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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Ayo Ayo - High Praise dance

The book of Ruth: Migration, eldercare and patriarchy

Together with other clergy from the Diocese of Chelmsford, I had the pleasure of attending and contributing to activities for the Jewish festival of Shavuot as celebrated at Oaks Lane Reform Synagogue.

My contribution was as the Christian representative to a Scriptural Reasoning style session on the book of Ruth, together with Rabbi David Hulbert. Doing so was a particular pleasure because, while Vicar of St John's Seven Kings, I had got to know David through the East London Three Faiths Forum including travelling to the Holy Land with that group, and had also been involved in setting up and running a Scriptural Reasoning Group which included groups from the local Islamic Study Centre, Oaks Lane Reform Synagogue, and Sr John's Seven Kings.

Here is the introduction to the book of Ruth that I shared in the session this evening: 

In the Revised Common Lectionary, which is used by many Church of England parishes for the scripture readings in their services, the book of Ruth is included in Sunday readings once in year A and twice in year B. The Revised Common Lectionary works on a three-year cycle. The daily lectionary also provides 17 additional readings from the book of Ruth.

 
A principle identified by the compilers of the Revised Common Lectionary was allowing for multiple perspectives on a specific text, depending on where the text is assigned in relation to other scripture texts and in relation to the liturgical year. For example, the fidelity of Ruth to Naomi and the Moabite people and God’s fidelity to Ruth and her posterity are related to God’s fidelity to Israel in the Isaiah reading for Advent 3 of year A. The connection is thematic.

In a similar way, for thematic reasons, Ruth is read again in the season after Pentecost in the complementary series of year A. In this instance, where the first reading for Sunday (I Kings 17:8-16) tells of God feeding Elijah and the widow of Zarephath, Ruth’s story is told on Monday through Wednesday to show the compassion of God and of Naomi’s kin for two widows, both Naomi and Ruth.

The book of Ruth is a story of ordinary people. History is commonly but, perhaps misguidedly, spoken about as being written by the victors; the rulers or monarchs with their armies. There is, of course, much in the Hebrew scriptures that is about those who rule and their actions but there are also writings like the book of Ruth which take a very different focus.

One Biblical scholar in the Christian tradition to have written about these twin strands in scripture is Walter Brueggemann. Brueggemann writes about this in terms of the core testimony and the counter testimony. The core testimony is structure legitimating; that is to say it is about order and control – everything in its rightful place and a rightful place for everything. The counter testimony is pain embracing; that is to say it is about hearing and responding to the pain and suffering which is found in existence. The core testimony is “above the fray” while the counter testimony is “in the fray”. The core testimony is about the victors and the counter testimony about the victims.

When the two are brought together Brueggemann thinks the Bible sees the kind of justice we see being worked out in the book of Ruth as key to any form of public leadership: “The claim made is that power – political, economic, military – cannot survive or give prosperity or security, unless public power is administered according to the requirement of justice, justice being understood as attention to the well-being of all members of the community.”

Brueggemann notes that the kind of kingship that we see David and initially Solomon exercise: “had the establishment and maintenance of justice as its primary obligation to Yahweh and to Israelite society. This justice, moreover, is distributive justice, congruent with Israel’s covenantal vision, intending the sharing of goods, power, and access with every member of the community, including the poor, powerless, and marginated.”

As a result, as Gerd Theissen has written that, in the Hebrew scriptures, when compared with other writings from the same time period: “religion takes an unprecedented turn, and becomes instead an agency of healing for the wounded. In the religion of the prophets … we see the distillation of faith in a God who is on the side of the downtrodden rather than their oppressors, and who seeks to bring a new, supernatural order of justice and peace out of the natural laws of selection and mutation which spell death for the weak and powerless.”

With that thought in mind, I would like to share brief reflections on the book in terms of three current issues: migration, elder care, and patriarchal views.

The book of Ruth is one of those places in the Old Testament where women are central to the story and where the story is told from the perspective of the female characters. The book ends however with a genealogy in which the women's world of the story was completely ignored by the male voices of those who compiled a traditional patrilineal genealogy. So, this is a story of women surviving and thriving in a patriarchal world, a struggle that, as we know, continues to this day.

Ruth and Naomi became refugees driven by economic necessity from Ruth’s mother country in Moab to Naomi’s mother country in the land of Judah. They survive and thrive in these challenging circumstances through their commitment to and support of each other. Ruth could have left Naomi, as Orpah did, but there was a bond of friendship between the two women that held them together, as Ruth said to Naomi, ‘Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die.’ The world of women and female solidarity are therefore at the centre of this story.

Ruth and Naomi show great courage in leaving one culture to enter another, as do all those who become refugees today. In addition, they are proactive and resourceful in seeking ways forward to find security and a significant place in the history of Naomi’s people.

When Ruth and Naomi return to Israel, they are very poor and a local farmer, Boaz, takes pity on Ruth and allows Ruth to do what is described in Leviticus 23 v 22; Boaz leaves the grain at the edges of the fields so that poor people like Ruth can harvest it and make food to survive. Boaz could harvest the whole of his fields and keep all the grain for himself but doesn’t. Instead, he deliberately reduces what he harvests for himself in order to ensure that there is something left over for those less well off than himself. In doing so, he is following a specific instruction from God, which, while not directly applicable to us today because we are not farmers harvesting fields, can still apply if we reduce what we have for ourselves in order that we share something of what we have with others less well off than ourselves.

The story of Ruth, then, is a wonderful story of the benefits and joy of caring for others, even in the midst of tragedy. Difficult circumstances and tragedy can be the prompt or spur for real acts of care, as we saw happen to a significant extent during the Covid pandemic.

As a result, I once used this story in a funeral address. Fred and Ivy knew tragedy in their lives, particularly through the untimely deaths of their two children. Such heartbreak can cause people to look inward and shut themselves off from others and from God, but that was not the response of Fred and Ivy who continued to love and support each other, to care for Ivy’s parents in their old age and, then, Fred cared faithfully for Ivy as she approached death.

Ruth and Naomi returned to Naomi’s home where Ruth’s care for her mother-in-law was recognised and rewarded by Boaz, a landowner, who firstly found ways to support the two women and later married Ruth bringing an end to the poverty in which they had lived since the tragedy of their husband’s deaths. Similarly, the need that Fred and Ivy had in their lives to receive support and care, as well as to give it, was also recognised. Cousins and long-time friends stayed in regular contact. Closer to their home in Ilford, Fred received care and support from Janet and Gill, who met him through church and a lunch club.

People may ask where was God in the tragedies that occur in these stories; the untimely deaths of Ruth and Naomi’s husbands and also of Fred and Ivy’s children. Where was God? In talking with Janet about Fred, she said, “The Bible says that people should not live alone. We can’t always be close to those who need care. Others can be a substitute. Just keeping an eye on another is not to be sneezed at.” So, I concluded in this funeral address that, as we offer practical care to those nearby and the support of remaining in regular contact with those further away, we are the hands and feet, the eyes and ears of God in this world. That kind of care is also what I think we see modelled for us in the book of Ruth.

