People of the light

Friday for me was one of those frustrating days you can sometimes have. In the morning I had a meeting that was quite important in Kings Lynn. I jollied along the A17 and then I saw a queue in the distance. The sat nav pulled me off the road and somehow eventually I ended up by the Adrian Flux arena. The roads into Lynn were all closed or blocked. I had to cancel my meeting. There had been a fatal accident. I had to come home but how? While working it out a man tapped my window. He didn’t have a sat nav or a map and was relying on signposts. “How do I get to Fakenham?” he asked. We were in Wiggenhall St Germans. Where on earth is that? I don’t know how I got home! 

Then on Friday afternoon we had to go to Lynn again. Coming home on the A1101 road with all those signs saying it is a race track and people have died on it, there was another crash. A motorcyclist had collided with a concrete post. The road was closed and everything came along Little Ramper just north of Leverington. 

Little Ramper is a tiny little Fen back road. I wouldn’t want to try and drive an articulated lorry along Little Ramper. The traffic jam was horrendous with one poor police lady in a fluorescent jacket trying to direct us all. The man in the lorry behind us yelled at one point “oh come on!” Everybody wanted to move forward. 

It is part of the human psyche to want to move forward, move on, get results, and not be stuck or have to go back.

 We are put on hold on the phone and we get annoying music played at us and we get cross, we write an e mail and want an instant answer, we don’t want to wait for our dinner when we go out eat. 

But sometimes in our faith and I’m sad to say in our churches, we act every way we can not to go forward, we revel in being stuck and moaning we are stuck or we want to go back to the old days when the sun shone every day and the church was full three times a day. 

The challenge I see for us is to ask are we really wanting to be God’s people in Christ constantly inviting us on, leading us through our traffic jams and changed plans through unexpected things on our road, to new possibilities and a kingdom of overwhelming life and hope? Or shall we just sit and moan or reopen as a museum to past glories? 

In her book Walking in Darkness and Light, Kathy Galloway writes that because we so rarely experience real darkness it is easy to forget what it’s actually like to walk in the dark. It takes longer to get to where you’re going, sometimes you don’t get there at all, you get lost or you get fed up or despondent, you turn back, you give up. 

In the dark you shorten your steps, bump into things and feel the physical tension as you stumble and feel your way ahead. In the dark you hear noises that seem different, louder, stronger, perhaps more threatening than they would in the day. Your imagination plays tricks, you see things that aren’t there and fears rise. Your heart starts to race and your breathing falters.

  

 Walking in the dark you are guarded, tense, fearful. Freedom, mobility, beauty, relaxation are all gravely limited. What a relief to see a light in the distance. You follow the light you have and pray for more light.

Darkness suggests a world where nobody can see very well or knows which way to turn; it conveys a sense of uncertainty, of being lost, of being threatened or afraid; it suggests conflict between races, nations, individuals of all types and ages; darkness fills our newspapers; and it is often darkness that causes us to pray.

 The way forward is this message: the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot put it out.

 Communities this weekend are marking Holocaust Memorial Day.

 Once a year now we remember the atrocities beyond our comprehension as people of a certain creed or race were just wiped out. We need more than ever to be people of the light because the things that led to the gas chambers are still there. 

Prince Charles had it right in his speech this week visiting Jerusalem: 

“The lessons of the Holocaust are searingly relevant to this day. Seventy-five years after the Liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, hatred and intolerance still lurk in the human heart, still tell new lies, adopt new disguises, and still seek new victims.

All too often, language is used which turns disagreement into dehumanisation. Words are used as badges of shame to mark others as enemies, to brand those who are different as somehow deviant. All too often, virtue seems to be sought through verbal violence. All too often, real violence ensues, and acts of unspeakable cruelty are still perpetrated around the world against people for reasons of their religion, their race or their beliefs.” 

We need a different way. Jesus invites us to live it. So secondly today, we need to be prepared to move forward.

We are called to be distinctive in a dark and confusing world and that’s hard. 

But we can’t avoid the call to be involved. In America it was Martin Luther King Day this week. He once said “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy.  The true neighbour will risk his position, his prestige, and even his life for the welfare of others.”

