mend

 

The world and all that is in it, created, redeemed, and sustained by the triune God, is good. But it is easily and often torn. This is because the fabric of the world is meant to be soft, not hard like armour. The Son of God himself was torn.

We are called to mend the torn fabric of the world, according to our calling to be in the world in a particular way, or as a particular participation in the life of that creating, redeeming, sustaining God. Through carefully considered words, and caring actions.

It is said that a stitch, in time, saves nine. But one stitch is not very secure, and if it is not in keeping with the fabric, it spoils rather than enhances. Ten stitches are more likely to hold, and can be a thing of beauty in themselves. A daisy or a teapot; a leaf or a sun.

Do not ignore any tear you find in the fabric of the world (in a spouse, or a child, or a friend; in yourself, or your worst enemy; in the earth or sea or air; whether self-inflicted, or inflicted by another, or caused by your own clumsy handling) for it will only get larger.

But do not rush to mend it. Especially, do not rush to mend a person (including yourself). To do so will neither hold nor enhance. And do not trust anyone who claims to be able to fix any torn thing quickly; they will only cause more tears. Instead, observe the tear in the fabric, the way it runs. And forgive the fabric for tearing, for not being able to hold, for not bearing your weight day after day indefinitely. Forgive yourself, where necessary; and ask the fabric to forgive you, where appropriate. But do not rush to mend.

A stitch, in time, saves nine; but ten, in time, may better mend the fabric.

 

rise

 

Lectionary texts set for today: Acts 9.36-43 and John 10.22-30.

The Gospel passage set for today opens with John informing us that this account took place in winter. This might feel like an incidental detail, but there are no incidental details in his writing: every word is carefully chosen. The literal meaning of the word that means winter is tempest-driven. That makes sense, though in England these days the storm season lasts from October to October. But I think we can all relate to times in our lives when we are battered by storms.

In this context, Jesus says, to those who follow me, who apprentice their lives to me, I give that quality of life that triumphs over death, and they shall never be separated from that life which flows from God.

The fifty days between Easter and Pentecost are the Season of Resurrection or Season of Life, the annual practice of learning again what it means to live lives that participate in the life of the risen Lord Jesus.

In the reading from Acts, we meet Tabitha. Her life is an example of this. She has been battered by many storms. She is likely a widow and an internally displaced person, who has lost both her husband and her city, and made a new home in Joppa. Here she rises to serve others, mending the torn fabric of the world by making clothes (probably in a street-facing work room) and hosting the church in her upper room.

When Tabitha dies, her friends send for Peter. We read that he got up from where he was receiving hospitality and went to Tabitha; that he told her corpse to get up; and that when she responded, he helped her up. For all these risings, the author, Luke, uses the same word that is used to describe the resurrection or rising from the dead. These, then, are examples of participating in the life of the risen Jesus.

This morning, I was awake at quarter to two. I confess before the company of heaven and before you, my sisters and brothers, that I did not think: Alleluia, Christ is risen. Let me rise with him, kneel by my bed, and pray for the congregation. I did not. I lay there for several minutes wishing I was still asleep (this never works) then got up and walked down the corridor to have a wee, and went back to bed, to sleep fitfully. When I did get up, I washed and dressed and went downstairs. I sat at my desk, and slipped my clerical collar into my shirt, because sometimes I forget. A few minutes later, I remembered to slip my clerical collar in, fished one out of the desk drawer, and in attempting to insert it, discovered to my surprise that I had already done it. So, off to a good start today...

But every time that we rise can be a response to the voice of Jesus calling us to follow him. And every time we rise, we may bring life to others. I have never raised someone from physical death, but I have raised the dead, unknowingly at the time, and perhaps you have too. I have said just the right thing at just the right moment that has caused someone in deep despair, someone who was existing but not alive, to return to life. I know this only because more than one person has told me this, long after the event. Some of you might read this.

And I have been on the other side of that experience too: I have known deep despair and been called back to life by the words and actions of others, who, like Tabitha, mended a torn world through compassionate care. Some of you might read this.

Today, may you rise, made strong by the risen life of the risen Jesus.

 

if Jesus were me

 

Tabitha (Acts 9.36-43) was probably:

a widow, who knew the grief of losing a spouse;

a refugee (internally displaced), who knew the grief of losing her home city through the experience of persecution;

bi-lingual, knowing the tensions of living alongside close neighbours who had different cultural values.

The one thing we know for certain about Tabitha is that she was a disciple, someone who had apprenticed her life to the life of Jesus.

The American philosopher Dallas Willard (1935-2013) said:

‘Discipleship is the process of becoming who Jesus would be if he were you.’

Jesus was a builder, that is, a stone mason and carpenter; and a rabbi (a teacher of how to do life well) and healer. (Rabbis came from many different backgrounds, and would usually continue to ply their trade as a bi-vocational way of life.)

Jesus-as-Tabitha was a seamstress, a maker of both undergarments and outer garments. A maker of items that were both practical and beautiful, created as a tangible manifestation of compassion.

