My food is to do the will of him who sent me

Here's the reflection I shared during tonight's Healing Eucharist at St Andrew's Wickford:

Jesus said, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.’ (John 4.32-35)

Food provides the body with essential nutrients for growth, energy, and repair. These provide the building blocks for growth and development, the energy to fuel our daily activities, and the components needed to repair and maintain cells.

What was essential for Jesus, what provided the energy to fuel his activities, what provided the building blocks for his growth and development and what enabled him to repair and maintain was doing the will of God and completing the missional task God had given to him. What constitutes our food and are we on the same page as Jesus?

Earlier this week we gave thanks for the life and witness of Bonaventure, who was both Friar and Bishop. Born at Bagnoreggio in Italy in about the year 1218, Bonaventure became a Franciscan Friar in 1243 and his intellectual ability was soon recognised by his Order and by the Church. At the age of thirty-six he was elected Minister General of the Franciscans and virtually re-founded the Order, giving it a stability in training and administration previously unknown. He upheld all the teachings of St Francis except in the founder's attitude to study, since Francis felt the Order should possess no books. He clearly saw, with Francis, that the rôle of the Friars was to support the Church through its contemporary structures rather than to be an instrument for reform. He also believed that the best conversions came from the good example of those anxious to renew the Church, rather than by haranguing or passing laws. He was appointed a cardinal-bishop against his will, and kept the papal messengers waiting while he finished the washing up. He brought about a temporary reunion of the churches in the east and the west but, before it was repudiated, he died on this day at Lyons in the year 1274.

On his feast day, we prayed one of his prayers; a prayer that our food may be to do the will of him who sent us and to complete his work. Let us pray: Pierce, O most sweet Lord Jesus, my inmost soul with the most joyous and healthful wound of Thy love, and with true, calm and most holy apostolic charity, that my soul may ever languish and melt with entire love and longing for Thee, may yearn for Thee and for thy courts, may long to be dissolved and to be with Thee. Grant that my soul may hunger after Thee, the Bread of Angels, the refreshment of holy souls, our daily and super substantial bread, having all sweetness and savour and every delightful taste. May my heart ever hunger after and feed upon Thee, Whom the angels desire to look upon, and may my inmost soul be filled with the sweetness of Thy savour; may it ever thirst for Thee, the fountain of life, the fountain of wisdom and knowledge, the fountain of eternal light, the torrent of pleasure, the fullness of the house of God; may it ever compass Thee, seek Thee, find Thee, run to Thee, come up to Thee, meditate on Thee, speak of Thee, and do all for the praise and glory of Thy name, with humility and discretion, with love and delight, with ease and affection, with perseverance to the end; and be Thou alone ever my hope, my entire confidence, my riches, my delight, my pleasure, my joy, my rest and tranquillity, my peace, my sweetness, my food, my refreshment, my refuge, my help, my wisdom, my portion, my possession, my treasure; in Whom may my mind and my heart be ever fixed and firm and rooted immovably. Amen.

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Bill Fay - The Healing Day.

The Psalms - the bedrock for all music-making in the Church

Here's the talk I shared as part of today's Music Concert organised by Spring of Hope Church:

Rev Matt Simpkins is a former curate of this Parish and an amazing musician, who performs as Rev Simpkins. I interviewed him about his music a year or two ago and he had many insightful things to say about music:

“Music is just such a brilliant expression of our humanity and my faith is that all these things have something to do with grace. Christianity is music: the Psalms are the bedrock of Christian faith and worship. All is melded into one. I’m obsessed with the Psalms and the violent mood swings they contain. Their emotional honesty intertwines music and human life with grace. The richness of creation and human experience – for good and ill – mean that I’m not willing to believe that parts of that are somehow untouched by grace and redemption – even our own suffering and sorrow.”

