not so fast

 

A year ago this month, the Bishop of Durham retired, and the process began to appoint his successor. Interviews took place in late November, a candidate was selected, offered the post, and accepted. All this is done confidentially, just as any vicar is appointed: if I apply for a post, my current congregation does not need to be troubled by the thought of my departure unless I am successful. Once accepted there is further process, some of which is the same for bishops as for vicars, some of which is additional to most vicars (the involvement of both the Prime Minister and the Crown). But we were expecting a public announcement by now.

On Monday of this week, we heard that the candidate had withdrawn. There have been various rumours as to why, but such speculation is unhelpful. Again, the process is confidential: if I accepted a post as a vicar but before the news was made public I or a member of my family received a life-changing medical diagnosis that meant I had to withdraw, my privacy ought to be respected, and another person be given a clean sheet.

Yesterday evening, we gathered with others from across the Durham Diocese to acknowledge our disappointment, to affirm our trust in God, and to pray. And as we did so, my mind was drawn to the Old Testament passage set for this coming Sunday, Genesis 2.

In Genesis 2, God notes that a particular part of the earth needs someone to oversee and care for it. And so God forms a human and places them in the garden, within a boundaried territory. Such as a bishop given to a diocese. Such as where we thought that we were.

But still the situation is not quite right, the solution is not quite what is needed. And so, God forms all the animals of the field, the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, all living things, and invites the human to pay careful attention to what it is that God is forming, and to name it. And only through this process does the time reach its fullness whereby God draws out what is needful, and provides someone who will come alongside, who will see the human who is naming what God is doing and who will work alongside them to support and even deliver them when in trouble.

And it seemed to me that God is asking us to go back to our places across the diocese and pay attention to what God is forming there, and name it, and as we do so, at just the right time, we will find out who God is preparing to send to us, to come alongside us.

Genesis 1 is a sweeping overview of the story, such as you might get in the opening movement of a symphony or the opening song of a musical. Everything is condensed. All plant life is flourishing on the third day; all animal life is flourishing on the sixth day. And all is good. But Genesis 2 slows the story right down. There is as yet no plant life or animal life. Rather than speak everything into being, God forms life as a gardener or a potter, in slow processes that move at the pace necessary to notice and participate in the goodness of creation. This is the actual pace of the story we are drawn into, not the overview pace of Genesis 1. The slower, the better, for God has all the time in the world; and it is for those who have forgotten this to fret about time running out or away from us.

The passage from Genesis 2 is paired, this Sunday, with a passage from the Gospels where Jesus is depicted asleep in the boat on the lake in a storm, while his apprentices run around in panic. We too find ourselves in choppy times. May we rest in the love of God. May we sleep, not panic, in the storm.

 

how to hold a human

 

The Old Testament reading set for Holy Communion today is Genesis 9.1-13. It picks up the account of Noah after the Great Flood. These are the survivors, human and animal, of a traumatic event. The sea level had risen and flooded the Fertile Crescent along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the Cradle of Humanity, from horizon to horizon: what today we would know as Kuwait and Iraq, hemmed in by the mountains of Iran to the east, Turkey to the north, and Syria and Jordan to the west. Every settlement washed away. But Noah and his family and their domesticated livestock survive, delivered by the god Yahweh, in an ark.

Like so many survivors who carry trauma in their bodies, and who lives with survivors’ guilt, Noah will attempt to numb his pain by drinking himself to oblivion. But Yahweh blesses Noah and his traumatized family. He informs them that the animals will be in dread of them, hardly surprising for they are traumatized too, but that they are given into the hands of Noah and his sons. They will be good for them, but food without lifeblood.

We all live downstream of the Great Flood, and no one gets through this life without experiencing trauma, whether a broad and shattering event such as natural disaster, or bereavement or living with dementia or suffering at the hands of an abuser. And it is this idea of being in someone’s hands that is significant here. For we are all given into one another’s hands, and the question God asks is, What will we do with the trauma survivors who are given into our hands as gifts?

Will we re-traumatize them with further mistreatment, as the Father gave the Son into the hands of his people and they had him tortured and executed?

Will we dehumanise them as objects of our altruism?

Or will we receive them as divine gift, as human with the dignity that is ours as those who bear the very likeness of God? Will we recognise that we, as community, are nourished by their being fully part of our community, that we are fed by them (that is, that we are fed by one another, for we are all simultaneously and paradoxically the one who receives in our hands and the one who is given into the hands of others) without bloodshed, without their life being consumed by us in some zero-sum game where there is only one winner so it had best be me?

May we receive one another in our hands, and be found worthy of the gift, by the Giver.

 

good : time

 

Notes for this coming Sunday.

Find a place where you will not be interrupted, and read Genesis 2.4-9, 15-25 and Luke 8.22-25 through, out loud, a couple of times.

Genesis 1 tells a sweeping overview of creation. Genesis 2 slows the story right down. Here, God does not simply speak things into being, but shapes them: the human, a garden, every living creature. Like a potter or a gardener. The human, too, is invited into the slow processes of getting to know, and growing to love, all things. The time it takes to participate in the goodness (a word we have already met several times in Genesis 1) of God’s creation. The invitation to love God, to love our neighbour as ourselves, to love all creation, takes as long as it takes: as The Supremes sang, ‘You can’t hurry love…’

In our verses from Luke’s Gospel, Jesus rests—he sleeps—while his disciples rush around in panic. And peace radiates from him.

