A new year

This letter comes with my best wishes for a happy and peaceful start to a new year.
The pattern of services in the benefice will be changing slightly this month. This has been precipitated by the retirement of our Reader, Arthur Brignall, which has meant that we have had to alter the Sundays where services in two villages were taking place at the same time.

The basic pattern will mean that Barley, Barkway and Reed will each have one 9 a.m. and one 10.30 a.m. Parish Communion a month. On top of this, Barkway’s BCP Evensong will continue as normal, and Barley will have a 5 p.m. service once a month, the form of which will vary. Every other month, Reed will have a third service. Barkway’s Discover Sunday continues as does Barley’s Church Mice.

This new pattern is not set in stone, but seems to be the best way forward at the present time. A number of people have worked on it, including myself, the rural dean and the churchwardens. Please talk to me about it once it is up and running, if you have any views. There will also be opportunities for special services, particularly those relating to Church festivals.

The United Benefice services are also set to continue but on fewer occasions than previously. I hope that with fewer of these services, more people will make an effort to attend them. They have, sadly, been the Sundays of the month on which we have had fewest worshippers in church. There is a great joy in coming together with people from different churches and villages to worship - I hope that you won’t miss out on those opportunities.

Of course, all services in the benefice are open to everyone each Sunday. Many people prefer to worship in their own village, but it is always a joy to see people crossing boundaries to worship in a different church or congregation. Sometimes we need to make our worship of God more of a priority and our attachment to a particular building less important - the exciting thing is that when we take risks, God often reveals himself in new ways in our lives.

With best wishes, Sarah

PS A year ago, I challenged you all to take on something creative in 2007. I thought I should report that I took my own advice and have been learning how to play badminton.

Watching and waiting

Although this is the December issue of The Diary, it seems far too early to be writing about Christmas, even though the shops have been telling us to do just that since about August. (Because of deadlines, I’m writing this on 10th November).

Christmas starts early these days. Few families or communities or even churches confine their celebrations to the Twelve Days themselves. What this means is that the season of Advent becomes harder to keep. If we are not careful, Advent becomes a time of rushing about buying presents, planning meals, arranging visits to family and friends, singing carols and celebrating long before the day on which we remember Christ’s birth. Many people want nothing else. But others find themselves wanting something more.

For Christians, Advent is a time of watching and waiting and preparing for the coming of Christ. It is a time not only of preparation for the arrival of the baby Jesus in the manger, but also a period in which we can focus on preparing for the return of Christ and the final triumph of good over evil.

How we prepare will depend on many things - our lifestyle, our temperament, our experience of God and so on. Keeping Advent offers the space to reflect on how we can prepare spiritually for Christ’s coming; it can help us to find time for God as we race around. It’s all too easy to prepare for Christmas without giving thought to why we are celebrating. No birthday party happens without the presence of the one whose anniversary it is; how often the child in the manger finds himself omitted from our festivities!

Advent offers Christians a chance to stop and reflect. Many others find the idea of some space in the midst of the frenetic activity in the run-up to Christmas helpful. We have beautiful countryside around us; we have open church buildings; there will be many services in churches and chapels across the benefice. These can provide the space that we need. Even a snatched five minutes of peace and reflection can help us gain a sense of balance again. Or why not visit the crib exhibition in Barley church in the first weekend of December? A reminder of what it is we are awaiting.

With best wishes, Sarah

Remembering Past Pain

In September this year, while on holiday, I paid a visit to Auschwitz -Birkenau concentration camp. It was a harrowing experience - one of those places that stunned me into silence because of the horror of what went on there.

Keeping Auschwitz open as a place for visitors allows people to pay their respects to those who suffered so much because of Nazi rule, enables us to remember horrific events and to educate this and future generations so that such atrocities can be prevented from happening again.

For those of us who have not directly experienced war, it is too easy to forget the impact that conflict has on individual lives. The thing that affected me most in my visit to the death camp was the enormous pile of suitcases in a large display cabinet. For me, they turned the masses of people to whom they belonged into individuals. Each case had a person’s name inscribed on it and the place from where they had come. From then on, in my mind, the victims were no longer anonymous, but individual people with names and families and homes, whose lives had been destroyed by the power and oppression of others.

