Advent 2024 : 8

 

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

The arm of the Lord is an anthropomorphic understanding of God’s strength. The mountain of the Lord, a physical revelation of God as refuge. The angel of the Lord, a manifestation of God’s word. The fear of the Lord is the manifestation of God’s wisdom in an uncertain world.

More than anything else, the thing God says to human beings is, ‘Do not be afraid.’ In time, we read that perfect love casts out fear. The point is not that those who know God should not be afraid of anyone or anything; but that they do not need to be afraid of God. Over and again, God insists – and acts in ways to back up his claim – that we do not need to be afraid of him.

Fear is a built-in, God-given survival mechanism, one that is grounded in the very nature of God. And God comes to train us in how to live with a sympathetic nervous system.

My children’s generation are the most fearful generation in living memory, though not the first generation in history to be paralysed by fear. But paralysed by fear, they are. And in need of God’s training, in how to be fully human, in a fully divine way, in the world.

 

Advent 2024 : 7

 

In the first century eastern Mediterranean world, sheep and goats were hard to tell apart. Jesus drew on this to describe the judgement of the nations (not individuals) by the human appointed to this role by God. He divides them on the basis that, among other similar things, I was naked and you gave / did not give me clothes.

Way back not long after the Beginning, an enemy of God infiltrated Eden, and tricked the first humans into eating the fruit f the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Fruit the serpent correctly informed them would make them like God, in possessing such knowledge. The serpent tells them that God does not want them to be like him, and this is also correct, but, crucially, not the full picture. The fact that the cubs are not yet ready does not mean that the lioness has no intention of training them how to survive; sadly, while she is off hunting, a hostile creature attacks what she thought was a safe hiding place for her cubs.

They hide from God, who asks them why? I was naked, and afraid, and so I hid, the man responds. Who told you that you were naked, God asks? The question is not, who told you that you were naked – as if nakedness was problematic – but, who told you that you were naked? What was their motive? For what has happened is this: the eyes of the humans have been opened to their vulnerability in a world where some creatures act for good and some for evil, and they do not know whether God can be trusted. So, for the first time – like infants who have been surprised to discover that not every adult is reliably good – they now treat God as an unknown quantity they cannot be certain of.

God demonstrates his goodness by making clothes for them. (A sheep can clothe you by offering its wool; a goat can only clothe you by offering its hide and will not surrender its self-interest.)

God goes on to teach her cubs the survival skills they will need. They will learn how and when to fight: at the right time(s), Eve’s offspring will crush the head of the serpent’s offspring. They will learn how and when to flee: starting with their flight from Eden, no longer a safe place. They will learn how and when to freeze, and how and when to fawn.

They will learn from the fear of the Lord – from God’s own experience of fear and how to respond – which is the beginning of wisdom in this world.

 

Advent 2024 : 6

 

I have a cat. She is petite, for a domestic cat, and I am large, for a human. In keeping with other mammals, including humans, she has available to her fight, flight, freeze and fawn behaviours, in response to potential danger. Most often, she approaches me by falling on her side, rolling onto her back, and exposing her throat to me. This is fawning or offering herself in submission to me. And it is risky: I am far larger, and, if I so wished, I could crush her throat under my boot. But I do not respond that way. Rather, I respond by kneeling down and stroking her, perhaps even rubbing my head against hers. This is a bonding act between us, initiated by her.

My contention is that these four sympathetic nervous system responses are grounded in the nature of God. God longs for relationship with all creation, including humans, but this involves a degree of risk, for creation reflects the freedom of God in possessing its own freedom. God flees from concentrated powerbases to those, on the margins, who possess the least power; and, in partnership with them – a coalition of the powerless, for the weakness of God is stronger than the strength of human beings – fights and overthrows the powerful. God practices freeze behaviour in assessing whether or not a person can be trusted, and in evading those who cannot. And God fawns, daring, at times, to give himself over into human hands.

God fawns as a baby, born of Mary, utterly dependent on her and Joseph, their extended families and the community of first Bethlehem, then Alexandria, and later Nazareth. All who would receive him, as the biographer John so eloquently put it; also highlighting the risk of this strategy, noting that many of his own people, to whom he came, did not receive him.

God fawns as a man in his thirties, who gives himself over into the hands of others, who will respond in various ways. This is what we know as the Passion of Christ, that culmination of his ministry where Jesus moves from being the active agent in the story, who makes things happen, to being the one who is done unto. Done unto by a woman who anoints his feet with perfume. Done unto by men who bring him to mock trial, torture and kill him. Done unto by secret followers who prepare his corpse for burial and provide him with the dignity of a final (from their point of view) resting place.

Neither is this a departure for God, for God has made himself vulnerable to those whom he believes might welcome him from the very outset.

 

Advent 2024 : 5

This Advent, I am writing a series of reflections on what it looks like to be creatures made in the likeness of a Creator. Thanks to our sympathetic nervous system, we assess and respond to potential danger in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn behaviours; and my contention is that these embedded, embodied ways of being are grounded in the nature of God.

