hiding in plain sight

 

Here is the text of a paper I gave today at the Neurodiversity and the Role of Language in Church conference. It expands on thoughts I have shared at earlier times on social media and/or my blog.

 

Hiding in plain sight: neurodivergent insights in encountering the Word beyond words
Revd Dr Andrew C Dowsett

Abstract

Ancient Hebrew has a far more limited vocabulary than twenty-first century English, with many instances of words that have more than one meaning (semantic range). Typical translation asks, ‘Which of the possible meanings makes the most sense in this context?’ excluding other possibilities and concealing more meaning than it reveals. As a neurodivergent preacher, I find this typical approach to have an impoverished appreciation of the Story. Instead, I seek to hold divergent readings together, making visible the shimmering presence that lies beyond the ‘normal’ range of perception. In this paper, I will consider two stories of encountering God at Sinai/Horeb (Exodus 19.18 and 1 Kings 19.4-8) the mountain where God simultaneously reveals/conceals himself. Furthermore, it is typically assumed that autistic people cannot understand metaphor. The reality is far more complex. I propose that autistic use of metaphor plays a role in navigating between masking and unmasking in our congregations.

 

I am a Church of England vicar, and in this capacity have offered reflections on passages from the Bible, for a congregation, at least two or three times a week for the past seventeen years. But I have lived with—and within—these sacred texts for over fifty years. I am also autistic—probably AuDHD—with cooccurring dyslexia and dyspraxia. Dyspraxia in particular affects how I read, needing to expend measurable time and energy recalling the meaning of every word, rather than scanning sentences for meaning.

Ancient Hebrew has a far more limited vocabulary than twenty-first century English, and (at least proportionally) more instances of words that have more than one meaning (semantic range). Dominant, neurotypical translation asks, “which of the possible meanings of this word makes the most sense in this context?” ruling out other possibilities.

But this results in both a ‘revealed’ meaning and a ‘concealed’ meaning or hidden meanings. And I am drawn to what is concealed. Indeed, I find the ‘Select one’ approach an impoverished reading or appreciation of the Story. Instead, I seek to hold divergent readings together, making visible the shimmering presence that lies beyond the ‘normal’ range of perception. Language conveys our understanding of the world, and I would contend that ancient Hebrew works at both a literal/material and metaphorical/spiritual level. In my experience—perhaps ironically—neurotypical readers tend to read ‘literally’ (“the plain thing is the main thing”) and fail to appreciate the metaphorical.

In Exodus 19.18 Yahweh descends on Mount Sinai. The NRSVA offers us:

‘Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the Lord had descended upon it in fire; the smoke went up like the smoke of a kiln, while the whole mountain shook violently.’

Here we have a theophany, which is simultaneously a revealing and concealing of God, and a masking which we might be encouraged to understand as an accommodation of human frailty in the presence of the divine.

But the Hebrew word ‘ashan’ can mean ‘smoke’ or also ‘anger.’ At least, it is translated as smoking anger elsewhere (Deuteronomy 29.20; Psalm 74.1; Psalm 80.4). So, when we come across it in relation to Mount Sinai, we might read:

‘Now Mount Sinai was altogether angry, because the god Yahweh had descended upon it like fire; it’s anger like the smoke rising from a kiln, the whole mountain so angry it shook.’

Clearly, a mountain cannot be angry in a material sense, and so ‘wrapped in smoke’ is the most obvious or revealed telling. But from a poetic perspective, mountains can be angry. Or, in a non-Western worldview that understands natural or human-made objects and places to be by some manner (whether inherent or conferred) ‘animated,’ spiritually, it makes sense.

So, this gives us a concealed meaning, one that invites us to wonder why a mountain should respond to God’s arrival with anger?

Much is made in the surrounding context of ‘the third day,’ which echoes the third day of creation, when God separated dry land from the sea and called forth vegetation of all kinds and in particular fruit bearing, seed carrying plants;

but the mountain is barren, has in a sense chosen to reject the liberty God had in mind for it—

or has not been able to flourish as we would assume flourishing might look like, if we employ too-narrow a definition—

all of which makes it an interesting choice of venue to present a newly liberated people with Ten Words, the seeds for fruitful living.

