Category: Blog

Churches Weekly Newsletter, 29 May 2022

Remember when Jesus said to Thomas, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen, and have believed’?
Well, Ascension Day, which fell this week, is a good time for us to celebrate that we are among these blessed ones, who have not seen Jesus, but who believe.
Our physical vision of Jesus is clouded, just as it became clouded for his followers on that day he left them for heaven. 
But our spiritual vision of Jesus is as clear as our hearts are clear when we worship; it is as sure as those ‘Amen’s we say when we make our prayers in faith.
The significance of the Ascension is that the Human One who was available to his friends and followers on earth, is now available to all people, everywhere, by the power of his Holy Spirit.
The ambiguity of the Ascension is that whilst Jesus has left earth to be with his Father, he is at the same time now everywhere present on earth and closer to us than we can even imagine.
Some say that Jesus is everywhere present on earth because he has entered the collective unconscious as one of our mythical archetypes alongside Mother Earth or the Devil. Some, like the writer Tom Holland, say that  even as belief in God fades across the West, our societies are so soaked in his influence that we still take for granted things that Jesus taught us: like it being nobler to suffer than to inflict suffering and to assume that every human life is of equal value.
All of these understandings of the presence of Jesus in our world are valid; however for the blessed ones, who have not seen Jesus, but who believe, there is something far more immediate, far more personal: the gift of the Holy Spirit which gives us power to witness to his presence in our daily lives, he who, in the words of a famous ascension hymn, is: "The joy of all who dwell above, the joy of all below; to whom he manifests his love and grants his name to know".

 

Churches Weekly Newsletter, 22 May 2022

In a time of war, we're greeted with the image of the risen Christ standing before his petrified disciples saying "Peace be with you!" This Hebrew 'hello' goes way beyond a mere greeting and carries a wealth of meanings in the Bible, far more even than an absence of violence. Rather, it signifies the wholeness and well-being of a restored community, of a people and their environment shaped in right-relation to their God. 
Shalom, the main word for peace in the Hebrew scriptures is related to salaam in Arabic and shlomo in Aramaic, Jesus' language. All translate as wholeness and integrity, especially in relationships.
So, 'Peace be with you!' really means, 'Wholeness and health be with you!' Thus God's peace invites us to participate in the process of becoming whole and making whole.
As I'll be saying in church on Sunday, I now leave you with these words: 
Shalom aleichem: Peace be upon you. Aleichem shalom: Upon you be peace.

Churches Weekly Newsletter, 15 May 2022

Linger for a moment with the (above) statement by Christian Aid that 'For the first time in a generation, global poverty is rising'. We can see how that looks when we place the stories of Zimbabwean Jessica Mwedzi alongside those of people we know using our local foodbanks, and of today's news reports that two in five people in the UK are buying less food because of the rapid rise in the cost of living. As we understand that hunger here in our villages and towns is caused by changes in government economic policies and business trade practices, we likewise realise that Jessica's family's hunger is also the consequence of deliberate decisions made by powerful people outside their community over the years, which have increased inequality and contributed to the literally burning issue – global heating – which affects us all.

Whilst there is still a big overall wealth gap between Zimbabwean people and ourselves (inviting our charitable giving), this Christian Aid Week there may just be more of a sense that we are all in this together; and that whilst people like Jessica will benefit from our charity, people like us could learn from her, in the way she has applied herself to using what small resources she has (drought-resistant seeds) to produce a harvest of valuable food for her family. Self-sufficient growing is not new, of course – our local Sustainability Group have long been exploring it, and it was widely practiced in the UK within living memory - but it's increasingly part of conversations here, and in  towns and cities and across the world. You may have practical wisdom to share with your neighbours about this from years of practice – or you may be looking to learn.

The prophet Jeremiah wrote in a situation where his people had been devastated by imperial attacks, followed by famine and deadly pestilence sweeping thought the land. His book is an 'honest and raw expression of a national crisis, which affected individuals in very concrete ways'* He expresses the people's traumas having been' uprooted and torn down, destroyed and overthrown' – but then introduces to them the idea that it is time to 'build and to plant' (Jeremiah 1).

Trying to think of how to 'change the world' for the better for both Jesica and ourselves may overwhelm us. But digging a plot, planting some seeds, yielding a modest crop. It's not only a practical way to respond to our present crises, but it's a prophetic one also.

