Category Archives: Christian discipleship

GLORIOUS THINGS SPOKEN

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GLORIOUS THINGS OF THEE ARE SPOKEN, O Lord our God; not least this week in St Peter’s Square in Rome, and in the Cathedral Church of Christ in Canterbury. Pour out most abundant blessing, we pray, upon your bishops Francis and Justin. Grant hope to each, that they may walk humbly with all your children, women and men, of every nation and faith tradition, in faith and in love.

Interviewed by the BBC on Tuesday, after the glorious Inauguration service in sunlit Rome, Professor Eamon Duffy said, “I’m not optimistic. But I am hopeful”. Interviewed today after the glorious Inauguration service in Canterbury, Canon Giles Fraser said, “I’m not optimistic. But I do have hope. And hope’s a good theological word”. Prophetic men, I think.

Pope Francis and Archbishop Justin alike have called the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth, our Christ, to care for one another and to care, sacrificially and unafraid, for all our sisters and brothers in all creation.

Both bishops have called upon humankind to place its trust in God. And it’s the heart of God, the Anointed and anointing Fount and Source, and Mother and Father of all life, where any of us may best place our hope, for in the heart of God all the redeemed creation will dwell in love and mercy and peace. The lion shall down with the lamb. God redeems. God shows creation redemption, “the way home to ourselves”.

And that hope and faith and love in human hearts all around the world begins in this moment. This moment.

This morning I was delighted to preach on the “I AM” sayings of Jesus in our local Bramhall Methodist Church. The I AM we see in Jesus is the same I AM who brought hope and vision to the great leader Moses. I am Simon, an extension of I AM – in company with every other living thing – a member of the Anointed I AM who was, and is, and is to come. Therein lies my grounds for hope. Therein is my Eternal Christ – the Anointed, the Christ that can be accessed and adored by all humankind. The eternally Anointed and anointing God.

After the service this morning a dear member of the Methodist Church gave me a copy of a rather glorious poem, created by the hand and heart of a Jewish friend of hers, a poem about the prayer that God may grant “to us sinners eternal life”. I pray that neither Jean nor the poet will mind me sharing the gift more widely:

Eternity

… et nobis peccatoribus vitam aeternam

‘Give us eternal life’, you prayed.
‘What is Eternity?’ I asked.
‘Eternity is where there is
No time – where all events, all ages
Co-exist,’ you said.
‘If that is so, why need you pray
For what’s already here?’ I asked;
‘If all events that ever were
And ever will be co-exist,
‘Eternal’ means ‘Today’. ‘

Edward Lowbury

Thank you Professor Duffy, thank you Canon Fraser for your honesty. Thank you Pope Francis and thank you Archbishop Justin for your honesty and service. Better to place hope in the eternal God than to be merely optimistic - whether in Canterbury or Rome. None of us, if we’re honest, are very optimistic about ‘solutions’ being found quickly for some very major issues facing humanity at large, not just the Church. But hope, that’s quite another thing – indeed a properly theological word!

Let there be another Lenten ALLELUIA today for that glorious things have been spoken! And may every shade and hue of humanity pray to be eternally reconciled ‘Today’.

DAZZLING DARKNESS

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DazzlingDarkness

ANDREW SHANKS writes of Rachel Mann, in his Foreword to her Dazzling Darkness, that she represents

“a whole other species of religious faith … something like an option for all-transformative ultimate acceptance”

- and of a person whose faith is

“nothing other than a principled recognition of the very clearest-eyed honesty – precisely, as a sacred ideal”.

This sounded, at the genesis as it were, like a description of God’s Christ to me. By the end of the book I was indeed dazzled, convinced that Shanks described both Rachel Mann and Jesus of Nazareth with equal clarity. Within days I’d distributed a dozen copies to some of the people I care about most, and I’ve brought this book into countless conversations. Here is courage and honesty for which I’ve shed tears of gratitude – whilst heart and soul and mind and body somersaulted over every beautifully written page.

