So what should be a Christian view towards the strangers and those who come into our midst? Have we something positive to add to this debate? In the Old Testament we get some commands from God himself who in my understanding should not be messed with! In Leviticus 19 it says that we should treat the foreigner as if they were a native born Israelite, and love them as we love ourselves.  It also says in Deuteronomy, “you shall love the stranger for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” And in the New Testament St Paul in Romans speaks about extending “hospitality to strangers”. And of course, Jesus, as well as many other Biblical heroes, was a refugee, displaced and living in exile.

I wouldn’t want to be a politician, what a nightmare job, but it does seem clear to me that treating immigration with a hardened heart, indifference and resentment is not the way forward. There does needs to be fairness for all, and understanding that is peppered with a great deal more compassion.

The rhetoric such as ‘let’s get tough…’ and a hardened attitude I feel is motivated out of fear. For when we are fearful, walls go up, our lives shrink in every way and we become less open to those around us. Someone said that “fear is the darkroom where Satan develops our negatives” and the media feeds our fears until there is no room left to welcome the stranger. St John reminds us in his letter it is that perfect love that casts out fear. We live by a different attitude.

So Christians have a prophetic voice, a different message to what we are reading in our newspapers. A message that is based on fairness and compassion but also honours the stranger among us. I wonder what honouring the stranger would look like in our churches and communities?

Not that we have got it sorted here at Scargill, far from it, we are a work in progress. Our Community Promises say, that with the help of God, and with the guidance and encouragement from one another we will try our very best “to welcome the stranger as we would welcome Jesus himself, putting their needs before ours and treating each one as a royal guest.” It is deeply challenging!

St Paul puts it succinctly again in Romans – “Welcome one another, then, just as Christ welcomed you, for the glory of God”. Christians are working from a different script from the loud, fearful rhetoric that we often hear around us.

At the time we were pumping water from our spring, which runs close to the river, and this swept into our water supply making it undrinkable. We had brown water with bits in – not nice. And, of course, we then had the challenge of having no drinking water for 70 people. It made me realise just how dependent we are on water, this life giving stuff, and we soon found ourselves down in Skipton buying out all the 5 litre bottles of water. We got through 40 of these in one day. We take clean water for granted but, of course, for many in our world it is not so easily available.

On the Wateraid website it says that “every minute, every day, people suffer and lives are lost needlessly because of a lack of safe water and sanitation. This daily reality is for 748 million people.”

One of the things we did at Scargill during our Summerfest programme last year, which was great fun, was to raise money to twin our toilets to provide safe and clean loos across the world (see www.toilettwinning.org).

One of our pathway promises is about speaking out for those without a voice ‘ will you speak up bravely for people who are rarely heard, helping our heavenly Father to fulfil his dream of seeing the hungry fed, the sick looked after the naked clothed and victims of injustice release from their chains.’

This week made me think that perhaps there is more we can do to help our brothers and sisters across the world. Wouldn’t it be good if we all twinned our toilets? It only costs £60 and it would make a real difference.

Back to our water. The Estate Team worked hard pumping out our reservoir – cleaning it out. Today our water is running nice and clean, and tomorrow we will be able to start drinking it again.

We love our Estate Team, and we also love our spring water – and we are grateful to God for it.

When I was thinking about all this, I was reminded of Jesus’ words from Matthew 10 v 42 ’And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.’

Not a bad incentive!

In the Scargill Community we learn about the liberating and humbling nature of forgiveness. There’s nothing more humbling than being forgiven when my weaknessess and failings are brought into the light of this grace. Community would become a very narrow place if there was no forgiveness. Our rule of life speaks of keeping our relationships open, honest and loving; a tough call, yet liberating.

Professor Jonathan Sacks, once the Chief Rabbi, says we need forgiveness as it ‘helps us sustain relationships, build marriages that last, stay close to our children and faithful to our friends. We say things that hurt and do things that harm. So do others to us. The mere fact that we can apologise and be forgiven is one of the blessed gifts of humanity, and it isn’t simple at all. It is underwritten by a certain view of the universe, the belief that God forgives’.

