The world waits (article from Gainford and Winston Parish News)

We have  installed a rather attractive pine gate in the fence that separates us from St Osmund’s Church. The view that we have as we look through the gate is of a beautiful garden, but not,  as you might imagine, the garden of St Osmund's, which is lovingly cared for and a joy to see. The view is of our own small patio garden, which I love, but in which I do  very little gardening. The credit for our colourful garden is all due to Kathy.

How is it that when looking through the gate I see our own garden? It is because the gate is not really a gate but a very clever mirror device which produces what is called a ‘trompe l’oeil’, a French word which can be translated as ‘deceive the eye’.Our gate is designed to deceive and I feel a little selfish and guilty of providing visitors with a view which is not real.

It may not have escaped your notice, that ‘trompe’ and ‘Trump’ are  remarkably similar words. You will have been living on another planet if you do not know that Donald Trump is the Republican candidate for the Presidency of the most powerful nation in the world, the United States of America. The democratic  election takes place this month and Mr Trump has many supporters willing him to win the election. I think we all know that what politicians say in order to get themselves elected should be taken with a pinch of salt, but some of the pronouncements and promises made by Mr Trump should be taken with a cellar full of salt. There are those who take the extreme view that he is deceiving the electorate when he claims to have the skills of leadership. 

My gate tempts me to look inward to my own concerns whereas God expects us to look outwards  into the world. The mark of a good leader is the ability to take a wider, compassionate view and to persuade others to come with them.. If Mr Trump is elected, time will tell whether he has that gift.

I am reminded of some words from a song , ‘Walk beside me’, written by Mutt Lange: Don't walk in front of me, I was not born to follow; Don't walk behind me, we were all born to lead; don’t walk without me, I might need you tomorrow; walk right beside me, be  the real friend I need.

In  this month of remembering, amongst those we remember on All Souls’ Day, All Saints’ Day and Remembrance Sunday  are people who were leaders of immense courage and compassion).  But on Advent Sunday we will begin our preparations to celebrate the birth of a very special leader, Jesus of Nazareth, ‘in whom there is no deceit’ (John 1 v 47). We must all pray that the next President of the United States of America will remember the words of the song and follow the example of our Lord.

Neil Russell

Running the race (sermon preached at Ingleton)

In today’s New Testament lesson, the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews encourages us to persevere in our life of faith, no matter what difficulties we face. “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.” The writer says, ‘you have started well well in becoming Christians. I want you to finish strong in what has been started in you.’

Sport is an activity we can all take part in. That doesn’t mean we’re unlikely to become an Andy Murray or Tom Daley but there is a sport and a level of that
 sport where we can achieve our potential. We are seeing some remarkable achievements in Rio.  The story of, swimmer Adam Peaty  is one such story.  Adam won the gold medal in the 100m breaststroke in Rio last week, breaking his own world records as he did so. When he was at school his mother sent him for swimming lessons because his performance was so poor at a swimming gala.  To reach the point of being world champion Adam, like other successful athletes, has dedicated himself totally to his sport, focussed  on where he wants to be, and achieved his ambition.

The marathon is perhaps the most iconic of  the events. Anyone  can run a marathon . In the London marathon and the North East marathon, world champions run alongside ordinary people taking the   day off to fulfil an ambition  or to raise money for a charity. They all run the same course, the only difference being the time when they cross the finishing line. Running a marathon gives everyone the opportunity to share in the same race.

 But it’s the finishing that really makes the difference.  The elite runners are crossing the finish line when others are only about half way through the course. But the beauty of the event is that,  for many, just finishing the race is the accomplishment, the goal.  participation in the event is for fun.

The author of the letter to the Hebrews asks us a similar question: Will we finish the race that is our life with faith? Will we persevere? Or will we run off course, or give up? And the race is hard. In today’s gospel, Jesus tells us, if we follow him, if we stand up for what is right, we will experience conflict.