Honesty for Jesus of Nazareth involved Gethsemane – I’m still haunted by Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus: “take this cup away from me for I don’t want to taste its poison”.* And I’m haunted because I know I owe a response to that Christ – for his grace and passion. Rachel Mann’s journeying towards truth has agonised in just such a garden, truly a “real presence”, this woman, of the vulnerable, open, incarnate body of Christ now on earth. And I’m positively haunted because I know I owe Rachel Mann for her grace, too. Haunted by Grace, by pure, unexpected, earthy gift. Touched and inspired by Anointed-ness, by Christ-likeness-in-brokenness, in Rachel Mann, and if in Rachel then also in every other child, woman and man trying to come to terms with being breathed into life – upon earth or in heaven.

And this Christ is com-passion, truly, with-suffering, a pain-bearing-alongside - an Anointed-one arrived in this world not so much to be a religious enterprise as a fully human Jesus-shaped one – one unafraid, like Rachel Mann, to “play wild language games” with God, too; one unafraid to live in and to get alongside real, frequently silenced “grubby bodies” in the poignantly agonising whilst yet laughter-filled Word-game of life. Truly Jesus knew what it was to be betwixt and between, caught up between one place – one “self” and another. Entre-nous.

The broken middle

This is the “broken middle” in which Rachel Mann has lived much of her life – and to which I believe the twenty-first century Church is struggling to hear herself being called. No longer convinced Evangelical nor convinced Catholic, hardly daring to be partisan at all, but – nearer the Word of Truth, I suspect – being willing to live in the broken middle – somewhere, and in some size and shape, that’s a bit different for all of us, depending on where we began, and upon where thus far along our way we’ve ended up. Betwixt and between. Becoming, yes, becoming. Works in progress – in the theatre of life in which, painstakingly and daily, in the midst of both laughter and tears, “each loosened bolt and nut is a making vulnerable, a loosening of false layers of identity, and a making space for God, the one who is easily silenced, to speak”.

Rachel Mann knows what it is to feel isolated and broken. And also – her Twitter-feed celebrates – what it is to delight in a platter of fish, chips and peas. That’s why she’s good news in today’s Church. Her sheer goodness and dogged perseverance is an epiphany of the kind I deeply need to sustain my hope for the future, to give me hope for a world, for a Church, for myriad different religious traditions, that are teeming with the lives of “The Other”. Rachel’s humanity could not be other than a positive encouragement to many readers and to many who meet her in person. I’m sure she’ll always be catalyst for many a real metanoia, many a real “turning around and thinking again”. And God knows, now as always, that the Church needs, that I need, to come to a truer repentance. I’m still profoundly shocked as I recall the opening service of the Lambeth Conference in 2008. Bishops gathered from all over the world cheerily booming out the hymn “All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place” even as security guards were on hand to deny entrance to “the otherness” (God help us, the Christ-likeness) in Bishop Gene Robinson.

Dazzling Darkness isn’t just a sensitive, lived work about the extraordinary complexities of long-term illness, human sexuality, bewilderment, spiritual darkness, desolation, isolation and alienation – though it is all of these: this is ultimately a book about being an expression of the Anointed, the Christ, for our life and times. A book about being planted firmly in the midst of family and memory; about instinct’s perpetual yearning for the peace it intuits will be found in one’s own distinctive space, and place; and unpredictable, sometimes unexpected human love, acceptance and recognition – within and without presently known institutions, church or marriage. This is a book about faith and hope and love prevailing despite what seem impossible odds. This is philosophical and theological reflection of the highest order. This is truly birthing poetry and prose about co-creativity with God. A book about what it means to live caught between darkness and light, joy and pain, sickness and gladness, holiness in wholeness. About Adam and Eve. About mankind, in-between-kind, and womankind. About you and me. About incarnation. About being in the flesh. About personal integrity and authenticity. About being real in the public square. About the call of God’s Spirit constantly to re-examine and re-interpret Law and Prophets. About imagination. About journey. About redemption – being shown the way home to ourselves.

Dazzling Darkness is the most important book I’ve read in thirty years as a priest, and though I’ll limp toward the finishing line in “the race that is set before us”, the Christ-likeness I see in Rachel Mann spurs me onwards. I will keep trying.

