Creaton: 6[th] Sunday before Lent, 6[th] February 2011
O God, take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them. Take our hearts and set them on fire."
Time goes by. 
To-day is the 37[t][h] day of 2011 so  we've another 328 to go this year of I've got my sums right.  Thirty seven days during which we've had the chance to implement,  start to fulfil,  or even to abandon,  our New Year resolutions : that's assuming that we made any, of course.  And 328 days left to make 2011 a year of fulfilment.  The end of the beginning of the year, with Epihpany over and Lent looming,  seems  a good time to take stock of where we are in our lives, what we've achieved so far and where we ought to do before another New Year comes round. 
With that in mind I found that Paul's letter to The Romans Chapter 12  has a something for us to think about in a famous passage that  begins   " Be not wise in your own conceits."  Or, as the Good News Bible puts it,    "Do not think of yourselves as wise."    That's very appropriate for omeone whose standing up in church talking.    And  the KJV  goes on    Therefore if thine enemy hunger feed him, if he thirst give him  drink " ..........."Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. "   Not easy injunctions for most of us, I dare say. 
 " Be not wise in your own conceits".    
There is a danger, as I know only too well,  that the older we get the wiser we think we are.  Certainly we accumulate knowledge and experience : but I am not at all sure about wisdom, a virtue with an old fashioned ring about it that one hears little about these days.   I remember that  a schoolmaster who had a great influence on me as a teenager, used to say,  albeit with a twinkle in his eye, when we challenged him in debate about some issue,   "  Merrick, I'm very old, I'm very wise and I'm never wrong".  End of discussion.   
And I have to confess that from time to time I do get a bit over assertive too,   a touch like Victor Meldrew,  as I comment from behind my newspaper about  the state of the nation,  the things that go on in the courts, the behaviour of bankers, politicians  and professional footballers or even, I'm afraid to say,  the situation of  the Church of England.  It's easy to slip into an ivory tower, surrounded by creature comforts and  certitudes,  and  to look upon the world outside with a jaundiced eye.  And if we do too much of that we shall become the salt that lost its savour. 
Television and the internet  can, however,  provide an antidote to that kind of complacency.   For in our world of instant access to news,  and instant replay,  we can peer out from rural Northamptonshire to the world's canvas, seeing  if we wish virtually the whole of life's rich, and sometimes  bloody,  tapestry on our screens. 
Looking,  as I imagine we all have done over the last month,  at pictures of the floods  and cyclones in Australia, more flooding in Sri Lanka or the torrential rain and mudslides in Brazil has made me think about what we might do were we faced which such apocalyptic events  here  in Northamptonshire .  At least I'm fairly confident that we would not suffer anything like the  "biblical" scale of disaster  -  as journalists put it  -  of Australia.   A giant inland sea of floodwater, 55 miles long,  is unlikely to spread here as it did across the  state of Victoria.     
What would we try to rescue if we were given, say,  an hour to leave our homes before catastrophe struck ?  
My guess is that we want first to save our families, then our pets and after that  things linking our lives with both, such as  photographs or scrapbooks, perhaps some heirlooms  of sentimental value,  mother's tea pot,  even love letters and diaries.
Because to most of us what matters in life are relationships.    We'd  want to show that we cherished relationships  and to remind ourselves, wherever we escaped to,  of their intrinsic value. 
When we lived in  Los Angeles in the early 1990s, huge fires  fanned by onshore winds did catastrophic damage in the hills around the city.  Disaster is a great leveller.   The rich and powerful, the so called beautiful people,  living in expensive homes in Malibu suffered as much as the poor, as fires swept down on their beach side neo -classical villas.    
Some of the more strident preachers claimed that the destruction was a judgement from God on a greedy and materialistic world.   I did not subscribe to that view.  But people who have been subjected to natural disaster whether in Australia, Brazil, California or here on our own doorstep in Cumbria,  have had to face up to the fact that none of us is immune from responding to a  personal or public disaster sooner or later -   and that will test us.   And make us decide what  is really important in life. 
