Psalm 139

This morning during family worship at St Peter’s we looked at Psalm 139:

1		O Lord, you have searched me out and known me; •
		you know my sitting down and my rising up;
		you discern my thoughts from afar.
2		You mark out my journeys and my resting place •
		and are acquainted with all my ways.
3		For there is not a word on my tongue, •
		but you, O Lord, know it altogether.
4		You encompass me behind and before •
		and lay your hand upon me.
5		Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, •
		so high that I cannot attain it.
6		Where can I go then from your spirit? •
		Or where can I flee from your presence?
7		If I climb up to heaven, you are there; •
		if I make the grave my bed, you are there also.
8		If I take the wings of the morning •
		and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
9		Even there your hand shall lead me, •
		your right hand hold me fast.
10		If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will cover me •
		and the light around me turn to night’
11		Even darkness is no darkness with you;
		the night is as clear as the day; •
		darkness and light to you are both alike.
12		For you yourself created my inmost parts; •
		you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
13		I thank you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; •
		marvellous are your works, my soul knows well.
14		My frame was not hidden from you, •
		when I was made in secret
		and woven in the depths of the earth.
15		Your eyes beheld my form, as yet unfinished; •
		already in your book were all my members written,
16		As day by day they were fashioned •
		when as yet there was none of them.
17		How deep are your counsels to me, O God! •
		How great is the sum of them!
18		If I count them, they are more in number than the sand, •
		and at the end, I am still in your presence.
19		O that you would slay the wicked, O God, •
		that the bloodthirsty might depart from me!
20		They speak against you with wicked intent; •
		your enemies take up your name for evil.
21		Do I not oppose those, O Lord, who oppose you? •
		Do I not abhor those who rise up against you?
22		I hate them with a perfect hatred; •
		they have become my own enemies also.
23		Search me out, O God, and know my heart; •
		try me and examine my thoughts.
24		See if there is any way of wickedness in me •
		and lead me in the way everlasting.

When family gets together, we don’t all do everything together. It is more dynamic than that: we might gather around the table together, but at certain points there are smaller groups in the kitchen, the living room, the garden; or, if we go out for a walk, some who go on ahead while others take a slower pace.

Why should it be different when family gathers to worship?

Today, we set out five different ways in which people could take 10 minutes to respond to the Psalm, all of which could be carried out into the week ahead as ways to explore the Psalm, and allow it to explore us…

1 Highs and lows

“If I climb up to heaven, you are there; if I make the grave my bed, you are there also.” Sometimes we feel on top of the world. Other times, we feel as if we are merely existing, not living at all. Both are normal human experiences. God wants to share in our highs, celebrating with us, and our lows, comforting us. We can share the highs and lows of our day, or week, with the people we live with or meet up with on a regular basis.

2 Labyrinth

This Psalm has a theme of journeying with God. For some people, the best thing they could do this morning was take ten minutes out to walk the labyrinth in the prayer garden, alone in conversation with God, or sharing that time with a close friend. The rain took a break and the sun shone! The garden is open on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and Sundays after our morning service.

3 A box of potential parables

Some of us need more than words. Jesus took objects – yeast, a pearl – as insights: the kingdom of heaven is a bit like…Glimpses, not theological tomes! I put together a box of objects that might connect with different aspects of Palm 139 – a pair of binoculars; a walking guidebook; a tin of postcards; a torch; some knitting; a woven friendship band; a glass jar of coloured sand, worked into a picture by a master craftsman; the bag of murder weapons from a game of Cluedo; a decorated stone in the shape of a heart – as prompts. Note: this is not for children as opposed to adults, but for people of any age who might find such an approach helpful. What might the kingdom of heaven look like in Psalm 139?

4 Praying for our enemies

There is a section in this Psalm that speaks of enemies. When it is read in church, these verses are often left out – after all, they aren’t very Christian! But in the context of this Psalm, these words undo us: they confront us with the truth that God made our enemies with as much love and care and hopes and dreams and ongoing enfolding as he made us. The best response some of us could make to this Psalm today was to gather at the War Memorial and pray for Syria.

5 Prayer boats

There is a great image in this Psalm of journeying even to the far side of the sea. As everyone arrived, they were given the Psalm printed out on a sheet of paper. Some of us – children, and adults with learning difficulties included – folded our Psalm into an origami boat. Then we shared the places we would be going to in the week ahead, and prayed for one another. The boats were taken home, to be put in a place we will see them every day this week, as a reminder that God goes with us.

With thanks to Steve Taylor, whose playful and thoughtful practice inspires me whenever I play with creative ways to help people engage with and respond to Scripture.

Summer 2013

A few impromptu family portraits taken in the garden this evening.

Furrows

On Thursday I attended a Quiet Day held at St Peter’s, facilitated by Revd Sue Calveley. Sue had been on the clergy team at St Peter’s prior to my arrival. The day was a mix of corporate worship, led reflections, and plenty of space to ourselves.

