Remembrance Sunday

I have just returned from an Act of Remembrance in Ore Village, my nearest community. Around 350 people including young children in uniformed organisations have gathered today to remember. Standing around a war memorial during the two minutes silence I was moved to think of ordinary people who went to war and gave their lives in horrific circumstances and now all we have of them is on marble.

I went to the Imperial War Museum North in Salford Quays this week while on holiday and was pleased to find the place full of school children on educational visits, hearing and interacting with history. The museum was really excellent and I recommend a visit if you are in the North West anytime. I was moved most of all this morning by hearing children's voices say the response to the prayers loudly "Lord, give peace." We need to remember in order to try and not make war any more in our modern world.

I am off in a moment to lead a reflective time of worship in Ninfield, one of our rural chapels, about the personal cost of conflict and the personal responsibility we have to try and live in community, harmoniously. I found this picture on the internet moved to do some digging after reading personal stories of soldiers at the Imperial War Museum, especially of those who went excitedly to the enlisting office as World War One began. None of those men knew the horror that awaited them, none of them at that point thought they would not come back. The war would be over by Christmas!

I am using this picture in worship this afternoon. It is of a group of young men going off to the war in 1914. My Grandad, Harry Smith, is on the cart standing above the lad on the far right, with a cap on. I don't remember much about him really, he died in 1981, aged 86. He was head of a family building firm and I certainly don't remember him talking about his wartime experiences. But in 1978 Gran and Grandad Smith had their Diamond Wedding and were interviewed by the local paper. Grandad said of his time at the Battle of the Somme, "a bullet went through my shoulder and out the other side, but fortunately didn't break any bones. I'm lucky to be alive at all, let alone celebrate a Diamond Wedding." You wonder how that experience marked Grandad for the rest of his life. He was lucky, but did he ever "get over" what he experienced? I doubt it. War maims for ever, and it still maims today.

So what on earth do we say on a day like this? What is it for? Yes, it is to remember the fallen and to remember difficult parts of our history. I've been to lunch at the Miller's Arms. The veterans in Ore Village invited all the clergy, the councillors and the police to join them after the service this morning. Sadly only a few police officers and me accepted the invitation. The man who did the "when you go home" line this morning was slightly worse for wear by the time I got to the pub. But it was important for him to raise several glasses to his comrades!

But today is more about I think trying to create community where we are. We cannot influence world events in the main, but we can make a difference where we are. Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me, says the song. I hope some of those little children in church this morning and at the museum on Tuesday thought about getting on together. I still see too many battles between people, too many misunderstandings in relationships, too many words said in haste, too many occasions where people are unwilling to enter into dialogue but will lash out instead of investing time trying to understand the other, too many times of unacceptance of the "different", too many people making themselves ill because someone else has been horrible to them, too many times when we have gone to war rather than pursuing peace. There is no point of today remembering unless we resolve to live differently, otherwise it is empty ritual and meaningless.

We need to reach out to people where they are, and that can be messy. But life is fuller if we do it rather than be judgmental or get on a coat to get our own way against the people we encounter. Perhaps then there was a parable about how we might live differently at the end of the service over coffee this morning.
As we came back into church for refreshments a young Mum and her friend approached me. The Mum, Samantha, wanted to know if I did christenings. She thought I was the Vicar (we were in the Parish Church) I told her (knowing the Vicar would not christen her little girl because he is quite strict about what they need to do before he'll agree) if she wanted to come to my church up the road I would happily do it for her. Her face lit up. Then she looked sad, "my partner isn't with me anymore" she said, thinking I would now say no. I told her that didn't matter, that life happens, that we would talk about it, and that we could be there for her and her little girl. We had a lovely chat and I look forward to a nice time with that family in February. The encounter with me could have been awkward, but I was prepared to enter into life, even though it isn't straightforward.

I wonder what Grandad, Harry Smith, and his mates were thinking as they set up from The Folly in Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire nearly 100 years ago, into the unknown.
I wonder what people have been thinking today as they have gathered around war memorials and have laid poppy wreaths.
Most of all, I wonder when we are ever going to learn to reach out and work at community, so that one day men and women do not suffer and fall at the hands of those who want their own way. A day when evil and prejudice is defeated.
    

