Dear Friends

Many of you will be familiar with the opening lines of L.P. Hartley’s novel ‘The Go-Between’:

The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.

As I write this, I reflect on what life was like just a week ago. It was a different world. We lived differently there. We lived differently then. Now we’re in a foreign country. And we don’t know how things work. Step by giant step we’ve tumbled into a desert of uncertainty, and we wonder, punch-drunk, if life will ever be the same again.

The coronavirus was out there somewhere. Now it’s arrived, wreaking havoc among us, taking away our liberty and our livelihood, threatening our health, our very lives and especially the lives of our more frail loved ones.

And so it is easy for fear and anxiety to grip us, as we fear what may happen and our own ability to cope with it. We may take refuge in shopping, hoarding, hiding, fleeing to the hills…

While we cannot ignore our very real fears, we can face them courageously with God’s help. Thus Psalm 46 says:

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way,

and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea… (Psalm 46:1-2).

A few days ago, Janet and I drove down to Bath to collect Tim from university. We use a Satnav. A couple of times, as we tried to make sense of the way to go, we lost where we were on the little screen and had to press the button that says “Recentre”. Then the screen reset and we could see exactly where we were and where to turn next. But we couldn’t see very far ahead. Just the next little bit of the journey.

At a time like this we need to “Recentre”. For Christians, to do this is to centre again on God as we know him in Jesus Christ. Our Church vision is ‘A place for everyone with Christ at the centre’. In a very real sense we were already doing this recentring in the journey of Lent. The journey to the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus which we especially celebrate at Easter.

Like on the Satnav screen, we can only see the next little bit of the journey. We don’t know where it is all leading in the days and months to come. We don’t know what is around the next corner. We’re invited to trust the one who does.

The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, makes real and gives life to the deeply felt knowledge that we are God’s children – destined not for an endless life here, nor for death and destruction, but for death and resurrection into the fulfilment of God’s kingdom, which is already among us.

With our Church building closed, and all gatherings prevented, we are in uncharted waters. But God will navigate us through, and draw us deeper into his love amidst the hardship and loss. He is always moving creatively over the sea of our chaos and darkness, to bring order, light and ground on which we can stand firm.

God is good. He is love. His creation is very good. We’ve seen some beautiful weather today as spring blossoms… We have so much to be thankful for, and we probably most need to remember that when times are tough like now.

So let us open our hearts to love God, and to be loved by God, who is our strength and refuge. Nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ. Armed with this assurance, we are released into loving our neighbours and especially those most vulnerable, both nearby and far away. We will need perseverance, and God will give it. Take heart, it may be Friday, but Sunday’s coming.

With my love and prayers

Graham

Dear Friends,

I’ve often thought that God’s kingdom is like an orchestra. So many different instruments, so many people using their gifts under the direction of the conductor. Different instruments playing at different times. Sometimes the full orchestra all playing, sometimes a lonely flute holds us rapt with a haunting melody.

All contribute to the symphony according to the composer’s will. All are vital. Each part making little sense on its own but all finding their purpose when they come together in the great symphony of life.

Last week, Janet and I went to London to hear Mark sing in Mahler’s 2^nd Symphony – known as the Resurrection Symphony. We has good intentions of listening to the music beforehand, but never got round to it! So we just knew that it lasted about 90 minutes, and the theme was resurrection.

We got to the Royal Festival Hall in good time and eventually the Philharmonia Orchestra took their places followed by the choir, the Philharmonia Chorus. I love the buzz and the sense of expectation as the orchestra tune up and you wait for the first violinist and the conductor to make their dramatic entries.

The first movement begins and it’s all orchestra – no choir. Then the 2 soloists come on stage and we think the singing will begin. But no. The second and third movements are all orchestra too. We begin to wonder if the choir will sing at all. Not until the fourth movement does a soloist sing. But still no choir!

We have to wait until half way through the fifth and final movement before the choir join in – and by then there’s only 15 minutes left! The choir start to sing almost imperceptibly, though before long the hall will ring with triumphant melody and the orchestra booming in the final climax. The words sung are very powerful:

O Death, you conqueror of all things,

Now you are conquered.

