t necessarily agree on a whole range of stuff. And sometimes, just sometimes, a couple of us might have a real falling-out.

To be honest, I can’t remember too many of those – or at least, not since we were very young children. But it isn’t so much how often they happen, these arguments and spats, it’s what you do with them. And what happens when it doesn’t get sorted out.  There’s someone I know quite well who hasn’t spoken to her sister in twenty years. I can’t comment on that, because I don’t know what caused the split and therefore I can’t begin to guess at why it’s never been resolved – except that I can say, with a fair degree of confidence, that I can’t imagine that happening within my own immediate family. To be frank, I just don’t think that any of us could keep it up.

The Gospel reading this morning is quite a tough one, about relationships and what we should do when they get thorny and difficult. Jesus speaks about what to do “if your brother sins against you”. Of course, we’re not just talking about blood brothers (or sisters) here: when I pray I call God “Our Father”, and to do that instantly turns everyone else who prays the same prayer into my brother and my sister. And every argument or disagreement between us into a family matter. And arguments will happen - so what should we do about them when they do?

This is important I think, because our faith is proved and witnessed to not in how we behave when things are going well and the world is bright and cheerful, but in how we behave when things are going wrong. Jesus knew that as well as anyone. Don’t you get the impression that that band of men he called to be his disciples could be a pretty argumentative bunch from time to time?

Anyway, here, based on this morning’s Gospel, are some clues as to how we, as disciples in our turn of the Lord Jesus Christ, can deal effectively with the problems and issues and slights that happen from time to time. Say you do something to me that miffs me and annoys me, or maybe gets me into trouble, and I think it’s wrong. What should I be doing about it?

Well, first of all I do need to do something, and not just let it lie. When you let things lie they fester. I could end up brooding about things in such a way that something that on its own probably shouldn’t be all that important starts to take over my life. And not only mine: unresolved issues lead to a toxic environment in which constructive working together becomes impossible.
And I need I think quite deliberately to put my complaint into words; sometimes that in itself can expose a grievance for what it often is, not so big and bad that it can’t be resolved. Otherwise I could get things out of balance, so that someone’s clumsy action or thoughtless word gets to feel like a personal attack.

But if I do feel wronged by someone, I guess it would be good to be able to talk things over, face to face. That might not be easy of course, so someone else may need to perform the service of preparing the way beforehand. I remember on one occasion inviting two people round who I knew needed to sort something out between them, preparing the way a bit with each of them, but then on the day just leaving them there together while I went to make a cup of coffee. I confess that I did wonder whether world war three might break out – but it didn’t.

I’m a great writer of letters of complaint (I do also write letters of praise and thanks, by the way, I’m not quite in the Victor Meldrew camp). But while letters of complaint can be very effective when written to companies and corporations, I don’t think they’re a good idea between individuals - not if what you want to do is to make friends again, anyway. I think positions can become entrenched and attitudes hardened when set down on paper – though sometimes a generous and apologetic card can work wonders.

Perhaps though nothing at this stage is working wonders, and the problem isn’t sorted. Jesus in this morning’s reading says that then we should take two or three witnesses along with us. If that sounds like escalating things, Jesus I think is reminding his disciples of the Jewish Law in Deuteronomy chapter 19, verse 15.

We read there that a charge of misdemeanour can’t be sustained on the evidence of one person; two or three further witnesses are required. Having said that, the witnesses aren’t there as a sort of legal heavy mob to make sure the charges are proved – I don’t think so, anyway. Extra people can defuse tension and enable reconciliation. So I’d not want to be taking along two or three barrack-room lawyers (or real ones for that matter) – not if I really want to set things right. Better to have with me two or three wise and kind and clear sighted people who maybe just by being there can help two people at odds really to listen to each other and find some common ground. Like ACAS when the management and the unions are at odds, or like the hard but honest friend who can say, “Do you really see what you’re doing here, not just to yourselves, but to the rest of us as well?”

For make no mistake, if left untreated and unresolved an issue between two people may very well end up poisoning the whole well. I can think of churches I’ve known that were turned into toxic places by things left unresolved, in one case by an event that happened more than thirty years before. A stranger coming into that church would quickly have felt uneasy there, and that there was something in the air. Not surprisingly, that church was in a very poor way.

So Jesus goes on to tell his disciples that if the matter can’t be sorted out face to face or with the help of others, then it becomes a matter for the whole fellowship. Some fallings-out end up with lawyers and in the courts, but what does that ever achieve? Legal proceedings may settle an issue, but they don’t restore unity; whereas a caring and prayerful Church, with Christian prayer, fellowship and love just might be able to bring people back together.

There’s a lot more I could be saying, but I’ll make just two more points before I close. The first is a scriptural comment. To properly understand this quite hard passage of scripture we need to see it in context. It immediately follows the story of the lost sheep. Remember? The ninety-nine are left, and the Good Shepherd goes to find the one that’s lost. This passage isn’t about dealing with trouble-makers but finding and restoring the lost, and keeping the whole flock together. It’s about staying family in difficult times. This is such an important point: Jesus isn’t instructing us in how to deal with a situation, but how to save a soul; and unless that’s what we want to do when we engage with a situation of hurt or breakdown in the church, we’re likely to fail, for we’re not seeing or acting with the mind of Christ.

And the last thing is very much from my own experience: none of us is perfect, and where I have an issue with someone else I need to look hard at myself as well as at the other chap. If I go in believing that all the fault’s on the other side and none rests with me I’m going to get things wrong. I can think of times when an unkind word or action directed against me was actually sparked by something I’d done or said without realising or understanding the hurt I’d caused. I can’t often stand easily on the moral high ground! I think that’s the saving grace in my own family, that stops our arguments becoming feuds and keeps us talking: we’re all pretty self-aware. And so we need to be as Christians – if we’re self-aware and Christ-aware, and seriously in the business of wanting souls to be saved, then God will be able to use us graciously, and we’ll be good at being his family. Amen.

Cricket

Lots of insects around at present, following our really rather good summer (even if the past few weeks have been a little less so). These turned up on our back porch this morning, and I think they are oak bush crickets. They are quite slimly built, and are a uniform bright green colour, with a distinctive brown mark on the thorax. We have plenty of oak trees nearby, of course, and these are insects that fly readily and are attracted to lights at night.

I think they are rather attractive little beasts, and I particularly love their long antennae, which are in fact more than the length of the body.

Messiah

An address based on the Gospel reading for tomorrow :-

There’ll have been times I think when Jesus was a rather difficult person to be with. He had his natural opponents of course among the priests and the Pharisees, and for them Jesus got to be so difficult he simply had to go. But reading the Gospel stories, you get the distinct impression that the friends and disciples of Jesus found things a bit tough too; they’re sort of scrambling along after him, trying to make sense of it all, but often they must have wondered just what on earth was really happening.

This morning’s Gospel reading must surely have been one of those times. It follows immediately on from last Sunday’s Gospel, in which, if you recall, Jesus asked the question, “Who do you say I am?” Peter (who else) replied, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” and was warmly commended by Jesus. “You are Peter, the Rock - and on this rock I will build my church.”