* Gethsemane, from Jesus Christ Superstar, Andrew Lloyd Webber

SUDDEN AND STRIKING

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TIME AND AGAIN this week I’ve wound up in conversation with people who were deeply touched by Rachael Elizabeth’s Epiphany Moments sermon (audio, readings and homily here) last Sunday. Members of our pastoral team have headed back to base at St Michael’s with accounts of conversations all around the parish about “a stillness and a directness that ‘stopped me in my tracks’”. And I’ve been enthralled by the number of people of “advanced years” who show themselves ready to learn from a young teacher.

This is wonderful, exciting and hopeful. Our parish is blessed with four people at various stages of the discernment process on the road to possible ordination, one of whom, Paul Deakin, currently revelling in life at the College of the Resurrection in Mirfield, will join our ministry team as a Deacon (assistant curate) in July this year; Tracy Ward is the imaginative leader of our pastoral team and is presently engaged with a pastoral placement in neighbouring Norbury, whilst also preparing to co-lead a retreat with me in May, and enjoying the Diocesan Exploring Faith Matters (EFM) course; Yvonne Hope, one of our Young Church co-ordinators and a founding member of our Puppet Ministry, will preach for us about her work with homeless people at Barnabus on Sunday 20th January at 10am; Rachael Elizabeth spent time over the Christmas holidays preparing for major pieces of work on Christian states, and on Unitarianism – as well as assisting in eucharistic and baptismal services and preaching on the Feast of the Epiphany.

Further, we’ve thirty+ excellent lay people working to maintain good pastoral care in a parish of some fifteen and a half thousand people; together with an energetic retired priest whose pastoral vision is generous and inclusive, a licensed Reader, two licensed pastoral workers, a large team of children and youth workers, excellent churchwardens, church council, administrator, finance team, links with the Diocese of Newala in Tanzania (the Rev Anita Matthews will be our preacher on Newala Sunday 27th January), together with the usual host of parish-based organisations and friendship groups whose influence for good reaches out into the wider community seven days a week.

This is wonderful, exciting and hopeful because, in the words of one gentleman’s reflections upon Rachael Elizabeth’s homily – “I’m challenged, even in these, my advanced years, to take stock, to think again about what has been revealed to me and what I’m asked to do about that. How profoundly grateful I am to have encountered a young teacher and the “sudden and striking” message her life and hope presents us with.”

Epiphany: A moment that stopped you in your tracks and made you think, made you re-evaluate life. Maybe it was when someone looked you right in the eye and told you that you were beautiful, maybe it was the time you could look in the mirror and say the same to yourself, believing it. Maybe it was the time you played the piano for the first time or sang with a choir or painted or had your first day in a new job and found a passion for it. Maybe it was the time your partner smiled at you, maybe it was the time you found a new home like I found this home, and you knew it was going to be ok. Maybe it was the time you held a child in your arms, a beautiful new-born baby, completely dependent, harmless, vulnerable, perfect. Like the baby Jesus.

None of these moments can happen without a degree of personal vulnerability and openness. Jesus came into the world a child not a king in a palace. Today our day of Epiphany in the Church remembers the wise men that thought they knew so much, but were completely changed by the humility and vulnerability of an experience that healed their souls. – from Epiphany Moments

I thank God for such epiphanies: for

the sudden and striking realisation, a revelation, a stunning manifestation of some truth.

These moments, these babies, these people are changing the world and working for the building of a wholly new kind of “kingdom” every waking moment of our lives. And I pray that epiphany-tide may ebb and flow in all of us, always. What more hopeful a subject for contemplation could there be in the contemporary life of the English Church and Nation – indeed in the life of the Worldwide Church, and the panoply of faith-traditions amongst all the Nations – than the possibility before us of further “sudden and striking realisation”?

SWIMMING IN MYSTERY

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Swimming in the Mystery of God – please click photos to enlarge

TODAY WE CELEBRATED our Church’s Dedication Sunday. Wonderfully talented people have decorated the parish church on this day for 102 years – with flowers hand-picked from their own gardens. This year, having hosted Angels in 2010 and Windsails in 2011 (see Lumière below) our Lantern Tower is graced by the gently swimming presence of some of the most magnificent fish I’ve ever seen.

“We swim in the Mystery of God as fish swim in the sea”, said theologian Karl Rahner SJ – in an attempt to communicate the profound faith statement that human beings need no more consider themselves separate from God than we could consider ourselves separate from the air that we breathe. We’re all in this together: God, and everything created by God.

