pain

 

In the first half of life, we accumulate many blessings. We may get married. We may have children. We may discover and grow into the gifts that have been uniquely bestowed upon us, and found ways to bring them to bear in a professional capacity. None of these things are inevitable, but all of them are common to human experience.

In the second half of life, the longer we live, the more we experience bereavement, of every kind. Our marriage may break down, irretrievably; or we may need to accept that we will never marry. Or else, we may need to face up to the knowledge that, statistically speaking, it is likely that one of us will die first and the other will be left to live on, alone. Our children may leave home. Our bodies start to betray us. The technologies and methodologies of our workplaces change beyond our capacity to keep up. The songs they play on the radio, or that we sing in church, are ‘rubbish,’ compared to the songs we listened to, or sang in church, when we were younger.

Pain is inevitable, and unavoidable. And pain has a purpose. Its purpose is to bring us to the end of ourselves, so that we might discover, there, beyond our means, the immeasurable, unchanging compassion of God towards us.

But this is not inevitable. If this is the invitation of pain—of the losses of the second half of life—then the temptation of pain is to find something, however small, we might take control of. Whenever we do this, we cause both others and ourselves great heartache.

Jesus told a parable about forgiveness—which is the art of letting go of control, and abandoning ourselves to the compassion of God.

A certain servant of a certain king had accumulated—from the king’s hand—incredible, over-the-top, blessings. Yet the thing that defined his life was not gratitude but fear, the pain of the knowledge that one day he would lose everything he had been given. And so, when the king decided to settle accounts with his servants, the servant was thrown into torment. Despite being the king’s servant, he did not know the king’s character. He did not know that compassion was the very, steadfast, nature of the king. The king sought to test the servant’s heart—how well was he known? The servant failed to recognise the one before him; thought, if I can come up with a good enough plea, perhaps I can persuade the king to show mercy. The servant failed the test. And yet, the king did what the king had always intended to do: he wrote off the great debt of every blessing the servant had received from his hand. There was nothing to pay back. It was always gift.

The servant departed the king’s presence, released from debt but still in pain, the pain of the knowledge that one day he would lose all that he had gained. And he succumbed to the temptation of pain, to take control of whatever circumstances he still could. Which turned out to be the debt owed him—an incredibly small and trivial thing—by a fellow servant. When that servant could not pay, he had him thrown in the debtors’ prison. When this was reported to the king, the king brought about the consequences of the servant’s decision: that he, himself, would find himself trapped in a prison cell of his own making.

We heard this parable read this morning at our mid-week Holy Communion, a service attended by the Elders of our congregation and those of us who are becoming Elders. By which I don’t primarily mean the elderly, but those of us in the second half of life, those of us who have known and walked with God for a lifetime.

We are also blessed with an increasing number of members in the first half of life, in the process of accumulating the blessings God has for them, and who are coming to an awareness of their deep hunger and thirst for God.

And it is the dual vocation of those of us who find ourselves in the second half of life to allow our experience of pain to bring us to an ever-greater experience of God’s compassion towards us, and to model this response—resisting the temptation, choosing the invitation—for those who are younger, in life (for the most part) and in faith.

Those people connect mostly with our 10.30am Sunday service. And that service is for them: it is no longer ‘for’ the Elders. It is no longer the place where the Elders come to be fed, but has become the place where the Elders are needed to help feed the lambs. Elders, mature sheep, are able to feed themselves—at the midweek service, through daily prayer and bible reading in our own homes, through joining the hymns of the weekly Sunday service on Radio 4 or Songs of Praise on the BBC, and in a great many other ways. Elders are those who have either inherited wells that enable them to draw on the great underground river of God that flows below the surface of our lives, or who have dug their own wells in their youth; they do not need to dig new wells, but they are those who can teach those, new to faith, how to dig. The younger generation needs to be introduced to the old hymns that carry something of our faith, and ground us in a story bigger than our own time; but also need the opportunity to respond to God in praise that is of their own time, a new generation pouring out praise (where we had been told, over many long years, that noone is interested in praising God anymore). It has ever been thus (and every age has struggled to affirm the accents of the generation below them).

