Author: Stratocastermagic

Ashes to Ashes

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So, how’s Lent going for you? I’m writing this at the start of Lent (on Ash Wednesday to be precise), so, so far, so good! I am reading “Wondrous Encounters: Scripture for Lent“, a collection of meditations by Fr Richard Rohr. Rohr is an American Franciscan Roman Catholic Priest. I first came across his writing when I was attending a conference in Salisbury. The conference was aimed at those looking at sustaining ministry for the long haul. (In other words, those who have been in ordained ministry for quite a while but who aren’t ready to think about retirement just yet! People like me.)

Richard Rohr has written about spirituality for what he calls the ‘two halves of life’. The first ‘half’ of life is a time for finding out who we are. It’s time to test the boundaries, to strive, to achieve. In the second half of life, all being well, we have found out who we are. Now it’s time to be who we are. So who are we? He says there are two key moments in our lives:

“One is when you know that your one and only life is absolutely valuable and alive.
The other is when you know your life, as presently lived, is entirely pointless and empty.”

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call a paradox!

The first moment is about connecting with God, our ‘ultimate Source and Ground’, in which we find ‘energy and joy’. The second moment gives us ‘limits and boundaries, and a proper humility’. We need to know both, and in Lent, we are invited to find both.

I suppose it depends on your personality and experience whether you need to be reminded how fabulous you are, or whether you need reminding how limited you are. We begin Lent with Ash Wednesday. Ashes have long been a symbol of humility and repentance – in Genesis the Bible says that we have come from ‘dust’ and to ‘dust’ we will return; and the phrase “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust” is used in the funeral service. It might seem morbid, being reminded of your mortality and of the need to repent, but we don’t do it every day of the year, just on Ash Wednesday.

Richard Rohr points out that the ashes we use at the start of Lent are traditionally made from the previous year’s Palm Crosses. Palm Sunday (on 20th March this year) is a bit of a false start. The crowds welcome Jesus as a hero whom they hope will liberate them from the oppression of their Roman masters. But those hopes are cruelly dashed on Good Friday. They were false hopes. Jesus will bring about our liberation, but not by espousing the methods of their oppressors – the violence of arms and force. So, as we begin Lent, the crumbled hopes of false starts are placed on our foreheads. No need to rub it in! we say. But it’s only one day a year and we are very stubborn when it comes to learning lessons. Especially the lesson of the Cross. We want a Palm Sunday Jesus, all cheers and celebration. But Ash Wednesday reminds us (even before we get to Palm Sunday) that Jesus won’t get to the bright glory of Easter without passing through the ash-darkness of the Cross.

We have a number of ways of helping you to know yourself a bit better during Lent. On the Wednesday evenings (February 17th and 24th; March 2nd, 9th, 16th and 23rd ) we have a service of Compline (7:30PM at St Matthew’s). Compline is to do with bringing the day to ‘completion’ – a quiet, peaceful, thoughtful time of prayer before the day ends. But it also invites to consider how all things will come to their completion. (Don’t worry, it’s not as morbid as it sounds. Those who come love it.)

On Palm Sunday (20th March, 4:30PM at St Matthew’s) we are getting our ‘extended choir’ together again for a service of worship that will get us ready for Holy Week. On the Monday of Holy Week (7:30PM, 21st March) we look forward to welcoming the Bridgewater Singers who will perform Bob Chilcott’s ‘St John Passion‘. And then on the Tuesday and Wednesday evenings there will be more opportunities for prayer and reflection.

Thursday 23rd March is Maundy Thursday, when we mark two of the greatest gifts that Jesus gave to his disciples – the eucharist and the great commandment ‘to love one another’. There will be services at St Matthew’s at 10:30AM and 7:30PM.

Good Friday is on 24th March. We will be following the Stations of the Cross at both churches – 10:00AM at St Cross and 2:00PM at St Matthew’s. Between them, at noon, there is the Bridgewater Churches Together act of worship and witness in the middle of Stockton Heath.

