The dragon-slayer

April 2017

The George Cross, the second highest award in the British honours system, is presented for "acts of the greatest heroism and bravery in circumstances of extreme danger".  It is named after its creator, King George VI but another George, St George, is pictured on the solid silver medal.  He is riding a horse and, with his lance, attacking the dragon that, according to legend, was about to feast itself on a local princess.  We might ask why the princess had been abandoned to such a beast but the willingness of the warrior George to risk his life to save her is celebrated around the world.

The George Cross is cast in a shape known everywhere as the symbol of another act of self-sacrificial bravery – a cross.  St George rides a horse and carries a spear.  Jesus’ biographers say that he entered Jerusalem riding a donkey and knowing that he himself would be pierced and speared, not in defeat but to win a far greater victory, not the rescue of a princess and her village, but the rescue of many princesses, villagers and countless others around the world who learn to trust him.  On the cross Jesus crushed a fiery dragon far more terrible than any in the storybooks (see Revelation 12:9).

In 1929 WW1 hero Brigadier William Dobbie was stationed in Palestine and given an office overlooking the hill where Jesus was said to have been crucified.  When copies of the New Testament were delivered for distribution to his troops he had this note inserted into each book: “You are stationed at the place where the central event in human history occurred – namely the crucifixion of the Son of God. You may see the place where this happened and you may read the details in this book. As you do this, you cannot help being interested, but your interest will change into something far deeper when you realise the events concern you personally. It was for your sake the Son of God died on the cross here. The realisation of this fact cannot but produce a radical change in one's life – and the study of this book will, under God's guidance, help you to such a realisation.”

Happy Easter, and Happy St George’s Day too,

Graham Burrows

The wrong side of history

March 2017

On 15^th February the General Synod of the Church of England voted not to ‘take note’ of the Bishop’s report on ‘Marriage and Same-Sex Relationships’.   Some opposed it because the report re-affirmed that marriage can only be between a man and a woman, others wanted it thrown out because it gave room for ministers to flout the church’s teaching.

And some people, I am sure, on hearing the news, shook their heads and wondered why the church was even discussing this.  In 2017, who still cares if a man wants to act like a woman or a woman like a man?  Can’t they be what they want to be?  As David Cameron once said (on another issue) the church should “get with the programme”.

Here are three reasons why Christians cannot fall into line with the direction our so-called liberal culture is travelling:

1.  The commonly-accepted wisdom is that the Bible must be measured against today’s standards.  Christians cannot agree with this; the Bible had human authors but by God’s design they wrote living words from God himself for all people in all ages.  The Bible is not out of date; rather it is human ideas that come and go like driftwood while God’s Word remains as unmoveable rock.

2.  ‘The programme’ (as David Cameron put it) is by no means certain to continue.  The political upsets in Britain and America in 2016, which may be repeated in other western countries, remind us that what seems orthodoxy one day can be overturned the next.  It is not ‘the wrong side of history’ to resist today’s fleeting obsessions.  Take the long view.

3.  God speaks not to destroy our freedom but to keep us from miserable slavery to confusion.  When we reject his words we suffer.  Even worse, our children suffer.  Jesus had stern words for those who cause ‘little ones’ to stumble.  To take away from our children their certainty about being created by God as male or female is cruel mistreatment.

Jesus called a spade a spade, but those whose lives were in sexual turmoil sought him out for help and were warmly received.  If that describes your life too, then I would be very willing to talk to you.

Sincerely

Graham Burrows

The god in the healthcare temple

February 2017

 “Major alerts at hospitals”

“A & E corridor bed chaos”

 “General Practice close to the precipice”

We can only admire those who work in the health service under such pressures.

In past centuries the responsibility for caring for people was shouldered by the individual, by their family and by the church.  But at some point we collectively entrusted ourselves to the state which promised that it would, with tax money taken from us, provide all the healthcare we needed whenever we needed it and without further charge.  Political parties of all kinds have repeated that promise down the years and have come under severe criticism for not meeting our expectations.

In Bible terms this is the equivalent of worshipping an idol – you believe that something will satisfy your needs, you allow it to make increasingly costly demands on you and you go on doing this even when it is clear that the idol cannot deliver what it promised.  We have our mini-idols of homes, or jobs, or relationships.  But one of the biggest idols of our day is the state - the god that we enthrone in the temple of ‘healthcare’ and which we have also installed in many of our other temples. 

For now most will, I think, keep looking to the government to keep them healthy; politicians of all shades have found that questioning the wisdom of the state’s healthcare promise makes them unelectable.   But perhaps you agree that a day will come when we have to accept a more modest healthcare commitment from our government?

In the meantime let’s be thankful for those who do their best to serve us well within a stretched system.  We ought to be very grateful every time we have a good experience of our national health service, and when we don’t we need to be patient patients.

And let’s recommit what is left of our church congregations, our families, and our sense of personal responsibility to the task of caring for the well-being and health of one another.  The state has not yet made us redundant; actually it never will.

Sincerely

Graham Burrows

AWOL

December 2016

Some people are missing.  The shepherds are all in place with their tea-towel head-dresses and their soft-toy sheep, three kings with gold card crowns are waiting off-stage for their cue, the innkeepers are ready with their unwelcoming replies, and Joseph and Mary and the pantomime donkey are approaching.  But shouldn’t Herod’s soldiers be here somewhere, brandishing swords with which to carry out the terrible massacre of the young boys in Bethlehem? 

We understand why they are usually left out of the story in children’s nativity plays.  (Perhaps we need some adult versions too!)  But there are good reasons not to forget that the soldiers are very definitely part of the story in Matthew’s Gospel.

