Happy Christmas. But get real about it . . .

Christmas is a very stressful time . . .

 

Happy Birthday Edith



Today we celebrate various birthdays - including Edith Piaf's.

Edith, short on height (several inches short of five foot) but with an amazing voice, was plucked to fame from the back streets of Paris.

Born during the First World War, she was famed before the Second.  Edith was not noted for her Christian devotion (to the extent that the Catholic Archbishop refused to take her funeral in 1963).  She died at 47 years after a depressingly (literally and metaphorically) familiar story of broken relationships and addictions brought to an early conclusion by a liver that could take no more.

On the plus side, in this famously iconic song Non, je ne regrette rien she hit on the Gospel (admittedly accidentally).

. . . No I regret nothing
It's paid for, wiped away, forgotten . . .
. . . swept away my love stories
And their troubles
Swept away for good
I'll start again from zero . . .

Ah, Edith. 

Your liver was lost but your soul did not need to be.  This is the Christmas joy - Year Zero, a unique opportunity for the human race to start again, no longer in the line of Adam (or the apes - for the benefit of Mr Dawkins) but in the Last Adam, Jesus.  Every life can have no regrets, its debts paid in full, its hope come alive!!

Anyhow, a great 20th Century song, eh?

Except that Piaf's recorded bitter deathbed words (expletives deleted) were something like, "Everything you do in this life, you pay for."

Which seems to show that she was not convinced by the song she made famous.  I suppose the liver drowned out the song.  May God grant us that understanding of the love of God in Jesus that washes away all the regrets in the blood of Jesus. His Son and Mary's Son.
 

Gathering

We used this call to gathering from the Iona Community at Morning Communion.  It touched us.

 Gather us in,

the lost and the lonely,

the broken and breaking,

the tired and the aching

who long for the nourishment

found at your feast

Gather us in

the done and the doubting,

the wishing and wondering,

the puzzled and pondering

who long for the company

found at your feast.

Gather us in

the proud and pretentious,

the sure and superior,

the never inferior,

who long for the levelling

found at your feast.
 

Gather us in

the bright and the bustling,

the stirrers, the shakers,

the kind laughter makers

who long for the deeper joys

found at your feast.

 

Gather us in

from corner or limelight,

from mansion or campsite,

from fears and obsession,

from tears and depression,

from untold excesses,

from treasured successes,

 
Gather us in

to meet, to eat,

be given a seat,

be joined to the vine,

be offered new wine,

become like the least,

be found at the feast. ©

 

The Census

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.

So the Christmas story was enabled by an Imperial Roman census.

The UK Government takes censuses too.  The one taken in 2011 disgorged some of its results just in time for Christmas.  Christian leaders have been hurrying to reassure the world that the results pertaining to the Christian Religion are really not bad at all despite appearances.

 

On TV a Venerable Lady from Norwich decried the statistic that it was the most godless place in Britain by beamingly reporting hundreds of people coming through the cathedral every week.  (In a misplaced cliché she added, "If this is the most godless city I dread to think what is happening in the others".  A sound bite that went a bit wrong I think).

 

A fellow Baptist or two have rejoiced that this indicates 'the end of Christendom'.  This is a little unfortunate as Christendom means something like 'where Christianity prevails' but I think they mean it is good that the country does not think itself Christian when it isn't.

 

You may want to look away now because what follows is going to be long and not pretty.

 

Detail from The Census in Bethlehem - Pieter Bruegel

My view is that these census results are appalling and nationally frightening. I want to love my country but this makes me very, very sad and ashamed to be British.  Yet it makes me even gladder that the grace of God reached me in this increasingly godless mess and has given me hope and a future.  It makes me ever more despairing of the prevalent evangelical idea that if we just change the morning service Tescos will empty and heaven will be filled with Britons.  We wouldn't have to pray, or weep, or do anything too heavy.

 

Rejoice at the end of Christendom? It is hard for me to understand how people that are consciously distancing themselves from the word 'Christian' are more fertile Gospel soil than those who do own the name.  I am not tee-total so I am a nominal drinker of alcohol.  In practice I go through many a year without drinking any alcohol at all.  If I now announce I am tee-total would that make me more likely to become a genuine drinker? 

 

Baptists should be careful of scorning these stats for another reason.  In the same ten years as covered by the census the Baptist Union reported that its total members, young people and children fell by - you've guessed it - 10-11%.  The census is telling our non-Christendom story too.

 

Hundreds visiting the Cathedral in Norwich? This hopeful anecdote seems to me to be a failure to grasp the significance of a fall of four million self-named Christians (11 percentage points) in just one decade.   Four million is half the population of London (or nearly all the population of Scotland).  Four million is way more than a normal national Sunday morning's Church attendance.  Numbers shuffling round a cathedral or dancing at a clappy conference are neither here nor there in comparison to this. 

