John Davies - Notes From a Small Vicar

The scandal of the cross and what it means to carry ours

... Graham fought hard to avoid the Messiah Complex to which so many lesser leaders - in all walks of life - have succumbed. To do otherwise would have been Satanic. He worked tirelessly to direct his audiences to Jesus, the One whose scandalous behaviour was and is to overcome aggression with gentleness, to defy violence with peace, to renounce wealth for generosity and to repay hatred with love. This is the way of the true Messiah; this is what it means to carry our cross. 

- a Billy Graham tribute, in my talk today, The Scandal of the Cross and What it Means to Carry Ours , featuring his classic sermon, The Offence of the Cross.

Lent: Go wild on God's earth

An influential Christian campaigner for women’s suffrage, for pacifism and for women’s ordination, Maude Royden, saw the Christian faith and journey to peace and justice as ‘the great adventure’ and derided the Church of England’s reluctance to walk on the wild side of reform. In one speech Royden reminded her listeners of Jesus’ question, ‘Can you drink of the cup that I drink of or be baptised with the baptism that I am baptised with?’, and she went on to ask, rhetorically, 

 “Would it be safe? No, of course it would not be safe… we are afraid of such risks, afraid of such a terrible victory (as Christ’s)… we treat the Church as one long-accustomed to ill-health. Do not open the window! Do not bang the door! You cannot take risks with the invalid. Step lightly, speak softly, at any moment the poor thing might die!”

- from my talk today, Lent: Go wild on God's earth.

Communication: it’s how you say it

Copied this Brian Bilston poem to each person in church; read it through together. Then re-read it starting from the bottom line working back to the top. Communication: it’s how you say it. My talk today....

Refugees

by Brian Bilston

They have no need of our help

So do not tell me

These haggard faces could belong to you or me

Should life have dealt a different hand

We need to see them for who they really are

Chancers and scroungers

Layabouts and loungers

With bombs up their sleeves

Cut-throats and thieves

They are not

Welcome here

We should make them

Go back to where they came from

They cannot

Share our food

Share our homes

Share our countries

Instead let us

Build a wall to keep them out

It is not okay to say

These are people just like us

A place should only belong to those who are born there

Do not be so stupid to think that

The world can be looked at another way

 

[Brian Bilston, Refugees.]

 

I Am Your Fan: On Christian Formation

... In Hilary Mantel’s novel Wolf Hall, Thomas Cromwell compares himself to Thomas More as he says, 

What’s wrong with you? Or what’s wrong with me? Why does everything you know, and everything you’ve learned, confirm you in what you believed before? Whereas in my case,  what I grew up with, and what I thought I believed, is chipped away a little and a little, a fragment then a piece and then a piece more. With every month that passes, the corners are knocked off the certainties of this world and then the next world too. 

If you relate less to Thomas More and more to Thomas Cromwell you’re on a healthy road to discipleship, for the beginning of learning is self-awareness and questioning. ...

- from my talk today, I am your fan (on Christian Formation), which manages to snuggle in together the late great Calvin's Dream, the wonderful and frightening world of The Fall, Yeovil Town FC, Banksy, Aristotle, John Sentamu, H. P. Lovecraft and T. S. Eliot. Amongst others.