I shall mount to the light which no sight has penetrated.

I shall die, so as to live!

The final movement, and the choir singing, was a long time coming but well worth waiting for!! What struck me, even during the waiting, was how appropriate that was. Waiting for resurrection. In this symphony, Mahler engages with life in all its pain and suffering and with death in particular. And, finally, resurrection.

We are at the beginning of Lent. During the journey of Lent, we are preparing to face, and ultimately celebrate, death and resurrection. On the journey, we are invited to face, with God’s help, the darkness in ourselves, and the darkness in the world. And there is so much waiting! But, like Janet and I waiting for the choir to sing, it is an expectant waiting. The darkness will be defeated. Jesus will die, but in order to conquer death. Jesus will die in order that we may live.

Meanwhile, may we all find assurance that we have a place in the orchestra, and be ready to use our gifts under the direction of the conductor.

With much love,

Graham

Dear Friends.

I went out shopping on Saturday morning. I had a simple task – to find and buy ‘Strawberry Laces’ (wait and see).

Once inside each supermarket, I felt a surge of something like anxiety, as I wondered what else I should be buying – what bargains there were and what I would miss if I didn’t get them there and then.

There were 2 for 1 offers. And sweets at reduced prices which I could buy and store away for our ‘Birthday Box’ (which we bring out each Sunday to celebrate any birthdays in the congregation). There was 25% off the herbal teas Janet likes. The smell of freshly baked bread was enticing and I always like to see what’s on offer in the beer section. And it’s usually worth a look in the reduced price food near its sell-by date.

Asda offered a poor substitute called ‘Rainbow Laces’ which I bought just in case I couldn’t find the real thing. Four supermarkets and three sweet shops later, I was delighted, and relieved, to find Strawberry Laces very close to home in Sainsburys.

They later made for a very popular activity at Messy Church with other fun (but only slightly less unhealthy) ingredients!

Jesus said (well he might …) “The kingdom of God is like a man who goes shopping …”

Only one thing is needed but many other things catch his eye ….

Sometimes he is contented with poor substitutes ….

He spends his money on things he doesn’t need ….

He thinks what his elderly neighbour might need before he goes ….

What link would you make between shopping and the kingdom of God?

Some people have more money, and so more choice in what they buy, and shopping patterns painfully highlight inequality. People who can buy in bulk, when items are cheap, get the best bargains, but they are the ones needing the bargains least.

We all have to shop or get someone to do it for us. What we buy, and how we shop, says a lot about us. Healthy eating, fair trading, avoiding waste, limiting plastic use – all these and more revolve around our shopping habits. And not just in shops but in everything we buy online (a choice in itself) and not just food, but holidays, cars, clothes, houses. And all of course have an effect on our planet, its limited resources and increasing temperature.

To know that the kingdom of God has come in Jesus, and is coming in Jesus and will come in Jesus is all we need. Everything else is just window dressing. Let’s not get distracted by it!

With much love

Graham

Dear Friends

As we approach Christmas, many of us are beginning to think about wrapping and unwrapping presents. Children especially are looking forward to unwrapping presents and are making up their wish lists…

In the biblical account of the first Christmas, we are told that the baby Jesus is to be found ‘wrapped in swaddling clothes’, and lying in a manger (Luke 2:7, 12).

The infant Jesus is wrapped up. Doubtless warm and snug despite the primitive surroundings. In his cloth wrapping he’s no different from any other well-cared-for baby of his time. In that time and place, it was normal to wrap your baby in strips of cloth. What was NOT normal, of course, was to be laid in a feeding trough in a shelter for animals.

Everything in scripture is food for thought, profitable for reflection, so let’s reflect on Jesus’ being wrapped up in cloths.

For one, it’s a picture of scripture. The Bible is the wrapping in which Jesus is found. – the New Testament records the life of Jesus, and the Old Testament speaks of him and longs for him in so many different ways. The Old Testament is the foil or setting for the glorious jewel it highlights and points towards – Emmanuel, God with us.

