Resurrection and new life in the midst of adversity and hardship

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Evanescence - Bring Me To Life.

Re-inhabiting and re-interpreting wrongs

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

‘The Singing Detective’ is a TV drama serial by Dennis Potter that was first shown in the 1980s. The story concerns Philip Marlow, a writer of detective novelettes in the style of Raymond Chandler including one also called ‘The Singing Detective’. At the beginning of the series Philip is confined to a hospital bed because of psoriasis, the skin and joint disease, which has affected every part of his body.

Philip’s childhood beliefs and commitments to God and to his parents have been betrayed through key incidents such as his seeing his mother’s adultery and his allowing another schoolboy, Mark, to be punished for something that Philip himself had done; a particularly unpleasant present left by him for their teacher and, for which, Mark is unjustly punished. His inability to face these betrayals led him into a lifestyle where he abuses and betrays those he loves and it is only as he is stripped by his illness that he can begin to face these memories, come to accept who he is and move beyond these abusive relationships. Potter’s drama shows us how this happens.

The story is about the way in which Philip faces up to the key events in his past. Essentially, he has to re-inhabit his past and re-live it in order that he comes to feel sorrow for the way in which he betrayed Mark. This begins as he lies in his hospital bed, his body incapacitated but his mind on over-drive. Memories from his past and scenes from his books are brought to mind and fuse with fevered imaginings of present events. In his confusion he seeks support from a psychiatrist who journeys with him through his memories and imaginings until he is at the point that he can re-live the experience of betraying Mark and feel sorrow for what he did.

The incapacity that he has experienced throughout the drama, despite the very real pain of psoriasis, is revealed to be psychosomatic and, as a result, by re-inhabiting his past he begins to know change in the present and is able to get up from his bed and walk once again. Philip’s needs – his experience of near-breakdown – are the seedbed for the healing and new life that he eventual experiences. As we watch this drama, we may be challenged to live Easter by allowing the Holy Spirit to take us back into those aspects of our lives that we have abandoned or covered over.

What Philip experiences in ‘The Singing Detective’ gives an insight into what Peter experiences in our Gospel reading (John 21. 12-19). Like Philip, Peter is haunted by his own act of betrayal. When Peter meets Jesus by Lake Tiberias, Jesus forces Peter to re-live that experience of denial. That is why Jesus asks Peter three times, ‘Do you love me?’ These three questions mirror Peter’s three denials and take him back into that experience. Like Philip, Peter has to re-inhabit his past in order to be forgiven and let it go. As Jesus questions Peter, his sense of remorse for what he had done must have been immense.

Peter denied Jesus three times. So Jesus asks Peter three times, ‘Do you love me?’ When they have finished re-living the experience of his denial, Peter finds that he has three affirmations that counter-balance his three denials. By taking him back into the experience of denial Jesus turns Peter’s denials into affirmations. He also turns Peter’s memory of the denial from a negative memory into a positive one. It’s as if Peter has been curled up in a ball of regret and guilt, and Jesus uncoils him and lets him walk again. The denial happened, Peter would never have forgotten that, but now his primary memory is of affirming his love for Jesus. By helping Peter re-inhabit his experience of denial, Jesus enables him to re-tell and re-interpret the experience transforming its meaning from a negative to a positive. The experience still happened but the significance of it is changed enabling him to live for Christ in the present.

Like Peter and like Philip, we, too, can carry around with us the memory of bad events that have happened to us – things that we did to others or things that others did to us. Easter is about facing up to such troubling events from the past that burden us in just the same way as Peter and Philip are burdened. The way of release from the harm and hurt of these memories can be, with the help of others, to go back into them. To re-live them in order to feel sorrow for the wrong that we did or that was done to us. Then to find positive ways in which we can show sorrow or repair hurt, whether done by us or to us.

A few weeks ago, a few of us involved in the Artists and Craftspersons’ group set up an exhibition, ‘Leaves for Healing,' in the foyer downstairs. We took our inspiration from Ezekiel 47:1-12, a vision of a transformed desert landscape, with the two halves of the exhibition reflecting the transition from wilderness to fertile land. As we reflected on the passage we saw that the temple, the place where God’s presence was very real, was seen as the source of new life with water flowing out and into the landscape, transforming the barren, empty desert into incredibly fertile land. Then the passage finished with a wonderful vision of the fruit from the trees that grow being food and the leaves used for healing. Some of our artists took the opportunity provided by this passage to begin the exhibition with an artwork that reflected wilderness and then transform that same artwork to reflect change, fertility and growth.

