time, healed

 

They say that time heals all wounds.

That isn’t true. The truth is that time itself is wounded, in many places brutally so; and is being healed and made whole by the Wounded One in whom all of God's creatures, including time, are being restored.

 

all shall be well

 

We long for good things to happen to good people and bad things to happen to bad people. I am an avid reader and viewer of crime fiction, and long for the villain of the piece to receive their comeuppance.

God longs for good for all people. This is the desire of God, the one true desire, the one true will of the sovereign Lord of all creation. Ultimately, no false desire can resist this true desire, that none should perish but all be reconciled to God in Jesus and their find healing and wholeness, the salvation of their souls.

There are various villains at the foot of the cross. Pilate, Herod, Annas and Caiaphas, Judas, even Peter. And over each and every one, the verdict is spoken, ‘Father, forgive them.’

Each villain is drawn to Christ on the cross, and there, if not in the chronological moment but (beginning with Peter) in the cosmic event, they are reconciled to God, to their own shattered selves, to their neighbour, to the one they lifted high through whom the desire of God has been fulfilled and is being fulfilled and shall be fulfilled.

 

the gardener and the spade

 

Everything that exists is a creature of God. And because creation is so interconnected and interdependent, everything is caught up, to a greater or lesser extent, in the estrangement from God that resulted from the independence rebellion of a third of the angels.

Death is one of the creatures of God. As the hymn All Creatures Of Our God And King puts it:

And thou, most kind and gentle death,
waiting to hush our latest breath,
O praise him, alleluia!
Thou leadest home the child of God,
and Christ our lord the way has trod:
O praise him, O praise him,
alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

Death, too, has been caught up in the estrangement; and death, too, is caught up in the reconciliation of all things in Christ.

Paul, writing to the church in Corinth, states that those whom Moses led out of bondage in Egypt two thousand years before the time of Jesus nonetheless participated in his life-giving life. Even though they made choices that led to their death, to a gracious limit on the effect of estrangement, death is not the end. As Paul writes to the church in Rome, he is utterly convinced that nothing in all creation, including death, is able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. A great many Christians today do not share his confidence, but there we are.

Likewise, we who, from a chronological perspective are separated from Jesus by two thousand years in the other direction, are drawn to him, to the reconciliation of all things in him, which is won on the cross.

On one occasion, Jesus was asked about the deaths of some Galileans at the hand of Pilate. They died, Jesus responds, because of the estrangement between Jew and Gentile. And those who died when a tower collapsed on them died because of the estrangement between neighbours that allows one to put profit before the common good. Yet death is not the final horizon.

In response, Jesus told a parable about a fig tree that had failed to produce figs for the past three years and was threatened with being cut down. In the Bible, trees represent people. The fig tree stands for Israel, and beyond that the human condition, and under all of that the life of the human god Jesus. For three years, it has not produced figs. At this stage, Jesus has been going from place to place healing the sick, driving out demons, and teaching both the crowds and his disciples. Yet the restoration of Israel has not come about, as far as his critics can see. He has had his opportunity. Let him now be removed. But Jesus gently but firmly insists that his time has not yet come. Will not yet come for another year. For now, he continues with the unglamorous, painstaking, slow work of digging in fertiliser.

A year from then, Jesus would be hoisted up on an execution scaffold. Yet this was not the end, for he would transform the cross into the tree of life, the fruit-bearing tree. Here we see the true cry of humanity, ‘Father forgive,’ and the true response of God in giving the Son the gift he asks for, the life-giving Spirit. Here we see the Son glorify the Father through the Spirit, in loving humanity even to the extent in sharing in their death and returning the Spirit to the Father. And here we see the Father glorify the Son through the Spirit, rewarding his faithfulness with the life of the Spirit returned to him.

And all creation, whether it lies on the chronological horizon before or after this event, is being drawn to the cross, where all things are reconciled in Jesus, never to be estranged again.

