Coming down to earth

March 2019

A few days before writing this letter I fell off my garage roof.  I was going to put back a slipped tile but I badly misjudged things and came down to earth rather painfully.  I now have several broken ribs and some uncomfortable weeks ahead.  As you can imagine I’ve thought a lot about all that happened.  Here’s just a few of my thoughts:

I am foolish and make wrong choices.  And if that’s true for my plan to fix the tile it is true in a hundred other ways in my life.  Not all of my mistakes have such sudden painful consequences but the results may be deeper.

My foolishness hurts others.  It brings tears to my eyes now to remember how I lay on the stretcher listening to the paramedic leave a message on my wife’s voicemail, knowing how awful it would be for her to get that message.

How amazing our First Responders are.  I was on my own when I fell and could only make it as far as the phone.   It was such a relief when help arrived and if David was annoyed at me for having interrupted his decorating he certainly didn’t show it.  Thank you!

Suffering is real.  I spent 3 days in a hospital ward full of badly injured men.  The Bible tells me to expect such places in our world – our collective rebellion against our loving creator means that suffering is never far away – but to see it close up is desperately sad.  There were a few like me who were recovering well but others who will always have to live with their injuries.  For some their physical injuries were nothing compared to everything else they faced in their lives: fractured relationships or suicidal depression.

Thank Jesus for hospitals.  They are remarkable places staffed by people who are caring, competent and resilient.  Thank you!  I don’t mean that the staff would all say that they do what they do because of Jesus, but when you think about the cultures in our world’s history where compassionate medical care flourished, and think about who influenced those cultures, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion:  Trace the lines back from today’s desire and ability to heal people; so many of them go to the one who went around “healing every kind of disease and sickness”.

Sincerely

Graham Burrows

The neglected room

February 2019

When did you last go exploring?  You may not spend much of your time at the South Pole but when you go on holiday I expect that, after you unpack, you feel the need to leave the campsite or the hotel and head out to explore the surroundings.  We’re also used to exploring new ideas or life-styles – that first-ever visit to a gym, or a sincere conversation with someone who votes differently from you or has a different diet.

But what about exploring Christian faith?  Surely no-one who has grown up in this country would feel the need to explore something that seems so familiar?  But is it familiar, or is Christian faith more like a neglected room in a very large house – it’s so long since the door was opened that hardly anyone can remember what’s in there.

Perhaps we have a vague idea of a few prominent features: some characters (Abraham, Moses, David and, of course, Jesus) and some half-remembered sayings, but no certainty about how it all fits together.  We know that earlier generations must have found it relevant because Christian faith became so woven into our nation’s life (it’s there in our buildings, in our books, in our festivals, our thinking and our values ) but we’re not sure why it was able to transform our nation.  We know that our politics are in chaos, our relationships and families are falling apart, and that huge numbers are struggling to find purpose and direction in their lives and yet we don’t expect that the old dusty room of Christian faith would be a likely place to discover the treasure that we seek.

So I’d like to invite you to Christianity Explored.  Seven Thursday evenings led by me here at the Vicarage in Burton plus one full day, with clear explanations of classic Christian beliefs and time to think, to ask and to question.  Interesting, surprising and perhaps life-changing.  Of course if you come I’d love to convince you that this is the best news you’ve ever heard, but there will be no arm-twisting.  There’s no charge.  We begin on 7^th February and you just need to ring or text me if you are interested in joining us.

Sincerely

Graham Burrows

An antidote to chaos

December 2018

Jordan Peterson (the Canadian clinical psychologist whose book ’12 Rules for Life – an antidote to chaos’ has now sold over 2 million copies) has said that you “can’t break the rules … if you twist the fabric of reality it will snap back on you”.  So, for example, you may get out of a tricky situation by lying but you are destroying your own integrity and mental well-being, and other people’s trust in you too.

