Formulas v Formulaic

“Honour your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” Exodus 20:12

I want to note a difference between formulas and a formulaic approach to life. The Bible is full of formulas. Proverbs chapters 10-29, for a start. And the verse from the 10 Commandments, above. A formula is a concise way of way of conveying truth. But a formulaic approach – a mechanistic application of a formula – is a way of mis-interpreting that truth.

A formulaic approach to Exodus 20:12 might run, “If I honour my father and my mother, I will live a long life.” But we know that this is not always true. In fact, we see the very opposite happening. We see children who do not honour their father and mother fatally stabbing children that do. Or, at least, we see children we assume do not honour their father and mother (and perhaps we are right, but it is nonetheless an assumption) fatally stabbing children who we are told (by grieving parents, who naturally and rightly choose to focus on the things about our children that make us proud to be their parents and not the things that drive us mad: we’d be shocked if at the press conference they came out with “He was a little **** and he had it coming.”) honoured their father and mother.

And so the formulaic approach is proved false; but that does not negate the truth conveyed in the formula. If I mix all the ingredients together correctly (factors I need to take responsibility for), but the heat is not distributed evenly by the oven (a factor which is out of my control), the cake will fail to rise, or will burn too quickly; but if I want a certain type of cake I need to follow the recipe.

When I try to think theologically by using a triangle to consider any aspect of life in terms of relationship with God, with my community, and with other communities living alongside me; or when I think in terms of indirect effort; I am seeking and advocating formulas, not a formulaic approach to life.

I do not want to be simplistic: life is too complex for such an approach. But I do want to be simple: life is complicated enough as it is, without my adding to that.

Two Triangles

I’m thinking about how I raise my children, and how that compares to how I want to raise my children. I live in a society that has chosen to ignore its children, and is now surprised when they turn out ‘bad’: gangs; Anti-Social Behaviour Orders; murdering each other with knives…And, shaped in part by my society as I am, I find myself habitually not giving my children my full attention when they look for it from me…

What do I want to pass on to my children? The unpacking of two big ideas: covenant, and kingdom.

Within the Covenant, we experience God as FATHER. This Father God gives us a new IDENTITY, as his children; which in turn enables us to OBEY his call to bring blessing to those living alongside us.

Within the Kingdom, we experience Jesus as KING. The King gives his followers AUTHORITY to be ambassadors of his kingdom; authority which is validated by POWER to bring blessing to those living alongside us.

As my friend and Senior Guardian of The Order of Mission, Mike Breen, points out, there is a correlation between Covenant and Kingdom. Employing the triangle model, we might articulate it by placing one on top of the other, so that AUTHORITY correlates with IDENTITY, and POWER correlates with OBEY.

The more you grow in your identity as a child of the Father, the greater the spiritual authority you are able to exercise. And as you grow in exercising spiritual authority, the more you grow into your identity as a child of God.

The more we grow in obedience to the Father, the less resistance there is in us to his power at work in and through us, and thus the greater the spiritual power we are able to exercise. And as we grow in exercising spiritual power, the more we grow into obedience.

This correlation means that we grow through indirect effort. If you want to complete a marathon, you don’t just start running and try to get further each day: you attend to your diet, do weights at the gym…that’s indirect effort. If you want to be happy, you don’t achieve it by trying to capture happiness: you find that you are happy in the midst of choosing to love other people…and that’s indirect effort too.

So, if you want to grow in authority, spend time discovering identity; if you want to grow in power, work on the discipline of obedience.

Likewise, if God pours out his power in your life, and you don’t want it to dissipate, don’t focus on the power: pay attention to obeying the covenant call to bring blessing to those living alongside us. If God pours out his power on your community, pay attention to nurturing the community identity, so that together you can obey: don’t just play with the power…

If identity isn’t the key battle ground for the children of our nation, then I don’t know what is. If they aren’t interested in exercising authority and power, I don’t know what the ‘bad news’ stories are about. I don’t just want to pass on to my children what I need to know about covenant and kingdom because I’m some sort of religious obsessive. I want to pass it on because I believe it will address things God has put in our collective children’s hearts, more fully than they will find these things fulfilled anywhere else…

Triangle

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ On these two commandments hand all the law and the prophets.”
Matthew 22:34-40

One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbour as oneself,’ — this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that no one dared to ask him any question.
Mark 12:28-34

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”
Luke 10:25-28

Three things. Attend to your relationship with God. Attend to your relationship with your community. Attend to your relationship with those other communities that live alongside your community.

Three things. God’s blueprint, Jesus’ priority-list, for living life well.

We can visualise these three connected relationships by drawing an equilateral triangle: the top representing God (UP), the left corner representing us (IN), and the right corner representing our neighbour (OUT). This gives us a framework to consider: are we attending to all three areas, or are we neglecting one, or more?

We might start with a very simple articulation of these three relationships – e.g. worship, fellowship, mission – and flesh-out what we understand these things to mean.

In fact we can lay this triangular framework on each of these initial articulations, to help flesh them out. Let’s take worship as our example:

UP: do we just talk (sing, etc.) to God, or take time to listen to God too?

IN: does our corporate worship include and involve the different gifts God has given to each one of us, or only those of a few? does our practice of worship build each other up, or are we seeking to exalt ourselves over each other?