Looking forward to the day ahead, does time feel like a gift or a tyrant (a task master driving us, or a prison governor constraining us)?

As we get older, our body asks us to slow down. Does this feel like an invitation, to become more fully human, or something to be resisted for as long as we are able?

‘good’ conveys: agreeable, beneficial, beautiful, best, better, bountiful, cheerful, at ease, fair, favour, fine, glad, goodly, graciously, joyful, kindly, loving, merry, pleasant, precious, prosperity, ready, sweet, wealth, welfare, well-favoured. Thinking about today, how have you known the goodness of God?

Reading the two passages again, is there a word or a sentence that stands out for you? What might God be saying to you through it?

You might like to colour-in the drawing of the human asleep, held in the hands of God.

 

a tree in the wilderness

 

The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament recounts the history of a loose familial federation of chieftain-led tribes uniting under a high king. The king, Saul, was initially popular, but over time became increasingly paranoid, consumed by jealousy towards one of his closest generals, David. His life now in danger, David flees to live as a hunted outlaw. When Saul, along with some of his sons, later dies in battle, and one of his surviving sons succeeds as king, civil war breaks out. Eventually, the rebel forces win, and David is proclaimed high king. Seven yeas later, he moves his capital to Jerusalem and consolidates his reign by bringing the tabernacle and the ark of the covenant – cultic symbols of the god Yahweh – there.

At one point as an outlaw chieftain, David and his men are living in a cave system at En Gedi, near to the Dead Sea – the lowest point on the surface of the earth, and the lowest point in David’s personal history. The Dead Sea, and flat lands along its southern parts, are so salty as to be lifeless. But En Gedi is an oasis. Here, acacia trees – the wood from which the tabernacle and its furniture, the altar and the ark of the covenant, were made – grow beside streams that run all year round, fed by an aquifer, a great underground reservoir. Elsewhere, lone acacia trees offer life in ephemeral riverbeds that run dry for much of the year, or whose streams run braided through shifting sediment.

Whenever you read about a tree or trees in the Bible, it stands as a symbol for a person or people. This is one of the key repeated symbols in these scriptures, or holy texts. And David reflects on the trees of En Gedi, declaring: ‘Blessed are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked, nor lingered in the way of sinners, nor sat in the assembly of the scornful. Their delight is in the law of the Lord and they meditate on his law day and night. Like a tree planted by streams of water bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither, whatever they do, it shall prosper.’ In time this image comes to open the five books of collected Psalms that will serve as the song book of the temple that David’s son, Solomon, will build in Jerusalem.

Some four hundred years after David, Jerusalem is besieged by the neo-Babylonian empire. The tribes that were united under David and Solomon were long torn in two, the northern tribes succeeding from southern rule, and later laid to waste by the Assyrians. And now an enemy has surrounded Jerusalem, which holds out, for now. Against this backdrop, the prophet Jeremiah draws on David’s imagery, declaring:

‘Thus says the Lord: Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord. They shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes. They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.

‘Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.’

(Jeremiah 17.5-8)

There are some interesting points to note:

[1] The wilderness experience is non-negotiable, not optional, it is a given, part of life – and the opportunity to discover Yahweh’s faithfulness.

[2] In the preceding verses (17.1-4) Jeremiah criticizes the people for constructing wooden poles used for the cultic worship of Canaanite gods (compare using acacia poles in the cultic worship of Yahweh) and erecting them next to living trees, to secure their vitality.

[3] Those who rely on their own strength to get through the challenges of life are described as choosing to live in an uninhabited salt land. The word for to live is to tabernacle, evoking the presence of Yahweh in the middle of the community of their ancestors after the exodus from oppression in Egypt. Moreover, the word for salt is connected to the idea of craftsmanship, expressly used of the construction of the tabernacle in the wilderness. In other words, the outward activity of those whom Jeremiah calls cursed is indistinguishable from the outward activity of those whom he calls blessed.

It is possible (not only to misappropriate, as above, but also) to go through the ritual motions that help us draw on the lifegiving presence of the Lord while missing the lifegiving presence of the Lord. You can devote your time, skill, effort – your life – to it. We can even deceive ourselves, for ultimately only the Lord is capable to test the mind (in fact, the Hebrew is kidney, an organ that played a prominent role in the sacrificial system, and evokes, for us today, images of filtration, dialysis, and transplant surgery) and search the heart (17.9, 10).

Here is the thing: everybody wants to live a fruitful life. No one really wants to settle for a life that isn’t flourishing. The question is whether we think we can resource that from our own effort, or by dependence on some external source – and if an external source, what our god or gods of choice will be.

Jeremiah wants to know how his Iron Age contemporaries will answer this question. His words survive – despite being burnt at the king’s orders at the time and needing to be re-written – because the question still stands.

 

solitude

 

Reflections on Isaiah 6.1-13 and Luke 5.1-11 and on the spiritual practice of solitude (for more on solitude, see the Practicing the Way course).

The role of the prophet has been described as to hold together fearless truth-telling and fierce hope, naming social realities as they are and helping a society reimagine what life together could look like instead. And it is a matter of record in the Bible that every culture and context need such voices, calling us to turn away from death and embrace life.