One piece that does so is by Lois Bentley. Lois started by creating photographic collages on triangular pieces of sheet steel. Then, for the first half of the exhibition, she decided to hang them as three triangular steel sheets strung out in a line alongside each other with the points of each triangle facing down. In this configuration they remind us of the three crosses on Calvary, the central triangle showing imagery related to its title, ‘Bruised’. For the second part of the exhibition Lois chose to re-shape and re-organise the piece. It is now called ‘Re-United’ and the principal change is that she has hung the middle triangle point upwards to indicate that Jesus’ work on the cross is finished and the Trinity are restored to their coherent whole. She says that she was inspired to do this by Jesus asking Peter for the third time - do you love me?

In this piece, Lois demonstrates how the incarnation and crucifixion come together for our salvation. The incarnation tells us that the fundamental issues of human existence cannot be resolved or addressed from the outside; instead God has to be become one with humanity in order to open up to possibility of change on a continuing basis. In Jesus, God plunges headlong into the mess of betrayal, denial and scapegoating that causes violence and torture in our world and emerges on the other side to re-interpret those experiences and bring new meaning and direction.

Philip and Peter were perhaps surprised to find that salvation involved facing their betrayals not running from them. Jesus’ death does not eradicate or remove the original wrongs in human experience but, by experiencing wrong and the pain it involves, Jesus re-shapes and re-orders our experience of it in order to create a new story with new meaning and direction. So, instead of being overwhelmed by the world’s wrongs and our own, as Philip and Peter were initially, we can now follow the path first walked by Jesus of inhabiting and experiencing the world’s wrongs in order to re-shape and re-interpret our experience and understanding. The new story with new meaning that we inhabit is that of the Resurrection.

A further example from the ‘Leaves for Healing’ exhibition is of the two pieces shown by Ruth Hutchison. The first was called ‘Grieving for my Garden’ and reflected the sense of loss Ruth felt at no longer having ‘a beautiful garden with lots of everything including barbeques, family gatherings and places just to sit quietly, listen to trees blowing in the wind while the blackbird sings.’ Her garden had been the context for her creativity. Now art has become the outlet for her creativity. She combines this with her passion for recycling using art materials recycled from skips, charity shops and friends to create her second piece called ‘The Barbeque.’ This expresses in a different form the pleasure that she once found in the barbeques held in her garden. Her art enables her to express grief at her loss and also to express past pleasures in new forms.

That is the journey undertaken by Philip and Peter. It is the journey depicted for us by Lois and Ruth. It is the journey first walked by Jesus. It is incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection. It is Lent and Eastertide. Easter challenges us to face troubling events from the past that burden us in just the same way as Peter and Philip were burdened. Easter challenges us to inhabit and experience the world’s wrongs in order to live a new story with new meaning; that of resurrection.

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Max Harris & His Novelty Trio - Peg O' My Heart.

Bread for the World: Leaves for Healing

Here's my reflection from last night's Bread for the World at St Martin-in-the-Fields, which took the 'Leaves for Healing' exhibition as its theme:

Ezekiel 47 is a vision of a transformed desert landscape with transformation beginning in the temple; a place where God’s presence was very real, an intersecting point of heaven and earth.

God’s presence in the Temple is the source of new life, seen as water flowing out and into the landscape, transforming the barren, empty desert into incredibly fertile land. Geographically Jerusalem (the location of the temple) is on very high ground and the Dead Sea is below sea level, meaning water can only flow into it. The water becomes stagnant and unsuitable for drinking or watering plants. So the vision here of life giving water, flowing into stagnant waters, turning it into fresh water and generating swarms of life, would have fired the imaginations of those who first heard these words.

The description of trees and fruit and flowing rivers evokes the creation story and suggests God is renewing and recreating the land, fulfilling his original creation purpose. Both sides of the river produce all kinds of trees for food and remarkably these trees are so fertile they produce fruit every month because of the incredible life flowing from the temple. The passage finishes with a wonderful vision of the fruit from these trees being food and the leaves used for healing.

This vision of life being released into the dry desert of Ezekiel’s time has fired the imaginations of the artists and craftspeople’s group at St Martin’s and encouraged us to imagine this life flowing into our 21st century context. The result has been the ‘Leaves for Healing’ exhibition in the foyer of the Crypt which began in Lent with Part 1 of the exhibition and is continuing now in Eastertide with Part 2 of the exhibition. Having the exhibition in two halves has enabled us to reflect the transition in the passage from wilderness to fertile land and to explore that transition in relation to Lent and Eastertide.

