Quiet Day : part 1

‘Yahweh & the Seraphim’ Quiet Day: Session One

The ‘Yahweh & the Seraphim’ Quiet Day at Sunderland Minster took the form of three sessions. Each began with listening to a reflection on a passage from the Bible. This was followed in the first and third session with space to respond individually: in reading the passage and the reflection, praying, journaling, drawing; or looking at the sculpture from different angles, or through coloured lenses, or binoculars. In the second session we took the different approach of group discussion.

The sessions build one on another; depend on simplicity and space; and come with the health warning that they might bring to the surface any manner of things between you and God, including deep things. So the space is to be held as holy ground, and with the possibility to discuss anything with me – as the facilitator – in confidence. As several people expressed an interest but could not attend, now that it has taken place I am posting the reflections, with a link to the Scripture stories they relate to.

Reflection on Exodus 3

The last thing Moses wants is to be found. He is, after all, a fugitive on the run. He has made a new life for himself, in the wilderness. One wonders how much he has told the woman he has married about his former life; the extent to which he has disclosed, and held back; what territory lies between them even as they lie together in the dark?

He is a man who has accommodated himself within a life he could never have imagined in his younger days. Is it a disappointment? A relief? Some indescribable mixture of the two? His horizon has shifted, his world become very small, the sky above vast.

On this day, he has journeyed beyond the wilderness, has pushed beyond the back of beyond. What lies there? The unknown, the unimaginable. The mountain of God. That is what is left, when we have wandered beyond the far edge of the margins.

Out of the corner of his eye, a blazing bush. This in itself is not unknown to him. The wilderness can get very hot, hot enough for a bush to spontaneously combust, to blaze with light and burn itself out. But not this bush: it keeps on blazing. For this, Moses must turn aside. Indeed, he is compelled to do so.

It turns out that this is no earthly flame, but an angel sitting in the branches, blazing like the sun. An angel, heralding, guarding, and standing in the presence of God. This, apparently, is what angels do. But it is God who calls out to Moses. And Moses responds, ‘Here I am.’ Here I am.

God tells Moses to come no closer. His journey, in this direction at least, has reached its end. He is to remove his sandals, the symbol of his wandering, and this is a holy moment in a holy place. Moses has come home, has returned to the fold, has been born anew.

And this causes Moses to hide his face, for he was afraid to look at God. God is unbearable.

In this place, beyond the wilderness, God confronts Moses with his deepest failure, the one that still defines him, against which Moses’ life appears Plan B, second best. It turns out that the place of failure – hearing the cry of the people on account of their taskmasters – is the very place where Moses and God stand on common ground. This is the first step in God’s plan of redemption, which will take Moses back, to face Pharaoh, in order for Moses to leave Egypt behind for good.

Is it possible that we might encounter God on the ground of our deepest failure?

Moses asks God to reveal his name. God responds, ‘I AM WHO I AM’ and my title is YHWH, from ‘to be’. I am what I am, and I will be what I will be.

Here I am. The mountain of God echoes back the words with which Moses first responded to God, ‘Here I am.’ Not because God is to be understood to be made in Moses’ image, but because Moses’ words reveal that he bears the imprint of God. And he discovers this standing in front of an angel who is worshipping God at the foot of a mountain on the far side of the wilderness.

And here we are, at the foot of a mountain that bears the inscription I AM YHWH, surrounded by flaming Seraphim.

How did we get here?

And now that you have turned aside to be here, for what purpose might God have called to you?

On prayer

Our whole life is a prayer. We do not need to attend to praying; we need to attend to awareness of the prayer we are already praying at any given moment. Do our thoughts or words or actions reveal a prayer of devotion, or anger, frustration, grief, joy, desperation, hope...? All these and more are necessary prayers, for prayer is the bearing – and laying bare – of our being before God. The Psalms are a master class in this. If you want to learn how to attend to what you are already praying at any given moment, read the Psalms, regularly.