 

Perhaps, like the Jerusalem temple in Jesus' day, the grand stones of the cathedral gave the Venerable woman a sense of unchanging confidence.  In which case (and before she becomes a bishop) she had better wake up.  59% is a truly amazing statistic.  When was the last time that less than 60% of Britons would have identified themselves as Christians?  We don't know.  But it was certainly well before Norwich Cathedral was built.  Maybe when Augustine began his Gregorian mission in the late 500s Celtic Christianity had not permeated to 60% though it certainly would have done in many localities.  And ever since those mid- to early first millennium days most people on these islands have, rightly or wrongly, said of themselves that they are Christians.   It is hardly an appropriate response to the turning back of a 1500 year identity in just ten years to celebrate hundreds of Cathedral visitors.

 

Thank God that these statistics came out in Advent.

 

I am part of a nation whose numbers shame us and our Redeemer.  I am also, by grace I believe, part of a number that cannot be subjected to a census.  Abraham couldn't do it when he looked up at the stars (Genesis 15:5), John couldn't do it in his heavenly vision (Revelation 7:9).  Even if not one single Briton followed Christ (as was once the case) the Church continues to be built until the Day.  I must not let my nation shape me.  I must pray and work for the glory of Another Country and a greater King.

 

Think of it like this.  Today the traffic in Wycombe was awful.  Roads that I familiarly purr along were clogged with the busyness of Christmastime and heavy rain.  Sometimes progress was OK, often it was very slow, occasionally no progress at all for a minute or two.  But I never went backwards.  And home was in no way diminished by the slowness of the journey.

 

Day by day, the Lord is building his Church to its completion, its homecoming.  It would be wonderful to progress quickly.  It is frustrating, almost despairing, to see progress stall to a halt in my particular district.  But day by day, year on year God fills more places and the Great Homecoming nears.

 

As I often think on my holiday journey to Cornwall in the summer - I'm fed up of this road  - but I'm not going to give up until I get there, because slow progress to vacation in Cornwall is a whole lot better than fast progress round the M25 to nowhere in particular. 

Darkness and Light

Today we had the Annual Service of our local Hospice at Home.

It is a service full of deep emotion. 

[Extracts]
It is fundamental to the human experience that Light and Darkness go together even though they seem to be mutually exclusive.  Good and Evil, Rejoicing and Mourning.  In almost every book and film and sporting event these appear together in some way.

Light and Darkness. Today is so much about this as we reflect on our story and the story of others.  Stories that had dark times.  People looking into our stories from the outside – at least those parts of the story that bring us here today - thought it was one long dark time.  But it was not.  There were lights along the way.

People looking in from the outside to the work of hospice care probably often think it is a very dark area of service. There is no point in pretending that hospice work resembles a character at a Disney Theme Park where every day is light and bright.  It works with a backdrop that is often darker than we would choose if we could choose.  But with that backdrop hospice nursing helps people to paint in the beautiful colours of love a light in the darkness.

The essence of Christmas is similar here in Northern Europe - little lights against the backdrop of darkness.  This was the model that was deemed wholly appropriate to represent the real story of God’s love coming to us in Jesus of Nazareth.

In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

The exceptional quality of this Gospel light is that it can offer something that no other organisation, way of thinking or kind friend can offer . . .  What is the true story?  Does it all end in darkness or does it all end in light?

All the evidence, sadly, points toward it ending in darkness: the edges of the universe, the end of the sun, the experience of life.

And that is what makes Christmas, and the advent of a Saviour, Good News for us all.  Soon after his birth the baby Jesus was presented in the Temple at Jerusalem to a man who was at the end of his life.  The man’s name was Simeon.   Having held the baby he said,

Lord, now you let your servant depart in peace; Your word has been fulfilled.  My eyes have seen the salvation You have prepared in the sight of every people, a light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people, Israel

 The end of the Gospel story is Light . . .

 

 

Eternal God, source of all light and life . . .Further from us you could not be, yet nearer to us you could not have come.  Thank you that light has come into the world, and love, and hope.  As we reflect and remember may we grasp more firmly the Advent of hope and the brightness of future glory . . .Through the love you have shown to us in Christ that is stronger than death 

 

. . . We thank you for the wonderful work the [Hospice staff] do and the special blessings that so many continue to receive from them. We give thanks for their patience, their empathy, their kindness and for the giving of themselves to ease the pain, the fear and the uncertainty of others.

Lord, help them to love their work and to feel that they are really doing your work . . . Grant them sympathy with the frightened and nervous; to never neglect those who are quiet and uncomplaining and to have a steady nerve when difficult things have to be done and tough decisions made.  Give them efficiency; but make them kind. Make them firm; but always understanding too. Bless them with gentleness in their hands and sympathy in their hearts.

In the name of Jesus, the Saviour of the World, Amen

The 64 Million Pound Question

Last night the deadline passed and the Great Prize remained unclaimed.  Someone a few miles East of me missed out on £64 million. 

But there is good news of course.  First, the money will go to good causes which has to be better than the overseas property market and upmarket car dealerships where it would have gone.  Secondly, there must be many very tidy houses in Hertfordshire as a result of corners being swept clean in pursuit of June's imagined lottery receipt.

 

 

One glaringly obvious possibility is that the purchaser is inconveniently dead.  Becoming dead has many disadvantages when it comes to money and an inability to claim lottery prizes is just one of them.