“I came back to music because I got ill. After ordination I thought that music was something that formed me but was not part of my ministry. When I first got ill, I found it hard to pray, so I read those ancient songs - the Psalms - as I always have. I became especially interested in the bits people often leave out. We need to see the difficulties that underly the songs but also see the joy like the Psalmist. This is the darkness of grace. Shit happens but grace remains.

We know that Jesus prayed the Psalms and believe that he takes all human experience up on himself on the cross. So, if I’m having a scary experience like an MRI scan why not think what I might do creatively with that shuddering racket in a song? I take up my experiences in the faith that they have some connection to grace. Human experience and shared experience can result in emotionally dynamic and authentic songs.”

The music that he has made as a result, however, has been joyful: “I’m trying to give an authentic sense of joy in my music. I find that joy in making music with people I love. We just get together and make music. They know it’s authentic. It’s fun, really fun, and has been incredibly therapeutic. Music is bound up with identity and community and reconnecting with music has been good for my faith. Light and gathering together are part of the Holy Spirit’s personality.

This combination of joy and lament is what we find in Gospel music. It’s plenitude and plurality is composed of worship, lament, joy, word, breath, community, and improvisation. It celebrates using praise, breath, and community while exploring the innermost emotions that are shared through religion, aiding the prospect of surrender and ecstatic freedom and cultivating spaces where art thrives and expresses a unifying language for all. That’s because the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is democratic, filling all and enabling all to prophesy, speak in tongues and create.

As Matt says, the Psalms are the bedrock for all music-making in the Church. The Psalms are the worship songs of the people of Israel as recorded in the Old Testament and are the first occasion in ancient literature where the voice of victims is heard and valued.

The Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann in his book Spirituality of the Psalms provides an insightful and structured overview of the Psalms using three categories: orientation, disorientation, and new orientation. Orientation is the establishment of structure and order. Disorientation is a place of imbalance and nonsense, which is potentially unjust. New orientation is moving forward away from what was and toward new possibilities. As a result, the Psalms provide us with expressions of suffering and hope in the seasons of everyday life. In his book, Brueggemann explains how Psalms of negativity, cries for vengeance, and profound penitence are foundational to a life of faith, and establishes that the reality of deep loss and amazing gifts are held together in a powerful tension.

That is what Matt has experienced personally and has expressed through his music. I want to end by reminding us of a musical family who have expressed and exemplified this understanding of what music is and can be in Church.

Gospel great, Mavis Staples, began singing with The Staples Singers in 1950, aged 11. From 1963, the group began supporting the civil rights movement with Pops Staples saying of the Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr, ‘If he can preach it – we can sing it.’ From 1968, through Stax Records, they became soul stars known for their ‘message songs’; songs that were both politically and religiously charged. Since the last Staple Singers album in 1984, Mavis’ solo career has soared by mining the seam of R&B/Gospel developed by her father Pops and taken forward by Mavis through collaborations with the likes of Ry Cooder, Ben Harper and Jeff Tweedy. Through it all the deep resonance of Mavis’ voice drenched in the stylings of Pentecostal churches has been constant; a voice that as Renée Graham noted, ‘doesn’t so much sing a song as baptize it in truth’.

Mavis has spoken of bringing joy, happiness and positive vibrations. This is the transformation that she, and Gospel music generally, achieve; the transformation of struggle into salvation. ‘It’s more than just a feeling–it’s a philosophy’; a philosophy that Mavis Staples lives in concert with every fibre of her being.

The musical journey undertaken by The Staple Singers was an emotional tale and trip combining elation in the gospel with defiance of discrimination, as the group crossed boundaries — first, by combining blues, country, and gospel to create their unique sound, and then by merging spirituality and social comment at civil-rights marches and the Newport Folk Festival, before re-sacralising soul as Stax stars in the Black Power period characterised by the Wattstax Festival of 1972, a benefit after the Watts Riots in 1965.