Some of the artists in the group took the opportunity this passage provides to begin the exhibition with an artwork that reflected wilderness and then transform that same artwork to reflect change, fertility and growth. Among the works that do so are pieces by Lois Bentley, Ruth Hutchison, Jonathan Kearney, Ali Lyon and Sarah Sikorski.

Lois created personal photographic collages on triangular pieces of sheet steel. In the first half of the exhibition she hung the three triangular steel sheets strung out in a line alongside each other with the points of each triangle facing down. In this configuration, which she called ‘Three hanging,’ they reminded us of the three crosses on Calvary, the central triangle showing imagery related to its title, ‘Bruised’. For the second part of the exhibition Lois has re-shaped and re-organised the piece. It is now called ‘Re-United’ and the principal change is that she has hung the middle triangle point upwards to indicate that Jesus’ work on the cross is finished and the Trinity are restored to their coherent whole. She says that she was inspired to do this by Jesus asking Peter for the third time - do you love me?

Ruth Hutchison’s first piece was called ‘Grieving for my Garden’ and reflected the sense of loss Ruth felt at no longer having ‘a beautiful garden with lots of everything including barbeques, family gatherings and places just to sit quietly, listen to trees blowing in the wind while the blackbird sings.’ Her garden had been a context for her creativity. Now art has become the outlet for her creativity. Following her passion for recycling, all her art materials are recycled from skips, charity shops and from friends, keeping in line with the theme of ‘your rubbish is my treasure’. Using these recycled materials her piece in the second part of the exhibition is entitled ‘The Barbeque’ and expresses in a different form the pleasure that she once found in the barbeques held in her garden. Her art enables her to express grief at her loss and also to express past pleasures in new forms.

Jonathan Kearney has prepared an abstract piece printed in colours that evoke the differing emotions of Lent and Eastertide. The first piece is sombre colours was called ‘Anticipation,’ while the second with more vibrant colouring is entitled ‘New Week.’

Ali Lyon’s piece is called ‘Down in the River to Pray’ and is made of hand-dyed fabric in deepening shades of blue, with some salt embellishment. Her piece follows the image of deepening water, the trees on the banks, and the salty water. The shores of plain green were unadorned for Lent and now, for Eastertide, are blossoming with a variety of hand-stitched leaves.

This is such a marvellously evocative passage using so much natural imagery – water, rivers, sea, swamps, marshes, fish, trees, fruit, leaves etc. – that our artists have been able to explore its imagery from a variety of very different perspectives. I’ve just given a taster tonight; an introduction that doesn’t refer to the majority of the pieces or the artists. Clearly, the best way to appreciate the exhibition is to view it yourself and to take time with each of the pieces in turn. The second best way to appreciate is to hear from the artists themselves and so Sarah Sikorski is now going to show us the two pieces she made for the exhibition and tell us a little about them.

Sarah told us briefly about screenprinting and the beauty of using repetition in imagery. The title of Sarah's Lenten piece, When the river empties into the Sea, the water there becomes fresh, is from Ezekiel 47 v 8. The theme of the work is pollution of the seas with plastic. The design is inspired by Tapa bark cloth made by indigenous peoples of the Pacific islands, in particular Tonga. Ancient rock paintings of fish from caves in the Northern Territories of Australia were another influence, as was the patterns found in the plastics in the oceans, and on our beaches. The Lenten question considered by the piece is about our need for fresh living water. Her current piece, Leaves for Healing, uses repeated imagery of leaves and incorporates the phrase: 'Every month the leaves with bear, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.'

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Rush - The Trees.

Eastertide exhibition: Leaves for Healing

Leaves for Healing is a two-part exhibition organised by the artist’s and craftspersons’ group at St Martin-in-the-Fields. During Lent the exhibition ran from 6 March - 20 April and now in Eastertide from 21 April - 9 June.

The theme is taken from Ezekiel 47:1-12, a vision of a transformed desert landscape. 18 artists from the congregation are showing work, some of which was created in the Drawing Club and art workshops organised by the group.

Ezekiel 47:1-12 is a marvellously evocative passage using much natural imagery – water, rivers, sea, swamps, marshes, fish, trees, fruit, leaves etc. The temple, as the place where God’s presence was very real, is seen as the source of new life, water flowing out and into the landscape, transforming the barren, empty desert into incredibly fertile land. In a barren landscape the passage finishes with a wonderful vision of the fruit from the trees that grow being food and the leaves used for healing. We have here a vision of life being released into the dry desert of Ezekiel’s time and encouragement for us to imagine this life flowing into our 21st century context.

