Silent Night

It was the last and only cooler, wet day of a summer Austrian vacation.  I set out on the train to see where Silent Night was written on Christmas Eve 1818.  (Tonight is its 200th birthday!)

On the train to Oberndorf I mused that this really wasn’t the weather for adding meaning to an alpine Christmas carol.  Grey skies and rain did not evoke the spirit of the song which I knew had been first sung on Christmas Eve in Oberndorf church.  I tried to ignore the weather and dreamed of the mountainside setting where Max Gruber the organist wrote the tune that set the priest Joseph Mohr’s words to life and fame.

The train, disappointingly, started to leave the hills behind.  Now my imagination was having to adjust to the alpine village being, well, not very alpine.  By the time the train stopped at the first of Oberndorf’s two stations I had figured that this town was about as alpine as Dartford.

I headed for the town centre.  Peering through the drizzle I waited to cross a busy road to visit the church on the town square.  'This must be it', I thought.  Sadly the road had the silent ambiance of the rush hour in a London suburb.  The spirit of the old carol seemed further away than ever.

It was indeed further away than ever because, on finally crossing the road, the church noticeboard helpfully pointed out (in English for any misguided American or British tourist) that this church was not the one where the carol was sung.  Worse still, it informed me that the old church and village, formerly by the river, had been flooded so often that they had been demolished and rebuilt inland here.  The scrap of good news was that a memorial chapel now stood at the old site with a shop and museum.  So, my visualised alpine snow-covered mountain church having been reduced to a souvenir shop on a patch of low lying river bank, I headed that way. 

Ten damp minutes later and I was at the riverside site.  There I was able to relive a little bit of Oberndorf history - regrettably it was the wrong bit of Oberndorf history.  Two months before there had been another enormous flood.  The museum and souvenir shop had been completely inundated and were now closed.  I looked at the patch of grass and concluded that I had enjoyed Silent Night somewhat more before I visited Oberndorf than I was likely to do from now on when, every future Christmastime, it triggers memories of a long, flat walk in the rain to a grassy patch of anonymous mid-European river bank.

We always think we can add things, experiences, activities and memorabilia to improve the original Christmas, which merely had God moving through a womb to a manger as one of us. 

Merely?  With everything we add we lose a little of the wonder of the amazing grace he gave us in  the Christ-child.

Happy Birthday Pratibha!

Today is Pratibha Patil's birthday.

Pratibha was India's President and to date the only woman to have held that office.

As our Parliament - of which we are supposed to be so proud - mires itself ever more deeply in the swampy jungle of Brexit two of her comments (about the Parliament of India) are poignant, to say the least:

It is important that the decorum and dignity of the House is upheld at all times.  The image of Parliament in the public mind should be one where proceedings, debates and discussions take place with a view to resolve issues through a constructive and co-operative approach.

Parliament of the country is the repository of the sovereign will of the people and its successful functioning is the responsibility of both the Government and Opposition.

Quite.

St John Roberts

Today is the Anniversary of the execution of one of the many namesakes of mine.  Saint (for that is how he has become known) John Roberts was Welsh (as Robertses always ultimately are), born in 1577 to a farming family.

Namesake he may have been, but in very many ways our paths seem quite opposite.  Born into a Protestant home John was converted to Catholicism in France.  In the febrile world of Reformation and Counter-Reformation religious politics he found himself in the wrong religion in the wrong place.

In returning from Europe to London he knew he was in mortal danger, but he wanted to work among London's poor anyhow.  From this act of foolery or bravery came his execution.  Yet even at his Tyburn execution the usual cruelties of that age were mitigated by his popularity with the poor.  They would not permit the authorities to treat his body with quite the cruelty they normally would have done - at least not before he was dead.  London has a very long list of cruelties on its hands;  it has also, as Charles Dickens for one reminds us, always had plenty of The Poor.

From his village birth to die at 33 years of age in the capital city after having a reputation for looking after the poor?  Well, for all my Protestantism I can see some reasons to think of him as saintly and a reminder of Someone else.

George H W Bush

A peculiarity of  being a Pastor is that, although most days reinforce a sense of how inconsequential you are seen to be by the world, you do get to meet a disproportionate number of important, famous people.

One such for me, and whose memorial is happening today, was George H W Bush, the 41st President of the United States of America.  The occasion of meeting him - or more strictly of him meeting me - was when he visited the Church in America where I was on the staff.  He came to speak a greeting at one of the morning worship services and he was brought to meet those of us with whom he would be sharing the platform.

It was naturally a brief encounter, but it was long enough to feel the warmth of personality that has been eulogised today and which contrasts with what is sometimes experienced from lesser women and men.

But back to the meeting.  Did I meet him or did he meet me?

Well, I was at work; I was in a room that I frequented dozens of times in the course of that work and George Bush, I imagine, had never been into that room before.  He may never have been to the church premises before.  It seems to me that he met me.  I was where I would usually be and he wasn't.

Which neatly brings us toward Christmas.  For is it not one of the greatest and most wonderful things about Christmas that we do not go to glory to meet God until, first, he has come to our place - in truth somewhat beneath our place - to meet us?  We meet him because he first meets us.