Local Preachers Study Morning

I'm leading a morning on "radical worship" tomorrow and I offer this to others who train preachers. Feel free to pinch anything!

People rarely comment on the worship we conduct apart from “nice hymns” perhaps. We can take silence as a job well done! But if we dare to do something different, or radical, then people might well react. We’ll look at whether Jesus was radical a bit later and whether as preachers and worship leaders we are called to be radical today to make people sit up and take notice or simply to react. What is it we proclaim on a Sunday, and what sort of world are we sending people we share with into. Is our preaching and worship leading to be contextual, challenging, uncomfortable sometimes?

People want it to be a comfort. They don’t come to church to be upset or to be told things cannot stay the way they have always been. They like what they like! But I wonder whether our task sometimes is to unsettle, to stir, to proclaim a revolutionary Gospel! To make people think.

I like my liturgy, I am comfortable with the same words over and over again, they are a solace for me in trouble, a rock to hold onto. But if I have the same diet always, then I haven’t the resources to cope with anything other than what I am comfortable with. I will not be adventurous in my faith and my worship leading. It’s like pondering the menu of the local Chinese take away, we look at it at length and then order the same we always order because we like that best. It’s like sitting in the same seat in church. We like it there. It’s like preaching your hobby horse sermon every Sunday, we’re comfortable with it. The lectionary passage is a bit challenging so we ditch it. This comfort thing though is not wrong – take services at our two local Methodist homes, the comfort of old hymns and prayers we know by heart, brings people in those times of worship alive. So don’t ditch the comfort but I think you need the comfort AND the radical and challenging.

I want us to think about whether Jesus was radical (Where did he get this from?) 

Two passages I want us to think about. First from “Radical Jesus” by John Vincent, Marshall Pickering, 1986: quoting Mark 1: 14

“Our word “believe” does not quite get the force of the Greek word here. It really means “”Give yourself over to, risk your life on, put your faith in, trust yourself to.” So, Jesus says, “don’t hold yourself back. You will not get anything that way, rather, let yourself go, “get with it” take a chance, act as if it were true. The “good news” is that the Kingdom is here. Let yourselves start acting as if it is true.”

The question is how we share the Kingdom with people and make it relevant for them. Do we have to leave our comfort zones in order for the message to get across to where people are? There is a responsibility as we prepare and lead worship. What do you make of this paragraph?

“Regular Sunday worship is the churches’ shop window. It is up to all of us to ensure that what is presented there is high quality no matter what form worship takes. Worship should be a beautiful thing for God and for those participating, so that all will come to know the life giving love that we have received and give thanks for every time we worship.”

(Jill Hopkinson, National Rural Officer for the C of E in Country Way, October 2013)    

Is there a role for prophetic preaching, telling it how it is. When I did it once I was asked “are you alright?” How do we leave a congregation feeling after a challenging, radical sharing of the message? Are we called to be popular? Someone said to me last Saturday at something I was at, “we are not meant to be liked.” But I want to be liked, don’t you? And sometimes there is a low expectation in congregations!

I remember Mrs Lancaster. Mrs Lancaster was a member of the Sisterhood at Kinsbourne Green Methodist Church in the old Harpenden Circuit. I used to do their Sisterhood when I was a lay worker on the staff. She had an ear trumpet and she would nod off quickly. I remember one meeting when after she had snored through most of my talk she came to and she looked at me and she said very loudly, “Good God, is he still talking????!!!”  

A lovely quote that sums up Jesus here really:

“When we look at our world through the lenses of God’s grace, it changes everything. We can no longer view others as “competition” that we have to outdo in our piety in order to “make it in” to heaven. Everybody “makes it in” because God wills it. Period. The whole creation is to be drawn into the peace and love and life of God’s kingdom.”

What this means for us is that we cannot view ourselves as God’s “favourites” who receive special blessing over and above others. It means that we all receive the gift of God’s grace that extends to everyone equally. It means that no one can be viewed as outside God’s grace—no one is excluded; all are welcome. And that is radical!

