Which myths colour our present and shape our future?

Here's my article for the April magazines:

One of the ways I like to relax is by reading books on history. I don't really have a favourite period, but I do tend to prefer the history of the British Isles and I've just started to read about the period in which the legends of King Arthur are set. These legends are part of the founding myths of our islands, and help us to get a sense of identity that in turn gives us a way to view the present and shape the future.

Initially, Arthur was a Celtic/British leader who fought against the invading Anglo-Saxons: a 'Welsh' king fighting the (future) 'English'; prophesied by an earlier legend of a red dragon (Arthur) defeating the white dragon (the Saxons), which is immortalised in the Welsh flag. Thus Arthur was the inspirer of the struggle of the native Britons against the latest attackers.

Edward I was an Arthurian enthusiast who saw the power of a triumphant “once and future” Welsh king to inspire Welsh resistance to his campaign to conquer Wales. So he asserted his dominance over Arthur by digging up and reburying the alleged remains of Arthur and Guinevere at Glastonbury. But conversely he also used the example of Arthur as King of Britain to justify his desire to subjugate Wales and Scotland.

His grandson Edward III modelled his new 'Order of the Garter' on Arthur's Knights of the Round Table. He also replaced his royal predecessors Edmund the Martyr and Edward the Confessor as patron saints of England with George the soldier-saint, thus giving rise to another myth that has shaped the identity of the English nation.

We all have founding 'myths' that shape our personal identity. Some are grounded in our nationality or ethnicity; some are stories of more recent ancestors; some stem from our early childhood experiences. All of these 'myths' can make us feel trapped into certain patterns of thought or behaviour; or, as Edward I shows us, can be manipulated to justify our desires.

The Bible shows us a better way. The Creation story in Genesis tells us that our identity should be fundamentally based on the truth that we are made in the image and likeness of God, and our ultimate happiness is to be found in a living relationship with him. This relationship was destroyed through our sin but restored through Jesus' death and resurrection. So now, through repentance and faith in Jesus we can be shaped once again by being in the image and likeness of God and having a living relationship with him. It is only this that gives us “strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.”

Image: King Arthur's Round Table at Winchester Castle from Wikimedia Commons

Life is the name of the game

Here's my March article:

When I was young, I noticed how older people would often tell the same stories or talk about the same subjects over and over again.  Now I'm an older person, I find myself doing it too; repeating stories and subjects.  A few weeks ago I was talking to someone about my magazine articles and I realised how often I write on the subject of death!   I don't think I have a particularly morbid interest in death, but I am fascinated by people's beliefs about death, especially those who don't identify themselves as being 'religious.'  And so, despite Good Friday being a perfect opportunity to talk about death again, I'm going to restrain myself and instead focus this month on Easter and on life.

As Brucie said, “life is the name of the game” and this is certainly true of the Christian faith: the most famous verse in the Bible, John 3:16, tells us that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  Jesus talks about the small gate and narrow path that leads to life, which only a few find (Matthew 7:14) and declares that he is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6).  He says that “my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son [Jesus] and believes in him shall have eternal life” (John 6:40). But this eternal life is not 'pie in the sky when you die' Jesus also says “I have come that [those who listen to me] may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10).  Indeed, Peter describes life without belief in Jesus as an “empty way of life” (1 Peter 1:18).

We all have a deep yearning for life (dare I say that this is why even those who are 'not religious' cling to a belief that life continues in some way after death?) because God did not create us to die.  The apostle Paul reminds us that death came into the world through the sin of Adam, but that Jesus' death atoned for sin and his resurrection brings new life in the present and eternal life in the future to those who believe in him (Romans 5 and 6).  Thus what was lost in the Garden of Eden is restored and the new heavens and the new earth described in Revelations 21 and 22 are characterised by life in intimate communion with God.

We yearn for life because God has placed eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11).  But we often look for fullness of  life in the wrong places - in family, jobs, achievements, wealth, popularity, health or... But, as the angels said to the women at Jesus' tomb that first Easter day “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” (Luke 24:5)  So if you want life, come to Jesus who is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25).

I am what I am

Here's my February magazine article:

Lent is often a time for introspection and self-examination; a time for assessing one's life. Three common responses to this self-reflection centre around the phrase: “I am what I am”.

The first use of this phase is a pessimistic resignation: “I don't like who I am but I can't change it (even though I've tried)”.