The Messiah. People all over Israel were waiting for the Messiah. God’s holy one would come and free his people from servitude - which roughly translated, meant kick out the Romans and put a king of the line of David onto the throne of Jerusalem. There’d been a number of Messianic claimants, all of whom had attracted their share of disciples and followers. Peter and his fellows were clear in their own minds that Jesus was the real deal; clear too, I should think, about what ought to happen next - and their thoughts would have been of military victory and high office in the new kingdom.

But if that’s what they thought then Jesus must have greatly confused them when he spoke to them about what he believed would happen. Jerusalem, yes, but suffering and death, not victory: how could that happen to the Messiah?

The disciples are mystified by this, appalled at the things Jesus has told them. And once again it’s impetuous Peter who speaks out. “No, Lord, this shall never happen to you!” he cries. And Jesus, who just three or four verses ago has been commending Peter, now dismisses him with these words: “Out of my sight, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me. You think as men think, and not as God thinks!”

“Out of my sight, Satan!” Tough words, indeed. But think: where did we last find Jesus conversing with Satan? When in Lent we called to mind his testing in the wilderness. There Jesus was tempted of the Devil; in other words, he wrestled with the many temptations that would come his way as he ministered, temptations to turn aside and take the plausible but worldly alternative. A few verses before today’s Gospel reading Jesus had told Peter that his words “You are the Messiah” were not his own, but given him by God; now he tells Peter he’s speaking words put into his mouth by Satan.

Throughout his ministry Jesus must have needed to face down those same all-too-plausible temptations: to make choices that would have seemed sensible and even good - but they were the wrong way to go, they ran counter to his Father’s will. Such as going for worldly power, taking the throne of David that people expected the Messiah to seize: surely a lot of good could come of doing that: people set free, a new peace for Israel under the Law. How could that be bad?

The answer can be found in a phrase we use in the Communion prayer: “once and for all”. God’s love has no boundaries, and God’s salvation has no boundaries. It’s not for one people but for all people. It’s not about becoming King of Israel, the Messiah must be King of the world - and not for the duration of an earthly reign, but for ever. Anything less plays into Satan’s hands, and the long reign of sin remains unchallenged.

But I don’t suppose that at that time the disciples were able to make much sense of what Jesus was saying. It was so far from how they must have imagined things would be. This Messiah will win the greatest of victories, but to the world it will look like defeat. His crown is claimed from the wood of the cross, not on any battlefield. And Jesus goes on to talk to his disciples about what is expected of them. “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

So Jesus told his disciples that even as he sets his face to Jerusalem, he knows that he’s going there to die. And I’m sure that realisation of what was being asked of him would have been as terrifying for Jesus the man as for any other of us; but this man will do everything the Father asks of him. So it isn’t that Jesus enters Jerusalem full of Messianic hope, and then it all goes wrong for him; not at all - he knows from the start what he’s going there to do. He will enter the city to do his Father’s will, and already his life has been surrendered; this man holds nothing back, he gives it all.

Only in retrospect, only after they’ve seen him die, and known him risen and alive, only then will the disciples get their heads round what Jesus had been saying to them all along. But all through their time with him they’ve seen the example he has set, of humility and service, and his word to them has been: “Let the greatest among you be as one who serves.”

Let the greatest among you be as one who serves. Everything we do as Church needs again and again to face the test of those words. Our great and holy task is to present Christ to a world that so desperately needs to know him as he really is, and to know the love which is his way and his being and his gift. Be sure that the Devil still finds plausible ways to tempt and persuade us away from that task.

These plausible temptations so often begin with worry. We worry about our status and position in the world, we worry about how many attend our church on Sunday, we worry about making ends meet and looking after our buildings, and we worry about why the church up the road is doing well while we’re struggling. There’s always something to worry about. And as we deal with our worldly worries, we may choose to model the way we do things on the way we see other successful organisations operate. There’s nothing wrong in borrowing good ideas, just so long as we remember our priorities are different. Sometimes  the way Churches and individual Christians behave will look foolish according to the way the world measures things.

That’s because we follow a man who died on a cross, and he told us we can’t follow him without taking up crosses of our own. If my life isn’t cross-shaped and cross-centred, then however successful and plausible I may seem to be, there’s something vital missing, I’m losing touch with my Lord. For Jesus went to Jerusalem, to the place where Messiahs should go to get themselves made king, knowing that the true Christ must go there in order to die.

I want to close with some confessional words from G.A. Studdert Kennedy, better known in the First World War as ‘Woodbine Willie’ and from his heroic chaplaincy of our soldiers in the trenches. He wrote :-

“On June 7th 1917 I was running to our lines half made with fright, though running in the right direction, thank God, through what had been once a wooded copse. It was being heavily shelled. As I ran I stumbled and fell over something. I stopped to see what it was. It was an undersized, underfed German boy, with a wound in his stomach and a hole in his head. I remember muttering, ‘You poor little devil, what had you got to do with it? Not much great blond Prussian about you.’

“Then there came light. It may have been pure imagination, but that does not mean that it was not also reality, for what is called imagination is often the road to reality. It seemed to me that the boy disappeared and in his place lay the Christ upon his cross, and cried, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my little ones ye have done it unto me.” From that moment on I never saw a battlefield as anything but a crucifix. From that moment on I have never seen the world as anything but a crucifix.”

Butterfly

I saw a brimstone butterfly today, from the car, while driving in Shrewsbury. This is one of our loveliest butterflies, whose sulphur yellow wings may well be the origin of the name "butter fly". I usually see them on bright sunny days in Spring, when they have newly emerged from hibernation; the one I saw today will have been one of this year's hatchlings, and will spend the next few weeks feeding up so as to be in good condition for the winter ahead.

Here it is on a first class stamp - nice to see our native butterflies celebrated in this fashion.

Eucharist

"The Gospel reminds us that at every Eucharist (starting at Emmaus) Jesus tantalisingly disappears just as we recognise him and leaves us to love him in each other."

 [Anselm SSF - from a sermon preached at the funeral of Martin SSF]

Rocks

A Sunday talk prepared with this Sunday's readings in mind . . .

Although this Sunday is also the feast day of St Bartholomew, one of the apostles of Jesus - and I shall be saying a little more about him later - I’ve chosen in fact to preach on the set readings for this Sunday in ordinary time, and on the Gospel reading in particular, eight quite significant verses (I think) from Matthew, chapter sixteen.

One of the reasons I’ve chosen to do this is that I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for St Peter. St Peter’s was my home church back in Stafford where I grew up, but not only that - I find in Peter a combination of reckless enthusiasm and all too human fallibility that’s rather appealing, and I feel I can relate to.

Yet in this morning’s Gospel reading he’s given the name Peter, which means rock. And, says Jesus, “on this rock I will build my church.” What was it about Peter - or Simon, to call him by his real name - what was it that made him such a rock? At the same time, by the way, it might be worth thinking about what Jesus means when he talks about “his church”.

