betrayals

 

I like to be fashionably late to a party, unless it is an actual party, in which case I like not to go at all. And so it is that I watched the third series of The Traitors, having not watched the first two (even then, I didn't pick this one up from the very start).

A couple of quick takeaways.

Firstly, people, even people who believe themselves to be en vogue, are incredibly change resistant. This series saw a couple of twists, variations on how the game was played in the first two series (in part to keep the game fresh; in part, I'm sure, to generate exactly the kind of response it achieved) and a whole lot of viewers were up in arms. Even though this is a game of twists, we want the format to remain unchanged. We like the pretence of being in control that knowing the rules of the game gives.

Secondly, collectively we enter into an agreement to play the game. As far as I know (though I admit I did not go looking and so I may be wrong) the media respected the format. That is, although the series was filmed some time before it was broadcast (and was broadcast over a much longer time than the game took to play) the media did not report who had won (at least, even if that information could be found somewhere, you could engage with the media without finding out). The news media took the traditional roles of reporting, for the record, what had taken place the day before (the day before, in this case, being a conceit, but still) and offering editorial thoughts on what might unfold next; as opposed to the more usual current role of informing us today what someone in the public eye is going to do (e.g. leaking extensive content of a Prime Ministerial speech a couple of days before they deliver it). And this meant that we were all in a traditional and now increasingly unfamiliar role as consumers of media, held in time (not real time, as the series had already been filmed, but common time). If you chose not to watch an episode as it was aired, or if you had no choice but to catch up later, you had to avoid finding out details the next day that would spoil your viewing; but you were essentially in the traditional place of a newspaper reader who only got their newspaper a couple of days after the events it was reporting. This agreement, this holding of common time in a world of on-demand media consumption, also gives us a sense of security, which is illusionary but an effective placebo.

 

crowded

 

The Lectionary brings together short passages from across the collection of books that make up the library of holy texts we call the Bible, and invites them to have a conversation, to discover what they have in common, and how they express themselves in diverse ways.

Today the Lectionary pairs an extract from the Letter to the Hebrews (early communities of apprentices to Jesus, mostly fellow Jews, scattered over a wide geographic area against the backdrop of the first Jewish-Roman War) (Hebrews 7.25-8.6, an even shorter extract given below) and an extract from the Gospel According to Mark:

‘Consequently he [Jesus] is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, blameless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.’

(Hebrews 7.25, 26)

‘Jesus departed with his disciples to the lake, and a great multitude from Galilee followed him; hearing all that he was doing, they came to him in great numbers from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and the region around Tyre and Sidon. He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him; for he had cured many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him. Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, ‘You are the Son of God!’ But he sternly ordered them not to make him known.’

(Mark 3.7-12)

The extract from Hebrews opens with the claim that Jesus is able for all time (even, perhaps especially, times of war) to save those who approach God through him...and continues stating that Jesus is separated from sinners. This latter claim seems a little odd, given that in the Gospels Jesus is often seen to be, and criticised precisely for, associating with sinners.

In the extract from the Gospel According to Mark, we see a large crowd of people approaching Jesus, and his withdrawing or separating himself from them. Indeed, throughout the Gospels Jesus is often seen attempting to withdraw from the crowds, either alone or with his apprentices.

In the Gospels we see Jesus responding to whoever is right in front of him, usually with compassion, sometimes with frustration, one person at a time, but he never gives himself to the crowds. He never seeks to draw crowds to him, to gather crowds or to ignite a popular movement. He does not trust the crowd, with good reason, for crowds are dangerous. They project their own agenda on a person, and they are fickle as hell.

This particular crowd has come together from across a wide area. Many have travelled great distances to be there. They come with a wide range of motivations. Some have come in hope of a spectacle. Some looking for an argument. Some because there is something that they want Jesus to do for them, a healing perhaps. Some, in all probability, simply swept along by the crowd, carried away.

Jesus separates himself from them, getting into a boat, withdrawing deeper into the life and livelihood of his disciples, of those he is in the process of calling to be his apprentices. Indeed, Jesus has already departed from one crowded space to be with his disciples, and now finds himself withdrawing a step further, from the shore onto the lake.

It is salutary to note how often in churches we lament that there is no crowd gathering at the place where Jesus has called us to withdraw with him. We long for the very crowds Jesus himself so often separated himself from. He is not looking for a crowd, for those who want something from God, some validation or cause; he is not interested in being swept up in something and carried away.

He is still able to save those who approach God through him.

Who will you invest your life in today?

What will you separate yourself from to do so?

How might this model or point to something enduring to a world that is constantly chasing the next new thing, because each new thing is constantly passing away?

Where is Jesus in this?

 

speaking truth to power

 

“Let me make one final plea, Mr. President. Millions have put their trust in you, and as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families, some who fear for their lives. The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals, they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, gurdwara, and temples.

I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land. May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love, and walk humbly with each other and our God, for the good of all people, the good of all people in this nation and the world. Amen.”

Mariann Edgar Budde, Episcopal Bishop of Washington since 2011: concluding remarks of the sermon she gave at the National Prayer Service, Washington National Cathedral, 21 January 2025.

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“The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard line Trump hater. She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart.... She and her church owe the public an apology!”

Donald Trump, 45th and 47th US President: on TruthSocial, 21 January 2025.

