Church

Two images I have been pondering this evening, as I have prayed in St Nicholas’ Church, the wind roaring around the building:

the house built on a rock, that withstands the storm;

and the ark, that rides the flood.

The ark is not indifferent to the flood, nor the house to the storm. Indeed, the ark exists for the flood, and the house for the storm; for such a time as these.

The ark and the house, alike, take what is thrown at them; absorb the fury; transform it into energy for life to flourish; and then, crucially, give that energy back out to, and for, the world. Life begins again, pouring out from the ark. There is a river of life that flows out from the temple. The wise householder is a gift to his or her neighbours.

These two images, the ark and the house on the rock, are important metaphors for the church in our time. We are called to be communities that create a stable space in our neighbourhood, where the restless energies that flow through our society are absorbed and transformed. Where hate is absorbed and transformed into hope. Where fear is absorbed and transformed into compassion. Where loneliness is absorbed and transformed into belonging. Where wrongs are absorbed and transformed into forgiveness. And where hope and compassion and belonging and forgiveness are released back into the world.

Abound in love

Lectionary readings for Holy Communion today: 1 Thessalonians 3:7-13 and Matthew 24:42-51.

In the Gospel set for today, Jesus speaks of those slaves or servants appointed to guarantee that the needs and rights (though not every wish, whim or demand) of their fellows are met; drawing a contrast between the blessed slave who does so diligently, and the wicked slave, who exploits others, acting only for their own personal gain.

Across all parties, the overwhelming majority of Members of Parliament—public servants, appointed to guarantee certain basic needs and rights of the population at large—are in politics in order to serve the best interests of the population. More, on the whole, they agree on what makes for a good society; albeit that they disagree, at times profoundly, sometimes by very little, on how best to deliver that.

Yet they bear the brunt of a level of abuse no-one should have to endure. Death threats are a regular occurrence; and, for female MPs, rape threats. While many people would consider these ‘taking things too far,’ such hatred is legitimised by a far wider-spread derision of MPs as either ‘obstructing’ or ‘bypassing’ democracy. We place ourselves as qualified to judge them wicked slaves, and demand decisive judgement on them.

Paul prayed for the church at Thessalonica, ‘And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all...’

Paul prayed that Jesus, at work in them by his life-giving Spirit, would multiply and bring forth the fruit of love, in them, for all.

This is a fitting prayer for our time, that we might be empowered to love those with whom we disagree, at times profoundly disagree.

I voted to Remain in the EU, and nothing has caused me to change my mind. I believe Brexit to be an abdication of responsibility towards our neighbours. Yet, I sit and eat with those who voted to Leave and those who voted to Remain, week by week.

I vote Green, in a Blue ward in a Red city. Yet, I care for, and experience the care of, those who vote Blue and those who vote Red, on a regular, ongoing basis.

We cannot get along by avoiding talk of politics, by ignoring the engagement that, together, contends for the good of society.

And so, we must attend, carefully, to the way in which we speak to, and of, one another.

And that, in turn, means that we must attend carefully to the ways in which we allow ourselves to think of one another and to feel in relation to one another.

Rather than be swept along by the crowd, we need to stand our ground. We need to observe carefully, reflect deeply, discuss honestly. Then we can plan wisely, give account of ourselves soberly, and act justly.

We are all slaves, not masters. When we beat one another up, we prove ourselves to be wicked slaves. When we give to others ‘their allowance of food at the proper time’—when, among other readings, we nourish them with a word in season that affirms their humanity—we find ourselves to be blessed, or happy, slaves: content in our own circumstances (which is not the same as being content with all circumstances), and at peace with our neighbour.

The truth is, we can’t do this in our own strength. The pull to put others down is too relentless a rip-tide. But the good news is, we do not have to do this in our own strength. We can not only love all, but increase and abound in love for all. This is the work of Jesus, who eschewed the place of Master to become servant of all.

Suspense

Parliament is to be suspended.

Some are calling this deeply undemocratic. Others are responding that it is simply routine.