The story of the Staples Singers is one of the strength that faith and family provide for the long walk to freedom. While the tale and its telling involve anger and loss, it is ultimately, as Mavis states emphatically at the beginning of her concerts, about joy, happiness, inspiration, and positive vibrations; and the tears that it inevitably evokes are tears of joy.

As we enjoy and create music for Church, may we, like Rev Simpkins and The Staple Singers, draw on The Psalms as the worship book for the Church and echo its mix of joy and lament in all we do. Amen.

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

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Ayo Ayo - High Praise dance

The boundary-breaking call of Jesus

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

This story of Mary and Martha has often been interpreted in terms of being and doing (Luke 10.38-42). The Wikipedia entry on the story of Martha and Mary summarises the usual way in which it is interpreted: “Mary chose listening to the teachings of Jesus over helping her sister prepare food. Jesus responded that she was right because only one thing is needed, “one thing” apparently meaning listening to the teachings of Jesus… To simplify, this is frequently interpreted as spiritual values being more important than material business, such as preparation of food.”

Yet, Martha had opened her home to Jesus and his disciples and providing hospitality and welcome to strangers was of vital importance within Judaism and in Middle Eastern culture generally. The rabbis taught that Abraham left off a discussion with God and went to greet guests when they arrived at his camp. He ran to greet them during the hottest day on record and served them the best food he could put together. Based on that example, the rabbis said that taking care of guests is greater than receiving the divine presence.

When Jesus sent out his disciples to prepare the way for him to come to towns and villages on the way to Jerusalem, he told them to look out for and stay with those, like Martha, who would welcome them (Luke 10). So, Jesus’ words to Martha, while they can appear critical, were not intended as a denigration of the role she was fulfilling, which, as we have thought, has a vital place in Middle Eastern culture.

Jesus had already affirmed Martha's hospitality by welcoming and receiving all she offered. However, he also wanted to affirm Mary’s action as well because Mary's action points to an alternative role for women which could only begin to be realised as a result of his affirmation.

Mary sat at Jesus’ feet listening to what he said. That was the usual posture of a disciple of any teacher in the ancient world. But disciples were usually male, so Mary would have been quietly breaking the rule that reserved study for males, not females.

Tom Wright notes that: “To sit at someone’s feet meant, quite simply, to be their student. And to sit at the feet of a rabbi was what you did if you wanted to be a rabbi yourself. There is no thought here of learning for learning’s sake. Mary has quietly taken her place as a would-be teacher and preacher of the kingdom of God.

Jesus affirms her right to do so. Jesus’ valuation of each human being is based on the overflowing love of God, which, like a great river breaking its banks into a parched countryside, irrigates those parts of human society which until now had remained barren and unfruitful. Mary stands for all those women who, when they hear Jesus speaking about the kingdom, know that God is calling them to listen carefully so that they can speak it too.”

Martha was possibly not merely asking for help but demanding that Mary keep to the traditional way of behaving. Jesus, though, affirmed Mary in the place and role of a disciple: “Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." Martha, Ayla Lepine suggests, “wrapped up in the anxieties of hospitality in relation to rank and status, is ‘distracted by many things.’ Jesus tenderly invites her to dare to offer loving attention that is not transactional – Jesus expects nothing in return for the wisdom and love he offers.”

Jesus refused to be sidetracked by issues of gender when faced with women in any kind of need and consistently put people before dogma. Luke’s Gospel not only reports that Jesus had female disciples, but specifically names them in Luke 8.1-3. Throughout his Gospel, Luke pays particular and positive attention to the role of women; presenting women, not only as witnesses to the events surrounding the birth and resurrection of Jesus, but also as active participants in God's Messianic purposes.

As a result, Tom Wright suggests: “We would be wrong, then, to see Martha and Mary, as they have so often been seen, as models of the ‘active’ and the ‘contemplative’ styles of spirituality. Action and contemplation are of course both important. Without the first you wouldn’t eat, without the second you wouldn’t worship. And no doubt some people are called to one kind of balance between them, and others to another. But we cannot escape the challenge of this passage by turning it into a comment about different types of Christian lifestyle. It is about the boundary-breaking call of Jesus.”

