not my king

 

Whenever you come across a king in one of Jesus’ parables, you are NOT coming across God.

Christ is the true king, and he chooses to take the form of a servant. Indeed, he most often appears in his own parables as a servant – and often mistreated by a king who does terrible things. Like Aragorn in The Lord Of The Rings, Jesus moves through the Gospels incognito.

The kings represent, in the first instance, men who exercise earthly power over the lives of others. Also, by extension, the ways in which we seek to be the king of our own lives, rejecting the servant heart of God, the love of God for us in Jesus.

Therefore, the kings inflict violence. And whenever we proclaim that these kings are revelations of the nature of God, we demonstrate that our god is violence, control over others guaranteed by coercive force. Such proclamation is spiritual abuse; and underpins most if not all forms of abuse we see, from time to time but with monotonous regularity, in the Church.

 

in deep sh*t

 

Bad things happening to people is not evidence of God judging them. Indeed, death is not divine judgement, nor should we ever threaten it.

Once upon a time some people told Jesus that Pilate (the governor of the Roman province of Judaea) had violently put down some Galilean-led disorder at the time of a Passover. This raised questions for them, about the nature of God. Had God allowed this to happen because he did not approve of the men in question? Jesus refuted such a view; and added that unless they were prepared to change their understanding of God, they themselves would be caught up in human violence and not be able to understand it as such. Jesus himself would be killed at Pilate’s orders, and this would not be a sign of his sinfulness.

Jesus cited a further example: eighteen debtors who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them. These, Jesus insisted, were no worse debtors than anyone else living in Jerusalem, and this tragedy was not divine judgement. Unless they could understand that they would not be able to construct any sense when tragedy befell themselves.

Then, as Jesus habitually did, he told them a parable. A story thrown out to disrupt their thinking and, perhaps, enable them to see things from a different perspective. A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard. Having given it three years to take root, he looked for fruit and found none. And so, he instructed his vinedresser to cut it down, so that the soil might be put to better use. But the vinedresser asked for one more year, that he might dig manure around the roots, and see if that might make all the difference.

Parables lead us down an easy path, only to turn us onto a different Way. Here we have a vineyard, a symbol of the nation of Israel. And so, the owner must be God. God has had enough of the apostasy of his people, of their fruitless lives, and calls for their destruction. But the prophet intercedes for his people, successfully persuading a vengeful God to show uncharacteristic albeit temporary mercy.

But this easy path will not do. The vinedresser is, indeed, Jesus. But Jesus does not pacify an angry Old Testament God. Jesus is the revelation of God. When we see Jesus, what we see is what God is like. And what humans are to be like.

What we see is that to be a sinner (a debtor, among debtors) in the hands of God is not to suffer terror; it is to suffer care: to be handled with care.

The man in this parable is not God, but us; and the fig tree is not Israel, but also us. (By us, in the first instance I mean the original heaters of the parable, and by extension all who hear the parable.) This is a parable about how we see others (the man considers the tree useless, as we often see others as useless) and how we see ourselves (often we consider our lives to be fruitless, which may result in despair, or may result in pleading with God to give us one last chance to turn our lives around).

Jesus is the vinedresser, who stands up to our violent tendencies towards others or towards ourselves, and who states his intention to dig in manure. To use the seemingly worthless reality of waste to produce fruitfulness. Committing to slow processes. Absorbing humiliation and transforming it into glory.

Unless we are able to see this, we will suffer much violence at our own hands and inflict much violence on others. The spiritual abuse of holding the threat of divine destruction over people. Such a stance is utterly anti the posture Jesus adopts.

To be a sinner in the hands of God is to be loved, to be nurtured, to be transformed by the tender heart and worn hands of Jesus. To surrender to his life reviving us from our dormancy.

Bad things happen. But all things are being reconciled to God in Christ Jesus. Including you.

A year after this exchange, Jesus will be cut down by men who did not approve of the fruit his life produced. He will suffer their violence, and God will reward his faithfulness even unto death on the cross with glory, a glory countless others receive a share in. Including you.

Luke 13.1-9

At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, ‘Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them--do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.’

‘Then he told this parable: ‘A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, “See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?” He replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.” ’

 

northern saints

 

At St Nicholas,’ the church where I am priest-in-charge, we have a large collection of stained-glass windows by the twentieth-century designer Leonard Evetts. Four of these depict northern saints: Columba, Aidan, Bede, and Hilda. Several of the classrooms in our church halls are also named for northern saints, but there was nothing other than a name plate on the door to indicate any significance to this decision.

Recently I was approached by a group of sixth formers (final two years of secondary school education) who were looking for a project volunteering in the community. I invited them to help me reclaim a room on the church halls (the Columba room) that had had various uses over the years, most recently as a storeroom, but that I wanted to use as a space for quiet reflection or prayer, and study.

First, they helped clear the room of everything that was stored in it. Then I took photos of the stained-glass and projected them onto the walls. The students helped me trace them out in pencil, and colour-block them with acrylic paint, and I added the detail.

I have already used the room for Lent conversations on living hope, and baptism preparation with families. The door is kept on the snib so anyone can make use of the room for prayer whenever the halls are open to the community throughout the week.

time

 

We ask the wrong question of time.

How will you use the time you have (wisely)? What will you do with it?

