You shall not be overcome

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

Immediately before today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 14. 22 - 33) where the disciples are caught up in a storm, we read about the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000. The disciples had had a wonderful experience and had grown in their faith. This was immediately followed by their going through a storm.

This is a common experience in the lives of Christians and in church life. After enjoying positive experiences and developments in our faith, we then go through some kind of trial which tests our faith. It is easy to wonder why that should be so and there are no easy answers.

One of the people I have read and appreciated over the course of my ministry has been Julian of Norwich. She doesn’t answer that question but she does say this, God did not say 'You shall not be tempest-tossed, you shall not be work-weary, you shall not be discomforted'. But he did say, 'You shall not be overcome.'

So, our Gospel reading this morning has things to teach us about how to respond when storms come in our individual lives and as a church. Jesus comes to the disciples in the storm walking on the water. He doesn’t still the storm on this occasion instead he calls Peter to walk to him on the water. Peter begins to do this but then becomes afraid and begins to sink. At which point, Jesus supports him and they return to the boat and the storm is then stilled.

In the midst of this storm Peter is asked to do something which seems impossible. He is asked to do what Jesus is doing, to follow in Jesus’ footsteps. In his storm Peter was called to walk on water but what is the equivalent for us in our storms?

All Jesus’ disciples are called to follow in his footsteps by doing what Jesus did. Like Peter being called to walk on water, following in Jesus’ footsteps often seems impossible for us because what Jesus did was to give everything he had for the love of others. Out of love for all humanity, he left everything he had with God to become a human being, being born as a baby at Bethlehem, and he then gave up his own life on the cross when he was crucified out of love for all people everywhere. When we think through what following in Jesus’ footsteps actually means we quickly find, as individuals and as a church, that there are all sorts of reasons that prevent from fully doing what Jesus did and giving all that we have and are to others out of love for them. As a result, we are like Peter who began to walk on the water but couldn’t keep going. What Jesus calls us to do and to be by following in his footsteps seems impossible for us to achieve.

Yet we know of some, like St Francis of Assisi or Mother Teresa, who have followed in Jesus’ footsteps more fully than any of us have yet managed. So, we know too that it can be done to some extent and, with that in mind, we need to be prepared, like Peter, to make the attempt, even if that means we fail to fully follow through. As he was with Peter, Jesus will be alongside us and will restore us so that we are then able to try again.

The storms we face in life are times of trial, times when life seems at its most difficult or most challenging. The temptation in these times is to lose our focus on Jesus - on who he is, what he did and how he acted – when that happens, like Peter, the worries of life crowd in and distract and we fall. In the storms we face, the more we continue to follow in Jesus’ footsteps by giving all we can to our fellow Christians and in the wider community, the more we will experience the ability to walk on water and come through the storms instead of being overwhelmed by them.

Julian of Norwich reminds us of the importance of prayer in these circumstances when we feel buffeted by the storms of life and don’t feel God’s comforting presence alongside us. She wrote, “Prayer fastens the soul to God, making it one with his will through the deep inward working of the Holy Spirit. So he says this, 'Pray inwardly, even though you feel no joy in it. For it does good, though you feel nothing, see nothing, yes, even though you think you cannot pray. For when you are dry and empty, sick and weak, your prayers please me, though there be little enough to please you. All believing prayer is precious in my sight.' God accepts the good-will and work of his servants, no matter how we feel.”

As she reminds us, “God did not say 'You shall not be tempest-tossed, you shall not be work-weary, you shall not be discomforted'. But he did say, 'You shall not be overcome.'”

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Marketa Irglova - Point Of Creation.

You'll Never Walk Alone

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

You’ll Never Walk Alone, along with other songs from musicals, has been included as a hymn in the BBC’s hymn book. Ian Barclay commenting on this in The Guardian wrote that the Songs of Praise programme producers had come to realise that secular songs from shows have taken on some on the status of folk hymns, addressing the spiritual and pastoral needs of many people. Taken out of its context in Carousel, where it is sung by a dead father who has returned to life for one day to the daughter he never knew, it can be sung as a statement of belief that, as Psalm 23 states, God will be with us as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death or through the storms of life.

"When you walk through the storm
Hold your head up high
And don't be afraid of the dark
At the end of the storm
There's a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of the lark

Walk on, through the wind
Walk on, through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and blown
Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone
You'll never walk alone"

Our Gospel reading (Matthew 8: 23 – 27) also speaks about a storm and the way in which God is with those in the storm. The disciples in the boat on Lake Galilee experienced a literal storm but they were also caught up in an event of set of external circumstances that were beyond their control. That is probably the most common way in which we experience storms within our own lives. Circumstances conspire to bring illness or redundancy or debt or breakdown in relationships. We may have made choices that have contributed to the situation – just as the disciples made the choice to go out in the boat – but we end up by finding ourselves in circumstances that are beyond our control and which threaten to overwhelm us.

We tend to think of storms as something to avoid, something to hide or shelter from but in both of these stories God is there in the storm. Although the storm is stilled on the lake, the encounter with God takes place in the storm. To encounter God, we often need to be in the storms of life. And the God that we encounter in the storms of life goes with us through those storms until we find ourselves on the other side. That is the promise of You’ll never walk alone and of Psalm 23; even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil, for God is with us; his rod and your staff, they comfort us.

The God that we encounter in the storm can release the internal storm from with us. In times of crisis and distress we often keep our emotions bottled up inside us until eventually they explode in anger and violence. The God that we meet in the storm can be an escape valve, the person that we can always turn to, the one who is always there to listen and with whom we can pour out all those pent-up emotions releasing the storm within.

The God that we encounter in the storm is also able to still the storm of external circumstances. He holds that power and that is what we often long when we are caught up in the storms of life. I experienced that power after my younger brother Nick died in the crash of a UN plane in Kosovo. With the families of others who had died I was flown to the crash site and saw the scattered and shattered pieces of the plane on the mountainside. That terrible moment brought home the physical reality of what had happened to my brother. It was the height of the storm for me. On landing again at Pristina Airport I was met by some of the people from Tear Fund with whom Nick had been working in Kosovo to rebuild homes destroyed in the fighting there. They told me stories of the impact that Nick had had on their lives and the lives of the Kosovan people with whom they had worked. As we talked and cried together, God brought an assurance into my heart that he had welcomed Nick into his presence with the words, “Well done, my good and faithful son” and in this way I knew the stilling of the storm.

The God that we encounter in the storm is also able to still the storm of external circumstances. And yet, Jesus was disappointed with the reaction of disciples in the storm on Lake Galilee. “How little faith you have,” is what he said to them. What would have happened if they had had more faith? It is likely that they would have rode out the storm in trust that God would see them through. It is likely that Jesus was asleep in the boat not because he didn’t care about their dilemma but because he trusted that God would go with them through the storm and wanted them to have that same trust too.

We may be in the middle of some storm ourselves today as we sit and listen. We may need the internal storm in our lives to be released in peace. We may have come through storms in our lives but still be bearing the scars or wondering where God was at that time. We may need to take this message to our hearts now because there are storms on the horizon. If that is so, we need to know in our hearts that we do not walk alone. That if we look for him we will see God going with us through the storm. That if we trust him we will come to that place of peace where the storm clouds have blown over and we see the golden sky and hear the sweet, silver song of the lark.

Let us pray that we will recognise God with us in the storms of our lives asking for the faith to come through the storm, for release of our internal storms, and for the stilling of our external storms.