 

Overwhelmingly more likely is another category: a living person who didn't expect to win.  Maybe they bought the ticket on the way to a distant destination and never checked back; maybe they bought so many tickets that week that they cannot remember which tickets they did or not have;  maybe they never check their tickets but just buy them on impulse assuming they will be found if they ever win.

 

In other words, either the person died or their dream died.

 

Somewhat the point of Advent is that, although the wait for God may be very long, it is not snatched away by death.  And that everyone who dreams hope wins. 



 

One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic

All who are part of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ are stirred by the solemn description of the Bride of Christ penned long ago at the early Councils of the Church.

 



 

ONE - the mocker may, with some apparent justification, scorn this idea yet it remains in all our hearts a conviction that there will not be two, three or 3003 churches that meet their Lord on the Day - just ONE.  We struggle to express this very often and we do not agree who is in and out but the Oneness is not a question.

 

HOLY - here the mocking observer points to any number of ecclesiastical political evils throughout history, to glaring inequalities, to cultures of abuse and who knows what else.  The mocking observer ought to pause however for without God there is no holiness and none of those 'sins of the Church' are sins at all.  The holiness of the Church is a gift from above, variously grasped and expressed in too lesser a degree but never absent and firmly destined for the Bridal Day.

 

CATHOLIC - at which the Protestant mumbles worriedly yet should not.  The church is not a race or a tribe, a nation or a structure - it is catholic, global, entire, planetary, multi-communal, multi-era, uniquely inclusive.

 

APOSTOLIC - the Church is not simply Jehovah's Witness (to quote Isaiah), or Red Letter Christians (to quote the equally-well-meaning Tony Campolo) but is derived from the teaching of the Apostles and the full appreciation of the meaning of incarnation, substitution, resurrection, ascension and finality of the Messiah.

 

Wow.  In just four words - so much!!! 

 

But not enough.

 

When Professor Whitley lectured at Oxford a century ago he was brave enough to point out that in this crucial formulary the early Fathers forgot something.  It was not a minor omission.  As we all know, omissions are harder to spot that mistakes.  But this omission was a very big mistake because it is the omission of what is, arguably, the Founder of the Church's only commission.

 

We believe in one, holy, catholic, apostolic, MISSIONARY Church . . .

 

As my previous blog sadly implies (and as has been my experience and perpetration as a leader), conciliar meetings of varying branches of this Church continue to damn the missing word with faint praise, never denying it while never promoting it to a place where it is held tenaciously as the essence to which other tenets must often bow. 

Chu Chu Church

I imagine myself on a railway station.  This particular railway is only one of several that link the our region with the Destination City.

The railway that I travel on (my kind of ticket is not accepted on the other lines) has introduced a new way of operating from next summer.  The track systems  manager and the operations manager will lose their jobs and a new manager will look after everything (if she/he can).  Sometimes the thirteen trains a day will be reduced to six because there will probably be less drivers.  There will certainly be less maintenance engineers.  We are assured, however, that the railway will in fact be far more efficient at moving people to the Destination City.  I wonder how assured I am by this assurance.

Then there is the Big Railway down the road.  With its 42 trains a day (admittedly using some very old and varied but decorative rolling stock)  there is really no competition in this region.  It does have problems with the public however as it forbids women train drivers (though they can sit in the cab). 

Meanwhile, in the Destination City, the railways' purchaser, owner, inventor and builder looks at the diminishing passenger numbers from this particular region - which is his great concern.

 

 

The 14 Billion Question

Fine.  So the world is 14 billion years old possibly - and no-one really cares (Novenber 8th).  After all it is SUCH a big number.

 

Such a big number.

 

In fact, it is such a big number that it is the number of bullets produced in the world each year (approximately, but probably a safer statistic than the age of the universe one).

 

Such a big number.

 

So big, in fact, that it is twice the number of human beings on the planet.  So, in case you or I thought there was a bullet with my name on it . . .

 

 

. . . the bad news is that every year there are two.

The 18 Billion Question

It was just another Quiz question. Daytime TV is full of them as best I can see (which is not very much)

 

'How Long ago was the Big Bang?'  Was it

 

a) 14 Billion Years

b) 32 Billion Years

c) 191 Billion Years

 

I have increasingly felt that quiz masters will need to move away from questions about the Bible.  Such is the common ignorance that a question like, Who in the Bible was put in a Lion's Den? is liable to get any answer - The Pope,Nelson Mandella, Robinson Crusoe.

 

In this brave new world of scriptural ignorance what better substitute than the Big Bang?  An absolutely verifiable, without doubt certainty that materialist science has given us.  And the answer is . . .

 

 

Well I knew the answer was 14 billion - perhaps because I am very sceptical that 14 billion really is the answer.  The man questioned was doing very well to this point.  He looked perplexed.  He guessed the middle one (a method for all multiple choice questions).  He was wrong.  He shrugged his shoulders at the answer - '"No idea" - and moved on to the lead singer of Bananarama or whatever.

 

This was interesting.  Not because he didn't know, but because he didn't care.  His answer was crazily wrong, the other answer bogglingly wrong but it made no difference.

 

You see, once you attribute the world to the god of Longevity it does not make any difference how many billions of years, trillions of years, you estimate it as.  However long ago the supposed Big Bang was, and whatever happened before it, the only question that gives Beginning any meaning is,

 

"Who was speaking at the time?"