This counter-balance to the patriarchy of the time was necessary in order to signal the value of both women and men in God's plan of salvation and their equal importance in the new community that was the Church. Ultimately, this led to the point that we have reached relatively recently in the Church of England of ordaining women as priests and bishops.

In our Gospel reading today, Mary shows us the importance of making Jesus the central focus of our life and learning while Martha shows us the value of welcome, hospitality and service. The ministries of each one of us can be enhanced by reflecting on the examples that both provide and, through that, the recognition that the saints are not special, super-human people but: sisters, like Martha and Mary, who become frustrated with each other’s choices; and engaged women, like Mary, challenged to obey God in ways that put their relationships under strain.

May we be inspired by their examples and also by all women who have followed in their wake as saints and leaders, and more recently as priests and bishops. May we be inspired by saints such as, in our/my Parish, Catherine, who bravely debated with scholars, philosophers, and orators and was persecuted for her Christian faith after protesting against the treatment of her fellow Christians at the hands of Maxentius, Roman Emperor from 306 to 312 AD. Also, Our Lady Mary, “the prime God-Bearer, bearing for us in time the One who was begotten in eternity” remembering that “every Christian after her seeks to become in some small way a God-bearer, one whose ‘yes’ to God means that Christ is made alive and fruitful in the world through our flesh and our daily lives, is born and given to another” (Malcolm Guite).

We can add to those inspirational women, others associated with our churches or Deanery, [in our team, women such as Christine McCafferty, Tara Frankland, Jane Freeman, and, currently, our own Sue Wise and Emma Doe] [such as your own Jacqui Moss and elsewhere Trudy Arnold, Carol Ball, Ruth Dowley, Margaret Fowler, Christine Williams, Karen White and Sue Wise]. Additionally, there are a large number of lay women who have and continue to support and lead within our churches. Each are examples to all of us of what real commitment to Christ entails and involves. This is particularly so because the campaigns to see women take their place alongside men as bishops and at every level in the Church of England have not been about women gaining an ascendency which men have had in the past but, instead, about the full equality of women and men in the Church as part of God's will for his people, and as a reflection of the inclusive heart of the Christian scripture and tradition.

What we see through their lives and examples is that each one of us are saints; whatever our gender and ministry, its prominence or hiddenness. The only saints to feature in the New Testament are each and every member of a local church. The saints are simply those who are church members whether in Ephesus, in Jerusalem, in Rome, or wherever including, today, those of us here in Wickford and Runwell / Pitsea.

In Christ’s Church and kingdom there should be no gender divide in how we serve and follow him. So, like Martha, each of us (male and female) can practise and value the ministries of welcome, hospitality and service of all and, like Mary, each of us (female and male) can practise and value making Jesus the central focus of our lives and learning as his disciples.

May we be inspired by their examples and those of other women we have mentioned and at the same time may we support all those women who lead us so well within our churches currently, recognising that these are they who are God-bearers, “those whose ‘yes’ to God means that Christ is made alive and fruitful in the world through our flesh and our daily lives, is born and given to another” (Malcolm Guite).

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The Ocean Blue - Between Something And Nothing.

Windows on the world (528)

 

London 2025

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David Bowie - Suffragette City.

Community Wellbeing Garden

Councillor Andrew Neil, Chair of Wickford Town Council, opened the Community Wellbeing Garden at St Andrew's Wickford this morning. The Ven Susan Lucas, Archdeacon of Southend also spoke as part of our opening event.

Local Elvis tribute act, John King, performed at St Andrew's Wickford as part of our Community Wellbeing Garden opening event. The inclement weather meant John had to perform in the church, rather than the garden, as originally planned. Regardless, a great time was had by all as John performed a selection of Elvis' greatest hits.

