Another new poem . . . maybe not quite where I want it yet, but I'm happy to share it as it is . . .
Today finds me standing at the mere’s edge,
where trailing branches of willow and ash
play tunes in the clear water. Fish with silver scales
and red fins are patrolling the shaded pools;
occasionally one breaks the surface to seize a fly.
Each splash chimes a broken chord,
and everywhere around me there is birdsong.
Yet my sense is that the music I hear
is only the smallest hint of the music that really is.
We are surrounded by music,
and we are also, wonderfully, made of music.
For I claim music as my deepest self;
music sings within me, the music of atoms and molecules,
of dancing, spinning electrons; music finds its rhythm
in the constant motion of my blood,
in my breathing out and in, in all the circles and cycles
of existence. So it is because I am music
that I can hear and interpret the music of today,
in the calling birds, in the splash of water on rocks,
the rustle of the leaves, the laughter of passers-by.
It is because I am made of music
that this music becomes part of me.
So today I feel, and say, and insist that all of life is music;
music is my best explanation
of what it means to be alive, and
of what we should do with our lives.
Let’s dance.
Wednesday, 28 September 2016
Tuesday, 27 September 2016
Between The Meres
This is a poem started yesterday, and that I've been working on this morning. I'm not sure whether it's quite finished (but then again, I never am), but I think it's ready to be viewed . . .
Pausing between the meres on his homeward journey
he looks at the yellowing leaves
as if seeing them for the first time.
Somewhere a buzzard is mewing.
Late afternoon in early autumn, with a sharpening breeze
to usher in the shorter days.
Leaning on the gate to recover his breath,
he is startled by a cascade of swallows;
they appear as if from nowhere,
but these are not the skimming, dancing birds of summer.
Now each bird flies with solemn purpose and direction,
for they are heading south, they are heading home.
He notes their passing, shakes his head.
So, where am I headed, he wonders, what refuge for me?
He has seen too many autumns;
each time it seems harder to take,
the yellowing of the leaves and the flying of the birds,
the closing down of things.
Suddenly, close by, a robin begins to sing,
her notes falling through a minor key
like ice crystals gently forming in the air. He looks up:
the sky is certainly clear enough for frost,
but maybe not quite yet, there’ll be
a week or two more of hanging on, he thinks.
He kicks his boots against the gatepost
to clear the mud of the mere bank from their treads.
And as he sets off up the lane, a single swallow
flips and curves back across the hedge; this one at least
seems happy to stay a day or two more.
So, we’re not done quite yet, he decides.
He whistles a tune to match the robin, makes for home.
Sunshine filters soft and low through the alders, while
ahead a rising plume of smoke speaks of
welcome hearth and comfy chair.
No need for now to reflect too deeply on
the yellowing of leaves, the ice in the air,
and the shortening of days and of breath.
Monday, 26 September 2016
Wet Weather
Well, a proper wet day today, the first for a while. We've had some heavy rain over recent days, but nearly all at night. I had a nice walk down to the pub though, for the poetry evening. An excellent guest poet, and a couple of decent pints of Adnam's, and good company.
Walking home, it's marvellous how just a couple of pints can propel you uphill so that you hardly notice the steepness. Wet nights, though - where the path is well lit, that's all right, but where shadows fall across it, or a street light is out (thank you, Powys County Council!), you tread carefully. I hate the sudden crunch which means (usually) that you've trodden on a snail - or even worse, the slimy squelch that suggests a slug has met its doom. On a wet night like this, they are out in force. I think I missed most of them.
Walking home, it's marvellous how just a couple of pints can propel you uphill so that you hardly notice the steepness. Wet nights, though - where the path is well lit, that's all right, but where shadows fall across it, or a street light is out (thank you, Powys County Council!), you tread carefully. I hate the sudden crunch which means (usually) that you've trodden on a snail - or even worse, the slimy squelch that suggests a slug has met its doom. On a wet night like this, they are out in force. I think I missed most of them.
Saturday, 24 September 2016
On Dives and Lazarus
A sermon for tomorrow, at Welshampton and Coedway . . .
We’ve just heard the story of Dives and Lazarus, maybe the original rich man in his castle and poor man at his gate - to borrow from the verse of All Things Bright and Beautiful that we don’t sing any more. The rich man doesn’t have a name in story in fact; the name we give him, Dives, really just means ‘Rich Man’.
Those who first heard Jesus tell this story would have thought that to be a rich man was proof of God’s blessing. Surely God was smiling down on people like that. Some people of course became rich in bad ways, like the tax-collectors who worked for the Romans and were cheats and anyway outside the Law and out of God’s favour; but so far as we know Dives wasn’t like that; he probably did all the right things - kept the feasts and fasts, went regularly to the temple and the synagogue, prayed at the proper times each day. I think Dives was a man other people looked up to.
And when Jesus went on to tell his disciples that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, they’d have been staggered to hear him. A pious and obedient rich man who lived according to the Law was surely already on a fast track into heaven. Everyone could see such a man was richly blessed.
Not so, says Jesus to them. The problem is that things we think we own can end up owning us. A rich man can be made short-sighted by his wealth, so that his wealth becomes an end in itself; so the wealth of Dives and the comfortable life it bought him had made him blind to what was really happening in the world around him. Blind to Lazarus begging by his gate. The way I see it, a man like Dives, who was surely very conscious of his civic and religious duty, he’d have tossed a coin or two to Lazarus there at his gate if he’d seen him. But he didn’t; he was too wrapped up in his own affairs to notice him. These days such a man might sweep past in his stretch limousine with its tinted windows, not seeing the bums begging on the street. No limo, but otherwise it was much the same back then.
Maybe Jesus told this story to help his disciples tackle an issue that must have been nagging them: why it was that while people abandoned and rejected by the religious elite came to hear Jesus preach, pious and godly people other folk looked up to hardly gave him the time of day, and often briefed and plotted against him. Surely a teacher of God’s word should be heard gladly by holy folk like the Pharisees, so why, instead, were these people constantly trying to catch Jesus out, and trip Jesus up?
In the story both Dives and Lazarus die, and Lazarus is carried into the bosom of Abraham, while Dives ends up in the flames of hell. At first read that sounds like karma in Buddhist or Hindu thought - a sort of payback time, where the unfairnesses of this world get set straight. The wealth and success Dives enjoyed in this life has destined him for a next life full of torment. But in fact it isn’t for his wealth that Dives gets punished: to be wealthy is fine. But Dives had allowed his wealth turn him blind, he’d allowed what he owned to own him instead.
And he finds himself in an unreachable place where no-one can even get across to soothe his parched lips with a drop of water. So Dives says, even if you can’t help me, then at least don’t let my brothers go the same way - send someone to warn them. But they’ve been warned already, he’s told. It’s all there in the scripture you read every day, the word you hear expounded every Sabbath in the synagogue or the temple. But, says Dives (as I imagine him, anyway) you can’t expect them to listen to that - that’s just the stuff we get in church. I mean, I always went, and I sang the hymns and said the prayers, but you know, it was always mostly so I was seen doing the right thing. I never listened all that hard to the sermon so I don’t suppose my brothers have either. So please, do something big and flash so they can’t help but notice. Hey! Send Lazarus back, that’ll do it - they’ll surely pay attention if someone comes back from the dead!
It’s then we hear that chilling phrase: "If they’ve not listened to Moses and the prophets they’re not going to listen; they won’t even listen if someone should rise from the dead.” There’s none so blind as those who will not see; there’s none so deaf as those who stop their ears to the word. The summary of the law, all the Jewish law and prophets rolled up into one, is this, and we know it well: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength; and love your neighbour as yourself.’
So what might that mean for Dives, and maybe for us? To love our neighbour we must first seek out and find our neighbour; our neighbour isn’t just the person who happens to come our way or knock on our door or live down our street, though of course to be generous to them is important. Our neighbour is anyone we could help, and some of those people don’t present themselves well, they may be hard to like, they may be hard even to see. Dives never noticed Lazarus. If he’d noticed him, he might have helped him. He didn’t though - they just didn’t move in the same circles.
Then we’re to love our neighbour as we love ourselves. It’s OK to love ourselves; it’s fine to enjoy life; we don’t have to wear hair shirts all the time. God made us, and he made us to be beautiful, both inside and out; God made the good earth and its fruits, and he wants us to enjoy them. Religious folk don’t need to be solemn and sour-faced, we’re allowed to have fun. Jesus himself loved a good party! What’s wrong is when we enjoy the earth at the expense of others; and when we squeeze charity down into “what we do with the stuff left over once we’ve spent all we want on ourselves”. That’s when we lose focus, lose the Jesus touch. My neighbour may be no more important than me; but they’re certainly no less important.
For all the our Brexit worries, we still live in a prosperous part of the world. We’re blessed with more than others have. Some of those others are beating at our doors, are floating across the Med or trying to board trucks in Calais. We could feel threatened, even besieged; many people do feel that way, but what about us?
For the person of faith, wealth carries with it responsibility - Dives may not have realised that, but we should. So it’s not just a sign of God’s favour upon me, the fact that I’m not too badly off; it’s an opportunity to do something useful, it’s a chance to be of service. Put simply, what God gives me remains his, even though it’s also mine. As we approach the season of harvest, in Church we remind ourselves again that God is the giver of all good things, and that we should use and employ what he gives us in the spirit of the giver. And in doing that, give a lead to others. God loves it when our eyes are open to see as he sees, so we interpret and respond to what we find there with compassion and love. God loves it when we recognise our neighbours, and when with generous hearts we set ourselves to provide for their needs, as well as for our own.
We’ve just heard the story of Dives and Lazarus, maybe the original rich man in his castle and poor man at his gate - to borrow from the verse of All Things Bright and Beautiful that we don’t sing any more. The rich man doesn’t have a name in story in fact; the name we give him, Dives, really just means ‘Rich Man’.
Those who first heard Jesus tell this story would have thought that to be a rich man was proof of God’s blessing. Surely God was smiling down on people like that. Some people of course became rich in bad ways, like the tax-collectors who worked for the Romans and were cheats and anyway outside the Law and out of God’s favour; but so far as we know Dives wasn’t like that; he probably did all the right things - kept the feasts and fasts, went regularly to the temple and the synagogue, prayed at the proper times each day. I think Dives was a man other people looked up to.
And when Jesus went on to tell his disciples that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, they’d have been staggered to hear him. A pious and obedient rich man who lived according to the Law was surely already on a fast track into heaven. Everyone could see such a man was richly blessed.
Not so, says Jesus to them. The problem is that things we think we own can end up owning us. A rich man can be made short-sighted by his wealth, so that his wealth becomes an end in itself; so the wealth of Dives and the comfortable life it bought him had made him blind to what was really happening in the world around him. Blind to Lazarus begging by his gate. The way I see it, a man like Dives, who was surely very conscious of his civic and religious duty, he’d have tossed a coin or two to Lazarus there at his gate if he’d seen him. But he didn’t; he was too wrapped up in his own affairs to notice him. These days such a man might sweep past in his stretch limousine with its tinted windows, not seeing the bums begging on the street. No limo, but otherwise it was much the same back then.
Maybe Jesus told this story to help his disciples tackle an issue that must have been nagging them: why it was that while people abandoned and rejected by the religious elite came to hear Jesus preach, pious and godly people other folk looked up to hardly gave him the time of day, and often briefed and plotted against him. Surely a teacher of God’s word should be heard gladly by holy folk like the Pharisees, so why, instead, were these people constantly trying to catch Jesus out, and trip Jesus up?
In the story both Dives and Lazarus die, and Lazarus is carried into the bosom of Abraham, while Dives ends up in the flames of hell. At first read that sounds like karma in Buddhist or Hindu thought - a sort of payback time, where the unfairnesses of this world get set straight. The wealth and success Dives enjoyed in this life has destined him for a next life full of torment. But in fact it isn’t for his wealth that Dives gets punished: to be wealthy is fine. But Dives had allowed his wealth turn him blind, he’d allowed what he owned to own him instead.
And he finds himself in an unreachable place where no-one can even get across to soothe his parched lips with a drop of water. So Dives says, even if you can’t help me, then at least don’t let my brothers go the same way - send someone to warn them. But they’ve been warned already, he’s told. It’s all there in the scripture you read every day, the word you hear expounded every Sabbath in the synagogue or the temple. But, says Dives (as I imagine him, anyway) you can’t expect them to listen to that - that’s just the stuff we get in church. I mean, I always went, and I sang the hymns and said the prayers, but you know, it was always mostly so I was seen doing the right thing. I never listened all that hard to the sermon so I don’t suppose my brothers have either. So please, do something big and flash so they can’t help but notice. Hey! Send Lazarus back, that’ll do it - they’ll surely pay attention if someone comes back from the dead!
It’s then we hear that chilling phrase: "If they’ve not listened to Moses and the prophets they’re not going to listen; they won’t even listen if someone should rise from the dead.” There’s none so blind as those who will not see; there’s none so deaf as those who stop their ears to the word. The summary of the law, all the Jewish law and prophets rolled up into one, is this, and we know it well: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength; and love your neighbour as yourself.’
So what might that mean for Dives, and maybe for us? To love our neighbour we must first seek out and find our neighbour; our neighbour isn’t just the person who happens to come our way or knock on our door or live down our street, though of course to be generous to them is important. Our neighbour is anyone we could help, and some of those people don’t present themselves well, they may be hard to like, they may be hard even to see. Dives never noticed Lazarus. If he’d noticed him, he might have helped him. He didn’t though - they just didn’t move in the same circles.
Then we’re to love our neighbour as we love ourselves. It’s OK to love ourselves; it’s fine to enjoy life; we don’t have to wear hair shirts all the time. God made us, and he made us to be beautiful, both inside and out; God made the good earth and its fruits, and he wants us to enjoy them. Religious folk don’t need to be solemn and sour-faced, we’re allowed to have fun. Jesus himself loved a good party! What’s wrong is when we enjoy the earth at the expense of others; and when we squeeze charity down into “what we do with the stuff left over once we’ve spent all we want on ourselves”. That’s when we lose focus, lose the Jesus touch. My neighbour may be no more important than me; but they’re certainly no less important.
For all the our Brexit worries, we still live in a prosperous part of the world. We’re blessed with more than others have. Some of those others are beating at our doors, are floating across the Med or trying to board trucks in Calais. We could feel threatened, even besieged; many people do feel that way, but what about us?
For the person of faith, wealth carries with it responsibility - Dives may not have realised that, but we should. So it’s not just a sign of God’s favour upon me, the fact that I’m not too badly off; it’s an opportunity to do something useful, it’s a chance to be of service. Put simply, what God gives me remains his, even though it’s also mine. As we approach the season of harvest, in Church we remind ourselves again that God is the giver of all good things, and that we should use and employ what he gives us in the spirit of the giver. And in doing that, give a lead to others. God loves it when our eyes are open to see as he sees, so we interpret and respond to what we find there with compassion and love. God loves it when we recognise our neighbours, and when with generous hearts we set ourselves to provide for their needs, as well as for our own.
Friday, 23 September 2016
Harvest Festival
The HF season comes round again . . . this is my sermon for Corndon Marsh, Chirbury, Montgomery PC, Wattlesborough MC and Cefn MC (I think that's the full list for this year!).
At a recent service I attended at Welshpool Methodist Church, the minister got us placing missing pieces - we’d all been given one each - into a jigsaw puzzle of Noah’s ark. Her theme was jigsaws rather than arks, but I couldn’t help but notice that one of the beasts waiting to enter the ark was a giant panda, and that felt sort of wrong; surely the animals Noah brought into the ark would have been ones that were actually present in the Middle East at that time, which doesn’t include pandas. Of course, the Bible does say that Noah brought two of every sort of animal into the ark; but the logistics of getting every animal in the world into one boat left my head spinning. Having said that, though, the giant panda is a very potent symbol of endangered species, and of our impact on what is a very fragile environment and ecosystem; so if the jigsaw picture was not so much about Noah back then but where we are today, I guess the giant panda should have been there after all.