We need Elders who know enough of the compassion of God to let go of seeking control. Who demand no debt be paid in return, from those who, as yet, think they are immortal.

For all its challenges, I am thankful that we have, among us, both those in the second and the first half of life.

Matthew 18.21-19.1

‘Then Peter came and said to him, ‘Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

‘For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.” And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt.

‘But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow-slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, “Pay what you owe.” Then his fellow-slave fell down and pleaded with him, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you.” But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he should pay the debt.

‘When his fellow-slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, “You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow-slave, as I had mercy on you?” And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he should pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.’

‘’When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan.’

 

un/aware

 

I wonder when you first became aware of the presence of Jesus?

Perhaps you were a child. If you are old enough now, perhaps it was kneeling by your bed saying your prayers before bed, though I suspect this generation has all but passed. Though if you are a Boomer or Gen X, and grew up in the UK, your mental image of Jesus was probably shaped by pictures like the one shared below, which hangs near the front at St Nicholas’ Church. Scandinavian Jesus, with flowing blonde hair and beard and blue eyes. Bjorn Borg at Wimbledon.

I wonder when you first lost awareness of Jesus?

It may have been in the wake of a bereavement, the death of someone you loved. Or in the suffering they endured before dying. It may have simply been that life, in all its busyness, got in the way. Or that the more you learnt about the world, whether its injustices or the wonders described by science, that the stories you heard told in church became implausible. For too many, it may have been a growing awareness of the gulf between what the Church proclaimed and how the Church acted, or between what the Church proclaimed and what Jesus proclaimed; and if this is your story, I am truly sorry. For others, who remained in church, it may have been that church itself changed, and something that had been deeply important to you was left behind (this, too, is bereavement).

I wonder when you became aware of Jesus’ presence again?

And, how that awareness grew. Often, as something intangible, a sense inside the body, that might be described as a burning—warming—of the heart, long before the understanding catches up. An integration of the life lost within the life we have now.

This repeated process, of becoming aware of the presence of Jesus, losing that awareness, and later becoming aware again, is the process by which we move from a naïve faith to a more mature faith; from rules (that train us) to freedom to love well; and from a dependency on certainty of knowledge, to peace with not needing to have all the answers. The disciples on the road to Emmaus move from not recognising Jesus, to seeing him, to not seeing him but now having a faith deeper than sight.

This is the process by which we leave behind that which has served us well (enough) in the past (even Scandi Jesus) but will not (cannot) serve us now. And how we differentiate between Jesus, and all the trappings.

This is the Way. And as we walk on it, we are accompanied by Jesus, whether we recognise his presence (at times) or not.

 

on playfulness

 

Playfulness can unlock things that other approaches cannot.

The Gospel set for this Sunday, Luke 24.13-35, is playful. The story takes place on the third day after Jesus’ death by crucifixion. Two of his apprentices are walking together, and as they do so they are ‘talking with each other about all these things that had happened.’ These things that had happened can mean these things that coincided or walked alongside each other. This is playful language. The hopes and dreams of the Palm Sunday crowd, the repeated confrontations with the authorities over the following days, the rumour mills operating on overtime throughout the city, the sad awkwardness of the Last Supper, the terror of Gethsemane, the numbing disorientation of Calvary, the death of their Messiah, the emptiness of the Sabbath, and the incomprehensible insistence of the women; all these things have walked alongside each other over these days. And as the two apprentices walk alongside each other, throwing all these things that have walked alongside each other back and forth between them, Jesus came near, coincided, and walked alongside them.

Moreover, they will tell him about the apprentices who did not see Jesus. These two apprentices who do not see Jesus, walking right alongside them. Their friend and teacher, and the one at the very epicentre of the events they are discussing, is, in their eyes, a stranger; and, even among strangers, uniquely uninformed and unaware.

It’s playful.

Playfulness involves both the imagination and the body. The way the storyteller, Luke, describes the two apprentices discussing all these things that had happened draws on the imagery of tossing a ball back and forth between them. ‘The press of the crowds. Catch!’ ‘The Temple tension. Catch!’ ‘The taste of roast lamb and bitter herbs. Catch!’ ‘Um...Grief. catch!’ ‘Er...Total incomprehension. Catch!’ Luke doesn’t say that they were actually throwing a ball, but when we are wrestling with too many things—and too many emotions—at once, doing so might help.