Both views are wrong. Both responses are inadequate.

It is not deeply undemocratic, in that it is part of the regular rhythms of our democratic parliament. (If this is a coup, then, like many before it, it is using democratic process against democracy.)

And yet, the circumstances are so very far from routine, by anyone’s measure (whether you believe that parliament is doing its job or refusing to do its job), that to call this action ‘routine’ is disingenuous.

What we are witnessing is, I suspect, the prolonged and protracted death of parliamentary democracy in this country as we have known it. Which is not exactly the same thing as the death of parliamentary democracy (something we might or might not see). Other models of parliamentary democracy are available. But we have taken oppositional politics to its logical conclusion, which is to devour itself.

Given both tensions in the Union and the extent of repair needed to the Palace of Westminster, what we might see, on the far side of all this, is an English Parliament based in, say, Birmingham. The future is a new country. I have no particular dog in this fight.

Samuel Seabury, first Anglican Bishop of the American Colonies, gets short shrift in the brilliant musical Hamilton, for opposing moves for American independence. But to paraphrase the words Lin-Manuel Miranda puts in his mouth, in our own current context everyone, on all sides, “are playing a dangerous game...”

We are in profound need of places of hospitality towards the stranger, where we can sit down together and eat with those of utterly different perspectives; not in order to persuade the other that they are wrong and we are right, but to see through their eyes and to have compassion for their hurts and dreams.

Our churches ought to be such a space.

Octogenarians

It is a fascinating experience to journey with a church that is eighty years old this year. Unlike a church that is one-hundred-and-eighty, or a church that is one-thousand-and-eighty, a church that is eighty years old likely displays the likeness of an eighty-year-old.

This church is unlike others I have known: churches full of young adults, wrestling with who and with whom they are; churches with significant numbers of mature adults, wrestling with how to give away who they have become, to invest in others. But this is a church of seniors, wrestling with senior concerns.

This is not an exhaustive list, but observations in progress. Not the last word, but first words.

[1] The primary concern of an eighty-year-old church is its own impending death. This is in no way a criticism. It is, in fact, a great opportunity. The church itself, of course, has every chance of life beyond this death; but for now, it is facing congregational death for the first time. Dying is not something we do well by accident; and a good death is our last and greatest gift to those around us. It involves learning to be fully present to life, perhaps for the first time since childhood. Simultaneously, it involves a letting-go, that, again, does not come naturally; and a profound (need for) making peace. A church learning to die well is an incredible gift to its neighbourhood, in a society in which death is taboo.

[2] Their relationship with children will be nostalgic. Not, of course, for every individual. There will be many younger, and not so young, members of the congregation who are actively involved in caring for their grandchildren. But, for the church as a collective entity, they are of an age where they have moved beyond having something to give children to needing something from young children. In both directions, this is passive, simply being rather than doing—fully present—and, in both directions, this can be wonderfully beneficial.

[3] It is not for them to take up the battles of our time, let alone the future. From climate change to food and farming to urban living to waste, environmental issues are the greatest concerns of our day. It is unfair to expect eighty-year-olds to engage. When they do—usually prophetic voices who have been seeing and speaking for a longer time—they are a gift to be cherished. Nonetheless, their memory of a time before the great acceleration of consumption in late modernity may help us reimagine a liveable future. Possibly.

As I said, not the last word...

A niggle

I’m conflicted, in relation to supermarkets. It is, perhaps, culturally impossible to be entirely immune to the nostalgia for parades of local high streets, a local economy of family businesses passed down from generation to generation. Mr Bun the Baker. Mr Green the grocer. Happy Families.

And yet, I frequent supermarkets enough to observe the regulars: often elderly citizens for whom being able to shop without needing to worry about uneven pavements, traffic, wind and rain, perhaps a long hill, means that they can continue to get out of the house. In the good old days, they’d be stuck at home. For them, the supermarket enables, empowers, facilitates gentle physical and mental exercise, social interaction; sociable interaction, too, in the café.

They’re not monsters, the supermarkets, you know. But they do drive change, for good and ill.

