Christ the King

 

I wonder whether you are familiar with the Horrible Histories series of books—by the wonderful local northeast author Terry Deary—also turned into a children’s television show? If so, you’ll know about the Revolting Romans.

In 66 CE, the Province of Judea rebelled against Rome. The emperor, Nero, sent one of his commanders, Vespasian, to put the rebellion down, in a campaign that would last eight years. But only two years later, Nero was facing rebellion closer to home. Sentenced to death by the Senate, and deserted by the Praetorian Guard, Nero died at his own hand in the summer of 68 CE, throwing the Roman empire into civil war. Galba seized power, only to be murdered seven months later in a coup that put Otho on the throne; only to take his own life three months later, having been defeated in battle by another claimant, Vitellius. In response, the Roman legions based in Egypt and Judea proclaimed their commander, Vespasian, emperor. Leaving his son, Titus, to command the siege of Jerusalem, Vespasian turned his attention to defeating Vitellius, who was killed eight months after becoming emperor. Vespasian, whose claim was ratified by the Senate the next day, would rule for a decade and die of natural causes. Titus captured Jerusalem in 70 CE, destroying the city and its Temple, and finally defeating the last of the rebels four years later. At his father’s death, he became the first biological son to succeed his father as emperor. Two years later, he, too, died of natural causes, and was deified by the Senate. His younger brother, Domitian, became emperor of Rome and would rule for fifteen years before being assassinated by members of his own court.

Domitian was ruthless, an authoritarian ruler who used religious and cultural propaganda to build what, today, we would call a cult of personality; stripped away the powers of the Senate; and nominated himself as perpetual censor—the censor being an obsolete role, which had been served in elected terms and shared in pairs, that gave the holder absolute power over the registration of  citizens, the appointment of Senators and government officials, the defining and keeping of public morals, and the administration of the finances of the state. These actions set Domitian up as a populist ruler, in bitter opposition with the Roman elite. He would be very much at home today, among the likes of Trump and Orbán.

During Domitian’s reign (81-96 CE) an old man named John wrote a book that circulated, at first, among the Christian communities in seven cities across Asia Minor. John had been one of rabbi Jesus’ apprentices, who had lived in his company for several years leading up to his execution under the Roman governor of Judea and the astonishing claim that he had risen from the dead some days later and appeared to many witnesses over a forty-day period before ascending into heaven. From Jerusalem—since destroyed by Titus, whose brother was now emperor in Rome—the news that the God of the Jews had established this Jesus as Lord over the nations had spread and a community, made up of both Jews and gentiles, who were attracted to the hope of this message, was becoming established across the Roman world.

The genre of John’s book was apocalypse, the pulling back of the curtain to reveal what was really happening ‘behind the scenes.’ And John’s message was this: despite the authoritarian rule of Domitian over the Roman world, with its very real consequences for those who he considered his enemies, Jesus was still on the throne in heaven. And that while Roman emperors came and went, sometimes in quick succession and often having met a bloody end (Vespasian might have died of natural causes, but that cause was dysentery, so it was hardly peaceful), the kingdom of God under the rule of his co-regent divine-human Son, remained secure through all time.

This, proclaims John, is the deeper reality behind the flow of history that passes itself off as reality. And so, John encourages those who will hear his book read aloud in their midst to hold firm in their faith that—as Mother Julian of Norwich would put it, in the fourteenth century—'all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.’ And, just as Domitian would be very much at home today, so, today, we need to hear John’s tale—to see his vision afresh with our own eyes.

Like our time, the Roman age was saturated with images, especially images of powerful men. They might not have had TVs or carried smart phones, but they were confronted with images of the emperor in every public space. We even have surviving busts of emperors who only ruled for months, not years. In time, we will come to see images of Jesus and his first apprentices; but the first place where we see King Jesus—and where we see him still—is in the faces of unremarkable women and men like those gathered in this place today.

The emperors of Rome are long dead. They cannot harm you; but neither are they touched by the tyrants of today. And here is the thing: you are dead, too. We who proclaim that Jesus is Lord have died with him and are seated with him in the heavenly places. His death is our death; his reign is our reign. This is the reality behind the scenes. And because you are dead, the kings you fear—Trump, the Putin—can’t touch you: as the church-planter Paul, who knew many hardships in his body, put it, ‘No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.’

