Happy Easter!

Those who know me well know that I'm a melancholy soul. I prefer advent hymns to Christmas carols and I am more at home in Holy Week than I am on Easter morning. Good Friday is my favourite day in the liturgical year! I like the research that suggests that those who are slightly depressed have a more realistic view of the world than those who are relentlessly cheerful. Happiness, it turns out, is a form of mental illness brought about by a failure to grasp the seriousness of the situation.

So, there is a part of me that is reluctant to let go of the Cross in order to welcome the Resurrection.

But on that first Easter morning, Jesus meets a tearful Mary and invites her to let go of her mourning and to embrace joy; to leave Good Friday behind and move on into Easter. For her, it even means letting go of the familiar, comforting, tangible presence of Jesus so that she may know his spiritual and eternal reality - his resurrection presence.

In the Easter vigil readings we are reminded of the story of the exodus: God’s people leave behind the slavery of their old lives in order to move on to freedom in the promised land. The trouble is, the old life was at least one where they knew where they stood. This new freedom lark turns out to be dangerous and unpredictable! Why not slip back into the old familiar patterns, walk the path that has been smoothed by many footprints, rather than break new ground?

In Romans 6:3-11 we read that our baptism is a baptism into Christ’s death so that we might also share with him in his resurrection. We are united with him in his death and so united with him in resurrection. The old self was crucified with him, the old sinful flesh destroyed; we are set free from slavery. But if we have died with Christ, we will also live with him, set free from death and all that goes with it. So, we are to consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

I spend quite a large part of my ministry meeting families who are bereaved. And recently I have been involved in funerals that were particularly significant in our community. (All funerals are significant, of course; I mean that some funerals have a particular impact outside of the circle of family and friends.) In a way, preaching the resurrection at a funeral is easy! What is difficult is living and preaching the resurrection the rest of the time! We are always being pulled back by the things that are to do with death.

"It's life that defeats the Christian Church, she’s always been well equipped to deal with death."

Joe Orton

In Halewood, with Easter coming late this year, we found ourselves holding our Annual Meeting on the Monday of Holy Week. (It’s actually against my religion to hold meetings in Holy Week! If it were up to me, there would be no meetings in Lent either. Or Advent. Or during the Summer...) It definitely felt like a loss - that we had lost some of Holy Week for the sake of a meeting. And when the meeting is a somewhat turgid and lengthy one, as ours was, it’s easy to get bogged down. (We had long discussions about our Constitution and problems in presenting the accounts, we are short of money, short of people...) How difficult it is then to remember that we are in the business of living and preaching the resurrection! (I know those meetings are important and we have to have them. But it’s difficult to walk out of them with a spring in your step. How much of our church life is spent walking through treacle?!)

My point is that, unless our life together is characterised by resurrection joy, we’re doing it wrong! Not enforced jollity or superficial froth, but the shared joy of living the resurrection together. Sometimes we have serious things to do together; but even they should have a note of joy running through them. And we should have fun together, shouldn’t we? Or what’s the point?!

We live in a world that does death very well. The church should do life.

Happy Easter!

In the light of Easter

I am writing this at the start of Holy Week and just a few days after the funeral service of a friend and parishioner, Terry Pollard. If you were at Terry’s funeral, you will know that it was a remarkable occasion. At the age of 51, knowing that his illness was terminal, Terry set about ‘putting his affairs in order’, including preparing his own funeral service. He chose the hymns and readings and wrote his own ‘reflections’ to be read at the service. He saw this as a unique opportunity to address his family and friends with thoughtful and loving words.

Of course, there is a downside to this way of doing things: if you had been asked to speak at a friend's funeral, you would, no doubt, dwell on their strengths and detail their accomplishments. If, however, you were asked to speak about yourself, you might well do what Terry did. Although he acknowledged that he might have some strengths, he seemed more conscious of his weaknesses. As I said at the time, many of his family and friends might have liked the right to reply! We would have had many very positive things to say about him!

What I found particularly interesting - and tried to say in my sermon - was the passage of scripture that Terry had chosen to be read. It was from Hebrews chapter 2, where the writer talks about Jesus as having been made “a little lower than the angels ” (v9) - that is, like us. This Jesus shares our life and our death with us. He is made perfect by his sufferings (v10 - and you thought the Son of God was already perfect!). Like us, he partakes of flesh and blood, shares our nature and is ‘one of us’. Amazingly, he is not ashamed to call us his brothers and sisters! (v11)

What the writer to the Hebrews says is that the problem we face comes in the shape of ‘flesh and blood’ - in other words, our human frailty, weakness and brokenness. So, in what shape do we find the solution? Also in flesh and blood - the flesh and blood of Jesus. In his very humanity, Jesus shares our sorrows and defeats our enemy, through his death on the cross. His body is broken and his blood is shed for us.