This last week we have been confronted with atrocities in the US, unresolved and (understandable) resentments over Mrs Thatcher’s life and death, and the ongoing relational struggles that go on in our churches and communities. A lot to process, a lot to struggle with – with God, ourselves and others as we dare to climb the ladder of forgiveness, even if we’ve only reached the first rung.

Forgiveness is not an optional extra, it is a process that brings healing to communities and ultimately to ourselves. If we want a future, then an attitude of forgiveness will be working its way into our hearts.

Loving Jesus give us your mercy and grace!

We have just finished our Palm Sunday service here in the Chapel at Scargill. Many a sermon has been given on this significant day in Jesus’ life. What struck me afresh is the adulation that welcomed Jesus from the crowd as he entered Jerusalem, and then in a few days time the same crowd will be shouting insults and wanting him dead. The crowd move from blessing to cursing with unnerving ease. Henri Nouwen says that to bless is to simply says good things about another. How crucial this is as we live in a world that gives out curses so liberally. If we bless one another our understanding of who we are in God grows and deepens. Curses destroy, blessings give life.

How important it is to bless, never more so than in Community which is full of relational challenges! There is nothing like living and working together to realise the need to bless when at times there is a deep desire to curse. Our community promises speak about building community for which we will need to be ‘consistently, transparently, constructively, unsentimentally loving’. People making their promises say, “We can learn and improve in our efforts to strengthen the bonds of love in this community. Sometimes we will get very cross with people and find it difficult to love them. Sometimes they will feel the same about us. We will not say anything about others that we would not say to them directly if love and wisdom required it. With God’s help, and with encouragement and guidance from the brothers and sisters who share this pathway, we promise to try our very best to follow the example of Jesus.”

As we begin to understand that we are called ‘beloved’, what a joy it is to enable others to find that truth for themselves. Henri Nouwen goes on to say that there are many ways that we can bless people:

“Therefore we have to be reminded of our belovedness and remind others of theirs. Whether the blessing is given in words or with gestures, in a solemn or an informal way, our lives need to be blessed lives.”

So may Jesus Christ richly bless you as you journey with him this Holy Week.

The other week Di and I attended a dialogue between people who represent the old monastic way of life and those who represent the new monastic way of life. It was wonderful to hear from the old monastics and I would say they are very gracious to us who are thinking in a new monastic way. They have made a huge lifelong commitment to a particular way of life whereas those of us exploring a new kind of monasticism are, tongue in cheek, just playing with it really. That said there is a lot of value in taking on board the wonderful truths and lifestyles of old monasticism and reincorporating them into patterns of living today. For instance at Scargill we have a shared ethos, a daily rhythm of prayer and a rule of life, similar to that of old monastic movements, which we call our Pathway. This rule is essential to shaping our life together and links us with many people who become Scargill Companions who follow the same Pathway wherever they may be living. Real hospitality, a key cornerstone of traditional monasticism, is also central to our life together, believing that Christ is in all that come through our doors, treating each one as a royal guest.

I would say that at Scargill we are growing into becoming a new kind of monastic community. For many people labels such as ‘New Monasticism’ are unhelpful, or only have a limited application. Some find these terms useful in order to group together resources and connect new communities while others don’t, finding them limiting or insufficient. Whatever you call it there seems to be a growing momentum in small communities across the world to reincorporate traditional practices of shared living and hospitality in everyday life. One of the things about this kind of lifestyle that young people are particularly drawn to is the sense of authenticity, the opportunity to find an authentic way of expressing their love – their love for Christ. They’re looking for something, for a discipleship that is real and that really does affect their lives. They are looking for a discipleship that goes alongside mission. Really wrestling with Christ’s word, taking Christ seriously in our lives as the one who wants to make his home in our hearts. What does it really mean if Jesus takes home in our hearts? Wow! Incredible, right? That would be really transformative – that would reshape us in a way that is probably beyond our imagination.

Keep watching this space for more updates posted every Sunday.