(This is the question behind clocking on early, and off late; the question behind career advice and bucket lists.)

But time is – as we are – one of God’s creatures. And I do not want to be used (even by someone who thinks they are acting wisely). So why would time? I am not a utility, or a tool, and neither is time.

Better questions to ask of time:

How might we receive time? respond to time? cherish time? hold time lightly?

 

who do you think you are?

 

‘But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation so that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.’

Philippians 3.20, 21

When we read the Bible, we are invited to find ourselves in the story, and to do so honestly, in Christ. He is the interpretive key to the story, the resurrected Jesus who appears to his followers and says, ‘Peace be with you.’ Whatever you are going through, peace be with you.

This Sunday when the church gathered to meet with Jesus, we read from a letter Paul wrote to our brothers and sisters in Philippi.

Around forty years before the birth of Jesus, the brilliant Roman general Julius Caesar took for himself emergency powers to save the Republic. Not everyone agreed that this would save the Republic. Some, even former friends of Caesar’s, believed it would destroy the Republic. Caesar was assassinated (on what our calendar calls 15th March, 44 BCE) and the Republic thrown into civil war. Caesar’s friend Mark Anthony and adopted son Octavian chased Cassius and Brutus around the Mediterranean, catching up with them just outside Philippi, in Macedonia. Mark Anthony and Octavian won a decisive battle and rewarded many of their legionaries for faithful service by giving them Philippi as their pension, also making the city a colony of Rome, that is, Rome in another place.

Around fifteen years later, Mark Anthony and Octavian had fallen out, Octavian had defeated his former friend, and declared himself emperor, taking the title Augustus, or venerable, and rewarding more soldiers with retirement in Philippi.

Paul will turn up in town around seventy-five years later. By now the original generation of Roman citizens is gone, but the current residents enjoyed Roman citizenship as a participation in the reward of someone else.

This, too, is the basis on which we are citizens of heaven, of the rule and reign of God in the world which is the reward given to Jesus for being faithful even unto death, and which we benefit from. Not on the grounds of our own faithfulness.

Paul, Silas and Timothy were seeking to establish new communities of followers of Jesus in what today we would call Turkey. But every way they turned, they felt God say, not here, not yet.

Perhaps you know what it is like to seek guidance for a decision you need to make or an action you are looking to take and feel only confusion and frustration.

Eventually, one night Paul has a dream. A man from Macedonia stands before him, saying, Come over to us; we need to hear the Gospel too.

The next morning, over breakfast, Paul tells his friends about his dream, and they agree this is what they need to do. So, they head to the nearest port, take a ship across the Aegean Sea to Neapolis, and make the short walk inland to Philippi.

Wherever Paul went, his first move was to seek out the Jewish community, those with whom he had a common history. But at Philippi, there was no Jewish community. Perhaps there were some Gentiles who worshipped the Jewish god, and if so, they would probably be found on the Sabbath, a little way outside the city walls, by the river where there was flowing water to wash in before praying. And this is where they do find such people, including Lydia.

Lydia was a businesswoman, an immigrant to Philippi from Thyatira, perhaps what we would call a fashion designer. She invited Paul and his companions to be her guests; they told her about Jesus; and she asked to be baptised. Then for several days they shared stories of Jesus.

But as they walked through the city, they would be followed around by a slave girl who was possessed, or oppressed, by a demon that purported to tell your fortune. As many people want to know what is going to happen, or think that they do, or want to find a hack to swing chance in their favour, this slave girl made her owners, her pimps, very wealthy. And she started following Paul and his companions around, telling anyone in earshot, ‘These men are servants of the Most High God, who bring you a message of salvation.’

The endorsement of a demon is not the kind of publicity Paul is looking for, for Jesus. At first he tries to ignore her, but eventually it is too much. He turns around and performs an exorcism. The girl returns to herself, and her owners realise that they have lost their income stream. This makes them angry.

They drag Paul and Silas before the magistrates and accuse them of inciting public disorder. The magistrates decree that, accordingly, they should be stripped and beaten with rods in the public square, then spend the night in the cells before being run out of town. And this is what happened.

Paul and Silas find themselves in stocks in the innermost cell. And their response is to sing hymns of praise. Behaviour that intrigues the other prisoners. Who does this?

During the night there is an earthquake, and the prison doors fail. The jailer despairs. He sees a future in which he is held accountable for the escape of his prisoners, where he suffers the public shame of trial and execution; and he decides that it would be more honourable to take his own life.

But Paul calls out, ‘Stop! No one has escaped.’ You might feel that you have no options, but you do have options. And the jailer chooses to take Paul and Silas into his home, wash them, tend to their bruised and bloodied bodies, feed them. And he asks these extraordinary men, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ And, like Lydia, he and his household are baptised.

The next morning, the magistrates send the word to expel Paul and Silas from the city. But Paul does not think so. They are, he claims, Roman citizens. This terrifies the magistrates. It is not legal to punish a Roman citizen without trial, yet they had not taken the trouble to establish who was brought before them or their side of the story. They saw only a foreigner whose presence was an offence. Paul could be Nigerian, and Philippi, Sunderland. But for this failure, the magistrates could lose their jobs and be banned for life from holding any public office.

