bread

 

Gospel reading set for Holy Communion today: Luke 11.5-13

One time, Jesus told a parable (a story, to get under our skin) about the gift of God’s Holy Spirit to our own life-breath, which is small and must be exhaled—let go—time after time.

The story begins with a confession: a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.

This is the fundamental starting point, in this story about ‘bread,’ by which, here at least, Jesus is referring to spiritual sustenance. For we can make physical bread—so many varieties!—to meet physical hunger; but we cannot make spiritual bread. All we can do is receive such bread from God, and share it.

This is why Jesus goes on to say we must ask and seek and knock on God’s door—and the grammar he uses is that we must keep on asking and keep on seeking and keep on knocking—not because God must be persuaded that we deserve bread (yet again! How many times must I bail out this sponge on my resources!?) but because we cannot make this bread for ourselves, and because it does not keep (the manna God provided in the wilderness for the people Moses brought out from under slavery in Egypt turned maggoty if they tried to keep it overnight) and because we need to learn to trust that God will provide this bread—give us this day our daily bread—every day of our lives.

For as long as God gives us breath, so God will also give us the bread of the Holy Spirit.

Still breathing? Still fed.

What is this spiritual bread?

It is a spiced fruit-loaf: love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness (generosity) and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control, when we need any of those—none of which we can create of ourselves. You cannot add an ounce of love or joy or peace to the world by wishing or trying harder; but you can receive them all, in greater measure than you can possibly imagine. Receive them, and share them; give them away today, and discover they are replenished tomorrow.

Over the past year-and-a-half, we have seen a steady stream of people walk through the doors of our church, because they are spiritually hungry, and hoping to be fed. So hungry, they ache; so hungry, they can’t even articulate their hunger, but they know it in their bones. And the question that interrogates me more than any other is, Do we have anything to set before them?

The answer is no, nothing, unless it is the bread that God alone provides.

If we are good people or good neighbours or good friends, who want to do what we can to help a friend in need, then that is good but no different from most people I know and any other door someone might walk up to. The only distinctive thing we can offer is spiritual bread.

The testimony, ‘I have nothing to offer you, but I know Someone who does!’

The testimony of times when we have been fed with the bread of heaven. Peace in an anxious world. Gentleness is a harsh world. Self-control in a vengeful world.

This is why people walk through the door. Because they are hungry for bread the world cannot give. And, truth be told, neither can I. But I can teach you how to ask, day by day. Give us this day our daily bread.

And if we are to know what kind of bread they need—whether peace, or joy; patience, or goodness—we need to get to know the road they have arrived on, the chance accidents and obstacles that have prevented them from arriving earlier than midnight. We must learn to listen, before we speak, that we might speak choice words. To cleanse and refresh with water, and anoint with healing oil. To set a table, and pull up a chair. And then to fetch bread; and say, now, go and do likewise.

Luke 11.5-13

5 And he said to them, ‘Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, “Friend, lend me three loaves of bread;
6 for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.”
7 And he answers from within, “Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.”
8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.
9 ‘So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.
10 For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
11 Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish?
12 Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion?
13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’

difference

 

I am reflecting on an extract from Paul’s letter to the saints—the local church—in Philippi, a Roman colony in Macedonia or what we know as northern Greece. This (Philippians 4.1-9, below) is the passage from the New Testament set to be read aloud this coming Sunday.

Paul begins by speaking of the people he is writing to as being as brothers and sisters to him—family, not in a biological sense, but a shared identity within the family of God. He speaks of his love for them, and his longing to see them and be with them again. Do we know what it is like to belong to such a community, where, whenever you are not present, they are on your mind, and the anticipation of being with them again fills you with an expectant joy? Paul describes them as his joy and his crown—the laurel wreath given to athletes; the equivalent of saying your friends cause you as much pride and joy as the race event medal, or football tournament medal, around your neck. That your church family is your Show & Tell.

And Paul encourages them to stand firm, in a particular way, beginning with addressing two women he knew well, Euodia (Yoo-OD-ee-ah) and Syntyche (Soon-too-khay). Euodia’s name means the good road, or, the blessed life, the charmed existence. Syntyche’s name means an accident, or, a chance encounter. And their lives have collided, as friends of, and co-workers with, Paul. But their own friendship has gone off the rails. Paul urges them to make up, to be reconciled to one another—a process he wisely proposes will need help or facilitation. And he reminds them (all) that their names are written in the Book of Life, the record of those who are known and loved by God, those whose soul has been ransomed by God, having formerly been enslaved by the tyranny of mere existence.