For two, Jesus comes to us wrapped in the clothes of his culture and his time. To understand him and hear him speak to us today, we need not only the Spirit of God to bring his Word to life, but some hard work and imagination to take into account the original setting in which he lived and taught.

For three, Jesus is God’s secret, a mystery kept under wraps for centuries and only revealed through the coming of Jesus (e.g. Ephesians 1:9).

For four, there is much yet to be unwrapped – for we still “eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed” (1 Corinthians 1:7). He will be revealed on “the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 8) – i.e. when Jesus returns to bring in the fullness of his kingdom.

For five, there is a Jesus to be unwrapped in all our hearts. Each person is made in the image of God, and that tarnished image within us needs to be unwrapped and exposed to the light of Christ. We are to put off the old clothes of selfishness and falsehood, the old self, and clothe ourselves with Christ (Rom 13:14) and every quality of his humanity – compassion, kindness, humility and above all, love (Colossians 3:12-14). This is at the heart of the Advent journey.

For six, Jesus was again bound in strips of cloth when he was buried. This ordinary, extraordinary child is born to die to reconcile us all to God and raise us with him to eternal life in the new creation.

His burial cloths would have been like those of Lazarus whom he raised from the dead. On Jesus’ command, Lazarus came out of his tomb still wrapped in linen strips of cloth. Jesus told his friends to unbind him.

So finally, for seven, with Jesus’ help (and at his command) we can unwrap one another from the deathly things which bind us, preventing us from being fully alive – especially the hurt and pain which festers within us, unresolved. Perhaps for most of us, this will be a gradual process of healing. And it will come from being loved and listened to and prayed with. All of us can do that. This too is at the heart of the Advent journey together.

May God bless you richly in your ‘spiritual’ journey of unwrapping, and in every way as we celebrate Advent and Christmas together.

With much love

Graham

Dear Friends

I follow daily Bible readings as part of a pattern of Morning Prayer. There is always one or more Psalms included.

I often struggle with the psalms. They are a great resource in worship and theology, but to be frank I don’t often find having set psalms very helpful. BUT today’s psalms were very interesting. The first was Psalm 88. A real favourite of mine, despite, or because of, it’s unremitting bleakness! And it all appears to be God’s fault:

You have laid me in the lowest pit …
Lord, why have you rejected my soul?
Why have you hidden your face from me?
The only hope in the Psalm is that the person is still speaking to God, even if it’s only to complain!

The second was Psalm 95 which begins:

O come let us sing to the Lord;
let us heartily rejoice in the rock of our salvation.
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving
and be glad in him with psalms.
For the Lord is a great God …

So can we imagine someone coming up to the person who’s lamenting in Psalm 88, and inviting him or her to join in a hymn of praise? We might expect a shirty answer… The Book of Proverbs has a comment on this sort of situation:

Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day,
or like vinegar poured on a wound,
is one who sings songs to a heavy heart.

So it was very interesting to have the two psalms placed one after another. In one sense it seems completely insensitive. In another way, turning our sorrow into joy is what God does. One example is Psalm 30 which speaks of crying out to God and being heard and healed:

You turned my wailing into dancing;
you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent.

What jarred for me, was that the joyful psalm came immediatelyafter the lament. No period of transition. Maybe that gets to the heart of this. The transition from sorrow to joy is not guaranteed – at least in this life. I’m sure it’s right to praise God out of the depths, to call to mind his goodness and provision even when we aren’t experiencing much of that. But we often need to sit patiently alongside people in pain and wait …

When I look at the heading for today’s Morning Prayer it is a celebration of two martyrs in Rome in the late 3^rdcentury – Crispin and Crispinian. It seems they were tortured and beheaded for their Christian faith and for helping the poor. For many faithful folk today, the goodness of God is believed in, but its not always something they feel able to talk about or want to sing about …

With faith, hope and love

Graham

Dear Friends,

Tolerance is a good word. It’s not love, but it’s a start. There’s a classic problem with tolerance, of course. We are usually urged to be ‘tolerant’ of anything except intolerance. And it seems to me that is a very basic fault line which has rarely been more apparent than in Britain today.

