Genesis 2

Genesis 1 is concerned with the power of words to shape environments (where else could a story, a sense-making collection of words, begin?). In Genesis 2, God rolls up his sleeves and gets his hands dirty. If there is a Creation Story in Genesis, perhaps this is it. Although even this story is not so much concerned with how God created human beings, as with what it means to be human. With the human condition.

But first, God rests – and all creation with him. That is to say, everything is in harmony with everything else – not, nothing is doing anything. Only under such conditions will life flourish – and it does, effortlessly. All is as it should be.

Within this world, a world that has gone through cataclysmic upheaval followed by the release of life that cannot be quenched by destruction, God plants a garden, and within the garden establishes two particular trees. One relates to life, the other to the knowledge of good and evil. These two trees stand in testament to what has happened and to God’s response. According to the story, the fruit of every tree has been given by God to be food for all the animals and birds.

A river flows out from the cradle of life, to water the garden. This river divides to form four new rivers, each of which represents early human ‘civilisations’ or organised societies. The river is more than a geographical observation.

In this context we hear about the origins of the human. According to the story that is unfolding, we are made from the dust of the ground. Earthlings. This is incredibly significant. Already in the stories being told, we have heard about dry land. The land was overwhelmed by water, by chaos, by the different elements of creation breaking-out of their God-allotted place in the order of things. The earth was completely saturated by water. And then it was drawn out again. Restored.

The earthling, then, is made from God’s action to set creation free – the very role the earthling was set free to carry on. Everything necessary to sustain the earthling has been provided. But God instructs this creature not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Why would God do that? What is implied is that such knowledge will be too much, at least for now, for the one creature appointed to set creation free to bear. For now it is enough that it is nourished by the tree of life.

Liberals believe that human beings are fundamentally good, but trapped in corrupt systems from which they must be set free. Conservatives believe that human beings are fundamentally bad (at least post events that will take place in the next chapter), and need paternal figures who create good systems to constrain them. Both are partially right; and both miss more than they comprehend.

According to the story that is unfolding, human beings are, of their essential nature, composed of material that has been created, overwhelmed by chaos, and set free again. We are, by our essential nature, liable to be overwhelmed again, and yet we are enlivened by God for the very purpose of continual restoration of whatever may be encroached upon.

That is what it means to be human.

The story goes on to reveal what human relationships are meant to look like. It starts with an earthling – the adam – which is neither male nor female. And God decides that the creature needs a helper as a partner. We think of a helper as subordinate, and we think of adam as male (the male will take the name Adam), and so we assume that the story is telling us that women are subordinate to men. The earliest surviving words used to tell this story at this point don’t allow that possibility. They paint the picture of a corresponding deliverer or warrior. Corresponding – as in the two banks of one river – implies that whatever the new creature is – a deliverer, or warrior; the same term, which we often translate ‘helper’, will be used of God before the story is done – the adam already is.

This earthling is subsequently torn in two by God (don’t think a delicate operation involving the removal of one rib), to make two parts that fit together – just as when I break a Communion wafer in two, I can hold the two halves together and they fit.

Far from a story that places women in subordination to men, the story creates male and female in the same action (as already revealed in chapter 1) and places them side-by-side as warriors who will fight, together. The nature of their fight has already been told us: to fight to set creation free.

Genesis 1

Just about every ancient culture has its Creation Story, explaining how the world came into being.

The one that came to be written down in Genesis is but-a-breath long:

‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.’

That’s it. There is no interest in how God created. It is simply a given.

The next story is similarly brief:

‘Now, the earth became a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.’

Something catastrophic has happened to the earth. Again, there are no details. It is another given. From our perspective, we might fill-in the blank with massive meteor impact, seas overwhelming land, the sun obscured by a massive dust cloud. Something physical has taken place. And in the Bible, physical things are very often signs pointing to spiritual things. But, for now, whatever has occurred, and its spiritual significance, is simply a given.

Intriguingly, a wind sent from God sweeps over the waters. We are not told whether the wind is responsible the catastrophe, or not.