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The so-called actual Bishop who spoke preached the sermon at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was is a Radical Left hard line Trump hater passionate believer in the gospel of Jesus and the Episcopal Church’s particular witness. She was nasty gracious in tone, and not compelling or smart and articulate.... She and her church owe the public an apology! have nothing to apologise for.

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do what you hear

 

Reflections on Luke 4.14-21, the Gospel text set for this coming Sunday.

‘The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour,

[and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to provide for those who mourn in Zion—to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, to display his glory. They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.]’

Isaiah 61.1-2a [2b-4]

‘Then [Jesus] began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”’

Luke 4.21

‘Having read from the prophet Isaiah [Luke includes Isaiah 61.1-2a which may summarise a longer excerpt] Jesus began his interpretation of the text by saying, “This ancient holy text is made complete in the present day by your hearing and understanding, as you listen and obey.”’

Luke 4.21, my own paraphrase of the Greek text.

This is what it means to be formed by the communal hearing and responding to scripture, to the Law (divine instruction on the formation and continual renewing of a just and merciful society) and the Prophets (commentary on what it looks like to fulfil, or make manifest, the Law, in practice; and what it looks like when we fail to do so).

We hear. We do. We return. We confess, lament, dream, rejoice. We are sent.

This is what our baptism brought us into.

This is how we rebuild cities that have been devastated and in ruins for generations. How we rebuild a society that believes not only that Christianity doesn’t work (what would working look like, and upon whom?) but that nothing else works either.

Not imposing rules on others, rules we reject for ourselves, as Christian nationalism—a totalitarian bastardisation of faith, utterly anti-Christ—is attempting to do in various parts of the world; but committing ourselves to good news for the oppressed (whatever that looks like, from systemic attitudes to personal shame) those who are marginalised (within any sphere). And this not by being their saviour but testifying to the salvation that is already at work in the world.

We hear. We do. We return. We confess, lament, dream, rejoice. We are sent.

“This ancient holy text is made complete in the present day by your hearing and understanding, as you listen and obey.”

 

fruitful

 

Paul, an early apprentice of Jesus, wrote:

...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control...

Galatians 5.22

This does not mean that these attributes are contrary to human nature, but that they are precisely the fruit we were created to produce, and the seeds and saplings of these attributes are planted in the soil of our lives by the Spirit of God.

(Immediately before writing this, Paul wrote about the contrasting desires, and works, of the flesh. But flesh does not refer to human nature; it refers to acting in opposition to what God hopes for us, such that we become brute animals, living yes, but less-than fully human.)

Whenever you experience love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (and whenever other people experience these in and through you) this is evidence of the goodness and mercy of God in our lives, and signs of what we are made for. We know this is not the only fruit that is sown or planted in our lives, and that bears fruit: there are those who sow division and discord, enmity, jealousy, partisanship, and all kinds of bitter fruit. But the fruit of the Spirit of God is not rare or exceptional: indeed, it is sown and planted lavishly in all of our lives, without favouritism, and bears fruit all of the time, even if it is not the only fruit in our lives.

Look for the good. In yourself and in others. You will find it. Then give thanks to God.

And when you note bad fruit, bitter attributes, in your own life, look for who sold you the seed or sapling, and look to remove yourself from their influence. By this I do not mean cutting people out of your life in ways that would be contrary to love, patience and generosity; but simply, be wise about who you go to for your garden supplies (character formation).

Who do you know who helps you to be loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, generous, faithful, gentle, or self-controlled (regulated) perhaps by modelling these attributes in ways you can aspire to practice for yourself? Remember, the empowering Spirit of God, who is at work in their life, is at work in your life too.

 

poeple

 

People frequently tell me that they do not understand people anymore.

Sure you do. You are one.

And people are a hot mess. You are a hot mess.

People are essentially selfish and generous, judgemental and kind. They are both/and beings, not either/or. Not so much contradictory as paradoxical. They all have an inner child who is scared, an inner teenager who is angry at the world all of the time, and an inner adult who is just so tired of all the drama (actually, just tired). The things you see and do not like in other people are the things you see and have yet to befriend in yourself. In other words, projection. The presence and the absence of people in our lives are, equally, almost unbearable (and yet we bear them). As is your presence and your absence in the life of someone else.

You are a pain in the ass. And I love you (in small doses).

When we say we do not understand people we are really saying that we do not want to know ourselves. We hide, ashamed of our nakedness, in the trees and hope not to be seen, declaring self-knowledge too great a burden to bear or to share.

But you were made to know and be fully known. You were made for union with God and neighbour. With people. And God comes looking, looking for you as friend. And of this God, you do not need to be afraid.

 

grace upon grace

 

Gospels unfold. Here is how John begins his:

‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it...

‘And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth...From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.’

John 1.1-5, 14, 16-18.

Not many verses later, we find ourselves at a wedding at Cana (John 2.1-11). And the wine has run out. At this celebration of hope and a future, not only for two families but for the welfare of the wider community, at this moment of light in what can feel a dark world, darkness encroaches. Loss encroaches. Death encroaches.

Indeed, death always encroaches on a wedding. In our own marriage vows, a couple commit to one another for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. But no one wants to be reminded again at the reception.

The wine has run out. And Jesus instructs the servants to fill six stone jars to the brim with water. John has already declared that All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. That is, Jesus does not only turn water into wine; the water itself flows from him.

