Category: Rector’s Blog

Mary is a very important person in our faith.   Down the centuries so many have had a special devotion to her.  So many churches are named in her honour – including our sister church down the road at Broughton.  But what was she like – what picture comes into your mind when you hear her name?  Is it that of a plaster statue such as the one in our side chapel, the Whitley Chancel?  Do you imagine her a young girl being visited by an angel and accepting her fate with hardly a murmur of protest or perhaps that tranquil young woman holding a baby –looking like she never missed a night’s sleep in her life.  What do we know about Mary? And what does her story tell us?

Well, it is believed she grew up in Nazareth, and was engaged to a carpenter called Joseph. She is, the Gospels tell us visited by an angel who tells her she will become pregnant and bear a son.  She does question this ‘How can this be?’ she asks.  To me Mary’s response reminds me that in our discipleship we don’t always have a clear picture of the road ahead.  Mary took a huge risk in becoming pregnant outside of marriage which could have resulted in her being abandoned by Joseph and shunned by her family; but she said ‘yes’ to God. The message to us is that we will sometimes have to say yes to God even if we are not clear what the path will be.  

We don’t know much about Jesus’ childhood but we do read the story of the family’s visit to Jerusalem for the Passover festival when Jesus stayed behind in the temple. Mary and Joseph assumed he was with the other children in the extended family group and when they discovered he was not they made a frantic journey back to Jerusalem and found him in the temple.  I think any mother can relate to how she felt when this happened.

But as the 12 year-old Jesus rebuked his parents for not understanding that he had to be in his Father’s house, she must have remembered Simeon’s words when they presented their baby in the temple, that a sword would pierce her soul. Mary was obviously a woman of prayer, who we are told pondered things in her heart. 

Mary appears again in the story of Jesus’ first miracle when the wine ran out at the wedding in Cana, Mary expected Jesus to solve the problem. She told the servants to do whatever he told them and the result was the miracle of water being turned into wine.  Jesus says his time hasn’t yet come but Mary; it seems; is at least in part beginning to understand who her son was.  Quite natural you would think that the first person to understand would be his own mother. 

The next time we meet Mary is when she and some of her other sons, worried about Jesus turning up at a house where he is teaching and try to get him home.   When Jesus is told his mother and brothers are outside Jesus says who are my mother and my brothers.  I am sure that must have hurt Mary but Jesus was at this point making it clear that he had not come just for his family, and remember families and clans were at the heart of the culture he lived in but he had come to all who do the will of God. Mary’s reaction to this statement is not recorded.

We know Mary was present at the crucifixion and the Gospel of John has the touching story of Jesus– as he was dying on the cross entrusting his mother to his friend. 

That is just about all the Bible tells us about Mary but tradition has added a lot more. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception for example – that Mary was born without sin, and the story that she did not die but was taken up into heaven.  Of course, these stories are very important to many people but I believe that what is most helpful about Mary is that she was a woman, one of us, struggling to be faithful to God in life and someone both women and men can emulate as we try to yes to God.  

We believe that Jesus was fully divine and fully human.  Jesus took his humanity from his mother Mary. So perhaps he looked like her, perhaps he had her mannerisms. It must have been Mary who taught him as a young child about God and the first human love he would have experienced was hers. Rowan Williams has said that if we ignore Mary, if we shrug our shoulders and say it doesn’t really matter what kind of person she was, we deny the real humanity of our Lord. Rev’d Canon Andrea Jones

This week I am celebrating the fifth anniversary of my coming to the Borderlands Mission Area.  As often happens when you make a move, especially a happy one (and this has been a happy one) in one way it feels like I have only been here a very short time – in other ways I feel I have been here forever because I feel so welcomed and loved in this very special community.

The story of how I came to be in this part of Wales really does prove that God works in mysterious ways. Even through social media.  The Christmas of 2016 my son and family had hired a cottage in Betwys y Coed and after I had finished the Christmas services at my church in Manchester I drove over to join them. It was a lovely few days and so when I got home I sent a message via Facebook to a friend who was at that time a serving priest in Wales. “I think I am being called to Wales”. It was a light hearted throw away comment. A few days later I got a message back – “My colleague says is your friend serious?”  There was a job being advertised in the Borderlands Mission Area.  The job in question wasn’t the one I eventually came to but it was this exchange that led me to apply for the post at St Deiniol’s and St Francis.