There’s lots about Peter that’s admirable. Together with James and John, Peter was one of the ‘inner three’ of the disciples of Jesus, so he always had start a sort of leading position among them. He and his brother Andrew had been quick to follow Jesus as soon as he called them, and that eager readiness was just how Peter was, all the way through. He was impetuous, and so, I suppose, were James and John - after all, their nicknames were ‘the Sons of Thunder’. But Jesus wasn’t looking for booklearning or paper qualifications when he called his disciples: enthusiasm and boldness were the things that counted. And Peter had enthusiasm and boldness in spades.

Think back two weeks, when our set reading was the story of Peter walking across the water to Jesus. And he almost made it, too, though in the end Jesus had to rescue him and bring him safely to the boat. How typical that was of Peter: eager to have a go, but then discovering he’d bitten off more than he could chew. The time would come when he’d come to despair at that side of himself: this is the man who disowned Jesus a matter of hours after pledging never to leave him. But later still, he discovered in the light of Easter that his Lord had not disowned him.

Today’s reading shows us Peter with a long way still to go, before he can become the rock on which the church will be built. But Jesus has singled out Peter now because of Peter’s answer when he asked, “Who do you say I am?”  The answer to that question had been forming for some time in Peter’s mind, perhaps especially in the events of that night when he walked to Jesus on the water, and the fierce storm was so suddenly stilled. Maybe they were all beginning to think the same thought, but was impetuous Peter who put it into words: “You are the Christ (the Messiah), the Son of the living God.”

Maybe what Jesus said to Peter could be understood like this: “Now someone has recognised me as the Messiah, the work of building the new fellowship of believers can begin.” It’s the Greek word ‘ekklesia’ that we translate as “church”, by the way. The problem for me is that when we use that word church the image that forms in our minds is coloured by all we know about church as an organisation - with all its buildings and officers and synods and organizations and activities. Peter would in time become the leader of the Christians in Rome, so we may even think specifically of the Roman Church. But by ekklesia Jesus means just the fellowship of those who have union with him, and faith in him.

Having said that, we can’t escape thinking of buildings, because that’s an image that crops up again and again in New Testament scripture. Christ himself is the chief cornerstone, we discover, and only when we build on him can our building stand.  We ourselves should be living stones built into a spiritual temple, and though Peter may have a special role as a foundation stone, the church finds its firm foundation in the witness of all the apostles. And they must themselves rest in, and speak for, our Lord Jesus Christ; he’s the one corner stone, who suffices for the whole building.

Thinking about the special honour that is given to Peter in today’s Gospel reading, we might reflect that still today, if we call someone a rock, we’re saying something very positive about them. “You’ve been a real rock,” we might say to a friend whose stood by us at some difficult time. I hope there’ve been times I’ve been able to be that rock for others, someone to provide a bit of shelter and firm ground to stand on. I can certainly think of some special people who have been rocks for me as I look back, and I thank God for them.

For a Jew, ‘rock’ would have been a really strong term of praise and approval. After all, Abraham himself was the rock on which the nation itself was founded under God and by his good purpose. And ‘rock’ is a word used of God himself, not least in the psalms. Psalm 28, a psalm of supplication, begins with the words “To you, Lord, I call; my rock, do not be deaf to my cry.” In Psalm 18 we read, “The Lord lives! Blessed is my rock! High above all is God, my safe refuge.” That image is repeated in other Psalms, like Psalm 94: “My God is my rock and my refuge.” It’s hard to imagine a Jew using the word ‘rock’ without thinking of those verses and many others from scripture. So whatever else is praised in Simon when he’s called Peter, the rock, his firmness of faith comes first.

Jesus praises Peter for his faith, including that impetuous readiness of his to speak what the others maybe hardly dared think. And Jesus makes clear that Peter’s faithful recognition of Jesus as the Christ is the first spark of a flame of faith that will kindle throughout the world.

I mentioned that St Peter’s was my home church as a child; as a minister the first church of which I was given charge was St Bartholomew’s, and it’s his day today. I did say I’d say a bit about him and so I shall. But not much: Bartholomew is a shadowy figure among the disciples, and we don’t know much about him. His name, Bartholomew is a surname, meaning ‘Son of Tolmai’, so perhaps Bartholomew is the same man as Nathaniel, who’s named in St John’s Gospel, and we are told just a little bit more about him.

Back when I was Rector of St Bartholomew’s, the only hymn appointed for St Bartholomew’s Day basically just took four verses to say that we don’t know much about him. Legend has it that he died a martyr’s death by being flayed alive with a butcher’s knife, probably in Persia, but that’s not a story told in scripture, although it was graphically illustrated in a stained glass window in the church, as I recall.

But maybe it’s no surprise that we know so little about Bartholomew or most of the other apostles on whom, with Peter, the church was founded. Their stories don’t matter, and they weren’t in the business of self-promotion. The sure foundation of the church is found in nothing to do with those people themselves, except this: that they belonged to Jesus, and the light of his love shone in their lives. We don’t know about them, but because of them we know about Jesus. And each person as he or she grasps the truth about Jesus is called to be a rock, a building stone; that’s true for us as well, as we take our place as part of the building, the spiritual temple.

Bloody energy companies . . . !

My tariff agreement with nPower is coming to an end, so at their request I spoke to a nice friendly advisor. As nPower had moved me from a high monthly payment to one I thought rather low, we agreed that on the new tariff starting in September I would pay rather more. Meanwhile, we would leave in place the credit balance that had built up, to provide a cushion - we've not been in the house long, and I'm still not sure about our energy usage rate. All agreed, everyone happy, one more payment at the old rate, then the new tariff and new payment rates.  One week later, nPower refunded my credit balance unasked, then increased my monthly direct debit to a rate higher than the one agreed, beginning in August. I rang and complained that this did not seem the ideal way to do business, and was informed that "We do seem to have messed up!" - but have yet to receive any formal response.

Boat Train

Standing in the marine station, I scan

the shabby weeds growing up between the tracks,

late August, tired flowers blown into seed,

while people stumble past with heavy cases;

on the blank walls the paint is cracked and peeling,

and the stale air is stained with salt and urine.

No-one belongs on this grey platform;

no-one really belongs in the seedy town beyond,

with its closed-down market and unfriendly pubs,

a transit camp where you

don’t dare stay too long, where you

better not catch anyone’s eye.

The train is old and shabby coaches,

all crowded and chaos, claustrophobic,

full of noise though no-one seems to speak;  at last

it jerks into motion, platform lights streak across the dirty windows;

it lurches across the points, as the binding brakes squeal and moan,

liquid spills from a beer can as it rolls.

I look cautiously at the tired faces

between those untidy stacks of bags and cases;

for you perhaps a beginning, a play newly begun,

but for me this is the final act,

for better or for worse the end of my dreaming time

and the last run for home.