Having considered flight, and fight, let us turn to freeze, to being as still and silent as possible, in the hope that we go unnoticed.

Within the library we know as the Bible, there is an ancient piece of theatre, the Book of Job. In this play, the Accuser asks God’s permission to test Job’s character. Four friends come to him in his existential angst, and they discuss the nature of God. And God, who is not omniscient (because God flees from concentrated power) but who nonetheless has a pretty good idea of how humans, personally and collectively, behave (because God has been attentive to human behaviour for a very long time), comes as close as he dares, and, keeping silent and very still, listens in. Are these the kind of men in whose hands God might be safe?

A story of David, the ancestor of Jesus. Once, when the mad king Saul (God ‘has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts’) was hunting David down like a deer on the mountain, and David, with his fellow outlaws, was living in a cave near the Dead Sea – the lowest point on the face of the earth – Saul found himself caught out and needing to empty his bowels. For modesty’s sake, he steps aside, into the very cave where David is hiding from him. Laying his cloak aside to squat, David approaches, keeping absolutely silent, undoubtedly freezing at every sound that might reveal him, until he has Saul’s cloak in his hands, and cuts off the corner, before retreating again, as silent as before. Only once Saul has departed does David run after him, and keeping a safe distance between them, calls out the error of Saul’s ways: What have I done to harm you, O king?

Three stories of Jesus.

There is a story of Jesus asleep in the bottom of a boat in the middle of the lake in the midst of a storm. And the storm seems to symbolise all that is swirling around him. Crowds who want to make him their king by force. Demonic spirits who are agitated by his activity in their territory. And Jesus, keeping so silent and still he falls asleep in his hiding place.

Another story, of Jesus, having taken flight from those who plotted to kill him, finding refuge in Tyre, entering a house and not wanting anyone to know he was there. Keeping silent and still. This time, his cover is blown, by an observant woman, who seeks his help. Freeze behaviour does not always work.

And the time when Jesus’ relatives go to Jerusalem to attend one of the pilgrim festivals, but Jesus excuses himself from going with them. Later, he goes alone, right into the lion’s den, the concentrated powerbase that was the Temple, from where the glory of God had once taken flight and now dangerous again. For days, he hides in plain sight, keeping silent and still, unnoticed – yes, there were tens of thousands of pilgrims, and who notices the individual in the crowd? but everywhere else Jesus goes, someone recognises him.

Sometimes in the presence of threat, we decide to freeze while we keep monitoring, reassessing, the situation. To do so is to be Christlike, grounded in the nature of God.

  

Advent 2024 : 4

 

The biographer Luke records the events surrounding the birth of Jesus. These include two Annunciations, or messages from God announced by the herald angel, one to an older man named Zechariah and the other to a girl named Mary, these two being distant relatives. Each will become a parent, to a son. Zechariah’s son, John, will prepare the way for Mary’s son, Jesus. For John, this will include living much of his adult life in the wilderness, having taken flight from the powerbase of Jerusalem. It will also involve standing up to a ruler – a calculated fight – that will result in John’s execution by beheading.

Luke tells us that Mary visits Zechariah’s wife, Elizabeth, while they are both pregnant. And while there, Mary sings a song which has been passed down to us as the Magnificat. It is, in fact, her cover version of a far-older song, sung by Hannah, another woman who had a miracle pregnancy and bore a son who would be appointed by God to rule over his people, the prophet Samuel. Mary sings, of God, ‘He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.’

Yet the library we know as the Bible also testifies that the rich exploit the poor with impunity. God will not tolerate injustice indefinitely; but would appear to bide his time and choose his moments. When the time is right, when, perhaps, the odds would seem in God’s favour – on account of having won the hearts and minds of allies from among those living on the edges – then God acts decisively, to turn the world upside-down.

God chooses flight to flee from concentrated power in search of allies from among the relatively powerless. And God fights against the powerful, such that – as Satan ultimately flees from Jesus in the wilderness, when Jesus wrestles with him, withdrawing until a more opportune moment should arise – they scatter, like Herod running first to Cleopatra and then to the Senate in Rome, then looking to Mark Anthony, then Octavian (Augustus).

God fights, by turning the world on its head, through the least-likely of human partners.

 

Advent 2024 : 3

 

Yesterday, I landed by asking the questions: What would God flee from? And to whom would God flee?

My contention is that humans, along with other mammals, have bodies that, thanks to our sympathetic nervous system, equip us to respond to uncertainty and potential danger by means of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn behaviours.

And that, in this, we reflect and reveal the nature of the Creator God in whose likeness creation shares, and humans particularly.

I want to suggest that there are both holy and unholy ways in which we can express fight, flight, freeze, or fawn behaviours. Which – given that our starting point was the respective flights of Herod and of Jesus to Egypt – raises the questions: What would God flee from? And to whom would God flee?