In response to such a happy accident as having been met by God, in the good news (gospel) concerning Jesus, and so being led onto the good Way, Paul urges joy, at all times, in all circumstances. Paul, who had been flogged and imprisoned in Philippi, and who had sung hymns of praise in his chains, in a series of events that led to the prison officer being baptised, and a second congregation being established in Philippi.

He speaks of gentleness, and the awareness of the presence of Jesus close to us, whatever we are facing; of peace, when we bring our anxieties to God in thankful prayer.

Last week, three teenagers from our community died in a tragic accident. What does it mean, to rejoice in times of overwhelming grief—recognising that life is messy, and that no emotion cancels out another? How do we celebrate—weddings, baptisms, graduations, achievements—while also steeling ourselves for funerals? Where is Jesus, in such tragedy? How can we hold ourselves, and one another, gently? How can we know peace, when we are anxious—parents a little more anxious than before about where their children are; young people a little more anxious than before about leaving the house? What does it mean, to speak of peace—to be a non-anxious presence in an anxious world? To know peace surrounding and guarding our hearts and minds?

Paul would say, these things—joy and gentleness and peace—are evidence of the fruit of the Holy Spirit, given us by God, dwelling within us as we dwell within God. That this is a mystery, but that these things are God at work in us and for us and through us for those around us. A mystery, not something to be intellectually understood but experientially discovered to be true.

Finally, Paul urges his friends—his brothers and sisters—to focus on particular things, the kind of things that run contrary to where social media seeks to draw and hold our attention. Look for what is good, he says: for whatever is true and honourable and just and pure and pleasing and commendable and excellent and praiseworthy.

In other words, to write a eulogy (eulogy, from ‘to speak well of’) for those who are still alive, not waiting until they are taken from us by death.

And to persevere in so doing.

These are the ways in which we maintain the kind of community that is ‘thick’ enough to withstand even the times when we must live through the end of the world, as we have known it (as we all do, on a regular basis, through bereavements of every kind, including divorced, redundancies, not getting the job we applied for, the deaths of parents or children, chronic and terminal illness...)

This is the difference that knowing God is supposed to make. God, whose character is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness (generosity), faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—and who longs for us to share in these things, to experience them firsthand, as we are transformed by Love into love’s likeness.

Be more Philippian. Be more Paul. Desire to be more like Jesus.

Philippians 4.1-9

4 1 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.
2 I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord.
3 Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life.
4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.
5 Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.
6 Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
8 Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
9 Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

 

breathe

 

Pottering about in the bedroom, putting clothes away, the swish and sigh of the traffic moving past comes to me through the windows, thrown open to let the room breathe.

The slow exhale of people on their way to work, at the start of another day. Whhhhhhhhhh...

At best, the daily commute is breathing-space, a buffer zone. At worst, part of the daily churn and grind.

I don’t know anyone who isn’t tired. Who isn’t carrying too much, and who hasn’t been doing so for too long. The insatiable demands put upon us to be productive.

The Bible-shorthand for that rapacious hunger to consume our soul is ‘Pharaoh’.

Jesus said, ‘Come to me, all who are weary and weighed down with heavy burdens, and I will lead you into rest.’

Breathe in, deeply.
Receive.

Breathe out, slowly.
Release.

 

woods

 

As a vicar, I am offered pastoral supervision, effectively space to process, on a regular basis, some of the trauma we are exposed to and sometimes carry on others’ behalf, in our vocation.

I always walk through a small wood to get there, which is as much part of the healing process as the conversation I am about to have.

 

bruised

 

Life is A LOT at times, with physical and emotional pain that can open us to others and to God, or cause us to turn in on ourselves. We are frequently counselled to become ‘more resilient,’ but in my honest opinion that is poor advice. We don’t need to harden ourselves (hard things break) but to trust in the kindness and gentleness of a loving God—and so learn how to hold ourselves and others with kindness and gentleness too.

(Those who lack resilience are sometimes referred to as ‘snowflakes.’ Have you ever seen a snowflake!? No two are identical; every one is a masterpiece; they come together under pressure, transform the landscape, melt, soften the earth, and return to the embrace of the ocean. Snowflakes are amazing.)

In the ancient world, writing took the form of incising marks on stone or on clay or wooden tablets, with a hard (iron) stylus. Then the Egyptians developed something new: writing with ink on sheets of papyrus, using a quill made from a bruised reed.

