I am the Rector of two of the three churches in the world dedicated to St Hybald, one of which (Hibaldstow) contains his remains. This blog is mainly for my monthly parish magazine articles.

Disclaimer: Calling myself "Hybald's Rector" does not imply that St Hybald would agree with everything I say!!

Monday 30 November 2015

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.

Saturday 28 November 2015

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.

Monday 23 November 2015

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.

Monday 16 November 2015

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?

Wednesday 11 November 2015

"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.