Gardening and life

Here is my article from the August parish magazine:

If you've seen the garden at the Vicarage you'll know that I'm not a particularly good or industrious gardener. However, to misuse a quote from the Bible “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”! (The original quote is about falling into temptation, see Matthew 26:38). In my head, I have lots of ideas of things I'll do with the garden but a short supply of time and inclination means that that is as far as my ideas go! I can just about keep on top of the lawns and even occasionally attempt to plant something!

Having said that I do listen to Gardener's Question Time on Radio 4 whenever I can, even if I don't always understand what they're talking about! As well as answering questions from the audience and listeners, each week the gardening experts give their 'topical tips' on things keen and not-so-keen gardeners should be doing that week. These tips often include things like pruning and planting or even preparation for future work but one year, around this time I heard a different topical tip. The expert advised the listeners to get a chair and a drink, sit down in the garden and enjoy it! They were suggesting that it was too easy to be so engrossed in 'doing the gardening' that people forget why the garden is there in the first place- to enjoy!

Of course, this is true not just of gardening but of life in general. We can often be so busy running around doing all the things we do that we don't stop to question why we are doing them or indeed to enjoy the fruits of our labour. We find it hard to slow down, to reflect and to reconnect with the world and the people around us.

That's why rest, holidays and 'downtime' are so important, in fact they're so important that God made them part of his guidelines for life. One of the Ten Commandments instructs a Sabbath day of rest each week, and every seventh year was to be a Sabbath year where the Israelites were not to sow or prune (Leviticus 25:1-7) so presumably GQT was also off-air for a year! But God didn't just want people to rest from work, he wanted them to enjoy life. So in Deuteronomy 24:5 he says that “If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married.” And in Psalm 128:2 those who love and obey God are promised that they will eat the fruit of their labour, and Jesus himself promises that those who are saved by him will have live, and have it to the full (John 10:10).

So my topical tip at this time is to look at the world and the people around you, thank God for them and make the time to enjoy them!!

Nongentiquinquagintal-istic celebration focus (even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious!)

Here's my July magazine article for Broughton:

We're now well into our celebrations for our 950^th Anniversary, although we haven't yet decided whether we should call it our Nonsemicentennial or Nongentiquinquagintal; perhaps we'll just stick with 950^th Anniversary! We started the year with our Anniversary Songs of Praise, our Sunday School wrote a special prayer for the year, we celebrated Broughton weddings, we had our friends from Regia Anglorum set up their Anglo-Saxon Living History camp around the church and Broughton Primary School have made two fantastic banners to commemorate the year. This month is our Anniversary weekend, with a Summer Fair on Saturday 16^th July and our Service of Thanksgiving on Sunday 17^th July, both of which you're all invited to join us at. And there'll be more events later in the year.

Broughton Primary School's production this year is Mary Poppins, the well known story of a Victorian nanny with magical powers and the adventures she has with the Banks family. One of the most moving themes of the story is Mr Banks gradually realising that there is more to life than work. The tuppence that he wanted his children to invest in the economy and industry in order to drive forward the technological revolution and create wealth, could also be spent on feeding the birds or on paper and string to make a kite. More importantly he realised that his obsession with work had meant that he'd neglected his family. His reconnection with his wife and his children seems to be the reason Mary Poppins comes.

When Regia came in May, as well as looking at the fantastic camp many people spent time wandering around inside the church. For some it was the first time they'd been in the church, others had been in occasionally for services but had never really looked around. One of the best things I heard during that weekend was the amount of people who felt reconnected to the church, they found a new sense of pride in the building and I think many of them began to see it for the first time as being 'their' church. This was a theme that Bishop David and I picked up on at the unveiling of the banners at school; the reason we asked the school to make the banners was because St Mary's as the parish church is their church and now, through the pieces that each of them contributed to the banners, they have become part of the church too. In the future people looking around the church will see the children and staff's handiwork.

But St Mary's exists in the first place to point to a greater reconnection. The Christian message that St Mary's was built to celebrate and proclaim is that even though our sin separates us from God, Jesus died so that those sins could be forgiven and we could reconnect with God. Our fathers, like Mr Banks, are not perfect, but our heavenly Father God loves us more than we can imagine and longs for us to reconnect with him. Maybe this is the year for you to do just that.

The EU and the CofE

Here's my magazine article for June:

On Thursday 23^rd June, voters will be able to have their say over the future of the UK's relationship with the EU. This will be, and indeed is already being, preceded by lots of comments from religious leaders about the issues, followed by lots of criticisms of religion 'meddling' in politics.

Those who don't approve of religious leaders speaking out on political issues (although they tend only to disapprove if the religious leader holds an opposite opinion!) often make two mistakes. Firstly they assume that faith and politics are separate; that one's faith is a private matter whereas politics is about public issues and never the twain should meet. This is a false division as any faith worth its salt has an outward dimension and has a view about how humans should interact. Indeed, Jesus taught us to ask our heavenly Father “thy kingdom come” and Jesus himself was executed because he represented a threat to the political and religious authorities of his day. The second mistake that is made is to think that a discussion about politics can be held in a neutral, value-free, completely 'rational' environment. We all have a world-view that shapes our thinking about society: for a lot of people that world-view is influenced by their religious beliefs for others it is influenced by their secular beliefs.