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Victoria Williams - What Kind Of Friend.

A blessing on the earth

Here's the reflection that I shared earlier today as part of the Midday Meditation Services for Holy Week at Billericay Methodist Church, Western Road. These are reflective 45 minute services throughout Holy week to help with reflection on the life, ministry, and death of Jesus as we look towards a promised resurrection, with carefully chosen choral music: 

The Annual Lent Lecture given here, at Western Road, earlier in Lent was entitled: ‘The Bible and People of Other Faiths: A Personal and Theological Journey’ and was given by Dr Elizabeth Harris, honorary Senior Research Fellow within the Edward Cadbury Centre for the Public Understanding of Religion, University of Birmingham, UK. Elizabeth gave helpful and fascinating insights into understandings of people of other faiths within the Bible and our readings today provide an opportunity to revisit that same theme and its relevance to the events of Holy Week.

‘It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to restore the survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.’ (Isaiah 49: 6)

These are words originally spoken to the People of Israel, as the servant of God, but then understood by the Church as applying to Jesus, who fulfilled the task originally given by God to Israel. Although the Israelites were God’s chosen people, they were not to keep God to themselves. God’s intent in making Israel his chosen people was that they should be a light to the nations so all people would be God’s people. When Jesus speaks of himself as the light of the world, he is saying that he is acting as Israel, as God’s servant, by bring the light of life to all people everywhere.

We see Jesus acting on this basis in our Gospel reading too:

among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They … said … ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’ … Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. (John 12: 20-22)

It is when people of other faiths and other cultures come and ask to see Jesus that Jesus knows it is time for him to be glorified through the crucifixion and resurrection. It is for this reason that, once filled with Jesus’ Spirit, the apostles, including St Paul, take the message of Jesus, in word and act, to all the nations of the then known world. As St Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians:

we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1: 23 & 24)

Although there is considerable debate in the early Church about the Gospel being preached among the Gentiles, it becomes increasingly clear that the love of Jesus cannot be contained solely within the Jewish church and must be shared and spread more widely among the Gentile peoples too.

The Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann has helpfully spoken of two strands of theology to be found in the Old Testament; a core testimony and a counter testimony. The core testimony is supportive of the institutions of the day, whether the Judges or the Kings, and sees Israel as a beacon of light in an embattled world surrounded by hostile, unbelieving nations. The counter testimony is in large part the voice of those who do not have power – the Israelites, themselves, when slaves or in exile, those who are oppressed by the wealthy and powerful, those who are foreigners and migrants, and those who are people of other nations and other faiths. When Jesus enters our world as one of us, he does so as someone who is part of the counter testimony and through him the counter testimony is seen to be the testimony which embodies the nature of God most fully.

As a testimony which is counter to the testimony that claims God for the Israelites alone, the counter testimony is an inclusive testimony. In relation to people of other faiths, this means that the counter testimony sees all people as God’s people. We see this specifically and surprisingly expressed by a number of the prophets.

In Amos 9.7-8, the prophet says:

“Are not you Israelites
the same to me as the Cushites?”
declares the Lord.
“Did I not bring Israel up from Egypt,
the Philistines from Caphtor
and the Arameans from Kir?

Here, there is no mention of the Israelites as God’s special people, instead all people are God’s people and it is noted that the Philistines and Arameans had their own Exoduses, as did the People of Israel when they were freed from slavery in Egypt. Later in the same chapter Amos speaks of all the nations that bear God’s name, not just one (Amos 9. 12).

Malachi prophesies of those who will see God’s plans with their own eyes and say, ‘Great is the Lord—even beyond the borders of Israel!’ (Malachi 1. 11) Isaiah gives the greatest and clearest vision of a harmonious kingdom embracing all nations where there is peace between all peoples and all creatures. In Isaiah 19. 23 -25, we read of this vision specifically in relation to Assyria, Egypt and Israel:

In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth. The Lord Almighty will bless them, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance.”

Similarly, Jesus says that: “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So, there will be one flock, one shepherd.” (John 10. 16). In his teaching, he specifically teaches, through the Parable of the Good Samaritan (who is a person of another faith), that we should receive from our neighbours who follow other faiths (Luke 10. 25-37).

That is what we see St Paul doing when he preaches at the Areopagus in Athens. There, he specifically visits the range of worship places in Athens, compliments the people on their faith, begins his sermon with reference to one of the altars and quotes from their poets (Acts 17. 16-34).

In a report called Embassy, Hospitality & Dialogue prepared by Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali for the 1998 Lambeth Conference, Bishop Nazir-Ali takes us across similar ground. He notes that Amos declares that God has a purpose for and acts within the history of the various nations, both far and near and that the language of the Exodus from Egypt is used to describe God's "saving plan" for these peoples (Amos 9:7). Also, that Malachi speaks of the ways in which God is recognised and worshipped, however inadequately, among the nations. In some cases, in ways that are worthier than the worship of Israel itself (Malachi 1:11).

In both Isaiah 19 and in the so-called Apocalypse of Isaiah (Chapters 24-27) there is a reference to a blessed community of nations. God's blessing no longer applies solely to Israel, the other nations are also blessed. Israel is the primary recipient of this blessing and also God's instrument in extending it to others, but there is also anticipation of a future which belongs to God.

The universalism of the New Testament arises out of the response to the Gospel by the poor, the marginalised and the foreigners. We are told that the common people (ochlos) heard Jesus gladly (Mark 12:37). He keeps company with the sinners and outcasts of society (Matthew 9:10-13). Foreigners respond positively to the words and works of Jesus (Matthew 8:1-13, Mark 7:24-30, Luke 17:11-19, John 12:20-21). This is confirmed in the experience of the Early Church which is alerted to its world-wide mission by the response of those either on the margins of the synagogue or outside it altogether (Acts 13:44-48).

Jesus’ encounters with Gentiles were encounters with people of other faiths and by studying these encounters we can explore Jesus’ approach to those of other faiths. Jesus crossed cultural and religious boundaries in order to speak with those such as the Samaritan woman. In Jesus’ parable of The Good Samaritan, it is the person from another faith (the Samaritan) who is a good neighbour to the person from God’s chosen people.

Paul had a multi-cultural upbringing. He was born and grew up in Tarsus in Cicilia (Acts 21: 39), a city noted for its Stoic philosophers. From other sources it seems likely that Paul’s parents were carried off as prisoners of war from the Judean town of Gischala to Tarsus. Presumably enslaved to a Roman, they were freed and granted Roman citizenship which was then also passed to Paul. In Tarsus Paul would probably have had an education in Greek culture before going to Jerusalem at about the age of 12 to study under the famous rabbi Gamaliel (Acts 22: 3). In his ministry, Paul visited the worship places of other faiths (Acts 17: 23), quoted from the writings of other faiths (Acts 17: 28; 1 Corinthians 15:33; Titus 1:12), and used rhetorical approaches learnt from Greek oratory.