So, have a good Lent. Easter isn’t that far away…

Happy Valentine’s!

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I’m not sure the post office will be overly troubled when it comes to delivering valentine’s cards to the vicarage; no need to put on extra staff or hire a couple of vans to handle the volume. The number of cards I’m expecting to write – and hoping to receive – is exactly one. (No more, no less.)

The origins of St Valentine’s Day are a bit obscure. Wikipedia tells me that there may have been more than one early Christian saint named Valentinus. The most famous story is of a Valentine in Rome who, when Christians were being persecuted for their faith, performed weddings for Roman soldiers who were forbidden to marry. This Valentine was executed for his crimes and sent a farewell letter to the daughter of his jailer (whom he had healed), signing it “your Valentine”.

We’ve come a long way from the death of a Christian martyr to the Hallmark festival of cards, teddies, balloons and chocolate. As it happens, this year St Valentine’s Day falls on a Sunday. But it also happens to be the First Sunday of Lent, so all those chocolates (and the prosecco) should be put away until Easter… My guess is that not many of us will be able to do that.

Given that St Valentine’s Day falls on a Sunday, I have decided to invite all the couples who are planning weddings at St Matthew’s to come to the church that afternoon. I’m not sure how many will be able to do so. I was told that they have probably all got other plans… It also falls in the school half-term holiday, so that may take a few away. But some couples have already replied to say that they will be able to join us, so it is definitely going ahead! Some are bringing parents, bridesmaids and best men, too. What I would like to do is to welcome them all to the church with refreshments (maybe even something sparkly to drink, if someone would be kind enough to donate a few bottles!) and help them to feel at home. Often those who book weddings with us are not very familiar with the church and find the place a bit daunting, especially when they are nervous about their special day. This will give them chance to make themselves feel at home, and the opportunity to ask questions. Often wedding couples email me to ask things like how many pews there are (so they know how many pew ends to order) and where the bridesmaids will sit. This valentine’s afternoon will enable them to familiarise themselves with the building and think about those all-important decorations and seating plans.

I’m hoping that those who are involved with weddings will be represented – the choir and bell ringers, for example. I’ve booked the organist (the one I’m hoping to get a valentine’s card from) and asked her to play the Bridal Chorus and Wedding March for people to hear. Mind you, that will probably make them (and her) even more nervous! It would be good to have a number of regular worshippers there too, to chat with couples and their families, and express the church’s welcome.

If you are able to join us, we will be in church at 3:00PM on St Valentine’s Day (that’s 14th February, if you weren’t sure).

The other thing I’ve done, which I know used to happen at St Matthew’s and which I think is a great idea, is to ask couples to let me have a photograph of themselves. I’m planning to put these up at the back of church so that the congregation can see who it is that is getting married. When you see the photos I hope you will spend a moment to pray for them and for all who are preparing to be married.

“The course of true love never did run smooth” and all of us face challenges in our relationships with one another. Those who are to be married need our prayers and our support. The Beatles summed up the 1960s with their anthem “All You Need Is Love”. But Saint Paul the Apostle said it first, following the life and example of Jesus: there are three things that have eternal significance. They are faith, hope and love.

And the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:3)

Love from …

 

 

 

 

The Epiphany

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In the west, we think of the Epiphany as being mostly about the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus. But there are other associations which we are invited to make during the season of Epiphany – including the Baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan and his first miracle, turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee.

The word ‘epiphany’ means a manifestation or revelation. It’s sometimes used to mean a moment of inspiration: you’ve been thinking about something for days and getting nowhere. Suddenly, the thing that was hiding from you pops into your head. You’ve had an epiphany. Something that was hidden becomes clear, that’s what an epiphany is. In the Christian church we think of the mysteries of God – things long hidden – being revealed to us. Starting with the birth of Jesus where God shows himself definitively to us in the poverty and humility of the manger. Outside of the Holy Family, the first revelation is to the shepherds.