The Syrophoenician Woman

A Sunday talk based on the Gospel set for tomorrow :-

One of the Powys County Councillors was in the news the other week because, in the course of making a very passionate point about health care provision and the sense people from this side of the border can have, Welsh speakers in particular among them, of being treated as second class citizens, a word was used that on reflection shouldn’t have been. It may be that more was made of the issue than needed to be, or maybe not, but the Councillor felt it necessary to resign from the cabinet following something of a storm of criticism.

The reason why I mention that case this morning is that it returned unbidden to my mind when I read the Gospel reading provided for today in the Common Lectionary, which includes the story of the woman of foreign extraction who came to Jesus to seek help for her daughter. For we find that even Jesus, on occasion, was prepared to use language that was grossly insulting. This could even be rather more serious than the case in our local papers. There a member of the council used an insulting word while making a debating point. Jesus on the other hand used a bad word directly to the person he was addressing. “It’s not right to take the children’s food,” he said, “and throw it to the dogs.”

Make no mistake, it’s a serious and calculated insult to describe someone as a dog. It certainly would have been then, and I’m sure it would still be now. To be fair, it’s a word many a Jewish teacher or rabbi might have used back then, to describe someone who wasn’t of their race, and didn’t therefore share the divine blessing and recognition that was theirs as a birthright. But it was still a bad word.

There’s a question for Biblical scholars to answer, then, when reading this passage, that has some serious theological implications. Just what was Jesus doing when he said that word?  Did he genuinely believe that his ministry and mission was only for and to the Jewish people, so that people like this woman were beyond the pale, and didn’t count? If that was the case, then was this a moment of epiphany for our Lord himself? Did the woman’s humble and faithful response to his insult open his eyes to a new truth, so that he realised right then that the mission he was engaged on had wider implications than he’d realised until that point.

In which case, of course, Jesus was indeed deliberately insulting the woman in exactly the sort of way that any other strict and particular Jewish teacher might have chosen to do. But Jesus isn’t just any other Jewish teacher. Last week I preached on the Gospel reading in which showed Jesus stilled the storm, revealing himself as a man in whom resided all the creative power of God. Is it possible that someone like that look at any woman in need and dismiss her so rudely?

But there are other ways of understanding this passage. Could this be one of the several places in the Gospels where an actual event becomes also an acted-out parable, in which the unexpected outcome challenges us to revise our idea of what’s right and what’s wrong, and what God wants from us and for us. If that’s the case, then maybe Jesus, though he says what any other Jewish rabbi might have been expected to say, is very deliberately doing what he does in order to provoke a response of faith from the woman, so you get a set-piece situation designed to open the minds of his disciples to the truth.

Looking at the story as a whole, it seems to me that Jesus quite deliberately put himself and his disciples into a situation in which something like this was bound to happen. He’d withdrawn to the area of Tyre and Sidon, part of what was then known as Phoenicia, today Lebanon; most of the people of this area were not Jews. So the woman came chasing after him, wanting help for her daughter, and Jesus ignored her, making out that she was none of his concern. She kept on following him, she kept on pressing her case. Perhaps the disciples could have urged Jesus to do something to help her, if only in the hope that then she’d leave them all alone, but they didn’t. Instead they urged him to send her away – and he seemed to concur with that, telling them his mission was entirely to “the lost sheep of Israel”.

Still, though, he didn’t actually send her away, and so she came to where he was, did homage before him, and asked again for his help. And we arrive at the point at which he used that insulting word. Question – did he know already, could he read it in her heart, that her desperate desire for her daughter to be healed would render her immune to insult and rejection? Probably he did, I would say – so often in the Gospels we find Jesus able to see beneath the surface, and through into the hearts of those who came to him.

Notice that when Jesus called her and her kind dogs, the woman didn’t rail at him for using such insulting language. She didn’t in fact even reject the name of dog; instead, what she did do was to turn the word back and use it in defence of her case, reminding Jesus that even the dogs were still part of household, able to eat the crumbs that fell from their master’s table.

It’s St Paul of course who develops the concept that the true children of Abraham are those who respond faithfully to the call of God, that it isn’t a matter of birthright but of faith. But here’s one of the places in which that thought process begins, and while the disciples may not yet have been persuaded that their faith should be shared with the Gentiles or Greeks, perhaps they’re beginning to recognise the simple truth that a trusting faith isn’t only found among their own people, it can turn up in other places too.

I find it such a sad thing that organised religion is so often a cause of division, that it raises barriers and creates second-class citizens. Just now in the news we’re once again reminded how divisive a force militant Islam can be; in our prayers in this service we’ll be thinking of the plight of Christian and also of Yazidis and other minority groups, in Iraq and Syria. But I think all religion can become divisive, both beyond and within itself. With that in mind it’s worth noting that the fundamentalist Sunni Muslims who seek to set up a caliphate across central Iraq may look on Christians and others as second-class, but that’s as nothing compared with their hatred for their fellow Muslims of the Shia persuasion.

But it’s not that many generations ago that Christians in this country were being fined, imprisoned, or stripped of civil rights, because they attended the wrong church on a Sunday, and not so many generations further back that Christians were burning other Christians at the stake. The encounter between Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman should stand as a corrective to anyone, including ourselves, who might be tempted to draw too tightly the boundary lines between who’s in, and who’s out, of God’s favour.

Years ago, when I still lived in a vicarage, I recall being visited one day by the Jehovah’s witnesses. We had quite a pleasant chat, in the course of which I mentioned some of my own personal heroes of the faith, by which I mean people I’ve been impressed by and persuaded by, and whose teaching and example have challenged me and encouraged me and helped me to draw closer to Jesus. Mother Julian of Norwich, Francis of Assisi, Charles Wesley, Oscar Romero, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, among others. You’ll agree that these people have really tried to live by faith, I asked my visitors. “Yes, sure,” they felt bound to agree. You’ll agree that they’ve really committed themselves to serve God, I continued. “Yes, of course,” they agreed again. But you tell me that because they’ve not called God ‘Jehovah’ they can’t be part of the new world that God is planning for us? “That’s right,” they said; that’s the rule, and there can be no exceptions.

I can’t help but admire the faith and courage and persistence of JW’s, and I’m told that the quality of the fellowship at a Kingdom Hall is second to none. But I had to tell my visitors that day that the God they were trying to tell me about was much too small and too narrow to be the real one. For the real God is like Jesus Christ, like the man who recognises and affirms and responds to faith wherever he may find it.

God is always greater than our best and highest image of him. Those of us who speak for him, those who proclaim his word need constantly to be reminded of that simple truth. Imagine how far you think God can see – well, God can always see further; imagine how much you think God can love – well, God will always love more.

We’re not told what the woman who came to Jesus that day believed about God. She may very well have believed all the wrong things, so far as creeds and doctrines are concerned. Had she any intention of changing her faith or her religious practice? The story doesn’t say, nor does it say that Jesus ever asked her to.