Both Scripture and our experience provide criteria that God is working in the cultures and histories of all people. In different ways, people respond to this divine impulse and the Bible, as the inspired record of God's saving acts, provides us with a means of discerning how God has been working in the history, the culture and the spirituality of a particular people. Awareness of the divine need not be confined to the structures of institutional religion. Indeed, it may not be found there at all! It can be a very private affair and sometimes it may be found in counter-religious movements which set out to affirm human dignity and equality and which challenge oppressive social institutions.

As was the case when Elizabeth Harris spoke to us, this review of Biblical passages that relate to relationships with those of other faiths seeks to show that there are a range of possible ways to understand and relate to our neighbours of other faiths. In relation to Holy Week and Easter, we are reminded that Jesus’s purpose in going through the cross to resurrection, was with all peoples of all faiths in mind and that his vision was that of the peaceable kingdom in which all peoples live together in peace with one another, with God and with creation. However we understand our relationship with those of other faiths, may we make that our prayer, now and always:

God of unity, whose Son said, I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So, there will be one flock, one shepherd. You love our human family and every work of your hands: As children of Abraham, Jews, Christians and Muslims, together with other believers and all persons of good will, we thank you for having given us Abraham, a distinguished son of this noble and beloved country, to be our common father in faith. We ask you, the God of our father Abraham and our God, to grant us a strong faith, a faith that abounds in good works, a faith that opens our hearts to you and to all our brothers and sisters; and a boundless hope capable of discerning in every situation your fidelity to your promises. Make each of us a witness of your loving care for all, particularly refugees and the displaced, widows and orphans, the poor and the infirm. Open our hearts to mutual forgiveness and in this way make us instruments of reconciliation, builders of a more just and fraternal society. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

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Leontyne Price - The Crucifixion.

Seen and Unseen: Dark, sweet and subtle: recovered music orientates us

My latest article for Seen & Unseen is entitled 'Dark, sweet and subtle: recovered music orientates us'. In the article I highlight alt-folk music seeking inspiration from forgotten hymns:

'The musical reimaging involved in Over the Rhine’s reinterpretations of hymns takes them into the space that Brueggemann defines as new orientation, while the sounds and, in some cases, content of the hymns chosen by Steffan and Ghostwriter are more in the realm of his disorientation category. The music making of Lleuwen Steffan, Ghostwriter and Over the Rhine takes us to places not commonly accessed by the music used in many church services.'

My first article for Seen and Unseen was 'Life is more important than art' which reviews the themes of recent art exhibitions that tackle life’s big questions and the roles creators take.

My second article 'Corinne Bailey Rae’s energised and anguished creative journey' explores inspirations in Detroit, Leeds and Ethiopia for Corinne Bailey Rae’s latest album, Black Rainbows, which is an atlas of capacious faith.

My third article was an interview with musician and priest Rev Simpkins in which we discussed how music is an expression of humanity and his faith.

My fourth article was a guide to the Christmas season’s art, past and present. Traditionally at this time of year “great art comes tumbling through your letterbox” so, in this article, I explore the historic and contemporary art of Christmas.

My fifth article was 'Finding the human amid the wreckage of migration'. In this article I interviewed Shezad Dawood about his multimedia Leviathan exhibition at Salisbury Cathedral where personal objects recovered from ocean depths tell a story of modern and ancient migrations.

My sixth article was 'The visionary artists finding heaven down here' in which I explored a tradition of visionary artists whose works shed light on the material and spiritual worlds.

My seventh article was 'How the incomer’s eye sees identity' in which I explain how curating an exhibition for Ben Uri Online gave me the chance to highlight synergies between ancient texts and current issues.

My eighth article was 'Infernal rebellion and the questions it asks' in which I interview the author Nicholas Papadopulos about his book The Infernal Word: Notes from a Rebel Angel.

My ninth article was 'A day, night and dawn with Nick Cave’s lyrics' in which I review Adam Steiner’s Darker With The Dawn — Nick Cave’s Songs Of Love And Death and explore whether Steiner's rappel into Cave’s art helps us understand its purpose.

My 10th article was 'Theresa Lola's poetical hope' about the death-haunted yet lyrical, joyful and moving poet for a new generation.

My 11th article was 'How to look at our world: Aaron Rosen interview', exploring themes from Rosen's book 'What Would Jesus See: Ways of Looking at a Disorienting World'.

My 12th article was 'Blake, imagination and the insight of God', exploring a new exhibition - 'William Blake's Universe at the Fitzwilliam Museum - which focuses on seekers of spiritual regeneration and national revival.

My 13th article 'Matthew Krishanu: painting childhood' was an interview with Matthew Krishanu on his exhibition 'The Bough Breaks' at Camden Art Centre.

My 14th article was entitled 'Art makes life worth living' and explored why society, and churches, need the Arts.

My 15th article was entitled 'The collective effervescence of sport's congregation' and explored some of the ways in which sport and religion have been intimately entwined throughout history

My 16th article was entitled 'Paradise cottage: Milton reimagin’d' and reviewed the ways in which artist Richard Kenton Webb is conversing with the blind poet in his former home (Milton's Cottage, Chalfont St Giles).

My 17th article was entitled 'Controversial art: how can the critic love their neighbour?'. It makes suggestions of what to do when confronted with contentious culture.

My 18th article was an interview entitled 'Art, AI and apocalypse: Michael Takeo Magruder addresses our fears and questions'. In the interview the digital artist talks about the possibilities and challenges of artificial intelligence.

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Lleuwen Steffan - Tafod Arian — Live at Celtic Connections.

Together for the Common Good

Here's the sermon that I preached at St Martin-in-the-Fields today. 

Readings of address: 1 Samuel 8.4-20, Mark 3.20-35.

Yves Klein was a French artist and an important figure in post-war European art. From 1956 onwards, he sold ‘zones’ of empty space – ‘Zones of Immaterial Sensibility’ - in exchange for gold ingots. He gave his buyers receipts, which they then solemnly burnt. In turn, Klein would ritually dispose of half the gold he had earned, by throwing it into rivers or oceans and thereby returning it to its source in creation, or, by creating an ex voto – a devotional offering. He made just such a devotional offering in 1961 presenting it to the Convent of Santa Rita in Cascia, Italy; St Rita being the patron of lost causes. This ex voto is a small plexiglass box containing five compartments: one filled with blue pigment, one with pink pigment, one with gold leaf, and the other two with a handwritten prayer to St Rita and three gold bars from his sale of the sensibility zones. The prayer proclaimed Klein’s gratitude to St Rita, and his desire to secure her continued protection.

Klein’s art enables a reflection on what can and cannot be owned. His work opens up the possibility that intangible and invisible qualities such as love are of more importance than tangible assets that can be held or owned. The purchasers of his zones owned nothing tangible that could be shown to another person, yet the experience in which they participated was profound. Michael Blankfort, a collector who purchased one of the Zones shortly before Klein’s death, said that he would cherish and remember forever this intangible artwork that he had bought but did not physically possess. He said that he carried the memory of it with him, always thinking about it, accompanying him all over the world, all the time. In the prayer Klein wrote to St Rita, he asked that he might live in his works and that they might become ever more beautiful. In other words that, when his physical body was gone, the intangible essence of the person he was might live in intangible works such as his ‘Zones of Immaterial Sensibility.’