I often share Rahner’s little tale of the elderly, statesmanlike fish gliding past two tiddlers one morning. “Morning boys!” he greeted them. “How’s the water?” The tiddlers ignored him and – flicking their little tails – swam on. A little time later one looked at the other and asked “what’s water?”

Oliver John joined in the swimming with smiling enthusiasm as he was baptised this morning beneath and surrounded by the meanderings of many colourful creatures. And all present dedicated themselves anew to the works of Love in the coming year.

Meanwhile, General Synod prepares for major debate upon the morrow in York. Bishop Nick Baines of Bradford writes of Frustration and Joy here – pointing us (for which, hearty thanks) to an audio link to Archbishop Rowan’s fabulous sermon at the Synod Eucharist this morning. How glad I am, for him, that the good Archbishop will swim ere long in the quieter waters of Cambridge. How certain I am, however, that we’ll miss his gentle touch more than any of us have been able hitherto to imagine.

Still, he encourages us to swim on …

BREATHE TOGETHER

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SADLY I KNOW I CAN’T be in Albuquerque, New Mexico, this summer, but I’m seriously hoping I might make it to the “the much anticipated Rohr Institute Living School for Action and Contemplation” in Autumn 2013. I’m profoundly inspired by Franciscan priest Fr Richard Rohr’s teaching on the Perennial Tradition, “which challenges us to look beyond systems, sects, gender and dogma, into a place of universal truth that invites us all to re-awaken to our union with God.  It is from that awareness that we can serve as co-creators of the world, breathing together so “That all may be one.” (John 17:20)”

I was thrilled with Fr Richard’s Meditation for today – an excerpt of which is

If we want to go to the mature, mystical, and non-dual levels of spirituality, we must first deal with the often faulty, inadequate, and even toxic images of God that most people are dealing with before they have authentic God experience. Both God as Trinity and Jesus as the “image of the invisible God” reveal a God quite different—and much better—than the Santa Claus image or the “I will torture you if you do not love me” God that most people are still praying to. Such images are an unworkable basis for any real spirituality.

Trinity reveals that God is the Divine Flow under, around, and through all things—much more a verb than a noun; relationship itself rather than an old man sitting on a throne. Jesus tells us that God is like a loving parent, who runs toward us, clasps, and kisses us while we are “still a long ways off” (Luke 15:20). Until this is personally experienced, most of Christianity does not work. This theme moves us quickly into practice-based religion (orthopraxy) over mere words and ideas (orthodoxy).

PATCHES

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TWELVE MONTHS have flown by since Patches Chabala was made Deacon (above), thirty years since I was! Time flies by at the same alarming rate for both of us – but it slowed down for a couple of hours this evening when Chester Cathedral hosted a huge gathering for the Ordination of Priests, our beloved Patches amongst them.

There’s something very, very powerful in the sacrament and sign of the receiving of Holy Orders through the laying on of hands. I remember the sensation of Bishop Michael Baughen’s slender hands laid gently upon my head as though thirty years ago  were  really just yesterday. And at many an ordination since I’ve been immensely moved by the sight and the prayerfulness of bishops and presbyters together, connected in a quite extra-ordinary sort of a way, laying hands upon the heads of Deacons as the bishop prays

Send down the Holy Spirit on your servant [Patches] for the office and work of a priest in your Church.

As I laid my hand directly upon the back of the head of this dear brother I felt a connection for which I blessed the Source of both of our lives and loves. Patches touches lives wherever he goes – with the gentle simplicity with which he receives people just exactly as they are, assuring them of the love and compassion of the same Jesus of Nazareth whose own gentle simplicity called forth a following, a journeying, a lifetime’s response from both this newly ordained priest, far from the land of his birth, and from me. And many, many, many others. The “connection”, in the Cathedral tonight, extended out in waves, to hundreds present therein, and to countless hearts and souls without its walls.

