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.

Ben Uri: Essay of the Week

In 2023 I 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. This week, this article is Essay of the Week for Ben Uri. Click here to read the article:

'The combination of images and texts I selected from the Ben Uri Collection enabled a range of different reflections, relationships and disjunctions to be explored. These include the aesthetic, anthropological, devotional, historical, sociological and theological. 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. This was important in writing for an audience including people of all faiths and none, and in writing for an organisation which seeks to surpass ethnic, cultural and religious obstacles to engagement within the arts sector.'

To see 'Exodus & Exile: Migration Themes in Biblical Images' click here, to read my related essay 'Debt Owed to Jewish Refugee Art' click here, for my post about the exhibition and essay click here, and for more on the Ben Uri Gallery click here.

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Dry The River - History Book.

Resources for Lent and Holy Week

This year the Ministry Team in the Wickford and Runwell Team Ministry have once again written our own Lent Course, a five week course looking at journeys in the Bible.

The Bible is full of journeys made by people guided by God. Some are shorter and some are longer. All are transformational. Life is often thought of as a journey. There are high points and low points, paths where we travel swiftly and paths where we feel bogged down, there are some times when we feel like we have come to a dead end and some times when the future ahead looks far away. In this course we look at five particular biblical journeys and think about how the people involved might have felt, and what responses they evoke in us when we hear them. Do they remind us of our own journeys with God? Week 1: Abraham’s wanderings Week 2: The Exodus Week 3: Ruth and Naomi Week 4: Jesus journey to Jerusalem (based on St Luke’s gospel) Week 5: Paul’s missionary journeys (based on Acts) 

These sessions will be offered on Tuesday evening and Thursday afternoon and evening, depending on numbers, starting the week of 10th March. 

Mark of the Cross and The Passion are collections of images, meditations and prayers by Henry Shelton and myself on The Stations of the Cross. They provide helpful reflections and resources for Lent and Holy Week. These collections can both be found as downloads from theworshipcloud.

Mark of the Cross is a book of 20 poetic meditations on Christ’s journey to the cross and reactions to his resurrection and ascension. The meditations are complemented by a set of semi-abstract watercolours of the Stations of the Cross and the Resurrection created by Henry Shelton.

The Passion: Reflections and Prayers features minimal images with haiku-like poems and prayers that enable us to follow Jesus on his journey to the cross reflecting both on the significance and the pain of that journey as we do so. Henry and I have aimed in these reflections to pare down the images and words to their emotional and theological core. The mark making and imagery is minimal but, we hope, in a way that makes maximum impact.

Jesus dies on the cross

The sun is eclipsed, early nightfall,
darkness covers the surface of the deep,
the Spirit grieves over the waters.
On the formless, empty earth, God is dead.

Through the death of all we hold most dear, may we find life. Amen.

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Julie Miller - How Could You Say No.

 

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. 

I have 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.

I have also curated three exhibitions for the Visual Commentary on Scripture. My first exhibition for the VCS is 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 is A Question of Faith and explores 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 is Fishers of People | VCS (thevcs.org). 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.

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.

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Held By Trees - The Tree Of Life.

The King James Bible: Great Books Explained

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcqIVnUar7Q

The film about the King James Bible I co-authored with James Payne, a curator, gallerist, and passionate art lover, has now garnered over 50,000 views. 

It covers the content and structure of the Bible as well as telling both the story of the King James Version's creation and some of its cultural influence.

Check it out and add your thoughts to comments that now include:

• "what great insights! Thank you"
• "I look at the Bible quite differently now that I’ve watched this. Thank you so much for this new lens of insight."
• "Astonishing how rich the history of the Bible really is even in the "later" days - I had no idea so many people had worked on it. And the process used for the KJV - my goodness, it seems so complicated and yet so very clever."
• "It's sad when people either haven't realized or outright deny how important the KJV bible has been in the history of the English-speaking world, even if someone isn't religious, it's very much worth learning about the impact this book had on culture. Thank you for making this video!"
• "This "beautiful" video is one of the best of youtube. Thank you!"
• "Wow, when I saw the topic, I thought, How ballsy, such a controversial topic! But it was masterfully done, a good analysis of the book as a book."

For more of my writings on the Bible see here:

• Exodus & Exile - an online exhibition exploring themes of identity and migration in the Bible;
• Visual Commentary on Scripture - three exhibitions for the VCS on Daniel 4, Matthew 4:12–22 & Mark 1:14–20, and Hebrews 11; and
• Visual Meditations - visual meditations written for ArtWay.

