For Christians, that will often mean facing difficult decisions squarely in the eye and going against prevailing, secular thoughts and policies. When we switch on the television and see the situation in the Middle East or Afghanistan, do we recognize our own collusion of what is going on and if so, do we so much as register our opposition to it?

Christ never said that following him would be easy; it might even mean standing up and reminding our friends and colleagues what forgiveness and true love really mean. To travel onwards with hope means letting go of the ills that have hurt us individually and collectively and using dialogue to overcome our difficulties. Aiming to be peacemakers and trying again when we haven't succeeded. That is what we have to hope for. Can we imagine what it might be like to live without hope?

The poet Elizabeth Jennings, who died a couple of months ago, suffered from and overcame a serious depressive illness. What kept her going through it all was the hope of the Christian message. Of the New Year she wrote:

This is the little space between
the marvellous birth and next New Year.
We've prayed and rid ourselves of sin
But still we feel the edge of fear.
So soon now we again begin.

A year, a month, a way of life,
Three eager Kings are on their way
A little child's been born in strife
But it is peace he brings to us
And gives our world another day,

Another year to mend our ways
And build our broken world again.
At Christmas we learn how to praise,
A little childfills all new days,
Forgiving sin, relieving pain.

In my study is a little bear kneeling in prayer. She's called Hope. She's a constant reminder of where my priorities should be. If the going gets tough at some stage it may be that quiet listening with God has been put to one side. That is when we have to re-discover his presence in our lives. As one Brazilian philosopher put it "Hope is hearing the melody of the future. Faith is to dance it".

May this new year find you full of hope.

It's a question which can be answered on many levels. On one level this is a man, grown from the baby at Bethlehem, a man brought up in a Palestinian backwater. On another level this is a person about whom so much was promised. As his life progressed more and more people are challenged by the question Mary faced in the message of the angel, the presence and gifts of the Shepherds and Wise Men, the haunting words of Simeon and Anna. As people gain an inkling as to his purpose so they wonder at the consequences.

Who is this? It's a question which the church has tried to answer by speaking out with the Good News of God's hope and peace, justice and truth which we find in Jesus. It's a question which the church has had to struggle with putting into practice as it has tried to witness in the way Jesus did. For the question 'Who is this?' can only be meaningfully answered with commitment. It is not just a question of genetics it is also a question of faith. It needs to be lived to be realised.

On 13th February Lent begins with Ash Wednesday. As we prepare for Easter, from Palm Sunday through Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Eve and Easter Day we need to keep asking 'Who is this?' Easter, like Christmas, focuses our attention upon the scandal of the way God deals with us, for if Jesus is the human image of God, the 'very imprint' of what God is like, then we have lots more questions to ask ourselves about what it means to be followers of Jesus in our world of 2002.

So this Lent I would urge each of us to ask the question 'Who is this?' Is Jesus a figure from the past, a good man or someone who uniquely shows us what God is like? If the latter, then this Lent perhaps the time has come for a searching after a renewed answer in your own personal life, in the life of the church and of the world. Each of us will answer differently, for each of us is made to serve God in both our uniqueness and in our unity as the one body of Christ.

Who is this? It will take quite some answering but you will be welcome to join us at St. James's for any of our attempts to renew our answer this Lent, Holy Week and Eastertide.

After a visit to a very ill patient in the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital I went into the chapel there to stop and think about a conversation we'd just had. The parishioner had been told that his illness knew of no cure. He hadn't yet seen his family to tell them. He felt utterly alone, totally cut off from all the activity of the ward around him, as if night had fallen all about him, he said. We talked till words ran out, we sat in silence, we held hands, we let go. His fear and sadness overwhelmed him. But there was the faintest remnant of light still in his composure and in the quality of the silence between us. I couldn't say there was an articulate faith, but there was peace as we held each other.

Downstairs in the chapel I was amazed to discover a wonderful painting of The Resurrection by the 16th century Italian master, Veronese. As I sat and looked at it I began to see the truth which the artist sought to convey, namely that resurrection, new life, begins when we are able to relinquish our sense of dominance or independence. The painting shows Christ in resurrection strength, but surrounded by darkness. It is as if the painter knew deep within himself both the terrifying power of the darkness and the endurance of God's love which is never overcome by the darkness, just as that parishioner knew both awful darkness and the glimmer of light.

In the painting Christ strides forwards, with a bright cloak and banner, with accompanying angels, all speaking of triumph, but the surrounding darkness is profound. That is the reality of human experience. Darkness and light exist in relation to each other and we recognise one because of the other. Only when we truly acknowledge the painful reality of Holy Week, can we start to see the truth of Easter. When we know the darkness we can more fully recognise the fight.