A word from Scotland

The wonderful Scottish writer Horatius Bonar - you can read more about him by clicking here - also wrote these words that form a useful thought for every day on Scotland's National Day,

Take thy first walk with God!

Let Him go forth with thee;

By stream, or sea, or mountain path,

Seek still His company.

Thy first transaction be

With God Himself above;

So shall thy business prosper well,

And all the day be love

Thanksgiving

Christians frequently bemoan the way Christmas is celebrated without Christ.  In the USA a similar issue exists with Thanksgiving, the great family, national holiday that occurs today.  

Year on year I go to school assemblies during our harvest period, mostly in October (the same month as originally celebrated in America).  It is a matter of wonder to me that you can have a fully-fledged all-school harvest without mentioning God once.  Or singing anything to him.  The trick is to call it a Festival, not a Thanksgiving.

When the Pilgrims celebrated their first harvest 'safely gathered in' in October 1621 they knew exactly what they were doing - they were giving thanks to Almighty God and his providential care.  Not only so, but it formed part of a pattern in which they had already held days of thanksgiving for other deliverances along the way.

Ah, we may think, those were very devout religious people and times have changed.  Awkwardly, for this view, there were nearly double as many Indians - native Americans - at the first thanksgiving as European settlers.

You do not have to be very devout to recognise that a greater Providence has laid out kindnesses that seem scarcely deserved in this world.  If humanity is all there is there is nobody to thank, no reason to be grateful and the world loses a whole vertical dimension as it dissolves into the shallowness of human experience alone.

Known unto God

Earlier this year I stood thoughtfully and thankfully by this grave in Belgium - of a First World War soldier from the county in which, historically speaking, I now live.

Today we reflected on the large number of World War 1 soldiers whose memorial is either a name on a vast monument (because their body was never found in an identifiable form) or who, in the form of human remains, were buried without their name being discovered.

Walking around the battlefield cemeteries this sight is not a rare thing.  At Tyne Cot, the largest (but certainly not the only) British Empire cemetery for the Ypres Salient there are far in excess of 10,000 graves and over 35,000 names on the monument.

Yet on every anonymous grave - 'An Unknown Soldier of the Great War' - there is added at the bottom - KNOWN UNTO GOD.  No life, whether snatched in the womb, pulverised on the battlefield or expended in recklessly vain attempts to migrate to a better world is unknown to God.

Remembrance Day demands that we seek to afford human lives the dignity that they are owed as creatures of a Creator rather than as accidents of nature.

Coal-heaver

The blog is called English Pulpit but we don't use the pulpit in the church where I pastor.  Or rather we do, but as a platform for a large white screen.  Not great for the architectural purist, but a cheap projection solution. 

It must be time to write about someone who did have an English Pulpit.  William Huntington SS had one.

Long before William had a pulpit he had a hand cart for carrying coal.  This earned him his nickname THE COAL-HEAVER PREACHER.  William was the name his mother gave him.  Huntington was the name he gave himself after accruing a kind of dirt other than coal dust through a scandal with a local young lady in his home county.  Having run away and changed his surname he was converted.  That's where the SS comes from.  In mockery of divinity degrees he awarded himself the initials SS for Sinner Saved.

William became a preacher.  However, while many a preacher has wished for more attentive hearers, William expected it with a vengeance.  If one unfortunate made a noise he was likely to abandon any attempt at the prophetic to cry, "Silence that fool!".  Fool was one of his politer insults.  Divine providence placed William prior to age of social media.

His prayers were legendary and very rewarding.  If he needed meat he would pray for meat.  If he needed a horse and carriage he would pray for that.  Of course we are talking public prayer here.  Whether the good Lord answered him, his followers most certainly did and he died a very rich man.

All of which goes to show that an English Pulpit is not as boring, as unproductive or as unnewsworthy as the observer may be tempted to think.

Or as inherently respectful and virtuous as a preacher might like to assume.

Second City Story

It was great to meet Steve in Birmingham this week.  We were visiting to publicise NextMeal.co.uk, the web facility for finding free food and more for homeless people in London and beyond. Steve, who works for the Birmingham City Mission, knows a thing or two about such needs, as you'll see in his story:

‘I didn’t grow up wanting for anything. My family worked in Africa, so a brief part of my childhood was spent there until we returned to Birmingham. My parents divorced when I was 14. I did reasonably well at school; I played football and golf to a fairly high standard and after further education I went on and found a job within the recruitment industry. Most of my twenties was spent working hard, playing hard. I was never a bad person but I often made bad decisions. Often selfish. In 2010 I was offered a job in Australia and whilst this was a wonderful experience, the work hard, play hard lifestyle continued. I returned from Australia in 2014 and very quickly entered a downward spiral of depression.
In January 2015 I made the decision to take my own life. I gave up all my possessions, I gave up my place to live and I purposely lost touch with all my family and friends. Obviously I was unsuccessful in my attempt but I awoke in hospital disappointed that I was still here. Then reality hit me that I was homeless. Embarrassed, ashamed and still depressed with no idea what to do next. The hospital released me into a homeless hostel which was a completely new experience to me. I was living with ex-offenders, people struggling with addiction and others with mental health issues. I very quickly had to adapt to my new surroundings.
The hostel pointed me towards Birmingham City Mission Resource Centre to obtain a food parcel. I remember asking them if they needed any help volunteering and thankfully they said yes. I began working the following week. Out on the van, collecting donations and delivering furniture. It gave me a new sense of purpose and I was surrounded by good people. A year later I went to help collect the Mission’s lighting and audio equipment after a church service. We arrived early so decided to sit at the back and listen to the service and everything clicked into place for me that night. I became a Christian that very evening!
I would like to thank everyone who has helped me in my journey of faith whether through conversations, services, prayer or simply through their actions and it’s an honour to spend every day offering the same in return to others.’