The same Life, expressed in different ways. Diversity in unity.

What does Jesus-as-you do?

And where?

What has Jesus-in-you lost, and found?

 

learning to rise

 

The seven weeks between Easter Sunday and Pentecost are a Season of the Resurrection, a season in which the Church is invited once again to learn how to live our lives in the light of Jesus’ resurrection and as a participation in Jesus’ resurrection.

Throughout this annual season, the Church reads and meditates on the Acts of the Apostles.

The Gospel passage set for Holy Communion today begins like this: Jesus said, ‘No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up [άναστήσω, ‘will raise up’: from άνίστημι, to raise, to rise, to stand up, to resurrect, to rise from among the dead] on the last day’ (John 6.44) and it is paired with an extract from Acts that begins ‘Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Get up [Άνάστηθι, ‘rise up’: from άνίστημι] and go towards the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ (This is a wilderness road.)’ (Acts 8.26).

The reading from Acts set for this coming Sunday, Acts 9.36-43, tells us that at the request of two messengers, ‘Peter got up [Άναστάς, ‘having risen up’: from άνίστημι] and went with them’ (Acts 9.39) … ‘He turned to the body [of Tabitha, who had died] and said, ‘Tabitha, get up.’ [άνάστηθι, ‘arise!’: from άνίστημι] Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. He gave her his hand and helped her up [άνέστησεν, ‘he raised up’: from άνίστημι].’ (Acts 9.40b-41a).

That is to say, there is a repeated theme – here illustrated by Philip, Peter, and Tabitha – of participating in the risen life of Jesus.

The point is not that this life is a rehearsal for the life to come, but that the life to come has already begun.

Here is the thing: I rose up this morning, and so (unless you are reading this in bed, having not yet got up) did you. Whether rising willingly or unwillingly, gladly or reluctantly, I rose up yesterday and today and God-willing I shall rise up tomorrow. And each opportunity to rise is an invitation to participate in the risen life of Jesus. Each rising is a response to that invitation. I am alive today – as opposed to merely existing – because he lives: because I live ‘through him, and with him, and in him’ and he in me.

And if I rise this day, it is to bring life to others. To raise up those who need hope, need purpose, need that quality of life that triumphs over sin and death, over all that separates us from God and our neighbour, and even our very selves. To know this life at work in my own life and to give it away knowing that it will never run out.

This way of living is what we are called to discover and rediscover in this season. The Season of the Resurrection.

 

shearing

 

There is a fascinating account in the Acts of the Apostles of the faith journey of a gender-Queer Black African (Acts 8.26-40).

Philip is divinely directed to seek this person out and befriend them. They are reading from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah (they will ask Philip about the meaning of Isaiah 53.7-8) and they see something of their own life story reflected back at them there. Philip does not reject them but helps them to see that Jesus identified with them, and they can identify with Jesus (this they decide to do, as evidenced in their request to be baptised). They will become the parent-in-the-faith of all who follow Jesus in Africa, the rich tapestry of Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Pentecostals.

The verses that spoke to them from Isaiah are significant, not only at a personal level for this individual but in relation to how we ought to relate to anyone, and especially if we call Jesus our Lord. Here, the person denied justice is described as being like an ewe before her shearer. A shearer is not supposed to injure the sheep, let alone kill them. Shearers are supposed to remove the fleece, for the good of the sheep and for the benefit of people who can be clothed with garments made from the wool. This is a matter of animal husbandry, an annual event, familiar to the sheep. But the ewe is betrayed by her shearers, who instead butcher her.

In a similar way, Jesus is betrayed by the religious leaders of his people, by those who ought to have attended to his welfare and, through him, the good of others. Yet God will vindicate him.

The call of the family of God is to be a shepherd people, who attend to the welfare of humanity and who enable the gifts of every person to contribute to the good of all, meeting physical needs and paying attention to dignity.

When we fail to respond to anyone in this way, we are guilty of iniquity.

And yet Jesus the ewe has taken upon herself the iniquity of us all, so that we might be unburdened of its weight. Jesus the true ewe becomes Jesus the true shearer.

May we submit to his shearing, and receive all, as God (not only) receives (but also seeks) them.

 

mapping my brain

 

Map-making. A personal neurodivergent perspective.

Neurodiversity is a way of mapping the differences in how human brains deal with sensory processing, motor abilities, social comfort, cognition, and attention or focus. It embraces everyone. Those who fall within the average range of experience (the norm: which therefore becomes established as the default normal in behaviour and assumptions) can be described as neurotypical. Those who lie outside of that range can be described as neurodivergent. Because neurobiology and neurocognition are complex, neuro divergence can present in many ways; but those who are neurotypical and those who are neurodivergent are all equally human, all fall within the diversity of expressions of what it is to be human. However, those who are neurodivergent may experience particular challenges, in part because of their own neurobiology, and in significant disabling (and, potentially, enabling) ways due to neurotypical assumptions and structures.