Having set the scene with two short stories, the third story is where the story-teller really gets going. The third story – which we assume is the first story, a Creation Story – is the story of God’s response to this thing that has happened to his creation.

God moves, in a series of acts, to restore equilibrium to the world. To re-establish the sky and the sea and the land as distinct environments in which a diversity of life can emerge.

This work culminates with the making of the first human beings. They are made in God’s image, to be like God. They are commissioned and resourced to carry on the work that God has done: not, primarily, of creating – though the human will turn out to be creative – but of setting creation free, of bringing order out of chaos, life out of death.

Bible Stories

Recently I’ve been thinking about ways in which to help people grow in understanding of the stories collected in the Bible, and the Story that unfolds for us there. I can’t imagine a story-by-story telling from beginning to end, but I thought I’d start out in the earliest chapters (1-11) of Genesis, because they are foundational, and see where that takes us. I will file these posts under the heading ‘Bible’ on the side-bar of my blog.

But first, two things to bear in mind:

The Bible is a collection of stories, which together build up a bigger story, or tradition of story-telling. By story, I don’t mean the Modern category of fiction. But I do mean that the Bible is primarily a narrative – and not an instruction manual, for example. I do mean that the words the story-tellers use are carefully chosen, beautifully crafted, that certain details are set aside [there is one point, in the Gospel According to John, where this is made explicit, the story-teller telling us that if he included everything he might have included, the world itself would not be big enough to contain all the words] while others are chosen – or set apart from all the possible words – in order to convey something in particular.

And by story I also mean that words have multiple layers of meaning: that the occurrence of ‘river’ might signify a physical water-feature, but that river – or tree, or land, or sea, or pretty much everything for that matter – also has a symbolic meaning. Story does not simply record events, but attributes meaning to events. Story asks, what is actually going on, when something is going on? And story answers the question by drawing the listener deeper into story, not by resolving itself.

The other thing to bear in mind is that the stories collected in the Bible are stories told by people, located in particular circumstances in particular moments in history. They are human stories, not stories dictated by God, or an angel. And as such, they are concerned with the particular things that the people who told the stories were concerned about. That is to say, there are a great many things that the Bible is not concerned with. It makes a fairly useless medical text book, for example. The Bible is not the be-all-and-end-all of faith-full story-telling. But it does give us a tradition to speak faithful words from. And words – as every story-teller knows – create worlds.

'72nd Birthday

(photos by my daughter, Susannah)

Red And White (Not Black-and-White)

Tomorrow, and on the Eleventh of November, I shall be wearing two poppies:

the red poppy, dating from the early 1920s, symbol of remembrance of and respect for those who died in the First World War and in every conflict since;

and the less well known white poppy, dating from the early 1930s (when it became clear to women who had lost their menfolk in the Great War that Europe was heading into war again, with the prospect of losing their men all over again), symbol of a commitment to find non-violent alternatives to conflict resolution.

These two things go hand-in-hand. While it is right to stand in silence at the loss of life, it is also right to keep quietly insisting that we work towards a global community where we do not keep sacrificing our sons and daughters in order to win our arguments.

The red poppy represents an important principle of remembrance: the act of remembrance has a particular work to achieve, and once that mission is complete, like serving forces personnel, it should be dismissed from duty with thanksgiving.

That is, the red poppy remembers all those who fell in every war since 1914-18. It draws a line: we do not include the countless fallen of the wars we have waged before that war. This is not to say that we have no knowledge of those wars, to learn from (or not). It is not to say that the loss of those lives is inconsequential.

Our forces have just withdrawn from Afghanistan, as they withdrew from Iraq before that. Their role needed a clear and limited objective, and an exit plan. It does not mean that they might not have to go back – is not a war to end all wars – but recognises that we can’t go on and on indefinitely like this.

The work of remembrance is not to keep alive the embers of hatred, so they can be fanned into flame at a moment’s notice. (This is why it is so disturbing to see the red poppy co-opted by extreme nationalists.) It is to work towards reconciliation: opposing enemies were united in death, and veterans are united in respect. Once reconciliation has been achieved, or can be better pursued in other expressions of friendship, active remembrance needs to be discharged. We no longer actively remember a long list of wars.