An Inspector Calls

Recently returning from a couple of Study days in Wiltshire I sat reading on the Waterloo-bound train.  It had begun its journey out west in Exeter.  We were travelling in Wessex, so it was appropriate that I was reading Thomas Hardy, a respite from theology and the like.  I was perhaps too engrossed when a man breezed past.  He was the ticket inspector.

I missed what he said, but it was something like, "Any tickets from Salisbury?".  Yes, me (following in the wake of some infamous Russians earlier in the year). I fumbled around and eventually found my ticket when he was half way down the carriage away from me.  I left my ticket in my pocket.

Andover . . .  Basingstoke . . .  After Basingstoke he returned and I was more attentive.  "Anyone from Basingstoke?  Tickets please"  he said.  I wasn't from Basingstoke but dutifully put my hand toward my pocket again.  He was off, gone to an older lady in mid carriage who gained his attention after getting on the train relatively recently.

This is what I wondered.  Why is he inspecting tickets by request?  If I had no ticket would I be likely to speak up - "Excuse me sir, I boarded at Andover without a ticket.  Would you kindly fine me now?"

I figured this is a little like the way people approach the Judgment Day (if, they muse, it ever comes).  God the Inspector walks among the millions - "Anyone here who shouldn't be?  Any sinners to go to the Other Place?  Anyone want to confess anything?".  The silent hordes let the Day pass and quietly slip through the gaping net into the Everlasting Rest of the Blessed.

As if.  The South West Trains ticket inspector may have imperfect knowledge, limited time and lazy technique but this isn't going to be the experience of meeting the omniscient, eternal God in whom we live and move and have our being.

Sowing and Reaping (Psalm 126)

Today at out Harvest Thanksgiving we considered one of the great Psalms - 126.

5  Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.

6  He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him.

Here's what C H Spurgeon had to say about it 150 years ago:

Heralds of the cross have to do a deal of rough work and toil on. For the Gospel, which ought to be welcomed, is rejected. And as there was no room for Christ in the inn when He became incarnate, so there is no room for the Gospel in the hearts of mankind. Yes, and this makes us weep, since where there should be so much readiness to accept, there is so much obstinacy and rebellion. The Christian worker weeps because, when he does see some signs of success, he is often disappointed. Blossoms come not to be fruit, or fruit half-ripe drops from the tree. He has to weep before God oftentimes, because he is afraid that these failures may be the result of his own lack of tact, or want of grace. I marvel not that the minister weeps, or that any worker for Christ bedews the seed with his tears—the wonder is he does not lament far more than he does. Perhaps we should all weep more if we were more Christ-like, more what we should be.

Christ, the model of the Christian life, assures you of this. He went forth weeping, sowing drops of bloody sweat, sowing with pierced hands and feet that dropped with blood. He went forth sowing living seeds of love, and they are springing up today already in the glory and in the multitudes that are gathered into it. And soon, in the coming and the superior splendour that shall envelop it, the Christ who sowed in tears will reap in joy. Even thus it must be with you. And if this is not enough to comfort you, remember those who have gone before you in this service, who have proved this fact. Think of those you have known, who have not been unsuccessful. When, with hearts broken and bruised, they have spent their life-power in their Lord’s work. Remember Judson and the thousands that this day sing of the Saviour whom he first taught to them. Think of Moffat, in his old age still in the villages of the mission field, not without glorious seals to his ministry. Think of Jamaica, of the wonders and trophies of grace in the South Sea Islands, the multitudes that were turned to Christ during revival seasons in our own land, and in the United States, and you have proof that those that know how to weep and sow, and who go forth from God to the sowing, shall, beyond a doubt, come again rejoicing with their sheaves. 

World Cup Blogs 32: Uruguay

Uruguay may be last in the English alphabet in this World Cup but in two important ways they are first.

They were the first nation to host a World Cup (in 1930) and the first to win it that same year.  They have also won it again, and finished in the top four three times too.

The qualification of Iceland at this tournament was remarkable for, as we noted in an earlier blog, it is a country with the population of a single London Borough.  Uruguay has arguably achieved something more remarkable because its achievements span 80 years of World Cups.  

Every other nation that has won a World Cup has had a population at least 10 times that of Uruguay, usually 20 times or more.  And remember, Uruguay has won it twice and sustained some success right through to the 21st century.

