Christmas traditions and Christmas truths

Last year's December magazine article:

Lying next to me on my desk, waiting to be opened is my pre-Christmas reading for this year – Pope Benedict XVI's book on the Infancy Narratives of Jesus of Nazareth. In this book Pope Benedict goes back to the stories of Jesus' infancy in Matthew and Luke's gospels to re-examine what they say and what they mean for us today. So far, so uncontroversial. Or so you'd think. Some in the media took a different view. A Reuters report pointed out that several attention-grabbing media headlines tried to make it seem as if Pope Benedict was attacking Christmas; headlines such as"Killjoy pope crushes Christmas nativity traditions," "Pope sets out to debunk Christmas myths," "The pope's war on Christmas," and even "Pope bans Christmas."

All of these headlines owe more to journalistic sensationalism than anything that was actually in the book. Pope Benedict, in returning to the gospel accounts themselves, pointed out how some of our ideas about the Christmas story are not supported by the gospels. For example, he says that the gospels do not say that there were any animals present when Jesus was born, and that the angels said “Glory to God in the highest” rather than sang it. Filtered through hyperbole these became the Pope banning nativity cribs and carols, even though in the book Pope Benedict states "No representation of the crib is complete without the ox and the ass" and "Christianity has always understood that the speech of angels is actually song" so it is only natural that we “join in their carolling on the Holy Night".

But something else, apart from journalists getting carried away, lies behind these headlines, and that is the challenging of traditions. Christmas is a time full of traditions both old and new, most of which are dearly held, and sometimes these traditions compete. Arguments over whether your have Christmas pudding before or after the Queen's speech, or whether you see all of the family on Christmas Day or none of them, although trivial can take on epic proportions precisely because they are to do with some of our most cherished habits.

In his book Pope Benedict seeks to look beyond the various Christian traditions to the 'gospel truth' of the Christmas story, not to get rid of them but to enhance them by reminding us of the greater truth that lies at the heart of the story. This Christmas, why not pick up a Bible and read the first part of Matthew and Luke's gospels and hear the original story again (or come along to church to hear it!). To use Pope Benedict's words, I pray that the many Christmas traditions, but especially the gospel accounts themselves, will “help you on your path toward and alongside Jesus”. God bless you this Christmas.

Advent Reflections - The Four Last Things: 4. Hell

Easrt window of St Andrew's, Redbourne - "The Opening of the Sixth Seal" (Revelation 6:12-17)

 Finishing our meditations on the four traditional themes of Advent

Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell; this week we're thinking about Hell

Just as we need to rid ourselves of the mental image of heaven being fluffy white clouds and harps, so we need to rid ourselves of the image of hell as sulphurous fires and devils with toasting-forks doing unspeakable things to people forever. However, these images owe more to mediæval imagination than the biblical record. So what does the bible say about hell?

In the bible there are three words that are usually translated 'hell': sheol, Hades and gehenna. Sheol is a Hebrew word that can mean 'grave', 'pit' or the 'realm of the dead' and is quite neutral, but it is also used in a sense more like what we would think of as hell – a place of punishment. Hades likewise can simply mean the underworld or realm of the dead, but is occasionally used in a context that speaks of punishment. Gehenna is the name of a rubbish dump south of Jerusalem where the filth and dead animals from the city were thrown into in a fire that burned constantly. This is used by Jesus as an illustration of what Jerusalem will become like if it doesn't follow him and by extension an illustration of the outcome for everyone who rejects him.

In order to think about hell we need to remind ourselves of what was said previously about judgement. God is perfectly holy and only perfectly holy beings can be in his kingdom, and on this criteria we all fail and no-one deserves to enter his kingdom. However, because Jesus died to take the punishment we deserve, we can be forgiven and we can enter God's kingdom. But we can only be forgiven if we ask for it. God gives us the free will to be able to choose him or reject him and he honours our decision, but if we reject Jesus we also reject the way to salvation. God “wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4) and he “so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son” (John 3:16-18).