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Malcolm & Alwyn - Fool's Wisdom.

'How the incomer's eye sees identity' at Ben Uri Online

My 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 has now been shared by the Ben Uri Gallery. Click here to read the article:

'The combination of images and texts I selected from the Ben Uri Collection enabled a range of different reflections, relationships and disjunctions to be explored. These include the aesthetic, anthropological, devotional, historical, sociological and theological. 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. This was important in writing for an audience including people of all faiths and none, and in writing for an organisation which seeks to surpass ethnic, cultural and religious obstacles to engagement within the arts sector.'

To see 'Exodus & Exile: Migration Themes in Biblical Images' click here, to read my related essay 'Debt Owed to Jewish Refugee Art' click here, for my post about the exhibition and essay click here, and for more on the Ben Uri Gallery click here.

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Leonard Cohen - Tower Of Song.

Seen and Unseen: How the incomer’s eye sees identity

My latest article for Seen & Unseen is '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:

'The combination of images and texts I selected from the Ben Uri Collection enabled a range of different reflections, relationships and disjunctions to be explored. These include the aesthetic, anthropological, devotional, historical, sociological and theological. 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. This was important in writing for an audience including people of all faiths and none, and in writing for an organisation which seeks to surpass ethnic, cultural and religious obstacles to engagement within the arts sector.'

To see 'Exodus & Exile: Migration Themes in Biblical Images' click here, to read my related essay 'Debt Owed to Jewish Refugee Art' click here, for my post about the exhibition and essay click here, and for more on the Ben Uri Gallery click here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Kansas - Dust In The Wind.

Meaning, significance, shape and purpose

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

Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist who is best known for creating a hierarchy of needs. ‘This is a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, culminating in self-actualization.’ At the bottom of the hierarchy are the basic needs of human beings; needs for food, water, sleep and sex. Maslow’s model works as a hierarchy because a pressing need must be mostly satisfied before someone will give their attention to the next highest need, which includes our need for our lives to be given meaning and significance.

The stories of the feeding of the four thousand and the five thousand (Matthew 15:29-37) are stories of Jesus meeting the basic needs of the people with him but are also stories about that action having a deeper level of meaning and significance.

The people who were with Jesus had been with him in the wilderness for three days without any significant supplies of food. While some may have brought small supplies of food with them, in essence they had been fasting for much of the time Jesus had been teaching them and, for those of you who have visited the Holy Land, you will know that the Wilderness is unforgiving terrain in which to be without sustenance.

Jesus is concerned for these people and, out of compassion, meets their basic need for food in that testing environment but, just as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs suggests that once our basic needs have been met then our needs for meaning and significance come into play, Jesus’ actions here also have a deeper level of meaning, if we and they are alert to it.

We can see this if we think for a moment about the outline of this story and the extent to which it reminds us of another story. A group of Israelites are in the wilderness and are hungry because they have too little to eat. In response God provides them with bread to eat. That is the outline of the feeding of the four thousand but it is also, in essence, the story of God providing manna in the wilderness to the Israelites when Moses led them from Egypt to the Promised Land. The similarity is deliberate, whether on the part of Jesus or Mark, because through this action Jesus is seen as the new Moses for the people of Israel.

Following the parallels between these two stories through means that the people of Israel are to be seen as being in slavery once again – whether that meant the political oppression of their Roman conquerors or, as St Paul suggests, under the bondage of sin. The Exodus – the salvation of the people of Israel - began with the death of firstborn sons and, in the story of Jesus, our salvation comes through the death of God’s only Son. Jesus leads his people through water – in the original Exodus that was the path through the Red Sea, but, for Jesus’ followers, it is the rite of baptism. They go on a journey through the wilderness – where, as we have seen, they are fed and provided for – and end their journey when they enter the Promised Land – which Jesus spoke about as being the kingdom of God that he initiated but which is still to come in full.

The parallels are plenteous and very close as the people of Jesus’ day were intended to view him as the new Moses. At this deeper level of meaning and significance it is possible, from this one action, to understand the whole of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.