This concealed reading—an angry mountain; or an overwhelmed mountain having an autistic meltdown, perhaps—also invites us to ponder when God might have turned up in our lives and we have responded with anger, or meltdown? And, why we—or perhaps someone we know and love; perhaps a member of our family, or congregation—were angry, or overwhelmed?

But if the mountain is angry—violently angry—perhaps Yahweh masks himself in fire for self-preservation? Or if the mountain is overwhelmed and having a meltdown, perhaps Yahweh wraps it in a weighted blanket and sits with it until it is brought back to a place of emotional regulation?

This example of a pattern of linguistic simultaneous revealing and concealing also invites us to reflect on how we—who are made in the likeness of God—approach others, unsure of whether we will be received or rejected.

There is much talk in neurodivergent circles of autistic masking and unmasking. Is autistic masking—usually understood as the attempt to pass as neurotypical—a necessary survival mechanism; or ongoing violence against the self; or both of these things: in Jungian terms a ‘false self,’ constructed in youth to conceal the ‘shadow self’ we do not wish the world to see, because we are ashamed or because we are uncertain; which served us until we are ready to throw it off, revealing our ‘true self,’ created and given by God? And is autistic masking the only form of mask autistic people employ?

The use of masks—perhaps various masks—to both present something of who we are and hold something of who we are back is a human impulse that, arguably, reflects a divine impulse. Choosing when we unmask is also an act that, arguably, reflects a divine process.

Masks do not in themselves deny our true selves. They can help to broker relationships, while setting wise boundaries of un/availability to others. They can help us explore aspects of our identity we have previously failed to explore. They can make the most sense in a given context, or cause confusion; they can create dissonance that opens up possibility. They can be playful, as God is playful; protect us, as God is vulnerable; or protect the other, as God is careful.

What will I choose to reveal, and to conceal, about myself today?

Long after Moses, the prophet Elijah will find himself on the same ‘angry’ or perhaps autistic mountain. That this is where, yet again, Yahweh chooses to meet with mortals, created in his image, embracing a fullness of neurodiversity. That this is where Yahweh feels most at home.

The NRSVA renders 1 Kings 19.4-8 this way:

‘But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: ‘It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.’ Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, ‘Get up and eat.’ He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, ‘Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.’ He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food for forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.’

Let’s break that down, reading each word for meaning, for semantic range.

Elijah ‘went a day’s journey into the wilderness.’

The word for ‘wilderness’ or ‘desert’ (‘midbar’) is, at root, also the word for ‘mouth’ or ‘speech.’ This is both fascinating and unsurprising, as the wilderness is the place where God speaks, or, more accurately, where humans speak with God.

The word for ‘journey’ (‘derek’) is also the word for ‘Way,’ as in a way of life, which is worked out through conversation—which is also the same word.

The word for ‘day’ (‘yom’) is also the word for ‘daily.’

So, at a literal/material level, Elijah ‘went a day’s journey into the wilderness.’ And at a metaphorical/spiritual level, it is Elijah’s practice to be in daily conversation with God.

We would call that prayer.

Now, some would argue that we work out which of the possible meanings a word should be given by the context. But I would argue that where a word can be understood in more than one way, it should be understood in more than one way. Because the context for the spiritual is always material, and the material is always spiritual. They belong together.

So, I would take it at face value that Elijah, whose practice it was to be in daily conversation with God, took a walk into the wilderness.

And there he sat down under a broom tree.

Now, the broom tree also appears in Job chapter 30 and Psalm 120. For Job it is a symbol of those expelled by society, which Job applies to himself to say he feels rejected by God. Psalm 120 links the wood of the broom tree, which was prized for how well it burned, with a peacemaker dwelling amongst those who hate peace.

This is where Elijah chooses to sit down, to stop walking on the way, to end his conversation. He has had enough.

Autistic people certainly identify with feeling expelled by society; and some may feel rejected by God. We can also identify with a deep awareness of injustice and of the call to be a peacemaker, and of experiencing burnout. We don’t need to claim Elijah as one of our own, having an autistic shutdown, to claim the broom tree as autistic metaphor.

God sends a messenger, an ambassador, who comes to Elijah as he sleeps, breaks off some branches from the broom tree, heats some flat stones on them, and bakes flat bread on the stones. (I love cake, but it is a misleading translation.) That is to say, God answers Elijah (who was not asking a question or seeking a continuation of their conversation) with food and drink. Again, I would take this at both a material and a spiritual level. Sustenance for body and soul.