Instead, they find themselves humbled before Paul. Paul and Silas rejoin their companions, return to Lydia’s home to say their farewells, and leave town on their own terms.

Later, Paul writes to the brothers and sisters in Philippi, about (among other things) their primary citizenship (a colony of the rule of God) and the hope that the humiliated body will be glorified.

So where do you find yourself in this story of citizens and migrants, of feeling oppressed or of being exploited, of miscarriages of justice, of deep despair, of burning humiliation?

Where does Jesus suddenly appear before you, saying, ‘Peace be with you?’

 

non-anxious presence

 

I am witnessing a lot of anxiety at the moment. And in response, I want to say:

[1] The world is not going to hell in a handcart. The world is being drawn into the reconciliation of all things to God in Jesus. All movement that enlarges the distance between people, or between people and the rest of creation, is an aberration, a temporary state of affairs, where we have yet to respond to grace. Keep choosing to move with the grain of history, not against it, by the grace of God.

[2] 47 is not God’s man appointed to bring about God’s purposes. The man God has appointed, who has brought about, is bringing about, and will bring about God's purposes, is Jesus. No one else. Not 47, not you, not me. Christian Nationalism is idolatrous.

[3] On the other hand, nothing that 47 or anyone else can do can derail the trajectory to reconciliation in and with and through Jesus. Nothing that falls short of Love has the power to defeat Love.

[4] You are not reading about Putin and 47 in the Book of Revelation. Revelation is an apocalypse, a genre of work that lifts the veil on present events to reveal what is going on in a deeper reality. The present events in question being the end of what we now refer to as the first century of the Common Era. Revelation was written to encourage Christians living under the seemingly all-powerful Roman empire to remain faithful to Jesus, even to death, for through their faithful witness Rome would fall. Everything we see in Revelation concerns events that took place long before our time. Because Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever, we can extrapolate truth about the nature and action of God, and our vocation to remain faithful to Jesus in the face of empire, just as we can do with the texts that make up the Old Testament. But to claim that we are living in the events depicted in Revelation is an aggrandisement of our time, a foolish self-importance.

[5] Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Turn away from sin and remain faithful to Christ to the end of your days.

As you were.

 

Ash Wednesday

 

In his Gospel—good news story—concerning Jesus, John records an incident in the temple at Jerusalem, a building that stands for a convergence of national, religious, cultural identity and power. On this occasion, Jesus is visiting the temple and is speaking in front of a gathered crowd who are taking an interest. But the scene is hijacked by a group of men who are important in their own eyes. They thrust a woman in front of Jesus. She has, they say, been caught in the very act of committing adultery. She is, one may surmise, not dressed in a manner they consider appropriate for the hallowed space in which she now finds herself. She has forgotten herself. She has not shown the expected deference. She has no cards in her hand, and without the help of those who are exposing her to public humiliation, it will all be over for her very quickly. She is silenced.

She is somewhat collateral damage, for their true intention is to push Jesus to do as they want. Will he refuse to show mercy, and so place himself in their debt, a debt they may choose to call in at any moment of their own choosing? Or will he refute them, in which case he will invalidate his credentials against their interpretation of founding documents? And who, exactly, are these men trying to impress?

Jesus ignores the men. He stoops down and draws in the dust on the ground with his finger, moving it around, so that it settles in a new configuration, so that it lies differently now.

Most Saturday mornings, I take part in the local parkrun, and afterward we go to the café in the sports centre. Near the door to the centre is a banner, a larger-than-life size photo of a smiling middle-aged woman with the text ‘Be the best version of you.’ I am sure she is a lovely person, but I cannot help but think that the best version of me looks somewhat different. But being the best version of you is quite the thing to be these days, involving self-discovery and self-improvement. We might even be tempted to coopt the Season of Lent into this programme.

But self-discovery and self-improvement are treacherous goals. Our identity is not a fixed given we discover, nor a project we construct for ourselves. When we embark on such activities we become to ourselves like Pharaoh conscripting the Israelites to hard labour or condemn our future selves to excavating and robbing the graves of our past selves.

In his letters to early congregations of Jesus-followers, Paul proclaims that our identity is in Christ. It is he, who died and rose again for us, who is the eternal convergence of our past, present and future, the givenness of our identity. And as John records, Jesus is the one who writes on the ground, who re-orders the dust of which we are made—dust animated by the breath of God—including in ways that reveal his unassuming mastery over events that befall us. Paul goes so far as to say that we are hidden in him—that is to say, our identity, which is kept safe by him for all eternity, is at least partially hidden from others and also from ourselves. For one thing, who among us could know, at four years old, what we would be at fifty, or at eighty? There is both continuity and discontinuity—the same dust, reconfigured many times.

On Ash Wednesday, I press my finger into a mash of ash and fragrant olive oil and trace the pattern of the cross on the forehead of those who find themselves standing in front of me. They may feel humiliated by the circumstances of their life, by their shortcomings, by their inability to take and keep hold of the best version of themselves. They may very well have been wounded by the actions of others, whether old wounds that have left scars or fresh wounds that have left bruises. The cross I trace says you have died with Christ. Not only are you mortal, but you have already died: you share in his death, and in his rising, in his glory, for your identity is in him, and only in him. You are hidden in him. His past, present and future are your past, present and future; and your past, present and future are his and in him. Nothing can separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Nothing that has changed or is changing or will change your very partial understanding of yourself; nothing you have experienced, are experiencing, or shall experience. And in him, one day you shall fully know yourself, and be fully known.