I had visited and stayed at Gladstone’s Library a number of times so knew the village a little (including the Fox and Grapes!).  I had stood looking up at our stunning Burne -Jones Nativity window and thought how wonderful to worship here – and then I moved here and I did!  

I never expected to move to the Church in Wales and when I saw my name being engraved on the tablets on the wall of St Deinol’s,  (the first woman to serve as Rector), I could never have imagined that during my time here our churches would be closed due to Covid.  I had never even heard of Zoom!   But close down we did and it was a painful time particularly for those who lost loved ones and could not hold funerals in church and for those, like myself, with relatives in care homes who they could not visit for over a year.  But here at St Deiniol’s we adapted. We met via Zoom on a Sunday and I was full of admiration for some of our most elderly members who took up this new form of communication.  The clergy team met for Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer on line and people joined us on Facebook.   New members joined our church during this time.  And what a joy when we finally re-opened.

The most heartening thing about being in Hawarden has been people’s openness to deepening their discipleship and willingness to reach out to people in new and different ways – our dawn service at the foot of the wooden cross in our churchyard, leaving our Jesus Rocks around the village, our egg rolling, introducing our village magazine. We enjoy a wide range of worship from Choral Evensong to our Afternoon Church down at St Mary’s with its worship songs.  I could go on and on.  So much happens here and it is underpinned by faithful attendance at the Eucharist.

I have taken on new roles. I am now Mission Area Leader of the Borderlands Mission Area. I was recently installed as Canon Missioner at the Cathedral.  Revd Alan, Revd Gail and I now look after St Mary’s Broughton as well as St Deiniol’s and St Francis.

There are of course challenges ahead.  The church building at St Francis will be closing but that does not mean we cease to share the Gospel in Sandycroft so we have to find new ways to do that.  All our churches following Covid face financial pressures and St Deiniol’s is no different in that respect.  We also need to spend money on repairing and restoring our beautiful heritage building. 

I cannot thank everyone who I minister alongside enough for their support and energy, not just the marvellous clergy team, though I am very grateful to them,  but everyone who in different ways plays a part in living and sharing the Christian faith. I have gained much more from all the good people in this place than I have given them.  I feel very called to be in this corner of Wales.  My own faith has deepened during my time here and I also have such a lot of fun.  We spend a lot of time laughing and enjoying life.  My prayer is that during my time here I can work towards making sure that our church, both in terms of people and the building, will be in a strong position when I (finally!) leave and that those who worship here in the future and seek to share Jesus’ message with the wider community will have a good and sure foundation to work upon. Rev’d Canon Andrea Jones

A poem by Margret Halaska

God 
Knocks at my door
Seeking a home for his son

Rent is cheap, I say

I don’t want to rent . I want to buy , says God.

I’m not sure I want to sell,
but you might come in and look around.

I think I will, says God

I might let you have a room or two 

I like it, says God . I’ll take the two , you might 
decide to give me more some day.
I can wait, says God.

I’d like to give you more
but it’s a bit difficult, I need some space for me .

I know says God, but I’ll wait. I like what I see.

Hm, maybe I can let you have another room 
I really don’t need that much.

Thanks, says God, I’ll take it. I like what I see.

I’d like to give you the whole house
but I’m not sure …..

Think on it, says God. I wouldn’t put you out.
Your house would be mine and my son would 
live in it.
You’d have more space than you’d ever had before

I don’t understand at all.

I know, says God, but I can’t tell you about that
You’ll have to discover it for yourself
That can only happen if you let me have the whole house.

A bit risky, I say:

Yes, says God, but try me

I’m not sure –
I’ll let you know

I can wait, says God, I like what I see.

On the Feast of St Thomas

John 20:24-28

The world feels so uncertain at the present time and almost all of us  crave certainty.  We fear a lack of control. We don’t believe a lot of what we hear. We want proof.  The 3^rd of July is the feast day of St Thomas,  the disciple who were are told could not  accept that Jesus had risen from the dead only on the evidence of what his  friends described.  He demanded proof and because of this he has gone down in history as Doubting Thomas – the disciple who would not accept the Resurrection until he saw and touched Jesus  for himself.  He has had quite a negative press!