When is a person being “intolerant”? Who is to judge? Undoubtedly we can all be intolerant at times, but who can say when our deeply held views could fairly be labelled intolerant? And is it simply about our view, or how we express that view?

We are deeply influenced by the culture we live in. Yet cultures are constantly changing. And very fast, in this part of the world – not least around sexuality and gender identity.

People demanding tolerance, acceptance of their lifestyle, can be very intolerant of any reluctance or doubt in others. People promoting ‘inclusiveness’ can be very exclusive of those who don’t buy into their ideas of inclusiveness. And so, of course, can people who remain embedded in conservative and traditional views which reject certain lifestyles.

One huge problem facing us, and our politics nationally, is the lack of listening. Much of the present anger and resentment against politicians is from ‘the people’ who have not been listened to by the political elite of all the main parties. Honest engagement with complex issues is rare and sound bites and simplistic claims dominate. There is little acknowledgement that different views can be held with integrity.

For me, these massive cultural and political issues help us see what the Church can be. What the Church, for the sake of the nation, desperately needs to be. What Otley Parish Church can be.

One of the most important insights, for me, from biblical and theological study and reflection is that truth is rarely simple and static. More often truth is a dynamic reality, found as we listen to, and learn from, each other. Found when we give the Bible its primacy of place, doing our best to understand the context in which it was written and interpreting it honestly in the light of our experience and our tradition. And all of this is done while listening intently for the leading of the Holy Spirit.

At the heart of our faith is, of course, the very nature of God. Dynamic and beyond explanation. One and yet three. We must hold together the absolute unity, the oneness of God, with the Christian understanding that God is a divine community – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We hold his inscrutable majesty, his unimaginable power and glory in tension with his humility and tenderness, his self-giving love and willingness to be intimately known.

The truth about Jesus is not found in some halfway mark where Jesus is half man and half God, but in the incomprehensible mystery that he is fully human and fully divine.

The content of the Bible we (and Protestant Churches in general) use was agreed after long discussion and argument at Synods more than 300 years after Jesus died. The Bible brings together a vast array of different kinds of writing from many centuries and contexts. It is the work of human beings and the work of God.

Wrong interpretations have been used to justify slavery, ethnic cleansing, subjugation of women, the pernicious prosperity gospel, and countless injustices which have brought shame on the Church.

As you know, at Otley Parish Church we are an inclusive Church where there is a place for everyone, with Christ at the centre. You will also be well aware that there continues to be much debate in the wider Church, nationally and internationally, about how inclusive we can be to people who are gay or transgender.

I know there will be deeply held views within our Church about this, on many aspects of the various issues. Hopefully, all of us are listening and learning and trying to understand. I want to make it clear that I believe that differing, and even incompatible, views can be held with integrity. And I think our priority is twofold.

First and most important, to make sure that everybody is welcome in our Church, which means that we welcome every person without discriminating on sexuality, gender, gender identification, disability, mental health, ethnicity, or economic power.

Second, we commit ourselves to listen to God and each other, to examine our prejudices, to choose our words carefully and to remind ourselves again and again that we are called to love one another.

I hope that everyone can be free to be themselves and participate fully in our Church life, without having to hide part of who they are. In our mission we need each other with our different insights, faith, gifts and experiences.

We share in God’s mission to make Christ known and reveal his loving (and demanding) purposes for every person. If there is any ‘sitting on the fence’ about who is welcome, the iron will go into our soul!

As I write this I am very mindful of a 14 year-old girl, Lizzie Lowe, who was growing up in a Church in Didsbury, and took her own life because she did not think her gay sexuality and her Christian faith were compatible, and nobody at home or at Church said anything to help her. Her death transformed her Church, and we’ll have an opportunity to hear more about that in the next few weeks.

I want to do all I can to ensure that such a thing will not happen in Otley Parish Church through our silence and lack of care.

