Whilst reflecting on how we might structure our Lent Study on Prayer, I came across this quote by one of my favourite spiritual writers Henri Nouwen:

“Deep silence leads us to realize that prayer is, above all, acceptance. When we pray, we are standing with our hands open to the world. We know that God will become known to us in the nature around us, in people we meet, and in situations we run into. We trust that the world holds God’s secret within and we expect that secret to be shown to us. Prayer creates that openness in which God is given to us. Indeed, God wants to be admitted into the human heart, received with open hands, and loved with the same love with which we have been created.”

I remember that school prayers were always things with words and not much silence. Also we had to put our hands together and close our eyes tight shut, and woe betide anyone who tried to peek, because strangely teachers seemed to be able to pray with their eyes wide open. Looking round our congregations on a Sunday, I get the impression that most people must have been taught about prayer in much the same way and, of course, old habits die hard. So it comes as rather refreshing to read an article by another of my favourite spiritual writers Eugene Peterson who in writing about a third favourite writer says:

“Annie Dillard prays with her eyes open. She says, Spread out your hands, lift up your head, open your eyes, and we’ll pray… She gets us into the theater that Calvin told us about, and we find ourselves in the solid biblical companionship of psalmists and prophets who watched the ‘hills skip like lambs’ and heard the ‘trees clap their hands,’ alert to God everywhere.”

When we celebrate the Eucharist together, our celebration is part of entering into the mystery of God. Rudolf Otto, a German theologian, wrote: We experience God as Mysterium tremendum et fascinans. Basically, the unfathomable Mystery before whom we’re awestruck and stand trembling, yet find ourselves inexorably drawn into a relationship that’s also gracious and loving; attracting and fascinating us in ways we can’t fully explain.

It’s quite beyond us to have a loving relationship with the mysterious invisible God, through our own efforts. But because God wants to relate to us individually in love He’s given us the perfect helper in His Son Jesus Christ. Through Him God invites us into the love that we see demonstrated in the relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the Holy Trinity. The Son shows us the way to the Father through the power of the Spirit. God however remains a mystery.

Prayer is the mechanism through which we try to enter into that mystery. Prayer works through the power of the Spirit, rather than anything that we could possible achieve on our own. In prayer, the Spirit calls and we respond rather than prayer being something that we initiate. As St Paul says in his letter to the Romans:

“The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” Romans 8:26-27

Come and explore these things in our Lent Study Groups on Prayer.

Blessings
James

Advent, Christmas, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, each year the same, but somehow different. Yes we do many of the same things, have similar services and study groups, etc. but somehow it doesn’t ever feel the same as any previous year. That’s because it isn’t. We aren’t the same people, our circumstances aren’t the same and we may no longer be surrounded by exactly the same people: family, neighbours and friends.

The Italian title of a book by the philosopher Gianni Vattimo was ‘Credere di Credere’ – ‘believing that one believes’. This was the answer that he gave to a friend who asked him if he still believed in God. His answer sounds rather paradoxical (in Italian as it does in English) but then of course he’s a philosopher. However, we do use the word believe to mean: having faith, conviction or certainty in something, but also to mean: to be of the opinion that, which implies a degree of uncertainty. In his title Vattimo is implying this second meaning to the first ‘Credere’ and the first meaning to the second ‘Credere’. We might therefore render his title ‘I like to think that I believe’, a statement with which many people would feel comfortable.

This brings me back to the major seasons of the Church Year and particularly to the current Christmas Season now coming to a close. In any season there are the physical manifestations: services, readings and carols, decorations, mince pies and all the particular food and drink, but none of these is the essence of the season. There’s a slogan, much loved in some parts of the Christian Church – “Jesus is the Reason for the Season”. Well I’ve been thinking about it and I don’t agree with it. I think that the Reason for the Season is something else – SIN and EVIL. It was Dietrich Bonhoeffer that put me on to it:

“We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God’s coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God’s coming should arouse in us. We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect, that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us. The coming of God is truly not only glad tidings, but first of all frightening news for everyone who has a conscience.”

Why did God send His only begotten Son into our world? Not because he wanted us to build a festival around shepherds, angels and magi, but because of the sin and evil that abounded. And when that baby boy was born, violence and hatred didn’t stop. Tragic events didn’t stop. Man’s inhumanity to man didn’t stop. God sent his Son to us in the world as it was (and still is). To do otherwise would have rendered the incarnation meaningless and changed the whole working of creation and salvation. He had to hold up a mirror to the world so that humanity could see what was really going on, and in the story of the slaughter of the Holy Innocents we see the dark side of our world being reflected right back at us.

