Category Archives: Jesus

GOD’S FUTURE

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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!

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BECOMING THE BELOVED

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Henri, I want a blessing …

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.

 

WITH A LITTLE HELP …

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PAUL DEAKIN (vested, left) preached an encouraging and challenging sermon this morning, attired for a few brief moments in a too short preaching scarf – because it’s more ordinarily employed at Stockport County FC!  It’s great having Paul home on leave from his studies at Mirfield. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” – Nathaniel asked of Philip. Well, of course, someone could and did! And Paul Deakin’s one of the many good things to “come out of” Bramhall.

DAVID TAYLOR (robed, right) served the dual offices of assistant verger and altar server, at short notice, in the midst of one of those whirlwind sort of mornings that Sundays at St Michael’s often look like. With consecutive celebrations of the Eucharist at 8, 9 and 10.45am there’s a lot to be done behind the scenes to make sure there’s a smooth flow. With David and other willing souls like him we’re able to sing: “we get by with a little help from our friends …”

AND ANDY BROWN put imagination into gear and was quick to snap the moments when some of my wonderful young friends here got stuck into “the priesthood of all believers” liturgically. Literally “active angels”, we encouraged each other to pray according to the style and practice of ancient tradition, standing, and with arms raised in a posture of praise, thanksgiving and receptivity. And we all shared in times of silence and stillness too. It all made for a holy communion. Eucharistic. Something accomplished. Religio - a binding together. And I recall that the great son of man who came out of Nazareth once said: I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends – John 15.15-17

MAXIMILIAN’S BAPTISM

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THE FULL HOUSE for the joy-filled Baptism of Maximilian this morning gives me (another) opportunity to head up this post with my very favourite account, by a simply wonderful narrator, of Jesus’ Baptism! But more than that, it’s always such a joy when our House for the Church is full of people come to celebrate the goodness of God and the richness of the gifts we revel in. And there’s no greater gift to a family than that of an infant. Nor, perhaps, any greater responsibility laid upon older shoulders. Bringing infants to Baptism in and into the House of the Lord provides glorious opportunity for all of us to reflect upon the giftedness and gratuitousness of our lives, upon our hopes and our aspirations, what – in co-creating with, and in, and surrounded by God – we want to make of our world, our humanity, our society, our church – for Maximilian, for ourselves, and for God.

“I baptise with water”, said John the Baptist. One who will come after me will baptise with Holy Spirit. And so it came to pass. Today and every day humankind is baptised “new every morning” by the Spirit of Divine Grace and Love. Perhaps that’s why Maximilian and his wonderful parents were smiling so much in our sacramental celebration of the fact this morning. Perhaps that’s why people had travelled from far and wide to celebrate the gift and the treasure. Yes! – wherever and whenever humankind is “baptised” in the Spirit of God we can rest assured that the Source of our Life continues to turn the world upside down. “Whoever has seen (this human) me has seen the Father” said the anointed Jesus to Philip. And this morning he might have said “whoever has seen Maximilian has seen the Father”. What a joy, what a commission, what a responsibility – this living of the Life and Love of God in and through each one of us, dear created people.

DIVINE PARENT,
Mother and Father, Sister and Brother of us all,
in company with Jesus,
in the power of your Spirit,
with prophets, priests and royal leaders,
and with every woman, man and child
upon the face of the earth,
we bless you for the gift of life and of abundance.
And as we bless you we also ask
your blessing for ourselves that we may be
inspired, strengthened and encouraged daily
to share that life and that abundance
throughout the world.

MALKUTA DISHEMAYA

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THE KINGDOM OF GOD is close at hand. Turn about and believe it. This sums up what the launch of Jesus’ Galilean mission was really all about. And the declaration caught on quickly, spreading out like wildfire. But the actual words Jesus would probably have used were Aramaic, the common language of the area: malkuta dishemaya - ‘kingdom of the heavens’.

