Here's the sermon on Exodus 3.1-15 that I shared at St Andrew’s Wickford this morning:
"A man named Moses is tending his sheep in the land of Midian when he comes across a burning bush. He moves closer to see more and hears the voice of God, speaking to him about his people and their need to be delivered from the land of Egypt. God tells Moses to take off his sandals, for the ground he is standing on is holy.” (R. Bell, Velvet Elvis, Zondervan, 2005)
Holy Ground is an art installation by Paul Hobbs which includes a collection of shoes and stories from Christians all around the world. The stories are short statements about what it means for each person to believe in Christ in their particular situation. Among those represented are: a thief, a refugee, the despised, the rejected – people who Jesus specially sought out – as well as those who have known great opportunity, wealth and success. There are those who are beautiful, those who are disabled, those struggling to make a living and raise a family, those who have known great loss and tragedy, and those asking the deep questions of life. All have encountered the living God, arriving at a place of holy ground; where they must, metaphorically at least, remove their shoes in acknowledgement of God’s holiness.
For some the idea of giving up their shoes for this project seemed amusing and culturally odd. For others it was costly to give their only pair of shoes in exchange for another. For some it was an honour to be featured in this way, to have their story told to represent others from their situation. For many, it was an expression of thankfulness to be able to share their stories with others.
At the burning bush, God said to Moses, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground” (Exodus 3/2-5). Similarly, acknowledging God’s holiness is the beginning of life as a Christian. What, I wonder, would your story be of metaphorically taking off your sandals in acknowledgement of God’s holiness?
Here is a very different figure; this time a sculpture by the Canadian artist David Robinson. “Dressed in his finest uniform (suit, tie, pants perfectly pressed) the bronze figure would blend in well with the teeming businessmen of the city. He is tidy. His hair is groomed. Not too young, not too old, he is in his prime, at the top of his game. One expects his head to be held high and it is. Is he, like everyone else, focused on the horizon of his ambition?
Thousands might note in passing that this is no hero, no grand general and no great statesman; in fact the crowds of the morning rush might not find him notable at all. Yet, though in business there is never a minute to spare, allowing him even a moment’s notice would pay off a hundredfold. Would some turn aside and see that he is not rushing as they are? Would anyone take time to look at his hands, to look at his feet?
Bare feet. What has caused this perfectly dressed businessman to humbly remove his shoes? In the stillness of the erect figure, face looking upward, we do not see what he sees but we can perceive a heavenly and personal encounter. Perhaps it is a gesture of repentance that he holds his shoes so lightly?”
These details should bring to mind that “man of another era who similarly, while busy at his workday job, had an encounter which changed his life forever.” As we have heard, “while minding his father-in-law’s sheep in the desert, this man came upon a contradiction: a green bush aflame but not consumed. He could have hastened on his way but for some reason did not.”
“As the story goes, when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, he called to him from out of the bush by name, saying, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” David Robinson’s sculpture says that, under the bare feet of this everyday man, there is holy ground.
Reflecting on this sculpture Irena Tippett concludes, “So here is the truth: There is no time or place immune to the intrusion (if you will) of the living God. Even in a city strident with buying and selling, God is able to reveal himself to people.”
American Pastor Rob Bell makes a similar point: "Moses has been tending his sheep in this region for forty years. How many times has he passed by this spot? How many times has he stood in this exact place? And now God tells him the ground is holy?
Has the ground been holy the whole time and Moses is just becoming aware of it for the first time?
Do you and I walk on holy ground all the time, but we are moving so fast and returning so many calls and writing so many emails and having such long lists to get done that we miss it?" (R. Bell, Velvet Elvis, Zondervan, 2005)
So, in the words of Woody Guthrie:
“Take off, take off your shoes
This place you’re standing, it’s holy ground
Take off, take off your shoes
The spot you’re standing, its holy ground
Amen
Wednesday, 16 July 2025
Seen and Unseen: This gallery refresh adds drama to the story of art
My latest article for Seen and Unseen is 'This gallery refresh adds drama to the story of art' which explores how rehanging the Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery revives the emotion of great art:
'Christianity became the predominant power shaping European culture after classical antiquity, inspiring artists and patrons to evoke the nature of sacred mysteries in visual terms. The rehang of The Sainsbury Wing brings to life the way artists forged a new way of painting, painting with a drama that no one had seen before and with stories flowing across panels in colourful scenes. These displays also promote a greater understanding of how works of art were, and still are, used as models of moral behaviour, as celebrations of the deeds of holy figures or as a plea for one’s hopes, both in this life and in the afterlife.'
For more on the National Gallery and the place of art in Christendom see here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
My first article for Seen and Unseen was 'Life is more important than art' which reviews the themes of recent art exhibitions that tackle life’s big questions and the roles creators take.
My second article 'Corinne Bailey Rae’s energised and anguished creative journey' explores inspirations in Detroit, Leeds and Ethiopia for Corinne Bailey Rae’s latest album, Black Rainbows, which is an atlas of capacious faith.
My third article was an interview with musician and priest Rev Simpkins in which we discussed how music is an expression of humanity and his faith.
My fourth article was a guide to the Christmas season’s art, past and present. Traditionally at this time of year “great art comes tumbling through your letterbox” so, in this article, I explore the historic and contemporary art of Christmas.
My fifth article was 'Finding the human amid the wreckage of migration'. In this article I interviewed Shezad Dawood about his multimedia Leviathan exhibition at Salisbury Cathedral where personal objects recovered from ocean depths tell a story of modern and ancient migrations.
My sixth article was 'The visionary artists finding heaven down here' in which I explored a tradition of visionary artists whose works shed light on the material and spiritual worlds.
My seventh article was 'How the incomer’s eye sees identity' in which I explain how curating an exhibition for Ben Uri Online gave me the chance to highlight synergies between ancient texts and current issues.
My eighth article was 'Infernal rebellion and the questions it asks' in which I interview the author Nicholas Papadopulos about his book The Infernal Word: Notes from a Rebel Angel.
My ninth article was 'A day, night and dawn with Nick Cave’s lyrics' in which I review Adam Steiner’s Darker With The Dawn — Nick Cave’s Songs Of Love And Death and explore whether Steiner's rappel into Cave’s art helps us understand its purpose.
My 10th article was 'Theresa Lola's poetical hope' about the death-haunted yet lyrical, joyful and moving poet for a new generation.
My 11th article was 'How to look at our world: Aaron Rosen interview', exploring themes from Rosen's book 'What Would Jesus See: Ways of Looking at a Disorienting World'.
My 12th article was 'Blake, imagination and the insight of God', exploring a new exhibition - 'William Blake's Universe at the Fitzwilliam Museum - which focuses on seekers of spiritual regeneration and national revival.
My 13th article 'Matthew Krishanu: painting childhood' was an interview with Matthew Krishanu on his exhibition 'The Bough Breaks' at Camden Art Centre.
My 14th article was entitled 'Art makes life worth living' and explored why society, and churches, need the Arts.
My 15th article was entitled 'The collective effervescence of sport's congregation' and explored some of the ways in which sport and religion have been intimately entwined throughout history
My 16th article was entitled 'Paradise cottage: Milton reimagin’d' and reviewed the ways in which artist Richard Kenton Webb is conversing with the blind poet in his former home (Milton's Cottage, Chalfont St Giles).
My 17th article was entitled 'Controversial art: how can the critic love their neighbour?'. It makes suggestions of what to do when confronted with contentious culture.
My 18th article was an interview entitled 'Art, AI and apocalypse: Michael Takeo Magruder addresses our fears and questions'. In the interview the digital artist talks about the possibilities and challenges of artificial intelligence.
My 19th article was entitled 'Dark, sweet and subtle: recovered music orientates us'. In the article I highlight alt-folk music seeking inspiration from forgotten hymns.
My 20th article was entitled 'Revisiting Amazing Grace inspires new songs'. In the article I highlight folk musicians capturing both the barbaric and the beautiful in the hymn Amazing Grace and Christianity's entanglement with the transatlantic slave trade more generally.
My 21st article was entitled 'James MacMillan’s music of tranquility and discord'. In the article I noted that the composer’s music contends both the secular and sacred.
My 22nd article was a book review on Nobody's Empire by Stuart Murdoch. 'Nobody's Empire: A Novel is the fictionalised account of how ... Murdoch, lead singer of indie band Belle and Sebastian, transfigured his experience of Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME) through faith and music.'
My 23rd article was entitled 'Rock ‘n’ roll’s long dance with religion'. The article explores how popular music conjures sacred space.
My 24th article was an interview with Alastair Gordon on the artist’s attention which explores why the overlooked and everyday capture the creative gaze.
My 25th article was about Stanley Spencer’s seen and unseen world and the artist’s child-like sense of wonder as he saw heaven everywhere.
My 26th article was entitled 'The biblical undercurrent that the Bob Dylan biopics missed' and in it I argue that the best of Dylan’s work is a contemporary Pilgrim, Dante or Rimbaud on a compassionate journey.
My 27th article was entitled 'Heading Home: a pilgrimage that breaks out beauty along the way' and focuses on a film called 'Heading Home' which explores how we can learn a new language together as we travel.
My 28th article was entitled 'Annie Caldwell: “My family is my band”' and showcased a force of nature voice that comes from the soul.
My 29th article was entitled 'Why sculpt the face of Christ?' and explored how, in Nic Fiddian Green’s work, we feel pain, strength, fear and wisdom.
My 30th article was entitled 'How Mumford and friends explore life's instability' and explored how Mumford and Sons, together with similar bands, commune on fallibility, fear, grace, and love.
My 31st article was entitled 'The late Pope Francis was right – Antoni Gaudi truly was God’s architect' and explored how sanctity can indeed be found amongst scaffolding, as Gaudi’s Barcelona beauties amply demonstrate.
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For more on the National Gallery and the place of art in Christendom see here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
My first article for Seen and Unseen was 'Life is more important than art' which reviews the themes of recent art exhibitions that tackle life’s big questions and the roles creators take.
My second article 'Corinne Bailey Rae’s energised and anguished creative journey' explores inspirations in Detroit, Leeds and Ethiopia for Corinne Bailey Rae’s latest album, Black Rainbows, which is an atlas of capacious faith.
My third article was an interview with musician and priest Rev Simpkins in which we discussed how music is an expression of humanity and his faith.
My fourth article was a guide to the Christmas season’s art, past and present. Traditionally at this time of year “great art comes tumbling through your letterbox” so, in this article, I explore the historic and contemporary art of Christmas.