To me though Thomas comes across as an honest person expressing honest doubt. Thomas doesn’t pretend he believes that Jesus  rose from the dead when he is struggling to do so just because others do.  Thomas is true to himself.  I think he was probably the kind of  who would wear a mask on the bus if he felt it was the right thing to do even if no one else did. If we think of the parable of the sower I think we can be sure that in Thomas’ case the seed did fall on good soil.  The story of Thomas shows  us that if we  sometimes struggle with doubt – and I am sure we all do  – that’s ok.  Because the story shows  that whilst Thomas expresses doubt  Jesus does not condemn him for doing so. Rather Jesus comes to Thomas and through that encounter with the Risen Christ Thomas does not remain a doubter. Through that encounter with Thomas  believes and goes to share the Gospel across the world. He is believed to have taken the Gospel to India.

Canon Michael Smith, Acting Dean at York Minster says that Thomas was ‘Doubting Thomas’ for one week, but then he encountered the risen Lord and became ‘Believing Thomas’,  and he remained ‘Believing Thomas’ for the rest of his life, and yet we still always refer to him as ‘Doubting Thomas’. People grow in faith, people also sometimes make mistakes. We have to allow people to change and accept that people do change.  We shouldn’t always be labelled.  We live in a world where second chances are not always easy.   A person can be vilified for a social media post they made ten years ago when they were a rather silly teenager.  But people do change and grow.  How does the saying go “God loves us so much as we are he doesn’t want us to stay there”?  Thomas wanted assurance and evidence. But most of all he wanted Jesus and needed a personal connection to dispel his doubts. We cannot feel Jesus’ wounds but we can encounter him – encounter him through hearing the Word of God and through the sacrament of the Eucharist.  And like Thomas after that encounter God calls on us to take the message out. Perhaps not as far as Thomas travelled but certainly out to the people we meet in our every day lives. Rev’d Canon Andrea Jones

Some Thoughts on the Feast of the Pentecost

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongue as the Spirit enabled them.   Acts 2:1-4

One of the loveliest things about the present time, serving in the Church in Wales, is hearing Welsh spoken.  It’s a great thing that Welsh is a living language, a growing language and that we are a bilingual nation as compared with say, Scotland where, whilst numbers of Gaelic speakers are growing, the language is not widely spoken.  And today in this part of Wales, Welsh and English are not the only languages one hears. When I’m down in Sandycroft  particularly, I often hear Central European languages spoken: Polish, Estonian and  Lithuanian. When I go back to Manchester, in the city centre, you hear all sorts of different tongues – Italian, Urdu, Spanish and many African languages whose names are unknown to me.

But whilst it is a wonderful thing that there are so many different languages in the world the truth is, speaking different languages can divide us.  It makes it harder for us to understand each other. People in the United Kingdom are famous for not learning other languages in the way that many of our European neighbours do.  Perhaps we get lazy because so many people around the world speak English or should that be American?

And culture can also get in the way.  My brother is an artist and on a visit to France he started to sketch a line drawing of a barn.  A man came out from a little house across the road and started talking loudly at him in French – very quickly so my brother couldn’t understand him – he waved his arms about and then turned round and went into his house.  My brother thought oh heck he doesn’t like me drawing this barn.  I’ll finish quickly and move on.  But then the man came out again with a chair.  He had been saying you shouldn’t be stood up there – I’ll get something for you to sit on so it will be easier.  He bought a cup of coffee over too.  

So it’s easy to jump to conclusions if we don’t understand the words and misunderstand the body language.

At the Feast of Pentecost we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit and in the Acts of the Apostles  we read that miraculously the disciples were able to speak in all the different languages that were spoken in Jerusalem at that time – and it seems that first century Palestine was a bit like the United Kingdom today: there were loads of different languages being spoken.  People were amazed to hear their own language.  

It would be wonderful if we could all understand each other’s languages but even then there could still be misunderstanding because at the end of the day what really matters is real communication. Once that man brought out the cup of coffee for my brother it didn’t matter that they didn’t speak the same language.   They understood each other. They were communicating.

We live in a world where: whilst on the face of it with mobile phones and social media and the internet we are more connected than ever; we actually often don’t communicate at all. Instead we have information overload.  

The poet TS Eliot wrote:  “Where is the Life we have lost in living? 
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? 
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? “

I love that last line.

T S Eliot was writing in a very different time to us but that line sums up for me, what the world can be like today, especially with 24 hour news: we have information but does that give us knowledge and wisdom?

