Thought for the Day

As delivered at BBC Radio Bristol just now:

When Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday coincide, Easter Day is on All Fools Day. I said that recently and a helpful parishioner with too much time on his hands corrected me. Unless it's a leap year. Then April First becomes a Monday. It will happen in 2024, apparently.

This is the sort of thing that my sons label with the hashtag #vicarfact - stuff that clergy think important but nobody else does.

Tonight I will be at Christ Church, Nailsea in a symbolic act of Christian worship. We will make marks on our foreheads with ash to remind us of mortality. Then we will share bread and wine to remind us of eternity.

I was seeking a great title for the sermon at this communion event to embrace the lovey-dovey valentines and the reality of Lent:

Bread and ash? Too much like a recipe.

'Til death do us part? That's one of my wedding sermons.

Eventually I chose:

The best lovers say sorry

It's true. The beginning of Lent, often a time when people give things up, is more a time of reflection and repentance. If you are in a long-term relationship which has survived the years, it is likely that both of you will have learned to say sorry. If you are in the first stages of a relationship, introduce the word sorry at an early stage. You're going to need it.

Final thought. The team at Bristol Cathedral tweeted a reminder that Ash Wednesday is more important than St Valentine so the commemoration of that day, in the church, is held over until tomorrow. If you are late with your card it is OK - this year. And that's a hashtag #vicarfact

Thought for the Day

As delivered at BBC Radio Bristol this morning. It was followed by much hilarity when presenter Emma called some vandals 'scrotes' and then asked round the studio if that was a BBC word or not. At which point newsreader Keith said it was the latest model from Ford and we all collapsed. Wasn't it an insult Fletch used on Porridge all those years ago?

Today is known as Maundy Thursday.

Jesus, eating the Passover with his friends the day before he died, washed their feet.

It was a humble act. That of a servant leader. Afterwards, speaking of what he had done, he is recorded as saying:

'A new command I give you. To love one another as I have loved you.'

The first word of that sentence in Latin is mandatum - many scholars think we get the word Maundy from that.

But where two or three scholars are gathered together there is often a bit of a barney. Others suggest that the name comes from a different Latin word mendicare - to beg. They say that the names of the money containers used by royalty to give alms to the poor on their way to mass this day, gave the day its name.

The great thing is that both acts are still emphasised. The Queen gives out Maundy money each year. Symbolic foot washing is still practised.

As Bristol considers the possibility of becoming free from corporate advertising we note that symbolic acts have power. Power to subvert and power to influence.

As do symbols. If I hold up a wooden cross there can be no doubt what I am alluding to. It is one of the greatest advertising symbols of all time.

But wouldn't it be great if a city, indeed a whole region, was to become known for its acts of generosity, humility and kindness?

Jesus said his disciples should be recognisable by their love, for one another and their neighbours. Well I'm a realist. It's not always that simple. But it may be a better advert for my love if I wash your feet rather than put up a poster.

Thought for the Day

People in Bristol have started copying Paris and attaching padlocks to bridges and throwing the key in the water as a sign of love. Here is my thought for the day, as delivered at BBC Radio Bristol this morning, based on this news item:

Lovers have been declaring undying commitment in imaginative ways ever since undying love began. Wandering around the cities, towns and villages of our region we see names carved on trees, written on benches, scrawled on walls. 'Jason and Kylie together forever', once a brave statement of 1980s teenage infatuation, looks a bit dated in 2014. Wonder how it worked out for those two?

So what do we make of the idea, imported from France, of lovers leaving locks attached to bridges and railings, as a sign of their love. Kind of quirky? Or well-meaning and magical?

We carry within us a deep desire to do things that mark the moment. Symbolic acts are outward and visible signs of inward, invisible meanings.

I am a vicar. I have married lots of people. In the marriage service a strong, circular symbol of unending love and faithfulness is placed freshly on a bare finger. The bride and groom will say:

I give you this ring
as a sign of our marriage.
With my body I honour you,
all that I am I give to you,
and all that I have I share with you,
within the love of God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

It's always a poignant moment as it is the last symbolic act before I pronounce the couple husband and wife.

