VICAR'S LETTER
17
Sundon Road
Streatley
December, 2006
Dear
All
In their pre-Christmas worship, the Sunday Club have been exploring the subject of dragons. What are they? Are they still around? What is God doing about them?
If you believed all the legends, it would seem that dragons once littered the land. Even the little village where we go to stay in North Yorkshire had one. Local story tells of the Wyvern Dragon slain by the valiant Sir Thomas of that ilk, whose house still stands beside the village green and whose body lies in the local church. In fact, of course, such beasts never existed, and people never thought that they did. They were, however, a very useful way of picturing and bringing to life the destructive power of evil. It is a function that they still fulfil in the realm of computer games.
But are there dragons still around in the real - as opposed to the virtual world - or is it the case, as the hymn has it, that "the knights are no more and the dragons are dead"? The answer must be that they are still around. We began our little series of services on Remembrance Day. It was very easy to picture war as a dragon rampaging over the earth, and a dragon equipped, in this nuclear age, with terrifyingly enhanced fire-power. The old dragons of Poverty and Disease still stalk the earth. The old dragons of Greed and Selfishness rage still within us. And there is a new kid on the block. The dragon of global warming approaches. Already his hot breath is beginning to singe the world.
So what is God doing about these pests? We started our answer to that question by setting against a blazing background, a simple silhouette - a stable, two kneeling figures, and a child in a manger. On Christmas Day, God gave birth to an ideal that ever since has contended with and fought back the dragons. It met force not with force but with gentleness. It sought by service and sacrifice to bring wholeness and healing to a suffering world, It sought by love to overcome greed and selfishness. It now seeks, by urging co-operation, to avert global disaster. Sometimes the ideal has seemed to lose. The child in the manger was crucified on the cross. But, like the child, it has always risen again to continue the struggle.
On Christmas Day we celebrate the birth of Christ. We also celebrate the birth of an ideal that offers the hope that the world can finally be freed from the mayhem wreaked by its dragons. On Christmas Day, we kneel before the Christmas Crib, to pledge ourselves, like the knights of old, to carry on working in the service of that child and of the ideal to which his coming gave birth.
All best wishes,
Roger