The second is the more common use, signified by the hit song of that title from the musical La Cage aux Folles. Used this way the phrase is a celebratory declaration of pride in who you are, warts and all, and regardless of what anyone else thinks about it.

The third use, perhaps surprisingly, is to be found in the Bible: in 1 Corinthians 15:10, the Apostle Paul says “by the grace of God, I am what I am”. Although the second use is also sometimes given a religious overtone: “I am the way God made me”, the way Paul uses it is completely different. He is talking about his status as an Apostle, one of the select group who were acknowledged as having the highest teaching authority in the early Church. He says that because he used to persecute the Church he shouldn't be called an apostle, but he is because of God's grace, God's undeserved favour, and not because of anything Paul himself can take credit for. Paul knows he's been given a position he doesn't deserve, so the glory for who he is is God's alone.

Paul's phrase was picked up hundreds of years later by John Newton, the slave-trader-turned-abolitionist who wrote “Amazing Grace”. Towards the end of his life he is quoted as saying “though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say, I am not what I once was; a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the apostle, and acknowledge, 'By the grace of God I am what I am.' ” In his self-examination he acknowledges his faults but neither despairs at them nor celebrates them. Instead he looks at how through God's grace and help he has repented and is reforming and will continue to do so.

Anyone who honestly examines themselves will agree with Newton's assessment: “I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be” because “if we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). The choice then is what we do with this assessment: do we despair that we could ever change, or do we celebrate our sins as being essential parts of who we are? Or do we, with Paul and Newton, acknowledge our failings and repent of them in the knowledge that “if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)

The Snowman melts

Here's my talk for this year's Memorial Service, the reading was 1 Corinthians 15:12-26:

Christmas is a time that's full of traditions. Even these days, when we all get our news and entertainment from a myriad of different sources, the Christmas traditions of repeated TV shows and film have the power to bring us together. One of these staples of Christmas is The Snowman.

A few years ago, I realised my youngest child had never seen this film, so I decided to sit all the children down to watch it on Christmas Day. The older children weren't that interested in it, but reluctantly sat down too. As you know the boy, James, creates the snowman, which magically comes to life – at which point one of the older children turned to the youngest and said “He melts at the end!”

That put a bit of a dampener on it! But in some ways it was a very insightful comment on the film, because The Snowman is not a film about the joy and magic of Christmas, it is actually a film about death. Raymond Briggs, who created the story, said that the story was designed to introduce children to the concept of mortality.

Briggs himself struggled with his grief. He was an only child and his parents died from cancer just nine months apart in 1971, and his wife died from leukaemia just two years later. Briggs was still grieving when he created The Snowman a few years after. He is quoted as saying “The snowman melts, my parents died, animals die, flowers die. Everything does. There’s nothing particularly gloomy about it. It’s a fact of life.”

We all have different journeys of grief, but part of that journey must involve coming to terms with the reality and finality of death. The person we loved is no longer with us, they have gone and we are parted from them. At the end of the film, the snowman has melted and all James is left with is the scarf and his memories.

The same is true for us, when a loved one dies, all we are left with is some physical objects that are linked with them and our memories of them. Today we have another opportunity to recall those memories we have.

However, although memories are good, it is not helpful to say that our loved ones live on in our memories – that places an incredible and impossible burden on us. Our loved ones do not die if we forget to think about them because they are dead already. Remembering them is good, but not remembering them is OK too.

The Snowman ends with James kneeling in the snow, holding the scarf, distraught at the death of his friend. There is no happy ending. Death has the final say.

In his letter to the Corinthian church, the apostle Paul says “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” Christians believe in the resurrection, in the possibility of life after death, but if there is no such thing as life after death, if death does indeed have the final say, then Christians are fooling themselves and are in a worse position than those who don't believe in an afterlife at all.

But, Paul says, Jesus has been raised from the dead and those who belong to him, those who have a true and lively faith in him, will also share in that resurrected eternal life. And when Jesus returns, he will reign and destroy death itself. Death doesn't have the final say. Jesus does.

In The Snowman, Raymond Briggs presents us with the truth that death is a reality and has a finality to it. But this is only a partial truth. One of the reasons we celebrate Jesus' birth is because through his life, death and resurrection he defeats the hold that death has on us. Without him, death wins and we are lost forever. With him, life wins and those who belong to Jesus will live forever.