One of the ways I like to think of this is as a map of England. (It is a myth/lie that autistic people cannot handle non-literal concepts. If anything, it is neurotypicals who struggle with literal concepts, such that they need to reinforce their sentences by stating ‘literally’ this or that when they describe literal accounts.) Everyone who lives in England lives somewhere on the map. The majority, the typical person, live in urban settings. Society is largely designed to serve this population, not least because numbers present needs. But those who live in small towns, villages or hamlets can feel left behind, inadequately supported by public infrastructure.

In this analogy, neurotypicals live in cities. They have easy access to transport links between different places (smooth connections between different pieces of information, or experiences). There are motorways and inter-city train links, as well as ring roads and dual carriageways. Of course, in a city there are also many side streets and back lanes, but many people who live in cities fall into habitual patterns of only using the most direct routes. They can become entirely unfamiliar with streets just a block away from their preferred regular routes. Should that route be blocked, forcing them to adjust, they may discover things they had previously been unaware of.

There are many different neuro divergences, such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia, or Tourettes (involuntary physical and vocal tics).

Autistics have a particular set of sensory processing and social comfort challenges. They have far more neural connections than neurotypicals, but these are also significantly weaker. (Neurotypicals have fewer, stronger connections.) In this map analogy, autistic live in rural areas. Here there is a vast network of small roads, lanes, single tracks, footpaths and bridle paths, but none of them can handle much volume. If a farmer is driving sheep along the lane, you are going to be stuck behind them for some time.

Some autistic people are hypersensitive to stimuli, while others are hyposensitive. This can be as true of emotions as of external sensory issues. Our emotions can be like mountains: very big, and majestic, but with few (and sometimes eroded) footpaths to navigate them.

Neurotypicals sometimes differentiate between high-functioning and low-functioning autism, but this is unhelpful. The demands of being an autistic person in a neurotypical landscape are untypically draining, even if some of us can navigate visits to a major city, sometimes, if not all of the time. The distinction that high/low functioning attempts to draw is between autistic people who do not have additional learning disabilities, and those who do (or whose autism is misunderstood in this way, such as selective mutism being mistaken for cognitive impairment rather than coping mechanism). Other learning disabilities can co-exist with autism, just as they can be found among the neurotypical population.

Those that are not autistic are allistic. Allistic people can be neurotypicals, or neurodivergent in ways other than autism. So, someone with ADHD is allistic, but someone with AuDHD (where autism and ADHD meet and overlap) is not.

ADHD relates to specific challenges in the areas of attention or focus, (sometimes) hyperactivity, and impulsivity. People with ADHD have more (weaker) neural connections than neurotypicals but not as many as autistic people. On our map, they live on the suburban fringe between the city and the countryside, with access to some of the larger mainstream transport (connection) routes, but arguably with choice paralysis. Those with AuDHD occupy the space between the suburb/villages and the most rural/remote communities. At times, the autistic challenges and ADHD challenges conflict, causing internal turmoil.

 

acts

 

As many of you know, I run, with others, as a matter of habit. As a discipline, it reminds me that I am a whole made of parts – heart and soul and mind and physical strength. It also helps me to attend to these things. If you know this about me, you will also know that this past winter I have struggled with the discipline to run, even though I desired to do so, and that my absence had a negative impact on me. Now that the days are lighter, I am returning.

It is the discipline of the Church to read through selected extracts from the Acts of the Apostles throughout the Season of Easter. These bring us back to the first women and men who wrestled with what it looked like to live in the light of the resurrection. Since last year – and perhaps much longer ago than that – we may have struggled or even fallen away; but each year we can begin again.

This coming Sunday, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, we will hear Acts 9.36-43 alongside John 10.22-30 where Jesus says, of those who follow him – that is, who apprentice their lives to his – that ‘I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.’ ‘Eternal’ life relates to a quality of life, experienced in the present, as a good and enduring gift from God: a fully alive life.

In Joppa (Jaffa, Yafo, today part of Tel Aviv-Yafo) we meet a disciple whose Hebrew name is Tabitha (‘gazelle,’ from a Chaldean root – the language of the people Abraham grew up among – meaning ‘beauty,’ ‘glory,’ ‘graceful,’ ‘elegant’) but who is also known by the Greek variant Dorcas (‘gazelle,’ from a root meaning ‘to see clearly,’ gazelles having large eyes and being alert to their surroundings).

