Signs of the coming kingdom

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Catherine’s Wickford and St Gabeiel’s Pitsea this morning:

How many of the early signs of Christmas have you spotted? They begin in the shops with displays of Christmas gifts from early autumn while, at work, the Christmas meal or party is being booked. Into November, and the displays of Christmas decorations and foods begin appearing. Then the Christmas displays in shop windows go up and the Christmas lights are put up in Town Centres. Before long the first Christmas decorations go up in a home near you triggering the annual competition to see who can cover their house in the most lights or have the largest illuminated Snowman. Bets begin to be taken on whether we will have a white Christmas and you are given the name of a colleague to buy a Secret Santa present for. Before you know it there are children on your doorstep singing the one carol that they know and people start saying there only X number of days to go. These are some of the signs that Christmas is coming and we all recognise them, probably with dread!

In our gospel reading today (Luke 21. 5 – 9) Jesus told his disciples to watch out for the signs of their times. He wanted them to watch out for what God was doing in their world and it was of vital importance for them because it spelled disaster for Jerusalem as well as vindicating all that Jesus had said and done.

Jesus had told his disciples, the crowds following him and the religious leaders that the Temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed because the people of Israel had not fulfilled God’s plan for their lives. The kind of place that Jerusalem should have become had been set out in Isaiah 2; a place that all nations could come to to hear from God:

“Many nations will come streaming to it, and their people will say,
‘Let us go to up the hill of the Lord, to the Temple of Israel’s God.
He will teach us what he wants us to do;
we will walk in the paths he has chosen.
For the Lord’s teaching comes from Jerusalem;
from Zion he speaks to his people.”

Instead of that vision happening, the Temple had become a symbol of Jewish identity with all sorts of people excluded from worship at the Temple unless they conformed to the detailed requirements of the Mosaic Law. The Temple and the worship in it was actually preventing the free access to God’s word that God wanted to see for people of all nations. Therefore, Jesus prophesied that the Temple would be destroyed and told his disciples that they had to watch out and be ready for when this disaster would come about.

They had to be watchful and ready because Jesus did not tell them when this would happen, only that it was going to occur. They had to be watchful and ready because this act would vindicate Jesus; would be the final sign that in Jesus God had been acting to defeat evil and bring in his kingdom and rule. To those people who had not encountered the risen Christ, Jesus of Nazareth looked like just another failed would-be Messiah who had died a shameful death. The destruction of the Temple, however, would be the sign that Jesus had been right and that what he had said was true.

Tom Wright, a former Bishop of Durham has said that when they saw this sign, the vindication of Jesus, for themselves, they knew they were to get on with the task of implementing what Jesus had achieved. Jesus believed “that Israel functioned to the rest of the world as the hinge to the door” so “he envisaged his followers becoming … Isaianic heralds, lights to the world.”

As Christ’s followers today, we inherit that task of putting into practice what Jesus has achieved through his life, death and resurrection. We are the people today who are called to work towards that Isaianic vision of nations streaming to learn what Israel’s God wants them to do, settling disputes among the great nations, hammering swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks, and never again preparing to go to war.

How can we do that? Well, here is a story of a father and a rock band who have tried to do just that:

“Gordon Wilson held his daughter’s hand as they lay trapped beneath a mountain of rubble. It was 1987, and he and Marie had been attending a peaceful memorial service in Enniskillen, when a terrorist bomb went off. By the end of the day, Marie and nine other civilians were dead, and sixty-three had been hospitalized for injuries.

Amazingly, Gordon refused to retaliate … He knew that the terrorists who took his daughter’s life were anything but remorseful, and he maintained that they should be punished and imprisoned … [but] he refused to take revenge.

‘Those who have to account for this deed will have to face a judgement of God, which is way beyond [my] forgiveness,’ he said. ‘It would be wrong for me to give any impression that gunmen and bombers should be allowed to walk the streets freely. But … whether or not they are judged here on earth by a court of law … I do my very best in human terms to show forgiveness … The last word rests with God.”

