What can you give to God to today?

Here's the sermon I shared this morning at St Catherine’s Wickford:

We have been living for some years in an age of austerity where our governments implemented a series of sustained reductions in public spending all intended to reduce the budget deficit. As a result, we live in a time of relative scarcity compared with years of a booming economy prior to the time of austerity.

When we are in a scarcity mindset we focus on all the deficits in our situation, all that is wrong, all we have lost and all that we don’t have. Today, we often experience a sense of scarcity in the Church as well. In our generation God has given his Church a financial crisis, and this can only be for one reason: to teach us that abundance does not lie in financial security, and to show us that only in relationships of mutual interdependence, relationships that money obscures as often as it enables, does abundant life lie.

The reality of living in a time of scarcity has parallels to the feeding of the five thousand where Jesus and those with him are in the wilderness with no food except for the five small barley loaves and two small fish offered by a boy in the crowd (Matthew 14.13-21). Jesus’ disciples essentially despair in the light of their situation as there is nowhere to go to buy food, they have insufficient money for the numbers involved and the boy’s lunch is too small to share with any but a few.

Jesus, however, brings abundance in the place of scarcity. He prepares the crowd to eat, gives thanks to God and begins to share the little that they have. As the sharing commences, the food is found to be sufficient for everyone’s needs with 12 baskets of leftover bread gathered together at the end of the meal.

How did this happen? It began with a young boy bringing barley loaves and fish to Jesus. Barley loaves were one third of the price of the wheat variety; it was the bread of the poor. And then there were the two small fish. The Greek word used for these fish in John’s gospel is “osparion”, which meant they were certainly not fresh fish from the Sea of Galilee. “Osparion” were either small dried or pickled fish. The young boy may have generously offered all he had but that offering was meagre in the extreme. Little wonder that Andrew should say despairingly to Jesus: “But, what are they among so many”?

Yet, Jesus willingly took what was offered and, far from commenting on the poor offering set before him, he gave thanks over the loaves and fish. And, as Jesus gave thanks a transformation took place and there was enough for all to be fed and, we learn later in the chapter, to be satisfied. With the transforming grace of Jesus even our poorest offerings can become something extraordinary.

Churches thrive when the gifts of all their members are released and they build on one another’s assets. The currency of the kingdom of God is of things that never run out. ‘The secret of happiness is learning to love the things God gives us in plenty. There’s no global shortage of friendship, kindness, generosity, sympathy, creativity, faithfulness, laughter, love. These are the currency of abundance.

The challenge for us as a church and as individuals is this, are we going to live in the economy of scarcity or are we going to live in God’s economy of abundance. Which is it to be? If we live in the economy of scarcity, we will spend our lives fearing for our jobs, our livelihoods, our reputations, our health, our families, our lives themselves. If we live in the economy of abundance we won’t fear anything. We’ll have the things that money can’t buy and we’ll know the things that hardship and even death can’t take away from us. We’ll have learned to love the things God gives us in plenty. We will be living truly abundant life.

Tom Wright in his commentary on St John’s Gospel says that all God calls us to do is to bring what we have to Jesus in prayer. We tell Him what we need. We then let Jesus bring the two together and make it enough for all! As one marvellous prayer puts it, the Lord Jesus truly can ‘transform the poverty of our riches by the fullness of his Grace’.

It is easy for us to think that big is best and that what we have and are is too little to make an impact but this story says otherwise. Jesus takes and uses the little that the young boy offers.

Small is beautiful, as E. F. Schumacher reminded us. Our small actions or contribution, combined with those of others, can then have a big effect. The BBC Radio 4 Christmas Appeal for St Martin-in-the-Fields once used that thought with its slogan ‘Small Action Big Difference’. The butterfly effect which is found in Chaos Theory and the multiplier effect in economics both show, on the basis of research, that small changes and small contributions can have significant effects.

Hattie May Wiatt was a young girl in Philadelphia in the 1880s who began saving towards the building of a church which could accommodate the large number of children going to Sunday School in those days. Hattie May died young and after her death the pastor of the church, Rev. Russell Conwell was given the 57 cents that she had saved. He used these to begin a fundraising campaign which resulted in the building of a church, a University and a Hospital.

What can you give to God today? It doesn’t matter if it seems very little or very small. Brother Lawrence 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.' In addition, as he did with the small offering the boy made in this story, Jesus can take the little that we can offer and can use, transform and multiply it. The important thing then is that we offer what we can. What can you give to God to today? Whatever it is, the important thing is to offer it – however small it may seem.

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Nick Battle - Dance Of Suffering.

In God, 'You are Enough'

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Andrew's Wickford this morning and will be sharing at St Peter's Nevendon this afternoon:

Sermon:  (10.00am, St Andrew’s, 22/02/26)

Standing proud in the heart of Manchester’s university district on the exterior of St Peter’s House a 22 x 13 foot billboard towered above the streets below giving a refreshingly affirming message to passing students and commuters. It said, ‘You are enough’. It would be easy to assume this is an affirmation of the kind of individualism that says ‘I’m alright, Jack’ as ‘I’m looking after No.1.’ However, as St Peter’s House is the base for the Christian chaplaincy team for the Manchester Universities and the Royal Northern College of Music, that’s unlikely to be the intended message.

The artist who created the piece, Micah Purnell, notes that, ‘Capitalist ideology aims to impart the notion that we are worthy of love and belonging - once we have bought into the product or service. Consumerism wraps things up in neat little packages and sells them as idealised gifts of perfection. Advertising props up this notion with the assumption that we are inadequate - stealing our love of ourselves, and selling it back at a price.’

He goes on to say that Brené Brown, a research Professor at Houston University, has found through extensive quantitative research that the one thing that keeps us from love and belonging is the fear that we are not worthy of love and belonging. She found that those who fully experience joy and live wholeheartedly have four characteristics in common: the courage to accept their imperfection; compassion towards themselves first; the ability to let go of who they should be in order to be who they really are, and to embrace vulnerability and unknowing. His installation, therefore, says, ‘You’re not perfect, you’re never going to be, and that’s the good news.’ You are enough, as you are.

The temptations faced by Jesus in the wilderness (Matthew 4.1-11) were all temptations to see his situation and his trust in God as being insufficient, or ‘not enough.’ His temptations began with the reality of his situation, the fact that he was hungry because of fasting for 40 days. He had not had enough food and the temptation was to say that there was not enough and use his power to create food from nowhere. Jesus responded by saying that the words of God were enough for him. The second temptation was in regard to his mission and his then obscurity. Jesus was on his own in the wilderness and was offered celebrity and fame because his obscurity was clearly not enough to achieve his mission. Jesus’ response was essentially saying that the path he was following was enough. The final temptation was linked but, instead of being focused on fame, was focused on power. Jesus’ mission was to save all humanity and he was offered power over all humanity as a shortcut to success and as recognition of the lack of power he possessed as an insignificant carpenter in a backwater of the mighty Roman Empire. Jesus responded by saying that God’s way was enough for him.