OUT: does our practice of worship include bringing before God the needs of our neighbour? does our experience of worship result in our attitude towards our neighbour (including our enemy) becoming more like Christ’s; and send us out to love and serve and show mercy to our neighbour?

But we can lay this framework over any aspect of life, both individual and communal, as a blueprint for living well: how might it apply, in practice, to running a household; establishing a business; being an employee?

Freedom

I’m supposed to be writing an essay on God’s freedom. But I don’t believe that God is free. How can the Lover be free as long as their Beloved is captive? God is the source, the means, and the guarantee of the Beloved’s longed-for freedom. Then, and only then, will God be free; then, and only then, will God’s freedom be worth having.

Now all I have to do is pad that out to 3,000 words...

Easter

Happy Easter!

Lent is over, but Easter is only just getting going. Yes, Easter Sunday was almost a week ago (we were away), but we’re still in Easter Week (just), and there are seven Sundays in all in the Season of Easter, which lasts from Easter Sunday until the eve of Pentecost Sunday…

Why is that important? Well, for one thing, when we focus exclusively on one day (Christmas; Easter) we have already all-but-lost its significance. It is easy to dismiss a day; harder to dismiss a season. So when the Church dismisses the season, is it any wonder that the host culture so easily re-defines the day?

We were on holiday in the Lake District, and walked to church in the snow on Easter Sunday. Something the preacher said struck us: that Lent is a season for the discipline of embracing death, of laying something down, denying self…and that Easter is a season for the discipline of embracing life, of taking something up that makes life qualitatively more full/fulfilling. That is, not just taking back what was laid aside for Lent – that is nothing more than a denial of death, a clinging to the old life – but replacing old life with new life, by living more fully. We observed that this is what some have made Lent – instead of laying something ‘negative’ down, taking something ‘positive’ up – and that this fairly recent development stems from a loss of the meaning of Easter as a season…

I don’t yet know what I will take up, but, the invitation is extended to me.

On one day of our holiday, we went for a walk, and in a field beyond a barn full of cows, we came across a new-born calf with its mother. The calf was slick with the wetness of birth, tottering on new legs, and shivering in the cold wind. The mother was herself still recovering from having given birth, had not yet delivered the placenta; had not yet licked her calf clean…we’d only just arrived too late to watch the moment of birth itself. Not being a farmer, my inclination was, this calf needs to be washed down, and dried, not left out here exposed to the elements. But I presume the farmer knew best, and that exposure to the elements was precisely the best thing.

And that is my image of Easter: an event, yes, and an incredibly significant one at that…but an event that leaves us at the beginning of new life; vulnerable, not certain; exposed, not sheltered; messy, not presentable; possessing certain knowledge intrinsically, and yet needing to learn how to live in a whole new reality…

Ash Wednesday

Almighty and everlasting God,
you hate nothing that you have made
and forgive the sins of all those who are penitent:
create and make in us new and contrite hearts
that we, worthily lamenting our sins
and acknowledging our wretchedness,
may receive from you, the God of all mercy,
perfect remission and forgiveness;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

Collect for Ash Wednesday

Liturgy from Common Worship, Morning Prayer in Lent

Dust | Breath

Stepping Into Lent

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent.

At chapel in the morning, I shall receive communion followed by the imposition of ashes, the marking of the cross, in ash mixed with oil, on my forehead, with words that remind me that From dust you came and to dust you shall return.

Ash Wednesday confronts us with our own mortality, and holds out the hope of resurrection life beyond death.

But Lent is not an individual exercise. Lent is a season in the Church calendar. Lent is a communal experience…

The college community of which I am part goes through its own, annual as it happens, cycle of death and resurrection. In the summer, some of my friends will die to the experience of being an ordinand, and rise to the experience of being a deacon; die to life in college, and rise to new life in a parish. Over the summer, others will die to the life they are currently living, elsewhere, and rise to the experience of being an ordinand, here. From year to year, there is overlap, there is continuity; but the community dies and rises again in a familiar-and-yet-not-the-same way.

Unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, it remains only one seed. It is next to useless. But if it is sown, it produces a harvest; a multiplied return on the original investment.

Lord, teach us how
to lay down ourselves,
our perceived adequacy
and our perceived inadequacy;
and let us instead be
found to be beyond in/adequacy
in you.

Epiphany Of Embracing

I am loving being at college. It is a daily joy to me.
I don’t particularly like the lectures;
or the assignments;
or hospital chaplaincy placement;
or my fellowship group [the group dynamic, that is; not the individuals].
I don’t necessarily find these things
either interesting or enjoyable.
But I can genuinely, wholeheartedly and unreservedly say that I love being at college.

I observe that not a few of my fellow students are not loving being at college.
I observe that several of them find
the lectures, the assignments, the placements and the groups
much more interesting or enjoyable
than I do.
But their experience of college is nonetheless not a particularly happy one.

My reflection is this:
That I have consciously chosen to
embrace the experience of being at college
and to
be embraced by the college community;
and others have chosen –
consciously or unconsciously –
not to do so.

I do not think that makes me better than them.
But it undoubtedly results in a greater experience of ‘at-one-ment’ with God and my self and my neighbour; it both enables and evinces a measure of healing in these three fractured dimensions of relationship.

