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Showing posts from 2014

Christmas Video Message

Text version- Hello from St Andrew’s Church in Rugby , where once again I’m surrounded by Christmas trees. This year there are a couple that pick up the WW1 remembrance theme using poppies as decorations. 2014 has been a significant year for the UK and for Europe as we’ve reflected on the significance of the first and the second world wars. The not uncontroversial Sainsbury’s advert reminded the nation that the story of Christmas can do extraordinary things; even in war it can unite enemies, as in the famous Christmas Day truce in 1914. At Christmas we do enter a mystical moment, a moment of opportunity, where the message of God’s love and care for each one of us comes really close. The vulnerable child, the nativity scenes, the bringing of gifts, they tell us that we can still believe in the power of love to transform human experience. At Christmas 1914 on the Western front, some soldiers dared to look their enemies in the face and wish them happy Christmas. In our soci

The Announcement of a Birth

We all have experiences of the announcement of pregnancies: ‘Mum I’m pregnant’; ‘we’re having a baby’, or in our case a step further on the sonographer saying, ‘one head and another head’….. But, the simple announcement is not often straightforward; human lives and relationships are complex and fraught with difficulty as well as with joy and frustration and even tragedy. We all have knowledge of the complications too; for some the inability to have children, or a miscarriage, the loss of children; for others the joy and challenge of adoption or fostering children. Bringing children into the world, let alone bringing them up, is an exercise in experiencing the pains, sufferings, joy and delight of God’s relationship with his people. It should perhaps be no surprise to us that at the heart of the story of God’s relationship with us, his people, is the announcement of a birth. For there is no greater metaphor, no more complex and demanding role, no more poignant or dangerous mome

Tender Loving Kindness

As we journey through life we gather experiences, old certainties may disappear, rocks that we had come to rely on may literally be taken from us. These experiences, particularly of loss, can enlarge the heart’s capacity for kindness, for showing and receiving mercy and compassion. A heart made vulnerable by experiences of loss, made fragile by suffering, is a heart that can also become more compassionate, kinder, and able to show itself, greater mercy and love. It is one of the paradoxes of human experiences. A heart untouched by its own vulnerability will have little patience or compassion for those who have sunk deep into the heart’s vulnerability. As we journey through life then we have an opportunity to grow in compassion and mercy, to see differently and respond differently to those around us. Once where we might have blamed or accused, we now get alongside and see it from their perspective. The Christian story is a story of the vulnerability and tenderness of Go

Reflections for Advent: It is only an absent God that requires faith.

God’s absence is part of our common, in fact normal experience: ‘O that you would tear open the heavens and come down!’   – O that you would demonstrate your power; make your reality known in a way that we cannot ignore. Because we forget you, we misbehave, we ignore you, because you do not impose yourselves on us! (Isaiah, 64.1-9). It is perhaps this experience of absence that makes most people assume that belief in God is foolish, contrary to experience. But, an evident, loud, noisy God, going around demonstrating Her power, would be one that impinges on the freedom we have been given in creation. God has given us self-determination and freedom. F aithfulness is about living hopefully with the seeming absence of God and the silence of God. It is about living as though God were with us all the time, watching us and guiding us. Remembering a God who is silent, inconspicuous and gentle is the spiritual discipline supreme. It is only an absent God that requires faith. For it

Anthem for Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, – The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them from sad shires. What candle may be held to speed them all? Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes. The pallor10 of girls' brows shall be their pall; Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds. Wilfred Owen, September - October, 1917 Wilfrid Owen’s poetry introduced me to the reality of war as a student at secondary school, along with Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves these were the writers that helped me see the sacrifice that we ask others to make on our behalf when we send them to fight for us. These writers showed us wh

Called to be Saints

All Christians have a calling to be saints. Each one of us as a Christian is a saint, one of the blessed ones of God – that is our inheritance and the hope that we have. Child or elderly, man or woman, whoever we are, we are God’s holy children, made blessed. Jesus’ teaching in the beatitudes* is a description of the lives of Christians, of saints. Our blessedness is to be found in certain qualities; qualities that mark us out, that define us and that enable us to live in God’s eternal kingdom. And they are surprising. They challenge us. We have lived with these ideas in the Western world for a long time, generation after generation, and they have left their mark on our society. But they are challenging and demanding as well as being a gift. The Christian life is a life held in tension, a tension between blessedness and trial. Jesus’ life is the perfect example of blessing – the healings, the miracles, the relationships and the peace. But on the other hand the extraordinary tr

Halloween

Halloween takes it's name from All Hallows' Eve, the Eve before the Festival of All Saints, when the church remembers those who are hallowed, literally 'blessed': -the saints. Christians sometimes get worried about what Halloween has become, but probably for the wrong reasons. A bit of glorification of things that frighten us is probably harmless enough. But what really matters perhaps is that as a culture we are losing the ability to cope with death. Death is thought of as something threatening and frightening, it becomes about witches, devils and satan; but death in the Christian tradition has been transformed by Jesus' Resurrection. We no longer fear death even if we still experience the pain and loss of death. The Feast of All Saints' and All Souls' is an annual reminder to Christians that we are connected with all the faithful departed who live on with God. We remember those in the past who have truly shown something of God's love by their lives. We