Another problem with our information overload today is that we often aren’t helped to listen to others who might bring a different perspective to us.  We can choose which news channel to watch or which paper to buy or read on-line.   We tend to be friends with on FB or follow on Twitter those who think like us. This all can reinforce our prejudices.  Sometimes this can be harmless.  If you saw my Facebook you would  think the whole world was obsessed with Anthony Trollope, Miss Marple and the Anglican communion. There is a darker side to this hidden community. As we know, it is often through the internet that young people have been radicalised and gone down very destructive paths in life.

Communication is about learning to listen as well as speaking.  There is a saying “you never know what you have said until you find out what someone else has heard”.   

Part of learning to communicate better and learning from each other is to examine our own hearts and motivations.  Are we quicker to judge that we are to listen? Quicker to condemn than understand?  Are we avoiding the mote in our own eye by enjoying picking out the speck in someone elses?

But as Christians we also need to look outwards. 

We need to look into each other’s eyes and see God there.  We especially have to do that when we meet someone who is different, might look different to us, sound different or who might not fit in our idea of what someone should be wearing or worshipping God.

It’s really is all about communication. Communication with God – and that’s listening as well as talking to God – and communication with each other.

Pentecost is the time we celebrate that following Jesus’ Ascension into heaven God sent down his Holy Spirit, his comforter to us.  If we allow the Holy Spirit to flourish in our lives,  communication can happen and real understanding can happen.  It strikes me that this has never been more necessary in the world today which seems so fragmented and divided.

To quote T S Eliot again:  “What life have you, if you have not life together? There is not life that is not in community, And no community not lived in praise of GOD.”

Rev’d Canon Andrea Jones

Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ He asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ The reply came, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.’ Acts 9:1-6

Paul is an important figure in the story of how Christianity spread across the Mediterranean world.  And most of us know of the phrase “Road to Damascus” referring to the experience that Saul, as he was originally called, when a bright light shone, blinding Saul and a voice called out to him “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” 

Impressive as a bearer of the Good News Paul might be but I, like many people, find Paul/Saul a complicated character.  Not very attractive to be honest.  He was happy to watch St Stephen’s martyrdom.  He  issued threats of murder against Jesus’ followers.   He clearly sees his role to rescue those who are following what was then called “the Way” – the early Jewish followers of Christ – to rescue them from the errors of their beliefs.  He seeks permission to go into synagogues in Damascus to investigate those who might be involved in what he sees as a dangerous new sect. 

But how does Saul sees himself?   He believes he is in the right, trying to protect the faith. He wants to stamp out heresy.    He sees his role as a correcting those who have gone astray.  Anything he does is for people’s own good.

Saul is the classic example of someone who is so sure they are right and so convinced of the terrible consequences for those who don’t think like him that they cannot see any problems with how they behave or how their actions might have consequences.

So when Saul is struck down and hears that voice say, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” I imagine that he is thinking  “Who me? A persecutor?” Because that is not how he sees himself at all.  He is on the side of the angels.  Surely he is doing what God wants.

But the voice he hears clearly asks “Why are you persecuting me?”  The voice, which we know is the voice of Christ,  is standing with the  victims of Saul’s violence and also asking Saul to recognise Jesus in those he meets – in Jesus’ followers, members of the Way.  The voice tells Saul that by  persecuting the followers of the Way  he was persecuting Jesus himself.  

The voice from heaven challenges Saul to see those he was persecuting  through new eyes as people whose views and beliefs should be respected. 

The experience on the road to Damascus shows   Saul a new way of relating  to others. What stands out for me in this  story is the profound ways in which people can be transformed when they acknowledge the pain and damage of forcing others to see the world as they do.   After all Paul went on to proclaim the Gospel to the Greeks as well as the Jews across the Mediterranean.  

This is a message  to all of humanity.  It is when we fail to see the divine in each other, however different from ourselves that the world goes so quickly down the road of hatred and violence.  We saw it in apartheid South Africa, we see it sadly in our Holy Lands,  we saw it in the time of the Troubles in Norther Ireland.  But what all these conflicts tell us is that in the end there has to be talking, there has to be an understanding of two very opposing views finding some common ground. This is not to suggest that any view, however extreme it might be, should be accepted or condoned,.  We have a situation in Europe at this very moment where it is hard to see how war and violence can be avoided or stopped at this particular point but that should never prevent us from recognising that our enemies are our fellow humans and that we need to try to unsee them as enemies, letting our scales fall off and seeing them as fellow humans.  For as in South Africa, as in Northern Ireland things can only move on at the time we are willing to recognise the things that bind us and find ways as in South Africa with the truth and reconciliation commission to move on even after much pain and suffering. 