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Delirious? - Find Me In The River.

A theology of welcome

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

Jesus called his 12 disciples to an itinerant ministry which involved going ahead of him to prepare people for his coming and his message. As a result, they took nothing unnecessary with them, they weren’t distracted by small talk along the way, and they welcomed hospitality when they received it but simply moved on to the next place and the next person whenever they were not made welcome. We’ve been listening to and reflecting on the instructions Jesus gave to his disciples in our Gospel readings for the past couple of weeks (Matthew 10). This passage (Matthew 10.40-42) comes as the conclusion to Jesus’ teaching. His concluding words are all about the importance of welcome.

Before the disciples go Jesus warns that those who fail to welcome them are not only turning God’s messengers away from their homes and lives but God himself too. As he says, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me” and earlier, “Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me; and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.” When the disciples return to him, he rejoices at the welcome which they have received and the sense that the Gospel has been received from “the diverse and motley group he has chosen as his associates.”

The emphasis in these passages is on the hospitality provided by others to Jesus’ disciples. We tend to think of ourselves as being called like them to take the good news of Jesus to others, so we naturally identify ourselves with the disciples in the passage and think about the response we receive from others when they know that we are Christians. But to really get the force and challenge of what Jesus is saying in this passage we have to put ourselves in the shoes of those the disciples went to and ask ourselves how well do we receive others? The challenge in this passage is about the quality of the welcome provided to others. The great sin here is to be inhospitable and to be inhospitable is actually to reject the divine in our lives.

John Bowen is one who has offered a brief theology of welcome beginning with God welcoming us. God’s posture, as Jesus shows it over and over again, is one of welcome towards humankind. Thus, Jesus welcomes the crowds (Luke 9:11). In particular, he welcomes “sinners” – to the discomfiture of the Pharisees. “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them!” they say in amazed disgust (Luke 15:2). How can he open himself to such people? The story Jesus tells in response, of course, is all about a father who is also a welcomer.

The most frequent Greek word for welcome, or receive, is dechomai. Twice, when describing those banquets which are foretastes of God’s eschatological banquet, Luke uses an unusual word for “feast”—doche—-which is related to dechomai. Welcoming, it seems, is most naturally followed by feasting!

As God welcome us, so we are called to welcome God. God’s hope is that humankind will reciprocate by welcoming his banquet invitation. In fact, the word dechomai becomes almost a technical term in the New Testament – the equivalent of receiving or believing or trusting in God’s salvation. So, when the New Testament observes anyone engaged in “welcoming”, it is not just a sociological statement but also a theological one. The welcome means the welcomer has welcomed God’s grace.

Thus when Zaccheus “welcomes” Jesus into his house, it is almost Luke’s code way of saying, “Look! Do you get it? Zaccheus has entered the kingdom.” It is not only receiving Jesus which has theological significance, however. As we have heard this morning, when Jesus sent out the twelve, he explained to them, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me” (Matthew 10:40 cf. John 13:20). Paul too understands that the messenger stands in for the speaker. When he recalls how the Galatians first welcomed him, he says, “you welcomed me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus” (Galatians 4:14). Their welcome of God’s messenger was the beginning of their opening the door to God.

Finally, then, there is our welcoming of one another. The work of God’s Spirit in us can be summarised as making us like Jesus, restoring the image of God in us. Part of that renewing is to turn us into welcomers in just the way that God is a welcomer. Jesus urged us, “When you give a feast [doch], invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind…” (Luke 14:12-14) Paul says much the same thing, only in different words: “Welcome one another, as God in Christ welcomed you.” (Romans 15:7) God is the standard by which we are to measure the warmth of our welcoming.

For Paul, as for Jesus, this was not a matter of mere words. When Luke records at the climax of the Book of Acts that Paul “welcomed all who came to him”, we recognise this to be a Christ-like kind of welcoming, not least because Luke adds pointedly that Paul entertained “at his own expense” — just as God’s welcoming is at God’s own expense. (Acts 28:20)

When we welcome strangers into our churches, then, like Paul we are agents of God, representing the God who has welcomed us without reserve. The hand of welcome we extend is God’s hand. There is thus something sacramental in the act of welcoming. It is, as the BCP says of baptism, “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace”: the sign of the grace God has shown to us. Is it costly? Is it disturbing? Naturally. That’s the way grace is. But it is also deeply divine, and deeply human.

So, how do we rate on that basis? We think of ourselves as a friendly, welcoming church but it’s important not rest on our laurels and instead ask ourselves how we can be more welcoming, more hospitable to those who come for the first time and those that we don’t know well. When we are here in church, let us make those people our priority, always seeking to speak first to those we don’t know, don’t know well or haven’t spoken to for some time.

Whoever welcomes, welcomes Jesus and welcomes God. If we truly want to see and hear God, then all we need to do is to welcome those we encounter as we will see the face of God in them. God calls us not just to be those who follow him but also to be those sent out to prepare the way for him to come into the lives of others and challenges us, too, to be those who are always welcoming, always hospitable towards others.

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Let Us Build A House.

The action learning cycle of discipleship

Here's the sermon I shared at St Mary’s Langdon Hills and St Catherine’s Wickford this morning:

Last Sunday, our Gospel reading was the beginning of Matthew 10 where Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and sent them out to go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and proclaim the good news that ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near’. In my sermon on that reading, I reflected that, contrary to popular belief, we do not have to be perfect to do God's work because Jesus chose ordinary people - fisherman, tax collectors, political zealots - and turned their weaknesses into strengths.

This week’s Gospel reading (Matthew 10:24-39) continues Jesus’ instructions to his disciples before they leave for their mission and this portion of Jesus’ teaching reflects his sense that he is sending them out into difficult, conflicted times to be like sheep into the midst of wolves. Jesus gives the disciples radical instructions for a difficult time. 

Being a disciple of Jesus in today’s materialistic and conflicted world is not an easy choice. It means going counter to the culture in we live and opposition sometimes results, as Bob Dylan described in a song called ‘Property of Jesus’:

‘Go ahead and talk about him because he makes you doubt
Because he has denied himself the things that you can't live without
Laugh at him behind his back just like the others do
Remind him of what he used to be when he comes walking through

He's the property of Jesus
Resent him to the bone
You got something better
You've got a heart of stone’

Dylan experienced that for himself when, for a time, he took the decision to only sing his new Gospel songs in concert and experienced vitriol from many long-standing fans as a result.

So, we bear in mind the challenges of following Jesus in a culture that is focused on other things but rather than being focused on our relationship to the world, I want us instead to focus on what Jesus says about our relationship with God and how those things relate to baptism.

In the middle of today’s passage, we heard Jesus say: ‘Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.’ As Jesus came up out of the waters of baptism, he saw heaven opening, the Spirit coming down on him like a dove, and he heard a voice from heaven saying, “You are my own dear Son. I am pleased with you.” As he was baptised, he was immediately affirmed as God’s Son. It is easy for us to think that that only applies to Jesus; that it was a special word spoken by God the Father especially to him and, on one level, it was. But the Bible makes it quite clear that Jesus came into our world and laid down his life to make us one with God so that, as Christians, we are Jesus’ brothers and sisters, members of the same family – God’s family – and co-heirs with Jesus of everything that he has.