Happy Hallowe'en!

Leaves

Ah.  The delights of the English Autumn.

Across the Atlantic this is the Fall.  I think they have a point.

We loved living by the seaside which we did for a number of years.  Then, in English terms, we were called far away from the sea (a hundred miles).  Consolation of a locational kind was hard to come by but I tried. 

"At least we won't get salt on the windows in winter gales!"  In this I have been proved right.

"There's all these lovely trees.  'Leafy Bucks.'  You never get all these trees by the seaside."  This is also true.

Another thing you don't get by the seaside is, therefore, a host of 'lovely trees' dispensing most of themselves on your lawn, driveway and car all in two windy nights.  I repeat - this is not Autumn, it is Fall.

But this is the thing.  Although the trees around our house are approximately the same size each year the number of leaves that I have to set to work on is by no means the same.  And this has been a very easy year.

Our driveway has no gate.  Often when the wind blows it does so  (I have always assumed) at the behest of Wycombe District Council.  Leaves that, in deference to my back, have respectfully fallen on the pavement outside have been blown into my drive for me to have extra work to do.  A man in a vehicle that is a cross between a vacuum cleaner and a dustcart purrs merrily by early some morning with no leaves to work on while the leaves that have escaped him wave sneeringly at him from my drive and then sneeringly at me as I wearily chase them around with a humble non-mechanical broom.

This year the north wind blew.  Everyone was complaining.  Temperatures dropped and leaves fell, winter coats hurriedly located, car heaters turned up, extra bedding for the pets, a general sense of winter arriving.  But me?  I was well pleased.

Somehow the north wind (which blows toward my drive) swirls around the leaves and deposits them back north - onto the property of Wycombe District Council Highways Department and the man in his motorised vacuum cleaner thingy.  I went out of the house, swept a few separatist leaves from a corner by the garage, and retreated in the warm to await the family plaudits for all my hard work.

I had a friend who was a Pastor in the East African Revival.  His spiritual experience was like my yard work experience.  His ministry 'work' was to sit in his room with a queue of people outside his door waiting, one by one, to give their lives to Christ.  I am working on ways of persuading the Holy Spirit to blow from the north.

Scrap

Last week my most valuable material possession - a somewhat ageing Ford Focus - made some strange noises that it had never made before.

 

I'm no mechanic but experience (my own and others) informs me that sudden noises from underneath the bonnet (American: hood) are rarely good news.

 

It remained by the house until I could drive it gingerly down the hill to the garage.  In the event this was the last time I drove it though I did not know this at the time.  I knew this only when, later in the day, the service receptionist rang.  Sorting out the noise wasn't going to be cheap but that was not even half of it.  The car was not roadworthy for an entirely different reason that would also cost hundreds of pounds and within six months another urgent expensive repair would be required on a third thing that threatened to make it unroadworthy as well.

 

The calculation was not difficult.  This may have been my most valuable earthly possession but the repair bill was going to be its equal!  It was not worth repairing, it was off to the scrapheap.

 

I observe that the price God paid for the salvation of his people was a crazily high repair cost.  We must be very, very valuable to him.

Gold

As the Metropolitan Police today made a devastating statement about the late celebrity Sir (for now) Jimmy Savile - and as his nearest and dearest decide to dismantle his portentous grave - it seems fitting to revive the memory of a Blog from a year ago.
And to which we might add that golden coffins continue to accrue interesting associations.  Not only, in fact, is the danger of too much gold in your dying place that the living will take it from you, or you from it but that the light of history may destroy it faster than the Yorkshire weather.  Cheap wood or wicker for me please, and regarding the rest I'll keep trusting Jesus'll fix it.

9 NOVEMBER  2011
Prior to today's funeral, showman Jimmy Savile's golden coffin lay 'in state' in a hotel in Leeds.  We'll miss him, epitomised in his epitaph IT WAS GOOD WHILE IT LASTED. 

A couple of days before we've heard of the conclusion of the trial of Michael Jackson's doctor - and the international star also had a golden coffin.  Sadly the story of Michel Jackson, notwithstanding his great talents, was that it was not always good while it lasted.  That was why he died young.

Who else?  There was Carl Williams (2006); he was a killer himself killed in jail in Australia after being a leader of the Melbourne underworld; Nick Rizutto, son of the imprisoned Mafia boss in Montreal (2010). And so on: golden coffins have some interesting associations.

There's nothing new about golden caskets either.  The gilded bed on which old Tutankhamen's remains lay is but one of the golden treasures that, since their discovery, have made his death arrangements among the best known in history.  Sadly for him, the treasures were so wonderful that he (or at least his remaining molecules) were separated from the gold so that museum visitors can see the gold.  So the danger of too much gold in your dying place is that the living will take it from you, or you from it.

The real trick would not be about gold at all.  It would be to be able to exit the place to join the living once again.  Lady Gaga achieved this earlier this year at Radio 1's Big Weekend.  For her first song she emerged from a golden coffin to launch her song set.  Great show!  Sir Jimmy was proud I'm sure.  But the tricky, and achingly important, part of the real trick would be to do that after being publicly dead, say on the third day . . .