Jesus was tempted on the basis that who he was and what he had were not enough to achieve the mission he had been given. He was tempted to think of himself, his situation and God, in terms of scarcity and deficit. But deficit is not our modus operandi as Christians. We don’t have to look far for a mission statement for the church. Jesus said, ‘I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly’ (John 10.10). Living abundant life; that’s what the Father intends, the Son embodies, the Spirit facilitates. 

Sam Wells, the Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields says that, as Christians, we are called to live in such a way that gratefully receives the abundance God is giving us, evidences the transformation from scarcity to abundance to which God is calling us, dwells with God in that abundant life, and shares that abundance far and wide.

Jesus is our model of abundant life; his life, death and resurrection chart the transformation from the scarcity of sin and death to the abundance of healing and resurrection; he longs to bring all humankind into reconciled and flourishing relationship with God, one another, ourselves and all creation.

In the middle of the wilderness where he literally had nothing, Jesus received God’s abundance, the abundant life that would sustain him throughout his journey to the cross, and beyond. Also, his time in the wilderness came immediately after his baptism where God had spoken to him saying ‘You are my own dear Son. With you I am well pleased’. God had essentially said to him then, ‘You are Enough’.

As such, we can defend ourselves against temptation as Jesus did. “As God’s children,” Tom Wright says, “we are entitled to use the same defence” as Jesus himself. “Store scripture in your heart,” he writes, “and know how to use it.” When we do, we are able to see through the temptation to think of all that we have as inadequate and, instead, to view our lives and all that we have as a gift from God knowing that, in him, we are enough.

Lent is commonly thought of as being about those things we give up but Lent is ultimately about our opening up. Opening up our lives to receive more of the abundance and the gifts that God is giving to us. In Lent, we give up some of our usual practices in order to have more time for God and to be with God. More time to open up to him and deepen our relationship with him. That was what Jesus was doing in the wilderness and, like him, we too can discover that, as we receive all that God is giving to us, God is enough, God's abundance is enough, our churches and communities are enough, and we are enough. Amen.

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Mumford and Sons - Begin Again.

Pressing on and going forward

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

Both our readings today are to do with responses to difficulties and challenges. Jesus experienced his own people turning against him in the story told in our Gospel reading this morning (Mark 6.1-6). The people in his home synagogue were astounded by him, recognising that he had been given wisdom and was doing deeds of power. But that recognition led them to question where it was that his wisdom and power came from and they became jealous that one of them, someone with whom they have all grown up, should possess wisdom and power beyond that of themselves. The result was that they took offence at him and he could do no deed of power there because of their lack of belief. However, Jesus’ response was to continue his mission by going about among the villages teaching.

In our New Testament reading from the Letter to the Hebrews (Hebrews 12.4-13), the challenges faced maybe on the one hand the threat of persecution and on the other our own fallibilities and failures. Whichever challenge is faced, the encouragement given by the writer of the letter to the Hebrews is to pick ourselves up, brush ourselves down, work to strengthen our areas of weakness, and carry on living our lives as followers of Jesus. When we do so, the difficulties and challenges we face become the things that strengthen us and enable us to cope and be there for the long haul.

It can, perhaps, seem from these passages as though we, or Jesus, are on our own and have to find the willpower or internal strength to overcome the opposition or difficulties that are being encountered. However, Jesus was continually reliant on God the Father and, by this stage, was also travelling with his group of disciples around him. They often didn’t fully understand what he was teaching or doing, but they would, no doubt, have been a source of support to him in this situation at Nazareth. Similarly, the Letter to the Hebrews was written to encourage and support a group of Christians undergoing, or about to undergo, persecution. The fact that the letter was written and sent meant that there were others supporting this group of Christians with advice and prayer.

As a result, in any situation of difficulty we might face, we should look around to see who is also around to help and support. In an age of almost instant communication, it may even be that help has never been closer at hand. For each of us, then, the challenge is not just to coping and coming through difficulties ourselves, but also to looking around in order that we see those who are experiencing difficulty and challenge that we can help.

The reality in a world of conflict and change is that difficulties, challenges and even opposition are inevitable. The key to coping is linked to attitude. Jesus’ decision to continue his mission in the face of the opposition he faced and the encouragement in the passage from Hebrews to find difficulties as a testing ground – an assault course – to build up our strength in order to go on are both encouragements to look for the opportunities in our challenges. If we have a deficit mindset that is focused on all the difficulties we face, then we have lost before we have begun. If we have an abundance mindset that views God as providing resources, support and strength even in the most challenging of circumstances, then we can have hope in the possibility of moving on and overcoming the challenges we face.

When his own people took offence at him, Jesus continued his mission by going about among the other villages teaching. When the Hebrew Christians faced persecution and challenge, the encouragement to them was to lift their drooping hands, strengthen weak knees, and make straight paths for their feet in order to press on and go forward. And God was with them as they did so. May it be so for each one of too.

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Sweet Honey In The Rock - Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Round.

Resurrection and new life in the midst of adversity and hardship

Rev Moses Agyam and I had an ecumenical exchange in Wickford this morning. Moses led the service at St Andrew's and I led at Christ Church. Here's the sermon that I preached at Christ Church today:

Imagine a bed surrounded by the debris of a week’s illness, soiled sheets and slashed pillows, pills and vodka bottles, used condoms and tissues. This is My Bed an installation by Tracy Emin which was first exhibited in 1999. You’ll probably remember reading about it in the press at the time as it prompted the usual “call that art, my two-year old could have done better” kind of articles.

A bed is a powerful symbol of birth and death, sex and intimacy but this controversial installation was perhaps an image of our culture’s sickness and dis-ease surrounded by the remnants of those things through which we seek a cure; sex, alcohol, drugs, tears, aggression. And the bed, like many lives, was empty. The morning after the cure that never came.

Our Old Testament reading from Ezekiel 37. 1-10 suggested something very similar about the people of Israel. Ezekiel saw a valley of dry bones and God said to him that the people of Israel were like those bones, dried up without any hope and with no future.

Sometimes our lives feel like these two pictures - dried up, no future, diseased, empty, dead. Our relationships may have broken down, we may have been abused, we may be anxious, stressed or worried, our work might be under threat or have ended. For all these reasons and many others, we can feel as though our lives have closed down becoming barren or dry or dead.

Our communities and culture can feel like that too. Many years ago now, at the end of the 1970’s, The Sex Pistols sang about there being no future in England’s dreaming. And many people still think that our society is changing for the worse. When I had a holiday in Spain several years ago I stayed on a street that was mainly occupied by British people who had left because they didn’t like the changes that they saw in British society. Such people think of Britain as being diseased and dead with no future for them.