Listen to what St Paul says about this in Romans 8. 14-17: God's Spirit joins himself to our spirits to declare that we are God's children. Since we are his children, we will possess the blessings he keeps for his people, and we will also possess with Christ what God has kept for him …” We are reminded that we are, each one, a child of God, a brother or sister of Jesus, we are loved, we are valued, we are blessed.

Next, Jesus said that those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. This, again, is a reminder of how salvation comes and an insight into baptism. As the baptism liturgy reminds us Jesus has told us that to enter the kingdom of heaven we must be born again of water and the Spirit, and has given us baptism as the sign and seal of this new birth. Here we are washed by the Holy Spirit and made clean. Here we are clothed with Christ, dying to sin that we may live his risen life.

The symbolism of baptism is of being submerged under water as a sign of dying to our old way of life in which we live for our purposes and ends and then of being raised up into a new way of life with God where we are focused on God’s ways, rather than our own. That is what Jesus is saying here. If we find our life by living life our way and for ourselves, we will lose all that is precious and eternal in life but if we lose our life by giving our life to God, then we discover all that is precious and eternal in life. Baptism is the beginning of that way of life but it is also something that we need to practice day in and day out repenting and returning to the Lord whenever we fall into sin.

Finally, Jesus says it is enough for disciples to be like their teacher and slaves like their master. This is a reminder that we are those who follow in the footsteps of Jesus and are to be his body – his eyes, ears, hands and feet – in this world. We are to be those who are led by Jesus’ Spirit to ask what would Jesus do in every situation that we encounter and do the kinds of things that Jesus would of have do, remembering that we cannot simply repeat what he did, as every situation is different and needs a different response, but are to respond to each situation we encounter in his Spirit.

To do this, we need to spend time in his company speaking with him in prayer and to sit at his feet to hear his teaching by spending time in the Gospel stories which show us what he did and what he taught. Having do so, we then go to put into practice what we have seen and heard, before then returning to sit at Jesus’ feet once more in a cycle of action learning where we reflect, learn, plan and act before repeating the pattern of learning and growth.

While disciples may do greater things than the teacher, in that they may do more and different things, they themselves will never surpass what Jesus has to teach because Jesus is God and has an infinite store of wisdom.

This is how our lives are to be lived as Christians (with baptism showing us how this begins and is sustained). Foundational to our Christian life and understanding is the realisation that we are loved by God and are precious – of value – to him. This is why we come to God and why we stay with him. Then, in response, we lay down our lives on his behalf through service of others and by dying to self through repentance and return. As his disciples, we begin an ongoing action learning cycle in which we look at and learn from Jesus, practice what we have seen and heard, then return to learn more. May it be so for each of us. Amen.

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Bob Dylan - Property of Jesus.

Ordinary, fallible and failing followers

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

When I go into school’s I often tell a part of my testimony. How I am fundamentally quite a shy, quiet person and how that was very much the case as a child – the sort of child who always held back from answering questions in class because I was afraid of giving the wrong answer (even if I knew the right answer). As a shy teenager, very aware of my own shortcomings, I doubted whether I was good enough for God but, in my late teens, I was shown Romans 5. 8, which says “while we were still sinners Christ died for us,” by a youth group leader and, as a result, recommitted my life to Christ.

I realised that if Jesus died for me, while I was still a sinner, I was accepted and loved by him as I was. That took all the anxiety and worry out of my relationship with God and it transformed the way I felt and thought about myself. If God loved me so much that he had died for me, it didn’t really matter what other people thought about me, even if they didn’t think much of me.

I came to God as a very ordinary person who felt under-confident and inadequate. Contrary to popular belief, we do not have to be perfect to do God's work. We need look no further than the twelve disciples whose many weaknesses are forever preserved throughout the pages of the New Testament. Jesus chose ordinary people - fisherman, tax collectors, political zealots - and turned their weaknesses into strengths (Matthew 9.35 - 10.8).

While Jesus had a large number of followers including women as well as men and those who remained at home to support those who were on the road with Jesus, this passage focuses our attention on the 12 who were amongst the first that were called to follow him, were amongst those closest to him and who became apostles following his Ascension.

Their names, as given here, are: The first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; and James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip and Bartholomew (Nathanael); Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus (James the Less), and Thaddaeus (Judas, son of James); Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed Him. (Matthew 10:2-4, emphasis added)

What do we know about them? Peter and Andrew were fishermen in the town of Capernaum working alongside James and John. Peter and Andrew were early followers of John the Baptist. Andrew was the first to follow Jesus and his enthusiasm was evident as his desire to introduce his older brother to Jesus revealed what was already in his heart—a deep love for God. Once Peter was introduced to Jesus, they left John and became followers of Jesus. Peter is portrayed as impetuous, always speaking his mind and acting on impulse. He is well known for denying Christ three times after Christ was arrested but became one of the key leaders of the early church after Jesus’ ascension.

James and John were both known for being men of intense passion and fervour. Because of this Jesus nicknamed them the Sons of Thunder. They asked Jesus if they should call down fire from heaven to destroy a village which failed to show them hospitality and also asked if they could sit on either side of Jesus’ throne in heaven. Philip was the one who suggested that Nathanael come and see Jesus and who brought a group of Greek people from Bethsaida to Jesus. Nathanael, also known as Bartholomew, expressed some local prejudice about Nazareth but was recognised by Jesus for the sincerity of his love for God from the beginning of their relationship. Jesus said, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” Matthew was a tax collector; tax collectors being the most despised people in all of Israel. They were known for taking extra money from the people of Israel to pay off the Romans and to pad their own pockets. Thomas is best known for his moment of scepticism after the Resurrection which earned him the nickname “Doubting Thomas,” a term for anyone who needs proof before they believe something.

James the Less is the son of Alphaeus. His mother’s name is Mary and he has a brother named Joseph. Except for a few details about his family, there is nothing more mentioned about him in Scripture. Maybe that is why he is referred to as James the Less in Mark 15:40. Simon the Zealot was probably a political activist in his younger years. Some have suggested that the fiery enthusiasm he once had for Israel as a Zealot was now expressed in his devotion to Christ. Judas, son of James, is the eleventh name on the list of disciples. Also known as Jude, Thaddeus, and Lebbaeus, he lived in obscurity as one of the Twelve. He is recorded as asking Jesus the question (in John 14:22), “Lord, why are you going to reveal yourself only to us and not to the world at large?” Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver but, by doing so, enabled the events of Christ’s Passion to occur as Jesus knew they would.

So, amongst those that Jesus chose are one who denied him, another who betrayed him; while all of them abandoned him at the last. Some were ambitious and some revengeful. Some had complicated and morally dubious backgrounds. They were primarily ordinary working people; none of whom held influence or power. Some were so obscure, even among the disciples, that we know virtually nothing about them.

They are, therefore, great encouragements to us ‘because they exemplify how common people with typical failings can be used by God in uncommon, remarkable ways.’ John McArthur writes, ‘What we know to be true about Jesus is that He chose [those who were] ordinary and unrefined … They were the commonest of the common. They were from rural areas, farmers, and fisherman. Christ purposely passed over the elite, aristocratic, and influential … and chose mostly … from the dregs of society. That’s how it has always been in God’s economy. He exalts the humble and lays low those who are proud.’

All of them were chosen, trained and used by Jesus. Even those who were in the background as disciples were valuable team members. This was so despite their personal failings and failures. None of those things were barriers to being called by Jesus, trained and used by him. That remains true for each of us.