The visionary Isaiah took up that image in his song about God’s servant, the one in whom his soul delights. The servant himself is bruised but not crushed, and, in turn, responds with gentleness. But this gentleness is not weakness, does not lack effect. Indeed, it is the means by which justice will be brought about. That’s a revolutionary idea—as revolutionary as the development of papyrus and a thin reed as a writing instrument—and it is later taken up by Jesus, describing himself.

I am struck by the imagery of our bruising being transformed into a written record, into a story—or, a song—of hope.

And it is hope, rather than resilience, that we need. Writing to the saints in Rome, Paul identified endurance as playing a role in the process by which we connect our present experience to hope. But endurance is not resilience: it is not building up our hardness, but growing in trust, as we learn more of grace: of the kindness of God towards us; of the way his Spirit empowers our spirit. Of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

May your life become a song, perhaps starting in lament but rising to something others will lean in with bated breath to catch, because it stirs their hearts too.

May you rest in peace and rise in glory.

Isaiah 42:1-4

Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.
2 He will not cry or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street;
3 a bruised reed he will not break,
and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.
4 He will not grow faint or be crushed
until he has established justice in the earth;
and the coastlands wait for his teaching.

Romans 5:1-5

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

 

Compline (Night Prayer)

 

Nighttime can be especially difficult when we are in physical or emotional pain, exhausted by grief but unable to surrender to sleep.

The Church has long understood this, and among our treasures are a pattern for night prayer, as preparation to enter darkness at the end of the day.

Here are two such prayers:

Be present, O merciful God,
and protect us through the silent hours of this night,
so that we who are wearied
by the changes and chances of this fleeting world,
may rest upon your eternal changelessness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

or,

Visit this place, O Lord, we pray,
and drive far from it the snares of the enemy;
may your holy angels dwell with us and guard us in peace,
and may your blessing be always upon us;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

 

bend to show kindness

 

Lectionary reading for Holy Communion today: Job 19.21-27a

The book of Job tells one of the oldest stories in the Bible, of a man who has lost everything in a series of tragedies. Job himself is what we might call an unreliable witness, or an unreliable narrator of the events he is living through. That does not mean that we cannot believe anything he says, but it does mean we need to weigh his words carefully. And it is incredibly important that Job’s story is given to us in the Bible, because we are all unreliable witnesses to and narrators of our lives. We all arrive at conclusions on the basis of insufficient information, conclusions we may need to revise later.

Job has lost almost everything, including his children. His life, as he has known it, has come to an abrupt end. He is overwhelmed by all the competing feelings and emotions—including what we would call survivors relief and survivors guilt; a sense of massive injustice; anger—some of which he can articulate, for some of which the words elude him.

Job believes that God has pursued and touched him, for ill, or loss, or tragedy. God has, in fact, pursued and touched him; but has pursued and touched him to shield him—though it does not feel that way. And both the ‘objective’ reality and the ‘subjective’ reality matter. Job does not need correction, or answers, as much as solidarity, a comforting presence. He needs a safe space, to release his emotions.

Where I believe that Job is absolutely on the money is in asking his friends to have pity on him. The word translated ‘pity’ means ‘to bend or stoop to show kindness.’ This is what God does, in response to tragedy, and what we who are created to reflect God’s nature are invited to do also.

In the face of tragedy, we can harden ourselves, in the hope that tragedy will not touch us; or we can allow ourselves to bend, stooping to show kindness.

God does not will tragedy. God permits tragedy, in this world—and we might well find ourselves wanting to take that up with God, to be indignant that God does not intervene to prevent, for example, our human tendency to rush to experience things we are not ready to experience (a tendency the Bible acknowledges up front, in the very third chapter). But in every circumstance, however tragic, God works to bring the most possible good out of the times our lives are touched by evil. Does that make the cost worthwhile? No; but the cost has already been paid. It does mean that lives, even cut short far too soon, are not wasted.

Job, the unreliable witness, nonetheless has an unshakeable hope that, one day, God will make all things right. That even death will not rob Job of seeing God beside him and for him. The God who pursues us even to the grave and touches us to shield us from harm. For Christians, that hope has a name, given long after Job had died: the name he saw with his own eyes is Jesus.