Sometimes a different scenario can be a challenge to us, but life happens to people in between worship occasions and we need to be where people are. Some worship may now not speak to some people that we offer. Perhaps we are heading for multiplex services in the same building at the same time, or maybe different churches will offer different styles and you travel to the style you like. How do we share the message of God’s Kingdom and Christ’s love where people are – and what if life has happened to people and we need to adapt the way we present the message away from what we have prepared? Can we have a radical shift in approach?

Get someone to choose a well known, short passage. Pretend that is tomorrow’s passage and you are appointed to preach. Life has happened for the local church or it happens during the service! How do you adapt your message or don’t you?

·       60 young people on a scouts and guides outing are to be in church for the first part of the service.

·       The steward of the village church with three members has died in the night.

·       The local factory has suddenly made a considerable amount of the workforce redundant and lots of them are in church raw about that.

·       There are a group of people with dementia brought in a minibus who like to shout out during the service.

·       You are planned to lead worship on Christmas Day. You have people there who only come to church once a year.

·       The Queen has died in the week before the service.

·       A church up the road has been told it is not safe to enter it and so they are in your church feeling bereaved and lost.

·       An unruly baptismal party is bored in front of you.

·       You are planned for an evening service in a rural chapel and there is only you, the steward and the organist there!

Martyn Atkins in “Preaching in a cultural context” Foundery Press 2001, says Wesley was into answering a question that burned in his spirit, “How should I preach the Christian Gospel to those in front of me?”

I was looking at my 1987 book of worship and sermons. The world has changed since 1987. I did it all back then! Now there is more participation, church lay out has altered, there is multi media, congregations are more diverse and spasmodic in attendance and there are more opportunities to share I think then perhaps our five appointments on the plan. The challenge to show Jesus, who was radical and relevant so much so people responded to him. We need more people to take up this work. I think the next few years could be exciting if we are prepared as John Vincent says in that old book I found we let ourselves go. But beware this final story:

A preacher had been berating his congregation for almost an hour. As he pounded the pulpit in a dramatic climax, he asked the hypothetical question in soaring oratorical tones: “What more can I say?” A voice in the back pew responded: “Say Amen, and sit down!”

Too much stuff

The lectionary passage for tomorrow is Luke 12: 13 - 21 about the man who wanted to build bigger barns and wallow in his stuff. 

How much stuff do we need in your life? Perhaps all of us have got too much stuff. We surround ourselves with stuff. When we are about to move house, we look at our stuff, and we think do I need this stuff anymore, even stuff that has been in a loft for years, and we haven’t had it out of the loft for years but we might now suddenly need it, or things that are in sealed boxes we haven’t opened since 2003, can’t throw anything in the box out, we need that stuff, or our bookshelves are full and we have too many books now but will we get rid of some books, no, I might read that one soon, so the books stay on the shelf. We love stuff. My Mother collects stuff, people buy her ornaments which then collect dust, she started buying donkeys (not real donkeys, china ones) now she has more donkeys that in the donkey sanctuary in Sidmouth if you’ve been there. Everywhere you look in her living room there are donkeys – stuff everywhere. She has a little bedroom full of stuff. I try and have a nose in there when I visit but she knows what I’m up to, and yells up the stairs, “Get out of that room!” I wonder what she has in there I’m not meant to see! I did find a cat’s ashes that died some ten years ago in a box on Monday. Stuff, too much stuff.

What about people who want more stuff? The advertisers are brilliant at getting at people who want more stuff, you need this product for life to be complete, you need a bigger house, you need a better car, have more. You don’t need more, but have it anyway, because you are worth it. The supermarkets are good at it. You go in with a list, in the order things are from your memory, and they’ve moved everything around and they put yummy chocolate biscuits in your way and you find them going into your trolley. You don’t need them but you have them. You go to Macdonalds (I know it is bad but now and again it is okay) and they say, “do you want to go large?”

 You go to a carvery, and you watch people pile up the plate with as much food as you can get on it, building up potatoes like a Jenga tower. More. Because more is possible.    

The man says:

 “I will pull down my barns and build larger ones...... and I will say to myself: “Self, you have plenty of stuff laid up for many years; take it easy, eat drink and be merry.”