Thank you for all you already do to make our Church community such a loving and welcoming one. May God lead us forward into the future He has for us, and may we together grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ (Ephesians 3:18).

With much faith, hope and, above all, love.

Graham

Dear Friends,

One of the strange things I do is write “hello” a lot as I sit thinking or when I just sit (!). I’ve done it since Primary School. You’ll still find “hello” written in all sorts of places like my bible, my notes for a sermon or any old bit of paper lying around. Sometimes even on my hand. I should probably seek counselling about it! But it’s more fun to keep writing and ponder what a counsellor might say.

Perhaps I’m like Karen Blixen. In the film ‘Out of Africa’, when her husband complains about a lack lustre goodbye kiss she says “I’m better at hello”. Meryl Streep, who plays the Danish Karen Blixen, fills the words with moody promise.

Hello is so full of possibilities, new beginnings. But it can be scary too. A new job, a new situation. New people. Will we cope? Will we get on with the in-laws, or new neighbours?

Goodbye is the end of things. And yet many goodbyes are good! How many people have said something like: “I love it when my grandchildren come to see us. I also love it when they go!” We’re often glad to receive visitors and glad when they go as well! Serious things come and go – problems get resolved, and we move on to a better place.

So our lives are full of hellos and goodbyes. Some, like when people come to visit, have a clear beginning and end. Other hellos are much more long-term – like when a baby is born. So hello to Elspeth, and Eliza and at least two more to come soon to parents in our congregation. And, of course, goodbyes can be very permanent too, or seem to be, as when someone dies.

As someone about to be 60 (I know you can’t believe it, but it’s true), there are many things I need to say goodbye to. I’m never going to play cricket for Ireland. I’ll never run faster than either of my sons again. There are still so many things I’d like to do, but I’ll have to make some hard choices or none of them will get done….

But however old we are, a significant event in our lives is an opportunity to stop and reflect on some basic questions like: where next? What does God want me to do in this next chapter of my life? We move on and God continues alongside us, inviting us to continually reshape our lives in response to his guiding and empowering Spirit. “Keep in step with the Spirit” advises St Paul (Letter to the Galatians 5:25).

We are soon to say goodbye to Jimmy Lawrence, our curate. It doesn’t seem long since we first said hello. We’ll miss his lively, encouraging presence among us. We’ll miss his thoughtful sermons. We’re grateful for all he’s given us. He has formed us, and we have formed him, and Hannah. We are the better for Jimmy and Hannah having been with us. And we’re delighted for them that they can actually live together now and work out the details of their next step.

To Jimmy and Hannah, and to all of us, on the ever changing path of life, with all its hellos and goodbyes, there is perhaps no better advice than “Keep in step with the Spirit”. Our living loving God is always with us and will never desert us. “The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want” (Psalm 23). Alleluia!

Every blessing

Graham

Dear Friends,

I’m writing in the aftermath of the fire that almost destroyed Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. I was deeply moved by the scenes on television – the harrowing pictures of the fire, and the responses of Parisians as they gathered and watched and grieved and prayed.

We’re used to hearing that the Church is not the building, but the Church is the people. That is true, but a building such as Notre-Dame, or even Otley Parish Church, comes to represent the history of the people over centuries.

It was extraordinary how everything changed when news came that the basic structure of the cathedral was sound, and confidence was expressed that it could be rebuilt. It would rise again. Many have commented on the timing of the fire in Holy Week, and how it resonates with the grief and pain that we feel with Christ as he journeys towards the cross. And with the hope of resurrection.

Trust in his Father’s purposes, and the hope of resurrection, undoubtedly sustained Jesus through his pain and suffering. The resurrection is his personal vindication. For us who know the story, we read it knowing he will rise from the dead, and yet his suffering is almost unbearable to read. We feel in a human way for the betrayed Jesus, the one smeared with lies and half-truths as the fickle crowds are manipulated against him. 

But we believe much more has been achieved than Jesus’ personal vindication. The bigger story is that Jesus’ suffering was the means of overcoming sin and death – the two big barriers to God’s kingdom coming, when all creation is healed and reconciled to God.