There are only about a thousand giant pandas left in the wild today, along with maybe another hundred or so in captivity, and scientists are very concerned about how viable a population that small can be. Loss of habitat is a big concern, as it is for many other species; a habitat may not be completely destroyed, but quite subtle changes can unbalance things in ways that affect particular species. Scientists are noting huge falls in frog populations all around the world, from Australia to Central America. No-one really knows why they’re disappearing so fast. Maybe global warming. Maybe a build-up of chemicals like pesticides in the environment. Maybe places that used to be wet are drying out. Maybe there’s more than one reason, it could be that frogs more sensitive to change than some other creatures. I was reading an article on the subject that suggested that by the time we know for sure why frogs are declining, it’ll be too late to do much about it.
I trained long ago as an environmental scientist, so these are issues that will always interest and disturb me. Countryside birds that used to be common – lapwings, corn buntings and even house sparrows – are on the decline, and again, it’s hard to know why. The natural environment is complex and sensitive, and changes in the way we do things, changes in farming, in lifestyle, in trade, may happen too quickly for the ecosystem to cope. We so much power, maybe too much.
So if the minister’s jigsaw that day was as much to do with conservation today as a great flood back then, it reminds us of the need for modern day Noahs. I remember singing a song in school assembly that begins “The world is a garden you made.” I think it was written for the Worldwide Fund for Nature. It does all begin with a garden if you look back to chapter 2 of the book of Genesis. Adam and Eve are placed in the Garden of Eden, where everything’s in harmony, and the sun sparkles on the morning dew.
When Adam was the gardener there, he didn’t need to do much gardening. It’s only when we read on into the next chapter, with the serpent and the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and then Adam and Eve thrown out of Eden - that’s when he has to start doing real gardening, the kind that gives you blistered hands and an aching back.
Harvest Festival prayers often speak about us as being stewards of creation. But creation wouldn’t need any stewarding if it wasn’t for us human beings and the way we mess things up. Things in the natural world would roll on quite nicely without us; but with us, so much is vulnerable and there’s a need for conservation and care. Maybe the giant panda could represent the many species that might well be better off if we weren’t around.
But what would be the purpose of a world like that? In Adam and Eve and their descendants, people to till the ground, to blast the rocks, to invent and make all kinds of things, a new phase of creation begins. God’s creation becomes conscious of itself and of its God. Through human beings what God has made, like moulding clay on a potter's wheel, ceases to be inert and thoughtless and can choose and reason - can reach out to its creator, or not, as we choose. We’re free agents, we can worship or we can ignore the hand that shaped us.
Last week my daily paper informed me that we human beings have only twice as many genes as the fruit fly, and many of them are just the same. Scientists use fruit flies a lot in genetic research. They are smaller and simpler and arguably a rather less intelligent than us marvellous men and women, but like us, they are also (if I may borrow some Bible words) fearfully and wonderfully made. They are made of the same stuff as we are. Scientists tell us that, but so does the Bible. In Genesis chapter 2 we find that we and all other living things are formed from the dust of the ground.
And fruit flies too have their place in the order of things, just like pandas, frogs, sparrows and for that matter blue whales and three toed sloths: each one of them the outworking of God's creative love, each one of them precious in his sight. And so are we, of course, as the cross of Jesus must always remind us. But unlike pandas and whales and sloths, we know that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and we know that they are too. Knowing that confers a responsibility upon us; Harvest Festival is a time to remind ourselves that as stewards of what God made we should make sure our earthly home has space and food not only for us, but for the myriad living things that Adam once gave names to, and that our Lord created out of dust and love.
I’m really glad to be with you tonight, because Harvest Festival is one of my very favourite times in the church year. And as we sing our harvest hymns let’s not only pray for the land around us and all who work on it; and let’s not only give thanks for the fruitfulness of the harvest we’ve brought in, but let’s take the wider perspective in which we see how it all links together; one harvest of all the world, in which the skill and labour of all kinds of people near and far helps keep us fed and clothed and provided for.
But there’s more than that. Harvest isn’t just stuff, it’s also people, souls, lives. We ourselves are harvest, and we’re right to think tonight about the harvest of our souls, the harvest of our faithful response to God. Thankfulness is expressed not in what we say, or not only in what we say, but in what we do; our actions are what make our words credible, and those who are truly thankful will show their thanks in sharing and using well what they’ve been given - using the gifts of harvest in a way that honours the giver. Our prayers today will touch on those whose harvest is poor, and who may suffer or starve without our help.
Harvest Festivals look forward and look back; back to those who worked this land before us, to the old harvest hymns and to traditions we don’t want to lose, stories of past faith and service. But also forward to those who inherit this earth from us - they need to receive it in good order, so that they too, future generations known and unknown, can have a secure and plentiful harvest. It’s been well said that we don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. And Harvest Festival should also look outwards; so we think not only what we can have and own and use, but of pandas and frogs and sparrows, as well: how poor the world would be if there was not also a harvest for them.
At a recent service I attended at Welshpool Methodist Church, the minister got us placing missing pieces - we’d all been given one each - into a jigsaw puzzle of Noah’s ark. Her theme was jigsaws rather than arks, but I couldn’t help but notice that one of the beasts waiting to enter the ark was a giant panda, and that felt sort of wrong; surely the animals Noah brought into the ark would have been ones that were actually present in the Middle East at that time, which doesn’t include pandas. Of course, the Bible does say that Noah brought two of every sort of animal into the ark; but the logistics of getting every animal in the world into one boat left my head spinning. Having said that, though, the giant panda is a very potent symbol of endangered species, and of our impact on what is a very fragile environment and ecosystem; so if the jigsaw picture was not so much about Noah back then but where we are today, I guess the giant panda should have been there after all.
There are only about a thousand giant pandas left in the wild today, along with maybe another hundred or so in captivity, and scientists are very concerned about how viable a population that small can be. Loss of habitat is a big concern, as it is for many other species; a habitat may not be completely destroyed, but quite subtle changes can unbalance things in ways that affect particular species. Scientists are noting huge falls in frog populations all around the world, from Australia to Central America. No-one really knows why they’re disappearing so fast. Maybe global warming. Maybe a build-up of chemicals like pesticides in the environment. Maybe places that used to be wet are drying out. Maybe there’s more than one reason, it could be that frogs more sensitive to change than some other creatures. I was reading an article on the subject that suggested that by the time we know for sure why frogs are declining, it’ll be too late to do much about it.
I trained long ago as an environmental scientist, so these are issues that will always interest and disturb me. Countryside birds that used to be common – lapwings, corn buntings and even house sparrows – are on the decline, and again, it’s hard to know why. The natural environment is complex and sensitive, and changes in the way we do things, changes in farming, in lifestyle, in trade, may happen too quickly for the ecosystem to cope. We so much power, maybe too much.
So if the minister’s jigsaw that day was as much to do with conservation today as a great flood back then, it reminds us of the need for modern day Noahs. I remember singing a song in school assembly that begins “The world is a garden you made.” I think it was written for the Worldwide Fund for Nature. It does all begin with a garden if you look back to chapter 2 of the book of Genesis. Adam and Eve are placed in the Garden of Eden, where everything’s in harmony, and the sun sparkles on the morning dew.
When Adam was the gardener there, he didn’t need to do much gardening. It’s only when we read on into the next chapter, with the serpent and the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and then Adam and Eve thrown out of Eden - that’s when he has to start doing real gardening, the kind that gives you blistered hands and an aching back.
Harvest Festival prayers often speak about us as being stewards of creation. But creation wouldn’t need any stewarding if it wasn’t for us human beings and the way we mess things up. Things in the natural world would roll on quite nicely without us; but with us, so much is vulnerable and there’s a need for conservation and care. Maybe the giant panda could represent the many species that might well be better off if we weren’t around.
But what would be the purpose of a world like that? In Adam and Eve and their descendants, people to till the ground, to blast the rocks, to invent and make all kinds of things, a new phase of creation begins. God’s creation becomes conscious of itself and of its God. Through human beings what God has made, like moulding clay on a potter's wheel, ceases to be inert and thoughtless and can choose and reason - can reach out to its creator, or not, as we choose. We’re free agents, we can worship or we can ignore the hand that shaped us.
Last week my daily paper informed me that we human beings have only twice as many genes as the fruit fly, and many of them are just the same. Scientists use fruit flies a lot in genetic research. They are smaller and simpler and arguably a rather less intelligent than us marvellous men and women, but like us, they are also (if I may borrow some Bible words) fearfully and wonderfully made. They are made of the same stuff as we are. Scientists tell us that, but so does the Bible. In Genesis chapter 2 we find that we and all other living things are formed from the dust of the ground.
And fruit flies too have their place in the order of things, just like pandas, frogs, sparrows and for that matter blue whales and three toed sloths: each one of them the outworking of God's creative love, each one of them precious in his sight. And so are we, of course, as the cross of Jesus must always remind us. But unlike pandas and whales and sloths, we know that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and we know that they are too. Knowing that confers a responsibility upon us; Harvest Festival is a time to remind ourselves that as stewards of what God made we should make sure our earthly home has space and food not only for us, but for the myriad living things that Adam once gave names to, and that our Lord created out of dust and love.
I’m really glad to be with you tonight, because Harvest Festival is one of my very favourite times in the church year. And as we sing our harvest hymns let’s not only pray for the land around us and all who work on it; and let’s not only give thanks for the fruitfulness of the harvest we’ve brought in, but let’s take the wider perspective in which we see how it all links together; one harvest of all the world, in which the skill and labour of all kinds of people near and far helps keep us fed and clothed and provided for.
But there’s more than that. Harvest isn’t just stuff, it’s also people, souls, lives. We ourselves are harvest, and we’re right to think tonight about the harvest of our souls, the harvest of our faithful response to God. Thankfulness is expressed not in what we say, or not only in what we say, but in what we do; our actions are what make our words credible, and those who are truly thankful will show their thanks in sharing and using well what they’ve been given - using the gifts of harvest in a way that honours the giver. Our prayers today will touch on those whose harvest is poor, and who may suffer or starve without our help.
Harvest Festivals look forward and look back; back to those who worked this land before us, to the old harvest hymns and to traditions we don’t want to lose, stories of past faith and service. But also forward to those who inherit this earth from us - they need to receive it in good order, so that they too, future generations known and unknown, can have a secure and plentiful harvest. It’s been well said that we don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. And Harvest Festival should also look outwards; so we think not only what we can have and own and use, but of pandas and frogs and sparrows, as well: how poor the world would be if there was not also a harvest for them.
Saturday, 17 September 2016
Fixed on the Cross
I wonder if the parable of the Unjust Steward raises issues for you, as it’s tended to for me? Ever since I first read it, I’ve wondered why Jesus should be praising a man who’s cheated his employer - and, in the process, recruited other people into his conspiracy. And how Jesus can possibly want his disciples to go and do the same, as he seems to. Jesus also says we should use our worldly wealth to win friends for ourselves; what does he mean by that? It sounds a bit like bribery, it doesn’t sound like how I’ve always assumed Christians should live.
But maybe that’s the reaction Jesus wanted. Jesus didn’t only say nice easy things, often the things he said shocked people. His teaching was fresh and different, and sometimes that meant puzzling, even alarming. I think that when Jesus told this story, he wanted his disciples to sit up and pay attention. So if they were startled by what he said, if they were wondering “Where’s he going with this?” - well, that was all to the good.
But look a bit closer at what he said. It isn’t Jesus who commends the dishonesty of the unjust steward, it's the steward's master in the story who does that - a man who'd probably made his own wealth by the same sharp practice and cheating. He’d surely have been angry at what his steward did, but even so I reckon he couldn't help but admire the speed of the steward’s reactions, and the sharpness of his wit. In fact, he probably ended up thinking: "Goodness, I didn't know he was that good! Perhaps I can still use him, after all."
So what does the story say to us? Not that we should be dishonest in the service of our Lord, but that we should be quick off the mark, not letting opportunities pass us by: chances to win friends, to change lives, and to use in creative ways the resources God gives us. You’ll know the saying "so heavenly minded that he’s no earthly use." Well, that shouldn't be us: we’re to be - like the unjust steward - clear-sighted and quick-witted.
I no longer need to go to clergy training sessions; but a year or two before I retired I was part of the planning team for one. Our main speaker was a man called Art Gafke, who if I remember rightly was a Methodist minister in Las Vegas. We were lucky I think to get him - Art was a guy with a wealth of experience, a great sense of humour and some good stories to tell. His theme was about how by understanding ourselves and our situations better, we become better able to set aside our own agendas to co-operate together, to use our personal resources more creatively as people of God, and to become more effective ministers for Christ.
And that, he told us, requires us to think outside the box. Not to do what’s always been done before just because it's always been done that way, not to do things the way other people tell us they should be done, and not to let ourselves be hemmed in and limited by what other people expect. We need to work in a way that’s appropriate to the strengths and abilities we have, appropriate too to the world we’re working in. The message as he delivered it came across as new and fresh, but really it's the same as the message Jesus had for his disciples.
For he told them to use every means at their disposal, and he tells us the same. That might mean doing things differently from how our forebears did them. For the Gospel to be heard in today’s world, e must tell it in ways and language that today’s world understands. That’s led to churches that don't fit the traditional model: churches that look more like cafes, or like one I’ve heard of that meets in a gym, while people are training; or festivals of one kind or another - a friend of mine’s just got back from his first Greenbelt, and he’ll certainly be going again; or virtual churches on the internet. Four young clergy from Lichfield Diocese (and one slightly older one behind the camera) have started something called the TGI Monday Show, a little ten minute slice of discussion filmed in north Shropshire that you can watch on the web. Fresh expressions of ministry, so called, may not be for everyone, but mission within a mixed economy means we can no longer say if we ever could that 'one size fits all'. Having said that, the traditional church remains part of the mix. New ways of doing worship and teaching and outreach don’t replace “traditional church” but fit in alongside and add to it.
For if what we believe matters to us, then we need to be sharing it, using every means at our disposal. But whether we're doing new and different things or sitting in the same pews as our forebears, this is always true: we need a firm focus in our ministry.
Not long ago I was watching a tight-rope walker on the telly; I could hardly bear to look, I’ve never been good with heights. Just now there’s an ad on the telly where someone’s sitting on a rock on the edge of a cliff; obviously they didn’t fall off, but I still worry that they might each time it comes on. I was also very worried about this tight-rope walker. He didn’t look very safe. He stopped and swayed on the rope; he took a step back; his pole was first tipping up on his right, then on his left. I thought he’d lost it, which I’m sure was deliberate, all part of the act. For suddenly he was OK again, stepping confidently across to the other side. And I was able to breathe again.
A few weeks ago the world said farewell to the Christian clown, evangelist and Anglican priest Roly Bain. He used to do tightrope walks as part of his act, on a wire strung across the church, as a way of preaching about faith. There’s a fresh expression of ministry if you like. I’ve watched him do it. On a tight-rope, to get across to the other wide without falling you need to be completely fixed on where you’re going. To be distracted could be - well, maybe not fatal, there is a safety net, but embarrassing, to say the least. So as a good demonstration of a truth that applies to disciples as well as tight-rope walkers, what Roly Bain fixed his eyes on at the far end of his rope was a cross. As well as enthralling and entertaining the people who came out to see him, he had a discipleship message to share from that rope, about being completely fixed on our Saviour and on the sacrifice that saves us, and not letting ourselves be diverted or distracted. As it happens, I did borrow his sermon and do my own tightrope walk once at a family service - but before you get too impressed, I did it at about three inches above the ground. I know my limits.
Anyway, neither tight-rope walkers nor disciples can serve two masters. At the end of our reading this morning, Jesus says that we can’t serve God and money. In the old Authorized Version we read that we can’t serve both God and “mammon,” and I like that word better: it widens our thinking out from just money, to include a whole host of worldly things that could distract us - that could hold us and bind us. Not just money itself, but status, possessions, even traditions, even wanting to keep things how they’ve always been. Jesus tells us that we should use whatever wealth we have in God’s service; and we should value what we have, delight in the good things of the world. But always in ways that honour the giver; what we mustn’t do is to let what we have use us, own us, take us over. Give God the glory, and him alone.