So there has been a niggle in my brain for some weeks now. It began with an increase in self-service tills at the check-out. Then, the impending introduction of hand-held tills you take around the store with you...

...And now, the contraction of the shelves, to make room for a subsidiary company to share the floor-space.

There is a move afoot, to reduce costs and to prepare for less on our shelves. Future-proofing, I believe they call it; though a future still defined primarily in economic units.

For people like me, that will be an inconvenience. Undoubtedly, these changes will change how we shop and cook and eat.

For others, it may well have far deeper consequences.

I’m not sure, as yet, how I might respond. For reasons already given, I’m not convinced that boycotting supermarkets in favour of local shopping is the answer; at least, not the full answer. In any case, that works for those who enjoy the privilege of choice, not everyone has. But the niggle is unlikely to go away any time soon.

Cauliflower

We went to buy a cauliflower.

There were none.

The domestic harvest was devastated by flooding back in June; the import option, destroyed by heat waves across continental Europe in June and July.

In the not-too-distant future, we shall eat not only what is local and seasonal, but what survives.

We shall eat like the rest of the world.

It will not be good news for our taste-buds.

It might just be good for our souls.

Listen, and I will tell you a story

There’s an old, old story from the ancient near east, from a world that overshadowed the people of Israel for hundreds of years. In essence, it goes like this: the fresh-water god married the salt-water goddess, and together they had offspring. Their pre-eminent son murdered his father, and, in an epic battle, killed his mother and made the world from her carcass.

The Bible tells this story, too, but tells it different. Here, instead of an usurping god who fights, defeats and kills his parents, we are presented with the King of the Universe, the Lord of lords, who calms his creatures, the fresh-water god and salt-water goddess, not by wrestling them into submission but by listening to them.

We see this in the speech this Sovereign creator God makes to Job, towards the end of the book that bears Job’s name, where God speaks of the Behemoth and the Leviathan. Our English translations have all but domesticated these into the fresh-water hippopotamus and salt-water crocodile; but, even to the ancients, these are hardly beyond the skill of hunters working together. No, these are great and powerful spirit-beings, gods. And they cannot be tamed by might.

In a world where Yahweh, the God who becomes the god of Israel, made all that is, seen and unseen; and in which we see the consequences of rebellion against God among gods and men; God’s great act is to listen. To listen to the rage, the pain, the shame, that causes various beings to lash out, to act out...to listen, until the fury is spent, and harmony is restored. To listen, even to rebellious gods, to the beings we call demons.

That is stunning.

Moreover, this same God calls on his people to do likewise: “Hear, O Israel...” Listen.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is One. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your strength and with all your soul...And you shall love your neighbour as yourself.

To listen to another is the most powerful thing, the most divine thing, it is possible to do, in all the universe.

And the book of Job sets this revelation up through chapters and chapters of exercises in not listening, in piling on layer upon layer of shame; while God, listens, and we are invited to listen-in.

In effect, the book of Job is a re-telling of Genesis chapter 1, in the present continuous.

Sacrifices were made

The other lectionary reading set for Holy Communion today is Judges 11:29-40, the salutary tale of Jephthah.

Jephthah is willing to sacrifice for his family. He resolves that, if God gives him success, he will sacrifice the first thing that comes out of his home to meet him on his return. Undoubtedly he expects this to be the family cow or a goat, the animals being kept in the home at night and driven out again in the early morning.

Jephthah travels through the night to get home, only to be met by his daughter, delighting to see him.

I am certain that in this moment, God is offering Jephthah an opportunity to humble himself—as a general rule, it is good to be true to our word, but sometimes we need to repent of our folly—but alas, the father sets his resolve to sacrifice his only child.

This is a story that is repeated again and again. Countless men (most often, men) set out prepared to sacrifice for their family, only to end up sacrificing their family. Failing to see their children grow to adulthood. Losing them for ever. Others sacrifice their own inner child, who delights in the world, in exchange for success that brings no joy.

An old, old story that could not be more contemporary to us.