It looks as if he was very rich, owning the best quality land, maybe able to employ the best farming practices,  and also having the good luck of a few bumper seasons. I suspect that he assumed that every gram of his success was well deserved that his special character, or skill, or hard work, or even his righteous prayers, were being justly rewarded. 

 “I’m a good man and I deserve it.”

 So what was wrong with him? He worshipped stuff, basically. This is the only story in the Gospels where God speaks directly with someone and God calls him a fool. With all his property and all his big plans, he had missed the real point of life. He lost the plot. He threw all his energies into physical prosperity and planned for future physical self indulgences. He did not stop to ask: “Is this all there is to life?” And so he died as a spiritual pauper. Remember Jesus doesn’t say ever a lot of stuff, a lot of money is evil, it is what you do with what you have, or whether you have too much and don’t share it that is the issue.

Martin Luther King once told the story about a lady who had a car accident in Atlanta. The woman’s husband received a phone call to tell him that the accident had taken place on the expressway. When he got the call, the first thing the man said was “How much damage did it do to my Cadillac?” He never even thought to ask how his wife was doing. Martin Luther King comments “Now that man was a fool, because he had allowed an automobile to become more significant than a person. He wasn’t a fool because he had a Cadillac, he was a fool because he worshipped his Cadillac. He allowed his automobile to become more important than God.”

The man in Jesus story was called a fool because he got his priorities, his allegiance all wrong. Surrounding yourself with stuff, more stuff, more than you need, distorts your focus. This reading in our lectionary comes straight after looking at the Lord’s Prayer.  God gives us “daily bread” – no more than we need for today.

Remember the manna in the desert for the people in Moses day went off if too much was given.

There was enough, and no more. We live in a world where too many people have too much and too many people don’t have enough to even exist, let alone live.

We live in a world, and some new hymn words from Singing the Faith (703) say this well, where we have lost the truth we need, in sophisticated language we have justified our greed, by our struggle for possessions, we have robbed the poor and weak. We live in a country where food banks are a necessity. I wonder whether they should really be necessary? I live in an area of real, perhaps hidden, but real poverty. What is the church response to poverty, do we keep the best for ourselves and long for more from God just for us, or do we share what we have and hope that God will bless others just as much as he has blessed us, outside the church?

Last Sunday there was a fire at Marlborough House in St Leonards. The residents there lost everything, and an appeal went out for clothes to be taken to the YMCA on Tuesday and Wednesday. I went and took a bag full and they were overwhelmed by the response of people, it really was wonderful to see. All of us have too many clothes in a wardrobe we will hear one day, or if you are like me, we will wear one day when we can do the buttons up again!            

The man in the story has no one else in his world. He is content to live off material capital, with no social or spiritual reserves to draw on. God’s Kingdom ways mean nothing to him. I think there is a message here for some churches obsessed with buildings and what will happen to buildings that are too big or too hard work. In the end God is bigger than a building, and we will still be church even if we haven’t got a building to worship him in. We will always have enough.

I read this appeal when reading about this story:

“What do our lives consist of? What will we offer to God? There’s nothing in my house that God wants except my soul. And the shape my soul is in will probably have an awful lot to do with what it is my life really consists of. How is your soul? What does your life consist of? What do you still want to check off your wish list before you’ll finally be in the right state of mind to think about discipleship, to think about answering God’s call? The things you’ve been working so hard to prepare, to store up, to save up – whose will they be? Take care! God’s abundance is so much richer than the treasures you have here, and your life is so much more precious than you think, and God wants that life – your life – right now. What does you life consist of? What kind of soul will you give to God?”        

Thoughts a few days after holiday...

I've just returned from a wonderful fortnight’s holiday. My friends let me use their cottage in the Lake District. This is their back garden!

   

It is easy when we are in places like this to stop, to get off the treadmill of life, sit, be and reflect on the wonder of God’s providence in our lives. It is not so easy to do contemplation and reflection when we are not on holiday, because we say we are so busy. But why can’t we create space each day to pause and think about the spiritual dimension in our lives? If we are too busy to focus on the divine, then I believe our spiritual lives as people and as churches will eventually die. I think it was the White Rabbit in the Alice stories who said, “It takes all the running you can do to stay in the same place.” We all feel like that sometimes. Even our church lives can become frenetic with activity, planning, organisation and issues that we have no energy. We don’t do space, and we don’t do silence.

