We will be hearing a lot about jubilees in the coming months, as we mark the Platinum Jubilee of the Queen, after 70 years on the throne. I have always associated jubilees with royal events and wedding anniversaries; silver, golden and diamond. However, the word jubilee itself is from the Bible and takes us back to world 3000 years ago. 

In the Book of Leviticus, mixed in with some bizarre (to our eyes) regulations on worship, are instructions on how the people of Israel should order their society so that it was just and fair. There are constant reminders to look after the widow, the orphan and the alien (immigrants who were not Jews). There are also instructions for care of the environment; every seventh year no crops were to be grown to restore the fertility of the soil. After the end of seven times seven years (49 years), every 50^th year was particularly special. It was to be marked by the blowing of rams’ horns throughout the land; all land was to be restored to its original owners, all slaves were to be freed. It was a resetting of society, to ensure that wealth and privilege did not become ingrained and a time of celebration. The Hebrew word for the rams’ horns is yobel or jobel; Leviticus says that the 50^th year was to be the year of the Ram’s Horn, Jobel, which has come to us jubilee.  

As we mark the jubilee this year, we would do well to reflect on its original purpose, as described in one the least-fashionable books in the Bible. Our society is not that of 3000 years ago, simple solutions applicable then may not work today; but we must surely share the aspirations for fairness and justice. 

It was not until last Saturday night that I realised we were about to celebrate the 70^th anniversary of the accession of the Queen to the throne. I suspect that whatever anyone thinks about the role of the monarchy as an institution, they would have to respect the Queen for the way she has conducted herself over her reign. At the very beginning, she promised that she would serve us, her subjects. In her most recent message to mark the jubilee, she signed herself “your servant”, in her letter to the nation. Together with her Christian faith, perhaps because of it, service has been central to her life. It was also something that her late husband, Philip understood, as became apparent in the tributes paid to him at his funeral a few months ago.  

Ideas of service and duty can be misused; they can be part of a structure to hold individuals down. But Jesus himself took on the role of a servant; indeed, in the account of how he washed his disciples’ feet, he identifies himself not just as a servant but, in the Greek used by the Apostle John to describe the event, as a slave. Perhaps that is a shocking thought, but elsewhere, the service taught by Jesus, that of living in total mutual love, is described as liberation, “perfect freedom” from the self-interest of the world. That I think is a quality the Queen seeks to model in her life; it is also something we can also aspire to. The servant may be the one who is truly free. 

Severn Valley Benefice

St. Mary’s Church, Billingsley

& Churches of the Severn Valley Benefice

Would like to invite you to a

Consultation Meeting

To discuss the recruitment and appointment of a new Rector for the Benefice

On 26^th February 2022 @ 10am

at The Village Hall, Chelmarsh All are welcome

On Wednesday of this past week, the church celebrated Candlemas. This marks the end of the Christmas/Epiphany seasons and starts the countdown to Lent and Easter. In some cultures, this is the day the last of the Christmas decorations are taken down; at a meeting at work this week, a colleague complained how the wind was blowing her Christmas tree that she had left outside; however I suspect this was not because she intended to mark Candlemass… The name comes from the custom of blessing the candles that were going to be used in church throughout the coming year. However, at the heart of the festival is the commemoration of the presentation of the infant Jesus in the temple at Jerusalem, where he was to be admitted into the Jewish faith by circumcision. Behind this, is a command from the Old Testament, of how every first-born male was to be consecrated to God, to mark the liberation of the Israelites from Egypt, where they were kept as slaves. 

This link between freedom from oppression and Candlemas is perhaps not one that gets much attention. But it provides a reminder that we worship a God who cares about justice, a God who brings freedom for those in captivity or oppression. Jesus himself, at the very start of his ministry, in his home village of Nazareth, declared that he had come to bring freedom. This includes political and economic freedom, but perhaps in our world we can also think of the social and mental pressures that we feel and which seek to enslave us. I am very aware of the effect of these in the workplace and in education, the way many young people in particular struggle. At Candlemas we are reminded of the God who liberates us from the pressures of an unbalanced world. 

This Tuesday I had the privilege of taking the funeral for a parishioner who had been a gifted musician, playing the drums. He had passed this talent onto his son, who composed and played a drum solo as we closed the curtain around his father at the crematorium. Drummers in bands can often be overlooked in favour of the “frontmen”; the guitar players and singers. But they are an essential element of the sound. There is a story, perhaps exaggerated, of the late Charlie Watts, drummer to the Rolling Stones. Allegedly Mick Jagger was heard to exclaim “Where is my …. drummer?” when Watts could not be found. On hearing about this, Watts sought out Jagger, grabbed him firmly by the throat and proclaimed “I am not your …. drummer, you are my …. singer”. 