Feet

In the Gospels, Jesus’ feet are anointed with perfume on two occasions: first by an un-named woman, in the home of a Pharisee, somewhere in Galilee (Luke 7); and later by Mary the sister of Lazarus, at Bethany in Judea, and most definitely not in the home of a Pharisee (John 12).

On both occasions, attitude towards money is at the centre of the conversation. Our attitude towards money, and therefore how we use it, is directly related to our attitude towards people - whether or not we can extend or receive forgiveness, and whether or not we can extend or receive love...

To an unknown god

Holy Communion today includes a reading from Acts 17:15, 17:22–18:1.

Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, “To an unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.’

There are three altars* at Sunderland Minster: the Bede Chapel altar, the Chancel high altar, and the Nave altar; appropriate for small, medium-sized, and large gatherings respectively.

I would suggest that there are also several altars in our own heart, where we encounter and respond to God. Whereas the ancient Greeks attributed different spheres of life to the concerns of different gods, Christians worship one God; but we encounter this one God in as many different aspects of our lives. So we might speak in terms of the altar where we encounter and respond to this one God as our Healer; the altar where we encounter and respond to this one God as our Provider; the altar where we encounter and respond to this one God as our Comforter; the altar where we encounter and respond to this one God as the creator of the world…as Lord over history…as Lord over our lives…This is not to suggest that God is compartmentalised, but rather to recognise that our understanding of God develops as what we worship as unknown is made known to us.

And this brings us to the place in our heart of an altar with the inscription “To an unknown god.” We might need to look carefully to find it, especially if we are confident that we know God better than others do. And yet we would do well to keep such an altar. To acknowledge that God is always more than our knowledge of God, and always will be. Even when we stand before God face-to-face, we will not be able to contain him. We know God, because God has revealed himself to us, and principally in the person of Jesus; but he invites us to step out into the unknown, to walk by faith not sight. To present our sacrifice at the altar to an unknown God, not so as not to offend through ignorance, but in order to participate in mystery.

*I know that some people take exception to the use of the term ‘altar,’ as it can suggest that Jesus’ death was somehow insufficient and needs replenishing. Indeed, refuting such a view (Articles of Religion XXXI), the Anglican Book of Common Prayer and Common Worship only ever use the term ‘the Lord’s Table,’ or ‘table’ for short. Nonetheless, the order for Holy Communion in the Book of Common Prayer includes the prayer: ‘O Lord and heavenly Father, we thy humble servants entirely desire thy fatherly goodness mercifully to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving…And here we offer and present unto thee, O lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto thee…And although we be unworthy, through our manifold sins, to offer unto thee any sacrifice, yet we beseech thee to accept this our bounden duty and service…’ Therefore, what is primarily the Lord’s table to which we, unworthy though we are, are invited, is simultaneously our altar where we offer our sacrifice, not to appease God’s wrath but in response to God’s love.

Go away

Morning Prayer: Luke 5:1-11

‘Simon Peter...fell down at Jesus’ feet, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” ... When they had brought their boats ashore, they left everything and followed him.’

Peter’s self-awareness as a sinful man is – in this context, at least – not to do with what he has done but what he has failed to do. Fishing all night without a catch, he has failed those who were dependent on him. This is only emphasised by Jesus’ grace, in the miraculous catch of fish.

But it does not end there. Jesus does, indeed, go away from him. Not abandoning him, but enabling him to follow. To move from the place of failure, through the forgiveness that disempowers fear, to a fresh start within restored relationship. (‘Leaving everything’ ought not to be understood as the abandonment of relational responsibility – Jesus strongly opposed such false piety – but as participating in this dynamic.)

Where do you and I need Jesus to go away from us today, that we might follow?

Lord, join me in the place of my failure,

of my frustration, of my disappointment.

Lord, join me in the place where

the Accuser whispers seeds of discouragement

and shouts out taunts against my vocation to

personhood.

Join me in that place;

and then Go away from me, Lord,

that I might follow you...

A prayer, after the prayer of Simon Peter.

Against

Acts 12:25-13:13 reading from Morning Prayer today, the Feast of St Mark.