The writer of Hebrews, like a good coach, gives four pieces of advice about how to finish the race:

recall who surrounds us.
Remove what ways heavily on us.
Rely on strength within us.
Remember who goes before us.

Recall who surrounds us: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.” The  writer wants us to picture ourselves as athletes in a stadium. As we strive towards our goal, to finish with faith we run surrounded by people. The people in the stands are people who have demonstrated faith — faith that persevered, people who by the grace of God overcame great obstacles, and finished the race. These are people of the Bible, the men and women of the Church throughout the ages, people known personally by you and by me whose witness encourages us.

They are witnesses, not just spectators. There is a huge difference. A spectator watches you go through something. A witness is someone who has gone through something herself, and the root meaning of the word witness, from which we get the word “martyr,”.  is someone who may have given his life going through it. We have witnesses cheering us on, not just spectators, people who have gone through what we struggle with, people whose testimonies of the strength God gave them can, in turn, give us strength and courage. We have witnesses cheering us in, weeping with us when we, stumble, calling to us when we wander, urging us to finish the race.

Our coach tells us also to remove what weighs down on us. “Let us lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely,” says our coach. What attitudes and actions,  weights of brokenness do we carry that cause us to stumble rather than sprint? We can set those weights down. God is ready to take them from us. God is ready to forgive and heal whatever we let get between us and God, whatever has come between us and other people, whatever wrongs we do to ourselves.

Our coach also tells us to rely on the strength within us. We are told to “run with perseverance the race that is set before us.” When the going gets tough, when the road is difficult, when the miles drag on, obstacles come up around every bend, when every stretch of the road seems like another steep hill to climb, we can rely on spiritual resources within us — spiritual resources we develop in gathering with other Christians, in hearing and reading God’s word, in participating in the sacramental life of the church.

The word “perseverance” can also be translated as “patient endurance.” Endurance is one thing. We can endure and whine and complain all at the same time. Patient endurance looks like praying without ceasing for ourselves and others. It looks like encouraging others even in the midst of difficulty. It looks like saying something kind, or saying nothing at all when something unkind comes more readily to mind. It looks like giving of ourselves generously, even when we’re not sure what’s ahead of us and our inclination may be to think of ourselves first.

Most important of all, remember who goes before us.  We can look “to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.”
We can and will finish the race strong in faith if we look to Jesus, if we keep our eyes focused on him, not being distracted by other things along the way that can cause us to lose our direction or footing and stumble. Jesus has gone before us, has shown us the way that leads to victory.  If we keep our eyes on Jesus and follow him, we will not only make a good beginning in faith we too will finish and win the race.

In the race of our life, we have people cheering us on. We have someone willing to take on our burdens. We can train for patient endurance. We have a guide who leads us and will not leave us.

Back or front?

Earlier this year, I mistook the time of a meeting and arrived late. I tried to creep in unnoticed but the hall was almost full. The speaker spotted me and pointed me to the empty front row, to where I shuffled, muttering embarrassed apologies.

Churches regularly witness this as front pews remain empty, worshippoers making a beeline for the back and side pews. If you are leading worship it can be disconcerting to see your congregation in the distance with rows of empty pewter  in between in a cavernous medieval building.

Eileen, our Parish Priest, decided to tackle the problem head on last Sunday by inviting all of us to move forward.  It occurred to me how unsuitable most of our churches are for worship. The principal service in the Church of England is Holy Communion which commemorates the last supper Jesus had with his disciples. They would have sat around a table or on the floor in an intimate circle. In our churches we all sit in rows, scattered around the building with the priest standing at the front. We perhaps need to radically change the interior layout of churches if we want to worship more authentically. Many churches have already done this, but our ancient church buildings do not facilitate radical re-ordering.

We must, however, also bear in mind that some people have good reasons for seeking a quiet spot in their church. They want space to share a problem with God, they may need to slip out quietly during the service, or they may have children and can more readily take them for a wander. But I will sit in a pew a little nearer to the front in future.