It is right that we still formally remember the First World War. Remembrance has not yet completed its work. But it is also right that, at some point beyond the centenary commemorations – and, I would suggest, before the 200 anniversary – we should let go. And, in time, each war since.

‘Never forget’ has not held us back from going to war, as was once hoped, and so quickly shown wrong. ‘Forgive, and no longer bring to mind’ is God’s response to our failure to love one another.

As, for now, we look back, let us commit ourselves to peace.

At Sixes And Sevens With You

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then, the whining school-boy with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then, a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then, the justice,
In fair round belly, with a good capon lined,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws, and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

William Shakespeare, As You like It, Act II, Scene VII

Men and women move through stages of life. And this is as true of communities as it is of individuals. Think of a neighbourhood, or a city, or a local church. To borrow from Shakespeare’s insight, they start out with the dependency and mess of infants; must learn certain core lessons from those who are further along; consider themselves special, and perhaps misunderstood; go in search of adventure, and reputation; consider themselves one from whom others can learn; shift into decline, becoming a shadow of their former self; lose need of, and use for, reputation.

Some, who care about the church, worry that the church as we know it will have died, in the West, within a generation. Others dispute that idea. I would suggest that both are wrong. The local church progresses through a cycle of life, death, and rebirth. It always has, and it always will. The church as we know it, at any moment in time, is playing a part; and if we will commit to one community over a long length of time, we will experience the changing seasons. On a regular basis, in big-picture terms, any local church dies, and a new local church rises from its tomb – and the people who make up that church at that time experience the pain of decline and death and the mess of new life – a new life that might be as unrecognisable as the resurrected Jesus, with only the marks of his suffering to identify him.

It seems to me that the temptation of the missional movement within the Church – a passion with which I identify, and a network within which I participate – is to believe that a healthy Church would always look like youthful energy and confidence, and to see churches that are moving through the sixth and seventh Acts of life – whose energy and capacity is failing – as failures.

And it seems to me that such a view would be more conformed to our wider society, with its obsession with youthful vitality and vigour, and attempts to reverse the aging process at all costs, than it has to do with being conformed to the mind of Christ.

The lesson we need to learn is that the God who is faithful in the mess and vulnerability of infancy; and in the stubbornness of childhood; and in the self-absorption of adolescence; and in the naïve confidence of young adulthood; and in the limited wisdom and far wider folly of maturity; is also faithful in the humbling shrinking of aging, and in the mess and vulnerability of dying.

We are invited to discover God’s faithfulness in every stage of communal life, by responding to the invitation and the challenge to be faithful to God and to one another through every stage of communal life.

Each changing season comes with its difficulties to be faced, requires re-ordering life. But there are things beyond all we could ask or imagine to every stage, things that we can only receive in their rightful Act.

We need to learn our parts in Acts 6 and 7, learn to bring these lines to life with sensitivity.

This, too, is something we might reflect on between All Saints and Advent.

One Year On

Today is the first anniversary of our moving to Sunderland.

A day to pause, to look back, and to look forward.

Not a day to put down many words, but a day that needs to be marked, nonetheless.

Today is the first anniversary of our moving to Sunderland.

Remember, Remember [Recycled Post]

“Remember, remember the fifth of November

The Gunpowder Treason and plot.

I know of no reason why Gunpowder Treason

Should ever be forgot.”

So runs the traditional children’s rhyme. Though, as a child, I always got in a terrible muddle between the fifth of November and the ninth of November, the latter being my birthday…

[I first posted these reflections back in 2006, but] Bonfire Night is incredibly relevant to our post 9/11 world, and should indeed never be forgot.