The Community Wellbeing Garden is a green space for contemplation, reflection and observation of nature in an area immediately behind the Town Centre shops for use by those coming into the Town. The project provides additional green space for the Town to enhance wellbeing. The garden has apple, cherry and fig trees, new planting beds created using donated gabions, a bug hotel and other accessories to encourage wildlife, and a summer seating area on a patio outside the St Andrew's Centre.

All of the garden furniture and planting beds has been donated, while the landscaping of the space has been funded through a grant from the National Lottery's Community Fund. The following organisations have all provided invaluable support of this project: Alexander Landscapes; Friends of Wickford Memorial Park; Meadowcroft Nursery; National Lottery Community Fund; New Life Wood; Perrywood Garden Centres, Probation Service; Rayleigh Turf Supply; Wickford in Bloom; Wickford Town Council; and Wickford Wildlife Association.

The space will be available for use by the community as well as users of our coffee morning and community groups, and those who hire our facilities. We are looking for additional volunteers to help tend the garden going forward.

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Elvis Presley - How Great Thou Art.

 

ROCK OF AGES: JESUS IN POPULAR SONGS

Tonight's Unveiled evening at St Andrew's Wickford was on Jesus in popular songs. We listened to songs by Joan Osborne, Bob Dylan, Scott Stapp, Jackson Browne, Kendrick Lamar, and googly eyes, Joy Oladokun & Allison Ponthier:

Delvyn Case writes: 'From “Jesus, Take the Wheel” to “Jesus Walks” to “Dropkick Me, Jesus, Through the Goalposts of Life”, Jesus has appeared in hundreds of songs by popular musicians over the past 50 years. No longer just a subject for hymn writers and gospel composers, Jesus now shows up in secular music by rock stars, rappers, singer-songwriters, country stars, and hardcore punks. And that’s just for starters.

For over 50 years, pop musicians in all genres have explored the meaning and significance of Jesus in their music. The result is a rich collection of songs that consider important spiritual questions like faith, doubt, and prayer in unique and often provocative ways. This evening explores some of those songs and what they have to say about Jesus.'

‘What If God Was One of Us?’ by Joan Osborne

“One of Us” is a song recorded by Joan Osborne released on November 21, 1995. It was written by Eric Bazilian (of the Hooters), produced by Rick Chertoff, and released as the lead single of Joan Osborne’s Relish album. It peaked at number four on the US Billboard Hot 100 and earned three Grammy nominations. It became a top-20 hit in at least twelve other countries. The song addresses various aspects of belief in God by asking a series of questions.

Several times during “One of Us,” the listener hears the haunting refrain “What if God was one of us?” The good news is that God was one of us. He came to be one of us. In Jesus, he became flesh, becoming human while remaining God.

Fred Herron writes, in a reflection on Osborne’s song: “Christians believe that God took on flesh and blood, or became human, in the person of Jesus. John’s gospel contains a fascinating verse, “So the Word [John adapting/applying Greek ideas of logos to Jesus] became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness” (John 1:14; NLT).

I have always been fascinated with this idea that God disguised himself in human form. He shows up in unexpected ways—born in a manger, born in transient housing, born to a poor Jewish Palestinian woman under the suspicion of illegitimacy. Then Jesus, in his ministry, upends religious purity culture by showing up and practicing radical love towards the sick, the poor, the outsider, the sinner, the prisoner, the prostitute, and the wayward—those whom religious people avoided for fear of contamination. Jesus showed up in unexpected ways with “unfailing love,” teaching that we encounter God “in the least of these” (Matthew 25:40).”

This is what we see in Osborne’s song:

What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Tryin’ to make his way home?

