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Friday, 17 October 2025

Church Times - Art review: Anthony Lawrence (1951-2022): A Retrospective (Palais des Vaches, Lower Exbury)

My latest exhibition review for Church Times is on Anthony Lawrence (1951-2022): A Retrospective at Palais des Vaches, Lower Exbury:

'Lawrence’s life’s work was painting, of which this large and varied retrospective is simply a glinting drop in a wider ocean. While constantly evolving through styles and series as a great “knowing” Post-Modernist, Lawrence sought, through his blend of tradition and invention, history and innovation, to hint at how reconciliation might be found in the great contest of social humanity. But, as Morsberger notes, what is supremely important in his work are the wonderful questions that he asks, questions that generated much comment when these images were first shown and that retain that capacity for all who will journey to the Palais des Vache to journey with the artist through Dante’s dark wood and do so under cataclysmic skies.'

Other of my pieces for Church Times can be found here. My writing for ArtWay can be found here. My pieces for Artlyst are here, those for Seen & Unseen are here, and those for Art+Christianity are here.

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Bruce Springsteen - Reason To Believe.

Thursday, 16 October 2025

Seen and Unseen: Natalie Bergman brings grief and joy to Union Chapel

My latest article for Seen and Unseen is a concert review of Natalie Bergman at Union Chapel - a soul-soaked set turned personal tragedy into communal celebration:

'In any other context, they would call this revival! A wild belle singing songs of worship and wonder in a chapel packed to the rafters with a diverse crowd of beautiful people in rapture at songs such as ‘Talk To The Lord’ and ‘I Will Praise You’. This is Natalie Bergman at Union Chapel.

Who? If you don’t already know, you need to know. Following three albums with Wild Belle, her debut solo album, Mercy, was a Gospel album written and recorded in response to the tragic death of her father and stepmother in a road traffic accident. Begun on retreat at a monastery, its lithe, light, luscious rhythms lift the listener from the valley of the shadow of death to the goodness and mercy found in the house of the Lord forever. 

If Mercy equates to the direct songs of praise and witness found on Bob Dylan’s Gospel albums, then her latest release, My Home Is Not In This World, equates to those later Dylan albums (like Infidels, Oh Mercy, Time Out of Mind and Rough and Rowdy Ways) where faith infuses songs exploring life and love. '

For more on faith and music, see my co-authored book 'The Secret Chord'

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.

My 32nd article was entitled 'This gallery refresh adds drama to the story of art' and explored how rehanging the Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery revives the emotion of great art.

My 33rd article was an interview with Jonathan A. Anderson about the themes of his latest book 'The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art'.

My 34th article was an interview with 'Emily Young: the sculptor listening as the still stones speak'.

My 35th article was a profile of New York's expressionist devotional artist, 'Genesis Tramaine: the painter whose faces catch the spirit'.

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Wednesday, 15 October 2025

Honesty and transparency, not gaslighting

Here's the sermon that I shared this morning at St Andrew's Wickford:

Gaslighting is a form of manipulation intended to distract. Gaslighters will say, do and post the most outrageous things to take your focus off of something else. The term originates with a play called “Gas Light.” In the play, a woman’s husband tries to convince her that she is mentally unstable. He makes small changes in her environment, such as dimming the gaslights in their house. He then convinces his wife she is simply imagining these changes. His ultimate goal is to have her committed to an asylum so he can steal her inheritance.

Kate Abramson, philosophy professor at the University of Indiana, calls gaslighting the “deepest kind of moral wrong” and suggests that it aims ‘to induce in someone the sense that her reactions, perceptions, memories and/or beliefs are not just mistaken, but utterly without grounds.’ For the most part, this manipulation by distraction technique is very effective at changing people’s sense of reality and is currently practised by many politicians, perhaps most particularly Donald Trump.

In a recent article for ‘The Atlantic’ Peter Wehner writes: “Gaslighters are manipulative and controlling, comfortable belittling and insulting others. They are accomplished at denying, lying, and projecting. And sometimes, if they’re lucky enough and skilled enough, they make it to the White House. When they do, the horrors that are usually visited on an individual are instead visited on an entire nation.