They arrive at Emmaus towards the end of the day, as the day is bent and bowed, with age. They press upon the stranger to stay the night, and put together supper. And Jesus does something physical: reclines at the table, takes hold of the bread, acknowledges, with gratitude, its God-given goodness, tears it so it can be shared, offers it to his host companions (companion: literally, one with whom we share bread). Unhurried. And this is the moment their eyes are opened. The moment of recognition. Not in his exposition on the road—though that certainly did something—but in simple, and repeated, actions. Again, when we wrestle with disappointment and confusion, receiving bread and wine in Communion is an anchor, enabling us to see Jesus in circumstances where we are kept from seeing him.

It is at this point, too, that they realise that their hearts had burned within them as he spoke on the road. That something deep inside was reaching out to Jesus, even when they were unable to recognise him. The body does what the conscious, controlling, mind could not. Bypasses the intellect, which follows slowly behind like a dullard. Playfulness, again.

I wonder when you have been disappointed, in your faith? When you have lost someone you loved, or something that felt central to what you believed was taken away from you? Or when you found yourself simply and utterly confused by it all?

I wonder what stories you can tell of encountering Jesus in just these times? Or what stories you might one day tell? And I wonder what place playfulness had, or might have, in the process?

 

on immigrants

 

Summary: Christians should welcome immigrants, not fear them.

‘The Letter to the Hebrews,’ a first-century circular that has been passed down the centuries as one of the 27 ‘books’ of the New Testament, was originally written to Jews who were followers of Jesus, and who had fled their homes and found themselves internally or regionally displaced by the Jewish-Roman War.

The passage below (Hebrews 13.1-8) feels incredibly pertinent to my own current context — both globally, with Christian communities displaced in the West Bank, in Nigeria (18 million Nigerian Christians living in refugee camps) and in other other nations; and more locally, in England, where there is a growing anger being directed at asylum seekers. This pertinence is one reason why the New Testament continues to have relevance, some two thousand years after it was written.

‘Let mutual love continue.’ The Greek here is philadelphia, that is, love for your sisters and brothers in Christ. The new family, constituted by and in Jesus — and which embraces gender, age, class, education, ethnicity, nationality — every category of the census — takes primacy over blood family and nationality.

‘Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.’ The Greek word translated ‘show hospitality’ is philoxenia, and means hospitality — warmth, friendliness — shown to strangers. This is written to people who themselves have been displaced — as could happen to any of us — making an appeal to their shared history, or stories. There is a play on overlooking to show hospitality: God sends messengers (both ‘angelic’ and human) who might or might not be received, and whose message might be lost even on those who do welcome them in. Therefore, hospitality should be an intentional practice, a doing the work of getting to know the other — the stranger — for, whether we recognise it or not, we are as much in need of and benefitted by them as they are in need of and benefitted by us.

So, those who consider themselves to be Christians should love other Christians, regardless of where they are from; and to extend warmth, friendliness, and hospitality to strangers, regardless of where they are from. This is in keeping with God’s repeated insistence, recorded in the Old Testament, that the people treat the alien living in their midst well, attending to their welfare and livelihood, and guaranteeing them justice.

‘Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured.’ There is a radical solidarity urged here, a compassion born of empathy and practical care.

The line of reasoning may seem to swerve here — ‘Let marriage be held in honour by all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled; for God will judge fornicators and adulterers.’ — but marriage, or, the marriage feast, is an image of the union between Jesus and the Church, and so, whatever this may have to do with honouring any marriage (which is a good outlook to embrace) this is also an injunction not to defile our union with Christ, by embracing the xenophobia (excessive fear of strangers) that is so common in the world around us. We should resist, separating ourselves from such ungodly ways of being in the world.

‘Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you.’ So we can say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?’’ The reasoning continues, with a warning about covetousness and a call to remain in the present moment (this, rather than possessions, is the emphasis of ‘with what you have’). It is telling how often I see complaints about what asylum seekers — or black people, or gay people, or [insert scapegoat of choice here] are given, that [place myself here] does not. Why should asylum seekers be housed in a hotel!? (These really aren’t the hotel you have in mind, and you would not ever choose to stay in such an establishment.) We — those who are displaced, and those who receive them — are encouraged to remain in the present, not necessarily because conditions are ideal, but because God will not abandon us, whatever we face, now and in the future. Therefore we can say, I will not withdraw, I will not flee from the stranger in need, from the one I am continually provoked to fear.