And, says Jesus, be inventive. Be like the unjust steward. Think on your feet. Use whatever you have at hand, make the very most of whatever opportunities present themselves. You don’t have to do what people have always done. But we do need to know where we're headed, we do need to know whose word it is we preach, and honour him in the preaching; we do need to keep eyes, heart, mind focused on Christ and Christ alone.
The words we use may change, the place in which we worship may be re-ordered, changed round, or maybe changed altogether. We may not dress the way we used to, or sing the same songs, or pray the same prayers. But, whether we welcome change or find it hard, what really matters is this: that the Gospel is being preached, taught and proclaimed as widely and persuasively as possible, and people invited, welcomed and affirmed, met where they are. The message itself remains the same. The words we use may change, the way we speak them may change, but the Gospel itself does not. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and for ever: and today he calls from us an urgent witness of focus and faithfulness, and of inventive opportunism, in the service of his love.
But maybe that’s the reaction Jesus wanted. Jesus didn’t only say nice easy things, often the things he said shocked people. His teaching was fresh and different, and sometimes that meant puzzling, even alarming. I think that when Jesus told this story, he wanted his disciples to sit up and pay attention. So if they were startled by what he said, if they were wondering “Where’s he going with this?” - well, that was all to the good.
But look a bit closer at what he said. It isn’t Jesus who commends the dishonesty of the unjust steward, it's the steward's master in the story who does that - a man who'd probably made his own wealth by the same sharp practice and cheating. He’d surely have been angry at what his steward did, but even so I reckon he couldn't help but admire the speed of the steward’s reactions, and the sharpness of his wit. In fact, he probably ended up thinking: "Goodness, I didn't know he was that good! Perhaps I can still use him, after all."
So what does the story say to us? Not that we should be dishonest in the service of our Lord, but that we should be quick off the mark, not letting opportunities pass us by: chances to win friends, to change lives, and to use in creative ways the resources God gives us. You’ll know the saying "so heavenly minded that he’s no earthly use." Well, that shouldn't be us: we’re to be - like the unjust steward - clear-sighted and quick-witted.
I no longer need to go to clergy training sessions; but a year or two before I retired I was part of the planning team for one. Our main speaker was a man called Art Gafke, who if I remember rightly was a Methodist minister in Las Vegas. We were lucky I think to get him - Art was a guy with a wealth of experience, a great sense of humour and some good stories to tell. His theme was about how by understanding ourselves and our situations better, we become better able to set aside our own agendas to co-operate together, to use our personal resources more creatively as people of God, and to become more effective ministers for Christ.
And that, he told us, requires us to think outside the box. Not to do what’s always been done before just because it's always been done that way, not to do things the way other people tell us they should be done, and not to let ourselves be hemmed in and limited by what other people expect. We need to work in a way that’s appropriate to the strengths and abilities we have, appropriate too to the world we’re working in. The message as he delivered it came across as new and fresh, but really it's the same as the message Jesus had for his disciples.
For he told them to use every means at their disposal, and he tells us the same. That might mean doing things differently from how our forebears did them. For the Gospel to be heard in today’s world, e must tell it in ways and language that today’s world understands. That’s led to churches that don't fit the traditional model: churches that look more like cafes, or like one I’ve heard of that meets in a gym, while people are training; or festivals of one kind or another - a friend of mine’s just got back from his first Greenbelt, and he’ll certainly be going again; or virtual churches on the internet. Four young clergy from Lichfield Diocese (and one slightly older one behind the camera) have started something called the TGI Monday Show, a little ten minute slice of discussion filmed in north Shropshire that you can watch on the web. Fresh expressions of ministry, so called, may not be for everyone, but mission within a mixed economy means we can no longer say if we ever could that 'one size fits all'. Having said that, the traditional church remains part of the mix. New ways of doing worship and teaching and outreach don’t replace “traditional church” but fit in alongside and add to it.
For if what we believe matters to us, then we need to be sharing it, using every means at our disposal. But whether we're doing new and different things or sitting in the same pews as our forebears, this is always true: we need a firm focus in our ministry.
Not long ago I was watching a tight-rope walker on the telly; I could hardly bear to look, I’ve never been good with heights. Just now there’s an ad on the telly where someone’s sitting on a rock on the edge of a cliff; obviously they didn’t fall off, but I still worry that they might each time it comes on. I was also very worried about this tight-rope walker. He didn’t look very safe. He stopped and swayed on the rope; he took a step back; his pole was first tipping up on his right, then on his left. I thought he’d lost it, which I’m sure was deliberate, all part of the act. For suddenly he was OK again, stepping confidently across to the other side. And I was able to breathe again.
A few weeks ago the world said farewell to the Christian clown, evangelist and Anglican priest Roly Bain. He used to do tightrope walks as part of his act, on a wire strung across the church, as a way of preaching about faith. There’s a fresh expression of ministry if you like. I’ve watched him do it. On a tight-rope, to get across to the other wide without falling you need to be completely fixed on where you’re going. To be distracted could be - well, maybe not fatal, there is a safety net, but embarrassing, to say the least. So as a good demonstration of a truth that applies to disciples as well as tight-rope walkers, what Roly Bain fixed his eyes on at the far end of his rope was a cross. As well as enthralling and entertaining the people who came out to see him, he had a discipleship message to share from that rope, about being completely fixed on our Saviour and on the sacrifice that saves us, and not letting ourselves be diverted or distracted. As it happens, I did borrow his sermon and do my own tightrope walk once at a family service - but before you get too impressed, I did it at about three inches above the ground. I know my limits.
Anyway, neither tight-rope walkers nor disciples can serve two masters. At the end of our reading this morning, Jesus says that we can’t serve God and money. In the old Authorized Version we read that we can’t serve both God and “mammon,” and I like that word better: it widens our thinking out from just money, to include a whole host of worldly things that could distract us - that could hold us and bind us. Not just money itself, but status, possessions, even traditions, even wanting to keep things how they’ve always been. Jesus tells us that we should use whatever wealth we have in God’s service; and we should value what we have, delight in the good things of the world. But always in ways that honour the giver; what we mustn’t do is to let what we have use us, own us, take us over. Give God the glory, and him alone.
And, says Jesus, be inventive. Be like the unjust steward. Think on your feet. Use whatever you have at hand, make the very most of whatever opportunities present themselves. You don’t have to do what people have always done. But we do need to know where we're headed, we do need to know whose word it is we preach, and honour him in the preaching; we do need to keep eyes, heart, mind focused on Christ and Christ alone.
The words we use may change, the place in which we worship may be re-ordered, changed round, or maybe changed altogether. We may not dress the way we used to, or sing the same songs, or pray the same prayers. But, whether we welcome change or find it hard, what really matters is this: that the Gospel is being preached, taught and proclaimed as widely and persuasively as possible, and people invited, welcomed and affirmed, met where they are. The message itself remains the same. The words we use may change, the way we speak them may change, but the Gospel itself does not. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and for ever: and today he calls from us an urgent witness of focus and faithfulness, and of inventive opportunism, in the service of his love.
Friday, 16 September 2016
A Long Sentence
Our family’s been quite free of crime,
there’s been none of our lot doing time,
till my cousin, young Tom, he’s a clot,
on our copy book left quite a blot.
He went down to the library one day,
got a book out and took it away,
made a start on the crime he had planned,
bought some Tippex and steadied his hand.
He went through all the lines on each page,
with determined and furious rage,
and he Tippexed out every full stop,
working up from the base to the top.
He took the book back the next day,
But the library assistant said, ‘Hey,
you’ve defaced every page in this book!’ -
and she called her boss over to look.
And soon a policeman was called,
and off to the nick Tom was hauled.
That was Tuesday - and Tuesday next week
he’ll be pleading his case to the beak.
His defence doesn’t seem very strong,
defacing a book, it’s just wrong -
and if you remove the full stops . . .
. . . well, you can expect to get a very long sentence!
there’s been none of our lot doing time,
till my cousin, young Tom, he’s a clot,
on our copy book left quite a blot.
He went down to the library one day,
got a book out and took it away,
made a start on the crime he had planned,
bought some Tippex and steadied his hand.
He went through all the lines on each page,
with determined and furious rage,
and he Tippexed out every full stop,
working up from the base to the top.
He took the book back the next day,
But the library assistant said, ‘Hey,
you’ve defaced every page in this book!’ -
and she called her boss over to look.
And soon a policeman was called,
and off to the nick Tom was hauled.
That was Tuesday - and Tuesday next week
he’ll be pleading his case to the beak.
His defence doesn’t seem very strong,
defacing a book, it’s just wrong -
and if you remove the full stops . . .
. . . well, you can expect to get a very long sentence!
Thursday, 15 September 2016
Ivy
Just when everything else is shutting down for the season, ivy is in flower along our hedgerows, in woods, on old buildings, in all sorts of places. A woody climber native to Europe, ivy is an important food-source for wildlife.
It can thrive in shady places, is a good groundcover and handy for hiding ugly garden features like oil tanks, old sheds, and tree stumps. Many cultivated varieties are available, so ivy is a popular garden plant, used of course also in floral art and winter decorations especially at Christmas.
But ivy is also an important source of food and shelter for wildlife during autumn and winter. Just now, late insects are buzzing around its flowers, which are pollinated by moths and late wasps. Later the black berries will find a use. Blackbirds love them. Ivy berries that last through into spring will also be a useful early food source for young birds. And as an evergreen, ivy provides shelter for a wide variety of over-wintering creatures. Ivy is also browsed by cattle.
Though often thought of as a parasite, ivy is not in fact parasitic, and will not normally damage a sound building or wall, nor is it generally a threat to healthy trees. Regular trimming can help a lot though, as a good lush growth of ivy in winter, especially if covered by snow, can be quite a weight to bear, particularly where trees are already getting past their best.
Our native species of ivy, Hedera helix, is native to western and central Europe from southern Scandinavia southwards. Ivy has been introduced to many other parts of the world, and is often regarded there (e.g., the USA) as an invasive and unwanted species.
Ivy berries have been used as a source of dye, and in ancient Rome ivy wreathes were used to crown winners of poetry contests. In medieval times ivy on a pole was used as an alepole - the sign of a place that sold alcoholic drinks.
Bees make good use of ivy flowers, at a time when there are few other sources of nectar. One new arrival in the UK is the ivy bee, a fairly large solitary bee. This is rather like a honey bee in shape, but with stronger stripes of yellow or orange on the abdomen and a furry orange thorax. This bee flies through a five or six week period of the autumn, and so far seems to have had little impact on existing bee species. It was first noted in the UK in 2001 and had reached this part of the country by about 2013.
Saturday, 10 September 2016
Scrufftop
A sermon for this Sunday . . .
I should preach to you about sheep and shepherds today, and perhaps in a moment I will. After all, the lost sheep is one of the best known of the parables Jesus told, one I’ve re-told very fruitfully in many a children’s service and school assembly. But first, let me tell you a story about a family moving house.
At the end of weeks of sorting things out, packing, preparing, the day at last had come. Everything that was moving had been packed into boxes and cases and tea chests. All the furniture was piled together, the carpets and rugs were rolled up, the pictures had been taken down off the walls and wrapped in old sheets. Soon the furniture van would arrive, and everything would be loaded in. And then the family would follow by car: Mum, Dad, David and Alison.
Alison had packed a bag with a lot of her toys in. They were to come with the family in their car, being, as she said "MUCH too precious to send in any old furniture van." Her mother had tried to pack My Little Ponies and a host of other things into the boxes labelled “toys”, but Alison would have none of it. Nearly all her best toys were in the car. Her big brother David, on the other hand, had been happy to let his toys be packed - those he was even bothering to take, that is. Really, David was growing out of toys. He'd sent quite a few to the summer jumble sale at school.
Some of the others were outside, in the Box for Broken Toys. For when you move house there’s a great opportunity for sorting things out, and throwing things out, and Mum had done her best. That toaster that had somehow lingered on in the kitchen even though it had toasted nothing for years - there’d be no place for it in the new kitchen. Dad's old gardening trousers and that dreadful hat he sometimes wore were at the bottom of a dustbin bag where. all being well, he’d never find them. And the Broken Toys - cars and tractors with wheels missing, dolls that had lost an arm or leg, jigsaw puzzles with pieces missing: all of these had been tossed into the Box for Broken Toys, ready for that day's visit by the Dustbin Men. New house equals new start, no more Broken Things.
Among the Broken Toys was Scrufftop. He was actually quite near the bottom of the box, because he'd been one of the first Broken Toys to go in. Scrufftop had been David's teddy bear, but David didn't need teddy bears any more. He hadn't looked at Scrufftop for years. Scrufftop had an eye missing, a torn ear, and was mostly bald; nor was he as well stuffed as once he'd been. Not that he'd ever been a very handsome bear (hence the name). If toys could talk, like they do on 'Toy Story', I don’t imagine the other toys would have said much to Scrufftop that was positive. He’d had his day. Once he'd been loved; now he was just rubbish.
David and Alison were both very excited about the new house; but Alison was feeling a little bit sad as well. She'd had many happy times in the old house, and it was sad to see it now with no curtains in the windows, already beginning to look unwanted. The furniture men were just finishing loading the van, so the children climbed into the back of the family car. Many of Alison's toys were in the boot - to be honest, there wasn't much room for anything else - but she'd brought one load into the car with her (packed in a Sainsbury's Bag for Life); and now, as the car headed out of the drive, she delved down and found Harry, her fluffy and cuddly green hedgehog. A little bit of comfort, as she said a sad goodbye to their old happy house.
Meanwhile, down near the bottom of the Box for Broken Toys, think of Scrufftop - unloved and unwanted, not even thought about any more. Once he'd been loved; now he was just rubbish. Or was he? When David noticed his sister cuddling Harry the Hedgehog, he suddenly shouted out, "WHERE'S SCRUFFTOP?" Mum looked round and smiled. "Where's what?" she said. "David, you’ve not bothered with that old thing for years!" She turned back. "Haven't you brought him?" asked David. "Of course not!" Mum replied. The car turned onto the main road out of town. "We have to go back for him!" David announced - and with one of his 'My dear, what have you done now?' expressions on his face (but wisely saying nothing) Dad turned the car round, and headed back.
Back at the old house the Dustbin Men were already busily shifting rubbish. Half the street had been cleared already; and if there hadn't been a bit of a problem getting the dustbin lorry past a bus going one way and a milk float heading the other, maybe the bags and boxes at David and Alison's old house would also have gone. As it was, they just got back in time. As soon as the car came to a stop, David's door was open; he ran straight to the Box for Broken Toys, and scrabbled and scrabbled down to nearly the bottom. And there he was - old hairless, one eyed, torn-eared fantastic Scrufftop.
Broken? Maybe he was. Old? Certainly. But unwanted and unloved, and just rubbish? No way. New house, new start, lots of new things to look forward to, but it seemed there'd always be a place for old Scrufftop.
So there you are. Funny, isn’t it, how we can go on loving scruffy old special toys like teddy bears, how they stay special even when no-one else would give them a second glance. Funny, isn’t it, how God feels much the same about us. David loved Scrufftop in a special way; even though he'd grown out of most of his toys, he wasn't going to let go of Scrufftop. Years later, and grown up, it wouldn’t surprise me if he still has him, and still loves him.
God loves each one of us in just that same way. As if each one of us was that one special toy you go on loving when you've forgotten all the others. And he still loves us, loves us just as much, when we're scruffy and smelly and not very lovable. He may not like us, but he goes on loving us. Other people may throw us out, treat us like rubbish, but God continues to love us. That’s the message Jesus came to bring; that’s the story behind the story of the lost sheep. It’s about how much God loves and treasures and cares for each one of us.
So back to the story of the lost sheep. I reckon that most of the time if one out of a hundred sheep goes missing, the shepherd will write it off, cut his losses, and be thankful he’s still got the others; but this shepherd doesn’t do that. Each one of his sheep is known, valued, loved; so off he goes to search for it. And when he finds it and brings it home, there's great rejoicing.
