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.

An eventful afternoon in the country

On Sunday afternoon we went out to watch the British National Cycle Road Racing Championship which was being held on a course around Ampleforth Abbey which is not far from us. It was a really good afternoon's racing and we got to see the race in three different places around the circuit.

I enjoy this race as you always get lots of the top professionals who usually race on the continent come back for it. This year there was a good turnout from the Sky team although unfortunately no Bradley Wiggins or Mark Cavendish who were both conserving their energy for the Tour de France which starts next Saturday. The race was won by Ian Stannard who is one of the Sky riders. He got in a breakaway with four other riders quite early on and then rode away from them about 30km from the finish to claim a well deserved solo win.

We had a bit of a disastrous end to the afternoon though when my wife fell on some uneven ground and ended up in hospital with a broken arm. She had to have surgery to repair the break with a plate and other bits of metal work so no doubt she will now set all the alarms off whenever we go through security at airports. Hopefully she will be coming home today, the bad news is that I'll have to do all the washing up for a while!

Sermon for the Birth of John the Baptist

On Wednesday we witnessed a wonderful event in our community as the Olympic Torch passed through our town. Huge crowds turned out to see the torch and the whole atmosphere was really electric with people cheering and applauding and it was one of those occasions that really brought the town together. And during the course of its journey around the UK there will be 8000 torchbearers taking it in turns to carry the Olympic flame. And what a proud experience that must be for all of them taking that flame to the people in their community.

So it seems particularly appropriate that today should be the day in the church’s calendar when we remember the birth of another great torchbearer, John the Baptist. In that wonderful reading from Isaiah John’s coming is foretold:

“ A voice cries out in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,

Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be lifted up,

And every mountain and hill be made low;

The uneven ground shall become level,

And the rough places a plain.

Then shall the glory of the Lord be revealed.”

The passage of the Olympic Torch through our town was a wonderful event but all of us know that the arrival of the torch was not the big event itself. The torch passed through our town as a herald telling us that something better is on its way. Because if we turned out to watch the passage of the Olympic torch and then took no interest in the Olympic games themselves we would be missing the point. It’s the games themselves that matters, the torch relay is merely part of the preparation for the games, it serves to get people ready for what is to come.

And that is exactly the function that John the Baptist was born to fulfill. If we worshipped John the Baptist we would be completely missing the point of his ministry. And that is exactly what happens to some of John’s disciples when in John 3 they go to him and say:

“the one who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you testified, here he is baptizing, and all are going to him”

The disciples are clearly a bit miffed that people are now following Jesus instead of John and John has to remind them of what his role is when he says:

“You yourselves are my witnesses that I said “I am not the Messiah” but I have been sent ahead of him.”

And earlier on John had said;

“One who is more powerful is coming after me, I am not worthy to carry his sandals.”

John knew that his role was to get people ready for the person that would come after him. Like an Olympic torchbearer he is a herald of something great that is going to happen soon. But John’s role is more than just to tell people about the event that is coming he encourages them to get ready for the event. Now imagine this situation. What if one of the Olympic torchbearers had stopped next to you the other day and starting asking you a lot of questions to see if you ready for the arrival of the games.

What if they had asked you if you bought a copy of Radio Times so that you could plan what you were going to watch, what if they asked you if you had enough beer and crisps in for the duration or if you were mentally and physically prepared for the rigours of watching the games, you would have found all that a bit odd really.

But that is exactly what John the Baptist as torchbearer for Jesus does. He tells people that the Messiah is coming and he challenges them as to what they are going to do to get ready for his arrival. He calls on people to repent and be baptized. Matthew’s Gospel tells us that John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea proclaiming:

“Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near ”

And John is not gentle with people. When some of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to him for baptism he says to them:

“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our ancestor” for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.”

John is warning that he is the torchbearer for a new and very different event. The things that people relied on in the past such as ancestry were no longer good enough. If they were going to be ready to meet the messiah they were going to have to make radical changes to their lives. And John’s message obviously had an effect on the people because Luke’s gospel tells us that they started to ask John what else they needed to do to prepare for the Messiah’s arrival.

