Emerging from the Wilderness - My Tour de France Journey

I have been watching the Tour de France for 23 years now. I watched my first one in 1989 and I can vividly remember sitting in my lounge in Morecambe with my new born baby son James on my lap trying to make sense of the mindboggling  spectacle that was unfolding before my eyes. The rules seemed as incomprehensible as American Football and the commentators used lots of strange words such as peloton and domestique. But I was hooked, and I had picked a good year for my first experience of the Tour de France as the race was won by Greg Lemond by the smallest margin in Tour de France history, just eight seconds.

Ever since then I have watched the race religiously every year and have seen some fantastic races with the occasional dull one along the way. For most of those years I felt like Moses in the wilderness because for us Brits there were precious few British riders to support for most of that time.  I can even remember some years when there were no British riders in the race at all. British stage wins were as rare as hen’s teeth with Robert Millar’s win in the alps in those early years of my viewing being a particular highlight. The two British names that stick out from those years in the early nineties are Sean Yates and Max Sciandri and Sean’s day in the yellow jersey in 1994 was a rare oasis in a wilderness of disappointment.

1994 was the year that I saw my first Tour de France when it visited Britain for two days. It was very reassuring to see the hundreds of thousands of people who turned out to see the two British stages and to know that I wasn’t the only strange person who spent the evenings of the first three weeks in July every year glued to Channel 4’s coverage of the race. Even the French were taken by surprise by the turnout of British fans. Apparently as the race went up Ditchling Beacon outside Brighton (I was there!) through crowds that were ten deep on either side of the road, one of the French commentators was heard to say in wonder at the size of the crowd  to his audience back home, “This is not Alpe D’Huez this is England!”

Since 1994 I have been to the Tour De France many times, at the last count it was three starts and four finishes including the hundredth anniversary of the race. Two of the proudest moments of my life have been riding up the Champs Elysees the day before the Tour de France finished there which I did in 2008 and 2010 at the end of the Christian Aid London to Paris rides. The race is an exciting and colourful spectacle and it gives you a good excuse to spend summer weekends in Paris so what could be better!

The great thing is that after those many wilderness years that I endured in the early days of my Tour de France viewing things did start to slowly get better. First Chris Boardman came along and won some time trials and then later on we had David Millar getting some wins.  And then about five year ago things changed dramatically when Mark Cavendish burst on the scene and started winning shed loads of stages.  At last we had a true British star to cheer and it was fantastic to be at the side of the road in Paris in 2010 when Mark thundered to victory on the Champs Elysees.

 But the idea of a British winner of the Tour de France still seemed as unlikely as me being made Archbishop of Canterbury (I don’t want that gig by the way!). Then in 2009 a strange thing happened. Bradley Wiggins suddenly discovered that he could match the best riders on the mountain stages and came fourth overall in that year’s race. The idea of him winning still seemed unbelievable though but over the last three years he has got better and better and this year he won the three biggest one week stages races in the build up to the Tour. At last I dared to dream that it might happen and I have been on the edge of my seat and my nerves have been ragged throughout the last three weeks. When Brad crossed the finish line in Paris on Sunday in the yellow jersey there were tears of joy in my eyes because something that I never dreamed that I would see in my lifetime had happened.

And one of the lovely things about this year’s race is how enthused my congregations have become about the Tour. I preached about the Tour at the start of the race and many of my parishioners have become avid followers of it. And I was particularly touched when one of them rang me up just after the finish to share the moment with me.

I hope that this year was the start of great things for British riders in the Tour de France. But in a way I don’t care if I never see a another British stage win or British winner in the race because I feel that I have finally emerged from the wilderness and reached the promised land, and it is a very good place to be!

Sunday Sermon: The Gospel according to the Tour de France

I am sure that some of you will remember a corny song by Wink Martindale that was popular in the late fifties called Deck of Cards. The song is set during the Second World War and it tells the story of a group of soldiers attending a church service. While Scripture is being read in the church one soldier takes out a deck of cards and spreads them out in front of him. He is immediately spotted by a sergeant and arrested and charged with playing cards in church. 

At his trial he is asked to explain why he was playing cards in church and he tells the judge that he had no prayerbook or bible, all he had was the deck of cards but each card in the deck had a Christian meaning for him. For example when he saw the Ace he was reminded that there is only one God, and when he saw the two he was reminded that the bible is split into two parts the Old Testament and the New Testament and when he saw the three he was reminded of the Holy Trinity, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. And so he goes on explaining what the whole deck of cards means to him. He finishes by telling the judge that his deck of cards served him as his prayerbook, his almanac and his bible.

And I have a symbol that has a similar effect on me which is the leaders jersey from the Tour de France bike race which is taking place at the moment.. The Tour de France lasts three weeks and it is the greatest bike race in the world. I have been watching it now for 23 years and it’s a bit like American football in that when you first start to watch it you haven’t got a clue what’s going on half the time. But after a few years you start to understand it and come to see that it is one of the greatest dramas and spectacles that take place in the sporting world. 

And one thing that has struck me over the years is how much Christian imagery and symbolism you can find within the race. As I watch the race I often think of events and situations from the Bible, it is my deck of cards. Let me share some of those thoughts with you.