‘Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever.’ Those who hold office, who have authority within the community (that is, the community of the Way, or, the Church community) should take the lead in modelling such a loving, hospitable way of life, to which we are called today as much as the original recipients of the Letter to the Hebrews were called in the first century. And those who call themselves Christians should look to make hospitality towards strangers their own practice, by which we live out our faith in tangible ways.

Hebrews 13.1-8

‘Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured. Let marriage be held in honour by all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled; for God will judge fornicators and adulterers. Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you.’ So we can say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?’ Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever.’

 

thou shalt not bear false witness

 

If you want to know the judgement of God on sinners – on all who, from time to time, fail to trust in God's goodness towards them – we find it on the lips of the human god Jesus on the cross: ‘Father, forgive them; they do not know what they do.’

This is both the true cry of humanity, in response to our common condition, and the true declaration of God, in response to our common condition.

All contrary utterances (‘Father, punish’) speak falsely, of both human nature and divine nature.

 

not my king

 

Whenever you come across a king in one of Jesus’ parables, you are NOT coming across God.

Christ is the true king, and he chooses to take the form of a servant. Indeed, he most often appears in his own parables as a servant – and often mistreated by a king who does terrible things. Like Aragorn in The Lord Of The Rings, Jesus moves through the Gospels incognito.

The kings represent, in the first instance, men who exercise earthly power over the lives of others. Also, by extension, the ways in which we seek to be the king of our own lives, rejecting the servant heart of God, the love of God for us in Jesus.

Therefore, the kings inflict violence. And whenever we proclaim that these kings are revelations of the nature of God, we demonstrate that our god is violence, control over others guaranteed by coercive force. Such proclamation is spiritual abuse; and underpins most if not all forms of abuse we see, from time to time but with monotonous regularity, in the Church.

 

in deep sh*t

 

Bad things happening to people is not evidence of God judging them. Indeed, death is not divine judgement, nor should we ever threaten it.

Once upon a time some people told Jesus that Pilate (the governor of the Roman province of Judaea) had violently put down some Galilean-led disorder at the time of a Passover. This raised questions for them, about the nature of God. Had God allowed this to happen because he did not approve of the men in question? Jesus refuted such a view; and added that unless they were prepared to change their understanding of God, they themselves would be caught up in human violence and not be able to understand it as such. Jesus himself would be killed at Pilate’s orders, and this would not be a sign of his sinfulness.

Jesus cited a further example: eighteen debtors who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them. These, Jesus insisted, were no worse debtors than anyone else living in Jerusalem, and this tragedy was not divine judgement. Unless they could understand that they would not be able to construct any sense when tragedy befell themselves.

Then, as Jesus habitually did, he told them a parable. A story thrown out to disrupt their thinking and, perhaps, enable them to see things from a different perspective. A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard. Having given it three years to take root, he looked for fruit and found none. And so, he instructed his vinedresser to cut it down, so that the soil might be put to better use. But the vinedresser asked for one more year, that he might dig manure around the roots, and see if that might make all the difference.

Parables lead us down an easy path, only to turn us onto a different Way. Here we have a vineyard, a symbol of the nation of Israel. And so, the owner must be God. God has had enough of the apostasy of his people, of their fruitless lives, and calls for their destruction. But the prophet intercedes for his people, successfully persuading a vengeful God to show uncharacteristic albeit temporary mercy.

But this easy path will not do. The vinedresser is, indeed, Jesus. But Jesus does not pacify an angry Old Testament God. Jesus is the revelation of God. When we see Jesus, what we see is what God is like. And what humans are to be like.

What we see is that to be a sinner (a debtor, among debtors) in the hands of God is not to suffer terror; it is to suffer care: to be handled with care.