In the morning, we took the account of Elijah calling Elisha to follow him as our starting-point. When Elijah finds Elisha, Elisha is ploughing a field. He is overseeing the last of twelve pairs of oxen. In other words, eleven other teams are ploughing in front of him. To plough a furrow is sometimes used as a metaphor for life. We plough the field given us. Will we plough a straight furrow, or a crooked one? Will the earth be good, or will we need to stop to deal with stones? Will we plough the same ground long enough to become familiar with it – with its particularities and peculiarities – to love it and to make the soil good? Do we plough on our own, or, looking up, do we see those who have ploughed before us? Do we recognise the role of those who have gone before us, or who go alongside us? Before Elisha walks away into his calling, he asks first to acknowledge and honour those others, serving up a feast in an act that simultaneously severs himself from them and ties their stories together. In the morning we were given space to reflect on those who have been a blessing to us; and in the afternoon, space to reflect on ourselves as gift from God, firstly to ourselves – for we can only come to God as ourselves – but also for the world.

To further help me go deeper, I took photographs of furrows, or grooves, in various media around the church: wood, stone, glass, tile. Many were intentional, of course; and it is not possible to live life well by accident, without intention. But other furrows were the result of wear-and-tear, or indirect action, or even accident. Some were begun and then cut short, abandoned. Some were deep; while others barely scratched the surface, only noticeable when the light falls on them. Some went with the grain, others across or against the grain. Some had become filled with dirt, neglected; others inlaid with gold paint, beautified. Some cut across the field of names of the men of the parish who died in the First and Second World Wars. Almost all bore testimony to people who had shaped this space, either through their workmanship or through their loving repetitive doing life in this place: people who came before me.

And while the space would not have been created without the intentional carvings, neither would it be what it is without the unintentional ones: not a blueprint for a church building, an idea, a fine theory; but an actual church building, with its faults and flaws, that has become a special place, where people discover and rediscover that they are loved by God…

Sermon Notes : Luke 12:49-56, Hebrews 11:29-12:2

These notes copied up after my two note-less (i.e. not a transcript) talks from the lectionary this morning.

Luke 12:49-56

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’ mission is to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. Having been rejected by his own community (over interpretation: they probably understood Jesus’ claim that this was the time Isaiah’s prophecy would be fulfilled as referring to God giving them the city of Sepphoris, which they were rebuilding for others, who would now serve them instead; whereas Jesus insisted that it had always been God’s intention to include the Gentiles in the scope of his favour - a claim so offensive, those listening dragged him from the synagogue and took up broken-down stones to stone him to death), Jesus found the person who welcomed him – Peter – and from there demonstrated what release looked like, for those held captive by sickness or oppression or guilt or shame or exclusion from community. In time he sent out ‘the Twelve,’ who had seen what he had done and taken part in it, to go and do likewise. Then he sent out seventy-two to do the same. There is a momentum to what he is about.

At this point, Jesus tells his disciples that he has come to bring fire on the earth, and wishes it were already kindled; but first, he must undergo a distressing baptism. What is he talking about? Well, where does Luke record fire on the earth? At the start of his sequel, the Acts of the Apostles: at Pentecost (Acts 2), when the Holy Spirit is poured out with the appearance of fire, as a sign of God’s Spirit being poured out on all humanity, male and female, young and old; where three thousand people from across the known world respond and are baptised and that fire – light for dark places – is passed from life to life, spreading out from Jerusalem across the earth…But first, there is a pre-requisite: Jesus’ ‘baptism’ of death. Paul will write to the church in Rome that in our baptism we are united with Jesus in his death and in his resurrection (Romans 5), that the power that raised him from the dead lives in us. Our baptism is our commission into Jesus’ mission.

Jesus makes it clear that he has not come to overthrow the Romans and usher-in a Golden Age of peace. Rather, his presence will be divisive. It will create division between those, on the one hand, who ask “What is in it for me?” – whether that is articulated as “If God is so great, why doesn’t he do something about poverty [etc.]?” or as “God is on our side: things might look bleak at the moment, but he will vindicate us!” – and those, on the other hand, who say, “I don’t fully understand what God is doing in and through Jesus, but count me in – I’m in it, for him!” Jesus’ presence will be divisive, even within families.

Then Jesus turns back to the crowd and challenges them: they think they are wise because they can interpret the world around them; how, then, are they so blind to what God is doing in the world?

Hebrews 11:29-12:2

Fast forward thirty years. Pentecost has come, the fire Jesus came to light has set the world ablaze, the church has grown right across the Empire. But…some of their leaders have been executed, more have been imprisoned, and things will soon get worse (Nero will dip Christians in tar and set them on fire to light up his garden parties)…and Christians are asking, where is God, what is God up to in all this? So someone (we don’t know who: some believe it was Priscilla who, with her husband Aquila, taught Apollos; others think it was Paul) determined to write a response to those questions.

At this point, they are telling stories. We pick up the thread with Rahab. Rahab’s parents had dedicated her to a powerful chaos goddess. We see echoes of her through the Old Testament: when God separates out the land from the sea, we see an echo of her defeat; and Job says, no-one can lay a finger on Rahab, but when the Lord defeated her, it was so easy, it hardly warrants listing in what he has done. Not surprisingly, this woman’s life is marked by chaos. When we meet her, she is running a motel for travelling businessmen, with extra services offered. The spies sent out by the Israelites as they prepare to cross into the Land come to her, and she informs them that the whole city of Jericho knows that God has given them into his people’s hands: and when he does – when her whole world comes crashing down – she wants to be counted in. And she is. Not only does Rahab experience God’s mercy, she also experiences permanence: she will become the ancestor of King David, the ancestor of Jesus.