 

is and was and is to come

 

Some philosophy, for World Philosophy Day.

Revelation1.4-8 and John 18.33-37.

This coming Sunday is the Feast of Christ the King, the culmination of the Church year.

The Lectionary texts are two extracts from the writing of John, who had been apprenticed to rabbi Jesus. The first is from a vision he has as an elderly man, in which God is twice referred to as the one who is and who was and who is to come. This speaks to identity. A similar construction is employed by the author of the Letter to the Hebrews in relation to Jesus – Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and for ever – where the same is best understood as referring to self as opposed to suggesting unchanging: he is the same Jesus, whom we are told, by the biographer Luke, grew in stature and understand and in favour with God and people.

The other extract is an account of the questioning of Jesus by Pontius Pilate, fifth governor of the Roman province of Judea, in which Pilate asks Jesus if he believes himself to be the king of the Jews, and Jesus responds that he was born to testify to the truth. This also speaks to identity, to the way in which others perceived Jesus (and perceived how still others perceived Jesus) and how Jesus understood himself.

When we speak of the self, we are speaking of three distinct but related Selfs.

Self 1 refers to first-person self-awareness in the present moment. We develop this within the first year of our life, and never lose it, regardless of mental impairment. Self 1 has agency, to turn against itself or to be compassionate towards itself. But it has no access to the past (unlike Self 2, Self 1 is not touched by historic trauma, nor historic love) or the future: it exists in the present moment only. We possess Self 1 because we are made in the likeness of God who is.

Self 2 pertains to our characteristics and attributes, and refers to our perception of these, of ourselves. We are not necessarily reliable witnesses to our own identity: though John records that Jesus is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead. Self 2 changes through time, changes many times over our lives: Alpha and Omega, the one who sets out on a Way, and walks it to completion. We construct Self 2 through stories that we tell ourselves (and perhaps, though not necessarily, others) to make sense of our values and regrets, and we may deconstruct these stories when they no longer serve us, and construct a new Self 2 (birth after death).

Self 3 refers to social personae. Unlike the other two, Self 3 can only exist in relation to, and only be constructed through interactions with, other people. You cannot be a witness without someone to bear witness before. You cannot be a king without subjects. You cannot be a priest without a deity.

We possess Self 2 and Self 3 because we are made in the likeness of God who was and who is to come.

To say that God is, is to say that God knows godself in the present moment, regardless of whether God is acknowledged by the world or not.

To say that God was, is to say that God has revealed his character to us in ways that have unfolded, and that this character is faith-fully revealed in the person of Jesus, the divine human, who shared our common life, rooted in a particular society in a particular moment. As we have noted, this is to say that God is not a static Self, but, rather, God is faithful in loving us and in freeing us from our sins, from whatever holds us in captivity, whether personal or systemic, throughout history and across culture.

Just as to say God was, so also to say that God is to come, is a socially constructed statement: Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him. A king and his kingdom (that is, subjects) also acknowledged by other kings and kingdoms.

What, then, does it mean to say that God (and Jesus in union with God) is and was and is to come, in the context of the Roman Empire, or in the context of a twenty first century world teetering on global war?

Ultimately, it is to unite ourselves to him: our first-person self-awareness rooted in the first-person self-awareness of God; our self-perception being illuminated (our illusions disillusioned) by Jesus the faithful witness; and our lives, primarily understood as citizens of the kingdom of heaven, being handed over to the kings of the earth as instruments attuned to the truth.

This, it seems to me at least, is often and in many ways far from what we see in the Church. Which is why we must be brought back to him who is and was and is to come, again and again.

 

The Great Library

 

Revelation5.1-10 and Luke 19.41-44.

Alexandria, on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt, was conceived by Alexander the Great and built by his successors, the Ptolemaic dynasty. The city grew from empty sand into the most powerful city in the world, before it was later eclipsed by Rome, built not on military conquest but on the belief that knowledge equals power.