The man in this parable is not God, but us; and the fig tree is not Israel, but also us. (By us, in the first instance I mean the original heaters of the parable, and by extension all who hear the parable.) This is a parable about how we see others (the man considers the tree useless, as we often see others as useless) and how we see ourselves (often we consider our lives to be fruitless, which may result in despair, or may result in pleading with God to give us one last chance to turn our lives around).

Jesus is the vinedresser, who stands up to our violent tendencies towards others or towards ourselves, and who states his intention to dig in manure. To use the seemingly worthless reality of waste to produce fruitfulness. Committing to slow processes. Absorbing humiliation and transforming it into glory.

Unless we are able to see this, we will suffer much violence at our own hands and inflict much violence on others. The spiritual abuse of holding the threat of divine destruction over people. Such a stance is utterly anti the posture Jesus adopts.

To be a sinner in the hands of God is to be loved, to be nurtured, to be transformed by the tender heart and worn hands of Jesus. To surrender to his life reviving us from our dormancy.

Bad things happen. But all things are being reconciled to God in Christ Jesus. Including you.

A year after this exchange, Jesus will be cut down by men who did not approve of the fruit his life produced. He will suffer their violence, and God will reward his faithfulness even unto death on the cross with glory, a glory countless others receive a share in. Including you.

Luke 13.1-9

At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, ‘Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them--do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.’

‘Then he told this parable: ‘A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, “See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?” He replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.” ’

 

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.

 

pockets

 

My trousers have impractical pockets. The purpose of these pockets is that I should stick my hands in them, to stop me from waving my hands about, because neurotypicals find neurodivergent people stimming in order to self-regulate, dis-regulating. Bless. Anyway, I put inappropriate things in my pockets, such as keys, and coins, my wallet, and my mobile phone. And these things wear holes in the cotton. And every so often, I ask my wife to stitch the holes up. (This is not sexism, but an awareness of my dyspraxic limitations).

The hole is not a thing. It is the absence of a thing (in this case, cotton). It has no ontological existence. My wife and I are only able to speak about the hole, and to have a common understanding of what we speak of, because of the cotton surrounding it.

What we call evil is a hole. An accumulated absence. An absence of trust becomes an absence of faith becomes an absence of hope becomes an absence of love, until we find ourselves killing young boys in the street. A hole created by things with sharp edges, such as fear (fear, of course, is not inappropriate in and of itself, any more than keys or phones are: it can save your life; the issue is what we do with our fear, where we put it).

We don’t have to let an absence of trust develop into an absence of faith, hope, or love. We can choose a stitch in time, and to change our habits. My wife mends the holes in my pockets with coloured threads, and the pocket is enhanced (though no-one gets to see: beauty for its own sake). I still put things, inappropriately, in my pockets.

Put your hands in your pockets. Or wave them about if you prefer or need to. But, whichever you choose, be a person of substance rather than absence.

 

blessing

 

Accompanied by her husband, a young mother brings her firstborn son to public worship for the first time, at forty days old. As they come into the space and look around, an older man approaches, takes the child in his arms (always ask for, and be given, permission before doing this; and don’t take offence if permission is not forthcoming) and sings a song of praise. First, he honours God; then, he blesses the father and mother, and their child. As he does so, an older woman joins them, takes up the theme, and extends it to include others who had gathered in that place.

Simeon was not a priest, not the public face of the faith. Anna was recognised as a prophet, an oracle who spoke words of godly wisdom; but she had no official role or office. They were simply human beings who were well-soaked in the ways of God. And uttering blessings is central to such a life—not something reserved for vicars. You don’t even need to be Christian.

To bless something—whether a person, or some other part of creation, or a place, or a tool, or a circumstance—is to affirm its essential goodness. From our faith perspective, that essential goodness is God-given.

Jewish blessings always begin, ‘Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the Universe …’

Christian blessings, which derive from Jewish blessings, are similarly framed, ‘Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation …’

If we are to bless, we first need to meet what we find, where we find it, and then pay it attention. Simeon meets Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus in the temple court, takes the child in his arms, and pays close attention. Then, he speaks out what he sees.

My back door faces east, and I can stand there a while and watch the sunrise. ‘Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, giver of light and love. And blessed be you, O dawn, that paints the sky in pink and orange to welcome the day.’