Elijah awoke, ate and drank, and lay down again to sleep. Later, the ambassador returns, wakes him again, provides him with more food and water, and tells him that he needs to eat and drink if he is to have the strength that he needs to undergo the journey ahead of him. The word ‘strength’ (‘koach’) also means ‘chameleon.’ Weird, huh?

That journey takes him to Horeb, the mountain of the Lord. ‘Horeb’ means ‘desolate.’ God waits for us in the place of our desolation. In the place where nothing else can console us. God waits for us, and, moreover, sustains us on the conversation that will bring us to that place, to confront ourselves, stripped of all the many outer layers with which we have tried to blend in, to mask ourselves. Chameleon.

But that masking has served a purpose; is strength to us. In the verses that follow, Yahweh employs wind so strong that it splits mountains and breaks rocks; earthquake; and fire as masks; before finally revealing himself most personally in sheer silence. In an entirely voluntary mutism, after unmasking layer upon layer, and before Yahweh invites Elijah into verbal conversation. Is Yahweh making sure that Elijah is a safe person to open up to? Or is this the shadow self, embraced, integrated; wholeness, modelled?

In the past it was assumed that autistic people struggle with metaphor, indeed that this was a classic hallmark of autism. And, of course, some autistic people do. But others are comfortable with metaphor—and if, like me, you have swum in these sacred stories for a lifetime, that may be even more likely. I want to suggest, as more recent research is also verifying, that many of us are highly skilled in creating, or pattern-recognising, our own metaphors. Metaphor is not simply a stylistic choice, but a linguistic way of ordering the world we encounter. And if we encounter the world differently, we need different metaphors—metaphors which add to the richness of a neurodiversity of interpretation.

Of course we understand that God is our Rock (and that he isn’t, literally, one of the rocks in my rock collection on my bookshelf). But we also offer the neurodivergent mountain. We offer—using pattern recognition—the broom tree as metaphor for autistic experience, not simply literal/material detail providing shade and fuel. We offer wind, earthquake, and fire as metaphors for masking, and unmasking—which may help us to navigate our own choices to mask and unmask before others, when we preside as autistic priests, or come to public worship as neurodivergent persons. We offer the brilliant and adaptable chameleon of strength—what neurotypical mind would ever coin ‘the strength of a chameleon’ over the unimaginative ‘courage of a lion’?

In my own experience, neurotypical readers are at least as likely as neurodivergent readers to view our sacred texts through a literal lens—to veer towards fundamentalist interpretations: to view Genesis chapter 1 as literal science and history; rather than literally, as poetry and theology. I believe that neurodivergent readings can open up space for those who have felt excluded to find room. Moreover, I believe that neurodivergent readings can help us all, revealing that which has been overlooked because it is hiding in plain sight; making visible the shimmering presence that lies beyond the ‘normal’ range of perception; reclaiming a world that is, in fact, more substantial than the superficial illusion daily presented to us. Our insights are a gift from God, to be shared with others.

 

90

 

This summer at St Nicholas’ Church we have been exploring a sermon series on the Psalms, or songbook of ancient Israel. Most of the Psalms are around 3,000 years old and associated with king David, written by him or in the tradition associated with him. Today I spoke about Psalm 90, which is associated with Moses, five hundred years before the time of David. Moses is the survivor of genocide whom God sent to Pharaoh to demand that he release the Israelites from conscripted labour to depart generations of oppression in Egypt, the superpower of the day.

Psalm 90 has been associated with funerals, though that has become less common and therefore less familiar, and invites us to take an honest look at our lives, through the lens of God’s wrath and of God’s steadfast love. Both these things are good news.

When we speak of God’s wrath, we are not speaking of some out-of-control anger. God is not a man who is fun to be around after a drink or two, but who turns predictably unpredictably violent after five or six. The wrath of God is God’s settled resistance to evil.

Throughout the Bible, God sets out the difference between good and evil, right and wrong, and calls a people—a society—to choose good. It isn’t, on the whole, ambiguous. The ten commandments set out moral positions such as, don’t exploit workers, treat older people with respect, don’t murder, steal, or cheat on your spouse. Again and again, God calls society to give special care to the most vulnerable, citing the widows and orphans, and immigrants.