* Juliana Claassens, 'An Infinite Present' in Jione Havea (ed), Doing Theology in the New Normal: Global Perspectives, p.266-7.

Churches Weekly Newsletter, 1 May 2022

The Church of England’s Living in Love and Faith course was offered as a Lent series in the Bowland and Ewecross Deanery, hosted by Settle Parish Church and led by me and Revd Sue McWhinney.  The aim of the course is to encourage listening and discussion around the issues of relationships, sexuality and marriage. 

Approximately 25 people from across the Deanery attended some or all of the six sessions, representing a broad range of life experiences and perspectives on the issues.  Throughout the course we shared in break-out groups often with people previously unknown to each other, which brought together people of differing points of view. Despite sometimes sharp contrasts in perspectives, gladly a spirit of open engagement and tolerance of others was evident throughout, with ‘good listening’ being an underlying aim of Living in Love and Faith and the Church of England’s ‘Pastoral Principles’ which underpin it. 

As one person said at the end of the course, ‘An interesting group of people attended, so we had some quite complex conversations’. Another said that it was ‘very helpful’ to be able to talk in a non-judgemental setting’, and another, ‘it was good to have the opportunity to be open about these issues in a safe space – the first time I have felt it appropriate to do so in 30 years’.

The sessions were based around video presentations which enabled worship and reflection, discussion of issues and bible studies. For many who took part, the ‘story videos’ were the most engaging part of the course, and at times challenging. These consisted of individuals or couples talking about their lives and relationships, often expressing challenges they’d encountered in the interface between their faith and church involvement and their sexuality, gender, or marital status.  

As the course progressed it became evident that for most people who took part, their core beliefs about these issues may not have been much altered, but their understanding of other viewpoints was helped by hearing people’s life stories and how their experiences had shaped their beliefs.

Thus, whilst our experience of the course represents a growing openness to dialogue within the Church of England it also shows that we continue being far from achieving any unity of thinking on sexuality and same-sex marriage. Two responses at the end of our course illustrate this. One person said, ‘The Church needs to look beyond the bible and listen to people of different sexuality more’ whilst another affirmed that ‘The bible is our sole authority and is very clear on these issues.’ Some will agree with one or other of these statements whilst it is likely that others find ourselves somewhere inbetween them on a spectrum of perspectives.

Is unity of thinking on sexuality and same-sex marriage attainable within the Church of England? Our Deanery’s experience of Living in Love and Faith suggests that whilst perhaps the majority can ‘agree to disagree’ peaceably on these issues, ultimately as a Church we will continue to disagree. Some even feel this tension within ourselves. As one person said, ‘At the end of the course I felt in a dilemma: great sympathy for those same sex attracted and those wanting to be the opposite sex, and yet no peace should the Church follow society and ‘marry’ same sex couples.’

We have reported our ‘feedback’ on the course to Bishop Helen-Ann (who is leading our Diocesan engagement with Living in Love and Faith) and this will contribute to further discussions at General Synod level informing eventual decisions in the Church about same-sex marriage.

Of the experience of having shared in a Deanery-wide Lent course, the general consensus among those attending was that it had been good and worth considering repeating. Any ideas for next year?

Churches Weekly Newsletter, 17 April 2022

‘Resurrection is God’s response to darkness and chaos, to death and destruction, to the worst of what can happen. Resurrection occurs in our homes and on our way to work, in the brightness of Sunday dawn and in the darkness of Monday morn. Easter is the beginning not the ending. It’s the genesis we didn’t see coming. The first of many days to come.’ (Rodney Aist)

Bad news abounds – but Easter morning brings us the best of all possible news.

With my prayers for Easter blessings for you and yours,
John

Churches Newsletter, 3 April 2022

How to teach peace to children…? At Austwick School, as doubtless all others, staff and parents are aware of the impact which the war in Ukraine is having on children. The staff are helping the children to understand events at an appropriate level that is accessible to them, and, recognising that parents, family and care-givers share the overwhelming task of responding to children's fears and worries, the school has also linked parents to training on Talking about War and Conflict with Children.

Knowing that the Austwick schoolchildren are keen to do what they can to make a positive difference to the lives of others, the school has been fundraising for the relief appeal by collectively walking the distance from Austwick School to the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv. This distance is 1,743 miles in total and the children have achieved this by each day, either as part of PE or at break times, walking or running around the field and collating their distance. 