Someone wrote this: “This may seem like a very difficult call – to get up out of the comfort and convenience of our boats to lift up our shaky voices and join this terrifying movement of following Jesus.  And yet, the good news is that Jesus does not call us to follow him by ourselves.  He calls us in community to follow him in shining His light in the darkness and lifting up our voices together to spread the good news of the kingdom.”

I was in Peterborough tonight. I was shocked by the number of homeless people there were in the city centre. Surely this cannot be right in January 2020. 

In the covenant prayer Methodists say this month, we say to God we will come with our fears and our doubts, with our hopes and our dreams and we will accept the yoke Jesus puts on us and we will willingly serve him as and where he chooses. 

We don’t have all the answers, we might be frightened, we might not be confident in the future of our churches but like fishermen of old the first step is to come, move, believe, walk, live in the light of new possibilities. 

Then, we have to be a people who actually put this stuff into action. We need once again to give the conviction that Christianity makes a difference. We need once again to enjoy exploring our faith together. We need once again to have confidence in our Church and do less moaning. I always say to churches when I’ve done a bit of time as their new minister what is it we do well here, and let’s do more of it, rather than everything. We need once again to remember the call of Christ on us. The Kingdom of heaven has come near. 

We are still relatively towards the beginning of a New Year. Maybe we have had a tough time, plans have been dashed and we’ve had to go home, maybe it’s all too overwhelming and we feel stuck on our own Little Ramper unable to think straight, or maybe we see something new.

 “I will make you…,” he says. He makes us more who we truly are to be. The light shines ahead of us and we need urgently in a world where darkness and separation and discrimination and blame are dominant for so many people who yearn every day for light and inclusion and community and a voice. Why can’t we learn? A lady was visiting the local church coffee bar last week. She told me her minister is gay. “But he is a very good preacher!” She was a bit aghast when I asked her why she used the word “but”. Remember the atrocities of genocide in Nazism began with a convincing of ordinary people the “other” didn’t fit. Victor Frankl is a hero of mine. Even in the darkness there is hope when those who’ll risk living light do something. 

 “We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.” 

As I often quote thinking about light, one little candle says to the darkness, I beg to differ. 

We can make a difference. 

Epiphany Today - the end of a blogging series

I’ve been blogging through Advent and Christmas and I end my little series today as we reach the feast of Epiphany, the day we remember wise men coming to the toddler Jesus. It’s much later in the story than most people place it. Hence, this skit has been doing the rounds! 

As we reach the end of Christmas I notice some things in the Epiphany narrative. First, to really find Jesus takes some effort and some searching. The wise men, probably astrologers, planned their journey for ages. They assumed where they would find the new king. They were wrong. The star led them to unexpected surroundings and to a very different king indeed. Maybe the story as it ends reminds us that when we think we have God all sorted, he confounds our expectations and our careful planning. And we have to think again! 

I think taking more time to read the Bible, alone, and together would be a good new year resolution. I’m astounded the Circuit I find myself in has virtually no study groups in it. I keep quietly offering to start some, but I guess I’m only around for another eight months! The joy of exploring Scripture together or in a social media group is that someone else shows us something we had never thought of in a verse or a story. The wise men were led to a new experience through being led to God’s place of good news and reign, rather than a human palace. Where is the star leading us as we look up? Do we need to alter our plans however careful they have been? 

We’ve been tonight to the Epiphany service in Peterborough Cathedral. As the Gospel from Matthew was read the last verse of the reading hit me. “And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.” Herod, representing dodgy power crazy leaders of the world in history and today, was rattled by a rival king. So he orders a vile act of genocide and we know the holy family are soon to be refugees in a foreign country. 

I was badly bullied at school. I used to have my head kicked against a wall a lot. My pants and socks would be nicked from the changing room after PE! Children can be vile! The bully wants you to retaliate. They don’t want you to ignore them or avoid them but they certainly don’t listen to reason if you choose to engage with them. The nasty letter writer or the campaign of hate mastermind often is the loser as people soon tire of their antics. Someone wise, probably reading this, taught me to respond to nasty e mails “thank you for your comments. They have been noted.”