On November 5th 1605, Guy Fawkes was discovered in a cellar beneath the Houses of Parliament in London. The cellar was filled with barrels of gunpowder, with which Roman Catholic conspirators intended to assassinate King James I and the members of the House of Lords and House of Commons at the formal opening of the 1605 Parliament. The plot had been formed in response to the hard line taken by James I against Roman Catholicism, most likely after it became clear that Catholic Spain was embroiled in too many concerns of its own to come to the aid of England’s Catholics. The plot came to light when a conspirator, uneasy that fellow Catholics would die in the blast, wrote to a member of the House of Lords telling him to stay away that day; but the ringleaders discovered this ‘treason,’ and some historians believe Fawkes was set up, buying time for those more culpable to escape. Traditionally the failed Gunpowder Plot is remembered each year with bonfires, on which an effigy of Fawkes – the Guy – is burnt, and with fireworks, symbolizing the explosion that never happened.

An English population among which there lived a religious minority treated with suspicion and facing discrimination; a cell of militants within that community who saw violent revolution as the only hope for change…the events of 1605 feel all too contemporary. What might we learn, standing outside in the freezing cold November darkness?

Firstly, Bonfire Night reminds us that violent revolution is not the way to go about change – not only because it is morally wrong, but also because it is in fact counter-productive. Bonfire Night deconstructs terrorism as a means to an end; highlights the dilemma of those ‘on your own side’ dying; calls into question the brotherhood of the cell…

…But Bonfire Night does not commemorate a black-and-white victory of right over wrong; a ‘reasonable,’ ‘enlightened,’ ‘fundamentally good’ way of living as society, successfully resisting its opposite. Bonfire Night deconstructs such a naïve view, too. In many ways James I needed challenging – and, ironically, was regularly challenged by the politicians who would have died with him; and the following torture, trial, and high-profile executions of men who certainly weren’t the ring-leaders, draws the justice of retaliation to terror into question. The flames of Guy’s pyre cast light and shadows on our faces that speak of the light and shadows in our hearts; and as we stare upon the effigy of a burning Catholic, we might just feel the uncomfortable heat of our own prejudices, exposed.

I don’t know how history will judge us. There are aspects of my society that I believe are wrong; and, I am sure, aspects of my society that are wrong which I am blind to. Not only because it is still so contemporary, but also because the world is so complex, the four-hundred-year-old tradition of Bonfire Night ought to be celebrated, with a bang.

All Saints : All Souls : Part Three

All Saints’ celebrates the unlikely heroes of the Church. Hand-in-hand with this goes All Souls’, which commemorates those we have known personally and no longer see, because they have gone ahead of us into God’s presence.

The longer you live, the more people you will know personally who have died. As I write, I have never lost a parent, or sibling; a spouse, or parent-in-law; or a child. But I know many people who have lost several of those closest to them. And children and teenagers are not exempt from such experience: death shows no favours.

We need to help our children and teenagers face death, appropriately. Not in the way that a trained grief counsellor will work with a school after the tragic death of a pupil or teacher. I’m not thinking here of immediate aftermath responses, though we need to think through these too, of course. But by creating dependable spaces where people can mark the reality of having lost someone, perhaps by lighting a candle; can share their memories, and be listened to; can ask questions, without any guarantee of answers – and without easy answers – but with the guarantee of being listened to; and by sharing hope (which is not the same thing as answers).

The Church calls this space All Souls.

Around our building there are memorials, in stone and metal and wood, to men and women of previous generations who have worshipped God and served the community faithfully in this place – including the church warden who died in a tragic accident in the belfry, crushed between bell and tower wall; and the man praised for his ‘disinterestedness’, which, in the language of his time, meant that he showed no favouritism to prestige or power but treated everyone with equal concern, and not, as it might suggest today, that he showed no concern for anyone.

They are those who are somewhere along the journey of moving from the living memory of All Souls to the family tree of All Saints. It is a journey we will all make, in time.

Whose stories inspire us, and for what reason? In whose slip-stream do we travel?

And what stories will be told of us, in our wake?