Deep in the library known to us as the Bible, we find a book that records the glory of God lifting from the Temple in Jerusalem and departing into the wilderness to the east of the rift valley that separates Europe and Africa from Asia. The divine glory has gone in search of his people, whom he has already allowed to be carried off into exile in Babylon.

I want to suggest that God is fleeing home (or, at least, his primary earthly address). That God is not going on holiday, or a business trip, but that he has carefully planned to flee a home where something has gone very wrong. That God is fleeing the concentration of power – because power, concentrated by those who seek to exercise it over others, corrupts even the best of intentions. And that God flees to those who find themselves displaced from the centre, relatively powerless – in the sense that their ability to exercise power over others is curtailed – in hope of finding those who might be willing to form a partnership of the limited, the vulnerable.

My own church tradition, the Church of England, would do well to reflect on this.

Whereas Herod flees to Alexandria in hope of building a coalition of the powerful, God flees to a people living in exile. As the Father flees to those living in exile in Babylon, so the Son flees to those living in diaspora in Alexandria.

Flight is a human response to danger. The choice is whether to pattern our flight to the ways of God, or in opposition to God’s ways.

But flight is not the only response to danger. How, and whom, does God fight?

 

Advent 2024 : 2

 

I am fascinated by the common ground found between Herod the Great and Jesus in their respective flights to Egypt (see yesterday). In keeping with other mammals, humans have a sympathetic nervous system that enables us to respond to potential danger with fight, flight, freeze, or fawn behaviour. Herod and Jesus share their humanity, as well as, in Herod’s action against Jesus, our capacity for inhumanity. Moreover, there is a long biblical record of flight from danger: Moses flees Egypt, later returning to lead his people in their own communal flight; David flees the wrath of Saul; Paul will escape Damascus lowered down the city wall hidden in a basket.

But it goes deeper than this. For Jesus is not only God, fully human, but also human, fully divine. Jesus reveals the nature of God to us, even as he participates in the life of God.

To be human is to be limited – by our bodies, by the actions of others for or against us – and to be invited to embrace our limitations. Limited, not because we are creatures, in contrast to a limitless Creator, but precisely because we are formed in the likeness of a Creator who, from the beginning, embraced and continues to embrace limitations. To acknowledge and embrace our limited nature is the most divine expression of being human possible.

The flight response we see in humans and other mammals reflects and reveals something of the nature of God. But what would God flee from? And to whom would God flee?

 

Advent 2024 : 1

 

At this time of year, I mobilise friends to deliver Christmas cards to every household in the parish. This year, the card features an image of a mother and her child fleeing their home by night, The Flight to Egypt.

Several decades before the birth of Jesus, an Idumean nobleman fled to Alexandria, by ship, by night. A convert to Judaism, Herod had first been appointed provincial governor of Galilee, and later Galilee and Samaria, by the Romans, who ruled the territory indirectly. His older brother, Phasael, held the equivalent position in Jerusalem. It helped that their father was a friend of Julius Ceasar. After Caesar’s assassination, Mark Anthony named them both tetrarchs, under Hyrcanus II, but Hyrcanus’ nephew usurped the throne. Herod, who had sent his first wife and son into exile – common enough behaviour for rulers – and married Hyrcanus IIs granddaughter, Mariamne, fled to Alexandria seeking help. They travelled by ship, guided by the Pharos, the lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. A light shining in the darkness. Herod hoped to enlist the support of Cleopatra VII, former lover of Julius Ceasar and now wife of Mark Anthony. Cleopatra welcomed him and offered him an army, to serve her as general in territories that had been ruled over by her family, the Ptolemaic dynasty, since lost, and that she hoped to regain. But Herod’s ambitions were greater; he departed Alexandria for Rome, where he was declared sole king over Judea by the Senate.

Almost immediately, his rule faced a threat from his mother-in-law, who wrote to Cleopatra – one mother and powerful woman to another – requesting that her son be made High Priest. Considering this a power play against him, Herod had the young man assassinated. His mother-in-law again appealed to Cleopatra, for justice; and the Queen of Egypt (who now had reason to see Herod as an enemy, and not an ally) sent her Roman husband to bring Herod to trial. Herod evaded consequences by siding with Anthony in his quarrel with Octavian – though when Octavian defeated Anthony to become the first emperor, Augustus, Herod would find himself needing to twist and turn again to survive.

Several decades after Hero’s flight to Egypt, Joseph, a descendant of King David but himself an artisan, would flee to Egypt to escape the paranoid wrath of Herod – now styling himself The Great. The family fled by night, perhaps, like Herod before them, travelling by ship, guided by the Pharos. Seeking a welcome among the large community of Jewish merchants and artisans, philosophers and scholars, who made up a large part of the population of Alexandria. Somewhere a builder could find work and fashion a home for his family. Not a forever home, perhaps, but a safe haven in stormy season.

It is striking how the lives of those we consider our enemies and a threat to our way of life parallel our own lives and experience so closely.