The Pharos, the harbour lighthouse, standing over 100m tall – a light that shines in the darkness – was one of the seven wonders of the world; but it was the Library and Museum that cemented Alexandria in history. The Library was to house every book in the world – monopolising knowledge. Agents were sent throughout the world to buy up books. Envoys were sent to every royal court to borrow books, make copies, and return them (in the case of valuable books, the originals were often kept, and copies returned). The Library housed works of poetry, philosophy, religion, astronomy, medicine, mathematics, engineering, architecture, agriculture – everything under the sun. They invented the role of librarian, the arranging of books by topic, and the alphabetical ordering of authors.

The adjacent Museum was a centre of research – forerunner to both museums and universities – where scholars advanced understanding in every field, building on and questioning everything that went before (the proved the earth was round and travelled around the sun). People from every nation, tribe and tongue made Alexandria their home, including a Jewish community – the Hebrew scriptures were translated into koine Greek, the new, simplified Alexandrian dialect of Greek, here – and a Buddhist community.

Books were written on papyrus scrolls, wrapped around an umbilicus, a wooden rod, and protected by cloth. Author information was recorded on clay seals attached to the scroll, for ease of identification. As several books could be copied onto one scroll, a scroll could have multiple seals attached to it.

In the first century BCE, the Roman Julius Caesar set fire to the ships in the Great Harbour of Alexandria, as a military tactic. The fire spread through the docks and surrounding buildings, including the Great Library. The knowledge of the world was lost, much of what we know coming from second hand accounts that cite texts we will never get to read.

(For more on Alexandria, read Alexandria: the City that Changed the World, by Islam Issa.)

Towards the end of the first century CE, a man called John, who had been apprenticed under rabbi Jesus and had gone on to hold a similar role, had a vision of heaven. In Revelation chapter 5 he records being in a room not dissimilar to the Great Library in Alexandria, except that this one has not been destroyed. A scroll is brought forward, with seven seals. It is the record of all that has been learnt in seven communities, the churches in seven cities across Asia Minor (part of modern-day Turkey) gathered onto one scroll. We have already met them, earlier in the vision, in recorded correspondences between the heavenly library and the agents or envoys in those cities. But no-one can open the seven seals, and so, in effect, the learning is lost.

And for this tragedy, John weeps.

But then, Jesus steps forward and is able to open the seals.

The lectionary pairs this reading today with a passage from the Gospel According to Luke, that records Jesus weeping because he knows that, just as the Romans had raised Alexandria with fire, so they would do to Jerusalem.

Jesus weeps. John weeps. Both weep, for the state of the world, in which cities rise and fall, and knowledge is built up only to be lost.

And yet, these books, authored by John and by Luke, and carefully copied many times over by professional scribes (who were paid for both the volume and the penmanship of their work) have survived. Translated into every common language, we can read them today. We can learn from what has been learnt before us.

And what we learn, in both these passages, is that it is acceptable – indeed, appropriate – to weep in the presence of God for the tragedy of the world.

John will continue to have visions of heaven. They culminate with a promise, that there will be a day when God wipes away every tear. The tears of John. The tears of Jesus. Your tears. My tears.

But, for now, we can weep before God. His Great Library is a safe space to do so. Our churches ought to be likewise.

 

Reading responsibly

 

TL:DR We have a responsibility for how we read the Bible, because it has a real impact on real lives. Yet, this is not a responsibility we can avoid, for in reading the Bible we are equipped for our own lives together.

It has been a difficult week for the Church of England, and, more broadly, a shaming week for Christians in our nation. A report published sets out a great evil, perpetuated not by the Church of England but in what might reasonably be considered Church-adjacent institutions within the larger Establishment. At some point, this abuse became known by individuals, in those institutions and in the Church as an institution, who sought (arrogantly) to manage it inappropriately and (also arrogance) prevent it from being known publicly, for that would have a terrible reputational impact on them too. At some point, others within the institution of the Church came to know, and sought to address the matter rightly, but have been found not to have done enough, or soon enough. And, for that shortcoming, the Archbishop of Canterbury has taken personal and institutional responsibility.

At the heart of this tragic affair are survivors and their families, abused and denied justice. Also those who sought justice, but who found it too hard, or somehow failed to do all that they could and should have done. And then there are also those who actively sought to cover up evil, whose actions perpetuated abuse and frustrated justice. Sometimes it is hard to draw a distinction between the latter two categories. Sometimes, it is hard to distinguish between all three.