This week, three teenagers died when the car they were in went into the river here in Sunderland. I cannot imagine how afraid they were in those moments. But I do not believe that they were alone. I believe that God moved heaven and earth to be with them, and to shield them. They were not rescued, and we will have to live with that for as long as we live. But we, too, are pursued and touched by God. Held by love, and light in the darkness.

May we bend towards one another, and all who are most affected, with kindness.

And may we hold on to hope, trusting in Jesus’ victory over the grave for us.

Job 19.21-27a

21 Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends,
for the hand of God has touched me!
22 Why do you, like God, pursue me,
never satisfied with my flesh?
23 ‘O that my words were written down!
O that they were inscribed in a book!
24 O that with an iron pen and with lead
they were engraved on a rock for ever!
25 For I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;
26 and after my skin has been thus destroyed,
then in my flesh I shall see God,
27 whom I shall see on my side,
and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
My heart faints within me!

 

2 : 1

 

‘Why do women outnumber men 2:1 in our (caveat: White British) churches?’ is a valid question.

I just don’t think ‘the feminisation of the Church’ is a valid answer. Women outnumbered men in our churches 2:1 throughout the twentieth century—long before we ordained female priests in 1994, female bishops in 2015, or the first female Archbishop of Canterbury in 2026—and probably from longer ago than that.

The reasons women outnumber men 2:1 in our churches are many and complex, including the different impact of two World Wars on those who went off to war and those who waited for their return, changing patterns to work, and other social upheavals. But here are some thoughts I find compelling.

We are social animals. And, other than when we are looking for a mate to procreate with (and even then, we look to our own sex for safety and support) women tend to socialise with women, and men tend to socialise with men. (Clearly, this is a broad observation.) Because women outnumber men in our churches, and have done so for longer than any living memory, women can reasonably expect to meet and socialise with other women within the activities of the life of the Church, whereas men can reasonably expect not to meet other men there (this is why churches that want to engage with men often create spaces such as men’s breakfasts, or men’s curry nights). And so, the imbalance is, to a large degree, self-perpetuating.

More than this, men, at least in English culture and in other cultures too, have a psychological need for space where women aren’t. Not women-hating men; men. The staple trope of English comedy of the hen-pecked husband and the battle-axe wife certainly exaggerates for effect; but it is rooted in something real, evidenced by the solitude of the shed at the end of the garden, the comradeship of the Working Men’s Club, the discreet networking of the Masonic lodge, the suicide-prevention lifeline of Andy’s Man Club, the Boy’s Own adventure of long cycle rides. This is about having a safe space to retreat, to sustain, for the long haul, relationships with the women in our lives, our wives and daughters, our mothers and sisters, our female colleagues.

Such spaces are becoming fewer and further between, as gender equality has tended to demand equal access to the same spaces over equity of spaces. And the local church has never been such a space (though monasteries and convents have recognised their value). Indeed, the gender imbalance does make the local church a retreat for women from their men, an hour to themselves on a Sunday morning while their husband has the equivalent space left at home, or on the golf course. And this is, perhaps, all the more important, as the demands of work and home life have squeezed opportunities for many women to socialise elsewhere.

Interestingly, many other faiths gather such that the men and the women sit in different rooms or different sides of the same room. The Church does not; and there are both real gains to this, and, perhaps, a real loss.

But the ‘problem’ is not that the space, or what is done within the space, or even who presides over the space, is feminised. It is that there are women there at all, in almost every activity of the local church. Not because women are a problem, but because the lack of any space at all, within the life of the Church community, for Men Only is a problem. Again, and to be clear, not a problem for misogynists; a problem for a fundamental psychological need, that is being met for women to a far more effective extent than it is for men.

Of course, there are still men who are perfectly happy to share space with women in the Church—not least because they have access to some other men-only space. If there are two women to every man in the Church, then a third of us are men. And if we are told that men are so powerful that small boats of unarmed men amounts to an invasion, we can hardly claim with any consistency that being 33% of a community demographic is too few to have an impact.

But we do need to think long and hard about the imbalance, and what might be done about it.

 

on men in black

 

This month, here in England, has seen large groups of men, dressed in black with their faces covered by balaclavas, taking a leaf out of America’s playbook and Irish paramilitarism, creating disruption and intimidation in the name of Christian Nationalism.

I happily live among neighbours of all faiths and none, but, as someone charged with publicly teaching the Christian faith, if you want to identify as Christian, I want to ask questions as to what you understand by that. More, as a Clerk in Holy Orders in the Established Church, if you want to call this a Christian nation, I want to ask questions as to your participation in the life of your local Church of England parish church.