In my parish we use a course called ’Being With’ to prepare people for baptism and confirmation. The wonderings we use in the course take me back to my teenage experiences and the shyness that impacted my personal development. An experience summed well in The Smiths song ‘Ask’, which begins ‘Shyness is nice / and shyness can stop you from doing all the things in life that you’d like to.’

Realising that God loved me unconditionally and as I was, with my shyness and reserve, was key to finding my way through life and using the mix of gifts, skills and interests I developed. Like Jesus’ disciples I wasn’t an obvious candidate to be called to ministry. But none of us are; that’s the beauty of the way God values each person as a unique creation, calling us to be with him so that, over time, our gifts, skills and interests are all utilised in his company.

Baptism is the beginning of that journey when we first realise that God loves as we are and wants to be with us as we journey through life. In baptism God invites us on a life-long journey together with him and, as that journey begins, we hear him say to us, ‘You are my beloved son or daughter, with you I am well pleased’. When we know that in our hearts then we can grow into the people that God wants us to be. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

(This reflection draws on material from https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/bible-study/who-were-the-12-disciples-and-what-should-we-know-about-them.html and https://overviewbible.com/12-apostles/)

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Josh Garrels - A Long Way.

Approaching leave taking

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

Our two readings today (Acts 20.28-end and John 17.11-19) are both about leave taking. Jesus prays for his disciples as he will soon be leaving them when he ascends to be with God the Father, while St Paul gives his final messages to the Ephesian Elders before leaving them. They kneel, pray and embrace together with tears being shed. Leave taking is always hard, as we will experience at the end of June when we say goodbye to Revd Sue Wise and Simon and thank them for all they have done and been in this Parish. Let us use these passages to reflect on how we should approach that leave taking and what, under God, Sue and Simon will be praying for us.

Jesus prayed that his disciples would know God’s protection, be sanctified and be united. Paul asked the Ephesian Elders to keep watch over the congregation in Ephesus and commended them to God and to the message of his grace, a message that was able to build them up and to give them the inheritance among all who are sanctified. Both were aware that there would be difficult challenges ahead for those they were leaving but trusted that, in God’s hands, they would endure.

In his farewell discourses to his disciples, Jesus said something amazing because he said that those who follow him would do greater things than him and would be led into all truth. When you think how amazing Jesus’ own actions were, it is hard to imagine how people like us could do greater things than that, and, when you think how profound his teaching was, how could we be led into deeper or greater truth than that?

But Jesus was articulating something that all good teachers think and feel; the sense that all the time he had spent with them and invested in them was not so they would be clones of him, simply repeating the things he did and said, but instead he had equipped, empowered and enabled his followers to follow him by using their own gifts and abilities and initiative which would inevitably mean that they would do and say different things from him but still with his Spirit and based on all they had learnt from him.

He was saying that each one of us is a unique combination of personality, abilities and potential and, therefore, each of us can make a unique mark on the world. His followers can do greater things than Jesus because they will do different things from him in his name and Spirit – things that only they can do for him because they are that unique package of personality, ability and potential.

That is also what we, the ministry team here, wish for you. That you will use what you have learnt here and the abilities you have developed here to make your own mark on the world and to continue learning, particularly about the meaning of life itself.

What that mark will be we can’t predict, but please don’t make the mistake of thinking that making your mark on the world and doing great things means becoming famous or making pots of money. Many of the most significant things that people do in the course of their lives don’t make the headlines and don’t build our bank balances! For example, forming faithful, committed relationships is one of the most challenging but meaningful things we can do in life but that won’t feature in the press and media or usually impact on our bank balance. Some of us have become parents (others have brought many children into the world) and know the joys and struggles of supporting children in their development and growth. That is one of the most significant things we can do over the course of our lives; something that is both extraordinary and profoundly ordinary at one and the same time.

Our prayer for you is what Jesus prayed for his disciples that you will know God’s protection, be sanctified, be united, be built up, be given the inheritance among all who are sanctified, and go on to do greater things than us by making your unique mark on the world and go ever deeper into truth by continuing to learn throughout your life.

Let us pray for God’s blessing on our experiences of leave taking, our doing, and our learning:

We thank you, Lord, for each one of these your people - for their unique combination of personality, abilities and potential, for all they have learnt here and for all the friendships they have formed. We pray for your blessing on us and pray for your guidance as we continue to seek to make our mark on the world by using all we have learnt here together with our unique combination of personality, abilities and potential. We pray that we might do great things, things that we cannot do alone and cannot yet predict. We pray the blessing of committed, sustained friendships and relationships and the blessing of ongoing, lifelong learning. Most of all we pray that the blessing of God almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit will rest upon and remain with each one of us now and forever. Amen.

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Low - One Special Gift.

To the ends of the earth

Here's the reflection I shared during Reflective Evening Prayer at St Mary's Runwell this evening:

In Jesus, God became a human being. That is what we celebrate at Christmas and it is also what is emphasised by Jesus in his post-resurrection appearances (Luke 24. 36 - 53). God becomes Emmanuel, one with us, one of us.

As we read in Colossians 1.19, Jesus had in himself, as a human being, the full nature of God. In other words, he showed God to us as fully as God can be seen in human form. This is because the creator must limit himself when he becomes part of his creation and so in Philippians 2. 7 we also read that Jesus gave up all he had when he took the nature of a servant by becoming a human being and appearing in human likeness.

For God to become a human being involved limitation. A helpful analogy is that of an artist and his/her self-portrait. The self-portrait is the artist (in that it looks just like the artist, being an accurate representation of him or her) but it is much more limited than the artist (being paint on canvas rather than living flesh and bones). For the eternal, creator God to become a mortal part of his creation involved a similar level of limitation. Among the limitations as a human being that Jesus willingly accepted was being born in a particular time and place (1st century Palestine) and living, ministering and dying only in that same time and place.

Jesus’ Ascension was necessary then in order to overcome those limitations. Not so much by regaining his full divinity as by giving each of his followers his Spirit so that we can then be his hands and feet, his eyes, ears and mouth, his body in the world and throughout history. It is not possible for one person by himself to go to all peoples everywhere but it is possible for Christ’s disciples, his followers, to take his message and his Spirit from Jerusalem to all of Judea and Samaria and then to the ends of the earth.

The Gospel of Christ is able to go out into the whole world because we, the followers of Christ, are scattered throughout the world and can be his hands and feet, his eyes, ears and mouth, his body wherever we are. Suddenly, there are no limits on where the Body of Christ – his followers – can be. This is why, at his Ascension, he says to his disciples, “you will be witnesses for me in Jerusalem, in all of Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth “(Acts 1. 8).

But this can only happen as we all play our own part in the Body of Christ. It can only happen as we act as the hands and feet, his eyes, ears and mouth, his body wherever we are. This is the challenge of the Ascension for us, but this challenge is combined with the promise that he will send his Spirit to us to empower and equip us to be his people, his Body, by doing what he would have done wherever we are. This is why he also says to his disciples, “when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will be filled with power, and you will be witnesses for me in Jerusalem, in all of Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1.8).