God is also at work in our lives to bring and to reveal meaning, purpose, shape and significance to our lives too, if we are alert to this deeper level of life and our not solely focused on the meeting of our basic needs. We all have a need and a desire for there to be more to our lives than simply the survival of the fittest; the scramble to meet our basic needs. As Maslow’s hierarchy of needs recognises, when we are in genuine need and poverty, it is very difficult to think about anything else other than survival. But, when we are in the fortunate position of having our basic needs met, we have the time and space and inclination to look around us to see the way in which God can bring meaning, significance and purpose into our lives; with that purpose including the development of a compassion, like that of Jesus, which sees the needs of those whose basic needs are not being met and responds to that by sharing at least some of what we have.

Your life is not simply about having enough to survive; the meeting of your basic needs. God wants you to see a deeper level of meaning, significance, shape and purpose to your life. Are you open to see the meaning and significance that he brings or does a focus of getting prevent you from seeing and receiving what he is already giving?

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Neal Morse - The Temple Of The Living God.

Ben Uri Gallery - Exodus & Exile: Migration Themes in Biblical Images

The Ben Uri Gallery have just shared a new online exhibition, Exodus & Exile: Migration Themes in Biblical Images, that I have curated for them and a related essay entitled Debt Owed to Jewish Refugee Art.

The exhibition, which is currently their Exhibition of the Week, 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 write:

"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.

Guest curator, the Revd Jonathan Evens, has a long and distinguished interest in the visual arts and in particular the synergy between, and interpretation of, the artist, the symbolism and the underlying messages of the images created. We are honoured and grateful to Jonathan for investing much time and thought to partner with Ben Uri in this initiative and curate and write on this subject."

My essay Debt Owed to Jewish Refugee Art is 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.

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Leonard Cohen - Born In Chains.

God hears our cries, understands our needs and is with us

Our readings this morning (Psalm 102, Exodus 6.2-13 and Hebrews 10.26-end) provide three different responses to trouble and difficulty. In the reading from Exodus we hear of people so broken in their spirits by the cruelty of slavery that they cannot hear the message of redemption. In the Psalm we hear a prayer of complaint about the trouble and difficulty that the Psalmist is experiencing and in the Letter to the Hebrews we hear of people who show compassion towards others in the midst of enduring their own suffering.

It would be easy to turn these into a hierarchy of responses; a kind of version of good, better, best that may be closer to bad, better and best. Yet, these are all stories of responses from God’s people; and in the stories all experience God’s presence alongside them. The people of Israel are rescued from slavery regardless of whether they can believe it is to happen or not. The Psalmist who anxiously prays, ‘O my God, do not take me in the midst of my days’ ends that same prayer with the statement that ‘The children of your servants shall continue, and their descendants shall be established in your sight.’ Those receiving the Letter to the Hebrews read that after they have endured their suffering, they will receive what was promised.

In differing ways God meets each in their troubles suggesting that we are not dealing with a case of bad, better and best but instead relating to a God who truly understands who we are and the differing ways in which we respond to trouble and difficulty. Years of slavery would break many, if not most of us, in our spirits. God understands that reality and hears the groans of those who are broken by abuse and oppression. All of us are likely to have been in same place as the Psalmist; of railing at God for the unfairness of life. I read a post the other night from a friend expressing the heartbreak of all the ways in which our current constraints were impacting their family. It was absolutely right that that person expressed their feelings and God is big enough to take it. As the Psalmist experienced, God doesn’t criticise complaint. Complaint means we are in conversation and relationship with God. In situations, like that of the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews and its readers, where we can have that kind of confidence in God then endurance in ourselves and compassion towards others also becomes possible.

We may each empathise with a different reading and response this morning in our own response to the trouble and difficulty that we all face at this time. Whatever our response these readings assure us that God hears our cries, understands our needs and is with us however we react and respond.

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Mark Heard - Strong Hand Of Love.

Abiding in Exile

Last night I offered the following reflection for Week 4  of the Lent Course at St Martin-in-the-Fields, drawing on the chapter 'Abiding in Exile' from Ben Quash's book 'Abiding':

On the day he died, Jesus walked the Via Dolorosa through the streets of Jerusalem. Jesus' journey is traditionally commemorated by the Stations of the Cross. Following in the footsteps of Jesus through the Stations of the Cross has been part of the Christian practice of Lent and Holy Week since the time of the early Church. The Stations of the Cross were created for those who weren't physically able to go to Jerusalem and literally walk the Via Dolorosa, the Way of the Cross, in its streets. Those who began this practice, the Franciscans in particular, understood that travelling the Way of the Cross imaginatively and prayerfully was meaningful and valid spiritually, albeit different from the actual physical experience.