Herod, and his like, in the end, do not win. The peaceful kingdom wrong-foots them. I find it powerful “their own country” was probably Iraq. This Epiphany sees Iraq and Iran once again volatile after President Trump’s decision to take out an Iranian military leader. If ever the world needs “another road” it is as Christmas ends on this 6th January night. 

To return by another road needs courage, conviction, and hope. To return by another road needs a firm belief we need to follow a new path to find rest and peace. To return from the Christ child by another road means we have experienced new birth, new joy, we have like shepherds and wise men seen his glory. To return from the Christ child by another road means we make a difference in our own country because of what has happened to us. To return by another road is an act of commitment to say no to death and destruction and threats and bombs, and yes to peace and love, light and love. We have to journey to find what we seek and rest in its presence and find life different.

We are currently living in a vast former vicarage with a huge staircase. My little Velvet cat who needs to know where I am at all times is getting used to the stairs having to be climbed to find me at bedtime. She is hesitant to come up but when she makes the journey she finds my lap and snuggles up and all is well. 

What difference has making the journey to incarnation made to us this season? Like wise men of old, I guess if we have really understood it and found it then we will live the rest of this already bumpy year very differently. Rebecca Long Bailey has just entered the contest to become Labour Party leader. She used tonight these words about her party but I want to use them about Christians and other people of faith having a burning desire to travel differently and hopefully with fire in their bellies. As my late beloved theological college principal Graham Slater used to say assessing worship when he turned up at places like Bacup or Atherton or Rawtenstall and you’d come out of the vestry and think “oh no, he’s here” and he’d sit with his eyes shut all service, “where was your clincher, young man?” Meaning, how are these folks going to apply the story you’ve just shared with them? 

“You are part of a courageous movement of millions of people who are ready to stake everything for a better world.” 

In the cathedral tonight for some reason I remembered this poem by Edwina Gateley: 

 We are called to say yes.

That the kingdom might break through
To renew and to transform
Our dark and groping world.

We stutter and we stammer
To the lone God who calls
And pleads a New Jerusalem
In the bloodied Sinai Straights.

We are called to say yes
That honeysuckle may twine
And twist its smelling leaves
Over the graves of nuclear arms.

We are called to say yes
That children might play
On the soil of Vietnam where the tanks
Belched blood and death.

We are called to say yes
That black may sing with white
And pledge peace and healing
For the hatred of the past.

We are called to say yes
So that nations might gather
And dance one great movement
For the joy of humankind.

We are called to say yes
So that rich and poor embrace
And become equal in their poverty
Through the silent tears that fall.

We are called to say yes
That the whisper of our God
Might be heard through our sirens
And the screams of our bombs.

We are called to say yes
To a God who still holds fast
To the vision of the Kingdom
For a trembling world of pain.

We are called to say yes
To this God who reaches out
And asks us to share
His crazy dream of love.

Having journeyed, Velvet has what she has sought. A nice lap! Our prayer surely on this Epiphany feast is that journeying, finding, celebrating and returning, we might know a peace and a strength to keep going whether this year brings.

Thank you for journeying with me these past few weeks. I continue to be amazed anyone reads this stuff and more than that, find it helpful! 

Knowing we matter - a Covenant sermon

It has not been the best of starts to 2020 has it? I’m always fascinated that people need to mark the turn of the year. Some gather with friends on New Years Eve, as we did, others fill pubs and have rowdy parties, others stand out in the cold in big cities and watch firework displays. The New Year is going to be the best yet! 

Then five days in we’ve had Australia in flames, in 45 degree heat with some people and animals dying and others fleeing their homes or trying to save them, and tempers rising. They call the Prime Minister an idiot and refuse to shake his hand. Then quite unbelievably your man Donald Trump, apparently with no authorisation takes out an Iranian military leader by drone and bombs start flying about and the world is suddenly very unstable.

How do we enter a New Year when it’s all a bit mad? It’s hard to go forward when going forward might bring uncertainty and even danger. 

