John Davies - Notes From a Small Vicar

Giving up the Party spirit

... The reveling which makes night hideous with its so-called songs - call them howling and you are nearer the mark - the reveling which spends hour after hour in entertainment which heats the blood, hardens the heart and chases away all solid thought, is not for us who have renounced the works of darkness - for us there is a better joy, namely, to be filled with the Spirit - “the fruit of the Spirit is love.”

- C.H. Spurgeon quoted in my talk today, Galatians 5 - Giving up the Party spirit. The 'party spirit' I focussed on though, was the churches' sectarian urge.

Overcoming Legion in our village

...they found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. (Luke 8.35)

But they weren’t afraid before. When the man who they knew well was roaming naked on the outskirts of their village, their lives went on as normal. They weren’t afraid at all, when the man in question, with an immense strength, would break free from the chains and shackles with which he had been bound. On those days when the mad strongman, the strong madman, was on the loose again, there was no fear in the village at all. But after Jesus healed him, and the madness left him and peace descended on the man, then, in those moments, fear struck the  villagers. Why would this be?

- today's talk, Overcoming Legion in our village, on the madness we cause by scapegoating others.

Luke 7 - Ruptured rituals and transformed taboos

... Jesus places himself in situations where the rituals of old have run their course, and opens up  opportunities for people to create new ones, breaking taboos where they have to, all for the sake of liberating oppressed people from those things which harm them, all for the sake of bringing marginalised people into the centre of things, all for the sake of love.

... the story (of the woman who anointed Jesus' feet with her hair at the table of Simon the Pharisee) encourages us that with faith in one who loves us, who longs to forgive us and liberate us from all that harms or limits us, we can turn those situations around. We can find the wit and the imagination to do something different, to make something new, to challenge prevailing norms and open up new arenas of experience for ourselves and others. 

We live in a world where the rituals of old are fading and new demands are being made on how we humans co-exist. A fitting subject, I suggest, for Father’s Day, with the role of the male within the family unit having changed massively in our lifetimes, presenting families generally, and fathers in particular, with the challenging need to create new rituals to sustain new models of relationships. ...

- from Luke 7 - Ruptured rituals and transformed taboos, my talk today.

Respecting the widows - and a request to Government

Respecting the widows - and a request to Government - my talk today connects with the churches' call for action....

My Tokyo photo album

My pictures from our week in Tokyo, here....

Tokyo thanks

So we made it to Tokyo, had a very fine time indeed, especially on Gary and Naoko's wedding day, of course, but also in spending plenty of other time with Naoko's parents and family, lovely people all. Pictured here (by Amy) at a family meal on the evening of the wedding. If you helped make this happen for us - again, and for the final time, many thanks.

On being under authority

... In our highly specialised, compartmentalised, divided, society we tend to regard ourselves as autonomous individuals, able to stand on our own without reference to higher authorities. To show allegiance, to admit dependence, we regard as signs of weakness. 

Yet I suggest that we do all subject ourselves to authority, to outside forces, higher powers, willingly or unwillingly, wittingly or subconsciously. I suggest that though we may think that we are islands, entire to ourselves, we aren’t - but rather, that we are formed by the values and expectations and behaviour of those around us. From the day we first begin to imitate our parents, as tiny children, to the day when we decide what career we should take, or who we should marry, we subject ourselves to the authority of others; our desires are determined by what others desire, our decisions depend on the decisions which friends and family have made around us. In a very real sense these significant others authorise our life choices. 

And consider again those news stories about errant politicians and priests which we soak up unquestioningly: in so doing we demonstrate how much authority the media has in our lives. And consider the authority we give to rumour or gossip at the school gates or in the village hall... 

Which is why it is so important for us Christians to read the Bible alongside the newspapers day by day, to put the authority of one in dialogue with the authority of the other. And to test what other people tell us against the values of scripture. So, returning to our miracle - the centurion carried what we might call secular authority, or temporal authority, just like military leaders or captains of industry or those who have the power to authorise us bank loans or the custody of our children, or make us their Facebook Friend (and I don’t say that lightly - it’s worth reflecting on the amount of authority which social media carries in our society today). But the centurion saw that Jesus was under the authority of a greater power - one able to break through where secular authority, temporal power, fails. One with the power to heal. ...

Revisited my Diamond Jubilee talk for the anniversary of Coronation Day today: On being under authority.