I read this week that we spend too much time checking Facebook for new statuses, tweeting, texting and staring at our phones. We want to see life moving, what people are doing, we want instant responses to what we text, Facebook and tweet. I recently went to see the comedian Andy Parsons at the De La Warr pavilion in Bexhill. He talked about this issue and suggested we ought to open our front door every ten minutes to see if anyone is there!

How do we create space in our lives to let God in, and breathe spiritually? I think even if we spend ten minutes during our day focussing on God rather than us, we will benefit. I would recommend two websites. The Methodist Church website – www.methodist.org.uk has a section with a prayer, a bible reading and a thought for the day. It takes minutes to do it, it is written to be done early in the morning, or at lunchtime, or in the evening, whenever you have time. Another excellent resource is a Jesuit site from Ireland – www.sacredspace.ie – this is really helpful, and again takes little time to complete the daily exercise suggested. 

Mark and Mary Fleeson, who live and work on Holy Island, have just written a little book called “The One Day Creative Retreat Activity Book” and in it they write this:

“Look for God in the small things. The snatched conversation you just had with the shop assistant, God was there; the hug you gave your grieving friend, God was there; the moment you took to smell the flowers, God was there; when you washed up after dinner, God was there. It isn’t that God wants to do the washing up for you or promise you that every washing up moment will be filled with joy but God may be telling you that if you spend those times that need little thought, in prayer and conversation with your Creator, then your life may be that bit richer and purposeful.”

I think I see what they are saying. Find God in the things around you, and savour them more than you perhaps to. They are the bright and glorious things of your life, and maybe you need more space to remember them. Never take God’s gifts in your life for granted.

In modern church life, I think there are two issues. First, we need to take in in order to give out. Rushing around, in the end, will lead to church exhaustion and disillusionment. I’ve ministered to those sorts of churches and it is tiring. Let’s not be frightened to spend more time together in prayer, in house groups, in reflecting where God is leading us, let’s seek God before we make decisions about anything. Let’s slow down! We too easily rush on to do church and leave God behind. A recent Church Council somewhere decided to have a five minute break before anyone moved to put kettles on and clang cups for coffee at the back of the church, to give us all time to reflect on what God has said in our service. What a simple innovation!

Then I am coming more and more to believe people are yearning for space and those of us responsible for churches should be more open  to allow people to come in them, or create opportunities for people to talk about deep things in life that bother them. Do we create spaces where people can come and punctuate their life with a glimpse of the divine? Can we meet people who yearn to find more to life than busyness and have you time to sit with them or is there too much to do?

The President of the Methodist Conference in her address after her induction said this:
"During the last year quite a few people have asked me what the theme of this address would be. My usual answer has been, "I am going to talk about God", it was truthful but not very informative. For those who would like the theme in a few words it is waiting expectantly for glimpses of glory.

You see, if it is true that God is with us and reaching out to us in love, wherever we are and whatever we are going through in our lives - then we should expect to glimpse the glory of God at any time and in any place. It is not just that we will be surprised by God, though in my experience this does happen, It is that we should expect to glimpse the glory of God, we should be an expectant people."

Finally, to punctuate the day, means we might have room for God to speak to us! Perhaps that is why some of us don’t leave the space because we are afraid what might happen. But if we try it, life may change. On my second week of holiday I went to Whitstable – what a lovely place! My last night was deliberately spent in reflection, a long walk and sitting looking at the sunset. In that time God spoke about my life, direction, a second year in my current role. It was a deeply powerful time. I needed it, so I recommend sitting waiting for the sunset next time you see one coming with your camera and just listen to the waves. God will come. As Mother Julian of Norwich once wrote, “The fullness of God is to behold God in everything.” He is there wherever you are. Remember finally, that lovely Scripture from Isaiah chapter 30: “In returning and rest, you shall be saved.” 

Using things around us to speak of God...

It has been a long couple of days but good ones. I've been doing some reflecting on using culture and stuff around us to help people understand God a bit more.  