Today, I presided at Holy Communion. It was hard to know what to say, in a week like this week. The epistle was an extract from a letter written by Paul to Philemon in the middle of the first century CE. Paul was a church planter. Philemon was the patron of a house church in Colossae, a Greco-Roman household made up of free and slave families, a household who had come to faith in Jesus through the ministry of Paul.

Philemon had a slave named Onesimus. For context, 90 percent of the population of the Roman empire were slaves. Onesimus had run away, finding his way to Ephesus, and there discovering Paul living under house arrest. The runaway slave chooses to serve Paul, to seek to meet his needs, as best as he is able. In so doing, he becomes like a son to Paul. But Paul sends him back to Philemon, asking that Philemon give Onesimus his freedom and allow him to return to Paul to continue supporting him the trials he faces.

These first-century correspondences are given to us to help us order our own lives, in our own very different time. And as we read this account, I was struck by the duty on us to handle these texts responsibly, because how we handle these texts has a real impact on actual lives. How do we read a text like this, in a week like this?

It is possible to read this text as an example and endorsement of perpetuating abuse. Paul sends Onesimus back to Philemon, urges, perhaps it feels like forces, him to go. Runaway slaves, caught, could face the death penalty. Onesimus must have been afraid. Paul seems to believe he can handle the situation himself, put in a good word, appeal to Philemon's better nature, or, if not, the debt Philemon owes Paul, the power Paul holds over him as his spiritual father.

There are many who have misused scripture in this way, as a tool to force victims of domestic abuse to remain in the place of harm, under the control of a bully.

This would be an appalling way to read Philemon, albeit one that might expose the darker corners of our own heart to the light. Is there a better way, a more responsible reading, one that helps us fill the room with light?

I would suggest that Onesimus represent one who serves the Church, and who has somehow failed or let the Church down. The name Onesimus means Useful, a common name for slaves, essentially a noun for a practical tool rather than a unique and precious individual. But in running away, he becomes useless. Yet in meeting Paul, he is transformed again, into one who is not Useful but one of the family. And Paul invites Philemon to forgive Onesimus his sins, to erase his debt, and to release him into a new role, one in which he is both loved and valued.

What if we were to read this letter as advice on how to treat a servant of the Church who has to some extent failed in their service, as, to some extent, each and every one of us fails on a daily basis? I am not speaking of one who has actively chosen to betray the trust others placed in them, but one whom others may feel betrayed by, perhaps with legitimate reason, simply because they failed to do all that they could or should have done.

Such a servant might be an archbishop, or a vicar, or a young person making tentative steps of faith. They could have a formal role, such as a Churchwarden or Parish Safeguarding Officer, or volunteer at the smallest level.

How might such a person be restored and released, in ways that honour the kindred ties of being the Church, of belonging to one another within the family of God?

The key is love, shared, and thankfulness for that lovely, for one another. Even when we have failed one another or perceive (whether with clarity or confusion) another to have failed us. To note our thankfulness for them, their life, their ministry. For all that has been done well, and all that is yet to come.

That can be easier said than done. Therefore, let us keep reminding one another.

 

The End Of The World

 

Mark 13.1-8 and Hebrews 10.11-25

TL:DR The world as we know it ends catastrophically all the time. Therefore, it is all the more important that Christians should focus on Jesus, embrace the discomfort of different views held with conviction, and seek to draw out the best rather than the worst in fellow human co-creators of the world to come.

The biographer Mark records Jesus making several visits to the temple in Jerusalem in the days leading up to his arrest and execution. Of all four Gospel writers, Mark is the least invested in the temple; he neither records Jesus visiting nor even mentioning the temple prior to this late point. This temple, expanded by the Roman client king Herod in ways that introduced segregation for women, the disabled, and foreigners, no longer exercises the role of Holy Place where heaven touches earth: this has now been taken on by Jesus himself.

Nonetheless, Mark records that one of rabbi Jesus’ apprentices draw his attention to the grandeur of the building, only for Jesus to respond that not one of the impressive stones would be left standing on another. The world, as they knew it, would come to a dramatic and violent end.

This would come to pass during the First Jewish-Roman War, 66-74 CE, at the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE, when Roman legionaries tore the temple down. But if not then, it would have happened eventually.