For this reason, the Ascension and Pentecost are intimately linked. The Ascension provides the challenge – “Go, then, to all peoples everywhere and make them my disciples” (Matthew 28.19) – and Pentecost provides the means - “when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will be filled with power, and you will be witnesses for me in Jerusalem, in all of Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

One day we are ordinary people, the next, through the Spirit, we are Christ’s evangelists, and pastors, and healers, and mercy-bringers, and the Body of Christ, redeemed by his blood, one in ministry to the entire world. Through our lives God brings living water to a thirsty world in the offerings of service and mercy that we share with others on a daily basis. This is the extraordinary way that God builds his Kingdom throughout the world - through ordinary people like you and me.

Let us pray for the coming of God’s kingdom on earth, as in heaven, throughout the world from Jerusalem through Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth. Amen.

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Mavis Staples - In Christ There Is No East Or West.

Life with God and in God

Here's the sermon that I shared this morning at St Mary’s Runwell:

Where we live says quite a lot about the sort of people we are and the kind of relationships we have. Do we value the place where we were born or did we want to move away from it? Have we remained close to our wider family or are we independent of them? Have we a transient lifestyle by choice or necessity? Have we been able to choose where we live or have circumstances dictated that to us? Are our homes places of welcome to others or castles where we protect ourselves from the world?

Jesus told his disciples on the night before he died that he was going away from them to prepare a place for them to live – a dwelling place for them (John 14: 1 – 14). He gave them the picture of living in God’s house, all of them there together but each with their own specifically prepared room. This was a picture of the way in which, in future, they were going to live in God.

Jesus said that they would not be able to go with him as he left them. That was because he was going to the cross and only he, through his sinless death, could cross the divide between God and humanity and restore the relationship between us. That is why he is able to say that he is the way to the Father. No one else was able to bridge that gap by means of their death, only Jesus.

But when he came back to the disciples after death, through the resurrection, the way back to God from the dark paths of sin was now wide open and the disciples together with each one of us can now go in. The great opportunity that Jesus has opened up for us is that, despite our sin, we can live with God now, dwell in him throughout our lives, and also into eternity.

What is it like to live with God? First, it is a place without worry or fear. It is a place of arrival. Saint Augustine said, our hearts are restless till they find their rest in thee. And this is because it is a place where we are valued for who we are. Jesus spoke about going to prepare a specific place specifically for us and this is a way of saying that God knows us and loves us as we are. We can picture it in terms of rooms in our own homes. We put our mark on our rooms filling them with objects and decorations that reflect who we are and what is important to us. In a similar way, God is saying that he welcomes into him, into his presence the unique people that we are, you and I.

And that leads us on to the next characteristic of living with God which is expanse. Jesus says that there are many rooms in his Father’s house, so it is expansive and needs to be because it is open to all – people of every race, language, colour, creed, gender, sexuality, class, nation, whatever. There is room for all.

Living with God is about acceptance – we can stop searching and rest because we have been found, we are accepted and loved as the unique person that each of us is and we are part of a wider worldwide family that can encompass us all.

But living with God is not the end of the story. There is more because God also comes to live with us. In verse 11 we hear Jesus says that he is in the Father (he lives or dwells in God as we now can) and that the Father lives in him. And this is what can happen to us too. In the second half of chapter 14 Jesus speaks about the Holy Spirit coming to stay with us (v16). Then he says that he himself will be in us (v20) and finally in verse 23 he says that both he and the Father will live with us.

This is the incredible news that is central to Christianity. Not only can we live in God but himself comes and lives in us. We are in him and he is in us. Think about the wonder and privilege of it for a moment. Think of how you would feel if the person you most admire in the world lived with you – whether that’s King Charles, Taylor Swift, Greta Thunberg, Sarah Mullally, Pep Guardiola, Pope Leo or whoever. We know that that is unlikely to happen but the reality of our lives and faith is that the God who created the universe and who saved humanity wants to live in your life.

What would you do if that person that you most admire was coming to your home? I bet you would have a massive spring clean and get your house looking just as you would ideally like to have it looking. Shouldn’t we do the same because God is living in our lives? The Bible talks about our bodies being a temple of God’s Holy Spirit – in other words, a place where God lives - and because God lives in us then we should keep our bodies healthy and pure. But not just our bodies, our minds and feelings and actions too. Because we have the huge privilege of having the creator of the universe, the saviour of humanity living in us we need to clean up our act, get on with that spring cleaning and make our lives the sort of place that is fit for a King.

So, there is both challenge and the comfort in our Gospel reading today. The way is open for us to live in God and receive his love and acceptance and for God to live with us which means acting to clean up mess that there is in all our lives. Where are you living this morning? Have you come to live in God or would you like to take that step this morning? And how does God feel about living in you are there things that you need to change about the home that you are providing for God?

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Kahlil Gibran - On Love.

God comes first

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

Recently, we got an urgent call in the early hours of the morning as my mother-in-law was being taken to A&E as the paramedics thought her heart was failing. We had to get up and go to be with her and everything else that had been planned for that day had to be rearranged.

Thankfully, she has rallied somewhat and, while still being frail, is on the mend. Our experience of having to drop everything and go was similar to Jesus' response to potential disciples, which was one of absolute immediacy and urgency (Luke 9. 51 – end). In this passage Jesus challenges his actual disciples and his would-be disciples about what it means to follow him and be a disciple.

In speaking to would-be disciples Jesus is emphatic that God comes first. Before commitments to home and to family, God comes first. This is the practical implication and application of Jesus’ summary of the Law: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul; and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and most important commandment. The second most important commandment is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as you love yourself.’”

As one example, “The obligation to bury one’s father was regarded by many Jews of Jesus’ time as the most holy and binding duty of a son; but Jesus says that that is secondary to the call to follow him and announce God’s kingdom.” Jesus’ call cuts across family life and our traditional understandings of family. Here, even saying goodbye to your family before you leave seems to be criticised by Jesus!

Jesus is talking here to people who were wanting to be part of his itinerant ministry but, as we heard a couple of weeks ago, he also had followers who stayed in their homes and workplaces and who provided support for the team of disciples who were on the road. So, these words of Jesus don’t mean that every Christian should leave home and family in order to follow him but they do mean that wherever we are we must put God first in our lives.

Despite that I wonder how we might inject a similar sense of urgency into our service of God? Jesus knew that his time was short and that there was much to do in that short space of time. We follow God throughout our lives and therefore don't have that same sense of immediacy and urgency.

In the back of our minds we know that time is short and that we never know what lies around the corner. Often, we don't like to contemplate that reality but much of Jesus' teaching takes us into that space.

Jesus' call is that we put God first and make God central to our lives and our ministry. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. This passage asks us what we will leave, what we will drop in order to do that. Some things are too important to put off any longer.

There is no point pretending that any of this is easy. What Jesus says to his would-be disciples still strikes us today as extreme but he is doing is making clear the real choice for us; between putting God first or putting ourselves, our needs and commitments first. That is the choice and dilemma that faces us each day. If we are to be followers of Jesus, then we need to continually say to ourselves WWJD; What would Jesus do. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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The Ocean Blue - Love Doesn't Make It Easy On Us.

Using all we have for God's praise and glory

Here's the sermon that I shared at: Luke 14. 25-33 (07/09/25, 10.30 am, St Mary’s Little Burstead this morning:

“Christ Jesus had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.” (Phil 2:5-8 MSG)

One thing of which Jesus could never be accused is of not practising what he preached. When he taught that, “none of you can be my disciples unless you give up everything you have,” it was not as though there was anything that he himself was holding back. He gave everything that he had and was, holding nothing back.