Next up, Gideon. Gideon is fearful. When we meet him, he is hiding in a hole. He is trying to thresh wheat. The way people did that was by clearing a large, flat, exposed rock; throwing out the grain over it, and dragging a wooden sledge with wooden teeth on the underside over it – throw the kids on top for extra weight. Then they’d take a winnowing fork and toss the grain in the air, and the wind would blow away the chaff while the good grain would fall back to the ground. It is a metaphor for the very thing God was doing to his people through the oppression of the Midianites – getting rid of the chaff in their lives. And Gideon is attempting this in a hole. The angel of the Lord (who I think is the pre-incarnate Jesus) turns up and says, “Hail, mighty warrior!” and Gideon looks over his shoulder to see who he could be addressing. But Gideon is used by God to lead his people into freedom. (Though in his old age, Gideon will lead them back into captivity.)

Then there is Barak. Barak is a general in the army. He has done fairly well in life. But he suffers from self-doubt. Perhaps what we would call today performance anxiety: you are only as good as your last win. Barak does not want to go up against the enemy general, Sisera. But Barak learns that victory belongs to God.

If Barak’s issue is self-doubt, Samson’s is self-indulgence. Whenever he says to his mum and dad, “Get me this! Get me that!” they oblige. He is spoilt; his whole life is a tragedy of self-indulgence. But at the end, Samson discovers something of God’s sacrificial self-giving.

Jephthah is a man of sorrow. When he had grown up, his half-brothers kicked him out of home: they wanted nothing to do with him, until they needed his help. And Jephthah declared that, if God gave him victory in battle, he would sacrifice the first thing that came out of his house on his return. He comes home victorious, and his daughter runs out calling, “Daddy! You’re home! You’re safe! You won! You…” Now, I don’t believe that God wanted Jephthah to sacrifice his daughter, or that such a sacrifice was in any way pleasing to God. But here is this man of sorrow, listed in God’s great family.

Next, David. David is overlooked. God tells Samuel to anoint one of Jesse’s sons king. Samuel gets on the phone to Jesse, tells him that he wants to meet with him and his sons to worship God together. David doesn’t even get the memo. Later in his life, when he has arrived, he decides not to lead his men into battle – he won’t be missed, he is the overlooked one. And he falls into sin. But he thinks that he can get away with it – after all, he is easily overlooked. But David learns that, whether as a boy facing the lion and the bear, or as a man with Bathsheba, he is not overlooked but watched-over.

Finally, Samuel. Samuel is vain. When he is sent to anoint one of Jesse’s sons king, he thinks, “It must be this one; he’s so good-looking…No? Then it must be this one, he is also so good-looking…Or this good-looking one?” Why would he assume that the Lord’s anointed would have to be a good-looking man other than his belief that he himself, the Lord’s chosen prophet, was good-looking? But Samuel discovers that God looks at the heart, not the outward appearance.

Therefore, the writer says, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses to God’s faithfulness, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us – let us fix our eyes on Jesus. Let us throw off whatever it is that hinders us in following Jesus. Perhaps you have said, “My life is too chaotic right now. Perhaps when things settle down more, I’ll be able to follow Jesus closer…” Perhaps you believe you are too young, or too old – too fearful, too self-doubting, too self-indulgent, too sorrowful, too over-looked, too vain…It isn’t only sin that gets in the way: sometimes the good things we do for God hinder us from being close to Jesus.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. That is, he is the one who is writing our faith story; and he is the one who is bringing us to perfection through the discipline of our circumstances. As Paul writes to the church in Rome (Romans 5), suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, and character produces hope. What is God doing in our difficulties? Working on our character.

Fix our eyes on Jesus…who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame…The joy of the Lord is our strength. If Jesus needed joy, to strengthen him, I’m confident that I can’t do without it!

Fix our eyes on Jesus…who…sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Where is Jesus? Sitting in heaven. And Paul writes to the church in Ephesus (Ephesians 2) that we have been raised with Christ and seated with him in the heavenly realms – and that he has prepared good works for us to do. At times our circumstances are such that we feel we can’t see Jesus at all, we lose sight of him, we can’t see what he is up to. When we worship, whether corporately or in our own homes, Jesus does not descend to us (his return to earth is in the future); rather, we are caught up to where he is: and from there, he can show us our circumstances from the perspective of heaven, not an earth-bound perspective; from there, he can show us our circumstances from the perspective of the kingdom of heaven, and what it is that he has prepared for us to do in those circumstances.

So what?

Things that as I prepared I felt that God was wanting to do this morning, to which people would be given the opportunity to respond and to be prayed-with at the end of the service:

Those with a particular sense of something they have been telling themselves that is hindering them from following Jesus as closely as they want to, and who want to ‘throw off’ that thing – the Holy Spirit wants to help! (For me, the thing I have needed to throw off is the belief that I can’t make a difference here because I am only passing through).

Those whose circumstances are such that they feel they can’t get close to Jesus, who need to be lifted up into his presence.