John has already declared, From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The water is grace, and the wine is grace upon grace. The water is grace, that flows through Moses giving the Law. Some Jews ritually wash their hands as the first act after waking, after passing from the symbolic death of sleep to the new life of a new day. As a reminder that life is a gift, in the face of the temptation to view another day as a curse. Another Monday at school, at work. No, life is grace, and grace will bless our hands as we participate in the work of God to make all things new. Some Jews also ritually wash their hands before eating bread, pausing to notice the connection between our bodies and the soil of the earth to which we will return, our bodies and the sweat of the brow by which food is brought forth. To notice the connectedness and holiness of all things. And those Jews who were priests had water poured on the hands before pronouncing a blessing, before stretching out their hand to mend the world.

The water is from Jesus (through Moses) and is grace. The wine is from Jesus (through the unnamed servants) and is grace upon grace. The wine will be consumed, just as the earlier wine had been consumed, and the stone jars will go back to holding water for purification. But that grace is now re-enchanted.

And by this sign, Jesus revealed his glory, revealed the nature of the God whom we cannot see. A God who gives grace upon grace. A God from whom we have all received grace, and who does not stop there but gives the grace of his own transforming presence in our midst, in our lives.

This is not magic. Jesus is not a talisman to ward off evil. We do not say, trust in Jesus and you will not know loss, will not know disenchantment with the world, with life. Rather, we say, invite Jesus to your life, in its moments of celebration and in its inevitable moments of depletion, and you will not face these moments alone. Indeed, in him is hope, that God will restore all that is lost. In him is light that will not be extinguished. In him is life, in its fullness.

For from his fullness, we all receive grace upon grace.

 

wonder

 

I read recently about pioneering plastic surgery, a soldier who returned from the First World War with a badly burned face and a surgeon who grafted skin from his back onto his face instead. And it reminded me of Jesus taking living (that is, flowing, stream-fed) water from a mikveh and changing it into wine (John 2.1-11).

It reminded me of the journey from childlike faith to adult faith to rediscovered childlike faith.

It is often assumed, at least when it comes to faith development, that children see the world unquestionably, in simplistic black and white terms. That they simply receive the worldview of their parents, whatever that might happen to be. But in my experience of engaging with school children, of many different family backgrounds, they both ask brilliant questions and offer amazing insights.

It is as we get older that we begin to lose our sense of wonder (long before, in the normal course of things, we begin to lose our sense of hearing or sight or fingertip touch) our innate awareness that our body is intimately connected to all things, from the trees in the forest to the stars in the sky. And as we lose our sense of wonder, even as we continue to be concerned for the well-being of our bodies, we stop asking such brilliant questions, pushed out by a sense of loss of innocence.

This does not mean that we necessarily abandon faith. It may mean that our faith calcifies into hard dogmatic certainty, or empty ritualism, in place of participation in mystery.

And this may, in fact, be a necessary stage, of loss and perhaps growing awareness of what we have lost. For the truly wise among us are those who have wrestled with their discontent and found their way back to a childlike faith, to living with beautiful questions (more than answers) and (the gift of) profound insights.

Jesus takes the living water of water-purification rituals, of the moments we are invited to pause and discover once again that we have a body, that we are embodied creatures in the world, and he turns a certain amount of it into wine. The wine will be consumed, and the stone jars, unchanged by their content, will return to holding living water, will return to providing those moments for pausing and coming back to ourselves as holy, as having a particular purpose to bless the world. But for now, he takes some of this water and turns it into the wine of celebration.

Why? Because we can know that we are embodied, we can even know that our body is holy and yet run out of joy. Our awareness of loss can rob us of our ability to experience joy and express that joy in community.

Just as the surgeon took skin from the back of the body and grafted it onto the face, so Jesus took living water and turned it into wine.

And just as the raw skin on the back would heal, so the living water would continue to flow, but now the water-purification rituals are infused with a memory of celebration. A way back to childlike wonder and childlike faith.

We lose our sense of wonder, and I am not sure we can regain it in any way other than sheer gift, because it was always gift and never something we manufacture for ourselves.

This is the difference Jesus makes. But, like Mary, we must first notice that the wine has run out, and that he, alone, knows what is needed.

 

tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

 

There is a moment in the Tragedy of Macbeth, where it is becoming clear that the future he and Lady Macbeth had tried to grasp will be ripped from his hand, and when he has just been informed that his wife has ended her own life with violence, where Shakespeare gives Macbeth this amazing soliloquy:

“She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow.

Three times in the opening chapter of the Gospel According to John, the biographer John writes: the next day, the next day, the next day.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow.

Building a sense of inevitability. A player stepping out on the stage. A tale told. But when his hour comes, this poor player will not be forgotten. The telling of this tale is not sound and fury, signifying nothing, but signs and passion, that the heater might believe for themselves.

[Bonus trivia connection: Macbeth act 5 scene 5 continues with Macbeth threatening a messenger:

“If thou speak’st false,
Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,
Till famine cling thee:”]

John breaks the petty pace pattern of the next day, the next day, the next day at the start of chapter 2, declaring: On the third day ...