January of course is named after Janus, a deity found in the religion and myth of ancient Rome. The Romans  believed that Janus was the god of doors, beginnings and endings, and transitions. In accordance to the role he played, Janus is depicted as a two-faced god, one face looking to the future and the other looking to the past. There is a tendency in us to want to go back. The past was glorious in memory even if it wasn’t in reality. 

Well, I’m very anxious about the future, but I come this morning to say this. Maybe to get through the year we need to remember what we have just celebrated. I went in the big Tesco Extra in Wisbech the other day and all of Christmas had gone. It was the 30 December. The shop was full of Valentine’s Day and Creme Eggs. 

Few things pack up and disappear so quickly as the Christmas spirit. After what seems like months of preparation, for many people the point of Christmas seems to evaporate after any unwanted presents have been recycled, the last remnants of the turkey have been transformed into a final dish, and the pine needles have been swept from the floor. Few, if any, celebrate the traditional Twelve Days of Christmas now, losing that gradual sense of unwrapping the Divine Mystery that is the Incarnation.

 The gift of the Christ-Child is not only for Christmas; he is for the whole of the year. Jesus is God’s outrageous gift of generosity who has come to address the chasm that yawns between the Divine and the human.

 Jesus, Word made flesh, the physical presence of God, takes us from the reality of the incarnation to the unfolding realisation of who and what God is and does.

 Apart from God’s inspiration and engagement, humanity would have remained stuck in a place far from hope and far from heaven. The reality of human helplessness and hopelessness can only be transformed by the unshakeable presence of the living God. When the novelty of secular festivities has long gone, the celebration of God’s inventive appearance and reappearance in the history and experience of humanity shines an inextinguishable light into the darkest of days.

So I’m glad the lectionary for the first Sunday of the year today was what is perhaps the greatest passage in the whole of the Bible. The prologue to John’s Gospel, in which the gospel writer tries to explain what God coming into the world means. The word became flesh and dwelt among us.

What does this mean for our journey? 

Two points I would offer:

One, we matter! God cares enough to join us every day in 2020. In the Christmas story, angels say over and over again “do not fear”! 

Those three words are in the Bible 365 times, one for every day of the year, well, maybe we can fear one day this year as it is a leap year. God has come into our world in Jesus to share all of life with us. He has in Jesus became flesh, one of us. 

I like the American writer Nadia Bolz Weber on this: 

“God came and made God’s home with us and in a real body.

So I wonder if maybe in the incarnation God has done nothing less than blessed all human flesh. So, let us remember that our good and imperfect bodies are born of God and so we have no business calling what God pronounced good anything but good. Because if the Word became flesh and lived among us ~ then despite our botoxic quest for the illusion of perfection, your body is beautiful to God.

Take care of your beautiful selves.”

 The Covenant God says to us, you matter. No matter how you are, you matter. The Covenant God says to our churches, you matter. It doesn’t matter how many of you there are, you matter. When I went on my visit to my Circuit to be, we arrived at a little chapel in a pretty village.  Some ladies came out to meet us and looked a bit hesitant. Lis said to them, “It’s okay, he does small churches!” And they immediately relaxed and we had some banter. They needed me to tell them they matter and I am not going to close them. Here is the good news: we are no longer our own, but his. 

Despite the world of unhinged leaders and so much trouble, God has it all under control. Someone once described the covenant as “abandonment to divine providence.” I like that a lot.

Then this: God’s love is made visible in the vulnerability of a tiny child and that love underpins the whole universe. 

That gives us the courage and strength to play our part in bringing healing and hope to our families, our communities and to the world itself. For “to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.” We have power to become children of God. We can be the people God wants us to be. The Covenant response is to give our best, employed or laid aside, doing or suffering, full or empty, offering all we have and are as and where he chooses. Someone sent me this poem by Maya Angelou the other day and I share some words of it... 

My wish for you

Is that you continue

         Continue

To be who and how you are

To astonish a mean world

With your acts of kindness

         Continue

To allow humour to lighten the burden

Of your tender heart

         Continue

In a society dark with cruelty

To let the people hear the grandeur

Of God in the peals of your laughter

          Continue

To let your eloquence

Elevate the people to heights

They had only imagined

         Continue

To remind the people that

Each is as good as the other

And that no one is beneath

Nor above you

              Continue

To dare to love deeply

And risk everything

For the good thing

       Continue

To float

Happily in the sea of infinite substance

Which set aside riches for you

Before you had a name

       Continue

And by doing so

You and your work

Will be able to continue

Eternally

We don’t just matter, what we do matters too. We can’t do much about the war and injustice apart from prayer and protest but we can change lives, one by one, through just living Christianity. Can’t we?