The book of the prophet Isaiah records his call to just such a role, in an intense vision experienced at a time of transition. Uzziah, the king, had died. His reign had brought stability and security, but he had grown proud, had sought to be high priest as well as king — two roles that had always been kept apart — and had been humbled by God, forced to live in quarantine outside the city walls as a leper. As a leper, in death he cannot even be laid to rest with his ancestors in the royal tombs. His house is without him.

This is the backdrop against which Isaiah sees and hears the Lord of angel armies filling the temple, and the Master sends him to bear a message to the people. Our English translation — “Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand.” — doesn’t quite convey it. The Hebrew repeats the words to hear, and to see, in a different form (the same consonants, different vowels) to give us something like ‘hearing piled up on hearing’ and ‘seeing piled up on seeing’ as activities that result in a dulling of awareness.

I don’t know what that looked like for Iron Age people. But I do know what it looks like for the first people to live in the Digital Age. I carry in my pocket a computer far more powerful than the computers that put men on the moon. The last time men walked on the moon was in the month after I was born, and in my lifetime the Digital Age has changed the face of the earth and has shaped us powerfully. Indeed, this has accelerated rapidly in my adult years.

When I was a child, if you wanted to contact me, you might call a phone physically connected to a wall in my home, and someone might be there to take a message. Now we carry our phones with us. We are on call on demand all of the time. Or you might have written a letter, and you might expect a reply within a week (or longer, if overseas). But now we have texts and email and are shaped to seek an immediate response. There is a lifetime of difference between waiting each day for the postman in anticipation of a letter from a sweetheart and checking our smartphone compulsively for work related emails or a ‘like’ on social media. The desire for connection has become oppressive.

When I was a child, there were three television channels. Now there are hundreds, if not thousands. You could do nothing but watch tv and you would not scratch the surface. When I was a child, we watched Newsround and the Six O’clock News. Now there is a constant cycle of breaking news, designed to grip you with anxiety from the moment you open your eyes in the morning until you lie awake worrying at night. You can have podcasts coming out of your ears. You can have a presence on multiple social media platforms, and stay up playing online multiplayer video games, hunting and hiding, shooting and running too fast to be shot.

It isn’t just Digital. We are shaped by other forms of technology too. I live on the intersection of three roads, and with the constant noise of traffic. And that noise, and that speed, shapes us in a particular way, over time. It shapes us into more anxious and more impatient people.

I’m not anti-technology, not by any means. But we need to be reminded that it isn’t neutral, that it shapes us, that it deforms us in many ways, and that we need a counter movement in our lives.

Isaiah wants to know, how long will this flood of sights and sounds, these distractions that dull our senses, last? And the Lord replies, until the land is utterly desolate and vast is the emptiness in the midst of the land.

And for Isaiah’s first Iron Age audience this pointed to exile, as an event in which the land would be liberated from human folly and allowed to rest and recover for seventy years. Perhaps that is what the earth needs again now.

But for those who, down the centuries, have been known by their contemporaries and by generations who came after as teachers of life, as saints, as women and men of noteworthy wisdom and holiness, as role models in the spiritual life, all recognise this empty place as an invitation to experience intimacy with God.

Because we are all deformed by the sights and sounds that fill the world, by the constant attrition that dulls us so that the beauty and wonder of the world becomes passé, and that is only getting more and more relentless. And if, instead, we are to be formed into more peaceful, more loving, more secure and whole people, we need to counteract those forces by embracing the practice of solitude.

Solitude is not the same thing as being alone. Some of us spend much of our week alone, and community is an essential human need. But so is solitude, which is the intentional choice of being alone with God. Of getting away from distractions, to spend time with God. Of getting away from distractions, to come face to face with ourselves, and to see ourselves not as something we deep down dislike but through God’s eyes, the eyes of the loving creator, redeemer and sustainer of our being, our body and soul.

In the Digital Age, this is an act of resistance. An act of holy rebellion. And it is hard, especially if you aren’t aware of other people doing likewise.

In Luke 6 we read an account of the call of Simon Peter to follow Jesus. To be with Jesus and become like Jesus, and — in a mystery we cannot fathom but can only enter into or resist — to become more fully the person the Lord had created Simon Peter to be. That is always the invitation: to be with Jesus, and in being with Jesus, in becoming more like him, to become, over time, more fully us. To be set free from all that deforms the glory of God in us.

And Jesus, as Simon Peter will soon discover, made a habit of retreating to quiet places to be with God. A daily habit, that sustained him in being present for others without being consumed by their demands.

Luke’s account begins with Simon and Jesus in the boat, together. Jesus tells Simon to head out into the deep, away from the crowd. Simon had been out there all night and found it empty. But this time, he heads out with Jesus, and discovers that it is full, full of fish, so full he can hardly contain it, and this draws him back into community, at a deeper level. This is how solitude differs from loneliness — which is desolate — or isolation — which is cut off from community.

But first, this solitude, this being alone with God — with Jesus — in the quiet place, provokes a necessary crisis. Simon is confronted with his sinfulness, his awareness of his inadequacy in the presence of God — and it is terrifying. Yet it is precisely here that Jesus speaks peace to his deepest fears and extends an invitation to follow him. Jesus extends the same invitation to us today. How will we respond?