... an image he will carry through chapter 2 when Jesus moves from a wedding at Cana (On the third day) to the temple in Jerusalem, where when he is challenged to justify his driving out the animals, both the sheep and the cattle [note, contrary to those who use this incident to justify violence, the whip is not used against fellow humans, as if Jesus was an Egyptian overseer of Hebrew slaves, but as a practical means of directing livestock], he replies with an enigmatic statement his apprentices later understand as a prediction of his death [parched, hanging on a tree, charged with and declared guilty of false speech] and resurrection (in three days).

The difference between Macbeth, who was not only a literary character but also an historical king of Scotland for seventeen years, and Jesus, who is not only an historical person but also a literary character, is that Jesus does not despise the way to dusty death as the way of fools; he is the Way, and in walking the way faithfully – keeping faith with frail humanity – transforms dusty death into the door to life; a candle – the light of life – extinguished, briefly, only to reignite.

But before we get to the temple, and long before we get to the foretold death and resurrection, On the third day John takes us to a wedding in Cana of Galilee, where six stone jars that had held water are refilled with water, which is transformed into wine.

The point is not that the wine is better than the water. This is not Jesus superseding Judaism. The wine is the water, transformed, not replaced. The detail John notes is the instruction to fill the jars to the brim. That is, the water that was already in the jars has been depleted: you cannot fill a full jar. First depletion, then filling, then transformation. We must embrace loss, the impact of death, if we are to experience gain, the promise of life.

This is what Macbeth failed to grasp, and what we so often fail to grasp.

 

poise

 

Yesterday we saw a rise in temperature, and walking the path between the vicarage and the church early in the morning, I noticed that the path was covered with large droplets of water that were holding their shape. Retracing my route forty minutes later, I noticed that the water had held the shape of my footprints, the tread of my Dr Marten boot soles. Indeed, the water held the shape of my footprints all day and is still holding their shape the following day.

I don’t understand the physics, but I know that this has to do with viscosity, ‘a measure of a fluid’s rate-dependent resistance to a change in shape or to movement of its neighbouring portions relative to one another’ (Encyclopaedia Brittanica) and informally known as thickness. At the current temperature range, the water has a high enough viscosity to hold its shape. The SI units of viscosity are newton-seconds per square metre or pascal-seconds, sometimes expressed as poise (1 pascal-second = 10 poise). The poise of water between 5°C-10°C is 0.015-0.013 P.

Poise, as a unit of measurement, is named after the French physicist Jean Léonard Marie Poiseuille. But in English ‘poise’ means a graceful and elegant bearing in a person. And there is something elegant about holding oneself together under pressure. There is something graceful about making the world a more beautiful place by your presence. There can be something graceful and elegant about embracing a gradual change in the face of external forces or circumstances we cannot control. There is something graceful and elegant about bearing witness to the presence of another, passing through your presence in the world, to saying not only ‘I am here’ but also ‘They were here, too.’

There is poise to the viscosity of water, and as I walked the path between vicarage and church, or across the patio outside my back door, yesterday, I trod with reverence for the water, for my recently past self (careful not to break the edges of my earlier footprints) and for the forensic testimony of the interdependence of life. Poise is not a word often associated with a dyspraxic person, but the poise of the water invited me to pay attention to my own poise in the world.

stone and water

 

The Gospel set for the Second Sunday of Epiphany is John 2.1-11, the account of Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding in Cana of Galilee.

It is a favourite passage of mine, and paired with my favourite Collect (or Prayer for the Day, the day in question being the Second Sunday of Epiphany).

I want to pay attention to the details. There are six stone jars, for holding water for ritual purification, that is, a physical and bodily action that invites us to pause and to experience our body as holy, something that is both inherently good and chosen by God for his good purposes for his world, truths we lose sight of in the business of daily life. Such rituals are a gift, bringing us back to our body as gift, and are especially relevant to those of us who have been shaped by the Enlightenment and the Cartesian view that ‘I think, therefore I am’ without reference to my body or the bodies of my parents and indeed my ancestors from whom my body was given me.

There are Jewish water-purification rites relating to the menstrual cycle, not because women are a contaminating presence but because they have a body that experiences cycles to be attended to, not only on a practical level; cycles that connect them deeply to all creation. There are Jewish water-purification rites relating to eating bread, inviting us to pause and wonder at our hand, and the intimate connection between labour and food. There are rites of cleansing when laying out the dead, to remind us of the gift of a living, breathing body, for we bring nothing into the world and will take nothing with us when we leave it; and rites of cleansing before a priest declares a blessing, to remind us that a blessing is not merely words but a physical thing, a hand stretched out, air passing through a voice-box, matter connecting with matter in ways that matter.

The water used for water-purification must be living water, that is flowing, directly from a spring. But some took the view that living water could be stored and carried – though not directly touched – in stone jars. Unlike the more common (cheaper, readily available, disposable) clay jars, stone does not become ritually unclean when it comes into contact with something ritually unclean – such as blood, or a corpse. The family hosting the wedding in Cana used stone jars, which suggests that ritual purity was essential to them. This in turn suggests that they were a priestly family. We know that priests lived in Cana, and, along with other priests scattered in Levitical towns across the land, took their rostered turn serving at the temple in Jerusalem. If so, they would also have a spring-fed mikveh (a bath used solely for ritual submersion) in their home, and it would be from this water that the servants filled the jars at Jesus’ direction. (We once owned a house that had a stream flowing through the basement and occasionally flooded and had to be pumped out.) That there are six jars is a matter of biographical detail – the reason there were six jars was because there were six jars – not some theological symbolism – six days of creation, for example. The significant detail is that they were stone.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Jesus himself are invited guests, and the kind of close-circle guests expected to stay for the duration. Mary herself is thought to have been from a priestly family, and these may be her relatives. As she is not the host but nonetheless keeps a close and interested eye on proceedings, it is possible that this is the wedding of one of Jesus’ siblings. It is possible – though this is entirely speculative – that it is the wedding of one of Jesus’ sisters to Nathanael, after Nathanael has discovered that good things can come out of Nazareth after all, and Jesus has vetted Nathanael and declared him to be ‘a true Israelite in whom there is no deceit.’