Work is good, and success is a necessary stage in our development; but work makes a poor master, and success a poor goal. The temptation to workaholism presents to us the dream of escape, for our family, before becoming escapism from our personal commitments, and, finally, a prison cell. Or a tomb.

This is the end of the story.

And yet we believe in a God who raises the dead; in a story where the end need not be the end...

The parable of two kingdoms

Gospel reading for Holy Communion today: Matthew 22:1-14.

Jesus told a parable, saying, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.

Now, if you have grown up in church, you’ll know how to interpret the various characters in this play. The king is God. His son is Jesus. The wedding banquet, the heavenly feast. The servants, the prophets. The invited guests who refuse to come, and who the enraged king has destroyed, their city burned, are those who reject Jesus and so condemn themselves to the fires of hell. The guest who gets in, but is then thrown out, a final underlining comment that you can’t come to God on your own terms, only his.

But what if that isn’t the story Jesus was inviting us into at all?

What if the comparison being made was not ‘see how the kingdom of heaven is like this’ but ‘see how the kingdom of heaven offers a contrast to this’?

What if the king is an earthly king, such as Herod?

What if the purpose of the banquet was to secure the position of a chosen heir?

What if the servants were simply servants?

What if the refusal of the invited guests to come brought shame on the king, and, enraged, he has them eliminated?

What if the king seeks to restore honour by a pretence, a rent-a-crowd to show how very well-regarded he is?

What if one man is brought before the king, but refuses to play the game? What if this man is put in a royal robe that is not his own, and then has it taken off again? What if this man remains silent when questioned? What if this man is bound hand and foot and led outside the city to the place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth?

What if the man is hung up, naked, on an execution scaffold, while women stand at the foot of the cross weeping, and men stand at a distance mocking?

What if, in total contrast to the king bound by an honour-shame worldview, this man is the heavenly king—whose kingdom is not of this world—who scorns shame and is honoured by those who see a different world beginning at the margins?

Not ready

We’re continuing through the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Tonight, Dr Strange. It is certainly a strange insertion, but it contains this great exchange:

Dr Stephen Strange: “I’m not ready.”
The Ancient One: “No one ever is. We don’t get to choose our time.”

That’s the truth of it.

In the Gospel According to John, the first of Jesus’ signs takes place at a wedding in Cana. To the lasting shame of a family, the wine has run out. Jesus’ mother Mary brings this to his attention, believing that he can do something about this, but he responds, “my time has not yet come.”

I’m not ready.

No one ever is. We don’t get to choose our time.

Mary ignores him, and, essentially, forces his hand. Because his time has come, but it isn’t his choice. Because he isn’t ready, but ready isn’t the qualifying criterion.

The question is not, are we ready, but, will we step forward and make our lives count, for something bigger than ourselves?

God at work

When you meet someone for the first time after the service,
and they tell you that they had just happened to be walking past
and felt compelled to come inside
and had discovered that a service was just starting
and decided on the spur of the moment to stay
and that your sermon had been exactly what they needed to hear
given the week they had had, and the things they’d been wrestling with recently
and they want to know more
and would like to come again
and get involved.

That.

That, my friend, is God at work in Sunderland today.

Avengers

At Elijah’s request, we’re currently watching our way through several films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Captain America is the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, right?).

Last night, we watched Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Tony Stark builds a system to protect the earth, but when the system becomes new-born sentient, it concludes that it is the Avengers from whom the earth needs protecting, and so they must be destroyed. Further destruction follows.

It got me thinking about mass shootings, suicide bombings, and white supremacy; none of which I think we understand correctly.

When a brown-skinned young man commits an atrocity, we say they have been radicalised. When a white-skinned young man commits an atrocity, we say that they were very mentally ill; and then we might point to how rare it is for mentally ill people to kill others to emphasise how they were so very ill, there was nothing anyone could have done to prevent it: we are not at fault. But these political moves are an exercise in missing the point.

Like those who embrace white supremacy, or indeed misogyny (think The Handmaid’s Tale), those who seek to destroy others are not immoral. Indeed, quite the opposite.

