Reflections

By Our Wounds we are Healed

sheumais Pastoral Letter, Reflections

The church is the people. It isn’t grand buildings, though of course we have one or two of those and in passing on our heritage, we have to look after them. It isn’t administrative structures, though of course some element of that is necessary to stop the whole thing descending into chaos, even though we can find that sort of thing both distracting and irritating.

The Body of Christ is people, and most importantly the relationship between them. When Anna and I joined the East Sutherland and Tain churches nearly ten years ago now, each of our congregations was, in various ways, different to how it is now, ten years later. The main difference is that there were people who are no longer with us and the relationships between members of the congregations and with their clergy were also different.

So quite a lot has changed. Sadly we’ve lost some very dear friends from our midst. Our congregations are all growing both in numbers, in faith and in the relationships that have been built, often in adversity. There’s an atmosphere of positivity, hope and optimism across our congregations, with so many bringing their many and varied gifts to bear for the benefit of all.

As the Apostle Paul reminds the Christians in Corinth:

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.

1 Corinthians 12.4-12

I’m sure that none of us are as perfect as we’d wish to be. However it’s all the flaws, weakness and failings that make us the people that we are, not just the striving to be better. Looking back over the last ten years, I realise that many of you have ministered a special grace to me and to Anna, as well as to each other, and that grace wasn’t unconnected with those characteristics that you may be less than satisfied with, in both your personality and abilities. It’s precisely such things that give each of us a profound sympathy for the waywardness and self-hatred of the human heart and through that we can minister effectively to each other in all the messiness and imperfection of our lives. God works in many ways.

As Richard Holloway writes:

The word becomes flesh in all its uncertainty and awkwardness. Grace comes to us through weakness. Grace uses every available weakness to pull down our might. It undermines the cruelty of our strength by throwing us on the mercy of our weakness. It is by our sin that we are saved, because through it we reach for the grace that alone sustains us.

As Christians we should refuse to collude with the conspiracy of success and uniformity that characterises so much of the world around us and sadly has even started to invade parts of the Christian Church. To do this we need to reject the lie of human perfectibility and learned to live with only two certainties. By grace we all minister to others. By our wounds we are healed and bring healing to others. Clergy come and go, but the Church is it’s people in relationship.

God bless you all and may you rejoice in God’s presence this Christmastide and throughout 2025 wherever you are.

Blessings
James

Sermon for Advent 4 – 22.12.24

Simon Scott Reflections, Sermons

As good episcopalians, many of us love our different liturgical seasons. With different colours adorning our church buildings and changing focus in our journey of faith, liturgical seasons are most worthwhile because they reflect the rhythm of life itself. Advent reflects seasons in our lives that are filled with hope and anticipation. We often associate these with happy times with events like waiting for a wedding, waiting for a baby to be born, or waiting for the arrival of a loved one who has been away for a long time.

But the first Christmas wasn’t exactly happy and bright, and the readings of Advent itself aren’t particularly happy, either. Advent speaks of waiting for God’s help in the midst of desperation, reminding us that we can find echoes of Advent with the homeless living on the street as well with those waiting in the maternity ward.

Advent calls to us as we carry the weight on our shoulders, and it speaks hope. As we watch the news and see the pain in the world, we are often faced with our own powerlessness. As snow and ice and cold weigh down the landscape of many northern climates, we too can feel weighed down: by our ever-extending to-do lists, by the suffering in the world, and by our own personal struggles.

Advent is here to remind us that we cannot save ourselves, but that there is hope.

Today, with four candles lit, the Song of Mary soars through the Gospel reading and into our hearts again, as it does every year.

Mary, the unwed mother, the fiancé of a poor carpenter. Mary, who knows depths of desperation that many of us will never have to know. Mary, who felt herself powerless but sang to God who was about to save the whole world.

We often think of Mary as gentle and meek, but today, Mary is brave and bold, singing loud and strong.

Everything — the very shape of human history — is about to change.

The new dawn is on the way, and Mary sings out to greet it. The weight lessens and hope is born.