Perhaps more than any other country Uruguay ARE the World Cup.  Certainly Brazil are closely identified with it, but we all know other things about Brazil (beaches, rainforests, coffee, nuts, carnival).  Every European country has other associations than World Cup football that readily come to mind.  But Uruguay?  I've never even met anyone whose visited Uruguay, or if they have then they couldn't be bothered to tell me about it.  In my experience if I think of Uruguay I think of the World Cup.

It reminds me of the man who, in Jesus' parable, received the one talent.  The man whose master had given him five made five more, the one given two made two more and alike they are pleasing.  The man with only one talent did nothing with it and incurred his master's deep displeasure.  

Life, population, or whatever, does not offer equal opportunities to all.  Uruguay ends my blogging on this year's World Cup by reminding us to do something with what life offers us - and especially with the gift of grace that is offered in the Saviour of the World, the Lord Jesus.

World Cup Blog 31: Tunisia

Tunisia, not unexpectedly, had a quiet World Cup.  As a land, Tunisia has had a quiet few centuries relative to some neighbours.  It has figured in the many Mediterranean, European and North African changes and challenges - two recent examples were the Arab Spring and the Second World War - without being much remembered in the longer term history of either.

Tunisia takes on a different perspective when we travel further back. Before Tunisia was so called and before it was largely Arabic it was the site of Carthage.  This might seem remote from the World Cup but the Tunisian's nickname is Les Aigles de Carthage so in its way Carthage turned up at the World Cup after all.

Most famous of the sons of Carthage, which in its day dominated the Western Mediterranean, was the great general Hannibal - yes the one famed for the elephant over the Alps.

Carthage had other famous sons too, and two of them - who both were born and died in Carthage - were Tertullian and Cyprian.  By their days, 150 - 250 AD, Carthage was not as great as it had been but was still significant within the Roman Empire.  When Christianity arrived in Carthage it arrived big-time and thus their stories which overlap through the 100 years, reflect the battle between the Roman Emperors and the emerging faith.

Tertullian is remembered for his turns of phrase and his lack of moderation.  He was never canonised by the church because he was mildly heretical regarding the Trinity - but he invented the word Trinity as irony would have it. He is loved for his pithy, bold, even aggressive statements.  Cyprian was the model of moderation (and he in turn was criticised for that) but you will find churches called St Cyprian's but not St Tertullian's.

Tertullian's memorable phrases includes the oft-quoted The blood of the martyrs is the seed by which he meant the seed that grows the church.  Cyprian, for all his attempts to keep the church unified and his moderating between warring factions ended up as one such seed some years after Tertullian's natural death.  A series of plagues was blamed on Christianity and so Cyprian, then the Bishop of Carthage, was beheaded in response to local anger. He was martyred in 258 AD.

Maybe Cyprian would not have been surprised or distressed by this, however.  In a famous - though less famous than Tertullian's frequent sound-bites - quotation he had previously written:

It is a bad world, Donatus, a very bad world. But I have discovered in the midst of it a quiet and good people who have learned the great secret of life. They have found a joy and wisdom which is a thousand times better than any of the pleasures of our sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They are masters of their souls. They have overcome the world. These people, Donatus, are Christians. . . and I am one of them.

World Cup Blogs 30: Switzerland

When I was growing up I had a shortlist of countries I'd like to visit someday.  In a non-internet world and from a family that could never go overseas for a holiday it was more dream than aspiration.  In order of preference counting upwards the list was probably as follows;

5 Iceland - wild, cold and an island
4 Norway - snow, mountains, boats and fjords
3 Malta - the only hot one but somewhere we watched a film about in Junior School
2 Switzerland - snow, mountains, little trains going up mountains
1 Canada - huge, snow, mountains, big trains going past mountains

Of these five, I have (with no great sense of intention) visited four. Perhaps it is because my dreams were so sky-high that I have found each of them a little disappointing.  Canada was a lot more boring than I expected, Malta a lot more crowded (buildings as well as tourists), Norway, like Canada, quite sleepy and rather unfriendly though with wonderful scenery.  Iceland fared better though Reykjavik felt too much like a misplaced Reading with its modern malls and office buildings.

I liked each place but they were not the heaven on earth my imagination had built them up to be.  That's very similar to the way football fans look toward competitions like the World Cup - high expectation that is therefore doomed to somewhat disappoint.

Switzerland is the auspicious missing visit from my list - though I have visited other parts of the Alps in Bavaria and Austria.

Maybe one day I'll go there.   But . . .

I have only met - in close proximity - three Swiss people.  One, in one of my pastorates, was very nice but loved England and hardly ever went back to Switzerland even with family there.  Another was a Swiss girl I met when she was working at a Conference Centre I was connected to as a teenager.  She loved England too, and wanted to stay here instead of Switzerland.  The third was someone who lived with us for a year.  She hit new depths of off-puttingness by insisting that she hated (her word) snow and mountains . . .

In other words, my fandom toward Switzerland as a country has been gradually eroded by the people who belonged to it and who have themselves not appeared to be fans.

Hopefully the Swiss fans at the World Cup were more commending of their homeland. And hopefully anyone who meets me - even if they dislike the thought of being a Christian - will at least notice that I'm an enthusiast for Jesus.

World Cup Blogs 29: Sweden

Sweden put in a, well, Swedish performance in this World Cup.  Never incompetent but never exciting.  Their performance against England was as unremarkable as the Colombians' was eccentric.

