HOW MANY HUMAN PERSONS find themselves imprisoned and bound by other people’s stories, other people’s temples, other people’s “safe houses”, other people’s notions of right or wrong or truth?
The Church endeavours perfectly properly to follow the pattern of Jesus in seeking after truth. But where does truth reside? Is truth vested in one story, one faith, one man, one experience of God? Is truth a pre-packaged product, something fabricated in what Archbishop Rowan described last Sunday in Rome as a ‘religion factory‘. Or does Jesus’ Manifesto For A New Society (a lovely sub-title in Alison Morgan’s The Wild Gospel) point to different facets of truth in different individuals? Alison Morgan writes:
[Jesus] was not found standing on soapboxes in Tiberias and Sepphoris, or demanding audiences in the palaces of Jerusalem and Caesarea, or seeking election to the Council of the Sanhedrin. Rather he was found speaking to individuals whenever and wherever he encountered them – in their homes, on their sickbeds, at their tables, in the street, in the fields, in the synagogue; out on the lake as they fished, and by the well as they drew water.
Of what then did he speak to these individuals? The astonishing answer is that to each one he spoke the truth. And that for each one, the truth was different, because it penetrated differently into the untruth by which they were bound.
I suggest that Jesus assaulted the norms of his culture not as an end in itself, but in order to reach out to individuals within the culture, to shake the faulty foundations on which they were building their lives, and to issue a new challenge for thinking and living. He ministered into the culture, but for the individual – ibid page 83
Other people’s stories, temples, manifestos and laws are intended as good and necessary frameworks in which individuals can learn to live in community. But we do well to remember that whilst Jesus frequently criticised culture he offered only love and encouragement to individuals – he recognised brokenness in all human persons and consistently called forth acceptance, compassion, healing and restoration in them and in all creation.
SET FREE the distinctive giftedness and grace in the glorious multiplicity and diversity of human persons individually – male and female, of every creed and race – and you release the highest and the best raw materials for building up community. That, indeed, in this 21st century, is a Manifesto For A New Society.
What do you suppose Jesus was doing when he went off alone to pray? – I think it’s where he came home to himself.
I was stunned. I’ve seen sunset over Galilee from a hillside vantage-point and remember, as though it were yesterday, saying out loud: “here I’ve come home to myself.” The mental image of Jesus doing just that is a glorious one and it was present, for me, in our Monthly Monday Meditation tonight.
Earlier in the day we’d been grappling, at our weekly Vicar & Wardens meeting, with the passionate sense we have, at Bramhall Parish Church, of a call to speak about Jesus and about the things of faith in God in an intelligent way, in ways that make “words about God” – theology – something accessible and intelligible to as many 21st century children, women and men as we could imagine.
We spoke of my being regularly stymied by the inherited language of a great deal of Christian hymnody, heavily laden with substitutionary atonement theology and patriarchy, together with some of our liturgy and prayer. We’re looking for new – modern – language resources, and towards restoring some of the best of the ancient too, wondering about writing some of our own, praying from the heart, mindful of our call to embrace any and all who seek to “come home” to themselves and God, fascinated and hugely encouraged by the fact that at least as many people gather for our silent monthly meditation sessions as for other “Fresh Expressions” we know of. We’re praying daily for Grace to care and to dare.
In order to come home to ourselves, we should realize that what we really need is a radical reeducation from head to toe – Gus Gordon, Solitude & Compassion: The Path to the Heart of the Gospel, Orbis Books, 2009
Radical reeducation from head to toe. Yes: I think that’s what Jesus of Nazareth was advocating. And his vision arose directly out of his own frequent opting for solitude and compassion. Wilderness again. Solitude. Facing up to demons. Realigning ourselves. Grappling. Envisioning. This is praying. Coming home to oneself and God – the Source of the life in us.
Maybe the future of the Church will depend, to some degree, on Christian people’s willingness to step outside churches once in a while. In much the same way as the work and worship of the local synagogue is extended outwards and beyond – via family homes and daily observance, (I love the descriptive “an observant Jew”), so the Christian community should be encouraged to observe sacramentality in their daily lives and practices – the Church’s sacramental practice was not intended to replace that of our ordinary, every day lives, but to enhance and develop it.
For most Christian people ritual translates into liturgy and sacrament, with a distinctive assignment to who can facilitate the ceremony. As people mature into a more adult sense of faith they begin to realize that ritual-making is everybody’s prerogative, and everybody’s responsibility – Diarmuid O’Murchu, Adult Faith, Orbis Books, 2010
What do you suppose Jesus was doing when he went off alone to pray? – I think it’s where he came home to himself …
Me too. So I’ll be happy, in company with my fellow pilgrims here, to continue our searching – in words and in silence – for language with which at least some of the presently disenfranchised may be able to pray, coming home to themselves, alongside our own homecomings, today.