On Judgement Day we will see God face-to-face and we will know his verdict on us, and we will know it to be absolutely just and fair. Those who choose to reject Jesus in this life will have that decision honoured in the next; those who choose to be judged on the basis of how good they are will be judged on that basis and be found wanting; those who choose to accept the forgiveness offered by Jesus and unite themselves with him will be judged as he is and be found acceptable to God.

So what happens to those who reject Jesus? In rejecting Jesus they reject his offer of taking the punishment for their sins, therefore in order that justice may be done, punishment is still required. We know that this justice does not come before death so it must come after death. So the question is, what form will this punishment take? The simple answer is that we don't know for sure. Jesus and other parts of the bible use language to describe it, with fire and torment being common images, but it is not clear whether this language is meant to be literal or symbolic. The 'torment' may not mean physical pain but mental anguish at the realisation of the consequence of rejecting Jesus, as Charles Wesley graphically describes it: “deeply wailing shall the true Messiah see.”

The good news of Christianity about hell is that whatever it is, it is not where we're meant to be. God created us to be with him forever and although because of our sins we spoilt that plan, because of Jesus' death that relationship with God for eternity is possible again. Thinking about the 'Four Last Things' reminds us that our future lies in our hands, Jesus invites us to repent and believe in him. What is your response?

Advent Reflections - The Four Last Things: 3. Heaven

 Continuing our meditations on the four traditional themes of Advent

Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell; this week it's Heaven.

Mention the word 'heaven' to people and probably the first image that will spring to their mind is one of cute angels sitting on fluffy clouds playing harps, or a purely spiritual realm inhabited by ghost-like beings. Ask them again what they imagine heaven to be like for them or their loved ones and you'll probably get a description of them doing their favourite activity. Ask them who'll be there and you'll more than likely get the response “everyone” (except of course Hitler / bin Laden / notorious criminals etc.).

But what does the Bible tell us about what heaven will really be like? The most obvious thing to note about the biblical view of heaven is that it is the dwelling-place or the kingdom of God, although it is not a literal place in the universe because God is also said to be everywhere. The Lord's Prayer says that heaven is a place where God's will is done, and in various places the worship of God by angels around his throne in heaven is spoken of. However, it is surprising to also note that, despite the traditional Christian thought and language, the Bible doesn't talk of heaven as being the place we go to (or should aspire to go to) when we die.

Jesus taught us to pray “your kingdom come: your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10) and the second phrase should be seen as an explanation of the first. God's kingdom comes when his will is done. And Jesus wants us to pray for that to happen on earth in the same way as it already is in heaven. He doesn't want us to pray that we would go to heaven so we can be in his kingdom, but that his kingdom would come on earth. In Jesus' first coming the kingdom of God started on earth, but we await his kingdom to come in on earth all its fullness. This is made explicit in Revelation 21, where the vision of the future is a new heaven and a new earth, but that these are now joined: “God's dwelling-place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them” (Revelation 21:3). Our ultimate aim therefore is not heaven but 'heaven-on-renewed-earth.'

It still has those characteristics of being God's dwelling-place, where he is worshipped and his will is done, but it is not a 'spiritual' place but a physical, earthly place. And of course this shouldn't be surprising for us who believe in the resurrection, because the accounts of Jesus' resurrection prove that it was a bodily, physical resurrection not a spiritual resurrection. So we are not resurrected as ghosts or spirits but with physical bodies, and physical bodies need a physical environment. Also, Paul reminds us in Romans that sin doesn't just affect humanity, but it has also affected the created world. Therefore Jesus' death, which won humanity's salvation also won salvation for creation: “the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).

So if 'heaven-on-renewed-earth” is what we should aspire to, who goes there? As we saw last week, Jesus invites us to “repent and believe the good news” and the future judgement, and therefore the decision about whether we will go there, will be on the basis of whether we've accepted Jesus' invitation or not.