And here’s a final encouragement. The Jesus who has just been born will face trouble in his life. And we know He will be killed by the political and religious leaders of His day. 

And we know, that somehow, the power of this person, this hope, will be enough to roll away the stone, and pierce the darkness, and lift the gloom, and keep the promise, and be Emmanuel. God with us. for always. 

Whether in a crib in Bethlehem, or on a cross at Calvary. Whether in the fire-blackened regions of Australia, or the war-fearing countries of the Middle East. Jesus is the word made flesh and even in the mess we can behold his glory.

It was a cold and misty Christmas morning in the very depth of winter after a heavy fall of snow and only Farmer Evans and the Reverend Joseph Lancaster managed to arrive at the church for the morning service.

'Well,' said the Vicar laconically, 'I guess there's no point in having a service today.'

'Well that's not how I see it.' said Farmer Evans smartly. 'If only one cow turns up at feeding time, I still feed it.'

May we this year know that God has come.

May we know we matter.

May we make a difference.

May we feed people, every day. 

That is the Methodist covenant. Let’s on this fifth day of January with so much uncertainty, pray it and live it. 

Where has Christmas gone?

Today’s lectionary Gospel  in church was the slaughter of the innocents by King Herod. It isn’t easy to read on into Matthew’s Gospel after the promise of Immanuel and the visit of wise men, as the story becomes dark with themes of unstable leaders, threat, murder, genocide, and innocents becoming refugees. I feel for Joseph. Another angel comes and tells him again not to be afraid, but, um, Herod is out to kill your child so you had better take him and Mum to Egypt and stay there until I come and tell you it is safe. 

We didn’t sing about murder and genocide in our Christmas carols! 

Herod was a thoroughly unpleasant King. He inaugurated his rule by wiping out the entire Sanhedrin, the supreme spiritual Jewish Court. For afters, he slaughtered three hundred court officers, and for good measure killed his wife, his mother in law, two of his sons, and of course his eldest son also. From this I think it’s safe to say that Herod was slightly adverse to competition of any kind. So when he hears of another child who might be a threat to his rule, it is in character for him to try to eliminate this new threat. And they say there is nothing in the Bible about today! 

There is a wonderful fable, one of many which surround the early and unknown years of Jesus. 

As the Holy Family escaped into the hills on the way down to Egypt, they spent the night in a cave. A spider saw that the Son of Man was resting in the cave and wishing to do something to please and honour his king, wove an enchanting and complex web across the mouth of the cave. At early dawn, the Roman soldiers seeking for the child in order to kill him as instructed, passed the cave.

Their leader noticing the cave was about to search it, when he saw the spider’s web glistening in the morning hoar frost, and decided that no one could have entered the cave, since the web was unbroken and had clearly taken many hours to construct.

So the soldiers passed by and the family remained safe. And this is the reason given apparently for the way we decorate our Christmas trees with tinsel and sparkling decorations at Christmas time.

It was common for Jewish families to escape down into Egypt every time some bloodthirsty ruler made their lives unbearable. They escaped over the border into just about every major Egyptian town, all of which had their Jewish quarters. So Mary and Joseph would have had friends there already who would understand their plight and help them settle in on their arrival.

Matthew is of course using this passage to demonstrate that Jesus not only fulfils the Old Testament, but that he has endured and shared in the sufferings of his people, who were also driven into exile in Egypt, and who only returned home later after receiving a message from God.

In later centuries modern theologians would use this to remind us that our God does not stand aloof from our sufferings, but shares them, and has been down into them on our behalf, and describes us as His own people. And we need to know that I think more than ever as 2019 ends and 2020 arrives. 

The innocent are still slaughtered. We still have war, unstable leaders who throw their weight around getting people to submit to them, we have seen parents bereaved through bombings on bridges even in this country this past year. 