One of the things I try to do is keep my phone on silent, and left on the side, on my day off. One day a week when I resist the distractions it offers. No social media — though it is desperately addictive, and I often fall to the temptation. And there are other times during the week that I turn it off and put it away.

It is worth working through your day, and noting where the noise comes from, externally — the radio, the television, the traffic — and internally — the repetitive anxieties or rehearsed arguments — and also the empty places where you go looking for God — a favourite chair in the house, a favourite walk. The point is not to eliminate sights and sounds and lay our lives to waste, but to identify quiet space in our days where we might simply be with God, not filling the emptiness with our prayers but simple being in one another’s presence, God and you, and resting in love.

The more sights and sounds there are in our lives, the greater our need for such counter-formational solitude.

And this is something where the older generations, who grew up before the Digital Age began, may have something deeply important to offer the younger generations, the digital natives. But only if we ourselves have become at home in the empty spaces and not just left behind by the centres of civilisation.

So, what have you learnt about meeting God in stillness and silence? What patterns have you build into your daily routine to seek God? These are not rhetorical questions. We need to pool our wisdom, for the sake of our community, for the people of this parish.

If you have found patterns or practices that help you meet God in this way, do share them. If you have found them helpful, there’s a good chance that others would too. And if you struggle to find God in the busyness and distractions of life, know that you are not alone.

May we know grace to seek and find the Lord in solitude and find healing and wholeness in him. Amen.

 

to curse or to bless?

 

I wonder when you last cursed something or someone?

Bloody politicians, they are all as bad as each other.

Here we go. Another storm. The weather is so miserable.

Why am I so clumsy?

I am a burden on others.

We might be surprised to realise how often we speak curses. How often we speak death.

The thing is, our words have power. You do not have to subscribe to the increasingly popular (at least among materially wealthy individuals) idea of manifesting to know that words have power.

If I curse the wind and the rain, it makes no difference to the wind and rain, but it does affect me. It concedes ground to the rule (kingdom) of death over me, as opposed to the reign of a loving, life-giving, life-sustaining God.

When I curse another person, it also affects me. But it can affect them too. Speak death over a life often enough and that life will be shaped by death. As will our own.

I wonder when you last blessed something or someone?

To utter a blessing is to speak the power of life and love in the world. To affirm a truth that may have been lost. To mend a part of the fabric of creation that may have been torn. Or simply to recognise and value what is in front of us. It does not so much create (as manifesting claims to do) material reality as it reveals the kingdom of God in the world—and allows both the one who blesses and that which is blessed to be shaped by that reality.

Uttering blessings does not seem to come as easily as curses. Like anything worthwhile, it takes practice. Some people journal between one and three things they are thankful for each day. Counting your blessings is not synonymous with blessing those things, but it may be a starting point.

Blessed are you, O wind, for you are strong and free.

Blessed are you, O rain, for you renew the face of the earth.

Blessed are you, O knife/pen, for you have been a faithful tool in my hand all these years. And blessed be the hand that made you, with such attention to the quality of their work.

Blessed are you, my cat/dog, for you have been a faithful companion.

Blessed are you, my child, strength of my youth and joy of my old age, for you will see things that I will never see and do things that I will never do.

Blessed are you, Members of Parliament, our representatives, for you seek to shape the world for the good of the people and give your strength to the common cause.

Blessed are you, O bird who sits in the tree, for you offer your song to the world without price.

Blessed are you, O tree, for you turn light into life, give shelter, filter air...

Blessed are you, food that we eat, for you nourish the body with nutrients and the soul with flavour and with the joy of companions [literally, those who break bread together].

Blessed are you, O farmers, for by the sweat of your brow you bring forth food from the earth.

Blessed are you, who get up while it is still dark to collect the waste from our homes and take it away, and you who sweep the streets by day, for you take upon yourself what others will not, and lift our burden.

Blessed are you, grandparent, for you know the joy of children given more than once in a lifetime, and the joy of returning them to their parents.

Blessed are you, who is unable for now to see yourself as a blessing, for you are loved by God; may you come to know your inherent goodness and beauty.

Blessed are you who are lost, in grief or despondency, for you will discover things you knew not of, and so could never have set out to find.

Blessed am I, for I am a child of God.

 

Simeon and Anna : part two : Anna

 

Malachi 3.1-5 and Luke 2.22-40

Anna awakes within the Temple complex. She is so old now that she does not have much need for sleep, but in the darkest hours she gets some rest, in the Chamber, off the Court of the Women, where the oil-soaked cakes for offering are prepared. It feels like home—after all, she is of the tribe of Asher, whom Jacob had blessed as providers of rich food, royal delicacies, through the generations for ever (Genesis 49:20). Though Anna herself eats little these days, as if sustained by food others know not.

You’ll know Anna, at least by sight. Day after day she comes and sits at the foot of the fifteen semi-circular steps that lead up from the Court of the Women to the Court of Israel, a small crowd always standing around her attentively. She has been here forever, long before the present buildings stood, longer even than old Simeon. She is, as much as the steps themselves, part of the fixings and the furniture. In all likelihood the great tide of humanity who pour in at the pilgrim festivals don’t notice her, or if they do she does not hold their attention: what is an ancient woman, compared to the bronze gates at the top of the steps, with which Nicanor wrought miracles, calming the sea—gates so revered that even Herod dared not replace them with gates of gold? But those who remain when the tide goes out again seek her out, for she speaks consolations.