That did not, however, signify the ‘Heaven’ of later Christian hymns or visions of the after-life. ‘The heavens’ is simply one of the substitute phrases that devout Jews preferred to use instead of naming God directly, similar to ‘the Most High’, or ‘the Lord’, or even ‘the Place’. So the Gospel of Matthew, reflecting its Jewish-Christian background, makes great use of the idiomatic ‘Kingdom of Heaven’, while Mark and Luke give the intended meaning of the phrase, which is ‘Kingdom, or reign, of God’.

John V Taylor
Kingdom Come, chapter 2, page 17

What should the ‘reign of God’ look like in British lives at the dawn of the twenty-first century? If we were to ‘turn about and believe it’ (close at hand rather than some future state beyond the grave) what would be the effect upon the life of this world? What would be the effect upon our own lives now? What would Jesus have meant when he taught his hearers to turn about and believe …? What would the reign of God,  in the silence and conscience of our hearts, really have to say to our Western insistence that we live in a state of scarcity when the reality is that, compared to huge tranches of the world’s population we live every day in the midst of super-abundance.

Life in the nearer presence of God “would be heavenly” someone said to me the other day. But would it? Doesn’t drawing closer to God make some pretty challenging demands upon our lives? Malkuta dishemaya. The kingdom of the heavens is close at hand. But are we minded to pay it, to pay God, the slightest real attention? How would the life of the world change if we did? How would my life change if I did? How many fewer burials might take place in East Africa in the coming weeks? What would “Church” look like? Would I be moved to a deeper silence before ‘the reign of God’? Would I come to understand a bit more what is meant by the poetic silent music of his praise? Or will I keep on belting out my own song in the Lord’s strange land?

BLESS MY CHILD

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A woman and her malnourished child in Banadir hospital in Mogadishu. Photo Reuters

ARCHBISHOP ROWAN spoke to the recent General Synod of the Church of England of his experiences in Eastern Congo:

Two weeks ago in Eastern Congo, listening to the experiences of young men and women who had been forced into service with the militias in the civil wars, forced therefore into atrocities done and suffered that don’t bear thinking about, I discovered all over again why the Church mattered. One after another, they kept saying, ‘The Church didn’t abandon us.’

The Archbishop is a shining example of a pastor continually willing to “discover all over again”. God knows how much we all need to. In common with many a clerical household, I guess, Church Times is usually to be found on or near the kitchen table in this vicarage. Mealtimes this week have therefore been especially chastened experiences. What, I’ve wondered, is this young mother praying for herself and her (beautiful) hungry little one?

And the hand of blessing laid with love upon the heads of beautiful, well cared for, well fed little ones in Bramhall Parish Church this morning was warm with desire to bless the mother and her child in this photograph – and the countless mothers, fathers and children who share their desperate plight, praying for the impossible, whilst laying-on their own tender hands of blessing. God help us: I’ve thought a thousand times this week that this madonna and her child in Mogadishu were praying together once in Bethlehem.

And the weeping for the children in Norway today is heard all around the world. Christopher Burkett has written, too, in that tragic context, about why the Church matters. God help us to widen our vision: to sing fewer songs of rejoicing in our own perceptions of personal salvation until we’re a bit surer in our hearts and minds that salvation has to be extended to each and all – or it is no salvation. Whilst I thank God for “looking after” me I must heed the Divine call to play my own part in “looking after” others. For each and every child of God is intended to be provided with a Bethlehem home, a House of Bread.

I pray for the day when, for God’s sake, sectarian divisions and some of the more nuanced religious certainties – of whatsoever religious tradition (or none) – may be set aside in favour of the one really important certainty, the one really important bit of “gospel” that Jesus alluded and alludes to again and again and again – that in the heart of God, at the heart of Life, the mother and her child in this photograph, and the hurting and grieving souls in Norway, and in every other nation under the sun, are of absolutely equal importance. With Archbishop Rowan I “discovered again” this morning why the Church matters, and why all men and women of goodwill, all over the world, matter: Christian Aid emergency envelopes “sold” like hotcakes, thank God, and we sang “We have a dream” with vigour. Dear God in heaven, help us to dream big … and to plant mustard seeds of faith and hope and real practical love wherever and whensoever we can.