Then, as I stand there, I become aware of the dawn chorus. ‘Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, who feeds the birds of the air. And blessed be you, garden bird, who fills the sky with your song.’

Or perhaps this morning it is raining, and I can choose to be grumpy about that or I can choose to bless the rain. ‘Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, who gives the water of life. And blessed be you, rain, that refreshes the earth.’

If we can get into the habit of blessing, it will form us over time, so that we meet all things open to the goodness hidden within them—even if that goodness is not immediately apparent. So, for example, if you fall and break your leg, ‘Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, who has fashioned our flesh and bone. And blessed be you, O femur, who have borne my weight all these years, and who now calls me to rest and to heal.’

So, let us have a go, and together learn how to bless. Who, or what, might you bless today?

 

priest, offering, altar

 

There’s a prayer we say after receiving Communion, that goes,

Almighty God,
we thank you for feeding us
with the body and blood of your Son Jesus Christ.
Through him we offer you our souls and bodies
to be a living sacrifice.
Send us out
in the power of your Spirit
to live and work to your praise and glory.
Amen.

In the Gospel set for Holy Communion today, Matthew 9:1-8, we meet a group of people who carry a paralysed man to Jesus. The Greek text suggests that they are bringing this man to Jesus as one would bring a sacrifice to God, and that he was on a low couch such as was used to recline at a meal table.

These people inherently recognise that Jesus is the altar of God, at which the bread of God is offered. These people, including the paralysed man, symbolically act as Aaronic priests, in contrast to the priests in the temple at Jerusalem. Moreover, the paralysed man is not only priest but also offering carried to the altar.

However, these priests and this offering fall short of the instruction of the Law. For Moses instructed Aaron, concerning his descendants, that no one who is lame may approach the altar to offer the bread of God. He may eat of it, but not bring it. And, while every firstborn male of flock or herd was to be consecrated to the Lord, being eaten in the Lord’s presence at the place of his choosing, no lame firstborn was to be eaten in this way. Such a blemished offering was to be eaten in the people’s own towns and cities, but not in the Lord’s presence in the place of his choosing.

As both priest and offering, the paralysed man falls short, doubly so, and with him, those with him, by association. But Jesus, seeing their faith, sends away the shortfall, forgives them their sins. And when onlookers object to this interpretation of the Law, Jesus demonstrates his authority by restoring the paralysed man to physical strength. Not out of able-ism, but in placing the letter of the Law in service of the spirit of the Law and not the other way around.

Which brings us back to where we started, to understanding ourselves to be living sacrifices, offered on the altar that is Jesus, the bread of life; and sent out by him to live and work to the praise and glory of God.

 

Choose blessing

 

As I was mowing the front lawn, a large bird crapped on my head from such a great height that it stung.

Some would say that it is lucky, to be crapped on by a bird. But while I believe in luck—believe in a playful Creator god who would give birth to such an element of chance in the universe—by its very nature (at least, as I understand it) luck cannot be tamed or trained by human skill.

I do not believe that good luck is coming to me, carried on the wings of this portent. But I can choose to curse, or to bless, the bird.

Blessed are you, o bird,
for you are free:
you live unburdened by regret,
free to let go of whatever is
in excess of your needs,
whatever is surplus
to your nourishment,
without shame.

And blessed are you,
for you interrupt my
preoccupations
without fear,
and bring me down
just enough, in my own eyes,
to lift me up, and
lift up any who would
interrupt me this day.

You become what you love

 

Eventually, you become what you love, and that in turn has an impact on the lived experience of other people. So God loves humans, became human, died as humans do and was raised to life for us, for as death came to all through the one man Adam, so resurrection life comes to all through the one man Jesus.

If you love money, eventually you become an economic unit, no more no less, and everyone else becomes, to you and in their lived experience as far as you impact it, an economic unit, to be devalued or over-inflated, scoffed at or envied.

If you love power, or a flag, or whatever else, the same dynamic applies. Choose wisely.

 

Distillery

 

Old people are like people, distilled. I spend a lot of time with older people, and I note a lot of bitterness, and some deep contentment. My observation is that, as a general rule, those who have lost the most are the most contented; while those who have known some loss, but still have the most to lose, are more often most bitter.

