September 2010 - Rector's Letter

Dear Friends September for many of us marks the beginning of another ‘new’ year. Children and students of all ages begin a new school year and in truth so does the church unofficially. All the committees that have been dormant over the summer months spring back into life as we prepare for Harvest Festival, the Feast and further ahead for Advent and Christmas. September may not be a new year, but it is certainly a transitional point in the year, a point of change and a point to reflect.

We should prepare ourselves for change, for what lies ahead and we would do well to:- Forget what we should remember – and - remember what we should forget.

Our lives this autumn (family, job, home, bank account) are full of the consequences of everything that has gone before. The consequences of what has been done to us, in the past.

The consequences of what has been done by us, in the past. For better or worse, we are the fruit of those things. Indeed, both our present and our future hang on our memory of the past, and how we deal with it now. There are two injunctions from the Bible dealing with this that are worth a closer look:

1. The first is from Deuteronomy 32.7 which says: “REMEMBER the days of old….”

2. The second is from Isaiah 43.18 which says “Remember NOT the former things…behold I am doing a NEW thing”

We are told to look backwards and forwards at the same time. To remember all of God’s faithfulness in the past, but not to live in the past with its mistakes, sins and wounds.

St Paul expressed this so well in Philippians 3:13-14: “One thing I do. Forgetting what is behind, and straining towards what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Indeed Paul had a lot to forget: his own persecution of the Church, and then the persecution he himself endured from others.

In addition to these wounding memories - both of what we have done, and what has been done to us, there is a third factor at work – and that is GRACE – God’s lovingkindness in action – what he does IN us and THROUGH us.

Because of God’s grace, his loving kindness, we do not need to fixate on the past, nursing old grievances. Neither do we need to stay a prisoner of nostalgia, over-idealising the past so that we are only happy back in the ‘good old days’. Life is for living NOW.

Paul refused to be put into a prison of guilt and remorse for his actions. Instead he confessed his sins and stood cleansed and forgiven by Christ (1 John 1:9). He forgave others their malice towards him, and moved on. So can we!

Let’s take this opportunity of a new start prayerfully and wholeheartedly.

Sue Pinnington