Backstory: in the early Church in Jerusalem, there were many widows. Some were from the Hellenistic community, those who, while holding onto their Jewish faith traditions, had in other regards embraced Greek culture – and language – over the generations of Greek expansion around the eastern Mediterranean. Some were from the traditionalist community, who distanced themselves from anything Greek. The Church was drawn from both communities. The Church also sought to provide for at least the most destitute of the widows among their number. But the Hellenistic widows complained that they were being overlooked in the distribution of support. So, the apostles – those who had been apprenticed to Jesus and now sent out by him to gather apprentices of their own – decided to appoint administrators. Significantly, they did not seek balanced representation: they appointed only from the Hellenistic community, from the group who had been overlooked, trusting that they would not seek revenge but guarantee equity. One of those was Stephen. When false allegations were made against him, he became the first person to bear witness to (to be a ‘martyr’) the long salvation history that ran through Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David, and now Jesus ‘the Righteous One,’ in the face of public execution (hence ‘martyrdom’). This sparked a greater persecution that scattered the church across Judea and Samaria. Some made it to the historic coastal port of Joppa (a port somewhat superseded by this time by Caesarea Maritima to its north). The account of Tabitha/Dorcas suggests that both Hellenistic (Greek-speaking) and traditionalist (Hebrew-speaking) widows lived there harmoniously.

Tabitha lived a life that was evident to all as abounding in accomplishing good, in acts of compassion. In particular, she had taken to heart the words of Jesus, ‘I was naked and you gave me clothing,’ (Matthew 25.36) and was a maker of both undergarments and outer garments. And we hear that she became ill and died – that is, perished. Cut off from the life she had known, and for which she was known. The thing that Jesus had said would not happen. And so, having heard that Peter, who was travelling around the scattered communities encouraging them, was only ten miles away, they sent for him to come quickly.

We read that Peter got up: the word can mean to rise, but it is the same word used, in other contexts, to rise from the dead. Peter’s commonplace rising hints at what is to come. After prayer, Peter will tell the dead Tabitha to get up (same word) and when she responds by opening her eyes (remember the root of Dorcas?) and seeing Peter, she sat up and he gave her his hand and helped her up (same word).

Then Peter called the saints and widows back into the upper room (another element of this story that resonates with the events surrounding the resurrection) and showed her to be alive: to be experiencing God’s gift of life, the life Jesus gives that restores what death would attempt to take away.

Of course, Dorcas would eventually go on to die again, and this time she would not be raised with a perishable body, condemned to taste death over and over again. The point is not that we don’t die, but that our dying is not the same as perishing: we are not cut off. Not cut off from Jesus, who is Lord of the living and the dead; and not cut off from the Church, for Tabitha’s story is told to this day and reveals a principle of belonging beyond physical separation.

Some questions to reflect on:

For what would you want to be remembered by the community among whom you live?

How might a practical activity such as knitting or sewing with others stitch people from different backgrounds and worldviews together as one whole?

Does loss (of a spouse, of the place you knew as home, or the fortunes of that place) necessarily mean a diminished life, or is life in its many seasons a gift that endures?

Is it possible not only to survive the end of the world, as you have known it, but to thrive?

How can simple acts such as rising from our bed or chair become a participation in the resurrection?

John 10.22-25 tells us that ‘it was winter’ (‘storm season,’ ‘tempest-driven’) and that the Judeans ‘gathered around Jesus,’ or ‘encircled’ or ‘besieged’ him, asking ‘how long will you keep us in suspense?’ – or ‘withhold our vital breath from us?’ In times when we are collectively battered by the storms of life, and others besiege us with their overwhelming sense of need, where do we find shelter, and what do we draw on?

 

many dwellings

 

Jesus said, ‘In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’

These words are often read at funerals, but I do not think they are concerned with what happens to us when we die. I believe Jesus was speaking about what would happen for his apprentices after his death, mighty resurrection, and glorious ascension.

‘In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places’ may be understood in this way: ‘In my Father’s household, there are many dwelling-places’ or ‘In God’s family, there are many places where God is found at home.’

Jesus said, ‘the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.’ That is, when Jesus was walking around Galilee, Samaria, and Judea, he was the dwelling place of God on earth, the place where God resided. He was at home in God, and God was at home in him.

But now, Jesus was returning to the Father (to God) to prepare for the sending of the Holy Spirit so that all God’s children would be at home in God, and God in them.

I do not think this is a partisan thing. I believe that everyone you meet is, at least potentially, someone on and with whom God rests. I do believe that it is possible to choose, in ways that become habitual, to live your life in such a way that God departs; but even then, I believe God longs to be able to return home.

But I also believe that many of the people we meet, including many Christians, live their lives unaware of the reality that they are a place where God dwells.

Jesus said, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’ That is, his life both reveals that a human life can be God’s home and also teaches or (better) trains us how to live such a life.

Where does God reside? With you, in your life. And also with me.

In a world where many have lost a sense of significance or worth, or are anxious about what the day might hold, we can wake every morning saying, ‘I am at home in God, and God in me. I am at rest in God, and God in me.’ And because of this, we can extend hospitality towards others.

The point is not that there is a place for you in heaven when you die, but that there is a place for God in you (and you in God) while you live.

 

John 14.1-14

‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’ Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’ Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.’

 

these

 

John Chapter 20 ends like this:

‘Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.’

John 20.30, 31

That would be an enigmatic end. Except that John carries on immediately:

‘After these things Jesus showed himself again to his disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way...’

John 21.1

And as the story unfolds:

‘When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love [agapas] me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love [philō] you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.”’