A prophet, in the manner of Isaiah: ‘Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.’ (Isaiah 40:1, 2) Anna speaks consolation from the inside, as one who has authority. They say the number seven stands for completion, perfection. But who can accept seven as the completion of a marriage to so kind a man, the only man Anna had ever loved this way? Seven years enjoying the fat of life, slurping the marrow of its bones, glistening on the fingers, running down the chin; swallowed up by death in a moment. She had railed at God, like the sea; but God did not answer. She had beaten her fists against the sky; God remained silent. She had questioned herself—had their love been too fierce to last? Eventually the night passed and, gradual as light, it dawned on her that the silence of God was not indifference, nor powerlessness, but that she was being held, by One much greater than herself. And that the silence swallowed death whole. Brought all things to peace. There was nothing here to fear. Her husband slept with their ancestors; and at night Anna would lie with him; learnt to rest in eternity and rise, morning by morning, in time. She had lived this way so long, some said she had discovered the secret of immortality.

That was the first of many times of dying, in the long years of her widowhood, and through each loss she discovered more and more the blessing only those who mourn can understand. Rich food, royal delicacies. An acquired taste, yes, but not a bitter aftertaste. A strange, unlooked for perfection, but a perfection, nonetheless: union with the Holy One of Israel.

She speaks consolation to those who seek it here. Reveals the invisible God in the common things of life, in universal emotions. Prayerful words, that charm the terrors of the night into the most tender of mercies; that transform unleavened cakes into the sustenance of heaven. Night and day, day and night, the prayers of a prophet.

She prays, and sings, not a classically beautiful voice, cracked now by age, but one that rings in harmony with the Unseen. And she is singing now. Over a young couple who have arrived at the foot of the fifteen steps on their way to present sacrifice in the Court of Israel, a pair of turtle doves. And the firstborn son, whom old Simeon has taken in his arms and holds high for all to see. Simeon utters words of blessing. Anna joins in with a song of her own, their voices joining to mend the world, so it can receive its King.

And what of you? What has been broken open in your world? And what blessing has been revealed within? What song have you been given to sing, in a cracked voice perhaps, but the melody of heaven?

 

Simeon and Anna : part one : Simeon

 

Malachi 3.1-5 and Luke 2.22-40

Simeon woke up knowing that today was the day. Knowing in his bones, the knuckles of fingers and toes worn smooth by his years as a fuller, the trade he had plied since boyhood. Boiling down soap plants into a bleach paste; kneading linen tunics by hand in a tub; massaging woollen outer garments underfoot in a vat. All those years. All those customers. All those priests in their flowing robes. Blood was the hardest stain to remove.

He had been an old man fifteen years ago, when Herod had the simple temple Zerubbabel built when the exiles had returned from Babylon five hundred years ago torn down, the Temple Mount complex extended to twice its size, and a new building erected, the largest temple in the world. Magnificent. A wonder. Fitting for the God of the Jews. So much accomplished, in only a decade. Herod was a man on a mission. These days, Simeon spent his days in the temple courts. Even so, he wondered, what would God make of it, these great stones? Would he shed tears at its beauty, if he had eyes like a man? Or tears of sorrow?

Simeon was a man waiting to die. Not in a morbid way. He was not depressed. It was simply that he had lived a long life, and seen many things, seen his family grow, held his grandchildren in his arms, and yes, seen many friends and family members go ahead of him to Sheol, to the rest of the righteous with their ancestors. He simply did not need to keep on living, was looking forward to his reward, if not for one thing. One task remaining. For he had heard the Spirit of the Lord speak to his own spirit, in the secret place of prayer, charging him with one last job, for his master and, yes, friend. To take up the fuller’s soap one last time and fulfil the prophecy of Malachi, to cleanse not just the priests’ robes but the whole temple on the day that the Messiah would appear there.

He had been waiting, ready, for that day ever since the made-new temple had been completed, the scaffolding taken down, the sound of hammers fallen silent. Five years now, and more visitors to the temple, more pilgrims, than could ever be counted. Who was he waiting for? He did not know. Just knew that he would know when he saw it, saw the one for whom he waited, for whom he stayed alive. And today was the day.

The old man, not a priest but unlike the priests who served in the temple by roster an old man who could be found in the temple day after day, spies a man and a woman who carries her son, an infant, just forty days old. He has been in this world, wrapped in swaddling bands, for as long and no longer than Noah dwelt safe in the ark. And today the waters have subsided and this child, like Noah of old, steps into a new world. A new beginning.

Simeon approaches, reaches out, asks, “May I?” and takes the offered child from his mother in his smooth bleached hands, holds him up at arm’s length, and gazes into his eyes. The child holds the old man’s gaze. This is the one. The herald. The heralded.

The old man blesses God, his Master, the One who Saves, the One who dwells in light no longer unapproachable. The One who smiles upon his servant and releases him from his duties to enter into rest. Speaks words over the child that, one day, long after Simeon’s time, he too might take up as his own. Into Your hands I commend my spirit.

And then he blesses the father and the mother. Declares over them their goodness, their share in the divine nature, the man and the woman, speaks words that resist, set limits on, the toil of their labour, reminding them of truths so easily forgotten. And yet a blessing is not magic, not an incantation that wards off evil. A strange blessing this one: thoughts, good and evil, will be revealed; and a sword will pierce this mother’s own soul. Not protection from evil, so much as strength to face evil, to face it and transform it. A fuller’s blessing: calling this daughter of Eve to bruise out the stain of sin beneath her feet.