A rainy Saturday touched by God’s Spirit. And though worshipping in my own “mother church” within my own Christian tradition, I was “connected” at the same time with hundreds of young people nearer my own parish, meeting in Manchester, for a wonderful gathering with – and encouragement from – the Dalai Lama. Rachael Elizabeth, one of our ordinands, was there and has blogged about the event here – describing the presence of hundreds and hundreds of young people – some of whom faced a ten hour coach journey to return to their homes – bound and “connected” by their enthusiastic reception of a message of encouragement from Archbishop Desmond Tutu and from the Dalai Lama himself.

What turns a grey, rainy day in NW England into something very, very special? Hope. Hope does. As we lay hands gently upon another, and open the doors of our hearts wider and wider, then hope cheers grey days, together with faith in the future, and love.

MARY’S DRESS

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BANK HOLIDAY weekend affords a happy extension to “left brain time.” There are always more books I want to read, more paintings I want to paint, more photographs I want to make, more writing to be done, more poems to unfold, more prayer to be celebrated, more people to share some time and stories with, more songs to be sung, more colours to be marvelled at, more silence to be revelled in – than time ordinarily allows. And that very fact is cause for thanksgiving! Life is indeed a rich tapestry. The signs of the reign, the joy of God, are all around me. And I’m immensely thankful for the connections that blogging makes possible with people all around the world.

Today’s artwork is inspired, in Eastertide, by Mary Magdalene, beloved apostle of Jesus, first witness to new life in the Resurrection, loyal provider of intimate and loving support and sustenance, someone generous, open-hearted and giving, someone who just “knew” instinctively, what Jesus’ mission on earth was about, someone released, by God’s goodness, from the kind of prison every one of us finds ourselves in from time to time.

All human persons are “bedevilled” by “Legion” the perpetually underlying and taunting belief that somehow we’re failing to make the grade, we’re unlovable, bigger and better “failures” than anyone else, destined to be “alone”, faithless, heartbroken, misunderstood, wretched. All human persons yearn for the kind of release that Jesus’ love and acceptance brought about in Mary’s life; for the kind of release that she brought about in his.

Mary Magdalene: someone cruelly maligned and abused by religious patriarchy and misogyny across the centuries, but all the while someone I’ve admired and looked to as an icon of life’s richness and fullness, of life’s goodness and generosity, of life’s being – under the vivifying reign of God – a beautifully, colourfully, gorgeously dressed dance with our Creator.

Sydney Carter described Jesus as The Lord of the Dance. In my heart I think of Mary of Magdala as Jesus’ dance-partner and she is clothed, dressed, like the environment all around and about her, in colour and glory. And theirs is a partnership, theirs is a dance that, far from being exclusive and excluding, invites you and I to join. “Shall we dance?”, Mary asks. “And shall we sing?”, asks the Lord of the Dance. And sometimes the colours blur a little in the swirling. And sometimes they’re blended by our tears …

Have you seen the wonder of it? Have you seen Mary’s dress?

BLESSED ON HER WAY

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ANDY BROWN captured the moment when my priest colleague of the past three and a half years was “blessed on her way with gifts of love” today. Ann Hyde is to be licensed as Assistant Curate of her home parish, St Martin Low Marple, in May. We pray God’s blessing upon Ann’s continuing ministry, for the people of the parish of Low Marple, and for Fr Ed McKenna, the parish priest.

WHAT’S GOOD NEWS?

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I’M OFF TO A DAY CONFERENCE on “Catholic Evangelism” tomorrow. I’m not wholly sure whether it’s going to be about Catholic Evangelism (capital C, capital E) or catholic evangelism (small c, small e), and I’m rather hoping for the latter … hoping, that is to say, for a catholic evangelism that really is about good news (evangelism) universally applied (catholic), ie, for everybody – no matter their “faith tradition” or lack thereof – everywhere.

I’ve spent a very great deal of my life passionately pondering what exactly constitutes good news, and in particular why having some sort of acknowledged relationship to / with the Source of our lives might matter – to individuals, to communities, to nations, to our world, to the whole created order – some of these whole and healthy, some desperately broken, hurting, and in need of that Divine touch that brings healing. And I’m consistently finding that old definitions of what it means to be Catholic, or Protestant, or Christian, or shades in between all of these, don’t fit all sizes any more, if they ever did.