I don’t know if any of you have ever read the book or watched the film, The Hunger Games. In the first instalment of the three-part series, there is a scene in the movie that is not in the book, but it sums up very well the theme of the whole trilogy.

President Snow, the dictator of the dystopian, futuristic country of Panem, is walking in his rose garden with the chief “game maker,” Seneca Crane. Crane is the man responsible for creating a game that pits young people from the twelve districts of Panem against one another in a highly publicized fight to the death each year. The winner of the Hunger Games is then held up as a brave, strong hero that represents the spirit of Panem.

President Snow asks Seneca Crane why the games must have a winner. If the Capitol simply wanted to show its power and to instil fear and control, he says, why not simply execute people? Why the games? Why a winner?

Seneca Crane does not understand. He stares back, confused.

“Hope,” President Snow says simply. “Hope is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective. A lot of hope is dangerous. A spark is fine, as long as it’s contained.”

A little hope, says Snow, would allow the games to entertain the people and would allow them to have a hero to root for, while also keeping the Capitol firmly in control.

A lot of hope would topple Snow’s oppressive regime entirely. The books and movies, as you either know or can probably guess, are about that spark not being contained. The second installment of the story is called Catching Fire as hope — a lot of hope — is revived in the country of Panem.

Hope is more than mere optimism. A lot of hope can shake the foundations of everything that weighs us down. A lot of hope can change the course of history.

For Mary’s part, she doesn’t initially greet the news of her pregnancy with her soaring song and blazing hope. When Luke’s Gospel first introduces us to Mary, she is more like the traditional image of Mary — young, meek, seemingly timid, but ultimately faithful. When the angel tells her the news, she consents, but she’s not singing yet.

As she’s absorbing the news from the angel Gabriel that she will conceive and bear a child, he tells her, perhaps to console her: Elizabeth, your relative, is pregnant too, even in her old age!

Gabriel doesn’t actually tell Mary to go to Elizabeth, but Luke says she still “made haste” to go to the Judean town in the hill country to see her.

Mary wants to be near someone who understands. Elizabeth is also pregnant by a miracle. Elizabeth, Mary knows, won’t think she’s crazy. And here, with another human being who understands that God works in really weird and unexpected and direct ways, Mary is able to find the courage to sing her song of hope. Not ordinary optimism, but great hope. The kind that catches fire. The kind that sings loud.

Today, Mary sings as she invites us into the vulnerable territory of daring to hope big. Optimism looks behind us to find comfort in what we’ve experienced before. Hope — the big, world-shaking, musical hope of Mary — looks ahead, knowing that we cannot imagine what God is able to do.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with optimism. Optimism hopes for good fortune, for fun with friends and family during the holidays, for a blessed and happy new year, and for love and warmth to surround us. There is nothing wrong with a little optimistic Advent cheer.

But if you have experienced the depths of despair, if you have seen the pain that exists in the world, you know that optimism is not enough on its own. It is too difficult to sustain. The world is too broken, too violent, and too divided, and we alone cannot fix it. Our one spark of hope is that God has spoken and told us that someday, all things — all things — from our personal struggles to the weight of the world’s pain, shall be made right. That hope is why Mary sings.

Today, the Gospel story invites us, like Mary, to seek out others in order to find our song of hope. It wasn’t until Mary was with Elizabeth in the Judean hills that her hope burst into song. And maybe, whether we know it or not, that’s what we’ve done today, too. We have made haste to seek one another out, to gather together so that we, too, can sing songs of hope.

Our song is one of extraordinary hope. Hope that has seen the broken and divided state of the world and knows that it cannot afford to hope too small because we cannot repair the world on our own. Only God can, and only God will. In the meantime, we are called to make our corner of the world that God so loves a less divided, more trustworthy, more hopeful place. We are called to sing.

The best part about Mary’s song of hope is that it is never hope unfulfilled. Every year, we remember her bold song to remind ourselves that God has already broken through.

Even in the darkness, even in the deepest disappointments, even when we are betrayed, and even when the world looks most broken, we keep this crazy hope alive that God has and God will break through. And today, we make haste to find each other to sing that hope again, to fan that spark into flame again.