Mark recounts this exchange between the rabbi and his apprentice for an audience who are living through that very war. Most scholars believe he wrote from Rome, where a small number of Jews who followed rabbi Jesus watched events unfold from a distance, subject to reports and rumours and a lack of news of family back home. A minority report suggests Mark might have written from Galilee, closer to the frontline. Either way, he writes for those living through the End of the World that Jesus foretold and traumatised by it.

At the same time Mark was writing his Gospel, an unknown writer wrote what is now known as the Letter to the Hebrews to scattered followers of Jesus living through the war. Many scholars attribute the letter to the travelling church-planter Paul. Three of his fellow church planters, Luke, Apollos, and Prisca/Priscilla also have their champions. The fact that this community worked and wrote in overlapping combinations both strengthens the case for the letter coming out of that community and makes it harder to identify any given individuals with certainty.

This writer, too, is writing to a community whose world, as they have known it, is ending in flames. But they explicitly point out what Mark implies, that the world as they knew it had already come to an end. That the temple had already been replaced by Jesus as the means of achieving the ritual purity that was necessary for human beings to come into the presence of a holy God. Rather than being secured by priests going about their business day after day in the temple—a business about to be cut short—this has now been done, for them, once and for all, by Jesus, in his body.

In the light of this, the writer argues, the community of faith made up of apprentices to Jesus can have confidence even as everything they have known is lost. Specifically, they have freedom to speak openly and without fear before God, to bring their uncertainty and provisionality, their failures, shame, grief, anger, and the fear that is yet to be cast out by love.

And in such a time as this, when the world around us is burning, is being dismantled stone by stone thrown down until there is only a valley filled with rocks, the writer to the Hebrews offers three suggestions as to how to conduct ourselves, how to go about our daily lives.

Firstly, ‘let us approach.’ We can come before God, in whatever state we find ourselves, for ‘our hearts [are] sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.’ The loss of familiar structures and practices does not equate to loss of access to the presence of divine mercy. The temporal loss of the Church, as we have known it, is not the end of the life of faith.

Secondly, ‘let us hold fast.’ Be steadfast, not lightly surrendering our faith, not allowing the apocalypse around us to cause us to give up. The writer makes use of a principle from philosophical debate, not intransigent dogmatism but a willingness to wrestle with questions, to grapple with contrasting ideas and understandings, without abandoning the ring. Co-creating our response to the present crisis, and so, perhaps, in time fashioning a new world. The deconstruction and reconstruction of faith is necessary, again and again, but impossible alone.

Thirdly, ‘let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.’ Careful observation and contemplation, seeking to discern—in and for any given co-creator—how to stir up love, practical acts of justice and mercy, commitment to others, courage in the face of evil: in the active face of despair, self-interest, stone cold injustice, hatred.

You cannot stop the world from ending. The world, as we know it, ends over and over again. For individuals, families, communities, nations. The question is, how ought we to live in such a world?

This is a question the Church has been wrestling with from the outset and will be wrestling with [for we spring from the family of Israel, the Wrestler, the wrestling people] until the end.

 

Desire lines

 

We have most of our milk delivered to the doorstep in glass pint bottles, but at least once a week I top that up with milk bought at the petrol station on the intersection. The forecourt is designed for cars, with no provision made for pedestrians who come to the station to buy sweets, newspapers or tobacco products. And so, of course, pedestrians have made a desire line, albeit a very short one, that cuts between the public footpath and the petrol station forecourt at the rarely used automatic carwash on the corner of the site.

Desire lines, also known as desire paths, are those dirt tracks, worn away under foot, that cut across parks and vacant lots, or cut the corner off a bend in the official pathway. Footpaths and pavements are laid down by town planners on mapping boards, before being laid down in concrete flags or asphalt by workmen. Desire lines are public works of art, a dialogue between strangers that co-creates a more-liveable urban environment. Someone steps off the prescribed path and gives expression to another possibility. But the desire line depends on the person who comes next, the second and a third, who first notice the line that has been suggested, and then choose to take it themselves, rather than cut their own, rather than, collectively, to trample the ground so that in time the whole space is worn to earth. Desire lines say, ‘This is the Way: walk in it!’ and those whose own desire is awakened stop in the tracks, turn off the broad path that leads to some form of mass destruction (or, loss of some quality of life) and follow on the narrow path on which a fuller experience of being alive is to be found.

