St Neots Parish Church

Overheard outside the Church one Friday night just before choir practice from a party of three teenage girls walking past the lit stained glass window of the east end: ‘I don’t know whether you believe all that god stuff, but you have to admit, it’s f***ing beautiful.’ We were delighted at the compliment even if we wouldn’t have put it quite like that ourselves.

I am confused. On the front page of my daily paper was an article about how outraged Muslim women are about the affront to their modesty; a day later there was a picture on the back cover of a nude couple kissing. In the western world, the widespread visibility of midriffs and cleavage say that modesty is no longer a virtue. And even many of the Muslim women were defending their veils not on the grounds that men must not look at them as sex objects but on the very modern ground of their ‘right’ to make individual choices.

Jesus was, supremely, a teacher. He was much else, of course; St. Mark, whose account of the gospel we have been following this year, devotes six of his sixteen chapters to the single week, the last five days of his life and the story of his resurrection, but even that week is full of his encounters with the Jewish leaders and his conversations with them. His teaching makes the story of his resurrection at all believable. Had the account of his Passion been preceded by nonsensical contradictory, homespun self serving stories; had his life been one of self-interest, the accounts of his passion might have moved us to pity because no one of any sensitivity enjoys the pain of another, but the idea that God would have raised such a person from the dead would strike us as ridiculous.

Never thought about it, really’, said the man when I asked whether he believed in God – we were talking about baptising his child. Some people seem to live happily without worrying about religion; others prayer every day. We are all different. Some of us are ‘here-and-now’ people; others dream (or fear) what might happen in the future. Neither is good or bad in itself. Worrying will not make anything change but living only in the present can make us thoughtless about the effect of our actions.

It is the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness and, in spite of the ferocious heat of July, the countryside is green. Harvesting began months ago but schools and churches keep this time of year as their Harvest Thanksgiving. We shall receive quantities of plastic, cardboard, tinplate and polystyrene in Church over the coming weekend …and some fresh vegetables as well. As always the messages are mixed.

At one time, it was common practice in some places to have the funeral service for several unrelated people at the same time. It stopped about forty years ago. Since then, we have gone steadily to more individualised funerals: friends and family offer tributes, music familiar to the deceased is played and now, while in churches the order of service is fixed by the church, at the crematorium families can have ‘designer funerals where the ceremony is intended ‘to meet the family’s exact requirements’. It can be non-religious or semi-religious – where a hymn may be sung and a prayer said. Civil funerals, as they are called, are becoming more popular. Even in church the focus has moved to the deceased rather than to God and his mercies.

Relationships between Christians and Muslims are not at the top of our agenda in St. Neots, but worldwide they matter a lot. We have just passed the anniversary of the aircraft strikes on the twin towers; the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are perceived as religious wars; persecution of believers continues sporadically in many places; even words are now regarded as dangerously offensive.

You have to keep your eye on the ball. Good advice for footballers. We have to remember what the overall purpose is of what we are doing and what we should be doing in order to achieve it. Otherwise we may find ourselves doing something which, while interesting and absorbing is only marginal to what we are trying to achieve. In football this is not a problem. If you don’t concentrate on getting the ball into the net either with your own boot or by passing to other members of the team, you get dropped. Life is not like that.

Eleventh Sunday after Trinity There is something quaint about the picture of the character of the Christian in our New Testament reading. It reminds me of the children’s hymn ‘When a knight won his spurs’ which died the death some years ago. Suits of armour, with helmets, breastplates, swords and so on may have been vivid images once upon a time; they are not now. They are part of the heritage industry. Yet, I suppose they have their modern equivelants: police officers used to have smart tunics and tall hats. Now they have body armour, yellow jackets, large truncheons and all manner of radio equipment; on occasion they can be seen with hard hats and transparent riot shields.

Towns change all the time. The face of the High Street is no exception. There is no point in regretting change. I am sad nevertheless at the sudden closure of the butchers’ shop, the last in the town centre. Apart from the cheery personal service the fact that you could buy from a huge range of meats, rather than standard packs, marks off a local butcher from the supermarkets. It is a reminder of the fragility of high streets, of local shopping and of local communities.