What to blog about?

There are weeks when I struggle to find a theme for this blog but maybe this week isn’t one of them.


I could have focused on St George as this is his day – a patron saint with whom the majority of us feel absolutely no connection at all!  Or maybe even the fact that it is Shakespeare’s birthday – he was born 450 years ago in 1564 and we do know he was baptised on 6^th April that year (it was common to baptise your child in those days the very first Sunday after the birth) – but like pretty much all that we know of Shakespeare’s life the idea that he was born on April 23^rd is a little spurious. I was fascinated to read recently that we only have six actual examples of Shakespeare’s signature and on each occasion he spells his name differently and never the way we form it today!


Or maybe I could have made a comment on the strange ‘mumblings’ that seem to be characterising the current BBC TV drama adaptation of Jamaica Inn resulting in over two million people declining to go back and watch episode two on Tuesday. I wonder if Uncle Joss will improve his Cornish diction this evening?!

Of course the subject I should be talking about is the firing of David Moyes from Manchester United.  Was this an unjustified and premature act on the part of a panicking Board or a sensible move that however hard had to be done?  Alas, as I’ve watched less than ten games of football in my whole life I really am not the one to pass any comment on this managerial hiccup what so ever.

Perhaps I’m a little more qualified when it comes to the debate stirred up by The Prime Minister last week as he referred to the UK as a ‘Christian Country’.  This has provoked a backlash from fifty academic and playwright types who collectively penned a letter to a national newspaper on Monday objecting to Mr Cameron’s remarks – one even went as far as saying he thought Christianity was such a negative and divisive factor in society that he viewed us as positively dangerous in a pluralist society. 

Such debate, using meaningless ‘broad brushstroke’ language, always depresses me.  For on the one hand I have some sympathy with the letter writers because although we have a Christian ‘tradition’ in Britain that isn’t actually reflected in the number of ‘practising’ Christians in the churches on a Sunday – standing as it does these days at around 5% of the total population.  Yet to talk of the faith that has nurtured and sustained me as ‘dangerous’ is equally preposterous.  Those of us inside the Church are aware that we have been ‘imperial’ in the past and that some factions today still pedal a hard ‘fundamentalist’ position which thinks in terms of ‘them and us’.  But the Christianity that has formed me and sustains me still is – I dare to hope – generous, open hearted, liberal (in the best sense of the word) and strives to be understanding and loving.  But – I didn’t intend to go on about this topic either!!


Instead what I really wanted to say in this blog was how grateful I was last weekend – as, like all preachers, I faced the challenge of being in the pulpit on yet another Easter Sunday – for the wonderful prayer/reflection that a ministerial colleague sent around by email to some of us.  I’ve printed it out below because I thought it was so encouraging and perceptive – well, it did me a lot of good anyway!  So here it is – and I hope, even if you’re not a preacher, that it will ring a few bells for you as well:

A prayer for pastors on Easter

Dear Lord, I pray for all the pastors today
Who will feel enormous pressure to have their sermon
Match the greatness of the subject
and will surely feel they have failed.
(I pray even more for those who think they have succeeded.)

Help them to know that it is enough
Simply and faithfully to tell the story
Of women in dawn hush ...
Of men running half-believing ...
Of rolled stones and folded grave-clothes ...
Of a supposed gardener saying the name of a crying woman ...
Of sad walkers encountering a stranger on the road home ...
Of an empty tomb and overflowing hearts.

Give them the wisdom to know that sincere humility and awe
Surpass all homiletic flourish

On this day of mysterious hope beyond all words.

Make them less conscious of their responsibility to preach,
And more confident of the Risen Christ
Who presence trumps all efforts to proclaim it.

Considering all the Easter choirs who will sing beautifully, and those who won't,
And all the Easter prayers that will soar in faith, and those that will stumble and flounder,
And all the Easter attendance numbers and offering numbers that will exceed expectations
And those that will disappoint ... 
I pray they all will be surpassed by the simple joy
Of women and men standing in the presence of women and men,
Daring to proclaim and echo the good news:
Risen indeed! Alleluia!

For death is not the last word.
Violence is not the last word.
Hate is not the last word.
Money is not the last word.
Intimidation is not the last word.
Political power is not the last word.
Condemnation is not the last word.
Betrayal and failure are not the last word.
No: each of them are left like rags in a tomb,
And from that tomb,
Arises Christ,
Alive.

Help the preachers feel it,
And if they don't feel it, help them
Preach it anyway, allowing themselves
To be the receivers as well as the bearers of the Easter
News.
Alleluia!

I think that’s great!


With best wishes,


Ian