At that point, the enormous machinery of the federal government, supported by outside groups and media outlets, becomes part of a massive and relentless disinformation campaign. The aim is to provoke distrust, confusion, and disorientation, which corrodes people’s confidence in institutions and undermines their grasp of reality. The ultimate goal is to divide and weaken civil society, and to undermine its ability to mobilize and cohere.

When there is no objective truth, when everyone gets to make up their own reality, their own script, and their own facts, authoritarians thrive.”

Gaslighting, however, is not a new phenomenon. Instead, as Jesus reveals in today’s Gospel reading (Luke 11.42-46), it has been practised for many years in the context of religion.

The first form of gaslighting that Jesus highlights is that of using minor but visible aspects of religious practice to distract others from an unwillingness or inability to practice the kind of love and justice to which religious practices are intended to lead. The example he gives is of Pharisees giving a tenth of their herbs while not practising love and justice towards others. By seeming to obey the Jewish law to the nth degree, through tithing money and produce, the Pharisees were able to distract attention away from their lack of charity and their unjust practices towards others.

The second form of gaslighting is in regard to image by using the prestige associated with places of authority or power to distract attention away from an inability to come alive spiritually. Such people have no reality to their spiritual life and therefore will not be remembered but use the trappings of religious practices to give the impression of sanctity or piety. Abramsons argues, that the gaslighter poses as a source of normative authority. The gaslighter assumes the pretence of sincere testimony, drawing on the standing to issue demands that others “see things his way.”

The third form of gaslighting highlighted by Jesus involves the constant addition of rules and regulations that apply to others as a distraction from the reality that such rules are not applied to oneself. Such people seek to make life harder for others while relieving themselves of such constraints.

With directness and honesty Jesus calls out the gaslighting practised by the Pharisees and lawyers for what it is. Psychotherapist Stephanie Sarkis says that this is one of two responses we can make to gaslighters. She says that: ‘When you see gaslighting among your friends, family or colleagues, call it out for what it is. Provide evidence that what a gaslighter is saying and doing is not true. Educate others about gaslighting so that they, too, can start to identify it and call it out. But when you catch a gaslighter, simply present the facts to them, calmly and with purpose. Don’t allow yourself to get baited. Then walk away, shut off your laptop, leave it be.’ Her advice seems to mirror what we see Jesus do and say here as he pronounces woes on the gaslighters of his own day and time.

By contrast to those who are gaslighting, Jesus seeks to tell it like it is in relation to himself and his disciples. He tells his disciples that he is going to Jerusalem to die, he tells those wishing to follow him that they will have to bear crosses too, he tells Peter that he will deny him and Judas that he will betray him. His disciples often don’t understand or don’t want to understand, yet there is a straightforwardness and transparency about much of what Jesus said and did, with no attempt to curry favour or distract from the challenges of faith. We are, as ever, called to follow in his footsteps. Amen.

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Denison Whitmer - Carry The Weight.

Tuesday, 14 October 2025

Artlyst: Can We Stop Killing Each Other? – Sainsbury Centre

My latest review for Artlyst is on 'Can We Stop Killing Each Other?', a series of exhibitions at The Sainsbury Centre that include an installation by Aotearoa/New Zealand artist Anton Forde, a series of new paintings reflecting on the refugee crisis by Ethiopian artist Tesfaye Urgessa; presentations of historical artworks such as Claude Monet’s ‘The Petit Bras of the Seine at Argenteuil’, and an exhibition spanning Shakespearean tragedy to Hitchcockian spectacle, which asks questions of violent stage and screen narratives, plus (still to come, in November) ‘Seeds of Hate and Hope’ highlighting personal artistic responses to global atrocities, such as genocides, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity:

'Given that, according to the Global Peace Index 2024, one hundred countries have been “at least partially involved in some form of external conflict in the past five years, up from 59 in 2008”, this is a timely series of exhibitions.

The Sainsbury Centre’s radical exhibition programme is based on the understanding that art not only addresses fundamental societal challenges but also engages people with the fundamental questions of life. As such, he argues, regarding this exhibition series: “The emotional power of art to generate empathy and understanding is what enables us to explore the world around us from a completely different perspective. This is what makes these exhibitions so resonant and impactful. They bring into sharp relief our ability for compassion, sensitivity and hope; some of the best defining traits of what makes us human.”'

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

Interviews -
Monthly diary articles -
Articles/Reviews -
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Edwin Starr - War.