I am struck that Paul informs the magus Elymas that ‘the hand of the Lord is against you’ – mirroring Paul’s own conversion experience on the road to Damascus. The hand of the Lord being against you is not lifted in anger, but as constraint, giving direction, preventing the one veering off the path from going over the edge by nudging them back towards the centre.

The language of God being against our enemies is common-place, expressing our lust for judgement, not our love for mercy. But where might we need – where might we hope for – God’s hand to be against us?

To be or not to be

Yesterday the Royal Shakespeare Company marked the day on which William Shakespeare was born, and died – 52 years later, and 400 years ago – with live performances from the Bard’s home-town, Stratford-upon-Avon. One of the highlights was this sketch, in which several actors argue over how to deliver arguably Shakespeare’s most famous words. Do yourself a favour and watch them.

The sketch revolves around the fact that Shakespeare was an incredibly generous playwright, whose work allows, invites, even depends on, genuine partnership with the players. ‘To be, or not to be. That is the question.’ can be delivered in a great many ways, the weight changing depending on which word or words are stressed, each offering providing its own invitation and challenge to the audience.

The writers of the works collected in the Bible were just as generous. That is why the Bible must be read aloud, not silently. Why it must be read aloud, in public, by as wide a selection of voices as possible; and why it ought to be read aloud even when reading it alone, turning the words over and over in search for the rendition that is best-fitting to the ‘player’ – the one who proclaims – and the production – or, context in which they are performing (by which I mean to refer to the work of the people and not a falsehood) for which they are rehearsing.

Notable among these performers of biblical works is God himself. Christianity does not teach Scripture as written by God (though in practice a great many Christians believe to the contrary, that it was). Rather, God is both inspiration – as Shakespeare was inspiration for the performances last night – and a player who breathes life into the work, making it come alive.

You don’t have to be a famous actor to deliver these lines. But it does help to be part of a company of players. And to rehearse together.

Bodies

God has given us bodies, with which to touch time (including our own aging) and space (which has its own physicality).

So many of the stories Jesus told have to do with bodies. A woman kneading dough, her arms muscular from the repeated action, an action that would have caused those arms to ache quicker when she first began kneading dough than they did now. A merchant travelling widely in search of pearls, feet sore, back sore, weary from his journey and yet driven onwards. A farmer hefting a bag of seed over his shoulder, throwing his arm out wide, again and again. Hired workers labouring under the midday sun in a vineyard, sweat running down the groove between their shoulder-blades, tickling where they can’t quite reach to scratch…

The point of the stories is not to extract some abstract dis-embodied truth from the messiness of life, but, rather, to demonstrate that God is to be found in the very ways in which the body touches time and space.

Again, there are so many accounts of Jesus’ body touching the bodies of other people – a woman with a fever, a dead boy, a leper. Touches that made him ritually unclean – understood by some to contaminate and therefore temporarily exclude from community; but perhaps better understood as gift, time out to reflect on the deep holiness of such connection, to return with refreshed appreciation of our bodies, and those of our neighbours.

This also is why we are given actions: water poured on the head (every time I step under the waterfall of my shower-head, I am reminded of my baptism, an event I cannot remember but am nonetheless shaped by); bread broken and shared; wine drank in company with others. Do this in remembrance of me. Do, not think, not believe – not divorced from our body, at any rate. We participate our way into relationship. We are shaped bodily to God, and neighbour. We can know our creator, and our fellow creatures, no other way.

Last June, I started running the weekly Parkrun – 5 kilometres, run in community at 9.00am on Saturday mornings – as often as I can make it. The run, followed by breakfast in a café, is an activity I have especially done with my son, Noah. Today I ran my 21^st Parkrun (I make it, on average, fortnightly rather than weekly). My time has come down from 00.32.47 to 00.23.41.

At the moment, my right thigh aches. Not when I run, but between runs. I can feel my body, in a very particular way. In a way that brings to mind Jacob, wrestling with God all night long, an encounter that left him with a permanent limp. That reminds me that the God who gave me a body took on a body of his own, and gives my body an unfolding story of its own, through which I might know and be known.

