Author: svbenefice

Sent to me this week by a colleague: 

God, grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, which is pretty much everyone, since I’m clearly not you, God. At least not the last time I checked.

And while you’re at it, God, please give me the courage to change what I need to change about myself, which is frankly a lot, since, once again, I’m not you, which means I’m not perfect.

It’s better for me to focus on changing myself than to worry about changing other people, who, as you’ll no doubt remember me saying, I can’t change anyway.

Finally, give me the wisdom to just shut up whenever I think that I’m clearly smarter than everyone else in the room, that no one knows what they’re talking about except me, or that I alone have all the answers.

Basically God, grant me the wisdom to remember that I’m not you.

Amen.

R

“Truth” is much in the news at the moment, particularly as regards the big social media platforms; what is true and who decides that? Sometimes truth is simple to decide, where it hinges on a verifiable fact, but this is not always the case.  There are “moral truths” on which we base society; thus the famous opening lines of the US constitution; “We hold these truths to be self-evident”. This immediately raises questions as to why something is “self-evident”; who decides? Most, if not all, of our self-evident truths are derived from the major world religions. In the West, the concept of human rights ultimately can be traced back to the belief that all are made in the image of God and that give us intrinsic value. As religious beliefs retreat, some are starting to realise that the foundations of our society are being left exposed. This is not an argument for the existence of God, but perhaps it does show why we seem to have evolved to need faith and the problem we have to face if that is abandoned.

Rev David Poyner

It is traditional for any vicar to write something in January about New Year resolutions. Every year I have the same problem, because I have never made a resolution for the New Year; how can I improve on my current state of perfection?…. The truth is that I do not make resolutions because I know that I will never keep them; I have a (partial) grasp of my own limitations. 

One of the mantras in today’s world is about “being the best you can be”. On one level, it is hard to argue with this as an aspiration and it is a line I sometimes use when trying to encourage others. However, like empty New Year resolutions, it can be dangerous, when the person has an unrealistic vision of just what they are capable of being. It needs to be tempered with reality; that sometimes we will fail and we have to accept that some things are beyond us. Perhaps this is where one of the insights of Christianity can help. We believe that in some sense, we are all made in the image of God, God who is perfection. But for a whole range of reasons, that image is marred; as humans, after we are born things will very soon start to go wrong. But we are still loved and cherished by God despite all our failures and imperfections. We cannot always be the best we would like to be, our resolutions are often doomed to fail, but we are all still precious.

Rev David Poyner

How is the Christmas season going for you? In the Church, we talk a lot about hope in the run-up to Christmas and the birth of a saviour.  However, I often speak of hope as being something in the far distant future and welcoming a saviour implies we have things we need to be saved from. I don’t knock this, one of my Christmas sermons this year was about how we need to be saved from ourselves. However, many of the oldest Christmas carols focus much more on the business of making merry, of people experiencing joy and happiness at Christmas. In medieval times, Christmas was called a feast for a reason; it was an occasion to party in an age where there was not always much to be merry about. The serious-minded Puritans who tried to abolish this in the 16th and 17th centuries. They failed because they were too solemn for their own good. It is good to make merry when we can. Of course Christmas is very commercialised, of course it can be a very difficult time for some. However, after all the Christmas services I have done this year, there has been socialising, banter, good conversation, often with refreshments that always help. I have enjoyed this a lot. So I wish you all a merry Christmas season; the ancient feast has 12 days so plenty more to enjoy!

Rev David Poyner

It has been another bruising week for the Church of England, as more revelations have emerged of abusive behaviour from vicars and calls for resignations. For the victims of abuse, the news must have been particularly hard to bear. Over the next few days, I will be standing in pulpits talking about good tidings in my Christmas sermons; some will see that as a sanctimonious act of hypocrisy. All I can urge is that people do not focus on the institution of the Church, do not focus on the person in the dog collar. Look instead at the one in the manager; a baby, helpless and vulnerable and see in that how God really works in the world. God does not use earthly power, God does not use human authority. God works only through love but that love will triumph, with or without the Church of England.

Rev David Poyner

This week, I have been attending a meeting of the British Pharmacological Society (BPS) at Harrogate. I teach and research pharmacology, the science of how drugs work and have been a member of the BPS for over 25 years. The society organises a large meeting every year just before Christmas; there are talks about matters of current scientific interest and there is also the opportunity for people to show their latest findings my means of posters. This year, my PhD student had a poster. Over the years my routine at the meeting has changed; once I avidly attended all the scientific sessions and sought out the big names in the field who I wanted to impress.  Now I am more inclined to linger drinking tea by the posters and chatting with old friends before retiring to a nearby tea room or pub. There has been another change; now, when I attend, I wear my clerical collar. I have occasionally got some strange looks, but I have never encountered any hostility. Instead, people who do approach me often want to talk about their own faith or are curious about mine. The dog-collar is obvious, but there are other forms of identity such as cross lapel-badge that achieve much the same thing. A symbol can be powerful.

