MAGGI DAWN’S QUESTIONS unerringly get to the  heart of the matter faster than most people’s answers:

The Archbishop is worried.

A new bishop has been elected (though not yet confirmed) in Los Angeles, and she’s “married” to another woman. This will undoubtedly cause another round of bitter rows in the Anglican communion, and there is no solution to the endless disagreement. Andrew Brown says that “Rowan Williams has been forced into an impossible corner by his own diplomacy”; while Ekklesia suggests that the Archbishop making comments that the election of Mary Glasspool is problematic, while refusing to condemn the extreme measures of the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill, makes it seem that he is taking sides.

I think he can’t win whatever he says, and in a problem without a solution he has become the symbolic person that takes the flak from all sides. I don’t know what the answer is either. Do you? (my emphasis)

via lesbian bishop – Maggi Dawn.

No, Maggi. I’m sure I don’t know the answer. But as every day goes by I’m thinking that the quicker we move away from religious propositions that front “a symbolic person taking the flak” the better. And René Girard, for example, stands in company with many faithful Christians whose faith does not require that GOD intended for “His only Son” to be scapegoat for the “sin” represented by all that appears wrong, or at least unsolvable, in this world. Those of homosexual orientation are no more to blame for all the ills of Africa than Archbishop Rowan can be blamed for the ills of the Anglican Communion. Outdated theologies of scapegoating – symbolic persons taking the flak from all sides – are at the heart of the matter.

In future, all violence will reveal what Christ’s Passion revealed, the foolish genesis of bloodstained idols and the false gods of religion, politics, and ideologies. The murderers remain convinced of the worthiness of their sacrifices. They, too, know not what they do and we must forgive them. The time has come for us to forgive one another. If we wait any longer there will not be time enough. – The Scapegoat, René Girard, John Hopkins University Press, 1986, p 212

May angels of God be on hand to comfort and sustain Archbishop Rowan. And may “the thoughts and meditations of all our hearts and minds” together with our prayer, moderation and non-violence, physical or verbal, establish peace.

I WENT DOWN THROUGH THE ROOF … (until I came face to face with him) … here, probably, will have begun the recollections of a man (or Everyman?) deeply involved in a humankind story intended to be heard and seen by as wide an audience as possible – hence the big entrance! Involved in a story that came to be described as GOSPEL, as GOOD NEWS, the story of a Man (or Everyman?) who was (is) PARALYSED: (much like some parts of the Church particularly, and much of humankind generally, appear, perennially, to be today).

Some men appeared, bringing on a bed a paralysed man whom they were trying to bring in and lay down in front of him. But as they could find no way of getting the man through the crowd, they went up onto the top of the house and lowered him and his stretcher down through the tiles into the middle of the gathering, in front of Jesus. Seeing their faith he said, ‘My friend, your sins are forgiven you.’

The scribes and the Pharisees began to think this over. ‘Who is this man, talking blasphemy? Who but God alone can forgive sins?’ But Jesus, aware of their thoughts, made them this reply, ‘What are these thoughts you have in your hearts? Which of these is easier: to say, “Your sins are forgiven you,” or to say, “Get up and walk”? But to prove to you that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins,’ – he said to the paralysed man – ‘I order you: get up, and pick up your stretcher and go home.’ And immediately before their very eyes he got up, picked up what he had been lying on and went home praising God. They were all astounded and praised God and were filled with awe, saying, ‘We have seen strange things today.’ Luke 5 17-26 JB

Friends bring a paralysed Man (or Everyman?) to the One they believe can administer healing. Oddly a debate flares up because forgiveness is offered instead.Forgiveness instead of healing! Damn! That’s not what we came for. And – at any rate – this forgiveness stuff is bordering on the blasphemous. An odd little, mean little end to the story?

Except that it wasn’t the end. And the story wasn’t little. Turned out that the forgiveness CONTAINED the healing. Turned out that the paralysed Man (or Everyman?) picked up his mattress and walked.

