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.