Everything about this account – the jars, the water, the wine – is gift. It is not the case that the wine is better than the water (though it is better than the wine that had already been consumed). Jesus is not superseding anything here. We are not doing away with Judaism. Everything is gift and everything matters. The servants must manoeuvre heavy stone jars, fill them from the mikveh, carry them back, dip a ladle into the water, which is now wine. The master of ceremonies must lift the wine to his lips and drink, and declare it very good, though he does not know from where it came or why it is only now being brought out. The servants know where the wine came from, but not how it came to be wine. It is gift, and mystery. It is participation.

The Collect for the Second Sunday of Epiphany declares:

Almighty God,
in Christ you make all things new:
transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace
and in the renewal of our lives
make known your heavenly glory ...

The phrase ‘the poverty of our nature’ is a recognition that we do not make ourselves – do not summon ourselves into being by our own power and authority – but receive our life as a contingent gift, wondrous, deeply connected to others. We do not need to make ourselves acceptable to God; nor does Jesus need to make us acceptable to God (though he may need to open our eyes to see). Yet, as if this were not wondrous enough, what is already gift is transformed into another – a different – gift ‘by the riches of [God’s] grace’ – that is, through the act of another gift-giving. This is grace upon grace.

You are a gift, and that gift is embodied. That body will age, and experience limitations, and is intended to become thoroughly inter-dependent with others, who are themselves also gifts who enjoy the gift of life. The gift you are is a gift that will undergo transformation, many times over, as your personal story is woven into the big story God is co-authoring with humanity. Like the servants and the steward, we will both know and not know what it is that has happened, for it is a mystery, not to be explained but to be entered. Like the disciples, we will be given a glimpse of Jesus’ glory and are encouraged to respond by affirming our belief in him. The occasion of our transformation may be a running out of some resource, as the wine ran out; or the abundance of a resource, as the water filled the jars to the brim. The ebb and flow of our lives is full of endings and beginnings. In all things, may Jesus be glorified.

 

Christ, the Lord

 

We get milk delivered to our doorstep, but sometimes, as happened yesterday, I have to pop out for extra. As I approached the till, the cashier said, ‘Christ, it’s cold.’ and then, in panic at what is or isn’t appropriate language in front of a vicar, ‘But the forecast is that it is about to get warmer. Thank the Lord.’

Am I a bad vicar for finding their response hilarious? Perhaps. But Jesus, whom Christians call the Christ or Anointed One, lived on the eastern end of the Mediterranean. I think he would respond to ‘Christ, it’s cold.’ with, ‘It certainly is!’ And while I am not especially keen on his name being used as an exclamatory, I am far more offended by those who co-opt his name to their political attempts to exercise control over the lives, bodies and relationships of other people. The only control that is the fruit of the Spirit – the only control God exercises – is self-control.

 

on burn out and overwhelm

 

‘When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.’

Isaiah 43

Two years ago, I was burnt out. I had been covering two vacancies, in two neighbouring churches, for too long, and the fact that someone was providing cover meant that the processes for addressing the situation were not moving in the way that they ought to move. And I had reached the point where I was exhausted, emotionally, and had run out of hope that anything was going to change.

When I share this story, people share with me their experiences of burn-out, in the face of intractable challenges in their working lives or family circumstances. And when we are burnt out, we need someone to show us one small step that we can take.

I met with my archdeacon, and told him that, even though I had not lost my sense of vocation, I was seriously contemplating walking away from this, from holding these vacancies. He listened, and said, ‘You need a sabbatical.’ (three month’s paid leave). I replied, ‘I’ve been asking for a sabbatical for over two years now, and I just get pushed from pillar to post.’ He responded, ‘We’ll make it happen.’ One small step.

On my wife’s recommendation, I got in ouch with friends who live in Spain and arranged to go and spend a week with them. They live in a Roman walled city. Each day, I walked around the city wall, then found a café and drank coffee and read. Small steps.

The next small step was deciding that I would not go back to holding two vacancies but would leave the place where I had been based and concentrate on the place where some of my time had been loaned. Small step after small step. And at times what looked like a path forward vanished into thin air, inviting me to stop and wait and look around and find a next small step.

In this way, step by step, including not heading too far off the path, we rebuild hope.

Burn out is not uncommon. But being overwhelmed is very common. Overwhelm is the experience that life is unfolding too fast, faster than our bodies and minds can manage, faster than we are willing or able to keep up.

One of the common experiences of overwhelm is found in the wake of bereavement. The world rushes on, oblivious, as if it did not know that it had come to an end, as if people did not care that you had lost your very life when someone dear to you died. You might even have had it said to you, ‘Have you not moved on? It’s been six months.’ as if six months was anything at all.

