No Way Home?

Here's my article for March:

One of my treats over the Christmas holidays was to watch the latest Spider-Man film, No Way Home (don't worry there's no spoilers!!). It was a film I, like many, had been looking forward to, and to misquote Peter Parker's legendary credo “with great hype comes great expectations”! Thankfully, I wasn't disappointed!

The premise of the film is a very interesting one, Peter is faced with a choice – with a number of super-villains in his control he can either allow them to be destroyed in revenge for what they have done, or he can try to help them to change. The choice is not an easy one and Peter struggles with it, especially knowing that to help them will require sacrifice on his part. This is a story about second chances and doing the right thing in difficult circumstances (and perhaps against our own self-interest).

This latest series of Spider-Man films all play on the word and concept of 'home': the first film was Homecoming; the second, Far from Home; and the third, No Way Home, and they also deal with issues of family in the widest sense. Because of this, and because of plotline of this latest film being about whether people deserve a second chance and if 'bad guys' can change, this film reminded me of Jesus' parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32).

That story can perhaps be summarised as: far from home – no way home – homecoming. A young man rejects his family, takes his share of the family wealth and travels far from home. There he spends his wealth on living the life of luxury and excess until his money runs out and he becomes destitute. Having abandoned his family and having been abandoned by those he thought were friends, he feels like there is no way home. However, he decides to return home to offer himself as a slave, “but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him” (verse 20). His father then threw a homecoming party for his son.

Many who hear that parable would agree with the older brother that the prodigal son does not deserve forgiveness or a second chance, just as some people told Spider-Man that the super-villains deserved to die for their actions. But the Christian message is that all of us are like the prodigal son, all of us reject God our Father and misuse the gifts he gives us for our own selfish desires – this is what we call sin. But the great news is that God is willing to give us a second, third, fourth and more chance.

Tragically sometimes we are like one of the super-villains who tells Peter “We don’t need you to save us! We don’t need to be fixed!” - we can be far from home and not realise it, or worse still, not want to go home. Eventually however, the emptiness of that life will become apparent, and even if you feel there is no way home, see your heavenly Father looking for you, and running towards you with the simple invitation: “Come home!”

The greatest love of all - but not according to Whitney Houston

Here's my article for the February magazine:

Photo by Jenny Dettrick / Getty Images

It's February so that means that love is in the air, or at least tokens of love are being sold in the shops! Given that our western civilisation grew out of, and is therefore saturated with, the biblical world view it is unsurprising that we value love so highly. After all, the Bible tells us that God is love (1 John 4:8), and that he created the world, and made us in his image (Genesis 1 and 2).

When asked how God wants us to live, Jesus replied in terms of love: the first and greatest commandment is to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength; and the second is to love our neighbour as ourselves (Mark 12:28-34), meaning “do to others what you would have them do to you” (Matthew 7:12). The greatest commandment is usually overlooked in favour of the second, sometimes termed “the Golden Rule”. However, the second commandment is often misquoted as “Love your neighbour as you love yourself” and this radically changes the meaning.

The most obvious consequence of this misquote is to think that in order to love others you need to love yourself first, thus 'self-love' actually becomes the second commandment. We don't need much encouragement to be self-centred, but in misreading Jesus' words this way we manage to make selfishness a moral virtue and a divine command, because if we don't love ourselves we cannot then love others – we are being selfish for the good of others!!

We seem to live in a world where self-love is all around us. For example the popularity of 'selfies' and self-promotion through social media, and it could be argued that fashion, make-up, tattoos and vociferously identifying yourself with a particular group, are also forms of self-love. But as well as being consequences of narcissism they could also be symptoms of the opposite feeling of self-loathing. The desire to control the image that people see of you could be a result of a deep insecurity – we all like to portray the best side of ourselves, and to put on 'masks' perhaps for fear that people will not like the 'true' us.

Loving our neighbour does not require us to first love ourselves, nor does it require us to even like them. Instead it requires us to see them for who they are: people made in the image of God, and treat them as such, which is why Jesus wants us to include even our enemies in the category of 'neighbour' (Matthew 5:43-44). We love them 'as ourselves' because we are also made in the image of God. Self-loathing is a rejection of the God-image within us, but self-love is worshipping the image rather than the God in whose image we are made, so both go against the greatest commandment.

None of us is perfect, but one prayer praises God “who wonderfully created us in your own image and yet more wonderfully restored us through your Son Jesus Christ”. As we look at all the symbols of love around us, let's remember “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:10-11).