ONE TO ONES

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A LONG BUT FRUITFUL and enjoyable day today, largely made up of one to one encounters – apart from a brief diversion recording some Thoughts for the Week for our local radio station, the aim of which is to engage in another kind of one to one. (Lovely cool basement studio contrasted with 29.5 degrees outside!).

I believe it to be of the utmost importance that a large proportion of this parish priest’s time is set aside for individuals. Discipleship – mine and that of the people I live and pray and move amongst is itself an important business. And good discipleship, good learning together, takes time and patience and commitment on all sides. It’s not always appropriate that the demands of the crowd win the day. So today’s Gospel resonates:

When Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other shore … (Matthew 8.18)

… which, in Matthew’s account, is but a couple of verses off “a violent storm come up on the sea”. Perhaps it was well that the Master had left the crowd behind, and was even seen to be conserving a bit of energy, for whilst the barque was being swamped by waves he was apparently “asleep”. But the magic in this story is that, like Dad’s Army’s Corporal Jones, though perhaps with a little more panache and a trifle more measured delivery, Jesus says “don’t panic!”.

A distinctive element of Matthew’s telling of this story is Jesus’ addressing the disciples as oligopistoi – “little-faiths”. When we, in our turn, step aside from the crowd for a spell, and concentrate upon a bit of focused time in one to ones, there’s a major lesson to be learned in the Divinely tongue-in-cheek encouragement to have a bit more faith. Which, of course, stills the storm, now rebuked for its restless activity.

KISS ‘n’ KEYS

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KISS – (KEEP IT SIMPLE) doesn’t always work for me, I’ll be honest. Sometimes “keep it simple” can be a disguise for idleness, or for over-simplification. Even so simplicity is one of the gifts set before us by Jesus. We can over-complicate things just as easily as we can over-simplify. And we can be altogether too rowdy, or too busy, in trying to accomplish either.

So I’ve been heartened to reflect today on one visitor’s response to one of our 3 Eucharistic celebrations this morning. “Could it really be as simple as you’ve suggested?”, she asked. “Could it really be that what I’ve been needing and missing for years and years is quite simply quietness and stillness enough to begin to encounter real prayer?”

“Well, yes”, I replied. “I really think it could be that simple. The stillness and the quietness that, week by week, I encourage in others has been the bedrock of my life. I would be a poor man and a (yet more!) hopeless priest without it”.

“Then my suspicions have been confirmed”, replied my new friend. “I think you’ve just handed me the keys to the kingdom. Now I just need to find which one turns the lock.”

Could it really be that simple? Well, I’m just about to try it again! It’s always better to try prayer, better to try quietness and stillness – even for just a couple of minutes – than to talk about it. And the prayer itself need not involve a single word at all. Just the silence will do, and will often, indeed, be best. And the birdsong that the stillness and quietness will almost certainly bring to my attention afresh this evening will lead me – can lead all of us – deeply and gently into the paths of peace. Here, “new every morning” we rediscover the right key for the right lock.

WE’RE THE EARLY CHRISTIANS!

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Archangel?

Archangel?

MAGGI DAWN’S DYING FROM POLITENESS - as so often with Maggi’s posts – speaks so succinctly for me of precisely the predicament I find myself in, in company with countless women and men of goodwill I encounter in a really very ordinary pastoral ministry.  For so many of us it’s just such a complete no-brainer that the Church must open its doors wider for ALL of God’s people – all of whom fall short of one person’s “ideal” or another. Moats and planks-in-the-eye come to mind when I witness prurient obsession with the perceived failings of others.