Jesus'll fix it.

Namebearing

This week I'm off to a Sports Chaplaincy Conference.  It has come at a very difficult time . . .

Now even a cursory knowledge of Sports Chaplaincy would surmise that its conversations and pastoral care are exercised without regard to the position or performance of the Club in question.  There might be nuances but whether the chaplain to Lancashire Cricket Club or Gloucester Rugby or Wycombe Wanderers Football Club or Manchester United - the essence in each case is surely the same and equally worthy?

After all, we all know that the Lay Pastor of the chapel with 12 members (the same as the number of the apostles) is to be as honoured as the Senior Executive Supreme Leader Pastor of Multiple Campus Mega Church of London, Paris, Sydney and Los Angeles.  (Though we really only want to check out the website of the latter actually.  And ask him (it would never be her) to write books.  He speaks at World Prayer Events too).  But that's not to honour him above the Lay Pastor of course (or Jesus).  Anyway . .

 

The thing is, Wycombe Wanderers aren't doing very well.  Is the Chaplain responsible?  In my defence they have managed an unlikely Cup Semi-Final and promotion on my watch.  No, of course I'm not responsible.  But there is this strange association thingy.  When I go with other slightly chuffed chaplains whose Clubs are doing things like winning games and scoring I sense a pastoral pity descending upon me.  As though I needed to be chaplained!  This has happened in the League above but now, as the team in the second-worst position in mainline English football I feel the enveloping pastoral sympathy from 48 hours away.

Never mind that we had a great Harvest Celebration today, that I spoke to people about faith last week, welcomed in new members to our Church, visited a young family moving closer to God, had a great Elders Meeting, even had a great day of conversations at the said Football Club.  All these pastoral joys are submerged at the Chaplains Conference as I wear the badge.  It says REV JOHN ROBERTS.  And then.  WYCOMBE WANDERERS.  You can see it in their pastoral eyes.  "Poor old John".  "You're having a hard time, aren't you?".  "What's gone wrong?"  The sympathy is so strong - it hurts!

When heaven looked at the Word made flesh - what was his name? Yeshua of Nazareth - it must have been hard not to feel an overwhelming sympathy that he should have taken upon himself such a name.  The good news is, he took the name and led its humanity to salvation.

The bad news is - I don't think I'm going to be able to repeat that for the name I bear!

Inductions

Last week I went to two Inductions in local churches.

At one I was offered a small round wafer and some wine; at the other a piece of cake and a cup of tea.

 

At one the Presider wore an extraordinary white hat and a very large white frock with gold trimmings; at the other the Presider wore a suit and tie.

 

At one the Mayor, Imam, several ex-mayors, the Town Clerk, some local Funeral Directors and wotnots were present; they didn't make it to the other one.

 

At one there was a choir and the organist played Widor's VIth Symphony; at the other there was a violinist and the opening hymn had the wrong introduction.

 

At one the inducted was given the keys of the Church door after swearing allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen; at the other the inducted was given a handshake.

 

It was hard, overall, not to notice the difference between an ancient Parish Church and a Baptist congregation of recent establishment.

 

Hard for me not to notice that is - I doubt that God noticed much and certainly wouldn't care. After all, he did some inductions on the Galilean beach in just two words with no dressing up at all . . .

 



Andrew Bailey

Today was the end of Andrew Bailey.

Andrew is still alive (as far as I know) but disappears into history for most of us as of today.

 

For it is his signature, as Chief Cashier of the Bank of England, that has changed pieces of paper into promissory notes - or, as we might say, real dosh.

 

 

 

Now, moving to another highly-paid job, we rely instead on the signature of Mr Salmon.  I do not know Mr Salmon either of course.

 

It is at least a little bit interesting that in the history of the Bank of England its notes have always been guaranteed by the signature of a man.  There may be irony there: it is certainly a pattern that also exists in the localised environment of our family . . .

 

Of deeper interest may be the continual reproduction of new signature notes (now somewhat inconvenient with electronic notereaders) as one office holder passes to another - a kind of economic never-ending relay race.

 

Casting a Biblical eye over it reminds me that the priesthood operated like this before it ended: Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; but because Jesus lives for ever, he has a permanent priesthood.   Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.  The Lord is a better guarantee of everything important than anyone else is of anything.

Anne Frank

There are few more haunting places in Western Europe than Anne Frank's House in Amsterdam.
 

That is not to say that there are not worse places.  Massacres have littered the history of Europe; massacres on battlefields, in gas chambers, on hillsides and God knows where else.  Europe, whilst being a very nice continent to live as supplied by God through Mother Nature has also been turned into killing fields very many times and the sites are there to visit (together with a Tourist Office of course).

 

Anne Frank's house touristic too.  Annexes have turned it into a veritable museum and although there is a reality about it in some ways there is also a sense (with the Restaurant and Bookshop at the end)  that this could have been recreated from scratch in, say, Las Vegas.

 

Except for me it couldn't.

 

When we visited it on our vacation it was not the House itself that haunted me - though it is despairingly poignant.  It was just one (black and white of course) picture combined with our experience of visiting.
 