Being in the Church it is also easy to feel the same. We are regularly told in the press that the Church is in decline and my Church, the Church of England, is currently dealing with major conflicts that threaten to pull it apart. Again, it is easy to feel as though the Church is washed up, dried out and dying.

Whatever we think of those issues and views, the God that we worship is in the resurrection business. And that is where we need to be too. In Ezekiel God promised that he would put his breath into the people of Israel and bring them back to life and in our Gospel reading (John 11. 1-45) Jesus said that he is the resurrection and the life and demonstrated this by bringing Lazarus back to life. Jesus was the fulfilment of God’s promise to Ezekiel that he would bring the people of Israel back to life. In Jesus, Israel lived life as God had intended and fulfilled Israel’s mission of bringing light to the rest of the world. In this way, Jesus resurrected a society and culture transforming the entire world as he did so.

He calls us to follow in his footsteps by looking for the places where our society and culture is dried up or dying and working for its transformation and resurrection. I saw several examples of that happening in my time at St Martin-in-the-Fields, particularly in our response to the pandemic.

Here’s how the Vicar of St Martin’s – Sam Wells - described our experience in the book that we wrote about that period of time (Finding Abundance in Scarcity: Steps Towards Church Transformation - A HeartEdge Handbook):

“St Martin-in-the-Fields is a complex organization. It has a large congregation, by UK standards, and a significant public ministry, involving a good deal of broadcasting. It has a trading subsidiary (two cafés, a shop, and around 175 commercial concerts annually). It has a development trust, and two homeless charities, one local, one national.

The pandemic asphyxiated its commercial activity, at a stroke deleting two-thirds of the congregation’s income. At the time of writing, we’ve had to shed three-quarters of our commercial and ministry staff. It’s been a devastating, depleting and distressing experience. Yet online, the congregation, its public ministry, and its music have found a reach, purpose, and dynamism like never before. All is made new. The musicians have recorded music, weekly, for 4,000 churches across the land. HeartEdge seminars have become a hub for innovation and evaluation. A new enquirers’ course has drawn participation from people far and wide, a good many of whom were already inhibited by chronic illness before ‘shield’ became an intransitive verb. The national homeless charity has never been more in demand, or attracted more support, fervidly working to help people find secure accommodation …

our Nazareth Community, made up of people from all classes, including those who sleep outside, seeking the heart of God through shared practices centred on silent prayer [has] grown to 81 people, with … additional … online companions. It models the way we seek to see the assets in everyone, rather than regarding some as needy and casting others as benefactors.

It’s been as if we’re in a cartoon: on one side surrounded by footfall figures, government directives, church guidelines, protective equipment, and spreadsheets of redundancy calculations, earnestly trying to be humane, transparent, and compassionate as we cast staff out into a wilderness of high unemployment and considerable health anxiety; on the other side surprised by joy, with people coming to faith, hundreds of thousands downloading choral offerings, asylum seekers stepping up to leadership roles, donors tendering generous gifts, and the church reopening in July for tentative public worship, only to close again in November and open again in December.

Don’t tell anyone, but beautiful things have been happening – too many to recount. Keep it quiet, but it’s also been a complete nightmare, in which plans made and an institution crafted over generations has been torn apart in ways a raging inferno couldn’t achieve … And yet, like a ram in a thicket, something has been provided, or has emerged, or suddenly changed.”

This happened because at the beginning of the pandemic we realised that “It was in its most bewildered hour that Israel in exile found who God truly was.” As a result, we saw that this was “our chance to discover what God being with us really means.” “None of us would for a moment have wished this crisis on anybody, let alone the whole world. But our faith teaches us that we only get to see resurrection through crucifixion; that we see God most clearly in our darkest hour.” What we found was “beauty, truth and goodness in times of adversity, hardship and distress.”

I believe that each of us can have similar experiences of resurrection and new life in the midst of adversity and hardship. So, together with my colleagues and congregations, I’m seeking to apply the lessons I learnt at St Martin’s in the missional activity we’re getting started here in the Wickford and Runwell Team Ministry. I believe that, as churches in this area, and elsewhere, we all need to be asking ourselves how God wants to use us to bring new life to those parts of our society and culture that are dying.

Raising Lazarus from death was a sign of what would happen after Jesus’ own death on the cross. By rising from death himself, Jesus conquered death for all people enabling us to enter in to eternal life after our physical death. This is good news for us to share with other people around us wherever we are - in our families and among our friends, neighbours and work colleagues. Think for a moment about the people and places where you can share the good news of life after death through our Lord Jesus.

Jesus also resurrected lives before physical death came. Look for a moment at John 11 with me. In the first section of that chapter from verses 1 to 16 we see the disciples struggling to understand what Jesus is saying and doing. He is wanting them to see how God is at work in Lazarus’ illness and death. They keep looking only at their physical and material circumstances - if Jesus goes back to Judea then he will be killed, if Lazarus is asleep then he will get better, and so on. Jesus wants them to see that God can work even through death and in verse 16 he draws out of them the commitment to go with him even though they may die with him. Then in verses 17 to 27, Jesus helps Martha to move beyond her theoretical belief in the resurrection to a belief that Jesus himself is the promised Messiah. Finally, in verses 38 to 45, he helps all those present to move beyond their focus on physical realities to believe in God’s ability to do the supernatural.

Throughout, Jesus is challenging all the people he encounters to move beyond their comfort zones, to step out in faith, to encounter and trust God in new ways. He wants to do the same with each one of us. Wherever our lives have got stuck, have become dried up or closed down or have died he wants to challenge and encourage us to move out of our comfort zones and to encounter him and other people in new and risky ways. He wants us to come alive to God, to the world, to other people and to life itself in new ways.

Jesus is in the resurrection business. Whether it is transforming society, sharing the good news of eternal life or encouraging us to step out in faith, Jesus wants to bring us to life. How will you respond to Jesus this morning? Is there an area of your life that he can bring back to life or will you commit yourself to join in sharing the good news of eternal life with others and transforming society where you are?

As you think about that challenge let us pray together briefly, using the words of a song by Evanescence:

Lord Jesus, we are frozen inside without your touch, without your love. You are the life among the dead, so wake us up inside. Call our names and save us from the dark. Bid our blood to run before we come undone, save us from the nothing we’ve become. Bring us to life. Amen.

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Evanescence - Bring Me To Life.

Seeing the gifts God is giving

Here's the reflection I shared in today's Choral Eucharist at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

In today’s Old Testament reading (Exodus 17.1-7), we're with the People of Israel after the Exodus in the midst of the wilderness where there is no water. The sun is beating down and we're dehydrating. We're also complaining - quite understandably, because the situation is dire, and it looks as though we're likely to die. We want to go back to Egypt because, although we were slaves there, ill-treated and exploited, at least we knew where our food and drink was coming from.