The whole is not the sum of the constituent parts.
Rather, our experience of the whole is determined
by our perspective on the whole.

The parts are bricks and doors and windows and roof-tiles and so on.
But it is the imagination of the architect that determines how they combine.
And it is the spaces between the parts that light and air and people flow through…

Epiphany Of Friendship

I find myself, this Epiphany-tide,
on a journey of discovery
in company with others,
shaken out from the routine
by pilgrim light:
in which we share
gold of our common knowing,
incense of entwined remembering,
myrrh of self-denying loving…

I find myself, this Epiphany-tide,
on a journey of discovery
in company with others,
growing dissatisfied
with offering my companions
9 or 18 carat thoughts
and words and acts; willing, instead,
to be known and know
in 24 carat confidences.

I find myself, this Epiphany-tide,
on a journey of discovery
in company with others,
writing new stories,
weaving lives together before God;
not simply telling what has been
and is, but building-up
in readiness of that to come,
as yet unwritten-able.

I find myself, this Epiphany-tide,
on a journey of discovery
in company with others;
a journey of the heart
laid down;
transformed by love
laid down and taken up again,
to love, and so to
be transforming.

Epiphany Of Loving

There is more than one way of loving.

There is to be in love with someone,
to respond with joy and wonder at the person God has already formed,
enjoying the gift of their presence;
and there is to love someone,
to commit to helping them become the person God is yet to form,
without seeking to control that process in any way. [1]

(I reflected on these ideas last summer, in one of my favourite posts of last year – go read, if you are interested.)

To be in love with my son is to celebrate the stage in life he is in at present, not wishing he were beyond it (this is not always easy!); while to love him is to accompany him on his journey through subsequent stages – in which I shall be in love with him…
If I were only in love with my children, however good my intentions, they would be stifled and grow up too slowly to reach healthy maturity. If I only loved my children, however good my intentions, they would be pushed ahead of themselves and grow up too quickly to reach healthy maturity. I and they need the dynamic tension between these two ways of loving.

God is both in love with us – sees us, just as we are, in Christ, as perfect – and loves us – desiring, fostering, but not forcing, growth.

Earlier this week I was listening to someone speak of friendship. Of how to be a friend historically was a passionate relationship (i.e. an ‘in love’ relationship) that always sought the good of the friend (i.e. a ‘love’ relationship). Of how we have debased passion by restricting it to sexualised passion; and debased friendship by restricting it to shared experienced (so, and in stark contrast to the moral and life-enhancing concern of friendship in times past, ‘friends’ go out binge drinking – mutually endorsing self-destructive behaviour – in our society).

It struck me because I already felt that God had been speaking to me, in the week since college started back after Christmas, about passion being the defining word for how I am to live this somewhat strange season…

[1] There is a wonderful scene in the film Love, Actually where one of the characters (played by Andrew Lincoln), who is in love with the newly-wed bride (played by Keira Knightley) of his best friend, turns up at her door and in silence holds up a series of placards on which he declares his undying love “without hope or agenda,” and then walks away, saying to himself, “Enough, now.”

I love this scene for so many reasons, including that it shows that it is possible to be in love with someone without wanting to possess them for yourself, and that it is possible to love another enough to lay down your own hope or agenda in deference to theirs…

Epiphany Of Remembering

There is more than one way of remembering.

I love the Eucharist, bread broken, wine shared.
It is us remember-ing Jesus’ broken body;
and Christ re-membering his broken body, the Church
(a community broken by the distances between us –
both physical and inter-personal,
by geography and by the falling short in our relationships –
made whole, made one again).
The interplay between his once-and-for-all act
and his ongoing repeated-over-and-over action.

There is more than one way of remembering.

We can remember relationships in a way that keeps our focus on the past,
a past that we cast as being better than our present,
and in so doing keep our present (increasingly) broken.
Or we can remember relationships in a way that draws on the past
in order to resource the present,
and in so doing find (increasing) healing for our present brokenness.

I have lived long enough, and moved often enough,
to know what it is to invest in another,
to be invested in by another,
to have dear friends,
and then to be separated.
I have chosen to remember in ways that have kept me broken;
and I have chosen to remember in ways through which God has restored wellbeing to me
(which is not to say that the separations get any less painful…).
And I hope that I am learning to do the latter more and the former less.

Now we are in Nottingham (for two years, before we move again…), and Jo and I are making friends who are dear to us, and whose friendship will carry on beyond this time and place.
But our daughter is just at the start of this journey
into the life of friendship
(our sons, too young to have begun at all, really),
and she is finding leaving old friends
and making new friends
much harder…

God's Epiphany

There is more than one way of knowing.
There is knowing about something or someone, and there is knowing with something or someone;
objective knowledge, and subjective knowledge;
propositional knowledge, and relational knowledge.
God knows everything there is to know about everything (that’s what it means to be omniscient). But God is more interested in knowing with creation. God wants to know us – to know you, to know me. And though you can find out about another person in many ways – Google them; read about them in the gossip press – you can only get to know them by coming alongside and, well, getting to know them…

Tomorrow is the Feast of Epiphany.
What might God learn with us, from the gifts we bring?

gold?
god knows, i am
a physical being;
in hunger,
i am in need
of bread.

incense?
god knows, i am
a spiritual being;
oppressed,
i am in need
of deliverance.

myrrh?
god knows, i am
an emotional being;
in grief,
i am in need
of resurrection life.

god receives;
and in receiving
god knows…

Christmas Day

May the babe born in Bethlehem
gift you with wonder;
the carpenter apprenticed in Nazareth
gift you with purpose;
the miracle-worker of Capernaum
gift you with wholeness;
the sacrifice on Golgotha
gift you with forgiveness;
and the prince of Heaven
gift you with hope eternal.
Amen.