We experience overwhelm when the demands placed upon us are too relentless.

And the experts tell us that the cure to overwhelm is play.

When children play, they are fully absorbed. Their parent might say, ‘Come on, it’s time to go.’ and it is as if the child has not heard them, because they have not heard, not because they are disobedient but because they are absorbed.

Through play, children learn cooperation and problem solving, but also and more fundamentally experience joy. As adults we assume that we have learnt the lessons of play (the skills of cooperation and problem solving) and so we leave play behind. And over time we forget how to play. We lose touch with joy.

Burn out is a long-term challenge. It takes more than a three-month sabbatical to return. But overwhelm, despite being a big emotion, can be smaller in scale, and a more frequent experience. The late modern world comes at us thick and fast. At times we might take out ten minutes just to play and that be enough; at times, a whole day.

And God does not say to his people, you will not walk through fire and the waves will not rise over your head. God says, when these things happen, because they will happen, when you are burnt out or overwhelmed, there you might discover me with you. In the revelation of a small step, or in the midst of play.

 

reading

 

The biographer Luke records an occasion when Jesus read aloud from the book of the prophet Isaiah in the synagogue at Nazareth. We encounter Jesus in a synagogue several times in the Gospels, but here (chapter 4) Luke gives a particular insight into communal reading.

Contrary to popular belief, people in antiquity knew how to read silently (the difference between seeing a text and listening to a text) but the predominant form of reading was out loud.

Between the ages of five and twelve, Jesus would have learnt to read by reading extracts of the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) aloud, and, eventually, committing them to memory. This was the core of what we would call primary or elementary education. Then, as a teenager, he would have done the same with the Prophets.

Over the centuries our reading has shifted. Reading aloud and reading silently are both open to us but reading silently has become the norm. Reading has been moved from a communal act to a private act. For many, the primary purpose of reading is, in fact, to escape from others, from the demands of the community around us. Reading opens up horizons that do not actually exist in our lives, though they might, one day.

And reading silently has certain positives, not least as an act of rebellion against unjust demands on our time and our bodies by other people. But it also has a cost.

Reading aloud has several benefits, benefits that we have largely lost. Reading aloud can improve our memory; can improve our comprehension of complex texts; and can strengthen the emotional bonds between people (which is why we still read out sentences that strike us, and memes that make us smile, even if for the most part we sit scrolling our individual screens). Reading aloud could build resilience against dementia and offer early signs of its onset.

If you have bothered to read this, this far, you have almost certainly read it silently. When we read silently, we do the minimum work necessary for comprehension. We do not pay close attention to the difference between, say, prophecy (noun: prophetic content, which may be written down, such as the book of Isaiah) and prophesy (verb: the act of delivering a prophecy, out loud, such as Jesus reading the words of Isaiah and then declaring that they were fulfilled in his presence in his community). You may have found the repetition of read, in the first sentence of this paragraph, once pronounced reed and once red, jarring.

Reading aloud, whether alone or in the presence of others, is good for you. And reading aloud in the presence of others is good for them. For us. We hold back, feeling embarrassed, lacking confidence and perceiving ourselves to lack competence, perhaps because you read aloud at primary school and someone laughed at you for getting it wrong (you did not get it wrong, you were practicing, which is the only way to grow in confidence and competence; you were stretching yourself beyond what you already knew) and you fear (sadly, perhaps with good reason) that you will be judged harshly if you read aloud in public now (who do you think you are, to stand up there like that?) (ha! they said that wrong). But confidence and competence are grown by practice.

I would love to see the local church community of which I am a part rediscover itself as a place where stories are read aloud, by a diverse range of people, for their good and for the communal good. Where riches are uncovered, where newfound freedom is experienced, where things lost are restored.

 

formation and transformation

 

I am reflecting on these verses from the prophet Isaiah 43:1,2

‘But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.’

I am reflecting on these verses in part because they (along with the following five verses) are set for this coming Sunday, and in part because they are entirely resonant for the first Monday of January, which, here where I am, is bleak.

These verses are spoken into an historical context I cannot relate to, nor could Isaiah imagine our twenty first century context, and yet ‘overwhelm’ and ‘burned’ are soul experiences we know all too well. Perhaps less familiar is the sense of being ‘created,’ ‘formed,’ and ‘redeemed.’

We experience overwhelm when we sense that life is unfolding too fast, faster than our body – our nervous system, certainly our conscious mind – can manage. We experience burn out when we lose hope – when, in contrast to life unfolding too fast, it feels stuck; when we can see no path from where we are to where we want to be.

These opposite and sometimes co-habiting emotional responses are familiar alarm bells in the complex society we have constructed that allows the few to dominate the lives of the many.

Psychologists tell us that the cure for overwhelm is play, or mindful play, which is a way of describing being absorbed, for a time, in being over doing. An activity that has no directed productive purpose (but, ironically, is essential to our longer-term direction, productivity, and sense of purpose).

Conversely, the return from burn out involves learning hope, through setting realistic goals, identifying flexible and alternative pathways, and embracing agency: our ability to change our circumstances, over time, one small step at a time.

We see both overwhelm and burning out addressed in Isaiah 43:1-7, with an understanding that we might be equipped to face such possibilities (indeed, likely scenarios) even if we cannot reliably predict and avoid the circumstances that are beyond our control – the waters rising, through which we must pass; the fires we walk through.