So I offer my ha'p'orth on the referendum, two reflections both based on the experience of the Church of England, but on different sides of the argument. Firstly, one of the founding principles of the Church of England was that it was not subject to Rome. Henry VIII reasoned that as he was appointed by God, he was answerable only to God, and therefore that he, not the Pope, was the head of the English church. As the Church of England spread around the world, this principle went with it, so that each national church had the authority to decide matters for themselves without looking to England. Therefore, all the churches of what is now the Anglican Communion have different liturgies and different views on certain issues. Thus the principle of each nation being in supreme control of its own area is central to the history of the Church of England.

On the other hand, the Church of England makes no grand claims for itself, it simply states that it is “part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.” It doesn't claim to be the true Church, or the Church in its entirety but just a part of the Church. There's a recognition that it is part of a larger whole and so that it is dependant on, and in partnership with, the rest of the Church

These two reflections show that it is possible for a Christian to be on either side of the debate, and indeed www.reimaginingeurope.co.uk is “a space for Christian reflection and debate on Britain’s future relationship with Europe” with views on both sides. However you decide to vote, and whatever the result, the Christian prayer to God remains the same “thy kingdom come on earth, as it is in heaven.”

Non angeli, sed sancti

Here's my article for the May magazines:

The first day of May is often said to be the first day of spring, where the blustery April showers are left behind in favour of fresh spring breezes. Spring, like Easter brings with it thoughts of new life. May is also the month when the church remembers St Augustine of Canterbury, a missionary who came to the British Isles in 569 AD to help spread the message about Jesus, and subsequently became the first Archbishop of Canterbury. Both these events have been in my mind in the last couple of weeks and have linked together.

Although Christianity was practised in Britain before he came, Augustine brought a new vigour to the task of spreading the gospel. He was sent by Pope Gregory the Great, who according to Bede, saw some British slaves in a Roman market and on seeing their pale faces and blond hair asked who they were. He was told they were Angles, to which he responded “non Angli, sed angeli” - not Angles but angels! It was this that inspired him with a desire to send a mission to the Angles.

The new life of spring echoed a new chapter in my family's life as we anticipated the birth of twins in September. Unfortunately there was a complication with the pregnancy and, despite an operation, both twins died at 18 weeks gestation. But the expectation of new life was fulfilled in a more complete way than we imagined as James and Jacob, as we named them, entered the new life that is a central part of our Christian belief. “For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him...And so we will be with the Lord forever” (1 Thessalonian 4:14, 17b).

We have received many messages of support and prayers, for which we are most grateful. However there's one message that we occasionally hear which strikes an odd chord, and that is words to the effect that James and Jacob died because God needs more angels. This springs from a folk belief that when people die, and especially babies, they become angels. My thought on hearing this said to me was a version of of Gregory's aphorism: “non angeli, sed sancti” - not angels but saints! James and Jacob, like all human beings, are made in the image and likeness of God. The angels are God's servants but through faith in Jesus humans can become his children and his children are saints.

The comments about our 'angel babies' are well-intentioned, and we are grateful for the love that inspires them, but there is surely a greater comfort in the truth that they are saints; they have the eternal life with God that we also can receive by faith in Jesus. Whereas it is almost impossible to know for certain whether or not someone who has died will have eternal life, babies who die will, in God's mercy, inherit eternal life. So if you have lost a baby in whatever way, either before or after birth, take comfort in the truth that they are not angels, but saints.

[see also my Advent blogposts on The Four Last Things: death, judgement, heaven and hell]

The Servant Queen and the King she serves

On 21^st April, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will be 90 years old. From this date until her official birthday celebrations from 10^th-12^th June, people in this country and around the commonwealth will be organising and participating in a wide range of activities and events. Although the celebrations will be similar to the Diamond Jubilee celebrations of 2012, this occasion gives us the opportunity to look not just at how she has fulfilled the rôle of Queen but to think about her as a person.

Any objective account of the Queen's life would give a prominent place to the rôle of her Christian faith in her life, which is illustrated by the title of a book published by the Bible Society, churches' group HOPE and the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity to mark her birthday. The book is called “The Servant Queen and the King she serves”. Jesus, the King of kings, said that those who wish to be great should be the servant of all. The Queen has embodied this way of being great; she could have revelled in her position and abused it for her own purposes, but instead she sees it as her duty to serve the people the God had made her monarch of. In the Book of Common Prayer Communion service we pray that the monarch, knowing whose minister they are, may above all things seek God's honour and glory, and the Queen is an example of just that.

In her 2014 Christmas broadcast the Queen said “For me, the life of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, whose birth we celebrate today, is an inspiration and an anchor in my life. A rôle-model of reconciliation and forgiveness, he stretched out his hands in love, acceptance and healing. Christ’s example has taught me to seek to respect and value all people of whatever faith or none.” In her 2002 Christmas broadcast the Queen said “I know just how much I rely on my faith to guide me through the good times and the bad. Each day is a new beginning. I know that the only way to live my life is to try to do what is right, to take the long view, to give of my best in all that the day brings, and to put my trust in God … I draw strength from the message of hope in the Christian gospel.”