But at the point when all seems lost and hope is exhausted, God reveals the hidden spring of water within this wilderness landscape. As a result, it looks as though God was somewhat late in arriving on the scene. The singer songwriter Sam Phillips writes that:

'Help is coming, help is coming
One day late, one day late
After you've given up and all is gone
Help is coming one day late'

She continues:

'Try to understand, you try to fix your broken hands
But remember that there always has been good
Like stars you don't see in the day sky
Wait till night

Life has kept me down
I've been growing under ground
Now I'm coming up and when time opens the earth
You'll see love has been moving all around us, making waves

So help is coming, help is coming
One day late, one day late
After you've given up and all is gone
Help is coming one day late'

In her song, help, goodness, life and hope are all around but hidden or overlooked, as was the vital spring of water in the wilderness. Maybe, the issue is not one of God turning later than we expect but instead that how we perceive things needs to change in order that we start to see what is in fact already there.

As Christians, we don’t have to look far for a mission statement for the church. ‘I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.’ (John 10.10) Living abundant life. That’s what the Father intends, the Son embodies, the Spirit facilitates. God is a God of abundance who is continually giving us all we need even in the midst of scarcity and trouble; perhaps, especially, in the midst of scarcity and trouble.

Our problem is that we don’t always recognise and receive the gifts that God is giving. In order to see what God is giving us, our mindset needs to change from a deficit mindset which sees problems to an asset mindset which looks for resources. The Israelites had a deficit mindset as they were focused on the problems they were experiencing and that was what led them to complain. It meant they weren’t looking around them to see what assets there were where they were. When we develop a habit of looking for assets, we then begin looking at our situation widely and broadly and notice what is ordinarily hidden to us by being on the edge.

I wonder whether the experience of the Israelites in undercovering the hidden spring of water in the wilderness is not somewhat similar to the experience many of us have had in the pandemic; of help, of goodness, of life, of hope being there in plain sight within our local communities but only seen, appreciated and valued when we were forced to stop and look and reflect. Community like never before. Kindness at its proper level. These were some of the discoveries of the first lockdown. Qualities that were always there within our communities but only revived and received in the adversity of the pandemic.

Let’s make that love normal by praying for eyes to see and ears to hear, that we might receive all that God, in his abundance, wishes to give us; receiving those gifts in the form in which they are given to us. Amen.

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Sam Phillips - One Day Late.

From scarcity to abundance

Here's the reflection I shared during today's lunchtime Eucharist at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

I recently saw an excellent exhibition at St Stephen’s Norwich called ‘After the Storm?’ which includes an interesting triptych about the pandemic. This triptych by Liz Monahan is called A Long Overdue Reckoning and it tells the story of the lockdown in the UK through iconic images from face masks to anti-vaxxers, clapping for the NHS to social distancing signs, and Zoom rooms to Amazon deliveries. Across her canvases she takes us on a journey from darkness to light and the hope of a brighter, albeit uncertain future, through a Stanley Spencer-like focus on the incidental details of everyday life. She also draws attention to the disparities present within our society which the pandemic has highlighted and makes a homeless man central to her story enabling us to see Christ we see in the face of this central character.

There are some great contrasts in the triptych including a nurse remonstrating with a protestor who holds a placard that says ‘It’s all a hoax’ whilst pointing to the full beds in ICU. One key contrast that has emerged within lockdown has been between those with a scarcity mindset and those with an abundance mindset.

When we are in a scarcity mindset we focus on all the deficits, all that is wrong in our situation, in lockdown that might have included all we have lost and all that we didn’t have. Those to whom Jesus spoke in today’s Gospel reading (Luke 7:31-35) were in that place as whoever God sent to them was wrong. John the Baptist was wrong because he was too great an ascetic, while Jesus was wrong for entirely the opposite reason, being too much of a party animal. The point that Jesus makes is that if we inhabit a scarcity mindset nothing is ever right, which is why he quotes the lines, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; / we wailed, and you did not weep.’

Our Vicar Sam Wells says that, as Christians, we are called to live with an abundance mindset because of all that God gives in every situation, however, difficult and whether we recognise those gifts or not. ‘I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.’ (John 10.10) 'We don’t have to look far for a mission statement for the church. Living abundant life. That’s what the Father intends, the Son embodies, the Spirit facilitates. Christians are called to live in such a way that gratefully receives the abundance God is giving them, evidences the transformation from scarcity to abundance to which God is calling them, dwells with God in that abundant life, and shares that abundance far and wide. Jesus is our model of abundant life; his life, death and resurrection chart the transformation from the scarcity of sin and death to the abundance of healing and resurrection; he longs to bring all humankind into reconciled and flourishing relationship with God, one another, themselves and all creation.'

So, a key temptation we face as God's people is to a scarcity mindset in which we reject or fail to recognise the gifts that God is continually sending to us. Jesus is described as the stone that the builders rejected. Sam Wells notes that 'the rejected stone became the cornerstone, the keystone – the stone that held up all the others, the crucial link, the vital connection. The rejected stone is Jesus. In his crucifixion he was rejected by the builders – yet in his resurrection he became the cornerstone of forgiveness and eternal life. That’s what ministry and mission are all about – not condescendingly making welcome alienated strangers, but seeking out the rejected precisely because they are the energy and the life-force that will transform us all. Every minister, every missionary, every evangelist, every disciple should have these words over their desk, their windscreen, on their screensaver, in the photo section of their wallet, wherever they see it all the time – the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The life of the church is about constantly recognising the sin of how much we have rejected, and celebrating the grace that God gives us back what we once rejected to become the cornerstone of our lives.'

At St Martin’s we have learnt about the importance of inhabiting an abundance mindset and receiving the gifts God is constantly giving us through the work of our Disability Advisory Group, who constantly challenge us to be open to changes that enable all to fully join in here. The 10th conference on disability and church in partnership with Inclusive Church has deliberately been called (Still) Calling from the Edge because the voices of disabled people are still not consistently heard by the Church as a whole. The same is true in wider society where the achievements of Paralympians as rightly celebrated but, at the same, Government policies in the pandemic have reduced support and provisions for disabled people making society as a whole less accessible than was previously the case.

To genuinely experience the abundant gifts that God is giving as a church and as society at this time we need to receive the gifts of disabled people by making church and society more accessible, not less. We begin on that path when we reject to scarcity mindset that Jesus identifies in our Gospel reading and embrace the abundant life that he offers. To do so, means recognising the sin of how much we have rejected, and celebrating the grace that God gives us back what we once rejected to become the cornerstone of our lives.

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Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Bright Horses.

Finding Abundance in Scarcity: Steps Towards Church Transformation - A HeartEdge Handbook'

'Finding Abundance in Scarcity: Steps Towards Church Transformation - A HeartEdge Handbook' is a new book from Canterbury Press which includes contributions from myself and others at St Martin-in-the-Fields.