There are twenty teams in the tour and each team comprises nine riders. Each team leader chooses his team and they are like his disciples. He will choose team members for their different talents and abilities and those team mates will embody qualities that we associate with Christ. 

As Christ always sought to do the will of the Father so the team members will seek to do the will of the team leader.  And they adopt the role of the self sacrificial servant. For those three weeks they put aside their personal ambition to serve the team leader. They will fetch drinks for him from the team car, if he has a puncture they will give him their wheel or even their bike, they will encircle him in the main group of the race to protect him. They will shield him from headwinds and they will act as his pacemaker to keep him at the front of the race until they are exhausted and have to drop back. They are the model for Christian servanthood, they work tirelessly for the team leader emptying themselves in the process. But sometimes the roles will be reversed, sometimes the leader will serve his teammates, perhaps helping a team mate who has a chance of winning a stage. When that happens it always reminds me of Jesus tying a towel around his waist and washing his disciples’ feet.

And there will be much suffering along the way. During the three week race the riders will cover on average around 130 miles a day at an average speed of 25-30mph. They will climb mountains on their bikes that you probably wouldn’t attempt going up in a car. They will keep going whatever the weather, in torrential rain or blistering heat. Injury very rarely stops them as well. A few years ago an American rider called Tyler Hamilton crashed early on in a stage. He rode on another 100 miles to the finish in terrible pain because unbeknown to him he had broken his collar bone. By the end of the stage he had been in such pain that he had ground down a number of his teeth.

As in the Gospels a number of the significant events of the Tour de France will take place on the mountains. The mountains are where the Tour de France is won and lost, if you don’t perform well in the mountains you will never win the race.  They go over mountain pass after mountain pass in the Alps and Pyrenees, 23 in all with the highest measuring 2645 metres. 

 I wonder whether on those horrendous climbs any of the riders ever think of the words of the Psalmist in Psalm 121 

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, from where will my help come?”

 And when I see those mountain stages I am always reminded of those words from Isaiah 52 

 “How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news. Who announces peace And brings good news of happiness, Who announces salvation, And says to Zion, "Your God reigns!"

And I am also reminded of how many of the significant events of Jesus’ life took place on hills and mountains.  I am reminded of the Sermon on the Mount, of the Transfiguration of our Lord and how Jesus took his disciples up on a mountain before he ascended to the father and said to them 

“Remember I am with you always, to the end of the age.

And sometimes during the Tour de France’ history there have been even starker reminders of important events from Jesus’ life that took place on hillsides. In 1967 the British rider Tom Simpson died of heat exhaustion on the slopes of Mont Ventoux during a stage of the Tour. Mont Ventoux is in the Pyrenees and the upper slopes of that hill are stark and stripped of vegetation. In the summer it gets very hot up there and it was there Tom Simpson died. A young man suffering and then dying on a hillside, does that remind you of anyone?

As Jesus faced a time of trial of his own so the riders in the Tour de France will also face their time of trial. Three times during the Tour the riders have to complete an individual time trial against the clock. There is no hiding place on the individual time trial, any weakness that you have will be exposed, you are on your own!

But ultimately of course any race is about victory. The ultimate goal for all the team leaders in the Tour de France is to pull on the winners yellow journey on the podium in Paris at the end of the race. Then you are victorious, then you have vanquished your foes. The winner will receive a cheque for €450,000 but here’s the strange bit, he won’t keep a single euro of that money for himself but will give it all to his team mates. In his moment of victory he will keep nothing back but will give everything he has won to those who have been with him during the race, his victory is shared by all of them. And that definitely makes me think of Christ.  

On the cross Jesus achieves his victory and vanquishes his foes. In his hour of victory he defeats sin, the devil and even death itself. On the cross Jesus holds nothing back, his generosity is such that he endures ridicule, shame, suffering and death for us. And like the winner of the Tour de France does, Jesus shares the spoils of his victory with his followers. The prize he wins he does not keep for himself but instead he wins the prize specifically so that he can share it with us. The prize is reconciliation with the Father, the prize is the forgiveness of sins, the prize is eternal life. It is a prize that Jesus shares not just with small group of disciples who were with him on his journey, he shares it with the whole world, with anyone who believes in him and acknowledges him as their saviour. Unlike the Tour de France winners teammates we have not earned our share in the winners glory through our own efforts, Our share in Christ’s glory is freely given to us by the love and grace of God.

Disciples, servanthood, suffering, drama and death on mountainsides, times of testing, the Tour de France has them all. And as I watch the Tour de France over the next few weeks I know that I will be reminded of important elements of my faith just like the soldier with his deck of cards was. And what this tells us is that we can find God in the ordinary. We don’t have to be in a church gazing at beautiful stained glass windows to find Christian imagery and symbolism. It is all around us in the everyday things of our lives and our world. We can find reminders of our faith in the people we meet, the places we go, the buildings that we enter and yes, even in a bike race.  And that ability to find God in the ordinary is the proof of what Jesus said to his disciples

“Remember I am with you always. To the end of the age.”

Deanery Confirmation

We had a lovely evening at church the Sunday before last when we hosted a confirmation service for eighteen candidates from our deanery including three from our church. The service was led by the Archbishop of York who, as ever, was on good form and made the service really special for the candidates.

The church was packed and it was really nice to have so many people come along to see the candidates make their personal commitment to Christ.