I'm not sure what it is about Sweden that makes it so laid back - after all the Swedish winter presumably requires some determination to get through each year.  But laid back they are.  All the passion in our local IKEAs comes from the queuing customers from Britain.

When I visited Sweden some years back I did encounter some laid back elements in things spiritual.  Yet there were exceptions, and one especially glorious one.

I went to a church that caters for people like me by running parts of the service in English. It included Believer's Baptism and the Pastor asked just one simple question of each candidate. It wasn't, in one sense, the most satisfyingly theological baptismal question, yet a strangely fundamental one,

"Will you follow Jesus all the days of your life, and not turn back?"

Each candidate in turn affirmed.  The final candidate was a doctor who had come to Sweden from a difficult African country.  He was also asked the question, but his reply was not "Yes", or "I will". Instead he said, with a big smile, "Yes, of course".

Was he young and naive? Hardly - he was a Doctor. In that man I glimpsed the kind of faith that changes churches, communities and countries. This bewildering, to the outsider, commitment to things not seen is commented on in Hebrews chapter 11;

How did they do it? They saw it way off in the distance, waved their greeting, and accepted the fact that they were transients in this world. People who live this way make it plain that they are looking for their true home. If they were homesick for the old country, they could have gone back any time they wanted. But they were after a far better country than that—heaven country. You can see why God is so proud of them, and has a City waiting for them.

Am I, I ask myself, a competent Christian or an of course Christian?

World Cup Blogs 28: Spain

Writing this on a blisteringly hot day in London, I remember a journey in similar heat to visit this place in Barcelona.


It is impossible not to be impressed by the Nou Camp Stadium. History, in the football sense, has been made here time and again. It is the largest stadium in Europe and somehow creates a sense of excitement even when the only thing that is currently happening is that the grass is growing!

Then there is the Motto.

Most stadia have seats coloured to spell out something - frequently the club's initials or nickname. Not so Barcelona. Instead it spells out, in Catalan, the Motto,

MORE THAN A CLUB

The motto reflects the Catalunyan pride in Barcelona such that the club came to represent the Catalan nation and culture. This was especially true in the days of Franco's dictatorship when most expressions of Catalan culture were suppressed. Supporting FC Barcelona was a political act.  It has continued and been revisited in the Catalan pressure for independence since the last World Cup.

Football - other sport too of course - is often a MORE THAN.  Even this summer, England's unexpectedly extended stay into the semi-finals of the tournament did something positive in the unifying mindset of the country.

Life is never as compartmentalised as we are inclined to think.  Football Teams are never just football teams, houses never just houses, holidays never just holidays, churches never just churches; the weaving of life demands that we seek God's ways in it all.

World Cup Blogs 27: South Korea

As we saw with Nigeria a few posts back, there are countries of the world where, unlike contemporary England, the impact of Christian faith is rather greater than that of the national football team.  South Korea is one of those.

Here's a Baptist Church singing the Lord's Prayer.  It's a special choral event day for them, but just for the record I am also a member of a Baptist Church, we also have a gallery at the back, we sing, there are more women than men and we use the Lord's Prayer sometimes.  We also love Jesus.  Beyond that  the similarities are a little tough to find . . .

World Cup Blogs 26: Serbia

While the World Cup was consuming sporting hours, other sport continued.  This included Wimbledon tennis, the Men's Singles title being won, not for the first time, by Novak Djokovic.  He's Serbian, and was rather more successful than the nation's football team who were eliminated at the opening Group Stage.

Here's the Serbian World Cup squad - all 23 of them.

Goalkeepers: 

Vladimir Stojkovic 

Predrag Rajkovic 

Marko Dmitrovic

Defenders: 

Aleksandar Kolarov 

Branislav Ivanovic 

Dusko Tosic

Antonio Rukavina 

Milos Veljkovic 

Milan Rodic 

Uros Spajic 

Nikola Milenkovic

Midfielders: 

Nemanja Matic

Luka Milivojevic

Sergej Milinkovic-Savic

Marko Grujic

Adem Ljajic

Dusan Tadic 

Filip Kostic

Andrija Zivkovic 

Nemanja Radonjic

Strikers: 

Aleksandar Mitrovic

Aleksandar Prijovic 

Luka Jovic

The link with the Wimbledon champion is, I think, obvious.  But if you're struggling a clue is that when the first Yugoslavian team entered the World Cup before the Second World War it was made up only of Serbians and the others nicknamed it the 'Itchers'.

Yes, it is a rare thing to be a Serbian man and not to end in an 'ic'.  This lack of originality is easily sneered at, but unwisely so by someone like me, called Roberts.  The 's' stands for son of and so does the Serbian ic.

If the World Cup is full of diversity, the Serbians are perhaps around to remind us that in some ways we are all the same, wherever we are from and however successful we are.

World Cup Blogs 25: Senegal

This has been the second World Cup finals tournament for which Senegal have qualified.  At their first tournament in they surprised everyone by reaching the Quarter Finals..  In this year's tournament they made their mark in another, less satisfactory, way.