This is an example of our being able to move while standing still, of journeying whilst staying put. That is what this chapter is all about and it subverts our usual understanding of what is meant by abiding. The most famous passage about abiding in the Bible sees us grafted into a vine that is planted in the ground in a particular place and it is from this passage that many of our understandings of abiding in terms of rootedness derive (John 15). However, all images have their limitations when it comes to expressing and understanding the wonderful depths of God and the inadequacy of the image of the vine and the branches is that it suggests that our abiding is a static thing.

The point of the image of the vine and the branches is that we are to abide in Jesus. Jesus came to us as person and a characteristic of human beings is that we move and travel as well as settling and establishing homes to which we return. Jesus left God's side to be incarnated as a human being and returned to God at his Ascension. In his mother's womb he travelled to Bethlehem, as a child he was exiled in Egypt and his ministry was an itinerant one. Therefore, we are called to abide in someone who moves, meaning that we are called to move when God moves and stay when she stays.

Ben Quash notes that this reality for us as God's people is symbolised for the Israelites during the Exodus in terms of the pillar of light by day and pillar of fire by night that led the people through the wilderness (Exodus 13. 17 - 22). When the pillar moved, the people moved, when the pillar stopped, the people also stopped. He says that what we see here is ‘the very remarkable idea of a presence (or an abiding) that moves.’ He quotes Jurgen Moltmann, who says this is a ‘good symbol for the mobilizing presence of God in history’. ‘God dwells with the Israelites all the time, but God is also moving all the time. He is always before them, but by having God always before them, they find themselves moving. God dwells among the Israelites as a ‘Trailblazer’, says Moltmann’.

Our abiding in Christ therefore involves times of moving and times of staying still. These can be physical - actual journeys or places to be - or, as we have reflected in relation to the Stations of the Cross, they can be movement or rest in our spirits and imaginations. This then helps us to understand and make sense of the nature of Jesus' call to us as his disciples, remembering that he called some to travel with him on his itinerant ministry, but also needed other who remained in their homes in order to support those who were on the road. Jesus' call to us could, therefore, be about physical travel or movement, as for someone on pilgrimage or those called to be missionaries in another place or country, but it could also be to imaginative travel, as with the Stations of the Cross, which takes us ever deeper into our faith while we remain where we are physically and geographically.

Ben Quash calls this the ecology of vocations writing that: ‘for some the knowledge of the special sort of home God offers needs to be discovered in having no permanent resting place in the world, and for some the discovery of God’s infinitely new and transforming horizons is best achieved by staying still.’ He quotes Michael Paternoster as saying, ‘some people need to stay where God puts them, even when they feel like moving, and some people must move when God requires them to, even if they feel like staying.’

The reality of God is one of infinite depth. God created all things and therefore all things exist in him and he is more than the sum of all things, so it is impossible for us with our finite minds to ever fully know or understand God. However profound our experience of God has been, there is always more for us to discover. This means that knowing God is like diving ever deeper into a bottomless ocean where they is always more to see. We are within that ocean and, therefore, are abiding within it, but can always be moving because there is always more to see and uncover and discover.

In the last book of The Chronicles of Narnia, 'The Last Battle', C.S. Lewis describes his characters dying and entering eternity. In eternity they find themselves back in the land of Narnia but it is a Narnia that has more depth and beauty than previously. As they explore this revitalised Narnia, their cry is one of exploration, 'Come further up and further in'. When they reach the garden at the centre of Narnia, they discover that this is a gateway to another Narnia that has yet more depth and beauty than that which they had just left. Lewis' idea that we abide in eternity in the world that we know but know it in ever increasing depth reminds of T.S.Eliot's phrase that, “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.’

This, I think, is the form of abiding that Ben Quash describes in this chapter. It is both a running while standing still and an abiding whilst travelling. The God of movement wants to keep us exploring the depths of the world and himself. The God who dwells with us wants to keep us abiding in her refreshing rest. The God of stillness and change wants keep us growing as we remain rooted in him. Quash writes that we have been called to live lives of abiding, while at the same time we have been told, puzzlingly, that we have no abiding city. We are invited to exchange changeless abiding into changeable abiding.