My fifth article was 'Finding the human amid the wreckage of migration'. In this article I interviewed Shezad Dawood about his multimedia Leviathan exhibition at Salisbury Cathedral where personal objects recovered from ocean depths tell a story of modern and ancient migrations.
My sixth article was 'The visionary artists finding heaven down here' in which I explored a tradition of visionary artists whose works shed light on the material and spiritual worlds.
My seventh article was 'How the incomer’s eye sees identity' in which I explain how curating an exhibition for Ben Uri Online gave me the chance to highlight synergies between ancient texts and current issues.
My eighth article was 'Infernal rebellion and the questions it asks' in which I interview the author Nicholas Papadopulos about his book The Infernal Word: Notes from a Rebel Angel.
My ninth article was 'A day, night and dawn with Nick Cave’s lyrics' in which I review Adam Steiner’s Darker With The Dawn — Nick Cave’s Songs Of Love And Death and explore whether Steiner's rappel into Cave’s art helps us understand its purpose.
My 10th article was 'Theresa Lola's poetical hope' about the death-haunted yet lyrical, joyful and moving poet for a new generation.
My 11th article was 'How to look at our world: Aaron Rosen interview', exploring themes from Rosen's book 'What Would Jesus See: Ways of Looking at a Disorienting World'.
My 12th article was 'Blake, imagination and the insight of God', exploring a new exhibition - 'William Blake's Universe at the Fitzwilliam Museum - which focuses on seekers of spiritual regeneration and national revival.
My 13th article 'Matthew Krishanu: painting childhood' was an interview with Matthew Krishanu on his exhibition 'The Bough Breaks' at Camden Art Centre.
My 14th article was entitled 'Art makes life worth living' and explored why society, and churches, need the Arts.
My 15th article was entitled 'The collective effervescence of sport's congregation' and explored some of the ways in which sport and religion have been intimately entwined throughout history
My 16th article was entitled 'Paradise cottage: Milton reimagin’d' and reviewed the ways in which artist Richard Kenton Webb is conversing with the blind poet in his former home (Milton's Cottage, Chalfont St Giles).
My 17th article was entitled 'Controversial art: how can the critic love their neighbour?'. It makes suggestions of what to do when confronted with contentious culture.
My 18th article was an interview entitled 'Art, AI and apocalypse: Michael Takeo Magruder addresses our fears and questions'. In the interview the digital artist talks about the possibilities and challenges of artificial intelligence.
My 19th article was entitled 'Dark, sweet and subtle: recovered music orientates us'. In the article I highlight alt-folk music seeking inspiration from forgotten hymns.
My 20th article was entitled 'Revisiting Amazing Grace inspires new songs'. In the article I highlight folk musicians capturing both the barbaric and the beautiful in the hymn Amazing Grace and Christianity's entanglement with the transatlantic slave trade more generally.
My 21st article was entitled 'James MacMillan’s music of tranquility and discord'. In the article I noted that the composer’s music contends both the secular and sacred.
My 22nd article was a book review on Nobody's Empire by Stuart Murdoch. 'Nobody's Empire: A Novel is the fictionalised account of how ... Murdoch, lead singer of indie band Belle and Sebastian, transfigured his experience of Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME) through faith and music.'
My 23rd article was entitled 'Rock ‘n’ roll’s long dance with religion'. The article explores how popular music conjures sacred space.
My 24th article was an interview with Alastair Gordon on the artist’s attention which explores why the overlooked and everyday capture the creative gaze.
My 25th article was about Stanley Spencer’s seen and unseen world and the artist’s child-like sense of wonder as he saw heaven everywhere.
My 26th article was entitled 'The biblical undercurrent that the Bob Dylan biopics missed' and in it I argue that the best of Dylan’s work is a contemporary Pilgrim, Dante or Rimbaud on a compassionate journey.
My 27th article was entitled 'Heading Home: a pilgrimage that breaks out beauty along the way' and focuses on a film called 'Heading Home' which explores how we can learn a new language together as we travel.
My 28th article was entitled 'Annie Caldwell: “My family is my band”' and showcased a force of nature voice that comes from the soul.
My 29th article was entitled 'Why sculpt the face of Christ?' and explored how, in Nic Fiddian Green’s work, we feel pain, strength, fear and wisdom.
My 30th article was entitled 'How Mumford and friends explore life's instability' and explored how Mumford and Sons, together with similar bands, commune on fallibility, fear, grace, and love.
My 31st article was entitled 'The late Pope Francis was right – Antoni Gaudi truly was God’s architect' and explored how sanctity can indeed be found amongst scaffolding, as Gaudi’s Barcelona beauties amply demonstrate.
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John Dunstable - Ave Maris Stella.
Tuesday, 15 July 2025
Unique musical event combined performances of new compositions with Interfaith conversation
This evening, the Woolf Institute at the University of Cambridge presented a unique musical event that used music as a springboard for interfaith dialogue.
Entitled “Creation: A World-Premiere Event”, it featured live performances of new compositions written by musicians from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim backgrounds expressly for this project. The musical offerings were followed by an engaging roundtable discussion featuring an interfaith collection of scholars affiliated with Cambridge University.
“I envisioned this event as an opportunity to explore the unique the arts can contribute to interfaith dialogue”, says Delvyn Case, an American musician and scholar who curated the project as part of his Visiting Fellowship at the Woolf Institute. “Listening to music reminds us of all the things we have in common with each other, no matter who we are or what we believe: the love of beauty, the value of human connection, and our need to explore the deepest questions life poses to us. Using music to help us consider questions of faith and spirituality will be a one-of-a-kind experience for all who attend.”
The event featured new compositions for voice and piano by Ari Ben-Shabetai, an internationally-prominent composer now based in the UK, as well as Case, who serves as Professor of Music at Wheaton College in Massachusetts. These works were performed by baritone Robert Rice, a member of The Cardinall’s Musick, and Calvin Leung, one the UK’s most accomplished young pianists. The third piece, a new song based on an original text, was performed by Samia Malik, a singer-songwriter, workshop leader, and activist known for her emotionally-riveting bilingual Urdu/English songs.
“Each of us has created a new piece of music that explores the theme of ‘creation’ from a religious or spiritual perspective,” says Case. “It’s fascinating to see the unique ways each of us has approached the challenge. Some of us have focused on the ways the theme relates to the basic human urge to create – and how that helps us understand the spiritual dimension of human experience. Others have expressly connected it to the issue of environmental crisis that we all face. Altogether, these pieces demonstrate the unique power of the arts to bring people together in conversation about themes that are relevant to all of us today.”
The performances of the pieces was followed by an informal panel discussion featuring scholars representing each of the three Abrahamic faiths. Cambridge Faculty of Divinity members Prof. Giles Waller and Prof. Timothy Winter (Abdal Hakim Murad) were joined by Dr. Danielle Padley, a Research Fellow at the Woolf Institute. Each of the composers was also present for the event and shared their own thoughts about their music.
Musician biographies:
Born in Jerusalem, Ari Ben-Shabetai studied composition with Mark Kopytman at the Jerusalem Rubin Academy of Music, and with George Crumb and Richard Wernick at the University of Pennsylvania,U.S.A., where he received a Ph.D. in Composition. Now residing in the UK, for many years he served as head of the Composition, Conducting and Theory Department at the Jerusalem Rubin Academy of Music. His Sinfonia Cromatica won the first prize in the 1994 Israel Philharmonic Orchestra composition competition, and was subsequently performed on tour to Germany, France, Italy, and the U.S.A. with Maestro Zubin Mehta conducting. In 1995 his work Magreffa was commissioned by Maestro Lorin Maazel for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and was performed both in Pittsburgh and in Jerusalem. A winner of numerous international awards, Dr. Ben-Shabetai was Chairman of the Israel Composer's League for four years, during which period he founded the Israeli Music Center (IMC) publishing house and produced "Psanterin" - a 9 CD Anthology of Israeli piano music.
Born in Saudi Arabia to Pakistani parents, Samia Malik has lived in the UK since she was a child. For over 30 years she has written, performed and produced bilingual Urdu and English songs based on traditional Urdu Ghazal (a highly refined union of poetry with music) extending and subverting the form to explore contemporary issues around identity, race and gender. She has collaborated and toured nationally and internationally with acclaimed world-class musicians, writers and artists including Baluji Shrivastav OBE, Dr Mallika Sarabhai, Giuliano Modarelli, Seemab Gul, Al MacSween, Sukhdeep Dhanjal, Sianed Jones and Cris Cheek. Samia has released five albums: 'The Colour of the Heart' (1998 rereleased 2023), Jaago – Wake Up (2004), Azaadi: Freedom (2017), 'Samia Malik Live at Norwich Arts Centre' (2019), and 'Songs to Heal and Empower' (2023). She also delivers highly successful and popular workshops and performances directly in the community, including to vulnerable groups such as refugees and asylum seekers, women and families being supported by domestic violence organisations, and isolated rural groups.
Delvyn Case is an American musician, scholar, writer, speaker, and educator. He has spent 25 years developing projects for secular and religious audiences that explore music’s unique power to explore questions of spirituality in the contemporary world. His writings on music, faith, and theology have appeared in The Christian Century, Sojourners, Books and Culture, and his work has been featured in Time Magazine, on BBC4’s “Sunday Morning” broadcast, and in the Boston Globe. He has collaborated on projects with the Yale Institute for Sacred Music, the Boston College Centre for Christian-Jewish Learning, the American Academy of Religion, Hebrew College, and many churches and organizations in the UK. He is the founder and executive director of Deus Ex Musca, an international organization that promotes the use of sacred music as a resource for spiritual formation, ecumenism, and interfaith dialogue. In 2024 he spent two terms as a Visiting Fellow at Exeter College, Oxford, and is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Woolf Institute. His music has been performed by over 100 orchestras across the world, including the BBC Scottish Symphony, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and the Hallé Orchestra, as well as by Grammy-winning artists including Richard Stoltzman and the Chestnut Brass Company. A graduate of Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Case currently holds the A. Howard Meneely Endowed Professorship at Wheaton College in Massachusetts, where he conducts the Great Woods Symphony Orchestra.
Entitled “Creation: A World-Premiere Event”, it featured live performances of new compositions written by musicians from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim backgrounds expressly for this project. The musical offerings were followed by an engaging roundtable discussion featuring an interfaith collection of scholars affiliated with Cambridge University.