It is also  a message for the Church. Our own history here in these islands is one of the Church being bound up with the Empire as missionaries went out to countries and societies they knew nothing about believing they were on the side of the angels and often did as much harm as good.  Some of that still needs to be put right.

It is a message for us here and now.   We may feel we cannot solve the conflicts of the world but Saul’s encounter should point us to how we treat people who we might have differences, be they theological or political, cultural or simply personal.  We need always to be listening for what that voice might be saying to us. How are we treating Jesus by the way we treat others? Rev’d Andrea Jones

Luke 24. 1-12 

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. 

Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened

A recent survey found that when asked about the most common British traits people cited talking about the weather and drinking tea as amongst our most prominent attributes along with a love of curry and …queuing.  For some inexplicable reason us British don’t seem to mind queuing, we almost seem to enjoy it – as long as it’s fair.  Queue jumping is one of the things we hate most. But we don’t seem to mind waiting.  And we are now at the end of a period of waiting: we have just passed through the season of Lent and our waiting is now over – Jesus Christ is Risen. 

The church year unfolds with the seasons.  It seems particularly fitting to celebrate the Resurrection in spring when the days are getting longer, when our gardens are emerging from their rather sorry winter state and we see green shoots appearing.  But Easter is not simply a time we mark the cycle of the seasons.   Easter is not merely a spring festival. Easter is the day that Christians announce to the world that Jesus of Nazareth died and rose again. He is alive now.  He has conquered death.

Jesus’ death and resurrection changed the world forever so that nothing can ever be the same again.  Early Christians understood this to mean that the End Times were almost upon them. They lived each day in the expectation of Jesus’ return.  But as the years passed and Jesus did not return the way the early Christians understood the Gospel began to be reinterpreted for a Church who seemed to be in for a long wait.  The queue we are waiting in seems to move very slowly.

So what difference does the Easter experience make to us who are living in a world where we see hurt, pain, poverty, injustice and suffering? Especially this year as we see war raging in Europe. Yet for all that we constantly see glimpses of the time when all tears will be wiped away.  We see people of extraordinary courage, of extraordinary compassion. We see how people came together over the last few years in the face of the pandemic.  We see people who are not willing to let past hurts and betrayals eat away at them. They are saying yes to life and to living. Think of Elizabeth and Fernando Jimenez whose forgave their daughter’s killer and helped him build a new life. Or Gavin Power, the young man in Northern Ireland whose father was killed in a sectarian murder but who forgave his killers. I think of my own father, a Japanese Prisoner of War, who never held on to hatred of the Japanese people. These people, whatever their faith, signpost us to the Kingdom of God.  And that journey to the Kingdom means leaving our past hurts behind. 

Paula Gooder in her Lenten book “This Risen Existence” reminds us of C S Lewis’ famous Christian allegory, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.     When the mythical kingdom of Narnia is under the spell of the White Witch it is always covered in snow. It is, we are told, always winter, never Christmas.  Never Christmas. That might seem an odd way of putting it. After all Christmas falls in the middle of winter.    Should it not be always winter but never spring? But in the story the first evidence that Aslan is returning to Narnia and the White Witch’s hold over the frozen country is losing its grip is the sight of Father Christmas.  Then the snow slowly begins to melt and finally spring bursts into bloom.

We are living in the thaw.  On Easter Day Christians announce: “Jesus is Risen”.  He is alive. Death is defeated.  We have not yet experienced the completion of God’s promise, but we do see glimpses.

We are living between the events of Easter Day and the End Times – but we are not simply in a long queue, passively waiting for something.  We are living in the thaw and we have the power within us to make melt the ice around us by our actions, by the love we pour out to others in our daily lives. 

We are called to actively go out and proclaim this Good News – in what we say, in what we do and the love we share.

 Someone described this Resurrection life as “the world as it should be… in direct opposition to the world as it is”.  The men in white who meet Mary Magdalene and the other women at the tomb ask them “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; He has risen!”   The women did not wait at the tomb – they went back and told the others what they had seen.

As Christians, we need to go out taking our message of peace, truth, sharing and love.  Jesus’ death and resurrection changed the world forever so that nothing that happened since can ever be the same again.  Jesus Christ is Risen and because of that we can live our lives in the expectation that the world can become the world that it should be not simply the world as it is.  