Duly warned, we had turned up early - a very strong recommendation given that there was an eye-poppingly long line waiting by the time we exited.  We lined up for no more than ten minutes and next to the canal and the Great Western Church we watched the cyclists scuttle by, the barges and boats glide past under a summer's sky.

The haunting black and white picture in the House was of exactly the same kind of Amsterdam canalside scene.  Only this time there were Nazi security forces and a line of Jewish families being rounded up for deportation.  The same canals, churches, sunshine, and another line of people out on the street.  These apparently glorious delights buried beneath human hatred.

That a setting that delighted me was a terror to Anne Frank: that I was pleased to linger in a place that she was for years terrified to step into; this showed me that the human heart is far more important than architecture, church buildings, summer weather and lining up.

The Baptism of Children

I'm not a fan of this because

a) Infants cannot profess repentence and faith
b) Young children express learned phrases and their profession is less secure
c) There are enough things that can go wrong at the front of a church without introducing another one . . . !

Para-translation

The Paralympics are a great tribute to Great Britain which seems so much more able to celebrate diversity and integrate disability than many other cultures.  I suspect this has much more to do with its Christian Heritage than the Big Bang that the opening ceremony lauded but, hey.

Samuel Sherechewsky was also suffered from becoming largely paralysed.  He was in the process of  translating the Bible into Wenli Chinese so paralysis was apparently terminal to that task.  Yet he had a typewriter made to construct the characters necessary and with his one useful finger continued the task.

He sat for twenty years.  Of course this is not what was to be expected of the Bishop of Shanghai.  His life that had carried him to China from Lithuania via the United States had certainly not been sedentary before. "It seemed very hard at first", he reflected, "but God knew best.  He kept me for the work for which I am best fitted."

Losing when winning

Home from holiday!

Among many visits we visited a house that had a plate in the bedroom just like the one below.  It had been owned by a successful businessman who had lost his faith (having previously intended to be a priest) - he then lost his house to the National Trust but that was a smaller loss according to the plate. 

It reminded me of the British Olympic Gold Medalist Triple Jumper Jonathan Edwards who I had just seen talking on television about his own loss of faith.  He found virtue in the thought that his faith had really helped him to win the Gold Medal at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 - "It was where I was at the time - it's not where I am now" - 'it does seem incredibly improbable there is a God'.

Ah well - better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

Or maybe not.

We shouldn’t need to keep talking about why we ought to turn from deeds that bring death and why we ought to have faith in God. And we shouldn’t need to keep teaching about baptisms or about the laying on of hands or about people being raised from death and the future judgment. Let’s grow up, if God is willing.  But what about people who turn away after they have already seen the light and have received the gift from heaven and have shared in the Holy Spirit? What about those who turn away after they have received the good message of God and the powers of the future world? There is no way to bring them back. What they are doing is the same as nailing the Son of God to a cross and insulting him in public! [Hebrews 6, CEV]

Just a Second

These two scenes from yesterday have something in common.  Two women crying almost uncontrollably.  Ah, well. Such is life.

But no.  They have something else in common.  They have just both won silver medals.  Gemma in Judo, Victoria in Gymnastics.  You can see how upset they are to have not won gold.

But no again.  Gemma Gibbons (top) is crying with joy.  Victoria Komova is crying with dismay.

Same Olympics, same medal, same intensity of emotion, opposites.

Cometh the day when we all see humanity's Messiah.  His the Golden Glory, ours the silver lining as the consequence of being human but second best dawns on every other one of us.  For all humanity tears.

Tears of joy or the opposite.

Losing

The deliberate losing by some of the Olympic 'competitors' today is interesting. It was a blatant version of something that is surprisingly common. Nobody was making these remarks of tragedy and woe when in the Cycling Road Race team members were 'disrupting' the following pack to enable their leading cyclist to prosper. That was called tactics (even though it was deliberately doing less than their best). When in the heats a swimmer or rower or runner saves themselves for a later heat or the final that too is tactics. The idea that everyone in every sporting encounter is doing their very best is very far from the truth. Football fans experience this in pre-season friendlies where fitness is far more the goal than the goal is

.

In a nutshell, the word is 'ultimate'.  Those badminton players were thinking ahead, not of the money that the crowd paid to watch them but of the gold medal.  They frustrated officials who wanted to not only award a medal but control a method.

This brings me to the wonderful Christian chestnut question.  What Would Jesus Do?

I think he'd lose.  Sure, the crowd jeered.  But for the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  I suppose this is not a truth about Jesus that made it into many English Public School assemblies over the years but it is a reminder that the route to victory is not the route of popularity and that popularity is not victory.

Unqualified

A few weeks ago I met some of the Moldovan Olympic Swimming Team.  They were practising in our town Leisure Centre in preparation for the Olympics.  Of course when I say I met them what I mean is that one day as I left the changing room some of them were arriving to head to their special area to change and we nodded a hello to one another.  Still, maybe it will be THAT girl who wins the Gold medal!  I tried to remember their faces.  Certainly watching them some days ploughing up and down the pool was a reminder that it takes an ability and dedication far in excess of my swimming prowess to compete on such a stage.

