Thought for the Day

14 JULY 26

Good morning.
Like millions of others, I stayed up late on Saturday, watching the England men’s team play Norway. It’s actually the first live game I’ve watched this World Cup, and not just because time differences make for very late finishes. What attracted me was that I would be watching it in a crowded bar alongside several hundred of the Church of England’s most committed members, bishops, vicars and lay people, gathered in York for the summer meeting of the General Synod. From the moment we roared out “God save the King”, with a raucous enthusiasm sufficient to send any self respecting choir leader running for cover, to the joyful air punching which greeted the final whistle, we were bound together in a common cause.
Watching the match in York with my colleagues brought home to me that neither following Jesus nor following the England team are things I’m satisfied doing on my own. My faith is far more than a combination of private beliefs and personal moral practices. Yesterday morning, along with most of my fellow Synod members, or at least those of us who had recovered from the match, I attended the main Sunday Service in York Minster. The hymns we sang differed somewhat from the chants I hear on a Saturday afternoon, as a season ticket holder at Salford City’s home fixtures, but both are an expression of a shared commitment and belonging. So, whilst there are plenty of churches whose services I could follow on line, some of them with Premier League quality preachers, the moment Covid restrictions were lifted, I was straight back in church. I need to be worshipping God as part of a congregation gathered physically together. That’s where I belong.
But gathering in church is not the end of the matter. The final prayers of the Church of England Holy Communion Service often include the plea, “Send us out in the power of your Spirit, to live and work to your praise and glory”. It’s a powerful commissioning, one that underpins how Christian faith breaks out beyond the church doors, equipping us to serve both our communities and the whole creation. It’s a reminder too that we are not simply sent on private missions, but to work together, tackling the inequalities and injustices so visible in the world around us. That, for me, is a faith worth belonging to. A faith that needs to gather together.
By Wednesday’s semi-final, Synod will be over. I’ll be with another of my tribes, in Parliament. And with all due respect to the other home nations, who are no longer contenders for the cup, I think Britain will be better governed if the palace authorities can match York University and find us a big screen, so we too can watch the game together.

11 JULY 26

Good Morning.
The Government recently published its draft Bill to ban abusive conversion practices that aim to change someone sexual orientation or trans gender identity. Parliament will debate the detail, as it should. Laws matter. They define the standards by which we choose to live together and, at their best, they protect those who have too often been left vulnerable.
Just a few days later, I found myself walking through central London at Pride as one of the Co-Leads of the Movement for Progressive Judaism. It was the first time our new Movement had marched together, and the first visible Jewish presence in the parade since the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023.
The new law and Pride belong together. One asks what a society will protect, the other asks what kind of society we hope to become.
After the parade, someone sent me a message. They wrote that, growing up as a gay Jew, they could never have imagined their rabbis marching at Pride. They said seeing rabbis there would make it easier for people to believe they don’t have to choose between their faith and who they are.
I’ve carried those words with me all week.
As a student at rabbinic college, I had the privilege of being taught by Rabbi Lionel Blue, whose warm, wise voice became so familiar to generations of Radio 4 listeners through Thought for the Day. He was the first openly gay British rabbi. Long before inclusion became part of our public vocabulary, Lionel simply lived his life with humour, honesty and deep faith. In doing so, he quietly expanded people’s imagination of who could speak with religious authority.
Perhaps that is how change really happens.
Laws matter because they protect people from harm. They draw a line around what a society will no longer tolerate. But communities have a different responsibility.
The law tells us what is unacceptable.
Communities show us what is possible.
The Torah repeatedly tells us to “walk” in God’s ways. Faith is not simply about believing the right things. It is about choosing where we stand and alongside whom we walk.
That may be why Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, after marching for civil rights alongside Martin Luther King, that he felt as though he was “praying with my feet.”
Sometimes our feet say something our words cannot.
Perhaps somewhere on the streets of London last Saturday, someone looked up and saw something they had never imagined before: rabbis walking at Pride, openly and joyfully.
If so, then perhaps they also caught a glimpse of something else.
That while the law can protect us from harm, a community, at its best, can help us imagine a future in which we truly belong.

09 JULY 26