John 21.15

[A note: agapas has to do with choice, with choosing to accept that which is best for the other, whether it is our preference or not; philō has to do with emotion, and we do not choose our emotional reactions, though we do have some degree of choice over how we will behave in response and we can train our responses.]

But these are written...After these things...do you love me more than these?

Jesus asks Peter if he will choose, again and again, to love Jesus more than the adventures they have shared together. And to live out that love in serving others, after Jesus returns to the Father.

And John asks his reader to do the same. To choose to love and so to trust in Jesus, beyond the stories recorded about him. Because the stories that are written down must come to an end, but there is more, so much more. Jesus is still performing signs that reveal the glory of God in the world today. John wants us to participate in that life, life to the full.

I love the stories of Jesus. But if you were to ask me which was my favourite, I might just have to reply: I am not sure it has happened yet.

The actual end of John gives us the enigmatic conclusion hinted at a Chapter earlier:

‘But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.’

John 21.25

 

Alleluia. Christ is risen.

 

‘Alleluia. Christ is risen.’
‘He is risen indeed. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.’

The Church professes that ‘For our sake he [Jesus] was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures’ (extract, the Nicene Creed). This I believe.

Sometime before dawn on the third day, Jesus rose from the dead, bringing to an end the old order of sin and death and ushering in the new order of love and life.

But I am moved by the gracious wisdom of the Church that says, ‘Do not attempt to take this truth in, in just a day: this truth must be met, again and again, over fifty days.’ The Season of Easter is ten days longer than Lent, ten days longer than Christmas and Epiphany combined, roughly twice as long as Advent. Fifty days.

In the gracious wisdom of the Church, Jesus does not even appear in person in the Gospel reading set for today, Luke 24.1-12. The women who return to the tomb to do the job of embalming Jesus’ corpse properly must trust in the evidence of the stone rolled away, the absence of a body, the testimony of two men (angels?) in dazzling clothes, and the words Jesus had said to prepare them for this day. And I love this, because is this not where we are, invited to trust on this evidence? Like the male apprentices, we must trust the witness of the women—or else reject their testimony as an idle tale.

Too often, the testimony of women is dismissed, their story silenced, by men and indeed by other women. Yet (and perhaps for this very reason) it is to women—to the very large group of his female apprentices—that God entrusts the good news of the mighty resurrection of his Son. For the foolishness of God is greater than the wisdom of the world, and the weakness of God is more powerful than the world’s idea of strength.

If you find the resurrection disturbing, you are not alone. Indeed, it is disturbing, disrupting. But this is our hope: that the one who, in his body, is fully God and fully human has taken upon himself our life and our death that we might be joined to him in his death and his life, and that through him and with him and in him all things shall be made new.

‘Alleluia. Christ is risen.’
‘He is risen indeed. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.’

 

God is dead

 

Holy Saturday.

To be dead is not to no longer exist. It is not even to no longer be conscious. To be dead is to dwell in the realm of the dead, a separate but connected dimension to the one we are familiar with. The Jews called this realm Sheol, the Greeks and Romans called it Hades. Every culture has its own name. Those who sincerely believe that death is the end of existence are a vanishingly small minority, even in the post-secular West.

God is dead.

How can God be dead!? God is dead because God wills it so. Because God is willing to experience being dead.

How can God return from the dead? Again, because God wills it so, and death cannot hold God against the divine free will.

Why is God dead? On one level, God is dead because human inhumanity put God to death. That is, we banished God, not into nonexistence but into exile into the realm of the dead, where we are not (yet) and so do not have to deal with God (for now).

But we were only able to kill God because God was willing to die. So, again, why is God dead?

Everything that exists, seen and unseen, exists because God created it. Willed it into being and saw that it was good. God is beyond creation, not so much that God is outside of the universe as that the universe exists within God, within the love of God. This is what is meant by the transcendence of God.

But that which exists within the love of God has freedom and has not always used that freedom to love as it is loved. And so God entered into creation, in Jesus, the full expression of God and of humanity. This is what is meant by the imminence of God. Jesus showed us what it is to love; but more than that, everywhere he went is transformed by his presence, by Love incarnate: is set free from unloving. Anywhere he did not go could not be so redeemed. And so, in Jesus, God descends to pass through the world, the realm of the living; and descends further still to pass through the realm of the dead; and ascends again to pass through the heavens, the realm of the gods.

God is dead so that Jesus may be the Lord of the living and the dead, the redeemer of every realm.

 

contemplation

 

Good Friday.

We spent an hour contemplating the wounds of Christ and placed our own drop of blood (red glass beads) on, or near, the cross in symbolic recognition that our wounds (the wounds we have inflicted and the wounds we have suffered and endured) are taken up in his, and transformed by Love.

 

there is a green hill

 

Good Friday.

There are two hills in my parish on which a large cross is processed and erected every Good Friday.