THE “REGULARITY” of a person’s consecration as a bishop has long been a subject of discussion, debate and trial in the Church. Circumstances surrounding that of Chad as Bishop of York led to Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, having to advise him that his consecration had been irregular, as the validity of the indigenous consecrating bishops was doubted. Chad replied:
If you believe that my consecration as bishop was irregular, I willingly resign the office; for I have never thought myself worthy of it. Although unworthy I accepted it solely under obedience
Archbishop Theodore later rectified the irregularity and Chad established his seat as Bishop of Lichfield. Centuries later one muses that it was almost certainly Chad’s humility that so powerfully fuelled his abiding effectiveness.
FRIENDS OCCASIONALLY JEST that this blog is determinedly cheerful. I rather hope that that’s largely the case, believing as I do that our all too frequent and depressingly human personal dissatisfactions are probably best reflected upon in private journals, and before God, and preferably in penitential silence. I’ve been heartened by the number of parishioners who, having picked up on an earlier blog piece, have told me “oh! my mother used always to say ‘this too shall pass’ – it’s just about saved my life!” Mine too.
But, just for the record, I’m as utterly dependent on Divine Light shining within and beyond us as is anyone else, every day of my life as a parish priest. I learned very early on in life that Christ’s beloved Church, and every member within it, has plenty of dark nooks and crannies – many a well meaning soul who’s nonetheless far too egotistically concerned about ensuring a seat at the right or left hand of the Father, his or her own “place” in the scheme of things. And that can be heartily depressing to observe – in oneself and in others – over a period of many years.
In a Church comprised of human beings Divine Light is not only our best hope, it’s our only hope. Please God St David’s Day will dawn upon the morrow amidst brighter rays of light – within us and without.
THOMAS AND TOBIAS were baptised this morning – when, on the first Sunday of Lent, we recalled Jesus’ own baptism by John: (I absolutely love the little snippet above, beautifully narrated here, from the film The Miracle Maker, and used on this blog before)
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. – Mark 1.9-15
What was John up to? What were we doing with Tobias and Thomas this morning? And does the doing matter?
Well, I think the first thing to say about this morning’s baptism is that it certainly appeared to matter, very much indeed, to the supporting families and friends. It’s true that the novelty value appears to have worn off for many a contemporary weekly churchgoing Anglican. Some of ours discreetly hive off back home if they get wind of the idea that “their” service will face the challenge of newcomers. On such occasions, with all due respect to John the Baptist, I thank God that I’m their parish priest rather than he. I understand a bit, I think, where they’re coming from, in that I am myself very fond of a bit of liturgical p and q. But I think they’d be given pretty short shrift from J the B, don’t you?
Back to the opening question. What was John up to? Why would baptism be important for Thomas and Tobias, or for me and you?
The keyword, for me, is “repent”. John called his hearers to repent – a process described in Greek as metanoia – a turning around. Not a sandwich-boarded doom-laden “you’re on the road to hell” sort of a “repent” but nevertheless a turn-around-sort of a repent. A stopping-in-our-tracks sort of a repent. And that’s what I was up to this morning, too: inviting people to take a moment to “turn around”, to have a bit of a rethink. Repentance: a few moments practice in our daily lives – (as wholesome and as necessary a daily-renewed baptism as the practice of having lunch or dinner) – when we turn around to look inside ourselves instead of outside.
And I think that that’s what Jesus’ Lent, his “days in the wilderness”, tempted as we are, were and are all about. Lent’s not just about Jesus in “wilderness” (in the tempting, perplexing, question-provoking aspects of life) but about you and me needing to grapple with those places and those temptations, perplexities and questions, in our time, too.
Who am I? Whose am I? What’s my life for? Am I on the side of right or of wrong? And do my life and actions – does my practice – reflect my answer? And do I feel the same today as I did yesterday? And how am I hoping to feel tomorrow? (Heavens! This is a process that’s gonna take some time. Probably a lifetime. I’d better set some time aside every day – and it would be as well for me to “train up” children to start this practice in their own child-like sure-footed and imaginative way). There’s going to be need to hive off up a mountain on my own from time to time, or take a boat away from the crowds and out into the bay, if I’m really going to find my Way.
Am I at peace with what, having repented, I observe within myself? Do I have the inner resources not only to survive but also to thrive when the Spirit of Life “drives” me into the wilderness spaces and places of my own ordinary day to day life and experience? Does my engagement with this liturgical act, this Baptism, this honouring, and raising and welcoming of two little British boys have anything at all to say to what I feel about the “heaving little tummy” of the 2 year old Syrian boy whose tragic death was witnessed by Marie Colvin, shortly before her own untimely death, the other day?
Baptism? What was John doing? What was Jesus doing? Why did the “Good News” writers notice? Why was I engaged in baptising Tobias and Thomas today?