All Saints : All Souls : Part Two

The East Window at Sunderland Minster depicts the Apostles Creed. It is a statement of faith, in word and in pictures. Jesus Christ is at the centre, of both. And in the window, he is surrounded by his first apostles, many of whom were martyred for their faith, which came to be expressed in those words. Several of them hold in their hand the instrument of their death:

Simon the Zealot, with the saw with which he was sawn in half longitudinally;

Bartholemew, with a flaying knife (he became the patron saint of surgeons);

Thomas, with a spear;

James the less, with a fuller’s club;

Philip, with a cross;

Jude, with a club;

Matthias, with a chopper;

Andrew, with a saltaire cross.

(Peter gets to carry his keys; and James the Great his scallop shell, symbol of pilgrims. But both of them were martyred, too. Matthew and John are depicted, along with the other Evangelists Mark and Luke, as Living Creatures before the throne of heaven.)

It is in parts a gory display. And yet, that is not the focus. The focus is Christ, in whose life that has conquered death, their lives – as ours – is hidden, through faith. Death cannot hold them. Violence cannot end love. Darkness cannot extinguish the light.

Also woven into the window are images representing Sunderland, and the River of Life flowing from under the Tree of Life to reach even us.

Those who look on the window, Sunday by Sunday, are testimony that the faith first professed by those apostles is still active in the world, and has been without break. Held together by the One who was dead and is now alive forevermore.

And between them and us, thick in the space where light falls through the window and throws its colour across stone pillars, many more martyrs and many, many more saints. Many more stories, of what it looks like to belong to this community, whether young or old. Yes, the stories need telling and the pictures need interpreting; and now is the time.

It isn’t a window for All Hallows’ Eve – stained glass only works when more light is coming in from outside – but for All Hallows’ Day. When darkness is spent, and must give way to the rising sun. To the risen Son.

Of course, this window is fixed in one particular building. You’re welcome to come and see it for yourself. But up and down the country, there are similar buildings where, in glass and stone, similar stories are told. Those who have ears, listen.

All Saints : All Souls : Part One

Slightly out-of-sync, because I was away for a few days at the end of last week, but this weekend just past saw All Saints’ Day – when the Church remembers the saints and martyrs whose stories of costly faith in their own day inspire us – and All Souls’ Day, or the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed – when we remember, with thanksgiving, those we have known personally who have gone ahead of us into God’s presence.

The shops have been stripped of their Halloween merchandise, to make (more) room for Christmas. But for the Church, from All Saints to the start of Advent is a four-week Season to help us engage with death well.

My observation is that churches up and down the land are engaging with Halloween by offering very young children a ‘Light Night’ alternative to a night that has become increasingly commercialised and Americanised [there is nothing wrong with American festivals, but we aren’t in America], and inappropriately frightening for the very young. But on the whole we are doing less with our teenagers, and with the junior-school age-group who aspire towards the next stage. And this Season is a gift for them.

First we should note that fantasy horror is one of the defining genres for teens (e.g. the Twilight series). This is not just coincidence, or good marketing. The zombie is the ultimate type for adolescence: a creature whose face is erupting; whose limbs are gangly and not under the full control of their owner; whose brain is experiencing a re-wiring; whose language descends into groans and grunts; who reaches out for acceptance, but seems only capable of hurting those who don’t run away. In the transition from death to childhood but not yet restoration as a healthy adult, teens identify with zombies. In the experience of feeling different, of wanting to express themselves differently, and of needing to be part of a gang or pack other than their human family, teens also identify with vampires and werewolves, and other stories of ‘ordinary’ teenagers thrown into battle against elemental forces in parallel dimensions.

And in the same way that TV dramas with a teen-life focus (e.g. The Next Step) are actually pitched at younger children, giving them an image to aspire to, so the teen genre of fantasy horror is also – and quite sensitively – being pitched at younger audiences (e.g. Wolfblood, Nowhere Boys).

Starting with Halloween, we have an opportunity to tell stories, with a high fantasy horror content (that is to say, martyrdom is real and gory, but can be told at the level that Horrible Histories pitches itself at). Stories such as St Francis embracing lepers, the zombies of their day. Or Christians hiding in the catacombs of Rome, facing death in the gladiatorial arena. To tell stories that don’t make disfigurement an object of fun or an incarnation of evil, and don’t portray violence as attractive, but that point to the disarming strength of a community of love, a community that cannot be destroyed, even by death.