And what Isaiah imagines God might do with a people, we, who are called to participate in the divine nature in embodied ways, might well attend to doing in our own flesh.

The cure to overwhelm is play, and in these verses Isaiah imagines God, who has not only created a people but who has formed them as a potter gives form to clay. This is a creative process, one in which the potter brings their skill, yes, but the clay brings its unique properties, which are discovered through a playful interaction between the two, wet fingers exploring, imagining, nothing set (by fire) as yet, clay yielding, folding in on itself, taking one form and then another. There is both absent-mindedness and focus here, not in a self-contradictory way, but in being present to this moment alone, to creaturely embodiment, to the inchoate desire from which form will take shape. Daydreaming is part of the creative process, as is getting caught up in flow. And this can be scary, at first, especially if we like to be in control, if we want to master a skill – or our own self-expression, identity – without being willing to surrender to being a novice, an amateur, at being ourselves. Yet in such deep waters, God may be found with us.

The way back from burn out is hope, hope that tomorrow might be different from today. That we might know a little more freedom than yesterday and grasp it and put it to good use. That we might see a way forward – even if the path disappears into bright fog, for there is, at least, a path out from here; and if there is a path from here, and that path is blocked, there may yet be another path from there. And to those who have been burned, and those who might yet pass through fire (and who does not?) Isaiah imagines God calling on the compass points to surrender their captives, the sons and daughters who have been carried off into some distant exile, far from home, far from their own lives. That is powerful imagery. God has a plan, a redemption plan, that does not settle for what is but can imagine powerful societies overthrown that a new generation might be raised up. Not one path but four, from east and west, north and south. That the experience of exile is transformed from hopelessness – this will never change – into something to push against and grow strong.

What playfulness might you set apart time for this week?

What small step might you make on a path to a goal?

Where might you rediscover God with you in your life, however it looks at present?

 

cracker

 

Monday 6th January will be for many the day they go back to school or work after the Christmas break. Even if you are retired, and have nothing in particular to go back to, it may still feel like a gearshift. The Christmas decorations are back in the loft, and we turn our faces into the cold wind of a calendar month that seems to last a full three-hundred-and sixty-five days. But the 6th of January is also the Feast of the Epiphany. How might we keep the feast, wherever we find ourselves?

An epiphany is a revelation, and like a Christmas cracker, a revelation has two ends: at one end, the one who is revealing something, and at the other end, the one who therefore sees or hears something they did not know until now. At the Feast of the Epiphany, God is holding one end of the cracker, and we are holding the other. Here are three ways God might hold out an epiphany for us to grasp, taken from Matthew 2.1-12.

Firstly, God might speak to us through the wonder of the world around us, including the night sky, and the stunning dawns we often get at this time of year. Perhaps you might choose to get up early and get outside and look up. To take a deep breath and feel the cold air wake your lungs to life. Perhaps there will be a hard frost, that, during the night, spread fractals of ice across the windscreen of your car. The beauty of creation, as vast as stars and as tiny as ice crystals, can take our breath away. And open our eyes to the truth that we are not the centre of the universe, we are very small, and yet we are held by the love that holds everything there is together, which is a very secure place to be. And when we respond in overflowing gratitude for the sheer gift of life, we take hold of our end of the cracker and pull.

Secondly, God might speak to us through the wisdom and – crucially – the hope of others. The beauty of the Christian tradition and the resources of our scriptures, history and practices, is that they spring from many different generations and cultures. None of us has the full picture. God can speak to the young among us through the elderly and speak to those who are older through the children. In particular, I think that the older we get the more we need children to speak life to the hope within us. My observation is that many of us lose our sense of hope as we get older, and I think that is because the Baby Boomers became the most affluent generation the world had seen, and affluence is a hope-killer. My advice to those who are older is, stop consuming news, because human love and faithfulness is not newsworthy, and the news will bombard you with exceptional sorrow and despair. You do not need to be abreast of situations you can do nothing about to pray that the world might know peace. My advice to those who are younger is, restrict your consumption of social media, for it too holds out a distorted reflection of the world that makes everything appear closer than it is, such that we can think we are sitting in the same room as other people when in fact we are miles away. But when we are present to one another – to whoever is right in front of us – we take hold of our end of the cracker and pull.

Thirdly, God might speak to us through our dreams. We take in a lot of information, more than we need, so much that it becomes overwhelming. It is as if your wardrobe is full of clothes on hangers, but you have many more clothes, piled on a chair and strewn all over the floor. And you can’t find the thing you need. You are sure you saw it somewhere, but where? And when we sleep, our subconscious acts like a responsible adult, picking the clothes up, sniffing them, neatly folding those that might be worn another day and dropping the ones that are a bit whiffy in the laundry basket. Seeking to draw harmony out of chaos, which is how we most deeply participate in the divine nature. At times, our subconscious is so hand-in-hand with God, it is hard – and perhaps unnecessary – to tell them apart. But when we quieten our souls enough to sleep deeply enough to dream, we take hold of our end of the cracker and pull.

So here are three ways God might hold out an epiphany for us to grasp: through the wonder of the world around us; through the wisdom and – crucially – the hope of others; and through our dreams. But any Christmas cracker worth its salt contains a paper crown, a gift, and a riddle.

