It's the time of year for lights!

By the time you read this the Christmas lights will be on, Santas will be installed in various grottos around the Bay, and shopkeepers will be praying for a bumper year! I do hope they get one - they have their living to earn just like the rest of us!

Meanwhile churches in the area will be holding their "Light up a Life" services, partly as fund-raisers for the truly wonderful Rowcroft Hospice (who also hold their own celebrations on-site), but also, and most importantly, a chance for those who grieve to gather together and give thanks for those who have died. Candles will be lit, prayers offered - many find this to be a great help and comfort.


Then, at last, there will be Christmas itself - celebrating the coming of God's light into the world in Jesus. Light up a life? - the light that really illuminates a life comes from the inside - it can't be bought in a shop, it can't be hung across the street, it is gift of God. It is a searching light - it lights us up with more clarity than any of us would welcome, making our limitations and failures very clear. But above all it is the light of love - God became flesh in Jesus so that we can hear the love and tenderness in his voice and see the light of love in his eyes even as he challenges us, even as we nailed him to the cross.

Christmas shows you that God is on your side, even when life seems to be working against you; that there is a future and a hope for you even at life's end, however big a mess you have made of your life. On Christmas Day in churches across Torbay we will hear the first chapter of John's
gospel, and in it these verses

In him (Jesus) was life, and the life was the light of men. The
light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

NOTHING can extinguish the light, the clarity, the hope, the love that Jesus brings with him. Not the shadows of your past; not the gloom of an economically stricken new year. Go into that new year with him!

Big Society?

The Big Society!! It's all about empowering communities, redistributing power and fostering a culture of volunteerism, says our Prime Minister. Encouraging active citizenship whereby people get involved in decisions and action in their local community and maybe beyond.

Cynics may sneer and say that it is about cost-cutting. Getting volunteers to do what the professionals did before. And of course that is partly true. We will have to wait to see if the government' actions live up to their rhetoric. But the idea, the ideal, is a good one - we, the people, taking responsibility for our community. And a quick historical survey reveals that our education system, our health care system, and many other positive aspects of our caring society, developed as active citizens, mostly active Christians in fact, took a "big society" view and got stuck in, perhaps encouraged by texts such as Galatians 6:2 "Bear one
another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ." and of course Matthew 25:35 where Jesus said

"For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me."

It is, though, worth stating the obvious - that the Big Society starts small! To borrow a few lines from a radical of former days - William Blake

"Labour well the Minute Particulars: attend to the Little Ones,
And those who are in misery cannot remain so long,
If we do but our duty: labour well the teeming Earth. . .
He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars.
General Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, and flatterer;"

It starts with your neighbour, with your street, your suburb, yes even your family. That is the only way in which the rhetoric can become reality. In these hard times it needs to become reality, NOT to prove Mr Cameron right, but to prove that we are what we claim to be - people who care!

Stop the screaming!

What makes you angry? so angry you want to shout and scream and throw something - or somebody! Just to take some public issues in no particular order ...

Are you enraged by the bankers and their political friends who just don't seem to understand or be sorry for what they have done?

Are you scandalized by the (relatively few) MP's who have plundered public funds and still expect us to vote for them?

Are you appalled by young people out of control, or by the sections of the press who believe that ALL young people are a menace?

Are you miffed by the political correctness which won't allow you to speak your mind or act on your beliefs, or is it the foaming spittle-flecked ravings of Christian, Muslim or Atheist
fundamentalists. (Faith-based atheism is all the rage just now!)

Are you galled by the seemingly endless expensive wars fought while millions go hungry; or the way our troops are under-equipped?

Aaaaarrrrgh!

But Easter means we can stop the screaming! Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. That means he was right.

• 1. Right in saying that there is a God who loves us, and that the most important thing we have to learn is to trust him.
• 2. Right in saying that there is a holy God who will one day judge us. All of us! He will judge those who make us angry, and us in our anger.

So we can drop everything that is merely destructive or vengeful in our anger - one day "they", whoever they are, will answer for what they have done to a holy and just God. So will we. Justice in this life is important but never perfect. But because Jesus is right, we know that
there will be perfect justice - there is no escape - and that is good news!

We can use our anger at the world's wrongs to power the quiet thoughtful constructive working and living which is the mark of those who trust this holy and loving God. Christian faith means not moaning at or about our politicians, but steadily working with them; not running down our young people but helping them; not indulging in witch hunts, but quietly holding wrong-doers accountable. We can turn down the volume a little on outrage and complaint, and ramp up the commitment and readiness to serve others. We can do it because Jesus is alive, and he was right! He is the way, the truth and the life.

Quiet faith, steady trust and the hope of heaven - now that IS something worth shouting about!

Hallelujah!

Fasting isn't dieting!

"Surely you should eat a healthy diet all the year round - so what is the point of giving up things you like for Lent?"

Lent has nothing to do with dieting! Loose weight and you will be healthier, probably, but quite possibly not happier. Dieting tends to proceed from anxiety or vanity or both, and, as George Jonas has said, is the "strange postmodern ritual of living so as to produce the most attractive possible corpse." So diet away, folks, and you will be leaner and more elegant if you persist - but not necessarily better people or happier people.

Fasting, for which Lent is the great Christian season, has positive and negative implications. Negatively, when you fast you are saying to yourbodily appetites - "You are not in charge of my life." In an age where obesity, alcoholism and thoughtless indulgence of every appetite are
epidemic amongst us, with all the wretchedness they bring in their wake, perhaps that's a statement we all need to make. Life is about more than what we eat or drink, or who we sleep with. Lent is a time for putting our appetites in their place!