The trip was a sobering reminder of what humans can do to one another. What horrifies me is that oppression and violence still remain in our world. Power continues to corrupt those who have it. The scale of the Nazi cruelty was phenomenal and nothing compares with it, but we all know of countries today where people are oppressed and unable to speak out without disappearing or being killed. Zimbabwe and Burma spring to my mind immediately.

Each year in November, we hold Remembrance Sunday services, which help us to recall those who have been willing to sacrifice much for the good of others, to thank God for our freedom and to pray for those currently serving in our Armed Forces and support services around the world. Perhaps this year we should also commit ourselves to speaking out on behalf of those whose voices are not heard.

With best wishes
Sarah

Common heritage

I recently visited the Sacred exhibition at the British Library in London*. It’s well worth a visit. For the first time, treasured texts from the Jewish, Christian and Muslim collections at the Library were displayed together, with some from other institutions as well.

The books, fragments and scrolls were arranged thematically. This highlighted some of the things that the three faith traditions hold in common, and showed how in times past they influenced each other.

So often in discussion about religion - or in other areas such as politics - the focus is on where people disagree. We all know that many wars have been fought by people of faith seeking to defend what they hold dear, when it seems threatened.

But all too rarely do we concentrate on what we hold in common. The exhibitions sub-title was “Discover what we share”. At heart all three faiths share belief in one God, whom they believe has revealed the divine nature in the world. The three faiths, in many places, have similar moral and spiritual teaching. They all have sacred texts. There are differences in emphasis and interpretation, of course, but that happens between adherents of the same faith as well as those of different ones.

In listening to those of others faiths, we often learn about our own, but more importantly we can begin to build bridges between people and challenge the many stereotypical, but often false, pictures that we create in our minds. It’s all too easy to think we know what someone else is thinking without really taking time to listen to them and their tradition.

In a world where religion is often used to divide people, this exhibition was a wonderful example of how it can also bring people of different traditions together.

With best wishes
Sarah

*(open daily until 23rd September)

Celebrating the saints

In July and August, the three churches of our benefice all celebrate their patronal festivals. A patronal festival is held on or near the feast day of the saint after which the church is named, and is an opportunity to remember and give thanks for particular faithful Christians of the past - in our case: St Margaret of Antioch, St Mary Magdalene and St Mary.

The word saint is used in two ways. First, it refers to all Christian people. We find it used in the Bible in this way on a number of occasions.

The designation Saint is also used for specific people who have lived out their faith in outstanding ways. They are people who responded to God’s call on their lives, often undergoing great suffering in the process. For instance, Margaret is said to have been persecuted by water and fire before she was beheaded.

Not everyone will receive the title Saint, but there are many saintly people who serve God and others because of their faith. Some will have names that are well known, such as William Wilberforce or Mother Teresa. But many others will remain unnoticed and unsung, though the work that they do might have a profound effect on the lives of others. I’m thinking of people who work for aid agencies and for causes such as trade justice and against people trafficking.

Many of these people will do so because they are people of faith, who are following Jesus’s commandments to love God and to love our neighbour. The story of the Good Samaritan reminds us that the definition of our neighbour can be a very broad one, certainly not confined to our next-door neighbours or even those in our own community.

As we celebrate the lives of saints who have made a difference to the lives of others, we are reminded that their lives are examples for us to follow.

With best wishes
Sarah

Isaiah 9.1-4; Matthew 4.12-23

One of the important themes of today’s service is that of new beginnings.

Our Gospel reading follows the story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness, a turning-point in his life. Before the period of forty days he spent in isolation he had as far as we know a pretty normal Jewish life. Other than the birth narratives, his dedication in the temple and the flight to Egypt, the only thing we know about his early life is the story of his parents losing him when he was 12. If there had been other significant things, no doubt there would be some record of them.

The first public event in Jesus’s life appears to have been his baptism, after which he was compelled to spend time in the wilderness.
It was only after that ordeal, in which three times he pushed away the temptation to do other than God desired, that his begins his ministry in public. And today’s Gospel reading is Matthew’s version of that beginning of ministry.

John the Baptist had made it clear that his own ministry was finite, that he was a forerunner to the one who was to come, and we see this happening now in practice. John is in prison, out of the way, unable to carry out any more ministry, and Jesus takes centre stage.