Some people thought that if Jesus was a proper teacher he’d spend all his time with the insiders, the holy folk who did all the right things and never strayed. They were highly suspicious of the way he’d go off to visit and spend time with outsiders, folk like tax collectors, prostitutes, undesirable people - sinners. Jesus gives them and us a simple and direct answer. You may write people off, he says, but God never does. We may drift away from God, to get lost in all the tempting byways of the world, but God never stops loving us.
The Church is the body of Christ, so being as like Jesus as we can be is our number one priority. This parable reminds us that to do that includes seeking out those who are lost, and bringing them home. Teresa of Avila says that 'ours are the hands with which Christ seeks to bless the world today'. So the Church can never be content as it is, and the Church has no right to be aloof and in any way to look down on those around it. We’re all rather like Scrufftop, loved despite ourselves, not because of our innate goodness or beauty. What saves us is not that we do well, but that God does not give up on us. And so like our Lord himself (and in his service), our call is to seek out the lost and strayed, and to bring them back so that they, like us, can know God's love for them, and know that love for real. And then there will be rejoicing in heaven.
As Jesus says to us (every one of us): "Love one another, just as I have loved you."
I should preach to you about sheep and shepherds today, and perhaps in a moment I will. After all, the lost sheep is one of the best known of the parables Jesus told, one I’ve re-told very fruitfully in many a children’s service and school assembly. But first, let me tell you a story about a family moving house.
At the end of weeks of sorting things out, packing, preparing, the day at last had come. Everything that was moving had been packed into boxes and cases and tea chests. All the furniture was piled together, the carpets and rugs were rolled up, the pictures had been taken down off the walls and wrapped in old sheets. Soon the furniture van would arrive, and everything would be loaded in. And then the family would follow by car: Mum, Dad, David and Alison.
Alison had packed a bag with a lot of her toys in. They were to come with the family in their car, being, as she said "MUCH too precious to send in any old furniture van." Her mother had tried to pack My Little Ponies and a host of other things into the boxes labelled “toys”, but Alison would have none of it. Nearly all her best toys were in the car. Her big brother David, on the other hand, had been happy to let his toys be packed - those he was even bothering to take, that is. Really, David was growing out of toys. He'd sent quite a few to the summer jumble sale at school.
Some of the others were outside, in the Box for Broken Toys. For when you move house there’s a great opportunity for sorting things out, and throwing things out, and Mum had done her best. That toaster that had somehow lingered on in the kitchen even though it had toasted nothing for years - there’d be no place for it in the new kitchen. Dad's old gardening trousers and that dreadful hat he sometimes wore were at the bottom of a dustbin bag where. all being well, he’d never find them. And the Broken Toys - cars and tractors with wheels missing, dolls that had lost an arm or leg, jigsaw puzzles with pieces missing: all of these had been tossed into the Box for Broken Toys, ready for that day's visit by the Dustbin Men. New house equals new start, no more Broken Things.
Among the Broken Toys was Scrufftop. He was actually quite near the bottom of the box, because he'd been one of the first Broken Toys to go in. Scrufftop had been David's teddy bear, but David didn't need teddy bears any more. He hadn't looked at Scrufftop for years. Scrufftop had an eye missing, a torn ear, and was mostly bald; nor was he as well stuffed as once he'd been. Not that he'd ever been a very handsome bear (hence the name). If toys could talk, like they do on 'Toy Story', I don’t imagine the other toys would have said much to Scrufftop that was positive. He’d had his day. Once he'd been loved; now he was just rubbish.
David and Alison were both very excited about the new house; but Alison was feeling a little bit sad as well. She'd had many happy times in the old house, and it was sad to see it now with no curtains in the windows, already beginning to look unwanted. The furniture men were just finishing loading the van, so the children climbed into the back of the family car. Many of Alison's toys were in the boot - to be honest, there wasn't much room for anything else - but she'd brought one load into the car with her (packed in a Sainsbury's Bag for Life); and now, as the car headed out of the drive, she delved down and found Harry, her fluffy and cuddly green hedgehog. A little bit of comfort, as she said a sad goodbye to their old happy house.
Meanwhile, down near the bottom of the Box for Broken Toys, think of Scrufftop - unloved and unwanted, not even thought about any more. Once he'd been loved; now he was just rubbish. Or was he? When David noticed his sister cuddling Harry the Hedgehog, he suddenly shouted out, "WHERE'S SCRUFFTOP?" Mum looked round and smiled. "Where's what?" she said. "David, you’ve not bothered with that old thing for years!" She turned back. "Haven't you brought him?" asked David. "Of course not!" Mum replied. The car turned onto the main road out of town. "We have to go back for him!" David announced - and with one of his 'My dear, what have you done now?' expressions on his face (but wisely saying nothing) Dad turned the car round, and headed back.
Back at the old house the Dustbin Men were already busily shifting rubbish. Half the street had been cleared already; and if there hadn't been a bit of a problem getting the dustbin lorry past a bus going one way and a milk float heading the other, maybe the bags and boxes at David and Alison's old house would also have gone. As it was, they just got back in time. As soon as the car came to a stop, David's door was open; he ran straight to the Box for Broken Toys, and scrabbled and scrabbled down to nearly the bottom. And there he was - old hairless, one eyed, torn-eared fantastic Scrufftop.
Broken? Maybe he was. Old? Certainly. But unwanted and unloved, and just rubbish? No way. New house, new start, lots of new things to look forward to, but it seemed there'd always be a place for old Scrufftop.
So there you are. Funny, isn’t it, how we can go on loving scruffy old special toys like teddy bears, how they stay special even when no-one else would give them a second glance. Funny, isn’t it, how God feels much the same about us. David loved Scrufftop in a special way; even though he'd grown out of most of his toys, he wasn't going to let go of Scrufftop. Years later, and grown up, it wouldn’t surprise me if he still has him, and still loves him.
God loves each one of us in just that same way. As if each one of us was that one special toy you go on loving when you've forgotten all the others. And he still loves us, loves us just as much, when we're scruffy and smelly and not very lovable. He may not like us, but he goes on loving us. Other people may throw us out, treat us like rubbish, but God continues to love us. That’s the message Jesus came to bring; that’s the story behind the story of the lost sheep. It’s about how much God loves and treasures and cares for each one of us.
So back to the story of the lost sheep. I reckon that most of the time if one out of a hundred sheep goes missing, the shepherd will write it off, cut his losses, and be thankful he’s still got the others; but this shepherd doesn’t do that. Each one of his sheep is known, valued, loved; so off he goes to search for it. And when he finds it and brings it home, there's great rejoicing.
Some people thought that if Jesus was a proper teacher he’d spend all his time with the insiders, the holy folk who did all the right things and never strayed. They were highly suspicious of the way he’d go off to visit and spend time with outsiders, folk like tax collectors, prostitutes, undesirable people - sinners. Jesus gives them and us a simple and direct answer. You may write people off, he says, but God never does. We may drift away from God, to get lost in all the tempting byways of the world, but God never stops loving us.
The Church is the body of Christ, so being as like Jesus as we can be is our number one priority. This parable reminds us that to do that includes seeking out those who are lost, and bringing them home. Teresa of Avila says that 'ours are the hands with which Christ seeks to bless the world today'. So the Church can never be content as it is, and the Church has no right to be aloof and in any way to look down on those around it. We’re all rather like Scrufftop, loved despite ourselves, not because of our innate goodness or beauty. What saves us is not that we do well, but that God does not give up on us. And so like our Lord himself (and in his service), our call is to seek out the lost and strayed, and to bring them back so that they, like us, can know God's love for them, and know that love for real. And then there will be rejoicing in heaven.
As Jesus says to us (every one of us): "Love one another, just as I have loved you."
Friday, 9 September 2016
An old sermon
I was asked the other day what my sermon had been on the readings set for last Sunday (which included the difficult words of Luke 14. 25-33). I had to reply that I had in fact preached on totally different readings - however, here is a sermon prepared for Deut 30. 15-20 and Luke 14. 25-33, preached six years ago . . .
Today I offer you the choice of life and good, or death and evil.
With those stark words, the people of Israel are prepared for their crossing over into the Promised Land. This is what Moses tells them: “Love the Lord your God and walk in his ways, keep his commandments, decrees and laws.” When they do that, God will bless them as they enter the land.
In other words, there’s no room for half-heartedness; what Moses is really saying is this: If you’re not fully up for this, then just stay this side of the river, or wander off back into the wilderness. If you’re going to cross the river to claim what God has promised, you’ve got to be committed with all your heart to his service and to the keeping of his commands.
I was reading the other day on the sports pages about a star player who’d been dropped for the big game. Why aren’t you playing him, the manager was asked: he’s the best player you’ve got. I can’t play him, was the reply: He’s not in the right frame of mind. He can’t give me the commitment I need. It isn’t how good he is, it’s whether he can play as part of the team.
I think I was a bit like that at school. I was an able pupil, good at most subjects, I got good marks, I could pick things up quickly. And yet I was the despair of many of my teachers, because my mind was so often elsewhere. I’d be gazing out of the window and not really engaging with things at all.
Ability isn’t enough, without commitment. You need to be on-side, you need to be part of the team. You need to turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. If you can’t do that, don’t bother - isn’t that what Moses was saying?
And Jesus says some really hard things in our Gospel, doesn’t he? “Unless you hate your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, you can’t be my disciple.” That really jars, doesn’t it? We have to hate our own kith and kin? What sort of a Christian would that make us - hating our own nearest and dearest? Doesn’t God want us to be loving and dutiful, as parents, as partners, as siblings?
Of course he does; and if you do happen to be having problems with your parents, your children, your brothers, sisters, or even your friends, sorry, you do not have permission to hate them as a Christian duty! Jesus is saying the same sort of thing as Moses: this is about commitment. What Jesus tells us is that we shouldn’t place anything above our allegiance to God, and our commitment to serve him; not even our duty to our own families. To be a dutiful parent, child, sibling, to be a good citizen or friend or member of the community member - these things follow from our duty to God, they don’t take precedence over it.
Those other duties are still important; none of us should act badly, spitefully or uncaringly to those who have a right to expect us to treat them with love; but not even the closest relationship, not even our love of our own life, should be allowed to stand in the way of the first call upon us: love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. I think it was William Ruskin who said: “He who gives God but second place in his life, gives him no place.”
Moses says: Don’t cross the river unless you’re wholehearted in your desire to serve the God who is giving you this land. Don’t come with me, says Jesus, unless you’re seriously ready to put what my Father asks of you first before everything else. In other words, religion doesn’t make a good hobby, not if you’re being real about it. True religion requires the gift of your deepest and truest self. We’re to offer to God “ourselves, our souls and bodies” - and to hold nothing back.
Such self-offering isn’t just about what we do here, it’s not only about being committed to church. When Jesus says “Take up your cross” that’s a lifestyle choice, and a lifelong commitment. The place and power of the cross in our lives will be revealed in more than being part of the church and present here for this hour on a Sunday. In some ways, dare I say, that’s the least important bit. Our use of time, our allocation of money, our care for others and the welcome we offer, our care for the world and our thought for the environment, the moral standards to which we aspire, our readiness not only to speak but also to live the truth: these are the vital outward expressions of true inward commitment.
Religious zeal can easily be perverted and misused by unscrupulous faith leaders who use the power they have for their own ends. That’s a feature of cults, of religious extremism, and even the mainstream churches aren’t totally immune. We see it of course in other faiths too, and to me, extremism anywhere is abhorrent. But there’ll always be those who set themselves up in God’s place, to misappropriate the enthusiasm and desire of those whose only aim at the start was to serve.
Jesus knew that: many will claim my name, he told his followers; many will try and lead people in the wrong direction, and, yes, some people will get fooled. We need to be on our guard, we need to test what we’re told and taught: the only true way for us is the way of the cross. We know that God is love, and that in his love he seeks peace and healing and understanding, forgiveness and compassion and justice. So any word that leads us away from those things, is not the word of God, however plausibly it’s preached. We know what God wants of us, as Paul reminds us, for we have the mind of Christ. And in Philippians chapter 2 verse 6 he writes that Jesus was by his very nature God, and yet he humbled himself, taking the form of a servant.” There’s the test we should apply, whether we’re looking inwardly at our own selves, or reflecting on the teaching others give us.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, with all your mind and strength; and the second part of the summary of the law will then naturally follow: and love your neighbour as yourself. Our true love for God is bound to be revealed in our care for others, in our readiness to give and to serve in every aspect of our daily lives. In our daily lives in which again and again, that crucial question is posed: are you up for this, or are you not? Will you cross the river? Choose, life and good, or death and evil. All that matters is this, as we come to kneel at the table set by our Servant King, whose mark is the cross: are we people of the cross, or are we not? Are we committed to him, are we his full-time disciples, or are we just playing at it? This man wants first place in my life, or no place: will I do that - will I make my best stab at it, anyway? And will you?
Today I offer you the choice of life and good, or death and evil.
With those stark words, the people of Israel are prepared for their crossing over into the Promised Land. This is what Moses tells them: “Love the Lord your God and walk in his ways, keep his commandments, decrees and laws.” When they do that, God will bless them as they enter the land.
In other words, there’s no room for half-heartedness; what Moses is really saying is this: If you’re not fully up for this, then just stay this side of the river, or wander off back into the wilderness. If you’re going to cross the river to claim what God has promised, you’ve got to be committed with all your heart to his service and to the keeping of his commands.
I was reading the other day on the sports pages about a star player who’d been dropped for the big game. Why aren’t you playing him, the manager was asked: he’s the best player you’ve got. I can’t play him, was the reply: He’s not in the right frame of mind. He can’t give me the commitment I need. It isn’t how good he is, it’s whether he can play as part of the team.
I think I was a bit like that at school. I was an able pupil, good at most subjects, I got good marks, I could pick things up quickly. And yet I was the despair of many of my teachers, because my mind was so often elsewhere. I’d be gazing out of the window and not really engaging with things at all.
Ability isn’t enough, without commitment. You need to be on-side, you need to be part of the team. You need to turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. If you can’t do that, don’t bother - isn’t that what Moses was saying?
And Jesus says some really hard things in our Gospel, doesn’t he? “Unless you hate your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, you can’t be my disciple.” That really jars, doesn’t it? We have to hate our own kith and kin? What sort of a Christian would that make us - hating our own nearest and dearest? Doesn’t God want us to be loving and dutiful, as parents, as partners, as siblings?
Of course he does; and if you do happen to be having problems with your parents, your children, your brothers, sisters, or even your friends, sorry, you do not have permission to hate them as a Christian duty! Jesus is saying the same sort of thing as Moses: this is about commitment. What Jesus tells us is that we shouldn’t place anything above our allegiance to God, and our commitment to serve him; not even our duty to our own families. To be a dutiful parent, child, sibling, to be a good citizen or friend or member of the community member - these things follow from our duty to God, they don’t take precedence over it.
Those other duties are still important; none of us should act badly, spitefully or uncaringly to those who have a right to expect us to treat them with love; but not even the closest relationship, not even our love of our own life, should be allowed to stand in the way of the first call upon us: love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. I think it was William Ruskin who said: “He who gives God but second place in his life, gives him no place.”
Moses says: Don’t cross the river unless you’re wholehearted in your desire to serve the God who is giving you this land. Don’t come with me, says Jesus, unless you’re seriously ready to put what my Father asks of you first before everything else. In other words, religion doesn’t make a good hobby, not if you’re being real about it. True religion requires the gift of your deepest and truest self. We’re to offer to God “ourselves, our souls and bodies” - and to hold nothing back.
Such self-offering isn’t just about what we do here, it’s not only about being committed to church. When Jesus says “Take up your cross” that’s a lifestyle choice, and a lifelong commitment. The place and power of the cross in our lives will be revealed in more than being part of the church and present here for this hour on a Sunday. In some ways, dare I say, that’s the least important bit. Our use of time, our allocation of money, our care for others and the welcome we offer, our care for the world and our thought for the environment, the moral standards to which we aspire, our readiness not only to speak but also to live the truth: these are the vital outward expressions of true inward commitment.