She simply came to Jesus with a faith born of desperation, and she loved her daughter too much to let anything stand in the way of the healing her daughter so urgently needed. She saw in Jesus something that many of the most religious of his own people seemed incapable of seeing, and she saw also that her own status as an outsider need not disqualify her from receiving the help she craved.

I think that it’s because Jesus could see that in her, that he dared to use to the woman the word he did. I feel a little sorry for the Councillor I mentioned at start of this discourse, whose argument the day the word was used may well have been a valid and timely one. The fact is though that today the word itself is rightly ruled as unsayable, for its intent has for so long been to degrade and dehumanise. So was the word Jesus used; except that in this instance he used it (I think, anyway) to jolt and shame his disciples – and therefore us – out of ever using such narrow words, and thinking such narrow things. The big thing that stops us – or should do – from allowing our God to get too small and narrow is simply this: that we know that God is like Jesus. John’s words – “No-one has ever seen God, but Jesus has made him known to us.” Paul’s words – “but we have the mind of Christ.”

I imagine it’s always going to feel safer to make boundaries, raise them up into barriers, and hide behind them;  because then we can say to the people who bother us, “Go away, you don’t belong here.” Like the disciples who asked Jesus to send the woman away, we can pray to be left in peace. But that isn’t the way of Jesus: he takes all the risks of active and courageous and inclusive love. And maybe, depending on how we read this story, we may find he’s also big enough, and humble enough, and open enough in his mind, to be able to change his mind and see the bigger picture. Be that as it may, we too need to take the open-hearted, risky loving way, if we’re truly to be his people.  “Increase in us, O Lord, true religion; nourish in us all goodness. Give us courage and compassion, open our eyes and our ears, and flood our hearts with love, in Jesus’ name.”  Amen.

All Change

My monthly 'Nature Notes' column for the month ahead :-

Come September, and the nights have noticeably started to draw in, even though the weather may remain fine and summery. In our countryside and gardens, this is a period of “all change”. In fact, autumn begins in August for many birds; I don’t think I saw any swifts over our garden after the first few days of last month – swifts are the briefest of our summer visitors, but they’ve left us early this year, which is a sign of a good summer, because fine weather and plenty of insect food have enabled the swifts to raise a new generation quickly and efficiently. Once that’s been done they don’t hang around.

Other summer visitors will have spent August stocking up so as to be ready for the long and demanding flight south, and most will leave this month, though a few will linger on into October. Some birds make a dash for the south, while others travel in small bursts, perhaps staying put for a few days before moving on. More unusual migrants like ospreys or migrant terns and waders may turn up at your local pool and stay for a day or two before moving on. Some passage migrants are species that don’t summer here, but come through on their way from somewhere else, like the black terns I once had the pleasure of watching at a pool in the south of England.

We may get to see the odd real rarity, energising twitchers who will travel many hundreds of miles in a season just to get an unusual “tick”. I’m not one of them, being happier watching the sparrows in my garden than queuing up to take a hurried snapshot of a dowitcher or a citril finch. But sometimes I’ve happened to be in the right place to see something unusual, like the red-breasted flycatcher Ann and I saw perched on a rock in Llanfairfechan. This attractive little bird is a rare but regular autumn passage migrant, more likely to be seen along the east coast. Strong winds and stormy weather will increase the number of unusual species that come our way.

Not only birds migrate, of course – so do butterflies, moths and other insects, whales, turtles and other oceanic creatures, along with events like the mass migration of caribou in North America, or wildebeest in Africa. But bird migration is a huge phenomenon, and pinch points where numerous migrants assemble, like the crossing from Gibraltar to Morocco, can be exciting places for the bird enthusiast to be. And then there is the mystery of it all: how exactly do these birds find their way? How do young cuckoos even know to fly at all, let alone where to fly to? – the parent birds leave by the end of July, and the young cuckoos never know them.

Many birds will be migrating to these shores as well, of course – ducks, geese and swans, winter thrushes and finches, and extras of some of our familiar year-round birds like blackbirds and starlings. More on these, though, next month.

Down by the Pool

I don't go as often as I should to our local nature reserve, Llyn Coed y Dinas, particularly since it's only a short way along the road from here. Anyway, I was down that way this morning, so I thought I'd look in. The lake was formed as a consequence of the building some years ago of the Welshpool Bypass, and has been landscaped and adapted to make a very attractive space for nature. It's much quieter now than earlier in the season, because the many pairs of black-headed gulls which breed there have by now moved on; but there is still plenty to see.

On the island just in front of the hide there were a dozen or so lapwing. A female teal was dabbling nearby. There were great crested grebe on the lake, two or perhaps three adults, and two young birds, one of which was eagerly begging for food from one of the adult birds. Coots, moorhens, mallard and the inevitable Canada geese were there in good numbers, as always, and the resident population of tufted ducks were quite skittish, flying about here and there and much less sedentary than usual. Sand and house martins were flying over the water, and a sandpiper was calling from somewhere, though I couldn't see it. Cormorants were about as always, and a pied wagtail was prospecting the shoreline.

Many of the birds visible were, I suppose, this year's young, hence some of the skittish behaviour I saw. The young grebes were very much in juvenile costume, with their distinctive stripey heads, but clearly already expert divers and swimmers. A gang of jackdaws appeared, and I think these will have been young birds; they set on a passing lapwing, and pursued in avidly all over the lake, with the lapwing ducking and diving in an attempt to escape - or, perhaps, just entering in the fun of the thing. For it seemed no malice was intended. At last the lapwing came down on a nearby islet, and the jackdaws flew off. Later, another lapwing, or maybe even the same one, decided to  dive-bomb one of the tufted ducks, and the wagtail also got chased a bit. Birds use play to acquire and hone the flight skills they will need.

While I was watching all this, the one still and unconcerned presence was a grey heron, perched on a rock not far away and clearly just mooching, shoulders hunched and totally ignoring everything around him. That is, until another heron drifted down from the large oak on the big island, with the intention of doing a bit of fishing on the far side of the lake. This was clearly an infringement of sovereign territory; the mooching heron took to the air, was over there like a shot, to drive the interloper all round the lake. Another heron had been skulking in the reeds at the very furthest end of the lake from me, and that bird took off as well, so that for a short time there were three birds in the air all at once, with an array of harsh cries. The third bird soon settled again, out of my sight, but the intruder was pursued for nearly a complete circuit of the lake before lifting over the trees and, presumably, into a nearby field, whereupon the incumbent bird landed back near to "his" rock, hopped onto it, hunched his shoulders and became once again semi-comatose.

All of this in no more than twenty minutes or so break between one shopping tour and the next. As I began by saying, I really ought to get there more often.

Storm

A Sunday talk given at Arddleen and Geuffordd last Sunday :-

I was shopping the other day at a certain well known supermarket, and, as I often do, I chose to use the self service checkout option. I checked everything through, no problem; clicked the window for no bags needed, since for once I’d remembered and brought my own. Swiped my club card, paid my dues - with actual money for once.  All done.  The voice then instructed me to “please take your items,” so I proceeded to do so, placing my shopping bag on the loading bay and beginning to load my purchases into it: one carton of milk, one bunch of bananas . . .