There are people even now forced to flee to preserve life. There are people suffering through circumstances beyond their control. We should not need food banks in the second decade of the 21st century. We should not have people scared of the future because they face benefit reassessment. We should not have people with mental illness waiting months for any attention because there isn’t the provision to get them the help they need because we have cut the resources. We can name innocents who just find themselves in another world because suddenly dark things have engulfed them. 

Where has Christmas gone? 

Maybe we need to make sure this bit of the story is always included! I need a God who is in the dark things of life. Nowhere does my faith say that bad things don’t happen. Nowhere does Christian experience say I’m suddenly cocooned from crappy stuff if I believe. Maybe I need a Jesus who is born in poverty, who is a refugee while still a toddler, whose future for a while was uncertain. Maybe the cross is in Christmas earlier than we would like it to be. 

These Christmas blogs have been written on Holy Island where we’ve been for the last week or so. It’s been a gift to receive Christmas here, not just in worship but in the reminder of the presence of God in creation. Our favourite spot in all the world has spoken again to us over the last few days but most powerfully today.

Here’s a picture of Lis on “our bench”...

I proposed to her in front of it three years ago. Since then we’ve been through some tough stuff. We go back tomorrow and are needing some stability after a lot of moves. We need to know there is light in the darkness. We are enjoying the Fens and the involvement as I’m much better than everyone imagined i would be, in the churches of the local Circuit. Then we have a new beginning in Ripon in August to look forward to. We have also been given the opportunity to return here in February and for Easter. Someone sent me a picture the other day about if you are still here at the end of a difficult year, well done, you’ve held on. Faith is about holding on to that glimmer of light when everything else feels extremely dark. 

As the famous concentration camp prayer found on a wall says “I believe in the sun even when it’s not shining. I believe in love even when I feel it not. I believe in God even when I feel him not.”

I’m wondering what the Church’s task is as we enter 2020 and so much is slaughtered around us? Surely it is to point people to the light, however dim it feels and however far away it feels. Surely it is to remind us all of the good news of God that while today it feels like Herod and others like him will win so there is no point, there is every point. We know the end of the story: the light shines in the darkness and the darkness shall not put it out. How do we do that? Well, I think we need an attitude shake up. We need to behave differently. We need to be kinder. We need to be more prepared to enter people’s darkness. We need to shout when dark forces appear to have the upper hand, by protest and making ourselves a nuisance, we need to believe the message ourselves! If we really know the light shines in the darkness, shouldn’t our worship and our life together as God’s people be more positive? And can we embrace the innocents into our life who are being battered about and life slaughtered all around us? 

Answers on a postcard or in comments welcome! 

Almighty God,

who wonderfully created us in your own image

and yet more wonderfully restored us

through your Son Jesus Christ:

grant that, as he came to share in our humanity,

so we may share the life of his divinity;

who is alive and reigns with you,

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and for ever.

Blue sky Christmas

It’s been a glorious Christmas Day here on Holy Island. You will see from my pictures that this morning the sky was bright blue and that tonight there was a glorious sunset. In over ten years of coming here, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the sea round St Cuthbert’s Isle look so calm. I said to a couple on the beach tonight “this is the best spot in the world.” “We know!” they replied. 

Today has left me thinking about Christmas making a difference. If only the blue sky moments and the calm sea at sunset could come with us to sustain us in the dark skies and in the storms that will inevitably come. 

But can’t they? We’ve heard over the last weeks that Christmas is an abiding gift, not just for one day a year that is soon gone. We’ve all opened our gifts and have had I hope, things we can use well into 2020. Here’s my best gift! The Christmas Countdown by Frank Kelly is a classic and I’ve never owned it on CD before! 

The vicar reminded us in worship this morning of this well known story: 

Three sons left home, went out on their own and prospered. Getting back together, they discussed the gifts that they were able to give their elderly mother for Christmas. 

The first said, “ I built a big house for our mother.”

The second said, “ I sent her a Mercedes with a driver.”