On the evening of the Enniskillen bombing, in Denver, Colorado, the Irish band U2 and playing a gig on their world tour. Their lead singer Bono asks, “Where’s the glory in bombing a remembrance day parade of old age pensioners, their medals taken out and polished up for the day? Where’s the glory in that? To leave them dying, or crippled for life, or dead, under the rubble of the revolution that the majority of the people in my country don't want.” And he leads the crowd in a shout of “NO MORE!” before launching into the song Sunday Bloody Sunday. This is a song which ends:

“The real battle just begun
To claim the victory Jesus won
On a Sunday bloody Sunday …”

Eleven years later, in 1998, U2 are playing another concert. This time it is in Belfast and it is a concert to draw support for the national vote on the Good Friday/Northern Ireland Peace Agreement four days later. In the concert, Bono is able to bring on stage David Trimble and John Hume, leaders of the traditionally opposing Ulster Unionist Party and Social Democratic and Labour Party, respectively. The political leaders stand on each side of Bono as he raises their arms together in a show of unity. Four days later, the Peace Agreement is approved overwhelmingly by voters in both the North and South.

We all know that there are still many difficulties in living with the legacy of terrorism in Ireland and of making and keeping peace. But these are two stories of Christians in very different situations who have been looking out for God at work in their world, looking for the signs of peace, and seeking to claim the victory that Jesus won.

Although we have waited two thousand years for the coming of God’s kingdom in full, there have always been clear signs of that coming kingdom throughout the years in the lives of committed Christians like Gordon Wilson and U2. Our job is to join them in being watchful and alert to the signs of God at work in our world and in implementing what Jesus has achieved, claiming the victory that Jesus won on a Sunday Bloody Sunday. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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U2 - Sunday Bloody Sunday.

Peace on earth

Here's the sermon that I shared during Midnight Mass at St Catherine’s Wickford:

One of my favourite rock bands is U2 whose lead singer and lyricist, Bono, is a big fan of the Psalms. He has written that a lot of the psalms feel to him like the blues. Man shouting at God - "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me?" – and some of the songs he has written do the same.

In ‘Peace on Earth’ he writes:

“Heaven on Earth, we need it now
I'm sick of all of this hanging around
Sick of sorrow, sick of the pain
I'm sick of hearing again and again
That there's gonna be peace on Earth …

Hear it every Christmas time
But hope and history won't rhyme
So, what's it worth?
This peace on Earth”

It was over 2,000 years ago that that glorious song of old was first sung by angels bending near the earth to touch their harps of gold: "Peace on the earth, good will to men, from heaven's all-gracious King." So where is it? Why hasn’t it come? These are good questions to ask. Good questions to shout at God, just as occurs in the Psalms and in the blues.

While the Psalms and the blues pose questions, our carols may provide some answers. The carol I’ve just quoted, ‘It came upon a midnight clear’, acknowledges the lack of peace that we find in the world:

“Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;”

But the problem is then put firmly back in our own court:

“And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife
And hear the angels sing.”

The wars we wage throughout our lives drown out the song of the angels and mean that we pay no attention to the peace that the Christ-child came to bring. That is also what our reading from John’s Gospel said:

“The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God …”

We have to recognize and receive him in order to access the peace that he brings, as another carol, ‘Joy to the World’, says clearly:

“Joy to the World, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,”

So tonight, on this silent, holy night, the questions turn back to us. Are we hushing the noise of our strife sufficiently to hear the song of peace which the angels sing? Are we preparing room in our hearts for Christ to be born or are we like the innkeepers who said, “No room.” Are we recognizing and receiving him into our lives in order to become children of God?

You’ll probably have heard the slogan of the Dog’s Trust, ‘a dog is for life, not just for Christmas.’ Perhaps we need to adapt that slogan to say, ‘Christ is for life, not just for Christmas’ because it is only when we live as Christ lived that the peace he brings comes in our own lives and also between those we know. It is when we live as Christ lived that we give time and care to those who are housebound or elderly; that we feed those who are hungry, that we provide shelter for those who are homeless, that we open our homes to those who are refugees and asylum seekers. All the kinds of actions that the churches in Wickford and Runwell try to take as we seek to follow in the footsteps of Christ and to live, however imperfectly, as he lived.

It is when we live as Christ lived that he rules the world with truth and grace and makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness and the wonders of his love. It is when we live as Christ lived that the new heaven and earth shall own the Prince of Peace, their King, and the whole world send back the song which now the angels sing.

If we, like Bono, are sick of all of the hanging around - sick of sorrow, sick of the pain, sick of hearing again and again that there's gonna be peace on Earth – then we need to prepare room for Christ to be born in our hearts so that we will live as Christ lived and bring peace on earth – to our lives, our friends and family, our community and world. May it be so for us this Christmas. Amen.

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U2 - Peace On Earth.