He calls us to do the same. That is crystal clear in today's Gospel passage: “Those who do not carry their own cross and come after me cannot be my disciples … none of you can be my disciples unless you give up everything you have.” (Luke 14. 25-33)

These statements sound as though they are a problem for us as we think today about stewardship and following Christ. Jesus’ words are a problem for us because whatever we are currently giving and have given in the past, we are clearly not giving everything. So, are we really disciples at all or are we just playing at being Christians; compromising for our own comfort?

Jesus called his disciples to leave their jobs and families in order to follow him and to take nothing with them for their journey; “no stick, no beggar’s bag, no food, no money, not even an extra shirt.” Is that what Jesus is calling us to when he says, “give up everything you have”? However, when Paul writes to Christians in the new church at Corinth, he says exactly the opposite: “Each of you should go on living according to the Lord’s gift to you, and as you were when God called you.” This is the rule, he writes, that he teaches in all the churches and makes that a rule despite having left his home and given up everything he had to bring the good news to the Gentiles.

So, we can say from this that there may be two different types of calling for Christians; the call to leave everything that we have and to go wherever God sends us, and the call to stay where we are and go on living according to the Lord’s gift to us. Whether from choice or calling, most of us would seem to be currently in the latter group, while those like the missionaries we may support would seem to be in the former group.

But isn’t being in the latter group simply a soft option; following Christ without any real sacrifice? It is not intended to be, although it is possible for us to live like that. The key to staying where we are but still giving up everything we have is in Paul’s words, “to go on living according to the Lord’s gift to us.” What he means by that, is that everything we have is a gift to us from God, given not simply for our benefit, use and enjoyment but to share with others and to use for the glory and praise of God.

You see, we can view what we have as being ours to use to suit ourselves and as we wish or we can view what we have as belonging to God and for his use. Those are two very different attitudes which have very different outcomes and if we genuinely live with the latter attitude then we are also giving up everything we have although we don’t physically leave it behind.

The way it works is like this. We look at what we have and ask ourselves how God wants us to use what we have for his praise and glory. Let’s think about that for a moment in terms of ways in which we might give what we have.

We could think, for example, of our homes; how are they being used for the praise and glory of God? Some people, for example, might open up their homes by showing hospitality to others; they might host a homegroup or a tea afternoon or invite others for a meal or to stay with them for a time. Others, for example, may make a home in which their children can grow up to experience the love and freedom of Jesus for themselves. Others may be lowering the carbon footprint made by their homes through, for example, recycling, energy efficiency initiatives and growing as much of their own food as possible.

These are just a few examples of the difference that this approach to life can make in one area of our lives. This is not to say that only those who already doing some of the things I have mentioned are doing all that they can or that they are in some way better than others. Rather than making comparisons with others, what we are each called to do is to take a detailed look at what we have - time, talents, money, possessions, investments, work, relationships – and work out how we can offer them to God and use them for his praise and glory.

Doing that is what Stewardship is all about. We become stewards when we recognise that what we have has been gifted to us by God and we become good stewards when we use all that we have for his praise and glory. When we do so then, although we have not physically given away all that we have, we hold it and use it not for ourselves, but for God.

Sometimes, you will hear people in churches talk about giving particular amounts or proportions of our income to the Church; most commonly, a tithe or tenth, which is a proportion taken from the Law of Moses in the Old Testament. Measures like that can be helpful in terms of deciding how to divide up the money we have been gifted by God and how much we might give to support local ministry through a local church.

But fundamentally, Jesus says that everything we have is a gift from God. Nothing belongs solely to us for our own sole use. Everything is to be given up and used for the praise and glory of God. That is the challenge of Jesus’ words to his disciples and that is, therefore, why it is vital that we regularly review what and how we use what we have been given by God because our giving is never as generous and cheerful and willing and sacrificial as it could become.

“Christ Jesus had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.”

As we remember and celebrate in communion all that Jesus gave for us, may we too cheerfully, generously and willingly give up everything we have for his praise and glory. Amen.

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Eric Clapton - Let It Grow.

Online exhibitions and visual meditations

Here's an update about the online exhibitions I have curated with the Ben Uri Gallery and the Visual Commentary on Scripture. These include visual meditations on the artworks included. I have also written visual meditations for ArtWay, so these are also included in this post.

The fourth exhibition I have curated for the Visual Commentary on Scripture (VCS) is now live on the VCS website. 'Before the Deluge' is a series of climate-focused commentaries on Genesis 6 looking at 'The Flood' by Norman Adams, 'Noah in the Ark and a Church' by Albert Herbert, and 'Noah's Ark' by Sadao Watanabe.

My first exhibition for the VCS was 'Back from the Brink' on Daniel 4: 'Immediately the word was fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men, and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers, and his nails were like birds’ claws.' (Daniel 4:33). In the exhibition I explore this chapter with William Blake's 'Nebuchadnezzar', 1795–c.1805, Arthur Boyd's 'Nebuchadnezzar's Dream of the Tree', 1969, and Peter Howson's 'The Third Step', 2001.

My second exhibition was 'A Question of Faith' and explored Hebrews 11 through the paintings of New Zealand artist Colin McCahon. McCahon is widely recognised as New Zealand’s foremost painter. Over 45 years, his work encompassed many themes, subjects and styles, from landscape to figuration to abstraction and an innovative use of painted text. His adaption of aspects of modernist painting to a specific local situation and his intense engagement with spiritual matters, mark him out as a distinctive figure in twentieth-century art.

My third exhibition was 'Fishers of People'. This exhibition uses Damien Hirst's 'Isolated Elements Swimming in the Same Direction for the Purpose of Understanding (Left) and (Right)', John Bellany's 'Kinlochbervie', and Paul Thek's 'Fishman in Excelsis Table' to discuss Matthew 4:12-22 and Mark 1:14-20. These artworks give us what is essentially a collage of the kingdom whereby we are invited to imagine the kingdom of God as a body of water in which Christians are immersed and through which they are raised.

The VCS is a freely accessible online publication that provides theological commentary on the Bible in dialogue with works of art. It helps its users to (re)discover the Bible in new ways through the illuminating interaction of artworks, scriptural texts, and commissioned commentaries. The virtual exhibitions of the VCS aim to facilitate new possibilities of seeing and reading so that the biblical text and the selected works of art come alive in new and vivid ways.

Each section of the VCS is a virtual exhibition comprising a biblical passage, three art works, and their associated commentaries. The curators of each exhibition select artworks that they consider will open up the biblical texts for interpretation, and/or offer new perspectives on themes the texts address. The commentaries explain and interpret the relationships between the works of art and the scriptural text.

Find out more about the VCS, its exhibitions and other resources through a short series of HeartEdge workshops introducing the VCS as a whole and exploring particular exhibitions with their curators. These workshops can be viewed here, here, here and here.

I have also curated an online exhibition for the Ben Uri Gallery which is entitled Exodus & Exile: Migration Themes in Biblical Images. The exhibition includes a range of Biblical images from the Ben Uri Collection in order to explore migration themes through consideration of the images, the Bible passages which inspired them and the relationship between the two. This is because themes of identity and migration feature significantly in both the Hebrew and Christian Bibles and images from these Bibles are a substantive element of the Ben Uri Collection.

