John Davies - Notes From a Small Vicar

The land is sacred

‘Remember that the land is sacred’ - The idea that we walk on sacred ground is as counter-cultural today as the idea that every seventh day should be a Sabbath. Counter-cultural because the prevailing culture in which we live, driven by the unrelenting demands of capital, regards the land and time itself as resources to be mined, exploited, to exhaustion.

But when we look within, many of us are uneasy about this utilitarian view of land and time and life. Many of us feel deep within, a spirit in which life and time and land are special, are sacred. Perhaps that’s what brings you here today, for our harvest services and celebrations are special spaces in our year where we can voice our agreement that this land through which we move, this land on which we tread, is special to us, is sacred.

There are many reasons why we feel this way. This land is sacred to us because it is wonderful and beautiful in our eyes; it is sacred to us because events have taken place on it which have deeply affected our lives. The land is sacred to us because on it we have built special places in which to worship and offer thanksgiving; the land is sacred to us because in this soil we have buried our dead. ...

- another take on the harvest theme, my latest talk, The Land is Sacred. It owes a good deal to my hoovering up Martin Palmer's Sacred Land and Thomas Lynch's The Undertaking, both excellent reads.

Heroes in an age of lost innocence

... Before the space race began and a young boy’s fascination turned to the exploits of aluminium-suited astronauts, my heroes were those who we recall and commemorate tonight - the 3,000 pilots and aircrew who thwarted the intentions of Hitler’s airborne forces in what became known as the Battle of Britain, in the summer and autumn of 1940.

Looking back, I think that they were heroes of an innocent age, an age where the lines between enemies were clearly drawn, and where the rules of engagement were well-defined and adhered to. Those engaged in the Battle of Britain knew exactly who they were fighting and what they were fighting for. They knew precisely what to do and performed their task with precision. Those engaged today in Afghanistan and other complicated conflicts find themselves in arenas of deep ethical and operational confusion.

I’m not sure that today’s youngsters can have the same sort of heroes as you or I did, for we now live in an age where conflicts are complex, where enemies are hidden, slippery, anonymous, where military ethics can no longer rely on a shared sense of common vision or purpose, but have to depend on the morals of the individuals involved in a particular place at a particular time. ...

- from Heroes in an age of lost innocence - my talk at the annual Battle of Britain Memorial Service in Bridestowe today.

 

Wisdom cries out in the street

Wisdom cries out in the street - today's talk is a steal from the wise old John Pridmore, whose Church times commentaries I miss since his retirement.

Tour of Britain in Lydford

The Tour of Britain peloton passing our house this afternoon. See album here.

Wealth creation at harvest-time - on being rich towards God

My first Harvest Festival of the year today - and my first harvest talk, Wealth creation at harvest-time - on being rich towards God.

How do people know what you believe?

How do people know what you really believe? By looking at what you do. How do people know if you have faith? By seeing it work in you. ...

The Jesus we follow through Mark's gospel walked in a land like ours - a land full of demons and deaf people and those infected by madness and disease. He walked where these people walked. And when Jesus was stopped in his tracks by these people, this is what he did: he spoke with them, touched them, healed them. 

He put his fingers into their ears, he spat on them and touched their tongue. Without any regard for health and safety regulations, or for the niceties of religious law, Jesus sent these people away with their bodies and spirits restored.

People knew what he believed about them by what he did for them. It's not what he said, it's what he did that counted. 

To demonstrate that, Jesus had a little argument with a Syrophoenician woman who came to him to ask him to rid her little daughter of an unclean spirit. Because she was an outsider, not from round there, he rejected her approach. Said a nasty thing to her. Called her a dog. Said, 'Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs.' It’s the sort of thing that most other people in that situation would have said to her, or if too polite to say, would have thought. Why should you, a foreigner, come here and take our benefits?

But the woman took his rejection as a challenge, persevered with him, said in reply, 'Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.' 

And to show that it's not what he said about her, it's what he did for her that counted, Jesus told the woman, 'For saying that, you may go - the demon has left your daughter.' And she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone. ...

- today's talk, read it in full here.

Mark 7 - What defiles a person?

... The holy people of Jesus' day regarded those who didn't wash their hands properly as unclean, defiled. You might ask yourself, do I think like that about anyone? 

Our society certainly does. For instance, how many smokers feel ostracised because to have a quick cigarette they're forced to stand outside buildings? Society condemns them. Yet, it's not what goes into a person which should condemn them, but what comes out. We all know smokers who are good people, there's perhaps some here today. 

Society condemns all sorts of people without looking intently into their situation; Christians condenm them without seeking to ask how we might begin to live out Jesus’ law of love and grace toward them. 

Society condemns the homeless without seeking to understand what made them homeless,  and certainly without caring to do anything about helping them rebuild their lives. The same goes for our prisoners, in need of rehabilitation for their good and for the good of society.

Society damns gays and lesbians without taking much time to question common heterosexualpractices such as those which Jesus listed in today's gospel: lust, adultery, vice, which apply to people of all sexual persuasions. 

Just like Jesus' opponents all those years ago society still sidelines those who eat food differently to ourselves: because of what, or how, they eat we say foreigners smell, they're dirty, neglecting that in recent years our most popular meal has become Chicken Tikka Masala, forgetting to celebrate that our high streets now offer a wide range of lovely cuisine from all over the world. 

A society swamped by laws, rules and regulations is a society where trust has broken down, a society which no longer confidently shares common values, a society weakened by its people’s failure to understand and value each other according to their character. It is a litiginous society, weighed down by rulebooks, and shallow in relationships. ...

Today's talk: What defiles a person. An old sermon rehashed, in light of Giles Fraser's interesting take on the changing ethics of the military - a mirror of society's ethical crisis - at Greenbelt last week (The Military Ethical Complex in Greenbelt talks).