It’s a new beginning. And Jesus goes also to a new place, a place away from the religious centre of Jerusalem, to a much more mixed area where Jews and Gentiles lived. Matthew makes clear, as he so often does in his Gospel, how Jesus’s actions are a fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecies. And, in this case, we heard the prophecy itself in our Old Testament lesson from Isaiah.
Mollie too is at a beginning. Baptism marks the start of her life as a member of the Church, a part of Christ’s body here on earth. Of course, she is too young to acknowledge that for herself so her parents and godparents are here today to do that for her, but we hope and pray that as she grows, she will come to turn their promises into reality in her life.

Baptism is a sign of turning to Christ, of recognising the need for Christ in one’s life and of our need and dependence on him.

Jesus’s call at the start of his ministry echoed that of John the Baptist - repent. Repentance too is about new beginnings. To repent means to acknowledge our shortcomings and to turn towards Christ, recognising and receiving his grace and forgiveness. We use the wonderful symbol of water to represent God’s forgiveness, a washing away of all that is sinful and a making clean again.

Repentance is about coming before God in humility and being honest about where we’re at, being honest about the areas of our life that are not under his rule. It’s about an acceptance that we need forgiveness, that we need God’s help, if we are to live his way.

All this is represented in the sacrament of baptism. We are saying today that we trust that as Mollie grows, she too will learn the wonder of God’s new beginnings given to us through forgiveness.

Baptism is also a welcome, a welcome to her into the church family, not just the part of that family that worships here in Barkway but right across the world. The Christian community is Christ’s Body here on earth. Jesus’s message of repentance was followed by a proclamation that the kingdom of heaven - the kingdom of God as the other Gospel writers term it - has come near.

Being part of the kingdom of heaven is not about being in a particular physical place, but about acknowledging God’s rule as king. Although God’s kingdom has not yet fully come, in some sense Christians are already a part of that, and we acknowledge that in baptism by welcoming Mollie into God’s family.

Of course, we can’t make decisions for her when she is old enough to do that for herself, but we can hope and trust and pray that she will make the decision to follow Christ. In a few moments we will all promise to welcome and uphold her in her new life in Christ - every time we baptise a child or adult, we as the Christian community become responsible for helping them to grow in faith.

Jesus’s call to Simon and Andrew was “Follow me.” For them, a new beginning, a complete change round in their lives. And that call is a call for each one of us; and it’s that call we hope and pray that Mollie will respond to when the time is right.

But Jesus’s call to those first two disciples had two parts. “Follow me”, and “I will make you fish for people.” Often we forget that our commissioning to Christian service comes with our baptism. Christian service is certainly not something reserved purely for those of us who are ordained. It’s something to which every Christian is called.

Simon and Andrew were given a new task, a new work, when Jesus called them to follow him. And Jesus calls each one of us to take part in God’s work in the world. Some of the tasks to which we are called are specific - those first disciples had a call to be evangelists, to gather people round Jesus.
Some people will have specific calls to work full-time in the church. But others will be rightly working in the secular sphere with all the challenges that that entails.

There are some tasks that are for all of us, and others that are specific to us. But one thing that is a call to each one of us is that we should bear God’s light wherever we go. Jesus brought that light into the world; we are called to share it. At the end of this service we will give Mollie a candle to show that God’s light is something that goes out into the world with us - it’s not stuck inside the four walls of a church building.

Jesus himself is the light; as our light, he will guide us through the path of our lives; but we are called to be lights ourselves, bearing God’s light into the world.

So, let us remind ourselves of all the new beginnings on which we are reflecting this morning.

There’s the beginning of Mollie’s journey of faith. There’s the symbolic representation within baptism of God’s forgiveness, God giving us a clean start, a new beginning, when we separate ourselves from him through our sin. There’s the start of Mollie’s membership of the church, recognising that she is part of Christ’s body, here on earth. And there is inherent in baptism, the commissioning to some form of ministry in Christ’s Church.

In a few moments we will sing a hymn based on Isaiah’s calling, which brings in all those themes of new beginnings - recognising our salvation from sin, being part of God’s people, responding to God’s calling and commissioning to service.

I, the Lord of sea and sky,
I have heard my people cry.
All who dwell in dark and sin
my hand will save.
I who made the stars of night,
I will make their darkness bright.
Who will bear my light to them?
Whom shall I send?
Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord?
I have heard you calling in the night.
I will go, Lord, if you lead me.
I will hold your people in my heart.