Advent Sunday

 

Advent is the Season of Preparation, of getting ready, not, primarily, to celebrate Christmas, but to get in shape for Jesus’ return, at some unknown future point. Because – like him – we have a body, it is in our bodies that we get ready. There are parallels here with intentionally doing exercises that strengthen your core in middle age, so that you might have greater mobility in an older age that as yet lies over the horizon. Advent is working on our core so that, when Christ comes again, we might be able to put on our own socks and shoes and follow him. And this year, the theme chosen by the Church of England for Advent is Calm & Bright.

Your body has a sympathetic nervous system, which helps keep us alive. The base of our brain scans for danger, and, through the release of certain hormones, our body prepares to respond. Are we strong enough to defend ourselves? Fight. Are we fast enough to outrun the danger? Flight. Is it better to remain as silent and still as possible, in the hope we will go unnoticed? Freeze. Or is our best chance the calculated risk of submission? Fawn.

The sympathetic nervous system helps keep us alive, but it takes its toll on our body. Once the immediate danger is past, we need to return to a state of calm. This is where our parasympathetic nervous system comes in, releasing other hormones that do just that. This also helps keep us alive, as a species, by enabling us to enjoy eating and experience sexual pleasure, and is sometimes referred to as Rest & Digest, or Feed & Breed.

But our sympathetic nervous system can be tricked into being permanently switched on. The base of our brain cannot tell the difference between your living in a building that is being shelled, and you watching a constant stream of images of buildings in another part of the world that are being shelled. And when our body is continually on high alert, we will experience migraines, or irritable bowels, or skin conditions.

The digitally saturated world we live in is especially bad in this regard. So, we try to fight back by tricking our parasympathetic nervous system into calming us. Again, we might turn to digital hits of affirmation. But the relaxing hormones have less and less impact, the more we force them.

None of this is new. In the threat-laden world of the first century, Paul wrote of experiencing joy and love – and cardio exercise – in an unstable context. His sometime travel companion, Luke, recorded Jesus also speaking of cardio exercise in contrast to numbing oneself, throughdrunkenness and dissipation, in the face of times of great and prolongeddistress.

The people of faith have always embraced disciplines that prepare themselves both for danger and for return to calm. This Advent, we are invited to discover, again, some of those calming practices. It is unlikely that the return of Jesus – a cataclysmic event – is about to take place. How can we remain fit and well as we wait?

Get outside, in nature, and go for a walk. Or get your hands dirty in the soil. Write in a journal, or a letter to a friend, or spend time with companions. Read a novel, play a game, or do a jigsaw. Meditate on the Psalms, or memorise a prayer, or receive Communion regularly. Stroke the ears of a pet. Sit and breathe deeply for five minutes, attending to your breath. Light candles. Listen to music. Appreciate architecture. Greet a stranger passing by on the street. All these and more are spiritual exercises for your body, enabling you to know joy and love. And in a world of distress – a stressed world – to return to calm is an act of resistance, of hope, of the world-to-come breaking into the present world.

This Advent, take time for such things.

 

Christ the King

 

I wonder whether you are familiar with the Horrible Histories series of books—by the wonderful local northeast author Terry Deary—also turned into a children’s television show? If so, you’ll know about the Revolting Romans.

In 66 CE, the Province of Judea rebelled against Rome. The emperor, Nero, sent one of his commanders, Vespasian, to put the rebellion down, in a campaign that would last eight years. But only two years later, Nero was facing rebellion closer to home. Sentenced to death by the Senate, and deserted by the Praetorian Guard, Nero died at his own hand in the summer of 68 CE, throwing the Roman empire into civil war. Galba seized power, only to be murdered seven months later in a coup that put Otho on the throne; only to take his own life three months later, having been defeated in battle by another claimant, Vitellius. In response, the Roman legions based in Egypt and Judea proclaimed their commander, Vespasian, emperor. Leaving his son, Titus, to command the siege of Jerusalem, Vespasian turned his attention to defeating Vitellius, who was killed eight months after becoming emperor. Vespasian, whose claim was ratified by the Senate the next day, would rule for a decade and die of natural causes. Titus captured Jerusalem in 70 CE, destroying the city and its Temple, and finally defeating the last of the rebels four years later. At his father’s death, he became the first biological son to succeed his father as emperor. Two years later, he, too, died of natural causes, and was deified by the Senate. His younger brother, Domitian, became emperor of Rome and would rule for fifteen years before being assassinated by members of his own court.

Domitian was ruthless, an authoritarian ruler who used religious and cultural propaganda to build what, today, we would call a cult of personality; stripped away the powers of the Senate; and nominated himself as perpetual censor—the censor being an obsolete role, which had been served in elected terms and shared in pairs, that gave the holder absolute power over the registration of  citizens, the appointment of Senators and government officials, the defining and keeping of public morals, and the administration of the finances of the state. These actions set Domitian up as a populist ruler, in bitter opposition with the Roman elite. He would be very much at home today, among the likes of Trump and Orbán.