The mystery at the heart of music (2)

My original post titled 'The mystery at the heart of music' highlighted 'Surrender', the memoir by Bono, Bob Dylan's 'The Philosophy of Modern Song', 'Faith, Hope and Carnage', Nick Cave's conversation with Sean O'Hagen, and Richard Koloda's 'Holy Ghost: The Life and Death of Free Jazz Pioneer Albert Ayler'. I concluded that, in different ways, these books and the music they describe inhabits the space of genuine mystery and deep yearning that Nick Cave argues is 'at the heart of songwriting.'

To these four, needs to be added, 'Walking Back Home: Deacon Blue and Me' by Ricky Ross. Chris Deerin writes that: 

'Step back, and Ross’s life and trajectory seem ludicrously gilded: early success, Top of the Pops, sell-out stadium gigs, tours of the US, rubbing shoulders with Springsteen and Bono. But this book takes us in closer, to the struggles and the doubts and the losses; to a somewhat repressive upbringing in a Dundee Brethren family; a painful divorce from his first wife; the regrettable explosions of his burgeoning pop star ego; the sudden, unexpected loss of a career and an income; the moments of apparent hopelessness and vanished muse; the tragic death of a bandmate.

Ross is bracingly honest with the reader and himself, and his capacity to learn both from his successes and failures has forged an unusually deep level of wisdom. He is sustained by his religious faith, though is never heavy-handed about that ...

And through it all there has been the music: “The only thing I have ever been fascinated by was the power of a song, and what a song could do to me when it really connected.”'

Paul English in an interview for The Scotsman suggested to Ross that the pursuit of joy, 'whether on stage in front of 250,000 headlining Glasgow’s Big Day in 1990 or visiting slums in Brazil with Christian Aid', was a recurring theme in the book. Ross responded that: 

'It’s the constant search in the book ... I think that’s the search for most people – to realise when you are happy, to realise when life is good. I don’t want to use the cliche of Calvinism, but there is a sense in which sometimes that can dominate our lives, that somehow you deny yourself.

I think you have to allow yourself to celebrate these moments. I talk about a gig we played in Kilmarnock prison, and the chaplain Fr Joe Boland saying to me that where there’s joy there’s God. And that was such a great thing.”

Greg Clarke in an article on Bono, Nick Cave, and their spiritual quests based on their books writes that: 'Submit, surrender, let God be God, recognise a higher power. These are the concluding observations of two of the most famous musicians of the past forty years. It’s not very rock and roll.' 

But it maybe that these five books appearing together indicates that such observations are actually very rock and roll; something that should come as no surprise as rock, soul, and R&B grew from the roots of gospel through artists such as Sam Cooke, who transitioned from gospel to secular music, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and her early rock stylings, and Elvis Presley, who helped expose white audiences to gospel music. Examples of some of the most beloved contemporary pop music of the last 60 years, from artists such as Aretha Franklin, Paul Simon, and Ray Charles, illustrate gospel music’s ongoing influence.

Add to these roots: first, the Church's appropriation, beginning with the career of Larry Norman, of rock and pop to speak explicitly about Christian faith; second, a growing appreciation for and understanding of the biblical language and imagery of stars like Bob Dylan, Van Morrison and Bruce Springsteen; and third, musicians from After The Fire and Bruce Cockburn to U2 and Deacon Blue, in the words of T Bone Burnett, singing about the world as seen through the light (of Christ) as opposed to singing about the light (of Christ) as CCM artists did. These all take us to a place where the embrace and examination of Christianity in these books is perhaps as rock and roll as sex and drugs have been.

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Deacon Blue - Keeping My Faith Alive.

The mystery at the heart of music

Michael Hann writes in The Guardian: 'If it feels as though you can’t move for new music, then books about pop aren’t far behind. This Christmas alone has brought weighty tomes by Bono and Bob Dylan, Nick Cave’s conversations with the writer Sean O’Hagan, Bez’s autobiography, and former GQ editor Dylan Jones’s book about 1995.'

For Surrender, Bono 'chose the title because, having grown up in Ireland in the 1970s, the act of surrendering was not a natural concept to him. Bono, whose lyrics have frequently been inspired by his Christian beliefs, said that “surrender” was “a word I only circled until I gathered my thoughts for the book”.

“I am still grappling with this most humbling of commands. In the band, in my marriage, in my faith, in my life as an activist,” he added, describing the book as “the story of one pilgrim’s lack of progress … With a fair amount of fun along the way.”'