Sunday, 12 October 2025

Gratitude for a new start in life

Here's the sermon, which is adapted from ‘Luke for Everyone’ by Tom Wright, that I have shared at St Mary's Runwell and St Peter's Nevendon today:

What would make you shout for joy at the top of your voice? What would make you fall on the ground – yes, flat on your face! – in front of someone?

Two explorers were lost in the South American jungle some time ago. For nine months they wandered about, not knowing where they were or how to get out. Finally, after many adventures and often giving up hope, they were found and rescued. They probably didn’t have the energy to shout, but they would have felt like it. Certainly their relatives back home did.

You might shout for joy when the doctor told you that someone you loved very dearly had come safely through an operation, and was going to be all right after all. You might do it when suddenly all your debts were rolled away and you were given a new start in life.

Which is, then, more surprising: the fact that one person came back, shouted for joy, and fell down at Jesus’ feet? Or the fact that nine didn’t?

All ten had to trust Jesus in order to receive their healing (Luke 17. 11-19). Interestingly, none were healed until they had obeyed what Jesus asked them to do. The priest who lived locally had the responsibility to declare when people were healed from such diseases. That was why Jesus asked them to go to the priests but at the point that they obeyed Jesus and turned to go they were not healed. It was on the way to the priests, as they were obeying Jesus’ instruction, that they were made clean and their lives changed.

There is a saying that we should be the change that we want to see in the world and Jesus regularly challenges us to take responsibility for changes in our individual lives and in the world around. We are the hands and feet, the eyes, ears and mouth of God in our world. He does not mess with the free will that we have as human beings and so works through us, his body. If we are not prepared to pray, to speak and to act, then his ability to impact our lives, the lives of others and ultimately our world is restricted.

A little while ago I was told about a church musician who was struggling to read music because of diminishing eyesight but who would not have glasses or any other corrective treatment because he was believing that the Lord would heal him. That is like the old joke about the man caught in floods who believed that the Lord would rescue him. He turns away a neighbour in a dinghy, a lifeboat and a helicopter before the waters rise over his home, all because he believed that the Lord would rescue him. He arrived in heaven in a state of shock. “Lord,” he complained, “why didn’t you protect and rescue me?” “I sent you two boats and a helicopter, “ said the Lord wearily, “what more did you want.”

So, we need to play our part if we are to see change come within our lives, our church and our world. Part of the change that God wants to see is flagged by the fact that the man who returned to thank Jesus was a Samaritan, a foreigner and outsider to the Jews of Jesus’ day. Jesus focussed his ministry on the lost sheep of Israel but regularly commended the faith that he found in those who were not Israelites – the Caananite woman, the Roman Centurian, the Samaritan woman at the well, and this Samaritan man. The faith of those who are not thought of as the people of God often puts to shame the faith of those who are.

Throughout his ministry Jesus commends and includes in the kingdom of God those who were considered as excluded and outside of the kingdom by the people of his day. Like Jesus, we are called to be the change for those who are excluded in our own day; however and wherever that exclusion comes. In this story, those who consider themselves part of the children of God are shamed because they don’t return to thank Jesus and that is a challenge to us.

Luke doesn’t say that the nine were any less cured, but he does imply that they were less grateful. But it is not only the nine who are shown up by this story. It is also all of us who fail to thank God ‘always and for everything’, as Paul puts it in Ephesians 5. 20. We know with our heads, if we have any Christian faith at all, that our God is the giver of all things: every mouthful of food we take, every breath of air we inhale, every note of music we hear, every smile on the face of a friend, a child, a spouse – all that, and a million more things are good gifts from his generosity.

There is an old spiritual discipline of listing our blessings, naming them before God, and giving thanks. It’s a healthy thing to do, especially in a world where we too often assume we have an absolute right to health, happiness and every possible creature comfort.

Jesus’ closing words to the Samaritan invite a closer look. The word for ‘get up’ is a word early Christians would have recognised as having to do with resurrection. Like the prodigal son, this man ‘was dead, and is alive again’. New life, had arrived in his village that day, in the shape of Jesus, and it had called out of him a faith and gratitude that he didn’t know he had. His experience of life had been one of suffering and exclusion but, through Jesus, he came to see that life could be about transformation and inclusion. His personal change began as he obeyed the words of Jesus, it continued as he was accepted back into society by letting the priest examine him and went on to live as a grateful witness to the transformation that Jesus brings as we follow him. May it be so for each of us. Amen.