Klein’s work is relevant to our Old Testament reading today because at the heart of this reading is the understanding that life is gift and not possession. The land in which the Israelites lived was given them by God in fulfilment of promises made to Abraham and his descendants. Although the Israelites lived in the land, the land was not theirs as, ‘The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it’ (Psalm 24.1). Because the land was both promise and gift, the whole of Israel’s socio-economic life and practice was based on this covenant relationship with God and its tradition of redemption and land gift.

Walter Brueggemann writes that, ‘As an alternative to pretentious, oppressive political authority, represented early in Israel’s imagination, by pharoah, Israel [ordered] its public life under the direct rule of [God], in a sort of theocracy.’[i] The Israelites were led by groups of Judges so that power was not concentrated in the hands of one person and the Law that had been given them by God at Mount Sinai set out a way of life based on redemption and gift that was a genuine alternative to the surrounding nations. One example of this is the Year of Jubilee which required the compulsory return of all property to its original owners or their heirs. That essentially prevented the centralisation of land and wealth in the hands of a few. As a light to the nations, Israel’s task in the world was to draw those nations into a similar relationship to creation and to God. The visions of the prophet Isaiah describe just such a relationship. He showed us the wolf living with the lamb, the leopard lying down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child leading them while nations stream to the mountain of the Lord that they might walk in his paths.

So, when the Israelites asked for a king, this was a betrayal of their entire way of life and purpose under God. Why did they do it? Three reasons have been identified. First, imitation of other nations. They looked at the surrounding nations and were envious of the sustained forms of political power they saw there which contributed to security and prosperity. Second, they faced imminent military threats and saw the establishment of a monarchy as a reasonable response to concrete threats. Third, those who had, despite the laws of redemption and land gift, monopolised wealth for themselves wanted a strong central government to protect and legitimate their already considerable economic and political advantages. In this way external threats were used by those with position and wealth to create greater advantage for themselves. We still see similar approaches to power and advantage used within our own political and socio-economic systems today. They, too, are based on: first, envy; second, fear; and third, greed.

As Sam Wells, our Vicar, has said, ‘In a community of fear 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.’ Yet, if land is understood as a gift from God, then God becomes the principle for egalitarian distribution and a gift economy that stands in contrast to the centralisation of power, land and access found in a monarchy. Instead of that centralisation of power which can easily become, as was to be the case in Israel, an engine for preference, privilege, monopoly, and self-indulgence, the gifts of all can be released and we can build one another’s assets.

What might that approach to ownership and wealth mean for our society? I want to suggest three areas for reflection. First, the idea of the “common good” which refers to those facilities—whether material, cultural or institutional—that the members of a community provide to all in order to fulfil a relational obligation all have to care for those interests that we have in common. Examples in a modern liberal democracy include: the road system; public parks; police protection and public safety; courts and the judicial system; public schools; museums and cultural institutions; public transportation; civil liberties, such as the freedom of speech and the freedom of association; the system of property; clean air and clean water; and national defence. So, in the words of Together for the Common Good, a charity helping people play their part to strengthen the bonds of social trust, the Common Good is ‘the shared life of a society in which everyone can flourish - as we act together in different ways that all contribute towards that goal, enabled by social conditions that mean every single person can participate.’

Our society today is more polarised and fragmented than it has been for many years. Decades of individualism have infected our life together. In the fallout, we see a weakening of our local institutions, with whole communities marginalised, and an identity politics which is driving people apart. There is an urgent need to strengthen the bonds of social trust, at all levels and in all sectors. People are yearning for a sense of meaning and belonging. We need a vision of a world being transformed as more and more people take responsibility for the flourishing of all with everyone having a part to play, from the grassroots to the boardroom.[ii]

Second, is Creation Care. Based on the themes we are exploring of promise and gift Operation Noah’s call to the Church on ‘Climate change and the purposes of God’ says that: ‘According to the witness of our Scriptures, everything that we have, life and the means of life, comes to us as gift. This is the ground of our worship. The beauty and harmony of God’s creation is for all cultures a source of human wellbeing, spiritual nourishment and joy.’ As humans, made in God’s image, we have unique responsibility for the wellbeing of creation. We are to care for the earth because it is gift, the product of God’s love. No sparrow falls without God knowing. Humanity has always had the capacity to destroy our environment, but today we have this to an unprecedented extent. Whereas previous generations did not know the damage they were causing, we do. We must use our power wisely to promote the flourishing of future generations and the diversity of life on earth.

This is also an issue of justice; justice that applies to poor communities already suffering the devastating consequences of climate change, to future generations, and to all other creatures. The prophets put economic behaviour at the forefront of their call to justice. The primary driver of human induced climate change is the belief that prosperity depends on limitless consumption of the earth’s resources. Today, our challenge is to seek a different, sustainable economy, based on the values of human flourishing and the wellbeing of all creation, not on the assumption of unlimited economic growth, on overconsumption, exploitative interest and debt.[iii]

Third, generosity. Sam has said that ‘Christians don’t have to look far for a mission statement for the church.’ He was referring to John 10.10 where Jesus says, ‘I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.’ 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. Tom Wright has said, 'God’s grace … is not the sort of thing you can bargain with or try to store up. It isn’t the sort of thing that one person can have a lot of and someone else only a little … God doesn’t make contracts with us, as if we could bargain or negotiate for a better deal.’ God makes covenants, in which we are promised everything but where everything is asked of us in return. When God keeps promises, we are not being rewarded for effort, but instead receiving what comes naturally to God’s overflowingly generous nature.[iv] To operate in that spirit of generosity involves being ecumenical, empowering, encouraging and relational, and to commit to resourcing others.

Although by living in a capitalist society we are all participants in systems that contribute to the centralisation of wealth and power in the hands of a few, we need to be mindful of the proverb that Jesus quoted in our Gospel reading, ‘A house divided against itself must fall.’ Taking action in relation to the common good, creation care and generosity can help us reduce the sense of division in our lives and community. Sam has encouraged us to see that ‘Christianity must take the present opportunity to be what it was always called to be: an alternative society, overlapping and sharing space with regular society, but living in a different time – that’s to say, modelling God’s future in our present.’

Yves Klein’s ex voto or devotional offering was formed of three sections; the colours, the prayer, and the gold ingots. There were also three colours – blue, pink and gold – and three gold ingots, making the work a thoroughly Trinitarian offering. The significance of this ex voto was, however, overlooked for many years and was only rediscovered in 1980 when a restorer working at the Convent needed gold leaf and Klein’s box was brought to him. The restorer recognised its significance and the ex voto has subsequently been displayed in several significant exhibitions of Klein’s work. This private offering, which was nearly lost by being used to restore another work of art, has now been shared with all who value what we see of the artist in his work. What was lost has been found; perhaps an indication that in God’s economy nothing is lost or wasted. Certainly not the urgent task of modelling God’s future in our present by creating the example of an alternative society; one that has a Trinitarian basis by moving beyond envy, fear and greed through the valuing of first, the common good, second, creation care, and third, generosity.