The first nowell the angels did say was to certain poor shepherds in fields where they lay…

The shepherds were humble folk, Jewish but not particularly religious. Then come the magi, the wise men. They are exotic rather than humble, and religious but not Jewish. The shepherds are familiar local figures, down from the hills. The magi are mysterious foreigners who have travelled far. Matthew (2:1-11) tells us that they follow a star to find the place where the new king has been born. First of all, in Jerusalem, they face another king, Herod, who is afraid when he hears that a new king has been born. They outwit him – well, they were wise men! – and pay homage to the new-born King in Bethlehem. These strangers are drawn in to the story of God’s dealing with his people. Right at the start of Matthew’s gospel we hear that the one who is born to be Messiah, in fulfilment of (Jewish) prophecy, is also King to the gentiles, the foreigners, strangers, outsiders. The Gospel is not just for us and people like us. It is Good News for all.

And that is the note of Epiphany: like dropping a pebble in a pond, the ripples move ever outward. From the narrow confines of the manger, the news of the birth of Jesus spreads, to Jewish shepherds, to gentile wise men. At his baptism, Jesus is revealed as God’s Son:

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’

Luke 3:21, 22

In John (2:1-11) we hear of the first miracle of Jesus, turning water into wine – not just any old plonk, but good wine – and are told that ‘his disciples believed in him’. In John, miracles are ‘signs’ which point to something. They are epiphanies, moments of revelation. John will tell us of healings, feeding the 5,000, walking on water, and the raising of Lazarus. At these moments, the veil is drawn back and we see the truth about who Jesus is, and how he reveals God to us. And we are invited, like the first disciples, to respond with faith.

The pebble is dropped into the pool and the ripples reach out, from the manger, to us. We are here because the Good News has reached us. But what if the ripples stop with us? What if this is as far as they go? We are the last to be reached. The Good News comes to us, but stops with us. The season of Epiphany is a reminder to us that the revelation of God’s love to the world is not just for us. We are charged with allowing the ripples to go beyond us, into the wider world, where our families, friends and neighbours are.

At the start of this year, we might well think of how we can share the Good News of Jesus with those beyond the church. Where shall we start?

In The Bleak Midwinter

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I’m sticking with the themes of the Epiphany season. On Sunday I took as my sermon topic: why I never choose ‘We Three Kings’ for carol services. Put simply, the Bible doesn’t say they were kings nor that there were three of them… There’s also no mention of camels or stables and the magi almost certainly didn’t come across the shepherds, as they do in our nativity plays. But there were three gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh, and they offer fertile soil for reflection. Gold is a gift fit for a king; incense is offered to God; and myrrh speaks of both healing and anointing for death. The magi are exotic strangers who are drawn by a star to the little one who is the Light of the World, showing that God’s plan for the world isn’t limited to his people, the Jews. The magi are foreigners, gentiles. They too are brought in to the story of the incarnation.

So, today my theme is: why I almost never pick ‘In The Bleak Midwinter’, despite it being a favourite of just about everybody. It has a fabulous tune, by Gustav Holst, who was born in Cheltenham. The tune is called Cranham, which is the name of the Gloucestershire village where Holst lived when he composed it. The words are by Christina Rossetti:

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.

First of all, we don’t know when Jesus was born and it is unlikely to have been during the winter, bleak or otherwise. The shepherds were out on the hills at night, which suggests that it was not winter and that it was not bleak. And if it was in the winter, how much snow do you think there was in Bethlehem? It does apparently sometimes snow in Bethlehem in winter but it’s rare. And, if it happened when Jesus was born, you would have thought that either Matthew or Luke might have mentioned it. But they didn’t. So, no ‘snow on snow’.

But I guess that Christina Rossetti knew that. What she did is what artists have always done: she transposed the story of the nativity into her own world. White Christmases were more common in the nineteenth century than they are today (because of a ‘little ice age’ that ended around the 1850s). Climate change means that our winters are increasingly likely to be warmer and wetter than they were in Rossetti’s day. There’s something about bringing the gospel into our own time and culture that makes sense: the incarnation means that God makes himself known in human flesh, in a particular place at a particular time, but in doing so, God is made known in all places and at all times.