I want to end with a meditation on the symbols that we use in baptism; oil, light and water. As baptism is our entry to Christian faith, it is easy for us to think of these symbols as being primarily about our beginnings in faith, but they also speak powerfully to us of the journey of faith that we begin at our baptism. The faith into which we are baptised is that in which we abide but in order to do so we must move and change and grow and travel:

Oil …
bleeding
from the pressurised
crushed
and wounded
to
free us up
lubricate
our rusting
static lives
and
facilitate
our ever moving
onward
forward
Godward

Light …
revealing our past
lighting our future
shining like a lighthouse
in our storms
burning like a warning beacon
in our wars
warming like the sun
on our journeying
glowing like a fire
through gaps and cracks
in shattered, splintered lives

Water …
cleansing our grubbiness
reviving our tiredness
refreshing our thirstiness
nurturing our liveliness
babbling communication
rippling out our influences

May we -
baptised in water,
anointed by oil,
lit by the Spirit -
live and move freely
like a babbling brook
speaking life
to parched ground
leaping boulders and barriers
sparkling in the ever present
light of the Sun.

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Moby - This Wild Darkness.

The witness of John the Baptist

Here is the reflection I gave at the lunchtime Eucharist at St Martin-in-the-Fields last Wednesday:

Here, in five short verses, we have the testimony of John the Baptist regarding Jesus. Who does John say that Jesus is?

Firstly, John says that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The image of Jesus as the lamb that takes away sin reminds us of the story of the Exodus and the Passover. Death was coming to the entire land of Egypt and those saved were those who sacrificed lambs and daubed the blood of the lamb on the doorposts of their homes. John was saying that when Jesus died his sacrifice would affect the entire world not just the people of Israel and would do so by taking away our sin for which the punishment is death.

Next, John says that Jesus ranks ahead of him because he was before him. John the Baptist was a great prophet. So much so, that Jesus compares him to Elijah referring to the prophecy in Malachi 4:5 that God would send Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. Despite the greatness of John’s role and ministry (and despite the fact that he is the elder of the two), Jesus is the one to whom John bows the knee (the strap of whose sandal he is not worthy to untie) because, as we hear at the beginning of John’s Gospel, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word was Jesus. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.

John then says that Jesus is the one on whom the Spirit remains. The Spirit “came upon” such Old Testament people as Joshua (Numbers 27:18), David (1 Samuel 16:12-13) and even Saul (1 Samuel 10:10). In the book of Judges, we see the Spirit “coming upon” the various judges whom God raised up to deliver Israel from their oppressors. The Holy Spirit came upon these individuals for specific tasks. What happens with Jesus is different, as the Spirit remains with him. In Jesus the fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control – can be fully expressed, therefore the Spirit remains with Jesus in a way which had not been possible until then. All of Jesus' ministry, "must be understood as accomplished in communion with the Spirit of God".

Fourthly, John says that Jesus is the one who baptises others with the Holy Spirit. As the Holy Spirit remains with Jesus, so she also remains with those who are his followers. The New Testament teaches the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit in believers (1 Corinthians 3:16-17; 6:19-20). When we place our faith in Christ for salvation, the Holy Spirit comes to live within us. The Apostle Paul calls this permanent indwelling the “guarantee of our inheritance” (Ephesians 1:13-14).

Finally, John sums up his testimony by saying that Jesus is the Son of God, a title that implies His deity (John 5:18) because it is one of equality with God. This title has many facets, including showing that He is to be honoured equally with the Father (John 5:22-23), that He is to be worshipped (Matt. 2:2, 11, 14:33, John 9:35-38, Heb. 1:6), called God (John 20:28, Col. 2:9, Heb. 1:8), and prayed to (Acts 7:55-60, 1 Cor. 1:1-2).

John was sent as a man of God expressly to prepare the way for and to testify regarding the Christ, so the people would believe in Him. He plainly said that Jesus was the One for Whom He was preparing the way. He said Jesus would have pre-eminence, that Jesus was the Christ, that He was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and that He was the Son of God. John lived his life to introduce others to Jesus Christ and his testimony is a model of Christian witness to Jesus.

John believed in the Christ and his great faith prepared him for hardships, but it kept him steadfast on his course until the time when he could say as he saw Jesus approach, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). As believers, we can all have this steadfast faith. John is also a model of Christian discipleship in his humility, a key characteristic of discipleship in this Gospel. We see this because, even when he is asked to testify concerning himself, he points to Jesus. Therefore, we can find in John the Baptist a powerful example of humility, single-mindedness and witness. We will do well to follow in his footsteps.

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The Southwell Minster Choir - On Jordan's Bank, The Baptist's Cry.