Happy Christmas!


Advent , Christmas

Advent 23 | Christmas Eve

This baby
will not stay wrapped in cloth and
lying in a borrowed manger:
for there is a life story
to grow into…

This man
will not stay wrapped in cloth and
lying in a borrowed tomb:
for there is a life story
to grow into…


Advent

Advent 22

When Jesus is born,
the amniotic sac is torn:
the thin veil between
anticipation of this world
and intimate knowing of it.

But, uniquely, this is a virgin birth;
and so, uniquely, the hymen is also torn:
the thin veil between
anticipation of the bridegroom
and intimate knowing of the bride.

When Jesus dies,
the curtain in the temple is torn:
the thin veil between
anticipation of God’s presence
and intimate knowing of his glory.

And when he comes again?
The heavens shall be torn:
the thin veil between
anticipation of God’s reign
and intimate knowing of it.


Advent

Advent 21

When I am with my newly-met college friends, who I am growing to love, I feel the absence of my wife.

And when I am at home with my wife, who, still after all these years, I am growing to love, I feel the absence of my college friends.

It is not that when I am with my friends I wish I were with my wife instead; or that when I am with my wife I wish I was with my friends instead; as if I were perpetually unable to live in the moment.

It is that being in the presence of one you love is a weightless experience [1] [2]. Whereas being in the absence of one you love is a weighty experience.

To bear the
wait
is to choose
to bear the
weight.

Come, Lord Jesus!


[1] we understand this most clearly in relation to romantic love, where we even speak of the sensation of “walking on air”
[2] as opposed to being in the presence of one you fear, which is a heavy burden


Advent

Advent 20

The next day [John the baptiser] saw Jesus coming towards him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!’
…
The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’
John 1:29; 35, 36

What is the nature of John’s testimony?
It is not to describe what he has seen: Jesus is a man, not a sheep.
It is not even to ascribe a theological interpretation to what he has seen – as we might say if a witness to Jesus’ crucifixion were to say, ‘Behold the Lamb of God!’
No, John’s testimony is a perceiving of
how something that has yet to happen
impacts upon the here-and-now.

Seeing is nothing.
Perceiving is everything.


Advent

Advent 19

Through incarnation, God’s creative
Word
Was and is reconciled to the created
World,
In order that the created
World
Is and will be reconciled to God’s creative
Word.


Advent

Advent 18

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not apprehend||comprehend it.
John 1:5


Advent

Advent 17

What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.
John 1:3b, 4 NRSV

Darkness has no texture.
Night is rich in texture,
precisely because night is not
devoid of light:
moonlight,
starlight,
firelight,
candle-light.
Even the deepest blues
and purples add texture
only because of light.

Existence has no texture.
Life is rich in texture,
precisely because life is not
devoid of light:
the glory
of God’s presence
at home
in human flesh.
Even the deepest blues
and purples add texture
only because of light.

Life is to existence
as night is to darkness.


Advent

Advent 16

One of the great Christmas traditions is flicking through the film guide in the TV listings, and anticipating what you intend to watch – chance would be a fine thing! – over the holiday…

There will, undoubtedly, be a gluttonous spread of action/thrillers on the menu. And a recurring plot device in such stories is the principle that:
the best place to hide something
you don’t want to be noticed
is out in the open;
the best place to meet someone
without being observed
is in a busy public space.

The same principle is at play in the Gospels:
Jesus is the secret,
present but hidden in the open;
seen, with unseeing eyes, by everyone;
eluding the grasp of enemies
and would-be allies alike;
passed over.

But the viewer has a privileged position:
we do not lose sight of the hero,
swallowed by the crowd at the station…
not for long, at any rate:
look, there he is!

And what of Jesus?


Advent

Advent 15

Might we catch a glimpse of God coming to us today…
…in the busyness of getting ready for
Christmas?


Advent

Advent 14

Might we catch a glimpse of God coming to us today…
…in the ache-weight of bereavement,
sitting with us, weeping with us,
where another sits no more?


Advent

Advent 13

Might we catch a glimpse of God coming to us today…
…in the unguarded face of a friend?


Advent

Advent 12

Blessed are you, Sovereign God of all,
to you be praise and glory for ever.
In your tender compassion
the dawn from on high is breaking upon us
to dispel the lingering shadows of night.
As we look for your coming among us this day,
open our eyes to behold your presence
and strengthen our hands to do your will,
that the world may rejoice and give you praise.
Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Blessed be God for ever.

Liturgy from Common Worship, Morning Prayer in Advent


Advent

Advent 11

Watching and waiting:

For though we await the age to come,
the life of the age to come
has already begun
within the present age…


Advent

Advent 10

Are you in, or out?