The exhibition utilises this imagery to explore themes of flourishing, growth, healing and worship. The two halves of the exhibition reflect the transition from wilderness to fertile land.

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Jeff Buckley & Elizabeth Fraser - All Flowers In Time Bend Towards The Sun.

Leaves for Healing

Leaves for Healing is a two-part exhibition organised by the artist’s and craftspersons’ group at St Martin-in-the-Fields. During Lent the exhibition runs from 6 March - 20 April and in Eastertide from 21 April - 9 June.

The theme is taken from Ezekiel 47:1-12, a vision of a transformed desert landscape. 18 artists from the congregation are showing work, some of which was created in the Drawing Club and art workshops organised by the group.

Ezekiel 47:1-12 is a marvellously evocative passage using much natural imagery – water, rivers, sea, swamps, marshes, fish, trees, fruit, leaves etc. The temple, as the place where God’s presence was very real, is seen as the source of new life, water flowing out and into the landscape, transforming the barren, empty desert into incredibly fertile land. In a barren landscape the passage finishes with a wonderful vision of the fruit from the trees that grow being food and the leaves used for healing. We have here a vision of life being released into the dry desert of Ezekiel’s time and encouragement for us to imagine this life flowing into our 21st century context.

The exhibition utilises this imagery to explore themes of flourishing, growth, healing and worship. The two halves of the exhibition reflect the transition from wilderness to fertile land.

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Eva Cassidy - Autumn Leaves.

Can these dry bones live?

Here is the sermon that I preached at St Martin-in-the-Fields during the 10.00am Eucharist:

‘April is the cruellest month, breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing / Memory and desire, stirring / Dull roots with spring rain.’ Those are the opening lines of T.S. Eliot’s iconic poem entitled ‘The Waste Land'. April was the cruellest month for the protagonist of ‘The Waste Land’ because the new life of Spring mocked the lack of the life - the depth of death-like despair - that he felt in relation to his life and his society.

The spirit of the Lord set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones ... and they were very dry. Today’s reading from the Hebrew Scriptures (Ezekiel37:1-14) begins in a similar place to ‘The Waste Land’. The valley of dry bones that Ezekiel enters in his vision equates to Eliot’s poem because it is a place with all the life sucked out of it, a place of dryness, desert and death. In his poem Eliot was articulating ‘the disillusionment of a younger post–World War I generation with the values and conventions—both literary and social—of the Victorian era’, while for Ezekiel the Valley of Dry Bones equated to Israel’s exile from the Promised Land and the sense of helplessness and hopelessness felt by the whole house of Israel and summed up in what was a common saying of their time, "Our bones are dried up."

During Lent we actively choose to go into the dryness of the wilderness and be cut off, together with Jesus, in order to pray but there are also times and seasons in our lives and in our society when we think and feel that we are in a Valley of Dry Bones. Meg Warner draws on her personal experience in our Lent book to explain how this feels when it affects us personally. She writes, ‘It may be that you are stuck in the depths of Lent, perhaps facing an impossible choice, or perhaps feeling that there are no choices open to you at all … You may simply be carrying the weight of an unfulfilled longing for something that appears to be quite impossible … Your longing may be for work, for home, for intimacy, for a child, or for a number of other things which you lack and without which life feels unpalatable or pointless.’

In ‘The Waste Land’ and Ezekiel’s Vision, the sense of hopelessness is political as well as personal. Similarly, there is much that we may wish to lament as we look at life on Planet Earth today. We are witnessing the death of environments and species around our world. ‘More than 700 mammals and birds currently threatened with extinction already appear to have been adversely affected by climate change, according to a major review of scientific studies’; a situation not helped by Donald Trump’s most recent Executive Order. Climate change, poverty and conflict are forcing mass movements of people across our world and we are, perhaps, witnessing the death of compassion in response to those who are migrants; as hostile environments are being created for immigrants and travel bans or walls used to keep people out.

Austerity measures are increasingly causing crises in education, healthcare, prisons, and social care. In their powerful book, The Body Economic, David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu show that austerity is having a "devastating effect" on public health in Europe and North America. Thousands of additional suicides and millions of extra cases of depression have been recorded across the two continents since governments started introducing austerity programmes. ”Recessions can hurt,” Stuckler and Basu write, “But austerity kills." 