. . . at which point the voice says (you may be ahead of me here), “Unexpected item in bagging area.” This where it starts to get embarrassing, and it’s probably the reason why I do most of my supermarket shopping at quiet times of the day (or even the middle of the night). Because I can’t resist arguing with that disembodied voice. “Of course there’s an item in the bagging area, you idiot. It’s called a bag. How can a bag in a bagging area be unexpected? Isn’t that what we’re all here for?” People are beginning to stare at me, and a man in a security guard’s uniform has started talking into his mobile phone, though to be fair he’s probably just ordering a pizza for when he comes off shift.

Yes, I know it’s only a recording, but if there’s a voice speaking to me why shouldn’t I answer back? It may not do any good, but if I let off a bit of steam I feel a bit better, so it hasn’t all gone for nothing, has it? One of the places we feel most helpless these days is when we’re having to deal with machines that fail to do what machines are supposed to do - meet our needs and make our lives more comfortable. Instead it feels as though they’re out to get us. In a recent survey, the announcement “Unexpected item in bagging area” was voted as one of the most annoying things you ever hear.

And then there’s the weather. We’re just as helpless there. We can’t control or change the weather for all our 21st century sophistication. We have to put up with it whatever, and today we’re blessed with the remnants of Hurricane Bertha. Only the left-over bits, thankfully, so while we’re getting a bit of wind or rain, it’s just a blip in our summer picture, and not too many roofs will get blown away. I hope. But though we may not like, we do have to lump it.

Sudden squalls are still a feature today of the Sea of Galilee, though perhaps today they’re not quite as frightening as they would have been to even experienced fishermen at the time of Jesus. These days the boats are larger, and they’ve got engines; not so back then. The Gospel reading set for today in the revised common lectionary is Matthew’s version of the story of the Stilling of the Storm. You can find this story in Matthew chapter 14, verses 22 to 33.

Matthew’s version of this story differs a bit from Mark’s, but then there’s also the ‘stilling of the storm’ story as St Luke tells it, in which Jesus is asleep in the boat. Were there two different storms, or are these different accounts of the same storm? Be that as it may, a distinctive factor in Matthew’s version is to do with Peter. Jesus walks on water, but do does Peter.

Let’s reflect on that for a moment or two. It’s a strange story, but it feels true to the picture the Gospels give us of faithful, foolhardy, brave, impetuous Peter. This is a man who’s been out on the lake often enough, and who knows as well as anyone there just how deep it is, and how dangerous. But he’s also a man who knows Jesus, and somewhere in his heart he already knows just who Jesus is. So, when Jesus calls him he gets out of the boat and begins to walk across the lake.

But it’s the middle of the night, and the wind’s blowing a gale, and at some point Peter comes to his senses and realises just what a pickle he’s in. His natural trust in Jesus has been replaced by a distinct failure of trust in himself, certainly in his power to cope with a storm. It feels almost like a sleepwalker waking up to find himself in a strange and dangerous place. Peter panics, but in his panic he still knows where to look for help. “Save me, Lord,” he cries, and Jesus reaches out to him and he is safe.

So Jesus helps Peter back to the boat, and they get in, with everyone terrified at the intensity of the storm. But they’ve no sooner got into the boat, than the storm dies down, to the amazement and awe of them all. This again is one of Matthew’s touches, and I need to refer you to the story in Luke in order to connect into the story with which I began.

For in the version of the stilling of the storm we read in Luke, Jesus does just the same sort of thing that I do in the supermarket. He wastes his time talking to something that by definition we can’t control. I talk to disembodied voices in supermarket machinery; Jesus talks to the weather.

We’ve all done that, or maybe we’ve been a bit poetic: “Rain, rain go away, come again another day!” Nothing worse that getting caught by a rain shower when you were expecting it to stay fine. I have been known to curse mildly at the clouds. It doesn’t do any good though. It’s a fool’s errand.

But it’s not a fool’s errand when Jesus does it. He tells the storm to hush down, and it does. And the lake’s surging waves die away to a flat calm. And the disciples say, “Who is this, that the wind and the waves obey him?” Who indeed? They begin to realise what Peter already I think knew somewhere deep down - this isn’t just a great teacher, this is a man deeply and fundamentally in touch with the creative power of God.

And that’s a terrifying but also a wonderful thing to discover, for us as well as for those first disciples out there on the lake. Put at its simplest, the message of this story is that we may from time to time be out of our depth, but Jesus our friend and saviour never is.

We know that, but we often forget it. Like Peter, we hear the call and get out of the boat - to take on whatever care or responsibility, whatever project or task, whatever journey of discovery our faith or our faith community invites us into. We may think of this in terms of vocation, and people may seek to train and prepare us for the task, and maybe even commission or ordain us into it.

But then the times come when we suddenly wake up to realise just where we are: the water’s too high and the shore too far away; the task seems too great and our own strength too small, there are waters rising up to overwhelm us. Suddenly, we’re out of our depth, and we know we can’t save ourselves; suddenly, we’re sinking.

“How little faith you have,” says Jesus to Peter in the story we heard this morning. As St Luke tells the story, Jesus says much the same to all his companions. Elsewhere he tells them that if they had faith just the size of a mustard seed they could command a tree to be plucked up and thrown into the sea. I’d like a bit more faith, in God and in myself; and the bit of faith I do have is constantly under threat. The world is tough and bad things happen in it, and it can be hard to remain constant in witness and praise. I admit my prayer is often just that I might see a little bit more of the road ahead, to be able to walk it a bit more boldly. But usually we can’t tell what’s round the next corner, or what dangers might crouch in the next shadow; what we do have, however, is this promise - that there’s a hand that reaches out for us, and we’ve a saviour who knows our needs and listens for our cry.

So if what we’re about is God’s work, and if we are God’s people, seeking his word and his presence constantly, God will provide . . . not necessarily what we want, but what we need; not necessarily the means to fulfil our own planned agenda, but the means to persevere, and to bear a true and persuasive witness to the God we’ve met with and walked with in the man Jesus Christ, the God who we therefore know loves us.
If I look back over the often chaotic chapters of my life thus far, and all the wrong turnings, and all the times I’ve stepped happily into quicksand or mud, and all the times I’ve been absolutely out of my depth, I can easily identify with Peter. For I know I’ve been held and supported, and led to safety. And I hope too that from time to time I’ve been able to do a little of that reaching out and saving work myself, for people God has needed me to reach out to.

At a funeral last week that I attended, the minister asked the difficult and daring question, “Where is Jesus in this story?” For the family in bereavement, she suggested, Jesus was present in the very real support they’d received from friends and neighbours around them, and in the sense they were able to have even in this time of agony and desolation and loss, that they were surrounded by love. They were at risk of sinking beneath the waves, but there were hands reaching out to buoy them up.

