Seeing or Believing?

(This week's letter follows on a little from last weeks, if you want to read that you can on our website under the News section)

Dear friends,

You may or may not recognise the image above - it is of the Crystal Cathedral in California, an impressive looking building! But as we are all reminded from time to time, the Church is not the building, but the people and the community - in other words, all of you! Some things, like the Crystal Cathedral have to be seen to be believed.

I'm a big fan of watching Christmas films all year round (apologies if that seems unseasonal given the heat!) and a little while ago we watched The Santa Clause (a good classic if you haven't seen it). In it there is a boy who ends up seeing where Santa lives and works and there is a moment where Judy, one of the elves, says "Kids don't need to see this place to know it's real" and she then says "Seeing isn't believing, believing is seeing". Now, OK, it might be a fictional film and clearly we don't know exactly where Santa lives(!) but it might make us think about our faith.

I speak to so many people who say something along the lines of "I wish I could believe, I wish I had faith". And we so often think that actually if we could just see something which would prove to us it is all real then we'd be able to believe. After all, Jesus' disciples saw a number of miraculous healings but they aren't something we encounter regularly (or at least they aren't something I encounter regularly!) 

I think faith is more about a choice - when I talk to wedding couples, either before their wedding or on the day, I sometimes talk of how marriage is a commitment to making a choice to love each other. Yes there are feelings of love and attraction which draw us together, but we sometimes have to choose to continue loving our spouse when we face the challenges that marriage can bring. Faith is, to me at least, a similar choice. Some days I find it much easier to believe in God and to be confident of God's promises to us and others I find my faith deeply challenged; questioning whether or not God has ever actually been there.

But I make the choice to continue praying, reading the Bible, learning more about God and Jesus because, to echo the words of the father in Mark's gospel, "I believe Lord, help my unbelief" (see Mark 9:23-25). My experience of God has convinced me that God is real but to get to that point I had to keep making the choice to follow and learn more. At some point I crossed that threshold into faith but, as with many of the doors in our lives, it goes both ways. I sometimes fall back out through the doorway and need to pick myself up, dust myself off and make the choice again to nurture my faith.

In our challenging world it is hard to believe in a loving and all-powerful God. Whether we are facing personal crises, or thinking of the crises our country faces or the ones which our world faces, we can often feel like if God was really there and really cared then wouldn't things be better?! And here is our choice, do we continue to pursue faith or do we give up because there isn't enough to draw us in? The challenge comes back to proof.

We can never prove the existence of God but we have something which, in our modern world, is more powerful than proof - we have our stories. We will all have our own experiences of God which have either led us to or kept us in faith. If we share those with people, it may or may not make a difference but it is more meaningful to share our experience of God than to constantly seek after proof of something which we are called to have faith in.

There is much historical evidence for the claims made by Christianity about Jesus and the most plausible explanation to me is that Jesus rose from the dead. In the same way that the most plausible explanation of how the species on our planet develop is through the process of evolution. We cannot go back in time and prove that it happened that way but we hold to the explanation which best fits what we find out. We make a choice about what we believe and what evidence we choose to follow. Wherever you find yourself this week, may you keep the faith.


June Services

Sunday 11th June
8am - Holy Communion (BCP) @ St. James-the-Less, Stubbings
10:30am - Parish Communion (including Mark and Rosalie Balfour) @ St. Mary the Virgin, Hurley
4pm - Family Service @ St. John the Evangelist, Littlewick Green

Sunday 18th June
9:15am - Holy Communion @ St. John the Evangelist, Littlewick Green
10:30am - God in Quiet @ St. Mary the Virgin, Hurley
11am - Holy Communion (BCP) @ St. James-the-Less, Stubbings

Sunday 25th June
9am - Come to the Table @ St. James-the-Less, Stubbings
10:30am - Holy Communion @ St. Mary the Virgin, Hurley

Love Your Burial Ground
A few of us gathered last week at Hurley Church to look at what species of flowers, bugs, birds and all sorts of wildlife we could find in the churchyard. We're doing the same again at the other two churches as below:
Saturday 10th June 10am - 12pm @ St. James-the-Less, Stubbings
Sunday 11th June 3pm - 4pm @ St. John the Evangelist, Littlewick Green - followed by the Family Service

This Sunday
We are gathering at Hurley for a service to hear Mark and Rosalie Balfour speaking about their work in Guatemala and Honduras. If you want to know more ahead of Sunday you can look here. But do join us on Sunday morning as we hear from them. Can I encourage anyone coming from further afield to try and car-share - you can even use Stubbings car park as a shuttle point, please get in touch with me if that would be helpful to you - as parking is tricky in Hurley on summer Sundays. Look forward to seeing you there! 

Morning Prayer at 9:15am 
Wednesday St. James-the-Less, Stubbings
Thursday St. John the Evangelist, Littlewick Green
Friday St. Mary the Virgin

Our churches are open for private prayer:
Littlewick Green – open every day 11am – 4pm
Hurley – open every day 8am – 4pm
Stubbings – open Monday to Friday 9am – 12 noon

Parish Office
As you may be aware, our Parish Administrator Claire is having medical treatment at the moment and is in the office only occasionally. In the meantime, we will be running reduced hours in the office so the best way to get in touch is via the office e-mail (office@burchettsgreenparish.org). There should be someone in the office on Monday and Thursday morning and I will be available as many Wednesday mornings as I can. For anything which you need I can also be contacted on vicar@burchettsgreenparish.org and 01628 822974, - please note the vicar's day off is Tuesday

Blessings to you all,

Tom