Patron Saints

A while ago I posted on Facebook: ‘Today is the feast of St Denys, patron saint of France. If you haven’t already had a croissant or pain au chocolat for breakfast, why not have a baguette for lunch?’

Among the responses, one friend asked, ‘How old is the idea of a patron saint? Is it in the Bible?’ – which is a great question, deserving of a fuller answer than I could give in a comment thread.

No, patron saints aren’t explicitly referred to in the Bible, though the idea is grounded in a long history of reflection on passages such as those that describe the Church on earth being surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses encouraging us on (Hebrews 12); the martyrs interceding on behalf of the Church on earth (Revelation 6); and believers on earth being simultaneously seated with Christ in the heavenly places (Ephesians 2).

But first, we must take a step back, to consider saints (in general) and martyrs. While ‘saints’ – or, ‘made-holy ones’ – is used in Scripture to describe all believers, over time the idea of saints (sometimes capital-S ‘Saints’) came to be used to describe those whose life of faithfulness to the Lord and to his ‘body’ and ‘bride’ the Church, in the face of the particular challenges of their day, was an example to all of the out-working of holiness - what it looks like to make visible a spiritual reality. Saints are not super-Christians, but flawed-and-loved ordinary believers who might be a step ahead on the journey; those we might look to and be encouraged. They are members of our family tree, who have a particularly interesting story to be heard.

Martyrs are those who were put to death for confessing their faith. Some saints are also martyrs, while other saints died peaceably, or through illness. Not all martyrs are Saints – this because a key criterion for Saint-hood became the association with performing miracles. Saints performing miracles is a reminder to the Church that while not all perform miracles, miracles themselves are an ongoing expression of – and signpost to - the kingdom of heaven, extended on earth.

Patron saints, then, are those saints who have a particular association with:

a city, or nation - perhaps because they lived there, though perhaps by later adoption;

persons defined by a common experience, such as profession or malady – perhaps because the Saint shared that experience, or ministered to someone whose experience it was;

local churches or related communities (such as universities or hospitals, both of which have their roots in monastic traditions) – who often adopt the patron to identify with their story in some way.

What, then, might patron saints do or be for?

In Christ, patron saints are present to us. Not as restless ghosts, but as those whose lives, like ours, are hid in Christ. Christ is present, by his Spirit, and so those in Christ are present to one another. My working days begin with prayer in a chapel dedicated to Bede, in a minster dedicated to Benedict Biscop (patron saint of Sunderland). Often there are other members of the staff team or congregation present; but even if not, I am never alone. The stained glass window in front of me, with the city framed by Benedict Biscop and by Bede, reminds me that, in Christ, our prayer on earth is joined with theirs in heaven. Indeed, the faithful departed (whether Saints or saints) who surround us are arguably more faithful members of the community of prayer than those we see. And their presence connects us to both our past and our future.

Patron saints both ground and inspire our faith. Some Christians speak and act as if nothing had happened - or at least, nothing good - between the end of the book of Acts and today when, thank God, we have turned up to make things right. The stories of patron saints remind us that this is a fiction. They keep us from ignorance and arrogance, and also from the equally damaging fiction that our lives cannot make a difference in our day. They both ground and inspire us, and we can learn patterns of faithful living from their faithfulness - and their unfaithfulness too.

Patron saints intercede for us. Again, some Christians seem to believe that there is an impenetrable firewall between earth and heaven. Those who have gone before us are no longer concerned with earthly matters, being lost in wonder in the presence of God. But this would only be so if the God in whose presence they stand was utterly egotistic and uninterested in the world. Being in God’s presence is to share his heart fully. There are people who have prayed for me every day of my life, and I have no reason to believe that death will end that care. In addition, when we understand that God will not destroy the present earth but renew it, that places dear to us will carry on into eternity, death is no reason to stop caring for place, or workplace, as well as people. And we can ask them to pray for us. While some Christians claim we don't need mediators, because we can speak directly to Jesus, this is no different than asking another living person to pray for us. Yes, I can pray myself: but sometimes I am too overwhelmed to pray; and sometimes I am too closely invested in a situation to trust myself to pray impartially ‘Your will, not mine, be done’.