The third smiled and said. “ I’ve got you both beat. You remember how Mum enjoyed reading the Bible? And you know she can’t see very well. So, I sent her a remarkable parrot that recites the entire Bible. It took elders in the church twelve years to teach him. He’s one of a kind. She just has to name the  chapter and verse and the parrot recites it. 

After Christmas, the mother sent out her letters of thanks.

“Milton,” she wrote to her first son, “the house you built is so large, I live in only one room but I have to clean the whole house.”

“Gerald,” she wrote to another, “ I am too old to travel. I stay at home most of the time so rarely use the Mercedes, and the driver is so rude!”

“Dearest Donald,” she wrote to their third son, “ you have the good sense to know what your mother likes. The chicken was delicious.”

We use the gift we most find precious to make life better. But my CD will eventually wear out, the cheese footballs will have all been eaten, the wine consumed, and we will not be satisfied really. Why can’t we enjoy the gifts we have been given and not yearn for more? I love this picture:

How do we make God’s gift to us which is just what we need, last? How do we take the gratitude we feel about what we have received today into next year? How can we feast as heartily as we do today on pigs in blankets and sprouts when it is tough out there in a few weeks? 

It’s all to do with what we put in our hearts I think.

Mary pondered all these things and treasured them in her heart. She never left Jesus. Her heart seeing him die would be broken but she remains a disciple and ends up we think with John in Ephesus.

Joseph is told not to be afraid. He’s the practical one i this story. He leads Mary to Bethlehem, he finds the stable, he enables the safe passage to Egypt to escape genocide, he teaches Jesus in his early years to be a good, faithful follower of God.

The shepherds return glorifying and praising God for all they have heard and seen.

The wise men return by another road.

Simeon has peace now he has seen the child.

Herod goes into a rage. A rival with an alternative way always threatens a bully who thinks shouting is the way to lead a people. 

No one in this story is unaffected by it. Life is different afterwards. 

Tonight I walked on the beach and saw the sun set. The calm of the water is for me a parable of what Christmas should be. I need to take this calm, the blue sky, the peace, the joy, the gifts, with me. Sadly I can’t stay here for ever. Christmas will soon be over. I know of people who take down their decorations tomorrow! January can be a hard month. We all face challenges as 2020 opens before us. We leave the European Union at  the end of January. People face illness, benefit reassessment, many don’t know how they can survive mentally long term. For me, I continue building myself up doing more as I feel stronger before another move into a full time appointment in September. I’m really excited where the Church is sending me this time: a place I never expected. For those of you who want a clue, it has this cathedral in it! 

I picked a carol two Sundays running in the Fens Circuit and got grief as some people said they didn’t know it and one lady described it as “that dreadful carol!” But for me, the writer has sussed out how we make the Christmas gifts we have received, the blue skies and calm seas last... 

Cradled in a manger, meanly,
Laid the Son of Man His head;
Sleeping His first earthly slumber
Where the oxen had been fed.
Happy were those shepherds listening
To the holy angel’s word;
Happy they within that stable
Worshipping their infant Lord.

Happy all who hear the message
Of His coming from above;
Happier still who hail His coming,
And with praises greet His love.
Blessèd Savior, Christ most holy,
In a manger Thou didst rest;
Canst Thou stoop again, yet lower,
And abide within my breast?

Evil things are there before Thee;
In the heart, where they have fed,
Wilt Thou pitifully enter,
Son of Man, and lay Thy head?
Enter, then, O Christ most holy;
Make a Christmas in my heart;
Make a heaven of my manger:
It is heaven where Thou art.

And to those who never listened
To the message of Thy birth,
Who have winter, but no Christmas
Bringing them Thy peace on earth,
Send to these the joyful tidings;
By all people, in each home,
Be there heard the Christmas anthem;
Praise to God, the Christ has come!

I don’t expect any of you will be reading this on Christmas Day, but I hope you emerge with a Christmas in your heart that will sustain you and bless you when 2020 throws you surprises. 

Happy Christmas everyone! 

It’s not a bad story, is it?

Today’s blog is very short and to the point. I got a Christmas missive from a Supernumerary minister in Rutland last night and he has nailed it really... 

“If the Christmas story is about hope being born into circumstances where every physical, social and political reality seemed to mitigate against hope - then it's not a bad story for today, is it?   !”