While these men have covered their faces to prevent themselves from being identified, I think it is clear that they aren’t taking their place in our congregations. Their justification is this: that the church has ‘gone woke’ as the result of the ‘feminisation’ of the church. And sadly, while these men are not present in our congregations, there are plenty of people who /are/ present in our congregations who believe they have a fair point.

The meaning of ‘woke’ is having one’s eyes open to injustice, in particular to systemic injustices. The prophets of the Old Testament present themselves as having had their eyes opened to injustices within their nation, and having been charged by God and sent to call a population sleepwalking in indifference to repent, or, return to God’s heart for the oppressed.

Jesus himself addressed crowds with the intention of separating those with eyes to see and ears to hear from those who have turned a blind eye for so long that they are no longer able to see as God sees.

It is hard to think of a library of works more woke than the Bible, or a worldview more woke than the Jewish and Christian faiths. Certainly, both faiths have (perhaps often—hence the prophets) failed to live up to this calling; but to dismiss the Church for having ‘gone woke’ is to demonstrate religious illiteracy and historical ignorance.

As for the ‘feminisation’ of the church, the Church has always been personified as female. From before the church was called the church, Jesus referred to that community as his Mother; while the letters sent to the earliest churches describe the church as the Bride of Christ.

Those letters also describe the church as the Body of Christ—of Jesus, who was male—but this is not an image of masculinity. The ‘body’ image in the New Testament is an image of union. On my wedding day, I vowed to my wife, ‘All that I am I give to you, and all that I have I share with you, within the love of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.’ My body remains my body, and her body remains her body; but when people see her, even without my being present, they are meant, in a sense, to see me too. Jesus retains his physical resurrection body in the heavenly realm; but when we, within the Church, see one another—individuals whose culture or ethnic background or gender or sexuality might disturb us—we are called to see Jesus.

The Church has always been conceived as female. What should be equally troubling to Christian Nationalists, at least here in Britain, is that our nation is also personified as female, Britannia, ruling the waves, a mythical woman who draws on (or draws into herself) several historical queens, including Boudicca, Elizabeth I, and Victoria.

The claim that the Church has ‘been feminised’ says more about insecure masculinity than it does about the Church or about a long and unbroken chain of saints, male and female.

Be a Christian, by all means. (It will require, among other things, that you do not turn away your Christian brothers who have fled here in small boats from regimes where Christians are imprisoned without trial or executed by the state simply for confessing ‘Jesus is Lord!’) And love your country. (Pay your taxes, which is the only truly patriotic act, contributing to the welfare of society as a whole.) But don’t think you are doing either of these by embracing Christian Nationalism.

 

on the triune god

 

Christians speak of God as ‘one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.’

Why do we speak of God as ‘Father’?

Because Jesus taught us to call God our Father in the heavens. To see the One who is over and above all things as intimately connected to, and concerned about, us. Relational. And why not Mother? Because, in Jesus’ familial imagery, it is the Church who is our mother (and that, in itself, bears further reflection).

Why do we call Jesus ‘the Son’?

Christians believe that Jesus is both fully divine and fully human. But when we speak of him as the Son, we are leaning into his humanity—the belief that God so loved us that he chose to become one of us. We are all children of God (as Paul reminded the Athenian philosophers). Jesus most commonly referred to himself as the Son of Man, which was a way of saying Mortal, or, human. Others called him the Son of God, which was a title given to the (human) king in Jerusalem almost a thousand years earlier. Others called him the Son of David, or, the descendant and rightful heir of that king. Still others called him the Son of Joseph, his father; or the Son of Mary, his mother. All these ‘Son’ titles highlight his humanity—he is the Word of God made flesh, the human god—but also honour our connectedness—he is our brother—in the way some cultures refer to biologically unrelated persons as son, daughter, brother, sister, cousin, auntie, uncle.

What about ‘the Holy Spirit’?

The Holy Spirit is the name we give to God at work in our lives—and in the world around us—bringing about such divine qualities as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. Empowering us to participate in the life of love, for God, ourselves, our neighbour, our enemy. Animating us. Transforming chaos into harmony.

We greet one another in the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

We depart from one another with words of blessing—of recognition, affirmation, and the desire for one another’s good—in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

We initiate people into the church through baptism in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

That God is both One and Three is a mystery: something that cannot be fully contained in our rational mind; only experienced, entered deeper into, in our comings and goings, in our common lives in our shared world.