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Saturday, 11 October 2025

Windows on the world (540)


London, 2025

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Sister Ray Davies - Aidan.

 

Friday, 10 October 2025

Stride Magazine: 'Deflated Ego' and 'Five'

Several years ago, Stride Magazine published a series of texts by authors about themselves and their poetry called 'Deflated Ego'. This month a new series has begun. 

Authors have been invited to choose their own approach to the piece, be that self-interview, review, manifesto, contextual/social material, statement of poetics, personal comment, or whatever. The first pieces in this new series can be read here and here.

My piece in the series will appear on 31 October. My piece is about 'Five Trios' my series of poems on thin places and sacred spaces in the Diocese of Chelmsford. The five poems in the series are:
These poems have been published by Amethyst Review and International Times.

I am also contributing to another Stride series. This second series is called 'Five' and simply involves writing about five linked items. My piece on entries in Prog 50 will be published on 24 November.

To read my poems published by Stride, click here, here, here, here, here, and here. My poems published in Amethyst Review are: 'Runwell', 'Are/Are Not', 'Attend, attend' and 'Maritain, Green, Beckett and Anderson in conversation down through the ages'.

I am among those whose poetry has been included in Thin Places & Sacred Spaces, a recent anthology from Amethyst Press. I also had a poem included in All Shall Be Well: Poems for Julian of Norwich, the first Amethyst Press anthology of new poems.

IT have also published several of my poems, beginning with 'The ABC of creativity', which covers attention, beginning and creation, and lastly 'The Edge of Chaos', a state of existence poem.

Stride magazine was founded in 1982. Since then it has had various incarnations, most recently in an online edition since the late 20th century. You can visit its earlier incarnation at http://stridemagazine.co.uk.

I have read the poetry featured in Stride and, in particular, the work of its editor Rupert Loydell over many years and was very pleased that Rupert gave a poetry reading when I was at St Stephen Walbrook.

Rupert Loydell is a poet, painter, editor and publisher, and senior lecturer in English with creative writing at Falmouth University. He is interested in the relationship of visual art and language, collaborative writing, sequences and series, as well as post-confessional narrative, experimental music and creative non-fiction.

He has edited Stride magazine for over 30 years, and was managing editor of Stride Books for 28 years. His poetry books include Wildlife and Ballads of the Alone (both published by Shearsman), and The Fantasy Kid (for children).

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Bruce Springsteen - My Master's Hand.

Church Times: Art review: Spiritual Britten and Darkness (The Red House, Aldeburgh)

My latest exhibition review for Church Times is on 'Spiritual Britten' and 'Darkness' at The Red House, Aldeburgh:

'This exhibition, ably curated by the Revd Dr Paul Edmondson, is based on the understanding that, although not a regular churchgoer after his childhood, Britten nevertheless created much sacred music connecting personally with the themes, people, and churches involved, while his approach to God and the music that he composed was shaped initially by the Christian values and routines of his childhood.'

See also my review of an earlier exhibition at The Red House by clicking here.

Other of my pieces for Church Times can be found here. My writing for ArtWay can be found here. My pieces for Artlyst are here, those for Seen & Unseen are here, and those for Art+Christianity are here.

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The Staple Singers - Are You Sure?

Thursday, 9 October 2025

Private View for 'Everyday Wonder to Revelation: an exhibition of paintings by Alan Caine'


















Great to be at the Private View for 'Everyday Wonder to Revelation: an exhibition of paintings by Alan Caine' at Clare Hall in Cambridge this evening. Art historian Frances Spalding and artist Trevor Davies introduced us to the exhibition and to Alan Caine’s work. Sculptor Helaine Blumenfeld also shared reflections on Alan and his approach to art.

"Caine’s paintings delve into the core, the Neo-Platonist idea of the one-ness of the world, the nodus mundi. We see this in his depictions of everyday objects: rugs, mopheads, carpets, and bundles of cloth. Though his subject matter is humble, the deep intricacy of his draughtsmanship reveals unity and cohesion. We see it too in his expansive and luminous landscapes. When Caine blends his perceptions of space and shimmering light in the landscape with his exploration of the core in everyday things, he presents us with a vision of worlds beyond. His images invite us to step through a veil into barely imagined possibilities. Through his exploration of the small, the infinite beckons; through his exploration of the wonder of the everyday, revelation becomes possible."