The good news of Christianity about heaven is that it is more wonderful than we commonly think, as it involves the renewal and re-creation of the whole of creation, including our bodies, and the joining of heaven with this renewed earth. The relationship we can have with God now is infinitely enhanced and there will be an intimacy that is beyond our wildest dreams. By accepting Jesus' invitation we become part of God's kingdom here and now, and God promises us that we will be part of his future kingdom-on-renewed-earth.

Advent Reflections - The Four Last Things: 2. Judgement

 Continuing our meditations on the four traditional themes of Advent

- Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell; this week it's Judgement.

Divine judgement often makes us feel very defensive if not angry - “who are you to judge me?” is an unspoken question in our minds. And this is particularly so in a society where any notion of an absolute moral standard is dismissed. Society believes that the morality of an action depends on the situation rather than any concept of rightness or wrongness. Added to which is the relativist idea of something being “right for me” so that what is right for you is not necessarily right for me and you shouldn't impose your 'rightness' on me.

Yet at the same time we cry out for justice. Our world is seemingly full of people who do bad things and get away with them, things like murder, fraud, dishonesty or hurting us in a more personal way, and we want justice for that. The Psalmist wrote “it made me jealous to see proud and evil people and to watch them prosper” and as if to add insult to injury “all goes well for them, and they live in peace. What good did it do me to keep my thoughts pure and refuse to do wrong?” (Psalm 73:3,12-13 CEV). Evil goes unpunished and good goes unrewarded, so we want justice.

But we can't have it both ways, either we want judgement and justice or we don't – we can't ask God to judge other people's sins if we don't also let him judge our own. But whether we like it or not the justice that is clearly missing in this world will happen at the end of time, when Jesus comes to judge the living and the dead.

So the question is, on what basis will he judge us? The common view of Judgement Day is that Jesus will have a set of scales and on one side he'll put all the bad things we've done and on the other he'll put the good things and if the good outweighs the bad we'll be OK. And of course the bad things that 'other people' do, like murder, paedophilia etc., hugely outweigh the little bad things we do!

But that's not the criteria for judgement. Jesus, when talking to the lawyer in Luke 10:25-28, says that you could earn eternal life if you perfectly love God and your neighbour constantly, knowing that “whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it” (James 2:10). Therefore Jesus is saying it's impossible to pass the judgement on the basis of the good things we do because we can never be good enough.

And deep down we know this is true. In the Christianity Explored course we heard the illustration of seeing the whole of our life as a film; every thought, word and deed and all the things we should have thought, said or done. Although there would be many times we were proud of, there would be more times that make us ashamed. Rico Tice, the presenter, said that if we're honest we fail to live up to our own standards, never mind God's! When Jesus comes to judge the world, we all deserve to fail.

The good new of Christianity about judgement is that Jesus, the only perfect human being, died to take the punishment we deserve. He calls us to “repent and believe the good news” (Mark 1:15). 'Repent' means recognising and saying sorry for the things we do wrong (sins) and resolving not to sin in the future, and 'believe' means accepting God’s forgiveness made possible by Jesus’ death on the cross, putting Jesus at the centre of our lives and living in line with his teaching. If we repent and believe, in the words of the hymn: “Because the sinless Saviour died, my sinful soul is counted free, for God the Just is satisfied to look on him and pardon me” ('Before the Throne of God Above' - Words by Charitie L. Bancroft). The consequences of our response to Jesus' invitation to repent and believe are the subject of the next two weeks.

Penguins, Pagans and Real Love

 For me, one of the memorable parts of last year's Christmas was the John Lewis advert; the story of friendship and love with a boy, Sam and his best friend, Monty the penguin. As well as a great story, what made the advert so memorable was the soundtrack, 'Real Love' sung by Tom Odell.