When we turn our backs on the good, to pursue what is evil — fear, hatred, enmity, selfishness, greed — we can expect to run into God’s settled resistance. If we have enough resources, enough personal wealth, we can keep pressing against that resistance for a long time. You might become a billionaire, or the president of a superpower — a pharaoh — but, eventually, there comes a reckoning. Moses saw this close up in the stand-off between pharaoh and God.

The purpose of God’s wrath is to press us to turn back. Indeed, this is so important that we are created with God’s wrath internalised within us, for it has another name: our conscience. Our conscience, being clear when we choose the good and guilty when we choose the evil. Again, we have a choice: to harden our heart — as pharaoh did — or to humble our heart — as Moses, who had murdered a ‘bad man,’ knew what it was to choose evil, did. It did not end well for pharaoh.

The aim of God’s wrath is that we should turn back after days, or weeks, or at most months, rather than years or decades. But my prayer is that we might know the wrath of God all the days of our life, calling us back when we wander.

Because the psalm goes on to speak of God’s steadfast love. Of experiencing compassion, steadfast love, joy, gladness, glory, favour, and prosperity. This is God’s default position towards humanity, that we should be able to say that God’s steadfast love has been out dwelling place, our refuge, our home address, throughout generations. This is the home to which God’s wrath resists our wandering away from.

For, just as God is not a violent drunk, neither is he a man who spends every waking hour in the office, never having time for his children. God is not so busy with the geo-politics of the Middle East that he has no interest in you. No, God delights in you. Moses prays, and I pray with him, that we might know that steadfast love our whole life long, at least as much if not moreso than our awareness of God’s wrath.

The psalm concludes ‘prosper for us the work of our hands — O prosper the work of our hands!’ which is to say, may the way I live, the way I make my living, be a blessing to the world, to those around me.

Today, I spoke about this psalm at the baptism of the son of friends of mine. My prayer for him — and for me, and for us all — is that we would know the wrath of God all the years of our life; that we would know our home to be within the steadfast love of God our whole life long; and that God would prosper the work of our hands, to the blessing of the world, whatever it might be that we do with our lives.

Psalm 90

A Prayer of Moses, the man of God.

1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place
in all generations.
2 Before the mountains were brought forth
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

3 You turn us back to dust
and say, “Turn back, you mortals.”
4 For a thousand years in your sight
are like yesterday when it is past
or like a watch in the night.

5 You sweep them away; they are like a dream,
like grass that is renewed in the morning;
6 in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;
in the evening it fades and withers.

7 For we are consumed by your anger;
by your wrath we are overwhelmed.
8 You have set our iniquities before you,
our secret sins in the light of your countenance.

9 For all our days pass away under your wrath;
our years come to an end like a sigh.
10 The days of our life are seventy years
or perhaps eighty, if we are strong;
even then their span is only toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.

11 Who considers the power of your anger?
Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you.
12 So teach us to count our days
that we may gain a wise heart.

13 Turn, O Lord! How long?
Have compassion on your servants!
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us
and as many years as we have seen evil.
16 Let your work be manifest to your servants
and your glorious power to their children.
17 Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us
and prosper for us the work of our hands—
O prosper the work of our hands!

(NRSVue translation)

 

kings, ostentatious and incognito

 

Annas (or, Ananus) son of Seth was high priest in Jerusalem 6-15 CE. Back in the day, being high priest had been a job for life, but the Romans liked to demonstrate that they were in control by deposing high priests and appointing successors. Several influential priestly families vied for the position, but Annas remained the power behind the throne: five of his sons, and (more successfully) his son-in-law Caiaphas, all served as high priest: Eleazar (16-17 CE), Caiaphas (18-36 CE), Jonathan (36-37 CE), Theophilus (37-41 CE), Mathias (43 CE), Jonathan again (44 CE), and Ananus the Younger (63 CE; later assassinated for supporting peace with Rome).

In his Gospel, or theological biography of Jesus, Matthew records Jesus teaching in Solomon’s portico in the temple complex, a space somewhat akin to Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park. The chief priests and temple authorities come to him and ask on whose authority he is speaking: what are his credentials, and his alliances? Jesus responds in parables, or coded stories, including the one found in the Lectionary today. This is a ‘kingdom parable,’ that is, a description of the nature of the rule and reign of God on earth. Some of Jesus’ kingdom parables begin, ‘the kingdom of heaven is like...’ which is to say, this image conveys something of what God is like. Others begin, ‘the kingdom of heaven can be compared to...’ which highlights the gap between how things are and how God intends them to be. This is one of those.