Rev David Poyner

I was scrolling through a friend’s facebook page, looking for profound reflections I could pass of as my own in my next sermon and found this. There may be something here about encouraging us to think carefully about what we actually need, although the real reason I am re-posting it is because it made me laugh out loud. Thanks to the friend who may recognise this when he reads it…

An atheist was taking a walk through the woods.

“What majestic trees! What powerful rivers! What beautiful animals”, he said to himself.

As he continued walking alongside the river he heard a rustling in the bushes.

Turning to look, he saw a 7 foot bear charging towards him.

He ran as fast as he could up the path.

Looking over his shoulder he saw that the bear was closing in on him.

His heart was pumping frantically and he tried to run even faster.

He tripped and fell on the ground.

He rolled over to pick himself up but saw the bear raising his paw to take a swipe at him.

At that instant the atheist cried out, “Oh my God!”

Time stopped.

The bear froze.

The forest was silent.

It was then that a bright light shone upon the man and a voice from heaven asked, “You deny my existence for all of these years, teach others I don’t exist and even credit creation to a cosmic accident. Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer?”

The atheist looked directly into the light.

“It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask you to treat me as a Christian now, but perhaps, could you make the BEAR a Christian?”

“Very well”, said the Voice.

The light went out, and the sounds of the forest resumed.

And then the bear lowered his paw, bowed his head and spoke: “Lord, bless this food which I am about to receive and for which I am truly thankful, Amen”…

Rev David Poyner

The House of Commons have now voted to legalise assisted dying. The very fact that was  a free vote indicates the complex moral issues around this issue. Earlier this week, in a Thought for the Day, the Rev. Sam Wells gave a very balanced account of the different Christian perspectives around the issue; he presented arguments for both sides. Perhaps that is why I personally find it hard to come to a decision; in my ministry I have seen people suffer terrible, intractable pain at the end of their lives, but I also worry about the practicalities of what is being proposed; safeguards that seem to me to be very difficult to make work, people making decisions based on the lottery of how well end-of-life care works in different regions. And I have heard what I find are repugnant arguments based on the best use of resources. So, sitting on my fence, my only contribution is to give thanks that this debate has taken place on the eve of Advent. Advent is the time when the Church looks forward to the final coming of the Kingdom of God. In it, we talk a lot about hope. We have hope because, no matter what knots we tie ourselves up in, no matter what decisions we make, wise or foolish, God has the final word; love will always find a way to win.

Rev David Poyner

Earlier this week, I thanked one of our volunteers who helps tidy the church. I was struck by her reply; she described helping as a “pleasure and a privilege”. The work of the church relies very heavily on unpaid volunteers. This week, in addition to the volunteer cleaners at Billingsley, I have welcomed a group from “Caring for God’s Acre” who cut the church hedge in the snow, today a volunteer will have been at the church to set up heaters and switch them on before a funeral. This article appears on Facebook thanks to a volunteer. Tomorrow, I will attend a breakfast at the Down Inn, organised and run entirely by volunteers from Glazeley and Chetton. This is the main way we can reach out to members of the wider community who do not normally attend church. A volunteer will walk to the church to open it today. At Chelmarsh, today volunteers are ensuring that a funeral runs smoothly; tomorrow, a larger group will be in church all day serving soup and scones as it reaches out to the village. Volunteers at Sidbury are planning their Christmas service. Oddly enough, at Billingsley and Glazeley congregations are growing; Chelmarsh and Sidbury are at least holding their own. Service is not only a pleasure and a privilege; it is mission.

Rev David Poyner

I cannot remember the last time the BBC led their news with a story featuring the Church of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Unfortunately….

As I followed the news, I realised I knew some of the victims, from 40 years ago when we were students together. I had no idea what they had been subject to, although I was never very close to any of them. I have been reflecting on how we currently so safeguarding; I write this before chairing a PCC meeting where I had already been planning to run a safeguarding exercise, one I used at another PCC meeting I chaired last week and which worked well. Both the current and previous Safeguarding Officers employed by the diocese are ex-police officers. I do not think they are technically “independent”, but when they tell me something, I take action; I would not wish to cross either. From what I have seen of senior clergy, they also appear to me to share that same respect. But perhaps I have already said too much, too much in self-justification of the church and myself. I wonder if the words that really count are those recently written by a current Bishop, Guli Francis-Dehqani, who I respect; that history shows that when the Church is large and powerful, it has rarely acted at its best.

Rev David Poyner