Christ has joined our lives together with those of the saints who have gone before us. May we live out such a life in our day, and then strengthen those who come after us with our support.

Sinners And Saints

In Christian language, the term ‘sinner’ is a theological term, which describes the human condition of being separated from God. It applies to all human beings, for those who believe that they are God’s children are as aware of not being in God’s presence as those who see God’s absence as evidence that God does not exist. Crucially, it is not a moral term: it is perfectly possible to be a morally good sinner; and, indeed, all are some of the time and many are much of the time.

In Christian language, the term ‘saint’ is a theological term, which describes the condition of having been made holy – that is, set apart for God’s use – by the person of Jesus Christ. Among Christians, some believe that it applies only to those who recognise this action on Jesus’ part; while others believe that it is his action alone, rather than his action appropriated by our recognition, that is effective. So there is some debate as to whether one can be a sinner without being a saint, or a saint without realising it; but no question that saints are simultaneously sinners. Again, and crucially, it is not a moral term: it is perfectly possible to be a morally bad saint; and, indeed, all are some of the time and many are much of the time.

We express what it means to be a sinner in particular ways. Ways that are shaped by our personality, and by our cultural context. That is to say, people of a common personality are habitually drawn to the same patterns of sinful behaviour, particular ways of hiding from God and from our neighbour and, indeed, from ourselves. Moreover, people of a common culture are drawn to particular expressions of sinful behaviour, some of which we are simply unable to recognise and some of which we simply refuse to face up to. While sin is common to humanity, no individual human is drawn to every possible expression of sin; and in those areas where we habitually struggle, sometimes overcoming and other times failing, it turns out that nobody is a very original sinner.

But we also express what it means to be a saint in particular ways. This is because Jesus lays hold of the particular ways in which we live out what it means to be a sinner and transforms these characteristics into something holy. Indeed, there is no other raw material for him to work with.

That is why over and over again we hear stories of Jesus inviting people to have their deepest insecurity be transformed into their deepest insight. Peter, ‘the Rock’, whose need for security at times pulls him back from the adventure of faith and at other times pre-emptively lands him in danger, discovers that the most ethereal things of God are more substantial than the solid foundations of worldly society. Zacchaeus, compelled to collect more than is possibly needed, discovers the joy of giving. The rich young man whose material wealth numbs the pain of the world is invited to discover that life will be found, felt, truly experienced, only if he will abandon his opiate. The leaders of Israel, set in opposition to God, his prophets, his people, the Romans, the world, are invited to embrace the vulnerable wound graciously gifted their father Israel, and to discover the favour of the Sovereign Lord for those who are oppressed.

Dyspraxic Boy Navigates The Shopping Mall

My God-given personality has certain tendencies.

I tend towards observation, and away from participation.

I tend towards being a consultant, and away from being a practitioner.

I tend towards gathering ideas and collecting models (architectural models, abstract conceptions of society), and away from the working-out of such ideas and models in the lived world (where the models are adapted and in a sense abused, because people rightly resist control).

The immature expression of such a personality has to withdraw from the world.

The mature expression of such a personality can withdraw from the world.

There is a world of difference between the two.

The world needs people who can withdraw, who can step back far enough to spot patterns and predict potential outcomes.

And so in seeking to participate with God in growing in maturity, in growing into the person he has invested in me to be, I need to throw myself into situations that, being self-centred rather than Christ-centred, I would naturally pull away from. In the milling crowd in the shopping mall, my impatience with the thoughtlessness of shoppers towards other shoppers is confronted by the herd intelligence (despite all projections, people hardly ever walk into one another). Where I might withdraw inside myself in judgement, I discover I can choose to step back and observe something beautiful unfold…and then step out into the swirling dance.

Jesus was able to withdraw from the crowd, to spend time alone with the Father or together with a close group of friends. But he also gave himself to others, and threw himself into the glorious muddle of life.