So I invite you to participate as fully as you can in the keeping of Holy Week and Easter this year. You will be very welcome at St. James's in the darkness of our human experience as well as in the light. God calls us to live fully, to be his image in the world, living through the darkness with the light of Easter's new life, for Christ the first fruit is risen from the dead. Alleluia!

They are subjected to random arrest and extra-judicial trial and imprisonment by the occupying forces of Israel. Their lives are controlled by illegal forces in every respect - economic, educational, and health facilities are all at the whim of the occupying soldiers of Israel.

Watching our television screens these last few weeks has been a tragic and painful witness to the brutal reality of trying to live as a faithful Christian or Muslim in Palestine.

And of course trying to live as a faithful Jew in Israel amidst the fear of terror, unexpected at any turn, is equally appalling. Suicide bombers are impossible to identify and track down until their ghastly consequences have shattered more human lives. The covert groups who fund and recruit bombers are evil conveyors of violence who no longer see that the pain of suffering knows of no ethnic distinction.

It caused me to ponder what moral and spiritual values mean to society today. Certainly, for the Queen her Coronation oath has been her bond and she has shown complete commitment to her vocation of service and leadership despite its personal cost to her.

In the Christian calendar June brings us to the season of Trinity when we consider the interrelatedness of God our Creator with God the Son who saved us and God, the Holy Spirit who sustains us. How do we translate that interrelatedness in our own lives and communities?

We appear to be developing into a society where we don't notice other people as we walk by them on the street. This seems to be in marked contrast to my observations in continental countries where people acknowledge one another in the street with a simple hello or good morning even if they don't know each other. When I was in France, I noticed the children greeting one another with a handshake. Meals still feature there in a huge way too: families at restaurants in large gatherings for celebrations or sitting down together for Sunday lunch.

Spending time to be together over a shared meal is vital for that interrelatedness which contributes to a family's foundations. That is how we get to know one another at a deeper level, to hear and share our concerns, to recognize and value our gifts and to see how we can share them to enrich ourselves and the larger community. Like a pebble that is dropped in the water and which produces ripples well beyond its source, so too the value of time shared. Management speak uses the phrase "quality time". All too readily, we will say we have no time.

Life is a rush. Life can be a rush if we continuously try and fill it with an absurd amount of activity. If we are to have quality time we have to discipline ourselves to make choices - yes, perhaps difficult choices - to prioritize how we use our time so that there is space for family and for being.

Time with God should be an indispensable part of life. Worship and learning is necessary for our spiritual growth and well being and not an optional extra when nothing else seems to be happening. If that becomes our attitude, what are we saying about God's worth to our children? Their spiritual life can only grow if we show them by example.

The liturgical colour for the Trinity season is green, representing life and growth - just as the trees in Bushy Park will signal health and vitality in all their luscious green finery when the Queen visits it later this month. Healthy living for the individual and for society is much more than physical well-being: we would do well to give quality time to our souls. Billy Graham had a lovely way of putting it :"We take excellent care of our bodies, which we have only for a lifetime: yet, we let our souls shrivel, which we will have for eternity".

I don’t know why the founders of our church decided to make St James its patron or indeed I don’t even know who made the decision. Was it the vicar of Hampton (St Mary’s) when the ancient parish church gave land for a church in Hampton Hill (or as it was then called New Hampton) to be carved out of its vast parish? Was it the then Bishop of London who consecrated the building? I guess in the end it doesn’t really matter, suffice to say that St James is as fine a patron for the 21st Century as he was for l863 when the church was commissioned.

James, with his brother John, were members of Jesus’ earliest group of friends. They were fishermen, Sons of Zebedee who heard and saw Jesus in action and decided to join him in his challenge. Obviously they saw something special in this man Jesus of Nazareth even if they could not identify just exactly what it was. They groped in the dark often enough, and indeed, they got things wrong too. They wanted Jesus to be manageable, to fit their ideas and pattern. Remember, at the Transfiguration they offered to build huts for Jesus, Moses and Elijah. Their mother wanted her boys to have pride of place in the kingdom with one sitting on Jesus’ right and one on his left.

We know that in 44 AD James had become the leader of the church in Jerusalem. He was strong, influential and a man of integrity. When, in order to please the whim of the Jewish opponents of Christianity King Herod Agrippa had him arrested he refused to deny his faith and was executed by the sword. Lots of stories sprang up about him over the centuries, - traditions and myths which are of little historical truth but do perhaps contain a germ of a different truth about this James. He became a figure of great devotion in the Middle Ages and Santiago (St James) de Compastella in northern Spain became the largest centre of pilgrimage after Jerusalem.