The publisher's description is as follows:

'All churches have had to learn to do things differently during closure due to the coronavirus pandemic. None has been more imaginative or inventive than London's St Martin-in-the-Fields. Through its HeartEdge programmes, it has continued many aspects of its ministry, and developed significant new initiatives and is now a virtual college with an impressively varied programme for practitioners.

Here the St Martin's team reflects theologically and shares its newly found pastoral and practical wisdom in many areas:

• Finding God in Lockdown
• Meeting God and One Another Online
• Rediscovering Contemplative Prayer
• Facing Grief amidst Separation
• Preaching at Such a Time as This
• Singing the Lord's Song in a Strange Time
• Hearing Scripture Together in Difficult Times
• Praying through Crisis
• Creating a Community of Practitioners
• Finding Faith at Home
• Conclusion: A Strategy for Transformation

Contributors are all on the staff at St Martin's and key figures in HeartEdge: Sam Wells, Richard Carter, Sally Hitchiner, Fiona MacMillan, Jonathan Evens and Andrew Earis.'

The book uses a similar format to our earlier Liturgy on the Edge: Pastoral and attractional worship in which I wrote about the creation of Start:Stop at St Stephen Walbrook.

Both books can be bought from the online shop at St Martin-in-the-Fields, as can my own The Secret Chord, an exploration of what makes a moment in a 'performance' timeless and special, co-authored with Peter Banks.

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Great Sacred Music - Giving Thanks.

You are enough

Here is the sermon I preached today at Holy Trinity Brussels:

Standing proud in the heart of Manchester’s university district on the exterior of St Peter’s House, a 22 x 13 foot billboard towers above the streets below, giving a refreshingly affirming message to passing students and commuters. It says, ‘You are enough’. It would be easy to assume this is an affirmation of the kind of individualism that says ‘I’m alright, Jack’ as ‘I’m looking after No.1.’ However, as St Peter’s House is the base for the Christian chaplaincy team for the Manchester Universities and the Royal Northern College of Music, that’s unlikely to be the intended message.

The artist who created the piece, Micah Purnell, notes that, ‘Capitalist ideology aims to impart the notion that we are worthy of love and belonging - once we have bought into the product or service. Consumerism wraps things up in neat little packages and sells them as idealised gifts of perfection. Advertising props up this notion with the assumption that we are inadequate - stealing our love of ourselves, and selling it back at a price.’

He goes on to say that Brené Brown, a research Professor at Houston University, has found through extensive quantitative research that the one thing that keeps us from love and belonging is the fear that we are not worthy of love and belonging. She found that those who fully experience joy and live wholeheartedly have four characteristics in common: the courage to accept their imperfection; compassion towards themselves first; the ability to let go of who they should be in order to be who they really are, and to embrace vulnerability and unknowing. His installation, therefore, says, ‘You’re not perfect, you’re never going to be, and that’s the good news.’ You are enough, as you are.

At the last HeartEdge conference in Edinburgh, Cormac Russell, the Managing Director of Nurture Development the lead partner in Europe for Asset-Based Community Development, also said, ‘You are enough’. His point was that in every community there are leaders, makers, traders, networkers, peace brokers, gift givers and receivers, labelled/marginalized folks and connectors. Some of these folks then get together with a few of their neighbours and initiate a project; organize an event, share casual moments, help one another or respond to an immediate crisis that impacts the wider community.

He went on to point out that what often happens where a community group comes up with a great idea, develops it as a project and makes it successful; is that when it grows; they receive funding and go on to employ a paid worker to run the project. As a result power and responsibility relocate from the residents to the professional. The residents in question either pull back expecting the professional to take leadership responsibilities. Or they stay involved but solely as advisers on a management committee, no longer as the makers and producers of the effort, but as the key informants, advisers and sometimes managers of paid staff. Additionally, initiatives that are, in practice, led by paid, albeit well meaning, practitioners, not by local people, inextricably link the longevity of the initiative to future funding and paying the salaries of professionals.

By countering that kind of development Asset-based Community Development essentially says that the work of building community belongs to those who reside in that area as a birthright, it is the work of near neighbours; not salaried strangers. That means if neighbours don’t do it - it won’t be done. Cormac was saying, ‘You are enough’ to us, because, in any community, residents can initiate their own action and tap into local assets that are within their own control. That doesn’t preclude future action to address structural issues, but it does build a wider base of residents who can deepen their sense of what they want from outside because they know what they internal assets they have.

Similarly, in HeartEdge, we believe that we can do unbelievable things together if we start with one another’s assets, not our deficits. In a community of fear – a deficit culture - we begin with our hurts and our stereotypes, and find a hundred reasons why we can’t do things or certain kinds of people don’t belong. Churches today are often quick to attribute the decline in numbers attending church to a hostile culture or an indifferent, distracted population or even a sinful generation; but much slower to recognise that our situation is significantly of our own making. But when we do take off labels like disabled or wealthy or migrant or evangelical or single and instead see qualities like passionate or committed or generous or enthusiastic or humble then there’s no limit to what a community of hope can do.

We believe that churches and communities thrive when the gifts of all their members are released and they build one another’s assets. Sharing our particular assets (the skills, experience, insights and ideas) with other members will foster a wider understanding and model the practice of hospitality towards others. God is giving the church everything it needs for the renewal of its life in the people who find themselves to be on the edge.

If we’re looking for where the future church is coming from, look at what the church and society has so blithely rejected. The life of the church is about constantly recognising the sin of how much we have rejected, and celebrating the grace that God gives us back what we once rejected to become the cornerstone of our lives. And, as in Asset-Based Community Development, that includes all those in the wider community with whom we can partner. We believe the Holy Spirit is moving beyond the conventional notion of church, and believe in modelling the life of heaven by being open to partnership with what the Spirit is doing in the world. That, too, is a way of saying ‘We are enough.’

The temptations faced by Jesus in the wilderness (Matthew 4.1-11) were all temptations to see his situation and his trust in God as being insufficient, or ‘not enough.’ His temptations began with the reality of his situation, the fact that he was hungry because of fasting for 40 days. He had not had enough food and the temptation was to say that there was not enough and use his power to create food from nowhere. Jesus responded by saying that the words of God were enough for him. The second temptation was in regard to his mission and his then obscurity. Jesus was on his own in the wilderness and was offered celebrity and fame because his obscurity was clearly not enough to achieve his mission. Jesus’ response was essentially saying that the path he was following was enough. The final temptation was linked, but, instead of being focused on fame, was focused on power. Jesus’ mission was to save all humanity and he was offered power over all humanity as a shortcut to success and as recognition of the lack of power he possessed as an insignificant carpenter in a backwater of the mighty Roman Empire. Jesus responded by saying that God’s way was enough for him.

Jesus’ was tempted on the basis that who he was and what he had were not enough to achieve the mission he had been given. He was tempted to think of himself, his situation and God, in terms of scarcity and deficit. But deficit is not our modus operandi as Christians. We don’t have to look far for a mission statement for the church. Jesus said, ‘I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly’ (John 10.10). Living abundant life; that’s what the Father intends, the Son embodies, the Spirit facilitates.