St Ninian and Whithorn

Over nine years ago I embarked on a period of sabbatical leave and I chose to follow in the footsteps of the Celtic Saints who were largely responsible for the introduction of the Christian Faith to these islands. Among the places I visited were Boston (St Botolph), Whitby (St Hilda), Ripon (St Wilfrid), Jarrow (Bede), Holy Island (St Cuthbert), Glasgow (St Mungo) and Iona (St Columba). It was an enlightening time and I wrote a small book which I plan to reprint in the light of what follows.

One place I wanted  to visit but didn't was Whithorn in Dumfries and Galloway. In my book I said that would have to wait until another holiday, and nine years later, the opportunity arose. Our folk band  Gegenforde, having the previous year stayed an played together on the Isle of Barra, decided this year to go to Dumfries and Galloway, and so we found ourselves staying a in lovely cottage in Ross Bay, about an hour from Whithorn. So Kathy and I set out one day, with Sandie and Peter Dransfield to find Whithorn. It was a warm sunny day and we arrived at lunchtime in the quiet town and found the visitor centre which provided us with sustenance. The sun still beating down (as much as it ever does in  Scotland) we walked to the ruined priory.

The  priory is inextricably linked with St  Ninian who said to have come from the Solway Region.  He trained in Rome and returned to Galloway as Bishop and Missionary.

He died around 431 and was buried in his church on the hilltop at Whithorn.

In the 700s the Northumbrian monk, Bede, wrote that Ninian had built a white painted church at Whithorn which became known as 'Candida Casa'.

A few miles along the coast is a cave associated wth Ninian which has been a place of pilgrimage for centuries. To get to entails a long walk, difficult for me, so Sandie and Kathy made their pilgrimage  leaving Peter and me sitting  in the sunshine.

I am pleased to have rounded off that piece of work from 2007.

That was the week that was

It has been a busy week in Gainford, following our 2 weeks in the Outer Hebrides where we enjoyed the warm sunny days, the changing colours of sea and sky, and the luxury if almost deserted white sandy beaches. It is a long time since that part of Scotland enjoyed such a prolonged spell of summer weather.

It was back to a weekend in which The Rev'd Eileen Harrop was inducted as our new Parish Priest, and we celebrated the 90th birthday of the Queen.

The Induction service, led by the Bishop of Durham, was a joyful occasion and the presence of St Mary's Band prompted the Bishop to compare the band with those which appear in Thomas Hardy's novels. Long before organs were invented, village bands led the singing of hymns, and St Mary's Band is reviving that tradition.

One tradition was, I am sad to say, not introduced into the service, That is where the incumbent is led to the door of the church, and then rings the bell, before being placed in his/her stall by the Archdeacon. The new priest would, it was rumoured, ring the bell the number of times representing the number of years he/she intended to remain in the parish. Despite the omission of this symbolic act I hope Eileen will be with us for many years.

However, it was good to see that the tradition of people from other churches and community groups welcoming the new priest was part of the service and several people took advantage of this to welcome Eileen/

Then, of course, there was the reception afterwards, this time held in the school. There is always a worry that there will not be enough to feed the ravenous worshippers, but, as usual, the loaves and fishes story was repeated as the tables groaned under the weight of the baking of parishioners.

Eileen, still bleary eyed from Friday night, officiated at her first services at Winston and Gainford on Sunday and was well received. The departure from Winston was delayed as Eileen greeted her parishioners and she almost ran down the path of Gainford Church to be ready for a 10-45am start. I hope that she does not have to do this every week, and the service at Gainford changed to 11-00am.
I was with Eileen that morning, driven by husband Brian, who drove at fast as he legally could.

And the busy week ended with a service of Celebration and Thanksgiving for the Queen in St Mary's, where worshippers from all the churches in Gainford and Winston paid tribute to Her Majesty. Rory Thompson  gave a splendid tribute and Eileen interviewed Christine Graham about her work at the Well food bank in Bishop Auckland. Appropriate bunting adorned the interior of the church and a red, white and blue flower arrangement  was the final touch.