But at the same time I’m really not insensible of the complexities of the current situation. On the one hand Jane Shaw’s observation that TEC “is not going grey in the pews” is one we’ve got to take seriously – “inclusion” is really not an “issue” for most young people, here or in the US, it’s just a given – and one I thank God for. And I’m with MadPriest’s “accept diversity and leave the hard work to the Spirit”. And Kathryn at Good in Parts is certainly not alone in believing that “catholicism and inclusion should be synonyms”. But the weight of opposition – in some even to the word “inclusion” – does bring wearied ones to their knees.

Sincerity is patently observable in the rank and file of all sides of the argument. But argument it nonetheless remains, and ordinary democratic process just doesn’t cut the mustard here. Is the majority view to prevail or is the minority to be presumed right because of a noisier show of faith-full-ness? How are we to arrive at a place where the Anglican Communion can truly and peacefully say “it seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us”. We’ve prayed often enough that the Spirit of God might “disturb our false peace”. Maybe the prayers are in the throes of being answered in ways we didn’t expect – or pray for! Certainly we should be waiting more keenly upon the guidance of the Holy Spirit than upon the reflections of an always beleaguered, whichever way he turns, Archbishop of Canterbury. How we love to find someone to “wait for”. Someone to blame for failing to do or to be what we told him to be or to do. René Girard’s Scapegoat comes too readily to mind.

“God will send an angel into this”, said a wise and faithful (Roman Catholic) priest to whom I once poured out my troubled soul over some (now forgotten) situation. “I don’t know how or whom but I know that God will send an angel into this.”

Many, of course, believed that Archbishop Rowan’s appointment signalled the arrival of a modern-day Archangel Gabriel. Someone who’d do all our growing up for us, keeping the always-expected sibling rivalries at least at bay if not entirely subdued. Rowan the Brave. Waver of the magic wand. But that assumption and that hope was neither fair, nor realistic, nor Christian, nor, actually, the vocation of an angel. Angels are messengers, neither politician nor diplomat, and they don’t carry magic wands.

Archbishop Rowan’s task, like Gabriel’s, has been that of the messenger, the bearer, in many and divers times and places, of the good news that “shepherds on the hillsides” are no longer to be afraid. “Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, for to you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord”. A Saviour who conquered the world by means of a vulnerable love and not by the introduction of a whole new menu of fears. And he has said (in this St Oswald’s Day Gospel) “take courage: I have conquered the world” – John 16.33. No breather of threats, this Saviour, but a baby (someone whose destiny is to “grow up”). One in need of a loving relationship. Urgently. No-one ever put this more beautifully for me than Austin Farrer, in a sermon entitled “A Grasp of the Hand” …

we will not lift our hands to pull the love of God down to us, but he lifts his hands to pull human compassion down upon his cradle. So the weakness of God proves wiser than men, and the folly of God proves wiser than men. Love is the strongest instrument of omnipotence, for accomplishing those tasks he cares most dearly to perform; and this is how he brings his love to bear on human pride; by weakness not by strength, by need and not by bounty

We’re called, every man, woman and child of us to grow up ourselves. Called to recognise that a gracious God “brings love to bear on human pride” – and sets us an example to follow thereby. And we’ve done quite a bit of growing up in the Church, even in my (50 year) lifetime. I remember being told (and being at times persuaded by the notion) that the life and mission of the Church would be irreversibly, irreparably damaged were it ever to be the case that new liturgies superseded the English Book of Common Prayer on anything more than a very occasional basis. And God alone knew how dire would be the consequences were women ever to be ordained. And it would be no less than mortal sin were I not to be daily concerned with “the blessed unity for which Christ prayed” (but it had better be Rome-wards).

God wrote the prayer book. God called men and he didn’t call women. God called Peter and Peter built the Church for him. And Peter was a Catholic, a Roman Catholic. We know what God wants. The same as he always wanted, now wants, and always will want. All we need to do is do it. ‘Cept we can’t stop fighting each other whilst we try to decide what the kernel of the “it” is.