It is not so much about the losses themselves. Those who consider what they have lost as a gift tend to be content. Each one of their many losses was a gift, beautiful in its time, and to have known many losses is to have received many gifts, with gratitude. Those who consider what they have as entitlement are already bitter over having, one day, now sooner than later, to let go of it.

This is nothing so twee as saying, when one door closes, another opens. That is a simplistic answer, not a life shaped by simplicity. But it is true to say that the story of your life is not yet fully told, and there is nothing good to be gained by being defined by what is gone, whether good or ill.

As you are going to be distilled anyway, if anything, get rid of bitterness.

The work of others

 

You were made to delight in the work of others.

Engineering. Architecture. The composition, and performance, of music. The kid who flips the beef patty in your Big Mac, if a Big Mac is your thing.

You have head it said, find something you love, and you will never work again. This is a lie: in part, because if you find something you love, you will be more likely to work longer and harder, and, usually, for less money than you could earn doing something you loved less; and in larger part because it buys into the destructive false narrative that work is a necessary evil and not how we participate in and contribute to the interconnected interdependence of all things.

But I say to you, learn how to take delight in the work of others, and you will never see work as a necessary evil again.

Let go, keep watch : part 2

 

At the request of our fifteen-year-old son, whose classical education has holes in it on account of having been born too recently, we are currently working our way through every episode of The West Wing. On evenings when I do not have any meetings, we might get in two or even three episodes, and last night we reached the end of the second series and my favourite episode, ‘Two Cathedrals.’

President Bartlet stays behind after the funeral of his longstanding secretary at the National Cathedral, and lets rip at God. He accuses God of cruel indifference, the injustice that nothing he has done, none of the good his administration has achieved, counts for anything. As a Catholic who believes that salvation is by faith and good works, his good works have not changed the mind of God in favour of salvation.

Returning to the Oval Office, the President has a final conversation with the ghost of his secretary, who sets him straight about God (stop projecting your father onto Our Father) and speaks into his life as only she can for one last time before he is able to let go (stop projecting me).

God, of course, can withstand the storm of our wrath while it blows over. Jed Bartlet stands firmly in the scriptural tradition of Job. But, like Job, he needs to hear God speak. And what God says, through a beloved woman, resonates with the exchange between Jesus and his friend Mary in John 12:1-8.

Until you are able to let go, of God and of our neighbour, whom we are called to love as much as ourselves; until we are able to free God and our neighbour of obligation, of any debt owed to us; we are a liability.

For as long as we need to be the protagonist, the hero, we are doomed to force the hand of history with a helping hand, as Judas tries to do; or to create the hubris that humiliates us, as Peter does. We are condemned to the existential crisis that leads Judas to take his own life, and Peter to run away before he is eventually restored to community.

But when we let go of the demand that God repay us, we are freed to watch over whatever it is that God is doing. We are trusted to be a witness, to testify in defence of a loving, self-giving God who is roundly accused of perpetrating a great deceit. We get to point beyond ourselves to something greater than we could ever imagine.

Let go.

Keep watch.

 

Let go, keep watch : part 1

 

The Gospel set for today is John 12:1-8. We hear how a friend of Jesus called Mary prepared his body for burial, before he had died. And how a disciple of Jesus called Judas took offence at her actions. And how Jesus rebuked his disciple (this is not the first time Jesus has had to rebuke one or more of his disciples) and affirmed his friend.

Jesus responds, ‘Leave her alone, so that she might watch over [what remained of the ointment] for the day of my burial.’ Leave her alone. His choice of words might be used in other contexts of freeing a slave or of writing a certificate of divorce so freeing a woman from a marriage. The point being made is that Mary owes Judas no explanation to justify her actions. She is under no obligation towards him.

But I am also struck by this: that, days earlier, Mary had not been able to leave her brother Lazarus alone. To release him to sleep with his ancestors, having died. I am not saying that she was wrong in this, simply noting it. Why note it? Because, as consequence of what Jesus said and did then, Mary shows, by her actions now, that she is able to leave Jesus alone, to release him from any obligation towards her, to allow him to die. Certainly, his disciples have not arrived at this place yet. So, what is a rebuke towards Judas is simultaneously an affirmation towards Mary.