I recently wasted a couple of minutes watching a video online in which an animated Martin Luther argues with a couple of Anglicans over writing a Christmas hymn. Luther wants to write about the doctrine of the incarnation and God’s plan to redeem humanity. The English hymn writers want to sing about snow and livestock.

But there’s theological reflection in Rossetti’s poem, as well as the description of meteorological phenomena. King Solomon, at the dedication of the Temple, asks:

‘But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built!’
1 Kings 8.27

The God who cannot be contained by heaven, let alone a temple built by human hands, deigns to dwell in a mere stable-place and to be content with “a breastful of milk and a mangerful of hay”. We’ll skip over the fact that the Gospels don’t actually mention a stable, nor the “ox and ass and camel which adore”, and dwell on the humility which God shows in coming among us as that most vulnerable creature, a new born human child, born in poverty. I also love the tenderness of the description of his mother worshipping her Beloved “with a kiss”, while angels, archangels, cherubim and seraphim throng the air.

But the crunch comes with the final verse and this is what makes the hymn work in worship, despite the dubious meteorology and livestock references:

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man
I would do my part;
Yet what I can, I give Him –
Give my heart.

At the epiphany we think of the magi with their gifts, honouring the new born King. With them we recognise that the greatest gift of all is the humble child in whom God is made known. And with Christina Rossetti we wonder what it is that we can give in return for such a gift. Shepherds and wise men had the opportunity to worship the infant King:

Yet what I can, I give Him –
Give my heart.

Alan Jewell

Christmas 2015

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These days, television shows which use hidden cameras are commonplace. Back in the day, there was Candid Camera. Members of the public were put in bizarre situations and their reactions secretly filmed. And hilarity ensued.

My favourite stunt is from the American version of the show (1974). Children were interviewed and asked a hypothetical question. Imagine you could meet a legendary sportsman, like the boxer, Muhammad Ali. What would you say to him and what would you do? Muhammad Ali probably still is the most famous sportsman of the modern era. What would it be like to meet such an iconic figure, a legendary almost mythical character? What would it be like to meet Muhammad Ali, face-to-face?

The children have a variety of responses; questions they would ask, things they would say if they could meet the legend. Of course, while they are answering the hypothetical question, Muhammad Ali himself, in person, walks into the room, behind the child. While they are still talking, Ali taps them on the shoulder. They turn their heads and find themselves looking up into the face of the legendary, mythical figure. At that point they stop talking. Their mouth falls open and they are silent, for a moment at least. What had been a hypothetical question about a mythical figure is now a face-to-face encounter with a person who has entered the room.

And that’s what the Christmas story is about. The figure of myth and speculation has entered the room. We can speculate about God – whether God exists, what God might be like – but the Christmas story says that God has walked into the room and is not a concept to be debated, but a person to be encountered.

It’s time to stop talking about God. It’s time to meet God. We find ourselves looking into the face of God in – of all places – a manger, an animal’s feed trough. The last place on earth you’d go looking for God!

The trouble is, the God of our imagination doesn’t look like this: that most helpless of creatures, a new-born human baby. A weak, vulnerable child that needs a mother’s milk to survive; a baby that needs to be changed and cleaned by human parents. And don’t give me any of that ‘Away in a Manger’ nonsense about the little Lord Jesus – “no crying he makes”! Of course he cried, when he was hungry, cold, uncomfortable or dirty. Like any one of us.

The adult Jesus wept at the grave of his friend Lazarus and over the city of Jerusalem because it didn’t know the way to find peace. It seems highly unlikely that he didn’t cry as baby!

‘Once In Royal David’s City’ gets closer to the truth:

He came down to earth from heaven,
Who is God and Lord of all,
And His shelter was a stable,
And His cradle was a stall;

He was little, weak and helpless.
Tears and smiles like us he knew.
And he feeleth for our sadness
And he shareth in our gladness.