Now for one of those leaps vicars are famous for. The Bible reading for last Sunday was from a letter by St Paul to the dysfunctional church at Corinth, whose members were arguing over status. Paul used the image of a human body with many parts, some not discussed in polite conversation, but all essential to the whole, to remind them that although we may have different roles, we all need each other. Someone has to tidy the church, fix the gutters, pay the bills, organise the events, cut the grass, attend the meetings. Indeed, this is as true in wider society as it is the church. The singer needs the drummer, the drummer needs singer, as Paul would recognise. 

(Google Charlie Watts and Mick Jagger to get alternative versions of this….)

A posting unashamedly inspired by this Thursday’s thought for the day, in which the commentator spoke of signs that perhaps the Covid epidemic may finally be loosening its grip. I am not sure I entirely share this, but with the sunny weather this week, my own mood has lightened and I do have hope we will finally come through it. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, I also hope that England will eventually beat Australia at cricket; I even have a wild hope that Kidderminster Harriers will beat West Ham. Oh yes, and I sometimes talk about hope in my sermons.

The word hope has many different shades of meaning, ranging from the frankly unrealistic to something which, whilst it may not yet have happened, is an event that is certain, even if we are not sure how it will work out. The end of the Covid epidemic is an example of the second of these; it will end, but I cannot predict when that will happen; I have some power to influence the event by my actions, for better or worse. England eventually beating Australia is also something that will happen, but is quite beyond my power to influence. A Harriers cup run is not going to happen. And the Christian hope? This is founded on the conviction that there is a God whose nature is love and who will establish his kingdom of love here on earth. It will happen, but the time that takes is in our hands.

The last few weeks have seen a number in our communities lose loved ones, sometimes in the most unexpected and painful circumstances. I have found myself standing awkwardly, unable to offer any meaningful words to those in grief. I suspect the truth is that in these moments, there are no words that can be said; there will be pain and it simply has to be endured. Each of us reacts differently; at least, those were the wisest words that were said to me when I suffered a bereavement a few years ago.

I am sometimes asked as a vicar how I cope; does it make it easier that I believe in Heaven? I am not sure that does help me. I believe that God’s love for us does not cease at death. But exactly how that works out is not something I know, or indeed care much about; in the life of faith, there are some questions we simply have to leave for God. I do draw strength from the most detailed picture we have in the Bible of death and grief; the account of Jesus visiting the house of his friends Martha and Mary, still raw from having buried their brother Lazarus three days before. Jesus knows their grief; he weeps. If you want to know what the phrase “God with us” really means, look no further; God shares in the deepest human pain. And, perhaps as a promise to us that love is really stronger than death, Jesus orders, Lazarus from his tomb. And Lazarus cannot ignore the command of love; he rises. So if you want to know what the word “hope” means, look no further; somehow in this story we see that the God of life prevails.

The latest resident in Billingsley and newest member of the 100 Club, Donna, kindly agreed to make the first draw of 2022. The first number to be drawn was 24 winning Les £54, numbers 17 and 58 followed and prizes of £27 are on their way to Dave and Ellen. Congratulations to the lucky winners and many thanks as always to all the supporters of the 100 Club.

This week, some words from a recent post by Pete Greig, a church pastor in Surrey.

“Jesus is to be found in the eye of the storm. This is something I am learning. In fact, with all the distractions, deletions and distortions of this turning world, it has become my necessary daily practice simply to sit in silence and stillness each morning for a few minutes, re-centering myself on the peace of his presence, re-anchoring my scattered senses in the absolute bedrock of his love.

This is not a type of prayer I was taught as a child and at times it doesn’t even feel like praying. … But I believe that God’s quiet invitation to each one of us at the start of this year is this: ‘Be still and know that I am God.’. We know ‘of’ God through the bible but we actually know him through the practice of silence, stillness and solitude….

I believe that our world needs people who carry this deep stillness, a lack of anxiety, a reassuring quality of eternity in their hearts. Each morning in prayer I reinstate Jesus as the One whose loving actuality defines reality – not my hormones, not my bank balance, not my problems and pains. Only his presence. Without these moments of recentering I can easily spend my day like a pin-ball pinging between flashing lights, propelled from reaction to reaction by circumstance….

T.S. Eliot captures and conveys the spirit of precisely this kind of silent praying;

‘You are here to kneel, where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more than an order of words, the conscious occupation of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying’”