Stir Up Sunday – Aspirational Adventures

I was challenged by a friend about my origins of Stir Up Sunday from yesterday’s post. This is what comes, on my part, from going with tradition and hearsay rather than doing a bit of research myself. It wasn’t like I didn’t have the time as we still hiding inside from Storm Bert – which even though it sounds like a benign uncle caused a lot of damage and flooding across Wales. Even in our park the wind had pushed over 3 little fir trees which a friend and I helped to become upright again this morning.

Anyway it turns out the Stir Up Sunday originated from the 1549 Book of Common Prayer Collect for that day

Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

But by the mid eighteenth century this Sunday had become the traditional Sunday for families to make their Christmas puds. Tradition states that all the family got together to do this. A real family affair before getting caught up with the busyness of Advent. It was also where the adults taught the children their family’s traditional Christmas pudding recipe. As with all things each family always puts their own twist on things.

I think this is a lovely mixture of being Jesus and family together. Too often in the Church we can almost separate families or at least family life. We come together to look at a person at the front tell us how we are meant to be with Jesus/God and often the children are whisk away to Sunday schools, along with the adults who will run those groups, and there is a separation between family tradition and hanging out with God.

So even though this might look like another thing that could be seen as secularisation I do wonder if it was more about keeping family connected and also keeping God in the centre of the family. I wonder if there was chat about that day’s sermon, or whether that gave family members, old and young, a chance to ask those awkward questions. I know my kids used to ask all sorts when either we were in the car [no eye contact] or cooking together. I ran a youth group where we used to play lego or do craft things and the subjects those young people were questioning and questioning where God fitted into them was amazing.

Sad statistic –

In a 2013 survey, two-thirds of British children reported that they had never experienced stirring Christmas pudding mix

So I do wonder if Stir Up Sunday, with the stirring of the puddings was a great way of “bringing forth the fruit of good works” and learning about what a life with Christ as King looks like for the whole family? And I wonder what we could put in now to replace that?

Furthering The Kingdom

We went out in the snow and then the following day in Storm Bert and this is the little dog afterwards wrapped in his drying robe! Neither picture has anything to do with the blog content 🙂

Today is Christ The King Sunday. I know this because my mum sends me her zoom links for her early morning church service, which I then forget to click on to but I still read the liturgy!

I love on the Sunday that many denominations acknowledge Christ as King it is also Stir up Sunday. No this isn’t a day for stirring up the congregations to become more Christ-like, to put Christ more in the centre of their lives, to give them a poke to get them out of their comfort zones. No! Stir Up Sunday was the day when all the women of the parish would stir up their Christmas puddings to get the alcohol evenly distributed so the puddings would taste great for Christmas day!

Fascinating that they are on the same Sunday!!!

But it got me thinking about a question that came up on the study we were doing with the youth group. The study had been about the Book of Revelations and the question was “what could you do to help make God’s kingdom come?”

Some of the answers were – giving toys to HomeStart charity, being kind to school friends, saying thank you, or for myself, writing.

It got me thinking about how we should be using our gifts and talents because I still think that it isn’t what we do but how we are that makes God’s kingdom come and I think that comes about when we know our talents, our strengths, our weaknesses, and take our areas of healing to God so they can heal us.

So even if we are being all out evangelical and preaching Jesus to people if we are not doing it from a healed, safe place but doing it because we ought to, or are fearful of what will happen to them if they don’t meet with Jesus, then people won’t notice. Great though it is giving toys to those children who don’t have enough if we do it with resentment or even with hoping we look good then we aren’t doing it with the right spirit, with the right energy.

I believe it is all about the energy that comes from us.

In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul says that if we do things without love we are like a clanging bell, an out of tune bell. In terms I understand I would say he is saying that if we do things with the wrong energy, with the “trying to look good” energy, with the “still hurting inside” energy, with the “needing to be needed” energy, then we are like an clanging empty out of tune bell. We hit the wrong note with others.

So I think whether today we are stirring puddings, trying to bring forward God’s kingdom, acknowledging Christ as king, or like one friend has just shared on FB, speaking gratitude over her battered kitchen, if we do it with the wrong energy then it will be clanging, but if we do those things and even the most benign things with the energy of love and acceptance things will change.