And John gave them some practical advice. He said share what you have got with other people such as coats and food and deal honestly with others. He said to the tax collectors “collect no more than the amount prescribed for you. And he said to the soldiers don’t extort money from people with threats. In other words he was saying to people “put your lives in order so that you can be ready for the coming of the messiah.”

Another thing about torchbearers of course is that they bring light. The effect of that was rather lost on us last Wednesday because the Olympic torch came through Northallerton on a very sunny day. But if the torch had come through in the middle of the night with all the street lights turned off the effect would have been very different. The torch would have lit up the places and people it passed by, it would have brought light into the darkness. And as torchbearer John the Baptist not only brought light but he pointed the way to a much greater light.  We are reminded of this by the beautiful passage at the start of John’s Gospel:

“There was a man sent by God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light which enlightens everyone was coming into the world.”

John knew that his principle function in life was to point towards Jesus, to hold up his torch so that people could see the Son of God. John knew that the light from his own torch was puny compared to that great light that was coming into the world. A light that, as John’s gospel says, would be the light of all people and a light that would shine in the darkness and the darkness would not be able to overcome it. John was pointing to Jesus who would bring light and hope to the dark places of the world.

As the Olympic torch came along the high street on Wednesday there was a point at which the torchbearer stopped and then lit the torch of the next torchbearer who was   waiting there. And that process will be repeated for all the 8000 torchbearers who will carry the torch in the UK.

And what happened there on Northallerton’s High Street reminds us that the role of the torchbearer is an important but transitory one. A torch bearer only carries the torch for a short time and then they pass the torch on to someone else.  And there’s a wonderful example of this in John’s Gospel.  John the Baptist is standing with two of his disciples when Jesus walks by and he says to them,

          “Look here is the lamb of God”

And those two disciples then followed Jesus and one of them was Andrew and he went and found his brother Simon Peter and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” The process of handing on the torch had begun and you can imagine that John the Baptist rejoiced when his two disciples left him to follow Jesus because he knew that he was accomplishing the purpose for which he had been sent. And the torch has continued to be handed on down the generations since then. The apostles handed the torch on to the next generation and they handed it on to their successors. But the message has always been that same message that John proclaimed and that Andrew told to Simon Peter, “We have found the Messiah”

And that idea of the torch being passed on from one generation to another is very relevant for us today because we are now the torchbearers in that great tradition of John the Baptist, the apostles, the martyrs and the whole cloud of Christian Witness that has gone before us.

It is now our responsibility to take the torch to our generation. It is our responsibility to take light to those who live in darkness and to proclaim to people that we have found the messiah and his name is Jesus Christ and through him salvation has been opened up to the whole world. It is our responsibility as John the Baptist did to call people to repent and turn to Christ and be baptized. It is our responsibility to point to Christ and to prepare people to encounter him in their lives.

That is the torch that has been passed to us and it is a torch that we rejoice in taking up and carrying.

Cry God for Harry, England and Saint Alban!

Its always struck me as rather odd that in England we should have St George as our patron Saint. Quite why a Roman soldier born in Syria should be adopted as patron saint of England is rather puzzling. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the Christian martyr George does not deserve to be a saint, I just don't understand why he was chosen to be our special saint.

A seemingly much more deserving candidate would be St Alban who we commerorate today in the Church Calendar. Alban is widely regarded as the first British Christian martyr having been executed for his faith in the third century. Alban was a Romano- British pagan living in Verulamium (modern St Albans) and he met a fugitive priest and gave him shelter in his home. Alban was so taken by the priest's way of life and his commitment to his faith that, in time, he converted to Christianity. When the Roman soldiers came looking for the fugitive priest Alban disguised himself in the priest's cloak and was arrested and condemned to death.

I have a particular fondness for St Alban as it was at the cathedral where he is buried in St Albans that I first started to attend church regularly. St Albans cathedral is a strange hotchpotch of a building having been heavily, and not very sympathetically, restored by the Victorians having fallen into disrepair following the dissolution of the monasteries in the sixteenth century. It does however have a wonderful sense of holiness and peace about it which I am sure is not unconnected to the fact that it contains the shrine of Saint Alban.

Saint Alban may never have slain a dragon but I think he would make a very worthy patron saint for England. As Shakespeare should have said: "Cry God for Harry, England and St Alban."