Roundabout Online

“GOD SAVE OUR GRACIOUS QUEEN”

To say that this year is an historic year for Britain is, perhaps, an understatement. 2012 is the year of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee as well as the year when the Olympics and Paralympics come to our shores. For many people, this is a year they have been looking forward to for some time. It will certainly be a year of celebration. Whatever you feel about the royal family, it will be difficult to avoid engaging with the Jubilee celebrations in some way this month. It will continue to be well documented in the media and celebrated in many different ways in our local communities. Many of us will take part in some of the Jubilee celebrations. One thing that will be difficult to avoid this summer is the National Anthem. It will be played during the Jubilee celebrations and whenever a member of Team GB wins a gold medal at the Olympics or Paralympics.

 Although the composer of the National Anthem is not certain, many attribute it to Thomas Augustine Arne (1710-1778). Originally used as a patriotic song as early as the mid eighteenth century, the National Anthem has played an important role in the life of this nation and other Commonwealth countries for more than 200 years. Most often today, the first verse is sung alone. Occasionally, a second verse is sung. However, there are as many as six other verses, most of which would seem strangely militaristic or simply irrelevant to people’s lives today.

 Given today’s increasingly secularised society, it is interesting to note that the National Anthem begins with God. More than that, it begins with a request; we might even call it a prayer, asking God to save our Queen. Of course, salvation is part of what God offers to all humanity. St John writes: ‘Salvation belongs to our God…’ (Revelation 7:10). In the National Anthem, however, there is a very specific request asking God to save the reigning monarch: ‘God save our gracious Queen.’ I wonder what these words mean to you… What precisely do you think we are expecting of God when we ask for our Queen to be saved? How will God save our Queen? What is it that we are asking God to save our Queen from? Is this an appeal for the Queen’s safety and health, or something more spiritual? However we understand these words, it is significant that our National Anthem is focussed upon a request for God’s salvation. My prayer is that we will all see something of God’s salvation in this special year of celebration for our nation.

                                                                                                                                      Rev Nick Lakin

The Realist

They call him “The Doubter” but I don't think that's fair. He simply did not want to be fobbed off with wishful thinking.

You know the kind of thing. Someone's been told they have a serious cancer and their friend says, 'Oh, you'll be all right. I know you will.'  And you think, how do they know? What do they know that the doctors don't?

Or someone's failed to get a job they needed and someone starts telling them all the good things about not having that job. There are people who are very good at seeing the silver linings in other people's clouds.

Well, Thomas would not put up with that. He had been with Jesus for three years. Like the others in his group he had thought that Jesus was the Messiah. Then Jesus had been arrested, flogged, killed by crucifixion and buried.

So when his friends started talking about Jesus being alive he would have none of it. He said he would only believe it if he saw Jesus alive but still with the marks from his crucifixion.

He was not going to play along with any idea that this appalling end of Jesus' life had somehow not happened. It had. He knew it. Jesus had been killed. It was not a bad dream. It was reality. And appalling as it was, he was not going to let anyone deny it.

What happened was that a week later Jesus came to the group of disciples again and this time Thomas was with them. Jesus was there, very much alive and in his hands and feet were the marks where the nails had been driven in. And in his side was a wound where someone had stuck a spear in him. 

But he was alive. Not resuscitated, but risen from the dead. And Thomas recognised this.

The first followers of Jesus could only say that Christ is ‘risen’. God has ‘raised’ him from the dead. They had no other word for it because this was something that had never happened before. And it's never happened since. It was a one-off.

And we, of course, have no way of knowing what this event was like that turned those broken disciples round. All we can go on is the stories in the gospels. But something clearly did happen and what we hear about Thomas is important.

It was a one-off event but one that shows how God continually works. God does not airbrush reality so that everything is nice really. It isn't.

But God takes into himself the pain, cruelty, grief, injustice, and everything else that destroys life, and out of the death brings new life.

                                                         David Osborne

For Life

It was the worst crucifix I had ever seen.

I was in Assissi in Italy, the birthplace of St Francis. And there, in an old monastery, was a crucifix. Which was awful.

I must have seen hundreds of crucifixes and pictures of Jesus hanging on the cross, but this was the worst. It just spoke agony.

What bothered me most was that someone might think this is what God likes. That God wants pain and suffering and death.

Maybe some people think he does. There are certainly people who think Jesus died because God wanted him to.

 

But surely God wants life. That’s why the world is so full of it. Spring bursting out all around us. People getting well from illnesses. Laughter and music and painting and children playing.

 

And Jesus. He healed people. He had time for people on the edge of society and had meals with them, as well as well as with the rich and the Pharisees.