This morning I was privileged to do two school assemblies. I have rediscovered in this appointment how much fun they can be. At Guestling School this morning I was asked to explore humility. We talked about whether we feel important, some children did, others did not, "because I am not the Queen" said one. We then thought about famous people and whether they are important. I suggested they name a famous person and we might discuss them. Jessie J was who the children wanted to talk about. They suggested she is a good role model, a good singer, nice, she "turns her chair round and praises people" and is smiley. I did cause a bit of a riot when I said she "had her head shaved off for Comic Relief"! We then thought about famous people feeling TOO important. I talked with the children about Luis Suarez and Sunday's appalling biting of another player. We explored how humility is thinking less about yourself and more about the other. I was told afterwards by a teacher they now "got humility" whereas before it had been "too difficult" to understand when vicars have been in and used long words. "Not many ministers would be able to discuss Jessie J with seven year olds" she laughed! A bit later at Rye Primary School, I was asked to speak with the children about anger. I used the Suarez episode again. We explored how violent anger is wrong and we explored what would happen to me if church members who annoyed me were suddenly bitten by me. Liverpool supporters in the hall did not think what he did was right. Both assemblies were powerful theological times. I am sorry older people inside churches still insist children in schools are not exploring God. There is more deep theology and discussion about life done in school halls than in church really. What does this say about churches?

Tonight, I've facilitated a meeting to try and get some house groups up and running across the Methodist churches of Hastings and St Leonards. We are hoping to start some groups in September. I told the meeting another story from last night to highlight the need to know how to engage with real life to stand a chance of sharing God properly with anyone. 

I met a couple wanting to get married a year in October in our little St Helens Church. 

They said "we didn't know you could get married in that church, we thought you could only get married in a proper church."

I asked what they thought a proper church might be! The answer was one with gravestones in it. 

We then went on to have another deep theological discussion about death. The lady could not go in a church with a graveyard because it was spooky and reminded her of her mother's funeral, the last time she went in a church. We spent a good half hour thinking about death and hope and life. It was very good to reflect with that couple about something that had clearly been bothering them for ages. I shared with the group tonight we have to be prepared to meet people where they are, and begin from where they are, if we are to be relevant for them. A negative feeling about gravestones, Jessie J, angry sore losers on the football pitch can all be used to start conversation about spiritual things. I reflect that this is exactly what Jesus did, he took the things around him and told stories about them, he knew about his own popular culture, he knew what people were talking about and he started engagement by meeting people where they were. So often the Church gets it wrong by wanting people to start where the Church wants them to be - that is not how to go about it today. 

I wonder what ordinary things or people around me might be used to start conversation tomorrow?   

                

I am the vicar, I am

This has been doing the rounds out there, worth sharing. 

I  am the vicar, I am.

I am the pastor, the carer, the listener

the one with the time to drop everything and

I also understand global politics and immigration and

I am the one who knows about Afghanistan

and cares about ‘our boys’

and I care about speed-humps

graffiti

litter

and the positioning of zebra crossings near schools.

I am passionate about school assemblies

council meetings

mums and toddlers and also

I am good at one-to-one and small groups and

I listen and empathise and at the same time

I am the one who plans and strategizes and

I am the one who understands budgets and decides if we can buy any staples

or replace the heating system.

I am the vicar, I am.

I am the quiet reflective prayer and

I am the speaker, the enthuser, the motivator, the learned teacher and

I can engage a room of 10, 50, 300 people with no problem because

I am the one who relates particularly well to children

older people

the middle-aged

the jobless

the employed

the doctors

teenagers and

I am the one who is always one step ahead and

I am the one who is endearingly disorganised.

I am the vicar, I am.

I care passionately about church politics

I care passionately about domestic abuse

I care passionately about the plight of Anglo Catholics

women priests

gay clergy

evangelicals and

I listen to the pope

the archbishop and

Rob Bell.

I am up-to-date with theological developments.

I understand the history of the reformation

the armed forces

the war

the government

the deanery

the Jewish background of Jesus and

I care about the excluded and

I manage my admin and

I know how to access children’s services.

I am the vicar, I am.