To give just one example of the impact that austerity cuts are having in he UK, Lady Jane Campbell wrote recently in The Guardian that while the UK has been a world leader on disability rights, now ‘current and future generations of disabled people face the slow, inexorable slide back towards social death once again.’ This is because ‘Disabled people are confronting the spectre of re-institutionalisation as councils and clinical commissioning groups limit the amount they spend on individual packages of support.’ The Care Act, she argues, ‘fails to ensure disabled people’s right to independent living, and swingeing cuts in health, social care and benefits are eroding the availability of support and people’s right to exercise choice and control.’

Eliot’s poem provides only a hint of hope for those who find themselves in their own Waste Land but Ezekiel’s response in his vision is significantly different from that of The Waste Land’s protagonist. Ezekiel spoke prophetically about the situation of sterility and death in which he found himself. We might expect the prophetic voice in that situation to be the voice of Eliot’s protagonist, a lament for all that has been lost and a keening cry for all that has died. Instead, Ezekiel’s prophecy was a word of life. Ezekiel’s prophecy was that the Lord God would cause breath to enter the dry bones so they would live.

As a result, Ezekiel’s prophecy shows us God working with what is there. There is no replacement of the dry bones and no moving of Ezekiel to a better valley. Ezekiel’s vision promises that it is precisely in the place where hope seems to have died that resurrection will occur. This means that God starts with what is already there, the dry bones; so this prophecy is about recognising, valuing and using what we already have. It is about beginning with our assets, not our deficits, and recognising that addressing, instead of avoiding, the problem is actually the way to life and change and resolution.

In their book The Abundant Community John McKnight and Peter Block argue that, by contrast, our consumer society constantly tells us that we are insufficient and that we must purchase what we need from specialists and systems outside of our immediate resources and community. They suggest that when we outsource health care, child care, recreation, safety and satisfaction, we are actually being trained to become consumers and clients, not citizens and neighbours. It is, therefore, arguable that our social fabric – our sense of real community - has been unravelled by consumerism and its belief that however much we have, it is not enough. To recognise that in ourselves and in our communities we already have the capacity to address our human needs, in ways that systems never can, is to challenge the mantra of consumerism.

In the Membership Pack for HeartEdge, the new network of churches St Martin’s is initiating, we argue that this is equally true for churches, their congregations and communities. That we can do unbelievable things by starting with our assets, not our deficits; that we all have gifts to offer, even the most seemingly marginal among us. Using our particular assets (our skills, experience, insights and ideas) we have the God-given power to create a hope-filled life and can become architects of a future where we want to live.

Following Ezekiel’s prophecy further we can then see that the individual dry bones are joined together to form skeletons on which sinews and skin grow to fashion living bodies. St Paul also used this same illustration of a body with each part in its right place playing its rightful role, in his case to create a picture of the Church as the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12). Again, this suggests that we can do unbelievable things, but this time the focus is on our doing them together; starting with each another’s assets, not our deficits. Sharing our particular assets with others and receiving those of others fosters a wider understanding and models the practice of hospitality. McKnight and Block suggest we can nurture voluntary, self-organizing structures in our communities that will reveal our gifts and allow them to be shared to the greatest mutual benefit. By doing this we will find our way to becoming abundant communities that open space for generosity and cooperation.

Similarly, in HeartEdge, we are saying to the Church that rather than beginning with our hurts and our stereotypes, as happens in a community of fear, and finding a hundred reasons why we can’t do things or certain kinds of people don’t belong, if we take off labels like disabled or wealthy or migrant or evangelical or single and instead see qualities like passion or commitment or generosity or enthusiasm or humility, then there’s no limit to what a community of hope can do.

Starting with our assets and those of others around us provides the structure or skeleton that God can then animate with his Spirit – his qualities of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control – to truly bring renewed life, change and growth. That is the journey of Lent, because it is the journey of Christ’s Passion; through the experience of crucifixion and death to resurrection and renewal, and beyond.

We may well, in some senses, inhabit a Valley of Dry Bones or a Waste Land personally or socially. All is not lost, however, as in Ezekiel’s vision by starting where we are with our assets and by coming together to release and share our gifts we find the power to create a hope-filled life and become the architects of a future where we want to live. It may even be that we need to experience the scarcity of the Waste Land in order to then see, appreciate and value the new life of God’s kingdom. As one song says ‘… sometimes, you need the darkness / In order to ever see the light.’ (Michael McDermott, I Know A Place)

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Michael McDermott - I Know A Place.

Turn our eyes from deficits to assets

Bible reading:

The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live … and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

… I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.

Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them … I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.” (Ezekiel 37:1-14)

Meditation:

Ezekiel’s vision was for those in the whole house of Israel in exile who were saying, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ During Lent we actively choose to go into the dryness of the wilderness, together with Jesus, to be cut off in order to pray but there are also times and seasons in our lives and in our society when we think and feel that we are in a Valley of Dry Bones.