When he came into Jerusalem on a donkey the children were shouting “Hosanna” in the Temple courtyard and Jesus would not let the priests shut them up.

Jesus shows what God is like, and he shows that God wants life. Life in all its fullness, as he says in John’s gospel.

 

So why the crucifixion?

Because people don’t want so much life.

God wants a full life for everyone. We want it for ourselves.

God wants people who are vulnerable to be looked after. We just want to look after ourselves and our relatives.

God loves all people. We want to love the ones we like.

God takes risks, and we want to be safe.

So we reject God time and again.

And so Jesus was rejected. He was crucified, like the pictures show. And  he died.

But the life of God is bigger. The creative love of God will not be destroyed. Jesus was raised to new life.

And he makes the same offer to us again. Choose life.

                                                                                                                          David Osborne

 

… until it goes wrong

Twenty years ago I didn’t use a computer for work. Like a lot of people I thought there would be no advantage. I had my phone, filing cabinet, typewriter, account book and card index. What more did I need?

And now? You know the story. You’ve probably found the same thing.

It’s a real timesaver. I don’t do anything fancy; just e-mails, internet, spreadsheets and word processing. And it’s brilliant… until it goes wrong.

Like the car. My first cars had to be serviced every 3000 miles. Add oil every week. And now? Check the tyres and the oil occasionally. A service once a year. Excellent… until it goes wrong. When that happens I can’t fix it myself. It has to go into the garage and be plugged into their computer.

There are a lot of things like that. Not just gadgets and machines. Water supply. Drains. Central heating. Health care. Banks. Government.

We take them for granted and usually only notice when they go wrong.

Perhaps there is something to be said for being a pessimist. A pessimist gets a pleasant surprise when things actually work properly. Which they often do. But most of us probably expect them to. And we notice when they don’t.

The church in its wisdom long ago realised that one thing that people took for granted was mothering. Everyone had one and most mothers were at least OK. They were so OK that everyone just took them for granted. Which was unfair because they did amazing work.

And they still do. Some are Supermums. Others are good. Many are OK. Very occasionally a mother makes a real mess of things, and then we know about it. But that’s not common.

Times have changed. Roles have changed for women and for men. But it is still true that mothers usually do a good job, and that it generally goes unrecognised. That is why we continue to celebrate Mothering Sunday. It is a time for giving thanks for mothers.

Not just your mother, but all mothers. To give thanks for them. And to pray for them. It’s a tough job. They need our prayers.

So do join us on 18^th March in a Mothering Sunday service, taking place in a church near you.

At North Wootton at 9.30am, and Pilton, Croscombe and Dinder at 11.00.

                                                                                                                                  David Osborne

Rich Inheritance

‘How old is this church?’ said an American guest at a wedding in Pilton.

‘Oh, the oldest parts date from about 1150,’ I said coolly. ‘Most of what you see was built around 1350.’

And he said, ‘Wow!’ or something like that. 

It’s easy to take them for granted when you see them often, but our churches are remarkable buildings. It’s not just that they are old. All four of our parish churches are beautiful. And the two biggest, Pilton and Croscombe, are quite amazing constructions. I am seeing a bit more of Wells Cathedral now, and that is positively awesome.

They are all worth taking time to look at, and to appreciate. If you like colour, look at the windows. If you like woodcarving, have a look at the pews in Croscombe, or the medieval screen round the Pilton Lady Chapel, or the screen at the back of North Wootton made by a group of women in the early twentieth century. If you like curiosities look out for the stone dragon in Dinder, or the Green Man in Pilton. And if you are impressed by engineering, remind yourself that they are built of stone. No reinforced concrete. No steel girders.

But it is also worth reminding yourself that the Christian movement had been going and growing for a thousand years before even the earliest of our churches was built.

The Christian movement not only survived, but grew phenomenally, during three centuries of periodic persecution by the Roman authorities who saw it as subversive. It became a source of stability in the anarchy following the collapse of the Roman Empire. It provided education, law and compassionate hospitality during the Germanic migrations. It withstood, and eventually tamed, the Norse cult of violence. And on many occasions Christian leaders spoke truth to power during the development of the feudal society. And that was just in Europe, all before these church buildings were put up.

So it is worth not only exploring the church buildings but also thinking and finding out about the heart of the movement: the vision and energy behind what we can see. Beginning on 27^th February for five weeks we are running a course called Rich Inheritance which is an opportunity to do that. Groups will meet each week and anyone is welcome to join in.

More information is elsewhere in The Roundabout and North Wootton News, and in the churches.

                                                                                                                         David Osborne, Rector