This is a slow and hidden work, that takes as long as it takes. It takes in your history and mine, the healing of every wound you have suffered and every wound you have inflicted. To the naked eye, the fig tree of your life, or mine, may look barren, nothing to see here. And yet, the gardener has not given up. Still, he digs around us, gets deep into our roots. For those with eyes to see, it is possible to watch him at work, healing those parts of us that, chronologically speaking, are no longer present, our childhood, our past.

He will not lay down his tools until all creation is restored. All creation.

 

thou shalt not bear false witness

 

If you want to know the judgement of God on sinners – on all who, from time to time, fail to trust in God's goodness towards them – we find it on the lips of the human god Jesus on the cross: ‘Father, forgive them; they do not know what they do.’

This is both the true cry of humanity, in response to our common condition, and the true declaration of God, in response to our common condition.

All contrary utterances (‘Father, punish’) speak falsely, of both human nature and divine nature.

 

not my king

 

Whenever you come across a king in one of Jesus’ parables, you are NOT coming across God.

Christ is the true king, and he chooses to take the form of a servant. Indeed, he most often appears in his own parables as a servant – and often mistreated by a king who does terrible things. Like Aragorn in The Lord Of The Rings, Jesus moves through the Gospels incognito.

The kings represent, in the first instance, men who exercise earthly power over the lives of others. Also, by extension, the ways in which we seek to be the king of our own lives, rejecting the servant heart of God, the love of God for us in Jesus.

Therefore, the kings inflict violence. And whenever we proclaim that these kings are revelations of the nature of God, we demonstrate that our god is violence, control over others guaranteed by coercive force. Such proclamation is spiritual abuse; and underpins most if not all forms of abuse we see, from time to time but with monotonous regularity, in the Church.

 

in deep sh*t

 

Bad things happening to people is not evidence of God judging them. Indeed, death is not divine judgement, nor should we ever threaten it.

Once upon a time some people told Jesus that Pilate (the governor of the Roman province of Judaea) had violently put down some Galilean-led disorder at the time of a Passover. This raised questions for them, about the nature of God. Had God allowed this to happen because he did not approve of the men in question? Jesus refuted such a view; and added that unless they were prepared to change their understanding of God, they themselves would be caught up in human violence and not be able to understand it as such. Jesus himself would be killed at Pilate’s orders, and this would not be a sign of his sinfulness.

Jesus cited a further example: eighteen debtors who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them. These, Jesus insisted, were no worse debtors than anyone else living in Jerusalem, and this tragedy was not divine judgement. Unless they could understand that they would not be able to construct any sense when tragedy befell themselves.

Then, as Jesus habitually did, he told them a parable. A story thrown out to disrupt their thinking and, perhaps, enable them to see things from a different perspective. A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard. Having given it three years to take root, he looked for fruit and found none. And so, he instructed his vinedresser to cut it down, so that the soil might be put to better use. But the vinedresser asked for one more year, that he might dig manure around the roots, and see if that might make all the difference.

Parables lead us down an easy path, only to turn us onto a different Way. Here we have a vineyard, a symbol of the nation of Israel. And so, the owner must be God. God has had enough of the apostasy of his people, of their fruitless lives, and calls for their destruction. But the prophet intercedes for his people, successfully persuading a vengeful God to show uncharacteristic albeit temporary mercy.

But this easy path will not do. The vinedresser is, indeed, Jesus. But Jesus does not pacify an angry Old Testament God. Jesus is the revelation of God. When we see Jesus, what we see is what God is like. And what humans are to be like.

What we see is that to be a sinner (a debtor, among debtors) in the hands of God is not to suffer terror; it is to suffer care: to be handled with care.

The man in this parable is not God, but us; and the fig tree is not Israel, but also us. (By us, in the first instance I mean the original heaters of the parable, and by extension all who hear the parable.) This is a parable about how we see others (the man considers the tree useless, as we often see others as useless) and how we see ourselves (often we consider our lives to be fruitless, which may result in despair, or may result in pleading with God to give us one last chance to turn our lives around).