'Real Love' was originally written by John Lennon around 1977 and recorded with overdubs by the three surviving Beatles in 1995. The song is a celebration of true and real love and also a reflection on how life can sometimes be a preparation or almost a kind of dress rehearsal for true love. The lyrics say “Just like little girls and boys, playing with their little toys. Seems like all they really were doing, was waiting for love.”

Advent is the season of preparation for Christmas in terms of getting decorations, food and plans ready but also in the deeper sense of preparing ourselves to celebrate again the great moment when God came to earth to be born as a human, Jesus Christ. One of the ways we do this is to look back at how God prepared his people, the Israelites, for it so we look into the Old Testament for the prophesies about Jesus and also at the people and events that foreshadowed what Jesus would do. For example we look Isaiah's foretelling of a virgin giving birth to a son (Isaiah 7:4), and we also think about the lamb whose blood saved the Israelites from the tenth plague God sent to Egypt at the Passover and how that prefigures Jesus' death which saves us from God's judgement. In our Advent Bible studies this year, we're looking at the Letter to the Hebrews and what it tells us about how the Old Testament prepares us for Jesus.

But God's preparation for the coming of Jesus wasn't limited to the Israelites. It is often said that Christmas and Easter have more to do with Roman or pagan festivals than they do to the story of Jesus, and it is true that the celebration of Christmas and Easter were linked with pre-existing festivals. But far from devaluing the Christian festivals this knowledge enhances them because it shows how God reveals himself through all people's attempts to understand ourselves and the world. Acts 17 recounts how St Paul in Athens used the kernel of truth in the Greek religious practices and thinking to explain the full truth revealed in Jesus.

God uses the world around us, our lives and our thinking to prepare us for understanding Jesus. The kernels of truth found in all religions and philosophies are like playing with toys while waiting for the full and real truth which is found in Jesus. And all our attempts to love other people are pale reflections of the real love that we see when God comes to earth in Jesus. So this Christmas I invite you to discover the greatest gift of all: God's love for you. “Don't need to be alone...don't need to be afraid. It's real love.”

Advent Reflections - The Four Last Things: 1. Death

 “Advent is a season of expectation and preparation, as the Church prepares to celebrate the coming (adventus) of Christ in his incarnation, and also looks ahead to his final advent as judge at the end of time. The readings and liturgies not only direct us towards Christ’s birth, they also challenge the modern reluctance to confront the theme of divine judgement...The Four Last Things – Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell – have been traditional themes for Advent meditation.” (taken from Common Worship: Times and Seasons). So for each of the four Sundays of Advent, I'll offer a meditation on one of the themes – this week it's Death.

We live in a strange society where contradictory views about death are held simultaneously. Benjamin Franklin famously said that nothing was certain except death and taxes, but we still don't seem to have come to terms with the fact of death. Advances in medicine have given us a false sense of security, believing that death can be postponed indefinitely - so when it does come it undermines our confidence and reminds us of our own mortality. Another symptom of this is that when someone we love dies, it is very hard to let them go. We speak not of 'death' but of 'falling asleep', 'being at rest', 'going into the next room', 'becoming a star'. Graves and places of death become shrines, 'sacred' places where loved ones can still be met with. It is good and right to remember and celebrate those who have died, but we shouldn't pretend they are still with us in any way more than memories or influence. One of the prayers in the funeral service says this: “Now give us strength and courage to leave them in your care” but too often we do not do this and instead try to hold on to them.

Conversely, we also embrace and seek death, so much so that Pope John Paul II spoke of a 'culture of death'. This is seen in obvious ways such as wars, terrorism, abortions and euthanasia, but also in more subtle ways such as the oppression of the 'weak' by the 'strong', and the ever increasing number of those treated as 'weak' because of poverty, lack of education, looks, illness, race or even because they hold an out-of-fashion opinion. But on a personal level we also embrace sin which is the opposite of the abundant life that God intends for us, therefore we prefer death to life.

