This week's news 

'Sunshine on Leith' is a song that was written and sung by Scottish twin brothers Craig and Charlie Reid, who perform under the name The Proclaimers. The song has become an anthem in the East Lothian region of their native Scotland. Sunshine on Leith is also the title of a stage musical that uses the twins’ songs and which has now been made into a film directed by Dexter Fletcher. The film, released on 4 October, is expected to be a hit, but it could hardly be less like Mama Mia, another very successful ‘juke-box’ musical. Where Mama Mia is relentlessly upbeat, musicals like Les Miserables and Sunshine on Leith have a darkness that reflects more closely the ups and downs of life. 

Guarding one’s treasure for the benefit of a future generation can be an expensive business. A museum in East Anglia needs to raise £60,000 to enable treasures found locally to remain in the area. Guarding treasure for future generations is not just about keeping them physically safe. There may also be an element of education and explanation which is what lies behind the provision of a new visitor centre for Stonehenge.

Heir Hunters is a daytime TV programme which follows the work of people searching for relatives in cases where someone has died without leaving a will. The title of the programme is also the name of the association that covers probate researchers. While many people leave wills, many more do not and if heirs cannot be found, the deceased’s estate goes to the Treasury – many millions of pounds each year.

Light pollution means that only few people of those who live in predominantly urban countries are able to see more than a handful of stars at night. The smudge of light that is the Milky Way will have been unseen by generations of people growing up in most parts of the UK. Britain’s only Dark Sky Park is now threatened by the installation of wind turbines nearby. These would bring with them the lighting necessary for safe-working, which will contaminate the night sky.

Reflection

What is our treasure? Our first thought is probably financial or material – the money and things that we have and which, when we’ve gone from this place, will be passed on to whomsoever we choose. Probate researchers – or heir hunters, to give them their Indiana Jones-esque new name – certainly see a person’s ‘treasure’ in this literal way. However, we can reflect that our ‘treasure’ could be the stars that we might not be able to see, or the ancient monuments that could be lost to foreign museums or simply overlooked and forgotten.

Missionary organisations recruit people from many different professions and one might now almost feel that preachers are the last people that are needed in a developing country. The Baptist Missionary Society, BMS World Mission, is working in partnership with the Uganda Christian Lawyers Fraternity in order to help farmers deal with issues relating to land ownership. In the West, we can become guilt-ridden by the story of the young man whom Jesus told to sell everything he had, but owning land might be the only way in which a Ugandan family can feed itself.

One of the Proclaimer's songs is 'Letter from America', which has its roots in the enforced emigration of many people from the Scottish highlands in the 18th and 19th centuries. Some of these crossed the Atlantic to seek their fortune in the North American colonies. The letters that Paul wrote to churches and individuals around the eastern end of the Roman Empire often have that same sense of longing for a reunion that may or not happen. Jesus didn’t promise his followers a life of consistent ease – the opposite is nearer the truth. To the best of our knowledge, few of the apostles of the first century Church died in their beds, but then they didn’t die wondering what would happen if they followed Jesus. 

Prayer

Our God, 

we give you thanks for the treasure 

that you given to us to keep safe. 

We may be unsure concerning the precise nature of our treasure. 

Help us to discern what it is and 

how we should use it while it is ours. 

Help us to know how we should pass on 

what we hold as stewards. 

We thank you for the trust that you have out in us.

Our God, 

we pray for those who are heirs of nothing: 

for those whose parents have been unable 

to provide for their children. 

We pray for those parents 

who have passed on genetic abnormalities to their children 

and for those who struggle to know 

whether the risk of passing on such conditions 

is one that is too big to take.

We pray for those people who were victims of abuse as children 

and who now find that they are themselves abusers.

Our God, 

we give you thanks for the gift of your Spirit 

that you have given to us 

and pray that we will respond to your call 

to fan this gift into flame 

and not let it die within us or within our church. 

Amen.

Questions

Our lectionary passage from 2 Timothy has the imperative, ‘Guard the good treasure entrusted to you’. What is the treasure that you have to pass on: as a church and as an individual?

• Is your treasure material or is it something else?
• You may be unfamiliar with the music of The Proclaimers. Are there popular songs whose words are more meaningful to you or your congregation?

Action

You could use the first two questions above in the setting of a discussion group and ask what is the one thing that you value most that you have received from a former generation and what do you think would be the one thing that a subsequent generation would most value having been left to them by you. These questions could work just as well for individuals as they do for the congregation as a whole.

Young People

Try and create your own playlist for a jukebox musical for a Bible story. For example, for the story of Noah’s Ark you could use:

'Here comes the rain again' The Eurhythmics

'It’s the end of the world as we know it' REM

'Always look on the bright side of life' Monty Python

'It takes two'  Marvin Gaye

'In the navy' Village People

'Who let the dogs out?' The Baha Men 

'I can clearly now' Johnny Nash

'Always something there to remind me' Dusty Springfield

Simon Carver is a Baptist Minister in St Albans and takes a particular interest in film.

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