We live in a broken world as flawed human beings, that’s the reality, and God sent His only begotten Son into that world as it is, to show us that in spite of everything it can be different. He came to give us hope and to make it possible for us to believe that we believe in a loving and just God who sticks with us no matter what is going on in our lives and the lives of those close to us.

What we hear as we listen to the seasonal readings and carols and how we feel about the Christmas preparation and festivities, is dependent on what else is going on in our lives and the lives of those we love. As a result each Christmas feels different because what it’s really all about is experiencing the Incarnation of God in our lives, and that changes from day to day and from year to year. How could it be otherwise with a relational God? We don’t have to rely on other people to tells us how we should feel. As the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews wrote:

“Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds.” Hebrews 1:1-2

Now that’s something I can believe that I believe. Happy New Year.

Blessings
James

Usually by the beginning of December, there is a very obvious focus on what is often referred to as “The Run Up to Christmas”. I don’t know if it’s just me, but this year it feels as though several things have pushed that to one side. If the full power of the consumer bonanza that ‘preparation for Christmas’ represents is knocked out of kilter this year, then I suppose that I feel a sense of relief, but how heartfelt that is probably depends on why!!

Firstly, there’s the General Election, which is dominating the news agenda. Politicians from of all hues trying to woo us with promises, lots of promises. Now many of these promises are for things that we might feel might make our lives, our country and perhaps the world better; but I would have to say that you don’t have to be a financial genius to realise that some of these promises are perhaps rather more realistic than others and few stand much detailed scrutiny. Advent (the name we as Christians would give to this ‘run up to Christmas’) is also about a promise: the promise that God’s future and our future are entwined in Christ. Christ is coming into our world and our world never being the same again.

Secondly, there’s a growing call, encapsulated in protests across the world on what has come to be called ‘Black Friday’, to address the very serious and increasing problem of Climate Change. Black Friday is all about consumption about buying more and more ‘stuff’ by making it appear cheaper though at what environmental cost isn’t clear. The protesters argue that if we want to save the planet, Christmas shouldn’t be about excessive consumption – what’s needed is a serious change in the way that we live our lives. Well I’ll happily say “Alleluia” to that. In Christianity, we also have a name for a change in the way that we live our lives, and that’s ‘Repentance’ (which literally means ‘to turn around or to change the mind’) and surprise surprise, that’s also a theme of Advent.

The final theme of Advent is hope, and as we look forward to a time when the General Election will be over and the buying spree will be finished, there’ll be Christmas, when we celebrate God coming amongst us, as one of us. Now that’s a promise that we can trust and it won’t cost a penny or destroy the planet!!

Enjoy the waiting and the anticipation and I wish you all the Joy of Christmas when it arrives.

Blessings

James

We are now entering what some call the ‘Season of Remembrance’. It starts with All Saints on 1st November, followed by All Souls on 2nd and continues until Remembrance Sunday (this year on 10th) and Armistice Day on 11th. It’s a time when we remember the Saints of the Church, those men and women who are recognised as having an exceptional degree of holiness and who are felt to have a particular likeness or closeness to God. We remember also friends and family members, who we have loved but see no more. And of course we remember those who have given their lives in the armed conflicts of more than 100 years. In churches and communities across the United Kingdom, all of these events are marked with public acts of worship and of remembrance.

On April 5, 1943, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor and teacher, was arrested by the Gestapo and thrown into prison; on April 9, 1945, he was executed. Whilst incarcerated, he wrote a collection of the letters, essays and poems. They were addressed to his parents and to a friend, and form an extraordinary picture of a sensitive man whose faith and dedication to service never wavered, whose spiritual depth enabled him to overcome the most trying of circumstances. He was a man of great faith, intelligence and compassion, who understood so well the problems of the modern world. Resisting ease and compromise, he was constantly ministering to his fellow prisoners right up to the time of his death. He was a saint, a friend to many and a casualty of war and therefore has a part in each element of our Season of Remembrance.

One of the short pieces that he wrote to his friend Eberhard Bethge is called “Stations on the Road to Freedom”. In it there’s a short verse on each of four ‘stations’ on that road: Discipline, Action, Suffering and Death. This last he described as “the supreme festival on the road to freedom”. The verse on Death reads as follows:

Come now, Queen of the feasts on the road to eternal freedom!
O death, cast off the grievous chains and lay low the
thick walls of our mortal body and our blinded soul,
that at last we may behold what here we have failed to see.
O freedom, long have we sought thee in discipline and in action and in suffering.
Dying, we behold thee now, and see thee in the face of God.

Blessings
James