God is Love

Love, this perplexing and difficult something at the heart of our faith is both the best description we have been given of who God is and the clearest command our Lord gives to us. It’s a quality or a type of relationship, and it’s proclaimed as the greatest, strongest, and most persistent gift we are given.

It’s what St John talks about in chapter 14 of his Gospel. The English translation of the Greek is “love” and that’s really a pity.  The early church was one step ahead of us. The early church knew that this difficult and perplexing quality of relationship was something new, revealed by Jesus and in Jesus. So they invented a new word. The church took a seldom used, obscure Greek term and used it to describe this new state.  The Greek word, we all know, is Agape.

The advantage of doing this was that every time the Church used this word, people would know exactly what was being talked about—they would know that what was meant was the command of Christ, the life of God and a new way of being.

We haven’t been so perceptive. We took that precise and specific Greek word “Agape”, and we ended up translating it as one of the most vague, most misused and abused words in the English language. We call it “love”, a word with a host of meanings. So, most of the time when we hear the word “love” used in the Bible we think we know what it means. But we almost certainly don’t. Instead, we’re probably confusing agape with one of those other things that the word “love” means in English.

So we hear Jesus saying, “If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father” and we actually think we understand what Jesus is talking about. After all, we love our new car; and we love chocolate; and we love our spouses and our children; we love to go for a walk. Romeo loved Juliet. And none of that has any real connection to what John is talking about when he says that God is Love, or with what Jesus is commanding us to do when he commands us to love him or one another. When we love in any of those other ways we are not keeping Jesus’ commandment, we are not imitating the nature of God.

The word is a problem. The King James Version of the Bible generally used “charity” instead. But, for better or worse, “charity” got taken over by non profit making bodies and really doesn’t work these days. We’re stuck with “love,” but I wish we weren’t.

All of this is to say that when we hear the word “love” used by and about Jesus Christ, God, and the Christian community, we cannot automatically assume we know what it means. Ordinary English usage seldom gives us even a hint of what the Bible is talking about. Yet this peculiar difficult and perplexing thing is both the purpose of our lives and the way to that purpose.

There is only one way to learn what the Christian faith is talking about when it talks about love. There is only one way to discover which of all the different experiences we have are really experiences of love in this sense. There is only one way to know what we are commanded to do when we are commanded by our Lord to love God and one another. WWe can learn of love – Christian love, agape – only from Jesus Christ.It’s only from knowing him: from knowing what he said and what he did, who he was and who he is, that we can know what love is. Until we realize this we will always miss the point. The call to love is a call to Jesus: to know him, to live his life, and to walk his path. You see, the truth of the matter is that there is no single, precise, definition of Christian love, of agape. There is, instead, a person, Jesus of Nazareth, who lives it and who shows us what it is and who gives it to us that we may show and give that same love to the world.

We know that it looks like a father welcoming home a son who was lost; like paying a full
day’s wage to a worker who showed up an hour before finishing time—and it looks like rejoicing in each of these. It looks like losing your life in the hope of finding it;  It looks like all of that, and much, much more. But really, finally, and at its clearest, it looks like this. It looks like a cross—it looks like the cross. This is what we Christians really mean when we talk about love. And if we ever mean anything else, then we most certainly mean something less—and we are unfaithful to Jesus.This cross is what it means for God to love us; this is what it means for us to love one another.

That’s really the central thing I have to say about love. So, to find out what John means when he says that God is love, or to discover what it looks like to love one another as Jesus has loved us, we don’t  look deep within our selves, we don’t look around us, or at our families, or at our society or at the natural world. Instead, we look to Jesus and to his life—to all of his life. There we will find, in all its depth and simplicity, what we Christians really mean when we talk about love. And there we will find life.

New address

Please note that my blog will now appear on the Church web site:

www.gainfordwinstonanglican.com/russellings