 

on attachment and social referencing

 

Lectionary readings set for Holy Communion today: Luke 7.36-50

We have a need to experience security. Two things we do, as infants, to create that sense: attachment, to our primary care-giver; and social referencing.

Social referencing is when we look to others for a cue, is it safe for me to do this? Infants look to their care-giver: I have not come across this thing in the world before; is it safe for me to touch it, hold it, taste it? Is it safe for me to approach this grown up, this dog/cat/gerbil? When a small child falls over in a play park, they look to their care-giver: if the adult looks panicked, the child concludes they are in greater danger than they actually are; if the adult calmly comforts them, they will soon return to play.

We continue to look to social referencing throughout our lives. (Autistic people find it hard to recognise and interpret these social cues, experiencing disorientation as a result.) In the Gospel passage set for today, the Pharisee concludes that Jesus doesn’t know how to read the room.

The Pharisee considers the woman who is ‘touching’ Jesus to be a sinner. The Greek, translated touching, is actually ‘attaching [herself] to.’

We all form attachments with our primary care-givers as infants. Where they were able to give us love, consistently, we form a secure attachment that enables us to explore the world without fear.

Where our care-giver was inconsistent towards us—sometimes caring, sometimes angry, often without warning—we form anxious attachment, and come up with strategies to ensure, as much as possible, that it is the caring care-giver who turns up.

Where our care-giver was unable to show love—for example, a mother who had postnatal depression—we form avoidant attachment, having learnt that we cannot depend on anyone else to meet our needs but must be self-sufficient.

Sadly, for some, the person who should have been their care-giver was what we would consider monstrous, and we form fearful attachment, recognising that we are dependent on someone who is cruel, and seeking to mitigate that by placating them.

Our attachment ‘style’ goes on to shape how we see other people, and also our view of God, as loving, inconsistent—prone to outbursts of anger if we step out of line—or even a cruel monster.

The Pharisee appears to be avoidant. God is distant, but if he follows an elaborate framework of behaviour then he will be self-sufficient in the world. He invites Jesus as one wishes to observe something, cooly, from the outside, and fails to offer him a warm welcome.

The woman appears to have a secure attachment. She does not care what others think of her. Her security enables her to explore the world and encounter the Other without fear—and this freedom is scandalous to those of avoidant, anxious or fearful attachment, who label her a sinner.

She is weeping—and our assumption about ‘why?’ is significant. Are these tears of shame, or bitter regret, an overwhelming awareness of her sinfulness? Or are they tears of joy, at knowing how greatly she is loved by God? Or does she weep for Jesus, possessing an awareness of what scared men will do to him, that he will be tortured and murdered?

Jesus does not say that those who love much will be forgiven, but, rather, those who know that they are forgiven—who are so secure in love that they know that whenever our relationships, with God, with others, may be breached, they can also be repaired—love much.

When Jesus says to the woman, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ he is not giving her new information, but putting on public record what she already knows.

The woman’s actions should not be read as inappropriate—as the Pharisee reads them—but as the intimacy that a secure infant knows with her care-giver; that a secure adult knows with a friend.

As adults, we need to learn that the strategies we came up with, as children, to keep ourselves safe—good and necessary strategies—are not coterminous with who we are. We may not have been in a position to create secure attachment as an infant, and our ‘starting position’ in relation to God may be the belief that God is too busy to attend to us unless we force his attention by exceptionally good or bad behaviour, or perhaps we just need to get on with life without bothering him at all. Or that God is unpredictable, and we must keep him on side. Or even that God is a monster, a narcissist. But the desire of God—and the reason Jesus came into the world—is that we should be secure in Love, and so be able to participate in love towards God, ourselves, our neighbour, even our enemy.

And the strategy of God is to love us and love us and love us—to respond, consistently, with grace—until we find ourselves safe, until we feel secure. Until we take our place within that love.

Luke 7.36-50

36 One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table.
37 And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment.
38 She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment.
39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him-that she is a sinner.’
40 Jesus spoke up and said to him, ‘Simon, I have something to say to you.’ ‘Teacher,’ he replied, ‘speak.’
41 ‘A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.
42 When they could not pay, he cancelled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?’
43 Simon answered, ‘I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’
44 Then turning towards the woman, he said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair.
45 You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet.
46 You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.
47 Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.’
48 Then he said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’
49 But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, ‘Who is this who even forgives sins?’
50 And he said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’