Positively, in fasting we say to our appetites, "You are not in control here - God is!". That is the key to the ancient story of Jesus struggling with the temptations set before him by the Satan in the wilderness. Despite the obvious attractions of food after a forty day fast, power over his own destiny and a mighty object of worship. He saw,as so many of his followers have seen, that to get out of our own way and let God do his work in our lives is the way to a life worth living.

No-one has put this better than Isaiah in chapter 58:-

Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up speedily;
your righteousness shall go before you;
the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.

Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer;
you shall cry, and he will say, “Here I am.”
If you take away the yoke from your midst,
the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,
if you pour yourself out for the hungry
and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
then shall your light rise in the darkness
and your gloom be as the noonday.

And the LORD will guide you continually
and satisfy your desire in scorched places
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.

And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to dwell in.

Our world, our community, needs those who will fast in that spirit!

Emma

Luke 6:39 He also told them a parable: "Can a blind man lead a blind
man? Will they not both fall into a pit? 40 A disciple is not above his
teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his
teacher. 41 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother s eye, but
do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 42 How can you say to
your brother, 'Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,'
when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You
hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will
see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother s eye."

Emma.
Have you been watching the adaption of Emma on TV of a Sunday evening?
It has always been a favourite with me, not least because you can read it
twice and get just as much fun from it on the second or third reading.

First time, you read the whole thing as it were through Emma's eyes; and you have all the fun of being misled alongside her by her own foolish expectations. Because she persuades herself, she persuades us, that Harriet really will marry Mr Elton; because she persuades herself she persuades us that Jane Fairfax is pining for the forbidden love of Mr Dixon.

But then you can read it again and see things from the outside -
you can see just how Emma deceives herself all through the book, how
she fools herself again and again and how she has not the slightest
insight into even her own heart.

This is a book about the human heart and how hard it is to read it. It is
about love and how it makes fools of us. It is about human blindness -
only Mr Knightley is not made a fool of by love in this book. It is a
book about self-deception and blindness - each of us has some area in our
lives where we can't see ourselves clearly, truthfully.

It is the business of the church and individual Christians to play Mr
Knightley to the world's Emma; to stick with the truth and speak the truth
to those who are blind, to speak the truth not in anger or arrogance, but
in love.

But we can only do that if we have allowed Jesus to play Mr Knightley to OUR
Emma. To let him show us how much we have deceived ourselves.
Keep him very near at hand.

Remembering

Over the last few years there have been some wonderful interviews with
Henry Allington and Harry Patch, those two grand old survivors, the last
surviving British servicemen who served in the First World War. They came
home, dusted themselves off and lived very long and, one hopes, contented
lives. Both died this summer, their battles over at last.

Today as I write this in mid-October the Prime Minister warns us, and
his fellow world leaders that we have 50 days to save the world from
global warming and break the "impasse". I don't expect to see panic in
the streets of Torbay over this, nor indeed in the corridors of the UN
summit on climate change in Copenhagen in December. Most will see this,
correctly, as simply overblown rhetoric.

But Gordon Brown has a point - there is a battle to be fought on the
issue of climate change; sacrifices are likely to be required of us
all. The struggle, at bottom, is against thoughtlessness, greed,
selfishness and apathy.

Old battles - new battles - every generation has its own battles. Almost
always those battles are not struggles against impersonal forces of
nature - far more often they spring from the darkness of the human heart,
from greed, lust, anger, hatred, envy, and pride - misplaced pride. Those
things can and do warp and wreck the lives of individuals and of nations.

November is the month for remembering and as we look back at old battles,
around at our current struggles and ahead to the fights of the future
perhaps we need to remember three things.

1. We remember, give thanks for, and take heart from, the straightforward
courage of those men and women who went to fight for something they
believed in. They still go today to Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.
Most of us will not go to war, but we will need that kind of courage
at some point in our lives - the courage to stand up, speak out, to do
or say something difficult, maybe dangerous. Our soldiers sailors and
airmen show us what commitment means.


2. We remember that the root of conflict, wars and battles is sin -
forgive me a theological word! Sin is rebellion against goodness and
love and truth , which is always rebellion against God. The hardest
battle, the never-ending. weary, struggle takes place in our own
hearts and minds, as we try not to give in to the worst in us, the
worst that life's tests and temptations can bring out in us. That is
war begins, where personal and national disaster is averted or
welcomed.

3. When life's struggles are at their most demanding, we need to remember
this promise:-

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest." Matthew 11:28

He will give you rest and more than rest - he will give you victory!

Please pray for our servicemen and women.

Ditchkins dismantled.

Terry Eagleton, the literary critic, has produced possibly the best
response yet to the "new" atheists. Reason, Faith and the Revolution,
Yale University Press, 2009. It is an often hilarious dismantling of the
pretensions of Messrs Dawkins and Hitchens, whom he addresses under the
joint-title of "Ditchkins", alongside a deeply sensitive and thoughtful
exposition of what it means to believe. For many this will be a
difficult read - he assumes a lot of knowledge - but there many passages
which are positively luminous. Here for example, is Eagleton on faith and
knowledge ....

We might clarify the relations between faith and knowledge here with an
analogy. If I am in love with you, I must be prepared to explain what
it is about you that I find so lovable, otherwise the word "love" here
has no more meaning than a grunt. I must be prepared to give reasons
for my affection. But I am also bound to acknowledge that someone
else might wholeheartedly endorse my reasons yet not be in love with
you at all. The evidence by itself will not decide the issue. At
some point along the line, a particular way of seeing the evidence
emerges, one which involves a peculiar kind of personal engagement with
it; and none of this is reducible to the facts themselves, in the
sense of being ineluctably motivated by a bare account of them.