My thigh aches. And I am deeply grateful for it.

mid-week eucharist

mid-week eucharist (thanks-giving)

or, taking time in the midst of the ordinary and every-day to be thankful for all God has done for us…

Bruised reeds

‘The A Word’ (BBC) continues to prove compelling viewing, hard viewing, as brutal as the Cumbrian fells against which the drama is set. You really do have to watch very attentively to find anything likeable about Morven Christie’s character, Alison. But all the characters are bruised and hurting.

Mid-way through the Gospel According to Matthew, the narrator draws on the words of the prophet Isaiah to describe Jesus’ manner of relating to those he encounters:

“He will not break a bruised reed…” (Matthew 12:20)

A bruised reed is a crushed and fragile thing. But it is also precious; bruised reeds were used as writing implements. And so this is a play on words:

those who are bruised and hurting are those whose stories need to be told.

There are so many bruised and hurting people, in need of a compassionate narrator. Some of whom are unreasonable, ungrateful, deeply unlikeable, or downright hostile.

Thanks-giving

‘In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness...as it is written in the book of the prophet Isaiah, “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low...”’ (Luke 3:1-5)

Jesus’ relative John demonstrates the true human calling to be king and priest over and for creation within the world by enabling the wilderness to rise up in praise and bow down in worship of its God.

This is what happens when we take grain and grape and transform them into bread and wine; or iron and transform it into a gate; or wool and transform it into a garment; or wilderness and transform it into a garden; or...

How will you fashion the world and offer it back to God as its own act of worship today?

For me, one way will be to take ingredients and prepare them into a meal.

Love

Strictly speaking, there is no such ‘thing’ as evil. For as darkness is the absence of something – light – so evil is the absence of something – love.

This is not to say that evil is an illusion: the withholding of love has real and terrible impact on those from whom it is with-held, and upon those who choose to withhold. It does mean, however, that we cannot allow ourselves the easy luxury of calling our enemies evil. Firstly, because they are something, having substance – substance, moreover, created in the image of God – and evil has no substance. And secondly, because by passing judgement in calling them evil, it is ‘our’ freely-chosen inaction of withholding love that allows evil to eclipse good.

Instead, we are called to love our enemies, and in so doing to participate in Love, which is the greatest thing of all.

Gentleness

I am sitting in the Minster waiting for my lunch appointment to arrive. The walls of the Bede Chapel lift and fall lighter and darker as clouds pass in front of the sun. It is as if the very building is breathing...

The person I am meeting is late. After a while, I go back over our email correspondence and discover that I had agreed to meet them tomorrow but put it in my diary for today. I am 24 hours early. And yet, were it not for my mistake, I would have missed this grace-filled moment.

God is more gentle with us in our frailty than we are with ourselves...

Wounds

In Eastertide, we are reminded that Jesus’ resurrected body bears the wounds inflicted upon him by other people – wounds which cost him his very life – and yet is wonderfully given life back by the Spirit of God, who breathes life into every living thing.

This body, then, is both deeply wounded and enlivened by the very Spirit of God.

It is so deeply wounded and so enlivened by the very Spirit of God that one of Jesus’ closest friends, John, would describe Jesus as looking like a Lamb that was slaughtered, yet alive and considered worthy of equal recognition with God by all creation (Revelation 5).

Another of Jesus’ followers, Paul, described the Church as ‘the body of Christ’ (Romans 12; 1 Corinthians 12; Ephesians 3, 4, 5). What kind of a body would that be? One that is undeniably wounded, and yet honoured by God and worthy of honour.

When we gather with other people for the purpose of coming together before God’s throne, to glimpse with wonder something of God’s purposes which stretch beyond our imagining, we come as a body corporate that is both wounded and worthy of honour.