During Domitian’s reign (81-96 CE) an old man named John wrote a book that circulated, at first, among the Christian communities in seven cities across Asia Minor. John had been one of rabbi Jesus’ apprentices, who had lived in his company for several years leading up to his execution under the Roman governor of Judea and the astonishing claim that he had risen from the dead some days later and appeared to many witnesses over a forty-day period before ascending into heaven. From Jerusalem—since destroyed by Titus, whose brother was now emperor in Rome—the news that the God of the Jews had established this Jesus as Lord over the nations had spread and a community, made up of both Jews and gentiles, who were attracted to the hope of this message, was becoming established across the Roman world.

The genre of John’s book was apocalypse, the pulling back of the curtain to reveal what was really happening ‘behind the scenes.’ And John’s message was this: despite the authoritarian rule of Domitian over the Roman world, with its very real consequences for those who he considered his enemies, Jesus was still on the throne in heaven. And that while Roman emperors came and went, sometimes in quick succession and often having met a bloody end (Vespasian might have died of natural causes, but that cause was dysentery, so it was hardly peaceful), the kingdom of God under the rule of his co-regent divine-human Son, remained secure through all time.

This, proclaims John, is the deeper reality behind the flow of history that passes itself off as reality. And so, John encourages those who will hear his book read aloud in their midst to hold firm in their faith that—as Mother Julian of Norwich would put it, in the fourteenth century—'all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.’ And, just as Domitian would be very much at home today, so, today, we need to hear John’s tale—to see his vision afresh with our own eyes.

Like our time, the Roman age was saturated with images, especially images of powerful men. They might not have had TVs or carried smart phones, but they were confronted with images of the emperor in every public space. We even have surviving busts of emperors who only ruled for months, not years. In time, we will come to see images of Jesus and his first apprentices; but the first place where we see King Jesus—and where we see him still—is in the faces of unremarkable women and men like those gathered in this place today.

The emperors of Rome are long dead. They cannot harm you; but neither are they touched by the tyrants of today. And here is the thing: you are dead, too. We who proclaim that Jesus is Lord have died with him and are seated with him in the heavenly places. His death is our death; his reign is our reign. This is the reality behind the scenes. And because you are dead, the kings you fear—Trump, the Putin—can’t touch you: as the church-planter Paul, who knew many hardships in his body, put it, ‘No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.’

 

is and was and is to come

 

Some philosophy, for World Philosophy Day.

Revelation1.4-8 and John 18.33-37.

This coming Sunday is the Feast of Christ the King, the culmination of the Church year.

The Lectionary texts are two extracts from the writing of John, who had been apprenticed to rabbi Jesus. The first is from a vision he has as an elderly man, in which God is twice referred to as the one who is and who was and who is to come. This speaks to identity. A similar construction is employed by the author of the Letter to the Hebrews in relation to Jesus – Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and for ever – where the same is best understood as referring to self as opposed to suggesting unchanging: he is the same Jesus, whom we are told, by the biographer Luke, grew in stature and understand and in favour with God and people.

The other extract is an account of the questioning of Jesus by Pontius Pilate, fifth governor of the Roman province of Judea, in which Pilate asks Jesus if he believes himself to be the king of the Jews, and Jesus responds that he was born to testify to the truth. This also speaks to identity, to the way in which others perceived Jesus (and perceived how still others perceived Jesus) and how Jesus understood himself.

When we speak of the self, we are speaking of three distinct but related Selfs.

Self 1 refers to first-person self-awareness in the present moment. We develop this within the first year of our life, and never lose it, regardless of mental impairment. Self 1 has agency, to turn against itself or to be compassionate towards itself. But it has no access to the past (unlike Self 2, Self 1 is not touched by historic trauma, nor historic love) or the future: it exists in the present moment only. We possess Self 1 because we are made in the likeness of God who is.

Self 2 pertains to our characteristics and attributes, and refers to our perception of these, of ourselves. We are not necessarily reliable witnesses to our own identity: though John records that Jesus is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead. Self 2 changes through time, changes many times over our lives: Alpha and Omega, the one who sets out on a Way, and walks it to completion. We construct Self 2 through stories that we tell ourselves (and perhaps, though not necessarily, others) to make sense of our values and regrets, and we may deconstruct these stories when they no longer serve us, and construct a new Self 2 (birth after death).

Self 3 refers to social personae. Unlike the other two, Self 3 can only exist in relation to, and only be constructed through interactions with, other people. You cannot be a witness without someone to bear witness before. You cannot be a king without subjects. You cannot be a priest without a deity.

We possess Self 2 and Self 3 because we are made in the likeness of God who was and who is to come.

To say that God is, is to say that God knows godself in the present moment, regardless of whether God is acknowledged by the world or not.

To say that God was, is to say that God has revealed his character to us in ways that have unfolded, and that this character is faith-fully revealed in the person of Jesus, the divine human, who shared our common life, rooted in a particular society in a particular moment. As we have noted, this is to say that God is not a static Self, but, rather, God is faithful in loving us and in freeing us from our sins, from whatever holds us in captivity, whether personal or systemic, throughout history and across culture.