Black Friday or White Christmas?

My article for the December and January magazines:

Christmas is a time for traditions: the food, the music, the decorations (and complaining about how early they go up!), the parties, the church services and of course it wouldn't be Christmas without the cries of “It's all too commercialised!” We may lament that children are no longer content with Christmas presents consisting of shed-built wooden toys, an apple, an orange and some nuts, but I suspect that none of us would actually want it to be like that again. However it is true that in all the focus on the extravagance of presents or celebrations, the true reason for Christmas gets lost.

Nothing exemplifies this more than 'Black Friday'. Originally a term to describe the crowds of U.S. citizens starting their Christmas shopping on the day after Thanksgiving, it became an opportunity for retailers to offer big sales. This trend has recently (at least pre-pandemic) become more popular outside the U.S.A. and has been adopted by many retailers in this country. It's not just the consumerism of Black Friday that is a problem, but also the behaviour that it stirs up – there are often stories about injuries and even deaths caused by crowding and fighting over hugely discounted and desirable products. Fighting and injuries are also a feature of the other UK Black Friday – the nickname used by the emergency services for the Friday before Christmas due to its popularity as a night for Christmas parties. So, whether it's about presents or partying, for many people Christmas is defined by Black Friday.

Although Black Friday, in either use, is almost the opposite of the meaning of Christmas as a time of altruism and peace, it does show us why Christmas was necessary. Black Friday reminds us how as humans we can easily take something good, for example giving presents and celebrating with family and friends, and turn it into something bad. This is what the Christian faith calls 'Original Sin' – the innate tendency of humans to choose selfishness and our own interests over the interests of others, and to reject God's authority over us. Black Friday shows that Christmas is necessary because Christmas is defined not by Black Friday but by Good Friday.

The consequence of Original Sin is that we are unable, and ultimately unwilling, to do anything about our sinfulness and so we need a Saviour. This Saviour had to be human so that he could identify with us, suffer in our place and sympathize with us in our weakness. But he also had to be divine to pay off the infinite wrath of God incurred by our sin. In Psalm 51 King David acknowledged his sinfulness and asked God for forgiveness saying “wash me, and I will be whiter than snow” (verse 7). Christmas is the day we remember that Jesus was fully human and fully divine, being born so that he could die in order to pay the punishment for our sins on Good Friday and then rise from the dead at Easter to give us a new start.

So is your Christmas defined by Black Friday or Good Friday? Is it all about materialism, excess and self-centredness or is it about an awareness of your sin, and the celebration of the birth of your Saviour who will wash you whiter than snow?

What War Memorials teach us about life

This is the sermon I preached at Broughton for this year's Remembrance Sunday service:





We've just been remembering those from Broughton who died in the two world wars at our unique and special War Memorial, which was unveiled in 1923. However, next month is the 100th anniversary of the unveiling of the War Memorial in Port Sunlight.



Port Sunlight is a village on the Wirral, near Liverpool. It is the site of a soap factory founded by William Lever who also created the model village for his workers to live in. Some of you may remember Sunlight Soap. The company is now called Unilever and makes amongst other things, Lynx deodorant, Ben & Jerry's Ice cream and Persil washing powder, though you probably don't want to mix those up!!

Mr Lever, who had become Lord Leverhulme in 1917, was anxious to have a memorial to commemorate those of his workers who had been lost in the First World War. It was was unveiled on 3rd December 1921. But why am I telling you about this memorial rather than our own?

Well, Lord Leverhulme decided that the unveiling of the memorial should be carried out, not by a famous person or even by himself, but by employees who had served in the war. A vote of all the Lever ex-servicemen was held, and those chosen were Private Robert Cruickshank who had been awarded the Victoria Cross and Sergeant George Eames, who had been blinded at the battle of the Somme. George Eames was also my great, great uncle.

I never knew George or his branch of our family, but by a little bit of Googling I found out some facts about him. Not only was he blinded at the Somme, but his left arm was wounded making it 'virtually useless'. In August 1916 George went to St. Dunstan’s Lodge for Blinded Soldiers where he learned typewriting, braille and poultry farming. However, George decided to pursue singing and went on to be incredibly popular and became well-known as ‘the blind baritone’ or 'the soldier baritone', even appearing on postcards.

Amazingly, I also found a Pathé newsreel showing George unveiling the War Memorial.

