Embrace

The Minster’s ten bells rang out between 11.30am and 12.30pm yesterday, the second of four towers in a regional bell-ringers’ Ringing Ramble.

When I arrived sometime after twelve, for the Summer Fayre that was to begin once the bells fell silent, I noticed a man I had not seen before, sitting by himself in a middle pew, taking in his surroundings.

After a while, I went across to him. I introduced myself as Andrew. He introduced himself as George [1]. I sat down next to him, and we got talking.

George told me that he had come in, drawn by the sound of the bells. He had walked past many times before, but never been inside. In fact, he did not know that the building was an open one [2]. But he had heard the bells, and had stood outside for some time, before someone came along and told him that he could go inside.

With tears welling in his eyes, George told me that he could never have imagined what he would have found inside, but that he felt as if he had won the lottery.

As he continued to talk, and I continued to listen, George turned to the subject of suffering. There were so many different views, it was confusing. Some saw suffering as evidence that God does not exist. Others, as reason to not worship God. Others claimed that if you believe, God would protect you from suffering. It was confusing. The only thing that made sense to him was the experience of sitting here, in this place he had not known about till now.

In this, George reminded me of one of the Psalms [3], in which the psalmist wrestles to make sense of the world, until he went into the sanctuary of God, and there perceived a deeper reality. And it did not surprise me: after all, George was sitting in a space where people have contemplated mystery for a thousand years.

Only then did George go on to reveal that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. When the doctor had tried to explain the implications to him, he had stopped them: ‘I already know; my mother and my grandmother both had this before me.’ He was still quite lucid—although he was aware of having memory issues, the only obvious tell-tale sign was when I asked his age, and he told me he was 48: George clearly was not 48—but his fear was informed, and it was clear that he was grieving a future that would be taken from him by degrees.

More than once, George told me that he felt as if he had won the lottery. For what he had found was a safe place, sanctuary, somewhere he could come and sit. A place that holds memories, before God, for as long as is needed—far beyond the memory of any individual. A place in which George found himself, like many before him, sitting in God’s embrace.

More than once, George asked me if he was keeping me, from something more important. No, I reassured him: I was there to sit with him, for as long as he wanted. That was why I was there—and I’m grateful to have had that space held for me by other members of the congregation who were doing other things around us, all the while aware of us, and holding us in prayer.

Church is more-than a building, more-than place; but it is never less-than place, and often not less-than building [4]. This is certainly part of the charism of our church, rooted in our community. We are God’s people, sent to proclaim the good news that the kingdom of heaven has drawn near—has come alongside us, in joy and in sorrow—among an aging population, increasingly living with dementia. In being sent, in living among this people, we are also able to gather: to experience sanctuary ourselves, and to say to others, Come and see!

This is something worth our reflecting on.

[1] In fact, I have changed his name, to respect his privacy; but I felt important that he should have a name in this story, not just a(n im)personal pronoun.

[2] George is not alone in this misapprehension, despite an open door, signs, and people coming in and out of the building throughout the day, every day of the week. We need to get much better at word-of-mouth.

[3] Psalm 73.

[4] This is certainly true biblically: just consider how the churches of the New Testament are addressed in letters, as the church in such-and-such a place, or that meets in so-and-so’s home.

The other side

The Gospel reading set for Holy Communion today is Matthew 8:28-34.

Jesus regularly took his disciples out of their comfort zone. He took them to Caesarea Philippi, where immigrants did unspeakable things. He took them to Tyre and Sidon, beyond the border of God’s own people.* And here, he takes them across the Sea of Galilee, to ‘the other side’.** Here, the people are different. They have different cultural norms and values and practices. They eat different food.

The first people Jesus and his disciples encounter are demonised: afflicted by unclean spirits. That might sit uncomfortably with us in our own culture which has elevated the good gift of ‘Science’ to an unquestionable idol; but plenty of people still believe, experientially, in things that science cannot measure; and plenty are troubled by their experience. We ought not dismiss them.

These two demonised people are not only beyond the disciples’ community; they are marginalised by their own community, driven out: and they are hurting. In fact, they are in effect the living dead. But their torment has been invisible to the disciples until now, because they were on ‘the other side’. After all, who knows? Perhaps everyone on the other side is demonic? (And in this way, everyone on the other side is subtly demonised.)

Jesus takes his disciples beyond their comfort zone, beyond their familiar culture, in order to reach them, in order to bring liberation.

