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I write as we are about to celebrate Music Sunday which the Royal Society of Church Music promotes and in their quarterly guide for choice of church music Sunday by Sunday their observation for this week is as follows:
“Even those who like hill-walking may get very puffed going up the steep bits! Having just done the steep bits of the Christian year, we now settle into Ordinary Time, just as we settle into walking along the top of a ridge. But this walking is just as important as climbing. It is the joyful, if ordinary, consequence of all that has gone before. So we are reminded both that Christ is with us in this ordinary walking, and that even the most ordinary of actions - giving a cup of water-is Christ-like.”
“Ordinary time” in our church year are those months between Easter/Ascension and Pentecost to the time of Advent and Christmas. In walking type terms it is like coming off a mountain and walking on the level for a good while. Life is back to normal and we have to continue the slog of work, caring for the home and family without a respite. I use the word “slog” because life for most people, at least in part, is a bit of a slog -and being a Christian does not exclude us from these things. In fact some areas of life are harder as we seek to follow and be obedient to the teaching of Jesus.
We can find the teaching of Jesus all through the Gospels, but there are also some sections where he is just teaching, such as The sermon on the Mount when he delivered what we call The Beatitudes - Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers and so on is extolling states and situations with which we would not normally associate with being “blessed” but he never said it was going to be easy. He even says we will be blessed when persecuted or insulted because of him. Just before he said the words at the top of my letter he said “Anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me” verse 39.
I mentioned the case of a man who was ordered to remove a palm cross from his van, which he had displayed for the past 15years after one recent complaint, several letters ago as an example of the erosion of our Christian heritage and rights. A response suggested it was nonsense to suggest that Christians are being targeted but I have subsequently read “Judges at the European Court in Strasbourg have ordered ministers to make a formal statement on whether they believe Christians rights have been infringed in British courts, which repeatedly dismissed their entitlement to dress and act according to their beliefs” so others think something is going on!
Jesus kept the promises he made and if we profess to follow him, so should we! Our confirmation service that takes place on the 4th September at 11am is a way that all who were baptised as babies can “confirm” the promises to follow Jesus made on their behalf by parents and Godparents. I am now writing to candidates of whom I am aware to arrange a few classes. If anyone else would like to know more about what confirmation involves do please give me a ring -we can all do with a bit of blessing -and this is another promise.
With Love,
Stephen. |