I have no idea what made Terry choose this passage, but it seems to me to offer the only hope that any of us has: that God’s love and strength are made known to us in the flesh and blood of Jesus, who invites us to share his life, the life that goes beyond this world’s brokenness.

As I say, I am writing this at the start of Holy Week: you may be reading it after Easter. Thankfully, we approach Holy Week in the light of Easter. We come to Good Friday in the knowledge that Sunday is around the corner.

We may live our lives in the shadow of the cross: we are also invited to do so in the light of Easter.

Alan Jewell

The Keighley and Ilkley Liberal Democrat Website - before it was pulled!

I'm not sure who wrote this, but it appeared on the home page of the the Keighley and Ilkley Liberal Democrat Website, until it was pulled!

I created this web site in the days that the Liberal Democrats had principles. I think many local ones, Judith Brooksbank as a shining example, still have them.

However, the issue of fees for university students made me fall out of love with Nick Clegg and other 'Economic Liberals'. In consequence, I resigned from the Party.

The Party doesn't seem to have noticed, and sent me (and my wife) a Member's mailing. That includes a summarry of an interview with Nick Clegg about the issue of student fees. His responses, reported there, enraged me so much that I decided that it was just to call him to question here. Let me explain why...

The report says: "Nick then moved to take head on Evan's (Evan Harris, former Oxford West and Abbingdon MP) suggestion that ... Higher Education costs could be met by general taxation or a graduate tax.

"You are then calling for contributions from those who don't benefit from university to pay for those who do" said Clegg.

Let us pause for a moment to consider that statement: who does actually "benefit from university?"

Well, obviously, most garaduates benefit by getting paid more. However, after personal allowances, if they get paid more, then they pay more income tax than those who are paid less.

There is an anomaly here: those who get paid more than £40k above the threshold, see their National Insurance contributions above that drop from 11.5% to 1.5%. That's right, folk paid over 40,000 pounds pay 10% less on that income than earnings by everyone below that. Keeping in mind that only 30 years contributions are needed to get paid a full national pension (though, yes, it is a good thing that that pension is going up to £140 a week) most people pay NI for the best part of 45 years, so where does the other 15 years' contributions go? One place is the NHS - and it is right that the healthy should pay for the sick. Another is to pay for benefits for the disabled and those who cannot get a job. That is right too.

The thing is that these rights to support in time of need are exactly those that ought to be supported by general taxation. The distinction between Income Tax and National Insurance is wrong - and so is the 10% less paid by those who earn more than £40,000 above the threshold.

Back to my main point...

High pay ought to carry its own taxation burden. That has nothing to do with whether that pay is as a result of a university education or not.

Getting back to, "those who don't (and do) benefit from universtity." I hope I've dealt with the issue of pay - that should be taken care of by a decent Income Tax regime. Who else benefits? Teachers have to go to university and get a degree. I'd argue that school pupils (whose parents pay tax) are the ones who benefit most. Next, consider doctors, nurses and dentists (and vets). I'd think that their patients are the ones who get most benefit. Then there are all the other subjects for degrees, the other arts and sciences. The benefit there is less immediate, direct and personal, but the ultimate beneficiary is the whole of humanity.

That is why it isn't just graduates who benefit from their degrees - and why everyone (who has an income high enough to afford to pay) ought to contribute to the cost of educating graduates. Actually, I think that argument applies just as much to post-graduate studies. As a society, we probably benefit even more from those who are bright enough to get Master's or Doctor's degrees.

This time, I DON'T agree with Nick!

That goes on... Whether it is clearing snow and spreading grit, supporting the children of single mothers, funding public libraries, or whatever, those in need ought to get the appropriate help. Those who get paid more ought to accept a duty to pay more. It isn't the cost of supplying the necessary support that should be being targeted to balance the deficit, but the lack of contribution from those who are wealthy enough to afford to help those in need.

Today, the issue of bankers' bonuses has come up again. I was going to ask whether the 'stars' who caused the finnacial crisis really, really needed to be kept in this country to pay their 20% of the UK's tax (how does that compare with their responsibility for the financial crisis?), but The Indepedent has an ironic article that does it much better than I can.

With Christmas so recently past, we should remember the words of the carol, Good King Wenceslas. He went out to help someone more in need than he was. That's what I thought the Liberal Democrats were about. Nick Clegg seems to have a different inspiration!