Just as to say God was, so also to say that God is to come, is a socially constructed statement: Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him. A king and his kingdom (that is, subjects) also acknowledged by other kings and kingdoms.

What, then, does it mean to say that God (and Jesus in union with God) is and was and is to come, in the context of the Roman Empire, or in the context of a twenty first century world teetering on global war?

Ultimately, it is to unite ourselves to him: our first-person self-awareness rooted in the first-person self-awareness of God; our self-perception being illuminated (our illusions disillusioned) by Jesus the faithful witness; and our lives, primarily understood as citizens of the kingdom of heaven, being handed over to the kings of the earth as instruments attuned to the truth.

This, it seems to me at least, is often and in many ways far from what we see in the Church. Which is why we must be brought back to him who is and was and is to come, again and again.

 

The Great Library

 

Revelation5.1-10 and Luke 19.41-44.

Alexandria, on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt, was conceived by Alexander the Great and built by his successors, the Ptolemaic dynasty. The city grew from empty sand into the most powerful city in the world, before it was later eclipsed by Rome, built not on military conquest but on the belief that knowledge equals power.

The Pharos, the harbour lighthouse, standing over 100m tall – a light that shines in the darkness – was one of the seven wonders of the world; but it was the Library and Museum that cemented Alexandria in history. The Library was to house every book in the world – monopolising knowledge. Agents were sent throughout the world to buy up books. Envoys were sent to every royal court to borrow books, make copies, and return them (in the case of valuable books, the originals were often kept, and copies returned). The Library housed works of poetry, philosophy, religion, astronomy, medicine, mathematics, engineering, architecture, agriculture – everything under the sun. They invented the role of librarian, the arranging of books by topic, and the alphabetical ordering of authors.

The adjacent Museum was a centre of research – forerunner to both museums and universities – where scholars advanced understanding in every field, building on and questioning everything that went before (the proved the earth was round and travelled around the sun). People from every nation, tribe and tongue made Alexandria their home, including a Jewish community – the Hebrew scriptures were translated into koine Greek, the new, simplified Alexandrian dialect of Greek, here – and a Buddhist community.

Books were written on papyrus scrolls, wrapped around an umbilicus, a wooden rod, and protected by cloth. Author information was recorded on clay seals attached to the scroll, for ease of identification. As several books could be copied onto one scroll, a scroll could have multiple seals attached to it.

In the first century BCE, the Roman Julius Caesar set fire to the ships in the Great Harbour of Alexandria, as a military tactic. The fire spread through the docks and surrounding buildings, including the Great Library. The knowledge of the world was lost, much of what we know coming from second hand accounts that cite texts we will never get to read.

(For more on Alexandria, read Alexandria: the City that Changed the World, by Islam Issa.)

Towards the end of the first century CE, a man called John, who had been apprenticed under rabbi Jesus and had gone on to hold a similar role, had a vision of heaven. In Revelation chapter 5 he records being in a room not dissimilar to the Great Library in Alexandria, except that this one has not been destroyed. A scroll is brought forward, with seven seals. It is the record of all that has been learnt in seven communities, the churches in seven cities across Asia Minor (part of modern-day Turkey) gathered onto one scroll. We have already met them, earlier in the vision, in recorded correspondences between the heavenly library and the agents or envoys in those cities. But no-one can open the seven seals, and so, in effect, the learning is lost.

And for this tragedy, John weeps.

But then, Jesus steps forward and is able to open the seals.

The lectionary pairs this reading today with a passage from the Gospel According to Luke, that records Jesus weeping because he knows that, just as the Romans had raised Alexandria with fire, so they would do to Jerusalem.

Jesus weeps. John weeps. Both weep, for the state of the world, in which cities rise and fall, and knowledge is built up only to be lost.

And yet, these books, authored by John and by Luke, and carefully copied many times over by professional scribes (who were paid for both the volume and the penmanship of their work) have survived. Translated into every common language, we can read them today. We can learn from what has been learnt before us.

And what we learn, in both these passages, is that it is acceptable – indeed, appropriate – to weep in the presence of God for the tragedy of the world.

John will continue to have visions of heaven. They culminate with a promise, that there will be a day when God wipes away every tear. The tears of John. The tears of Jesus. Your tears. My tears.

But, for now, we can weep before God. His Great Library is a safe space to do so. Our churches ought to be likewise.

 

Reading responsibly

 

TL:DR We have a responsibility for how we read the Bible, because it has a real impact on real lives. Yet, this is not a responsibility we can avoid, for in reading the Bible we are equipped for our own lives together.

It has been a difficult week for the Church of England, and, more broadly, a shaming week for Christians in our nation. A report published sets out a great evil, perpetuated not by the Church of England but in what might reasonably be considered Church-adjacent institutions within the larger Establishment. At some point, this abuse became known by individuals, in those institutions and in the Church as an institution, who sought (arrogantly) to manage it inappropriately and (also arrogance) prevent it from being known publicly, for that would have a terrible reputational impact on them too. At some point, others within the institution of the Church came to know, and sought to address the matter rightly, but have been found not to have done enough, or soon enough. And, for that shortcoming, the Archbishop of Canterbury has taken personal and institutional responsibility.