I’m sure that in the same way an important part of our call as members of the Body of Christ is that we should aim to be Christ (or maybe I should say to be Christ-like) to one another, helping, guiding, supporting, rescuing. Those in positions of leadership or authority in the Church certainly have a prime role to be as Christ-like as they can be, but responsibility isn’t just theirs, it’s the job of every member to be as like our Head as we can be; and that starts with our ministry to one another.

What that may mean in practical terms is a matter for each individual Christian, and each Christian fellowship, to decide. All have different challenges, opportunities, skills and resources. And among us there are those whom God may well be calling specially, in just the way that Jesus called Peter - to step out of the boat and into something quite new and probably rather scary. But make no mistake, he calls all of us to something.

To something we can do - maybe not in our own strength, but his help is available. I can’t talk to supermarket check-out machines (or at least, I can, but it profiteth me nothing); I haven’t up till now had much success with the weather either. But I can talk to God; Jesus has given me permission, and shown me how. The words begin “Our Father” - and that in itself is proof that he will listen and respond, for what father wouldn’t, for a child who is dearly loved.

And a last thought - “Our Father”; not just mine, but yours too, this is the family prayer - so when I pray ‘Our Father’ I am straightaway praying myself into a position of responsibility for and solidarity with anyone who’s also a child of God. And I might also add that who is and who isn’t a child of God is, I believe, God’s affair and not mine. So as I look to God for help when I’m in deep waters, so also I know he calls me to offer myself to him, because there will be times when I in my turn need to be the help he is offering to others.

Concerning Me

"That doesn't concern you!" I was told rather brusquely the other day, when I asked what I had thought was a perfectly valid question. To a degree it was true, as the conversation was about a matter that I had no direct involvement in. Perhaps, then, I was out of order to say anything, but I'd felt I might have a useful contribution to make to an issue that needed to move on a bit, and that would maybe benefit from a fresh perspective. And I still think that, as it happens; This wasn't any sort of bid for power on my part, I had no desire to wade in and take over, it was just that I hoped I might be of some help. So it hurt to be pushed back in the way I was; but at the same time I can understand that when there's a bit of a log-jam people involved can feel vulnerable, so that any intrusion, however well-meant, may come across as a threat.

So what does concern me, and what should concern me, I find myself asking; and how much of myself and my concerns am I prepared to reveal and open up to others. In all probability, there are times when I'm as closed to and resentful of others as others were towards me on this occasion. I can think of times, being honest with myself, when I've been the one to push people away and shut people up, especially when the things they might have said (if I'd allowed them to) would have challenged my own position. In other words, there have been times when my mantra has been "If it can't be done my way, then perhaps it shouldn't be done at all." This is a perspective which, in the end, can be highly damaging: the best good for the greatest number emerges not when it is done "my way", but when it is done the best way. And for that to happen, egos have to be set aside. Whoever we are and whatever status we may have, there needs to be a readiness to open up and listen, and a measure of humility, among all those concerned.

Watching the Road

I've witnessed so many examples of bad driving over the past few days. I'm not that great a driver myself, but I hope most of the time I'm attentive and safety conscious. Most of the bad driving practice I've seen has been I think due to three particular recurring problems :-

Firstly - not being in proper control of the car. I really think this is more and more an issue. Cars are themselves safer, but sometimes I feel the car does so much that the driver becomes more prepared than he or she ever should to hand over responsibility - to what? - a computer, an advanced braking system, and a satnav. That last is quite significant - our one way system, too new to be on many satnavs, is just one area in which foolish drivers make wrong turns and dangerous manoeuvres because that's what their satnav has directed them to do, and clearly have become so dependant on that piece of kit that they no longer bother looking at road signs.

Secondly - not having proper thought for other road users. Excessive speed is of course one persistent failing, and that mad desire to get past the person in front, just because. I slowed down the other morning to make space for someone who had overtaken me foolishly and needed to get in so as to avoid a head-on collision, only to be overtaken by someone else as I did so. Which leads me to my third point, which is

- inattentiveness: not watching the road properly. Too many drivers do not drive analytically. You need to be constantly interpreting what is ahead of you and around you, and, frankly, if there is something ahead you can't interpret or understand, then the chances are you're approaching it too fast. It's always worth checking your speed (in both senses of the word).

He Ain't Heavy . . .

A talk given yesterday at Welsh Frankton :-

The road is long, with many a winding turn;                             

that leads us to who knows where,                 

who knows where . . .

Congratulations if you managed to recognize those words, since I  decided not to sing them. These are the opening lyrics to the song “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother”, which was a huge hit for the Hollies in 1969, and a hit again for Neil Diamond in the following year. It’s been a hit over and over, most recently as a charity single in 2012, raising funds for causes connected with the Hillsborough disaster.

This is a song with a story to it, and indeed with a story behind it. The title “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother” was the motto of Boys Town, a community formed in 1917 by a Catholic priest named Father Edward Flanagan, in Omaha, Nebraska. Boys Town was a place where troubled or homeless boys could come for help, and its good work continues to this day, as probably one of the most significant children’s charities in the USA - girls have also been accepted since the late 1970’s. The work of Boys Town has been celebrated in two Hollywood films, the second of which, “Men of Boys Town”, included the Hollies’ version of the song when it was remade in the 1980’s. The phrase “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother” had been used for the first time in the first version of “Men of Boys Town”, released in 1941, and it was in that year Father Flanagan decided to adopt the phrase as the motto for his work, as he felt it summed up so well what his work aimed to achieve.

And that was because Father Flanagan had been impressed by the story behind the phrase, a story not from America but from Scotland. It can be found in “The Parables of Jesus,” a book published in 1884, written by the then Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland, the Reverend James Wells.

James Wells told the story of a young girl who was seen carrying a baby boy along the street. She was only small, and the baby was big and bonny, and a minister, passing by, said kindly to her, “My, but that’s a fair burden you have there, lassie; you must be tired.” And her reply became the title of the song: “No, sir: he isna heavy, he’s my brother!”

But I’d like for a moment to move from that story to the traditional story of St Christopher, remembered as the patron saint of travellers. Christopher was a big strong fellow who decided to devote his great strength to the service of the greatest king. So he entered the king’s service, but one day he saw the king cross himself at the mention of the devil. If the king was afraid of the devil, reasoned Christopher, the devil must be a greater king, so off he went to serve him. He came across a mob of bandits, one of whom claimed he was the devil, so Christopher joined them. But one day he saw his new master shrink away from a wayside cross - the devil was afraid of Jesus Christ. So Christopher decided to serve Jesus. 

He met a hermit who instructed him in the Christian faith. “How can I serve Jesus?” asked Christopher. The hermit told him he served Jesus by fasting and prayer, but there was no way a big lad like Christopher could serve his Lord in such a way. So the hermit suggested that he might use his size and strength to serve by carrying people across a nearby river. There was no bridge, the water was deep, and some had died, swept away by the water. This, said the hermit, would be a service pleasing to Jesus.