The combination of images and texts enables a range of different reflections, relationships and disjunctions to be explored. The result is that significant synergies can be found between the ancient texts and current issues. In this way, stories and images which may, at first, appear to be describing or defining specific religious doctrines can be seen to take on a shared applicability by exploring or revealing the challenges and changes bound up in the age-old experience of migration.

The Gallery said: "We are delighted to present a new exhibition interpreting works from our collection titled Exodus and Exile. The survey has been curated by Revd Jonathan Evens who has a long-established parallel interest in art and faith and how they are mutually engaging. We are privileged to benefit from his scholarship and innate sensitivity and am sure you too will be inspired by his selection and commentary."

Alongside the exhibition is an essay Debt Owed to Jewish Refugee Art, an updated version of an article I originally wrote for Church Times looking at influential works by émigré Jewish artists that were under threat. The article mentions Ervin Bossanyi, Naomi Blake, Ernst Müller-Blensdorf, Hans Feibusch, and George Mayer-Marton, telling stories of the impact of migration on the work and reputations of these artists.

Following the launch of the exhibition, I wrote an article 'How the incomer’s eye sees identity' for Seen and Unseen explaining how curating an exhibition for the Ben Uri Gallery & Museum gave me the chance to highlight synergies between ancient texts and current issues.

ArtWay's visual meditations are devoted to one work of art, old or new, made by a Christian artist or not, from Europe, North-America or another part of the world. They advocate a thoughtful engagement with art and culture over against an uninformed rejection or uncritical embrace. While dealing with works of art, they have an eye for the form as well as the content. To them an important aspect of this content is formed by the spiritual dimension of a work, whether Christian, Buddhist, or postmodern. They especially look for voices of truth, hope and love in the art of the past and the present, whether or not by Christian hand.

My visual meditations for ArtWay include work by María Inés Aguirre, Giampaolo Babetto, Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, Alexander de Cadenet, Christopher Clack, Marlene Dumas, Terry Ffyffe, Jake Flood, Antoni Gaudi, Nicola Green, Maciej Hoffman, Gwen John, Lakwena Maciver, S. Billie Mandle, Giacomo Manzù, Sidney Nolan, Michael Pendry, Maurice Novarina, Regan O'Callaghan, Ana Maria Pacheco, John Piper, Nicola Ravenscroft, Albert Servaes, Henry Shelton, Anna Sikorska, Alan Stewart, Jan Toorop, Andrew Vessey, Edmund de Waal and Sane Wadu. The index for all my contributions to ArtWay, including my Visual Meditations, can be viewed by clicking here.

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Magna Carta - Lord Of The Ages.

Visual Commentary on Scripture - 'Before the Deluge'

The fourth exhibition I have curated for the Visual Commentary on Scripture (VCS) is now live on the VCS website. 'Before the Deluge' is a series of climate-focused commentaries on Genesis 6 looking at 'The Flood' by Norman Adams, 'Noah in the Ark and a Church' by Albert Herbert, and 'Noah's Ark' by Sadao Watanabe.

My first exhibition for the VCS was 'Back from the Brink' on Daniel 4: 'Immediately the word was fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men, and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers, and his nails were like birds’ claws.' (Daniel 4:33). In the exhibition I explore this chapter with William Blake's 'Nebuchadnezzar', 1795–c.1805, Arthur Boyd's 'Nebuchadnezzar's Dream of the Tree', 1969, and Peter Howson's 'The Third Step', 2001.

My second exhibition was 'A Question of Faith' and explored Hebrews 11 through the paintings of New Zealand artist Colin McCahon. McCahon is widely recognised as New Zealand’s foremost painter. Over 45 years, his work encompassed many themes, subjects and styles, from landscape to figuration to abstraction and an innovative use of painted text. His adaption of aspects of modernist painting to a specific local situation and his intense engagement with spiritual matters, mark him out as a distinctive figure in twentieth-century art.

My third exhibition was 'Fishers of People'. This exhibition uses Damien Hirst's 'Isolated Elements Swimming in the Same Direction for the Purpose of Understanding (Left) and (Right)', John Bellany's 'Kinlochbervie', and Paul Thek's 'Fishman in Excelsis Table' to discuss Matthew 4:12-22 and Mark 1:14-20. These artworks give us what is essentially a collage of the kingdom whereby we are invited to imagine the kingdom of God as a body of water in which Christians are immersed and through which they are raised.

The VCS is a freely accessible online publication that provides theological commentary on the Bible in dialogue with works of art. It helps its users to (re)discover the Bible in new ways through the illuminating interaction of artworks, scriptural texts, and commissioned commentaries. The virtual exhibitions of the VCS aim to facilitate new possibilities of seeing and reading so that the biblical text and the selected works of art come alive in new and vivid ways.

Each section of the VCS is a virtual exhibition comprising a biblical passage, three art works, and their associated commentaries. The curators of each exhibition select artworks that they consider will open up the biblical texts for interpretation, and/or offer new perspectives on themes the texts address. The commentaries explain and interpret the relationships between the works of art and the scriptural text.

Find out more about the VCS, its exhibitions and other resources through a short series of HeartEdge workshops introducing the VCS as a whole and exploring particular exhibitions with their curators. These workshops can be viewed here, here, here and here.

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The Fire Theft - Sinatra.

The prayer of transfiguration

Here's the sermon that I shared during today's Eucharist at St Andrew's Wickford: 

The dictionary definition of transfiguration is: a change in form or appearance or an exalting, glorifying, or spiritual change. Those aspects of transfiguration can be seen in our Gospel reading (Luke 9.28-36), but the story defines the word best.

Sam Wells, the Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, puts it like this: “There’s glory – the glory of the Lord in the face of Jesus Christ. There’s the pattern of God’s story in Israel and the church, a story that finds its most poignant moments in the midst of suffering and exile. There’s the loving, tender, presence and heavenly voice of God the Father – a voice that for the only time in their lives, the disciples hear and understand. And there’s the extraordinary realisation that, even though all this could have gone on without them, the disciples have been caught up in the life of the Trinity, the mystery of salvation, the unfolding of God’s heart, the beauty of holiness.”

The way he describes it, transfiguration involves the glory of seeing a person or event in the bigger story of God’s loving purposes for the world. Up until this point, “the disciples know Jesus does plenty of amazing and wonderful things and says many beautiful and true things, but they still assume he’s basically the same as them.” It’s only as they go up the mountain with him that the veil slips and they’re invited in to a whole other world. A world in which “Jesus is completely at home,” “even when the Father’s voice thunders from above.” “And more remarkably still, it seems there’s a place for them in it, hanging out with the likes of Moses and Elijah. They’ve been given a glimpse of glory. It’s a glory that’s faithful to the story of Israel, a glory that has Jesus at the centre of it, a glory that has God speaking words of love, a glory that has a place for them in it, however stumbling and clumsy they are, and finally a glory in which Jesus touches them tenderly in their fear.“

Sam Wells suggests that this experience, this glimpse of glory, can shape the way we pray by giving our prayers the same extra dimension. In fact, he details three different ways to pray. The first involves Resurrection. “Resurrection prayer is a prayer calling for a miracle. It is prayer of faithful risk. We look to the heavens with tightened fist and say, ‘Sweet Jesus, if you’re alive, make your presence known!’”

The second way to pray is Incarnation. This is “a prayer of presence. It is, perhaps, more silent than a prayer of Resurrection. It is a prayer which recognizes that, yes, Jesus was raised, but that it happened through brokenness. Through Christ, God shares our pain and our frailty. So we pray acknowledging that God suffers with us.”