The paper crown reminds us that we, like the three kings, are drawn into God’s epiphany.

The gift is that when we gaze upon the face of Jesus, we see God – whom we could not see – made visible. Jesus is the revelation of God, of what God is like. What we see in Jesus, we can say of God – and what we do not see in Jesus is not of God. There is no violence in Jesus – no harm or oppression – and so any violence attributed to God (by admirers and critics alike) is misattribution. Jesus walks away from a fight, literally – evading those who sought to kill him – and metaphorically – keeping silent under hostile questioning. Jesus attends to the person directly in front of him, with compassion – even when he himself is crucified. He absorbs suffering and returns love. He is the emptying of power to be an infant dependent on others to show him the way he should go, and the adult who hangs from the gallows. He is foolishness in the eyes of the world. He sleeps soundly in the madness of a storm at sea. He thirsts. He is love.

The riddle is that we become God’s epiphany to the world: the bearers of the greatest gift, from which every other gift flows and to whom every gift returns: Jesus. This bleak midwinter Monday, may you be a star in the darkness, a treasure-chest on the journey, a child who sparks joy. May you be whatever God might choose to make his Son known in the world. Amen.

 

to grow in wisdom

The Great Feast of Christmas (24 December to 5 January) is followed by the Feast of the Epiphany (6 January) when the Church remembers the visit of the magi recorded by the biographer Matthew (Matthew 2.1-12).

I will assume that Matthew is as reliable a record as any other ancient text, which is not to claim that the text is without bias or agenda, but to accept it as a primary source for historical claims.

Matthew records that a caravan of strangers arrived in Judea.

They are there because they have observed something in the night sky that, according to a significant body of learning with which they are well-versed, they have interpreted to announce the birth of a great leader of the Jews.

They present themselves at the court of Herod the Great in Jerusalem, where their arrival is taken seriously as potentially giving rise to a messianic uprising that could threaten Herodian dynastic ambition.

Consulting their own library of knowledge, the royal courtiers identify Bethlehem as the potential epicentre of any such possible revolt, and the strangers are sent there to establish the lie of the land and report back.

On finding the family of Joseph, they present gifts summarised as gold, frankincense and myrrh, gifts that are reminiscent of the idealised wedding procession of King Solomon the Son of David through the wilderness towards Jerusalem in the erotic poetry of The Song of Solomon, and also of a prophecy attributed to Isaiah of the wealth of the surrounding nations flowing to the royal court in Jerusalem.

One or more of the strangers has a dream which they interpret as being a divine warning not to return to Herod, and so they disappear into their own country by another road, or another way of being.

How might we reflect on this account?

Firstly, we note that the travellers at the heart of this account are strangers. They are the other, and the other is always a source of fear for humans. God is the ultimate other, and as such the other is often an envoy of God. We do not know the size of the caravan, but, extrapolating from three named gifts, tradition has given us three kings, and this is reminiscent of the three divine visitors received by Abraham. We do not know where these strangers come from or return to. But in seeking to deceive the stranger, we seek to deceive God, and in welcoming the stranger, we welcome God.

Secondly, we note that humans are meaning-making animals, even when the world cannot beat the weight of the meaning we construct (for example, the arbitrary value we have given gold, or land). The ancients sought to navigate world events according to the map of the night sky. We, too, endlessly, find patterns, and attribute significance. The age of scientific enquiry is no different from those ages that came before.

Thirdly, and entirely related to the above, we note that the ancient world was highly connected, through the exchange of ideas and philosophies as well as trade. We strive not only to make sense of the world but to do so, at least in part, by overcoming the fear of the other. Only together will we overcome our fear of the unknown. The stranger and the familiar each have a piece of the code we are trying to interpret.

Fourthly, we note that our present is understood in the light of the past, and the actions of the other, in as much as they have a bearing on us, are understood through the lens of our own history. We do not so much judge a book by its cover, as judge the cover of the other by the content of our book. This is less than fair, but there we are. Those of us whose shared history has trod heavily on others should tread with extreme caution.

Fifthly, we note that dreams are a way in which our subconscious attempts to bring order to the chaos of information our conscious mind observes in the world. This is another level of meaning-making. At some level, something about Herod registers as false, and yet it is in the time of sleep that God is able to bring clarity, to bring us from a place of harm to a place of harmony.

Sixthly, we note that the way ahead is a way that leads us to disappear from the view of the watching world, and that it can never be the same way by which we have appeared in the world. Our lives begin with the struggle to come together, to construct not only meaning but also allies, partnerships, purpose. There comes a point when the mission changes, when the goal is to give our lives away. When maturity is marked by giving away our lives to others. The gifts given by the magi are, within the frame of reference of the account Matthew gives us, the first gift offered, the first unburdening of the self. This is followed by the gift of not trying to retrace their earlier steps but embracing a new and unknown way forward. An event not told by lights in the night sky, but conducted entirely in the dark, so to speak. There comes a further point where the mission changes again, and we are called to give our death away to others, to model dying well, which in fact begins long before we die. The magi disappear entirely from the story, but not from our imaginations.

In 2025, how might we welcome the stranger, lighten the load of the meaning we construct, embrace the limitations of our understanding, redeem the past through gratitude for what was and is in all its imperfection, meet chaos with empathy as the birthing of harmony, and give more of ourselves away to others becoming less than they may become more?