Jesus is the vinedresser, who stands up to our violent tendencies towards others or towards ourselves, and who states his intention to dig in manure. To use the seemingly worthless reality of waste to produce fruitfulness. Committing to slow processes. Absorbing humiliation and transforming it into glory.

Unless we are able to see this, we will suffer much violence at our own hands and inflict much violence on others. The spiritual abuse of holding the threat of divine destruction over people. Such a stance is utterly anti the posture Jesus adopts.

To be a sinner in the hands of God is to be loved, to be nurtured, to be transformed by the tender heart and worn hands of Jesus. To surrender to his life reviving us from our dormancy.

Bad things happen. But all things are being reconciled to God in Christ Jesus. Including you.

A year after this exchange, Jesus will be cut down by men who did not approve of the fruit his life produced. He will suffer their violence, and God will reward his faithfulness even unto death on the cross with glory, a glory countless others receive a share in. Including you.

Luke 13.1-9

At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, ‘Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them--do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.’

‘Then he told this parable: ‘A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, “See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?” He replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.” ’

 

northern saints

 

At St Nicholas,’ the church where I am priest-in-charge, we have a large collection of stained-glass windows by the twentieth-century designer Leonard Evetts. Four of these depict northern saints: Columba, Aidan, Bede, and Hilda. Several of the classrooms in our church halls are also named for northern saints, but there was nothing other than a name plate on the door to indicate any significance to this decision.

Recently I was approached by a group of sixth formers (final two years of secondary school education) who were looking for a project volunteering in the community. I invited them to help me reclaim a room on the church halls (the Columba room) that had had various uses over the years, most recently as a storeroom, but that I wanted to use as a space for quiet reflection or prayer, and study.

First, they helped clear the room of everything that was stored in it. Then I took photos of the stained-glass and projected them onto the walls. The students helped me trace them out in pencil, and colour-block them with acrylic paint, and I added the detail.

I have already used the room for Lent conversations on living hope, and baptism preparation with families. The door is kept on the snib so anyone can make use of the room for prayer whenever the halls are open to the community throughout the week.

time

 

We ask the wrong question of time.

How will you use the time you have (wisely)? What will you do with it?

(This is the question behind clocking on early, and off late; the question behind career advice and bucket lists.)

But time is – as we are – one of God’s creatures. And I do not want to be used (even by someone who thinks they are acting wisely). So why would time? I am not a utility, or a tool, and neither is time.

Better questions to ask of time:

How might we receive time? respond to time? cherish time? hold time lightly?

 

who do you think you are?

 

‘But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation so that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.’

Philippians 3.20, 21

When we read the Bible, we are invited to find ourselves in the story, and to do so honestly, in Christ. He is the interpretive key to the story, the resurrected Jesus who appears to his followers and says, ‘Peace be with you.’ Whatever you are going through, peace be with you.

This Sunday when the church gathered to meet with Jesus, we read from a letter Paul wrote to our brothers and sisters in Philippi.

Around forty years before the birth of Jesus, the brilliant Roman general Julius Caesar took for himself emergency powers to save the Republic. Not everyone agreed that this would save the Republic. Some, even former friends of Caesar’s, believed it would destroy the Republic. Caesar was assassinated (on what our calendar calls 15th March, 44 BCE) and the Republic thrown into civil war. Caesar’s friend Mark Anthony and adopted son Octavian chased Cassius and Brutus around the Mediterranean, catching up with them just outside Philippi, in Macedonia. Mark Anthony and Octavian won a decisive battle and rewarded many of their legionaries for faithful service by giving them Philippi as their pension, also making the city a colony of Rome, that is, Rome in another place.

Around fifteen years later, Mark Anthony and Octavian had fallen out, Octavian had defeated his former friend, and declared himself emperor, taking the title Augustus, or venerable, and rewarding more soldiers with retirement in Philippi.