The third way to pray is Transfiguration. Sam writes, “God, in your son’s transfiguration we see a whole reality within and beneath and beyond what we thought we understood; in … times of bewilderment and confusion, show … father your glory, that [we] may find a deeper truth to … life than [we] ever knew, make firmer friends than [we] ever had, discover reasons for living beyond what [we’d] ever imagined, and be folded into your grace like never before.” “In other words, it is a prayer that, in whatever circumstance, asks God to reshape our reality, to give us a new and right spirit to trust that even in the midst of suffering and hardship, truth can still be experienced and shared.”

“On the mountain, the disciples discovered that Christ was part of a conversation with Israel and God and was dwelling in glory in a way that they had no idea of and could hardly grasp and yet it put everything on a different plane.”

As a result, the prayer of Transfiguration is a different kind of a prayer. “The prayer of resurrection has a certain defiance about it – in the face of what seem to be all the known facts, it calls on God to produce the goods and turn the situation round. It has courage and hope but there’s always that fear that it has a bit of fantasy as well. The prayer of incarnation is honest and unflinching about the present and the future, but you could say it’s a little too much swathed in tragedy … it’s so concerned to face … reality … that there’s always that fear that it’s never going to discover the glory of what lies above.”

The prayer of Transfiguration is different. “Not so much, ‘Fix this and take it off my desk!’ Nor even, ‘Be with me and share in my struggle, now and always.’ But something more like, ‘Make this trial and tragedy, this problem and pain, a glimpse of your glory, a window into your world, when I can see your face, sense the mystery in all things, and walk with angels and saints. Bring me closer to you in this crisis than I ever have been in calmer times. Make this a moment of truth, and when I cower in fear and feel alone, touch me, raise me, and make me alive like never before.’”

Maybe you would like to make the prayer of transfiguration your prayer for yourself at this time, “in the midst of whatever it is you’re wrestling with today.”

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John David - Closer To Thee.

The boundary-breaking call of Jesus

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Ocean Blue - Between Something And Nothing.

The Kingdom of God has come near you

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Mary's Runwell and St Catherine's Wickford this morning:

In the National Gallery in 2013 you could find a St. Francis without a head and with a candy-grabber crane that went inside his body and which, if you were lucky, pulled out a T-shirt saying chastity, obedience and poverty; another St. Francis was mounted on a donation box and, when you put money in, he hit himself over the head with a crucifix. Michael Landy’s large-scale sculptures consisted of fragments of National Gallery paintings cast in three dimensions and assembled with old machinery, cogs and wheels, meaning that visitors could crank the works into life with a foot pedal mechanism.

They sound like pieces designed to mock St. Francis and other Saints represented and yet Landy is an artist who is fascinated by the renunciation and kindness that Saints like Francis have shown through their lives. Landy is best known for two works. The first being an installation in a former C&A store on Oxford Street, where over a two week period, he destroyed all his possessions except for the clothes in which he stood. The second being ‘Acts of Kindness’ where Landy asked members of the public who had witnessed or taken part in acts of kindness while travelling on the tube, to write about them. So, as at least one of the art critics reviewing the show at the National Gallery, has noted while enjoying the jokiness of the lucky dip St. Francis, “you also sense that Landy thinks Britain could do with a little of St Francis’s spirit.”

St. Francis lived out his faith and that is what today’s Gospel reading (Luke 10. 1 – 11, 16 – 20) is all about. This passage from Luke’s Gospel gives us Jesus’ inspirational team talk just before sending his disciples out to be his advance guard preparing those in the towns and other places to be visited by Jesus shortly after. He gives his disciples a message to share – “The Kingdom of God has come near you” – but his main focus is on the behaviour and attitude of his disciples; the way in which they live and act.

He instructs them to live simply (“don't take a purse or a beggar's bag or shoes”); to be focused (“don't stop to greet anyone on the road”); to be peace givers (“whenever you go into a house, first say, ‘Peace be with this house.’”); accept hospitality (“stay in that same house, eating and drinking whatever they offer you”); bring healing (“heal the sick in that town”); share your message (“say to the people there, ‘The Kingdom of God has come near you.’”); and move on when not accepted (“the dust from your town that sticks to our feet we wipe off against you”).

These instructions of Jesus became a model for itinerant preachers throughout Church history including St. Francis and his followers. The words “Preach the Gospel at all times, if necessary use words” are often attributed to St. Francis but, while certainly reflecting something of what he said and did, that is not a phrase he actually used. ‘Francis did focus on proclaiming the word in deeds – as well as in words. And if you have ever read any of Francis’ own writings it is easy to see that Scripture is infused everywhere in his words, his life and his being – and his actions. It is easy to see where the oft-quoted phrase came from; for example, the Legend of the Three Companions’ includes this inspirational team talk from St. Francis:

“Calling together the six brothers, Saint Francis, since he was full of the grace of the Holy Spirit, predicted to them what was about to happen. “Dearest brothers,” he said, “let us consider our vocation, to which God has mercifully called us, not only for our own good, but for the salvation of many. We are to go throughout the world, encouraging everyone, more by deed than by word, to do penance for their sins and to recall the commandments of God. Do not be afraid that you seem few and uneducated. With confidence, simply proclaim penance, trusting in the Lord, who conquered the world. Because by his Spirit, He is speaking through and in you, encouraging everyone to be converted to him and to observe his commandments”’ (http://friarmusings.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/preach-the-gospel-at-all-times-if-necessary-use-words/)

But what has all this to do with us, as we are generally not being called by God to become itinerant preachers? The answer is very simple, that our actions, as well as our words, speak powerfully about our faith. Negatively, this is the reason why Christians are often criticised as being hypocrites; others look at what we do and complain that we aren’t practising what we preach. When our actions and our words come together, however, then our witness is powerful; to see that we only have to think of examples provided by Saints like Francis or more recent followers of Christ like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King Jnr, Mother Teresa, Oscar Romero, Desmond Tutu, among others.

This is also one reading of the message which Jesus gave his disciples to proclaim. Do you remember what it was? It was not quite the message that we might have expected or anticipated. The disciples weren’t given the message that ‘God is love’ or to ‘repent and believe’; instead they were told to say that “The Kingdom of God has come near you.”

What did that mean? The disciples were the heralds for Jesus’ imminent arrival in that place, so it would certainly have meant Jesus is coming and the Kingdom of God arrives where he arrives. But, because the disciples were also living out their faith in practice, as those bringing peace and healing into the communities they visited, it also meant that the Kingdom of God could be seen in their lives and examples too. This can still be true for us today. Doing good, for Christians, is not about our salvation – it’s not about earning God’s love – instead it is a consequence of our salvation; because God has loved us so much, we then want to love others and, as we do, the Kingdom of God comes close to those we love, help and heal.

That is the challenge of this passage for us today and so, in the words of St. Francis:

Dearest brothers and sisters let us consider our vocation, to which God has mercifully called us, not only for our own good, but for the salvation of many. We are to go throughout the world, encouraging everyone, more by deed than by word, to do penance for their sins and to recall the commandments of God. Do not be afraid that you seem few and uneducated. With confidence, simply proclaim penance, trusting in the Lord, who conquered the world. Because by his Spirit, He is speaking through and in you, encouraging everyone to be converted to him and to observe his commandments.

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Big Star - The Ballad Of El Goodo.