Those who recognise that it is a long time since joy was a regular part of their experience of following Jesus. Not those going through a right and proper season of grieving; but those who have lost their sense of joy, and need to be strengthened again.

Birthday Boy

Elijah turns 7 today. What a gift he is to our family!

Us And Them

According to the "independent think-tank" the Centre for Social Justice (tag-line: Putting social justice at the heart of British politics), there are Five Pathways to Poverty. These, especially potent where two or more combine, are:

Family Breakdown
Educational Failure
Economic Dependency and Worklessness
Addiction
Serious Personal Debt

These are, indeed, serious issues facing Britain today, in need of consideration. But far from putting social justice at the heart of British politics, the Centre for Social Justice policy papers reinforce social injustice by refusing to recognise the role of income inequality - the five pathways, even in combination, are found across the socio-economic spectrum, with varying impact - and by failing to challenge demonstrably false popular perceptions concerning those in poverty (see the Truth and Lies about Poverty Report by the joint Public Issues Team of the Baptist, Methodist and United Reformed Churches; and the CSJ response).

How are these five "Pathways" presented in public rhetoric, by politicians and the press?

When family breakdown occurs in a working-class setting, it is presented as evidence of fecklessness - and not only the fecklessness of the individuals concerned, but of an entire sub(human)-culture - and feral behaviour (as if the under-class grab opportunistic sex but the middle-class don't).

When family breakdown occurs in a middle-class setting, he might be a [insert expletive of your choice], or they grew apart, or such is the pressure of modern life, or it was a mutual decision without fault or blame, or it was very sad but we don't talk about it and of course everyone is entitled to a second chance (if we know them, or people like them). In any case, it does not reflect the broken values of a sub-culture, such as putting work before family or individual freedom before sacrificial commitment to others. And if, as the Centre for Social Justice asserts, family (as opposed to, say, the media) is where we learn the values that make us good citizens - where "we should learn unconditional love, understand right from wrong, and gain empathy, respect and self-regulation" - then it needs to be pointed out that the families - broken or otherwise - that the financial traders who brought down the economy came from were middle-class.

When educational failure occurs in a working-class setting, it is presented as evidence of lack of aspiration (a moral failing - and nothing to do with the lack of employment opportunities to aspire to), and probably evidence of a bred absence of aptitude, a community simply incapable of embracing the opportunity held out to them. Or it is a failure to provide "the gateway to social mobility" - a way out from being working-class to becoming middle-class.

When educational failure to meet expectations occurs in a middle-class setting, we get children assessed for additional support, or criticise teachers, or pay for private tuition, in order to give children the best possible chance of a university place that will saddle them with debt and not, without further training (and debt), give entry into employment. And while we prize aspiration, we don't interrogate our aspirations: if the height of our aspiration is to be rich, to accumulate possessions without needing to think twice, to be consumers-without-equal, our aspirations perpetuate social injustice on a global scale. Education does not transform us; it increases our capacity to impact the lives of others, for good or ill.

When economic dependency and worklessness occur in a working-class setting, it is presented as evidence of fecklessness, of scrounging, of an offensive sense of entitlement: "passed from generation to generation like a family business" with the collusion of welfare. Leaving aside those who have been entitled to support from the welfare budget (whether they have claimed it or not) because they are in employment which is low paid (and we will have to leave them aside, as they don't fit our picture) this is 'clear' because many communities had high employment during the boom years. There is no need to take into account an uneven distribution of employment. Those on incapacity benefit are a drain on resources - most are faking it. Benefit fraud (tiny) is endemic among the poor (of course, white collar fraud - much higher - is not presented as being representative of the middle-class as a whole; and, in particular, MPs who made fraudulent claims were in no way representative of Members of Parliament).

When economic dependency and worklessness occur in a middle-class setting, we hold out as especially virtuous the mother who stays at home with her pre-school children or the pensioner (pensioners account for almost half of the Welfare budget) who didn't fight in the War for the ungrateful shirkers we see today. When a middle-class man is made redundant and cannot find work, when his self-worth is eroded and his family home faces repossession, this is lamentable (at best; often hidden, by shame); but it is not evidence of a bigger picture that includes the unaccountability of global corporations, or the unsustainability of middle-class aspirations. When young adults from wealthy homes don't work, we say that they don't yet know what they want to be (spoiled for choice!).

When addiction occurs in a working-class setting, it is presented as evidence of self-destruction, of opting-out, of mis-using money. No matter what they might be opting-out of.

When addiction occurs in a middle-class setting, it is acceptable - recreational, a symbol of excess money; or self-medication, saving the NHS on prescription anti-depressants - or hidden. A rite-of-passage, addressed by rehab. A small problem, involving a very few individuals - not an entire under-class, where "Such abuse remains a shocking feature of life in many disadvantaged neighbourhoods and it entrenches poverty." Not an indictment on the emptiness of our values (why would someone opt-out of 'having it all'?).