Stop, look, listen. That’s the content of John’s preaching. Consider. Look left, look right, look left again before you cross, are the themes picked up and developed and run with by Jesus, then and now. Jesus takes preaching a step further. Jesus turns preaching and teaching into living. So let me repeat: Stop, look, listen. Look around you. What’s to be seen in the wilderness of this life – your life? Stop, look, listen. Look inside you. What’s to be seen in the wild places of your own heart? And how, if at all, does the one affect the other?
Baptism isn’t about filling the Church’s pews (so in that sense it shouldn’t matter too much if “we never see them again”). Baptism is more of an invitation to oasis in wilderness, a daily-repeated invitation to a place where we may be assured of welcome, our morning shower and refreshment, the place of preparation before receiving the bread and wine of life itself; Christian Baptism matters because it is sacramental sign and symbol of an invitation to a place, and to a challenge, where we may grow into the discipline and practice of asking questions – and grappling with them until we come upon some answers. Though there may be more questions about questions before ever we arrive at answers.
I heard it suggested recently that the “Good Shepherd”, seeking to keep his whole flock safe, discourages single sheep from going out to explore. They’ll automatically trip up, automatically fall down a hole. He’ll then have the (very worthy but inconvenient) task of setting out to rescue the naughty explorer. But I believe exactly the opposite. I believe that we’re set down in the wilderness of life precisely to ask questions, to employ our inner resources to make sense of what we know exists beyond the walls of our own little (maybe ecclesiastical) sheep pen, and to explore. Co-creators with the Source of our own lives, we won’t necessarily live in perpetual clover, but we’ll be alive! Fully alive – building a home in the heart of humankind for “the reign of God”. And trusted by the Divine parent who’ll wait patiently forever on the lookout for our safe (and better informed) returning.
Baptism matters because it washes the dust of desert from our souls, refreshing and awakening and dawning and calling. Baptism matters – even infant baptism – because the questions it raises and the confidence it inspires are addressed and gifted to the whole community. Baptism matters because it has an eye to everything that’s going on around us, to the future security and mutual society of Thomas and Tobias, and because it calls us, every day of our lives, to be quiet enough, for long enough, to hear the Word that God speaks into every fibre, cell and atom of all creation. “YOU – all of you – are my Beloved …” You, all of you are, as the great hymn of the incarnation puts it: Of the Father’s Love begotten.
Yes: Becoming the Beloved – or, more accurately, recognizing that we are the Beloved of God. That’s what we’re up to, or should be up to, in Homs and in Bramhall equally. All of us.
RESURRECTION is about nothing if it is not about irresistible life bursting forth in people, and out of “tombs”, and out of our millions of daily deaths, and from other most unlikely places. And the food of life is unconditional love. And Love of that sort emanates from the all embracing Heart of an eternally creating God. God bears “blame” for any lack of love by “minding the gap” with what one of our favourite hymns calls Immortal Love, forever full, forever flowing free; forever shared, forever whole, a never ebbing sea. And that kind of Love, in human form, looks like, acts like, speaks like, listens like, prays like, heals like, laughs like, offers hospitality like, weeps like, dies like, and altogether lives like Jesus.
During this season we’re hugely blessed to welcome the artist Stephen Raw – and some of his work – into our hearts and family home. We’ll be hearing more about Stephen and his life and work over the coming weeks, but for now I want to commend to your attention and care-full eye his artwork of George Herbert’s fabulous Love bade me welcome – presently exhibited behind the font in our lantern tower.
For the passion, crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth are not just about Him. They’re also about us. They happen to us, to some degree or another, every day of our lives. That’s what Jesus himself taught. Son of Man. He and we are of the same sort. And just when we feel at our most unworthy, just when we feel that our fully human “eye” has caused us most fully to fall into “dust and sin”, just then we’re most likely to notice that “quick-ey’d Love” is smilingly beckoning us in. “Who made the eyes but I?”
And we shall want to remember. And we shall want to serve that kind of life and that kind of Love Whom we now dare to address as “my dear”. We shall want to serve that kind of life and that kind of Love by offering similarly gracious hospitality, following the example of the one Who, for our sustenance offers us his “meat”. And that is indeed a tall task! Radical hospitality is no mean feat! Let’s remember though, when we find the going tough, that our ultimate end is to “sit”, basking in the light of the first of countless Easter mornings – there to “sit and eat”. And in this eucharistic feast – here on earth and then in Heaven – we shall know the depths of God’s solemnity and the heights of God’s life-giving joy at one and the same time …
Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack’d anything.
“A guest,” I answer’d, “worthy to be here”;
Love said, “You shall be he.”
“I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.”
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
“Who made the eyes but I?”
“Truth, Lord, but I have marr’d them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.”