I pray that Mollie will grow to make that response her own, and that as we move into singing that hymn following her baptism, we will do so reflecting on the words we sing, and on our commitment to Christ, to following him, and, for those who are baptised, recalling the promises made by us or by others on our behalf.

Mollie, may God bless you in all that you do; may you come to know his love and his grace; and may the light of God shine in your life. Amen.

Isaiah 9.1-14; 1 Corinthians 1.10-18; Matthew 4.12-23

Jesus had a dream. In John’s Gospel, we find him praying that those who believe in him might be one. It’s something that we think about particularly every year during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which was celebrated last week and ended on Friday.

The fact that we have to have a particular week to remind us that we are all one in Christ highlights the fact that Jesus’s dream has yet to come true.

It’s a problem that has been with the Church since the early days. Our epistle reading came from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, one of the first Christian documents. Already, possibly as little as 20 years after the death of Jesus, divisions have crept into Church life.

Much of what we read in this letter is concerned with different divisions and factions.

Today’s passage concentrates on four groups. It seems that the Corinthian Christians have divided themselves along party lines. Some follow Paul, others Apollos, and other Cephas, also known as Peter, the apostle.

Commentators are not entirely sure who those are who say they follow Christ, quite possibly a group of people fed up with all the wrangling, who are adamant that they have gone back to basics and are only bothered about Christ. But in taking that line they too have caused divisions.

Another option is that there was a person named Chrestus, who had a following like Paul, Apollos and Peter.

What we see here is people building boundaries, forming groups in which they feel secure, but to which other people appear to be a threat. Everyone is clamouring for their own cause, but few are taking the time to listen to what others are saying.

They have become quarrelsome and jealous of each other.

I think we only have to look at some of the modern Church debates to recognise that these problems still remain.

Paul’s response, and much of this letter, is about the Church’s being the body of Christ. He points out the absurdity of the body pulling itself apart limb from limb from the inside.

There was enough opposition from outsiders without Christians creating enemies within.

And I think there are parallels here with our Church today too. No one can deny that the number of people belonging to church communities has dwindled over recent years. There are many competing demands in our world today, much as there were for the Corinthians, and in the face of those demands, the Christian community needs to be united.

I wonder if any of you have read C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters. Some of it is fairly dated now, but I think it’s a book with a lot of truth in it. A senior devil is writing to his nephew, the much younger and less experienced, Wormwood, giving him advice about how to turn his patient away from God.

At one point, Screwtape gives this help to his nephew:

“I think I warned you before that if your patient can’t be kept out of the Church, he ought at least to be violently attached to some party within it.
“I don’t mean on really doctrinal issues; about those, the more lukewarm he is the better . . .

“The real fun is working up hatred between those who say ‘mass’ and those who say ‘holy communion’ when neither party could possibly state the difference . . . in any form which would hold water for five minutes.

“And all the purely indifferent things - candles, clothes and whatnot - are admirable grounds for our activities.”

It’s the things that divide Christians that get us into the papers - just think of two recent issues - the debates on sexuality and women priests. It’s when Christians are seen to see each other as enemies that the world begins to take notice. How sad! No wonder that so many feel the Church is irrelevant.

It’s not only the big ethical issues that get people upset. How we worship gets people going too.

We all have our own preferences when it comes to worship.

Some people like formality, others a much more relaxed approach. Some people like modern worship songs, others will only sing the traditional hymns. Some people like guitars and drums as accompaniment, others will not contemplate anything other than the organ.

But, Paul says, what should be happening is that the cross of Christ should be binding us together, should be uniting us so that we have the same purpose.

He makes it clear later in the letter that he’s not expecting everyone to be the same – that’s not real unity - but to love those who are different.

Paul points out that his task was to proclaim the Gospel. Though some people have particular callings as evangelists, part of being a Christian is proclaiming the Gospel in our words and deeds, in the way that we live and behave.

Part of living the Gospel is to accept people as they are, to welcome them and to love them for the people they are. That is God’s way with us. God loves us and accepts us, and desires that our attitude towards others is the same.

Christian unity is not only about unity between Christians with different ideas about things or different views about worship. Christian unity is needed within congregations as well as across churches. Real Christian unity is exhibited when the Christian community is as accepting and welcoming and loving as it can be.