There is no easy explanation for any suffering, let alone the appalling pain we know has been, and is being, endured by many in our world. But we can trust that somehow it is unavoidable, as Christ’s suffering is: a result of the cosmic struggle against evil, injustice and all that stands against God’s good purposes for the world. We have seen the heart of God in Jesus, and so we know that suffering here “wrings with pain the heart of God”, but darkness and evil must have its hour before it is overcome (Luke 22:53).

Parisians now live in the hope and trust that Notre-Dame will rise again. Christians live in the hope of the resurrection. For those who suffer today, the God we meet in Christ knows all about suffering. Jesus’ experiences forsakenness as he cries from the cross, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?”

The burning of Notre-Dame Cathedral is causing much heart-searching about why it it so significant to a country so militantly secular. Our hope is that many will be led to recognise they are part of a bigger story, a story that cannot be told in bricks and mortar but only by connecting to God who is the foundation of everything.

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, vowed to rebuild the cathedral in five years and make it better, more beautiful. The foundations and walls appear to be secure so the inside and roof can be replaced, and the cathedral will rise again. This seems to me to be powerfully symbolic for the wider Church. The Church built on the foundation of Jesus Christ. St Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians, chapter three:

¹⁰ By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. ¹¹ For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. ¹² If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, ¹³ their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. ¹⁴ If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. ¹⁵ If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved – even though only as one escaping through the flames.

¹⁶ Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives among you? ¹⁷ If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.

The foundation must always be Jesus Christ. The walls stand for the essential truths of the Gospel that do not change from generation to generation. But on this foundation, and within these Gospel walls, the Church can be rebuilt, and needs to be rebuilt, for each generation. 

Across the world we know that the Church works differently in different cultures. And our cultures change over time. Culture is “the way we do things here”. And the way we do things changes. 

It’s not always easy to discern what in the Church is cultural and can change and what is eternal and must not change. But that is our task as we seek new ways to engage people with the Gospel. 

The Lord is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

With love,

Graham

Dear Friends,

There’s a short story by Liam O’Flaherty called ‘The Sniper.’ It is set in the Irish civil war in 1922. A young sniper is on the rooftops in the centre of Dublin. After shooting an enemy soldier and an old woman who is an informer, he himself is seen and wounded by an enemy sniper from a rooftop across the street. 

After bandaging his wound he knows he has to get off the roof quickly or he will be caught. He forms a desperate plan, lifting his cap on his bayonet above the parapet and when the enemy sniper shoots through his hat, he allows his cap and the rifle to fall down the roof into the street. 

The enemy sniper thinks he has killed him and stands up from behind a chimney pot with his head silhouetted against the evening sky. The wounded young sniper then takes aim with his revolver and shoots the man on the rooftop across the street. He utters a cry of joy as his enemy staggers and tumbles down the roof and hits the street below with a dull thud.

He begins to shake, shuddering with revulsion and remorse, cursing the war – but is quickly fired up again by whiskey from his flask. He descends to the street and runs through a burst of gunfire to take a quick look at the dead soldier who is lying face down. As he turns the body over he finds he is looking into his brother’s face.

I was deeply moved by this story when I first heard it summarised in a lecture on Irish Literature nearly 40 years ago. It speaks to so many situations today: the ‘enemy’ is your brother.

Jesus is recorded as saying: “whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:50) This encourages us to rethink what we mean by ‘family’. For a Christian, it is all part of what we call repentance.

Repentance is changing our thinking, our attitude, our heart. That’s the meaning of the Greek word ‘metanoia’ which is translated ‘repentance’ in the bible. It’s God who can change our thinking, our attitudes and our heart to be more like his.

So God moves in our hearts to help us see a brother or a sister in every person, and to help us create, in our churches, families where everyone has a place at the table. Even, and especially, people who are different to us. Even, and especially, people who are difficult. It isn’t easy, but it is our especial challenge. 