A bastard: Out.
Born beyond the margin of human society,
where the animals shelter: Out.
Acknowledged by unreliable witnesses –
sheep herders, geriatrics, women, foreigners: Out.
Political refugee: Out.
Didn’t go to the right school: Out.
From the wrong place: Out.
Welcomes sinners: Out.
Touches those whose touch defiles: Out.
Breaks the Rules: Out.
Beyond the wall: Out.
Hung on a cross: Out.
Cursed by God: Out.

Are you in, or out?


Advent

Advent 9

Rumours,
hovering on the borderland
between what is un/perceivable
to eye and ear…
…
“He who is without beginning has begun!”
…
“He who is immortal is risen to life!”
…
“He who is without end will bring to completion!”
…
Rumours,
hovering on the borderland
between what is un/perceivable
to eye and ear…


Advent

Advent 8

Hair matted
body splattered with
congealing blood
screwing up the courage
to draw breath
attended to by women
(the men at safe distance
in the shadows)
King of the Jews

WE SHALL SEE
THIS LAMB AGAIN


Advent

Advent 7

Hair matted
body splattered with
congealing blood
screwing up the courage
to draw breath
attended to by women
(the men at safe distance
in the shadows)
King of the Jews

WE SHALL SEE
THIS LAMB AGAIN


Advent

Advent 6

My soul is waiting for you, O Lord:
in your word is my hope.
My soul is waiting for you, O Lord: in your word is my hope.
There is forgiveness with you,
so that you shall be feared.
In your word is my hope.
Glory to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit.
My soul is waiting for you, O Lord: in your word is my hope.
from Psalm 130

Liturgy from Common Worship, Evening Prayer in Advent


Advent

Advent 5 | Feast of St Nicholas

Nicholas, early C4th Bishop of Myra:
miracle-worker;
renowned for secret acts of generosity;
adopted by sailors as their patron saint,
and carried by them to Amsterdam;
from there, as Sancte Claus,
carried onwards to New Amsterdam,
which, in turn, became New York;
from where,
dressed now in red with white fur trim,
relocated to the North Pole,
emerges Santa Claus:
for whom the children,
wide-eyed,
wait up watching…


Almighty Father, lover of souls,
who chose your servant Nicholas
to be a bishop in the Church,
that he might give freely out of the treasures of your grace:
make us mindful of the needs of others
and, as we have received, so teach us also to give;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

Collect for today, from Common Worship


Advent

Advent 4

May the Lord, when he comes,
Find us watching and waiting.
Amen.
Let us bless the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

Liturgy from Common Worship, Morning and Evening Prayer in Advent


Watching and waiting
Light and darkness
Presence and absence
(Absence and presence)
(Darkness and light)
(Waiting and watching)

Advent is
the recognition of God’s presence,
Immanuel, God with us:

Advent is
the recognition of God’s absence,
Ascended, coming again in glory:

Watch without waiting,
wait without watching,
and you miss the
moment
(the image revealed
when presence and absence
are juxtaposed)
…


Advent

Advent 3

Now it is time to awake out of sleep,
for the night is far spent and the day is at hand.
Now is our salvation nearer than when we first believed,
for the night is far spent.
Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness
and put on the armour of light,
for the day is at hand.
Put on the Lord Jesus Christ
and make no provision for the flesh,
for the night is far spent and the day is at hand.

From Romans 13

Liturgy from Common Worship, Morning Prayer in Advent


Advent

Advent 2

Light shining in darkness…


Advent

Advent 1

Light and dark.
Light and dark.
The gospel accounts are full of light and dark.
Events that happen at night, under the cover of darkness:
Jesus, walking on the water, his disciples terrified;
Jesus, sought out in secret by Nicodemus;
Jesus, arrested, illegally; tried, illegally;
Jesus, crucified, the sky turned dark in the middle of the day…

Blind men, who see…
…men who can see, who are blind.

And Jesus’ words about himself:
revealing and concealing his identity
in the same moment.
Light and dark.

I thought that it was clear:
That for those who believed, this was
revelation;
and for those who did not believe, this was
concealment.

But I was wrong.
The contrast is not between
those who walk in darkness and cannot see,
and those who walk in the light, and can.
The contrast is between
those who walk in darkness and cannot see,
and those who are blinded by the light, and walk by faith not sight…


The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;
On those living in the land of the shadow of death
a light has dawned.
Isaiah 9:2


Advent

Prologue

This is something of an experiment, the first time I've made a (very simple!) video worship resource, and the first time I've uploaded video on my blog...

The clip was filmed by me, on my digital camera (note to self: get hold of a tripod). The words are from The Gospel According to John, chapter 1 verses 1-14, and are read by my good friend Mark Carey (note to self: position of voice in relation to microphone). It was put together as a spur-of-the-moment thing when Jo and I were visiting Mark and Penny yesterday evening. It might not be state-of-the-art, but it gives me an indication of how easy it is to put together something simple, and I think I might make some more...

Climate Change

There's a lot I'd love to post at present, but most of my writing is being redirected towards essays instead...

However, I couldn't resist uploading this photograph I took on our quiet day today. I think it is stunning. And from a distance, it looks like an aerial photograph of an ice-shelf breaking up, or parched earth cracking...