“And know you not,” says Love, “who bore the blame?”
“My dear, then I will serve.”
“You must sit down,” says Love, “and taste my meat.”
So I did sit and eat.
George Herbert, priest and poet, 1593 -1633
May you know that your self-giving and service in Lent, Passiontide, Holy Week and Easter, with and for our Christ, will be blessed richly – by God’s New Life. And may our household of faith, New every morning, now and in all eternity, pray a joy-filled ALLELUIA!
ONE THING LEADS to another. The creation of one world leads to another. Questions and answers lead to more answers and questions. And so we grow towards the future. God’s future. Our future.
And I’ve returned again and again since yesterday’s Enough Nattering to Archbishop Rowan’s “question and answer” in a homily addressed to the General Synod on Wednesday morning – (text and video here)
What does God’s future look like? Well, one thing we can say is that it looks like Jesus.
So the fact that next Sunday’s epistle reading is to be from Colossians feels like a fairly substantial gift.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible – Colossians 1.15-20
We’re relatively more familiar with ‘things visible’ than with the ‘invisible’. And what we’re able to ‘see’ of Church, of God, of humankind, of future, can at times be rather depressing – or at the very least a bit slow and ponderous (“Like a mighty tortoise moves the Church of God; let’s preserve in aspic where the saints have trod”).
So I shall spend some time in the next few days remembering that there’s an entire universe of created order that lies quite beyond either my imagination or my sight. And that was in the beginning. And is still growing. We haven’t seen the End. So in the meantime we can cheerfully engage in being “changed from glory into glory” – confident that the author of the change is none other than the author of our life in the beginning, and that She looks and breathes life into adamah, mere dust like me. She looks and breathes life into the Body of Christ now on earth. Like Jesus.
I’m much taken with a line from a forthcoming film I’ll definitely be heading to the cinema to see; in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Trailer) the would-be perfect hotelier and host says
Everything will be alright in the end, so if everything is not alright now it’s not the end!
TO SAN FRANCISCO? I wish. But no. No immediate plans. Bramhall’s my patch for the present. But some day. Some way. Because somehow St Gregory of Nyssa’s Church in San Francisco lives and listens and speaks with and about the kind of words I’m constantly wanting to say. And do. And Grace Cathedral too. Church Times’ front page photo of a celebration of the Eucharist at St Gregory’s represents for me the glorious hotch-potch of loved and redeemed humanity that is my own life’s prayer and perpetual dream. And there’s a big chunk of an extract of Sara Miles, author of Jesus Freak: Feeding, healing, raising the dead.
Worship and service were part of a whole; the Friday food pantry and the Sunday eucharist were just different expressions of the same thing. Well meaning Christian visitors liked to describe the pantry as a “feeding ministry”, but that just seemed like a nervous euphemism to me. What I saw was church: hundreds of people gathering each week around an altar to share food and to thank God. And then, on Sundays, in the very same space, communion. The priest and whoever else was serving that day – a woman with cancer, a fussy older guy, a serene, angelic seven year old boy in shorts – would lift the plates of fresh bread and cups of wine, and turn, showing the food to the people standing pressed close around the big, round table in the middle of the sanctuary …
These words, and this photo, and these films speak to me of the God of Life whose own freedom has granted humankind its own. Freedom to explore. Freedom to become whole and holy in and amongst the hotch-potch of communities filled with people of every shade and hue and opinion and creed under the sun and stars. Freedom in which hospitality and generosity are extended to all. Am I going to San Francisco? Well, whether on earth, or the San Francisco in heaven, some day, I pray. And in the morning here in Bramhall? There will be alimentos gratis – the free food of Divine Love – in Eucharist at 8, 9 and 10.45am – and during the course of these celebrations, by the Grace of God, six children will be baptised …
YOU ARE MY BELOVED. On you my favour rests. – I’ve just come across this extraordinary little series of films and have found myself transported into the company of angels and archangels. Blessed be God for his eternal grace at work in Henri Nouwen (1932-1996) – dear Wounded Healer. Truly beloved.
in St Paul’s Parish Centre, Macclesfield, 9 July 2003
BACK TO BOLLINGTON today, by kind invitation of the Vicar, for the funeral thanksgiving for Jean Lawson (front far right) who I’ve known and loved for years – Jean’s having been a member of both St Paul Macclesfield and St Oswald Bollington. Some pictured here were present at St Oswald’s today. Others took part from a higher perspective. The Reverend Veronica Hydon led a wonderfully reflective service of thanksgiving, the most moving part of which, for me, was the sprinkling of the coffin by Jean’s sons, other family members, some devoted friends, and two of her priests, “In remembrance of her baptism”. Jean Lawson led others into Christian faith and practice by her sheer goodness. Goodness and mercy lead her now into the paths of peace, and old acquaintance …
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time