What is worth saving ?  One answer to that question comes to us through  the lives of saints, men and women  who discovered the meaning of life by laying emphasis on relationships: relationships with God and with their fellow creatures .  
I see from our Lectionary that recently the church celebrated  the Conversion of St. Paul on the road to Damascus and of  the lives of Timothy and Titus his companions on some of his missionary journeys.  These  people,  and many other men and women, learned how to love God and their neighbours and had the courage to give up much for their faith.  They knew what to save, what to build up in life and what to discard.   
There's a story - probably apocryphal I have to say - to illustrate this about three clergymen in a town threatened by fire. Their places of worship were close together so they were able to keep an eye on each.  As usual in situations like that, a crowd gathered to gawp and see what they would do in the face of the catastrophe.   At the synagogue the Rabbi appeared carrying the Torah's scrolls. At the Roman Catholic Church the priest staggered out with the Blessed Sacrament saved from the altar table.  There was concern, however, about the Episcopal Church's pastor who was taking a long time to appear, though  a great deal of crashing and clanking could be heard.   But eventually he emerged from the smoke and flames and  -  yes-  he was carrying the photocopying machine.  
What then is worth saving in our lives?  I heard that a man who had lost his home in the floods recently said  "  my brother often used to tell me that my possessions owned me,  rather than me owning my possessions.  Well to day I'm a free man. "  
What matters in life?  That epistle that I quoted form at the beginning has some pointers 
" Recompense no man evil for evil; Provide things honest in the sight of all men.   " If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men" .  
Jesus himself listed the attributes that we should be aiming at in his eight Beatitudes,  calling blessed those who are  merciful, those who work for peace  and those willing to give up everything for what they believe.   
In the world of today that is not easy.   We are programmed with other preoccupations and other value.   When we meet someone for the first time  too often the first three questions in the back of our minds   are:  What do they do? What do they own? And what do people think of them?   
As Christians we need above all to remember that we are part of a family with Jesus going back two thousand years and it is our relationship through him with God that counts most of all.  Our parents brought us into the world and gave us our surname. But with baptism we joined the family of God.
Above  all we do not want to be in the position of the couple who lost their home  two weeks ago,  Despite being aware for some time it was in danger from the floods.    
They never thought disaster would happen to them and then were overtaken by it. They were left with nothing, not even the photo albums.     
Each of us will face,  I submit,  - and some of us no doubt have already faced, our own personal flood or fire.  It could be an accident, the loss of a business, a divorce, a family tragedy or even our own approaching death.  Will we be ready?  What do we want to save?  
So I hope that we can take with us through this year an understanding  that the most important time in our lives is time now: time to cultivate better relationships with family.  As William Wordsworth put it: 
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
Spend more time with friends and families.  A lot of people regret that they did not spend more time with their children or parents. I have never heard anyone regretting that did not spend more time at the office.   And  of course spending time with God, in prayer and in study, is most important of all.  Cultivate faith and hope. The Lent study group that Mark Battison is arranging will be an opportunity to do that. 
Old Thomas Aquinas said  " Faith has to do with things that are not seen and hope with things that are not at hand "    
So as we tackle the challenges of 2011 we could do worse than look on life as a game of golf.   Here we are hacking round the course  from day to day.   We might take 7 or eight shots at every hole. We keep at it.  We may fail and fail again: but we need to keep trying.   Golf puts the players in touch with effort  failure and frustration and to which they return because of occasional moments of triumph.    It's not quite the right analogy, of course, golf is only a game.  But those who play love it.  
And I would argue that life is like that too, or ought to be : effort, sometimes failure and frustration abound.  But we have the rules set down in our Bibles and if we keep to them in our Christian faith we know in the end all will be well.   
Far fetched ?   Well in life we flog our guts out to achieve things, to find love or even just to clean up the kitchen  -  and finally it all ends in nothingness unless, of course,  we have both faith and hope.   
So let's keep in  mind what's worth saving, and be careful not to be wise in our own conceit. 328 days to go to show how much savour there is left in our salt. 

Teach us Good Lord to serve thee as thou deserves............      