The 'culture of death' is caused by our lack of understanding about life. If we were to truly believe that all humans are made in the image and likeness of God, we would understand the sanctity of all human life and therefore we would treat all humanity with the dignity they deserve. We would also see that living as God intends us to, according to his rules is the only way to be truly human and to have life in all its fullness.

The tendency we have to avoid death is due to our lack of understanding about death and our fear of death. Death has a certain finality to it: “a man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last and is no more” (Job 14:10), we are separated from our loved ones by a barrier that cannot be crossed. The dead don't hang around as spirits or ghosts nor do they 'infuse' the world around us nor can we communicate with them; the land of the living and the 'land' of the dead are quite separate. And this reality frightens us, because we don't want to lose those we love, nor do we want to go to an 'unknown' place. And this fear is even more acute in those without faith, because in the non-religious worldview death is truly the end and more than that, as life is just the product of random chance, life itself is ultimately pointless, meaningless and valueless.

The good news of Christianity about death is that as we are made in the image and likeness of God, our life has a value and a purpose. And thankfully death is not the end. Jesus destroyed the power of death by rising from the dead, so death no longer has the final word, death no longer necessarily needs to be feared. What happens to us after death is the subject of the coming weeks.

Tomatoes, Wisdom and the Light of the World

Here is the sermon from the Broughton Civic Service 2015

(Readings: 1 Kings 3:5–14; John 8:12-20)

Those of you who are on social media may have come across a picture that says this: “Knowledge is knowing that Frankenstein was not the monster. Wisdom is understanding that Frankenstein was the monster”. Or perhaps the quote attributed to Miles Kington: “Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad”.

In our first reading we see King Solomon being offered anything he wants. And rather than going for power or wealth, popularity or good looks, he asks for a discerning heart – for wisdom. God commends Solomon for his wise choice and says that he will give it to him, and on top of wisdom he will also give Solomon wealth and status. Solomon goes on to be one of the main contributors to the book of Proverbs in the Bible, a book crammed full of wise words and sayings, written mainly as instructions to the young, but valuable for everyone. The basic theme of the book is that we have a choice between being wise and being foolish. “Wisdom is like honey for you” it says “if you find it, there is a future hope for you” (24:14). Elsewhere it says, “How much better to get wisdom than gold, to get insight rather than silver!” (16:16), and famously “wisdom is more precious than rubies” (8:11).

I'm sure we'd all agree that wisdom is a good thing, and that we would all like to be wiser, and we would certainly like our government, parliament and other authorities to make wise decisions but the question is: how do we become wise? Happily, our readings give us the answer.

Firstly, wisdom comes from God. St James in his letter which we have in the New Testament says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God...and it will be given to you” (1:5). The first stage in being wise is knowing that we don't have, and can never have, all the answers on our own. We can never truly understand ourselves, other people or our world because we can't step outside of them to see the big picture. Our own thoughts and opinions are always coloured by our experiences, our environments, our prejudices – we can never be truly objective and so can never be truly wise. This is why truth cannot be decided by a majority vote. However, the good news is that God is truly objective and he wants to share his wisdom with us! God reveals himself to us through his word in the Bible, so the more we read it the better we know him, and the better we can know ourselves, others and the world, so we can act in a wiser way.

The concept of wisdom can be quite abstract so the second answer our readings give us to the question of how we become wise is concrete and practical. In our reading from the Gospel of John Jesus says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (8:12). The New Testament tells us that Jesus is, literally and metaphorically, the personification of wisdom, of God himself, so if we want to know what wisdom looks like in real terms, in the flesh, we can look at Jesus. He is the light of wisdom in the darkness of our human ignorance. If we want to be wise we need to imitate him, we need to follow him, but inevitably we will fail. We will act foolishly and selfishly, we will want to be rich or powerful, or popular or good looking rather than wanting to be wise and Christ-like. But the good news is that our weaknesses, whether they are unintentional or deliberate, can be forgiven and more than that God will give us his power, his Holy Spirit, to help us to be like him. Our failings die with Jesus on the cross so that we can rise to a new, wiser life with him.