‘Sweetheart Like You’ by Bob Dylan

In ‘Sweetheart Like You’, from Bob Dylan’s 1983 album ‘Infidels’, we see a wonderfully contemporary depiction of Christ's incarnation. The song is written from the perspective of a misogynist male employee in an all-male workplace that is literally a hell of a place in which to work. To be in here requires the doing of some evil deed, having your own harem, playing till your lips bleed. There's only one step down from here and that's the ironically named 'land of permanent bliss.'

Into this perverted and prejudiced environment comes a woman, the sweetheart of the song's title. She is a Christ figure; a sinless figure entering into a world of sin and experiencing abuse and betrayal (is 'that first kiss' a Judas kiss?) from those she encounters and to whom she holds out the possibility of a different kind of existence. Dylan makes his equation of the woman with Christ explicit by quoting directly from Jesus: 'They say in your father's house, there's many mansions' (John 14: 2).

The song's narrator is confused and challenged by her appearance. He wants to dismiss her out of hand and back to his stereotypical role for her - 'You know, a woman like you should be at home / That's where you belong / Watching out for someone who loves you true / Who would never do you wrong' - but he can't simply dismiss her as she is really there in front of him and so he begins to wonder, 'What's a sweetheart like you doin' in a dump like this?' All the time he asks that question there is the possibility that he may respond to her presence without abuse or dismissal.

‘Jesus Was A Rock Star’ by Scott Stapp

David Flowers writes that Scott Stapp “is best known for being founder and frontman of the rock band Creed”: “Creed’s lyrics in their albums My Own Prison (’97) and Human Clay (’99) were reflective of Stapp’s Christian upbringing, but he admits that he lived in rebellion against God for many years. He says he rebelled against a certain “brand” of Christianity that didn’t look much like Jesus. Religious fundamentalism drove him to the edge. Stapp became addicted to alcohol and prescription drugs, went through a divorce, and attempted suicide. It seemed he was on a course to join the 27 club. It was through the love and grace of his wife and mother-in-law that Stapp encountered a Christ that loves sinners. Scott Stapp repented of his sins and chose to walk the Jesus path.”

Stapp says of ‘Jesus Was A Rock Star’: “I think that song, again, has two different lines of thought with it. Number one, I'm not the rockstar, man. If you want to talk about who the rockstar is, it's Jesus. So, it's not about me, it's about Him. I wanted to just lay the case out there and be like, "Hey, let me tell you what a rockstar is." I just went right into it with laying the case for how that's who we should glorify. Not me. Then another line of thought in that song was that, [throughout] my whole life, I was told that the electric guitar was an instrument of the devil. And that, in being involved in rock'n'roll music, you couldn't be a Christian. You couldn't bring glory and honor to Christ and to God. So I had a conflict because of that spiritual abuse. I had a conflict that I really wrestled with my whole life because I had this hole in my soul that pulled me closer to God whenever I would play music-- and rock'n'roll music and electric guitar--but then I would feel this guilt and this shame and this condemnation because of how I was lied to and told that it was of the devil. I had this conflict, so I think in writing this song, too, it was to erase that conflict. That I CAN glorify Christ through a rock'n'roll song. I CAN be a Christian and a rock'n'roll singer. I CAN spread the message of Christ through rock'n'roll music. It was resolving that conflict within me. It was basically those two issues that inspired that song.”

‘The Rebel Jesus’ by Jackson Browne

Steve Stockman writes: “Rebel Jesus is a rarity in the Jackson Browne catalogue, hidden away on a The Chieftains' album ‘Bells Of Dublin’ and then as one of the … extra tracks on Browne's compilation album ‘The Next Voice You Hear’. It is however, as potent a Christmas song as you'll ever hear …

It indicts the dubious practices of those who claim to follow Jesus while seemingly contradicting his revolution. Browne uses the story of Christ over turning the tables in the temple to indict those who would abuse God’s Creation for selfish materialist wealth and throws in the “pride and gold” of Churches in the same verse!