The bible says, that’s what God is like: little, weak and helpless. The child in the manger, because there was “no room at the inn”, discovers there’s no room in the world. The earthly life that begins in a wooden manger, will end on a wooden cross. Mary’s child will be nailed to a beam and publicly exposed to humiliation. A baby in a manger or a man nailed to a cross is hardly in a position of power! But then, this man shows what real power looks like when he wraps himself in a towel and washes the feet of his disciples. Jesus shows us a God who chooses the role of a servant, not the boss.

Not the God you want? Other gods are available! The gods of power, wealth, fame, comfort, religion… But I’m sticking with this one! The one who, as ‘Emmanuel’ – God with us – offers to share our lives with us.

Of course, one day we will have to give an account to God of what we did with the life he gave us. That’s a terrifying prospect! But the bible says we can face it with confidence because of what that child in the manger has done for us: he has broken the barrier between us and God through his death on the cross. At the Lord’s Table we are invited to take bread and wine in remembrance of him; the God who makes himself known as the babe in the manger, the foot-washing servant, the man on the cross and in the everyday ordinariness of bread and wine.

Happy Christmas!

See amid the winter snow…

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A couple of pictures of our churches in the snow. Obviously this year a white Christmas seems very unlikely, and the idea that Jesus was born ‘amid the winter snow’ is very farfetched, but a couple of nice images nonetheless.

The photo of St Matthew’s is courtesy of Jim Fitzpatrick, the one of St Cross, Judith Brown. If you have pictures of our churches or parishes, please send them to me so that I can put them on the website.

 

Wassail!

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After one of the carol services I attended – with the good folk of St John Ambulance, Cheshire, at St Mary’s, Weaverham – I heard someone asking the vicar, Andrew Brown, why there wasn’t a standardised version of the carols we had sung. At a previous carol service, a day or two earlier, the words of some carols were different to the ones in that day’s service. It’s a variation of that question asked of all vicars: “Why do they keep changing the words (or tunes) of hymns?” Part of the answer is that ‘they’ have always done so. Take, for example, that most favourite of Christmas hymns:

“Hark! the herald angels sing,
Glory to the newborn King.”

Who would dare tinker with such a classic? Who would change the words that Charles Wesley wrote for his Christmas day hymn? The answer is George Whitefield, Wesley’s contemporary (or rival). He was the first to change the words of Wesley’s hymn. In fact, it was Whitefield, not Wesley, who wrote that familiar opening line about the herald angels. What Wesley actually wrote was:

“Hark! how all the welkin rings,
Glory to the King of kings.”

If you look for the original version, you’ll recognise many familiar lines, but also many differences from the version that we now sing. There’s no refrain, for example, and there are verses that haven’t made it into the hymnals and carol sheets that we use today. Also, there’s no mention of any angels, herald or otherwise. Wesley wrote his hymn in 1739 and by 1753, it had been altered by Whitefield. It changed again in 1782 when Tate and Brady published it with the now-familiar refrain. And the tune we most associate with the hymn is not the one that Wesley envisaged. It wasn’t until 1856 that an English musician named William Cummings adapted a tune from a work by Mendelssohn to fit the words of the hymn.

Still, there’s nothing nicer than a good old traditional carol service, is there? Except that the format that most people think of – the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, as presented by King’s College, Cambridge – isn’t traditional at all. It’s a twentieth century innovation! It was first held at King’s on Christmas Eve in 1918. Eric Milner-White, the Dean, had been an army chaplain. As the First World War ended, Milner-White believed that the Church of England needed more imaginative worship. The idea was to tell the whole story of God’s redemptive purpose, all the way from the fall of Adam and the call of Abraham, through the vision of the prophet Isaiah, to the birth of Jesus and the visits of shepherds and wise men.