Religious zeal can easily be perverted and misused by unscrupulous faith leaders who use the power they have for their own ends. That’s a feature of cults, of religious extremism, and even the mainstream churches aren’t totally immune. We see it of course in other faiths too, and to me, extremism anywhere is abhorrent. But there’ll always be those who set themselves up in God’s place, to misappropriate the enthusiasm and desire of those whose only aim at the start was to serve.
Jesus knew that: many will claim my name, he told his followers; many will try and lead people in the wrong direction, and, yes, some people will get fooled. We need to be on our guard, we need to test what we’re told and taught: the only true way for us is the way of the cross. We know that God is love, and that in his love he seeks peace and healing and understanding, forgiveness and compassion and justice. So any word that leads us away from those things, is not the word of God, however plausibly it’s preached. We know what God wants of us, as Paul reminds us, for we have the mind of Christ. And in Philippians chapter 2 verse 6 he writes that Jesus was by his very nature God, and yet he humbled himself, taking the form of a servant.” There’s the test we should apply, whether we’re looking inwardly at our own selves, or reflecting on the teaching others give us.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, with all your mind and strength; and the second part of the summary of the law will then naturally follow: and love your neighbour as yourself. Our true love for God is bound to be revealed in our care for others, in our readiness to give and to serve in every aspect of our daily lives. In our daily lives in which again and again, that crucial question is posed: are you up for this, or are you not? Will you cross the river? Choose, life and good, or death and evil. All that matters is this, as we come to kneel at the table set by our Servant King, whose mark is the cross: are we people of the cross, or are we not? Are we committed to him, are we his full-time disciples, or are we just playing at it? This man wants first place in my life, or no place: will I do that - will I make my best stab at it, anyway? And will you?
Tuesday, 6 September 2016
Slow Burn
A poem in process . . .
You spent long enough
piling the brushwood into place,
getting it just right. You don’t need
too much oxygen in the early stages. Oh, there’s
no smoke without fire, maybe,
but since you didn’t want too much fire too soon,
for now there’s hardly a wisp of smoke.
Meanwhile, the sun continues to shine,
just another Monday, like all the others,
traffic queuing on the M6, children
climbing aboard a yellow bus, while in the park
ducks squabble over bread on the pond.
So, Monday morning: coming up to nine o’clock.
The accident at junction 12 has become a
traffic report, three miles of tailback; the
children climb down the steps, leave their bus
to chatter between the iron gates, new term,
same stories; and the ducks are dabbling elsewhere,
having abandoned the last few stale crusts
to their friends the fish.
And I am just heading home. It’s a nice morning.
Meanwhile, the brushwood smoulders gently,
and no-one notices, no-one yet can
even smell the smoke. But in any case,
this is a controlled fire,
not someone trying to set the world alight;
the rest of humanity can get on with their Monday.
This fire is set along my way home,
and you have set it so well: it is
carefully hidden, carefully aimed.
One minute everything was sunny,
and the world was candy-sweet;
the next, I am surrounded by flames
(out of nowhere, so why am I not surprised?)
and I seem to be catching fire so quickly -
though, truth to tell, you knew (I’m sure)
that I was already caught.
Monday, 5 September 2016
On Picnics and Self-Offering
A sermon given at All Saints, Worthen and at New Street United Church, Welshpool, on the feeding of the 4,000 from Matthew chapter 15 :-
Mostly when I go on a picnic, it’s just me, or me and the wife, or maybe the two of us plus daughter, son-in-law and our three grandchildren. That’s quite enough, I find. I’m not one for big do’s, not really. I only go to big do’s under protest. I seem to recall a few deanery and diocesan events that involved picnics, over the years. I went to Buckingham Palace once, but even that was only 1,000 or so. 4000 seems a little excessive, I must say. Theologians may argue about whether the feeding of the 4000 and the feeding of the 5000 are one event remembered twice and told twice, or two different events. But that’s not important to us today. The simple facts are what matter: 4000 plus people are hungry and in need of feeding. There is nothing like enough food to go round. But they all get fed, and there’s even a load of food left over at the end. Oh, and Jesus was there - that seems to have something to do with the fact that the impossible somehow became possible and got done.
So it’s a miracle. Now I’m not big on miracles, and nor was Jesus. Confused? He certainly did an awful lot of them. But here are three important things: firstly, that often when he did something amazing he told people to keep quiet about it, not that they did, always; secondly, that there was nothing unusual in a rabbi, a respected teacher of that day, performing miracles, particularly miracles of healing; and thirdly, it seems to me that Jesus explicitly ruled out any thought of dazzling people into belief by performing stupendous miracles. When tempted in the wilderness, he refused to turn stones into bread, even though that could have been a great way of feeding not only himself but all kinds of hungry folk, and he refused to leap from the pinnacle of the temple, which surely would have dazzled the crowds when angels appeared to bear him up and save him. And he spoke against those who asked him for signs.
So I’m not big on miracles per se; it’s what the miracles are for, what they’re doing, what they show us about God and about ourselves, that’s what draws me in. And I think this story of the feeding of the four thousand, this great feast conjured out of almost nothing - this is a marvellous and complex story which takes us into the heart of God.
So let me touch on a few special features in this story, beginning with the fact that this is already a place where the love of God is being powerfully felt. Broken people are being mended, and, as they see what is happening around them, people are coming to faith in a new way, and they are praising God.
And we see the compassion of Jesus, not only in the miracles of healing he performs, but in his care for all the people gathered there, that they should be provided for, that they shouldn’t be sent away empty. Hospitality is an important duty in Middle Eastern cultures. Of course they must be fed. “So how are we going to do this?” asks Jesus.
Of course the disciples have no answer. Or they do, but it’s an answer far too small for the question. It’s ridiculous. They do have some food, but nothing like enough - seven loaves and a few fish, and them only tiddlers. But here of course is the main and deciding feature of the story - their puny, insufficient offer is accepted. “No, lads, that’ll do,” says Jesus, in effect “Let’s see where it gets us!”
Then he gives thanks, and shares the food. He does nothing flashy, no pass of the hands, no incantation; he speaks the normal thanksgiving words - the writing here is quite deadpan. And yet they are all fed! What happened? How was it done? We can ask that if we like, but it’s not important. What is important is this: God makes what needs to happen possible.
God makes what needs to happen possible. Not out of nowhere, but beginning with what we offer him. Ah, no, it is a bit more than that: beginning when we offer him all we have. What if the disciples had said - just think about this - “We’ve got seven loaves and a few small fish; if we split the four loaves between us, and maybe keep half the fish, could you see what you might manage with the rest?”
Of course, Jesus could have fed those people with a single loaf and a single fish; maybe even with nothing - with God, all things are possible. But this isn’t that kind of miracle; this is a miracle that challenges his Church into action, a miracle that begins with us. If we offer what we have, all we have, to him, amazing things happen. “Lord take me and use me, put me to what you will,” that’s the prayer John Wesley made, that Methodists continue to say each new year within their covenant service. The hymn writer Frances Ridley Havergal understood that need for total giving of self - remember her most famous hymn, “Take my life and let it be dedicated, Lord, to thee.” It includes this daring and foolhardy line, “Take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold.”
How ready are we to do that? But here is the experience of the disciples that day, and the experience of disciples of Jesus ever since: what we can offer may seem too small; we may think we don’t have the strength, the skill, the numbers, the resources . . . but it’s not what we offer that matters, but that we give all we can. God takes what we give and multiplies it, that’s the promise of this parable; our small offering is made sufficient to the task, provided we give wholeheartedly, provided we set our own shoulder to the wheel.
Bishop Stephen Cotterill, the Bishop of Chelmsford, has rightly said, “Whatever we pray for, we have to be prepared to do.” It wasn’t enough for the disciples simply to want Jesus to do something about those four thousand would-be picnickers, they had to be part of the solution themselves. Even if all they had was seven loaves, they had to be part of the solution - and what they had was enough. It’s no good hoping someone else will do it, or even praying someone else will do it.
And, for what it’s worth, here’s my take on miracles. Miracles do happen, and they happen all around us. Wherever the little love we can give gets tied into the great big huge wonderful love of God, miracles happen. Miracles don’t happen instead of what we do, they don’t happen so that we won’t have to do it, they happen because of what we do, because of what we offer, because of what we feel, and of course because of what we pray. They are love making a difference, love changing lives, feeding hearts. We serve, praise, proclaim, worship the God of love; he is always wanting to make miracles happen among us. What we offer to him is what opens the way for him to work his will among us. He is waiting on us, as he says in Revelation, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” We may think we’re too small and weak for the task, but hear what Jesus says in Luke’s Gospel: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Amen.
Mostly when I go on a picnic, it’s just me, or me and the wife, or maybe the two of us plus daughter, son-in-law and our three grandchildren. That’s quite enough, I find. I’m not one for big do’s, not really. I only go to big do’s under protest. I seem to recall a few deanery and diocesan events that involved picnics, over the years. I went to Buckingham Palace once, but even that was only 1,000 or so. 4000 seems a little excessive, I must say. Theologians may argue about whether the feeding of the 4000 and the feeding of the 5000 are one event remembered twice and told twice, or two different events. But that’s not important to us today. The simple facts are what matter: 4000 plus people are hungry and in need of feeding. There is nothing like enough food to go round. But they all get fed, and there’s even a load of food left over at the end. Oh, and Jesus was there - that seems to have something to do with the fact that the impossible somehow became possible and got done.
So it’s a miracle. Now I’m not big on miracles, and nor was Jesus. Confused? He certainly did an awful lot of them. But here are three important things: firstly, that often when he did something amazing he told people to keep quiet about it, not that they did, always; secondly, that there was nothing unusual in a rabbi, a respected teacher of that day, performing miracles, particularly miracles of healing; and thirdly, it seems to me that Jesus explicitly ruled out any thought of dazzling people into belief by performing stupendous miracles. When tempted in the wilderness, he refused to turn stones into bread, even though that could have been a great way of feeding not only himself but all kinds of hungry folk, and he refused to leap from the pinnacle of the temple, which surely would have dazzled the crowds when angels appeared to bear him up and save him. And he spoke against those who asked him for signs.
So I’m not big on miracles per se; it’s what the miracles are for, what they’re doing, what they show us about God and about ourselves, that’s what draws me in. And I think this story of the feeding of the four thousand, this great feast conjured out of almost nothing - this is a marvellous and complex story which takes us into the heart of God.
So let me touch on a few special features in this story, beginning with the fact that this is already a place where the love of God is being powerfully felt. Broken people are being mended, and, as they see what is happening around them, people are coming to faith in a new way, and they are praising God.
And we see the compassion of Jesus, not only in the miracles of healing he performs, but in his care for all the people gathered there, that they should be provided for, that they shouldn’t be sent away empty. Hospitality is an important duty in Middle Eastern cultures. Of course they must be fed. “So how are we going to do this?” asks Jesus.
Of course the disciples have no answer. Or they do, but it’s an answer far too small for the question. It’s ridiculous. They do have some food, but nothing like enough - seven loaves and a few fish, and them only tiddlers. But here of course is the main and deciding feature of the story - their puny, insufficient offer is accepted. “No, lads, that’ll do,” says Jesus, in effect “Let’s see where it gets us!”
Then he gives thanks, and shares the food. He does nothing flashy, no pass of the hands, no incantation; he speaks the normal thanksgiving words - the writing here is quite deadpan. And yet they are all fed! What happened? How was it done? We can ask that if we like, but it’s not important. What is important is this: God makes what needs to happen possible.
God makes what needs to happen possible. Not out of nowhere, but beginning with what we offer him. Ah, no, it is a bit more than that: beginning when we offer him all we have. What if the disciples had said - just think about this - “We’ve got seven loaves and a few small fish; if we split the four loaves between us, and maybe keep half the fish, could you see what you might manage with the rest?”
Of course, Jesus could have fed those people with a single loaf and a single fish; maybe even with nothing - with God, all things are possible. But this isn’t that kind of miracle; this is a miracle that challenges his Church into action, a miracle that begins with us. If we offer what we have, all we have, to him, amazing things happen. “Lord take me and use me, put me to what you will,” that’s the prayer John Wesley made, that Methodists continue to say each new year within their covenant service. The hymn writer Frances Ridley Havergal understood that need for total giving of self - remember her most famous hymn, “Take my life and let it be dedicated, Lord, to thee.” It includes this daring and foolhardy line, “Take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold.”
How ready are we to do that? But here is the experience of the disciples that day, and the experience of disciples of Jesus ever since: what we can offer may seem too small; we may think we don’t have the strength, the skill, the numbers, the resources . . . but it’s not what we offer that matters, but that we give all we can. God takes what we give and multiplies it, that’s the promise of this parable; our small offering is made sufficient to the task, provided we give wholeheartedly, provided we set our own shoulder to the wheel.
Bishop Stephen Cotterill, the Bishop of Chelmsford, has rightly said, “Whatever we pray for, we have to be prepared to do.” It wasn’t enough for the disciples simply to want Jesus to do something about those four thousand would-be picnickers, they had to be part of the solution themselves. Even if all they had was seven loaves, they had to be part of the solution - and what they had was enough. It’s no good hoping someone else will do it, or even praying someone else will do it.
And, for what it’s worth, here’s my take on miracles. Miracles do happen, and they happen all around us. Wherever the little love we can give gets tied into the great big huge wonderful love of God, miracles happen. Miracles don’t happen instead of what we do, they don’t happen so that we won’t have to do it, they happen because of what we do, because of what we offer, because of what we feel, and of course because of what we pray. They are love making a difference, love changing lives, feeding hearts. We serve, praise, proclaim, worship the God of love; he is always wanting to make miracles happen among us. What we offer to him is what opens the way for him to work his will among us. He is waiting on us, as he says in Revelation, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” We may think we’re too small and weak for the task, but hear what Jesus says in Luke’s Gospel: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Amen.
Saturday, 27 August 2016
Humble Service Together
“It is only the little man who is self-important.”
I hate big occasions; I find them uncomfortable and I’m never quite sure about the formalities, what I’m supposed to do, who I should speak to, what to say. I’ve been to more than a few, of course, in my time - even once to Buckingham Palace, at the invitation of Her Majesty - but it’s never got easier; I’m always something of a fish out of water at these events. I envy those who take things like this in their stride and seem instinctively to know the ropes, those who have the right words to say, and probably wear the right tie. At big events I tend to play safe and be the last person to sit at table. That means I’ll probably be sitting next to the one person no-one wants to sit by. Unless, of course, that’s me.
I remember arriving once at a school concert where the hall was full. There were people standing at the back, so I joined them. The head teacher spotted me from her place at the top of the hall, bustled down to where I was standing, and urged me to come and take my seat with the VIP’s on the front row. I refused, which made her a bit cross I think - but it didn’t seem fair for me to sit in front of parents whose children were performing.
So this morning’s story from St Luke’s Gospel has a lot I can relate to. I can imagine being at the dinner party Jesus was at, where people were jostling for the best seats. But I don’t think I’d have been one of them. But Jesus has some good advice to give about how to do dinner parties and the like. If you grab the top seat and your host makes it clear that it’s reserved for someone else, you’ll be covered in shame. But if you go somewhere humble, maybe your host will bring you to sit by him, and then you’ll be honoured. And even when I’m just hanging around to see what chairs are left, it’s always nice when someone spots you and calls you over to say, “Come and join me here.”
At the height of his fame as a writer, Thomas Hardy ceased to write novels. His last novel, “Jude the Obscure” was published in 1895, but Hardy lived another 33 years, and he continued to write poetry. I like his poems, but I was fascinated to learn that, despite being so famous that any journal would have paid good money to publish his work, Hardy continued, whenever he submitted a poem for possible publication to include a stamped addressed envelope, so his manuscript could be returned if it was rejected. Humility like that is admirable, I think; it may even be the necessary mark of true greatness.