[i] Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy by Walter Brueggemann
[ii] https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/
[iii] http://operationnoah.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Final-ON_Declaration_web.pdf
[iv] Matthew for Everyone, Part 2: Chapters 16-28, by N. T. Wright

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Linda Perhacs - When Things Are True Again.

HeartEdge – Living God’s Future Now

‘Living God’s Future Now’ is the new online mini-festival of ideas hosted by HeartEdge. Designed to equip, encourage and energise church leaders, laypeople and enquirers alike, we explore how churches and community improvise the Kingdom, grow the movement, develop preaching, shift online, deepen spirituality and respond to social need.

This week’s events included Sally Hitchiner, Lorenzo Lebrija and Adrian Harris continuing their conversation digging into the practice of how churches can build community online. Their conversation ranged from consideration of those excluded from online church to ways in which different congregations in a team or parish can be linked online. Lots of ideas and resources were shared by the panellists and those attending. Also discussed was the developing understanding that this is not a short-term blizzard but a long-term winter, so we need to adjust and plan accordingly. A video of the workshop can be viewed at https://www.facebook.com/theHeartEdge/videos/799420843797633/.

The focal event for ‘Living God’s Future Now’ is a monthly opportunity to join Sam Wells in conversation with a leading theologian or practitioner, to explore what it means to improvise God’s Kingdom. In the first of these conversations Sam was joined by theologian Walter Brueggemann. Their conversation began by considering ways in which the Old Testament uses the theme of pestilence and exile in terms of God discovering new ways of being with us. A key insight was the idea that the Beatitudes and Isaiah 19, among others, open out God’s blessings beyond a chosen people. Reactions and responses included: ‘A huge thank you for hosting this and sharing your wisdom’, ‘This has been excellent and so uplifting, with much to think further about’ and ‘This was such a generous offering’. The video of this conversation can also be found at the HeartEdge facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/506026059544325/videos/561911944690976/.

Workshops coming up include a Nazareth Community workshop at 3.00pm on Monday 18 May. This will provide: an introduction to the Nazareth Community’s simple way of life; prayer and silence; a shared lectio divina; Q&A; and time for participant’s own reflections. Tickets are free. To receive a Zoom invitation please email: Catherine.Duce@smitf.org.

‘Church and Commerce: Relationships, Resilience and Recovery’ is on Thursday 21st May at 10.30am on Zoom. This workshop will explore enabling commercial relationships that inspire cooperative action to heal and transform our communities. To receive an invitation, please email Ben.Sheridan@smitf.org.

Then, together with our partners YourNeighbour.org there will be a Leaders Lunch with Sam Wells at 12.15pm on Friday 22nd May. Sam will be speaking on “Meeting the Abundant God in the Scarcity of Lockdown”. Bring your sandwiches! The lunch will be hosted on Zoom. Please register to attend at https://yourneighbour.org/online/leaders-lunch-with-sam-wells.

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Buddy & Julie MIller - Thoughts At 2AM.

Living God's Future Now

Living God's Future Now

‘Living God’s Future Now’ describes a series of online seminars, discussions and presentations hosted by HeartEdge. They are designed to equip, encourage and energise church leaders, laypeople and enquirers alike, in areas such as preaching, growing a church, shifting online, deepening spirituality in a congregation and responding to social need.

The focal event in ‘Living God’s Future Now’ is a monthly conversation in which Sam Wells explores what it means to improvise on God’s kingdom with a leading theologian or practitioner.

The first of these conversations will be at 6.00 pm on Thursday 14 May with Walter Brueggemann. To receive a zoom invite email Ben Sheridan at ben.sheridan@smitf.org.

Walter Brueggemann is one of the most influential Bible interpreters of our time. He is the author of over one hundred books and numerous scholarly articles. Sam has described Walter as 'a master exegete, a master theologian, and a master preacher.' 'Truth & Hope', Walter’s most recent book, is subtitled 'Essays for a Perilous Age'.

Living God’s Future Now: Programme for May 2020

• ‘Inspired to Follow: Art and the Bible Story’: Sunday, 10 May, 2.00 pm, Zoom meeting - This course uses fine art paintings that can be found in the collection of the National Gallery as a spring board for deepening one’s Christian faith and exploring what it means to follow Jesus today. Topic: Moses & the Law – Exodus 32 / ‘The Worship of the Egyptian Bull God, Apis’, Follower of Filippino Lippi. To receive a zoom invite email Jonathan Evens at jonathan.evens@smitf.org.
• Biblical Studies class: Monday 11 May, 7.30-9.00 pm, Zoom meeting Join Simon Woodman for a lecture looking at the New Testament Epistles followed by discussion, with handouts. Register in advance at https://us02web.zoom.us/…/tZ0rc-msqD8sEtE7n_X9u17Jl6R5Cvzjj….
• Sermon Preparation Workshop: Tuesday 12 May, 4.30pm, livestreamed at https://www.facebook.com/theHeartEdge/ - Sam Wells and Sally Hitchiner discuss
• the forthcoming Sunday's lectionary readings in the light of current events and share thoughts on approaches to the passages.
• Community of Practitioners workshop: Wednesday 12 May, 4.30pm, Zoom meeting - An opportunity for ministers and other leaders of HeartEdge churches to meet together to reflect on issues relating to congregational renewal through commerce, culture and compassion. Join HeartEdge at https://www.heartedge.org/main/sign-up and email jonathan.evens@smitf.org for an invitation.
• How to build online communities: Thursday 14 May, 4.30pm - Sally Hitchiner, Adrian Harris and Lorenzo Lebrija share stories of establishing and supporting online communities for churches. Livestreamed at https://www.facebook.com/theHeartEdge/.
• ‘Living God’s Future Now: HeartEdge monthly dialogue’: Thursday 14 May, 6.00pm, Zoom meeting. Sam Wells in dialogue with Walter Brueggemann. To receive a zoom invite email Ben Sheridan at ben.sheridan@smitf.org.
• Grief, Loss and Remembering: Friday 15 May, 4.30pm, Zoom meeting - Carla Grosch-Miller, Joe Moffat, Philippa Smethurst and Kate Woodman discuss death and bereavement with Catherine Duce. To receive a zoom invite email Ben Sheridan at ben.sheridan@smitf.org.
• ‘Inspired to Follow: Art and the Bible Story’: Sunday, 17 May, 2.00 pm, Zoom meeting - Topic: The Exile / The Psalms – Psalm 137 / ‘Beach Scene’, Gustave Courbet.
• Theology Group: Sunday 17 May, 6.00pm, Zoom meeting - Sam Wells will respond to questions and reflections on a theological question devised by the Chair. Chaired by a member of St Martin-in-the-Fields. To receive a zoom invite email Ben Sheridan at ben.sheridan@smitf.org.
• Nazareth Community: Monday 18 May, 3.00-4.30 pm - The workshop will be led by Revd Richard Carter and Revd Catherine Duce, and is an opportunity to learn about the life of the community, and to consider how it could be applied in your own contexts. The session will include: An introduction to the Nazareth Community’s simple way of life; Prayer & silence; A shared lectio divina; Q&A; and time for your own reflections. To receive a Zoom invitation please email: Catherine.Duce@smitf.org.
• Biblical Studies class: Monday 18 May, 7.30-9.00 pm, Zoom meeting.
• Sermon Preparation Workshop: Tuesday 19 May, 4.30pm, livestreamed at https://www.facebook.com/theHeartEdge/.
• Community of Practitioners workshop: Wednesday 20 May, 4.30pm, Zoom meeting.
• Church and Commerce - Relationships, Resilience and Recovery: Thursday 21 May, 10.30am – Georgina Graham, James Hughesdon and Sarah Rogers discuss the possibilities and pitfalls of using church buildings commercially. Livestreamed at https://www.facebook.com/theHeartEdge/.
• ‘Inspired to Follow: Art and the Bible Story’: Sunday, 24 May, 2.00 pm, Zoom meeting - Topic: The Prophets – 1 Kings 19 / ‘Landscape with Elijah and Angel’ Gaspard Dughet.
• Biblical Studies class: Monday 25 May, 7.30-9.00 pm, Zoom meeting.
• Sermon Preparation Workshop: Tuesday 26 May, 4.30pm, livestreamed at https://www.facebook.com/theHeartEdge/.
• Community of Practitioners workshop: Wednesday 27 May, 4.30pm, Zoom meeting.