The message of hope in the Christian gospel is that we are more sinful than we ever imagined, but more loved than we ever dreamed. So even though we mess things up God still loves us and will forgive us and help us to change if we ask him. In the foreword to the book, the Queen writes “I have been – and remain – very grateful to you for your prayers and to God for his steadfast love. I have indeed seen his faithfulness.” Perhaps you need an anchor in your life or freedom from past mistakes and the chance to start again. The Queen has found these in the King she serves, Jesus Christ, and the Christian gospel; I pray that you will too.

The importance of dating Easter

Here's my article for the March magazines:

“When's Easter this year?” is a question I often get asked (Sunday 27^th March in case you're wondering!). The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is in talks with the leaders of other churches to try to fix the date of Easter, but until then it will vary considerably year after year. This is because Easter is the original 'moveable feast', with the Council of Nicea in 325AD deciding that Easter would be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring on or after 21^st March (the Church's approximation of the vernal equinox). This means that Easter can be quite disruptive, especially to the school calendar where the length of the school terms are affected by the date of Easter.

But all this is quite appropriate because Easter, like the Christian faith, is supposed to be disruptive. At the beginning of February we celebrate the time when, as a forty day old baby, Jesus was taken to the Temple in Jerusalem by his parents and dedicated to God. They were met there by Simeon who, full of the Holy Spirit, declared that Jesus would cause the falling and rising of many and would be “a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed” (Luke 2:34-35). Right from the start it was clear that Jesus' work would be disruptive, most of all by shaking the establishment out of their cosy religious traditions by exposing their hypocrisy of saying they believed in God but not letting it affect their lives. Jesus' message was also disruptive because he said that God loves everyone and that all are of equal value in his sight.

But Easter is most disruptive of all as it marks the beginning of a whole new reality. By rising from the dead Jesus defeated the power of death and opened the way to everlasting life and so the old order of life and death is disrupted. No longer can we live with the philosophy of 'eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die' because our death is not the end. If death were the end then life itself would be pointless so we might as well make the most of it, but this too would ultimately be meaningless. Richard Dawkins says in his book 'River out of Eden: A Darwinian view of life', "In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice”. But Jesus' death and resurrection have changed everything and have disrupted our cosy worldview.

And that is what Lent is all about – allowing the voice of Jesus to disrupt our assumptions, our innermost thoughts and our lives, and opening ourselves to receive God's love so we can be re-shaped to be more like him. However, this is not a meaningless or self-indulgent exercise because the choices we make in this life will profoundly affect what happens to us after death. But Easter reminds us of Jesus' promise that whoever listens and responds to his voice will have eternal life.

Confessions of a bad football supporter

This is the February article from Scawby magazine:

We're just over half way through the football season and I have been to three matches. That may not seem like very many, but it's about the same as my total for the previous four seasons put together – and unusually two of those matches were to see my team play! I'm a Tranmere Rovers supporter and so since they dropped out of the same league as Scunthorpe, I've had limited opportunity to see them play until this season when they joined the same league as Grimsby and Lincoln.

It's often said that football is a bit like religion. Aside from the tribal nature of supporting teams, the matches themselves share similarities with religious services. Both the players and supporters have match-day rituals, the supporters tend to sit in the same place (and would do so even if they didn't have allocated seats), there is adulation of players past and present and there tends to be a rose-tinted view of 'glory days' in the past, when everything was much better. Then of course there's communal singing and the friendships formed between fellow supporters, and you can probably think of other similarities.

If supporting a football team is similar to being a religious believer, then I am a football supporter in a similar way that a lot of people are believers. The Roman poet Horace described himself as “A remiss and irregular worshipper” (Odes 1.34) and I feel the same about being a Tranmere supporter. If people ask me I'll tell them I support Tranmere, but I don't follow their progress closely, I don't know where they are in the league, and sometimes can't even remember what league they're in. I don't often go to see them play and when I did go to see them play this season I realised I didn't know any of the players and I didn't even know who their manager is! I used to be a season ticket holder and went to most home games and the occasional away match (especially if it was at Wembley!), but even then I wasn't really an avid fan. I'm a Tranmere supporter, but I do very little that would count as 'support' and it hardly ever affects my life.

And a lot of people are the same about Christianity: if asked they would say they are Christians, but aside from occasionally coming to church it hardly ever affects their life. But perhaps worse still are those who come to church most weeks but it still doesn't affect their lives – that's like going to watch Tranmere on a Saturday but wearing a Liverpool shirt for the rest of the week!

Lent is a good time for us all to reassess where our priorities and loyalties really lie. It's a chance for us to explore and deepen our faith, however 'remiss and irregular' we are. It's a chance to reaffirm our identity as Christians and take seriously the need for it to affect our whole lives. Like being a Tranmere supporter, being a Christian isn't always easy and attracts a lot of ridicule, but unlike being a Tranmere supporter the future is certain and it's glorious!

[The motto on the Tranmere crest above means "where there is faith, there is light and strength"]