Kitty Empire writes, 'The real eye-opener throughout is the depth, breadth and idiosyncrasy of his faith, a non-sectarian Catholicism that’s not strictly church-y.'

Wesley Stace begins his review of The Philosophy of Modern Song by pointing out that: 'In a 1997 Newsweek interview, Bob Dylan told “the flat-out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music . . . I’ve learned more from the songs than I’ve learned from . . . rabbis, preachers, evangelists, all of that.”

He made the point again in 2020’s “Goodbye Jimmy Reed,” his valediction to the man he calls “the most country of all the blues artists in the fifties,” one of whose songs is under consideration in “The Philosophy of Modern Song”: “Goodbye Jimmy Reed, Jimmy Reed indeed; / Give me that old time religion, it’s just what I need.” Dylan’s religion, his philosophy, his code, is the music.'

In The Philosophy of Modern Song Raymond Foye writes 'Dylan finds profundities where others find ditties ... [in] chapters [which] take the song as a jumping-off point for stand-alone meditations on art, money, war, religion, etc. ...

Dylan’s view of life seems to be a lot of horror and a little bit of joy, which is where the songs come in: they are a source of comfort and hope for the downtrodden. They “take the sting out of life.” ...

Dylan sees the world crowded with angels and demons, with songs as the intercessors. Songs also represent a better life: you get there by wishing, hoping, and dreaming. For three minutes you too can be a king, a lover, or an outlaw.'

In Faith, Hope and Carnage Nick Cave 'explains his personal crossroads of rock and religion: “All my songs are written from a place of spiritual yearning, because that is the place that I permanently inhabit. To me, personally, this place feels charged, creative, and full of potential.”'

Lyn McCredden writes that 'One of the chastening effects of grief, for Cave, is registered in the experiences and expressions of religious faith. The conversation between Cave and O’Hagan leaves us in no doubt about Cave’s deepened religious beliefs. These have always been a part of him, through his post-punk, drug-fed years, but they are taking new turns.

To his strengthened Christian faith, Cave, often to O’Hagan’s bemusement, attaches a suite of moral human values he would now, through living with his grief and doubt and fear, like to nurture in himself: values of empathy, humility and vulnerability, mercy towards others, openness and tolerance, and acknowledgement of his need for atonement.'

Trailblazing saxophonist Albert Ayler, who remains an important influence among jazz and experimental musicians long after his death, is explored in an important new biography, Holy Ghost: The Life and Death of Free Jazz Pioneer Albert Ayler by Richard Koloda. 

'Ayler's turbulent, often polarising, music career and life, which lasted a brief 34 years, has been subject to myth and rumour right from his debut free jazz recording, Witches And Devils in 1964, through his 1964/5 dates for ESP (including the highly acclaimed, landmark album Spiritual Unity, which featured at No.28 in Jazzwise's The 100 Jazz Albums That Shook The World book) to his recordings for the Impulse! label, which signed him following a recommendation by John Coltrane. These included 1967's avant-garde extravaganza Live in Greenwich Village, Love Cry and 1969's Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe, which saw Ayler's music moving closer to spiritual redemption and R&B (the latter a return to the music he started out playing with bluesman Little Walter in the early 1950s), before his mysterious death in 1970.'

Ayler 'had a sound that was as big as a house and a way of improvising at times that blended tones into one big mixture that disregarded individual notes. He was as free as they come in avant-garde jazz, yet his themes were at times a mixture of gospel, folk and even simple nursery rhymes.'

'Ayler's work eerily recalled the ragged polyphonies, street-march beats, gospel songs and spirituals of the earliest African-American music.'

Nick Cave says that he believes 'that there exists a genuine mystery at the heart of songwriting' that 'Through writing, you can enter a space of deep yearning that drags its past along with it and whispers into the future, that has an acute understanding of the way of things.' In different ways, these books and the music they describe inhabits that space.

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Nick Cave - Spinning Song.

Ed Kowalczyk and Scott Stapp: Angels on a razor

'Along with Bush, Live was among the earliest adopters of post-Nirvana “bubblegrunge,” which infiltrated rock radio in the mid-’90s and paved the way for the eventual dominance of Creed and Nickelback.' (Grantland)

'Together for more than 15 years, Live's quest for faith and truth is fascinating. Though lead singer and lyricist Ed Kowalczyk apparently grew up in a Christian home, he came to resent the religion in the years leading to the formation of Live. With the band's 1991 debut Mental Jewelry, based on the writings of Indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti, Kowalczyk – who had apparently embraced Eastern religion – blasted Christianity in the song, "Operation Spirit (The Tyranny of Tradition)."

