Welcome to St Swithins Church

By The Rev Matt earwicker

Villages - August 2025

A couple of weeks ago my father-in-law asked if we could help him remove some weeds from his front garden. This was planted as a rose garden a few years ago, but the intentionally planted roses were overrun by wild roses, brambles and other weeds.

Of course, we agreed to help, and looking at it, I thought a couple of hours should be enough; there were just lots of little plants scattered around, and if all 7 of us helped out, they would be gone in no time. So one morning at about 8, before it got too hot for working (it was up to 35C in Austria while we there), I thought I’d make a head start and see how far I could get. I was keen to show myself (and others) how good a job I could do.

Those of you who have more experience of gardening than I do can probably guess what happened. An hour later, I had barely cleared 6 square feet, if that. The plants might have been only inches high, but their root systems went down so far that I needed to dig twice a spade’s depth to get even remotely near the bottom. On top of that, they were so intertwined with each other that I quickly came to realise that I couldn’t deal with one plant at a time, but rather had to work on a very large area at the same time. Working together as a family for a couple of hours, we did man-age to get a lot more cleared, but there was still plenty to be done when we left, and my father-in-law was talking about using a rotavator to help him with the job.

Had we been more proactive when those plants first showed up years ago, it would still have been a lot of work (as it is trying to keep on top of the bindweed and net-tles in our own garden), but it would have been much more manageable.

Tackling those roots made me think about how easy it is to let things get out of hand in our own lives and relationships. A bad habit, which just requires a little dis-cipline to deal with in its early days can become something that requires serious work or lots of expense later. A thoughtless word or action that could be resolved with an apology if left untouched can drive families apart. And failure to deal with the issues facing us as a society will only get worse over time, not easier.

In his letter to the Christians in Ephesus, the apostle Paul writes, “Be angry, but in your anger do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.” There is nothing wrong with getting cross when something is wrong or unjust, what matters is what we do about it. Paul’s advice is not to go over the top (“in your anger do not sin”), but also not to just let it go. “Do not let the sun go down on your anger” doesn’t mean you have to sort everything out then and there: I am not always good at hav-ing a gentle, rational conversation when I am tired. It does mean that you choose to make peace with each other until you are both in a position to talk about it sensibly and kindly.

We would do well to follow Paul’s advice, both in our own habits and in our rela-tionships with others, before we end up with a tangled mess of deep roots which are beyond our powers to clear. But if you have ended up in such a mess, please ask God and other people for help: it really is true that “a burden shared is a burden halved.”

Good morning all,

September then is always a month of change, and because of this it can be unsettling. We reflect on or maybe grieve for that which is drawing to a close, and can feel a mixture of anticipation about what is new or next. It is likely that we feel this even more acutely this September, living in a world which feels increasingly insecure from the perspective of fast-changing global politics and conflicts around the world that show no sign of abating. All is changing; all feels very fragile and deeply uncertain.

One of this country’s much-loved hymns is ‘Abide with Me’, famous for being sung at every FA Cup Final since 1927. The words are based on Luke 24: 29 and were written by the Reverend Henry Francis Lyte, with one of the stories about this suggesting that he wrote them in September 1847 – just after he had conducted his final church service and when very ill with tuberculosis. He died two months later.

Putting aside questions of when Lyte wrote these words, the fact remains that they capture the constancy of God’s presence and love, even as the seasons change, our lives change, our world changes; in life and in death:

Change and decay in all around I see
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

This then is a beautiful reminder that even though we, and indeed our world, pass through times of change and can feel unsettled as a result, God goes with us. God in Christ abides with us, his presence and love unchanging in our ever-changing world:

“Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.” And He went in to stay with them. (Luke 24: 29)

Bishop Stephen