It is straightforward to decide a single game that is equal by having a penalty shoot-out, it is not so simple in the four-team Group Stage.  But what happens when two teams have the same points from the three results, drew with each other, and have scored and let in the same number of goals?

While it sounds a little unlikely, this scenario over three games in a low scoring sport with fairly equal teams is not that strange and nearly happened in a couple of groups.  And it DID happen in Senegal's group.

In such a case FIFA decided this time that the next determining factor would be yellow and red cards.  In this first use of that deciding system the team that was eliminated by the rule was Senegal who had accumulated two more cards to Japan. A first!

A classic example, then, of the life truth that little sins can grow into big consequences.

World Cup Blogs 24: Saudi Arabia

What could be more natural then adorning the pub with the flags of the 32 nations in the World Cup tournament?

But nothing in this world is simple.  In some places local pressure has insisted on the removal of the Saudi Arabian flag from such places because its Islamic connections should not be associated with alcohol.

In a previous World Cup FIFA (football's governing body) fell foul of the Saudis by intending to have footballs with a flag in each panel.  It turns out, then, that drinking by the Creed (for the Muslim Creed is written on the flag) or kicking it is not at all the thing to do.

I have some sympathy for the Saudi problem: every church has a set of dos and don'ts for its premises which can be similarly awkward.  The net effect of it all is to imply a general view that whereas sport unites, religion divides.  But maybe they need to choose to change their football participation or the flag.

Perhaps this kind of religious sensitivity is why the Lord Jesus shredded so many of the religious predilections of his day, eating and drinking with sinners, touching lepers, blessing children and healing on the Sabbath - just generally saying something about people being more important to God than religious rules designed to protect God but divide people.

World Cup Blogs 23: Russia

Russia have done a great job hosting the World Cup.  Despite pre-Tournament misgivings it has been very safe and straightforward into this final week.  Their team - almost incredibly - was the lowest ranked of the 32, below nations with inauspicious football reputations such as Saudi Arabia, Iceland and Panama.  Still, they did very well. The last shall be first . . . (well at least a lot higher than last anyway).

Running through the spirituality of Russia is an almost unique streak of similarly bizarre upside-downness: the holy fools.  Lest you think I have dug this from an obscure corner of Siberia I point out that St Basil's Cathedral in Moscow - featuring often in World Cup preliminary picture shots - is named after one such holy fool.

The monastic practice of foolery was an enactment of a Biblical theme found, for example, in Old Testament prophets who behaved in various unorthodox ways (including nakedness) and in Paul's teaching - e.g.

"For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe."

The historic church in Russia is known as the Orthodox Church so it is amazing to think that its perhaps most iconic church is named after a saint who adopted a life of shoplifting.  I'd call that unorthodox.

Basil shoplifted and gave the proceeds to the poor; more orthodox (for a Holy Fool) he spent a lot of time naked (this is Russia remember, a little chilly in the winter).  He also chained himself with heavy chains, also a common practice adopted by Fools.

St Basil's Cathedral was taken into state and secular ownership in 1929. Because it was too iconic to destroy, God was taken out of it instead,  Doing away with God seemed quite a trendy idea in the 20th Century.  Perhaps the authorities at the time failed to see the irony of St Basil's being taken for atheism.

As the Psalmist wrote: The fool has said in his heart "There is no God". There is a greater fool than a holy fool and someone who tries to remove God is such a one.

World Cup Blogs 22: Portugal

In recent years Portugal's football team has become something of a supporting cast for one, Cristiano Ronaldo.  Ronaldo is one of the World's most famous footballers.

When I was younger the Portuguese team of those days was also dominated by the reputation of one star player - Eusebio.

Neither of these players, however, came from Portugal.  Eusebio was from Mozambique (a Portuguese colony at the time of his birth). Ronaldo is from Madeiras, islands way off the coast of Africa in the Atlantic Ocean.

Madeiras, which had been previously known, was made a colony of Portugal in the fifteenth century when an Atlantic storm blew some Portuguese ships off course and they ended up in one of its bays and found refuge there.

So, you never know the beneficial long-term effects of a troublesome storm: this might be a relief to any of us, including the British Prime Minister just now.

World Cup Blogs 21: Poland

Poland features large in the life of the UK these days with workers and shops and signs that figure in our daily lives.  The affinities with Poland run deeply into the history of the Second World War.  The football history runs simply back to one memorable night, October 17 1973, the night that brought England's first failure to qualify for the Finals Tournament.

Having won the 1966 World Cup and played moderately successfully in the 1970 tournament nobody was ready for the possibility that England would not even reach the tournament in 1974.  But in the decisive game against Poland  at a full Wembley the inevitable victory would not come.

Poland's goalkeeper was Jan Tomaszewski (now a Polish politician).  His heroics secured the draw Poland needed; his proneness to unorthodox goalkeeping with some errors had him labelled a clown by the then great Brian Clough.  Years later Clough was man enough to apologise publicly for that slur which had proved so untrue.

Opponents are rarely clowns.  That night something happened to England that blew an aura away, Sir Alf Ramsay, the heroic winning manager of 1066 fame, was sacked and having failed to qualify for that World Cup they also failed, four tears later, to qualify for the 1978 tournament too.