Rejecting Christianity would not prove permanent, however. The band's 1994 breakthrough sophomore effort, Throwing Copper, marked a seemingly reluctant return to Christian imagery, though offering a few mixed messages in the process–the cover art is an indictment of Christians too pious to show love and compassion. Not until Live's fourth album, 1999's The Distance to Here, was there a seemingly dramatic turnaround in Kowalczyk's beliefs. "Where Fishes Go" is a solid illustration of evangelism, "Run to the Water" a powerful testament of grace and renewal, and "Dance with You" is virtually a prayer of thanks and surrender. Such themes continued to a lesser extent into Live's fifth effort, 2001's V, with such faith–based songs as "Hero of Love" and "Call Me a Fool."' (Christianity Today)

'Kowalczyk's first solo album, Alive, ... is as equally dramatic and anthemic as Live but with more of an intimate singer-songwriter feel to it ...

perhaps the biggest change is with the singer's Christian faith coming to the fore. There are songs like Soul Whispers, with the line "My stained-glass heart lay shattered on the floor of the church"; first single Grace is about repentance and moving on ("every saint used to be a sinner ..."); and for Kowalczyk, a song like Rome is not only his tribute to the city's beauty but a homecoming of sorts.

"I have ventured back into the Christian faith of my youth, and I was brought up in a Roman Catholic Christian background, so going to the Vatican and St Peters, the depth of that heritage was really in a way coming home for me because I grew up with it in a such a strong way. It's a very full circle spiritual moment, and very powerful."' (The New Zealand Herald)

'There are many factors contributing to the uplifting feel of “The Flood and the Mercy,” the second solo effort from ex-Live frontman Ed Kowalczyk.


There’s the gently jangling production of Jamie Candiloro; the singer’s spiritual lyrics, rooted in his Christian faith and a synthesis of other beliefs; and the appearance of vocalist Rachael Yamagata and R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck on three tracks: “Supernatural Fire,” “All That I Wanted” and “Holy Water Tears.”
But there are bigger, albeit unseen, influences at work here, says Kowalczyk, 42 — his three daughters and baby Paul, born in August.

“With every kid, there has just been a deepening of my humanity, because there’s no more of a feet-on-the-ground moment than having a child,”

Fatherhood has forever changed him as a writer. “There’s the beauty of it, the extraordinary depth of it, and all the challenges of it,” he says. “The fact that you’re taking care of these vulnerable creatures, these new people, is amazing. And when I listen to the music, particularly in my solo career, I can feel that change.”' (SF Examiner)

Scott Stapp, lead singer of Creed, has been on a similar journey. Mark Joseph writes that:

'In Sinner's Creed, Stapp's finally comes clean, offering explanations for his zig-zaggy behavior, revealing himself to be the type of follower whom the good Lord might have had in mind when he remarked of the prostitute who washed his feet with her tears that she loved Him much because she'd been forgiven much.
Even for people like me who call Scott a friend, the book is full of surprises and stunners. Who knew that the lead singer of one of the biggest-selling rock bands in the world grew up listening to Take 6 because his Dad wouldn't allow for non-black forms of Christian rock? Or that as a young boy he was taken to a Benny Hinn crusade whereupon the faith healer prophecied that Stapp's voice would be heard by millions and then lightly touched his head, causing him to fall backwards, slain in the spirit. Or that his stepfather was a twisted fundamentalist who once humiliated Stapp by pulling down his pants and spanking him in front of his siblings and on another occasion spanked his own wife in front of her children.

Stapp's book is brutally honest and pulls no punches. He's no Bono, but he may just be the Johnny Cash of our era, a restless soul who loves both God and rock and roll, but battles his demons in a manner that brings to mind Al Green's admonition to his girl "Belle:" "It's you that I want but it's Him that I need."

And just like Johnny, Stapp has his June, a marketing executive named Jaclyn, a devout Christian woman who has worked hard to keep her husband on the straight and narrow. Stapp recounts their chance meeting with obvious joy, but readily admits that even with her at his side, the road hasn't been easy, and has included a few run-ins with the law.