So today, in Jesus' name, I bless you with the knowledge of God's will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God. Amen.

Doctor Who, Zygons and Remembrance Sunday

This is the sermon I preached for the Remembrance Sunday Service at Broughton 2015:

Last night, I was just about to write my talk for this morning's service when my eldest son asked me to sit down to watch Doctor Who with him. I have to confess that I don't like sci-fi, and I'd never watched Doctor Who before the previous series. I wouldn't say that now I'm hooked on it but I do quite enjoy watching it, even if I don't understand what's happening! And so last night, instead of writing this morning's talk I watched Doctor Who. So, although the Bible readings we've just heard are great, I'd like to take as my text for this morning The Zygon Inversion by Peter Harness and Steven Moffat.

The Zygon Inversion is the second part of a story where the Zygons, a race of shapeshifting aliens, have been living in secret amongst us on Earth, unknown and unseen - until now! A rogue gang of Zygons start an uprising in the hope it will spark a war between humans and Zygons. Now hopefully what I say next won't contain any spoilers for those of you who haven't seen it yet. The climax of the episode involves the leader of the rogue Zygons and the leader of the international unit for extra-terrestrials. They have a choice to make – the Doctor’s devised a game of chance to determine whether they destroy themselves, or their enemies, a scale model of war to make them think.

Whilst trying to persuade them to keep the peace, the Doctor says to the rogue Zygon “maybe you will win, but no-one wins for long. The wheel just keeps on turning.” The Doctor puts his finger on the problem of war that “Cruelty begets cruelty.” But he also knows the solution saying: “The only way anyone can live in peace is if they are prepared to forgive.”

And there is the difficulty, because the jealousies and desires inside each of us stop us from turning our swords and spears into ploughshares and pruning hooks. Our desires to have the wrongs against us righted mean that we cannot let go, we cannot forgive. But to forgive and forget is not to say that the wrongs weren't wrong or that justice doesn't matter. Instead we let go so we can let God be the judge. And of course if we want the ultimate example of forgiveness we look not to the Time Lord, but to the Lord of Time.

The things we do wrong make us enemies of God and so we deserve punishment and ultimately separation from God. But God loves us so much that in Jesus he took that punishment we deserve when he died on the cross, so that we can be forgiven. Jesus died for us when we were his enemies so that we could become his friends. Amazingly, he died for everyone, even if they choose to remain his enemies and separated from him because they don't accept his forgiveness. But we can only truly forgive others if we have been forgiven by God first.

The Doctor, through his own experience of the horror and pain of war, found that forgiveness was the only way to make peace. So he says, “You know what do you do with all that pain?... You hold it tight 'til it burns your hand. And you say this: No-one else will ever have to live like this. No-one else will ever have to feel this pain. Not on my watch.” That's the spirit which inspired Remembrance Day. Sorrow for our own sins, so we can forgive others, so it will never happen again.

Paris and the Parable of the Wheat and Weeds

This is the sermon from yesterday's Scawby Civic Service.
(Readings: Romans 8:12-25; Matthew 13:24–30 and 36-43)

With the recent news about the attacks in Paris, the reading from Matthew's gospel seems more relevant than usual. Jesus describes a world where good and bad co-exist, where good people and bad people live and grow together. A world his first hearers would have recognised and one that is still recognisable today. But that is one of the points that Jesus is trying to make: that the world will be mixed until the 'end of the age' that is until he comes again.