Rev’d Andrea Jones, Rector, St Deiniol’s Church

A Message of Hope for these Troubled Times

We are living in dark times.  We are fearful, we are anxious, our hearts go out to our sisters and brothers in Ukraine and for countries along its borders struggling to support and help the stream of refugees.  For the Russian people whose rights are being taken from them, for the people of  Belarus, which now it seems  is virtually a puppet state of Putin. We are frightened at the speed in which war has returned to the streets of Europe, something we never thought would happen again and we worry about how worse things might become. This could so easily spin out of control. 

Throughout history in times of desperation, when we don’t feel God is listening or even feel angry at God who doesn’t appear to answer our prayers, people have been drawn to the psalms.  The book of Psalms has been at the centre of both Jewish and Christian worship for thousands of years and when we pray the psalms. These words join us with millions of both Jews and Christians across the world. Those who have gone before us have used these songs as part of their prayer life, often in times of great suffering. So I am very much drawn to the psalms now.

Compiled from lyrics used in Temple worship the psalms contain hymns, psalms of thanksgiving, royal psalms and psalms of lament. The word lament is not one we hear very much nowadays.    We don’t do a lot of lamenting.  Our TV advertisements are full of happy, smiley people. We are fed a message that we should flourish and thrive but that seems to mean we should expect and seek individual happiness above all else.  If you look at films and dramas it seems the only love that is worth having is romantic love between two individuals and that should be one which always has to exist in a heightened state of excitement. We also do a lot of blame – it’s always someone’s fault but not our own – as if the whole world was some sort of ambulance chasing exercise.  But lament is not about blame and it’s not about pretending things are different to how they really are. Lament is an expression of deep grief, a reflection on the pain and sorrow of the world.  Lent is a season of lament but as we look around our world – at the war damaged buildings, at our fears for the future of our planet if we do not tackle climate change, at what this virus can still do especially in countries without access to vaccines – this year especially seems a time to lament and lament is something we do collectively not just as individuals.  We confess our sins of commission and omission as communities, nations and indeed as humankind. 

And the psalms help us see that down the ages people have felt as we do. They are brutally honest – the psalmist is often angry, hopeless, desperate. The psalms help us see that faith does not mean and never has meant that we are insulated from the troubles of the world.

The psalm appointed for the Second Sunday in Lent is Psalm 27 and its words capture that ambiguity – that it is inevitable and will always haunt our faith.

Threats and danger run through this psalm.  Enemies are encircling around the psalmist, family members, even parents seem to have abandoned them. Liars rise up against him.  It is a picture of fear, and anarchy.  A picture we can recognise today.  A picture of war-torn Ukraine but also of Russia where even just to go out into the streets to protest can lead  to imprisonment, even for children.  A picture of what it is like to live in a totalitarian state where close family and friends; for fear of their own safety; often betray others.

Yet – look how the psalm begins.  Verse 1 reads “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”  This is a clear statement of belief in a strong personal relationship with our God. 

This psalm tells us that whilst we face great uncertainty we also have trust.

The way this psalm unfolds speaks to me.  It begins in a victorious mode – enemies will be overthrown and fear vanquished.  But then, the tone changes.  The psalmist is apparently no longer confident that they can take on an enemy but simply seeks safety.

The psalm describes what we experience when we are anxious and afraid. There are times we think we can cope.  If God is for me who shall be against me? But there are times we feel not only that we cannot cope but that we have been abandoned: “Do not hide your face from me.” “Do not turn your servant away in anger, you who have been my help.”

Because it’s very easy to say we have trust in God but very difficult to do in times of great suffering.   This is a time of lament. A time to admit we are uncertain and afraid. 

The words of Psalm 27 also include words of trust, prayers for deliverance, as well as lament and a call for help. Moving from one of these to another, points out the challenges we face as people of faith. The news on our TV screens, the circumstances of our lives can shake our belief in a loving God.  It can feel as if the only response to our heartfelt prayers is an empty echo. Why doesn’t God answer our prayers which goodness knows are good and valid ones?

Yet the psalm both begins and ends with trust.  Words of reassurance that God is indeed with us. 

And what about laments? On the one hand, yes, they are an expression of sadness and pain in a distressing and suffering world. Times of lament are truly difficult times. But lament is not a time of hopelessness.   The psalms of lament presuppose that God exists, and that God does hear us and has the power to turn things around.