And yet it is so easy to fail to recognise that those around me are wounded, as I am (those wounds are most often not immediately visible, not least given the masks we wear in front of others), and to fail to remember that they are worthy of honour, as I am. It is easy to assume that those around me are less wounded than I am, and to conclude that they are less worthy of honour. It is easy to assume the worst about others, without a second- and more generous thought regarding their actions or motives. Wisdom tells me that most people I meet are doing the very best they can today (which might be a little more, or a little less, than yesterday or tomorrow; but in any case is almost certainly more than I see) and want to do so most of the time (though we all have bad days).

I am increasingly concerned by how much church-bashing I see Christians partake in on social media. We are a body, and it is a form of self-harm.

Jesus gave Thomas the opportunity to see for himself the extent of his [Jesus’] wounds; and Thomas responded by giving due honour. Perhaps if we took the time to truly recognise one another, we would – to our great surprise – discover that we are an Easter people.

15

The A Word

As part of their Autism Season, the BBC are currently showing the drama ‘The A Word’, which focuses on a family trying to come to terms with their five-year-old son’s diagnosis of being on the Autism Spectrum. It is challenging viewing, but so far looks to be very well-written. The mother is not a very nice person, and I like that – parents of children with specific needs are not necessarily saints. The second episode, which aired yesterday, ended on an explosive confrontation between Joe’s parents, in which dad Paul accurately calls out his wife Alison’s actions as being to do with shame:

Paul: “…you are ashamed…”

Alison: “You think I am ashamed of my own son?”

Paul: “Of Joe. Of yourself, for not spotting it sooner. Of us, for having him. Of me. And finally, just to round things off, you’re ashamed for being ashamed in the first place.”

Alison: “Oh right, ’cos you’re so f***ing okay with it…”

Paul: “No, I’m not! Not one bit! And that’s why I can see it in you. [sighs] It’s not much fun, is it? It’s not what you want to be, is it?”

The A word of the series title is Autism; but even more so, Ashamed is the A word that must not be spoken. While we pretend to live in a shameless society, shame is rife. Whereas guilt is outward looking – that is, it has to do with a sense of failure in relation to another, whether letting people down by not doing something we ought to have done, or breaking a moral or legal code – shame turns us in on ourselves, making us feel polluted, dirty, unworthy. In the example above, Joe’s mother does not feel guilt over having done wrong, but shame over the condition in which she finds herself, powerless. And this is a very accurate observation. A parent can know that their child’s condition is not a consequence of their own actions – and therefore be guilt-free – but can nonetheless feel acute shame in the face of life. All the more so in our so very judgemental society.

I believe that the Bible addresses shame just as fully as it addresses guilt. In the Old Testament we see a pattern of sacrifices established. Sacrifices are, essentially, an expression of community: primarily a meal, shared symbolically with God and physically with others. Some sacrifices are given as an expression of thankfulness. Others are given as a way of marking the restoration of relationship after it has been impaired by sin. The sacrifice itself does not deal with sin – repentance, likely including some form of restitution, and forgiveness deals with the sin. But in eating together again the sacrifice breaks the power of guilt. Yet another category of sacrifice deals with shame. These mark restoration to community after separation through pollution, such as the stain left by menstruation or seminal fluid. The point is not that blood or semen are unclean in themselves, but that the stain they leave – so hard to wash out – symbolise the stain of shame that pollutes us when something deeply intimate and personal is exposed to the gaze of others whose response is not sympathetic, or which we anticipate will not be sympathetic.

This, by the way, is why we continue to offer our sacrifice at every Eucharist, or Communion service: not at all to secure something from God, but to enjoy what has already been restored to us through participating in a shared meal.

In this season of Eastertide, the Church proclaims that through the shameful death – a very public humiliation – and glorious resurrection of Jesus, God has dealt decisively with our shame just as much as with our guilt. The Gospel is good news for those who are weighed down with shame, for in union with Christ the stain is washed away, cleaner and brighter than we could ever achieve. This does not mean that we no longer experience shame, but rather, that we can be freed from its hold over us and restored to community, again and again.