A king gives a banquet for his son. The invited guests refuse to come. There is violence, from both directions. The king insists that the hall be filled. Among those present, one is not dressed according to expectations; instead his posture is perceived as an insult. The man is questioned, but remains silent. The man is dragged outside to a place of weeping and despair.

As additional background, Matthew has already recounted events of a king—Herod Antipas—throwing a party (an actual party, not a parable or fictionalised story) at which John the Baptist—a prophet sent by God—is beheaded, his disciples taking his body out for burial. This is the kind of behaviour earthly kings engage or find themselves caught up in.

After Jesus tells this parable, the temple authorities gather at the home of Caiaphas, the high priest, and decide to do away with Jesus. He is arrested and brought before them, and interrogated. Asked direct questions by Caiaphas, he remains silent. When he is compelled to answer, he is taken judged to be an offender, and taken out to die.

All of this, we need to know to understand the parable. The king is Annas, the king’s son is Caiaphas, whom Annas demands be recognised. The guests who decline the invitation are the members of the various competing priestly families, who put up their own candidates, each also engaging in skulduggery to achieve their aims. Those brought in are the crowd of pilgrims gathered within the temple, with Jesus—the one teaching there without the endorsed credentials—being the guest who was not wearing a wedding robe, the guest who will be interrogated, found guilty, and taken away to the place of weeping. The one who will be taken out, beyond the city wall, and executed.

You will always find Jesus hiding in plain sight in every parable. And in the parable that highlight the distance between how things are on earth and how God wills things to be, Jesus will always be the character who goes against the flow.

The point that Jesus is making, for which he will become a marked man—and the point that Matthew is making in how he shapes his account of Jesus—is a rejection of Annas and Caiaphas as legitimate rulers. They claim—and, indeed, ought—to represent God, to exercise and minister and reveal something of God’s sovereignty; and yet their actions are opposed to the kingdom of heaven. Indeed—as always with earthly power—they will kill to secure their position, recognising that there are many claimants but seeking to ensure that only their candidate can win (many are called, but few are chosen).

To understand this, you need to know history. But to recognise it, you need to be aware of current affairs. To be aware of the claims of Christian nationalism, whose proponents, in England and America, in Russia and Hungary, and wherever else, claim to speak for God but speak and act in stark contrast to the nature of God revealed by and through Jesus.

Jesus is the good news. And he calls us to reject the ways of earthly power.

Matthew 22.1-14

‘Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying:

‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again he sent other slaves, saying, “Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.” But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, maltreated them, and killed them.

‘The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, “The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.” Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.

‘But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?” And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” For many are called, but few are chosen.’

 

pain

 

In the first half of life, we accumulate many blessings. We may get married. We may have children. We may discover and grow into the gifts that have been uniquely bestowed upon us, and found ways to bring them to bear in a professional capacity. None of these things are inevitable, but all of them are common to human experience.

In the second half of life, the longer we live, the more we experience bereavement, of every kind. Our marriage may break down, irretrievably; or we may need to accept that we will never marry. Or else, we may need to face up to the knowledge that, statistically speaking, it is likely that one of us will die first and the other will be left to live on, alone. Our children may leave home. Our bodies start to betray us. The technologies and methodologies of our workplaces change beyond our capacity to keep up. The songs they play on the radio, or that we sing in church, are ‘rubbish,’ compared to the songs we listened to, or sang in church, when we were younger.

Pain is inevitable, and unavoidable. And pain has a purpose. Its purpose is to bring us to the end of ourselves, so that we might discover, there, beyond our means, the immeasurable, unchanging compassion of God towards us.

But this is not inevitable. If this is the invitation of pain—of the losses of the second half of life—then the temptation of pain is to find something, however small, we might take control of. Whenever we do this, we cause both others and ourselves great heartache.

Jesus told a parable about forgiveness—which is the art of letting go of control, and abandoning ourselves to the compassion of God.