Today, I went to fetch some milk, and I discovered that someone has erected the most enormous communications mast on the public footpath ... right in front of the desire line.

As if to say, ‘This unofficial path is barred. You must connect with your neighbour in this virtual (and of course monetised) way. By order of the Pax Romana.’

This desire line must be one of the shortest that exists. And yet each time I step on it, I am aware that I am connected to my neighbours, even on trips to the petrol station forecourt when I do not meet anyone on the way. I am co-creating physical space. There is something almost magical about that scrappy corner of scrub, the almost abandoned carwash, blue light reflected on rain-slick tarmac when it rains at night. It puts a smile on my face that I take all the way to the cashier as I present my two quarts of milk to be scanned and paid for.

But it has never felt better than today, stepping behind the communication mast and disregarding its injunction.

Wreaths of Empire

 

Lectionary readings: Hebrews 9.24-28 and Mark 1.14-20

Jesus and his first followers lived under the occupation of the Roman Empire. Indeed, Galilee had been successively occupied, over a period of seven hundred years, by the Assyrian, the Babylonian, the (Persian) Achaemenid, the Ptolemaic, Greek-Seleucid, and Roman Empires.

Around the time of Jesus, the Roman Empire invaded Britain, defeating the indigenous tribes with whom they had previously traded, and whom they had unsuccessfully invaded, twice, a hundred years earlier.

The Romans ruled over us for four hundred years, bringing Christianity with them. Then they were summoned home to defend Rome, though many simply refused to go.

In their wake we had two centuries of Germanic migration – pagan Saxons, Angles, Jutes, and Frisians;

followed by two centuries of consolidation into around a dozen Anglo-Saxon kingdoms competing for dominance (Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex among them) and efforts to convert them to Christianity by both their neo-Celtic British neighbours – the fabled Northern Saints – and by missionaries from Rome;

followed by two centuries of Danish migration.

Then, in the eleventh century, the Norman invasion, the most comprehensive dispossession and replacement of the ruling class.

For the next three hundred years, the boundaries between English and French were blurred and bloody, while England also laid claim to Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

The fourteenth century saw the Black Plague wipe out half the population of England.

The fifteenth century saw the War of the Roses.

The sixteenth century saw Tudor England, and a violently contested break from the Church of Rome, pulling the country back and forth, Catholic and Protestant factions fighting for dominance.

The seventeenth century saw Union with Scotland; Civil War and the state execution of a king; a restoration of the monarchy; and the Glorious Revolution, the deposition of a Catholic king.

The eighteenth century saw the upheaval of the Industrial Revolution;

the nineteenth century saw the Napoleonic Wars and expansion of the British Empire;

the twentieth century saw the First World War – as German expansion in Europe threatened Britain’s global Empire – and a Second World War, followed by rapid decolonization, and new – ongoing – waves of migration from nations we had claimed our own.

What does it mean to be British? What does it mean to be British and Christian? What do these things mean, at any given point in time?

Jesus and his first followers lived under the occupation of the Roman Empire. The emperor in Rome justified his claim to their land, and to their lives, by declaring himself to be the bringer of Good News, the herald of universal peace, the Pax Romana.

And Jesus arrives on the scene proclaiming a different kingdom, the kingdom of God, a divine rule that is not concerned with claims over nations or nationalities but is demonstrated in addressing the needs of those who experience crushing poverty, in healing the sick, feeding the hungry, standing with those marginalized by their communities.

I have a confession. I find Remembrance Sunday the most uncomfortable day of the year, because it is a day on which we are reminded of how utterly addicted we are to violence in defence of a moment in history we cannot hold on to. We have done this every year for the past hundred years, and still we are surrounded by war, and still we see the rise of neo-fascism around the world as strong men declare themselves to be anointed by God to defend Christian values, with bloodshed if necessary.

And I have absolutely no skin in this game. I am not looking for the downfall of this nation, I just know – history shows us – that it will continue to change, as will all the other nations. But as I get on with my life, as best I can, in the moment in history that has been allotted to me, Jesus comes to me and says, Follow me.