11/11

“To triumph fully, evil needs two victories, not one. The first victory happens when an evil deed is perpetrated; the second victory, when evil is returned. After the first victory, evil would die if the second victory did not infuse it with new life…
…After all, I myself had been redeemed by the God who in Christ died for the redemption of the ungodly. And so…I started walking – and stumbling – in the footsteps of the enemy-loving God.”

Miroslav Volf, The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World, p 9


remembrance , reconciliation

Bonfire

Then, in the evening, we joined with several other college families to go along to the local bonfire, a scout fundraiser. It was a mild night, and we had a great time. The kids loved the bonfire, but Susannah and Noah weren’t so keen on the fireworks – they were too loud. Walking back to college afterwards, Noah was quite upset. He told me, “God kept trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t hear because the fireworks were making such a noise!”

In my view, Bonfire Night (November 5th, but, increasingly, moved to the closest weekend) is incredibly important. If you want to reflect on why, here’s what I wrote about that last year.


bonfire night , war on terror

Southwell Minster

We had a great family day yesterday. First, in daylight, we paid a visit to Southwell [say ‘suv-el,’ rhymes with ‘shovel’ – not ‘South-Well’] Minster, the diocesan cathedral. It is an amazing church.

We went because the Minster was hosting a Christmas Market in the nave. It was packed out. And it was great to see so much activity, and commerce, taking place. Historically, the nave belonged to the people, and that space within a church was used as meeting place for all kinds of community activity. That was the way it was, before someone invented the fixed pew; and from that point on, where pews were adopted, it was impossible to use the space for anything other than (a particular form of) worship. The space was reclaimed by the Church from the community – missionally, a disastrous decision.

The pew played a major part in creating the sacred/secular divide.

I’d like to build a pyre of pews, and place an effigy of whoever invented them on top.

Given the rate at which local shops and post offices are being closed down, there is greater scope than there has been in living memory to open up the nave again, for all the people.

Afterwards, we had lunch in one of the surrounding villages. And Elijah came face-to-face with a shire horse, which washed his hair in its mouth!


Southwell Minster , church at the heart of the community

Orthodox | Post-Literate Church

We live in a post-literate society, by which I mean that the printed medium is no longer the dominant communication medium. Print has been displaced by the audio-visual world of television, and both now compete with an increasingly diverse range of media. Post-literate society is not the same as functionally illiterate society, by which I mean a society that is unable to access information in print or written form. There is a debate – being covered by the medium of television – in this country at the moment as to whether or not we are becoming functionally illiterate, and how to address this problem.

An immigrant community naturally faces the problem of functional illiteracy – in this case, how much Greek do the children of the Church, born and schooled in England, know; and to what extent will this – or any other immigrant community – teach them their ‘mother-tongue’? (Churches, mosques, temples often play a key role.)

But, is there anything to be learnt from the patterns of worship of the Greek Orthodox for the context of worship in a post-literate society?

There may be something significant to learn from the use of icons, and other ritual objects. Icons are more than symbolic: as I understand it, an icon is viewed as both a window, through which the worshipper looks onto a spiritual dimension (in this regard, similar to stained glass windows); and a door, through which grace is imparted from the spiritual dimension to the worshipper (in this regard, different to stained glass windows). So they are not merely an alternative way of representing something, or of telling a story. But they include that element. Icons carry the story of the community with a permanent accessibility that the weekly-changing sermon cannot.

Should we expect people to follow readings in the Bible – checking up on what is being read, what is being said? Or should we encourage people to listen to the spoken-aloud word (a very different experience from reading, even following along while listening)? Should we teach people to read non-literate codes, to interpret sensory information – an art arguably lost to the western Church since the Reformation? Should there be more art in worship? I’ll pin my colours to the mast on that last question, and respond with a resounding, yes!


Greek Orthodox , spirituality , church , post literate church

Orthodox | Church As Theatre

The experience of visiting the Greek Orthodox Church was one of pure theatre. Sitting in the front row of the balcony probably added to that; but so did the stage at the front, on which there was a tabernacle (stage set); the painted walls; the enormous gold candleholders hanging from the ceiling; the ornate pulpit; the costumed principal character; the chorus; the congregation participating with the main proceedings primarily as observers…

The theatre of the occasion was fascinating, and raises lots of questions:
What is the purpose of theatre?
Is theatre unreal, or reality seen through a particular lens? Distilled, focused?
What do we learn, about ourselves, about the world, from theatre?
Is the audience in a theatre passive? (I don’t think so.)
Or do they add something? With a play, is there a qualitative difference between the last rehearsal behind closed doors and the first performance in front of an audience? And is that difference only for the benefit of the players? Does it change with every audience?
Are writer and director and cast and crew and audience co-creators of meaning?
Are we changed by the experience of theatre? If so, in what ways?

What about church as theatre?


Greek Orthodox , spirituality , church , church as theatre

Orthodox | Fluid Worship

We arrived at the Greek Orthodox Church at 11:45am, and went up to the balcony from where we would get the best view of all that was going on.

The service had, at its core, a very rigid structure: liturgy chanted by the deacon and choir; prayers and ritual actions by the priest; set elements to the service, in a set order, with set variations (as, indeed, is the case with Anglican liturgy).

In relation to this structure, the congregation had very little to do; other than stand up and sit down again at the right moments, and cross themselves, over and over.