When serious personal debt occurs in a working-class setting, it is presented as evidence of spending on the wrong things - why should they have a wide-screen TV (like I do)? (Let's ignore the thought that a TV is just about the cheapest form of entertainment and access to news available to us.) Why should they want what they see us have, but they can't afford? (Let's ignore the thought that we can't afford it either, but we just put it on the credit card.) Such debt is self-inflicted: it has nothing to do with income inequality, with spiralling costs of utility bills (with the worst tariffs for those who pay on a meter) and food (again, most expensive for those who can't bulk buy and freeze), or exploitation.

When serious personal debt occurs in a middle-class setting, it is not that we over-extended ourselves and lived beyond our means, but that life is expensive and that the European Union brought the economy down; while supporting those who haven't worked as hard as us is preventing our quick return to the lifestyle we deserve. "We're all in this together" but we are the ones having to pay the biggest price, and that is hardly fair.

There are no easy answers. As the Archbishop of Canterbury found out when he spoke out against loans given with excessive interest, we are often unintentionally and unknowingly complicit in systems of poverty: the Church of England's investment portfolio for its own pension provision included investment in the very loan company he had singled-out. This, of course, does not negate his argument; but shows how complex the situation we find ourselves in is. Change will require making potentially costly changes to our own lives. There is no room for self-justification, and the Church will get to lead the way.

I am not anti- middle-class, in some perverse rejection of my own background. I am not seeking to stereotype a whole middle-class; but to point out that we make one set of value-judgements about the poor and another altogether about the wealthy (not that we consider ourselves to be wealthy) - in relation to the same five indexes. It is very easy to pass judgement on people who are not like us, in ways we would never dream of passing judgement on people like us. And prejudice alongside self-righteousness leads to the making of scapegoats.

I am opposed to the large and growing gulf - not only in income, but also in understanding - between the wealthiest and the poorest in our society. I believe that every culture and sub-culture includes values to be affirmed, and assumptions to be confronted, by the uncompromising person of Jesus, who holds truth and grace together. Becoming middle-class will not save working-class people - it hasn't saved the middle-class! And I believe we need one another, not least so that 'our' values are questioned by 'them.'

Relational poverty (family breakdown), intellectual poverty (educational failure), physical poverty (addiction; worklessness) and financial poverty (serious personal debt; economic dependency and worklessness) are consequences of spiritual poverty: a poverty of justice, yes; of mercy, of compassion, of generosity, of imagination; of love of God and of our own group and of those who live alongside us who belong to a different group just the same as we love ourselves; of the ability to achieve even the good we want to achieve in our own strength - a poverty that exists in each and every one of us.

That is why our starting-point must be recognition of our own poverty, and need for God's forgiveness and transformation of our lives.

Almighty and most merciful Father, we have wandered and strayed from your ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against your holy laws. We have left undone those things that we ought to have done; and we have done those things that we ought not to have done; and there is no health in us. But you, O Lord, have mercy upon us sinners. Spare those who confess their faults. Restore those who are penitent, according to your promises declared to humankind in Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake, that we may live a disciplined, righteous and godly life, to the glory of your holy name. Amen.

Feast Of St James

On the morning of the Feast of St James, I awoke to the news that at least 78 people have died when a train approaching Santiago de Compostela yesterday left the rails.

Santiago de Compostela, in northern Spain, is considered to be the resting place of St James' remains, at the end of El Camino de Santiago, the Way of St James pilgrim route. Today, the city should be filled with pilgrims, celebrating the patron saint of pilgrims; remembering before God their own journey not only to the cathedral of St James but the bigger journey through life; remembering before God those who have journeyed alongside them and gone ahead; pausing to give thanks and to rededicate themselves before setting out again, on the journey home, on the onward journey through life.

Today, the city should be filled with pilgrims, those who know that life is not a stroll in the park, that it takes discipline, and camaraderie, to keep going; and yet who know that we are rewarded with unmerited gifts, breath-taking beauty, the kindness of strangers. Those who have thankful hearts, and calloused hands and feet.

Today, Santiago de Compostela will experience all this; but subdued, mourning and joy hand-in-hand. For 78 people, their pilgrimage is ended, not in Santiago but with St James himself, waiting within the love of God for the restoration of all things. More of their fellow travellers may yet join them. People who waved loved ones behind and set out from home, not to return. People who travelled with loved ones, only to go on before them.

Today is a reminder that we do not know when our earthly pilgrimage will end. It may be tomorrow, or around many more bends on the Way. For those who, with St James, follow in the footsteps of Jesus, death is not our end; but when heaven and earth are made new, and reconciled, we shall no longer be pilgrims: we shall be citizens, at home.

If we are to journey, as those who do not know when or where our journey will end, we must go lightly - quick to bless others and entrust them to God's care; quick to ask forgiveness where we have caused offence, and to forgive where others have offended us. We will need a staff to lean on and a water-bottle, to be refilled regularly at wayside wells: images of the empowering and life-giving Holy Spirit, and of our need for Spirit-led rhythms of activity and rest. And we will need the humility to trust ourselves, under God, to the hospitality of those we do not know.

May the Feast of St James nourish you on your pilgrimage. St James, pray for us.

Feast of St Mary Magdalene

Today is the feast of Mary Magdalene.

Mary was one of Jesus' disciples. We tend to think of Jesus having twelve, male disciples; but twelve was a symbolic number, full of meaning in relation to God constituting a people, creating community, and 'the Twelve' were a symbolic statement at the heart of a wider group, including several women.