The act of blessing is not reserved for priests but belongs to all God’s people. No, more than that, to all God’s children, to humankind. To reach out beyond us and our story to something far greater than we will see, or can even imagine, and remind the world of the inherent goodness of all that God has made. To draw on our part—whether priest or fuller or butcher, baker, candlestick maker—to set others free to play their own.

What, and who, will you bless today?

 

suffering

 

The BBC, Reuters, and other agencies are sharing photos and video clips of a stream of thousands of Gazans heading back to north Gaza on foot, with little idea what they will find when they get there. It puts me in mind of the ancient Israelites making an exodus from Egypt. There is only one humanity, and when we lose sight of the humanity of others it can only lead to the loss of our own. The good news is that what is lost can be found, what is hidden in darkness can be brought into the light, what is stolen away can be restored, what lies in ruins can be rebuilt.

Language changes over time. In English, to suffer used to mean to be the subject of the actions of someone else, as opposed to the one who acts. In a grammatical sense, to be passive; in an experiential sense, to possess less agency than the other person. In the Early Modern English translation of the Bible authorised by King James we hear Jesus instruct his disciples to suffer the little children to come unto him, which is to say, carry those too young to walk. In this understanding, we can suffer ill-treatment or suffer loving-kindness. And others can suffer ill-treatment or loving-kindness at our hands.

Just as we suffer destruction at the hands of others, even if we contribute with self-destructive behaviour, so also the rebuilding of our lives requires that we suffer the help of others, even if it also requires our active participation. Just as we suffer the degradation of our humanity, so we must suffer the restoration. No man, woman, or child is an island.

Humanity is revealed in our suffering.

 

fulfilled

 

Luke 4.14-21

What does it mean for the scripture to be fulfilled in our hearing today? This happens when, together, we encounter Jesus and, by his Spirit speaking to us through the internal and external noise of our lives, we hear and respond with trust and obedience. When, as Jesus puts it, we ‘repent and believe’ and follow him. When, over time, this forms more and more of our lives, at both a personal and corporate level.

To say that ‘Jesus is the fulfilment of Scripture, and all Scripture is fulfilled in Christ.’ (Brian Zahnd) is an invitation to a lifetime of discovery. But here is my own attempt at a summary starting point overview of the Bible, from this perspective:

Genesis: Jesus is the Second Adam, who fulfils creation; and the new Abraham, who fulfils faith

Exodus: Jesus is the new Moses, who fulfils salvation from the oppression of death

Leviticus: Jesus is the lamb of God, who fulfils salvation from the oppression of sin

Numbers: Jesus fulfils sanctuary

Deuteronomy: Jesus fulfils Life

Joshua: Jesus fulfils courage

Judges: Jesus fulfils repentance

Ruth: Jesus is the Son of David who fulfils ethnicity

1 Samuel:  Jesus fulfils the sovereignty of God

2 Samuel: Jesus is the new David, who fulfils messianic hope

1 Kings: John the Baptist is the new Elijah, who prepares the way for Jesus

2 Kings: Jesus fulfils the sovereignty of God (again)

1 Chronicles: Jesus fulfils the temple as the meeting place of God and humanity

2 Chronicles: Jesus is the new Solomon, who fulfils wisdom and grace

Ezra: Jesus fulfils the life of obedience

Nehemiah: Jesus fulfils the restoration of all that has been ruined

Esther: Jesus fulfils intercession on behalf of God’s people

Job: Jesus fulfils the presence of God in our pain (or, Passion, that which is done to us)

Psalms: Jesus fulfils the prayer of every emotion

Proverbs: Jesus fulfils all truth

Ecclesiastes: Jesus fulfils God’s enduring presence in our transient experience

Song of Songs: Jesus fulfils Love

Isaiah: Jesus fulfils suffering

Jeremiah: Jesus fulfils repentance (again)

Lamentations: Jesus fulfils grief

Ezekiel: Jesus fulfils the vision of heaven on earth

Daniel: Jesus fulfils humanity

Hosea: Jesus fulfils reconciliation

Joel: Jesus fulfils the outpouring of the Holy Spirit

Amos: Jesus fulfils integrity

Obadiah: Jesus fulfils God’s judgement of the nations

Jonah: Jesus fulfils God’s mercy on the nations

Micah: Jesus fulfils justice

Nahum: Jesus fulfils divine opposition to evil

Habakkuk: Jesus fulfils trust in God

Zephaniah: Jesus fulfils the Day of the Lord

Haggai: Jesus fulfils the temple (again)

Zechariah: Jesus fulfils holiness

Malachi: John the Baptist is the new Elijah, who prepares the way for Jesus (again)

Matthew: Jesus is the new David (again) and the new Moses (again)

Mark: Jesus fulfils time

Luke: Jesus fulfils compassion

John: Jesus is the fulfilment of God (that’s a bold statement)

Acts: Jesus fulfils the mission of God, to the ends of the earth

Romans: Jesus fulfils salvation (again)

