Remember, remember the 5th November. Gunpowder, Treason and Plot
When I was little, Bonfire night was a big deal. At school, in the days and weeks leading up to it, there would be quite the build up with lessons about Guy Fawkes and his attempt to blow up parliament. We’d watch the bonfires going up around the neighbourhood. Any spare greenfield would have one. Older kids would come door to door carrying “The Guy” -a kind of effigy made out of stuffed old clothes asking for a “penny for the guy.” The idea was that this would pay for fireworks. They would get a firm “no” from my mum, who saw this as a glorified form of begging. Basically mum’s take was that any kind of door knocking, whether for the Guy or Trick or Treat pre December was unacceptable. Come December and carol singers were welcomed with gifts of sweets, providing they could manage more than a verse of Away In A Manger.
Bonfire night itself was a big deal. We would visit the various bonfires, the fireworks, have a go with sparklers and enjoy delicious treats like parkin pig and toffee apples. As we got older, dad would also buy fireworks and we’d have our own mini-display at home.
I’m not sure that Bonfire night is quite the same big deal now. There are a few reasons for that. First, health and safety laws have meant that formal displays take precedence over local events, many of the greenspaces where bonfires happened have been built over, the event seemed to morph into Fireworks Night and then that got extended to Fireworks season. Finally, it seems that Halloween gradually took over as the big event.
I also suspect that Bonfire Night’s appeal has struggled because we’ve become less and less certain about what it is we are remembering and whether it’s a celebration. Are we remembering the day when a Catholic insurrection was suppressed with the execution of the plotters? If so, that sounds rather sectarian and a throw back to days of religious intolerance and injustice.
If we are celebrating the survival of the King in the face of the plot, then that seems to miss the point that it wasn’t long before a more successful revolt against the king’s son would happen. On that occasion Parliament sided against the King. Students of history will recognise that many of the problems which led to the Civil War were in fact incubated under King James. We may also wonder at times, both when we look at the history of that period and we trace the longer term consequences right up to the present time whether or not Parliament were the good guys in all of this.
As it happens, I think there are good things to commemorate. No, we are not celebrating the simplistic victory of democracy as seemed to be suggested in our primary school lessons, things are more complex than that. However, November 5th plays a part in the story of England’s Reformation and the evolution of a constitution towards democracy. If the plotters had succeeded then it would have been a setback for those good things.
However, my point here is that it is hard to celebrate, commemorate and remember when we are uncertain about what exactly it is that we are remembering. Whatever your views of November 5th, Christians have a true and better remembrance. When we gather each Sunday, especially when we share The Lord’s Supper together, we do so to remember Jesus’ death on our behalf and with it the defeat of evil, sin, Satan and Death. We can be clear about what we are remembering and know that it is a good thing.
Faithroots 