Photo by Gemma Evans on Unsplash

The night before Christmas

Here's my article for the December and January magazines:

Our Christmas traditions and celebrations come from many different places and cultures, but perhaps one of the greatest influences on our perception of Christmas is the 1823 poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” by Clement Clarke Moore, more commonly known by its first line: “ 'Twas the night before Christmas”. In this poem Moore describes St Nicholas, names his reindeer, and has him coming down the chimney to deliver presents. This eventually became the standard legend of Santa Claus, replacing many of the local variations on the theme of Christmas visitors. However, we should probably have also noted Moore's warnings in his follow-up poem “The Night after Christmas” which describes the children being visited by their doctor after having too many of the treats delivered by Santa!!

The phrase “The night before Christmas” evokes all those feelings of anticipation for the joy of Christmas, but in his book “The Air We Breathe”, Glen Scrivener uses it in a different way. His book describes how the Christian message underpins the way we view life and the values we hold, noting particularly the contrast with the values of the society into which the Christian message was first preached. He describes that culture as the night before Christmas.

The metaphor of night is very apt as it reminds us that the values that we think of as obvious, natural and universal (Glen highlights the values of equality, compassion, consent, enlightenment, science, freedom and progress) are “profoundly alien” to the culture, assumptions, beliefs, intuitions and ideals of the pre-Christian and non-Christian world. It's not that the ancient world was a little bit worse than our Western world, rather it is as different to us as night is to day. But we've spent so long in the light that we can't imagine what night would look like and therefore can't believe it ever existed.

Glen reminds us that Christmas, Jesus' birth, marked the end of that night. Some claim that the celebration of Christmas is pagan in origin, pointing to similarities in celebrations and even the concept of a god coming to earth. However,even before he could walk or talk, Jesus' birth is in stark contrast to the myths around at the time. In those myths, humans are created to be slaves or entertainment for the gods, and when a god comes to earth it is usually to kill, rape and destroy – and all should fear. But when Jesus is born the Almighty God becomes human (John 1:1-14) and the world is told to rejoice (Luke 2:8-20). Humans have dignity because they are made in the image of God and because God chose to become human. And from that good news flows all the values that form the 'day' we live in.

Jesus' birth has influenced and shaped our world more than Moore's poem has influenced our celebration of Christmas. This Christmas why not find out more about the Jesus who brings the morning which shatters the night that we had before Christmas?

War, bridesmaids and Jesus' return

Here is the sermon I preached at this year's Remembrance Service at Hibaldstow - the readings for the service were 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and Matthew 25:1-13. The whole service can be viewed here:

As we gather for this year's Remembrance Service we are very aware of the war that's going on in Israel and Gaza at the moment, as well as the continuing war in Ukraine.  And so you might have come here wondering what the Christian faith might have to say into those situations, or to us as we look on.

If so, you might be slightly puzzled that the reading we've just had is Jesus talking about bridegrooms, virgins and oil lamps!  Just to explain, I didn't choose the readings – in church we have set readings for each Sunday and these are the ones set for today.  However, I do think that they do have something to say to us at this time.

But first let's unpack Jesus' story a little bit, because it's describing a very different culture to our own.  In Jesus' culture, the bridegroom would leave his house, go to his bride's house, they would have the marriage ceremony and then he would process back to his house with her for the wedding feast.  This journey would go a scenic route around the village or villages so that the whole community could greet the couple.  Because it was hot, the bridegroom would often not set off until it was cooler in the evening, so by the time he got back again it would be late at night, therefore the bridesmaids who were waiting for the couple to arrive for the feast would have to keep watch with lamps burning in the night.

This is all very alien to our way of doing weddings, but perhaps you might be familiar with the song “Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning” - and if you've ever been puzzled by those lyrics, you might understand them more if you know that they're based on this parable of Jesus'.  However, this reference and meaning are slightly obscured when the lyrics are changed from asking for oil “till the break of day”, to asking for oil “till the end of day”  In the parable the lamps are needed till the break of day not the end of day because this is a parable about waiting.

Jesus has taught that he's going to die, be resurrected and then go back to his Father before returning at the end of time, for the Final Judgement and the start of the eternal kingdom of God, where there will be no more sin or death.  His disciples have asked him what the signs will be that he is about to return, and he says there will be no signs.  The day and hour are unknown, his return will be unexpected, but when he does return we will all know about it.  As Paul says in our first reading Jesus will return “with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God.”