Yet it comes with further instruction, or rather, with revelation. The friend who has given Jesus permission to depart in peace is the friend who can be trusted to keep watch over what will unfold. Why? Because they will not try to intervene, to be the protagonist, the hero who saves the day. As Judas will intervene. Instead, they will keep watch. Not abandoning Jesus, as the rest of the disciples do. But bearing witness. Testifying to what God is doing in the world, in entrusting Godself into less loving hands.

Where are you in the story?

Who, or what, do you need to let go?

What are you keeping watch over?

 

We Are Together

 

The western Ukrainian city of Lviv is home to the Lviv School of Iconographers, a collective of women and men who are keeping alive deep-rooted traditions, not by slavishly reproducing past forms but by labouring with the Holy Spirit to birth twenty-first-century descendants.

This icon, titled ‘We Are Together’ is by Shadrina Katernya. It is a stunning depiction of human solidarity, not as a humanist construction but finding its source in God. Seven human figures cleave together in one mass, stunning colour, blue and pink and green, luminescent in the darkness—which is, itself, set within bounds by white light—evocative of the sevenfold Spirit of God spoken of by the prophet Isaiah and by the disciple John stretching to describe the Revelation given him on the island of Patmos:

the Spirit of the LORD, the Spirit of wisdom, the Spirit of understanding, the Spirit of counsel, the Spirit of power, the Spirit of knowledge, the Spirit of the fear of the Lord.

In the Ignatian inheritance, consolation is to be moving towards the active presence of God in the world, with growing awareness of the Mystery and in contrast to desolation, or, moving away from the active presence of God in the world. In the darkness, deep but having limits set upon it, we are consoled. As we gaze on the Mystery, we encounter this sevenfold Spirit of God: are drawn to the light of God’s wisdom, which is folly to the desolate heart; to God’s understanding, which confounds the desolate mind; to God’s counsel, which is death to the desolate soul; to God’s power, which is weakness to the desolate body; to be known by God, and to experience God’s Holiness and our holiness come together naked and unashamed.

Here is solidarity, human and divine, with every hurt that wrings the human breast.

As we gaze upon ourselves, and our God, Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

 

Attack

 

The western Ukrainian city of Lviv is home to the Lviv School of Iconographers, a collective of women and men who are keeping alive deep-rooted traditions, not by slavishly reproducing past forms but by labouring with the Holy Spirit to birth twenty-first-century descendants.

This icon, titled ‘Attack’ is by Danylo Movchan. If we think, for a moment, of icons as psalms in paint, there are the careful and deliberate meditations on the wonder of God’s glory, and then there are the urgent cries of the heart. Written in free-flowing watercolours, ‘Attack’ is an example of the latter, a lament in response to the Russian bombing of a maternity ward and a children’s ward in Mariupol.

Four skulls cut through a yellow-gold field that evokes Ukraine as the breadbasket of Europe. In as much as skulls are universal symbols of mortal danger—poison bottles, pirate ships—or even manifest evil, we notice that they cut an obliterating trail through the gold, they cause real harm. And yet, far more gold remains than not. Hope is not easily erased.

In as much as skulls represent our common human frailty, our mortality, we may see here a different kind of attack. The failure of life to reach fulfilment, to take hold of Life: too few sperm, failing to reach an egg; a child, stillborn. And the troubling, accusing questions that trail in the wake: Why are we unable to conceive, when others find it so easy? Is it my fault I could not carry this child to full term?

In as much as skulls stand for death, we gaze on death crushed beneath Christ’s feet.

In as much as skulls stand for human creatureliness, we gaze upon the skull transfused by Christ’s own life-giving blood.

We gaze upon the field, the Land, transformed into a hospital, a church, a place of healing, for body and soul, under the cross of Christ and centred on his self-sacrifice, his bruised and battered body, luminescent in darkness, agony shot through with glory.

Come, Lord Jesus, to the mothers and the children, to the sons and daughters, to the men who are prepared to lay down their lives for those they love, and the men who are prepared to kill.

Come, Lord Jesus, to the life fighting for Life, to the lives drowning in sorrow.

Come, transfuse us with your life, and set us free.

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.