Paul will turn up in town around seventy-five years later. By now the original generation of Roman citizens is gone, but the current residents enjoyed Roman citizenship as a participation in the reward of someone else.

This, too, is the basis on which we are citizens of heaven, of the rule and reign of God in the world which is the reward given to Jesus for being faithful even unto death, and which we benefit from. Not on the grounds of our own faithfulness.

Paul, Silas and Timothy were seeking to establish new communities of followers of Jesus in what today we would call Turkey. But every way they turned, they felt God say, not here, not yet.

Perhaps you know what it is like to seek guidance for a decision you need to make or an action you are looking to take and feel only confusion and frustration.

Eventually, one night Paul has a dream. A man from Macedonia stands before him, saying, Come over to us; we need to hear the Gospel too.

The next morning, over breakfast, Paul tells his friends about his dream, and they agree this is what they need to do. So, they head to the nearest port, take a ship across the Aegean Sea to Neapolis, and make the short walk inland to Philippi.

Wherever Paul went, his first move was to seek out the Jewish community, those with whom he had a common history. But at Philippi, there was no Jewish community. Perhaps there were some Gentiles who worshipped the Jewish god, and if so, they would probably be found on the Sabbath, a little way outside the city walls, by the river where there was flowing water to wash in before praying. And this is where they do find such people, including Lydia.

Lydia was a businesswoman, an immigrant to Philippi from Thyatira, perhaps what we would call a fashion designer. She invited Paul and his companions to be her guests; they told her about Jesus; and she asked to be baptised. Then for several days they shared stories of Jesus.

But as they walked through the city, they would be followed around by a slave girl who was possessed, or oppressed, by a demon that purported to tell your fortune. As many people want to know what is going to happen, or think that they do, or want to find a hack to swing chance in their favour, this slave girl made her owners, her pimps, very wealthy. And she started following Paul and his companions around, telling anyone in earshot, ‘These men are servants of the Most High God, who bring you a message of salvation.’

The endorsement of a demon is not the kind of publicity Paul is looking for, for Jesus. At first he tries to ignore her, but eventually it is too much. He turns around and performs an exorcism. The girl returns to herself, and her owners realise that they have lost their income stream. This makes them angry.

They drag Paul and Silas before the magistrates and accuse them of inciting public disorder. The magistrates decree that, accordingly, they should be stripped and beaten with rods in the public square, then spend the night in the cells before being run out of town. And this is what happened.

Paul and Silas find themselves in stocks in the innermost cell. And their response is to sing hymns of praise. Behaviour that intrigues the other prisoners. Who does this?

During the night there is an earthquake, and the prison doors fail. The jailer despairs. He sees a future in which he is held accountable for the escape of his prisoners, where he suffers the public shame of trial and execution; and he decides that it would be more honourable to take his own life.

But Paul calls out, ‘Stop! No one has escaped.’ You might feel that you have no options, but you do have options. And the jailer chooses to take Paul and Silas into his home, wash them, tend to their bruised and bloodied bodies, feed them. And he asks these extraordinary men, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ And, like Lydia, he and his household are baptised.

The next morning, the magistrates send the word to expel Paul and Silas from the city. But Paul does not think so. They are, he claims, Roman citizens. This terrifies the magistrates. It is not legal to punish a Roman citizen without trial, yet they had not taken the trouble to establish who was brought before them or their side of the story. They saw only a foreigner whose presence was an offence. Paul could be Nigerian, and Philippi, Sunderland. But for this failure, the magistrates could lose their jobs and be banned for life from holding any public office.

Instead, they find themselves humbled before Paul. Paul and Silas rejoin their companions, return to Lydia’s home to say their farewells, and leave town on their own terms.

Later, Paul writes to the brothers and sisters in Philippi, about (among other things) their primary citizenship (a colony of the rule of God) and the hope that the humiliated body will be glorified.