“I envisioned this event as an opportunity to explore the unique the arts can contribute to interfaith dialogue”, says Delvyn Case, an American musician and scholar who curated the project as part of his Visiting Fellowship at the Woolf Institute. “Listening to music reminds us of all the things we have in common with each other, no matter who we are or what we believe: the love of beauty, the value of human connection, and our need to explore the deepest questions life poses to us. Using music to help us consider questions of faith and spirituality will be a one-of-a-kind experience for all who attend.”
The event featured new compositions for voice and piano by Ari Ben-Shabetai, an internationally-prominent composer now based in the UK, as well as Case, who serves as Professor of Music at Wheaton College in Massachusetts. These works were performed by baritone Robert Rice, a member of The Cardinall’s Musick, and Calvin Leung, one the UK’s most accomplished young pianists. The third piece, a new song based on an original text, was performed by Samia Malik, a singer-songwriter, workshop leader, and activist known for her emotionally-riveting bilingual Urdu/English songs.
“Each of us has created a new piece of music that explores the theme of ‘creation’ from a religious or spiritual perspective,” says Case. “It’s fascinating to see the unique ways each of us has approached the challenge. Some of us have focused on the ways the theme relates to the basic human urge to create – and how that helps us understand the spiritual dimension of human experience. Others have expressly connected it to the issue of environmental crisis that we all face. Altogether, these pieces demonstrate the unique power of the arts to bring people together in conversation about themes that are relevant to all of us today.”
The performances of the pieces was followed by an informal panel discussion featuring scholars representing each of the three Abrahamic faiths. Cambridge Faculty of Divinity members Prof. Giles Waller and Prof. Timothy Winter (Abdal Hakim Murad) were joined by Dr. Danielle Padley, a Research Fellow at the Woolf Institute. Each of the composers was also present for the event and shared their own thoughts about their music.
Musician biographies:
Born in Jerusalem, Ari Ben-Shabetai studied composition with Mark Kopytman at the Jerusalem Rubin Academy of Music, and with George Crumb and Richard Wernick at the University of Pennsylvania,U.S.A., where he received a Ph.D. in Composition. Now residing in the UK, for many years he served as head of the Composition, Conducting and Theory Department at the Jerusalem Rubin Academy of Music. His Sinfonia Cromatica won the first prize in the 1994 Israel Philharmonic Orchestra composition competition, and was subsequently performed on tour to Germany, France, Italy, and the U.S.A. with Maestro Zubin Mehta conducting. In 1995 his work Magreffa was commissioned by Maestro Lorin Maazel for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and was performed both in Pittsburgh and in Jerusalem. A winner of numerous international awards, Dr. Ben-Shabetai was Chairman of the Israel Composer's League for four years, during which period he founded the Israeli Music Center (IMC) publishing house and produced "Psanterin" - a 9 CD Anthology of Israeli piano music.
Born in Saudi Arabia to Pakistani parents, Samia Malik has lived in the UK since she was a child. For over 30 years she has written, performed and produced bilingual Urdu and English songs based on traditional Urdu Ghazal (a highly refined union of poetry with music) extending and subverting the form to explore contemporary issues around identity, race and gender. She has collaborated and toured nationally and internationally with acclaimed world-class musicians, writers and artists including Baluji Shrivastav OBE, Dr Mallika Sarabhai, Giuliano Modarelli, Seemab Gul, Al MacSween, Sukhdeep Dhanjal, Sianed Jones and Cris Cheek. Samia has released five albums: 'The Colour of the Heart' (1998 rereleased 2023), Jaago – Wake Up (2004), Azaadi: Freedom (2017), 'Samia Malik Live at Norwich Arts Centre' (2019), and 'Songs to Heal and Empower' (2023). She also delivers highly successful and popular workshops and performances directly in the community, including to vulnerable groups such as refugees and asylum seekers, women and families being supported by domestic violence organisations, and isolated rural groups.
Delvyn Case is an American musician, scholar, writer, speaker, and educator. He has spent 25 years developing projects for secular and religious audiences that explore music’s unique power to explore questions of spirituality in the contemporary world. His writings on music, faith, and theology have appeared in The Christian Century, Sojourners, Books and Culture, and his work has been featured in Time Magazine, on BBC4’s “Sunday Morning” broadcast, and in the Boston Globe. He has collaborated on projects with the Yale Institute for Sacred Music, the Boston College Centre for Christian-Jewish Learning, the American Academy of Religion, Hebrew College, and many churches and organizations in the UK. He is the founder and executive director of Deus Ex Musca, an international organization that promotes the use of sacred music as a resource for spiritual formation, ecumenism, and interfaith dialogue. In 2024 he spent two terms as a Visiting Fellow at Exeter College, Oxford, and is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Woolf Institute. His music has been performed by over 100 orchestras across the world, including the BBC Scottish Symphony, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and the Hallé Orchestra, as well as by Grammy-winning artists including Richard Stoltzman and the Chestnut Brass Company. A graduate of Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Case currently holds the A. Howard Meneely Endowed Professorship at Wheaton College in Massachusetts, where he conducts the Great Woods Symphony Orchestra.
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Samia Malik - Like A Gift.
Monday, 14 July 2025
Rosemary Rutherford: East Window at St Peter's Nevendon
On Sunday I led my first service at St Peter's Nevendon, which has a significant - being her first - stained glass window by Rosemary Rutherford. My sermon from this service on the Good Samaritan can be read here.
The East Window at St Peter’s Nevendon is an important stained glass window by Rosemary Rutherford. It illustrates the Transfiguration with the central figure being Christ flanked by Moses on the left and Elijah on the right. St Peter kneels in the centre with St John to the left and his brother St James to the right.
She learnt stained glass making and created 40 windows, including four in Broomfield church, where her father was Rector, to replace those shattered by bombing. She was deeply religious and her spirituality guided her artworks. Her fresco at Broomfield church shows ‘Christ Stilling the Storm’ and was surely intended to give people hope during the frightening turmoil of wartime.
Rutherford is perhaps most widely known for her stained glass windows, mostly in churches, throughout East Anglia and further afield from Yorkshire to Sussex and even in New Zealand. The exhibition features a montage of many of her windows showing her versatility of style and subject. Her love of bright, bold colours is evident both in the east window of Broomfield church, in her earlier figurative designs and in the more abstract compositions at Boxford and in windows made posthumously to her designs at Hinderclay in Suffolk.
Project Rutherford at St Mary with St Leonard Broomfield centres on the preservation and conservation of Rutherford’s special mural in the Norman round tower, St Mary’s unique 20th century fresco. Its protection within the tower and its promotion has involved replacement of the spire shingles, repair of the spire’s wooden framework, repointing of the round tower, conservation of the fresco itself and outreach to all church users and to the wider community in bringing the fresco, and Rosemary Rutherford, ‘out into the open’.
To bring the life and works of this remarkable but largely forgotten artist to the attention of the wider community, a permanent exhibition was opened in 2023. This exhibition summarises Rosemary’s life and extraordinary artistic achievements. Models reveal how fresco and stained glass are made. Some of her remarkable range of drawings and paintings are shown, including wartime artwork and flower paintings. Her spiritual, caring nature and brilliant artistry shine through.
This permanent exhibition can be viewed during church opening times, currently Tuesdays and Thursdays 10:30 to 12:30 and after Sunday services.
Broomfield in Essex became a village of artists following the arrival of Revd John Rutherford in 1930. His daughter, the artist Rosemary Rutherford, also moved with them and made the vicarage a base for her artwork including paintings and stained glass. Then, Gwynneth Holt and Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones moved to Broomfield in 1949 where they shared a large studio in their garden and both achieved high personal success. My poem 'Broomfield', part of my 'Five Trios' series, reviews their stories, work, legacy and motivations.
For more on the artists of Broomfield, all of whom are commemorated there with blue plaques, see here, here, here, here and here.
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Benjamin Britten - A Boy Was Born.
Thomism, Creativity and the Arts: Jacques and Raïssa Maritain
I recently attended Thomism, Creativity and the Arts: Jacques and Raïssa Maritain, a symposium on artistry, religion and culture in the modern world. The symposium drew together philosophers, theologians, musicians, poets, liturgists and other artists, to converse around the theme of human creativity. The conference included plenary talks, panel discussions, poetry reading, music and film, and gathered a rich and diverse range of presenters from across the UK and USA, with the final keynote talk given by Sir James MacMillan, renowned Scottish composer and conductor. I particularly appreciated input on Raïssa Maritain's journal and poetry, as well as the opportunity to also discover the poetry of James Matthew Wilson.
The Maritains remain at the heart of a dialogue around the theme of human creativity, being uniquely well-situated to confront the problems, principles and complexities of artistry in the modern era – illuminated by the wisdom of St Thomas Aquinas. Jacques Maritain’s belief in the artist’s mission to ‘shelter the prayer, instruct the intelligence, and rejoice the eyes and the soul,’ provides an inspiring mandate to investigate art-making in the present age, in all its depth and variety.
Jean-Luc Barré writes in Jacques and Raïssa Maritain: Beggars for Heaven of how poets, painters and musicians began gravitating around the Maritains, “most of whom they met in the company of Léon Bloy.” This journey of significant influence began for the Maritain’s with Bloy. The reading of his novel Le Femme pauvre led on to their meeting with the man himself. A period of examination by the Maritains of “the life, the doctrines, and the sources of Catholicism” ensued before, on 5th April 1906, “the couple, at the end of “long conversations” confided to Bloy their desire to become Catholics.” The artist Georges Rouault, who they also came to know, made a similar journey to that of the Maritains, first reading Le Femme pauvre before meeting Bloy. Barré writes that Rouault “seems to have come to the home of this prophet of malediction seeking for other reasons, and always more painful ones, to question himself and to set out towards the unknown.”
Olivier Messiaen - La Nativité du Seigneur
What was frustrating about this symposium was a denigrating and dismissive attitude on the part of some in the audience towards modern and contemporary art on the basis that such art was not beautiful and had no interest in beauty. Such attitudes which, in this context seek to draw on some of Maritain's writings about transcendentals, generally look primarily to a past "golden age" in their definition of beauty and therefore struggle to deal adequately with the paradox that the Suffering Servant, who had "no beauty that we should desire him" accomplished the most beautiful act through the most horrific torture. Modern and contemporary art often addresses this paradox with great depth and insight in ways that accord with Maritain's writings, particularly in Art and Scholasticism. For a different take on beauty and transcendentals see here.