Having felt that sense of distance, I can now report that (as things turned out) I had a lot more in common with the two young ladies I nodded at than I first supposed.  To my way of thinking there on the other side of the pool were the Olympic competitors and over with me and the assortment of splashers from Wycombe District were those who would watch them on television.  I was wrong in this interpretation.

This week they were back.  Well, no, he was back.  For as it turns out only one 17 year old guy Danila achieved the standard to qualify and all the other Moldovan swimmers will, like the rest of us, be watching him and the other competitors on television!

Many people interpret the divide between those religious people furiously practising their divine devotion and their own futile spiritual splashings as the one that is likely to one day see them disqualified from the prize (if there is one).  Most of the religious people think this with a passion too.

It does appear, though, that only one human being qualifies.  It is in Jesus's victory that we have our only hope of sharing in final glory - it is in him, not as well as him, that we can qualify.

Torch

All was well Sunday evening.

The night was a bit rough afterwards but Monday morning I woke to a virus that (to put it gently) necessitated a bowl and prevented thought about much else than whether it or a small room was in reach (pun kind of intended).

Well, the subtitle of this blog (which I confess is less pretentious than its main title) is about 'thinking aloud'.  What does a Pastor think about in the moments when the bowl can be temporarily ignored?  Yes, God sometimes.  But in recovering mode I've also been thinking about the Olympic Torch Relay.

The Relay promises endless illustrations for years to come - the marvellous variety of wonderful, often extraordinary but non-famous people who have carried it, the idea of taking a message over the whole of the United Kingdom by passing it on, the bringing together of young and old, sick and supremely well, its battle through wind and storm and so on. 

I think the idea of the relay is great.  I think the people carrying the flame are more than great. I look forward to reading through more of their stories.  It is, though, slightly bemusing when the live camera records the journey between towns and police motorcyclists are speeding down roads stopping traffic, lights flashing, as though royalty is passing through.  Given that the same sun that shines in Greece shines in the whole world the question is, why doesn't each relay fresh start simply light its torch from that same sun?

The practical answer may be that in Britain there is not enough sun to light the torch by . . .

Wouldn't it be interesting if every new convert to Christianity had to have a flame that had been lit in Jerusalem?  Ah, but then I suppose we do . . .

Higgs boson

Professor Stephen Hawking told the BBC this week that the result of an incredible thing that has happened in my lifetime (the almost-certain discovery of the Higgs boson particle at CERN, Geneva) cost him $100.  The scientists cheered at the Great Announcement of this (unconfirmed) discovery.  Hawking might have added that the Large Hadron Collider where it was probably discovered cost $10 billion.

This is the scientific equivalent of when I look on the back of a margarine container and discover a very obscure ingredient that was always there but I never knew for sure.  Then I carry on eating my toast.

I think I'll stick with being excited about the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.  Unpredictable but prophesied, inexplicable yet inevitable, unapplauded but history-changing.

Touch Wood

My daughter and I were sitting in the University Lecture Theatre.  Very impressive it was too.  And perhaps just as impressive were the credentials of the Professor who was explaining to us the course my daughter might be taking next year.

As the Professor explained the various ologies that were the components of competence and their necessity in the whole scheme of human understanding it seemed profoundly unlikely that faith and belief would figure at any point.  Especially the Professor's own faith and belief. 

He was explaining something important about the course and the success it had enjoyed.  And then he said, "Touch wood".  Now more than once on visits to Church members and adherents I have had the bizarre experience of the visited saying, "touch wood" and on one memorable occasion at a hospital bedside reaching out to the conveniently near bedside cabinet to do so.  This, I felt, beggered the question as to whether there was any point in praying to our supposed Creator regarding the illness when touching the bedside cabinet presumably warded off the spirits that, according to folklore, lived there with possible malevolent intentions to spoil the party.

Had the Professor simply said, "Touch wood" I probably would scarcely have noticed.  However at the moment he said it he was stranded at the front of the large hall, far away from anything to touch save himself and the remote control with which he controlled the projected display.  Well, that's OK - it's just an expression, isn't it?

The stranded Professor turned aside and headed to the desk on which his projector stood. - it was the nearest piece of furniture and he touched it.  This took but seconds yet walking several paces mid-speech made it noticeable.  However, on touching the desk a new problem emerged for him.  The desk was not made of wood.  Nor even the pseudo-wood of the bedside cabinet my hospital patient in earlier years resorted to.  It was metal!  Since when did any self-respecting nature spirit reside in a metal desktop?  Now the Professor had temporarily stopped talking, his whole (substantial) mental faculty devoted to the pursuit of wood.

Thankfully for us all the front row of the lecture theatre had a long counter made out of something passing for wood and a few seconds and another walk later he had finally touched wood and we were able to resume the information about pursuing a science degree.

I doubt there has ever been the remotest value in touching wood to placate the spiritual nasties.  Even if there was, there hasn't been ever since Jesus, er, nailed that victory for us on his very own wood. 

Spurgeon's Birthday

On the great man's birthday it seems fitting to ponder a few of his uncounted numbers of quotations:

It is a wonderful thing, that even if you have been a prodigal, and have spent your living with harlots, yet if you are his child, you may call him “Father.” Did not the prodigal say, “Father, I have sinned?” There is good pleading in this fact, for you are not unchilded even by your sin.