Opponents are rarely clowns. In the deeper issue of life the Scriptures encourage us to take the battle seriously.  The whole of Ephesians 6, for example, is a call to spiritual arms.  Jesus repeatedly advised his disciples to watch and pray.  Those who think their opponent is a clown are likely to end up knocked out.

World Cup Blogs 20: Peru

I have one lifelong, abiding admiration for Peru's football team.  Until recently I thought this admiration was largely my own, but the good old internet has uncovered that I am far from alone.

When I say lifelong I mean from the 1970 World cup onward as I only heard the 1966 finals on the radio, and anyhow Peru did not qualify.  Here's a picture:

What do I admire?  The design of the Peruvian football shirts.  To an untutored eye just another shirt perhaps, but in reality unique in their design and strikingly stylish and memorable. Click on this sentence to read one of many articles that share my opinion.

So, although I couldn't readily call to mind the name of a single Peruvian footballer or a single Peruvian football result, I could easily remember or draw a picture of their kit.  They must have had a very clever stylist to design something so lastingly admired in the crowded field of football kits.

But no. 

It turns out that the design is derived from school footballers wearing a red sash over their shirts to distinguish them from the boys in the other team.  One of life's greatest and divine principles is that beauty is so often found in simplicity.  Consider the lilies, how they grow . . .

World Cup Blogs 19: Panama

This, Panama's first (football/soccer) World Cup, was quite exciting for them, I'm sure.   What will linger in the English memory (and let's be honest, the World Cup section of the English memory is far from full) is that Panama graciously let England score five goals to lead 5-0 at half-time.  Coupled with the 6-1 final score it makes England seem vaguely significant.  Perhaps its unthinkableness even inspired the unthinkable victory on penalties this evening.

Panama is a small nation and have a valid second excuse in that football is not their most popular sport.  That is baseball.

Now if there was a Baseball World Cup . . .

In fact, from 1938 until 2011 (with various gaps) there was a Baseball World Cup.  Panama never did manage to win it.  

What is, I imagine, really irritating is that England (or rather Britain) did.  They won it in 1938 against the United States.

There are few enough ways in which England resembles God, but at least they do in this frustrating way of appearing to have always been involved in everything and somehow doing very well.

World Cup Blogs 18: Nigeria

By the time I'm blogging about them, Nigeria are heading home.  Though, like Morocco, they hail from Africa and are out of the World Cup, the differences are stark.  Not least when it comes to the manifestation of the Christian faith.

Whereas the number of Moroccan believers equates, in known likelihood, to not many more than the Moroccan football fans that headed to Russia, Nigeria is a little different.

On returning home Nigeria will resort to playing internationals back in their national stadium, which holds just over 60,000 people.  Or they might play in their southern, second national stadium, the second largest in the country, which holds 45,000.

This second stadium has the same capacity as the Deeper Life Church that opened a couple of months ago.  If you spare a few minutes to watch this video I can contribute the following: 

There might be a thousand times as many people at that church, but our church can match them for the complication of parking for the service . . ..

World Cup Blogs 17: Morocco

In an earlier blog I told how my wife attained Morocco in her workplace sweepstakes. (Workplace sweepstakes are a vanishingly rare experience for Baptist Pastors so I have to live my excitement through hers . . .).  Not for the first time, Morocco have failed to set this World Cup alight - they have prevented my wife catching any gambling addiction bug -  but they do provide a happy byway for my blogging.

Morocco is obvious enough as a nation - it's on the North African Mediterranean coast spilling round the corner to the Atlantic coast.  Isn't it?

A couple of bits of what looks like Morocco are in fact part of Spain (Yes, Spain is in Africa too).  But then, moving round to Morocco's southern border we come to . . . um . . . Morocco.  Or is it Western Sahara?  On that issue many lives have been expended.

There is, then, a vast but sparsely populated chunk of Atlantic Africa which may or may not be a country, two countries or part of another country or some such combination.

Western Sahara does have a team (they also have a stadium but that's in the part most certainly claimed by Morocco so unusable to them).  Like many similar awkwardnesses, Western Sahara are part of the CONIFA group.  Here you will find Tibet, Northern Cyprus, Zanzibar and the like.  These nations (or otherwise) are the refugees of International Football.  This is typified by this year's CONIFA World Cup which was hosted by Barawa (an area in Southern Somalia).

Perhaps you are wondering how Barawa found the stadia in their war-torn bush country to host the tournament.  The answer is - they hosted it in and around London.   Here's Northern Cyprus playing Tibet - in Enfield.

You thought you understood Morocco?  You thought you understood International Football?  Human beings have made the world a complicated place. London somehow always ends up involved it seems to me.

World Cup Blogs 16: Mexico

During this World Cup Mexico is the star of North America.  Canada has only appeared once (1986) and this time the USA miserably failed to qualify.

Nor is this stardom anything new.  Mexico has appeared in the Tournament more often than almost any nation, including England and has hosted it twice.  The 2026 World Cup, now to be co-hosted by the three North American nations is not hosting match of equals.

Not of equals.