 

Finding out all of this about George, and also seeing him on film gave me some sense of connection with him, but he is still not much more than a name carved on a piece of stone. And the same might be true of the names we heard read this morning. When the Cubs came in last Thursday to think about Remembrance we looked at the names and thought about the families who lost loved ones. We also found one of them, Charles Hogg, in the baptism register and thought about the fact that he would have been baptised in that font over there, as had some of the Cubs, and I suspect many of you here today. But although we can find out interesting facts about people who died in the wars, and we can make connections with them because we are related to them, or live in the same place, or were baptised or married here in the same church - they can still be little more than names carved on stone.

And that is quite a sobering thought. We often say when someone has died that they live on in our memories, but as we look at the names on the memorial, there are few people left, if any, who would have known those men. They've become figures from history, known only through pictures and writings, just the same as Henry VIII or Cleopatra.

Our first reading from Psalm 103 puts this thought poetically but profoundly: God remembers that we are mere dust, our life is like grass – we flourish like flowers but like them we wither and our place remembers us no more. We like to think that we are so important, but even in an age of social media there will be little trace of us in two hundred years or so. But this doesn't mean that our lives are meaningless nor that we are worthless. Because even though our bodies will decay and the people who remember us will also eventually die, Jesus reminds us in our second reading that we are much more valuable than the flowers and grass that wither and die, we are more valuable than the birds and animals, and despite the very valid concerns about environmental damage, we are more valuable than the earth itself.

We are more valuable because we are loved by God our Heavenly Father, and he formed us, he knows us, he forgives us, he loves us and he remembers us from everlasting to everlasting. As we seek to bring his kingdom here on earth we will find that he gives us the things we need so that we no longer need to argue and fight over things. As we respect his authority over us we will find that as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for us. As we turn to him to say sorry for the things we continue to do wrong, we will find that he forgives us and he has taken our sins from us as far as the east is from the west.

As we accept him as our Heavenly Father, it doesn't matter that one day we will be names in books; historical figures known only through pictures and words. It won't matter because we will have eternal life, and we will be known and loved by God. Our names will be engraved on his hands (Isaiah 49:16), they will be written on his heart.

Eternity calling

Here is my November magazine article:

Containing both All Saints Day and Remembrance Sunday, and with the signs of winter all around, November is traditionally a month when we remember those who have died. This year we not only have the 'usual' deaths, but we also continue to mourn those lost through the pandemic and there have also been notable 'high profile' deaths, such as Gerry Marsden, Una Stubbs, Prince Philip and Capt. Sir Tom Moore.

There is often a public outpouring of sorrow at these deaths, even though the majority of the people who express their sadness have never actually met the person in question. And along with the commiserations, there are often assertions about where they are now, which, except in a few cases, is usually heaven. When Prince Philip died there were photo-shopped pictures of him being welcomed at the pearly gates by Capt. Tom Moore, and when musicians die there are often suggestions of a super-group in heaven featuring Elvis, Buddy Holly and Jimi Hendrix. Why do we do this?

The primary reason is, as the Bible tells us, that God has “set eternity in the human heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). No matter how hard we try, we cannot fully get away from the sense that there is more to life than the material world we see. Even at 'secular' and 'humanist' funerals the celebrant often talks in terms of the deceased person going on the next stage of their journey, or now being with previously deceased loved ones. We have an inbuilt repulsion to the idea that we will just cease to be when we die. And the 'eternity' that is placed in our hearts is that of the 'new heavens and the new earth' where there “will be no more death, or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

However, this sense of eternity should not be taken as all-inclusive promise but as an invitation. It is firstly an invitation to think seriously about this life. The writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us that “All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not” (9:2) meaning everyone dies. And he recognises that “There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: the righteous who get what the wicked deserve, and the wicked who get what the righteous deserve” (8:14). If there is nothing after death, there is no justice and there is no reason to be good at all. And secondly it is an invitation to do what is necessary to gain that eternity, that is to come to Jesus: “Whoever believes [i.e. trusts] in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life ” (John 3:36).

We should not be so bold as to claim to know eternal destiny of individuals no matter how good or how 'saintly' their lives were. Investigations into child sexual abuse remind us that some people look good but do evil whereas the penitent thief (Luke 23:39-43) reminds us that at the last minute even the vilest offender can receive forgiveness and eternal life. God has placed eternity in your heart and invites you to know that eternity through repentance and faith in Jesus.

Is there anybody out there...?