His actions cause a disruption, potentially getting the swineherds in trouble, incurring cost to the owners of the swine. Indeed, the community come together to ask him to leave: they were, they claim, quite happy before he turned up, uninvited. Please, just go. Let’s not romanticise our story with a happily ever after end.

Jesus is a creature of habit. He still sets off over the horizon, taking his disciples beyond their comfort zone, to the other side, whoever might live there, and with particular awareness of those who are isolated and terrified.

Today sees the publication of a report into the death of a disabled Iranian refugee, who reported being the victim of racism to the police 73 times over 7 years, and was consistently failed, until he was beaten to death and set on fire. Read it, and weep. It is a salutary case study in why we need to follow—and keep following—Jesus to the other side.

Lord, have mercy.

*Matthew records both these events later, in chapters 16 and 15, respectively.

**From the context we can infer that they have gone to ‘the other side’ of the lake. But Matthew does not spell this out for us. Instead, he opens up an ambiguous and more creative space, in which ‘the other side’ refers just as well to a ‘them’ in relation to an ‘us’.

Petertide

Today is the Feast of St Peter, or of Saints Peter and Paul.

Outside the colony town of Caesarea Philippi there is an enormous cave, held throughout the Greco-Roman world to be one of the entrances to the underworld. The stories of what went on here—allegedly involving sexual acts performed with goats in honour of Pan—would make a feisty fisherman blush. But this is the location Jesus chose to take his disciples—don’t believe everything you hear, boys—to ask them who, exactly, they thought he was. Who would be so brazen?

And there, standing in front of the gate of Hades, Jesus declared:

‘… I tell you, you are Peter [Petros], and on this rock [petra] I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it …’

Matthew 16:18

Fast-forward several years to the anniversary of Jesus’ death and resurrection:

‘About that time King Herod laid violent hands upon some who belonged to the church. He had James, the brother of John, killed with the sword. After he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. (This was during the festival of Unleavened Bread.) When he had seized him, he put him in prison and handed him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending to bring him out to the people after the Passover. While Peter was kept in prison, the church prayed fervently to God for him.

‘The very night before Herod was going to bring him out, Peter, bound with two chains, was sleeping between two soldiers, while guards in front of the door were keeping watch over the prison. Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He tapped Peter on the side and woke him, saying, “Get up quickly.” And the chains fell off his wrists. The angel said to him, “Fasten your belt and put on your sandals.” He did so. Then he said to him, “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.” Peter went out and followed him; he did not realize that what was happening with the angel’s help was real; he thought he was seeing a vision. After they had passed the first and the second guard, they came before the iron gate leading into the city. It opened for them of its own accord, and they went outside and walked along a lane, when suddenly the angel left him. Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hands of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.”’

Acts 12:1-11 (italics added)

According to the gospel, the world in which we live is passing away, and a new world is being brought to birth even as it does so. A passing out from death into life. The kingdom of heaven colonising this world, even as the Greek and Roman Empires had colonised it—except that this kingdom would have no end.

The gates of Hades represent the power and authority—the ultimate end—of the powers of this passing world. They might look impressive, but they are a shadow existence, lacking the substance of life in its fullness.

The gates of Hades stand for the prison gates behind which Herod, a puppet monarch installed and propped-up by the Romans, attempted to hold Peter captive.

But Jesus had promised that the gates would not prevail. The church prays fervently, and the gates swing open, apparently of their own accord.

Fast-forward again, to today. As I read these passages, a friend of mine comes before a magistrate who will hear his appeal to be granted leave to remain, permission to stay in this country, to work and make a new life here because it is not safe for him, as a known and active member of the church that Jesus has been building, to be sent back to Iran.

My friend finds himself at the gates of Hades, on the inside. His life as an asylum-seeker is a shadow existence, caught in limbo.

Today, the church is praying fervently to God for him.

This story is our story.

Thorns : part 2

In my previous post, I wrote about the imagery of thorns in our sides, and what that might have to say to us about extremism within our communities, and neighbourliness that can embrace difference.

But extremism is not the only aspect of community that causes us pain. Indeed, it is impossible to live with others without being hurt, intentionally and unintentionally.

At Sunderland Minster we regularly host art installations. The current work includes two large-scale hands carved from wood, by local artist David Gross. One is held up in the sign of blessing. The other is pierced by a nail, driven into the fold between thumb and fore-finger. The hand of blessing is worn smooth to the touch; its cracks and fissures part of its beauty. The impaled hand is fresh and raw, unfinished; it reeks of wood butchered—however skilfully—by a chainsaw.

