View from the Pew week

Once a month, at the moment, I'm having a 'Sabbatical Sunday', visiting other churches and then writing it up on the 'sister' website to this.

Last Sunday we visited Methodist Central Hall, Westminster - read the blog at:

https://viewfromthepewsabbatical.blogspot.com/

Slow Epiphany

Over Christmas and New Year I enjoyed reading Trollop’s The Warden. A tale of the ‘goings on’ in the early Victorian Cathedral city of Barchester.  A young ‘reformer’ is keen that the allowances made under the provision of Hiram’s Will should be reallocated so that the alms house Warden receives considerably less and the ‘inmates’ considerably more.  The book is full of ecclesiastical intrigue that I find unnervingly familiar!

At one point the rather ardent reformer has a change of heart and tries, unsuccessfully, to convince the editor of a national newspaper that he should no longer support the campaign.  On his way back home the now reluctant reformer passes a bookseller’s window and sees a new, thin book on display, one authored by a renowned and revered national commentator and thinker.  He laments that the really ‘big’ issues of the day were once discussed in big books.  Yet now, with people more impatient and not prepared to read as much, such issues are discussed in much smaller books.

Roll the tape forward and we might say it went as follows: bigger books, smaller books, pamphlets, newspapers articles and, in our own day, ‘soundbites’. I even heard it said on Radio 4 the other day that unless a politician can sum up their message in something no longer than a ten word sentence they might as well shut up shop!  Commentators tell us the recent General Election was won on just three words: Get Brexit done!  Our friend from Barchester would  have been horrified at how our attention spans have shrunk in the last hundred and fifty years.

In terms of faith and belief perhaps the Bible has played its part in promoting moments when an epiphany (revelation) dawns without too much detail or debate.  Moses had such moments at the Burning Bush and on Mount Sinai, as did Paul on the road to Damascus.

Yet such instant Epiphanies don’t seem to be the norm for most of us.  I suspect we, usually, experience much slower ones.

Faith comes with doubts, questions, longings and false starts, yet none of these invalidate the journey, indeed they probably deepen it.

When I say The Creed at Evensong (normally when visiting a Cathedral) I sense it contains a series of ‘soundbites’ stitched together.  Facing East I join with others in affirming a belief in, amongst other things: the Virgin Birth, the Holy Catholic Church and the idea that in between his death and resurrection Jesus descended into hell.  Without pausing we move from one big theme to another, each worthy of a book in Barchester!

I confess I’m tired of the ‘soundbite’.

When it comes to faith I suspect I believe the deepest Epiphanies come not on the road to Damascus, but sitting on a camel, travelling for months, if not years over moor and mountain slowly, yet purposely, following the light of yonder star.

‘Slow Epiphany’ – in my view it’s the best way to travel in faith.

Honouring and Protecting Truth

January 6^th, the twelfth day of Christmas, and it’s last, is also Epiphany.  For a final moment, that links us with the old year, we gather once more around the manger.

The Wise Men were ‘Magi’, which means we actually don’t know too much about them or who they really were.  Theirs’s seems to be a myth narrative all about ‘Seekers after Truth’ who were prepared to travel many miles to honour and worship a ‘King’ like embodiment of the Wisdom of the Ages and the Hope for the Future.

Going to a palace to find such a leader was perhaps understandable and fitted in with the much tried and, yet, much failed ‘paradigms’ that filled the past chapters of history.

Of course, the point of the story is that such an old way of thinking, with leadership solely defined by a sense of power and single-nation identity, is flawed and fruitless.  The Wise Men talk to Herod, a puppet King, and find in him the epitome of monarchical insecurity, madly jealous of anyone who might be more popular than him.

Nevertheless, these Wise Men had become Herod’s temporary friends and confidants.  They accepted his hospitality, and by involving him in their quest they had inadvertently formed a poisonous alliance with a megalomaniac.

This was a potential moment of compromise for our Wise Men, who seemed to have taken their eyes off the star.  Their challenge now was to cast off Herod’s grasp and regain once more their independence.

They called him Herod the Fox for a reason.  He wanted to ensnare the Wise Men by seemingly being in favour, if not supportive, of their mission.  Asking that they call by again on their way home and tell him where they had found Jesus.  It was a cunning plan!

Instead our travellers from the East find the baby, offer their gifts in worship, and return home by another route, deliberately keeping Herod in the dark and thus protecting the Infant King.

The wise Men of Epiphany meet truth, honour truth and protect truth.

There will be many calls upon us in 2020, may we, as Seekers after Truth, value and protect truth wherever we find it in this New Year.

Presents and Presence

When is it the right time to exchange gifts at Christmas?

The answer to that Yuletide conundrum might be influenced by where you are at this time of year.