A certain servant of a certain king had accumulated—from the king’s hand—incredible, over-the-top, blessings. Yet the thing that defined his life was not gratitude but fear, the pain of the knowledge that one day he would lose everything he had been given. And so, when the king decided to settle accounts with his servants, the servant was thrown into torment. Despite being the king’s servant, he did not know the king’s character. He did not know that compassion was the very, steadfast, nature of the king. The king sought to test the servant’s heart—how well was he known? The servant failed to recognise the one before him; thought, if I can come up with a good enough plea, perhaps I can persuade the king to show mercy. The servant failed the test. And yet, the king did what the king had always intended to do: he wrote off the great debt of every blessing the servant had received from his hand. There was nothing to pay back. It was always gift.

The servant departed the king’s presence, released from debt but still in pain, the pain of the knowledge that one day he would lose all that he had gained. And he succumbed to the temptation of pain, to take control of whatever circumstances he still could. Which turned out to be the debt owed him—an incredibly small and trivial thing—by a fellow servant. When that servant could not pay, he had him thrown in the debtors’ prison. When this was reported to the king, the king brought about the consequences of the servant’s decision: that he, himself, would find himself trapped in a prison cell of his own making.

We heard this parable read this morning at our mid-week Holy Communion, a service attended by the Elders of our congregation and those of us who are becoming Elders. By which I don’t primarily mean the elderly, but those of us in the second half of life, those of us who have known and walked with God for a lifetime.

We are also blessed with an increasing number of members in the first half of life, in the process of accumulating the blessings God has for them, and who are coming to an awareness of their deep hunger and thirst for God.

And it is the dual vocation of those of us who find ourselves in the second half of life to allow our experience of pain to bring us to an ever-greater experience of God’s compassion towards us, and to model this response—resisting the temptation, choosing the invitation—for those who are younger, in life (for the most part) and in faith.

Those people connect mostly with our 10.30am Sunday service. And that service is for them: it is no longer ‘for’ the Elders. It is no longer the place where the Elders come to be fed, but has become the place where the Elders are needed to help feed the lambs. Elders, mature sheep, are able to feed themselves—at the midweek service, through daily prayer and bible reading in our own homes, through joining the hymns of the weekly Sunday service on Radio 4 or Songs of Praise on the BBC, and in a great many other ways. Elders are those who have either inherited wells that enable them to draw on the great underground river of God that flows below the surface of our lives, or who have dug their own wells in their youth; they do not need to dig new wells, but they are those who can teach those, new to faith, how to dig. The younger generation needs to be introduced to the old hymns that carry something of our faith, and ground us in a story bigger than our own time; but also need the opportunity to respond to God in praise that is of their own time, a new generation pouring out praise (where we had been told, over many long years, that noone is interested in praising God anymore). It has ever been thus (and every age has struggled to affirm the accents of the generation below them).

We need Elders who know enough of the compassion of God to let go of seeking control. Who demand no debt be paid in return, from those who, as yet, think they are immortal.

For all its challenges, I am thankful that we have, among us, both those in the second and the first half of life.

Matthew 18.21-19.1

‘Then Peter came and said to him, ‘Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

‘For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.” And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt.

‘But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow-slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, “Pay what you owe.” Then his fellow-slave fell down and pleaded with him, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you.” But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he should pay the debt.

‘When his fellow-slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, “You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow-slave, as I had mercy on you?” And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he should pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.’

‘’When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan.’

 

new day dawning

 

I stood on the half-landing at the turn in the stairs and watched the sun rise into the sky. It was immeasurably more beautiful than the partial eclipse.

If you are reading this, you have been given the incomparable gift of life, the miracle of a new day, that has never been given before and will never be given again.

May your joy open you to that which is beyond, and greater than, yourself.

May your pain lead you to the end of yourself.

May your To-Do list bring you to your knees.

And there, may you discover that you are Loved.

May you meet the God who created you; who has rescued you from the powers of darkness; who sustains you daily; who provides for your every need, and more than you could ever ask or imagine; who leads you into all freedom, and further along the Way of Life in all its fullness, if you will only dare to follow; who fights your battles; who sings over you with sheer delight; who surrounds you with goodness and utterly faithful loving-kindness.

May you have a good day, whatever this day might bring.

 

ascent

 

Some of my friends go for a run on Sunday mornings, from the pub carpark across the street from St Nic’s, and I’m usually done taking the first service and setting up for the second in time to go across and chat with them before they set off. But I am on holiday, back home yesterday but not back to work until tomorrow, so this morning I ran with them.

