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

The light shines in the darkness

Have you ever noticed that when you get together with your family and start telling stories about when you were growing up, or what happened years ago, the same events sound very different as different people tell the story. I watched the film "Lady in the Van' recently, with Maggie Smith and thought it was a moving and funny film, perhaps the best I have seen this year. But I have spoken to others who did not like the film for various reasons. Same event, different points of view.

Try thinking about this very human business of memory and story telling in light of the wonderful poetry of the first 14 verses of John's Gospel. This is the Christmas story, the third time the Bible tells it. It is the same story we heard in Luke's Gospel - the story of the manger and the shepherds and the angels. It is the same story Matthew tells in his Gospel, with Joseph's dreams and the wise men - but the point of view is different. John's Gospel sounds strange to ears more accustomed to descriptions of crowded inns and angel choirs. That is because different people are telling the same story.

You see, Luke, who wrote the familiar story, was keen on locating everything in time and space. He was almost certainly a Gentile, and was very concerned about the role of people who, like him, were considered outsiders. So he is more concerned with shepherds, who were social outcasts, than about kings. And Luke tells the story from the perspective of Mary, a radical move in itself, since women were even lower on the social ladder than shepherds!

Matthew was a Jew and was very concerned with making it clear that Jesus fulfilled all that was required by the ancient prophets for him to be the promised Messiah. So shepherds did not interest him as much as royal wise men. And he wrote about the flight to Egypt, the return to Israel paralleling the Exodus. Matthew told the story of Jesus' birth from Joseph's perspective.

And then came John. John knew, in one way or another, about the stories in Matthew and Luke, and he assumes that we know about them as well. But John is a theologian,a philosopher. and a mystic. So since he (and we) already know the 'historical' details of Jesus' birth, John writes of its meaning, and writes from his knowledge of philosophy, theology and a from a lifetime of prayer.

But it is the same story, all three are talking about the same birth. John does  begin the story earlier, he reminds us that Christmas really begins just before the dawn of creation. So using language reminiscent of Genesis, John begins by talking about the Word of God. The Word of God here is God in action, God creating and revealing. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Then he tells the Christmas story in nine words, 'And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.' Jesus was as completely human as you and me. Poetic words for the most down to earth thing that ever happened. But still the Christmas story. Matthew, Luke and John may approach the event in different ways but there is one image, one symbol, that all three use to talk about Christmas.

They all talk about light, the light of a star, the light that shone around the shepherds, the true light that enlightens every person. They all combine Isaiah's vision of light shining on those who live in darkness.

The light shines in the darkness John proclaims. We all know what it is light to live in and with darkness. I often get up in the night and wander around the house in darkness. I can get disorientated and bump into things or misjudge the number of steps on the stairs.

We also know what is is like live in broad daylight.What John, Luke and Matthew all say about Christmas is that a night begins to shine, suddenly, quietly, but absolutely certainly. And by that light we can begin to see. By that light we can begin to see who we are and who we were created to be. Because it is in the person of Jesus that what it means to be a human being is finally made clear. In him we see that our lives are made whole as we give ourselves in love and service. In him we see that really being alive means risking everything for the love of God and the kIngdom of God.

By that light that has come into the world we begin to see God clearly for the first time. 'No-one has ever seen God' John reminds us but God is made known in Jesus. Who God is, in relationship to us, is fully revealed in Jesus. Not in one saying, or one parable, or one sign, but in all of them. In his life, death and resurrection we finally have the light to see God.

The light of Christ, the Word made flesh, comes among us at Christmas. That first Christmas, the light shone, and continues to shine so we can show the world what we have seen. By that light we have been given power to become children of God. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.

Christmas sermon 2015 based on John 1 v 1-14

Carols, carols and more carols

Friday's rehearsal of our Community Choir was the last one before Christmas and also the last one before carol singing in Barnard Castle the following day. With mulled wine prepared and served by Gary our Director, singing was not a priority at that rehearsal.

Saturday's post brought with it a letter from DVLA in response to my application to renew my driving licence, which expires in February. Their return of post reply was atypical of government departmemts and it comtained the news dhat my licence had been revoked with effect from the previous day. So that's it. I will never drive again, apart from my trusty mobility scooter. Looking on the positive side, I have enjoyed 50 years of driving, on business and for pleasure, in this country and in France, Spain, Belgium, Denmark and Italy. I shall remember those times with gratitude as I am chauffered here and there by Kathy and the many friends who have offered to help.

It was on with the day's carol singimg in Barnard Castle. Tony Kennan was my first chauffeur and he arrived in the afternoon as a few flakes of snow settled on the ground. Those few flakes were the advance party for a major snow storm which was the signal to turn back towards home.

The snow lay like Good King Wenceslas' pizza, deep and crisp and even, on Sunday morning as  we walked down to church; I had a day off from Winston, so an easy day.  Home for a quick coffee before Peter and Anne-Marie picked us up to go to Newcastle's Sage concert hall.

We were at the Sage to listen to the 300 strong community choir, directed by our neighbour, Gary. They were accompanied by the Royal Northern Sinfonia and was a joyful start to Christmas. On our way home Peter and Anne-Marie introduced us to Bistro Italiano, a very authentic restaurant in Durham, another one to add to growing list of good eating places.

Tuesday was Christingle Day and the children from school delighted us with their singing, prayers and readings. The Christingles were lit and, because it was a dark morning, 'the light shone in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.'

And so to Saturday, the day of the Village Hall Christmas Party. Expecting around 50 people, to our surprise, 90 tickets were sold. The hall was packed, The Copycats, another of our local bands lead by friend Peter, were great. St Mary's Band led the singing carols and our hard working ladies prepared a meal for everyone. It was exhausting, but a wonderful village celebration.

Nativity plays

This week I went to our little theatre, The Academy Theatre, to see the KS1 children from Gainford Church of England Primary School present their nativity play. Over the years I must have been to hundreds of such occasions and I love to see the children dress up, act and sing as they tell the well known story of the birth of Jesus.

As much as I enjoy these occasions they do worry me a little, The story is  always the same: Angel Gabriel tells Mary she is to have a baby, Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem, the inn is full, they find a stable, Jesus is born, angels tell shepherds about the birth, they visit the stable. Meanwhile, miles away three kings follow a star which leads them to Bethlehem. Period, as our American friends would say.

On that story is based all our celebrations over the next couple of weeks.  But on what is that simple story based? Certainly not on history, The story we know is a compilation from different sources in the Gospels. Mark did not include it at all and his was the first Gospel. Matthew has the angel tell Joseph, not Mary, about the birth. He has no shepherds but magi or wise men (number not specified) who travel own camels from a distant country. Luke has the annunciation to Mary and shepherds. John does not tell a story but begins his Gospel with a beautiful prologue which speaks of Jesus as the Word made flesh.

So you see, the traditional story as we know it is nowhere recorded as a whole, but is a mixture of Luke's and Matthew's accounts. There are other problems about the birth stories, for example it is highly unlikely that the 'Virgin birth' means that Mary conceived without intercourse.  God does not work by suspending the laws of nature. And although various explanations have been put forward about the star which guided the magi, stars do not move across the sky.

Christmas is a celebration of the presence of God in all human beings, but especially in Jesus whose power and presence inspired the Gospel writers to put into their own words the events of the life of Jesus as they had heard them, passed down from generations of people. That does not imply the story is meaningless; on the contrary they still have a message to convey which we all need to hear.

I look forward to Christmas, to singing the carols, hearing the stories again, giving and receiving presents and worshipping the God who is born in each of us.