And with the sign of the cross in ash, words of invitation: ‘remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return; turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ to the end of your days.’ Such action—turning away from sin and returning to Christ, which, if it is true that we are in him is also to return to ourselves—achieves nothing for us. It is not a process of self-improvement, of becoming the best version of you. It is simply the expression of a thankful heart, for what has already been done. The best version of you—the version that has been set free from the hold of sin over us; the version that is the righteousness of God—has already been called into being through Christ and with Christ and in Christ, along with the rest of humanity. We do not need to strive for perfection, or wrestle with existential angst. We may, indeed, lament aspects of the past, present or future, but even as we are treated—by others, by ourselves—as dying, we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything. This Lent, may we rest secure in this amazing grace, and know ourselves afresh to be reconciled to God.

 

arc of history

 

Like many, I have been watching global political events unfolding over recent weeks. We are witnessing a major change in approach—at least official approach—by the US, with consequences that run far wider. I have a friend who often says that people are alright, wherever they are from; it is the politicians who are the problem. Respectfully, I disagree, for several reasons: firstly, politicians are people, not some other category of being; moreover, many politicians are good people, working hard for the communities they represent; and politics can be a helpful way to share resources for the common good.

But politics, and politicians, cannot address our most fundamental problem, which is that at the deepest level we are alienated from, and fearful of, the Other, those who are not accepted/acceptable within our family or group or tribe. Some Christian traditions call this original sin; some Christian traditions call it the original wound. Politics cannot bridge that divide; indeed, politics reflects and can deepen the divide.

Christians believe that the arc of history is irrevocably moving towards the bridging of that divide, the healing of that wound, in the person of Jesus; and that, whatever the times we find ourselves in look and feel like, in Jesus now is always the auspicious moment in history to be reconciled with God and our neighbour. To discover that we are acceptable/accepted.

That same trajectory passes through me and carries me, an arc that originates in God and will return to God. An arc that moves through time, which, like me, is itself one of God’s creatures, and is held within God—specifically, Christians believe, in Jesus. A path that, viewed close up, as I trace it, often appears—and is experienced as—tangled, heading in the wrong direction, or even blocked. This is real, but not the ultimate reality. When tempted to despair, at ourselves or on account of the actions of those Others we fear—including where we, or they, attempt to co-opt that arc, to co-opt Jesus, to the purposes of division—we need to zoom out, to see the bigger picture.

These are dark times, and there are those who take advantage of the darkness to harm others for their own gain. This is also the time we have been given, the fitting time to choose for Life, for Light, for Love. For peace, with guaranteed security. Accept no substitutes.

 

further on prayer

 

Notes on Luke 9.28-36

The stories we read in the Bible are rich in symbolism, in recurring motifs. For example, whenever you read about a tree in the Bible, you are reading about a person, and so we should enquire, whom does this tree represent? Or to give another example, the sea stands for chaos.

The Gospel text for this Sunday, Luke 9.28-36, is a story about prayer, and about what comes into being through prayer (the Greek employs the phrase ‘it came into being’ five times in nine verses—and my English translation erases every one of them under ‘Now,’ ‘And while,’ ‘Just as,’ ‘While,’ and ‘came [a voice]’ which is interesting in itself). And this passage employs four recurring biblical symbols: mountain; light; cloud, and (implied, in their returning) valley.

In the Bible, mountains stand for talking with God, or prayer. It is interesting to note that many people report feeling closer to God out in nature, by which we mean in places largely untouched by human activity, by buildings and traffic. But most of us (humans) are now urban dwellers. Jesus claimed that if you have faith, you can say to a mountain, be thrown into the sea, and it will be done. This is often presented thus: the mountain represents obstacles we face, which we can overcome by faith. But in the Bible, mountains do not symbolize obstacles we face; giants, or armies do. Jesus’ point makes more sense as being able to transfer the experience of being with God in the quiet space he models for us to seek out, into the chaotic circumstances we must return to. But if the regular practice of prayer is like being out in the mountains, this invites all kinds of imaginative engagement, from taking a leisurely pace, to needing a map and compass, to moments of breathtaking panoramic view, to times of descending mist. Like getting away from the noise of the city, prayer reshapes us where speed and busyness have deformed us. We come into being, again.

In the Bible, light stands for union with God, our ability to know God affectively with our whole body. As Jesus prays, his face changes, and his whole body radiates with light. The saints of the Church are depicted in art with halos, coronas of light around their heads. We pray with our whole bodies (not just our minds) and prayer changes our bodies. It can cause the face to shine. Ten years ago, eighteen-year-old photographer Shea Glover conducted a social experiment, taking two photos of subjects, the second captured immediately after telling them ‘You are beautiful.’ Their faces literally lit up. (You can find these images shared online.) Union with God is bathing in love shared between us: we gaze on Jesus and Jesus gazes on us as his beloved. Again, we come into being—from one degree of glory to another, as Paul and Timothy, two early apprentices of Jesus, described it.