Every year, Christmas always arrives. Even if we are exhausted or brokenhearted, the Light of Christ always comes to the Church. Always. The final candle is always lit.

Advent and Christmas are here every year to remind us that God has already broken through. Despite the world’s pain, the dawn is well on the way.

And that is why Mary finds Elizabeth and sings her heart out. So, let us today find one another and sing our hearts out to the God who breaks through, who sustains our lives, and who dares us to hope big — and beckons us to sing loud. Amen.

Sermon Advent 2C – 08.12.24

Simon Scott Reflections, Sermons

We begin our sermon this week with a story about a crime! The story about a burglar who broke into a house one dark, stormy night. The family were all fast asleep in their beds, but as the burglar was looking around for valuables, she suddenly heard a voice say –

“Jesus is watching you!”

The burglar froze in her tracks, looked around and then, with great relief, realised it was a parrot inside a cage.

“Jesus is watching you!”, the parrot squawked again.

The burglar made her way across to the cage and saw a small nameplate that read John the Baptist.

“Huh! What kind of religious nut names their parrot John the Baptist?” she said out loud.

To which the parrot responded, “The same kind who names their Rottweiler Jesus!”

My apologies, but I just couldn’t resist sharing this little story with you today. You see things didn’t go quite as the burglar had planned, it wasn’t the way things were supposed to be. But then, breaking into someone’s house is not the way things are supposed to be either.

And that’s an interesting thought for us today.

This isn’t the way things are supposed to be.

I wonder if you have every had that thought?

This isn’t the way things are supposed to be.

Maybe it was about something a bit more serious than our burglar story, perhaps something you had planned for your career or retirement. Maybe it was the latest family gathering that ended in shouting or falling out. Maybe it was the silly thing you said or did to someone else and now regret.

Or perhaps it was your response to something you’ve seen or read about in the news recently

  • The shooting of the CEO of an insurance company on a city street
  • The bombing of cities in Israel and Palestine
  • The attempt to impose martial law by the president of South Korea
  • A shooting spree on the Isle of Skye

This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.

If you have ever found yourself having this thought or feeling this way, then you have a sense of the biblical concept of sin. The very thing of which John call’s us to repentance.

When you say or think, “This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be” there are actually two things going on.

First of all, you have a sense that something is not right. But there is also a second thing. In order to say that something isn’t right, you also need a vision of what things are supposed to be like. So sin, in the biblical tradition, is a derivative concept. First, you have to have some sense of what is right. Only then can you say something is wrong.

In the biblical tradition the vision for how things ought to be is sometimes called shalom. We translate this word as “peace,” but it means much more than an absence of warfare or a calm state of mind. Shalom or peace in the scriptures means universal flourishing, wholeness, harmony and delight. The prophets spoke of a time when crooked paths would be made straight, when rough places would be made smooth, when flowers would bloom in the desert, when weeping would cease, when the lion would lay down with the lamb, when the foolish would be made wise, when the wise would be made humble, when humans would beat their swords into ploughshares. A time when all nature would be fruitful and benign, when all nations would sit down together for a sumptuous feast, all creation would look to God, walk with God, and delight in God.

In the Bible, shalom, or peace, is the way things are supposed to be.

Sin, the way things aren’t supposed to be, is the violation of shalom.

Of course, sin is an affront to God, but it is an affront to God because it breaks God’s peace.

And what is it that breaks God’s peace? Twisting the good things of creation so that they serve unworthy ends. Splitting apart things that belong together. The corruption of personal and social and natural integrity. A moment’s reflection or a look at the evening news can easily supply specific examples.

Now, all this talk about sin may sound like a bit of a downer, especially on the 8th December. Many of us are starting to get into the  Christmas spirit. Decorating the tree, listening to Christmas music, building up the ‘jolly’. We even came to church this morning!

But instead of the baby Jesus and heavenly choirs of angels, we get John the Baptist, a rough prophet prowling about in the Judean wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Not exactly “Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas”!