Firstly, they reconnect the sugary child’s version with the world that we really live in and that Jesus was really born into.  Tragically, children are all too often the victims of the self-centred actions of adults – whether caught in the crossfire of warring militias, caught in the crossfire of warring parents, or discarded before they are even born.

Secondly, the soldiers remind us that the violence of our world was directed against Jesus Christ himself.  From Herod’s attempt to kill him at birth, to the Jewish leaders’ later death plots and the Roman authorities’ collusion with their wishes, Jesus Christ was in the firing line.

In fact, Jesus came into our world knowing full well that this would happen, that the whole world would oppose him and crush him and that he would absorb in his own body all the guilt and the horrifying  consequences of our hostility towards him and his Father .

Amazingly, Jesus, knowing how we would treat him, still came. 

Wonderfully, the Father did not consult us (there was no referendum or presidential election) when he decided that Jesus should then prevail over his opponents and be installed as the permanent ruler of the whole world:

“Unto us a boy is born!
King of all creation,
came he to a world forlorn,
the Lord of every nation,
the Lord of every nation.”

You will be warmly welcome at any of our services, at Christmas or at any other time.

Happy Christmas!

Graham Burrows

Who is serving who?

November 2016

‘Our customers always come first’, ‘Serving you 24 hours a day’, ‘Our mission is to serve’.  Businesses like to tell us that they exist to serve our needs and not theirs, although we suspect that’s not the whole story.  And sadly it can be the customers who do all the giving and serving but have very little to show for it.

Churches also have ‘Services’ – but who, exactly, is being served?  Perhaps a ‘Sunday Service’ serves God?  The congregation gives to God praise, or time, or money.  We do our bit to boost the singing or to make the coffee afterwards.  Or perhaps it is the vicar who is being served – poor guy, he needs some people to make his work seem worthwhile!

But actually it is the other way round; the main player is not us, but God.  ‘Divine Service’ (as a church service is sometimes called) is not ‘service rendered to God’ but ‘God’s service to people’. Whatever small part our serving plays, it is dwarfed by the giving and serving of the great giver, whose Son told people that he had “come not to be served but to serve.”

In a Church Service, the Lord God invites us to meet with him and to reconnect with him.  He bandages our wounds, forgives our rebellion, puts us back on our feet, tells us the (painful) truth plainly, renews our hope, gives us a song to sing, builds us up, restores us to our right mind and sends us out at the end knowing what our lives are for. 

But what if you say, “I don’t need God to serve me!”?  Peter felt the same when he saw that Jesus had wrapped a towel round himself and was about to get down on the floor and wash Peter’s smelly, dusty feet.  "No," said Peter, "you shall never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me."

Sincerely

Graham Burrows

Going round in circles?

October 2016

Because most of us have cupboards full of food and easy all-year-round access to shops, we don’t have the same sense of relief and gratitude to God that our forefathers felt when the harvest was safely gathered in with enough to last until next year.  

Our annual harvest thanksgiving services teach us not to take daily bread for granted; we are to keep thanking God for all that he generously gives us.  Produce is brought to decorate the church (as a visual reminder of God’s good provision) and to be given away afterwards so that we can share with others from the abundance that God has given us.

But as well as reminding us to be thankful, harvest also asks ‘what’s the point of it all?’  

One ancient book traditionally read by the Jews at harvest time raises this question:

“What does man gain from all his labour at which he toils under the sun?  Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains for ever.  The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.  The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course.  All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again.”*

After a year’s hard labour the barns are once more full; and now it’s time to start all over again for next year.  But why are we working so hard just to stand still?  Are we going round in circles?  The writer wants to burst our bubble and prick our pride.  In a thousand years from now why will it matter how you have lived or what work you did?  You instinctively feel it must matter but how do you explain that?

You assume your life has meaning and that your work is important.  But when you look at cupboards full of food, savings accounts full of money, the mown lawn and the clean car, the children growing up to step into your shoes, what is it all for?

Could you explain what it all means?  Really?

Sincerely

Graham Burrows

* Ecclesiastes chapter 1 

Groaning in tents

September 2016

I love camping (as you read this we should be on our way home from Cornwall) but I always say that the best bit of camping is the first night back in your own bed.  I love living outdoors, cooking and eating in a field, lying at night in the tent as the wind rustles the trees – as long as it is all temporary and I can come home again.

 

Perhaps that is why ‘normal’ life can be so stressful and disappointing – it has too much of a temporary feel about it.  Our bodies wear out and break like a flimsy tent.  We have no more protection from felled dreams or relationship crises than a tent gives from the sun’s heat or the night-time cold.  And the sheer hard work of trying to keep up with everything on our ‘to do’ list can seem as difficult as endlessly trudging up the field just to wash up or use the shower.  When will life stop feeling like an eternal camping trip with no way home?! 

One New Testament writer (Paul) made tents for a living – but he had no desire to live in one forever:  “Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.  Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling.”

If you have no such certainty about life beyond your current tent then please don’t rest until you have settled the matter.  Paul knew that the prospect of living in such a house was not to be assumed; some years earlier he had reached a decisive turning point when he stopped pouring all his energy into this-world camping and began to live wholeheartedly with a longer-term purpose.  “I consider everything a loss”, he wrote, “compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord … I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him”  

Camping without the prospect of a solid home at the end is not good.  Far better to be “looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”

Sincerely

Graham Burrows 

Bible verses (NIV): 2 Corinthians 5:1-2   Philippians 3:8-9   Hebrews 11:10