Sam Wells, the Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields says that, as Christians, we are called to live in such a way that gratefully receives the abundance God is giving us, evidences the transformation from scarcity to abundance to which God is calling us, dwells with God in that abundant life, and shares that abundance far and wide. Jesus is our model of abundant life; his life, death and resurrection chart the transformation from the scarcity of sin and death to the abundance of healing and resurrection; he longs to bring all humankind into reconciled and flourishing relationship with God, one another, ourselves and all creation. Discipleship describes inhabiting that abundant life. Ministry involves building up the church to embody that abundant life. Mission names the ways that abundant life is practised, shared and discovered in the world at large.

In the middle of the wilderness where he literally had nothing, Jesus received God’s abundance, the abundant life that would sustain him throughout his journey to the cross, and beyond. Similarly, in a time of scarcity, when the church in the West seems to be getting smaller; and the church seems to be becoming narrower, we need to recognise that God is still giving the church everything it needs for the renewal of its life, often in those people who find themselves to be on the edge. A true gospel is one where we receive all the gifts God is giving us, especially the ones that the church has for so long despised or patronised.

Lent is commonly though of as being about those things we give up. But Lent is ultimately about our opening up. Opening up our lives to receive more of the abundance and the gifts that God is giving to us. We give up some of our usual  practices in order to have more time for God and with God. More time to open up to him and deepen our relationship with him. That was what Jesus was doing in the wilderness and, like him, we too can discover that, as we receive all that God is giving to us, God is enough, God's abundance is enough, our communities are enough, and we are enough.

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Maurice Duruflé - Ubi Caritas.

Bring what you have

Here is my sermon from today's Eucharist at St Stephen Walbrook:

We live in an age of austerity where our government has implemented a series of sustained reductions in public spending, with more still to come, all intended to reduce the budget deficit. As a result, we live in a time of relative scarcity compared with years of a booming economy prior to this time of austerity.

The reality of living in a time of scarcity has parallels to the feeding of the five thousand where Jesus and those with him are in the wilderness with no food except for the five small barley loaves and two small fish offered by a boy in the crowd (John 6. 5 - 14). Jesus’ disciples essentially despair in the light of their situation as there is nowhere to go to buy food, they have insufficient money for the numbers involved and the boy’s lunch is too small to share with any but a few.

Jesus, however, brings abundance in the place of scarcity. He prepares the crowd to eat, gives thanks to God and begins to share the little that they have. As the sharing commences, the food is found to be sufficient for everyone’s needs with 12 baskets of leftover bread gathered together at the end of the meal.

How did this happen? It began with a young boy bringing barley loaves and fish to Jesus. Barley loaves were one third of the price of the wheat variety; it was the bread of the poor. And then there were the two small fish. The Greek word used for these fish in John’s gospel is “osparion”, which meant they were certainly not fresh fish from the Sea of Galilee. “Osparion” were either small dried or pickled fish. The young boy may have generously offered all he had but that offering was meagre in the extreme. Little wonder that Andrew should say despairingly to Jesus: “But, what are they among so many”?

Yet, Jesus willingly took what was offered and, far from commenting on the poor offering set before him, he gave thanks over the loaves and fish. And, as Jesus gave thanks a transformation took place and there was enough for all to be fed and, we learn later in the chapter, to be satisfied. With the transforming grace of Jesus even our poorest offerings can become something extraordinary.

Tom Wright in his commentary on St John’s Gospel says that all God calls us to do is to bring what we have to Jesus in prayer. We tell Him what we need. We then let Jesus bring the two together and make it enough for all! As that marvellous prayer puts it, the Lord Jesus truly can ‘transform the poverty of our riches by the fullness of his Grace’.

It is easy for us to think that big is best and that what we have and are is too little to make an impact but this story says otherwise. Jesus takes and uses the little that the young boy offers.

Small is beautiful, as E. F. Schumacher reminded us. Our small actions or contribution, combined with those of others, can then have a big effect. This year’s BBC Radio 4 Christmas Appeal for St Martin-in-the-Fields uses that thought in its slogan ‘Small Action Big Difference’. The butterfly effect which is found in Chaos Theory and the multiplier effect in economics both show, on the basis of research, that small changes and small contributions can have significant effects.

Hattie May Wiatt was a young girl in Philadelphia in the 1880s who began saving towards the building of a church which could accommodate the large number of children going to Sunday School in those days. Hattie May died young and after her death the pastor of the church, Rev. Russell Conwell was given the 57 cents that she had saved. He used these to begin a fundraising campaign which resulted in the building of a church, a University and a Hospital.

What can you give to God today? It doesn’t matter if it seems very little or very small. Brother Lawrence 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.' In addition, as he did with the small offering the boy made in this story, Jesus can take the little that we can offer and can use, transform and multiply it. The important thing then is that we offer what we can. What can you give to God to today? Whatever it is, the important thing is to offer it – however small it may seem.

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G.F. Handel - The King Shall Rejoice.

Economies of scarcity and abundance

Here is my sermon from today's Eucharist at St Stephen Walbrook:

The disciples were in a place of scarcity – ‘we have worked all night long but have caught nothing.’ Jesus says that the place of scarcity can be the place to find abundance – ‘Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch’ (Luke 5. 1 - 11). When the disciples do as Jesus requests, they receive abundance – ‘they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break.’ In order to receive God’s abundance, they have to utilize their abilities, skills or gifts as fishermen by sailing out into the deep water and putting down their nets.

The disciples found that the place of scarcity is the place where abundance can be found and this is also the witness of scripture. Sam Wells, the Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, has said that ‘the Old Testament was written because God’s people in exile found it not a time of despair but one of renewal, not a time simply of losing the land but more wonderfully of gaining a new and deeper relationship with God.’ ‘The New Testament was written because the early Christians found that the execution of their Lord and Saviour was not the end of the story but the beginning, that his agony was the foretaste of glory, that his killers meant it for evil but God meant it for good.’

The key for the disciples in moving from scarcity to abundance was the use of their skills and abilities – their God-given gifts. John McKnight and Peter Block are pioneers of asset-based community development. In their book ‘The Abundant Community’ they talk about our consumer society as an economy of scarcity because it ‘constantly tells us that we are insufficient and that we must purchase what we need from specialists and systems outside of our immediate community.’ Instead, they argue that ‘we can do unbelievable things by starting with our assets, not our deficits. We all have gifts to offer, even the most seemingly marginal among us. Using our particular assets (our skills, experience, insights and ideas) we have the God-given power to create a hope-filled life and can be the architects of the future where we want to live.’

This is true too for churches, which thrive when the gifts of all their members are released and they build on one another’s assets. The currency of the kingdom of God is of things that never run out. ‘The secret of happiness is learning to love the things God gives us in plenty. There’s no global shortage of friendship, kindness, generosity, sympathy, creativity, faithfulness, laughter, love. These are the currency of abundance.