Sinner's Creed is about many things: the excesses of fundamentalism and the victims that are sometime left in its wake, the nature of sin, the ups and downs of a rock and roll lifestyle and the value of faith in God to keep a person in the spotlight grounded in reality. But at its core it's about one man coming to terms with the incongruity of the vocation he's chosen and the faith he refuses to give up.'

'Scott Stapp’s Proof of Life is a poignant snapshot of the artist, showcasing his journey over the past several years. It doesn’t shy away from encountering the dark places that he’s wandered into, acknowledging those missteps nor does it neglect highlighting the faith-filled elements that have helped to draw the artist back into the light. Proof of Life is an insightful and honest record, capturing Stapp at his best lyrically and musically, proving to be a great listen.' (soul-audio)

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Ed Kowalczyk - Angels On A Razor.

Perhaps the most underrated band ever

"Rock'n'roll is a vehicle to express the emotions you are not allowed to use in everyday life. We shouldn't waste rock and roll. Rock should be looking at some of the big questions. At its best, it's an art form that inspires, sometimes teaches, sometimes threatens. Its only crime is when it bores." Michael Been

Michael Been, The Call's singer/songwriter, was born in Oklahoma City but migrated to California before forming The Call with Scott Musik. Sin and salvation were staples of the diet that The Call served up. Been thought "that every fault in the world is within him" and said that he had had "hundreds of born-again experiences" needing them because he is dead a lot of the time. "I believe in truth. Whatever is necessary for a person to experience to find the rock bottom, to know the darkness of his life, that's right. A lot of our music is confrontational, it deals with the dark side of life because that teaches us something."

Been’s focus on the dark side of life led to the band being labelled as negative and may have restricted their overall impact – their greatest success was with the deliberately life-affirming single 'Let the Day Begin' which reached number three in the American charts. Another limiting factor, in the UK at least, was that they were perceived as playing the ‘Big Music’ when the likes of U2, Simple Minds and The Waterboys had fallen out of critical fashion. The fact that Bono and Jim Kerr contributed to their albums didn’t help dispel this perception. In reality, though, the band that the Call most resembled (never more so than on Red Moon) was The Band, and both Robbie Robertson and Garth Hudson contributed to their albums. Support was also lost among American Christians (something Been had been at pains to build up – he sent copies of the single 'I Still Believe (Great Design)' to Christian radio stations together with a signed copy of the Apostles Creed) when Been appeared as the apostle John in the Martin Scorcese film The Last Temptation of Christ. He was asked to take part as a friend of Scorcese – The Call were reputedly Scorcese’s favourite band – and got involved because he “wanted to show something of the struggle Christ had”. However a lot of people wrote to him saying, “Your records helped me when I was down. But now you’re involved in this film I can’t listen to them anymore.”

The Call’s original career may have ended with Red Moon but it ended on a high, that album together with 1986’s Reconciled representing the peak of their work. Combining literate lyrics with powerful anthems and genuinely encompassing despair, ecstasy and the stages in between, The Call are "perhaps the most underrated band ever".

"A preacher and a teacher, Michael was always much more than your usual 'ten-a-penny' careerist '80s rock star. As driven as he was with his beliefs, he was far from sanctimonious and always a hoot to be around. He had a similar soul that one perceives in true American greats such as Robbie Robertson, but he also had the wickedly spirited comedy of John Belushi draped all around him." Jim Kerr

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The Call - Let The Day Begin.

Living the Story (2)

Living the Story got off to an excellent start this morning with an engaged group and fascinating parallels and contrasts found by Philip Ritchie in the engagement with the Bible's narrative of Nick Cave and Bono. My introduction to the course, which preceded the main content of the session, was as follows:

Consider yourself and your family, or your circle of friends:

• What are some of the stories you might tell together which give you a sense of who you are?
• What are the types of events they focus on?
• Do stories in the Bible work in the same way for you?

From earliest times human beings have told stories. The stories we have been discussing initially are personal or family tales (we could call these micronarratives) but they will often, as with many tales, have been stories which say something about or identity; who we understand ourselves to be, either individually or within our family. As human beings we also commonly tell stories which, either explicitly or implicitly, seek to answer questions such as, “How did we get here?”, “Where are we going?”, and “What is the meaning of our existence?” We call these overarching stories metanarratives or worldviews and we live within the meanings which they provide.