But then Archbishop Michael Ramsey gleefully reminded us, mobile eyebrows pointing heavenwards, that “We’re the early Christians!” – and I found and I find that I do not know the mind of God. I find that neither Scripture, Tradition nor Reason – all of which give me a great deal to work with, all of which are firm foundations for Christian faith, give me anything like the confidence I’d need to be able to say that I KNOW, definitively, what God WANTS. I believe that there are Christian people, and women and men of good faith and goodwill, all over the world, who are growing up. A lot. And the up and coming generation are helping us to grow up some more, even as they are. And in the growing I think of God as ever greater, not in any way diminished, more widely valued, worshipped and adored. Lord and God. Creator of everything that is. Seen and unseen. I believe that I can and do know that God is love. And that his love is intended to cast out fear.

Imagine a new world in which people of faith were less sure of the detail of their religious faith but more sure of God’s love for them and for all humankind. Imagine.

Who, then, might be the angel for our time, who the angel that Canon Chris Dwyer was sure would come, when I spoke to him years ago. Are even the angels dying from politeness? Could it be that the messengers are actually meant to be you and me? “God will send an angel into this”. Maybe the angel for today is the ordinary woman, man and the child in the street, people just like thee and me.  The hitherto shy souls, the none-too-sure-of-themselves souls, the “light on their wings” ones who hear and proclaim a new song. Maybe the angels for today are the people who’ve hitherto left “The Message” to the trained, the articulate, the highly educated, the sophisticated. “Let the little children come to me. Do not try to stop them.”

Maybe those of us who are inspired by some if not all of the prophetic voices we hear in The Episcopal Church in the US, maybe those of us who were quietly thrilling, hopeful, smiling and laughing as we watched video broadcast of Bishop Barbara Harris’ preaching at the Convention’s Integrity Eucharist, maybe those of us who admire the grace of Dean Jeffrey John, maybe those of us who warm to the simple goodness of Bishop Gene Robinson’s broad smile, maybe those of us who hear Archbishop Tutu’s message as a word for the world, maybe those of us who’d love opportunity to work with and alongside some of the brave new pioneers in the US – ought to SAY SO! It’s not warlike uprising I want to encourage. More a much broader, maybe even an angelic conversation. For …

…  “with the woes of sin and strife the world has suffered long. Beneath the angel strain have rolled two thousand years of wrong. And man at war with man hears not the love song which they bring. O hush the noise ye men of strife and hear the angels sing” – E H Sears

I’m a lucky man, for day by day and week by week I live with and look upon hundreds of godly people who gather to hush the noise. And, in a parish church, under the patronage of St Michael & All the Angels,  that really tries to hear what God’s messengers of peace have got to say, today.

There was grace aplenty to be seen in Archangel Gabriel, and grace aplenty too in Archbishop Michael Ramsey. And grace all abounding in Archbishop Rowan. May each of them stir in us the will again, to be the early Christians.

 

FAMILY GATHERING

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Ascension, 1408 (Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow)

Image via Wikipedia

JESUS AND HIS WANDERING BAND sought to bind as one family the whole of humankind. Painting mind-pictures (without benefit of written word) in the lives of all they encountered, Jesus and those he commissioned to ministry left a great deal to the imaginations of all those who longed for a better world.

The works of restoration and healing they’d brought about were to be surpassed by those who’d witnessed them. And the gist of the Message is that in the mind of God no one is to be left out; no one to be left comfortless; no one called upon to engage in life’s ministries in isolation. “The Spirit will teach you everything”. But first the disciples – the learners – are to “stay in the city until you are clothed with the power from on high”. Luke 24.49

There’s some waiting to be done. Some patience to be prayed for. And – as W H Vanstone would have it – there’s stature in waiting. “Stay in the city” is the word. Stay put enough, and stay quiet enough, often enough, to allow the day to dawn when people of every race and language come to see that the New Pentecost of God is Family Gathering. Human Family Gathering. “Wait in the city”. Or was that “Pray in the city”? Until you grasp his meaning. Until “though parted from our sight” his Spirit settles upon and within you. Until, albeit unseen, you know he’s standing right in front of you. Wait. Reach. Ascend.