The Church of today needs to rediscover his teaching because God gives us the abundance of the kingdom to renew the poverty of the church. In our generation God has given his Church a financial crisis, and this can only be for one reason: to teach us that abundance does not lie in financial security, and to show us that only in relationships of mutual interdependence, relationships that money obscures as often as it enables, does abundant life lie.

We are part of HeartEdge, a growing ecumenical network of churches and other organisations working across the UK and overseas, initiated by St Martin-in-the-Fields and launched here, at St Stephen Walbrook, in February, which is seeking to do just that; to support the Church through rediscovery of this teaching.

The challenge for us as a church and as individuals is this, Are we going to live in the economy of scarcity, ‘the economy that is fine as far as it goes, but turns out not to go very far – the economy that only includes certain people, only buys certain things, only lasts a limited length of time – the economy of anxiety and scarcity?’ Or are we going to live in the economy of abundance, ‘the economy where the only use of wealth is to make friends and set people free, the economy in which you are never homeless and you cannot be destitute because you have spent your time and money making friends who will always welcome you into their homes – the economy of abundance, where generosity is the best investment? Which is it to be?’ If we live in the economy of scarcity we will spend our lives fearing for our jobs, our livelihoods, our reputations, our health, our families, our lives themselves. If we live in the economy of abundance we won’t fear anything. We’ll have the things that money can’t buy and we’ll know the things that hardship and even death can’t take away from us. We’ll have learned to love the things God gives us in plenty. We will be living truly abundant life.

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Simon Lole - The Father's Love.

There are no strangers here; only friends you haven’t met yet

Here is my sermon from today's Choral Eucharist at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

A central aspect of God's experience as a human being in the person of Jesus Christ was that of rejection. Jesus was, in the words of Isaiah 53, ‘despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account’ (Isaiah 53. 3). We see that rejection here, in this story (Mark 6. 1 - 6), set in his home town at the beginning of his ministry, just as we see it more violently worked out at the end of his ministry when he is crucified.

Rejection is a human experience which we all understand because each us will have experienced rejection at one time or another. It is an experience that God has also shared and therefore understands as we go through our personal experiences of rejection.

But rejection is a human experience which we all understand because it is also something to which each of us is party. As in this story, we find it easy, as human beings, to find reasons to reject other people. It is not so long ago in the history of this country that there were appalling signs in windows saying, 'No Irish, no Blacks, no Dogs'. In our lifetime we have seen whole societies built around the separation of people on the basis of colour, with the Civil Rights and anti-apartheid movements, thankfully, having brought some significant change to those situations of rejection.

Yet, although we have seen change, we continue to see particular groups of people in society demonised, scapegoated and rejected. In the Church today, it is the LGBTI community who have that experience while in society generally, it is migrants, whether refugees or asylum seekers, that are the focus of significant rejection.

When Jesus is rejected, as in our Gospel reading, God is rejected. God, in Jesus, enters in to our experience, as human beings, of rejection. He does so in order to bring to light our constant scapegoating and rejection of others by exposing us to the futility of that way of life. Rejection of others ties us into a cycle of revenge and recrimination locking us in to spirals of violence.

Yet, when we have, as human beings, scapegoated and rejected God himself, what more can we do by way of rejection? The way to free ourselves from these negative cycles is by rejecting the impulse to reject or scapegoat others, in other words by following in the footsteps of Jesus who freely laid down his life for others. It is this to which Christ’s death as a scapegoat on the cross calls us.

Today, while we may not literally see signs saying 'No Irish, no Blacks, no Dogs', similar signs are nevertheless still there is our words and actions although applied to different groups of people at this different time. 'No economic migrants,' even 'No migrants', would seem to be the current cry, while in the Anglican Communion we persist in rejecting people on the basis of their sexuality. For those who follow a God who was scapegoated, reviled and rejected, there can be no scapegoating of others. For those who follow a God who laid down this own life for love of others, there must be a similar breaking of cycles of rejection through our own attitudes, speech and actions.

Instead of being those who reject, we need to become those who invite. The opposite of rejection is not simple acceptance, but active engagement; the invitation to participate in community. The goal of those who are great inviters is “to have everyone participating, giving and receiving gifts.” Abundant community involves welcoming “those on the margins”, “which is the heart of hospitality.” As William Butler Yeats was credited with saying, “There are no strangers here; only friends you haven’t met yet.” ('The Abundant Community' by John McKnight & Peter Block)

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Sixpence None The Richer - A Million Parachutes.

Sermon: The moment of transformation

This was my sermon for the Eucharist at St Vedast-alias-Foster this morning:

The writer of John’s Gospel says that this miracle is the first that Jesus performed but the word used for first also means that it is the key miracle, the one that unlocks and explains all the others (John 2: 1 – 11). So we need to ask ourselves what it is that we learn from this miracle that helps us to understand more fully what Jesus was doing through his ministry, death and resurrection.

The miracle is one of transformation; water being transformed into wine with this transformation bringing joy to the wedding guests. Dostoevsky, in The Brothers Karamasov, sees this miracle’s significance in the joy that Jesus brings to ordinary people: “It was not grief but men’s gladness that Jesus extolled when he worked his first miracle – he helped people to be happy … his heart was open … to the simple and artless joys of ignorant human beings, ignorant but not cunning, who had warmly bidden him to their poor wedding.” Later in John’s Gospel Jesus speaks himself about having come to bring life in all its fullness which must include this sense of joy and gladness in life. The filling of the water jars to the full also speaks of this sense of life being filled with goodness and gladness.

In Luke 6: 38 Jesus speaks again about fullness. Here he links our fullness to our giving: “Give to others, and God will give to you. Indeed, you will receive a full measure, a generous helping, poured out into your hands – all that you can hold.” This emphasis is important because the transformation of water into wine suggests that Jesus does not simply bless human life as it is but comes to transform it.

Water is essential to life. The human body is 75% water and needs a constant supply of water to function. The average person can only survive for about three days without any water at all. So, water is a basic need for all of us and speaks to us of the basic needs that we all need to be fulfilled in order that we can live and live comfortably.

But God wants something better for us than a life based just on the meeting of our basic needs and the turning of water into wine gives us a clue as to what that better thing is. Wine reminds us of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. That moment when, out of love for all people, he lays down his own life in order to save us from all that is wrong with our lives and our world. So, wine is a reminder to us of the fact that the greatest love is shown through sacrifice.

This is the transformation that Jesus seeks to bring to human life. It is a change from human existence to human life; a change from the selfish experience of meeting our own basic needs to the spiritual experience of sharing what we have will others; a change from the evolutionary imperative of the survival of the fittest to the Christian imperative of sacrificial love.