Jesus' understanding of the call on his life was to bind up the broken-hearted and set the captive free. Mary had experienced this first-hand, when Jesus liberated her from the affliction of seven demons. Seven - like twelve - was a symbolic number: the number of perfection, totality, completion. 'Seven' demons probably shouldn't be thought of as 'more than six but less than eight,' but, rather, as indicating that her life was so thoroughly oppressed by the sheer cruelty of the satan (Accuser) and those spiritual beings in rebellion against God, impacting every sphere of her life - physical, mental, emotional - that no one else could set her free. This calls for caution: while demonic activity is clearly indicated, we should not assume that Mary was 'possessed,' or that her problems were the consequence of a 'sinful' life.

Having experienced Jesus' mission, Mary - along with other women - joined it, participating in and helping to finance the team (not 'the men get to play, and the women get to play a supporting role' but 'women get to play and to be stakeholders in the team'). She was there at the foot of the cross as Jesus died, abandoned by all but one of 'the Twelve.' And she was the first person Jesus appeared to, following his resurrection: the person he chose to entrust with telling the others that he had risen. The men accused her of talking nonsense.

The Early Church Fathers called Mary the Apostle to the Apostles, honouring her with recognition. A woman given the highest responsibility among those sent out by Jesus to multiply his life-work.

The Mediaeval Church painted Mary (quite literally, in religious art) in a different light: as the (barely) repentant (and barely covered) prostitute. There is no evidence for such an assertion to be found in the Gospel accounts; but the propaganda job was devastatingly comprehensive. The consequence was to objectify Mary: ironically, the woman who was set free from oppression by Jesus found herself oppressed by his Church - pin-up to lust over with a clear conscience...

In airbrushing out a woman fully involved in Jesus' life-work, the covenant relationship and kingdom role that opened for Mary was closed for other women: the best they could aspire to was pure virgin after Mary the mother of Jesus; the second-best, forgiven sinner after Mary M.

Mary's feast calls for a bitter-sweet menu. A day to remember before God all those misrepresented by the Church; a day to listen again to those whose claim to have experienced the risen Lord Jesus we dismiss, unwilling to believe it possible that Jesus has spoken to them what he has not spoken to us; a day to ask of ourselves whether we are participating in Jesus' mission to bind up the broken-hearted and set the captives free, or whether, ironically, we are binding-up what Jesus would set free. If the Church is to have anything to say to the world, we need our feasts, reminders of our own calling.

Mary Magdalene, pray for us.

(Why would an evangelical say such a thing? Because I take seriously our oneness with the cloud of witnesses who surround us, stand with us, inspire us, recall for us what we in our own struggles have forgotten, and yes, pray for us asking, how long O Lord?)

Feast Of St Thomas

Today is the feast of St Thomas, one of 'the twelve' disciples.

Thomas is identified as one of this group in all four Gospels, but only has a speaking part in John's account. He is, of course, most famously labelled (by later generations) as the Doubter, the one who, not being present when Jesus first appeared to the gathered group of disciples after his resurrection, refused to believe that Jesus was alive unless he too shared the same experience of meeting him. There is, of course, a difference between expressing doubt and being Doubting: Jesus challenges Thomas' doubt and invites belief, a more gracious approach than others. One might as well label Peter 'Satan' or any one of us according to our bad days...

Thomas also speaks up at the meal Jesus shared with his disciples on the night he was betrayed. Jesus had spoken about going to the Father, and the disciples knowing the way to the place where he was going. Thomas replies, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way? Jesus then claims to be the way: they knew the way, without knowing that they knew it. Philip joins Thomas in asking further questions of what Jesus meant. Indeed, honest questions are a mark of discipleship, of wanting to learn more than we already know (or don't realise we know - in contrast to the attitude that believes we are already in the know).

But Thomas first speaks up as Jesus sets out to go to the tomb of his friend Lazarus. Thinking Lazarus to be merely ill, the disciples think Jesus misguided in going to him: after all, the last time he was in Jerusalem - and Bethany is not far from Jerusalem - a crowd tried to murder him by stoning. But when Jesus reveals that Lazarus is dead, and in these circumstances Jesus wishes to go to him, Thomas says to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him." or as NT Wright puts it, "'Let's go too,' he said. 'We may as well die with him.'"

There is an ambiguity about these words. Is Thomas saying, Let us [disciples] go too [with Jesus]; we [disciples] may as well die with him [Jesus]...or is he saying, Let us [disciples] go too [with Jesus]; we [Jesus and the disciples] may as well die with him [Lazarus]?

The first may be courageous (though if it is, Thomas' courage will fail him): if we die, we die; what would we have to live for without Jesus anyway? Jesus is going to be killed, sooner or later: let us not abandon him in his hour of need!

The second is resigned. The grave is the end: we might as well all embrace it. Weary, not courageous.

In which case, Lazarus being brought back to life (not resurrection: Lazarus will go on to die a second time) is a signpost that the grave is not the end...resuscitating Thomas too, and spurring his quest for taking the unknown way, the way into the unknown. A way that, according to tradition, would take him all the way to southern India.

So what? Why celebrate St Thomas? And how might we celebrate St Thomas?