Whatever the truth, whatever the mystery James had faith which he lived out to the full. He led the faithful Christians in times of uncertainty and persecution. He didn’t give up or conform to the world’s biggest powers and influences. He stood up for what he found in Jesus Christ – a love which is strong and sacrificial, a prayerfulness which is as true in word as in action, a forgiveness which wants a new start and a desire for life in all its fullness. That’s a great patron to have – one who shows us what God is like. A patron saint we would do well to follow in our day.

See our St. James page

But it is not only flags that have borne English football teams’ hopes, and the fans’ hopes, aloft this summer. Painted faces, every article of clothing is available in the form of the English flag and so much more besides. Even now despite England not winning the World Cup there are still a few remnant flags to be seen, albeit rather bedraggled, dampened and dirtied. I heard recently on the radio that the United States of America had imported 20 million flags since the events of September 1 1th 2001.

So just what do flags do for us? Clearly their origin lay in military history. The flag was a visible sign of who belonged to whom on the battleground. It was a rallying point for the troops to see and to gather around. It was a sign to follow into battle. To plunder the flag from the opposite side was a great achievement and carried a sense of victory. Our English flag, St. George’s cross, is of course readily identifiable because of its simplicity but don’t let’s forget that it is first and foremost a cross. Much of the story of St. George is ‘mythical’ in the best sense of that word. It is about a Palestinian Christian who was martyred for his faith in Christ in about the year 304. He had absolutely nothing to do with England and is venerated throughout the Eastern part of the church in particular. His tale was brought back to England as a result of the Crusaders travelling through the Holy Land, but the cross, in red to mark the martyrdom of George, has somehow come to be the very symbol of England.

Sunday by Sunday we carry a cross into church at the beginning of worship and out of church at the end of worship, making the point that we follow Christ in our worship and in our lives. We walk behind the cross and this is not an act of pomp, it is a very real symbol of the fact that we do walk behind and in the footsteps of the cross of Christ. We follow in Christ’s way. I guess I am fortunate enough to have grown up in a generation where the flag of England has not been synonymous with having to go to battle. However, the cross we carry before us does carry a sense of struggle. That struggle is to find Christ’s way in the world today. It is what St. Paul talks about as a spiritual battle that we do have to tussle with ‘principalities and powers’, structures, institutions which are not as our Christian faith dictates they should be.

I readily admit I am not much of a flag person but I do think we have an opportunity with the flag of St. George as our symbol, to make the point that it is the cross of Christ which determines our identity as Christians in the world today. Remember the words in the Gospel of St. John: “God so loved the world that he gave his son Jesus Christ”. Our faith doesn’t detach us from the world or separate us from the world but rather gives us critical solidarity in the world. Walking behind the cross is never going to be easy but neither was it easy for Jesus. Why should we expect it to be any different for us to follow him?

The first article is by Richard Harries, the Bishop of Oxford, and is entitled ‘Iraq War Would Fail Just War Test’ and the second article is by Paul Vallely and is entitled ‘Yes, Africans Do Have to Eat Again’. It was this juxtaposition that set my mind racing.

Up until I read these two articles I had grown more and more angry with talk of an impending invasion of Iraq for, it seems to me, dubious purposes which have not been outlined in detail and have not been accepted by the United Nations as being legitimate cause for action. And there below it was a sensitive and heartfelt article about the appalling famine across Southern Africa, particularly in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique caused by lack of rainfall, impoverishment and unjust trading systems. Of course, there are also the realities of regimes which fall far short of what one might expect in terms of democracy and accountability. Suddenly, these two articles being next to each other lifted the debate onto a new level. Whatever the activities being engaged in either now or in the future against Iraq, will of necessity cost many, many, many hundreds of millions of dollars and tax payers’ pounds. And yet across Southern Africa, as in many parts of the developing world a mere few million pounds would radically change the way in which we live together in our world.

Whatever one feels about the rights and wrongs of an attack on Iraq or indeed the situation and its causes in Southern Africa, this huge discrepancy in the cost of addressing the two issues is manifestly obvious. In the short-term costs of war seem to be predictable, at least in tenns of finance. The long-term effects are far from predictable for Iraq and its relations with the West, for the wider issue of relations between Islam and the West and indeed for the stability of the whole of the Middle East.

