Letter from the Vicar - Mar 2006 | News From the Pelhams | thePelhams - Brent Pelham, Furneux Pelham and Stocking Pelham

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Letter from the Vicar - Mar 2006

March 1^st is Ash Wednesday – the beginning of Lent. And as I pondered what I was going to do for Lent, I thought about the message the church is often heard to give. It can be so negative, can’t it? “You’ve got to give up chocolate/TV/puddings for Lent.” “You mustn’t laugh in church – and certainly never wear jeans.” “Don’t drink, don’t smoke…”. And so on.
Such examples (you will be able to think of others, I’m sure) will have had some point, but have become rigid and the reason lost. For example, to laugh in church – or to wear jeans – might appear disrespectful and not to be taking God seriously, though personally I think that since God is a good Father, he’d want his children (us) to enjoy coming to church and to be relaxed. In the past children perhaps had a much more formal relationship with their fathers, but what father today expects his children to appear before him in a suit and be solemn? Now if wearing more formal clothes is helpful and puts us in the right mood to worship, that’s fine. Tradition and convention can be important – but more important to God is that we’re there at all, isn’t it?

Likewise with Lent and the ‘giving up’ idea. One point of it is to help us to remember the discipline of resisting temptation which Jesus had to endure in the wilderness before he began his public ministry. It’s intended to help us to focus on God and others rather than indulge our own pleasures. So yes, there is an element of the ‘negative’. But its purpose is wholly positive, and that’s something we can lose sight of. So it’s not the giving up chocolate that ‘counts’ – but what benefits we gain from it (and not just losing weight!). Do we put the money we save to towards a charity? Do we come to realise how privileged we are to be able to have what we want when we want it – and begin to empathise with those who have less? Do we use the time we save by not watching television to read the Bible or another Christian book – or to pray?

It makes me sad that Christianity is so often seen as a religion of “don’ts”. If our faith and going to church are really all about negatives, we’ve somewhere missed the point. So this Lent let’s resolve to do something positive – and maybe we’ll discover more about enjoying knowing God. We might even risk laughing in church – or wearing jeans!

With my prayers,
Jeanette