But here’s the strangest thing. We still refer to this message as good news. After the gospel lesson was read, Monica said to us, “This is the gospel of the Lord.” That is to say, “the Good News of the Lord.” How can this be? Some of us might say, “No way.” An Old Testament prophet wagging his finger at us and calling us sinners is definitely not good news. Others of us may be willing to admit the importance of John’s message, but only as a prelude to good news, something we must do to get ready for good news of the birth of a saviour. We need to go through the hard process of acknowledging and repenting of our sins so that we may make ourselves ready for the gift of Christ. It may be a necessary process, but we still wouldn’t call it good news. Think of when the doctor tells us we have to give up the foods we love and start exercising – they may be telling us a truth we need to hear, but we don’t really rejoice and burst into song when we hear it.

And yet there is a way that John’s message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins can actually be seen as good news, and not just as a necessary, grit-our-teeth-and-get-through-it prelude to good news.

After Monica read the gospel and said, “This is the gospel of the Lord,” we responded, “Praise to Christ our Lord” But how can really mean it?

How?

Well, I think we can see John the Baptist’s proclamation of a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins as good news in three ways.

Firstly, if we hear John’s message and it rings true, if we have ever said, “This is not the way things are supposed to be,” then we already know God’s peace. As I said earlier, in the biblical view, sin is a derivative concept. We must already have a vision of how things ought to be if we feel as though things aren’t that way. We must have some sense of God’s peace, to know when it is broken. And this is good news. We do have a vision of God’s shalom, God’s peace. It has been given to us in our scriptures, and in our religious traditions, and in our reflection on creation. We have been given a vision of the world as created and redeemed by our good and generous God, a world made to be fruitful, filled with deep and abiding joy. If we hear and respond to John’s message about sin, then we must already know about God’s peace. And that is good news.

A second way we can see John’s message as good news is that if we hear and respond to his call to repentance for the forgiveness of sins, then we must believe that there is something we can do about it. John is not saying things aren’t the way they’re supposed to be and they never will be, so just get used to it. His is not a message of futility in the face of the brokenness of God’s creation. Rather, it is a liberating and joyful call to realign our individual and collective wills with the purposes of God. If we already know of God’s vision of shalom, we can be people who promote flourishing, seek wholeness and restore harmony. We can be repairers of the breach. To hear and respond to John’s message is good news, because in spite of the fact that things aren’t the way they should be, they can change and so can we. People can stop killing each other. Hungry people can be fed. Parents can love their families and help their children to thrive. Enemies can become friends. It is good and, indeed, joyful news to know that we are free to respond to God’s call to shalom.

And finally, we can hear John’s message about a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins as good news because if we already know God’s peace, if we can respond to the call of God’s peace, then in some deep way we already trust in the eventual triumph of God’s peace.

In our gospel lesson, John is described by the words of the prophet Isaiah as:

“the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough way made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

It is an emphatic message: all flesh will see the salvation of God. And this is good news, the Good News.

Things aren’t the way they are supposed to be. We know this because we already know God’s peace. Through a process of repentance, we can align ourselves with God’s purposes, God’s peace, the way things are supposed to be. And we can do this in spirit of gratitude, joy and trust because we have been given a promise of the eventual triumph of God’s shalom in the birth of a baby who is the Lord strong and mighty, the everlasting Father, the prince of peace!

That, my beloved sisters and brothers, is Good News!

Advent Reflection

sheumais Reflections
Rev Allan Boesak

It is not true that creation and the human family are doomed to destruction and loss — This is true: For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

It is not true that we must accept inhumanity and discrimination, hunger and poverty, death and destruction — This is true: I have come that they may have life, and that abundantly.

It is not true that violence and hatred should have the last word, and that war and destruction rule forever — This is true: Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, his name shall be called wonderful councillor, mighty God, the Everlasting, the Prince of peace.

It is not true that we are simply victims of the powers of evil who seek to rule the world — This is true: To me is given authority in heaven and on earth, and lo I am with you, even until the end of the world.