What is also frustrating about this denigratory attitude towards modern and contemporary art is that it was not held by the Maritain's themselves. They not only wrote about contemporary art but also deliberately met and dialogued with a very wide range of contemporary artists, drawing some into Thomistic study circles and influencing, while also being influenced by, their work.
William Dryness writes in Rouault: A Vision of Suffering and Salvation that, “Jacques and Raïssa Maritain met Rouault for the first time in November of 1905, and Raïssa recalls evenings when she and her husband would sit and listen to Rouault and Bloy discuss “every important question about art.”” Rouault was, for the Maritains, “the first revelation of a truly great painter” and it was in him that they perceived “the nature of art, its imperious necessities, its antinomies and the conflict of very real demands, sometimes tragic, which made up perhaps the theatre of the artist’s mind.”
Robert Fallon has also written about this same connection in an essay entitled Composing Subjectivity which explores Maritain 's poetic knowledge in Igor Stravinsky and Messiaen:
'Maritain and Stravinsky first met after a concert on 10 June 1926, at the time that Stravinsky was writing his first work with a religious text, a Pater Noster for four-part chorus. That year, Cocteau published his Lettre a Jacques Maritain and Maritain his Reponse a Jean Cocteau; both volumes are dedicated to Stravinsky. By the end of April 1927, Stravinsky had returned to the Orthodox faith that he had abandoned in his youth. He later wrote that "Jacques Maritain may have exercised an influence on me at this time [ 1926]. "Though Stravinsky denied that Maritain played a role in his conversion, his assistant Robert Craft says that Maritain did exert some influence on his return to the Church. In May 1927, Stravinsky's opera oratorio Oedipus Rex, a collaboration with Cocteau, premiered in Paris.
The failure of Maritain's relationship with Cocteau came at a time in which more than one of those whose conversions he had won wandered away from their regained faith and in which he became suspect in the eyes of Catholics in general. He questioned whether he had been wrong and mistaken to bother himself with all these literary people. Reflecting these new problems confronting him, Barré writes that new and different friendships formed around him with his network becoming “more open to philosophers, professors, French and foreign religious.”
Maritain’s greatest influence on an artist was perhaps not on one of those that was a part of his immediate circle. Art and Scholasticism was important, as Jonathan Miles and Derek Shiel write in The Maker Unmade, to the thinking in Eric Gill’s establishments at Ditchling, Capel-y-ffin and Pigotts as well as to David Jones’s thinking about art.
Following their discovery of Georges Rouault was, “then of Pierre van der Meer de Valcheren, a Dutch novelist who was presented to them in 1911, two days after his own conversion … Then, during the war, they met the young seventeen-year-old composer, Georges Auric, soon a frequent visitor at Versailles …”
Barré goes on to describe how these friendships led to the formation of Thomistic study circles at the Maritain’s home in Meuden “where close friends of the couple came together – Abbé Lallement, Roland Dalbiez, Doctor Pichet, Noële Denis, the eldest daughter of the painter Maurice Denis, Vitia Rosenblum, the brother-in-law of Stanislas Fumet.” Barré continues, “The year 1921 would see the first circle grow larger: a Romanian prince converted to Catholicism, Vladimir Ghika, a young orientalist eager to bring together the Muslim and Christian worlds, Louis Massignon, the philosopher Henri Gouhier, the writer Henri Ghéon, the future Abbé Altermann, among others, joined the study group.
Barré goes on to describe how these friendships led to the formation of Thomistic study circles at the Maritain’s home in Meuden “where close friends of the couple came together – Abbé Lallement, Roland Dalbiez, Doctor Pichet, Noële Denis, the eldest daughter of the painter Maurice Denis, Vitia Rosenblum, the brother-in-law of Stanislas Fumet.” Barré continues, “The year 1921 would see the first circle grow larger: a Romanian prince converted to Catholicism, Vladimir Ghika, a young orientalist eager to bring together the Muslim and Christian worlds, Louis Massignon, the philosopher Henri Gouhier, the writer Henri Ghéon, the future Abbé Altermann, among others, joined the study group.
In the 1930s, Marc Chagall became part of the circle around the Maritain's. The Chagalls were regular attendants at the Maritain's "weekly Sunday gathering in Meuden, where the agenda was how to return secular France to spiritual awareness." The Maritains "made their home ... a centre of spiritual enlightenment for Paris's disillusioned writers and artists such as Rouault and Max Jacob." "Thanks to them, many converted or rediscovered their Catholic origins, most noisily Jean Cocteau."
In The Maritain Factor: Taking Religion into Interwar Modernism Rajesh Heynickx and Jan De Maeyer note that: “the French poet, writer, and surrealist filmmaker Jean Cocteau converted under the influence of Maritain. For the painters Gino Severini, a pioneer of Futurism, and Otto Van Rees, one of the first Dadaists-both converts - Maritain played the role of spiritual counselor. And when the promoter of abstract art Michel Seuphor embraced Catholic faith in the 1930s, he, too, had extensive contact with Maritain. For all of them, the dictum of the Irish poet Brian Coffey, once a doctoral student under Maritain, applied: modern art needs a Thomist conceptual framework.”
The Maritain's initial approach, Barré writes,“to [Rouault] this “true and great artist” in his imperious confrontation with the first demands of the creative act … then took form and developed into a reflection which ended with the publication in 1920 of Art et Scolastique.” Art and Scholasticism:
“set itself to demonstrate the autonomy of the creative act, the particular responsibility that falls to artists. Directed to beauty as to its very own absolute … art has “an end and a set of rules and values, which are not those of men, but of the work of art to be produced.” … Nor does the nature of art consist in imitating the real, but rather in “composing or constructing” by delving into the “immense treasure of created things, from sensible nature as from the world of souls.” In this way the creator becomes “an associate of God in the making of beautiful works.” … In praise of pure art, Art et Scolastique can be read as the manifesto of a new classicism, founded on “the simplicity and purity of means,” aspiring to nothing more than the veracity of the work itself. In modern art Maritain disclosed the first steps of search in this direction and noticed in cubism “the infancy, still toddling and screaming, of an art that is once again pure.” … it contained a kind of call, inviting philosophers and artists to enter into a “conversation” that would lead to an escape from “the immense intellectual disarray inherited from the nineteenth century.””
As Barré notes the book “was closer to Jean Cocteau and Erik Satie than to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas” and, as a result, in the 1920s and 1930s, Maritain’s cultural criticism (Antimodern, 1922, Religion et Culture, 1930) and his reflections on aesthetics in Art and Scholasticism enjoyed wide interest in artistic and intellectual circles.
One example of this response can be found in Gino Severini’s The Life of a Painter. Severini writes of his encounter with Maritain as marking an important point in his life, in part because Maritain loaned him money to set up his own art school. During his initial meeting with Maritain it was clear to him that he was being submitted to a thorough examination on the part of those present (which included Ghéon, as well as the Maritains) and that his every word was significant to them. As he left, Maritain put a book into his hands, “saying: “Take a look at it when you have the time.”” On the electric train back to Paris, Severini discovered that he had been given a first edition of Art and Scholasticism and “was amazed at the extent to which it agreed with the most modern goals, and at the profound sense of freedom, from what supreme heights of intelligence, the author could observe, put in order, and clarify, everything related to art.”
Severini continues: “… what a great sense of joy I felt upon discovering, in Maritain, the confirmation of certain thought patterns, certain ways of clarifying these to myself and to others, and, what I considered most important, of discovering a friendship and human comprehension of the most profound sort. Later the formidable significance of Art et Scolastique became clear to everyone, as did the caliber of the author, the transparency and clarity of whose soul recalls the purest of rock crystals.”
In The Maritain Factor: Taking Religion into Interwar Modernism Rajesh Heynickx and Jan De Maeyer note that: “the French poet, writer, and surrealist filmmaker Jean Cocteau converted under the influence of Maritain. For the painters Gino Severini, a pioneer of Futurism, and Otto Van Rees, one of the first Dadaists-both converts - Maritain played the role of spiritual counselor. And when the promoter of abstract art Michel Seuphor embraced Catholic faith in the 1930s, he, too, had extensive contact with Maritain. For all of them, the dictum of the Irish poet Brian Coffey, once a doctoral student under Maritain, applied: modern art needs a Thomist conceptual framework.”
The Maritain's initial approach, Barré writes,“to [Rouault] this “true and great artist” in his imperious confrontation with the first demands of the creative act … then took form and developed into a reflection which ended with the publication in 1920 of Art et Scolastique.” Art and Scholasticism:
“set itself to demonstrate the autonomy of the creative act, the particular responsibility that falls to artists. Directed to beauty as to its very own absolute … art has “an end and a set of rules and values, which are not those of men, but of the work of art to be produced.” … Nor does the nature of art consist in imitating the real, but rather in “composing or constructing” by delving into the “immense treasure of created things, from sensible nature as from the world of souls.” In this way the creator becomes “an associate of God in the making of beautiful works.” … In praise of pure art, Art et Scolastique can be read as the manifesto of a new classicism, founded on “the simplicity and purity of means,” aspiring to nothing more than the veracity of the work itself. In modern art Maritain disclosed the first steps of search in this direction and noticed in cubism “the infancy, still toddling and screaming, of an art that is once again pure.” … it contained a kind of call, inviting philosophers and artists to enter into a “conversation” that would lead to an escape from “the immense intellectual disarray inherited from the nineteenth century.””
As Barré notes the book “was closer to Jean Cocteau and Erik Satie than to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas” and, as a result, in the 1920s and 1930s, Maritain’s cultural criticism (Antimodern, 1922, Religion et Culture, 1930) and his reflections on aesthetics in Art and Scholasticism enjoyed wide interest in artistic and intellectual circles.
One example of this response can be found in Gino Severini’s The Life of a Painter. Severini writes of his encounter with Maritain as marking an important point in his life, in part because Maritain loaned him money to set up his own art school. During his initial meeting with Maritain it was clear to him that he was being submitted to a thorough examination on the part of those present (which included Ghéon, as well as the Maritains) and that his every word was significant to them. As he left, Maritain put a book into his hands, “saying: “Take a look at it when you have the time.”” On the electric train back to Paris, Severini discovered that he had been given a first edition of Art and Scholasticism and “was amazed at the extent to which it agreed with the most modern goals, and at the profound sense of freedom, from what supreme heights of intelligence, the author could observe, put in order, and clarify, everything related to art.”
