Newsletter: March, 2007

Rewards

“Beware of practising your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 6:1)
Think back to how it felt as you approached your first day at senior school, a first date, or your first day in a challenging new job. Encounters like these can make us very anxious about the impression we will make; we instinctively feel that our happiness and security will depend largely on being accepted and appreciated by others. So we all know what it is like to want to impress other people. But Jesus warns us that the need to impress others can become very dangerous; it can indeed deprive us of the greatest of all rewards, a life of loving communion with God. Almsgiving, prayer and fasting were three expressions of Jewish piety, which Jesus assumed his disciples would practise. He says very little about how exactly they should give alms, pray and fast; instead, the focus of his teaching is on the underlying attitude to God and to other people which disciples are to develop if these practices are to bear fruit in their lives.

Jesus’ teaching is made unmistakably clear by his repetition of key words and phrases as he discusses each practice in turn. “Hypocrites” perform their acts of piety ostentatiously so that others may be aware of what they are doing and praise them. They therefore “receive their reward” in the attention they achieve, the impression they make on others. The disciples of Jesus are to perform the same practices but, in contrast, they are to do so “in secret”, not drawing attention to what they are doing. Their heavenly Father, who “sees in secret”, will reward them.

Around this framework Jesus weaves memorable pictures: firstly of the absurd, self-advertising religiosity of the hypocrite (the blowing of trumpets, praying at street corners, grimacing faces); and secondly of the cheerful self-forgetfulness of the true disciple, whom nobody would know is fasting, who prays in secret and whose left hand doesn’t even know that his or her right hand is giving alms. Note that Jesus says when you give alms, pray and fast, not if. There is no suggestion here that whereas “hypocrites” perform traditional religious practices, “true believers” have no need of them. At the beginning of Lent we are called to renew our commitment to spiritual disciplines such as these, but the Gospel reminds us why we do so and in particular warns us of wrong attitudes which we need to uproot from our hearts.

We may feel innocent of the gross self-publicity that Jesus criticises, but are there similar (if more subtle) ways in which we draw attention to how “Christian” we would like others to think we are? Perhaps we might make passing reference to a recent retreat, or our spiritual director, our prison visiting, or a charity we support: all of them great things to be doing … but who are we doing them for? Jesus calls us not to need to impress. Yet more radically, our left hand is not to know what good things our right has done: we are not to rehearse to ourselves our acts of generosity; we cannot even be admiring spectators of our own piety. “Dying to self”, that great Lenten challenge, scarcely gets tougher than this.

What Jesus says about rewards is relevant here. This language can seem difficult: surely Christianity is about grace, God’s love in action, not a system of rewards? Indeed so, but the idea of rewards conveys the truth that we are all living towards one goal or another; we have all set our hearts on one form of treasure or another (verses 19-21). Jesus warns us that we too easily aim for the lesser reward of other people’s opinions of us, which is in reality no reward at all, because other people’s affirmation will never quite satisfy us. Three times he reminds us that there is a different reward to be had, given by “your Father who sees in secret”. Jesus forces upon us a choice: what reward do we want? Are we willing to be liberated by him from the need for that false reward and led by him into the secret place where God’s reward is to be found? Here we discover that, along with him, the Beloved of the Father, we also are God’s beloved children. In the secret place we learn that we do not need to impress God to gain his loving acceptance; we therefore no longer need to impress anyone else. Then we might find that we want to pray, to give alms, even to fast, because we love God.

FROM THE VICAR
It was a sad day a couple of weeks ago when our government equated Christian belief with discrimination by ruling that Catholic adoption agencies could not have an exemption from offering children to gay couples. Similar issues are under discussion, as I write, in the Anglican Primates meeting in Tanzania.

When faced with these issues we are forced to think clearly about what we really believe as a fundamental part of our faith and what is just a custom that we are used to and do not want to change.

This is precisely what we are called to do in Lent and so perhaps there is a positive aspect to these controversies. They give a focus to our Lenten discipline of self-examination, prayer and bible study. Starting there, we can move on to other aspects of our faith to make us think afresh about what we believe, on issues such as global warming, and from this reflection we hope to grow in spirit so that by the end of Lent 2007 we have progressed in our journey of faith.
Mark Ewbank

ELECTORAL ROLL
The Parish Electoral Roll (nothing to do with the Register of Electors for voting) is required to be updated every six years. However General Synod has decided to bring it forward to this year instead of 2008. Anyone wishing to be included on the new roll will be able to obtain an application form from Church on Saturday afternoons or after services during the period from Sunday 25th February to Sunday 1st April allowing sufficient time for the new Roll to be available for inspection before the annual meeting on Sunday 22nd April after the 9.30am service. The application form is also available for downloading from the Guildford Diocese website.

KNITTING GROUP
The Knitting Group has made its first delivery to Guildford in the New Year. It consisted of 15 blankets, 75 jumpers, 15 hats and 30 teddies. This brings the totals delivered since January 2006 to 96 blankets, 327 jumpers, 85 hats and 185 teddies. If you would like to help with this work but don’t knit, you can always supply double knitting wool and/or cash to buy more wool. Pop along to St Jude’s Church between 2.00 and 4.00pm on a Saturday afternoon and see the work in progress.

LENT GROUPS
There will be one additional Lent Group over and above that mentioned last month. This will be at Val Ward’s house (29 Alderside Walk) on Monday afternoons from 2.00–3.30pm followed by refreshments. Although it will have started (26th February) by the time you read this, you are welcome to join. They will be using a booklet published by Churches Together in Britain and Ireland called Easter People in a Good Friday World. This looks at the passion narrative in relation to modern life and is subtitled Witnessing Christ in the Conflict of Christ. Let Val know if you would like to join (01784 436541).

The other group meets on Sunday evenings at 8.00pm at 10 Englehurst (led by Andrew Sheer).

SATURDAY AFTERNOONS
As you may know, we keep St Jude’s Church open for visitors each Saturday afternoon between 2.00 and 4.00pm. To do this safely and adequately requires at least 3 people at all times. To keep this running, we must have a rota of people who would take a turn — obviously the more offers we have, the less often each one would have to do. If you can help with this, say, once every two months, please contact the Churchwardens (telephone numbers are shown above) or by email to saturdays@stjudeschurch.info. Your help would be appreciated.

FROM THE REGISTERS
Funeral:
(1st Februay) Barry Gingell.

FORTHCOMING EVENTS

WOMEN'S WORLD DAY OF PRAYER
The theme this will be United Under God's Tent which has been written by the Christian Women of Paraguay. The local service will be in St Jude’s Church on Friday 2nd March at 2.00pm. All are invited to join this worldwide occasion — not only women! The speaker will be The Revd Sue Loveday.

GLOBAL WARNING
Dr Scott Elias from Royal Holloway will be giving a talk on Climate Change “Global Warning: fact or fiction?” on Thursday 1st March at 7.45 for 8pm at St Jude's Church, Englefield Green. This highly topical subject will be approached from a Christian perspective (Dr Elias is PCC Secretary at Virginia Water) and there will be opportunity for questions and discussion.

This is an Open Meeting of our Deanery and all members of our parishes are most welcome to come and learn more about this potentially critical subject for our planet and our daily lives. (The title of the talk does not contain a spelling mistake!)

COFFEE MORNING
There will be a Coffee Morning for the launch of Urban Saints (formerly Crusaders) on Saturday 3rd March 10.00am–12noon in Englefield Green Methodist Church porch

There will be cakes, books, odds and ends treasure hunt, face painting and games, tea and coffee etc

All welcome

CALENDAR FOR MARCH 2007