Politically, that may be how some of us feel following the unexpected election results of last year. We are, after all, witnessing the death of environments and species around our world. Poverty and conflict are forcing mass movements of people across our world and we are perhaps witnessing the death of compassion in response to those who are migrants. Austerity measures are increasingly causing crises in education, healthcare, prisons, and social care. ”Recessions can hurt,” David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu write in their powerful book, The Body Economic, “But austerity kills."

On a more personal note, ‘It may be that you are stuck in the depths of Lent, perhaps facing an impossible choice, or perhaps feeling that there are no choices open to you at all … You may simply be carrying the weight of an unfulfilled longing for something that appears to be quite impossible … Your longing may be for work, for home, for intimacy, for a child, or for a number of other things which you lack and without which life feels unpalatable or pointless.’ (M. Warner, Abraham)

Ezekiel speaks prophetically into these situations of sterility and death because that is where he and the People of Israel found themselves. His prophecy is a word of life; the Lord God will cause breath to enter the dry bones so they shall live. This shows us God working with what is there. There is no replacement of the dry bones and no move to a better valley. God starts with what is already there - the dry bones - so this is about recognising, valuing and using what we already have.

By contrast, our consumer society constantly tells us that we are insufficient and that we must purchase what we need from specialists and systems outside of our immediate community. Instead, we need to reweave the social fabric that has been unravelled by consumerism and its belief that however much we have, it is not enough. To recognise that in ourselves and in our communities we already have the capacity to address our human needs in ways that systems, which see us only as interchangeable units, as problems to be solved, never can. We can do unbelievable things by starting with our assets, not our deficits. We all have gifts to offer, even the most seemingly marginal among us. Using our particular assets (our skills, experience, insights and ideas) we have the God-given power to create a hope-filled life and can be the architects of the future where we want to live. (J. McKnight & P. Block, The Abundant Community)

Following Ezekiel’s prophecy further we see that the individual dry bones are joined together to form skeletons on which sinews and skin grow to form living bodies. This suggests that we can do unbelievable things if we do them together; if we start with one another’s assets not our deficits. Sharing our particular assets with others will foster a wider understanding and model the practice of hospitality towards others. By doing this we will find our way to becoming abundant communities that open space for generosity and cooperation.

We may well, in some senses, inhabit a Valley of Dry Bones personally or socially. All is not lost, however, as in Ezekiel’s vision by starting where we are with our assets and by coming together to release and share our gifts we find the power to create a hope-filled life and be the architects of the future where we want to live.

Prayers

O Risen Lord, be our resurrection and life. Be the resurrection and the life for us and all whom you have made. Be the resurrection and the life for those caught in the grip of sin and addiction. Be the resurrection and the life for those who feel forsaken. Be the resurrection and the life for those dying of malnutrition and hunger. Turn our eyes from deficits to assets and show us the gifts that will bring us to life.

O Risen Lord, be our resurrection and life. Be the resurrection and the life in us who know the good but fail to do it, who have not been judged but still judge, who know love but still live for self, who know hope but succumb to despair. Be the resurrection and the life for anyone anywhere who knows suffering and death in any form, and for Creation itself, which groans in travail. Turn our eyes from deficits to assets and show us the gifts that will bring us to life.

We pray for Easter eyes – Eyes that will allow us to see: Beyond death into life; Beyond sin to forgiveness; Beyond division to unity; Beyond wounds to beauty; Through the human to the divine; Through the divine to the human; From the ‘I’ to the ‘You’. And - enabling all of this – The totality of Easter energy! Turn our eyes from deficits to assets and show us the gifts that will bring us to life.

The Blessing

Be the resurrection and the life in the life we share and the fellowship we enjoy, that filled anew with the wonder of your love and the power of your grace, we may go forth to proclaim your resurrection life to a world in the grip of death. And the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen.

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Gungor - Dry Bones.

Heaven is union with God

God's ancient covenant with the Jewish people was, as Ezekiel wrote, that, “My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people" (Ezekiel 37: 26-27). At the end of Bible we find these words, “God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.” (Revelation 21: 3).

This covenant which God made with his people is fulfilled through Jesus. Jesus says that he dwells in God the Father and the Father dwells in him. In other words, he is united with God and lives out as a human being what God himself is like. When he says to his disciples that there are many dwelling places in his Father’s house, Jesus is letting his disciples know that it is not he alone who is to dwell with the Father but that there is room for all of them and many more (John 14. 1 - 7).