Jesus' face on a bank note

Reflections on: 'Give to the Emperor what is the Emperor's and to God what is God's'* I want us to begin our reflections by thinking about putting Jesus on a banknote. How would you feel about seeing Jesus’ face on a bank note or a coin? What would you think? What does it mean? What does your reaction tell you? So, let’s think about: where do we see Jesus’ face? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This conversation between the Pharisees and Jesus opens up a huge space for us, helps us, if you prefer, see the difference between God’s kingdom and the kingdom of the world. Where does the Emperor’s glory lie? It resides in his worldly wealth, power and status. It is present in his possessions and in the people that he controls and governs. He has to make present his glory in his armies and in his ability to exact taxes from the people. Where does God’s glory lie? Well le

Receiving and Giving in Balance

What has God given me? What do I give to God? We can’t give if we haven’t received. The first and most important practice for any of us is to let God love us and fill our lives with His goodness. Each of us needs continually to be reinvigorated and re-inspired spiritually. We need to be fed by the ever-flowing waters of God’s grace and abundance. Our lives of discipleship can get out of kilter if we are only giving or if we are only receiving. We need to seek that balance in our lives where we are both fed and in turn we turn outwards and feed others. Reflect upon your own spiritual health : do you need to spend some time with God and let Him rebuild you, refill you and nourish you? Without that source renewing us we become dead in our faith and practice. In turn if we only get fed but never give from our own abundance we are betraying the grace that we have been freely given. God wants us to live lives of abundance and grace ; God gives good things that never run out

Do we ask for help enough?

We put limits and boundaries in all of the roles that we as humans occupy. None of us can be everything to all people. In Matthew 15:21-28, we notice Jesus doing just that. He has a clear sense of what his purpose is and what it is not: ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel ’. This sort of role clarity we are surprised at in Jesus because we see him as our universal saviour. But at this point in our history and story Jesus is also a human prophet, and it is only progressively that it is revealed to us (and perhaps even to Jesus himself) that Jesus is to be so much more than a first century Jewish prophet. Within this context then Jesus’ refusal to respond to the woman’s request, makes limited historical sense. She is an outsider, a nameless non-Jewish woman. Jesus has no relationship to her and feels no sense of duty towards her. What is fascinating about this passage then is how this woman refuses to be dismissed and ignored by Jesus. Even though she knows

War and Religion

St Paul is a man who experienced a seismic shift in his understanding of how God relates to His people and to him as an individual.  That shift in thinking is dramatised in the road to Damascus episode, which as a story has become synonymous with the experience of dramatic conversion. Paul provides us with a paradigmatic example of the effects of conversion on an individual. His passion for and evangelical zeal for his new found understanding is second to none. Yet with the advantage of hindsight we know that the division between Judaism and Christianity has led to some pretty awful consequences. Paul’s continuing comparison between what he used to believe and what he now believes necessarily casts the Jewish comprehension in an unfavourable light. So much of Christian history has been about casting the Jewish faith as one that has been superseded by the superior Christian one. What can we do about this? We can’t read Paul’s words innocently after the holocaust and we can’t speak unc

WW1 Centenary Commemoration Address

Looking back helps us to see who we have become – and so it is as we look back to the start of the First World War. Britain was very different in its national character compared with today – a time however no less complex and demanding, despite our tendency to be nostalgic about the past – the political atmosphere in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was tense in 1914, Home Rule and the threat of civil war in Ireland along with the suffragette movement were urgent questions. As war was declared, almost without warning, despite the trepidation, no-one could have predicted how the First World War was to change the Western experience and consciousness. World War Poetry has become a part of our national imagination, with stark clarity it has spoken deeply to us of the suffering and sacrifice that war demands and exacts. For some of those men facing their own violent and brutal death and seeing it happen to their friends, comrades and enemies, the words of the Bible offer

Peace and Unity: Civic Sunday Service

The Mayor has given himself a challenging theme for his Mayoral year that of peace and unity.  In our current national context where fears around religious fundamentalism, or fundamentalism of any kind are rightly feared, it is so important to articulate a hospitable and generous account of what it means for people of different faiths and none to work together for the common good.  This is something that the new Mayor, Ramesh Srivastava has committed himself to, which is a truly noble task. This year provides a great opportunity for the people of Rugby to be further united and to work for peace; we have come together today to witness to what it means to be people of difference who work for peace and unity. Thich Nhat Hanh, an internationally known Vietnamese Zen Buddhist Monk, writes that: 'The practice of peace and reconciliation is one of the most vital and artistic of human actions.' Jesus says in the Bible reading we have just heard: 'Blessed

Lifting our imaginations beyond what is seen and known

As Christians we all the time stand in the presence of the one who is glorified; we always have God as our background, as our strength. We look elsewhere for the ultimate means of knowledge, for the ultimate means of consolation. This marks us out in a secular world, for a secular mindset rejects the idea of there being something greater and better than us who teaches us who we really are and what our real end is. Everything is reduced to what humanity can see, understand, categorise. The Vision that Isaiah* has of God, sums up in many ways the story of God that is told from the start of the Old Testament to the close of the New – God alone is worthy of honour and praise – a true encounter with God brings us to our knees in recognition of our own unworthiness – God forgives us and calls us and sends us to do his work. This Vision of God is a Trinitarian vision as God is seen to work in the ways that we understand God to work as Christians – The Mighty Creator and King worthy of ho