John Davies - Notes From a Small Vicar

Christianity isn't dying - it's diversifying

John’s Notes - Parish Magazine editorial, July 2018

Not so much the FIFA World Cup, it’s the alternative World Cup which has caught my attention of late. The Conifa World Cup is an international football tournament for states, minorities, stateless peoples and regions not affiliated to FIFA, organised by the Confederation of Independent Football Associations. The tournament was won by Kárpátalja in June, defeating Northern Cyprus 3-2 on penalties in the final. Kárpátalja represent the Hungarian minority in Carpathian Ruthenia (Zakarpattia Oblast, Ukraine). Other competitors included Tibet, Matabeleland, United Koreans in Japan, Panjab (representing the Punjabi community in the UK), and - my personal favourites - Ellan Vanin, the team of the Isle of Man.

I think it’s great that these small, often overlooked peoples have got together to celebrate themselves in this way. It’s part of a trend in sport of late which has also shown in the development of the Street Child World Cup (24 teams of street children competing in Moscow for their own international football tournament and festival of arts and advocating for the rights of millions of children surviving on the streets worldwide), the Invictus Games (in which wounded, injured or sick armed services personnel and their associated veterans take part in sports including wheelchair basketball, sitting volleyball, and indoor rowing) and - most spectacularly successful of all - the Paralympics. No longer do physical disabilities or social deprivation have to limit people’s participation in society; and these popular events enable our wider society to embrace people once deemed untouchable outsiders.

One big reason I think this is great is because I think this is a sign of the good news at work in the world. Even a passing knowledge of Jesus’ teachings recognises that he was all for turning things upside down - in his eyes the ‘strong’ are weak, the ‘weak’ are strong, the ‘first’ last and the ‘last’ first, and so on. He began to create this upside-down world when he brought together as equals around the same meal tables, ‘tax collectors and sinners’ with the ‘great and good’ in all their pomp. I think that this world continues to show itself today, through the World Cup winning Kárpátalja team, Prince Harry’s Invictus competitors and their like.

Some say that Christianity is dying: because the churches are low on attendees on ordinary Sundays. I prefer to say that Christianity is diversifying: that the good news is taking on new shapes and forms in the world around us, that the gospel gene is creating new life in new ways all the time. We just need to keep our eyes open for signs of it.

 

On a Boat with Jesus - on the rocks with God

... One small detail of this gospel story which struck me reading it this time - is that it wasn’t just the one boat struck by that storm on Galilee that day: ‘other boats’ were on that lake, Mark records. Now, you may not be totally sure if you are on the boat with Jesus, you may not be convinced that you have fully signed up to the ship of fools, you may not be too certain that you are actually travelling his way. You may see yourself as being carried along by another sort of craft altogether. But if so, then hear this: when Jesus wakes to calm the storm, every traveller on the lake of life benefits, regardless. ...

- Metaphor or miracle, it's powerful stuff all the same - today's talk, On a Boat with Jesus - on the rocks with God

Digging together: beyond two tribes

John’s Notes: Parish Magazines editorial, June 2018

The Barnsley writer, wit, and raconteur Ian McMillan lives what he calls a ‘peripatetic word-driven lifestyle’ (he was onstage at Clapham Village Hall on 6th June). A consequence of this is that he wakes up in lots of different hotel rooms and the only fixed point of reference he has is his old cheap alarm clock which ‘not only tells me the time but somehow … informs me exactly where I am’, as it reminds him of where he was when he set it the night before.

‘Where am I?’ is an existential question we may not often consciously consider, especially if we’re rooted in the same place we’ve been for many years. It’s related to another question, ‘Who am I?’ which again we generally keep in the background (Ian McMillan chews it over in his book Neither Nowt Nor Summat: In Search of the Meaning of Yorkshire, which is equally his struggle with the question, ‘Am I Yorkshire enough’?). But there are times when such questions surface, and maybe we’re living through such a time in our society just now.

Commentator David Goodhart suggests that the EU ref­er­endum revealed that British society is divided into two ‘tribes’: ‘Anywheres’ and ‘Somewheres’. Anywheres are people often on the move who base their sense of identity on their achievements, whilst Somewheres identify more with place and background; what most distresses them is the loss of a sense of community and roots.  Goodhart connects ‘Remainers' and ‘Leavers’ with these two categories.

I don’t think the ‘two tribes’ idea is too helpful, or realistic, as I suspect there’s something of the Anywhere and Somewhere in each of us. I’m drawn to this theme by my recent move - I’m an ofcumden, but one feeling a sense of homecoming in returning north, renewing acquaintance with once-familiar places, sensing that it’s the ‘Somewhere’ in me which has driven this determination to strengthen and deepen these northern roots. I think that a sense of place is important to  Anywheres (that’s why professional couples want to return to the ‘family church’ for their wedding, or Christenings). And YFC awards events show how - justly - proud local, rooted Somewheres are in their achievements too. We’re more complex people than the mainstream Brexit discussion  makes us out to be.

I’m always struck by how village life manages to bring together people of different kinds, from different backgrounds, the Anywheres and the Somewheres, united by an appreciation of ‘where we are’ and working out how to live and flourish together. In just one example I’m impressed by those volunteers who in recent years have been getting our villages wired for high-speed broadband: strategists, techies and diggers-of-holes, lifetime locals and recent incomers, united in a common task - a great achievement. When we decide to build something together, and stop seeing each other as merely leavers or remainers, anywheres or somewheres, insiders or outsiders, the result is community.

 

The Kingdom of God is like a Homecoming

... This is crucial for the times we are living through. For we are a homeless people grasping for our identity in things which may harm and embitter us, which may divide and alienate us from each other. If we can grasp that in God comes our sense of self-worth, that in Godcomes our safety and  security, that in God comes our well-being - then we have truly come home.

The Kingdom of God is like a homecoming. It is living day to day in the knowledge of the presence of God in our lives and in the everyday world. It is being able to look forward in hope because we understand that heaven is ahead of us and around us.

How much our prodigal society needs to come home.

How much our homeless society needs to know that our Father God is waiting in longing to welcome us home.

This is the great secret grounded in our faith; Jesus sowed the tiny seeds in his teaching about the Kingdom of God. He trusts you and me to water and nurture the growth of that Kingdom as we embrace God’s presence in our own everyday lives, as we look out for what God is doing in the world around us, and as we help others to find their home in him.

- from today's talk, The Kingdom of God is like a Homecoming.