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U2 - Window In The Skies.

HeartEdge Mailer | March 2019

HeartEdge Mailer | March 2019

HeartEdge is an international ecumenical movement. We are churches and other organisations developing mission. We focus on 4 areas - commercial activity, congregations, cultural engagement and compassion. Join us! Details here.

Each month we collect and email stories, web links, news related to our focus: commercial activity, congregations, cultural engagement and compassion. Useful, inspiring, practical - it's a resource.

This month:

• Encouraging kindness and wellbeing in our communities
• Cormac Russell on 'thisness', Asset based Community Development, plus radical campaigning and community organising
• Enterprise insights, plus tips on developing your church building
• The significance of friendship, Walter Brueggemann on Kingdom economics and Barbara Glasson on mission and interfaith.
• Also, Lent resources plus an extract from 'Walk Humbly', a new book by Sam Wells.

Click here to read the March Mailer.

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The Chieftains - The Rebel Jesus.

HeartEdge's June Mailer

HeartEdge is a growing international ecumenical network, passionate about nurturing Kingdom communities via four C’s - congregations, culture, commercial activity and compassion.

Each month in our Mailer we bring you inspiration, ideas and resource. If you haven't already,
you can subscribe - sign up here!

This month: 

• Hairdressing, community work, commissioning art and Banksy
• Food coops, Big Local and the Big Welcome - resources for welcome and collective hospitality.
• 'Power to Change' and an Aladdin's cave of resources!
• Plus John Bell on the legacy of Lizzie Lowe and going beyond inclusion, Vicky Beeching and being an inclusive church, Maggi Dawn on pilgrimage, and Walter Brueggemann on poetic imagination.

The Mailer also has information about the first HeartEdge Annual Conference 2018 - 12 & 13 September 2018: St Martin-in-the-Fields and Lambeth Palace, London.

Commerce, Compassion, Culture, Congregation are essential – in our view, it’s all church! The September two-day HeartEdge intensive includes theology, ideas, resources, plus time to linger, build connections, make plans, develop practice, find encouragement, get involved and do HeartEdge!
Programme: Including keynote speakers, workshops and panels on 'Church, Welfare and the Future', 'Start-Ups (and Keeps-Goings)', 'Digging Deeper into Mission', 'Art and the Impossible' with more to follow.

• Confirmed so far: Bishop of Liverpool Paul Bayes; urban theologian Ann Morisy; Chair in Christianity and the Arts at King's College London Ben Quash; Theologian and writer Professor Anthony Reddie; activist Russell Rook; Baroness Maeve Sherlock; Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby; Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, Sam Wells; Rector of St James, Piccadilly Lucy Winkett - with more next time.
• Venue: Day 1 at St Martin-in-the-Fields, day 2 at Lambeth Palace
• Cost: Early Bird rate £69 (until 20th July 2018); then HeartEdge members rate - £79, non-members rate - £99. Tickets include conference programme, refreshments & lunch, plus complimentary Jazz on evening of 12th September.
• Registration: Book tickets here.

For latest information email Revd Jonathan Evens here or call 020 7766 1127

Additionally, our friends at New Roots have teamed up with new HeartEdge members commission4mission to create an online artists in residence programme. The New Roots Artist in Residence will be invited to profile a number of different works on the New Roots website for a month. The first Artist in Residence is commission4mission member Valerie Dean (see/).

New Roots are keen to work with artists using different visual mediums – interested in becoming a ‘New Roots Artist in Residence’? More information here. Get in touch here.

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Sister Rosetta Tharpe - This Train.

Start:Stop - Rising from the ruins of exile

Bible reading

These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon … It said: Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. (Jeremiah 29. 1 – 7)

Meditation

The Israelite Exile had several phases. In 721 BC the Assyrians conquered the Northern Israelite kingdom. Assyrian policy was to stamp out national identities by mixing up populations. Therefore the 10 tribes of that Kingdom disappeared. The Southern kingdom, Judah, was not conquered until 597. By this time the dominant power was Babylon, whose policy was deportation. So, when Jerusalem was captured, the leading citizens were taken to Babylon. Then, in 587, Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed and all but the poorest were taken.

Walter Brueggemann writes that “Jerusalem was burned and its temple destroyed, the king was exiled, the leading citizens were deported and public life ended. For ancient Israel, it was the end of privilege, certitude, domination, viable public institutions and a sustaining social fabric. It was the end of life with God, which Israel had taken for granted. In that wrenching time, ancient Israel faced the temptation of denial—the pretence that there had been no loss—and it faced the temptation of despair—the inability to see any way out.” This was a crisis of faith, not simply defeat in war and separation from homeland, but the loss of every reference point that explained who they were as a people and the failure of their God to protect them. They had believed they were a people chosen out of all the nations to be in a special relationship with the one true God who created, sustained and controlled the cosmos. This testimony developed as God made covenants about their land, city, and kings. All were lost and this normative testimony was fundamentally threatened.