Based on his clinical work Peterson says that he has “never known anyone get away with anything”.  He knows how people break ‘the rules’, he sees the chaos and pain in their lives and he connects the two.  It’s a striking challenge to the usual view that I can live as I please.  “I did it my way” is our proud boast.  Peterson is right in this; our actions have consequences. 

But, I humbly submit, Peterson is still missing two things.

What Jordan Peterson sees as the ‘fabric of reality’ in this world is attributed by the Bible to the unchanging character of the God who made our universe.  The reality at the heart of everything is a person, not disembodied rules.  Hostility to his rules is a personal affront to the God who lovingly, deliberately and carefully knitted us.  And so the consequences of breaking the rules are far worse than Peterson has observed in his consulting room; they include being permanently estranged from the One we were made for, disconnected at the deepest level of our being.

But, secondly, a moral universe without a God leaves out all the good news – that the God who created the rules has also stepped in to rescue us.  God’s rules  show us what we should be like, but his answer to our failure is not more ‘rules for life’ but Jesus – living by the rules, dying for our rule-breaking and bearing in himself the full horror of the ‘snap-back’.  Jesus offers, as a free gift, solidarity with him so that our rule-breaking and chaotic life can become his responsibility, and his rule-keeping and ordered life can become his gift to us, given in love.

How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given!  So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heaven.

Happy Christmas!

Graham Burrows

Finger-Lickin’ Good News

November 2018

A white moustache and goatee, thick-framed glasses and a string tie, he is now world-famous for his restaurants.  But not everything went well for the young Harland Sanders.  When he was only 5, his father died.  Later he argued with his step-father and left home.  He worked on a farm, then briefly joined the army.  He was fired from several jobs for fighting and was well known for his constant swearing.  By the age of 40 he had a petrol station and was trying to provide for his family through the Great Depression.  Setting up the old family dining table and chairs in a corner of the petrol station he started selling food.  One of his best meals was fried chicken and Harland developed a novel pressure-fryer and his still-secret blend of 11 herbs and spices.  Eventually ‘Colonel’ Sanders began to sell franchises – the first ‘Kentucky Fried Chicken’ opened in Utah in 1952.  There are now 22,000 world-wide.

Even after he sold the business Sanders continued to be the instantly-recognisable face in the KFC advertisements, but as he grew older he knew something was wrong.  He later wrote, “If God created the world – and I know He done that – and I am part of His creation, then I should have a close relationship with Him.  I didn’t and it bothered me … all the success I’d had with my franchising business … still left me with a hollow feelin’ … I was a good citizen and all that.  But all this while I knew I wasn’t right with God.”

He was persuaded to go a church meeting where it dawned on him that this was exactly the mission of Jesus – to take on himself the weight of our guilt and so to put us right with the God who made us.  Sanders began to put his trust in Jesus rather than in his own effort to be good enough.

It “just seemed like a great burden was lifted off my shoulders.  I’d never felt anything like that before, and here I was seventy-nine years old.”

Colonel Sanders continued, “I pray to God Almighty my story will encourage you also to commit your life to Jesus.  If you will, no matter what hard times you may go through – if you keep turning to Him, acknowledging Him, and honouring Him in all you do – He’ll help you through.”

Sincerely

Graham Burrows

Dogger

October 2018

Have you read Dogger by Shirley Hughes?  I asked just that in a school assembly this week and I was surprised that so many of the children had read the book - Dogger was published in 1977 while I was still at school!

The book always brings a lump to my throat because of the extraordinary kindness of Bella as she resolves the problem that has engulfed her little brother.  Dave has lost Dogger, his dearly loved soft-toy dog and no-one can find Dogger anywhere.  Dave is still very sad on the day of the school summer fair when, suddenly, on the toy stall, he spots his beloved Dogger with a price tag on him: 5p.  Dave only has 3p and he can’t make anyone understand that Dogger is really his and shouldn’t be for sale.  Eventually he finds big sister Bella.  She has been having a great day and has even won first prize in the raffle, a huge yellow teddy bear with a beautiful blue silk bow.