At the heart of this tragic affair are survivors and their families, abused and denied justice. Also those who sought justice, but who found it too hard, or somehow failed to do all that they could and should have done. And then there are also those who actively sought to cover up evil, whose actions perpetuated abuse and frustrated justice. Sometimes it is hard to draw a distinction between the latter two categories. Sometimes, it is hard to distinguish between all three.

Today, I presided at Holy Communion. It was hard to know what to say, in a week like this week. The epistle was an extract from a letter written by Paul to Philemon in the middle of the first century CE. Paul was a church planter. Philemon was the patron of a house church in Colossae, a Greco-Roman household made up of free and slave families, a household who had come to faith in Jesus through the ministry of Paul.

Philemon had a slave named Onesimus. For context, 90 percent of the population of the Roman empire were slaves. Onesimus had run away, finding his way to Ephesus, and there discovering Paul living under house arrest. The runaway slave chooses to serve Paul, to seek to meet his needs, as best as he is able. In so doing, he becomes like a son to Paul. But Paul sends him back to Philemon, asking that Philemon give Onesimus his freedom and allow him to return to Paul to continue supporting him the trials he faces.

These first-century correspondences are given to us to help us order our own lives, in our own very different time. And as we read this account, I was struck by the duty on us to handle these texts responsibly, because how we handle these texts has a real impact on actual lives. How do we read a text like this, in a week like this?

It is possible to read this text as an example and endorsement of perpetuating abuse. Paul sends Onesimus back to Philemon, urges, perhaps it feels like forces, him to go. Runaway slaves, caught, could face the death penalty. Onesimus must have been afraid. Paul seems to believe he can handle the situation himself, put in a good word, appeal to Philemon's better nature, or, if not, the debt Philemon owes Paul, the power Paul holds over him as his spiritual father.

There are many who have misused scripture in this way, as a tool to force victims of domestic abuse to remain in the place of harm, under the control of a bully.

This would be an appalling way to read Philemon, albeit one that might expose the darker corners of our own heart to the light. Is there a better way, a more responsible reading, one that helps us fill the room with light?

I would suggest that Onesimus represent one who serves the Church, and who has somehow failed or let the Church down. The name Onesimus means Useful, a common name for slaves, essentially a noun for a practical tool rather than a unique and precious individual. But in running away, he becomes useless. Yet in meeting Paul, he is transformed again, into one who is not Useful but one of the family. And Paul invites Philemon to forgive Onesimus his sins, to erase his debt, and to release him into a new role, one in which he is both loved and valued.

What if we were to read this letter as advice on how to treat a servant of the Church who has to some extent failed in their service, as, to some extent, each and every one of us fails on a daily basis? I am not speaking of one who has actively chosen to betray the trust others placed in them, but one whom others may feel betrayed by, perhaps with legitimate reason, simply because they failed to do all that they could or should have done.

Such a servant might be an archbishop, or a vicar, or a young person making tentative steps of faith. They could have a formal role, such as a Churchwarden or Parish Safeguarding Officer, or volunteer at the smallest level.

How might such a person be restored and released, in ways that honour the kindred ties of being the Church, of belonging to one another within the family of God?

The key is love, shared, and thankfulness for that lovely, for one another. Even when we have failed one another or perceive (whether with clarity or confusion) another to have failed us. To note our thankfulness for them, their life, their ministry. For all that has been done well, and all that is yet to come.

That can be easier said than done. Therefore, let us keep reminding one another.

 

The End Of The World

 

Mark 13.1-8 and Hebrews 10.11-25

TL:DR The world as we know it ends catastrophically all the time. Therefore, it is all the more important that Christians should focus on Jesus, embrace the discomfort of different views held with conviction, and seek to draw out the best rather than the worst in fellow human co-creators of the world to come.

The biographer Mark records Jesus making several visits to the temple in Jerusalem in the days leading up to his arrest and execution. Of all four Gospel writers, Mark is the least invested in the temple; he neither records Jesus visiting nor even mentioning the temple prior to this late point. This temple, expanded by the Roman client king Herod in ways that introduced segregation for women, the disabled, and foreigners, no longer exercises the role of Holy Place where heaven touches earth: this has now been taken on by Jesus himself.

Nonetheless, Mark records that one of rabbi Jesus’ apprentices draw his attention to the grandeur of the building, only for Jesus to respond that not one of the impressive stones would be left standing on another. The world, as they knew it, would come to a dramatic and violent end.

This would come to pass during the First Jewish-Roman War, 66-74 CE, at the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE, when Roman legionaries tore the temple down. But if not then, it would have happened eventually.