He then says to his disciples that he is about to leave them to prepare a dwelling place for them with God. He is speaking of his death, resurrection and ascension, as these enable his disciples to be united to him and, in him, with God, his Father. Heaven is experienced through our union with God. When we are united with God, we, like Jesus, dwell in God and God dwells in us. Through Jesus, we experience this unity with God in the here and now and it continues into our life with God after death.

Jesus is the way to unity with God. He is the way to God dwelling with us and our dwelling in God. 

Eugene Peterson has encapsulated Jesus’ point about being the way, truth and life by saying, “Only when we do the Jesus truth in the Jesus way do we get the Jesus life.” In many funeral services we pray for the wisdom and the grace to use aright the time that is left to us on earth. That wisdom and grace come to us as we ask ourselves, ‘Am I living the Jesus truth?’ ‘Am I living the Jesus way?’ ‘Am I living the Jesus life?’ We too can experience unity with God when we do the Jesus truth in the Jesus way to get the Jesus life.

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Madness - Our House.

Bob Dylan: Tempest

'When Dylan convened his band at Jackson Browne's Groove Masters studios in Santa Monica,' Allan Jones notes in his Uncut review of Tempest, "it was his intention to make a 'religious' album." Jones clearly thinks that there are only "inklings" to be found in Tempest itself of that original intention, presumably because of the wrath found on this album and "the often elemental ire that accompanies it, not to mention all the bloodshed, madness, death, chaos and assorted disasters" also found therein.

Douglas Heselgrave writes that "Tempest is one hell of a fiery concoction, a swirling inferno of love gone wrong that always holds out the possibility of redemption coming between falling from the saddle and hitting the ground." Presumably 'the possibility of redemption' is what Allan Jones was expecting from a 'religious' Dylan album and what he doesn't really find in Tempest, except in it's opening track 'Duquesne Whistle'.

He's right that Dylan's focus in Tempest is not on the possibility of redemption, instead it is rather more on the current reality of Hell. As Caspar Llewellyn Smith has noted Tempest is a "fire-and-brimstone" album "steeped in the country blues and old murder ballads" and as Matt Melis writes "On much of Tempest, listeners are guided by a still-yearning Dylan through a depraved and slouching world whose center cannot hold ..."

In 'Narrow Way' the central character reverses Jesus' words about walking the narrow path by seeking to drag the person he is addressing down into the hell he inhabits: 

"If I can't work up to you, you'll surely have to work down to me someday."

A similar reversal is found in 'Pay In Blood' where the central character describes his violent actions towards others and states "I pay in blood, but not my own'. Jesus, of course, does pay - for the salvation of all - in his own blood.

But to pay in the blood of others seems to be the nature of the world that Dylan describes in Tempest. As the central character in 'Narrow Way' says:

"This is hard country to stay alive in
Blades are everywhere and they're breaking my skin
I'm armed to the hilt and I'm struggling hard
You won't get out of here unscarred"

This is the dark world of the night - 'Soon After Midnight' - where people renounce their faith and deny their Lord, put their "heart on a platter and see who will bite," wear dark glasses to cover their eyes as there are secrets in them that they can't disguise, there's looting and plunder on distant shores, "there's a bleeding wound in the heart of town," help comes too late for the "beggars crouching at the gate," and there are a "lot of things we didn’t do that I wish we had."

When the morning comes:

"We cried on a cold and frosty morn
We cried because our souls were torn
So much for tears
So much for these long and wasted years" ('Long And Wasted Years')

Dylan is, as ever, the storyteller rather than a character in the songs; he is a bard, a poetic teller of myths, not a confessional singer-songwriter and, therefore, it is futile to interrogate his songs to try to determine his state of mind or heart. Instead, he continues to carry out the role he first articulated in 'A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall' of going out in the face of the tempest, the storm, the coming apocalypse, in order to say what he sees:

"I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’
But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall"

'Tempest' contains a repeated motif:

"The watchman, he lay dreaming
As the ballroom dancers twirled
He dreamed the Titanic was sinking
Into the underworld"

"The watchman lay there dreaming
At forty-five degrees
He dreamed that the Titanic was sinking
Dropping to her knees"

"The watchman, he lay dreaming
The damage had been done
He dreamed the Titanic was sinking
And he tried to tell someone"

"The watchman he lay dreaming
Of all the things that can be
He dreamed the Titanic was sinking
Into the deep blue sea"

The prophet Ezekiel is called by God to be a watchman for the people of Israel. In the book of Ezekiel the watchmen are the shepherds - the priests and prophets - of Israel. Ezekiel is told by God that "if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes someone’s life, that person’s life will be taken because of their sin, but I will hold the watchman accountable for their blood" (Ezekiel 33. 6).