In another verse the poor are ignored but might be thrown a token gesture in our Christmas generosity. The irony of the poor being ignored on Christmas Day when the baby celebrated was without a bed or food is the crux of the hypocrisy. How have we shut the door to the marginalised for a warm romanticised day of decadence is the question posed?

Browne then paraphrases Helder Camara’s quote, “If I feed the poor they call me a saint but if I ask why the poor are poor they call me a communist,” to powerful effect. If we decided to turn the world on its head by seeking social and economic justice for the oppressed we would get the same as The Rebel Jesus.”

‘How Much A Dollar Cost’ by Kendrick Lamarr

“How much a dollar really cost?” This question is the focal point of Kendrick Lamar’s song of the same name (give or take a word), “How Much a Dollar Cost” from his third studio album, ‘To Pimp a Butterfly’.

Manny Adewale writes: “this song is based on a true story from Kendrick’s travels to South Africa during his time working on To Pimp a Butterfly, where he interacted with a homeless man after being reluctant to. In each verse, Kendrick narrates a different part of this story, exploring the thoughts and feelings that come with the pursuit of money, as well as cost of desiring to hang on to it …

Kendrick thinks that he’s seen through this man’s request for help; he sees this man as nothing more than a junkie or an alcoholic who’s pretending to be wise. Kendrick admits to his lack of empathy and his insensitivity towards this man. The homeless man then tells Kendrick, “Your potential is bittersweet.” Earlier, this man told Kendrick that he had the chance to be a leader and help those around him, but he now sees that Kendrick’s potential is bittersweet because he’s refusing to let go of his selfishness, stubbornness, and pride. Kendrick refuses to listen again, and as the instrumentation and the production swells, we reach the climax of the song, where the homeless beggar reveals his identity:

He looked at me and said, “Know the truth, it’ll set you free
You’re lookin’ at the Messiah, the son of Jehovah, the higher power
The choir that spoke the word, the Holy Spirit
The nerve of Nazareth, and I’ll tell you just how much a dollar cost
The price of having a spot in Heaven, embrace your loss — I am God”

This part of the song is personally my favorite because this is the moment where everything comes to a point, and Kendrick has an epiphany. Again, as a kid who grew up in a Christian home, I always learned that it was good to treat everyone with kindness because you’d never know if you’d just come across an angel:

“Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it!” — Hebrews 13:2

I also learned about how Jesus said that showing kindness to those in need was to do so to Him:

“‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.’” — Matthew 25:40

For me, this is always a reminder that our choice to be kind and generous to others is an important demonstration of what we believe, and it’s our chance to recognize God in every person we cross paths with.

The line “The price of having a spot in Heaven, embrace your loss” is also very striking here. In that same chapter where Jesus thanks those who took care of those in need and rewards them, he turns away those who didn’t. My siblings and I always learned that our generosity and kindness towards other people would be part of how God prepared us to experience the good things He has in store for us, especially Heaven itself.”

‘Jesus and John Wayne’ by googly eyes, Joy Oladokun and Allison Ponthier

A review at Unheard Gems says: “Some songs arrive like lifelines—gently, honestly, and right when you need them. “Jesus and John Wayne” is one of those rare tracks. Born from the pages of Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s explosive book of the same name, the song unpacks the painful intersection of faith, identity, and politics with striking vulnerability and nuance. googly eyes, Joy Oladokun, and Allison Ponthier bring their voices together to create something that feels at once intimate and monumental …

This song is more than just a collaboration—it’s an act of reclamation. It redefines what faith can sound like: inclusive, expansive, and rooted in love rather than exclusion …. It’s not afraid to confront the damage done by institutional religion, but it also holds space for healing, for community, and for the radical belief that love—true love—belongs to everyone.

For anyone navigating the complex layers of queerness, spirituality, and self-worth, this track offers comfort without compromise. It’s a hymn for the misfits, the doubters, and the believers still learning to believe in themselves again.”