This transformation is also symbolised in the pouring out of the wine from the water jars. It may even be that this is the moment of transformation just as what is drawn from the water jars to be shared with others is wine so as we give to others we are transformed from selfish to sacrificial. It may be that it is in the act of giving that our transformation comes.

There is also significance in the reference to the role of the water jars in ritual washing. The water jars can be seen as signifying the Jewish faith that require such ritual cleansing but from those jars and from that faith comes a new wine that must be poured out and shared with others. The new wine is for all; not just for the first but kept for the last as well. Wine symbolises the blood of Christ which is shed for all. God’s grace is no longer contained solely within the confine of the Jewish faith; coming to God no longer requires the meeting of the standards of the Law. This new wine bursts the old skins and is shared with all people of every nation, race, gender, age and sexuality.

So we see depicted a change from the old order, the old covenant, to the new. And this change extends the transformation to all. What is depicted then is not solely a change for us as individuals but a societal change no longer affecting one nation but all nations. What is depicted is a new way of life, a new way of being human, which can, perhaps, be summed up in the words of John 15: 13, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends”. He looks at all of us, at all human beings, and says, “You are my friends”. Jesus allowed his own life to end so that all people could know what it is like to really live.

In 21st century Britain we live in a culture that is parched and dry and desperately in need of the water of life. I still remember a Guardian article outlining reasons why kindness has gone out of fashion in the age of the free market and the selfish gene. The writers noted that “for most of western history the dominant tradition of kindness has been Christianity” which “functioned as a cultural cement, binding individuals into society” until “the Christian rule ‘love thy neighbour as thyself’ came under increasing attack from competitive individualism.” Our society is parched of kindness and we need Jesus to bring transformation.

In Isaiah we read: “The poor and needy search for water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. But I the LORD will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs.” (Isaiah 41. 17 & 18)

Our Psalm promised that we shall be satisfied with the abundance of God’s house; we shall drink from the river of God’s delights. For with God is the well of life and in his light shall we see light (Psalm 36).

Jesus is the river that flows in the desert of our selfish, self-centred existence because he shows us how to live in his new way of being human, loving God with all our being and loving our neighbours as ourselves. God wants us to look at Jesus and see how human life was originally intended to be lived before we chose the path of self-centredness. It is when we look at Jesus and begin to live life his way that transformation comes in our lives and our world. The water of our lives and our communities can become wine.

When that is so for us as individuals, as communities and even as a nation then, as we heard in our reading from Isaiah, we shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate (Isaiah 62. 1 – 5).

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The Waterboys - My Love Is My Rock In The Weary Land.

Abundance in scarcity

We live in a time of austerity where our government is implementing a series of sustained reductions in public spending, intended to reduce the budget deficit. Initiated in 2010 the austerity programme is currently expected to extend to at least 2018.

As a result, we live in a time of relative scarcity compared with the preceding years of a booming economy. There are important questions to be asked, particularly in the light of the coming General Election, about the fairness of where the cuts have fallen.

The reality of living in a time of scarcity has parallels to the feeding of the five thousand where Jesus and those with him are in the wilderness with no food except for the five small barley loaves and two small fish offered by a boy in the crowd. Jesus’ disciples essentially despair in the light of their situation as there is nowhere to go to buy food, they have insufficient money for the numbers involved and the boy’s lunch is too small to share with any but a few.

Jesus, however, brings abundance in the place of scarcity. He prepares the crowd to eat, gives thanks to God and begins to share the little that they have. As the sharing commences, the food is found to be sufficient for everyone’s needs with 12 baskets of leftover bread gathered together at the end of the meal.

How did this happen? We don’t know. It was a miracle certainly, but whether the miracle was a supernatural multiplication of food or whether the miracle was that the sharing of the boy’s lunch enabled others to also share food that they had but were keeping to themselves, we simply don’t know for sure. The result, however, was one that we need to find ways of experiencing in times of austerity; abundance in the face of scarcity.

In my previous parish we formed a Sophia Hub. This is essentially a support service for those wanting to benefit the local community by starting a social enterprise. Within the package of support provided, we included a Timebank. This is a form of volunteering in which the time people give is banked and exchanged. The members of the Timebank offer their skills to other members and make requests of help or input that they would like. Every hour that members spend in helping another member in some way is banked and can be spent by receiving help from others in the Timebank. No money changes hands but the 60+ members have now exchanged more than 340 hours since the Timebank was set up.

At a recent Timebank skills swap event that following offers were made: training on selling through Ebay, help with using social media, crotcheting with plastic bags, basic maths help, meditation, massage or Reiki sessions, legal consumer advice, bread making, creative writing, marketing advice, mobile website building, English as a foreign language, French conversation, making toiletries from natural products and a stress management workshop. By exchanging their time and skills, these are people who are experiencing abundance in a time of scarcity.

St Paul quotes Jesus as teaching that it is more blessed to give than to receive and Christ sets us an example of one who gives all that he had without counting the cost or asking anything in return. Yet, the reality is that when we give, we do receive although often not in the same way that we have given. Jesus spoke about this reality when said, ‘Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.’

This is a promise about abundance in scarcity which is demonstrated by the feeding of the five thousand. But it is predicated on our willingness to give, to share, as members of the Timebank do in Seven Kings and, perhaps, as those in the crowd on the mountain in Galilee also learned to do on the day of this miracle.

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Review: Wording a Radiance

I have had a review published, in the Journal of Theological Studies, of Wording a Radiance: Parting Conversations on God and the Church by Daniel W. Hardy, with Deborah Hardy Ford, Peter Ochs, and David F. Ford (Wording a Radiance: Parting Conversations on God and the Church. By DANIEL W. HARDY with DEBORAH HARDY FORD, PETER OCHS, and DAVID F. FORD. Jonathan Evens .
The Journal of Theological Studies 2011; doi: 10.1093/jts/flr058)

The book derives from the moment when theologian Daniel W. Hardy was given six months to live. As part of his response he initiated specific conversations with his daughter, Deborah Hardy Ford; his friend and philosopher Peter Ochs; and his son-in-law and theologian, David F. Ford. It is these conversations which form the basis for the book and re-present the final flowering of Hardy’s theology. In what is a fascinating development and summary of Hardy's theology, he seeks to articulate the radiance seen when the divine floods in without inhibition and things and people are knit together in the divine abundance.

My review can be read by clicking here.

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John Rutter - Requiem Aeternam.

Prayer - Wording A Radiance

Light of the world attract us to you. Give us a sense that we are not doing what we ought to do as the spur we need to re-direct our attention from ourselves towards the patterns of unity within the cosmos and integrity within ourselves. May we recover our primordial attraction to you within the creation as we integrate inner integrity and the created order. Help us see the immensity and attractiveness of your light and all the transformations that go with it. Word a radiance in us as the divine floods in without inhibition and things and people are knit together in the divine abundance. Amen.

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Lift to Experience - These Are The Days.