‘How to Teach Peace to Children’ is the title of a booklet I bought thirty years ago and which has been reopened on my desk again in recent weeks. Written by J. Lorne Peachey and published by the Mennonite Church, one of the historic ‘Peace Churches’, it’s been a useful companion through  years of youth ministry and schools work but it’s written mainly with families in mind. It’s full of helpful tips and suggestions for anyone to apply in the home, church or school. 

This time around I’ve embraced the suggestion ‘Tell Stories’, and in weekly Collective Worship at school have been reading from ‘Peace Be With You’ by Cornelia Lehn, a collection of stories, from history and oral tradition, of people whose lives exemplified Christian doctrines of peace, even when confronted with violent circumstances: the Epps family who showed love and care to a terrible neighbour when he fell ill; Enos Stutzman a conscientious objector who went to war as a medic and army bugler; the activist Ann Jarvis whose Mother’s Day for Peace brought reconciliation between soldiers from opposite sides of the American Civil War…

How to teach peace to children? Ane Lemche, a psychologist and child counsellor at Save the Children suggests simply making time to listen, to validate their feelings and reassure them, and give them a practical way to help. Teaching peace to children is a profound vocation we all may share in our families and community; and of course in embracing it we learn so much more about ourselves, our world and the way of the God of Peace as well.

Churches Weekly Newsletter, 27 March 2022

The letters page of The Guardian has been discussing prayer, writes Andrew Brown in this week's  Church Times.
"It started with a letter from the Revd Richard Bradshaw: “An elderly Christian lady I met recently said with some bitterness that she would not be responding to the various calls for prayers for Ukraine. Why? Despite years of conflict and thousands of deaths in her country, she has never heard British church leaders pray for peace there. She is a Nigerian refugee.”
"So back comes Ken Gambles, another Yorkshireman: “Rev Richard Bradshaw’s Nigerian parishioner might be right about church leaders not praying for peace in Nigeria, but I can assure both of them that at Holy Trinity Knaresborough, at various times in the past 20 years, we have prayed for peace in Nigeria, Angola, Libya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Syria, Myanmar, Iraq and Sri Lanka.”
"And so, the next day, Jenny Haynes, from Lincolnshire wrote in: “Regarding praying for peace, did it work?”
"That magnificent squelch might have been the end of it, but there followed a letter from the Revd Kenneth Cross: “Prayer, for many of us, is not magic, not seeking the intervention of a lofty god whose reluctant arms need to be twisted. It is, rather, a participation in and a growing in compassion. It is we who are changed, through contemplation and stillness, centred on divine love. Painfully slowly (in my case at least), we then become better able to act compassionately and justly. We become the answer to our own prayer. That, truly, has the potential to change everything.”"
Becoming the answer to our own prayer – a painfully slow but steadily life changing process. This practice is at the centre of Lent; it maybe also describes something core to what mothering is about.

Churches Weekly Newsletter, 13 March 2022

"In September 1938, events were moving to a crisis. Fear and apprehension prevailed throughout the country. War seemed imminent. News and conversations became concentrated on the single topic of the conflict in Europe: the press and simple wireless sets gave us no respite, no peace of mind. … There seemed no escape from the atmosphere of gloom and despondency, at home and at work and in the streets; things were getting worse day by day. But I was fortunate in having a fortnight’s holiday due, and I fled the familiar scene. I walked alone from Settle in Ribblesdale to the Roman Wall along the eastern flank of the Pennines, returning down the west side. In the solitude of the wild Pennine hills, I found peace."

So began Alfred Wainwright's introduction to A Pennine Journey, published in 1986. "The parallels with our anxious, crisis-ridden contemporary situation seem pronounced," writes Anita Sethi in I Belong Here: A Journey Along the Backbone of Britain, published last year, in which she (loosely) follows Wainwright on her own Pennine journey, a walk out of the busy city motivated partly by her love of Northern England's hills and partly to try to process and recover from a terrifying racial attack she had suffered on a train journey from Liverpool to Newcastle.