This parable gives us a picture of waiting for something that will definitely happen, but at an unknown time.  The bridegroom will return but the bridesmaids don't know when.  So what are they to do in the meantime?  They are to keep their lamps lit.

That's not the most helpful piece of advice for us!  But by describing the bridesmaids as being either wise or foolish, Jesus reminds us of an earlier parable (which also has a song about it!!): the parable of the wise and foolish builders.  The wise man built his house upon the rock; the foolish man built his house upon sand and when the storm came only the house on the rock survived.  Jesus explained “everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”

The way the wise keep their lamps lit is to hear Jesus' words and obey them.  To hear and obey his commands to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.  It is to love your neighbour as yourself, including loving and praying for your enemies and those who persecute you.  But most of all it is to recognise not just the wrong things that others do, but to recognise our own sins and failings; to realise that in God's eyes all sins are equal, because his standard is perfection.  Unless we are perfect as God himself is perfect none of us deserve to enter into his eternal kingdom of peace.

But Paul reminds us in the next chapter of his letter to the Thessalonians the God doesn't want us to be punished for our sins, but wants us to be saved by Jesus: for Jesus died for us, he died in our place, to take the punishment we deserved.

The wedding feast image is not an accident.  Jesus the bridegroom has gone out to get his bride, us.  We are not able to come to the wedding feast unless we are his bride, unless we've joined ourselves to him, as a man is joined to his wife.  If we have joined ourselves to him, we stop using our old name of 'sinner' and take on his name 'holy'.

But what's all this got to do with war and conflict?  It is only in and through Jesus that there will be a solution to the wars and conflicts we have, because it is only through repentance that we can be being transformed into the likeness of our perfect bridegroom.  And as we wait for his return, as we wait for the dawn of his reign of perfect peace and justice, we are to continue to be wise; listening to and obeying Jesus.

Two minutes silence or two minutes applause?

Here's my article for the November magazines:

I'm often asked if I get nervous before taking services, to which I honestly reply that I very rarely do except for being perpetually worried about getting people's names wrong at weddings, baptisms and funerals!

However, one service I do get nervous about is the Remembrance Service, partly because of the solemnity of the day and also the complexity of the service, involving many different people, but mostly because of the two-minutes silence.  This seemingly simple element of the service presents a multitude of potential disasters.  Firstly, there's the matter of timing the silence for 11.00am: there can be many things of variable length happening before the silence; processions, wreath-laying, roll call, the Last Post, etc..  This matter of timing is made worse if there is a clock nearby (which may or may not be right!) and also phones or watches beeping the hour.  Generally people don't mind if the timing of the silence is out, but there are some who will vocally and forcefully complain if it is not precise.  Then there is the matter of timing the length of silence itself: who is doing it? do you give the signal to the bugler in time for them to start at the end of the two-minutes, or at the end and risk having a slightly longer silence?  And then there's the nervousness about the silence itself – what if someone shouts something out during it?  I'm getting panicky just thinking about it!

The two-minutes silence for Remembrance originated in Cape Town, South Africa in 1918 but the idea reached Britain in time for the first anniversary of the signing of the armistice in 1919 and has remained a permanent feature of Remembrance services ever since.  Observing a silence to remember those who have died has also become commonplace for local, national and international purposes, particularly at sporting events.  Silences are very useful for public observances because they contain no statements or assumptions concerning beliefs: people can use that time to pray or meditate or reflect as they see fit.

However, a time of silence is increasingly being replaced by a time of applause.  This may have pragmatic reasons, e.g. it avoids the problem of people jeering during a silence, but it may also reflect a wider cultural shift.  Funerals, although called such for simplicity, are increasingly entitled on the order of service “A service to celebrate the life of...”; replacing mourning the death of someone with thinking about their life.  Whilst it is certainly beneficial to recall memories of those who have died, it seems to me that this shift is partly due to a loss of clarity about what happens after death.  If we are silent in the face of death we might be confronted with the fear of the unknown, so we drown it out with applause and celebration.

For those who believe and trust in Jesus there is the promise of eternal life with him (John 3:16), and so there is no fear in being silent in the face of death.  Death is sad but it is no longer an enemy: it is a friend that ushers us into the joy and pleasure that lasts forever.