We, humans, are moral beings, with moral desire, along with a longing for order and a place to call home. You have, in fact, to work very hard to kill that desire, to be a true psychopath.

This (almost) universal moral desire is, I think, what people have in mind when they tell me that most people are, fundamentally, good. But we are not fundamentally good; we fundamentally possess moral desire: a desire that can be turned towards good or evil.

Our moral desire is undifferentiated in its form, and in need of a framework. In the absence not only of a robust framework but also of patterns of initiation—in a highly individualistic society where we are largely left to fashion our own morality—the vacuum is unsurprisingly filled by those who will offer a moral certainty and the promise of a world in which we might experience order and a place to call home. Certain groups—women, non-whites, those of a particular religion, those who reject religion—are presented as a threat to moral behaviour, that needs controlling, or removing. This is reinforced by honour-shame structures, in which the accommodation of such ‘shameful’ people shames our own honour.

What is lacking is not a moralistic pattern. Indeed, moralism, which works on the basis that others are immoral, is the oxygen of evil. Instead, we need to recognise that people are naturally possessing of moral desire, that needs to be robustly ordered. (Politically, the Right fails to recognise that all people possess moral desire; while the Left fails to recognise the difference between moral desire and essential goodness.)

The so-called Golden Rule—do to others as you would want them to do to you; or, treat others in the same way that you treat yourself—is, arguably, foundational. But even this is inadequate, in a context where we are left to work out for ourselves how we ought to be treated. If, for example, we believe ourselves to be in need of ‘tough love’ we will treat others harshly. Often the Golden Rule is adapted to, ‘Do what you like, with consent, so long as no-one else gets hurt.’ But this raises complex questions as to the nature of consent, and of hurt, and of who gets to decide.

What is missing is not a global monitoring system, but communities of intentional discipleship, where we might wrestle with our moral desire and longing for order and a place to call home, together, honouring and refusing to shame one another, so that we might learn from our mistakes and failures. Where we might come to discover difference not as threat but as a source of wonder, and, indeed, strength. Where we might come to know self-giving, for others, as glory.

The Avengers are as dysfunctional a family as you could hope for. But, we are all heroes, in search of home.

Paul and women in Corinth

Did I mention how much Jo and I are appreciating Lucy Peppiatt’s teaching this week?

Today, 1 Corinthians 11, a troubling passage that on the surface appears to be frankly contradictory, and damaging towards women—and has certainly been taught in a way that is damaging to women. Lucy argues cogently, persuasively, and graciously that what we see here is a conversation between the people who were causing trouble in Corinth, and Paul, with Paul quoting their arguments (written in a letter to him, since lost to us) and then refuting their claims. The original Greek has no quotation marks, but translators supply them in just this manner in many other places in Paul’s letter. Lucy brings to bear the bigger context, of Paul’s values as well as of Scripture taken as a whole, to demonstrate that Paul is consistently smashing the hierarchies that patrol and police an honour-shame culture. Here is a man who was (doubly) at the top of the social pile, as both a Roman citizen and a Jewish male, who, having had an utterly transforming encounter with Jesus, chose to side with those society placed at the bottom of the pile, slaves, women, women slaves...

[What follows is not a summary of what Lucy said, but my own personal response.]

It grieves me deeply when I hear church leaders present a false Paul to maintain the very hierarchies he felt the Jesus-event profoundly dismantled. I will challenge it again and again and again, until my dying breath if necessary.

But it also grieves me deeply when, in response, I hear church leaders speak of Paul as a misogynist, or, at best, as enlightened for his times but bound by his culture. This is also, and just as much, a false Paul.

Paul is the first to really work through what it looks like in practice for a community to be shaped by Jesus. Like Jesus, Paul smashes those aspects of his culture that are bound by honour-shame, embracing shame, embracing and honouring those who are wounded by shame—shame being such a pernicious thing. The letters of Paul are as much a gift to us from Jesus as are the Gospels. When we create another hierarchy, one that says “Jesus is good, Paul is bad,” we are still to experienced the this-changes-everything transformation Paul experienced in encountering Jesus.

