Holy Trinity Church, Westward Ho!

Reflection from Rev Trevor Lloyd

This is the day we remember Brooke Foss Westcott, Bishop of Durham, Teacher of the Faith, who died on this day in 1901. He was one of the leaders of the nineteenth century revival in UK biblical studies- I have some of his magnificently detailed commentaries on my shelves … and his interest in clergy training led him to found the Cambridge college that now bears his name.

Today’s Gospel comes from Matthew chapter 13, verses 31–35 :

The parables of the mustard seed and the yeast

Jesus told them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.’

He told them still another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about thirty kilograms of flour until it worked all through the dough.’

Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable. So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet:

‘I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world.’ (NIV)

Reflection

There has been something of an an intermittent tradition of appointing academic theologians as Bishops of Durham – Westcott was one of three Cambridge professors in succession to be made bishop of Durham and more recent examples include Ian Ramsey, David Jenkins and Tom Wright. I once went to the monumental Auckland Castle to interview David Jenkins for something I was writing – I had known him as one of my teachers at Oxford and followed the controversy over his appointment partly caused by some in the press misquoting his views on the resurrection not being ‘a conjuring trick with bones’. The taxi driver who picked me up from the station gave me his view on David Jenkins. ‘I don’t know much about religion but one thing I do know is that since we’ve had this new bishop everyone is talking about Christianity’. As I interviewed him, it emerged that David had not just been attracting the headlines but doing a lot of unseen work with small groups of workers doing what he called ‘kitchen sink theology’ - getting ordinary people to think theologically and apply the faith to their lives without using the academic jargon. I can imagine Westcott, even as he was writing academic stuff full of fluent footnotes in Greek and Latin, having very practical conversations with his students in Cambridge which motivated them to a lifetime of ministry. We need ministers (and that includes all of us at times) who can talk in pictures. That’s what parables are, often arresting and moving pictures like conjuring tricks (with or without bones) - stories which stop people in their tracks, makes them stop and think. That’s what Jesus is doing all the time in his parables. That’s what we need to do. As Matthew says ‘No talk without pictures’. And that way we will see growth in the church and in the lives of individuals, whether internal like yeast or external and obvious like the tree. So…. ‘I will open my mouth’ … will you?

We pray for one another, for ourselves, for all who use words in bringing the Gospel to people and situations today everywhere in the world, for imagination, for truth, for trust

Lord God, your Son left the riches of heaven and became poor for our sake: when we prosper save us from pride, when we are needy save us from despair, that we may trust in you alone; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Common Worship: Services and Prayers for the Church of England (2000) (including the Psalter as published with Common Worship), material from which is included here, is copyright ©The Archbishops' Council 2000

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