Christ everywhere …

What constitutes Good News in a ‘catholic’, pluralistic world? Where is an / our anointed Christ to be found? (as I’m sure such a Christ is indeed to be found, anywhere in the world, and across the world’s faith traditions). And the questions are so important to me because as a Christian priest, seeking always to live and learn – to be a disciple – after the pattern of Jesus of Nazareth, I have observed that some kinds of Catholic, some kinds of Protestant, and some kinds of “Christian” plainly do not represent very good news for many people at all. So catholic evangelism must be something quite different, something much more open, something prepared always to be held to account as to the reach of what it purports to be good news. Catholic evangelism will not, I think, be too prescriptive.

Feast of life for all

Catholic evangelism will offer the “feast of life” to people in the “highways and byways” won’t it? Catholic evangelists, personal and corporate, will have dismantled their drawbridges. Catholic evangelism will be less concerned (although not wholly unconcerned) with the Faith of our Fathers and hugely more concerned with Faith Being Received Today. When I’ve asked adults over the past thirty years whether they’d like to come to confirmation classes, so that they can be presented to the bishop, confirmed, and thereafter receive Holy Communion many have politely declined. When I’ve offered the Sacrament of Holy Communion “no questions asked” it has been the case, more frequently than I can count, that the recipient has ended up doing the asking, seeking to confirm a present and acknowledged reality – satisfied hunger – in their lives.

Let’s explore!

And I remember that Jesus was ever ready to go the extra mile for children, too. “Do not try to stop them for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these”. Catholic evangelists will work hard at becoming more, well … catholic – so that they’re more plainly seen to be, well … “Christian” or “Anointed”. Catholic evangelists will be interested in marginalised multi-tasking-capable women, tax collectors, prodigal sons, unimaginative but very opinionated men, quieter and more imaginative men, too, and in lost sheep. Catholic evangelism won’t chastise the lost sheep for having left the fold in order to “explore”, still less tell the poor creature that God forbids it. Instead truly catholic evangelists (like Jesus of Nazareth) will make the fold larger so that there’s the space for MORE sheep to engage in the business of exploration, to engage, that is to say, in their God-given Life!

The Sound of Silence

One of the biggest growth areas in our parish (liberal Catholic with blurry edges – a bit like my paintings!) – has been a call to shared and silent meditation in the parish church – arriving and departing in companionable silence. No coffee or handing out electoral roll forms afterwards. And numbers in excess of many a church’s entire Sunday congregation have responded to a call – we believe a Divine call – to dwell for a space, together in the “house for the Church”, to wait upon the Word that touches life in silence. (The Word – not words. There’s not “even” a Bible reading). It’s life-changing, say many participants. It’s the only occasion in my month when I’m really and deeply aware of the heartbeat of God, the pulse of life, say others. This silence, this “that’s not very Catholic” but absolutely catholic encounter is breathing into our common life new elements of what it means to bear good news in our lives today, what it means, first and foremost to BE the Body of Christ now on earth, what it means to be religious in the original sense of the word (religare) – reconnected, re-membered. Restored to what we’ve forgotten.

Old assumptions yield

So whether tomorrow proves to be slanted more to Catholic Evangelism, or to catholic evangelism, I hope we’ll be asking the same question – What is Good News? – at least sometimes. Because, remembering Louis MacNeice’s Mutations again:

… old assumptions yield to new sensations.
The Stranger in the Wings is waiting for his cue.
The fuse is always laid to some annunciation …

UP, UP & AWAY!

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Tracy – photo/emmaward

REALLY GREAT first sermon from Tracy Ward here today. We’ve had some inspirational first sermons here in the last year or two and I’m thrilled to bits that we’ve currently 3 aspiring priests at Bramhall Parish Church, and we’re also sponsoring the theological training of an ordinand for the Diocese of Newala, Tanzania.

God’s Spirit calls hearts and souls and minds and bodies today, as ever. Tracy voiced the Word of God’s Spirit with an encouragement to Live Your Life – being exemplars of the kind of in-love-with-life-and-Love-service that can truly be described as a more excellent way. Great sermon. Great eucharistic worship. Great Spirit of God right here in the midst of us. We hear the commission. We’ll act upon the call: the uniting, embracing Body of Christ.