So, for example, a humanist may tell a story of a universe which comes into being by chance leaving human beings free to create their own meanings for life and society. By contrast, Stanley Hauerwas has argued that Christians are “a people who have been formed by a story that provides them with the skills for negotiating the danger of this existence, trusting in God’s promise of redemption.” In other words, the church is founded on the premise that the creator God decisively calls and forms a people to serve him through the history of Israel and through the work of Jesus Christ to bring about the redemption of the creation.

We must constantly remember that we are a story formed community and that story is what defines our existence. To quote Stanley Hauerwas again: “The story of modernity is the story that you should have no story except the story you chose when you had no story. We call that freedom. But as Christians we believe that we are creatures born into a story that we haven’t chosen.” Our story derives from the Bible and Tom Wright has provided us with a simple means of describing the Bible’s metanarrative and the way in which we are to be shaped by this story. Wright has described the Bible as being like a five act play containing the first four acts in full (i.e. 1. Creation, 2. Fall, 3. Israel, 4. Jesus). He continues:

"The writing of the New Testament ... would then form the first scene in the fifth act, and would simultaneously give hints (Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 15, parts of the Apocalypse) of how the play is supposed to end ... The church would then live under the 'authority' of the extant story, being required to offer an improvisatory performance of the final act as it leads up to and anticipates the intended conclusion ... the task of Act 5 ... is to reflect on, draw out, and implement the significance of the first four Acts, more specifically, of Act 4 in the light of Acts 1-3 ... Faithful improvisation in the present time requires patient and careful puzzling over what has gone before, including the attempt to understand what the nature of the claims made in, and for, the fourth Act really amount to."

Wright concludes that he is proposing "a notion of "authority" which is ... vested ... in the creator god himself, and this god's story with the world, seen as focused on the story of Israel and thence on the story of Jesus, as told and retold in the Old and New Testaments, and as still requiring completion."

Living the Story in this way is something that artists and writers have done throughout Church history and continue to do today. For example, the curator and art historian Daniel A. Siedell has noted that:

“the Bible … is a dynamic and powerful cultural artefact, a library of powerful stories, within which we in the western tradition have lived and breathed and have had our being. And for centuries it has been the engine that drove art and literature ...

to recognize and acknowledge such biblical resonances and influences for western culture risks opening up a pandora's box that secularists have long tried to keep shut: that modernity emerged from and has lived off the creative capital of the Judeo-Christian tradition, including its theology, as it was embodied in the Renaissance humanism and the Reformation.”

In the course we will examine a selection of mainly contemporary uses of the Bible and the Christian story in popular culture (film, music, novels, poetry and visual arts) and consider whether or not they can be said to be 'living the story’.

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Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - The Mercy Seat.

Spirituality, creativity and the Arts (2)

Last Saturday I was involved in '... hearts and hands and voices...’, this year’s Exploring Spirituality Day in the Diocese of St Albans.

Revd. Nicholas Cranfield, Vicar of All Saints' Blackheath and Arts Correspondent for the Church Times, was the keynote speaker. He spoke about the significance of shaping sacred space in churches, as much for those who are secular but visit churches, as for those who do share the Christian tradition. Symbols, in particular, mark out sacred space; as with the Christ in Majesty seen at St Andrew's Bedford, where we were meeting. He noted the various extremes within the Church in relation to this issue from the Iconostasis' of Orthodox Churches to the boarded up stained glass of Anglican churches in the Diocese of Sydney but outlined a Biblical basis for the Christian visual tradition beginning with Bezalel and his fellow workers who were filled with the Spirit for their artistic design work through to Christ as the visible image of the invisible God.

In the workshop which I led, we explored connections between the Psalms and popular song. Statements on different aspects of the Psalms made by Dennis Potter, Nick Cave and Bono were illustrated with songs from Stacie Orrico, Evanescence and the Black Eyed Peas. Discussion of these statements and songs led on to workshop participants beginning to write their own contemporary psalms.        

This was my second year of leading workshops at the Exploring Spirituality Day and on both occasions those attending have been particularly enthusiastic and engaged.

Alan Stewart, Vicar of St Andrew's Hertford, who is one of the Exploring Spirituality Day organisers has an exhibition at St Mary's Hertingfordbury on Friday 19th and Saturday 20th November. The exhibition will feature striking charcoals and vibrant oils.

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Black Eyed Peas - Where Is The Love?