The song begins:

I liked the teachings of Jesus so much that I followed him right out the door
When steeples kept preaching with hate on their tongues
And distaste for the meek, mild and poor

and concludes with this critique of those who preach hate:

Blessed are the war makers
Blessed are the black in heart
Blessed are the politicians
Blessed are the patriarchs
Blessed are the gold takers
Blessed skin like porcelain
Blessed is America, but only for Americans

And if I had to admit
Jesus wouldn't really fit
With everything you're trying to do with him

Delvyn Case writes that, intended for their fans rather than worshipers, these songs often present Jesus in unique and unorthodox ways, many of which challenge the ways we traditionally think about him. Whether written by believers or atheists, all of these songs seek – in their own unique ways - to answer the oldest questions in Christianity: who was Jesus, what did he mean, and why is he important?

Delvyn has a website called Rock of Ages which is a collection of songs about Jesus. He suggests that some songs treat Jesus exclusively as a human figure, shorn of any theological characteristics. Some depict him as a character in the narrative world of the song. In so doing they provide fascinating explorations of the distinctly human side of Jesus’s existence. These songs focus on Jesus as a Person.

In other songs, Jesus appears not as a human or a theological figure, but rather as a symbol - usually of an abstract idea or character trait. He is usually invoked as the ultimate signifier of whatever is being signified. Though the variety of attributes is quite broad, it is the view of Jesus as the ultimate symbol of power that is most common. These songs focus on Jesus as a Paragon.

His final category is Jesus as Presence in songs that reveal a complex or compelling engagement with the questions of Jesus’s meaning and/or significance.

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Scott Stapp - Jesus Was A Rock Star.

Brian Clarke R.I.P.

Renowned stained-glass artist, Brian Clarke, died on July 1, 2025 at the age of 71. In my Church Times review of “Brian Clarke: A Great Light” at Newport Street Gallery in 2023, I wrote that: 

'I FIRST encountered the work of Brian Clarke at the Swiss Museum of Stained Glass at Romont. I visited the Museum as part of my Sabbatical Art Pilgrimage and discovered that work by Clarke and another stained-glass artist, Yoki — neither of whom was previously known to me — could be seen in the town, as well as at the Museum.

The Cistercian Abbaye de la Fille-Dieu on the edge of Romont commissioned Clarke in 1996 to create windows for its renovated and reordered chapel. Clarke says that stained glass “can transform the way you feel when you enter a building in a way that nothing else can”. I would concur, especially after arriving at l’Abbaye de la Fille Dieu in time for a memorable service of vespers, followed by silent contemplation in the still onset of darkness falling. Clarke’s modern, abstract windows were designed to unify fragments retained from previous phases of the building’s life and offer both nuns and visitors a “warm and vibrant atmosphere”, which is “conducive to meditation and prayer”.'

Church commissions helped establish Clarke as a stained-glass artist in the early stages of his career, and later works, such as those at Abbaye de la Fille-Dieu and Linköping Cathedral, Sweden, confirmed his ability to bring together technical skill, creative vision and sensitivity to place. His engagement with aspects of spirituality and contemplation also appeared in his work for secular spaces.

He said: "I think there is an extremely powerful argument to be made today for art to actually bring beauty and something of the sublime into the banality of mundane experience. So often now, art is limiting of that kind of encounter. I believe people respond to beauty both in nature and in art. When it involves the passage of light, it is uplifting in a way that is incomparable".

Read my review here and my visit report to Abbaye de la Fille-Dieu here.

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The Trees Community - Psalm 45.

Do you and I walk on holy ground all the time?

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

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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John Dunstable - Ave Maris Stella.

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.

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Samia Malik - Like A Gift.

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.

Rutherford studied art in Chelmsford and at the Slade in London in the 1930s. She also trained in the art of true fresco. She was a VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) Red Cross nurse during the second world war and created a large portfolio of sketches and paintings of all she observed in hospitals, both at home and in Sri Lanka.

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.