It is not true that we have to wait for those who are specially gifted, who are the prophets of the Church before we can be peacemakers — This is true: I will pour out my spirit on all flesh and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions and your old men shall have dreams.

It is not true that our hopes for liberation of humankind, of justice, of human dignity of peace are not meant for this earth and for this history — This is true: The hour comes, and it is now, that the true worshipers shall worship God in spirit and in truth.

So let us enter Advent in hope, even hope against hope. Let us see visions of love and peace and justice. Let us affirm with humility, with joy, with faith, with courage: Jesus Christ — the life of the world.

The Rev. Allan Boesak

They are at Peace

sheumais Pastoral Letter, Reflections

The first half of November is a season of remembrance. All Saints Day on the 1st, All Souls on the 2nd and Remembrance Sunday on 10th. The Book of Wisdom, leaves us in no doubt that death isn’t the end.

“But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
and no torment will ever touch them.
In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died,
and their departure was thought to be a disaster,
and their going from us to be their destruction;
but they are at peace”. 

Wisdom 3:1-3

It tells of three powerful and connected truths: one, the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God; two, they are safe, and three, they are at peace.

Think of that for a moment, in terms of all those who we have loved but see no more. Thistext says: “They are safe”. In terms of those killed in war, both in the past and also in wars being fought at the moment, many died earlier than they should have. 

But now, says Wisdom, “no torment will ever touch them”, because “they are in the hand of God”. As the Book of Revelation, puts it, “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes…mourning and crying and pain will be no more”.

Wisdom goes on to say that they are “at peace”; there’s no more worry, no more anxiety, no more struggle, pain or suffering. Wisdom tells us that the faithful departed are safe in the hand of God, and are at peace.

A life of faith in Christ and his Way is possible only through a life of love – love for God, love for others, love for oneself. In death the faithful will truly know and be taken up into the God who is Love itself.

So for those of us that are left behind, it’s for us to ready ourselves, so that our death will be the way to perfect happiness and union with God and to make ready for that time by seeking and finding each day s the God of love, in every person we meet and in every experience we have. 

Blessings
James

It’s Harvest Time

sheumais Pastoral Letter, Reflections

Hoorah!! It is harvest time again!! There you are, hurtling along the A9 in your car on some mission of huge importance, muttering venomously at cyclists in helmets shaped like wasps’ bottoms, inconsiderate enough to want a bit of your road (you of course hoping they can’t lip-read) and cursing that you’ve already been caught behind yet another camper van, supermarket wagon or log lorry.

Rounding a bend you come up behind the ponderous majesty of a slow-moving tractor and trailer. On closer inspection over the next ten minutes, you realise that it’s not a single tractor and trailer, but is actually a convoy of three tractors and two trailers, and the glory of the aforementioned ponderous majesty begins to lose it’s shine!

Hoorah. It’s harvest time again. And I’d bet that sitting in that queue of cars, most of you don’t start singing hymns, psalms and songs of everlasting thanks and praise to our great God for his generous provision, or bless the farmers or the shop and factory workers or thelorry drivers for the work they do to put food on our plates!

So here’s the challenge for harvest and beyond. If you get stuck behind a tractor or a combine or a plough or any mysteriously shaped implement or a delivery wagon or a log lorry, take it as an opportunity for reflection, for thanksgiving and for praise to the God who lies behind all of it and give us so much that we often take for granted.

So let us make a start but praying a rather lovely prayer for the harvest of God’s love which is ultimately what gives us the all the wonderful things that we enjoy from day to day.

Lord, your harvest is the harvest of love;
love sown in the hearts of people;
love that spreads out like the branches of a great tree
covering all who seek its shelter;
love that inspires and re-creates;
love that is planted in the weak and the weary, 
the sick and dying.

The harvest of your love 
is the life that reaches through
the weeds of sin and death
to the sunlight of resurrection.

Lord, nurture my days with your love,
water my soul with the dew of forgiveness,
that the harvest of my life might be your joy.