It is possible to be pierced by others, and withhold blessing from them—or, indeed, turning in on ourselves as wronged victim, to withhold blessing from anyone at all.

But it is not possible to extend blessing with anything other than a pieced hand, a pierced side.

The choice is not, how can we cut ourselves off from those whose difference disturbs us, from those with whom we disagree—in pursuit of greater purity; in pursuit of being more acceptable, more effective—but, will we continue to be a community that chooses to bless others, even though thorns grow up alongside the fruitful harvest?

The thing about an impaled hand is that it opens.

It lets go of whatever it has sought to hold on to for itself, or control for others.

It recognises its need for the ‘other’.

In this way, God works to transform something meant for evil, so as to bring forth good.

As someone who wanders around town in a vicar’s collar, I am regularly stopped by people who ask me to bless them. By people who have reason to hate the Church for its thorns, but nonetheless long for God to bring good out of their lives. It is not possible to bless without recognising something of their wounded nature, and my own.

The hand stretched out to bless is the impaled hand stretched out in hope of blessing.

You cannot know the one without the other.

Gross’ wooden hands point to another sculptor. They have been a disruptive gift to us.

Thorns : part 1

There is a great deal of talk these days about rooting out extremism within our communities—both ‘owned’ communities (whether “British Muslims should do more to combat radical Islamisation among their community” or, “The tabloid press preaches hate to their readership”) and those ‘other’ communities living alongside us (“We should deport xxx”).

There’s an image in the Bible that feels pertinent to this. When the Israelites, rescued from slavery in Egypt, were in the process of colonising the land God had promised to their ancestor Abraham for his descendants, they were warned that if they failed to expel the other populations already settled there, those people would be ‘a thorn in their flesh’—a lifelong irritation, perpetuated down the generations. God’s warning even hints that the Israelites will experience the humbling of being exiled from their homeland.

‘But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides; they shall trouble you in the land where you are settling. And I will do to you as I thought to do to them.’ Numbers 33:55, 56

‘For if you turn back, and join the survivors of these nations left here among you, and intermarry with them, so that you marry their women and they yours, know assuredly that the Lord your God will not continue to drive out these nations before you; but they shall be a snare and a trap for you, a scourge on your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land that the Lord your God has given you.’ Joshua 23:12, 13

This begs the question, was God advocating ethnic cleansing? Or—and bearing in mind that no such cleansing took place—was God instructing the Israelites about living with such a thorn?

Millennia later, St Paul, steeped in the Jewish scriptures from birth, picked up on this image of the thorn in the flesh, in a way that might help answer the question.

‘Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given to me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”’ 2 Corinthians 12:7-9

Paul uses the term not to refer to a community living alongside him, but to describe a minority element within the Church: those who followed him wherever he carried the good news that the Gentiles were now welcomed into the people of God, telling those converts that they must also be circumcised and follow the Jewish law.

Through a process of struggling with this thorny issue, Paul discovers that it is not simply going to go away. God is not going to sanction their expulsion from the Church. The community of love to which Paul is wholeheartedly committed [1] will include within it a deeply problematic minority element.

People are complex, and such complexity is inevitable. But this element will serve a purpose, within God’s plan to reconcile all things [2]. They will stop Paul and the wider Christian community from being elated, from complacent self-congratulation. And they will provide opportunity for Paul and those with him to learn what it looks like to operate out of the grace of the Lord Jesus, and not their own strength.

It is easy to point to extremism within other groups, and judge them for it [3]. But if we are honest, there are extremists within every faith and ideology, among theists and atheists, religious and irreligious alike. There always will be. That doesn’t mean we ought to ignore it. But it does mean that we should be neither surprised nor dismayed. Instead, we should be honest about ourselves, and others—their struggles are our struggles; we have much in common—and embrace the grace held out to us, empowering us to be a community of good news.

[1] See the thirteenth chapter of his earlier surviving letter to this community, for example. And note that the whole Christian community needs to be challenged for their failure to be loving.

[2] This is a major theme Paul expands on in his second surviving letter to the church in Corinth.

[3] Of course, the ancient inhabitants of Israel were not extremists. They were civilians. Yet there is the perennial temptation to view difference as a danger to our way of life, the crowd that hides within it dangerous individuals.