Throughout the Bible, people pray with arms outstretched and the palms of their hands facing up. For Christians, this ‘orans’ posture symbolizes Jesus on the cross. I adopt this posture whenever I lead the congregation in the Prayer of Thanksgiving at Holy Communion—and for the first Christian millennium, they would have all joined me in the same posture. Early in the second Christian millennium, praying with hands clasped or palms pressed together became more common—a posture many of us were taught as children. Recently, someone asked me to pray; I bowed my head and started to speak to God, but they interrupted, demanding that I prayed ‘properly,’ that I put my hands together. My initial, internal response was not positive: it does not matter what we do with our bodies in prayer! But on reflection, I realized that it does matter: that for this person (and every person) the posture of hands together (or body) was not merely an outward form or a slavish traditionalism, but a posture that helps her come to God—and will help her to do so when she cannot do so consciously, with independence of mind, and when Christ comes to her embodied in a sister or brother.

In the Bible, cloud stands for mystery, the limits of our mind, of our ability to know God cognitively. We know God because of divine self-revelation, through the prophets and most fully in the person of Jesus; but we do not know God in full, because the fullness of God is far greater than our ability to hold that knowledge. And this is surely a good thing, because a god that can be contained within our mind is a creature of our own imagination. We are terrified by the prospect of cognitive impairment, especially of dementia: of being more known by others (chronologically, sequentially) than they are known by us. Yet the reality is that we are all more known—and especially by God—than we are knowing; that our cognitive ability, important though it is, is only part of a bigger whole. My own cognitive impairment—I recognize people not by their faces but by their voices, mannerisms, postures; and routinely struggle to recall names—is a gift, albeit unwelcome at times, that draws me (even kicking and screaming) to simply be with the other in the present moment. To be caught on a mountain in the cloud can be chilling and disorienting, but also an invitation to trust something beyond our interpretation of our senses, and to lean into the experience of others who have erected cairns along the path. We come into being with them.

In the Bible, valleys stand for obedience, trusting God in our daily lives. Jesus takes Peter, James and John with him up the mountain, but they return to the valley with him, having heard the voice that told them to listen to him. Their learning to listen involved not speaking about those things they weren’t to share, yet, for sharing them would jeopardize the departure—the exodus—Jesus was called to lead others in. And testifying as witnesses to what they had seen come into being, when the right time to do so had itself come into being. The valley is the place of obedience and trust. Valleys are also centres of population, human-shaped landscapes, filled with interaction, the context in which we love our neighbour as ourselves. The culmination of the mass, of encountering Christ in bread and wine, is the dismissal, the people of God being sent out into the world in peace, to love and serve the Lord. There is no mountain, light, or cloud without its attendant valley. This is where what has come into being in us—peace, love, a posture of service—is revealed, tested, refined. But what has come into being, through prayer, is the work of God’s Holy Spirit, not some self-betterment.

Mountains, light, cloud, and valleys are recurring symbols in the stories told in the Bible—in the story the Bible invites us to enter-into. Where have you known these in your own life?

 

on prayer

 

Notes on the Gospel passage set for this coming Sunday, Luke 9.28-36:

‘Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, ‘Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah’—not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!’ When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.’

Mountains symbolize talking with God, in prayer. How does this image speak to you about prayer?

Light symbolizes union with God, our ability to know God affectively with our whole body. How do you pray with your body? And how have you (or others) become aware of prayer changing your body?

Cloud symbolizes mystery, the limits of our mind, of our ability to know God cognitively. Does the thought of ‘entering the cloud’ terrify you? Why, or why not?

Valleys symbolize obedience, trusting God in our daily lives. Is there something you find hard to trust God for? Is there someone you can talk to about it?

Image: a line drawing of a mountain, one side bathed in sunshine, the other overshadowed by cloud.

 

not so fast

 

A year ago this month, the Bishop of Durham retired, and the process began to appoint his successor. Interviews took place in late November, a candidate was selected, offered the post, and accepted. All this is done confidentially, just as any vicar is appointed: if I apply for a post, my current congregation does not need to be troubled by the thought of my departure unless I am successful. Once accepted there is further process, some of which is the same for bishops as for vicars, some of which is additional to most vicars (the involvement of both the Prime Minister and the Crown). But we were expecting a public announcement by now.

On Monday of this week, we heard that the candidate had withdrawn. There have been various rumours as to why, but such speculation is unhelpful. Again, the process is confidential: if I accepted a post as a vicar but before the news was made public I or a member of my family received a life-changing medical diagnosis that meant I had to withdraw, my privacy ought to be respected, and another person be given a clean sheet.

Yesterday evening, we gathered with others from across the Durham Diocese to acknowledge our disappointment, to affirm our trust in God, and to pray. And as we did so, my mind was drawn to the Old Testament passage set for this coming Sunday, Genesis 2.

In Genesis 2, God notes that a particular part of the earth needs someone to oversee and care for it. And so God forms a human and places them in the garden, within a boundaried territory. Such as a bishop given to a diocese. Such as where we thought that we were.

But still the situation is not quite right, the solution is not quite what is needed. And so, God forms all the animals of the field, the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, all living things, and invites the human to pay careful attention to what it is that God is forming, and to name it. And only through this process does the time reach its fullness whereby God draws out what is needful, and provides someone who will come alongside, who will see the human who is naming what God is doing and who will work alongside them to support and even deliver them when in trouble.