Follow me, and together we shall scoop others up into this utterly different kingdom, with this utterly different king, whom Empire put to death but whom God raised again to life.

An early follower of Jesus wrote to Christians scattered by the ebb and flow of Empire, saying the signs and symbols we see now are at best pale imitations of reality. Today we wear poppies, a flower that grew in fields that had been soaked with the blood of a generation. A symbol of life returning again, even after utter and comprehensive destruction. A symbol of the unimaginable goodness of God towards us. But the poppy can become an opiate, numbing us to good as well as pain. So, I shall wear my poppy, but I shall look to Jesus, and choose to follow him, to hold out good news to those on the underside of our society, including those maimed physically and scarred emotionally by war.

 

Reality check

 

The population of the United States has freely voted, in large numbers, to elect as President a man who violates women, who violates the law, a convicted criminal who once led a coup attempt, who mocks the disabled, who spreads lies about immigrants, who has promised to deport 20 million people and to round up his opponents and throw them in prison. A would-be dictator who has systematically removed and replaced much of the checks and balances that constrained him in his first presidency.

When things like this happen, they reveal to us how the world actually is, as opposed to how we would like to think that it is. And for that disillusionment, we should be grateful.

The same is true when we see strong men kill men, women and children with the intention of stealing their land, of wiping their enemies from the face of the earth. This is not some anomaly. How do you think it is that, one hundred years ago, one in four people on this planet were ruled over by the British Empire? What was, will be.

We live in dangerous times. There is no other kind. And at times like these, the best advice I can offer is, go and read Ecclesiastes (Qohelet).

This is the record of a Jewish philosopher from some two-and-a-half thousand years ago, who noted and called out the injustice of the world. Wealthy strongmen with utter disregard for anyone else – and especially the little man, the little woman, the apparently left behind – flourish, right up until they don’t. We have seen it before. We will see it again. History is littered with dead dictators, some of whom eventually faced justice in this life, some of whom did not.

This is the way of the world, a way that spoils the experience of goodness in the world, that would appear to make a mockery of living a quiet life, of seeking – as another Jewish sage put it – to love being merciful, habitually practice justice, and walk this earth with humility.

And yet, Qohelet advises those who would listen to live lives of gratitude and love, that seek out the healing balm of life despite the flies in the ointment. This is not resignation, but, in fact, the most powerful thing we can do. We cannot overthrow the way the world is, but we can choose to live differently, a different approach to life that is, also, the way the world is. There have always been acts of steadfast love.

Qohelet lived and wrote before Jesus. But Jesus commits to the same Way. Defying the expectations of many, he does not lead a doomed rebellion against Rome, but a quiet revolution against the darkness that threatens to overwhelm the light in every human heart and soul and mind and strength. The power of love, which, flowing from eternity, is without limit, yet must be chosen, again and again. Light that the darkness cannot quench, for, the darker the world, the more beautiful the light within it.

So, go find a Bible, and read Ecclesiastes. Slowly. Soak in its wisdom, in the unflinching recognition of how the world is, stripped of illusion; the courage to take time – as much and as often as needed – to grieve and lament that this is so; and the unwavering commitment to embody the gift of life, with deep gratitude, despite everything.

 

On grief

 Edited

One of the things I do is conduct funerals. And at a funeral, one of the things I often do, on behalf of the family, is to tell the story of the deceased. To offer the eulogy (Greek: to speak well [of the dead]).

This has not always been the way. Until 2000, the Church of England funeral service made no provision for a tribute or eulogy. Until 1980, the deceased was not even named, beyond our brother/sister, the focus being presenting the congregation with their own mortality and the sure and certain hope that Jesus has defeated death. After 1980, the deceased got a mention by name, but only at the point, towards the very end of the service, where they were commended to God.

But the population is no longer sure or certain about death having been defeated, and we do not want to be confronted with our own mortality, and so we want a funeral to be a celebration of a life, and the Church has sought to navigate a middle way, to help people move towards the hope they have mislaid.

And so, before a funeral, I meet with the family, and help them to do some detective work, to piece together the life we will remember. What do you know about your father or mother, your husband or wife, before you were a part of their life? And at every funeral, the congregation, even family members, find out something they did not know.