When I visited Cuidad Juarez many years ago across the border with Texas, USA the experience in the photograph was true then also.  On the left is the (clear) highway from the USA into Mexico.  On the right the highway from Mexico to the USA.  Getting to Mexico was not a problem, getting (in my case back) to the USA certainly was.  Donald Trump is simply an unpleasantly boisterous and arrogant version of an old truth.

The migrants in the Mediterranean represent the same stark inequalities, but the Mexican-USA border is the land-link which most illustrates the way of the world.  It was once the British Empire, of course (before I begin to sound self-justifying).  After the Windrush celebration this weekend I am very mindful of that. 

Again - keeping the World Cup in perspective - were Mexico to win the competition there would be wild celebrations yet the situation on this border would not change on the Monday morning afterwards.  America First.

They are not, however, the blindspots of heaven - a border that no Mexican, Briton, American or Somalian has any right to expect to cross - ever.  But by grace . . .

After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;

And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.

World Cup Blogs 15: Japan

Every World Cup is about much more than goals and results.  That Iceland, for example, are there at all I noted in an earlier blog is an amazing achievement.

Then there's Japan.  They have become famous in this tournament not for the players but for their fans.  Not for their fans during the game either.  But because (and difficult to imagine how counter cultural this is to me, and English football supporter) after their first game their fans were filmed cleaning up their litter before they left the stadium.

Bluntly, when English fans go to a tournament we are grateful if all of them have left the seats fixed in place.

If goodness is a powerful cultural weapon in a football tournament, how much more true are the words of the apostle Peter regarding goodness as a powerful weapon for the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ:

Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

World Cup Blogs 14: Iran

While Egypt clearly takes first place as the most Biblical nation in this World Cup, the runner up is equally certain - Iran.  In English translations it is generally called Persia and it figures in many later parts of the Old Testament.

One Bible Book is set entirely in Iran - the Book of Esther.  And one of the Bible's most famous stories also happened at least within its Empire - Daniel's deliverance in the lions' den.

The Iranian National Team have, as their most common nickname, the Lions.  This is very suitable because historically - and not just via Daniel - Persia was closely associated with the lions that populated its vast and wild countryside.

Today, apart from the odd zoo, there are no Persian lions in Persia.  The only wild population of them is found in a Reserve in India.  It is a sad story replicated over so many species of large animals.

God shut the mouths of the lions one night in the Persian Empire.  But in the end the human beings of Persia and elsewhere have brought the Asiatic lions to the brink of extinction.  The world is a poorer place when the only living expression of a lion is on the banners supporting a football team: the World Cup, we note again, is not the answer to everything.

World Cup Blogs 13: Iceland

I pulled the car up, climbed out and took this photograph.

Of course there are countless mountain passes where one could do such a thing and see rocks and more rocks.  But this was not on a mountain pass.  It was on a flat road through what might be, in most parts of the world, fields, meadows, houses, farmland or woodland.  This is Iceland though, and this is rock, and volcanic rock at that.

That Iceland, with a population similar to a London Borough, should be at the World Cup while the world's four most populous nations are not is itself quite miraculous.  That they have achieved so much not only from a small population but in such a geological and climatic background is almost incredible.

In their opening game Iceland scored and drew with the famed footballing nation of Argentina.  How do they do it?  Perhaps the picture holds a clue.

For looked at quickly and without local insight the sight stretching off into the distance is, somehow, green.  This was deep winter and if you visit Iceland in summer the green can be overwhelming so that the rock is invisible.  It is, of course, moss.

When dried it could be used for bedding or to insulate housing structures.  Life is so persistent, so innovative, that a large area with no soil at all can still be very green.

The Icelandic football team, together with nature, remind us that a promising environment is not necessary for success.  

It is a thought that, as a Christian in London in 2018 I find uplifting too.

World Cup Blogs 12: Germany

One of the great values of international sport is that it brings people together, albeit in a competitive way.  However, when Argentina recently cancelled a game they had scheduled in Israel we were reminded that sport is not really above politics but is merely allowed brief glimpses of an unrealistic utopia.

Germany are winners when it comes to the World Cup.  But the country faces battles and has worked very hard to redress its 20th century story, a story which put paid to many sporting events.  There was no World Cup tournament in 1942 or 1946.

One, I think, very moving and impressive feature of Germany are Stolpersteine.


In the pavements of several German cities, towns and villages you may find them - in English literally stumbling blocks.   Stolpersteine are embedded stones with a small plaque on top. On the plaque is the name of someone who lived in a building nearby and who was taken away by the Nazis in or before World War II, never to return. Gunter Demnig, an artist from Cologne, made it something of a life's work to place these wherever research shows people were deported.

I photographed those below in an anonymous inner city street in Frankfurt am Main. Seven people whose 'crime' was to be Jewish.

Such is the irrational injustice of anti-Semitism that if I had stood in that street in the war as a Briton - the declared enemy - though I may well have been killed as a spy, I might have talked my way into a prisoner of war camp. 

But had I been a Jew, and that was my home city, perhaps the very street I grew up on, I would more certainly have been killed and my family with me.  We must never let the warm waves of sporting internationalism fool us into thinking that injustice can be eradicated by donning football shirts and kicking a ball.  It might help.  But justice costs more than that.