And it seemed to me that God is asking us to go back to our places across the diocese and pay attention to what God is forming there, and name it, and as we do so, at just the right time, we will find out who God is preparing to send to us, to come alongside us.

Genesis 1 is a sweeping overview of the story, such as you might get in the opening movement of a symphony or the opening song of a musical. Everything is condensed. All plant life is flourishing on the third day; all animal life is flourishing on the sixth day. And all is good. But Genesis 2 slows the story right down. There is as yet no plant life or animal life. Rather than speak everything into being, God forms life as a gardener or a potter, in slow processes that move at the pace necessary to notice and participate in the goodness of creation. This is the actual pace of the story we are drawn into, not the overview pace of Genesis 1. The slower, the better, for God has all the time in the world; and it is for those who have forgotten this to fret about time running out or away from us.

The passage from Genesis 2 is paired, this Sunday, with a passage from the Gospels where Jesus is depicted asleep in the boat on the lake in a storm, while his apprentices run around in panic. We too find ourselves in choppy times. May we rest in the love of God. May we sleep, not panic, in the storm.

 

how to hold a human

 

The Old Testament reading set for Holy Communion today is Genesis 9.1-13. It picks up the account of Noah after the Great Flood. These are the survivors, human and animal, of a traumatic event. The sea level had risen and flooded the Fertile Crescent along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the Cradle of Humanity, from horizon to horizon: what today we would know as Kuwait and Iraq, hemmed in by the mountains of Iran to the east, Turkey to the north, and Syria and Jordan to the west. Every settlement washed away. But Noah and his family and their domesticated livestock survive, delivered by the god Yahweh, in an ark.

Like so many survivors who carry trauma in their bodies, and who lives with survivors’ guilt, Noah will attempt to numb his pain by drinking himself to oblivion. But Yahweh blesses Noah and his traumatized family. He informs them that the animals will be in dread of them, hardly surprising for they are traumatized too, but that they are given into the hands of Noah and his sons. They will be good for them, but food without lifeblood.

We all live downstream of the Great Flood, and no one gets through this life without experiencing trauma, whether a broad and shattering event such as natural disaster, or bereavement or living with dementia or suffering at the hands of an abuser. And it is this idea of being in someone’s hands that is significant here. For we are all given into one another’s hands, and the question God asks is, What will we do with the trauma survivors who are given into our hands as gifts?

Will we re-traumatize them with further mistreatment, as the Father gave the Son into the hands of his people and they had him tortured and executed?

Will we dehumanise them as objects of our altruism?

Or will we receive them as divine gift, as human with the dignity that is ours as those who bear the very likeness of God? Will we recognise that we, as community, are nourished by their being fully part of our community, that we are fed by them (that is, that we are fed by one another, for we are all simultaneously and paradoxically the one who receives in our hands and the one who is given into the hands of others) without bloodshed, without their life being consumed by us in some zero-sum game where there is only one winner so it had best be me?

May we receive one another in our hands, and be found worthy of the gift, by the Giver.

 

good : time

 

Notes for this coming Sunday.

Find a place where you will not be interrupted, and read Genesis 2.4-9, 15-25 and Luke 8.22-25 through, out loud, a couple of times.

Genesis 1 tells a sweeping overview of creation. Genesis 2 slows the story right down. Here, God does not simply speak things into being, but shapes them: the human, a garden, every living creature. Like a potter or a gardener. The human, too, is invited into the slow processes of getting to know, and growing to love, all things. The time it takes to participate in the goodness (a word we have already met several times in Genesis 1) of God’s creation. The invitation to love God, to love our neighbour as ourselves, to love all creation, takes as long as it takes: as The Supremes sang, ‘You can’t hurry love…’

In our verses from Luke’s Gospel, Jesus rests—he sleeps—while his disciples rush around in panic. And peace radiates from him.

Looking forward to the day ahead, does time feel like a gift or a tyrant (a task master driving us, or a prison governor constraining us)?

As we get older, our body asks us to slow down. Does this feel like an invitation, to become more fully human, or something to be resisted for as long as we are able?

‘good’ conveys: agreeable, beneficial, beautiful, best, better, bountiful, cheerful, at ease, fair, favour, fine, glad, goodly, graciously, joyful, kindly, loving, merry, pleasant, precious, prosperity, ready, sweet, wealth, welfare, well-favoured. Thinking about today, how have you known the goodness of God?

Reading the two passages again, is there a word or a sentence that stands out for you? What might God be saying to you through it?

You might like to colour-in the drawing of the human asleep, held in the hands of God.

 

a tree in the wilderness

 

The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament recounts the history of a loose familial federation of chieftain-led tribes uniting under a high king. The king, Saul, was initially popular, but over time became increasingly paranoid, consumed by jealousy towards one of his closest generals, David. His life now in danger, David flees to live as a hunted outlaw. When Saul, along with some of his sons, later dies in battle, and one of his surviving sons succeeds as king, civil war breaks out. Eventually, the rebel forces win, and David is proclaimed high king. Seven yeas later, he moves his capital to Jerusalem and consolidates his reign by bringing the tabernacle and the ark of the covenant – cultic symbols of the god Yahweh – there.

