Change and Stability - Brother and Sister?

 

Talk given at LunchBreak on Tuesday 8th February 2022

70 years is a long time and a BBC programme on Sunday evening, one of many I guess that will help us celebrate the Platinum Jubilee, charted the social changes that have occurred in our society over these past seven decades. 

With the inevitable help of a sprinkling of celebrities the programme recalled the Queen’s first PM was Winston Churchill, that the rationing of the early 1950’s seemed even more severe than that of the war years, that opportunities for women were now unrecognisable compared to 1952 and that the World Wide Web seems to have changed everything with Sir David Attenborough making the dry observation that ‘nowadays people spend more time talking to their phone than to one another’.

Perhaps the TV programme was a little bland as the general conclusion was that so much was now much better than it was at last century’s half way point.  I suspect we’d need more than just celebrities to have a true and in depth evaluation.  And, after all, there is no need to be Pollyanna-ish about change.  It isn’t inevitably positive.  Indeed Princess Anne was asked a couple of years ago if she thought the Queen was an optimist about the future and she replied, quite honestly, ‘probably not’!  I suspect a long life gives a more balanced and nuianced perspective.

The other year I was given a 1957 copy of The Radio Times for a Christmas present.  That’s because it had a piece by one of my heroes, Alistair Cooke, about the 500^th episode of his radio talk Letter from America.  It makes for fascinating reading!  There is a page of TV listings, and I noted that programmes didn’t even start until 3pm and concluded around 11.30pm with an Epilogue and the National Anthem!  Many more pages were devoted to the radio – the wireless – listing the Home Service, The Light Programme and the Third Programme.  I looked up the Sunday schedule and found that across the network there were no less than five church services broadcast every Sunday – now it’s just Songs of Praise after lunch!  Other things have changed too, such as Women’s Hour being in the afternoon and Listen with Mother broadcast around mid-day.

I was struck by Lulu’s words in Sunday night’s programme, she rather affectionately said of the Queen: I can honestly say she’s been the one constant in my life.

I suspect that change and stability are brother and sister and need each other.  You can accept change much better if there is stability at the core of your life.  And stability fossilises unless it adapts and changes when greeting life’s new phases.

You can always take lines from hymns out of context, so let me be a bit naughty and do that now.  There’s one such line that runs: for nothing changes here. And sometimes that’s what people say about some churches, and I suppose it’s true.  It’s sad to see a congregation dwindle because it no longer feels relevant to people who might otherwise have joined it.  It’s equally sad to see a church ‘implode’ as a result of too much aggressive change.

I sense that we love the idea of the stability and faithfulness that comes into our lives through a belief in God.  To have a faith that believes God is always present, always trust worthy, always loving, and always ‘for’ us, can bring us comfort and confidence in our ever changing and challenging lives.  Prayer, worship and faith ground us and offer a great foundation.

So, here’s to the next 70 years with a prayer that change and stability will continue to walk hand in hand.