A lock is not love. A ring is not a marriage. But they are signs and we like signs.

So good luck to those who have found love and want to do something. Course, if you want to take your commitment further and really lock it in; give your vicar a call.

Sermon on John 13:31-35

In case anyone local wondered what I said when preaching away last Sunday, here it is:

 

Morecambe 28/4/13

 

John 13:31-35

 

A New Commandment?

 

Did Jesus actually do anything new? Good question. Better question than you would imagine. Feeding miracles? Nah, Elijah did that. Walking on water? Joshua and Moses didn't even have to do that, they parted it, and for a reason not just to show off. Healings? Again the Old Testament prophets were there first, also with raisings from the dead. One of the reasons people thought Jesus might have been Elijah was because of the myth of him being carried off into heaven in a chariot. He hadn't actually died so he may come back. Constantly John and Jesus were confused with Elijah.

 

But Jesus did give sight to the blind, something no OT prophet ever did. And whilst the ten commandments were a sort of back stop - so it's OK to beat someone half to death as long as I don't actually kill them - the new commandment in this Sunday's Gospel from John is to love one another as Jesus loves us. And this stated at a time when the full extent of Jesus' love - what he was going to do in what we know as Holy Week - was as yet unknown although John, as he wrote, knew the outcome.

 

Jesus' standards, at the time he was said to have spoken the words, were compassion, healing, exorcism and resuscitation. He had spoken of, but not yet carried out, laying down his life for his friends.

 

They are the standards we are set when we hear of the new commandment. The highest possible. Not that you do not murder. Not that you do to others what you would want them to do to you and vice versa. Not that you love your enemies. But that you love one another the Jesus way. Unconditionally putting others first.

 

At a wedding I often explain to a couple that they are not making an agreement but a covenant. Then I explain the difference. Joining hands the groom makes his promises to the bride and then hands are loosed again. Then the rejoined hands hear the bride make her promises. This is not 'I will do this for you if you will do this for me.' It is 'I will do this for you whatever.' We, the witnesses to this imaginary wedding, hear two separate and unrelated promises going on in parallel. Nothing this other person can do will stop me keeping my promises, for my promises have no conditions attached. But if the strength of those two promises motivates both parties in a marriage and they say them with meaning and commitment, and repeat them in their hearts every day of their marriage until parted by death, then the marriage will surely last.

 

Of course we all know that the road where one party means it and the other does not is a road to abuse, violence, manipulation, doubt and mistrust. A horror package. One party might become a doormat.

 

And, of course, this is not a tale of marriage but a tale of Jesus' unconditional love. What happens when one party begins to demonstrate loving one another without waiting for it to be reciprocated. The trouble with starting to love unconditionally is that someone needs to go first.

 

And that is what Jesus did. He went first. In pursuit of love he went to his death voluntarily.

 

Some people suggest that churches are emptying around the country because the Christian faith is inadequate as an expression of what life is all about. On the contrary. At its heart. At its crux (a word that means cross) is a standard so high it is not that it is inadequate but over-adequate. We ask too much. Instead of asking people to be second-milers we wonder if they wouldn't mind awfully going a few yards and then getting someone else to take their turn on the rota.

 

Church. A place where people who toil and don't seek for rest, fight and don't heed the wounds, labour and ask for no reward save that of knowing we do God''s will. Nice words. Someone should make them into a prayer.

 

You are tough. You are here. You want to identify with this man who took all the hundreds of positive and negative Old Testament laws that the scribes and teachers tried to explain and expound and boil them down to one simple, pithy saying. We'll go out from here and we'll love others as Jesus has loved us, using our weekly communion together as refreshment and recharging. Well? Will you?

 

I might try. Probably last a couple of hours before someone annoys me. After all I have to embrace the M5/M6 junction on my journey home. But I'll give it a go. Join me?

 

One day, says Revelation 21:5, the risen and ascended Jesus will make everything new. Meantime, by by this 'new' way of living says Jesus, others will notice. You bet they will.