Hollowell & Guilsborough:  2 January 2011
As concerned citizens,  I expect that you've been reading or listening to  some of the Festive Season's messages from the good and the great.   But, personally speaking,   to coin a rather tired old phrase, I've been getting some mixed messages from them. 
David Cameron and Nick Clegg both forecast a difficult year ahead, characterised by tax rises and government spending cut, but expressing confidence that the economy, and therefore our national well being,  will emerge stronger.    Ed Milliband says it will "year of consequences  for Britain, as a result of the government's decision to reduce the budget deficit at an irresponsible pace and scale".  
 Economists, for what they are worth, are divided, some believing that the strong medicine will put the patient into a coma, whilst others think that without it the patient can never revive.   
The newspapers for their part are full of gloom and doom, as usual, with stories about hardships to come for the  middle classes  " Families Pound3000 worse off this year"  intones the Daily Telegraph,  and  reporting at the same time  an impending flu epidemic,  terrorist plots, burst water mains, likely bankruptcies and murders etc.  Even the January sales can't raise morale    "Debt fears as Britain starts Pound5 billion sales frenzy" was a headline I saw on Boxing Day. 
Others interpret the situation in a different, less gloomy ,  way.   But  they get a kicking for it.   The unfortunate Lord Young,  the PM's so called Enterprise Adviser, had to resign, you'll remember,  after the uproar caused by his remarks that some people, principally those benefitting from low interest rates, had never had it so good in this  - as he put it -  "so called recession".  He was accused of being an insensitive Tory toff , arrogant,  out of touch  etc etc.   
And yet, take a look at the trenchant and witty  diary of the former left wing MP Chris Mullin  that I have been enjoying recently.  His entry for  9[th] February, 2010, reads : "Most people are better off than they have ever been, healthier, wealthier and they can expect to live longer than their parents. And yet it seems they are nostalgic for the days of mass unemployment and inner city riots.   What a race of pessimists we have become. "    
Quite.  Lord Young should have prayed him in aid.  [ Oliver Franks World Peace, Nuclear Disarmament, eradication of Malaria;  the Brit Crystallised fruits]   But at least we can be pessimistic for longer than ever before according to yesterday's news that 10 million of us can expect to live to be over 100. 
So are we on a path to destruction or are things better, or at least not as bad,  then they seem? 
It's an age old question.  As Pontius Pilate said, " What is truth" ?   We need to ask that today.  And in a search for that I'd like to direct your attention that best selling self help book,  the Holy Bible.
Going back first to those messages I mentioned,  I see that both the Queen in her Christmas  broadcast and the Archbishop of Canterbury, in his  New Year message,  have drawn our attention to the value of the Bible, specifically, the  Authorised Version, or as the Americans call it the King James Version,  whose 400[th]  anniversary we shall be celebrating this year.   Apparently there was no publication day in 1611, but 2[nd] May will be the date, apparently according to popular myth,  when the anniversary will be celebrated this year.   
Actually the Authorised Version was based heavily on the 1534 translation of William Tyndale who was martyred because he wanted the Bible to become available as he put to  " every boy  that driveth a plough " at a time  in the reign of Henry VIII when an English translation was banned. 
The Queen made a link, albeit a somewhat tenuous one, between  King James and sport pointing out that the Authorised Version  as a major cooperative endeavour among scholars trying to bring harmony to the Church of England.   It was undoubtedly a unifying force, being made , as has been said, by the whole island to be used by the whole island and it was promoted by a King who represented unity,  linking Scotland with England.   And to-day, the Queen said, it is just as important to build communities and create team spirit -  and sport is one of the best ways to do that. 
And now that King James Version is used by the whole world as though, as someone put it, God really was an Englishman.  That  Bible of 1611 effectively put English literature on the world map.  It was certainly read by Shakespeare and the dramatists of the Elizabethan age whose work transformed English from  a minor European language into a world force, carried round the globe by  our, sailor, our missionaries and  empire builders. 
Today, when English has become the international language,  many phrases from the Authorised Version are so familiar  that they are thought to be proverbial.   I am thinking of such phrases as " Am I my brother's keeper ? ;  The salt of the earth; The signs of the times; Where two or three are gathered together;  They made light of it;  A law unto themselves; The powers that be; The patience of Job " . And many more.   
If not proverbs, surely they must be Shakespeare?    No: all these phrases and dozens more were taken by the King James Version's translators  from Tyndale's Bible of 1534.  
According the linguist Professor David Crystal 257 idioms from the King James Bible have now entered the English language.   Throughout the New Testament where the language is direct,  simple and strong what it prints is pure Tyndale. Yet his name is never mentioned.  . 
The Archbishop of Canterbury has also underlined the value  the King James Bible.  His  message  is that this great book gave the people of 1611 and all subsequent generations  a framework within which they could understand their lives, a picture of what human beings are really like, a story to help us make sense of our lives, whether or not the reader is a Christian. 
The Authorised Version of King James has  been regarded as somewhat unfashionable for the last 20 years or so.  Too backward looking perhaps,  Tory toffish,  out of touch with the forces of today.     
But I was interested to note that most of the readings  at our Carol Service held here on 19[th] December, and chosen feely by the readers, came from that translation.    
The Authorised Version as a builder of community was what we needed in 1611, with a turbulent religious history over the previous 70 years. Today, as The Queen pointed out,           " from the scriptures in the Bible which bears his name, we know that nothing is more satisfying than the feeling of belonging to a group who are dedicated to helping each other"   
That seems to me the central message of this New Year  
I hope, then,  than among our new Year's Resolutions for 2011 we can all find room for some more reading and appreciation of the Authorised Version  and,  most important of all,  inspiration from it as we build our Christian community in this new Benefice.   Here are a couple quotations from the King James Version to start the ball rolling. 
In  The Queen's Christmas broadcast about creating that feeling of belonging :   From St. Matthew's gospel:    `Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should to do to you, do ye even so to them'. 
And from the prophet Isaiah:   " Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us ? Then said I  " here am I, send me. " 

Teach us good Lord to serve thee as thou deservest: to give and not to count the cost to fight and not to heed the wounds, to labour and to ask for no reward,  save that of knowing that we do thy will.