Start:Stop - Revealing meaning and purpose

Bible reading

In those days when there was again a great crowd without anything to eat, he called his disciples and said to them, “I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way—and some of them have come from a great distance.” His disciples replied, “How can one feed these people with bread here in the desert?” He asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” They said, “Seven.” Then he ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground; and he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute; and they distributed them to the crowd. They had also a few small fish; and after blessing them, he ordered that these too should be distributed. They ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. Now there were about four thousand people. (Mark 8. 1 – 10a)

Meditation

The feeding of the four thousand is a story of Jesus meeting the basic needs of the people with him but is also a story about that action having a deeper level of meaning and significance. We can see this if we think for a moment about the outline of this story and the extent to which it reminds us of another story. A group of Israelites are in the wilderness and are hungry because they have too little to eat. In response God provides them with bread to eat. That is the outline of the feeding of the four thousand but it is also, in essence, the story of God providing manna in the wilderness to the Israelites when Moses led them from Egypt to the Promised Land. The similarity is deliberate, whether on the part of Jesus or Mark, because through this action Jesus is seen as the new Moses for the people of Israel.

Following the parallels between these two stories through means that the people of Israel are to be seen as being in slavery once again – whether that meant the political oppression of their Roman conquerors or, as St Paul suggests, under the bondage of sin. The Exodus – the salvation of the people of Israel - began with the death of firstborn sons and, in the story of Jesus, our salvation comes through the death of God’s only Son. Jesus leads his people through water – in the original Exodus that was the path through the Red Sea, but, for Jesus’ followers, it is the rite of baptism. They go on a journey through the wilderness – where, as we have seen, they are fed and provided for – and end their journey when they enter the Promised Land – which Jesus spoke about as being the kingdom of God that he initiated but which is still to come in full.

God is also at work in our lives to bring and to reveal meaning, purpose, shape and significance to our lives too, if we are alert to this deeper level of life and our not solely focused on the meeting of our basic needs. We all have a need and a desire for there to be more to our lives than simply the survival of the fittest; the scramble to meet our basic needs. Your life is not simply about having enough to survive; the meeting of your basic needs. God wants you to see a deeper level of meaning, significance, shape and purpose to your life. Are you open to see the meaning and significance that he brings or does a focus of getting prevent you from seeing and receiving what he is already giving?

Prayer

Lord God, we recognise the need and desire we have for there to be more to our lives than simply the scramble to meet our basic needs but also acknowledge that our basic needs do need to be met before we give our full attention to our higher needs. We ask, therefore, that as you met the basic needs of the four thousand, so our basic needs will be met in order that we give attention to our need for meaning and significance.

Inspire us to seek meaning and shape within our lives. Help us recognise the significance and purpose that you bring.

Reveal and bring meaning, purpose, shape and significance to our lives. Keep us alert to this deeper level of life and not solely focused on the meeting of our basic needs. Ensure that a focus of getting will not prevent us from seeing and receiving what you are already giving to us.

Inspire us to seek meaning and shape within our lives. Help us recognise the significance and purpose that you bring.

We recognise that when we are in genuine need and poverty, it is very difficult to think about anything else other than survival. Develop in us a compassion, like that of Jesus, which sees the needs of those whose basic needs are not being met and responds to by sharing at least some of what we have.

Inspire us to seek meaning and shape within our lives. Help us recognise the significance and purpose that you bring.

Blessing

Revealing meaning, purpose, shape and significance, developing compassion, meeting basic needs, sharing what we have. May those blessings of almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, rest upon you and remain with you always. Amen.

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The Moody Blues - Watching And Waiting.

Seeking meaning and significance

This was my sermon for last Thursday's Eucharist at St Stephen Walbrook, which can also be heard on the London Internet Church website:

Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist who is best known for creating a hierarchy of needs. ‘This is a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, culminating in self-actualization.’ At the bottom of the hierarchy are the basic needs of human beings; needs for food, water, sleep and sex. Maslow’s model works as a hierarchy because a pressing need must be mostly satisfied before someone will give their attention to the next highest need, which includes our need for our lives to be given meaning and significance.

The stories of the feeding of the four thousand and the five thousand are stories of Jesus meeting the basic needs of the people with him but are also stories about that action having a deeper level of meaning and significance.

The people who were with Jesus had been with him in the wilderness for three days without any significant supplies of food. While some may have brought small supplies of food with them, in essence they had been fasting for much of the time Jesus had been teaching them and, for those of you who have visited the Holy Land, you will know that the Wilderness is unforgiving terrain in which to be without sustenance.