The late New York Methodist preacher and teacher Norman Vincent Peale, now best remembered as the author of “The Power of Positive Thinking”, once had one Donald Trump as his pupil. Apparently, he thought of Mr Trump as having a profound streak of honest humility, though maybe he’s lost a bit of that since. These days Mr Trump is humble enough to claim that Peale thought (quote) “that I was his greatest student of all time.” Now there’s positive thinking.
Humility has little to do with we look like on the outside, it’s the inside that matters. If a man went on purpose to take the lowest seat hoping he’d be called up higher and made a fuss of, he might well end up spending the whole meal seething with rage, if in fact he got overlooked and left where he was. True humility is when you sit in the lowest place and don’t mind at all if that’s where you stay. And humility like that does in fact require some positive thinking.
Positive thinking because we need to realise the truth, and to know where we really stand in the order of things. The world, and indeed the church if I’m honest, can be much damaged by the petty vanities and politicking of people who like to be big fish in little ponds. In a parish long ago, I had Ted. Ted was really a nice man, there was a lot about him that was genuinely good - but . . .
The but about Ted was that in twenty-two years as church warden, he’d made himself indispensible by de-skilling those around him, even whoever happened to be the other church warden. He managed to surround what he did with an air of mystique, adding job after job to the senior churchwarden’s role, and not letting anyone else know what he did and how to do it. All so he could be a big fish in a little pond, and so the church couldn’t survive without him. But, in the end, it did. Whoever we are, we don’t know it all and we can’t know it all. However important we may believe ourselves to be, or try to make ourselves, when we leave the scene - well, we may be missed, but in time the ripples smooth over, other people take over, the life and the work goes on. Or, if it doesn’t, then it wasn’t meant to.
It’s done me good to watch the Olympics. Watching amazing athletes doing things I couldn’t imagine doing puts what I do into perspective. Whatever we do, it’s good from time to time to compare ourselves with the real experts.
Jesus was in the home of a leading Pharisee. Pharisees were people who practised perfection; they were proud that they were able to keep every point of God’s Law. And Jesus struggled with people like that. God is best served not by people who think they’re perfect, but by people who know they’re not. Those are the people who know their need of God. William Barclay has written that “if we set our lives beside the life of the Lord of all life, if we see our unworthiness in comparison with the radiance of his purity, pride will die and self-satisfaction will be shrivelled up.” So here’s what I think. I am not important in the Kingdom of God, but we are. It isn’t as I stand out that God is served, but as we engage and work together. The measurement of me isn’t how high a place I’ve grabbed, or how highly my peers assess me; it’s what I can offer as part of the body of Christ, and as part of his apostolic Church.
I hate big occasions; I find them uncomfortable and I’m never quite sure about the formalities, what I’m supposed to do, who I should speak to, what to say. I’ve been to more than a few, of course, in my time - even once to Buckingham Palace, at the invitation of Her Majesty - but it’s never got easier; I’m always something of a fish out of water at these events. I envy those who take things like this in their stride and seem instinctively to know the ropes, those who have the right words to say, and probably wear the right tie. At big events I tend to play safe and be the last person to sit at table. That means I’ll probably be sitting next to the one person no-one wants to sit by. Unless, of course, that’s me.
I remember arriving once at a school concert where the hall was full. There were people standing at the back, so I joined them. The head teacher spotted me from her place at the top of the hall, bustled down to where I was standing, and urged me to come and take my seat with the VIP’s on the front row. I refused, which made her a bit cross I think - but it didn’t seem fair for me to sit in front of parents whose children were performing.
So this morning’s story from St Luke’s Gospel has a lot I can relate to. I can imagine being at the dinner party Jesus was at, where people were jostling for the best seats. But I don’t think I’d have been one of them. But Jesus has some good advice to give about how to do dinner parties and the like. If you grab the top seat and your host makes it clear that it’s reserved for someone else, you’ll be covered in shame. But if you go somewhere humble, maybe your host will bring you to sit by him, and then you’ll be honoured. And even when I’m just hanging around to see what chairs are left, it’s always nice when someone spots you and calls you over to say, “Come and join me here.”
At the height of his fame as a writer, Thomas Hardy ceased to write novels. His last novel, “Jude the Obscure” was published in 1895, but Hardy lived another 33 years, and he continued to write poetry. I like his poems, but I was fascinated to learn that, despite being so famous that any journal would have paid good money to publish his work, Hardy continued, whenever he submitted a poem for possible publication to include a stamped addressed envelope, so his manuscript could be returned if it was rejected. Humility like that is admirable, I think; it may even be the necessary mark of true greatness.
The late New York Methodist preacher and teacher Norman Vincent Peale, now best remembered as the author of “The Power of Positive Thinking”, once had one Donald Trump as his pupil. Apparently, he thought of Mr Trump as having a profound streak of honest humility, though maybe he’s lost a bit of that since. These days Mr Trump is humble enough to claim that Peale thought (quote) “that I was his greatest student of all time.” Now there’s positive thinking.
Humility has little to do with we look like on the outside, it’s the inside that matters. If a man went on purpose to take the lowest seat hoping he’d be called up higher and made a fuss of, he might well end up spending the whole meal seething with rage, if in fact he got overlooked and left where he was. True humility is when you sit in the lowest place and don’t mind at all if that’s where you stay. And humility like that does in fact require some positive thinking.
Positive thinking because we need to realise the truth, and to know where we really stand in the order of things. The world, and indeed the church if I’m honest, can be much damaged by the petty vanities and politicking of people who like to be big fish in little ponds. In a parish long ago, I had Ted. Ted was really a nice man, there was a lot about him that was genuinely good - but . . .
The but about Ted was that in twenty-two years as church warden, he’d made himself indispensible by de-skilling those around him, even whoever happened to be the other church warden. He managed to surround what he did with an air of mystique, adding job after job to the senior churchwarden’s role, and not letting anyone else know what he did and how to do it. All so he could be a big fish in a little pond, and so the church couldn’t survive without him. But, in the end, it did. Whoever we are, we don’t know it all and we can’t know it all. However important we may believe ourselves to be, or try to make ourselves, when we leave the scene - well, we may be missed, but in time the ripples smooth over, other people take over, the life and the work goes on. Or, if it doesn’t, then it wasn’t meant to.
It’s done me good to watch the Olympics. Watching amazing athletes doing things I couldn’t imagine doing puts what I do into perspective. Whatever we do, it’s good from time to time to compare ourselves with the real experts.
Jesus was in the home of a leading Pharisee. Pharisees were people who practised perfection; they were proud that they were able to keep every point of God’s Law. And Jesus struggled with people like that. God is best served not by people who think they’re perfect, but by people who know they’re not. Those are the people who know their need of God. William Barclay has written that “if we set our lives beside the life of the Lord of all life, if we see our unworthiness in comparison with the radiance of his purity, pride will die and self-satisfaction will be shrivelled up.” So here’s what I think. I am not important in the Kingdom of God, but we are. It isn’t as I stand out that God is served, but as we engage and work together. The measurement of me isn’t how high a place I’ve grabbed, or how highly my peers assess me; it’s what I can offer as part of the body of Christ, and as part of his apostolic Church.
Friday, 19 August 2016
Rules
A sermon prepared for this Sunday at Welshpool Methodist Church and Holy Trinity, Leighton :-
A few years ago, I had the interesting experience of travelling the Tan-Zam Highway from Iringa to Dar es Salaam. It was a busy road, but a well-made one on the whole. Double white lines ran down the centre of the road for long stretches. In the UK that would be an instruction not to overtake, and I feel sure the same must be true in the Tanzanian highway code. But you wouldn’t think so, given the way most people were driving; you’d think they were an invitation - if not an instruction - to overtake. Actually, our driver was quite law abiding; not true of most others, though.
We were at first amused at the antics of the local drivers, until a large tanker came a bit too close to us for comfort. And indeed, it is no joking matter. Road traffic accidents are a substantial cause of injury and death in the UK, but in Tanzania and indeed in much of the developing world, the statistics are truly awful. There are road safety posters everywhere in Tanzania, but no-one seems to take much notice. Then again, here in the UK we tend to think of traffic laws as somehow different from other laws; very few people drive at 30 or less where the signs tell them they should, even though not to do so is illegal.
I do try very hard to obey the rules of the road, but I have to confess to having points on my licence. For speeding. Speed is dangerous, and the rules of the road are there for our protection and for the protection of others, not just for the sake of it. Even speed cameras; they only catch you if you’re breaking the law. We shouldn’t really feel aggrieved when that happens.
Having said that, rules may be important but they’re there to serve us, not to be our masters. Most of my school rules were sensible, like not speaking in class without permission, or not running in corridors, or getting homework in on time. But not all of them were. For example, we were required to wear a green cap with a grey centre button, which could only be bought from one rather expensive shop.
And this was a silly rule, not least because in practice the centre button got removed and thrown away within an hour or so of starting as a new kid in school. Result - any green cap from the Co-op or wherever would have done just as well. So some rules are pointless. When a rule doesn’t enhance our quality of our life together, then we’re better off without it. Good laws restrict my freedom, but only so that everyone can have a share of freedom, or their safety and security is protected. If they do more than that - if, for example, they restrict the liberty of some people in order to enhance and perpetuate the dominance of others, then something has gone wrong. Laws can be unjust and immoral, and just because it’s the law doesn’t make it OK; most of the immoral actions of Nazi Germany, or apartheid South Africa (just two examples among many) were legal according to the laws of the day.
Many Christians in Nazi Germany, and indeed in apartheid South Africa, believed that it was their Christian duty to be good citizens of the state, and to obey the law. Those who didn’t, the so-called Confessing Church in Germany for example, led by people like Martin Neimoller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, were operating very much outside their comfort zone, for obedience to the state was something of a fundamental principle within the Lutheran Church.
For the Jewish nations of the Old Testament, Israel and Judah, the law of the land and the law of God were one and the same thing. All law derived from Moses, and therefore from God himself. All law, even what we would think of as secular law, expressed the mind of God, and his desire and will for his people. But when you read the great prophets of the Old Testament, you find that things are not that simple. Justice and the law (the law as applied, anyway) are not the same thing. The prophets found people perverting justice. They hadn’t abandoned the law, they looked as though they were keeping it, but in fact they’d customised and tweaked it so that it suited their needs while in reality they cheated on others, and made themselves fat while other folk were suffering.
So you find prophets saying again and again that God is not to be fooled by fake piety. There’s no point in keeping all the pilgrim feasts, making all the right sacrifices, praying as and when you’re supposed to, when the rest of the time you’re cheating the very people God wants specially protected and looked after - widows, orphans, homeless people, visitors from elsewhere? God desires true and righteous justice, not the keeping of laws just for the sake of looking good.
In his turn, Jesus found much the same sort of thing going on. People looking good, saying prayers at the right time, keeping the rules. Pharisees especially, who were looked up to as specially holy people, great keepers of rules. But God isn’t served in the letter of the law, but in its spirit; that’s the message of Jesus. But there were always some among the Pharisees who were keen to catch him out, so they could accuse him of being against the law, and therefore against God who gave the law. They were quick to say, whenever they could, “You can’t do that, it’s against the rules!”
Jesus would seem to have made something of a habit of healing people on the Sabbath, and so he did in the reading we’ve heard this morning, in the synagogue, during divine worship. On this occasion it isn’t Jesus who got told off, by the leader of the synagogue, but the lady who was healed - and everyone else there too, it would seem - for daring to come and seek healing on God’s holy day, when everyone’s supposed to be resting! You’ve got six other days, she was told, come and be healed on one of them. If ever there was a judgement founded in jealousy, that was it, perhaps the synagogue leader felt he was losing his grip on things. How would I feel as preacher here today if somebody else got up and started to heal people during my service, I find myself wondering. The simple rule I hope I’d apply (but would I?) is surely that if it’s good and genuine, and of God, then it should happen. And, as Jesus said elsewhere, the Sabbath is made for us, not us for the Sabbath.
Jesus very clearly said that he hadn’t come to do away with law. Not one jot, not one tittle - not the slightest smallest bit of God’s law would go. But laws are supposed to be useful; laws are utilities. And wherever rules are being used to stop good things happening that need to happen, or to harm or damage or restrict the lives of people just so that other people can prosper at their expense: well, Jesus has past history - read the Gospels - of ignoring and opposing rules like that. They run counter to what God’s law is supposed to provide, they run counter to what God wants to happen. Law is given so we can live together well; Sabbaths are given because hard-working folk need a rest and a change of pace in life. Neither law nor Sabbath is given so we can beat each other over the head with strictures about what is allowed and what isn’t. Neither law nor Sabbath is given as an excuse for laziness or apathy or self-interest, or to stop good being done.
As ever with the things we see Jesus do, and the things we hear Jesus say - go and do likewise. Don’t forget that rules are important; act in a way that affirms the fact that most rules, most of the time, are there to do us good and to protect us. We may find them restrictive, but crossing double white lines or even doing 35 in a built up area really will increase the chance we could do harm to someone else. If other people do it, it increases the risk to us. But where, as can happen, the rules themselves are harmful, or where they’re administered unfairly, we need to be acting justly, and that may mean ignoring the rules; it could even mean opposing the rules. Where Jesus would do that, then we should too. We should obey the governing authorities, pay our taxes, be good citizens, but remember: our first allegiance is to God, and his call to his justice holds first importance for us. The justice of God isn’t always the same as the justice of the law courts. Put simply, rules are here to serve us, and we are here to serve God; and that’s a perspective we need to get right before anything else.
A few years ago, I had the interesting experience of travelling the Tan-Zam Highway from Iringa to Dar es Salaam. It was a busy road, but a well-made one on the whole. Double white lines ran down the centre of the road for long stretches. In the UK that would be an instruction not to overtake, and I feel sure the same must be true in the Tanzanian highway code. But you wouldn’t think so, given the way most people were driving; you’d think they were an invitation - if not an instruction - to overtake. Actually, our driver was quite law abiding; not true of most others, though.
We were at first amused at the antics of the local drivers, until a large tanker came a bit too close to us for comfort. And indeed, it is no joking matter. Road traffic accidents are a substantial cause of injury and death in the UK, but in Tanzania and indeed in much of the developing world, the statistics are truly awful. There are road safety posters everywhere in Tanzania, but no-one seems to take much notice. Then again, here in the UK we tend to think of traffic laws as somehow different from other laws; very few people drive at 30 or less where the signs tell them they should, even though not to do so is illegal.
I do try very hard to obey the rules of the road, but I have to confess to having points on my licence. For speeding. Speed is dangerous, and the rules of the road are there for our protection and for the protection of others, not just for the sake of it. Even speed cameras; they only catch you if you’re breaking the law. We shouldn’t really feel aggrieved when that happens.
Having said that, rules may be important but they’re there to serve us, not to be our masters. Most of my school rules were sensible, like not speaking in class without permission, or not running in corridors, or getting homework in on time. But not all of them were. For example, we were required to wear a green cap with a grey centre button, which could only be bought from one rather expensive shop.
And this was a silly rule, not least because in practice the centre button got removed and thrown away within an hour or so of starting as a new kid in school. Result - any green cap from the Co-op or wherever would have done just as well. So some rules are pointless. When a rule doesn’t enhance our quality of our life together, then we’re better off without it. Good laws restrict my freedom, but only so that everyone can have a share of freedom, or their safety and security is protected. If they do more than that - if, for example, they restrict the liberty of some people in order to enhance and perpetuate the dominance of others, then something has gone wrong. Laws can be unjust and immoral, and just because it’s the law doesn’t make it OK; most of the immoral actions of Nazi Germany, or apartheid South Africa (just two examples among many) were legal according to the laws of the day.
Many Christians in Nazi Germany, and indeed in apartheid South Africa, believed that it was their Christian duty to be good citizens of the state, and to obey the law. Those who didn’t, the so-called Confessing Church in Germany for example, led by people like Martin Neimoller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, were operating very much outside their comfort zone, for obedience to the state was something of a fundamental principle within the Lutheran Church.