The long term costs of the Southern African famine are interconnected with the pandemic of Aids in Southern Africa, most particularly through continuing poverty. And the long-term issues will affect us. It is we in the West who decide how much we are going to pay for African products. It is we in the West who will decide how long we wish to keep Third World debt as a tool for keeping us rich and other countries poor, it is we in the West who will decide how much we are prepared to give in charity or aid but also how much we are prepared to be changed into a world system which allows people to trade justly and fairly with each other whichever continent they are coming from.

As I thought about these two articles next to each other and the likely outcome of events by the time you read this article, namely, that war will be closer and that many thousands more people will have died of hunger in Southern Africa, the words of Jesus keep coming back into my head and I would urge you to pray them, act upon them and speak about them to each other.

Jesus says: ‘this is how you should pray. Father may your name be holy, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven, give us today our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone who sins against us’. My hope is that individually and as nations of the world we can live out Christ’s prayer which as followers of Christ is ours too.

Therefore, perhaps we can hope that if more of our children learn to participate in such a group sport their understanding and appreciation of keeping to the rules will spill over into other aspects of their lives - their work and their relationships - even when life may not make it easy to do so.

Society functions because the majority keep to the agreed rules. Our legal rules are based on the Christian understanding of the ten commandments. Whilst keeping to the rules enables people to enjoy the game, whatever it may be, modern living entices people towards the idea that rules are for everyone else but themselves. This is an attitude which we need to overcome. No one likes someone who cheats but how often do we cheat?

It is also vitally important that Governments should follow the agreed rules of national and international laws and charters to which they subscribe; truth and justice should not be victims of expediency.

In the Old Testament, Job had a pretty difficult time when he lost his health, his family and his wealth and yet he still said” If he (God) wishes to slay me, I have nothing to lose: I shall still defend my conduct to his face”.

As Christians we recognise that we are all flawed human beings, constantly seeking God’s forgiveness and striving to do better. We should live a life which if it is cut short tomorrow, we will be ready to meet God and to answer for our deeds. The self discipline and self restraint which young people may experience on the sports field or in the sports hall is what parents, godparents and families need to encourage and develop in every strand of life and of course, there is no better way of teaching it than by example! If we trust God and the rules he has given to us, we will maintain our integrity and survive. Paul put it like this in his letter to Timothy: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race. I have kept the faith”.

As Oscar Wilde may (or may not) have said: ‘Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be’. Certainly looking back can never be enough. Yet, looking back is crucial to understand who and how we are today as individuals, communities and nations, but much as it is crucial it is never sufficient.

In every service in church we confess our sin. If those ‘religious’ words don’t chime with you then try saying in church at work or at home we need to search ourselves honestly, in the knowledge and security that understanding our past will make a difference to our future, for we believe that being honest with ourselves and God changes how we are. To lay things out plainly and in humility before God breaks the power of wrong, for as Jesus’ living and dying show, the power of wrong never has the last word.

As the life of Jesus demonstrates, good will triumph over evil when we face up to it and live by it - it will be costly, it was for Jesus, but it will change us.

Unless we look back we certainly can’t understand where we are now. But unless we are prepared to be changed by facing the past honestly we will be trapped by it. Acknowledging past wrong - in ourselves, our communities and churches will release us into a changed future.

I came across these words by Philips Brooks, the author of O Little Town of Bethlehem and Bishop of Massachusetts. At Christmas 1805 he was visiting Bethlehem and he says ‘I remember standing in the old church, so close to the spot where Jesus was born and the whole church was ringing with splendid songs of praise to God. . . telling each other of the wonderful night of the saviour’s birth’. So he wrote the now famous and traditional carol.

The words trip easily off the tongue and their very familiarity seems to insulate us against the shock that God is taking the ultimate risk in being so identified with his creation that he is prepared to become known in human form - vulnerable, helpless and dependent.

Then I came across a re-worked version of the same carol, and the words are truly shocking. They connect with the terrible pain of the ongoing military occupation of Bethlehem today.

There isn’t silence in Bethlehem today, but mortar fire, weeping and the sound of sirens. Stillness in Bethlehem is only enforced by military might through curfews and closure. Sleep is so often dreamless today because of the fear of raids and grief of bereavement and injury.

So in your mind during Advent sing these new words as a prayer for peace this Christmas. It’s not that the old words need replacing, but refreshing. For the truth is the same today as always, that in the birth of the baby Jesus God walks our streets, experiences our struggles, shares our pain, weeps our tears and laughs with our joy. That is truly shocking and truly great news.

Happy Christmas - do come and share your Christmas with us. You will be very welcome at any of our services.

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