Severini continues: “… what a great sense of joy I felt upon discovering, in Maritain, the confirmation of certain thought patterns, certain ways of clarifying these to myself and to others, and, what I considered most important, of discovering a friendship and human comprehension of the most profound sort. Later the formidable significance of Art et Scolastique became clear to everyone, as did the caliber of the author, the transparency and clarity of whose soul recalls the purest of rock crystals.”
Severini reconverted to Catholicism in the 1920s. He claims that his thinking on this decision began prior to the conversions of the poets Jean Cocteau and Pierre Reverdy and before meetings with Maurice Denis and Jacques Maritain. He highlights the writings of the Benedictine Desideratus Lenz as an influence of the direction of his work but not his conversion. The most significant influence on his decision seems to have been the Abbé Sarraute who Severini met at Denis' home and who conducted the Severini's marriage ceremony.
These artists and other French-speaking ecclesiastics were in touch with and inspired by the writings of Jacques Maritain and the practice of Maurice Denis. "Maritain played a part in the next stage of Severini's career by suggesting that the Swiss painter Alexandre Cingria visit Severini and encourage him to enter a competition for the decoration of a Church in the Fribourg Canton of Switzerland. Severini did so, won the competition and went on to work on several Swiss churches over the latter period of his career. So much so, that Denis spoke of him as "the most famous decorator of Swiss churches."
Denis first worked with some of these artists when he was commissioned to work on the renovation of Notre-Dame Geneva and also became artistic director for the construction of Saint-Paul Grange-Canal, also in Geneva. Together they dreamed of "creating a movement of rebirth of religious art in France and in all Catholic countries." This ambition resulted in 1919 in the formation by Cingria of The Groupe de Saint-Luc et Saint-Maurice in Switzerland and also of the Ateliers d'Art Sacré by Denis and Georges Desvallieres in Paris.The Groupe de Saint-Luc et Saint-Maurice which he founded, built, restored and decorated more than 70 churches in Switzerland during the interwar years.
Severini writes that Jean Cocteau was chief among the “somewhat atheist poets” that Maritain transformed into Christian artists but notes too that this period “was all too brief.” Similarly, Rowan Williams considers in Grace and Necessity that “Maritain’s relations with Cocteau … constituted an important if inconclusive episode in the lives of both.”
Although Cocteau’s subsequent life seemed, from the perspective of Maritain, to be “going deeper “into the caves of death” and to be dealing with the “powers of darkness”, the influence that Maritain and Catholicism had had on Cocteau was not altogether lost. Something of this can be sensed in the church decorations that Cocteau undertook.
In 1960 he painted murals in one of the chapels of Notre Dame de France, London. According to eye witnesses, he always began by lighting a candle before the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes and spoke to his characters while he worked on the mural. For instance, he is reported as telling the virgin of the Annunciation, “O you, most beautiful of women, loveliest of God’s creatures, you were the best loved. So I want you to be my best piece of work too… I am drawing you with light strokes… You are the yet unfinished work of Grace.” Cocteau is buried at the chapel of Saint-Blaise-des-Simples, where he had also painted decorations. Before his death, he had also been making sketches to paint a chapel in Frejus which was actually decorated, after his death, by the gardener that Cocteau had trained as an artist shortly before he died.
Severini writes that Jean Cocteau was chief among the “somewhat atheist poets” that Maritain transformed into Christian artists but notes too that this period “was all too brief.” Similarly, Rowan Williams considers in Grace and Necessity that “Maritain’s relations with Cocteau … constituted an important if inconclusive episode in the lives of both.”
Although Cocteau’s subsequent life seemed, from the perspective of Maritain, to be “going deeper “into the caves of death” and to be dealing with the “powers of darkness”, the influence that Maritain and Catholicism had had on Cocteau was not altogether lost. Something of this can be sensed in the church decorations that Cocteau undertook.
In 1960 he painted murals in one of the chapels of Notre Dame de France, London. According to eye witnesses, he always began by lighting a candle before the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes and spoke to his characters while he worked on the mural. For instance, he is reported as telling the virgin of the Annunciation, “O you, most beautiful of women, loveliest of God’s creatures, you were the best loved. So I want you to be my best piece of work too… I am drawing you with light strokes… You are the yet unfinished work of Grace.” Cocteau is buried at the chapel of Saint-Blaise-des-Simples, where he had also painted decorations. Before his death, he had also been making sketches to paint a chapel in Frejus which was actually decorated, after his death, by the gardener that Cocteau had trained as an artist shortly before he died.
Jacques and Raïssa Maritain moved to Meudon in 1924, where Jacques started his famous Thomistic Study Circles. Peter A. Redpath writes, in a review of The Very Rich Hours of Jacques Maritain, that:
‘Their fifteen years there were tumultuous. Maritain attempted to rival the negative literary influence of André Gide in French culture and came into public conflict with Jean Cocteau. Among the things that [Ralph] McInerny tells us caused conflict among Gide, Cocteau, and Maritain was Gide’s celebration of homosexuality in the book Corydon, and Cocteau’s flamboyant lifestyle as a homosexual drug addict and his overall character as “an enfant terrible of artistic innovation”.’
One result of this period was Art and Faith, the book which Maritain published in 1926 as a treasury of insights on the broad and interrelated topics of art and faith revealed in the correspondence of letters between he and Cocteau. Maritain wrote, ‘We merely claim that these two can love each other and remain free.’ Cocteau went on much later in his life to decorate several churches and chapels, including the chapel of Saint-Blaise des Simples near his home in Milly-la-Fôret where he was buried amidst the murals he had prepared for this purpose himself. His self chosen epitaph was 'Je reste avec vous' or 'I remain with you'.
His chapel murals, including those at Notre Dame de France in London, are, perhaps, a late flowering of the French Catholic Revival within which Maritain had played such a key role. These murals, newly restored and protected behind a glass screen, are unique examples of the art of the French Catholic Revival within the UK.
‘Their fifteen years there were tumultuous. Maritain attempted to rival the negative literary influence of André Gide in French culture and came into public conflict with Jean Cocteau. Among the things that [Ralph] McInerny tells us caused conflict among Gide, Cocteau, and Maritain was Gide’s celebration of homosexuality in the book Corydon, and Cocteau’s flamboyant lifestyle as a homosexual drug addict and his overall character as “an enfant terrible of artistic innovation”.’
One result of this period was Art and Faith, the book which Maritain published in 1926 as a treasury of insights on the broad and interrelated topics of art and faith revealed in the correspondence of letters between he and Cocteau. Maritain wrote, ‘We merely claim that these two can love each other and remain free.’ Cocteau went on much later in his life to decorate several churches and chapels, including the chapel of Saint-Blaise des Simples near his home in Milly-la-Fôret where he was buried amidst the murals he had prepared for this purpose himself. His self chosen epitaph was 'Je reste avec vous' or 'I remain with you'.
His chapel murals, including those at Notre Dame de France in London, are, perhaps, a late flowering of the French Catholic Revival within which Maritain had played such a key role. These murals, newly restored and protected behind a glass screen, are unique examples of the art of the French Catholic Revival within the UK.
Robert Fallon has also written about this same connection in an essay entitled Composing Subjectivity which explores Maritain 's poetic knowledge in Igor Stravinsky and Messiaen:
'Maritain and Stravinsky first met after a concert on 10 June 1926, at the time that Stravinsky was writing his first work with a religious text, a Pater Noster for four-part chorus. That year, Cocteau published his Lettre a Jacques Maritain and Maritain his Reponse a Jean Cocteau; both volumes are dedicated to Stravinsky. By the end of April 1927, Stravinsky had returned to the Orthodox faith that he had abandoned in his youth. He later wrote that "Jacques Maritain may have exercised an influence on me at this time [ 1926]. "Though Stravinsky denied that Maritain played a role in his conversion, his assistant Robert Craft says that Maritain did exert some influence on his return to the Church. In May 1927, Stravinsky's opera oratorio Oedipus Rex, a collaboration with Cocteau, premiered in Paris.
Following Oedipus Rex, however, Stravinsky's attitude toward Maritain became ambivalent. In 1928, he wrote to one of his patrons, Victoria Ocampo, that Maritain's entourage nauseated him. In another letter he describes Maritain as:
"one of those people of superior intelligence who are lacking in humanity, and if Maritain himself does not deserve this judgment, certainly it applies to a great deal of his work.
Maritain is still attached to the nihilism of his youth, and this can be sensed in all of his books, despite the great value of his work in Christian and Thomist thought."
Stravinsky's famous Norton Lectures of 1941, delivered at Harvard University and later published as Poetique musicale, refer several times to Maritain and borrow his neo-Thomistic definition of a composer as a medieval artisan who orders and disciplines his craft. The book's considerable debt to Maritain includes quotations from the very same passages from Baudelaire, Poussin, Bellay, and Montaigne that Maritain had used in Art et Scholastique two decades earlier ...
Unlike Stravinsky, Messiaen never met Maritain, though by his own account he did read one book (probably Art et Scholastique) by him in 1927. He said it was "a book of high philosophy that seemed very difficult to me," but admitted having benefited from it. Maritain's influence is suggested in Messiaen's views on artistic imitation, his skeptical attitude toward science, his apparent interest in Emmanuel Mounier's personalist movement, and his rhetorical use of terms such as "poetic intuition."
Among Messiaen's early works, La Nativite du Seigneur (1935) most strongly suggests Maritain's influence in its Thomistic theme of truth. Like Oedipus Rex, La Nativite opens a window onto Messiaen's epistemology. Comprised of nine movements for solo organ lasting twice as long as any composition he had yet written, La Nativite quickly entered the organist's repertoire and remained one of his favorite works. Though it bears no dedication, Messiaen later said it was written in homage to his teacher Paul Dukas.'
Fallon also notes that 'Olivier Messiaen's father, Pierre Messiaen, did know Maritain, whose books quote English Romantic poetry in the father's translations.'