The Exile was a crisis to which the Israelites responded initially with grief and anger, but, as the Exile continued, they reacted, or were asked by God to react, in terms of reflection and reinterpretation. David Sceats has noted that “all the evidence points to the fact that the Old Testament came into existence in substantially its present form in and immediately after this period of defeat, exile and religious disintegration.” The purpose of both collating and organising older material, and of writing new material, was reflection. Those who put together the Old Testament in this way were reflecting on Israel’s past to “remind the nation of its identity, to help it understand its place in God’s purposes, and its responsibility as the covenant people, and, above all, to remember the universal claims of Yahweh, and his authority over all nations, including Babylon.” Sceats argues that the act of reflection undertaken by the Israelites was also about reinterpretation. God was, through the exile, revealing himself in a new way and therefore, in organising the religious literature of Israel, it was also necessary to reinterpret that literature “in such a way as to make religious sense of the crisis of faith it had gone through.”

As Western Christians in the twenty-first century, we have faced a crisis of exilic proportions. An increasing process of secularization has occurred within the West with Christianity being dethroned from the dominant position that it held at the end of the Medieval period. From the Reformation through the Enlightenment to Modernism, Christendom came under increasing threat and has now been gradually dismantled. Enlightenment thinking questioned the historical validity of central Christian doctrines, developed alternative ‘scientifically verifiable’ means of explaining the origins of species, positioned Government as the central means of meeting social/welfare needs, and created a consumer culture of aspiration and progress. The result is that for many in the West “God is dead”, “Man has come of age” and Christianity is dead in the water.

The theologians of the exile can help us in hearing and responding to the call of God in our day and time. Their pattern of reflection and re-interpretation based on the tradition gives a biblical means of reviving our roots and re-claiming our disputed lineage. We need to dream up what Church is and can be for future generations all over again. We should not expect to have all the answers to hand but should engage in a re-examination of our roots in order to imagine our future on a scale that is at least equal to that of the theologians of the exile. Our God is a God of new beginnings, of fresh starts. He is the resurrection God and, therefore, the one who gives hope that we can rise from the ruins.

Prayer

God of all times and all places, as we gather this day, we are mindful of the many who are in exile, living in temporary shelters as a result of war, poverty or extremes of weather. We pray for those who have been in exile for long years, those who are trying to make a life and care for their children, planting gardens and seeds of hope and survival in refugee camps with scarce resources. For all those without the comfort and safety of home, we pray rest and respite, courage and comfort. For all who are afraid and wonder if their exile will ever end, grant the peace that passes understanding. May we recount your promises, your provisions, your power and encourage hope in those longing for healing and home.

Thank you for seeing us, claiming us, healing us, making your home in us, so that no matter where we are, we are never alone. Thank you for the people on the journey with us, the ones who’ve opened their homes to us, those who have called us family, friends who have loved us, strangers who have cared for us, all who have been the hands and feet of Christ to us. Thank you for those who right this very moment are feeding the hungry, healing the sick, tending the dying, and in countless ways serving for the sake of others. May we recount your promises, your provisions, your power and encourage hope in those longing for healing and home.

(https://pres-outlook.org/2016/10/pastoral-prayer-storm-exile-hurricane-matthew/)

O God, the Creator and Preserver of all humankind: we humbly pray that it may please you to reveal your ways to all people and your saving power to all nations. In particular we pray for your church that it may be guided and governed by your Spirit in such a way that all who profess and call themselves Christians may be led into the way of truth and hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life. May we recount your promises, your provisions, your power and encourage hope in those longing for healing and home.

(http://www.churchsociety.org/publications/englishprayerbook/EPB_Prayers.asp)

The Blessing

May Christ, who makes saints of sinners, who has transformed those we remember today, raise and strengthen you that you may transform the world; and the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen.

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The Brilliance - Brother.

Lord, disarm violence and begin with me

Last year a poster for the children’s Horrible Histories stage tour attracted protests from parents. Horrible Histories, as many of you will know, describes itself as 'history with the nasty bits left in.' It is a series which has inspired millions of children to discover history because the books have ‘got ALL the yucky bits and foul facts that other books leave out.’

The posters, advertising the 'Barmy Britain' tour, featured a big picture of an executioner holding an axe and a bloody head and were labelled as being in 'shockingly bad taste' by furious parents in the wake of the beheading of Western hostages by ISIS militants. A father-of-two from Chelmsford, said: 'The posters are shocking in light of the recent events in the news and in really bad taste. The pictures are meant to be showing events in history, but sadly beheadings are still going on and are all too real.’ Neal Foster, director and producer of the show, said: 'It is unfortunate and we are sympathetic to anyone who is offended by the poster, but it was designed in July 2013, a long time before these recent incidents came to attention.’

These responses were interesting because they seem to suggest that as long as the nasty events of history are kept firmly in the past we can enjoy history with all the foul facts left in but as soon as those same events feature in our present we have a problem with showing and viewing them.

I wonder whether the same holds true for similarly violent Biblical stories such as today’s Gospel reading about the beheading of John the Baptist. This and other similar stories, such as that of Judith and Holofernes, have inspired graphic and gruesome images by great artists such as Botticello, Caravaggio, Guercino and Veronese, among others.

A recent visit to St Martin’s by Merchant Taylor’s School Choir to lead Choral Evensong coincided with a lengthy Old Testament reading in which Samson killed large numbers of Philistines, tortured animals and slept with a prostitute. How do we understand such passages? Should they be censored, as happened to the ‘Barmy Britain’ posters? Do we find the blood and gore attractive, repulsive, or are we immune to it?

The recent BBC1 drama A Song for Jenny focused on Jenny’s mother, Julie Nicholson, an ordained priest who quit her position because she could not forgive the suicide bomber who murdered her daughter. Sam Wollaston wrote in his review that the drama shows ‘the aftershocks of the blast – the tearing apart of the bond between a mother and daughter criminally prematurely, as well as of an underground carriage … It’s about the damage it does to other relationships, Julie’s with her husband, Julie’s with God. She too is not just a Christian, she’s a priest. But there is no forgiveness, there’s anger. Plus a desperate bleak emptiness that no faith, or family or friends can fill. And, though she never actually uses the word, it’s about hatred’.

In last Sunday's Radio 4 worship from St Martin-in-the-Fields, Barbara Brown Taylor spoke about ‘those who keep deciding not to hate the haters, who keep risking the fatal wound of love and teaching others to do the same—because that is how we prepare the ground around us to receive the seeds of heaven when they come.’ Our Autumn Lecture Series will explore both these perspectives reflecting on how faith can become both the cause and perpetrator of conflict and persecution, and also the victim. God can often appear impotent in the face of violence but is also perceived, in the Old Testament in particular, as the perpetrator of violence.

The first thing I want to say in the light of all this is that the Bible does not give us a sanitised version of violence. If anything, the reverse is the case and the Bible can easily be seen, like the Horrible Histories, as full of blood and gore. There is realism in our Scriptures about nature, and human nature in particular, being red in tooth and claw. This realism sees each one of us as having the potential for violence, whether we ascribe that to sin or the survival of the fittest. As studies examining complicity in the Holocaust tend to show, those involved were not monsters, ‘beasts or aliens’ and the overwhelming brutality involved appeared to arise easily ‘in the context of 1930s Germany, with its background of economic depression, political disenchantment and frustrated nationalist sentiment’. This suggests that we are all actually at different points on the same continuum between peace and violence and the saying, 'there, but for the grace of God, go I' carries a profound truth about which we need to be honest and repentant.