For example, in the Netherlands our Dutch friends will already have unwrapped a present or two on St Nicolas’ Day Eve, 5^th December, when Sinterklaas brings gifts for children.

However, travel up to Scandinavia and we might find the exchange of presents in Estonia, Finland and Denmark all taking place on Christmas Eve rather than our norm of Christmas Day.

Further south, in Spain, where my brother lives up in the Andalusian mountains, and he tells me that in his village it’s January 6^th when people get their presents, Epiphany Day, remembering the gifts of gold, frankincense and myhhr offered by the wise men.

In Louisa Alcott’s classic: Little Women, the book starts off like this:  Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents.  Well, of course, you could have Christmas without them, and perhaps many do, but the book has a point in that the very essence of this Christian festival recalls at its centre the gift of God to the world of Jesus.

The bible describes God in terms of generosity.  His present to us at Christmas is the presence of Jesus – whose birth, life and death shows us what God’s love looks like in a human life.

The gift of God’s presence with us is something to celebrate not just on December 5^th, 24^th, 25^th or January 6^th, but every day.

The gift of God’s presence with us brings love and light into our lives.

We recently received a family wedding invitation, on it my niece made it clear that what she’d value on the day is our presence rather than a present.  Of course, she and her husband to be will willingly be offered both, but it’s a lovely thought – the best present is often our presence.

Just as God shares his love with us in the presence of Jesus – so we are then called to share love, kindness and generosity of spirit with each other in our presence to and with them.

So, this Christmas let’s give thanks for the presence of love and light in our world – found in God, made real in Jesus and encountered too in the companionship of those around us.

Whenever you open your presents this year, may the presence of love be for you the best gift you both give and receive.
Blog holiday now for a couple of weeks!

Election Day

Later this evening I’m off to Amersham Common Village Hall to vote in the first December election since 1923!  I’ll probably not wait up to hear the result, due in the early hours of tomorrow morning.

I did attend a local Hustings, organised by the churches of Amersham on the Hill, last Saturday.  Many ‘activists’ from the community attended and although the four candidates all spoke with mutual respect the same, alas, could not be said of the audience.  The tone of many of the questions and the reactions of the majority to the answers offered by the platform party bordered on ‘thug-ish’.  I was deeply disappointed as I left to think that the democratic ‘process’ had sunk to such a low level.

I’m reminded on a day such as this of the efforts of the minister of Westbourne Park Baptist Church, Paddington, at the turn of the 20^th century.  The Revd John Clifford was also an activist and unashamedly put his support behind the Liberal governments of Asquith and Lloyd George.  In the early 1900’s most non-conformists would have automatically voted Liberal even as most Anglicans would have Tory!

Every week the Baptist Times used to carry a front-page article outlining the activities of Parliament as chronicled by a Baptist MP – amazing to think that the Free Church Grouping of MPs in the Commons in those days numbered just under a hundred!

The Revd Dr John Clifford really did believe that the social reforms of Lloyd George, including the introduction of the Old Age Pension in 1907, were evidence of the manifestation of the Kingdom of God.

A hundred years on and the world seems a much more complex place – and I, for one, would never feel comfortable bringing party politics into a sermon, let alone declare publicly in church my position on Brexit!

My prayer today is that those elected tonight will be able to sit in the Commons from Tuesday onwards and ‘collectively’ work together for the good of the country in these difficult days.

Alas, gone are the days when my predecessors would instinctively and automatically have voted for Lloyd George for no other reason than that his background of growing up was that of being a Welsh Baptist!

Ian

View from the Pew

I've started a Sabbatical Project entitled View from the Pew.  Once a month, for about a year, I'll be writing a blog on another site and it can be accessed from a separate blogspot with the following address:

https://viewfromthepewsabbatical.blogspot.com/

Jane Austen's Table

En route to a family gathering with my brothers in Southampton last Saturday, we stopped off at Chawton, near Winchester, and visited the museum which was once the home of one of England’s most loved novelists, Jane Austen.

The place has an atmosphere for it was here, in a settled and stable phase of her life that Jane Austen wrote the majority of her works; for a time averaging one book a year!

Her writing table caught my eye.  It was pushed up against the dining room window so she could catch the light and it was so small!  Not for her a massive desk strewn with rough copy manuscripts.  Instead this shy and tidy author was able to work in a confined place and from such simplicity grew enchanted plots and narratives about family life, love, village life and, of course, money!

I suppose the truth is that Jane Austen’s drive and creativity came from within, so all she needed was pen and ink, paper and this small table.  The results were literary masterpieces that have thrilled readers for generations.

The human spirit, which I believe reflects God’s, is wonderfully resilient and at times flourishes in humble, limited and simple circumstances.  So much of our best comes from within and is not dependant on wealth, luxury or the last ‘must have’ gadgets.

And that means the greatest novels can be written at the smallest tables.