So where do you find yourself in this story of citizens and migrants, of feeling oppressed or of being exploited, of miscarriages of justice, of deep despair, of burning humiliation?

Where does Jesus suddenly appear before you, saying, ‘Peace be with you?’

 

non-anxious presence

 

I am witnessing a lot of anxiety at the moment. And in response, I want to say:

[1] The world is not going to hell in a handcart. The world is being drawn into the reconciliation of all things to God in Jesus. All movement that enlarges the distance between people, or between people and the rest of creation, is an aberration, a temporary state of affairs, where we have yet to respond to grace. Keep choosing to move with the grain of history, not against it, by the grace of God.

[2] 47 is not God’s man appointed to bring about God’s purposes. The man God has appointed, who has brought about, is bringing about, and will bring about God's purposes, is Jesus. No one else. Not 47, not you, not me. Christian Nationalism is idolatrous.

[3] On the other hand, nothing that 47 or anyone else can do can derail the trajectory to reconciliation in and with and through Jesus. Nothing that falls short of Love has the power to defeat Love.

[4] You are not reading about Putin and 47 in the Book of Revelation. Revelation is an apocalypse, a genre of work that lifts the veil on present events to reveal what is going on in a deeper reality. The present events in question being the end of what we now refer to as the first century of the Common Era. Revelation was written to encourage Christians living under the seemingly all-powerful Roman empire to remain faithful to Jesus, even to death, for through their faithful witness Rome would fall. Everything we see in Revelation concerns events that took place long before our time. Because Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever, we can extrapolate truth about the nature and action of God, and our vocation to remain faithful to Jesus in the face of empire, just as we can do with the texts that make up the Old Testament. But to claim that we are living in the events depicted in Revelation is an aggrandisement of our time, a foolish self-importance.

[5] Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Turn away from sin and remain faithful to Christ to the end of your days.

As you were.

 

Ash Wednesday

 

In his Gospel—good news story—concerning Jesus, John records an incident in the temple at Jerusalem, a building that stands for a convergence of national, religious, cultural identity and power. On this occasion, Jesus is visiting the temple and is speaking in front of a gathered crowd who are taking an interest. But the scene is hijacked by a group of men who are important in their own eyes. They thrust a woman in front of Jesus. She has, they say, been caught in the very act of committing adultery. She is, one may surmise, not dressed in a manner they consider appropriate for the hallowed space in which she now finds herself. She has forgotten herself. She has not shown the expected deference. She has no cards in her hand, and without the help of those who are exposing her to public humiliation, it will all be over for her very quickly. She is silenced.

She is somewhat collateral damage, for their true intention is to push Jesus to do as they want. Will he refuse to show mercy, and so place himself in their debt, a debt they may choose to call in at any moment of their own choosing? Or will he refute them, in which case he will invalidate his credentials against their interpretation of founding documents? And who, exactly, are these men trying to impress?

Jesus ignores the men. He stoops down and draws in the dust on the ground with his finger, moving it around, so that it settles in a new configuration, so that it lies differently now.

Most Saturday mornings, I take part in the local parkrun, and afterward we go to the café in the sports centre. Near the door to the centre is a banner, a larger-than-life size photo of a smiling middle-aged woman with the text ‘Be the best version of you.’ I am sure she is a lovely person, but I cannot help but think that the best version of me looks somewhat different. But being the best version of you is quite the thing to be these days, involving self-discovery and self-improvement. We might even be tempted to coopt the Season of Lent into this programme.

But self-discovery and self-improvement are treacherous goals. Our identity is not a fixed given we discover, nor a project we construct for ourselves. When we embark on such activities we become to ourselves like Pharaoh conscripting the Israelites to hard labour or condemn our future selves to excavating and robbing the graves of our past selves.

