A Word from the Rector
Another week has flown by, and I’ve been struck by the wide range of weather we are experiencing. Someone told me that next week will be a scorcher! There was a really good pudding evening last night at Little Harrowden, with special thanks to Sue, Heather, Linda, Andrew and all their helpers who made the event so good. I couldn’t taste the puddings, unfortunately (I’m diabetic), but I was told that they were delicious.
This week, I’ve been continuing to focus on administrative tasks as I slowly move us into the 21st Century. This newsletter is part of that. Thanks to Elizabeth, our contacts in the new Benefice Database have been added, and some old contacts have been removed! This will make managing the benefice easier in the future and free up my time to concentrate on other things.
It’s funny when you start a new job, usually there is often an induction of all the systems and processes that are in place already, you’re trained on the computer system, trained on the phones, etc., etc. When you begin a new ministry, there is something called an induction. In fact, most of you were there as I was paraded around the church and then plonked in the Rector’s seat. It’s all very nice but it doesn’t help you to know which key opens the inner door at Little Harrowden or how to email the congregation with a list of services and events. It’s a bit like setting up a grandfather clock in a new house, you have to get it to tick in beat before you can leave it alone, and to do that you have to make sure it’s secured to the wall and that the movement is level, you have to fiddle with the gudgeon at the back to adjust the beat and move up or down the pendulum to adjust the speed. One you get that satisfying tick tock you know you can set the tools down and relax a bit. A new ministry is like that and right now I am doing the annoying gudgeon work of getting the beat in time.
This Sunday — “Do Not Be Afraid”
Matthew 10:24–39
This Sunday we continue our journey in the gospel of Matthew with Chapter 10. This time Jesus is teaching us about the difficulties we might experience when we follow him — and he’s honest about it. He doesn’t promise an easy ride and then spring the cost on us later. But folded right into that hard teaching, three times over like a refrain, he says the same thing: “Do not be afraid.”
Most of us know what it is to bite our tongue. You’re at the school gate, or in the pub, or round the family table, and the conversation turns to church, or God, or people who still believe “all that” — and you feel that small tightening in the chest. The easiest thing in the world is to stay quiet and not be the odd one out. Jesus takes that very human fear by the hand, looks it in the eye, and tells it the truth: the same God who is great enough to be held in awe is tender enough to count the very hairs on your head.Not one sparrow falls outside his care, and you are worth more than many sparrows. When we get our fear of God the right way round, the fear of what everyone else thinks begins to lose its grip.
There’s more to it than I can fit here — including a hard saying about a sword, and what it really means to take up our cross — so do come along on Sunday for the rest. But it strikes me that this, too, is a kind of getting-the-beat-in-time. Faith, like a new ministry or a grandfather clock, rarely ticks smoothly from the off; there’s fiddly, uncomfortable work in it. We just never do that work alone or unwatched. The One who asks for everything is the same One who counts every hair of our head.
With my prayers and every blessing,
Revd Josh Jackson
Rector, The 5 Churches Benefice