The crime she had experienced was "a vicious attack on her right to exist in a place on account of her race", (say the book's sleeve notes). "After the event Anita experienced panic attacks and anxiety. A crushing sense of claustrophobia made her long for wide open spaces, to breathe deeply in the great outdoors. She was intent on not letting her experience stop her travelling freely and without fear." Anita Sethi's reflections on the relationship between landscape, society and healing are profound, and like Blackburn's Wainwright, Manchester-born Sethi also found peace in these hills – and a restored sense of belonging. Having been harangued by her attacker to "Go back to where you're from" she had a healing epiphany at Hull Pot, on the western side of Pen-y-ghent, when she found herself declaring, "This is where I'm from: I'm from the North. The glorious North."

Who belongs and who doesn't – these questions are at the heart of so much conflict the world over. As a clergy friend of mine said this week, "Everything belongs. Everything is sacred. I don’t want to have conversations discussing if people are ‘in or out’. I never did. The world has become far too scary for the church to be indulging that. That’s not the promise of salvation. It’s what the promise of salvation saves us from: exclusion and division."

In the Iona Abbey Worship Book the congregation ask Jesus to “Bring to our house all those who hurry or hobble behind you.” So… those urban walkers, cyclists, runners, caravaners and picnickers, all who breathe the air alongside us on these Pennine streets, hills and footpaths… do we see them as mere 'visitors' to 'our land', to be regarded suspiciously, or as fellow-travellers on life's bumpy road, with stories to tell, in need of succour we might share?

Churches Weekly Newsletter, 23 January 2022

“You are precious in my sight, and honoured, and I love you,” says God to you and me, and all created beings (in Isaiah 43.4).

In human society our understandings of identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage are always shifting; and in our own society these understandings have radically altered over recent decades.  For some, the Church has been frustratingly slow to respond in kind to a more open, inclusive approach to these issues; for others the Church’s very slowness is a blessing, for it offers the rarity of time to enable us to more fully, deeply consider the issues and our response, in heart and mind and in practice, to the challenges of different perspectives, to create space for mutual flourishing. 

The church has been debating these questions for a long time; the focus and terms of the discussion shifting over time between gender equality, sexuality and marriage. The underlying question for Christians remains the same: how do these questions fit within the bigger picture of the good news of Jesus Christ – or what he himself termed ‘The Kingdom of God’, the way of God at work in the world.

In discussions which can too easily become polarising between extreme points of view, in more recent times a focus has been on creating a culture in which people can hold very different points of view whilst dialoguing together supportively, affirming each other’s created uniqueness. And so the emphasis in Living in Love and Faith is to ask us to face all these challenges hopefully and to consider, what does it mean to live in love and faith together as a Church?

The late Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said, “We are made for goodness. We are made for love. We are made for friendliness. We are made for togetherness. We are made for all of the beautiful things that you and I know. We are made to tell the world that there are no outsiders. All are welcome: black, white, red, yellow, rich, poor, educated, not educated, male, female, gay, straight, all, all, all. We all belong to this family, this human family, God's family.” The Christian way of life (in common with many other religious practices) is rooted in the uncompromising pursuit of unconditional love for each and all.

Living in Love and Faith is the title of a series of meetings in Lent, run by the churches of the Bowland and Ewecross Deanery (ie all the Anglican parishes from Ingleton and Bentham via Slaidburn to Gargrave and Kirkby Malham), in which those taking part will each bring their own life story – experiences, perspectives, joys and concerns – into an affirming, supportive discussion; an open conversation without fear of censure or criticism. 

Those who have taken part in Living in Love and Faith courses elsewhere speak of the good experience of listening well to, at times ‘disagreeing well’ with, and being well-listened-to by people quite different to themselves, and many good lessons learned from interactions they might never otherwise have if stuck in their own social ‘bubble’.

The Living in Love and Faith meetings will take place between 7.30-9.00pm in person at Settle Parish Church on Tuesday evenings March 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, and April 5, or on Zoom if preferred… and you are very welcome to join. Find out more at bit.ly/livinglovefaith or from me at john.davies@leeds.anglican.org, 01524 805928. 

The excellent, in-depth Living in Love and Faith book is accompanied by a range of free digital resources including films, podcasts and an online library, together with Living in Love and Faith: The Course, and a Pastoral Principles course booklet, which together will form the basis of our course sessions. Each are published by Church House Publishing: https://www.chpublishing.co.uk/features/living-in-love-and-faith, 01603 785925.

If you attended such a meeting, what might you bring to it from your own experience of identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage, and your understanding of the Christian faith? What might you hope to learn from others? “You are precious in my sight, and honoured, and I love you.” It would be great to see you there.