At 15 kilometres, or 9 miles, it was fully 50% further than my distance-of-choice, but it was the relentless hour-long ascent that really got me—and got me thinking theologically. (You can take the boy out of church, but you can’t take the church out of the boy...)

In the imagination of the Bible, mountains (which can be actual mountains, or hills, or high places) are places of encounter with gods. Moses encounters Yahweh on Mount Sinai. Elijah encounters Yahweh on Mount Horeb. Centuries, millennia even, later, Moses and Elijah return, encountering Jesus on Mount Tabor. Elijah confronts the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. The composer of Psalm 121 looks around at the high places where people went to encounter Canaanite gods, and asks, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord. This particular psalm is a Psalm of Ascents, a psalm sung by pilgrims on the 1000 metre, or 3500 foot, climb from Jericho up to Jerusalem.

It is on a mountain where Jesus delivers the Sermon on the Mount, and on a mountain where he feeds five thousand men, plus women and children.

And Jesus said to his disciples that faith can move a mountain and throw it into the sea. Somewhere along the line, we have got muddled as to what that means. We have reframed mountains as seemingly immovable obstacles, that can be overcome by faith. We sing songs on this theme. This misses the point, entirely. Mountains are places of divine encounter. In the same biblical imagination, the sea represents chaos, the dwelling-place of chaos demons such as Rahab, Yam, Tiamat, Leviathan, and Behemoth. Yahweh is depicted walking the ocean depths, while Jesus walks on (top of) the water of the Sea of Galilee. Both images speak of mastery over chaos.

Jesus says, faith can bring the mountain-top experience of encounter with God—experiencing the divine glory, or felt weight of God’s presence—to bear in the places of chaos.

Elsewhere, Jesus also said that faith can replant a ‘mulberry’ tree in the sea. Again, in biblical imagination, trees represent people; and the ‘mulberry’ tree was associated with healing properties. Jesus’ claim is that faith should cause us to transplant ourselves into the places of chaos, as healing presences.

So today, I ran. Today, I climbed, up, up. Today, I pushed through the strong urge to Regret My Life Choices, and thought about the places where we experience chaos, and the encounter with the divine that faith can bring to bear there, because encounter with the divine is meant to transform us in some ‘visible’—visibly different—way.

Tomorrow, when I return to the valley—to the place where people live within the shadow of death; to the places of bitter tears, which might just be transformed into a place of joy—may my encounter with God on a rain-soaked hill today make all the difference. May the mountain be levelled so that the valley can be raised up. May the mountain be moved into the sea.

 

139

 

In a couple of weeks’ time, I shall be preaching on Psalm 139 (text below). The psalm—or song—rejoices in life lived in intimate nearness to God’s presence, from the womb to the grave. In the experience of being known, and loved, by One whose love for us causes them to want to know us fully. Of discovering that God is alongside us in the highs and lows of life, in ecstatic joy and in the depths of despair. And that this God, who is beyond our capacity to know, is nonetheless knowable.

For Christians, this God does not only know us from the outside, from beyond human life, as we might study and learn about the way of life of other species with whom we share this planet. We proclaim that in the man Jesus, born of the woman Mary, the eternal Word of God took on human nature, becoming what God loved. The God who is with us from our mother’s womb and will be with us in our grave, or urn, has known both womb and tomb firsthand, as one of us. And has broken out of both.

Ignatian spirituality invites us to take time each day to ask ourselves, where have we been attentive to, aware of, the presence of God with us, in the joy and sorrows of our hours? And where has that presence been hidden from us?

The psalm takes a turn towards the end, the psalmist crying out to God to bring an end to the wicked. It is a raw and heartfelt prayer, and one that God chooses to answer in a stunning way. Rather than slaying the wicked, God allows the wicked to slay the innocent One—God’s very self in our midst, become one of us—and as they do so, from the executioners’ scaffold, proclaims, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ And forgiveness is so disarming that the power of the bloodthirsty, which is their ability to draw us into their own game, is broken. Forgiveness does not proclaim, ‘what you did is okay,’ but, ‘what you did has no hold over me.’

The psalm concludes with a declaration of perfect hatred against God’s enemies. As Paul will write to the church in Ephesus (Ephesians 6.12) our enemies are not flesh and blood—not other human beings—but spiritual realities that hold us captive and obscure our vision of God. To hate such things is to desire to have nothing whatsoever to do with them, to distance ourselves from them.