Here's my October magazine article:

I love showing people around the church and talking to them about its history and also what's going on in the present. One of the most common questions from adults as well as children is: “Are there ghosts here?” - an understandable question given the graves that surround the church and probability of people also buried inside the church. But it's not an easy question to answer, at least not in a brief way.

This is because we need to be clear what is meant by the word 'ghost'. It is true that there is a 'spiritual dimension' to the universe in which spiritual beings exist. These beings are either good or evil; they are either obedient to God or they are in rebellion against him (Ephesians 6:12). These spiritual beings can manifest themselves in the world, and we often refer to them by the general terms 'angels' and 'demons' (for more on angels, read the Advent 2019 reflections on this blog). The difficulty comes because evil spiritual beings don't mind lying – they will masquerade as good angels (2 Corinthians 11:14) or even as deceased people.

The term 'ghost' usually refers to the 'souls' or 'spirits' of people who have died, which can appear and even communicate with those who are still living. Thus they are thought to be human rather than spiritual in origin (this is further confused by the common but incorrect view that we become angels when we die). However, there is no such 'limbo' state: “people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). Jesus tells us (Matthew 25:31-46) that judgment leads either to an eternity in the presence of God or an eternity cut off from God's presence (which therefore cannot be in the world as God is present in the world). And Jesus' physical resurrection from the dead teaches us that our resurrection will also be physical – he even told his disciples “I am not a ghost!” (Luke 24:39). Humans are 'embodied souls' and 'ensouled bodies' (Genesis 2:7) - the two cannot be separated, that is why Paul teaches that at our resurrection we will receive immortal bodies (1 Corinthians 15:53).

So do ghosts exist? If you mean 'do the spirits of dead people hang around in the world?' then the answer is no. Some might point to mediums who have told them things that were only known by themselves and the loved one as proof that this is indeed the spirit of the dead person communicating. It may be true that no human could know those things but as these beings are supernatural, they have knowledge that humans don't. The medium may indeed be communicating with spiritual beings, but these beings are impersonating humans and must therefore be evil, as God has forbids us from trying to contact the dead (e.g. Leviticus 19:31, Deuteronomy 18:9-12).

Halloween is a time when evil spiritual beings are trivialised and rational people will claim to have seen ghosts or communicated with dead loved ones. There is only one person who has spoken to us after their death, the physically resurrected Jesus, and one of his messages to us is “stop doubting and believe” (John 20:27).

Harvest or hubris?

Here's my magazine article for September:




What do Superman, the Addams Family and 'Wir pflügen' all have in common? Answer: they are all tunes that my family uses to sing a 'grace' before a meal. 'Wir pflügen' is better known as the tune to 'We plough the fields and scatter' but you'll have to ask me the lyrics to the other two next time you see me!

As things slowly start to return to normal, so does the regular cycle of special services, the first major one being Harvest. Despite living in a rural area surrounded by people whose living depends on farming, we, like our more urban neighbours, have largely lost a sense of how dependant we are on the natural processes of food production, and in particular on the importance of the harvest. So a bad harvest will affect the livelihood of agricultural workers but rarely affects consumers. I would guess it is also fairly rare for people to start their meals with a 'grace' – thanking God for the food they are about to eat and those who had any part in producing it.

This can lead to an unconscious hubris that we as humans are no longer subject to the vagaries of nature; that we can control nature to produce what we want, whenever we want it.  This arrogance also extends beyond food to everything we have – we have gained or earned it and it is ours to do with as we please. Perhaps this is why natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes shock us so much – they remind us that the natural world is actually beyond our control. 

So the dwindling importance of harvest celebrations may not be just because we've lost the connection between what we eat and how it is produced, but because harvest itself is a reminder that we are not in control, that we are dependant upon God's provision through nature. Harvest is an affront to humanity's sense of self-sufficiency.

But harvest is also a reminder of God's generosity to us: he didn't have to create us, but he did; he didn't have to give us a world with all its variety for us to enjoy, but he did; he didn't have to send his Son to die so we could be forgiven, but he did. Our response should be thanksgiving but also a desire to be generous as God is generous. One of the prayers we use in church when we receive the collection is “everything in heaven and on earth is yours. All things come from you, and of your own do we give you.” We need to go along a journey that starts with ‘how much of my money do I give away?’ to ‘how much of God’s money do I keep?’

It’s not an easy or straightforward journey – but this harvest is a good time to start.