Stephen Schloesser's 'Jazz Age Catholicism offers an original, insightful, and penetrating analysis of an important moment in the cultural history of modern France. It argues that pervasive collective bereavement in the aftermath of World War I prompted a profound cultural shift in elite French society that made Catholicism—dismissed only a few years earlier as retrograde, essentially out of step with the modern world, and archaic—a vibrant and consoling cultural option for many of France's most innovative and creative minds ... prominent French Catholic thinkers and artists embraced modernity not by wholesale rejection of the past but by effecting a synthesis of medieval and modern philosophical principles and artistic forms. At the forefront of this experiment in Catholic renewal and redefinition were Jacques Maritain, Georges Bernanos, Georges Rouault, and Charles Tournemire. Refusing to abandon the philosophic and aesthetic traditions of the Catholic past—whether Scholasticism in philosophy (in the case of Maritain) or Gregorian chant in music (as was Tournemire's striking accomplishment)—each of Schloesser's subjects "formulat[ed] traditional Catholic ideas in modernist guise" ...
Schloesser's ... willingness to think about how sexual modernity (epitomized in the 1920's by homosexuality) often coincided with a deep respect for cultural order—most evident in Jean Cocteau's abiding friendship with, and respect for, Jacques and Raissa Maritain—offers us a new way to understand the modernist initiatives of inter-war Catholicism: "la main tendue,"once understood only as the outstretched hand that hoped to bring Catholics and Communists together, emerges here as another form of cultural rapprochement, equally unexpected by the standards of the pre-war era, by which Catholics and homosexuals could find common ground.
"one of those people of superior intelligence who are lacking in humanity, and if Maritain himself does not deserve this judgment, certainly it applies to a great deal of his work.
Maritain is still attached to the nihilism of his youth, and this can be sensed in all of his books, despite the great value of his work in Christian and Thomist thought."
Stravinsky's famous Norton Lectures of 1941, delivered at Harvard University and later published as Poetique musicale, refer several times to Maritain and borrow his neo-Thomistic definition of a composer as a medieval artisan who orders and disciplines his craft. The book's considerable debt to Maritain includes quotations from the very same passages from Baudelaire, Poussin, Bellay, and Montaigne that Maritain had used in Art et Scholastique two decades earlier ...
Unlike Stravinsky, Messiaen never met Maritain, though by his own account he did read one book (probably Art et Scholastique) by him in 1927. He said it was "a book of high philosophy that seemed very difficult to me," but admitted having benefited from it. Maritain's influence is suggested in Messiaen's views on artistic imitation, his skeptical attitude toward science, his apparent interest in Emmanuel Mounier's personalist movement, and his rhetorical use of terms such as "poetic intuition."
Among Messiaen's early works, La Nativite du Seigneur (1935) most strongly suggests Maritain's influence in its Thomistic theme of truth. Like Oedipus Rex, La Nativite opens a window onto Messiaen's epistemology. Comprised of nine movements for solo organ lasting twice as long as any composition he had yet written, La Nativite quickly entered the organist's repertoire and remained one of his favorite works. Though it bears no dedication, Messiaen later said it was written in homage to his teacher Paul Dukas.'
Fallon also notes that 'Olivier Messiaen's father, Pierre Messiaen, did know Maritain, whose books quote English Romantic poetry in the father's translations.'
Stephen Schloesser's 'Jazz Age Catholicism offers an original, insightful, and penetrating analysis of an important moment in the cultural history of modern France. It argues that pervasive collective bereavement in the aftermath of World War I prompted a profound cultural shift in elite French society that made Catholicism—dismissed only a few years earlier as retrograde, essentially out of step with the modern world, and archaic—a vibrant and consoling cultural option for many of France's most innovative and creative minds ... prominent French Catholic thinkers and artists embraced modernity not by wholesale rejection of the past but by effecting a synthesis of medieval and modern philosophical principles and artistic forms. At the forefront of this experiment in Catholic renewal and redefinition were Jacques Maritain, Georges Bernanos, Georges Rouault, and Charles Tournemire. Refusing to abandon the philosophic and aesthetic traditions of the Catholic past—whether Scholasticism in philosophy (in the case of Maritain) or Gregorian chant in music (as was Tournemire's striking accomplishment)—each of Schloesser's subjects "formulat[ed] traditional Catholic ideas in modernist guise" ...
Schloesser's ... willingness to think about how sexual modernity (epitomized in the 1920's by homosexuality) often coincided with a deep respect for cultural order—most evident in Jean Cocteau's abiding friendship with, and respect for, Jacques and Raissa Maritain—offers us a new way to understand the modernist initiatives of inter-war Catholicism: "la main tendue,"once understood only as the outstretched hand that hoped to bring Catholics and Communists together, emerges here as another form of cultural rapprochement, equally unexpected by the standards of the pre-war era, by which Catholics and homosexuals could find common ground.
Schloesser also notes that, 'Maritain's extended argument in Art and Schlasticism made two principal points: first, religion and the avant-garde are eminently compatible as they meet in the artistic and aesthetic arenas; second, there is no particularly "religious" form of art.' As a result, 'Maritain gave a Catholic artist licence to jettison received external forms and set out on an avant-garde path. One thing alone mattered: the eternal formal principle that radiated clarity ... from within and gave unity and meaning to the organic whole.'
The failure of Maritain's relationship with Cocteau came at a time in which more than one of those whose conversions he had won wandered away from their regained faith and in which he became suspect in the eyes of Catholics in general. He questioned whether he had been wrong and mistaken to bother himself with all these literary people. Reflecting these new problems confronting him, Barré writes that new and different friendships formed around him with his network becoming “more open to philosophers, professors, French and foreign religious.”
Maritain’s greatest influence on an artist was perhaps not on one of those that was a part of his immediate circle. Art and Scholasticism was important, as Jonathan Miles and Derek Shiel write in The Maker Unmade, to the thinking in Eric Gill’s establishments at Ditchling, Capel-y-ffin and Pigotts as well as to David Jones’s thinking about art.
Rowan Williams writes in Grace and Necessity that: “Jones’ exposure to Maritain came through his participation in Gill’s project. After demobilization in 1919, Jones studied first at the Westminster School of Art, where it appears that a catholic friend introduced him to Fr. John O’Connor. He became a Roman Catholic in 1921 and, prompted by O’Connor, joined Gill at Ditchling later that year … Thus, he was alongside Gill and Gill’s colleagues … during the crucial period during which they were all reading Maritain; and it is very clear that for Jones … this made sense of what he had assimilated at the Westminster School of Art.”
As Rene Hague later wrote, ‘the Post-Impressionist attitude to the arts fitted in very well with Maritain’ and ‘Thomism’. Miles and Shiel write that: “The philosophy of Maritain explored two related questions that are of importance for David Jones: signification and epiphany. By rigorous habit, the artist would not only be able to reveal this or that object under the form of paint but also make an epiphany, make the universal shine out from the particular. Thus, what is re-presented also becomes a sign of something else and if that something else is significant of something divine, then the art can claim to have a sacred character or function, a sacramental vitality.”
Similarly, Williams argues that what preoccupies Jones from the beginning is “precisely what so concerns Maritain, the showing of the excess that pervades appearances.” As his work develops, Jones comes to see that you paint ‘excess’ by: “the delicate superimposing of nets of visual material in a way that teases constantly by simultaneously refusing a third dimension and insisting that there is no way of reading the one surface at once. As in the Byzantine icon, visual depth gives way to the time taken to ‘read’ a surface: you cannot construct a single consistent illusion of depth as you look, and so you are obliged to trace and re-trace the intersecting linear patterns.”
As Rene Hague later wrote, ‘the Post-Impressionist attitude to the arts fitted in very well with Maritain’ and ‘Thomism’. Miles and Shiel write that: “The philosophy of Maritain explored two related questions that are of importance for David Jones: signification and epiphany. By rigorous habit, the artist would not only be able to reveal this or that object under the form of paint but also make an epiphany, make the universal shine out from the particular. Thus, what is re-presented also becomes a sign of something else and if that something else is significant of something divine, then the art can claim to have a sacred character or function, a sacramental vitality.”
Similarly, Williams argues that what preoccupies Jones from the beginning is “precisely what so concerns Maritain, the showing of the excess that pervades appearances.” As his work develops, Jones comes to see that you paint ‘excess’ by: “the delicate superimposing of nets of visual material in a way that teases constantly by simultaneously refusing a third dimension and insisting that there is no way of reading the one surface at once. As in the Byzantine icon, visual depth gives way to the time taken to ‘read’ a surface: you cannot construct a single consistent illusion of depth as you look, and so you are obliged to trace and re-trace the intersecting linear patterns.”
Williams notes that in several respects Jones takes Maritain a stage further. Firstly, in that “the half-apprehended consonances of impressions out of which an artwork grows has to be realized in the process of actually creating significant forms which, in the process of their embodiment, in stone, words, or pigment, uncover other resonances, so that what finally emerges is more than just a setting down of what was first grasped.”
Secondly, in “the way in which a life may become a significant form – as, decisively and uniquely; in the life of Christ.” He: “illustrates a point Maritain does not quite get to. Jones implies that the life of ‘prudence’, a life lived in a consciously moral context, however exactly understood, is itself an act of gratuitous sign-making; moral behavior is the construction of a life that can be ‘read’, that reveals something in the world and uncovers mystery.”
Both are exemplified by Jones’ life and practice as he turns away “from one mode of representation in which he excelled in order to include more and more of the interwoven simultaneous lines of signification and allusion” in “an attempt to embody a more radical love in what he produces, a love that attends to all the boundary-crossing echoes that characterize the real, which is also the good.”
In doing so, he embodies in his art Maritain’s view that “the joy or delight of a work of art is in proportion to its powers of signification”: “the more there is of knowledge, or of things presented to the understanding, the vaster will be the possibility of joy; this is why Art, in so far as ordered to Beauty, does not, at least when its object permits, stop at forms or at colours, nor at sounds, nor at words taken in themselves and as things, but it takes them also as making known other things than themselves, that is to say as signs. And the thing signified may itself be a sign in turn, and the more the work of art is laden with significance … the vaster and the richer and the higher will be the possibility of joy and beauty”.
Gene Kellogg notes, in The Vital Tradition, that the development of the Catholic Novel involved "the appearance of an entirely new kind of fiction in French, English and American literature":
"... metaphysics, ontology, and particularly the power of the historic Roman Catholic apocalyptic "matrix" of heaven, hell, and purgatory as deeper realities framing, enclosing, and terminating ostensible "reality" were never the touchstone of novels until the time of Bernanos and Greene. And all the long complex development from the time of Barbey d'Aurevilly was required before the work of Greene and Bernanos became possible. The work in aesthetics of Maritain, Claudel, and Mauriac was necessary to establish the critical premises of such a radically new form. Maritain made his distinction between an "individual," a human being as a social or political unit, and a "person," a man or woman with a soul to save or lose. Claudel asserted the possibility of dramas concerned with ontological problems and developmas for the stage. Meanwhile Mauriac claimed that the "romanticism" of stories about "individuals" was exhausted and declared that writers should examine the "eternal Tartuffe" or the "eternal Harpagon" to create a gallery of spiritual "types," as in his own fiction he proceeded to do."