At one point as an outlaw chieftain, David and his men are living in a cave system at En Gedi, near to the Dead Sea – the lowest point on the surface of the earth, and the lowest point in David’s personal history. The Dead Sea, and flat lands along its southern parts, are so salty as to be lifeless. But En Gedi is an oasis. Here, acacia trees – the wood from which the tabernacle and its furniture, the altar and the ark of the covenant, were made – grow beside streams that run all year round, fed by an aquifer, a great underground reservoir. Elsewhere, lone acacia trees offer life in ephemeral riverbeds that run dry for much of the year, or whose streams run braided through shifting sediment.

Whenever you read about a tree or trees in the Bible, it stands as a symbol for a person or people. This is one of the key repeated symbols in these scriptures, or holy texts. And David reflects on the trees of En Gedi, declaring: ‘Blessed are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked, nor lingered in the way of sinners, nor sat in the assembly of the scornful. Their delight is in the law of the Lord and they meditate on his law day and night. Like a tree planted by streams of water bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither, whatever they do, it shall prosper.’ In time this image comes to open the five books of collected Psalms that will serve as the song book of the temple that David’s son, Solomon, will build in Jerusalem.

Some four hundred years after David, Jerusalem is besieged by the neo-Babylonian empire. The tribes that were united under David and Solomon were long torn in two, the northern tribes succeeding from southern rule, and later laid to waste by the Assyrians. And now an enemy has surrounded Jerusalem, which holds out, for now. Against this backdrop, the prophet Jeremiah draws on David’s imagery, declaring:

‘Thus says the Lord: Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord. They shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes. They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.

‘Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.’

(Jeremiah 17.5-8)

There are some interesting points to note:

[1] The wilderness experience is non-negotiable, not optional, it is a given, part of life – and the opportunity to discover Yahweh’s faithfulness.

[2] In the preceding verses (17.1-4) Jeremiah criticizes the people for constructing wooden poles used for the cultic worship of Canaanite gods (compare using acacia poles in the cultic worship of Yahweh) and erecting them next to living trees, to secure their vitality.

[3] Those who rely on their own strength to get through the challenges of life are described as choosing to live in an uninhabited salt land. The word for to live is to tabernacle, evoking the presence of Yahweh in the middle of the community of their ancestors after the exodus from oppression in Egypt. Moreover, the word for salt is connected to the idea of craftsmanship, expressly used of the construction of the tabernacle in the wilderness. In other words, the outward activity of those whom Jeremiah calls cursed is indistinguishable from the outward activity of those whom he calls blessed.

It is possible (not only to misappropriate, as above, but also) to go through the ritual motions that help us draw on the lifegiving presence of the Lord while missing the lifegiving presence of the Lord. You can devote your time, skill, effort – your life – to it. We can even deceive ourselves, for ultimately only the Lord is capable to test the mind (in fact, the Hebrew is kidney, an organ that played a prominent role in the sacrificial system, and evokes, for us today, images of filtration, dialysis, and transplant surgery) and search the heart (17.9, 10).

Here is the thing: everybody wants to live a fruitful life. No one really wants to settle for a life that isn’t flourishing. The question is whether we think we can resource that from our own effort, or by dependence on some external source – and if an external source, what our god or gods of choice will be.

Jeremiah wants to know how his Iron Age contemporaries will answer this question. His words survive – despite being burnt at the king’s orders at the time and needing to be re-written – because the question still stands.

 

solitude

 

Reflections on Isaiah 6.1-13 and Luke 5.1-11 and on the spiritual practice of solitude (for more on solitude, see the Practicing the Way course).

The role of the prophet has been described as to hold together fearless truth-telling and fierce hope, naming social realities as they are and helping a society reimagine what life together could look like instead. And it is a matter of record in the Bible that every culture and context need such voices, calling us to turn away from death and embrace life.

The book of the prophet Isaiah records his call to just such a role, in an intense vision experienced at a time of transition. Uzziah, the king, had died. His reign had brought stability and security, but he had grown proud, had sought to be high priest as well as king — two roles that had always been kept apart — and had been humbled by God, forced to live in quarantine outside the city walls as a leper. As a leper, in death he cannot even be laid to rest with his ancestors in the royal tombs. His house is without him.

This is the backdrop against which Isaiah sees and hears the Lord of angel armies filling the temple, and the Master sends him to bear a message to the people. Our English translation — “Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand.” — doesn’t quite convey it. The Hebrew repeats the words to hear, and to see, in a different form (the same consonants, different vowels) to give us something like ‘hearing piled up on hearing’ and ‘seeing piled up on seeing’ as activities that result in a dulling of awareness.

I don’t know what that looked like for Iron Age people. But I do know what it looks like for the first people to live in the Digital Age. I carry in my pocket a computer far more powerful than the computers that put men on the moon. The last time men walked on the moon was in the month after I was born, and in my lifetime the Digital Age has changed the face of the earth and has shaped us powerfully. Indeed, this has accelerated rapidly in my adult years.