The false consolation of shame is defiance, which further isolates us from the very community we long to reconnect with. The true consolation is acceptance, of ourselves – our real selves, in our giftedness and impairments, and not some ideal self against which we can never match up – and of others – in their real giftedness and impairment, too. We don’t yet know how Paul and Alison’s story will continue to unfold. But I hope for a hope-full outcome…

Exsultet

Rejoice, heavenly powers! Sing, choirs of angels!

O Universe, dance around God’s throne!

Jesus Christ, our King, is risen!

Sound the victorious trumpet of salvation!

Rejoice, O earth, in glory, revealing the splendour of your creation,

radiant in the brightness of your triumphant King!

Christ has conquered! Now his life and glory fill you!

Darkness vanishes for ever!

Rejoice, O Mother Church! Exult in glory!

The risen Saviour, our Lord of life, shines upon you!

Let all God’s people sing and shout for joy.

Traces

Everywhere we go, we leave behind traces of our having been there:

forensic evidence;

memorials;

memories.

Whenever an injustice is committed, such as a murder, the DNA of both victim and perpetrator leave their trace as a wound in the fabric of the place.

Likewise, a memorial – such as the initials of lovers carved into a tree, or those of a choir boy scratched into his stall – leaves a lasting scar, in place of a fleeting moment that has been passed through.

Memories live on, in the minds of those who remain and those who return, and, some say, held in the place, in safekeeping, in case they should be required in some future time not yet come to. Indeed, memories find the deepest recesses in which to lodge, from which to return at unbidden moments. It is a quarter of a century since I left my parents’ home…

Today is Holy Saturday. Today we must attend to the news that Jesus spent time in hell, preaching – what? Why, the same message he had been anointed to bear from the beginning: ‘to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

And this means that even though we will proclaim that Christ has risen, there are traces of Christ in hell, traces that cannot be obliterated however hard it might be tried. Fingerprints in blood stains. His name carved in a long-ago now broken gate. The haunting memory that cannot be dislodged, that whispers even here we are not ever fully beyond the bounds of God’s boundless love…

The dark- and hidden-ness of God

“Why is it black?” a number of people have asked, standing in front of the figure representing God in the latest artwork to be installed in the Minster, Yahweh and the Seraphim.

“It isn’t” is the simple reply. Not black, but the natural colour of the clay Nicholas Pope used. The Seraphim are made of the same stuff, but adorned with a coat of white, blue, and gold paint. Not black, but nonetheless very dark, absorbing light.

Why might we think of God as an absorbent presence, at the centre?

Right now we are deep into Holy Week, standing on the edge of Jesus’ betrayal, by a friend, at night; his illegal trial, by night; his execution – by day, but, so we are told, the sky turned black; and his lying in death in the sealed tomb…and the story we tell is that in the person of Jesus, and in these events, God absorbs all that is wrong, every pain common to human experience, taking it into himself, neutralising it, before redeeming it all in new beginning.

Another observation: although Yahweh is inscribed with the encircling letters I AM YHWH, visitors are prevented by the altar rail from walking around – come no closer, for this is holy ground – and so can only see the letters (if they can make out letters at all) W H I A.

If you know that I AM is the answer God gives to Moses’ enquiry as to his identity, and if you know that YHWH (notionally pronounced Yahweh – the vowels are not written – though Judaism considers the Name so holy that it is not uttered but substituted) is the name of this God, then I AM YHWH makes some sense. But what sense might we possibly make of W H I A?

One might suggest that W H I A is as much as we get to see of God. Even for those who believe that God is made visible in Jesus, we live with the paradox that the God who makes himself known is beyond our knowing, that the God who draws close is unapproachable, that the God who takes upon himself the limitations of a human body is boundless…

Of all times, Holy Week is the point where God is darkest and most hidden: where we cry, with Jesus, “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?” Why are you so far from saving me?

And it is in these moments that God is closer than we are able to bear, absorbing all that would hurt or harm us, whether our body or our soul – even should it succeed in killing us – and bringing about all things made new.