In Art and Scholasticism Jacques Maritain writes that Christian art is not impossible but is: "difficult, doubly difficult - fourfold difficult, because it is difficult to be an artist and very difficult to be a Christian, and because the total difficulty is not simply the sum but the product of these two difficulties multiplied by one another: for it is the difficulty of harmonizing two absolutes." He says that the "difficulty becomes tremendous when the entire age lives far from Christ, for the artist is greatly dependent upon the spirit of his time" and then asks "whether courage has ever been lacking on earth."
'Two difficulties multiplied' would, I think, make a great title for a survey of modern and contemporary Christian Art. Maritain, and his wife Raïssa, helped generate that courage in many artists, musicians, poets and writers.
Secondly, in “the way in which a life may become a significant form – as, decisively and uniquely; in the life of Christ.” He: “illustrates a point Maritain does not quite get to. Jones implies that the life of ‘prudence’, a life lived in a consciously moral context, however exactly understood, is itself an act of gratuitous sign-making; moral behavior is the construction of a life that can be ‘read’, that reveals something in the world and uncovers mystery.”
Both are exemplified by Jones’ life and practice as he turns away “from one mode of representation in which he excelled in order to include more and more of the interwoven simultaneous lines of signification and allusion” in “an attempt to embody a more radical love in what he produces, a love that attends to all the boundary-crossing echoes that characterize the real, which is also the good.”
In doing so, he embodies in his art Maritain’s view that “the joy or delight of a work of art is in proportion to its powers of signification”: “the more there is of knowledge, or of things presented to the understanding, the vaster will be the possibility of joy; this is why Art, in so far as ordered to Beauty, does not, at least when its object permits, stop at forms or at colours, nor at sounds, nor at words taken in themselves and as things, but it takes them also as making known other things than themselves, that is to say as signs. And the thing signified may itself be a sign in turn, and the more the work of art is laden with significance … the vaster and the richer and the higher will be the possibility of joy and beauty”.
"... metaphysics, ontology, and particularly the power of the historic Roman Catholic apocalyptic "matrix" of heaven, hell, and purgatory as deeper realities framing, enclosing, and terminating ostensible "reality" were never the touchstone of novels until the time of Bernanos and Greene. And all the long complex development from the time of Barbey d'Aurevilly was required before the work of Greene and Bernanos became possible. The work in aesthetics of Maritain, Claudel, and Mauriac was necessary to establish the critical premises of such a radically new form. Maritain made his distinction between an "individual," a human being as a social or political unit, and a "person," a man or woman with a soul to save or lose. Claudel asserted the possibility of dramas concerned with ontological problems and developmas for the stage. Meanwhile Mauriac claimed that the "romanticism" of stories about "individuals" was exhausted and declared that writers should examine the "eternal Tartuffe" or the "eternal Harpagon" to create a gallery of spiritual "types," as in his own fiction he proceeded to do."
'Two difficulties multiplied' would, I think, make a great title for a survey of modern and contemporary Christian Art. Maritain, and his wife Raïssa, helped generate that courage in many artists, musicians, poets and writers.
Jean-Luc Barré writes that: "They invented "a style of full freedom in the faith," based on friendship, on "person-to-person influence," on chance encounters, "what each one brings, in the depths of his heart, from his coming and going in a house where he was loved, from the peace of God that he felt there, but of which he had no idea ..." What took place there [in Thomistic Study circles at the Maritain's home in Meuden] was derived from no institution and hearkened back to no known model, and became the target of multiple conversions and a prey of just as many qui pro quo's and misunderstandings."
Jacques Maritain's Art and Scholasticism includes an appendix describing the banning, by the Roman Catholic Church, of Stations of the Cross created by the Belgian artist Albert Servaes. Servaes played a significant role in a renewed interest in ecclesiastical art in Belgium. This renewal also had links to the revival of religious art in France in which Maurice Denis played a significant role. Maritain's comments can be read, together with background information on Servaes, at this blog - idle speculations: The Banning of the Stations of the Cross.
Servaes' banned Stations are reproduced in Ecce Homo: Contemplating the Way of Love together with meditations by Titus Brandsma. The publisher's state that: "Albert Servaes (1883-1966) is the leading representative of Expressionism in Belgian painting. Here we have a great piece of Flemish art matched with the spiritual thoughts of Brandsma. Titus meditating on the passion of the Lord, and calling attention to the place of the cross in prayer. These meditations on the passion stand wholly in this tradition of the vivid use of the imagination in order to evoke the reality of Jesus' sufferings. The details of his thoughts are determined by the artist's black on sepia drawings and are completely understood only by reference to them. No doubt the grim expressionist statement of the theme brought home with extra force to Titus' mind the frightful nature of the crucifixion."
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Servaes' banned Stations are reproduced in Ecce Homo: Contemplating the Way of Love together with meditations by Titus Brandsma. The publisher's state that: "Albert Servaes (1883-1966) is the leading representative of Expressionism in Belgian painting. Here we have a great piece of Flemish art matched with the spiritual thoughts of Brandsma. Titus meditating on the passion of the Lord, and calling attention to the place of the cross in prayer. These meditations on the passion stand wholly in this tradition of the vivid use of the imagination in order to evoke the reality of Jesus' sufferings. The details of his thoughts are determined by the artist's black on sepia drawings and are completely understood only by reference to them. No doubt the grim expressionist statement of the theme brought home with extra force to Titus' mind the frightful nature of the crucifixion."
Sunday, 13 July 2025
True love of our neighbour means that we receive as well as give
Here's the sermon that I have shared at St Mary's Runwell and St Peter's Nevendon today:
We all know the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10. 25 - 37), don’t we? And we all know what the story is about? It’s very clear, isn’t it? It’s a call to kindness, a call to care, a call to help others, unlike those who passed by on the other side. We know all that, don’t we? So, there’s really no point in my reiterating what we already know and therefore I can just leave you to reflect on the calls to kindness that you experience in your daily life. How do you meet those? How do you respond?
There isn’t really anymore to say, so I’ll just leave it at that for today. Or, is that actually the case? Is there perhaps something more to this parable that isn’t generally spoken about? Might there actually be an aspect to this parable that is generally overlooked?
Let’s think for a moment about the hero of the parable – a Samaritan. Samaritans were contemptible people, as far as the Jews of Jesus’ day were concerned, considered as social outcasts, untouchables, racially inferior, practicing a false religion. While Samaritans claimed that they were the true Israel who were descendants of the "lost" tribes taken into Assyrian captivity. The Samaritan’s had their own temple on Mount Gerizim and claimed that it was the original sanctuary. They also claimed that their version of the Pentateuch was the original and that the Jews had a falsified text produced by Ezra during the Babylonian exile.
Samaritans were of mixed Jewish and Gentile ancestry, claimed descent from Jacob and worshipped the God of Israel. So, Samaritans were close to the Jews in their birth and beliefs but they were also different in significant ways, a volatile combination in any era. As a result, Samaritans and Jews engaged in bitter rivalries, which in Jesus’ day could lead to political hostilities that, sometimes, required intervention from the Romans.
Both Jewish and Samaritan religious leaders seem to have taught that it was wrong to have any contact with the opposite group, and neither was to enter each other's territories or even to speak to one another. Jews avoided any association with Samaritans, travelling long distances out of their way to avoid passing through a Samaritan area. Any close physical contact, drinking water from a common bucket, eating a meal with a Samaritan, would make a Jew ceremonially unclean - unable to participate in temple worship for a period of time – this may be part of the reason why the priest and Levite don’t stop to help.
The artist Dinah Roe Kendall painted a version of the parable of the Good Samaritan which set the story in South Africa at the time of apartheid. Doing so, seems to me, to be an accurate parallel with the kinds of emotions and cultural practices that were at play in the relationship between Jews and Samaritans and it shows up clearly the twist in the tail of Jesus’ story.
Jesus, as a Jew, didn’t illustrate his point - that people of every race, colour, class, creed, faith, sexuality, and level of ability are our neighbours – by telling a story in which a Jew was kind to someone else. Instead, he told a story in which a Jew receives help from a person who was perceived to be his enemy. The equivalent in Kendall’s painting is of the black man helping the white man, who represents the people that have oppressed him and his people.
So, Kendall’s version of the story brings out part of the twist in the tail that Jesus gives this story; the sense of receiving help from the person who is your enemy. What her version doesn’t deal with, however, is the idea that the enemy who helps is someone of another faith. The Jews were God’s chosen people and a light to the other nations and faith, so what would have been expected from this story would have been for the Jew in the story to bring the light of faith to the Samaritan. But that is not how Jesus’ story unfolds. Instead, the person who is one of God’s chosen people receives help from the person of another faith.
For Jesus to tell a story in which a Samaritan was the neighbour to a Jew was, for the reasons we have been considering, deeply shocking. We can sense this in the story as recorded for us by Luke, as the lawyer in the story is unable to bring himself to utter the word ‘Samaritan’ in answering Jesus’ question. The story is doubly shocking because the Jews in the story, the Priest and Levite, do not act as neighbours to the man. And trebly shocking, because it was probably their expression of devotion to God that prevented them from being neighbours. Priests were supposed to avoid impurity from a corpse and Pharisees thought that one would contract impurity if even one’s shadow touched the corpse. It was safer, therefore, not to check than to risk impurity.
Perhaps we can get a sense of how shocking this was by asking ourselves who, in our own day, are we least likely to think of as neighbours? Who do we think of as those least like us? Who do we think of as enemies? Who do we think of as contemptible? The point of the story is that Jesus says our neighbour is not our own people but those we think of as enemies or as contemptible because of their birth or beliefs. The least likely people, the people least like us, these are the people that Jesus calls our neighbours.
To find a contemporary equivalent for this aspect of the story, we have, perhaps, to think about relationships in this country between Christians and those of other faiths, and within those relationships, recognise that relationships between Christians and Muslims are often those which are currently most conflicted, with some Christians believing that Islam represents a threat to the Church and Western civilization. Within this context, the parable of the Good Samaritan challenges Christians as to what we can receive from those of other faiths and, particularly, those who we might view as enemies. Jesus says to us, through this parable, that loving our neighbours is not simply about what we can give to others but also about what we receive from others.