There is only one church. Here and there, earth and heaven make a little division to our senses, but there is no division in the mind of God; he sees one general assembly of all his people, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues.

There are some who do little else but complain. They complain of the times, of the weather, of the government, of their families, of their trade; if, for once, they would complain of themselves, they might have a more deserving subject for fault-finding.

The Lord knows how, without violating the human will (which he never does), so to influence the heart that the man with full consent, against his former will, yields to the will of God, and is made willing in the day of God’s power.

My horse invariably comes home in less time than he makes the journey out. He pulls the carriage with a hearty good will when his face is towards home. Should not I also both suffer and labour the more joyously because my way lies towards heaven, and I am on pilgrimage to my Father’s house, my soul’s dear home and resting place?

Take life and death just as they come, bit by bit. You know how the Spartans endeavoured to keep back the Persians. They took possession of the pass of Thermopylæ, and there the brave two hundred stood and held the way against myriads. The enemy could only advance one by one. Now, do not think of all the armies of your troubles that are coming in the future, but meet them one by one. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”

A Capital Weekend

It was in the shadow of rising Nazism that a Conference met in Oxford in 1937.  Drawn from many different Christian expressions it wrestled with issues that have since - and not least this weekend - shaped the post-War world too.  It was notable for its clarity, something rarely achieved in Ecumenical conferencing.

As the Greek people vote in the most economic of all elections it is interesting to notice the 1937 Conference's warnings about Capitalism.  It was a feature of the Conference that it refused to identify any overarching political system with the Kingdom of God (at a time when every overarching political  system was claiming to be God's or, in the case of Stalinism, god).  Fascism and Communism have (for a while) had their day, Monarchy fell earlier and now we have Market Capitalism and Democracy which are starting to fall out with each other.

"Could anything, possibly, be wrong with Capitalism?", my Western generation asks, expecting the answer No.

In 1937 the Conference believed it systemically brought the following four negatives  - enhanced acquisitiveness; shocking new inequalities; irresponsible possession of economic power; diminishing Christian vocation.

Last night I returned from visiting someone on a nice new well-staffed ward (yes I know that the NHS has its problems but . . .).  Earlier in the day I had collected a regular prescription and dropped it into the nearest pharmacy I was walking past.  This morning I listened to a Doctor in a Greek Hospital telling how there was one nurse for 50 children and that they had to scour the region for drugs that they needed, sometimes failing to find them.

And I thought.  My generation of Westerners has reaped great rewards from Capitalism.  But the negatives those Christians saw are alive and well in the way it works today; where the added suffering of a sick child in Greece is deemed positive to protect a currency union.  It takes a spiritual outlook to believe that the child will, in fact, outlive money and not the other way round.

Reigning, Raining

It was a wet day in London yesterday as I stood on tip-toe to see a distant glimpse of the Queen on the river.  Nearly as much water above her as below her!  I thought I owed it to her long reign to make some effort as I had last seen her in 1961 when she was driven past our flat.  (I was very, very young . . .)

I'd been thinking.

Queen Elizabeth has now reigned longer than all but one of the Kings of Israel in the Bible. The one who reigned a little less than her is proof, if such were needed, that longevity is not itself a virtue. Our Queen has witnessed marked spiritual decline in her nation during her reign but she herself has exercised considerable goodness and God-fearing stability in the midst of it all. Mannasseh reigned in Jerusalem for 55 years and no such compliments can be paid to him.

As with all long-reigning monarchs he started early - at twelve years old in fact. The son of the godly king Hezekiah he set about undoing all the good that his father had done. Over centuries since Joshua led them into the Promised Land the Israelite people and kings had struggled to be holy and good among the Canaanites. Mannasseh didn't appear to struggle - he behaved exactly as if he was a Canaanite king. He involved his own son in fire sacrifice, practiced witchcraft, placed the sex symbol Asherah pole in the middle of God's temple and more besides. He was astonishing but for all the wrong reasons: longevity gives its beneficiary time but not goodness.

Thankfully Israel's longest reigning monarch demonstrates that goodness itself has greater longevity than evil. His was a peculiar enthronement - his initial throne the place where he was lifted up to die, his title King of the Jews written first by a foreign official, his crown one of thorns, his miltary escort spitting at him and his people telling jokes at his expense or running away.

The prophet Isaiah, though, foresaw that a throne will be established in steadfast love, and of his government and peace there will be no end. The King of the Jews remains the world's longest serving human monarch, an honour recognised in Queen Elizabeth's own coronation service when the Dean said, Receive this Orb set under the Cross, and remember that the whole world is subject to the Power and Empire of Christ our Redeemer.

Manasseh's story is remarkable for its ending. The Assyrians captured him, bound him and dumped him in a dungeon far away in Babylon. When, records the Chronicler, he was in distress, he entreated the favour of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God.

He set about undoing some of the spiritual carnage he had created. How grateful Manasseh and every human being should be that the longest-serving monarch and the One who will remain on the throne when all other thrones have fallen, is unalterably good and unfathomably merciful.