St. Luke's Church, Tittensor

Revd Noreen Russell reflects this week on the overall mess we appear to see across the world and how a person of faith, in particular a Christian, can cope with it. Revd Noreen harks back to an old tv sketch from the days of 'The Frost Report' (remember David Frost? He's the person who became internationally famous when he managed to get then President Richard Nixon to claim that it was impossible for him to commit a crime because he was the president). President Nixon rapidly became ex-President Nixon.

Those were the days when even the politicians with, let us say, awkward reputations still felt it necessary to resign if they were caught doing wrong. How times have changed, when two of the most powerful leaders in the English-speaking world appear to believe that they should never be removed from power, no matter what they may be caught doing! The idea of removing themselves from power doesn't even exist in their minds.

It's small wonder that believers turn to the Psalms in such times. Many of the Psalms were clearly written in times of great duress and suffering, when the writers and their peoples were either in slavery or their country was occupied by military invaders. The psalmists wrote of their anguish; they also had no problem complaining to God for letting it happen and then not sorting it out. These psalmists had deep faith yet they saw their relationship with God as a pact or covenant: God had said, 'Worship me, live by my laws and I will be your God and you will be my people.' To the psalmists, that meant that part of God's job was to make sure that his people didn't get messed about and they didn't mind reminding God of that. Clearly that was a common view since these Psalms found their way into sacred writings, scripture, and are still read and studied today.

It's a healthy attitude: this is no whining to God. It's a straightforward case of saying, 'We are doing our bit. What about you doing yours?'

Of course the psalmists don't waiver in faith in the end; they say that, no matter what God eventually does or doesn't do they will remain faithful. There is no hint of, 'Right, you let me down so I'm off somewhere else.' Instead, there is a strong flavour of, 'Even though you appear to have let me down and there is no sign of you coming along to fix that, I shall remain faithful.'

That doesn't mean waiting passively either. Given the chance, believers in the Old Testament worked hard to end their oppression, sometimes by working from within (in the stories of Esther or Jacob, for example) and sometimes from within and with outright opposition (Moses).

Revd Noreen writes of a comedy sketch that personifies and mocks the English class system, still very much with us. Even the sketch makes fun of it but it does not show any need to change it.

Although it is still strong, it is not often that it appears so embarrassingly as it did in Westminster last week. There was the usual bunfight at Prime Minister's Questions, but this week conducted by the second-in-commands of the two major parties since the Prime Minister was abroad. As the two crossed swords, the Foreign Secretary, a man, suddenly mocked the deputy leader opposite, a woman, for 'attending the opera'. He accompanied this by a patronising wink of the eye at her.

The class system stood out in an instant. There is no way that such a remark would have been made in most Western democracies. In those few words and that action, a man who thought himself superior in social status to the woman opposite effectively claimed, 'You are a hypocrite and you should be spending your time doing stuff that I see as more in keeping with your social status. How dare you, a woman of lower status, attend an event that is more suited for your betters?'

It's over 56 years since 'The Class Sketch' was broadcast on the Frost Report. That is nearly as long as the people of God were held in captivity by the Babylonians. Yet here we are with broadcast class-based, sexist remarks and actions from the acting head of our government. Perhaps we need a modern-day Psalmist to come forward to complain to God about the power and authority that the Godless hold in our society. Perhaps we need to pray that God does intervene to remove sad and shameless behaviour, unworthy of God's intentions for us, from the earth. Amen.

St. Luke's Church, Tittensor

Into July and we welcome the 3rd July Newsletter

Time for the Newsletter - 26th June edition

The 19th June Newsletter is here!

It's that Newsletter time again - 12th June