Thomas is ambiguous. He creates space for the person who is ready to take the whole world on, and for the person who is weary of this world. He creates room for the person setting off on a journey, and the person coming to the end of a journey. He marks space for restoration, for re-awakening, for what looks like the end opening up to a whole new adventure.

Thomas knows more than he thinks he knows, not thinks he knows more than he knows. He may lack information, but every time we encounter him he expresses the desire to be close to Jesus. He does not hide behind a mask out of fear of looking foolish.

We could do worse than learn from Thomas. And we might celebrate with him by sharing, around the table, where our story connects with his. Feast days come round every year, because our stories will connect to those of the saints in different ways at different times: this year, you may be weary; next year, adventurous...

And for those of my friends who are part of the church family of whom St Thomas is patron, further opportunity, to ask: are we appropriately open, or overly rigid? are we still learning, or overly certain? is our desire to be close to Jesus? are we open to challenge and invitation?

The Household Of Peace : Part 3

I have been reflecting on the household of peace.*

But I haven't been talking about it with my children, yet.

As I put my six-year-old to bed tonight, he starting singing a song that had "come into the centre of [his] head." It went:

"We have a visitor. His name is Jesus. He asks for peace...and love."

That boy is the best theologian in the house.

* Part 1 here

* Part 2 here

The Household Of Peace : Part 2

I'm continuing to reflect on Luke 10, a passage which has received particular prominence within the missional church as Jesus' (timeless?) model for mission.

This passage is a particular moment within a bigger Story. I'd suggest that the Story be framed like this: of all the households on earth, God chooses the household of Abraham through which to bless all households.

God, in the visible form of three persons, goes on a journey and comes to the door of Abraham's tent, to an extended family of blood- and non-blood relations, nomadic herdsmen. And there, they receive a welcome, are shown hospitality, in marked contrast to the lack of hospitality shown them by the people of the cities of the plain.

Abraham's family are incredulous to the message brought to them, of God breaking-in to their lives, even though it is not an entirely unfamiliar word. Abraham's family are creative in their disobedience, in trying to bring about their own interpretation and fulfilment of God's plan. Abraham's family get themselves into various troubles - divisions within, deceit in their relations with others. And yet. And yet, Abraham's household has welcomed God's messenger; and God works with and through that: he does not go from house to house.

From then on, we see a recurring pattern. Abraham's household (which grows through the generations) is to be a house of peace; and out from that household, certain members will be sent out to other households, to extend that peace where it is welcomed. So Joseph ends up in first Potiphar's and later Pharoah's household. So David takes for his capital the City of Peace. So God sends prophets to Abraham's household again and again, when the household forgot its calling. So Nehemiah and Esther and Daniel, among others, find themselves serving a the heart of households of Empire.

And these stories don't have Happily Ever After endings: they are stories of divine rescue, of peace triumphing over hostility, of life triumphing over death...but not for ever. These stories have a localised place and a limited scope, within a larger Story. Joseph's life-saving rule in Egypt gives way to the oppression Moses must lead the people out from under.

Within this Story, Jesus sends out disciples to search out households of peace. Within this Story, in which the household of Abraham has been divided and (repeatedly) conquered, Jesus is sent to call the household back to its own calling: to be agents of peace in the world.

As the Story continues to unfold, beyond Jesus' death and resurrection and ascension, the same pattern continues. Abraham's household - into which the Gentiles have now been incorporated - is to be a household of peace, made up of households of peace, from which some will be sent into other households of peace in order to extend peace. And, again, these stories have a place: a time and a space.

Missional church thinking tends to view Christendom as a massive defeat from which the Church, in the West, has yet to recover. Accepting that this may be polemic, I'd want to say that Christendom was a continuation of the Story of Abraham's household - an incredulous, disobedient, divided, deceitful household that nonetheless God has committed to and will not abandon; through which God has brought about triumphs of peace over hostility, albeit not yet the universal and with-out end reign of peace. Within this part of the Story, the Church has nurtured peace, blessed and been blessed by peace-makers; and has regularly needed to be called back to that calling, having forgotten it. And the story of the Church post-Christendom will be a continuation of that same Story...

What implications does this have for us?

If Luke 10 is to be taken as model for mission (and I think that it is), then:

the household - a gathered social unit that is bigger than the nuclear, let alone atomic, family - is central. This is an extended household of peace working together, strategically, to identify and encourage other households of peace. We will see this in the way Paul works too, as he imitates Jesus;

the household does this in the context of telling and participating in the Story of a God who called a particular household through which to bless every household. They are going up to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, to remember how after God used Abraham's household to bless the surrounding nations through Egypt, he liberated them from the subsequent captivity that prevented them from carrying on that role at another given time. We see this too - retelling the past, participating in the present - in the way Paul works, as well as in the model Jesus sets;

the household of peace in search of households of peace is not perfect: it hasn't arrived yet (pardon the pun). It is made up of squabbling siblings who vie for best place and fall into the trap of relating to other households as a household of hostility, not peace. And yet this is the household Jesus gathers and sends out. Again, we see this imperfection - by which I mean at times total contradiction - in the households of peace Paul was a father to;

the synergy of two households of peace coming together - in passing - results in a breakthrough for peace in the wider community, expressed in a variety of tangible ways. But this breakthrough is for a particular episode in the Story. Some episodes go wider and are sustained for longer than others; some are very localised; but all are a small part in the Story, the Great Drama;

'sent-ness' is not a matter of permanently being on the move (Jesus wasn't; Paul certainly wasn't) but participates in receiving others (as host) and going out as those who are dependent on the hospitality of others (as guest). One is embedded; one is transitory (and each might be a better fit for particular types of person; though all are called to both). The one is just as 'sent,' is as much an expression of the missio dei or mission of God in the world, as the other.