For the Jewish nations of the Old Testament, Israel and Judah, the law of the land and the law of God were one and the same thing. All law derived from Moses, and therefore from God himself. All law, even what we would think of as secular law, expressed the mind of God, and his desire and will for his people. But when you read the great prophets of the Old Testament, you find that things are not that simple. Justice and the law (the law as applied, anyway) are not the same thing. The prophets found people perverting justice. They hadn’t abandoned the law, they looked as though they were keeping it, but in fact they’d customised and tweaked it so that it suited their needs while in reality they cheated on others, and made themselves fat while other folk were suffering.
So you find prophets saying again and again that God is not to be fooled by fake piety. There’s no point in keeping all the pilgrim feasts, making all the right sacrifices, praying as and when you’re supposed to, when the rest of the time you’re cheating the very people God wants specially protected and looked after - widows, orphans, homeless people, visitors from elsewhere? God desires true and righteous justice, not the keeping of laws just for the sake of looking good.
In his turn, Jesus found much the same sort of thing going on. People looking good, saying prayers at the right time, keeping the rules. Pharisees especially, who were looked up to as specially holy people, great keepers of rules. But God isn’t served in the letter of the law, but in its spirit; that’s the message of Jesus. But there were always some among the Pharisees who were keen to catch him out, so they could accuse him of being against the law, and therefore against God who gave the law. They were quick to say, whenever they could, “You can’t do that, it’s against the rules!”
Jesus would seem to have made something of a habit of healing people on the Sabbath, and so he did in the reading we’ve heard this morning, in the synagogue, during divine worship. On this occasion it isn’t Jesus who got told off, by the leader of the synagogue, but the lady who was healed - and everyone else there too, it would seem - for daring to come and seek healing on God’s holy day, when everyone’s supposed to be resting! You’ve got six other days, she was told, come and be healed on one of them. If ever there was a judgement founded in jealousy, that was it, perhaps the synagogue leader felt he was losing his grip on things. How would I feel as preacher here today if somebody else got up and started to heal people during my service, I find myself wondering. The simple rule I hope I’d apply (but would I?) is surely that if it’s good and genuine, and of God, then it should happen. And, as Jesus said elsewhere, the Sabbath is made for us, not us for the Sabbath.
Jesus very clearly said that he hadn’t come to do away with law. Not one jot, not one tittle - not the slightest smallest bit of God’s law would go. But laws are supposed to be useful; laws are utilities. And wherever rules are being used to stop good things happening that need to happen, or to harm or damage or restrict the lives of people just so that other people can prosper at their expense: well, Jesus has past history - read the Gospels - of ignoring and opposing rules like that. They run counter to what God’s law is supposed to provide, they run counter to what God wants to happen. Law is given so we can live together well; Sabbaths are given because hard-working folk need a rest and a change of pace in life. Neither law nor Sabbath is given so we can beat each other over the head with strictures about what is allowed and what isn’t. Neither law nor Sabbath is given as an excuse for laziness or apathy or self-interest, or to stop good being done.
As ever with the things we see Jesus do, and the things we hear Jesus say - go and do likewise. Don’t forget that rules are important; act in a way that affirms the fact that most rules, most of the time, are there to do us good and to protect us. We may find them restrictive, but crossing double white lines or even doing 35 in a built up area really will increase the chance we could do harm to someone else. If other people do it, it increases the risk to us. But where, as can happen, the rules themselves are harmful, or where they’re administered unfairly, we need to be acting justly, and that may mean ignoring the rules; it could even mean opposing the rules. Where Jesus would do that, then we should too. We should obey the governing authorities, pay our taxes, be good citizens, but remember: our first allegiance is to God, and his call to his justice holds first importance for us. The justice of God isn’t always the same as the justice of the law courts. Put simply, rules are here to serve us, and we are here to serve God; and that’s a perspective we need to get right before anything else.
Thursday, 18 August 2016
The Learning Process (Haiku)
That thing you just did,
don’t do it again, capisce -
don’t do it again.
don’t do it again, capisce -
don’t do it again.
Monday, 15 August 2016
New Arrivals
(My nature notes column for the month ahead)
My son, who lives in London, sent me an email the other day to tell me about a new and strange spider he had seen. It was big, with a body about a quarter the size of a golf ball, and long legs. The abdomen was brightly striped in yellow and black. John doesn’t much like spiders, so to find one that size coloured like a wasp must have come as a shock.
I was able quickly to identify it as a wasp spider, which these days is not uncommon across the South of England. But it’s quite a new arrival, a Mediterranean species originally, first recorded in England in 1920. Since then it’s spread widely across the south, and recent mild winters are encouraging a spread further north, so who knows? Maybe one day we’ll find them here. They’re not dangerous, by the way, except to grasshoppers, their favourite prey, and other insects.
New species are arriving in the UK all the time, some naturally, others either deliberately or accidentally introduced by human intervention. We think of brown hares, rabbits, pheasants as native species, but none of them are, even though hares at least have been here since Roman times. A more recent interloper that my son knows very well and sees every day is the ring necked parakeet, common now in London and across a swathe of the South-East (also, closer to us, in Cheshire). They have escaped from collections - or may have been deliberately released - but they seem to like it here. You can see thousands roosting at a time in Syon Park, London.
Birds that have arrived unaided include the collared dove, now seen in most gardens. At the beginning of the last century the nearest collared doves to us would have been in Turkey. Since then they’ve spread across Europe, arriving here in the 1950’s. Another recent colonist is the Cetti’s warbler, a resident (unlike most of our warblers which are summer visitors) that inhabits reed beds. This was first recorded nesting in 1973, and now there may be as many as 2,000 pairs. It is found as far north as Monmouthshire, but not easily seen, being small, brown and secretive. However, its explosive song is a dead giveaway - if it’s around, then in the season you’ll hear it.
Many water and marshland birds are new arrivals. These include birds deriving from escapes from collections, of which the Canada goose is the most widespread, but you could add to that such species as mandarin duck, Carolina wood duck, and Egyptian goose. More genuine recent colonists include the little egret, which is now found all over the country. Other herons include the great white egret, which I have seen at Llyn Coed y Dinas, and the cattle egret which is visiting in increasing numbers and has bred in Somerset. The glossy ibis is also a possible new breeding species.
Many species are declining in numbers, which is always a cause for concern. But some decline is natural, and some arrivals are too, and some changes result from climate change rather than direct human interference. Having written mostly about bird species, perhaps I’ll return to this topic to look at, say, mammals or insects.
My son, who lives in London, sent me an email the other day to tell me about a new and strange spider he had seen. It was big, with a body about a quarter the size of a golf ball, and long legs. The abdomen was brightly striped in yellow and black. John doesn’t much like spiders, so to find one that size coloured like a wasp must have come as a shock.
I was able quickly to identify it as a wasp spider, which these days is not uncommon across the South of England. But it’s quite a new arrival, a Mediterranean species originally, first recorded in England in 1920. Since then it’s spread widely across the south, and recent mild winters are encouraging a spread further north, so who knows? Maybe one day we’ll find them here. They’re not dangerous, by the way, except to grasshoppers, their favourite prey, and other insects.
New species are arriving in the UK all the time, some naturally, others either deliberately or accidentally introduced by human intervention. We think of brown hares, rabbits, pheasants as native species, but none of them are, even though hares at least have been here since Roman times. A more recent interloper that my son knows very well and sees every day is the ring necked parakeet, common now in London and across a swathe of the South-East (also, closer to us, in Cheshire). They have escaped from collections - or may have been deliberately released - but they seem to like it here. You can see thousands roosting at a time in Syon Park, London.
Birds that have arrived unaided include the collared dove, now seen in most gardens. At the beginning of the last century the nearest collared doves to us would have been in Turkey. Since then they’ve spread across Europe, arriving here in the 1950’s. Another recent colonist is the Cetti’s warbler, a resident (unlike most of our warblers which are summer visitors) that inhabits reed beds. This was first recorded nesting in 1973, and now there may be as many as 2,000 pairs. It is found as far north as Monmouthshire, but not easily seen, being small, brown and secretive. However, its explosive song is a dead giveaway - if it’s around, then in the season you’ll hear it.
Many water and marshland birds are new arrivals. These include birds deriving from escapes from collections, of which the Canada goose is the most widespread, but you could add to that such species as mandarin duck, Carolina wood duck, and Egyptian goose. More genuine recent colonists include the little egret, which is now found all over the country. Other herons include the great white egret, which I have seen at Llyn Coed y Dinas, and the cattle egret which is visiting in increasing numbers and has bred in Somerset. The glossy ibis is also a possible new breeding species.
Many species are declining in numbers, which is always a cause for concern. But some decline is natural, and some arrivals are too, and some changes result from climate change rather than direct human interference. Having written mostly about bird species, perhaps I’ll return to this topic to look at, say, mammals or insects.
Saturday, 13 August 2016
Revolution
Today is the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity; but tomorrow is the feast of Mary the Mother of our Lord, and since this is St Mary’s Church I’d like to make her and her song the Magnificat my theme for today. The Church gives Mary many titles, like Queen of Heaven, Star of the Sea, Mother of God, First among Women. But none is as profound as the one she gives to herself, when we hear Luke tell her story: “Handmaid of the Lord”. I am the Handmaid of the Lord, says Mary; let it be to me according to your will.
As I take over as editor of the Diocesan Prayer Diary I’ve found myself having a number of conversations recently that have touched on what it means to be doing mission together across the globe. I’m lucky enough to have travelled the world a bit, so I’ve been reminded of people I’ve met in churches overseas: people I’ve met in some tough places, shacks and shanty towns, remote villages many miles from a tarmac road, people of real and impressive faith. These were people who in the spirit of Mary had offered themselves as handmaids, servants of the Lord.
What an immense faith we celebrate in Mary! We know very little about her home circumstances, only the hints provided by tradition and legend; but I’ve always pictured her as coming from a simple village home, not unlike the places I’ve seen or visited in Peru, Brazil, Tanzania, Palestine. There too I’ve discovered a response to God that mirrors that of Mary and puts my own to shame: people saying yes to God, ready to be used in his service.
The song of Mary, the Magnificat, includes the words “My spirit shall rejoice in God my Saviour”. In Tanzania we were welcomed with joy, and overwhelmed by the generosity of people who didn’t have very much. We who have more than enough can often be rather too careful in the way we ration out our kindness and hospitality. Someone once said very well that we may think we own our possessions, but far too often they end up owning us.
Many of the places I visited were places where they had a lot less than enough. In Tanzania I remember visiting dispensaries with very few drugs, and a college library with hardly any books. In Peru I recall struggling up dusty paths in a shanty town to join midweek worship in a church built of hardboard sheets, and in Brazil helping to ladle out soup to families from the favela, soup that for most of them would be their only meal of the day. But people I met in these places were many of them so strong in faith, people who persisted in hope, who waited expectantly on God, people who’d pledged themselves to be handmaids and servants of their Lord, and were keeping that pledge.
Not that I want to be looking back through rose-tinted glasses. I met lots of good people, but there were plenty of bad people there too. Rich people here can be greedy and thoughtless, but not all of them are. Some are wonderfully prodigal with their wealth, Bill Gates for example whose dollars were helping to conquer AIDS in the part of Tanzania I visited. And the developing world has more than its share of sinners, sadly: cheats and criminals and corruptors, people only too ready to make themselves a little richer by deepening the poverty and misery of those around them. Even in churches you find cases of corruption and financial irregularity, and that’s often endemic in central and local government.
But let me turn back to the Song of Mary, the Magnificat. Here are some words from the New Testament scholar William Barclay: “There is loveliness in the Magnificat, but in that loveliness there is dynamite. Christianity begets a revolution in each person and revolution in the world.” Revolution is a big and dangerous word, but there’s no doubt that the Magnificat is a revolutionary song, so much so that regimes have been known to ban it. It’s a song about turning the world upside down, and powerful people don’t like to hear about God casting the mighty from their thrones, and raising up the humble and meek.
When you visit a strange place it can be confusing. You don’t know the geography, the language, the customs, maybe your skin is a different colour, so you feel disorientated; it can take a while for your head to stop spinning. But I was also disorientated by my anger that people should have so little, and my embarrassment at having so much. To re-balance our world revolution is needed, both there (wherever there may be) and also here.
When I was working with USPG, the mission agency, a few years ago, maybe I was in some small way an agent of revolution. Revolution doesn’t have to mean violent change, but it must mean fundamental change, and real change begins with the opening of eyes and ears and minds. One thing to help this happen is the making of companion links between dioceses here and elsewhere in the world. By now there are lots of them: our own diocese of Hereford is linked with four dioceses in Tanzania (and one in Germany); I also worked in Worcester diocese which also has a German link, and is linked with the Anglican Diocese of Peru, where I went to visit. In Gloucester diocese I was part of a team set up to establish new links with two South Indian dioceses, Dornakal and Karnataka Central.
These links weren’t intended to be vehicles for the handing out of stuff. They were companion links, and that word companion really means those who eat bread together. So our links are about being friends and - in its widest sense - sharing communion. Magnificat isn’t about hand-outs, either. Hand-outs are scraps tossed from the rich man’s table that may help the poor man a bit but ultimately deny him the right and freedom to choose his own way. Magnificat is about subverting that world, turning it upside down, and travelling somewhere new. Companion links are only a little faltering start in this, but they can be a good first step. So I wasn’t in Tanzania or Peru to provide hand-outs, or to instruct people who didn’t know how to do things. Hand-outs are an expression of colonialism, not of friendship. I was there to listen, to debate, to question, and to learn: and to help establish links of friendship.
So the aim of companion links is to learn how to be responsive and responsible friends who are eager to work together for the common good. That needs movement on both sides. It’s tempting for those who have very little to see their English visitors as walking bundles of cash, and to concentrate only on what we can give them. It’s tempting for visitors from here to give wherever we think it’s needed, without thinking about why, where it’s going, what it’s doing. It feels good to be able to give, but giving according to our own priorities can disrupt the plans and priorities our partners already have. Companionship needs careful thought and preparation, and lot of prayer; it needs time for serious listening and the sharing dreams and hopes; it needs us to recognise that each partner has things to receive, things to learn, things to give. It can’t be a one way street. We must learn to be friends, and, as we commit to do things together, to enhance what is already good, and to encourage what needs to grow.
On my visits people I met were often very poor in financial terms, but they weren’t short of ideas and plans, hopes and dreams, nor were they lacking in faith. I was humbled by the faith I found, by people who delighted in God. I realised I had as much to receive as I had to give. Christian friendship finds its foundation in our commitment to each other, and chiefly in the commitment we each make to our Lord. It’s as we offer ourselves to be handmaids, servants, and stewards of the God of Magnificat, that his revolutionary change can begin in us.
Companions are those who commit themselves to serve and support one another. That means praising what’s good, and being honest and critical about what might need to change. It means belonging to God and belonging to one another in God. Being linked to Tanga, Masasi, Nawala, Dar es Salaam and Nuremberg shouldn’t just be something we do as the diocese of Hereford, but essential to who we are. And God whose love can change the world still calls from his Church everywhere the humility, love and service we praise in Mary.
As I take over as editor of the Diocesan Prayer Diary I’ve found myself having a number of conversations recently that have touched on what it means to be doing mission together across the globe. I’m lucky enough to have travelled the world a bit, so I’ve been reminded of people I’ve met in churches overseas: people I’ve met in some tough places, shacks and shanty towns, remote villages many miles from a tarmac road, people of real and impressive faith. These were people who in the spirit of Mary had offered themselves as handmaids, servants of the Lord.
What an immense faith we celebrate in Mary! We know very little about her home circumstances, only the hints provided by tradition and legend; but I’ve always pictured her as coming from a simple village home, not unlike the places I’ve seen or visited in Peru, Brazil, Tanzania, Palestine. There too I’ve discovered a response to God that mirrors that of Mary and puts my own to shame: people saying yes to God, ready to be used in his service.
The song of Mary, the Magnificat, includes the words “My spirit shall rejoice in God my Saviour”. In Tanzania we were welcomed with joy, and overwhelmed by the generosity of people who didn’t have very much. We who have more than enough can often be rather too careful in the way we ration out our kindness and hospitality. Someone once said very well that we may think we own our possessions, but far too often they end up owning us.