So Christopher made it his task to carry people across the river. Then one day a little child asked him to take him across. As they crossed the waters rose, and the child seemed as heavy as lead, so much so that Christopher could scarcely carry him and found himself in great difficulty; but he prayed for strength and managed to press on to the other side.

“Child,” he said to the boy, once they had made it across, “Of all the people I’ve carried across this river, you’ve been that hardest to bear. I began to fear I wouldn’t make it across; surely if the whole world had been on my shoulders it could not have been as heavy as you.” The child replied: “You had on your shoulders not only the whole world but Him who made it. I am Christ your king, whom you are serving by this work.”

And so Reprobus, which had actually been the man’s name until that time, received his new name of Christopher, which means “The one who has carried Christ.”

I was reminded of both these stories when I read through the passage of scripture set for today in Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Two places particularly in that letter - firstly, when in chapter 8 verse 26 Paul speaks about the Spirit coming to the aid of our weakness; and then in verse 29 when Paul describes Jesus as choosing to be the eldest in a large family of brothers (and sisters, of course - elsewhere Paul makes it clear that in Christ both male and female find equal acceptance and worth).

At first listen, the song “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother” just tells the story of that little girl helping her brother, and that in itself is an inspiration, as we think of how important our families are and of how we belong to each other; but in the middle eight of the song the lyrics lift us onto a higher plain, and remind us that the whole world should live as family: “If I’m laden at all, I’m laden with sadness, that everyone’s heart isn’t filled with the gladness of love for one another.” It’s this relationship that Christ calls us into; how sad that so often religion divides when it should unite, and narrows our vision when it should be widening and enhancing it. How sad when the Church itself is not immune from these failings.

I’ve always been rather impatient with dogmas and doctrines. Of course, they’re important; they’re part of the process of being Church together, and understanding what we believe and how we are called to act and behave. But in the end it isn’t the way we describe or define God that’s important, but the relationship we have with him: what he does with our hearts. We are people of Christ, and therefore people of the Holy Spirit, and, to quote again from Romans 8 verse 26, the Spirit is the one who comes to the aid of our weakness.

As I listen to the song “He ain’t heavy” I’m inspired by the refusal of the little girl in the story to admit that her brother could ever be a burden to her. He’s her brother, and therefore it isn’t only her duty to carry him, but also her delight. It’s an act of love. And it’s the love she has that makes her strong enough to carry him.

But the story of Christopher the Christ-bearer reminds us also that the service of our Lord is also the place in which we recognise and confront our weakness. Being aware of our weakness is a vital turning point. Christopher knew how strong he was, and he was eager to use that strength in the service of his King. But on that fateful day when he carried the child across the flood, he also realised how weak he could be. Sheer strength was not enough. On the verge of losing his footing and being swept away with his precious charge, he prayed for help, and that help was given him - not help to take away the pain and challenge and sheer back-breaking slog of his task, but help enough to go beyond the limit of his own powers and still to reach the other side.

Serving our Lord is a co-operative venture. That’s the promise Jesus made when he told his disciples they would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Give all you can give; it won’t be enough, but you’ll not be left like that. For when you pledge yourself to give, you will also receive.

Many of the stories Jesus told have within them a sense of a secret that can be hard to find and discover, but which when found is of infinite value and preciousness. So in the story we’ve heard this morning a merchant finds a pearl of such great price that he sells everything he has in order to buy it. Or we hear about the farmer who finds treasure buried in a field, so he sells all his other land to buy that field.

Just think a moment about those two stories. In simple human terms they don’t make sense. What farmer gets rid of all his land in order to buy a single field that he’s not going to be able to do anything with, for fear of disturbing what’s buried there? A merchant gets rid of all his stock in order to buy a jewel he’s never going to sell; what sort of a merchant could ever do something like that? You’d say of both of them that they’ve gone a little mad, that their heads have been turned.

Jesus I think liked to shock and puzzle people like that, but the nonsense element in those parables (nonsense in everyday human terms, anyway) was exactly his point. Once you’ve grasped the secret, it becomes so important that nothing else matters. And the secret is that we are known and loved and treasured; that we for all our unworthiness are saved; that we are weak and unable to save ourselves, but the Spirit is ours to help us in our weakness, to open our eyes and our hearts, and to give us prayers to pray. That God who could destroy us our ignore us chooses in Jesus Christ to be our big brother.

Solomon, when he became king in place of his father David, took possession of the nation that had become powerful and prosperous. But his first act is to go prayerfully to the shrine at Gibeon, and to acknowledge that the people of this nation are not his, but God’s. Out of all the things he might have asked for, he asks for wisdom and for a discerning ear and heart, so that he might not only govern but serve the people placed in his care. 

Whoever we are, high or low in human terms, our call and our mission under God is to serve. Because we know Jesus, we know also that we’ll find in him the best model of service. He’s our great example, he’s the Servant-King. Paul expresses it like this: “We have the mind of Christ.”

So it would be good like Solomon to pray for the gift of discernment and the ability to listen deeply; and like Christopher to be ready to offer all we have in the service of our King; and like the little girl in the story, may we too have perseverance and love so we can bear the load gladly. And may we have as our own the precious jewel that lies at the heart of it all: that though we’re too weak and too short sighted and too lacking in faith and though we can’t manage to do in our own strength anything like enough to qualify for heaven, none of that matters, because we’re already there we’re already citizens of that place. For our God knows us and loves us and saves us and strengthens us, and in Jesus he chooses to call us sisters and brothers, family.

So we have the holy task of doing loving and lovely things not our of fear or duty but as a thank you and an act of love, because we know we are loved, and because we see the face of our big brother Jesus in all kinds of people who need and merit our help and our care. And so these words become not only inspiring words but holy words too: “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.”

Fete

It's good to be able to report tonight that the great British summer fete is still alive and very much kicking. Of course, the weather has helped today, but a good crowd of folk gathered in the churchyard of the little (and very beautiful) parish church of Trelystan, high on the Long Mountain between Shropshire and Montgomeryshire, for no better reason than to have fun together and raise some money for a special building and its work.

In these days when everything has to have a screen and go 'beep', it was both good and, I have to say, somewhat reassuring, to see old and young alike doing all the traditional things: buying second hand books, spare garden plants and home made cakes, indulging in ice cream, cups of strong tea and the products of the barbecue, shying for coconuts and trying their hand at hoopla, and running obstacle and sack races. And loving every minute of it.

Of course, the incidentals are just as important - meeting up with old friends, keeping up with the news, greeting strangers, visitors for whom this was a great opportunity to get inside one of the most interesting churches in this part of Wales, and just enjoying the wonderful weather. That weather made sure some of the farmers were absent, making the most of the opportunity the day brought to bring in the hay or start cutting and combining the wheat - but there was a big crowd, for all that.

I don't know how much was made on the day - raffles, tombola, bottle stall, it all adds up - but I doubt anyone present begrudged a cent of it. This is always a good day, and the regulars have it inked in in the diary months beforehand; but I guess this year's will be better than most - "This is one we're going to look back on," as one local told me.