Such enemies include:

For the older generation in particular:

Pervasive sadness—grief is an appropriate response to loss, but pervasive sadness chokes gratitude and wonder.

The belief that we are responsible for providing for ourselves in our old age—which fosters a scarcity mindset, causes us to hoard our resources, and prevents generosity.

For people of any age:

Chronic pain—which can turn us in on ourselves, and away from the source of life that sustains us even in our pain.

Among younger people in particular:

Anxiety—which pulls us in every which way at once, away from the present moment, the moment, whether high or low, where we might discover again God with us; where we might find stillness, rest, peace, wholeness.

P*rn*graphy—available from every mobile phone, desensitizing is towards and dehumanising how we see others, into a commodity for consumption, and so desensitizing and dehumanising ourselves.

Distraction—whether the insatiable demand to be productive and never rest, or the exponential availability of entertainment, including the idol of social media. An idol is a good thing that has been accepted as an ultimate thing; a thing that promises what it cannot deliver, and demands more and more of ourselves without ever being sated in its appetite for consuming us.

If you want to be set free from any of these enemies of the soul, free to learn to be aware of God’s nearness, I would love to pray for you and with you.

If you would like to experience something of the pilgrimage through life, accompanied by God and God’s people, you are welcome to join us at St Nicholas’ church (other local churches are available).

Psalm 139

To the leader. Of David. A Psalm.

1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
O Lord, you know it completely.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is so high that I cannot attain it.
7 Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and night wraps itself around me,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
all the days that were formed for me,
when none of them as yet existed.
17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 I try to count them—they are more than the sand;
I come to the end—I am still with you.
19 O that you would kill the wicked, O God,
and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me—
20 those who speak of you maliciously
and lift themselves up against you for evil!
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
22 I hate them with perfect hatred;
I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my thoughts.
24 See if there is any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

(Psalm 139, NRSVue translation)

 

dis/enchanted

 

There are no gods in Christopher Nolan’s retelling of The Odyssey, only dis/belief in the Greek gods, expressed as attribution for (e.g.) storms, wishful thinking, or guilt-induced hallucinations.

One of the tensions of the film is that between those who still believe, those who don’t believe, and those who wrestle with a deconstruction of what they have believed (passing through disenchantment with the world, to disenchantment with the self, before, at the end, the hope of re-enchantment).

A central theme is how common belief in Zeus’ Law—the codified rules for hosts and guests—has actually held civilization together; and that with the loss of belief in the god who holds mortals to account on the basis of that code, so the code itself is defied, and so civilisation itself falls into a dark age.

A disenchanted world leads to disenchantment with the world. Though Nolan holds out the possibility of re-enchantment that may lie beyond first reaching the point of disenchantment with ourselves, our presumption.

At St Nicholas’ Church we are running through a summer sermon series on the Psalms, and today we are exploring Psalm 19 (text below).

It is a psalm that proclaims the world is, in fact, enchanted.

Beginning with an enchanted creation, which we may experience not as unbearable judgement but as gift, the bard goes on to extol God’s Law as the thing that sustains and renews all that we might enjoy—again, as gift—before turning to address the presumptuousness that so easily leads us into disenchantment.

This is a film, and a psalm, for our disenchanted times. The gift of the church to such a time as this is re-enchantment.

Psalm 19

God’s Glory in Creation and the Law

To the leader. A Psalm of David.

1 The heavens are telling the glory of God,
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
2 Day to day pours forth speech,
and night to night declares knowledge.
3 There is no speech, nor are there words;
their voice is not heard;
4 yet their voice goes out through all the earth
and their words to the end of the world.
In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun,
5 which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy,
and like a strong man runs its course with joy.
6 Its rising is from the end of the heavens
and its circuit to the end of them,
and nothing is hid from its heat.

7 The law of the Lord is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the decrees of the Lord are sure,
making wise the simple;
8 the precepts of the Lord are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is clear,
enlightening the eyes;
9 the fear of the Lord is pure,
enduring forever;
the ordinances of the Lord are true
and righteous altogether.
10 More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
and drippings of the honeycomb.

11 Moreover, by them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.
12 But who can detect one’s own errors?
Clear me from hidden faults.
13 Keep back your servant also from the insolent;
do not let them have dominion over me.
Then I shall be blameless
and innocent of great transgression.

14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable to you,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.