Our neighbours, understood in this way, are those to whom we should give – “go and do likewise”, Jesus said to the lawyer - and they are those that we should love as we love ourselves. They are also those from whom we should receive because it was the Samaritan in the story who provided help, not any of the Jewish characters. So, we need to ask ourselves how we can receive, grow, learn from and be blessed by those we think of as enemies or as beneath contempt because of their birth or beliefs.
You see, if our focus is just on what we can give, then we are in a paternalistic relationship with our neighbours or enemies. If our focus is just on what we can give, then what we are saying is that we hold all the aces and we will generously share some of them with you. In other words, we remain in a position of power and influence. Immediately we acknowledge that we can receive from our neighbours or enemies, then the balance of power shifts and we make ourselves vulnerable. In this parable, Jesus says that that is where true love is to be found and it is something that he went on to demonstrate by making himself vulnerable through death on the cross.
We often protect ourselves from the need to engage with, learn from or show love to those who are different from us by using aspects of the Bible to justify our lack of contact or compassion. But Jesus rules this approach out for his followers by giving us the examples of the priest and Levite. George Caird has written that “It is essential to the point of the story that the traveller was left half-dead. The priest and the Levite could not tell without touching him whether he was dead or alive; and it weighed more with them that he might be dead or defiling to the touch of those whose business was with holy things than that he might be alive and in need of care.”
This is religious rule-making justifying a lack of compassion. Caird says that, “Jesus deliberately shocks the lawyer by forcing him to consider the possibility that a semi-pagan foreigner might know more about the love of God than a devout Jew blinded by preoccupation with pettifogging rules.” Who do we, as the Church, stay away from because we are afraid of contamination or defilement? What aspects of scripture do we use to justify our lack of contact?
Jesus told this story in order that we reach out across the divides and barriers that people and groups and communities and nations construct between each other. He told this story so that Christians would be in the forefront of those who look to tear down the barriers and cross the divides. To the extent, that we fail to do this we are more like the priest and Levite in this story that the Samaritan who was a neighbour to the person in need.
In the parable of the Good Samaritan, where the sting is in the tail, the deepest point is that one of God’s chosen people receives help from his enemy who is of another faith. Jesus is taking us deep into the heart of love and saying that we will not truly love our neighbour until we understand and accept that we have much to receive from those that we perceive to be our enemies. In other words, true love of our neighbour means that we receive as well as give.
We all know the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10. 25 - 37), don’t we? And we all know what the story is about? It’s very clear, isn’t it? It’s a call to kindness, a call to care, a call to help others, unlike those who passed by on the other side. We know all that, don’t we? So, there’s really no point in my reiterating what we already know and therefore I can just leave you to reflect on the calls to kindness that you experience in your daily life. How do you meet those? How do you respond?
There isn’t really anymore to say, so I’ll just leave it at that for today. Or, is that actually the case? Is there perhaps something more to this parable that isn’t generally spoken about? Might there actually be an aspect to this parable that is generally overlooked?
Let’s think for a moment about the hero of the parable – a Samaritan. Samaritans were contemptible people, as far as the Jews of Jesus’ day were concerned, considered as social outcasts, untouchables, racially inferior, practicing a false religion. While Samaritans claimed that they were the true Israel who were descendants of the "lost" tribes taken into Assyrian captivity. The Samaritan’s had their own temple on Mount Gerizim and claimed that it was the original sanctuary. They also claimed that their version of the Pentateuch was the original and that the Jews had a falsified text produced by Ezra during the Babylonian exile.
Samaritans were of mixed Jewish and Gentile ancestry, claimed descent from Jacob and worshipped the God of Israel. So, Samaritans were close to the Jews in their birth and beliefs but they were also different in significant ways, a volatile combination in any era. As a result, Samaritans and Jews engaged in bitter rivalries, which in Jesus’ day could lead to political hostilities that, sometimes, required intervention from the Romans.
Both Jewish and Samaritan religious leaders seem to have taught that it was wrong to have any contact with the opposite group, and neither was to enter each other's territories or even to speak to one another. Jews avoided any association with Samaritans, travelling long distances out of their way to avoid passing through a Samaritan area. Any close physical contact, drinking water from a common bucket, eating a meal with a Samaritan, would make a Jew ceremonially unclean - unable to participate in temple worship for a period of time – this may be part of the reason why the priest and Levite don’t stop to help.
The artist Dinah Roe Kendall painted a version of the parable of the Good Samaritan which set the story in South Africa at the time of apartheid. Doing so, seems to me, to be an accurate parallel with the kinds of emotions and cultural practices that were at play in the relationship between Jews and Samaritans and it shows up clearly the twist in the tail of Jesus’ story.
Jesus, as a Jew, didn’t illustrate his point - that people of every race, colour, class, creed, faith, sexuality, and level of ability are our neighbours – by telling a story in which a Jew was kind to someone else. Instead, he told a story in which a Jew receives help from a person who was perceived to be his enemy. The equivalent in Kendall’s painting is of the black man helping the white man, who represents the people that have oppressed him and his people.
So, Kendall’s version of the story brings out part of the twist in the tail that Jesus gives this story; the sense of receiving help from the person who is your enemy. What her version doesn’t deal with, however, is the idea that the enemy who helps is someone of another faith. The Jews were God’s chosen people and a light to the other nations and faith, so what would have been expected from this story would have been for the Jew in the story to bring the light of faith to the Samaritan. But that is not how Jesus’ story unfolds. Instead, the person who is one of God’s chosen people receives help from the person of another faith.
For Jesus to tell a story in which a Samaritan was the neighbour to a Jew was, for the reasons we have been considering, deeply shocking. We can sense this in the story as recorded for us by Luke, as the lawyer in the story is unable to bring himself to utter the word ‘Samaritan’ in answering Jesus’ question. The story is doubly shocking because the Jews in the story, the Priest and Levite, do not act as neighbours to the man. And trebly shocking, because it was probably their expression of devotion to God that prevented them from being neighbours. Priests were supposed to avoid impurity from a corpse and Pharisees thought that one would contract impurity if even one’s shadow touched the corpse. It was safer, therefore, not to check than to risk impurity.
Perhaps we can get a sense of how shocking this was by asking ourselves who, in our own day, are we least likely to think of as neighbours? Who do we think of as those least like us? Who do we think of as enemies? Who do we think of as contemptible? The point of the story is that Jesus says our neighbour is not our own people but those we think of as enemies or as contemptible because of their birth or beliefs. The least likely people, the people least like us, these are the people that Jesus calls our neighbours.
To find a contemporary equivalent for this aspect of the story, we have, perhaps, to think about relationships in this country between Christians and those of other faiths, and within those relationships, recognise that relationships between Christians and Muslims are often those which are currently most conflicted, with some Christians believing that Islam represents a threat to the Church and Western civilization. Within this context, the parable of the Good Samaritan challenges Christians as to what we can receive from those of other faiths and, particularly, those who we might view as enemies. Jesus says to us, through this parable, that loving our neighbours is not simply about what we can give to others but also about what we receive from others.
Our neighbours, understood in this way, are those to whom we should give – “go and do likewise”, Jesus said to the lawyer - and they are those that we should love as we love ourselves. They are also those from whom we should receive because it was the Samaritan in the story who provided help, not any of the Jewish characters. So, we need to ask ourselves how we can receive, grow, learn from and be blessed by those we think of as enemies or as beneath contempt because of their birth or beliefs.
You see, if our focus is just on what we can give, then we are in a paternalistic relationship with our neighbours or enemies. If our focus is just on what we can give, then what we are saying is that we hold all the aces and we will generously share some of them with you. In other words, we remain in a position of power and influence. Immediately we acknowledge that we can receive from our neighbours or enemies, then the balance of power shifts and we make ourselves vulnerable. In this parable, Jesus says that that is where true love is to be found and it is something that he went on to demonstrate by making himself vulnerable through death on the cross.
We often protect ourselves from the need to engage with, learn from or show love to those who are different from us by using aspects of the Bible to justify our lack of contact or compassion. But Jesus rules this approach out for his followers by giving us the examples of the priest and Levite. George Caird has written that “It is essential to the point of the story that the traveller was left half-dead. The priest and the Levite could not tell without touching him whether he was dead or alive; and it weighed more with them that he might be dead or defiling to the touch of those whose business was with holy things than that he might be alive and in need of care.”
This is religious rule-making justifying a lack of compassion. Caird says that, “Jesus deliberately shocks the lawyer by forcing him to consider the possibility that a semi-pagan foreigner might know more about the love of God than a devout Jew blinded by preoccupation with pettifogging rules.” Who do we, as the Church, stay away from because we are afraid of contamination or defilement? What aspects of scripture do we use to justify our lack of contact?
Jesus told this story in order that we reach out across the divides and barriers that people and groups and communities and nations construct between each other. He told this story so that Christians would be in the forefront of those who look to tear down the barriers and cross the divides. To the extent, that we fail to do this we are more like the priest and Levite in this story that the Samaritan who was a neighbour to the person in need.
In the parable of the Good Samaritan, where the sting is in the tail, the deepest point is that one of God’s chosen people receives help from his enemy who is of another faith. Jesus is taking us deep into the heart of love and saying that we will not truly love our neighbour until we understand and accept that we have much to receive from those that we perceive to be our enemies. In other words, true love of our neighbour means that we receive as well as give.
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Saturday, 12 July 2025
Quiet Day: Sabbath
We enjoyed an excellent Quiet Day led by Mike Tricker at St Mary's Runwell today, exploring themes of Sabbath including what the Sabbath is for and Sabbath as resistance.
I wrote the following meditation in the course of the day:
In the cacophony of distractions
In the restlessness of 24-7 consumption In the cruelty of gratuitous self-centredness and selfishness
In the mindset of me, me, me
In the grasping for power, prestige and position
May an alternative be visioned, voiced
and enacted and practised
An alternative that is still
An alternative that is gentle
An alternative that is generous
An alternative that is liberating
An alternative that is outpouring and kenotic
An alternative that is sacrificial and salvific
Let justice roll on like a river,
An alternative that is still
An alternative that is gentle
An alternative that is generous
An alternative that is liberating
An alternative that is outpouring and kenotic
An alternative that is sacrificial and salvific
Let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream;
an endless river of righteous living.
an endless river of righteous living.
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River City People - True Stories From The Revolution.
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