Our complicity with violence often leads us to make God over in our own violent image. Bob Dylan described this tendency well in the song ‘With God on our Side’. We begin with the belief that the land that we live in has God on its side and from there we interpret every change and challenge in our history as indicating that God is truly on our side. This, as Dylan notes in the 5th verse, can lead to the confusions of changing sides in war and peace. So, during the Second World War we believed that the German nation did not have God on their side but once the War ended and there was reconstruction with the German nation becoming our allies that changed and they now had God on their side, despite all that had previously occurred during the war.

Our human tendency to believe that God is on our side pervades the Old Testament and can be described as the core testimony about God. As this core testimony sees God as being on our side, it legitimizes and justifies our national interests. In this way of thinking our enemies are God's enemies and we petition him in prayer to smite and destroy those who are our and, therefore, also his enemies.

Also found in the Old Testament, however, is a counter testimony which, at times, can seem overwhelmed or submerged by the core testimony but which is, nevertheless, a thread running throughout scripture. The counter testimony says that God, rather than being about power and rather than being on the side of those in power, is actually most concerned about those who are crushed by the power-mongers of this world; those who are victims, those who are poor, those who are powerless, those who are excluded, those who are scapegoats.

These two testimonies about God are both present throughout the Bible with the core testimony often appearing dominant. But, we believe, at a particular point in human history God himself entered human history in the person of Jesus in order to show us in actions and words just what God is actually like. In Jesus, the counter testimony becomes prominent as Jesus lives, teaches, dies and rises not only as an example of compassion toward those who are victims, excluded and scapegoated but also becomes a victim, becomes excluded, becomes a scapegoat himself. When God is revealed in human history it is as a victim of violence, not as a perpetrator of violence.

God's revelation in Jesus continues a subversion of the human story of violence that actually began in the Old Testament. René Girard suggests that the story of Cain and Abel reveals the way in which we consistently act as human beings. We desire something that is possessed by someone else and become disturbed through our longing for what we don’t have. We resolve our disturbance by creating a scapegoat of the person or people who appear to have or prevent us from having what it is we desire. When the scapegoat is killed we can gain what we desire and also release the sense of disturbance that we feel.

This is what we see acted out in the story of Herodias and Salome. The privileges that Herodias and Salome enjoy seem to be threatened and they identify John the Baptist as the threat to their continued enjoyment of their desires. John is therefore scapegoated and killed to remove their sense of threat.

This pattern becomes expressed in religions involving human sacrifices as scapegoats to appease their gods. It is out of such religions that Abraham is called to form a people who do not sacrifice other human beings, but instead use animals as their scapegoats and sacrifices. Jesus is later born into this people who have subverted the existing practice of scapegoating and he further subverts this practice because, as he is crucified, God becomes the scapegoat that is killed.

The crucifixion is, therefore, the logical outcome of the incarnation. To use the language of our Vicar, Sam Well's, Nazareth Manifesto, God is not simply for victims. God is with victims, because God is a victim. God is not simply for the excluded. God is with the excluded, because God is excluded. God is not simply for those who are scapegoated. God is with scapegoats, because God is a scapegoat. When God is scapegoated, there is no longer any god to appease and the necessity for scapegoating is superceded, subverted and eradicated.

This is the reality in which Christianity calls us to live. A world beyond Horrible Histories, beyond scapegoating, beyond victimisation and beyond exclusion. A world in which the mechanisms for justifying and acting out our violent desires have been dismantled and rendered null and void. A world, as Barbara Brown Taylor said, in which we ‘keep deciding not to hate the haters, … keep risking the fatal wound of love and teaching others to do the same — because that is how we prepare the ground around us to receive the seeds of heaven when they come’.

‘Violence did not surprise Jesus. He was prepared for it, and he tried to prepare his followers as well but few of them had ears to hear.’ ‘Even before the violent had come for him, he knew what had happened to God’s messengers in the past: silenced, exiled, outlawed, killed …Then King Herod threw John the Baptist in prison … and Jesus had to say it all over again: expect violence; prepare for it; never underestimate the harm it can do.’

Are we similarly prepared? Do we know ‘the power to resist the deadly force of violence’ by doing what Jesus taught and practised: ‘turn the cheek, pray for the persecutor, love the enemy, welcome the stranger. In everything do to others as you would have them do to you.’ Are we willing, like John the Baptist and Jesus, to be prophets who can see and name what does not belong with us and can shine the light of God’s truth in the night-time of fear and oppression?

If we do then our prayer must be: Lord, disarm violence and begin with me. As Barbara Brown Taylor noted last week, ‘Sometimes [the power to resist the deadly force of violence] actually works to disarm the violence in others, which is why we know the names of Gandhi, Tutu, and King. But that is not its main purpose. Its main purpose is to disarm the violence in us, so that we do not join the other team.’

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Sinead O'Connor - Make Me A Channel Of Your Peace.

A Nazareth Manifesto

'At the interface of critical academic reflection and faithful church theology, we have no better voice than that of Sam Wells. He invites us to rethink, from the ground up, our abiding temptation to condescending “help and service” to others. He compellingly renders a more excellent way toward the transformative “with.”' Walter Brueggemann

Last Friday I was at the launch of Sam's latest book, A Nazareth Manifesto, which is an eloquent and impassioned ecumenical proposal for re-envisioning Christianity’s approach to social engagement away from working “for” the people to being “with” them. The book questions the effectiveness of the current trend of intervention as a means of fixing the problems of people in distressed and disadvantaged circumstances. Sam argues that Jesus spent 90% of his life simply being among the people of Nazareth, sharing their hopes and struggles, therefore Christians should place a similar emphasis on being alongside people in need rather than hastening to impose solutions.

This is a particularly significant book because Sam maintains 'that the word with is the most important word in theology.' The book 'is an enquiry into whether with is the pervading theme that runs through Trinity, creation, incarnation, atonement, the sending of the Spirit, ecclesiology, and eschatology.' Additionally, Sam argues that the human project in the West has been to secure life against limitation in general and mortality in particular, but that such efforts have only deepened the true predicament, which is isolation.' 

A Nazareth Manifesto comes out of Sam's experience of trying to lead influential institutions in ways that bring about empowering and dignifying relationships with people experiencing social disadvantage.

Jean Vanier said in his Templeton Prize acceptance remarks: 'A Nazareth Manifesto reveals that Jesus came to teach us, not just to do things for people who are homeless, but to be with them. Yes, that is the real secret of the church, and the secret of our communities, and hopefully one day it will be the secret of all humanity, to be with.


To be with is to live side by side, it is enter into mutual relationships of friendship and concern. It is to laugh and to cry together, it is to mutually transform each other. Each person becomes a gift for the other, revealing to each other that we are all part of a huge and wonderful family, the family of God.'

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Sydney Carter - I Come Like A Beggar.