When I was a child, if you wanted to contact me, you might call a phone physically connected to a wall in my home, and someone might be there to take a message. Now we carry our phones with us. We are on call on demand all of the time. Or you might have written a letter, and you might expect a reply within a week (or longer, if overseas). But now we have texts and email and are shaped to seek an immediate response. There is a lifetime of difference between waiting each day for the postman in anticipation of a letter from a sweetheart and checking our smartphone compulsively for work related emails or a ‘like’ on social media. The desire for connection has become oppressive.

When I was a child, there were three television channels. Now there are hundreds, if not thousands. You could do nothing but watch tv and you would not scratch the surface. When I was a child, we watched Newsround and the Six O’clock News. Now there is a constant cycle of breaking news, designed to grip you with anxiety from the moment you open your eyes in the morning until you lie awake worrying at night. You can have podcasts coming out of your ears. You can have a presence on multiple social media platforms, and stay up playing online multiplayer video games, hunting and hiding, shooting and running too fast to be shot.

It isn’t just Digital. We are shaped by other forms of technology too. I live on the intersection of three roads, and with the constant noise of traffic. And that noise, and that speed, shapes us in a particular way, over time. It shapes us into more anxious and more impatient people.

I’m not anti-technology, not by any means. But we need to be reminded that it isn’t neutral, that it shapes us, that it deforms us in many ways, and that we need a counter movement in our lives.

Isaiah wants to know, how long will this flood of sights and sounds, these distractions that dull our senses, last? And the Lord replies, until the land is utterly desolate and vast is the emptiness in the midst of the land.

And for Isaiah’s first Iron Age audience this pointed to exile, as an event in which the land would be liberated from human folly and allowed to rest and recover for seventy years. Perhaps that is what the earth needs again now.

But for those who, down the centuries, have been known by their contemporaries and by generations who came after as teachers of life, as saints, as women and men of noteworthy wisdom and holiness, as role models in the spiritual life, all recognise this empty place as an invitation to experience intimacy with God.

Because we are all deformed by the sights and sounds that fill the world, by the constant attrition that dulls us so that the beauty and wonder of the world becomes passé, and that is only getting more and more relentless. And if, instead, we are to be formed into more peaceful, more loving, more secure and whole people, we need to counteract those forces by embracing the practice of solitude.

Solitude is not the same thing as being alone. Some of us spend much of our week alone, and community is an essential human need. But so is solitude, which is the intentional choice of being alone with God. Of getting away from distractions, to spend time with God. Of getting away from distractions, to come face to face with ourselves, and to see ourselves not as something we deep down dislike but through God’s eyes, the eyes of the loving creator, redeemer and sustainer of our being, our body and soul.

In the Digital Age, this is an act of resistance. An act of holy rebellion. And it is hard, especially if you aren’t aware of other people doing likewise.

In Luke 6 we read an account of the call of Simon Peter to follow Jesus. To be with Jesus and become like Jesus, and — in a mystery we cannot fathom but can only enter into or resist — to become more fully the person the Lord had created Simon Peter to be. That is always the invitation: to be with Jesus, and in being with Jesus, in becoming more like him, to become, over time, more fully us. To be set free from all that deforms the glory of God in us.

And Jesus, as Simon Peter will soon discover, made a habit of retreating to quiet places to be with God. A daily habit, that sustained him in being present for others without being consumed by their demands.

Luke’s account begins with Simon and Jesus in the boat, together. Jesus tells Simon to head out into the deep, away from the crowd. Simon had been out there all night and found it empty. But this time, he heads out with Jesus, and discovers that it is full, full of fish, so full he can hardly contain it, and this draws him back into community, at a deeper level. This is how solitude differs from loneliness — which is desolate — or isolation — which is cut off from community.

But first, this solitude, this being alone with God — with Jesus — in the quiet place, provokes a necessary crisis. Simon is confronted with his sinfulness, his awareness of his inadequacy in the presence of God — and it is terrifying. Yet it is precisely here that Jesus speaks peace to his deepest fears and extends an invitation to follow him. Jesus extends the same invitation to us today. How will we respond?

One of the things I try to do is keep my phone on silent, and left on the side, on my day off. One day a week when I resist the distractions it offers. No social media — though it is desperately addictive, and I often fall to the temptation. And there are other times during the week that I turn it off and put it away.

It is worth working through your day, and noting where the noise comes from, externally — the radio, the television, the traffic — and internally — the repetitive anxieties or rehearsed arguments — and also the empty places where you go looking for God — a favourite chair in the house, a favourite walk. The point is not to eliminate sights and sounds and lay our lives to waste, but to identify quiet space in our days where we might simply be with God, not filling the emptiness with our prayers but simple being in one another’s presence, God and you, and resting in love.

The more sights and sounds there are in our lives, the greater our need for such counter-formational solitude.

And this is something where the older generations, who grew up before the Digital Age began, may have something deeply important to offer the younger generations, the digital natives. But only if we ourselves have become at home in the empty spaces and not just left behind by the centres of civilisation.

So, what have you learnt about meeting God in stillness and silence? What patterns have you build into your daily routine to seek God? These are not rhetorical questions. We need to pool our wisdom, for the sake of our community, for the people of this parish.

If you have found patterns or practices that help you meet God in this way, do share them. If you have found them helpful, there’s a good chance that others would too. And if you struggle to find God in the busyness and distractions of life, know that you are not alone.

May we know grace to seek and find the Lord in solitude and find healing and wholeness in him. Amen.