As anyone who has a vegetable garden, or who has been out and about in the countryside recently will have noticed, this year’s harvest is upon us.  As the end of the growing season approaches and the weather changes we gather in our crops so that we will have food for the winter.  The harvest has always been important in the Jewish faith from which the Christian faith arose.  When the Israelites settled in the Promised Land they became an agrarian community, relying on farming to feed themselves.  The theme of harvest is reflected in many of the Jewish ceremonial traditions.  The image of gathering in the harvest also features strongly in the Christian gospels; when Jesus says “the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few (Matthew 9:37 ) He is of course speaking metaphorically.  We are the harvest – the people of the world;  and we as Christians are the workers too, who must go out and bring the people to God through Jesus Christ.

 

A recent announcement in our newsletter caught my eye: “Stort Interfaith are having a talk by Rabbi Irit Shillor at the URC”.  I hadn’t come across Stort Interfaith before and I have recently been thinking about other faiths and feeling embarrassed by my own lack of knowledge.  So I went along to hear what Rabbi Shillor had to say.

I recently had the pleasure of paying the piano for one of our services. I think most people had been warned that I am far from a professional musician or even a competent one. I only started learning as an adult and have progressed well over the last ten years but I am still far from the standard we normally enjoy from Eileen or Mark. 

The experience made me think more deeply about the role of music in religion and worship. I thought I would therefore share some of my thoughts and research around its evolution.

Among the treasures of our church is a lovely baptismal shell, given in memory of Cecil George Parsons, one of our choirboys who died over eighty years ago.   The money in the youngster’s Post Office Savings Account was used to purchase it.  It is touching that those grieving for the loss of a child should make such a gift: their generosity and sensitivity provided something delicate and appropriate which is used whenever a baby is baptised.  The scallop was the sign worn by pilgrims who had visited the shrine of St James at Compostela in North-West Spain.  It is a fitting reminder that we, too, are pilgrims.

Since Father Scott started saying morning prayers in the church in September I have been trying to find an opportunity to attend.  As a wage-slave, I’m normally on my way to work, if not already at my desk, at 08:30 when the service begins, each week-day morning; so when I managed to book a 09:00 appointment with my dentist in South Street it was the perfect excuse.

I have often thought of angels as a an interesting Christian belief that I would like to know more about.  Unfortunately, the church seems inclined to ignore the angels most of the time. At Christmas time they get a little more consideration than during other seasons, owing to their prominence in Matthew’s and particularly Luke’s accounts of the incarnation.  Even so, the view of angels is often rather a cute and childish depiction for the children; it’s rare to find serious consideration of exactly what the gospel writers are describing when they say that “an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream” (Matthew 2:13 ), or “suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host” (Luke 2:13 ).  My own efforts to investigate these creatures have come to nought since most books on the subject have no roots at all in Christian tradition and are often more fanciful that the average Christmas card.

In November 2009 I had an opportunity to hear Dr Revd Ken Leech speak on the subject “Is there an Anglican Tradition of Social Justice?” at St Mary-le-Bow in Cheapside, London.  Ken Leech (or “Father Ken”, as he was introduced by Revd George Bush, the rector of St Mary-le-Bow) is well qualified to speak on such a subject, having been involved with Anglican social projects for over 50 years.  As a curate at St Anne’s Soho in 1969 he founded the homeless project Centrepoint .  He was later the Rector of St Matthew’s, Bethnal Green, in one of the poorer parts of the capital.  He has been involved in any number of social projects in London, and is a former director of the Runnymede Trust , a think-tank on public policy, and has written several books on related subjects.

October seems a good month to look at a treasure of the whole Christian Community, a treasure which has been translated, paraphrased and frequently republished in modem language:  the Bible.

The last day of September was the feast day of Saint Jerome , one of the greatest Biblical scholars of all time, who died in 420. Practically the whole of the Latin Bible, known since the thirteenth century as the Vulgate , was either translated from Hebrew and Greek or worked over by Jerome. A copy of the New Testament in this translation is available for inspection.