God is, at least in part, both dark and hidden. This is mystery, beyond our understanding. But the darkness of God, and his hiddenness, are very good – every bit as good as the light of God, and his given-ness.

Preview

Yesterday evening we welcomed Nicholas Pope back to the Minster for the opening of the Baldock Pope Zahle exhibition running across the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art and Sunderland Minster, 19 March – 18 June 2016. He is a most gracious man, living with increasing frailty with great dignity, and it has been a joy to work with him in showing Yahweh and the Seraphim, which reflects Pope’s theological focus in the light of his own mortality.

I don’t think there is any particular reason why it should be so, but the conversations I’ve had concerning the installation seem to take on a daily theme. Yesterday’s conversations revolved around how different the sculpture looks, not only against changing light, but against the changing backdrop of an altar frontal that has been purple for Lent, is now red for Holy Week, will be stripped on Maundy Thursday and bare on Good Friday, and gold and white for Eastertide. This in turn led into conversations about the foundational stories of the Christian faith and the ways in which we tell and enter-into them together, which raises questions such as:

How is our corporate life coloured by the changing seasons of the Church year, the changing acts of our story?

How might the particular emphases of the seasons highlight different aspects of our own particular personal life, enabling us to live more freely, more fully?

Reaction to the work has been varied, as might be imagined. We wouldn’t want it any other way: art needs to provoke a reaction in us, for us to explore, and taking offence is as valid as taking delight or even being unsure, so long as we own our responses. As it happens, viewers have been overwhelmingly positive so far; but even the negative views give rise to significant reflection. A very few feel it unfortunate or inappropriate to locate the work in the chancel, in front of the high altar. While I do not share that view, it is helpful to me in as much as it raises questions such as:

Is there anything in my manner of living that is incongruous for someone who asserts the lordship of Jesus?

Anything that is an affront to his self-giving, or which displaces him from his rightful place?

Is there anything of which the Holy Spirit might want to convict me, which Jesus would wish to confront?

And if so, where ought I to bring it, if not to his feet?

Reverence

In her highly acclaimed book An Altar in the World: finding the sacred beneath our feet, Barbara Brown Taylor writes about twelve practices that help us do just that. Among them is reverence, or the practice of paying attention. I have been paying attention to the artwork currently installed in the Minster, in the belief that even though it is not an explicitly Christian vehicle for contemplation, nonetheless I might encounter God as I do so.

Below are details of each of the letters from the central pillar, I AM YHWH – I am struck by how deeply they resonate with my having been in the Judean wilderness, to wadis carved into the rock face, and the very many biblical stories to which that landscape forms the backdrop for experiencing God as our refuge...

And the work interacted creatively for me with these verses from the reading from Hebrews chapter 12 at Morning Prayer yesterday:

“But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.”

Angels

Since the installation of Yahweh and the Seraphim at the Minster (here for the next three months), I’ve had at least four conversations about God and faith every day, with visitors to the building or members of our congregation.

As it happened, today’s conversations were all about angels. More than one visitor said, “I know who Yahweh is – that’s God…” [God, as revealed in the Old Testament] “…but what are seraphim?” – followed by lots of questions as to what we might know about angels.

And of course, while angels appear in the Bible, and in various Jewish, Christian, and Muslim writings, ‘angelology’ tends to build more weight than our sources can fully bear. As it happens, I can speak of personal experience of seeing – or, at least, of being aware of – angels; but I can claim no expert knowledge.

When it comes to speaking of angels, we are grasping for familiar words to describe the unfamiliar; vaguely-close images with which to convey what we see only at the very edge of our vision, half-visible, but cannot look directly upon – for when we try to, they vanish.

This indirect language is all we have, to speak of things such as the monsters that lurk beneath our beds, or the love that vanquishes them. No one believes that the one they love is really comparable to a summer’s day; but then again, “I notice, with appreciation, that you still put up with me despite the fact that I must annoy you at times” doesn’t quite do love justice.

What are the things that can only be seen out of the corner of our eye; that can only be described by visionaries?

And why would they even matter?