Confirmation

Bishop Paul confirmed Jo, Susannah, and Noah at the Minster.

Alan Ward came up from Sheffield, representing Susannah and Noah’s godparents.

Leavers' Prom

Summertime

On believing in transformation

What’s that strange whirring sound?

That’ll be Mo Mowlam spinning in her grave at the Prime Minister’s willingness to sacrifice peace in Northern Ireland in order to stay in power.

The last thing Theresa May needs is 10 members of the DUP to lend her government a majority.

On the other hand, perhaps the thing Theresa May needs most of all is for 10 members of the DUP to teach her how Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness found a way to work together for the common good—and even became close personal friends in the process.

If the DUP and Sinn Fein could find a way—however hard—to share power, just imagine how politics in the wider UK could be transformed...

Hanging in the balance

A hung parliament reflects the diverse nature of our population, and the complexity of our interactions. We should neither expect nor demand that a would-be Prime Minister should command a majority. The best hope for the common good is to be found not in persuading a majority of the electorate to share a common ideology; or in securing enough opposition to curb ideological excess; but, rather, in the hard work of recognising those whose hopes, fears, and working-solutions differ from our own, and seeking to create room for one another.

The theological term for this deep recognition of the other is ‘communion’. The term for its absence is ‘impaired communion’. While the Church acknowledges the reality of impaired communion, we see it as a grievous scandal. We are, it seems, unable to recognise every other; but our failure to do so also inflicts violence on our own selves.

‘Strong and stable’ government is not good for democracies, and especially in uncertain times.

Instead, we need governments who will listen;

who will reach out to the other;

who will give-and-take [not simple asking, what part of my agenda am I prepared to surrender, but, what resources can I offer in support of someone else’s priorities?];

who will cooperate rather than compete—

in short, who have the skills to negotiate, nationally and internationally.

However imperfectly, and despite some arguing for a more ‘worldly’ political model, the Church has considerable experience of the joy and sorrow of communion/impaired communion. So, to, do the people of Northern Ireland, where a constructive peace was painstakingly brokered between former enemies, enabling and enabled-by ‘power sharing’ (communion was embodied in Ian Paisley of the DUP and Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein). However, communion tends to break down into impaired communion, and continually needs to be renewed. This is the case in Northern Ireland at present; and to best facilitate communion, the government in Westminster has always remained impartial—until now.

Much of the political chatter and gossip—and posturing—in the aftermath of the General Election—including the Prime Minister’s willingness to sacrifice peace in Northern Ireland in order to prop up oppositional power—shows just how addicted we are to dominance over others. There is a better way.

In the context of 2017, I commit myself to seek communion.

Casting votes

Today is General Election day in the UK.

If you are a Christian, your primary identity is within the kingdom of God, your primary allegiance is to the kingdom of God. This must inform how you vote, as a citizen of the United Kingdom.

Jesus’ manifesto is this:

to bring good news to the poor.*

*this will look like:

bringing release to those who’s experience of life is best described as being held in captivity, to, or by, others;

the recovery of sight to those who are blinded, who can see no hope or no way forward;

letting those who are oppressed by others go free, to experience the same freedom everyone else enjoys;

the writing-off of debt.

(Luke 4:18, 19)

moreover, it will look like:

feeding the hungry;

giving the thirsty something to drink;

welcoming the stranger;

clothing the naked;

taking care of the sick;

visiting [and, implied, meeting the needs of] prisoners.

(Matthew 25:31-46)

These things can be interpreted, and sought to be implemented, in different ways. No political party does so perfectly. Your responsibility is simply to give due consideration to the ways in which political manifestos would address these things, and then to contribute to society by allocating your vote as you see best.**

**and to remain personally and communally invested in these things, regardless of the outcome of the election.

Ascension Day

Today is Ascension Day, the day we remember Jesus’ returning to the Father – and the significance of this event. For those who are interested in APEST, Ephesians 4 is an ascension text:

‘But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it is said,

‘When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive;

he gave gifts to his people.’*

(When it says, ‘He ascended’, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.)

The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.’

Ephesians 4:7-16

*Here Paul, the writer, references Psalm 68:18

Come together, not apart

A 22-year-old suicide bomber is not some different-to-us category of evil person we can’t understand or do anything about.

He is likely isolated, struggling with big questions and looking for answers, disaffected with society. In other words, he is no different from many of our young people.

Instead of coming under the influence of terrorists, he might have been found by the local drug dealer, and spiralled into self-destruction. Or a local gang, and knifed a kid at a bus stop.