The story of siblings Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, told in the Gospels, is such an example of family history. Here are some parts of their personal histories that might be news to you. Some scholars (see, for example, Mary Stromer Hanson) believe that Martha was a minister, who in our language and context might be the parish vicar. Twice, she is described as ministering in the same way that is used of Moses in relation to the people he led out of Egypt, and of the apostles, and by Paul of those in whose homes the churches he wrote to meet. Some scholars believe that Mary was a peripatetic evangelist, or in our language a missionary. The biographer Luke describes her as ‘sitting at Jesus’ feet, learning from him,’ which is a way of saying that she was one of rabbi Jesus’ apprentices, or disciples, one of the seventy-two he had recently sent out ahead of him to every place he intended to go. Lazarus is unmarried, is not the head of the family (that is his sister Martha) and does not speak. Some scholars believe that he was significantly disabled, which would also imply that his sisters were what today we would call his carers.

These overlapping, interwoven lives resulted in tensions between them, as for so many families. Once, when Jesus was travelling about, having sent seventy-two apprentices ahead of him to every place he was about to go, Mary among them, he arrived in their town and entered their home. The biographer Luke tells us that Martha was anxious about the demands her ministry placed upon her (perhaps due to the added demands of caring for Lazarus though Luke does not mention him) and asked Jesus if he shared (if he could relate to) her anxieties? She asked him to tell Mary, when he next came across her in whichever place she had gone (for neither Martha nor Jesus address Mary, and neither does she reply to them, suggesting that she is not present), to return home and share the burden with her sister. But Jesus would not, instead helping Martha see things from the perspective of her sister Mary, and at the same time to refocus on the essentials of her own ministry and family commitments. If extraneous things are left undone, they are left undone.

I am not Jesus, but people confide such sibling tensions to me all the time. This is common to family life, especially where there are elderly parents or other family members with additional support needs.

The biographer John recounts the events surrounding the death of Lazarus. And like the traditional Church of England funeral service, the focus is not Lazarus but his sisters who survive him (Lazarus having neither wife nor children).

John recounts their grief, which is uncontainable. He also notes the way in which it flips their behaviour. Martha, who ministered in her own village, leaves the village behind in search of Jesus on his way. Mary, who had left the village to carry the good news to other parishes, cannot face leaving home. Again, while grief does not follow a formula, this is not uncommon. They will need support to find a meeting place, common ground, literally and metaphorically at the boundary edge of the village.

John also recounts the empathy Jesus shows, and his engagement with his own grief at the death of a friend. The outpouring of his grief is described both as noisy and noiseless, making a sound like a stallion and shedding wrenching silent tears. John describes Jesus as stirring up his spirit, and as stilling his spirit. Like a horse-whisperer, he trains his grief, so that something wild, untamed and free, becomes something useful, something he can partner with, something that can carry him from where he is to where he will be. This is a masterclass in grief-work, in acknowledging what has been lost and fashioning a new future that is different (and it is different, even though in this instance Jesus will resuscitate Lazarus).

John also tells us that the other mourners (unhelpfully translated as the Jews: but they are all Jewish; these are better translated as the Judeans, in contrast to Jesus and his closest apprentices, who are Galileans) pass judgement on Jesus. Some see his grief as evidence of how much he loved Lazarus; while others are critical: if this man heals the sick, why could he not bother to heal his own friend before it was too late?

It is important to recognise that these Judeans are, themselves, grieving, and that grief can skew how we relate to others. We want people to make allowances for us but may find it harder to make allowances for them. While grief is raw, we can be hurtful. In our pain, we can inflict pain. Again, this experience is readily recognisable, one that a vicar comes across all the time, that calls us to help family members navigate this liminal space. Grieving people need to be gentle on themselves and others. We are all grieving people. We all need help to not lose sight of this.

Luke and John are both master story tellers, and between them help us to weave together a story of a family, a story that takes in each member, and brings together life and death under the care of Jesus, in sure and certain hope not only of the resurrection of the dead at some future point but of the remaking of our world every time it comes to an end.

For those of us who belong to the Church, this is our family, our story. Our tensions, our grief, our faith, and our hope.

And we rehearse this story again and again in our own lives.