Frank Topping

Blessings
James

A little Wisdom every day

sheumais Pastoral Letter, Reflections

From time to time in this season after Pentecost, we have a reading from the Wisdom literature in the Hebrew Bible. For instance a couple of weeks ago we had a reading from Proverbs and in a couple of weeks time we have another from the Wisdom of Solomon. In that latter there is a verse concerning reason:

“For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves, ‘Short and sorrowful is our life, and there is no remedy when a life comes to its end, and no one has been known to return from Hades.’”

Just by chance I had read that Andrew Carnegie had this carved above the fireplace in his library at Skibo “He that cannot reason is a fool, He that will not a bigot, He that dare not a slave.” Having checked with someone that this was indeed the case, I set about trying to discover where the quote comes from.  In his autobiography Andrew Carnegie described a visit he made to the house of a Major Stokes who was the chief counsel of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Carnegie was deeply impressed by a passage he read displayed in Stokes’s residence:

“The grandeur of Mr. Stokes’s home impressed me, but the one feature of it that eclipsed all else was a marble mantel in his library. In the center of the arch, carved in the marble, was an open book with this inscription:

He that cannot reason is a fool,
He that will not a bigot,
He that dare not a slave.

These noble words thrilled me. I said to myself, ‘Some day, some day, I’ll have a library and these words shall grace the mantel as here.’ And so they do in New York and Skibo to-day.”

I wondered who had actually written it in the first place and in what context.  Eventually I found the answer.  Sir William Drummond the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Scottish poet and writer wrote a philosophical treatise published in 1805 called ‘Academical Questions’, which contains this passage: 

“Prejudice may be trusted to guard the outworks for a short space of time, while Reason slumbers in the citadel; but if the latter sink into a lethargy, the former will quickly erect a standard for herself. Philosophy, wisdom, and liberty, support each other: he who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not, is a slave.”

Now does that tendency to suspend reason and instead rely simply on prejudice, apply to so much that has happened recently and is still happening in our world today and is it not something that we should all guard against?

The Reverend Billy Graham apparently suggested as a discipline reading the chapter of Proverbs which matched the number of the day the month. Now it’s possible that perhaps it’s for no better reason than there are 31 chapters in Proverbs though of course reading a bit of Solomon’s Wisdom each day is probably a good thing anyway.

Blessings
James

Unless you change and become like little children

sheumais Pastoral Letter, Reflections

On 13 March 1996, 43-year-old Thomas Hamilton arrived at Dunblane Primary School and murdered sixteen children and their teacher. The Dunblane massacre as it became known, remains the deadliest mass shooting in British history.  He entered the school gym, in which a Primary One class were preparing for a PE lesson and started shooting.  Within four minutes he had killed sixteen children, as well as their teacher, Gwen Mayor, injuring fifteen others. He then turned the gun on himself. The children who died were all aged between five and six years old.

Two days after the shooting, a vigil and prayer session was held at Dunblane Cathedral which was attended by people of all faiths.  The following Sunday the Queen and Princess Anne, attended a memorial service at Dunblane Cathedral.

In trying to find hymns that offered an appropriate response, John Bell realised that there was precious little and so he wrote one.  The result is the hymn “There is a place prepared for little children”. I find these extracts very moving:

There is a place where hands which held ours tightly
now are released beyond all hurt and fear

There is a place where al the lost potential
yields its full promise, finds its true intent

There is a place where God will hear our questions
suffer our anger, share our speechless grief,
gently repair the innocence of loving
and of belief.

At 11:47am on Monday in Southport, three young girls were killed in a “ferocious” knife attack at a Taylor Swift-themed summer dance and yoga class. Eight more children were injured, with five left in a critical condition. Two adults also suffered critical injuries in this truly horrendous incident. A 17 year old boy from Banks in Lancashire a few miles away has been arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder, all in all a tragedy for so many people.

Few of us, if any, can fully comprehend what the parents of the Dunblane children went through or what the parents of the Southport children are going through. All we can do is hold them all in our prayers.

Lord of all compassion

We pray for all of those caught up in the tragedy in Southport.
For the children who have lost their lives
For those who are worried about people they love
For those who will see their loved ones no more
For all whose lives will never be the same again
Lord Have Mercy.