Mark recounts this exchange between the rabbi and his apprentice for an audience who are living through that very war. Most scholars believe he wrote from Rome, where a small number of Jews who followed rabbi Jesus watched events unfold from a distance, subject to reports and rumours and a lack of news of family back home. A minority report suggests Mark might have written from Galilee, closer to the frontline. Either way, he writes for those living through the End of the World that Jesus foretold and traumatised by it.

At the same time Mark was writing his Gospel, an unknown writer wrote what is now known as the Letter to the Hebrews to scattered followers of Jesus living through the war. Many scholars attribute the letter to the travelling church-planter Paul. Three of his fellow church planters, Luke, Apollos, and Prisca/Priscilla also have their champions. The fact that this community worked and wrote in overlapping combinations both strengthens the case for the letter coming out of that community and makes it harder to identify any given individuals with certainty.

This writer, too, is writing to a community whose world, as they have known it, is ending in flames. But they explicitly point out what Mark implies, that the world as they knew it had already come to an end. That the temple had already been replaced by Jesus as the means of achieving the ritual purity that was necessary for human beings to come into the presence of a holy God. Rather than being secured by priests going about their business day after day in the temple—a business about to be cut short—this has now been done, for them, once and for all, by Jesus, in his body.

In the light of this, the writer argues, the community of faith made up of apprentices to Jesus can have confidence even as everything they have known is lost. Specifically, they have freedom to speak openly and without fear before God, to bring their uncertainty and provisionality, their failures, shame, grief, anger, and the fear that is yet to be cast out by love.

And in such a time as this, when the world around us is burning, is being dismantled stone by stone thrown down until there is only a valley filled with rocks, the writer to the Hebrews offers three suggestions as to how to conduct ourselves, how to go about our daily lives.

Firstly, ‘let us approach.’ We can come before God, in whatever state we find ourselves, for ‘our hearts [are] sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.’ The loss of familiar structures and practices does not equate to loss of access to the presence of divine mercy. The temporal loss of the Church, as we have known it, is not the end of the life of faith.

Secondly, ‘let us hold fast.’ Be steadfast, not lightly surrendering our faith, not allowing the apocalypse around us to cause us to give up. The writer makes use of a principle from philosophical debate, not intransigent dogmatism but a willingness to wrestle with questions, to grapple with contrasting ideas and understandings, without abandoning the ring. Co-creating our response to the present crisis, and so, perhaps, in time fashioning a new world. The deconstruction and reconstruction of faith is necessary, again and again, but impossible alone.

Thirdly, ‘let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.’ Careful observation and contemplation, seeking to discern—in and for any given co-creator—how to stir up love, practical acts of justice and mercy, commitment to others, courage in the face of evil: in the active face of despair, self-interest, stone cold injustice, hatred.

You cannot stop the world from ending. The world, as we know it, ends over and over again. For individuals, families, communities, nations. The question is, how ought we to live in such a world?

This is a question the Church has been wrestling with from the outset and will be wrestling with [for we spring from the family of Israel, the Wrestler, the wrestling people] until the end.

 

Desire lines

 

We have most of our milk delivered to the doorstep in glass pint bottles, but at least once a week I top that up with milk bought at the petrol station on the intersection. The forecourt is designed for cars, with no provision made for pedestrians who come to the station to buy sweets, newspapers or tobacco products. And so, of course, pedestrians have made a desire line, albeit a very short one, that cuts between the public footpath and the petrol station forecourt at the rarely used automatic carwash on the corner of the site.

Desire lines, also known as desire paths, are those dirt tracks, worn away under foot, that cut across parks and vacant lots, or cut the corner off a bend in the official pathway. Footpaths and pavements are laid down by town planners on mapping boards, before being laid down in concrete flags or asphalt by workmen. Desire lines are public works of art, a dialogue between strangers that co-creates a more-liveable urban environment. Someone steps off the prescribed path and gives expression to another possibility. But the desire line depends on the person who comes next, the second and a third, who first notice the line that has been suggested, and then choose to take it themselves, rather than cut their own, rather than, collectively, to trample the ground so that in time the whole space is worn to earth. Desire lines say, ‘This is the Way: walk in it!’ and those whose own desire is awakened stop in the tracks, turn off the broad path that leads to some form of mass destruction (or, loss of some quality of life) and follow on the narrow path on which a fuller experience of being alive is to be found.

Today, I went to fetch some milk, and I discovered that someone has erected the most enormous communications mast on the public footpath ... right in front of the desire line.

As if to say, ‘This unofficial path is barred. You must connect with your neighbour in this virtual (and of course monetised) way. By order of the Pax Romana.’

This desire line must be one of the shortest that exists. And yet each time I step on it, I am aware that I am connected to my neighbours, even on trips to the petrol station forecourt when I do not meet anyone on the way. I am co-creating physical space. There is something almost magical about that scrappy corner of scrub, the almost abandoned carwash, blue light reflected on rain-slick tarmac when it rains at night. It puts a smile on my face that I take all the way to the cashier as I present my two quarts of milk to be scanned and paid for.

But it has never felt better than today, stepping behind the communication mast and disregarding its injunction.