I am the one in whom trust is placed

I am the one in whom grumbles are placed

I am the one who is always talking to everyone else

I am the one who models worship

marriage

family

gardening

conversation

baking

prayer

listening

talking

planning.

I often get it wrong.

I am the one who has to keep my doubts under wraps and

I am also the one who is vulnerable and

dependable

stable

trustworthy.

I am the one who chairs meetings

I am the one who manages group discussions

I am the manager of an organisation that employs only me

I am the volunteer co-ordinator

the opinion co-ordinator

the trespasser on the territory of people who have been around a lot longer than me

and will be there after me.

I understand the heating system

the financial system

the rota system.

I love committees.

I drink tea with older people

And coffee with younger people

I listen to stories of bus routes and hospital visits and

I believe in transforming our community through the power of Jesus.

I am the one who is very tired.

I am the one who hates wearing dresses but still smiles

and would love to be muddy all the time.

I am the one who only works one day a week.

I am the one who loves this job.

I am the one who is making it up as I go along.

I am the one who would not swap this for anything.

I am the vicar, I am.

(From the Blog of Kevin. )

I just don't get it...

I am using this in the morning reflecting on questions, wrong answers and Thomas not getting it about Jesus being alive. I've had a day of it really being made to feel stupid by people being officious making me feel I don't matter. My questions, my enquiries were met with incredulity and I didn't like their attitude!

RANT OVER!

I love Father Ted, the wonderful comedy about three priests on Craggy Island. I love especially Father Dougal, who is a little slow… A conversation with a Bishop goes like this:

“ So Father, do you ever have any doubts about the religious life? Is your faith ever tested?”

“Tested?”

“Yes, anything you’ve been worried about, any doubts you’ve been having about any aspects of faith, anything like that?”

“Well, yes, you know the way God made us all, right? And he’s looking at us from heaven and everything? And then his Son came down from heaven and saved everyone and all that?”

“Yes.”

“And when we die we’re all going to go to heaven?”

“Yes, what about it?”

“That’s the bit I’ve trouble believing in!!”   

You don’t have to have it all sorted. But you have to know the basics. No wonder in another episode Father Ted turns to Father Dougal and says “How did you get into the church? Collect twelve crisp packets and become a priest?”

  

What are those things we have to know? You have to know Jesus in your heart, Thomas knew him there, that’s why it hurt.

But Jesus sticks with him and encourages the questions. To be a Christian you have to know God loves you and Jesus died for you, and Jesus lives with you, resting on that certainty, questions have a place, our faith is a journey. We will never “know it all”! 

Thomas was honest enough to air his problems and he was led to a greater awareness and commitment.  Early Methodism, remember, flourished largely because of the class meeting, the small groups, where people got support and studied the Scriptures and cared for each other, and pondered what God was doing in their lives.

I believe in such groups, and I have tried to get my churches wherever I’ve served, to rediscover them, groups that people can go to to explore the Bible and discover the excitement of discerning what God has to say today, to have discussion and debate on what the words mean and how we should live. By sharing in this way, we grow together. Thomas teaches us not to be frightened of probing into the great questions of our faith.

The resurrection power of God is beyond our understanding, his power is incomprehensible. How can we ever completely understand it? 

In a book called The Easter God, by the late Bishop John V Taylor, he has this powerful picture of Thomas looking at Jesus’ wounds and an image of him at peace having seen.

  

Bishop Taylor comments that the wounds still being there is the supreme victory we celebrate at Easter – the victory of God’s persistence in love, that even in raw pain, in the things of life we think are not reconcilable with his way, there is victory, an eternal commitment never to switch off love – Thomas wanted to be sure of it – and I don’t blame him for that.

So, I wish our Church had more Thomas’s in its company, people who live in the real world, and who aren’t afraid to grapple with finding faith in the middle of real life, rather than shying away from issues and acting like the world outside can be forgotten. We live in a challenging environment! But this is the Easter truth, even when we have doubts, Jesus invites us to confess him as Thomas did, and he will lead us forward in faith if we will trust him. Come, see and believe he says, and you will find peace, joy and strength. In your doubts, you can trust me, when all else is shaken… even when silly people at the other end of the phone make you despair, or you don't get it!!