For those in need of the peace that passes all understanding
For all who turn to you in the midst of turmoil
For those who cry out to you in fear and in love
For all whose lives will never be the same again
Lord Have Mercy.

For those in confusion and those in despair
For those whose tears are yet to dry
For those in need of your unending love
Lord Have Mercy

Lord of all compassion

Father and unfailing friend,
be with all the people of Southport 
as they try to take up the threads of their lives again
facing the future with fresh courage and renewed hope;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Blessings
James

Evangelism, Advertising and the Past

sheumais Pastoral Letter, Reflections

In the last year two members of our congregations who were over 100 years old have died. Eric Dawson from St Finnbarr’s died in September last year at the age of 100 and Barbara Rae in the St Andrew’s congregation died only a couple of weeks ago at the age of almost 104. Both were stalwart members of their congregations and contributed so much to both them and the communities in which they lived, they affected the lives of all those that met them.

At Barbara’s funeral, I was reflecting on how much has change she saw born as she was in the immediate aftermath of the Great War. When she was 19, Britain was was once again plunged into war and Barbara lived and served through the second world war, and all its after-effects – a life changing and life affirming experience for so many of that generation. Barbara’s war included the blitz of Liverpool were she worked but she was at the time still living with her parents in Birkenhead. A bomb badly damaged their family home in May 1941 and they had to move out, but they all survived. In one of life’s coincidences, in the 50s, Barbara and husband Willis moved to the same road, some 10 doors along.

Every week in the Church Times, there’s a short piece printed from the archives and I found the piece from 20th June 1924 fascinating. It concerns an international advertising convention held in London in July. As a sign of how much times have changed since Eric and Barbara were children, it’s interesting to note that a programme of religious services and meetings had been arranged to satisfy the spiritual needs of delegates to the convention:

“On Sunday morning, July 13, it is proposed that the delegates shall choose between Westminster Abbey, where two thousand seats are to be reserved for them, and the Bishop of Durham will preach, and sitting under Fr. Knox in Westminster Cathedral. In the afternoon there is to be ‘a great inspirational meeting’, and in the evening a special service in St. Paul’s Cathedral, and others for Nonconformists. Such recognition of religion is, of course, to be welcomed, but we confess to feeling a little uneasy about the two days’ discussion on Church advertising. ‘The personal touch in Church advertising’, to mention the topic of one of the speakers, sounds suspiciously like a form of vulgarity which we devoutly hope will remain for ever in its native land across the Atlantic.”

Church Times Archive 20th June 1924

There are those in the church who believe that the best route to evangelism is through advertising, but the idea somehow sits rather uneasy with me. In my view, the best way to attract people to our faith is by example. If in acting out our Christian faith, we set an example that causes people with whom we have interactions to think – whatever it is that motivates them is something that I could do with a little of.

Leo Tolstoy wrote that:

“he became a Christian because he saw that the men and women round about him who believed in the faith, received from it a power that enabled them to face life and death with peace and joy”

On the other hand, Friedrich Nietzsche, the nineteenth century philosopher, wrote about Christians and Christianity. He praised Christianity as a religion but he never became a Christian. When asked why not, he said:

“For a group of people who claim to believe in Resurrection, none of them looks redeemed”. Oh dear!! 

In contrast Eric and Barbara clearly thought that a sign of Resurrection Joy is looking and acting redeemed and by so doing, bringing a sense of hope to others that’s tangible and irresistible. They were, to put it simply an inspiration to us all and an example for the rest of us to follow. May they both rest in peace.

Blessings
James

Prayer on the 80th anniversary of D-Day

sheumais Reflections
Into the Jaws of Death by Robert F. Sargent, CPhoM, USCG

God our refuge and strength,
as we remember those
who faced danger and death in Normandy,
eighty years ago,
grant us courage to pursue what is right,
the will to work with others,
and strength to overcome tyranny and oppression,
through Jesus Christ,
to whom belong dominion and glory,
now and for ever.
Amen.