on men in black

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

on the triune god

 

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

Why do we speak of God as ‘Father’?

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

Why do we call Jesus ‘the Son’?

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

What about ‘the Holy Spirit’?

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

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

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

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

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

 

on attachment and social referencing

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Luke 7.36-50

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

 

Creation in Christ

 

Humans share a universal capacity to have compassion for other people and living creatures, including those who are in no position to offer them anything in return, such that self-interest cannot fully account for the compassion shown. The body of experience, and reflection on experience, passed down in my faith tradition would claim that this is because every human being is created in the likeness of a loving God, whose love overflows to others.

Humans also share a universal capacity for wounding—ourselves, one another, and any other living thing. The same body of experience diagnoses this in that we believe God exists, but do not confidently believe that God consistently has our best interests at heart, and so we try to take for ourselves that which is already gifted to us.

September, in the life of the Church, is Creationtide or the Season of Creation, and this Sunday is the Feast of Creation in Christ. And this (northern hemisphere) summer, we have been reminded of the wounds we have inflicted on creation, from wildfires burning across Europe to landslides in Nepal.

Many people have an awareness of God’s power in the majesty of the natural world. Some claim to be more aware of God’s presence on a mountain than in a church building. But, are we also able to discern the presence of the wounded Christ—the suffering servant marred beyond recognition—in the visible wounds of the natural world?

The ancient Jewish prophet Isaiah was given visions of the suffering of God’s people somehow being taken up into God’s redemptive plan; visions that coalesced around the hope of a Messiah; and which, for Christians, found their fulfilment in Jesus. If Isaiah’s vision includes the revelation, ‘by his wounds we are healed,’ then, can we see, in the places where the earth has been scarred and afterwards experienced regeneration, the presence of our resurrected Lord? The promise of hope that one day all creation will be made new?

When we look at the world around us, it can feel an intractable mess. On the left, political voices insist we have not done enough to avert environmental disaster. On the right, political voices insist that nothing we do can make a difference, so it is just a distraction. The super rich have given up on the rest of us and dream of starting a new world on Mars. A whole cohort of young people are paralysed by anxiety and despair; while others are numbed by indifference.

And yet. And yet there are stories from all around the world of people, empowered as children of God, whose ingenuity and care are healing our wounded world. Whose actions participate in the making all things new, the reconciliation of all things to their Creator in and through Jesus. Whose hope is sustained, whose joy is renewed.

God chose to dwell, in divine fullness, in Jesus, who was pierced and wounded. And somehow, in some great mystery that cannot be explained, only experienced, that blood brought about peace.

So, where do you see God, in the beauty and the brokenness and the renewed life of the world around you? And where, and how, might you join in the great reconciliation?

Colossians 1.15-20

15 He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;

16 for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers-all things have been created through him and for him.

17 He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

18 He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.

19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,

20 and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

John 1.1-14

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2 He was in the beginning with God.

3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being

4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.

5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.

8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.

9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.

11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.

12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God,

13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.