Real Christian unity is about being built into a community of believers, not being a group of separate individuals who happen to worship in the same place. If someone new joins us, we should be asking ourselves an important question. Are we willing to welcome this person into the Christian community, and love them and accept them, or will they become just another separate individual, who happens to come to church?

If we focus on the cross of Christ, Paul says, all other things will pale into insignificance.

If Christ is truly at the heart of our faith, then we will be able to love those with whom we disagree, and to listen to them with an open mind, so that together, as the one body of Christ, we can continue his work here on earth.

Loving and welcoming those with whom you have difficulties, whether that be the things they believe, the way they behave or something about their personality, is a risky business, but it’s one that follows the path of Christ.

As I travel around the benefice, I often sense that many people, and some have said this to me, feel that the church is not for them, that it’s about a small group of people with fixed boundaries as to who is in and who is out.

I have no straightforward answers as to how we can change that, though it will need each and every member of the congregation to reflect and ask whether there is anything more we can do to help people feel welcomed and accepted. It will need prayer, and we’ll need God’s guidance. It was lovely to see how the crib exhibition at the beginning of Advent did draw people in and create community.

Is this church congregation part of a Christian community or is it a group of separate individuals? Perhaps different people experience it in different ways.

But everyone who professes to belong to the Christian community has a responsibility to ensure that we welcome and accept others - the kingdom of heaven’s boundaries are very wide. If God’s love has no limits, who are we to decide who is lovable and who is not?

Sunday 3rd February - Presentation of Christ
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion (said), St Mary’s, Reed
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion with baptism of Flynn Richmond and Junior Church
6.00 p.m. BCP Evensong, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway

Monday 4th February
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
10.00 a.m. Discover Sunday planning meeting, The Rectory

Tuesday 5th February - Shrove Tuesday
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
10.00 a.m. (-noon) Pancake Coffee Morning, The Barn, Elms Farm, Barkway
12 noon (-4p.m.) Pancake event for Save the Children, Town House, Barley

Wednesday 6th February - Ash Wednesday
8.15 a.m Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
10.30 a.m. Holy Communion, Margaret House, Barley
8.00 p.m. Holy Communion with imposition of ashes, St Mary’s, Reed

Thursday 7th February
8.15 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Mary’s, Reed
10.15 a.m. (-3.30 p.m.) Countryside Management Service hedging in Reed churchyard, volunteers welcome
10.45 a.m. Holy Communion, Wheatsheaf Meadow House, Barkway

Friday 8th February

Saturday 9th February
9.00 a.m. Morning Prayer, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
1.30 p.m. Interment of ashes of Frank Clough, Barley churchyard

Sunday 10th February - Lent 1
10.30 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary’s, Reed, with address by Peter Gough

THE COMING MONTH
(Morning Prayer usually takes place each day: Monday and Tuesday in Barkway; Wednesday and Saturday in Barley and Thursday in Reed)

Monday 11th February
2.00 p.m. Lent Course, The Rectory

Wednesday 13th February
12 noon (- 2p.m.) Lent Lunch, Town House, Barley
7.45 p.m. North Buntingford Group Lent Course, Rushden Village Hall

Thursday 14th February
8.00 p.m. ICES Worship and Psalms, The Rectory

Saturday 16th February
10.00 a.m.Interment of ashes of Leonard Bridge, Barley churchyard

Sunday 17th February - Lent 2
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Mary Magdalene, Barkway
5.00 p.m. All-age Service, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley

Monday 18th February
2.00 p.m. Lent Course, The Rectory
7.30 p.m. Commissioning of Margaret MacCormack, BRAVE youth worker, Edwinstree School, Buntingford
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Prayer Group, High Bank, Reed

Wednesday 19th February
12 noon (- 2p.m.) Lent Lunch, Town House, Barley
8.00 p.m. Friends of Barkway Church AGM, Manor Farm
8.00 p.m. North Buntingford Group Lent Course, Rushden Village Hall

Thursday 21 February
2.30 p.m. Sarah to speak at Barley Over-60s, Town House, Barley

Sunday 24th February - Lent 3
9.00 a.m. Parish Communion, St Margaret of Antioch, Barley
10.30 a.m. Joint service at Barkway Chapel