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The Harbour Lights - Another Rainbow.

Sunday, 5 October 2025

Windows on the world (539)


London, 2025

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Amazing Blondel - Anthem.

Faith as small as a mustard seed

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Gabriel’s Pitsea this morning:

Brother Lawrence was a member of the Carmelite Order in France during the 17th Century. He spent most of his life in the kitchen or mending shoes, but became a great spiritual guide. He saw God in the mundane tasks he carried out in the priory kitchen. Daily life for him was an ongoing conversation with God. He wrote: 'we need only to recognize God intimately present with us, to address ourselves to Him every moment.'

Brother Lawrence also said that ‘We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.' The Parable of the Mustard Seed is an illustration of this truth. In that brief parable a small action, the sowing of a small seed, leads to the growth of a large plant. Jesus says that, in a similar way, the kingdom of God has small beginnings but grows to become something much larger. In today’s passage (Luke 17:5-10), Jesus says we only need a small amount of faith – faith as small as a mustard seed – to accomplish great things, like moving a tree to the sea. As a result, we should, like Brother Lawrence says, in no wise despise small actions.

The phrase a ‘mustard seed’ has entered our language as a little idea that grows into something bigger and that is of course literally what happened with the Jesus movement itself. It was a relatively small grouping of obscure people that died when its founder, Jesus died, but which, following his resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost grew to become the largest religion in history and also within the world currently.

We also see this illustrated in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher. While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. Long centuries have come and gone but all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built; all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life.

The Early Church reveals the same pattern to us. Paul writes to the Christians at Corinth and says, “think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.” He says in this letter that, in the eyes of the world, Christians are foolish and the message of the cross is foolish.

The same words could actually be applied to us: none of us are major intellectuals or academics; none of us have major influence or power in terms of work or politics; none of us, so far as I know, were born into the aristocracy. The reality is that wonderful as each of us are, we are not major players on the world stage and that makes us, in human terms, one among millions of other human beings around the world. When we think of ourselves in those terms it easy to see ourselves and what we do as being small and insignificant.

We may not like to think of ourselves as being foolish, as well as insignificant, but that is how Paul describes the Corinthian Christians from the perspective of those considered wise in their culture. It is no different today, Richard Dawkins wrote in The God Delusion that God is a “psychotic delinquent” invented by mad, deluded people and our faith in God is a “process of non-thinking,” “blind trust, in the absence of evidence, even in the teeth of evidence.”

BUT what Jesus demonstrates through his life, death and resurrection and what Paul states in his letter to the Corinthians is that “the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.” The Message, a contemporary paraphrase of the Bible, puts it like this:

“Isn't it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these "nobodies" to expose the hollow pretensions of the "somebodies"? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ.”

So, the kingdom of God is a place of multiplication. The kingdom of God is a place of exponential growth. The kingdom of God is a place where the tiniest seed can become the biggest plant. The kingdom of God is where faith as small as a mustard seed can move a mountain. The kingdom of God is a place where a grain of yeast can make a whole batch of dough rise. The kingdom of God is a place where a child’s lunch can feed 5,000. The kingdom of God is a place where the salt of our behaviour can flavour the community in which we live. The kingdom of God is a place where the little we can offer can be used to the praise and glory of God.

Just as in the parable of the mustard seed, our small inputs can have a big effect and, just as with Jesus’ words about faith here, the influence that one person can have can move a mountain. We could respond to this by thinking what small thing can I do today that will have a big effect but the reality is that we are rarely able to accurately predict future effects. Instead, we can learn, like Brother Lawrence, to value small, mundane actions in the knowledge that, if well done for the love of God, these actions can have significantly larger impacts.

And, because we know of this process or pattern or plan of the small, the insignificant, the foolish, being used by God to achieve great change, we can trust that our lives also have meaning and significance as we put our faith into practice in small acts of compassion here and little words of witness there; at home, in church and in the community. We don’t know what God will cause to grow from these actions and words but we trust that they will take root and grow because that is the pattern that we, and Christians throughout Church history, have observed in practice. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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Randy Stonehill - Strong Hand Of Love.