1 Corinthians: Jesus fulfils the Church

2 Corinthians: Jesus fulfils reconciliation (again)

Galatians: Jesus fulfils fruitfulness

Ephesians: Jesus fulfils unity and diversity

Philippians: Jesus fulfils humanity (again)

Colossians: Jesus fulfils heaven and earth

1 Thessalonians: Jesus fulfils time (again)

2 Thessalonians: Jesus fulfils patience

1 Timothy: Jesus fulfils godly character

2 Timothy: Jesus fulfils the resurrection of the dead

Titus: Jesus fulfils godly character(again)

Philemon: Jesus fulfils liberty

Hebrews: Jesus is the new Melchizedek, fulfilling eternity

James: Jesus fulfils the life of faith (again)

1 Peter: Jesus fulfils holiness (again)

2 Peter: Jesus fulfils revelation

1 John: Jesus fulfils Life (again) and Love (again)

2 John: Jesus fulfils Truth (again) and Love (again)

3 John: Jesus fulfils Truth (again) and Love (again)

Jude: Jesus fulfils glory

Revelation: Jesus fulfils the sovereignty of God (again) and so fulfils all things

 

 

 

ruins

 

Reflections on Nehemiah 8.1-3, 5-6, 8-10 and Luke 4.14-21

Imagine, for a moment, that the Luftwaffe had won the battle of Britain, and that Germany and her allies went on to win the Second World War. While Paris is taken as a jewel in the crown of the German empire, Hitler has London’s key landmarks—the Houses of Parliament, St Paul’s Cathedral—destroyed, in part pure spite, in part sending a clear message to Britain’s allies. Key docks, bridges and roads that survived the bombing raids are also demolished. George VI, his Queen, and the princesses Elizabeth and Margaret are taken to Germany; they will all die in exile. Most of the aristocracy are taken with them, their lands given to Nazi sympathisers; along with the Government, most of whom are executed; and the civil service, some of whom are assimilated into the Nazi administration. At first the Germans put the recently abdicated Edward VIII back on the throne, but in 1950 he attempts to reassert independence, and he and his American wife are hanged from gallows erected in front of the ruins of Buckingham Palace. In schools, the teaching of British history and the work of British playwrights, poets, philosophers and composers is banned. Most of the population attempt to carry on, but with no central organisation or help from allies, rebuilding after the war is almost impossible.

Then in 2015 an expanding Russia defeats the German empire. Having no interest in the once great but now long ruined islands off Europe’s coast, the Russians allow the exiled British ruling class to return home. Some chose not to—their home is on the continent now—but others return, in three organised waves. Not without resistance from those who had never left, they start to rebuild roads and bridges that have not existed for over seventy years, along with the most iconic buildings. Today, in 2025, some milestones have been reached, but really all that has been accomplished is the foundations on which the real rebuilding might have a chance of lasting. The question is, what stories will give this population a sense of common purpose? What stories will help them make sense of what has happened and nurture perennial hope for what could be? Fortunately, many key works, since lost in Britain, were smuggled out to Germany at the great banishment. There, in secret, leaders in exile have created a British library, a national curriculum.

If you can imagine that you can begin to imagine what it was like for the people whose stories we read in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, returning to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon.

We know that there are places in the world where this scenario is not hypothetical, cities in ruins that must either be abandoned for ever or rebuilt, reborn really. But that is not our experience. Nonetheless, in our lifetimes, we have witnessed cultural upheaval. After the War, we repurposed our coming together for peacetime rebuilding; but alongside that we became more open in questioning and even challenging the status quo. We saw the rise of the teenager in the Fifties, the sexual revolution in the Sixties, the rise of third wave feminism in the Seventies. All this undermined a patriarchal society, and its matriarchal mirror. From the Eighties we saw political backing for individualism, a rapid shift from an economy built on manufacture to one built on services, the funnelling of money upwards into the hands of a few—which we don’t question because we believe that we are one lucky break away from joining that elite club ourselves. We have seen several waves of immigration from our former colonies, bringing, among others, Muslims, Pentecostals, and Roman Catholics (of whom we have always been suspicious). We have seen advances in technology, including the birth of the Digital Age; each one giving rise to as many new problems as it solves old ones, including causing cancers and other illnesses, and an undermining and accelerated rejection of institutions that once brought and held us together.

For many, it feels like our cities lie in ruins, and this sense of loss is felt by the old and the young alike. Some lament their own eroded positions of authority in society. Some are simply disoriented by the onslaught of change, from every direction all at once; while others are dismayed that all this change has not made any difference at all: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose (the more things change, the more they stay the same).

The biographer Luke records an occasion when Jesus was invited to bring meaning to the scripture set for that sabbath in the synagogue of his hometown, Nazareth. The text was an excerpt from the prophet Isaiah, a passage that spoke words of hope to those who would one day return from exile in Babylon and rebuild cities that, by then, would have lain in ruins for several generations. (Luke quotes the preceding verses.) There is a sense of playful appropriateness that Jesus, who was a builder and the son of a builder, should bring the interpretation for this particular passage in his own context, some six hundred years after it was written.

Jesus begins his exposition of Isaiah’s text saying, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ We might also translate Luke’s text as, ‘This ancient holy text [Isaiah] is made complete in the present day [Jesus’ time—and, indeed, our own] by your hearing and understanding, as you listen and obey.’