It occurs to me that someone might think (on the basis of Matthew 12:50), that we only have to accept into our family those who do God’s will. I think that would be a misinterpretation. Jesus’ story of the Prodigal Son in Luke’s Gospel (chapter 15) makes it clear to me that even the person who DOESN’T do the will of God the Father is my brother or sister. Like the elder brother in that story, I can refuse to accept someone as my brother or sister, but then it is me not doing the will of God my Father.

For two weeks we have been privileged to host the Night Shelter for the West Yorkshire Destitute Asylum-seekers Network. The 10 young men we hosted are from many countries, where life is very different and problematic. Our hearts go out to them as they travel on to their next hosting church, hoping eventually to be allowed to settle in this country. It was wonderful to have so many people from churches and the wider community offering their help in so many ways. It wasn’t compassion alone that motivated us. God is a Father to them. They are family.

It’s certainly not easy to work out how to live with (ultimately) every member of the human race as family. Nor is it easy to work out how to love your neighbour (i.e. anyone!) as yourself. But this is the challenge God lovingly, and determinedly, sets us. 

With my love and prayers

Graham

Dear Friends,

Most of you will remember Richard. Maybe not his name, but probably his face. Richard came to Otley in 2017 and until a few months ago he was to be seen regularly on Kirkgate during the day. At night he slept in a tent in all weathers. 

For many, he was the first homeless person they had engaged with. Until first Darren and then Richard arrived, we’d only known homeless people stay for short periods. Not much chance to get to know them.

But lots of people got to know Richard a bit. He was chatty, undemanding, surprisingly optimistic and positive for someone ‘on the streets’. He was intelligent, well-read and able to talk about many subjects. He had a university degree.

Richard was eventually given a flat in Otley but then he went back to his home area of Brighouse. Sadly, we heard recently that he had died in hospital and had his funeral in Brighouse at the end of January.

A few days ago, at short notice, 35 people gathered in our church to remember Richard. Jimmy led a gentle service as we lit a candle, shared simple memories, read from the Bible and joined in prayers. For 15 minutes before we began, Rob tolled the Church.

The gathering of people and the tolling of the bell said that Richard mattered – in a sense proclaimed to Otley that Richard mattered. Many people had taken Richard to their hearts and did many small acts of kindness for him. Brought him food. Stopped to talk. Offered him clothes or a sleeping bag. Treated him as a normal human being. Recognised it as a privilege to be able to assist him.

People who helped Richard found that it wasn’t a one-way street – Richard gave them something in return. He treated them as if they mattered. He told some of his own story. He asked about their story. He shared his infectious optimism. He helped people engage with a real experience of homelessness not some prejudiced caricature. And their life was enriched by meeting him. 

Richard was a ‘normal’ kind person whose life was blighted by some bad luck, some bad choices and some difficult relationships. It could have been any of us sitting outside Scope on Kirkgate.

Mostly, Otley folk have been kind and helpful to Richard, caring and concerned; a credit to our community. Sadly, a few have been unpleasant and treated him like he was something less than a person. Richard said he liked being in Otley. 

In some ways, Richard holds up a mirror to us. His issues are personal to him but also the result of how we do things collectively, how resources are allocated in our society, how much support the troubled and vulnerable get.

The simple truth is that Richard mattered. His life mattered as much as any other. As well as being appreciated by us, he was and is of infinite value to his heavenly Father. So are you as you read this, whether you are feeling successful and fulfilled or useless.

During Lent, we will be inviting everyone to join a group to participate in the ‘SHAPEcourse’. It’s about discovering your shape by looking at five qualities you embody – your Spiritual gifts, your Heart, your Abilities, your Personality and your Experience.

Everybody matters and everybody has a contribution to make and gifts to share. Don’t undervalue yourself. There is a you-shaped piece of puzzle to fill a you-shaped part in the picture – and only you can fill it. 

There is (surprise surprise) a place for everyone, with Christ at the centre.

Your shape will change and vary through time, so it’s a good thing, every now and then, to pause and reflect on who we are becoming and how we fit in. And no better time to do that than as we start the journey of Lent and allow ourselves to be shaped afresh by God who walks with us through the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Love,

Graham