Actually, I exaggerate when I describe the Nine Lessons as ‘a twentieth century innovation’. Its use in Cambridge is rooted in an earlier service, first used on Christmas Eve 1880, by Bishop EW Benson, “in the wooden shed which then served as his cathedral in Truro”. Bishop Benson’s innovation was to have carols sung in the cathedral at 10:00PM on Christmas Eve. Before that, the choir had gone round to people’s houses to sing carols, a practice rooted in the ancient tradition of seasonal wassailing. Now, this is where it gets interesting! Some of the carols we still use today are connected to the wassailing tradition which is pre-Christian. The word ‘wassail’ means ‘be hale’. In other words, to wassail is to wish someone good health; which we still sometimes do when taking a drink. We drink to the health of our drinking companions, or to absent friends. The wassail bowl, ‘made of the white maple tree’, was filled with ale, cider or spiced wine, which the householder supplied, and from it, the wassailers would drink to your health. The correct response to the greeting, ‘Wassail!’ is ‘Drinc hael!’, which means ‘drink healthily!’

The traditional time to go a’wassailing was on twelfth night – that is, 5th January, the eve of Epiphany. Wassailers would go from house to house, or, in the West Country, to orchards, singing to cider apple trees, and making loud noises, in the hope of awakening them from their winter sleep in order to produce a good harvest.

The pre-Christian origins of some of our Christmas carols can be seen in, for example, ‘The Holly and The Ivy’, which began life as a folk song about those evergreen plants. Holly was sacred to druids and to the Romans, and associated with the winter solstice (21st December) or saturnalia (17th or 23rd December). Evergreen plants were adopted by Christians as symbols of life in the darkness of winter, but those associations predate their use as Christmas decorations. Christians also took those songs and adapted them to include Christian themes.

So, where does all this get us? You think that it’s traditional to sing ‘Hark the Herald Angels’ at a service of Nine Lessons and Carols in church. And I’m saying that what’s really traditional is to go around the parish drinking people’s health and singing songs about evergreens.

I’m being flippant, of course. Partly. And I may have got a bit carried away. A bit. But this article started as an attempt to talk about the difference between tradition and nostalgia. I have been trying to come up with definitions of the two things. How about this:

Nostalgia is a sentimental attachment to the notion that things used to be better, or at least simpler, at some point in the past, in some golden age.

Tradition is a bedrock of tried-and-tested principles and practices that give a firm base on which to build and explore the present and the future.

You won’t be surprised to learn that I think that tradition is hugely important to the life of the church and of all communities. And that nostalgia is a deadly, life-sapping virus. Again, I might have overstated my point, but I think you will see what I mean. Nostalgia longs for the past. Being firmly rooted in tradition gives us the confidence to strike out for the future!

You may be reading this around Christmas, New Year, or the feast of the Epiphany. In which case, let me say to you:

Wassail!

(And I hope you will give me the appropriate response.)

Alan Jewell

Evensong – important news

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We have been talking about the future of evening worship at St Matthew’s. During the vacancy, evening services were cut back from every week to twice a month. The numbers who attend make it difficult to justify the resources required to run a choral evensong.

Over the winter months, some of our regulars find it more difficult to get out on a dark, wet or frosty evening, so numbers look like dropping even further. The Church Council has therefore decided to try an earlier start time. For the first quarter of 2016, therefore, our evening service will move to 4:30PM. We will keep the pattern the same – there will be a service of evening prayer from the Book of Common Prayer on the first and third sundays of the month. We hope that this will encourage more people to attend, perhaps even those who wouldn’t normally come to evening service.

The Church Council will then review the situation to see if it has made a difference. If you have any thoughts on this, please get in touch.

While Shepherds Watch…

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By the time you read this, I will have sung the Christmas carol, “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night”. More than once. I have to admit – just between you and me – that it’s not my favourite hymn. Sung to the tune most often used (in this country at least), ‘Winchester Old’, I think it’s a rather pedestrian telling of the story of the angelic annunciation to the shepherds (Luke 2:8-14). And it doesn’t help knowing that half the congregation are fighting the urge to sing, “While shepherds washed their socks…” (I also get a picture of a very large reggae singer when I see the words “Mighty Dread”.)