For those who make up the Christian faith community, within the wider local community, our sense of who—and whose—we are, and what we are called to be in the world—light shining in darkness, for example—is found and perennially renewed as we hear and respond to these holy texts. As we wrestle with them and seek, through all the background noise of our lives, both internal and external, to discern the Holy Spirit drawing alongside us and leading us into all truth in knowing how to embody these texts in our context.

We need to rediscover the scriptures, refamiliarize ourselves with the Bible, this great library that records the stories of our ancestors in faith, and that has spoken to men, women and children across the whole world through all the rising and falling fortunes of cities and nations over more than four millennia. That gives voice to every emotion in every season of life.

Which parts of the Bible do you find most life-giving?

Which parts of the Bible do you find hardest to understand?

 

betrayals

 

I like to be fashionably late to a party, unless it is an actual party, in which case I like not to go at all. And so it is that I watched the third series of The Traitors, having not watched the first two (even then, I didn't pick this one up from the very start).

A couple of quick takeaways.

Firstly, people, even people who believe themselves to be en vogue, are incredibly change resistant. This series saw a couple of twists, variations on how the game was played in the first two series (in part to keep the game fresh; in part, I'm sure, to generate exactly the kind of response it achieved) and a whole lot of viewers were up in arms. Even though this is a game of twists, we want the format to remain unchanged. We like the pretence of being in control that knowing the rules of the game gives.

Secondly, collectively we enter into an agreement to play the game. As far as I know (though I admit I did not go looking and so I may be wrong) the media respected the format. That is, although the series was filmed some time before it was broadcast (and was broadcast over a much longer time than the game took to play) the media did not report who had won (at least, even if that information could be found somewhere, you could engage with the media without finding out). The news media took the traditional roles of reporting, for the record, what had taken place the day before (the day before, in this case, being a conceit, but still) and offering editorial thoughts on what might unfold next; as opposed to the more usual current role of informing us today what someone in the public eye is going to do (e.g. leaking extensive content of a Prime Ministerial speech a couple of days before they deliver it). And this meant that we were all in a traditional and now increasingly unfamiliar role as consumers of media, held in time (not real time, as the series had already been filmed, but common time). If you chose not to watch an episode as it was aired, or if you had no choice but to catch up later, you had to avoid finding out details the next day that would spoil your viewing; but you were essentially in the traditional place of a newspaper reader who only got their newspaper a couple of days after the events it was reporting. This agreement, this holding of common time in a world of on-demand media consumption, also gives us a sense of security, which is illusionary but an effective placebo.

 

crowded

 

The Lectionary brings together short passages from across the collection of books that make up the library of holy texts we call the Bible, and invites them to have a conversation, to discover what they have in common, and how they express themselves in diverse ways.

Today the Lectionary pairs an extract from the Letter to the Hebrews (early communities of apprentices to Jesus, mostly fellow Jews, scattered over a wide geographic area against the backdrop of the first Jewish-Roman War) (Hebrews 7.25-8.6, an even shorter extract given below) and an extract from the Gospel According to Mark:

‘Consequently he [Jesus] is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, blameless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.’

(Hebrews 7.25, 26)

‘Jesus departed with his disciples to the lake, and a great multitude from Galilee followed him; hearing all that he was doing, they came to him in great numbers from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and the region around Tyre and Sidon. He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him; for he had cured many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him. Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, ‘You are the Son of God!’ But he sternly ordered them not to make him known.’

(Mark 3.7-12)

The extract from Hebrews opens with the claim that Jesus is able for all time (even, perhaps especially, times of war) to save those who approach God through him...and continues stating that Jesus is separated from sinners. This latter claim seems a little odd, given that in the Gospels Jesus is often seen to be, and criticised precisely for, associating with sinners.

In the extract from the Gospel According to Mark, we see a large crowd of people approaching Jesus, and his withdrawing or separating himself from them. Indeed, throughout the Gospels Jesus is often seen attempting to withdraw from the crowds, either alone or with his apprentices.

In the Gospels we see Jesus responding to whoever is right in front of him, usually with compassion, sometimes with frustration, one person at a time, but he never gives himself to the crowds. He never seeks to draw crowds to him, to gather crowds or to ignite a popular movement. He does not trust the crowd, with good reason, for crowds are dangerous. They project their own agenda on a person, and they are fickle as hell.

This particular crowd has come together from across a wide area. Many have travelled great distances to be there. They come with a wide range of motivations. Some have come in hope of a spectacle. Some looking for an argument. Some because there is something that they want Jesus to do for them, a healing perhaps. Some, in all probability, simply swept along by the crowd, carried away.

Jesus separates himself from them, getting into a boat, withdrawing deeper into the life and livelihood of his disciples, of those he is in the process of calling to be his apprentices. Indeed, Jesus has already departed from one crowded space to be with his disciples, and now finds himself withdrawing a step further, from the shore onto the lake.

It is salutary to note how often in churches we lament that there is no crowd gathering at the place where Jesus has called us to withdraw with him. We long for the very crowds Jesus himself so often separated himself from. He is not looking for a crowd, for those who want something from God, some validation or cause; he is not interested in being swept up in something and carried away.

He is still able to save those who approach God through him.

Who will you invest your life in today?

What will you separate yourself from to do so?

How might this model or point to something enduring to a world that is constantly chasing the next new thing, because each new thing is constantly passing away?

Where is Jesus in this?