Children of Abraham

Bit late but this was my All-Age Mothering Sunday sermon at St John's Seven Kings:

How many of us have watched the TV programme ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ How many of us have done some research into our family history? For those who have researched their family histories, how far back have you been able to go? What has been the most interesting thing that you have discovered? How many of us have known our grandparents? Our great-grandparents? Our great, great grandparents? What is that we find interesting about ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ Why is that we need to know so much about our past?

There can be many reasons why it is interesting to research our family histories; we may track down relatives about whom we knew nothing and broaden our extended family, for instance, or we might come to understand ourselves better by knowing about family traits and characteristics which have been passed down across the generations.

I doubt that any of us have traced our family histories back to Abraham and Sarah but our Bible readings today suggest that we can. Abram and Sarai, as they were originally known, were very old and very sad because they had no children. But one night, out in the desert, God made Abram a special promise. God said:

“Look up and count the stars – if you can. That’s how many people there will be in your family one day. Think of the sand on the seashore. How many grains can you count? I’ll bless you and give you such a large family that one day they’ll be as many as the stars in the sky or the grains of sand on the seashore.”

As a sign of that promise, God changes Abram’s name to Abraham and Sarai’s name to Sarah. God’s promise comes true when Sarah finally does have a baby, called Isaac, when she’s very old. The great-great-great-(lots of greats)-grandchildren of this family are the members of God’s family here today, so we’re all actually members of the same family; Abraham and Sarah’s family, which is also God’s family.

Now, because we are all part of the same family we’ve got to care for each other like we are family. Some of us heard John Bell talking about that this week in our Lent Course. He said:
“... within the Church, at its best, we are the surrogate mothers and uncles and grandchildren to other people – and that’s a very different unit of belonging. Which means that should your mother or father reject you, the Christian Church will still accept you.”

This is an important part of Mothering Sunday because today is about Mother Church as well as being about the Mothers who gave us birth. As John Bell says, the Church at its best is our extended family; “the water of baptism will be thicker than the blood of genealogy.”

As a result, we’ve got millions of brothers and sisters of all ages and colours in every land all over the world. In fact, just like on ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ when we realise that we are Children of Abraham, we also realise that we have some unexpected relatives because Jewish and Muslim people are also Children of Abraham.

Bono, the singer with rock band U2, suggested in his guest column for the New York Times on 2 January this year the idea of an: “arts festival that celebrates the origin of the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Every year it could be held in a different location; Jerusalem would obviously be the best place to start.”

We can already experience something of that idea locally through the East London Three faiths Forum:

“For more than ten years, the Three Faiths Forum has been encouraging friendship, goodwill and understanding amongst Muslims, Christians and Jews. We also facilitate dialogue, leading to action with people from other faiths, and those who do not subscribe to any religion. We create new models for faith encounters.”

So we can see through all this that although God’s promise starts out with small things it can become incredibly massive. Sarah laughed when she heard what God had planned. Just like Sarah we can be sceptical, cynical and mocking about what it is possible for God to achieve through us but, in the story, Sarah’s cynical laughter turns to joyful laughter when her son Isaac is born and the same can be true for us too as we learn to trust that God can use us and achieve great things through us.

We know the difference between cynical laughter and joyful laughter don’t we? Who can give me a cynical laugh? Who can give me a joyful laugh? Sarah’s story shows us how we live life joyfully and hopefully. Patricia De Jong has described what happened to Sarah like this:

“Here is Sarah, at age 90, saying to God: Look, I'm old, I'm tired, I have arthritis and even a little osteoporosis; are you sure we want to get into something new like this now?

But this is when we encounter the marvelous wonder of God, at that very vulnerable moment - when the improbable is mistaken for the impossible, at that moment when we actually believe that our spirits are wasting away, as our bodies are, and God couldn't possibly have any more surprises in store for us, at that moment when we have settled in to things the way they are, instead of things the way they can be through the hope of God …

And yet what better way to live than in the grip of a promise? To wake in the possibility that today might be the day ... To take nothing for granted. Or to take everything as granted, though not yet grasped. To handle every moment of one's life as a seed of the promise and to plant it tenderly, never knowing if this moment, or the next, may be the one that grows.

To live in this way is to discover that God is always blessing us ... This is what Abraham and Sarah found out late in life ... This is what the psalmist had in mind when he wrote, "so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's." (Psalm 103:5) This is the spiritual path we embark upon when we place our hand in the open palm of God ...

Abraham and Sarah believed in God's promises and dared to hope. As Paul reminds us, "hope does not disappoint because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which is given to us."

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Pops Staples - Hope In A Hopeless World.