Jesus is concerned for these people and, out of compassion, meets their basic need for food in that testing environment but, just as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs suggests that once our basic needs have been met then our needs for meaning and significance come into play, Jesus’ actions here also have a deeper level of meaning, if we and they are alert to it.

We can see this if we think for a moment about the outline of this story and the extent to which it reminds us of another story. A group of Israelites are in the wilderness and are hungry because they have too little to eat. In response God provides them with bread to eat. That is the outline of the feeding of the four thousand but it is also, in essence, the story of God providing manna in the wilderness to the Israelites when Moses led them from Egypt to the Promised Land. The similarity is deliberate, whether on the part of Jesus or Mark, because through this action Jesus is seen as the new Moses for the people of Israel.

Following the parallels between these two stories through means that the people of Israel are to be seen as being in slavery once again – whether that meant the political oppression of their Roman conquerors or, as St Paul suggests, under the bondage of sin. The Exodus – the salvation of the people of Israel - began with the death of firstborn sons and, in the story of Jesus, our salvation comes through the death of God’s only Son. Jesus leads his people through water – in the original Exodus that was the path through the Red Sea, but, for Jesus’ followers, it is the rite of baptism. They go on a journey through the wilderness – where, as we have seen, they are fed and provided for – and end their journey when they enter the Promised Land – which Jesus spoke about as being the kingdom of God that he initiated but which is still to come in full.

The parallels are plenteous and very close as the people of Jesus’ day were intended to view him as the new Moses. At this deeper level of meaning and significance it is possible, from this one action, to understand the whole of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.

God is also at work in our lives to bring and to reveal meaning, purpose, shape and significance to our lives too, if we are alert to this deeper level of life and our not solely focused on the meeting of our basic needs. We all have a need and a desire for there to be more to our lives than simply the survival of the fittest; the scramble to meet our basic needs. As Maslow’s hierarchy of needs recognises, when we are in genuine need and poverty, it is very difficult to think about anything else other than survival. But, when we are in the fortunate position of having our basic needs met, we have the time and space and inclination to look around us to see the way in which God can bring meaning, significance and purpose into our lives; with that purpose including the development of a compassion, like that of Jesus, which sees the needs of those whose basic needs are not being met and responds to that by sharing at least some of what we have.

Your life is not simply about having enough to survive; the meeting of your basic needs. God wants you to see a deeper level of meaning, significance, shape and purpose to your life. Are you open to see the meaning and significance that he brings or does a focus of getting prevent you from seeing and receiving what he is already giving?

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Delirious? - Now is the Time.

A renewed interest in Biblical epics

The Guardian has been exploring the current phenomenon of a significant number of Biblical films:

'Boxing Day sees the UK release of [Ridley] Scott’s epic Exodus: Gods and Kings, with Christian Bale as Moses. While the Observer called it a “half triumph”, Variety extolled it as “a work of massive, David Lean-like scale – with battle scenes that rival or eclipse Scott’s Gladiator”.'

Exodus follows Noah to which audiences flocked earlier this year with Darren Aronofsky's film taking $320m worldwide and there are a biblical flood of films inspired by the Old and New Testaments coming. 'We may live in a more secular age, but at least a dozen dramas on the epic scale which the Bible – or perhaps producers – seems to demand are in various stages of development':

'British producer David Heyman is developing a film based on Reza Aslan’s bestselling book Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, while Paul Verhoeven, the Dutch director, has been working on an adaptation of his own book, Jesus of Nazareth, for five years.

[Ridley Scott] is now planning another biblical drama – a big-budget film about David’s slaying of Goliath.

Warner Bros is also developing a King David project and a third version has cast Jerry Sokoloski, Canada’s tallest man – at 7ft 8in – as the giant. Director Tim Chey was apparently wary of creating a CGI imitation like The Incredible Hulk.

Other films include a version of the hit stage musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat ... Other productions feature some of Britain’s foremost actors. Joseph Fiennes will be seen in Clavius as a centurion ordered by Pontius Pilate to find the missing body of Jesus, and Ben Kingsley will appear as the tyrannical Herod in Mary Mother of Christ, a story of Mary and Joseph as young parents living in precarious times.