The hills are formed of (what is locally known as) Magnesian Limestone. They date from the Permian Period, some 275 million years ago, a period that saw three or four massive extinctions concluding with the one known as the Great Dying. Of course, the continents and seas were different then, to how our world looks now.

I understand this cognitively; but when I climb the Tunstall Hills today I do not understand myself to have any part in their distant past, or distant future, only in their present.

Between 3.00 p.m. on Good Friday and sometime before dawn on the following Sunday, we who confess dependence in God proclaim that, in Jesus, God is dead.

Not that God has experienced death and so is able to identify with our experience of death. We confess that God is dead.

God will not stay dead, for death simply is not strong enough to hold God captive. Nonetheless we proclaim not that God died once upon a time, some two thousand years ago, but that God is dead.

We confess this because faith is not a cognitive belief, such as my understanding of the hill from where I can stand at the foot of a cross and look down on St Nicholas church; faith is experiential. As we walk through the Triduum of the evening of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and the early hours of Easter Sunday, we are drawn into those events.

And, being drawn into them, they shape us in particular ways, in union with God, in and with and through Jesus.

Do not rush through these hours. Do not rush to proclaim, He is risen!

Do not push away the God who would draw us into his death, for there is no other way to be drawn into his Life.

 

Good Friday

 

Good Friday.

The ground behind the vicarage rises steeply, such that I can stand at my kitchen window and look out on the hedge that demarcates the boundary between our family home and the church above and beyond. The hedge is made of many things, but mostly Pyracantha shot through with bramble, sharp as hell, an encircling crown of thorns. The longer I am willing to stand and watch, the more I see. Robins, wrens, sparrows, blue tits, blackbirds, all in their turn darting in and out. The crown of thorns is a haven, protection from marauding local cats, a nesting place to nurture young, a living thing of beauty.

The wounds of Christ are the place where power is made perfect in weakness. For there is no greater weakness than a man tortured and subjected to public execution. And there is no greater power than the ability of Love to draw to those wounds every wound that has ever been inflicted, every wound that has ever been suffered, and to cleanse them such that what is inflicted is forgiven and what is endured is beautified.

Such is the mercy of God, to endure the worst that we inflict and to be one with us in what we suffer, that we might be one with God in the glory of Life.

The more we can bear to watch, to hold our gaze and not turn away, the more we will notice. Such wonder! What mystery!

 

the company of Christ's pilgrim people

 

Jesus said, ‘I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’

John 13.34, 35

It should not come as a surprise to hear that I have an interest in films that explore the life of faith. One of my favourites is The Way (2010), written, directed and produced by Emilio Estevez and starring his real-life father, Martin Sheen.

Sheen plays Tom Avery, who, despite a successful career as an ophthalmologist, does not see eye-to-eye with his son Daniel (played by Estevez). Daniel travels to Europe to walk the Camino de Santiago, the Way of St James, much to his father’s disapproval. Tragically, Daniel is caught in a storm crossing the Pyrenees on his first day walking and is later found dead. Tom flies to the south of France, to bring his son’s body home. But something causes him to change his mind. Instead, he has Daniel cremated and sets out to walk the Camino carrying his son, scattering his ashes along the way.

Along the way, Tom falls in with other pilgrims, each one walking the Camino for their own personal reasons. Joost, from the Netherlands, is hoping that his wife will fall in love with him again. Sarah, from Canada, is trying to escape an abusive husband. Jack is a writer from Ireland, who has writer’s block. At first, Tom resents their intrusions into his deeply personal endeavour. But over time, a transformation takes place. Through a series of misadventures, they become unlikely friends.

When you were baptised (if you have been baptized) you passed through the parted sea with the Israelites, over three thousand years before you were born. If, like me, you were baptised as a baby, you were carried over in your mother’s arms.

When you were baptised, you died with Christ and rose again with him; participating in events two thousand years before you were born. When you were baptised, you became a member of the company of Christ’s pilgrim people. You may have wandered very far from Christ in the intervening years. I have baptised forty children at St Nicholas’ and few of the parents have continued to bring them up in the faith; but Christ is faithful, even when our parents are not, even when we are not.

The invitation is deeply personal, but it is not private. In baptism, we begin a lifelong pilgrimage in the company of others. Some, we will journey many miles together, over many years; others, we will come across from time to time; still others, we won’t meet, but they, like us, have walked or will walk the Way.

We walk the Way with others, and they are, at times, and often to begin with, deeply annoying. As are we to them. For we all carry our own pain. We are all broken. Joost. Sarah. Jack. Tom. You. Me. But the mandate we have been given (the mandate that gives Maundy Thursday its name) is to love one another. To love one another, even those parts that are unlovely.

For this to happen requires no more or less than that we walk the Way. That we follow the example of Jesus, who showed us what love looks like. But walking the Way is more than imitation, essential though that is. Through the act of walking in the Way, we are empowered to love by the Holy Spirit. This is not a matter of what we do, but of what is done to us as we respond. Over time, we become more like Jesus.