It isn’t a matter of resisting my God-given personality, of trying to be someone I am not called to be. Rather, it is a recognition that we find our life when we die to it; that we lose our life when we try to protect and preserve it, but gain our life when we give ourselves away, to God and our neighbour.

Of course, my personality is only one of the things God has given me. Others include my family history, certain enhanced and impaired abilities, particular opportunities. None of these are unique to me – but the combination is. And they are given in order to help me respond.

Which is why the mantra, ‘I am the way God made me’ can never be the final word.

Changing Light

Recently I’ve been experimenting with watercolour sketches. One of the things that strikes me about paintings is how very different the same painting looks as light conditions change over the course of the day. I first noticed this when house-sitting for a couple in Perth, Western Australia, who had a very large painting on their living room wall. It was a beautiful painting, but the dramatic colour-change between day and evening added something extra – as if it were several paintings for the price of one. This is less noticeable in art galleries, where the lighting conditions are stabilised.

This is a rough sketch (time constraints!) I did yesterday, looking across from Lindisfarne Castle on Holy Island towards Bamburgh Castle on the north-east coast of the mainland. Photographed with the lights on yesterday evening, and in daylight this morning.

Nine Very Important Meetings

This morning I was writing a funeral address in the Minster office, when someone came in to express thanks for a (small) way in which we had been able to help him out recently. He wanted to buy me a coffee (there is a café within the building). I had a little less than half-an-hour before taking a mid-week service, but I agreed. That was my first unscheduled conversation of the day.

One of the regulars at the service wanted to speak with me afterwards, and we ended up having a fairly long and very good conversation. The second unscheduled conversation of the day.

At that point I had the choice of going home, to work uninterrupted on the funeral address, or taking a walk around the city centre for some fresh air, and then returning to the Minster to work there. I chose the latter option.

On my way out, I had my third unscheduled conversation of the day, with a time-to-time visitor who had attended the mid-day service and then had lunch in the café (while I was having that second conversation).

Walking through the shopping centre, I saw someone whose wedding I had conducted in the summer. We stopped and chatted. The fourth unscheduled conversation.

Around the corner, I ran into someone I know through our partnership with other organisations to mark four years of Sunderland First world war anniversaries. We stood and talked on the pavement. The fifth unscheduled conversation.

On the High Street, I spotted the young man who sells The Big Issue outside Marks & Spencer. We speak regularly, but hadn’t seen one another for about three months. The sixth unscheduled conversation.

Cutting back through the shopping centre, I overtook one of our older congregation members, who lives in the neighbouring Alms Houses. We stood talking. The seventh unscheduled conversation.

Another Alms House resident came past, and stopped to chat. The eighth unscheduled conversation.

I got back to the Minster not long before it closes for the day (the building is open 9am-3pm Monday to Saturday, and much of the day on Sundays); but, having checked-in on the office and locked the compass-point doors to the building, I stopped for a longer chat with the person refreshing the flower arrangements that help make it such an inviting space. The ninth unscheduled conversation of the day.

Probably an-hour-and-a-half of unscheduled but very important meetings.

I can’t think of anything more rehabilitating than being given the time of day. And I say rehabilitating not to refer to the most broken people, but simply to recognise that life can be quite hard, and in the pressures of life – which, for reasons of confidentially I haven’t reported in recounting these conversations – it is easy to become worn down.

People comment fairly regularly that I must be busy – and of course, at times I am. But, as I tell them, I work quite hard at not being busy, precisely in order that I might have the time to give them my time.

In that, I recognise that I am blessed to be part of a team. But it also involves choosing not to do certain other things. I can be busy avoiding people, or busy not avoiding people.

And in that I recognise that clergy are not a different class of people from laity, who do certain things so that others don’t have to; but, rather, that clergy are a group within the laity, whose time has been set aside in order to be available, where others might not have such freedom; and who are visible signs within the wider community of something that is going on, on a daily basis: the quiet, deeply subversive task of helping one another become more fully human.