But around this, a lot was going on. Children walked in and out of their own group in another part of the building. People kept arriving: when we arrived, the congregation was very small; it kept growing over the next hour and a half; filling up, filling up. People came in, in groups; each lighting a candle, kissing a series of icons, and a holy book (Gospels?). A widow brought food, a symbolic gift to her departed husband, and placed it on a table at the front; someone else brought a framed photo of the deceased, and placed it on the same table. People greeted one another, as and when. At one point, various men were invited to take part in a procession in preparation for the communion, which was taken by the children. After the communion, the family of the recently deceased man stood together while the priest prayed over them, a personal interruption to the flow of the whole…

It didn’t matter that people were engaging with things at different levels, at different moments. In fact, the service was structured with that expectation.


Greek Orthodox , spirituality , church , fluid worship

Orthodox | Church As Ark

On Sunday I visited the Greek Orthodox Church here in Nottingham, a congregation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain. It was unlike any Christian worship I have experienced before; fascinating, and well worth the visit. Go yourself, but be warned: set aside time – in its entirety, I think proceedings ran between 9:30am and 2:00pm.

Four things that struck me were ‘church as ark,’ ‘fluid worship,’ ‘church as theatre,’ and ‘post-literate church.’

Church as Ark:
While we were welcome to observe what was going on, it was clear that this was church for the Greek ex-pat community. There was no sense of seeking to reach out to include ‘the other,’ to grow through conversion, to assimilate and be assimilated. Rather, the intention seemed to have to do with keeping the integrity of what it means to be Greek – and Christian – in the midst of a non-Greek and highly irreligious culture. Church as ark. It is easy for evangelicals to disapprove of church as ark, but it is worth remembering that the Russian Orthodox Church more than conquered the Communist experiment; held imagination and communal identity in the face of an atheist alternative reality. And from the ark, the earth is repopulated.

It seemed to me that there were parallels with niche-culture emerging churches, such as Goth churches, which seek to create community that is authentically Christian and authentically their own culture, unwilling to compromise on either.

Should church call us out of our culture; or seek to transform it? Should our response to Christ’s reconciling previously hostile groups be to seek to hold those groups together in any local congregation; or to build partnerships between distinct local congregations?

It seems to me that the ‘calling out of culture’ and assimilating a new heterogeneous group instead approach is built on a theology where heaven is the goal. But as Bishop Tom Wright said to us in our college lecture last week, heaven is not the goal, not the final destination: the final destination is a renewed heaven and earth, the cosmos with decay extracted. That, contra to Bono’s vision, all the colours will not bleed into one, but that something beautiful will be created from a broad palette.


Greek Orthodox , spirituality , church , church as ark

Live Autopsy

I recall hearing recently a grim news report of a man who had awoken in agony as the pathologist performing his autopsy took a scalpel to his face.

I imagine not many people have a corporeal awareness of their autopsy. But it provides a certain analogy for the experience of being at college:

Of being laid out,
and that which is normally hidden –
that which is integral to who you are,
but not necessarily healthy;
not necessarily pleasant to observe –
being exposed,
on display to others;
and you yourself painfully aware
that they are aware –
adding further hurt to
the rawness of the wound itself.


Here are two examples of what has already been exposed:

a) I know that I am almost certainly dyslexic and dyspraxic. For whatever reasons, my brain is not wired as it should be. I fall short, only able to do with great struggle what others do with ease. This is sin in my life, not in the sense of being a bad person (a very limited definition of sin, anyway), but in the sense of being held captive by the consequences of being a broken person in a broken world (the sort of sin Jesus’ disciples tried to pin down to something done wrong by an individual or their parents; but Jesus wouldn’t let them get away with that). And I have always refused to receive grace,* to accept help; but have built up compensating- and avoidance-mechanisms that have served me well (well enough to have a PhD in an Arts discipline). But it has taken college less than a fortnight to demolish those mechanisms, and leave me in no doubt that I must stop resisting grace, and acknowledge my brokenness. That hurt. So now I need to arrange professional assessments…

b) There are people I don’t like much, for all sorts of ignoble reasons, all kinds of petty prejudices. And with such people I tend not to make much effort, to love them, to serve them. That’s sin, in a more obvious (and no less real) sense. I’d rather not be hauled up over those prejudices by my neighbour, and my conscience, ganging-up on me; but that is what I need. That it should happen is grace. That it should happen in this safe environment is great grace.


Here is the key lesson of the forensic pathologist’s cold steel slab:

Only by thinking of ourselves as the greatest of sinners – and therefore as needful recipients of the greatest grace – can we avoid assuming that our sins are less horrid than those of our neighbour.

“Self-justification and judging others go together, as justification by grace and serving others go together.” D Bonhoeffer


*sometimes diagnoses and labels are not grace, but that is not the case in this instance.

vulnerability , spiritual formation , personal growth

What Is Worship?

Well, I’ve survived the first week of term. Just about…!


This first half-term, all the first years have to visit at least seven different churches, from various traditions and including Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and a black majority Wesleyan. Part of the idea is to expose ourselves to different traditions, and reflect on them; and part of the idea, I suspect, is to be made uncomfortable by certain things, and to reflect on why we felt uncomfortable. Then, each week, we’ll attend a seminar, posing different questions. This week, the question was: what is worship?