And this is key: it takes time; indeed, it takes a lifetime. If we are not there yet (and we are not) it is because we are not there, yet. But we are on the Way.

 

Holy Week

 

The shadow of the cross falls across the whole of Holy Week.

At the start of the week, Jesus visits the temple, and there, with the words of the prophet Jeremiah on his lips, he clears the space, upturning tables, driving out animals, sending the daily mechanisms of the sacrificial system into exile. Jeremiah had called the people in his own day to repentance, accusing them of trusting in the temple itself rather than in living rightly before God, pleading with them, could they not see? Had the house that bore God’s name not been turned into a den of thieves in their eyes—as in Jeremiah’s eyes, as in God’s eyes—a people who acted with shameful impunity?

In these days, Jesus will claim the temple as symbol of his own body, that would be torn down and rebuilt in three days—by which he was speaking of his resurrection—and also predict that the temple buildings themselves would be thrown down—the Romans would accomplish this in 70 AD/CE. And in the temple, Jesus enacts the consequence of misplaced confidence.

On the Monday of Holy Week, the cross is the instrument by which the temple will be destroyed.

The next day, Jesus returned and seeing a fig tree, looked for fruit. But it bore him none, and he cursed the tree, an action that puzzled his apprentices.

Three things to note, two concerning biblical imagination and one concerning botany: curses are temporary restrictions, in contrast to blessings; trees symbolise a person or people; and a fig is a kind of inverted flower that is pollinated by a fig wasp that dies in the process—and which also hosts parasitoid wasps that do not pollinate.

The fig tree represents the nation of Israel. They have not proved fruitful. But if a fig tree bears no fruit, it is pollinators that are missing. The (parasitoid) leaders of the nation have not been willing to lay down their lives for the common good. In contrast, Jesus will die for the people, but not before he has pollinated the fig tree. From the cross, he will cry, ‘Father, forgive,’ and cancel the curse, transforming it into blessing.

On the Tuesday of Holy Week, the cross is the fig tree, the curse that will become a blessing through the actions of the fig wasp. It is also the pole on which Moses hung a bronze serpent, that anyone who had been bitten by a poisonous serpent might gaze upon it and be healed, foreshadowing the seed of Eve who would crush the serpent’s head and have his heel bitten.

Throughout this week, Jesus is staying with his friends Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, in Bethany, just outside Jerusalem. At some point in the week, they host a dinner in his honour. At that dinner, Mary of Bethany takes a rare and expensive perfume and anoints Jesus with it in preparing for his burial. One of Jesus’ apprentices, Judas Iscariot, the one who would betray him, took offence. He blurts out that the perfume could have been sold for 300 denarii and the money given to the poor. He did so, not because he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, helping himself from the common purse that was his to steward. No one would notice, if he were to take ten percent for himself. It is Jesus’ defence of Mary that appears to seal Judas’ decision, and he gets his ten percent cut elsewhere, betraying Jesus’ whereabouts to those who sought to arrest him privately, away from the crowds, for thirty silver coins.

On the Wednesday of Holy Week, the cross is the common purse, reading the thoughts of our hearts and inviting us to share in the common good, to love our neighbour as ourselves.

On Thursday, Jesus instructs two of his apprentices to prepare the Passover meal they will eat together in the rooftop guest (upper) room of the home of a secret ally. This meal is known to us as the Last Supper. With a large group of his apprentices and friends, Jesus commemorated the night on which their ancestors had fled from Egypt. They had been instructed to make unleavened bread, for there would not be time to let the dough rise. This was to be their last supper under the oppressive reign of death embodied by the pharaoh. Each year as they joined themselves to the past, they hoped that they, too, would eat a last supper under Roman rule. Perhaps this would be the year. Certainly, there were many who hoped that Jesus would lead an uprising and overthrow the Romans.

They ate bread; and they ate roast lamb, recalling how the god of death—the jackal Anubis—had been unleashed to roam across the land, to carry off each firstborn male, whether human or animal; but was tricked at the door to each Hebrew home by the blood of a lamb smeared on the doorposts and lintel. Only the children of the oppressor—the sons of death—died; and so, death symbolically destroyed itself.

On the Thursday of Holy Week, the cross is the doorposts and lintel of the house of Israel, the outsmarting of death through the wisdom of God.

The shadow of the cross falls across the whole of Holy Week.

Palm Sunday 2025

 

While the Russian army bombards Ukrainian citizens, and the Israeli army bombards the last remaining operational hospital in Gaza, Jesus picks his way down the Mount of Olives riding a young donkey.

The animal is not used to being ridden. It needs the presence of its mother alongside to reassure it in the sea of people. As if it were not hard enough, the crowd are throwing down their cloaks on the ground before them, making the descent treacherous.

When some object, concerned that the hopes of the crowd for freedom and self-determination might get out of hand, Jesus upholds their right to hope and dream, but simultaneously reframes their expectations, slowing things down, refusing to be the populist touchstone. Taking the path of humility, through groves of olive trees.