Then I discovered the lectionary for my next service in my current Circuit I’m taking on Sunday 5 January is the awesome prologue to John’s Gospel. I rarely have had the opportunity to preach on what is surely the greatest passage of scripture. Sometimes a few words say it all. So tonight, I encourage my readers, to reflect on the commentary of the times from a wise minister, and then read slowly the beauty and power in John, the Gospel writer’s introduction inviting us to work out who the Jesus who comes really is...

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.

He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.

That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

Engaging with the story

We are spending Christmas on Holy Island as we did last year. I’m going to post some blogs while here as I listen for God in this special place. 

Tonight has been the nine lessons and carols service in the Church. It’s good, once a year, to listen to the story of how God works in the Christ event from start to finish. I love the fact the service had the scripture read in the King James Version, its beauty at its best in the prologue to John’s Gospel. I’m still sorting through some of my Mum’s stuff at home, and last week came upon my great Auntie Ede’s Bible, probably given to her as a child, so it might date from about 1890. They obviously had better eyesight then! 

What has the word made flesh meant through the years? What does it mean now? What did it mean tonight for those who just go to a carol service and no other service in the year?

I think as I receive the story again, and have another Christmas to receive it before I return to work full time next year and will be giving out again, that I notice two huge theological things. 

First, in this story God surprises us. The huge surprise is that he comes down to us. The huge God gives part of himself to us. Very God, begotten not created. I remember learning it in college: homoousios! Jesus, the same in being, same in essence as God the Father. There was a dear man at Trinity Storrington I used to try and take on about this in every bible study. He just believed Jesus was a good man. No wonder recipients in the story are taken aback. I used this poem in an informal carol service last week:

She was five,
sure of the facts,
and recited them
with slow solemnity
convinced every word
was revelation.
She said
they were so poor
they had only peanut butter and jelly
sandwiches to eat
and they went a long way from home
without getting lost. The lady rode
a donkey, the man walked, and the baby
was inside the lady.
They had to stay in a stable
with an ox and an ass (hee-hee)
but the Three Rich Men found them
because a star lited the roof
Shepherds came and you could
pet the sheep but not feed them.
Then the baby was borned.
And do you know who he was?
Her quarter eyes inflated
to silver dollars.
The baby was God.

And she jumped in the air
whirled round, dove into the sofa
and buried her head under the cushion
which is the only proper response
to the Good News of the Incarnation.

Sharon’s Christmas Prayer maybe sums it up. 

Let us marvel anew that God comes towards us. One of my favourite bits of scripture and the heart of Christmas for me is part of the Benedictus. You can’t beat this:

 “In the tender compassion of our God

the dawn from on high shall break upon us,

to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,

and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Then in this story I see again an explosion of joy breaking into a gloomy and dark world. Angel songs, unlikely characters, no room, a chaotic background of occupation by a foreign power. The people in the story don’t expect it. No wonder when God breaks into their day they are “sore afraid.” Have we forgotten that God is into making things better? Do we expect in our churches anything to happen anymore? I’m convinced we are so busy keeping the institutionalised church going we have no energy or space to look for divine activity in a new place from where we are.

Of course some find this all a bit radical. A blog post that does spoof letters to the church magazine perhaps is a little too close to the truth.

Dear Sir

I was looking forward to the service at St Mary’s this morning. I always like to bring the grandchildren along to a service at Christmas time.

I was initially shocked to discover that the sweet young girl who welcomed us in is in fact the vicar – how did this happen?

And then imagine my further discomfort when the Gospel was about disputed parentage, a single mother and the idea of God talking to people in dreams.  This bizarre and disturbing story should have had a 15 certificate in my opinion.

In future I shall restrict my grandchildren’s visits to Easter. At least you cannot go wrong with eggs and bunnies.

Yours etc

Robert Brunchie, Middle Row, Lt Tremlett

I’m led again to the writing of Mary Oliver:

“If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.” 

I pray we might as we hear, as we worship, as we sing carols, we might listen and be surprised again. We need good news. As the vicar said this morning there are a lot of Herod’s out there.