A Reflection from Chris Rooke-Matthews

A lifetime ago, or so it seems, I was training to teach in a beautiful area of West Yorkshire.  The college was situated in the grounds of an old mansion house, on the edge of a village, and boasted a large lake and woodland.  We were able to make good use of this setting for practical (college) work, but also using the surroundings for relaxation, building strong friendships along the way.

One of the ideals often mentioned by our tutors was a saying from Confucius:

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

Working In a variety of education settings, and raising our own family, I have found this to be the key to engaging learners of all ages and abilities, but the older I became the more I realised the truth of the first two phrases.

I have now become an expert ‘forgetter’, but can remember things about people and places when I see them, which I could not do just by hearing a name.  However, I still find joy in following the last phrase! 

I wonder if the disciples, following Jesus’ teaching, felt the same, as they came to meet and know their friend, and finally understand and share his message.

from Rev Wes Hampton

We have come to Advent, a season in which we prepare to celebrate the coming to earth of Jesus in Bethlehem, and when we make ourselves ready for his return in days to come.  During this time, we are reminded of the work done over centuries ahead of Jesus’ birth, and are challenged to anticipate his second coming in the way that we live.

This year the Methodist Church has launched a series of materials for Advent and Christmas under the title “Gifted”.  The theme encourages us to look for the gifts in others and in ourselves, and to think of each one as a gift to each other.  Do you know people who need to be reassured that they are a gift to us, and so have intrinsic value?  There are always people ready to criticize and to tell others that they are worthless, but we believe that all people are created by God with the potential to live life in all its fulness.

The church community is also intended to be a gift to others.  Church is the body of those committed to follow Jesus and, as such, should always be bringing that love and grace we see in Christ to those among whom we live.  At its best, church is a gift to our community and our environment.

At the heart of our life as the church, is our recognition that Jesus Christ is the greatest gift.  All our other gifts are pointers to him.  He has been given freely out of God’s love for the world, and so our hope is that other people will receive that gift for themselves.  Both the church community, and Christ himself, are gifts that we offer to our neighbours all year round, but this time of year may give us extra opportunities.

The prayers with which we shall light our Advent candles each Sunday will reflect this theme: may our witness do so as well.

Wes

A Reflection from John Williams

Psalm 124 is encouraging to read.  It begins with the question “What if the Lord had not been on our side?”  The writer goes on to talk of the possibility of his people being carried away by floods. or swallowed by their enemies.  That was a real possibility- there were hostile nations all round - Syria, Assyria, Egypt and Philistines.  Of course, these are not things that happen often in our experience.  But floods, extreme heatwaves and wild fires are becoming more and more common due to climate change. Increasingly we hear of unrest and conflicts all over the world: Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan.  We are thankful that we live in a safe and quiet country but there is so often news of accidents or people being killed.

Paul, in Romans looks at it from another angle: “If God is for us, who can be against us?”  He goes on to say that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ: trouble, hardship, persecution, danger or death.  Some of these can come closer to home.

Commenting on Psalm 124 in “Signposts” Derek Tidball brings it all down to earth saying: “God is not only on our side when we face spiritual temptation or attack, but equally when the car breaks down, the washing machine leaks, the computer freezes, the motorway is blocked or the roof caves in. …. He is on our side in the ordinary frustrations of living.”

In large things or small, He is there for us.  And who is He?  As the psalm ends: “Our help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth”.  What better helper can we have?

A final thought; could this be a practical everyday definition of faith; knowing that the Lord is on our side in everything?  It certainly brings peace of mind.

John Williams

from Rev Wes Hampton

Florence Nightingale “felt towards [God] as she might have felt towards a glorified sanitary engineer; and in some of her speculations she seems hardly to distinguish between the Deity and the Drains.”  So wrote Lytton Strachey in Eminent Victorians in 1918.  We are familiar with Florence Nightingale’s concern for sanitation and hygiene, and the continuing impact on nursing and healthcare that she had during and after her lifetime.  Even so, I doubt that many of us would compare God to a drainage expert.  Our drains, after all, are generally both out of sight and out of mind, and we are happy to keep it that way.

Until, that is, something goes wrong.  As I write, a van bearing the words “emergency drainage clearance” and “clearance – CCTV surveys – repairs” is parked outside the manse for the third day.  Although the blockage cannot be seen, its effect is clear enough.  So far it is resisting all attempts to remove or break it, so the work continues.

As so often, we have to deal with what is unseen to rectify its visible consequences.  Whether the subject is our drainage or our health, the outward symptom often points to a prior issue, which needs to be addressed.  This is at least as true of our spiritual health as it is of our physical and mental well-being.  There is an unseen world of our day-by-day prayer life, and the nurture we give to our relationship with God through, among other things, our reading of scripture.  Jesus warned his disciples that what defiles a person comes from within (Mark 7:21-23).

Unfortunately, sometimes it takes a sink that does not drain – or whatever the spiritual equivalent is – for us to recognize that there is a problem.  Whether through lack of maintenance, or because of something which we could not anticipate, we are forced to acknowledge our reliance on those things which are not clearly visible and turn back to the Great Sanitary Engineer.

Wes