Bella and Dave rush to the toy stall but they are too late; Dogger has just been bought by a little girl who now refuses to sell him again despite Bella’s pleading.  Dave cries.  The little girl cries and then she catches sight of Bella’s big yellow teddy and puts out her hand to stroke his beautiful blue silk bow.  “Then Bella did something very kind …”

I can’t say more in case you haven’t read the story. 

I don’t know what Shirley Hughes intended when she wrote the book but if anyone wanted to picture Jesus Christ’s extraordinary kindness towards us then it would be hard to better this.  Bella found a way to rescue Dogger for Dave but it cost her dearly.  Jesus Christ found a way to be able to rescue you and me from our self-destructive rebellion against our Creator but he paid a heavy price; the cost was his life.

As November 11^th approaches remember Jesus’ words, “Greater love has no-one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”  If you remember who Jesus is and the agonising depths of his suffering on the cross, then this really means “No-one has ever loved you as Jesus did.”

Sincerely

Graham Burrows

Life Explored

September 2018

“All men seek happiness. This is without exception.”  So said Blaise Pascal, the 17^th Century inventor, writer, theologian, physicist and mathematician (remember Pascal’s Triangle?)

We’re all looking for happiness but it’s not obvious to us how we can find it.  Life can be good and satisfying, but so much is bad and disappointing too.  And when we do find happiness in something or someone we learn by painful experience not to assume that it will last forever.

Blaise Pascal described how there “was once in man a true happiness of which there now remains to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings”.  Pascal recorded on a piece of paper his sense of the spiritual inferno in his mind as he realised at the age of 31 how that aching void in his life must be filled: “Fire.  ‘God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob,’ not of philosophers and scholars.  Certainty, certainty, heartfelt, joy, peace.  God of Jesus Christ … Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy …”

Life Explored is an informal and relaxed group where you can think and talk about these things.  Each session includes a stunning short film and provocative discussion questions.  Short presentations help us to engage with the traditional understandings of age-old Bible texts that are often perplexing to contemporary minds. 

Life Explored is for anyone who wants to find contentment and happiness in life.  It’s run by ordinary local Christian people and is completely free.  You don’t need to know anything about the Bible, and you won’t be asked to pray or sing.  You can ask any question you like, or you can just sit and listen.  You can watch a trailer for the course on our website here: www.burtonandholmechurches.org/groups

The seven sessions will run approximately fortnightly on Thursdays beginning on 4^th October.  Choose between a daytime group meeting at 10.15am or an evening group meeting at 7.30pm.  Space is limited so please let me know if you would like to join us.

Sincerely

Graham Burrows

The Real McCoy

August 2018

"Christians are entitled to believe what they like, but they shouldn’t expect their views to be taken into account by those who create laws or run our country.  The Christian faith should return to its simple origins when it was about one brilliant teacher and those who chose to listen to him.”

It is true that the early Christians had a very simple statement of what they believed: ‘Jesus is Lord!’ but that was never a private belief that didn’t ‘interfere’ in public life.  The resurrection of Jesus was proof that God had made Jesus Lord of all, and therefore that the Jewish authorities should not have killed him; that claim didn’t go down well!  Before long the Romans realised that ‘Jesus is Lord’ was a direct challenge to the official line that Caesar was Lord, and the imperial lions were called to deal with the problem.   And in the centuries since, many Christians have discovered that this simple declaration has been enough to deprive them of their property, their employment, their family and even their life.

So too today.  Christian faith is a direct challenge to any authority or power that tries to ignore the risen Lord Jesus.  If ‘Jesus is Lord’ over this world then everything is under his command, including the leaders of the nations, my health and the weather.  If ‘Jesus is Lord’ then his words must determine what my family believes and how we use our time.  Jesus gets to declare what the church must teach and who can be its leaders.  And, in the state, Jesus has the right to say when tax is legitimate, what marriage can be and what constitutes a crime.

That’s the simple and original Christian faith, the real McCoy, the genuine article:

“ … if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”  (Romans 10:9)

Sincerely

Graham Burrows