Note that the olive tree is a symbol of peace; that the oil they produce is an instrument of healing; and that whenever we come across trees in the Bible, they stand symbolically for people.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Those who share the DNA of their heavenly Father, the one who moves to establish reconciliation and the restoration of conditions necessary for all to flourish in harmony. Russian, Ukrainian. Israeli, Palestinian.

It seems unlikely. As foolish as a man picking his way down a hillside on a young donkey. Yet, this is how peace descends. This is the only way. Divine folly. Not for the faint hearted. You cannot strong-arm your way to peace.

Blessed are the peacemakers.

Lord, have mercy.

 

handle with care

 

John12.1-8 and Philippians 3.4b-14.

Today marks the start of Passiontide, the final two weeks leading up to Easter. The word Passion derives from the Greek paschō, which means ‘to be done to’ (in contrast to poiō, ‘to do’). Throughout the Gospels to this point, Jesus has been at work (while, as John puts it, it is still day). He is the active agent in the story, calling men and women to apprentice to him, healing the sick, driving out demons, raising the dead, asking probing questions, teaching, telling stories. But there comes a point in the Gospels (it is towards the end of the story they tell, but they give as much attention to these several days as they have given to the previous several years) where Jesus shifts from being the one who does to the one who is done to by others. Hence, the Passion of Christ, or Passiontide.

At this point, Jesus is handed over to or given into the hands of others. Some will bind him and beat him, flog him and nail him to an execution scaffold. Mary of Bethany will take his feet in her hands, pour perfume over them, and wipe his feet with her hair. There is no escaping the intimacy of this tender act.

Today, I will both take Jesus in my hands and hand Jesus over to others, into their hands.

And the question that hangs over us is, what will you do with this Jesus? How will you handle him?

The first century church planter Paul wrote to the apprentices of Jesus in Philippi saying that he considered every privilege he had in life, every opening and introduction, every opportunity and power at his disposal, to be something not to be held onto at all costs but rather something to be let go of, to consider loss (he uses the word for the waste product of our food that passes through our body and into the toilet system) when compared to the surpassing value of knowing Jesus.

This morning, I will take Jesus in my hands.

To be honest, I would get more from going for a run with my friends this morning than I will from going to church. But prioritising being with other Christians—people with whom I frankly have very little in common except for Jesus—and being where I can in a tangible sense in the world receive Jesus into my hands (as opposed to having a diffuse spiritual experience, which I could have pretty much anywhere) is not about what I get from it. It is about self-denial, about letting go of what benefits me, so as to be empty-handed as therefore able to receive the one thing that surpasses all others.

 

guard

 

The biographer John recounts that, days before Jesus is executed, Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, anointed his feet with perfume (John 12.1-8).

The biographer Luke recounts a similar event, involving an unnamed woman, in the home of Simon the Leper, at an earlier point in his account (Luke 7.36-50). It is worth noting that the writers of the Gospels were not primarily concerned with strict chronological order but shaped their narratives to distinct purposes.

Following on immediately from this account, Luke records a number of women who travelled with Jesus, among them Mary Magdalene (Luke 8.1-3).

Church history has often conflated these three women: Mary of Bethany, the unnamed woman, and Mary Magdalene.

Pope Gregory I also claimed that this Mary was a repentant prostitute, though without any such claim in any of the Gospels. Luke tells us that the unnamed woman was seen as a sinner, and that Jesus had driven off seven demons that had afflicted Mary Magdalene. Pope Gregory seems to have decided that the only reason why a demonised woman would be considered a sinner and possess an expensive jar of perfume (or the kind of ointment with which you would prepare a body for burial) would be that she was a prostitute. That seems to be a stretch at best; and more consequentially a way to tarnish women.

But perhaps the association of Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany is not an erroneous conflation. If Magdala is understood to be a place (and there are possible candidates, but none with a clear association with the Apostle to the apostles) then this is a problem. But Magdalene might be a nickname (such as Simon the Leper). Magdalene may mean watch tower.

Some have postulated that Mary of Bethany was known as Mary Magdalene, or Mary the Tower, because she was unusually tall for a woman. But there is another, to my mind more interesting, possibility.

Almost every mention of Mary Magdalene is found in the accounts of the crucifixion and resurrection (Luke 8 is the exception, and as already noted, may be a referring back into the narrative; that is, this was Mary Magdalene, but she was not necessarily known by that name at that time). In other words, after Mary had anointed Jesus ahead of his death.

When Judas criticises her actions, Jesus says that she has the role of watching over, or guarding, what remained of the perfume for the day of his burial (John 12.7).

And this, she does. She stands and watches at the crucifixion, alongside Mary the mother of Jesus, when the men had deserted him. She is there to note what is happening when Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus hurriedly prepare his body for burial and secure him in a cave tomb. And she is there as one of the myrrh bearers who return, once the Sabbath is over, to do the job properly, with the remaining perfume that she has guarded for this purpose.

These are the actions of one who guards. Of a watch tower.