Yet the debates still flare up. Some folks are still saying that this forgiveness stuff is bordering on blasphemy. Everyday reveals another paralysed Man (or Everyman?) – and the proclamation of the Healer is still a proclamation of forgiveness. It’s beginning to dawn on paralysed humankind that we can’t “get up and walk” whilst we remain convinced that white people, or coloured people, or doubting people, or gay people, or straight people, or male people, or female people, or different people or (dang it) just plain other people are beyond the pale. It’s beginning to dawn (pretty reluctantly, still) that, where the balm of forgiveness (the wholesome medicine of the Gospel) is applied, EVERYONE can “pick up their mattress” and “walk”.

Shouldn’t we all strip off the protective cover? Shouldn’t we all “go down through the roof”, recognising that we ourselves are paralysed and restricted? Shouldn’t we pull  out the plugs from our inner ears so that we can hear the ‘still small voice of calm’ within? “My friend, your sins are forgiven you.” Ha ha! That’s why I’ve been making thanksgiving this morning. That’s why I’ve been making Eucharist. For “they shall come to Zion shouting for joy, everlasting joy on their faces; joy and gladness will go with them and sorrow and lament will be ended.” (Isaiah 35.10). “They”, someday, shall say “I went down through the roof!”

May it be that, after supper, we can say: “We have seen strange things today”.

Patches Chabala

ANOTHER RICH SUNDAY. 8am reflection on “The Bread of Life”, led onto 10am Family Eucharist. First communion for young Freya, and visiting preacher, Zambian ordinand Patches Chabala, enthralling us with a very personal “photo album” of life back home in Zambia. Choices are simpler, Patches reflected. Asked whether you’d like a hot or a cold drink you’d simply reply, “hot, please” or “cold”. It takes a while to get the hang of the plethora of choices available in the UK. Here you can’t even get away with “tea, please” or “coffee”, for a further half dozen questions as to personal preference follow on from even these decisions. Get beyond hot or cold drinks and on to “what’s to eat?” and the world of the UK supermarket dazzles. Thankfully, God keeps things simple. In Jesus He’s the “bread of life” … french, ciabatta, naan, flat or Hovis don’t come into it. He just IS the bread of life. In Jesus we encounter God.

As an Iona liturgy has it:

He whom the universe could not contain, is present to us in this bread. He who redeemed us and called us by name now meets us in this cup. So take this bread and this wine. In them God comes to us so that we may come to God

God in the ordinary stuff of life. God in that which we can’t help but to do every day of our lives: eating and drinking. In this encounter we’re not left dazzled or baffled by a plethora of choices, nor asked to tick boxes, nor sent away “to get some experience and come back later”. God meets us today. Now. Where we are are and who we are. Because that’s who and what the Bread of Life is … Here and Now. The doors of God’s hospitality are open to every man, woman and child upon earth, today. We do well to remember that. And to open our church doors, ever wider.

See also: Patches goes to Lambeth

Jesus is prodding Simon Peter into that kind of tension when he asks him if he loves him more than these. Do you love me? Do you really love me? Can I trust that you love me? Then go out there and feed my sheep!

What are the lesser loves, what does Jesus mean when he asks if Peter loves him more than these? Does he mean the other disciples? The fish they’ve just had for breakfast? The vocation of fishing? Or maybe the whole package? Whatever it is, it has to move into the background if Peter is going to feed and tend the flock. Around here I think it has something to do with how right we think we are. What or who are we more in love with, than Jesus?

The job is to feed the sheep. Nothing else matters a whole lot. And Jesus is clear that it’s not just the flock right in front of us. There are other hungry sheep that we don’t see every day, which is one reason for many shepherds. We may all be sheep, but we all also share in the work of shepherds.

via PRESIDING BISHOP: SERMONS & ADDRESSES.

It’s of immeasurable assurance to me that one of our Anglican Primates is the present grace-filled and rock-steady Archbishop of Canterbury, and that another is the prophetic and pioneering Bishop Katharine Jefferts-Schori. The two don’t always agree with each other, and I don’t always pretend to understand the nuanced giftedness in either, but the Spirit illuminates Word and Sacrament through each of them. And I believe that spells hope and more encouraging tomorrows for us all. God grant us grace to pray daily for the shepherds.