St Neots Parish Church

I suppose I ought to write something about the Da Vinci Code. As I read it, the claim is that the Christian story is different from what you have been taught. The Catholic church comes in for the most drubbing, having allegedly concealed the claim the Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and had children.

I have been looking at buying a new car -well, anyway, a different one. I really want a green one. I know that this has nothing to do with reliability or how cheap it would be to run; but I know of people who are attracted by alloy wheels or spoilers . Clearly I am not the only loony in town. The ads for cars rarely tell you what you need to know. They tell you it’s stylish, that it has ‘crisp exterior lines’ and ‘deep new bumpers’.

There is a small but select number of the congregation who feel that keeping the vicar happy is one of their main objectives in life. They seek to do this by telling me jokes. Have you heard the one about the elephant who went into a job centre. ‘I am looking for a job’, he said to the girl behind the counter. ‘You want a job?’ she said, taken aback. The elephant replied ‘ this is a job centre?, she asked. ‘Job centre plus’ she answered. ‘So do you have any jobs going?’ ‘I’m not sure we have anything to suit you.,’ she said. ‘Have you thought of trying a circus?. ‘But what would they want with a bricklayer?’

Perhaps I am alone in feeling a tremendous crunching of gears on returning to this place after the Good Friday procession of witness? Proclaiming the Easter story to our community together with our brother and sister Christians is vital , yet various distractions and alien features of our culture conspire to make our commemorative act seem but a faint echo of a long past event. Salvation remains incomplete and we are called to participate in it. As Eastertide collides with secularism – for our self-absorbed, self-absolving generation - it becomes ever harder to be in the world, but not of it. We have to strive to make Christ’s death once for all, relevant, to embrace it inwardly as well as acknowledging it outwardly. It will not be enough to see it as a crime committed by others, but we are all in danger of doing so. We come here, then, not just to remember, but to reflect – to question, as Pilate did: what is truth? The humbling truth about Jesus, the truth, more grievously about ourselves.

Maundy Thursday; it has so many historical connections - the betrayal and arrest of Jesus, the Last Supper, the Passover – it becomes an occasion on which we, as Christians, recall these important events in the life of Jesus and in the history of Israel. But merely remembering does not do justice to these events, which have ongoing, present significance for us believers. The passages assigned in the lectionary for today press beyond recollection of what happened to re-presenting (in the sense of presenting again) - re-presenting them to Christians today.

From Mothering Sunday to today requires a dramatic change of atmosphere. We have been bowling along towards spring, lit by the bright colours of daffodils, when suddenly the sun goes in and clouds begin to lower upon us. Mothering Sunday may be called mid-Lent Sunday in some calenders, but now we are in the middle of that intensification of Lent which is called Passiontide.

Nobody, in my experience, has ever become nicer through having power over others. It’s not an original statement but it needs repeating. Not vicars, not bishops, not local authority councillors or officers; not policemen, not prime ministers. Having to explain and justify yourself is good medicine for the soul; unfortunately not everyone gets to take it. Recognising that you are sometimes badly wrong is vital if you are to see God.

It’s six weeks to Easter, a time when, traditionally, families can get a break together. Our family normally takes some time off during the week after Easter Day after we have observed Palm Sunday and Holy Week – Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Day. We shall do so this year. However, for the first time in the history of state education, the Local Education Authority has decided to ignore Easter altogether and to start the new term on the Tuesday after Easter. So we must choose between going away in Lent or Holy Week, going away in school term or not going away.

There can be few of us who do not dream from time to time about the idea of getting away from it all. We have in mind a country cottage or a remote island - preferably sun-kissed - and in easy reach of good facilities; but a release from the pressures of the world appeals; if only for short time. Thus do retired people spend a week in Welsh monasteries on retreat, fed only on cold salmon, warm pheasant and many varieties of ice cream.

‘Remember that you are dust and to the dust you shall return’. We used these words on Wednesday at our service to begin Lent. Members of the congregation came forward were marked with ashes, made from the burning of last year’s palm crosses. Our mortality is, of course, something that we get reminded of every time we go to a funeral. ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust’, says the priest, as a body is lowered into the grave or the curtains drawn at the crematorium.