I am not suggesting that Paul had already attained perfection, but that the transformation Jesus brings is intended to be, can be, life-changing, and not just a little bit better than where we were before we met him. This was good news for Paul, for others through Paul; and can be for, and through, us.

#NWUnited19 

Spiritual parenting

Wonderful teaching from Lucy Peppiatt on spiritual parenting. In the Bible, parenting is not primarily for discipline (disciplinarian) and training, but to hand on to you your identity, to give you your identity in God; to give love and security; to teach you about the faith, the nature of God; to fan your gifts into flame; and to heal the inner child in you, so that you can be whole and not damage those around you.

(This is not about having earthly children, biological or adopted. The early church venerated those who did not have earthly children. Everyone needs parenting, and, indeed, more than one spiritual mother and father.)

God does not control—violating personhood, agency (paternalism, and maternalism, infantilises)—but empowers us by convicting of error and convincing of the right way. This leads to maturity.

The goal of parenting is to prepare people to leave you, to go off and have their own lives, their own homes, where they will do things their way...

#NWUnited19 

from whom, for whom, through whom

At the Arena this morning: 5,000 people worshipping together; and, later, hundreds of people praying for one another in response to the gentle, deep, rich teaching Lucy Peppiatt brought.

Yesterday, Lucy encouraged us to read through 1 Corinthians this week, and doing so over breakfast earlier on, I was struck afresh by these words:

“there are many gods and many lords—yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.”

(1 Corinthians 8:5, 6)

#NWUnited19 

Adolescence

Yesterday we went for a walk along a forest trail on the side of a loch where, in 1307, Robert the Bruce’s men ambushed and defeated English troops. It was more a skirmish than a battle, but it was a strategic turning point, introducing guerrilla tactics to Bruce’s campaign, and credited with leading, seven years later, to the (more conventional) decisive victory for Bruce’s army at Bannockburn.

Robert the Bruce believed himself to be entitled to rule Scotland, and fought fiercely with other men who believed themselves to be as entitled or more-so—getting what he wanted, only to die of a wasting disease—with the population-at-large caught up in their games. Seven hundred years on, some things haven’t changed on this island.

Growing up the son of English parents in Scotland, I was regularly reminded of Bannockburn. Put in my place as an unwanted symbol/representative of the old enemy. Never mind that Bruce’s family name, like mine, is from Normandy. Or that my mother’s family traces itself back to James Douglas, who fought alongside Bruce at Bannockburn. We choose which bits of information to discard.

I abhor nationalism. It always requires a scapegoat. And has always more to do with the personal glory of a few than the interests of the population as a whole. Scottish nationalism. English nationalism. A plague on both your houses.

Moreover, independence is an adolescent state for a state to be in. It may be a necessary one, and better than colonial rule, but it is not a state to remain in. Maturity lies in voluntarily giving yourself, as a nation, to something bigger than yourself. That is what the EU was (is) and that is why the campaign to leave was led by entitled middle-aged men who, emotionally, had never moved on from being public schoolboys. It is also why many people in Scotland want both independence from Westminster, and to remain part of the EU.

Jesus told a parable—a guerrilla story that slips under your defences—about a man who had more than anyone could want but wanted more, yet could not mock God or cheat death. What was the point, Jesus was known to ask, of gaining the riches and status and power the world has to offer, only to lose one’s soul—one’s self, a person defined by knowing and being known by others—in the process? To become...an object?

Jesus also told many parables about the kingdom of heaven. Like lost treasure buried and forgotten in a field, or an impossibly perfect pearl, or a net bursting with fish, this kingdom is not so much one we can possess as one that possesses us, that captures our imagination, as subjects of a higher King.

It is a bigger vision than either nationalism or the EU.

But the stories I tell are also selective, perspective-d, have also been used against people simply for who they are. Stories are dangerous. They always have been. They call for both courage and humility. And a desire to know and be known by others.

Here’s to the story-tellers.