I agree it ends well, with the Gloria:

All glory be to God on high
And to the earth be peace;
Goodwill henceforth from heaven to men
Begin and never cease.

The words were written by Nahum Tate, the Irish writer who became England’s poet laureate in 1692. (Although the satirist Alexander Pope cites Tate as being under the influence of the goddess Dullness in his work ‘The Dunciad’). Tate’s great contribution to the church’s worship was his collaboration with Nicholas Brady on a metrical version of the Psalms, some of which we still sing as hymns, such as their setting of Psalm 42, “As pants the hart for cooling streams.”

“While Shepherds Watched” first appears in Tate and Brady’s supplement to their collection of psalms, published in 1700. But wait a minute! The story of the shepherds from the Gospel of Luke isn’t a psalm, is it? Nope! But this is how the hymn gained its popularity: at the time, hymns were not sung in Anglican churches. Let me say that again: hymns were not sung in Anglican churches! The only approved texts were the canticles (e.g. the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis) and the psalms, which were sung at Matins and Evensong. If you look at the 1662 Book of Common Prayer you will see no mention of hymns being sung. At Morning and Evening Prayer, the BCP allows the following:

In Quires and Places where they sing
here followeth the Anthem.

Tate’s “While Shepherds Watched”, having been snuck into a book of psalms to be sung in churches, became popular because it is really a versified paraphrase of a scriptural text, the words being very close to those of Luke 2:8-14. So, at the time, “While Shepherds Watched” was the only Christmas hymn that could be sung in the Church of England! No wonder it became popular! Many of the hymns and carols that we sing today were not used in churches until as recently as the second half of the 19th Century (which makes them a modern innovation, not a tradition!) (In my humble opinion, carols were meant to be sung in pubs, not churches, but that’s a conversation for another occasion…)

The uniqueness of “While Shepherds Watched” also accounts for the fact that it has been sung to many different tunes in its lifetime. Many churchgoers seem to believe that for most hymns there is one ‘proper’ tune and they get very uncomfortable when the vicar or organist suggests singing them to a different tune. But over the years, the words of “While Shepherds Watched” have been sung to at least a dozen different tunes, perhaps more. In America, they use a tune based on one from an opera by Handel. It has also been sung to the tune ‘Lyngham’, which we more often associate with the words “O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing”, by Charles Wesley. There are regional variations too around Britain: in Cornwall it is sung to a tune called ‘Northrop’ and in Yorkshire and Derbyshire, it is sung, with a refrain, as song called “Sweet Bells“. At this point, I’d like to recommend that you listen to one of the Christmas albums by Kate Rusby, a folk singer from Barnsley. Or better still, go to see one of her Christmas shows: the song, “While Shepherds Watched” turns up in various guises, including to the tune we normally associate with the Yorkshire song “On Ilkla Moor Baht ‘at”. Before you throw your hands up in horror, let me point out that the tune – ‘Cranbrook‘ – to which ‘the national anthem of Yorkshire’ is sung, was originally written as a hymn tune, and in some places, is still the most popular tune for “While Shepherds Watched”.

Each year at St Matthew’s we hold a Christmas Tree Festival. This year we are taking the theme “While Shepherds Watch…” I’m trying to remember how we chose it… I think someone had heard of the “Messy Nativity” project in Liverpool in 2010: sheep knitted by members of the Mothers Union popped up in the shops at Liverpool One, and other places, during the Advent season and were used to tell the Christmas story. So, if you are coming to St Matthew’s during Advent and Christmas, look out for the sheep: see how many you can count. Remember the shepherds who were the first to hear the good news. Think of Jesus saying that he is The Good Shepherd and his stories of shepherds looking for their lost sheep. And join me in singing “While Shepherds Watched” with gusto (to the tune ‘Cranbrook’).