Many of the places I visited were places where they had a lot less than enough. In Tanzania I remember visiting dispensaries with very few drugs, and a college library with hardly any books. In Peru I recall struggling up dusty paths in a shanty town to join midweek worship in a church built of hardboard sheets, and in Brazil helping to ladle out soup to families from the favela, soup that for most of them would be their only meal of the day. But people I met in these places were many of them so strong in faith, people who persisted in hope, who waited expectantly on God, people who’d pledged themselves to be handmaids and servants of their Lord, and were keeping that pledge.
Not that I want to be looking back through rose-tinted glasses. I met lots of good people, but there were plenty of bad people there too. Rich people here can be greedy and thoughtless, but not all of them are. Some are wonderfully prodigal with their wealth, Bill Gates for example whose dollars were helping to conquer AIDS in the part of Tanzania I visited. And the developing world has more than its share of sinners, sadly: cheats and criminals and corruptors, people only too ready to make themselves a little richer by deepening the poverty and misery of those around them. Even in churches you find cases of corruption and financial irregularity, and that’s often endemic in central and local government.
But let me turn back to the Song of Mary, the Magnificat. Here are some words from the New Testament scholar William Barclay: “There is loveliness in the Magnificat, but in that loveliness there is dynamite. Christianity begets a revolution in each person and revolution in the world.” Revolution is a big and dangerous word, but there’s no doubt that the Magnificat is a revolutionary song, so much so that regimes have been known to ban it. It’s a song about turning the world upside down, and powerful people don’t like to hear about God casting the mighty from their thrones, and raising up the humble and meek.
When you visit a strange place it can be confusing. You don’t know the geography, the language, the customs, maybe your skin is a different colour, so you feel disorientated; it can take a while for your head to stop spinning. But I was also disorientated by my anger that people should have so little, and my embarrassment at having so much. To re-balance our world revolution is needed, both there (wherever there may be) and also here.
When I was working with USPG, the mission agency, a few years ago, maybe I was in some small way an agent of revolution. Revolution doesn’t have to mean violent change, but it must mean fundamental change, and real change begins with the opening of eyes and ears and minds. One thing to help this happen is the making of companion links between dioceses here and elsewhere in the world. By now there are lots of them: our own diocese of Hereford is linked with four dioceses in Tanzania (and one in Germany); I also worked in Worcester diocese which also has a German link, and is linked with the Anglican Diocese of Peru, where I went to visit. In Gloucester diocese I was part of a team set up to establish new links with two South Indian dioceses, Dornakal and Karnataka Central.
These links weren’t intended to be vehicles for the handing out of stuff. They were companion links, and that word companion really means those who eat bread together. So our links are about being friends and - in its widest sense - sharing communion. Magnificat isn’t about hand-outs, either. Hand-outs are scraps tossed from the rich man’s table that may help the poor man a bit but ultimately deny him the right and freedom to choose his own way. Magnificat is about subverting that world, turning it upside down, and travelling somewhere new. Companion links are only a little faltering start in this, but they can be a good first step. So I wasn’t in Tanzania or Peru to provide hand-outs, or to instruct people who didn’t know how to do things. Hand-outs are an expression of colonialism, not of friendship. I was there to listen, to debate, to question, and to learn: and to help establish links of friendship.
So the aim of companion links is to learn how to be responsive and responsible friends who are eager to work together for the common good. That needs movement on both sides. It’s tempting for those who have very little to see their English visitors as walking bundles of cash, and to concentrate only on what we can give them. It’s tempting for visitors from here to give wherever we think it’s needed, without thinking about why, where it’s going, what it’s doing. It feels good to be able to give, but giving according to our own priorities can disrupt the plans and priorities our partners already have. Companionship needs careful thought and preparation, and lot of prayer; it needs time for serious listening and the sharing dreams and hopes; it needs us to recognise that each partner has things to receive, things to learn, things to give. It can’t be a one way street. We must learn to be friends, and, as we commit to do things together, to enhance what is already good, and to encourage what needs to grow.
On my visits people I met were often very poor in financial terms, but they weren’t short of ideas and plans, hopes and dreams, nor were they lacking in faith. I was humbled by the faith I found, by people who delighted in God. I realised I had as much to receive as I had to give. Christian friendship finds its foundation in our commitment to each other, and chiefly in the commitment we each make to our Lord. It’s as we offer ourselves to be handmaids, servants, and stewards of the God of Magnificat, that his revolutionary change can begin in us.
Companions are those who commit themselves to serve and support one another. That means praising what’s good, and being honest and critical about what might need to change. It means belonging to God and belonging to one another in God. Being linked to Tanga, Masasi, Nawala, Dar es Salaam and Nuremberg shouldn’t just be something we do as the diocese of Hereford, but essential to who we are. And God whose love can change the world still calls from his Church everywhere the humility, love and service we praise in Mary.
Wednesday, 10 August 2016
Writing Class
My tip for the budding writer:
start with a great big
pile of words,
biggest you can build,
then just keep throwing away
everything that isn’t poem
until poem is all you’re left with.
Saturday, 6 August 2016
Waiting
A sermon to be preached at Leighton and New Street, Welshpool :-
They also serve who only stand and wait. One of those quotes that everyone knows, but maybe without knowing who actually said it. It’s actually the last line of John Milton’s poem on his blindness; Milton is affirming the place he still has, despite his disability, in the service of the kingdom of God.
Most of us don't much like having to wait around, but sometimes it can be good. Some years ago I’d spent my day off walking in Warwickshire, not far from Stratford; and I arrived at the small country station I was due to travel back from just after my train had gone. I was quite cross, but there was nowhere else I could head for within walking distance, so all I could do was to wait another hour for the next train. Well, I'd got a bar of chocolate and an apple with me, and something to drink; so I found a bench seat of Great Western vintage under some rambling roses, planted maybe by some long gone station master. It was a warm and sunny afternoon with the air full of the buzzing of bees and the calling of birds. Rarely have I passed a more contented and peaceful hour, but it was only by accident I was granted it.
There’s a lesson there for me I know. I give in too easily to the temptation to spend my time rushing about making things happen. Sometimes it’s better to pause and allow things to happen to me. When things get slowed down there’s often blessing. It’s worth taking quiet time, quality time; if I don’t I’m missing out.
Doing nothing can be good therapy. But my theme today is really about purposeful waiting, which is something Jesus told several parables about. In today's Gospel he tells his disciples how they should wait. They should wait attentively and watchfully; they should be alert and expectant, like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding feast. They mustn't sleep on the job, of course, but neither should they be so busy doing stuff that they’re not properly watchful. If they’ve too much stuff of their own to worry about they might miss their master's return.
Most Christians I guess are aware of a tension between doing and being. The Protestant work ethic persuades us to see church as mostly a place where people are doing things: so we run classes, have groups, engage in social projects, and draw up a calendar of events. And if we’re not doing all of this, we can be made to feel that we're not pulling our weight.
Well, of course churches do need to do things - churches need to be addressing human need, studying the Bible, learning about our faith and what it means to be disciples. And we need to have fun and n the process raise some cash: we’ve got buildings to look after, and ministry costs to meet too. But let’s not forget to be also a waiting church, and not to be so hooked on doing things we miss out on the vital task of simply being God’s people.
Churches have an awful lot of history, and that’s what mostly interests the people who come to visit them. It fascinates me too. Church buildings can be full of architectural clues that can help us trace the way communities and their worship have changed and developed over the centuries. I enjoy looking through old books and registers - or even reading old minutes of church meetings. We could even see the Church today as being mostly a band of folk keeping the flame burning, so that the work of past generations isn’t forgotten, and the faith of the ages is preserved.
And to some degree that is our role. Certainly when I enter an old church I’m quickly aware of it as a place made holy by generations of prayer and piety, so that I feel moved to thank God for the faith of generations past, and to pray that we may be worthy inheritors of their work. But it isn’t our job to wait for the past to come round again. It won't. If we’re waiting, we’re waiting prayerfully and expectantly for what Jesus will do next. So we need to direct our vision forward, not back. And remember that one of the things Jesus told his disciples was that the Son of Man would come at a time when he was least expected.
So they were to hold themselves in constant readiness for that day; and therefore, alongside all our activity as church we have an equally vital task of quiet and prayerful waiting on our Lord. The other day I had an interesting conversation with a parish priest I’ve known for many years. The smallness of congregations came up. So what, he said - big isn't always best. He wasn’t disillusioned by the smallness of his congregations, it just meant he had to work with them in an appropriate way. There’s a real and Biblical ministry of being the faithful remnant, he told me, that isn’t the same as just hanging on till you drop off the twig; perhaps small churches can’t grow in numbers, but they can grow in faith, and maybe that matters more. Being big and busy with lots of energetic projects isn’t everything; if you can do that, great! But what really counts is that we’re faithful to God.
And that’s a faithfulness we show by regularly attending Sunday worship, especially here at the table of Holy Communion; in the discipline of daily prayer, especially as we pray for one another; in the quality of our fellowship, in our use of time and talents and money, and in our study of scripture and our delight in the word of the Lord. These are all ways in which a faithful church offers itself to God, trusting his love and his promises.
That’s what it means to be children of Abraham: we are children of Abraham not through any bloodline, but because we are children of promise and faith. In Hebrews we read: "From one man, a man as good as dead, there sprang descendants as numerous as the stars in the heavens or the grains of sand on the seashore." Abram (or Abraham as he became) put his faith in the Lord: even though he couldn’t have seen how God's promise could come true, he still believed it would. We need the same trusting, offering, 'yes to God' faith today. In our weakness, in our uncertainty, even the awareness we have of decline and age, we should look forward in faith and expect God’s blessing. He’s still working his purpose out: he keeps his promise to those who wait on him in faith.
They also serve who only stand and wait. One of those quotes that everyone knows, but maybe without knowing who actually said it. It’s actually the last line of John Milton’s poem on his blindness; Milton is affirming the place he still has, despite his disability, in the service of the kingdom of God.
Most of us don't much like having to wait around, but sometimes it can be good. Some years ago I’d spent my day off walking in Warwickshire, not far from Stratford; and I arrived at the small country station I was due to travel back from just after my train had gone. I was quite cross, but there was nowhere else I could head for within walking distance, so all I could do was to wait another hour for the next train. Well, I'd got a bar of chocolate and an apple with me, and something to drink; so I found a bench seat of Great Western vintage under some rambling roses, planted maybe by some long gone station master. It was a warm and sunny afternoon with the air full of the buzzing of bees and the calling of birds. Rarely have I passed a more contented and peaceful hour, but it was only by accident I was granted it.
There’s a lesson there for me I know. I give in too easily to the temptation to spend my time rushing about making things happen. Sometimes it’s better to pause and allow things to happen to me. When things get slowed down there’s often blessing. It’s worth taking quiet time, quality time; if I don’t I’m missing out.
Doing nothing can be good therapy. But my theme today is really about purposeful waiting, which is something Jesus told several parables about. In today's Gospel he tells his disciples how they should wait. They should wait attentively and watchfully; they should be alert and expectant, like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding feast. They mustn't sleep on the job, of course, but neither should they be so busy doing stuff that they’re not properly watchful. If they’ve too much stuff of their own to worry about they might miss their master's return.
Most Christians I guess are aware of a tension between doing and being. The Protestant work ethic persuades us to see church as mostly a place where people are doing things: so we run classes, have groups, engage in social projects, and draw up a calendar of events. And if we’re not doing all of this, we can be made to feel that we're not pulling our weight.
Well, of course churches do need to do things - churches need to be addressing human need, studying the Bible, learning about our faith and what it means to be disciples. And we need to have fun and n the process raise some cash: we’ve got buildings to look after, and ministry costs to meet too. But let’s not forget to be also a waiting church, and not to be so hooked on doing things we miss out on the vital task of simply being God’s people.
Churches have an awful lot of history, and that’s what mostly interests the people who come to visit them. It fascinates me too. Church buildings can be full of architectural clues that can help us trace the way communities and their worship have changed and developed over the centuries. I enjoy looking through old books and registers - or even reading old minutes of church meetings. We could even see the Church today as being mostly a band of folk keeping the flame burning, so that the work of past generations isn’t forgotten, and the faith of the ages is preserved.
And to some degree that is our role. Certainly when I enter an old church I’m quickly aware of it as a place made holy by generations of prayer and piety, so that I feel moved to thank God for the faith of generations past, and to pray that we may be worthy inheritors of their work. But it isn’t our job to wait for the past to come round again. It won't. If we’re waiting, we’re waiting prayerfully and expectantly for what Jesus will do next. So we need to direct our vision forward, not back. And remember that one of the things Jesus told his disciples was that the Son of Man would come at a time when he was least expected.
So they were to hold themselves in constant readiness for that day; and therefore, alongside all our activity as church we have an equally vital task of quiet and prayerful waiting on our Lord. The other day I had an interesting conversation with a parish priest I’ve known for many years. The smallness of congregations came up. So what, he said - big isn't always best. He wasn’t disillusioned by the smallness of his congregations, it just meant he had to work with them in an appropriate way. There’s a real and Biblical ministry of being the faithful remnant, he told me, that isn’t the same as just hanging on till you drop off the twig; perhaps small churches can’t grow in numbers, but they can grow in faith, and maybe that matters more. Being big and busy with lots of energetic projects isn’t everything; if you can do that, great! But what really counts is that we’re faithful to God.
And that’s a faithfulness we show by regularly attending Sunday worship, especially here at the table of Holy Communion; in the discipline of daily prayer, especially as we pray for one another; in the quality of our fellowship, in our use of time and talents and money, and in our study of scripture and our delight in the word of the Lord. These are all ways in which a faithful church offers itself to God, trusting his love and his promises.
That’s what it means to be children of Abraham: we are children of Abraham not through any bloodline, but because we are children of promise and faith. In Hebrews we read: "From one man, a man as good as dead, there sprang descendants as numerous as the stars in the heavens or the grains of sand on the seashore." Abram (or Abraham as he became) put his faith in the Lord: even though he couldn’t have seen how God's promise could come true, he still believed it would. We need the same trusting, offering, 'yes to God' faith today. In our weakness, in our uncertainty, even the awareness we have of decline and age, we should look forward in faith and expect God’s blessing. He’s still working his purpose out: he keeps his promise to those who wait on him in faith.
Wednesday, 3 August 2016
Honeysuckle
(A new poem under construction)
It first began to flower in February -
we had an unexpected warm spell -
and pretty much continued through until
midsummer. And it was lovely of an evening
to be hit for six by that perfume
as soon as I opened the front door
to listen for owls, or as I brushed by
arriving home from some meeting.
Then through July, the leaves got crinkled and spotty,
while clusters of berries gradually turned
deep red, and summer began to slip from my grasp.
The month ended, and nights began seriously
to draw in. The swifts disappeared all of a sudden
from the evening air. August is the month
when Autumn really begins, I think,
even if the world’s still taking its summer break.
Then to my surprise, overnight it seemed,
a host of new shoots appeared, bearing
fresh green leaves and swelling flower buds
eager to burst once more into fragrance.
And I am glad of the timely reminder
that we are not yet done. There are still
new colours and scents untasted, and
fresh adventures and songs unshared.
It first began to flower in February -
we had an unexpected warm spell -
and pretty much continued through until
midsummer. And it was lovely of an evening
to be hit for six by that perfume
as soon as I opened the front door
to listen for owls, or as I brushed by
arriving home from some meeting.
Then through July, the leaves got crinkled and spotty,
while clusters of berries gradually turned
deep red, and summer began to slip from my grasp.
The month ended, and nights began seriously
to draw in. The swifts disappeared all of a sudden
from the evening air. August is the month
when Autumn really begins, I think,
even if the world’s still taking its summer break.
Then to my surprise, overnight it seemed,
a host of new shoots appeared, bearing
fresh green leaves and swelling flower buds
eager to burst once more into fragrance.
And I am glad of the timely reminder
that we are not yet done. There are still
new colours and scents untasted, and
fresh adventures and songs unshared.
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