Or he might have been found by a sports coach, an inspiring teacher, or a sympathetic employer. He might have been found by a preacher of love, a local political party, or grass-roots community. By a neighbour who smiled and said hello.

It is easy to worry about who is influencing young people.

It is better to be an influence for hope and a future.

To seek to understand actions that seem inexplicable to us is not necessarily to condone them, but to insist on showing compassion, which, I believe, is the only way we guard our humanity.

Baptism and APEST

I’ve been thinking about baptism and the preparation of candidates for baptism, and also about APEST (apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers) recently, and find myself making the following connections between them.

In our liturgy of baptism, there are three symbols: oil, water, and a candle.

The oil comes first, as we mark the candidates with the sign of the cross, in oil, on their foreheads. This is an anointing. As such, we are recognising that the candidate has been chosen by God to fulfil a special role. It is a deeply Christocentric anointing – they are marked with the sign of the cross, the sign of Christ, along with the words ‘Christ claims you for his own’ – but it is the candidate who is anointed. That is to say, they are anointed into a share in Jesus’ calling.

Note that this comes before we get to the act of baptism. At this point, they are not yet identified with Christ as members of his Church, but rather are being identified with Christ in his humanity, as members of the human family. What we are recognising – what we are anointing – is a unique share in Jesus’ fully-human nature, his incarnation; and this anointing is for the purpose of taking a stand against all that rebels against the God-given commission that we should steward this earth.

According to Ephesians 4, there are five human impulses that Jesus perfectly expresses, and that we share in. These are:

the apostolic impulse to innovation and pioneering, to taking ourselves beyond the known;

the prophetic impulse to pursue justice and to protect beauty – and often, to use beauty to resist and overcome injustice;

the evangelistic impulse to share good news, wherever it may be found;

the shepherding, or pastoral, impulse to care for others, paying special attention to the most vulnerable;

and the teaching impulse to learn and pass on learning.

Each of us carries all five impulses to varying degrees, but we tend to have one or two that are primary. It is this Jesus-defined humanity we are recognising here. Where baptism candidates are infants, we have yet to (help them to) discover the role for which we are anointing them: we do so in faith.

Next comes the water of baptism. Here, we are identifying the baptism candidate with the saving work of God, who always comes to rescue us from chaos. The water of baptism, poured out three times recalls God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – drawing out dry land from the waters; saving Noah and his family during the Great Flood; bringing the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt through the Sea of Reeds, and, after many years in the wilderness, across the River Jordan into the Promised Land.

In baptism, we are symbolising the reality that God has ransomed the candidate. This finds its expression in Ephesians 4 in verses 8-10, which draw on Psalm 68 and the imagery of God descending on Mount Sinai and ascending Mount Zion, liberating captives and receiving tribute. We move from Jesus claiming us, as members of the human family; to God saving us, into the family of the Church…and then to Jesus giving us to one another and for the world.

The third symbol is the giving of a candle, lit from the Paschal Candle which represents Jesus the Light of the World. Here, we are commissioned to shine as lights in the world. Again, this is to have a share in Christ – lights, dependent on the Light. The baptism candidate has been anointed, passed through the waters, and is now sent out into the world, to make a difference. The person they are by Jesus’ involvement in their coming into being (Creation Order) is redeemed (Salvation Order), liberated to fulfil their calling, shining in the world according to an apostolic or prophetic or evangelistic or shepherding or teaching impulse.

The role of the Christian community – with parents and godparents often having special responsibility – is to support the baptised to grow in their understanding of what they have been anointed and liberated for, and where and how we are called to shine as a light. This is as true with adults who come to baptism as it is with infants who are brought for baptism. It is a lifelong journey made by faith, in community. It is a journey made in response to the call of Christ, from which we get the word vocation as a way of coming to our right selves.

I am convinced that the pattern of Ephesians 4 is key to our practices of disciple-making, and is therefore rightly there in the very liturgy of baptism – and all that brings us to that point, and flows out from it.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

Tragedy

God came to us, and we killed him. And some of us killed him for love of God; because the tragedy of the human condition – as Shakespeare knew so well, and expressed so powerfully in plays such as Romeo & Juliet – is that, one way or another, we kill those whom we love as much as those whom we hate.

The work of Holy Saturday is to let that sink in, to refuse the impulse to excuse ourselves from the human condition.

Holy Saturday