Last Sunday night I went along to Trent Vineyard. As I have known many people who worship in Vineyard churches, and have worshipped in an Anglican church that has a close relationship with the Vineyard, I thought I would feel more or less at home. But as it turned out, I found it a very uncomfortable experience.

There were several things I felt uncomfortable with, which I won’t go into here. But one thing I felt uncomfortable with was the absence of a cross, or crucifix, and an altar as a focal point – or, indeed, anywhere at all in the purpose-built auditorium. (The focal point was the worship band, spread out across a stage at the front.)

Now, the absence of a fixed cross and altar would not have bothered me if we had been gathered in a café (though in such a space I would expect a portable cross and a surface appropriated as a make-shift altar), but in a space purpose-built for Christian worship, it just didn’t feel right. Why not? That comes down to how I would answer that question, what is worship?

What is worship? By which I mean to ask, what lies at the heart of formal, corporate worship? (And yes, I believe that worship goes wider than formal, corporate worship; but that is the question, in this context.) Here’s my answer:


The heart of formal, corporate worship is the Eucharist. The Eucharist is not only the point where we remember Jesus’ body broken 2,000 years ago; but the point where the Holy Spirit re-members Jesus’ broken body today. We are the Body of Christ, dispersed both by our geographical circumstances and by those things that come between us and each other and God, which we call sin. The movement of formal, corporate worship, the sequence of its elements, brings us to the point where the broken body is re-membered, in order to be sent out into the world again. It is a journey to the Eucharist; and then out from the Eucharist; with the Eurcharist being the focus, the heart, the pivotal moment. The symbols of Christ’s body and blood, on the altar, at the foot of the cross.


And because this is my answer to the question, what is worship? to be in a place of formal, corporate worship devoid of cross and altar felt profoundly disturbing.

What about you? How would you answer the question?
Would you need a cross and altar?
Or, are you equally comfortable with their presence or absence?
Or, do you find such physical symbols a distraction away from the spiritual truths they were designed to point to?


worship , the eucharist , remembering the body of Christ

Snippets

We’ve had the stabilisers taken off Susannah’s bike. I’ve been going round the Square with her. We’ll wait for a park to let her try solo.
She’s doing an after-school art club on Mondays at the moment.

Noah has got a pretty good eye in with bat, and ball. It’s been fun playing with him in the garden. Susannah’s pretty good too.
Jo scalped him with trimmers last night.
He is loving his reading books from school.

They’re both making friends at school – there are other college kids in both their classes, which is great.

Elijah is into demolition – an aspiring South Sea Islander rugby forward.

Our lawn is full of shallow holes where the local squirrel has tried to bury nuts in too-hard ground.

Our washing machine is dead. By the time it gets fixed we’ll have been washing-machine-less for a fortnight. Fortunately we have some great new friends – thanks, guys!

Scrabulous is fun.

Jo is wonderful. But slightly mad – she’s taking NT Greek, for fun not credit…
Her parents came to visit on Saturday, which was great.
She’s making friends, and finding routines, and enjoying life on the whole.

I’ve played football every week since we’ve moved here, in goal, on the college field – or Field of Dreams, as it is also known. If goalkeeping was good enough for Pope John Paul II at seminary, it’s good enough for me!

College life is a whirl of people to get to know and timetables and routines and coursework to get to grips with – a major change in gear after working 12 hours a week…

Nottingham Castle is built on fibre-glass-enhanced rock!

Last week, someone added a comment on a post I’d written in April 2006. I’m astounded…


family news

Of Godparents

Term began today. Last week was Induction. On Friday afternoon, I was standing outside the Dean of Studies’ office, waiting to discuss my timetable. On the walls in the hallway there are several boards listing the names of those who went out from St John’s to serve as missionaries in other parts of the world. And there, on the board outside the Dean’s door, towards the bottom of the last column:

LAVILLE, J. Philippines 1972

Jo Laville was a godfather of mine. He died, training church leaders in India, not very long back. He’d lived for most of my life in Asia, but, by chance of home-leaves falling at the right time, he happened to attend our wedding in 1996; our honeymoon in Switzerland in 1997 (yes, I know that sounds a little weird: we were married in October, but wanted to go skiing, and so waited until the spring, and went on a group package. We didn’t know Jo was booked on the same group – but he was a life-long skier, who had skied in the Alps long before that became popular); and to the christening of our daughter in 2001.

Just as I hadn’t expected to see him get on our coach somewhere in Switzerland over a decade ago, so I hadn’t expected to see his name on a board in the hall.

As it happens, another of my godfathers, Revd Canon Dr Michael Green, was the first Principal of St John’s, Nottingham (1969-75 – the college goes back to 1863, but was located at various sites in London prior to moving to its current home).

And my parents share a god-daughter with the current college Principal.

And one set of my youngest child’s godparents are the brother and sister-in-law of the wife of the Dean of Studies whose study I was waiting outside on Friday.


Surreal does not begin to describe it. But there is something else: something about continuity; and inheritance; something about standing in a god-parental genealogy; something about arriving somewhere I never knew and until just under a year ago was not heading towards, and finding myself coming home. Something that brings with it anticipation…


college godparents