The Household Of Peace

I'm preaching this Sunday. The Gospel reading is from Luke chapter 10.

As a backdrop, we are in the Season of Trinity, and, drawing on Rublev's icon, we are reminded that:

the Holy Spirit is our guide and companion in the wilderness, leading us to experience hospitality in a place that, at first glance, would appear inhospitable;

Jesus is our peace and our portion, the tree of life we sit under when enemies have been transformed into friends, when we find joy in what we have and rejoice with others in what they have;

the Father's presence is the home from which we started out, and to which we shall return, our beginning and our end, our commissioning and our being made complete.

In Luke's account, we hear that Jesus has set his intention on going to Jerusalem (chapter 9), knowing that he will be killed there. Setting out, he travels through Samaria. The Samaritans were the descendants of those who had not been carried off into exile in Assyria (the northern kingdom of Israel, of which Samaria was the capital) or the later exile in Babylonia (the southern kingdom of Judah). That diverged experience - Jewish belief being shaped massively by the devastating experience of exile, and return; Samaritan belief being less obviously but nonetheless significantly shaped by the disorienting experience of living in the wake of Babylonian invasion - had resulted in disagreements fostered over generations, as parents passed on prejudice and grievance to their children.

According to John, Jesus has passed through Samaria in the past (and spoken about a harvest, as he does here in Luke 10), and been received by a village as he journeyed away from Jerusalem. But on this occasion, he is heading towards Jerusalem, and for this reason the first village he comes to does not want to receive him. As he continues, a few are drawn to follow him even to Jerusalem - a costly decision for those villagers, as their neighbours have sent Jesus on his way without hospitality for this very thing - and Jesus makes it clear that they will be dependent on the hospitality of strangers, not the resources of next-of-kin.

Jesus is travelling with a fairly large group, heading together to Jerusalem for the Passover. (We have seen Jesus do this before, as a boy, in Luke chapter 2.) And Jesus sends others out ahead of him, to prepare the way. He sends them out in pairs (for company and security), but between them they are looking for welcome for a large group of pilgrims. Jewish pilgrims, in Samaria.

Jesus tells them to look for the household of peace, the household that will welcome people who are culturally different. In the context of households of hostility. Literally, find the household that is shaped by a desire to see reconciliation rather than a desire to perpetuate division - people who can see what we have in common, because they are not focused on our differences. If they are present in a community, they shouldn't be hard to spot! And if they are present in a community, they will open the door of the wider community.

Jesus also makes it clear that where we choose to hold on to our differences, over God's mission of reconciliation, we will eventually seal our own destruction. The Jews were on a collision-course with Rome; and the Romans would not concern themselves with the niceties of how the Samaritans weren't Jews when they lost patience and underlined their rule in war of 66-73AD. Jesus foresees the devastation of the northern campaign of the Great Revolt (in Galilee), along with the impact on Judea (which included Samaria), and the destruction of Jerusalem.

Those Jesus sends out return. Their experience has been joyful: where they have found households committed to peace, the hold darkness and death has on a community has had to surrender ground. And while they were confronting the demonic, Jesus himself had been given a vision of the prince of demons, the Accuser, thrown down from heaven. This figure is shadowy, but it would seem that this angelic being had the role of bringing to humanity's attention our need for God's mercy, but had overstepped that prosecution role, taking for himself the part of judge, jury and executioner. The Accuser being thrown out underlines the agenda of heaven, to establish peace.

What, then, has this to do with a community shaped by this text?

Where do we find ourselves in this account?

Are we those sent ahead of Jesus, to search-out a welcome not only for ourselves, not only for him, but for those travelling with him?

What would such a welcome look like? Are we open to receiving such a welcome, to the vulnerability of being guest not host?

And if we are a pilgrim people, what is the journey we are on? A journey, with Jesus, to celebrate God's great acts of rescue in the past, and, so trusting in this God, to lay down our own lives?

Are we a household? And if so, are we a household - or households - committed to peace? Will we welcome the person Jesus sends to us, who does not look like us, who does not share our traditions, our beliefs, our experiences - of being in exile; of never having experienced exile - which gave birth and nurture to those beliefs?

Or are we a household committed to division, to What Makes Us Right And Them Wrong?

Where have we been committed to division between ourselves and another group? Where do we need to repent or (if we refuse to repent,) perish?

Are we willing to journey with the Holy Spirit, from 'joy' to being 'full of joy'? To share in the Son, our peace and our portion, our identity (v 16) and our authority (v 19)? To live in the present as echo of our past and foretaste of our future in the Father's home?

Where do we find ourselves, in this account, today?