I read a sermon recently which had been preached at the St Margaret’s Anglican chaplaincy in Budapest by Revd Solomon Ekiyor, a refugee from Ukraine.   He said that the “war profoundly disrupts our lives and plans but our faith also gives us the resources to meet those questions”.  He spoke of the long history of disruptions that are part of the life of the people of God from the Exodus onwards. He said God has a way of working with evil and suffering: improvising and weaving it into the tapestry of his purpose in the world.  He continued “It is for each of us now to ask his guidance on what new purpose he has for each of us in this situation”.  I was very moved by  his  trust in what are the most difficult and dangerous of circumstances for him and his family knowing how anxious and helpless I am feeling,  though this war hardly touches me in the way that it does Revd Ekiyor. His hope made me reflect on the fact that what is lamentable can change into something that is good.

Verse 16 of Psalm 27 ends on a note of trust and of hope.  “I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!”.    Sometimes that is all we feel we can hang on to and sometimes only hang on with difficulty but sometimes that is enough.  Perhaps right now it has to be enough. Revd Andrea Jones, Rector of St Deiniol’s, Hawarden

Here are some thoughts on Lent

From Rev’d Gail Woodward

During Lent I hope that we can all take the time to: 
Look at the life Jesus led and
Implement the lifestyle choices he recommended. We can do this by
Mastering the art of personal Bible study and prayer.  Through these things, we will
Benefit from a deeper path of discipleship as we do so.

A father and child were having a day out in the countryside when they came to a river they needed to cross. The father led the way across, using some stepping-stones that formed a path in the river.  Cautiously the child took his first steps and time and time again he slipped off the stones and splashed into the water. The father said: ‘just copy what I did’. The child realised his father had bent his knees and at the same time he had held his arms out for balance. The child Looked then Implemented the pattern he had seen. Once he had Mastered the art of successfully stepping from one stone to the other, he Benefited by gaining confidence in the task he was doing.

During the Spring a farmer went for a walk in the countryside. He noticed an abandoned eagle’s nest which still had two eggs in it. He took the eggs home and laid them in the warmth of one of his hen’s nests.  In the warmth of the barn the eggs hatched, and the baby eagles grew up with the chickens. The two baby eagles pecked about the farmyard scrabbling for grain like the other chickens. One day they looked up into the sky and saw an eagle soaring above in the sky. Both baby eagles sighed and said: ‘if only we had been born an eagle’. During Lent we have the opportunity to Look at our faith in depth through the Lent Bible study groups. It doesn’t matter whether we have a church background or not, it is our choice to Implement Christian values within our lives.  The eagles Mastered the art of survival within the farmyard just as we can survive within our given environment. However, to Benefit from being eagles they had to learn to fly and not just admire those who did. We need to soar like the eagle and let out faith grow as we Implement those values in our daily lives.

Rev’d Gail

A Time to Read….

The well-known passage from the book of Ecclesiastes describes the different seasons of our lives – a time to weep, a time to laugh, a time to sow, a time to reap. The writer doesn’t mention reading but the season of Lent is a time when people often choose a book to read.  Here are a few suggestions….

Embracing Justice by Isabelle Hamley – this is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent book for 2022.  It weaves together biblical texts, different voices, contemporary stories, and personal and group meditations to help us ways to engage more fully as Christians and reflect the justice, mercy and compassion of Christ in our lives.

Feast and Fast – Food for Lent and Easter by Christina Rees. Lent is traditionally a period of abstinence, so should you deny yourself little luxuries such as chocolate or alcohol? Or should you do something positive and, if so, what? How best can you nourish your body and soul through this special period in the year? In this book we are taken on a spiritual and culinary exploration of the Christian traditions around fasting and feasting in Lent and Easter.  It’s full of recipes as well as spiritual nourishment.

The Things He Said by Archbishop Stephen Cottrell.  There have been many books which reflect on the last seven words of Christ on the cross but in this book Archbishop Stephen reflects on those words that Jesus spoke after his Resurrection.  This book helps us to look afresh at stories which for church-goers have often become familiar but which are of course truly remarkable.

Women of Holy Week: An Easter Journey in Nine Stories by Paula Gooder

The Biblical scholar Paula Gooder always writes in a very accessible way and always makes me see things from a different angle.  This book, which is illustrated, helps us to enter into the Passion story through the events and characters of Holy Week and was based on a series of addresses she gave at Southwark Cathedral during Holy Week last year. This book is one of my own choices for this Lent!