Jeffrey Caine, who wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay for The Constant Gardener, was one of four writers on Scott’s Exodus. Asked about the popularity of biblical stories for film-makers, he said: “It’s largely because they’re terrific stories. They’re perennially popular, like the stories of King Arthur and Robin Hood. You know there’s always going to be an audience for them … Plus they make money.”'

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Sydney Wayser - Belfast Child.

The great sin of inhospitality

‘Once in a lifetime, not to be repeated special offer’; all the slogans that the stores use to entice us to buy the latest consumer offering were literally true at this point in Jesus’ ministry (Luke 10. 1-11, 16-20). He had made up his mind and set out on his way to Jerusalem. He would not pass this way again and that was why he challenged those he met to leave everything there and then and follow him. No excuses, no distractions.

As we heard last week (Luke 9. 51-62) some could not rise to the challenge but this week we hear that there were at least seventy or seventy-two who were disciples and ready for Jesus to send out to prepare the way for him to come into the lives of those in the villages and towns that he was to visit before he arrived in Jerusalem.

We see from this that disciples aren’t just followers; they are also those that are sent out and entrusted with playing a part in bringing in the kingdom of God. This passage challenges us regarding the call of God on our lives. There is still a large harvest to be reaped? Just as Jesus sent out his disciples to tell others that he was about to arrive in their midst, so we are called to do the same. Do we hear that call? Do find reasons to put it to one side? Are we responding as fully as we might? At St John's Seven Kings, we are currently planning a Vocations Sunday for September which will provide lots of information about opportunities to develop the ministries that each of us have in church and community so that we are better able to play our part in bringing in the kingdom of God. But don’t wait until then to say yes to the call of God on your life and do let others know how you are thinking and responding.

Interestingly the numbers at our services regularly mirror the number of disciples that Jesus sent out. This passage is headed up ‘Jesus sends out the Seventy-Two’ in our pew bibles but it should really read as ‘Jesus sends out the Seventy or Seventy-Two’ as there is a little asterisk after the first mention of 72 men and in the note at the bottom of the page it says that some manuscripts on mention 70 men.

Why the difference? Tom Wright has explained that it is most probably to do with the story of Moses choosing 70 elders during the Exodus from Egypt who were “given a share in God’s Spirit and thereby equipped to help him lead the people of Israel (Numbers 11. 16, 25).” On that occasion, two others who were not part of the original 70 also received the Spirit.” So, whether it’s 70 or 72, it is a sign from Jesus to the people of his day that a new Exodus is happening and they need to get on board if they are going to be set free from slavery to sin and led to the Promised Land of life forever with God.

In the original Exodus the Israelites rebelled, grumbled and didn’t want to go the way God was leading. Jesus prepares his disciples for a similar reaction from those he sends them to saying that he sends them out as lambs among wolves. Jesus even mentions the town of Sodom when he speaks about the judgement which is to come on those who don’t welcome his disciples. The destruction of Sodom is the most frequently mentioned Genesis event in the whole of the Hebrew scriptures and it is a symbol of every sin that stands in contrast to covenant with God.

There is a story told by Jewish rabbis that helps in understanding this aspect of the passage. The rabbis teach 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 this example, the rabbis say that taking care of guests is greater then receiving the divine presence.

This story gives a sense of the importance of hospitality towards strangers within Judaism. The fundamental wickedness of Sodom, however, was their hostility to vulnerable strangers and the violence they enacted on the innocent. The people of Sodom had a moral responsibility to offer protection and hospitality to vulnerable strangers, as all the ancient laws of the east demanded, and they stand in scripture as an example of extreme wickedness because they attacked and abused those they should have protected.

This links too with Jesus’ talk of Satan. Satan literally means ‘the accuser’; the one who points the finger at others in condemnation of them. Jesus is then saying that Satan (the accuser) falls like lightening from the sky at the return of the disciples from their mission because they have not been accused but welcomed during their mission.

So Jesus, here, is highlighting the importance of welcome and hospitality. 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 listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me; and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.” When they return, he rejoices at the welcome which they have received and the sense, in the verses which follow today’s reading, that the Gospel has been received from “the diverse and motley group he has chosen as his associates.”

The emphasis in this passage is on the hospitality provides by others to Jesus’ disciples. We have already thought of ourselves as being called like them to take the good news of Jesus to others, so we will 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.

So, how do we rate on that basis? I know we think of ourselves as a friendly, welcoming church but let’s 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.

God calls us not just to be those who follow him but also to 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 also welcoming, always hospitable towards others.

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James MacMillan - A Different World.