But why doesn't God do something about it? That was a question that was asked in Jesus' day and is still asked today. Why don't we do something about it, why don't we take matters into our own hands? is the question the servants in Jesus' story ask; why don't we seek revenge and justice? is rhetoric we hear all over the media. Jesus, however, counsels caution. Don't pull up the weeds he says, “because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them.” The problem with us taking revenge is that our judgement is imperfect, and we are likely to do more harm than good. Those who worked on the land in Jesus' time would have understood the dilemma in his story well. The weeds and the wheat were almost indistinguishable until it came to harvest time – trying to sort them out before harvest time risked destroying good crops by mistaking them for bad crops as well as by disturbing their roots.

This year we commemorated the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo. It's very easy to tell who your enemy is when they're wearing a different uniform and speaking French. Nowadays, however, the threat we face from people wishing to destroy our way of life can often come from people who have been brought up amongst us. In seeking to weed out threats from so-called extremists, we risk vilifying innocent people as well as destroying the roots of good community growth. On top of that, legislation to outlaw 'extremism' will have the consequence of stifling debate and free speech and demonising any view that differs from what the current trend is.

So much for our imperfect judgement, but what about God? Surely he could distinguish between wheat and weeds? Well, Jesus assures us that God will act, that justice will be done, that evil will be punished and good will be rewarded – but all in the fullness of time. Jesus encourages us not just to have confidence that God will sort it all out, but that he will do it when the time is right. Just as our judgement about right and wrong is imperfect, so is our judgement about timing – we want it all sorted out now, but as Paul says in his letter to the Romans, although we and the whole of creation is groaning in expectation of when this will happen, we must wait patiently.

As we look at the world around us, at the seemingly never-ending and ever-increasing violence and horror, it is tempting to despair and think that there is no hope. But Jesus told his parable to explain about the kingdom of God. He wants us to understand that even when all around seems wrong and evil seems to be in the ascendant, that the kingdom of heaven is still to be found. That no matter what happens, the kingdom of heaven will be victorious in the end. And that each of us is invited to be part of it, to be those who are 'people of the kingdom', 'children of God' who are led by the Spirit of God. In a world where good and bad co-exist we have a choice – are we going to be weeds or are we going to be wheat?

"Stir up, O Lord..."

At the end of November there comes a traditional day that is now often forgotten about. Stir-up Sunday is the last Sunday before Advent and is so called because that day's Collect (the prayer of the day that “collects” up the themes of the readings during a church service) starts with the words “Stir up, O Lord...” The prayer is based on an old Latin prayer, but it was given its definite place in the year by the Book of Common Prayer.

Traditionally this is the day that Christmas puddings were made, to allow time for the flavours to develop before it was eaten, and everyone in the family would have a go at stirring the mixture, sometimes making a wish as they did so. Therefore Stir-up Sunday reminds us that there is no separation between the sacred and the secular: the congregation would be reminded in church of the task they had to do at home, and they would have been reminded at home of what they had heard in church. In coming to earth in the person of Jesus, God reminds us that creation is good and that the whole world is a place where we can encounter him, whether that's in a church service or baking. Everyday life and its tasks can be a way of praying and worship just as much as hymns and services.

However, the Collect wasn't originally intended as a culinary reminder. The full prayer is “Stir up, O Lord, the wills of your faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may by you be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The prayer asks God to help us by stirring up our wills so that we can do the good things we ought to do (and therefore be rewarded for them). These days our culture, especially through advertising, encourages us to make decisions based on our feelings, or to excuse our actions because “we couldn't help doing it.” We see this in particular when it comes to love, we “can't help falling in love” which although it can be a good thing it is often used as an excuse for affairs. The love we celebrate in the marriage service is not a Hollywood, soft focus type of love but a love that makes a rational decision to give ourselves to someone else for life.

So we ask God to stir up our wills so that we can act according to our God-given reason rather than being swept along by feelings or emotions. In doing so we recognise that we need God's help in order for our wills and our desires to function properly. Advent then becomes a time when we can put these new stirrings into action as wait to celebrate again the coming of the one who enables us to be truly the people God wants us to be.