In his letters to early congregations of Jesus-followers, Paul proclaims that our identity is in Christ. It is he, who died and rose again for us, who is the eternal convergence of our past, present and future, the givenness of our identity. And as John records, Jesus is the one who writes on the ground, who re-orders the dust of which we are made—dust animated by the breath of God—including in ways that reveal his unassuming mastery over events that befall us. Paul goes so far as to say that we are hidden in him—that is to say, our identity, which is kept safe by him for all eternity, is at least partially hidden from others and also from ourselves. For one thing, who among us could know, at four years old, what we would be at fifty, or at eighty? There is both continuity and discontinuity—the same dust, reconfigured many times.

On Ash Wednesday, I press my finger into a mash of ash and fragrant olive oil and trace the pattern of the cross on the forehead of those who find themselves standing in front of me. They may feel humiliated by the circumstances of their life, by their shortcomings, by their inability to take and keep hold of the best version of themselves. They may very well have been wounded by the actions of others, whether old wounds that have left scars or fresh wounds that have left bruises. The cross I trace says you have died with Christ. Not only are you mortal, but you have already died: you share in his death, and in his rising, in his glory, for your identity is in him, and only in him. You are hidden in him. His past, present and future are your past, present and future; and your past, present and future are his and in him. Nothing can separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Nothing that has changed or is changing or will change your very partial understanding of yourself; nothing you have experienced, are experiencing, or shall experience. And in him, one day you shall fully know yourself, and be fully known.

And with the sign of the cross in ash, words of invitation: ‘remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return; turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ to the end of your days.’ Such action—turning away from sin and returning to Christ, which, if it is true that we are in him is also to return to ourselves—achieves nothing for us. It is not a process of self-improvement, of becoming the best version of you. It is simply the expression of a thankful heart, for what has already been done. The best version of you—the version that has been set free from the hold of sin over us; the version that is the righteousness of God—has already been called into being through Christ and with Christ and in Christ, along with the rest of humanity. We do not need to strive for perfection, or wrestle with existential angst. We may, indeed, lament aspects of the past, present or future, but even as we are treated—by others, by ourselves—as dying, we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything. This Lent, may we rest secure in this amazing grace, and know ourselves afresh to be reconciled to God.

 

arc of history

 

Like many, I have been watching global political events unfolding over recent weeks. We are witnessing a major change in approach—at least official approach—by the US, with consequences that run far wider. I have a friend who often says that people are alright, wherever they are from; it is the politicians who are the problem. Respectfully, I disagree, for several reasons: firstly, politicians are people, not some other category of being; moreover, many politicians are good people, working hard for the communities they represent; and politics can be a helpful way to share resources for the common good.

But politics, and politicians, cannot address our most fundamental problem, which is that at the deepest level we are alienated from, and fearful of, the Other, those who are not accepted/acceptable within our family or group or tribe. Some Christian traditions call this original sin; some Christian traditions call it the original wound. Politics cannot bridge that divide; indeed, politics reflects and can deepen the divide.

Christians believe that the arc of history is irrevocably moving towards the bridging of that divide, the healing of that wound, in the person of Jesus; and that, whatever the times we find ourselves in look and feel like, in Jesus now is always the auspicious moment in history to be reconciled with God and our neighbour. To discover that we are acceptable/accepted.

That same trajectory passes through me and carries me, an arc that originates in God and will return to God. An arc that moves through time, which, like me, is itself one of God’s creatures, and is held within God—specifically, Christians believe, in Jesus. A path that, viewed close up, as I trace it, often appears—and is experienced as—tangled, heading in the wrong direction, or even blocked. This is real, but not the ultimate reality. When tempted to despair, at ourselves or on account of the actions of those Others we fear—including where we, or they, attempt to co-opt that arc, to co-opt Jesus, to the purposes of division—we need to zoom out, to see the bigger picture.

These are dark times, and there are those who take advantage of the darkness to harm others for their own gain. This is also the time we have been given, the fitting time to choose for Life, for Light, for Love. For peace, with guaranteed security. Accept no substitutes.