The Dylan of Tempest, 'A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall' and so many other songs, is the faithful watchmen who sees the storm of the apocalypse on the horizon and who warns his people before it is too late. Tempest is, therefore, a profoundly religious album.

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Bob Dylan - Scarlet Town.

A heart for people, the Arts and for God

“Disgusting!” That was Michal’s comment on King David’s dancing (2 Samuel 6. 1 - 20). If it had been Craig Revel Horwood critiquing my two left feet I would have understood but this was David’s wife criticising his contribution to the sacred dance.

“Disgusting!” That is how some Christians have responded to dance, and even the Arts generally, at certain times and places in Church history. For example, the Rev. Increase Mather, an influential Puritan leader in Boston in the 17^th century, wrote, in a book entitled An Arrow Against Profane and Promiscuous Dancing Drawn Out of the Quiver of the Scriptures (1684), that "A Dance is the Devils Procession. He that enters into a Dance, enters into his Possession. The Devil is the Guide, the middle and the end of the Dance."

Why was Michal disgusted? She thought that David had demeaned himself in front of their servants. She said that he had “exposed himself like a fool in the sight of the servant women of his officials” (v. 20). David had led all the Israelites in dancing and singing with all their might to honour God with their playing of harps, lyres, drums, rattles, and cymbals. Michal criticises both what David has done – exposing himself like a fool through his dancing – and his having crossed boundaries and taken on roles that were inappropriate for a King – having done it in all in front of the servant women of his officials.

If we were to translate what Michal says into today’s slang we might say that he by dancing he had looked a prat in front of the plebs. To put it that way brings out the inherent snobbery in Michal’s critique. As the daughter of King Saul, she is suggesting that there is an appropriate way for a King to behave in front of his people and that there are also appropriate roles which people play in society which should not be altered or varied. It is not the job of the King to lead the people in worship, as the King has priests and Levites a-plenty to do that for him.

David, though, has a heart for the people, a heart for the Arts, and, most importantly, a heart for God and so he both instinctively and deliberately crosses social and cultural boundaries to lead his people in worship and is clearly commended by God for doing so.

David didn’t forget his origins. He was not born into a royal family instead he was the one that his father left looking after the sheep because he considered him too young to meet the prophet who had come to anoint the next King of Israel (1 Samuel 16). David knows, therefore, that the place for a King is among the people even if that means he demeans himself in the eyes of some and acts in ways that are inappropriate. The fact that he has a heart for the people means that he is loved by the people.

David was also a musician before he was a King, playing his harp to soothe King Saul’s spirits. He is credited with writing many of the Psalms – songs which speak of praising God with trumpets, harps, lyres, drums, dancing, flutes and cymbals. So, David is a lyricist, musician and dancer who values the role that the Arts play in the worship of God and, not only appoints those who will use the Arts in that way, but actively uses his own God-given artistic abilities to lead worship himself.

Central to all this, however, is his heart for God. It was this that led to his being anointed by Samuel as the future King of Israel. It was on the occasion of his anointing that God said, “People look at the outward appearance, but I look at the heart.” In Sirach 47. 8, one of the books of the Apocrypha we read, “In everything David did, he gave thanks and praise to the Holy Lord, the Most High. He loved his Creator and sang praises to him with all his heart.” David’s heart was, as we say, in the right place and this can be clearly seen in this story through the way in which he risks ridicule in order to lead worship.

In this he is similar to the prophets who also cross cultural and social boundaries in order to speak and visualise God’s message, often attracting ridicule as they do so. “On one occasion, God told Ezekiel to shave his beard and to cut the hair of his head with a razor and a knife and divide the cut hair into three parts.” Then he was told to burn a third of it, chop a third up with his sword, and scatter the remaining third to the winds (Ezekiel 5:2). Ezekiel was also commanded to draw a picture of Jerusalem on a tile (Ezekiel 4:1–3); lie on his left and right side (4:4–8); bake bread that contained dung (4:9–17); tremble as he ate and drank (12:17–20); sigh, groan, and beat his breast (21:6–7); and make sweeping movements with a sword (21:8–17). All these actions prophesied impending doom, destruction, and hardship upon various groups in the region.

In Hosea 12. 10 we read this, "I have also spoken to you by the prophets, and I have multiplied visions for you and have appealed to you through parables acted out by the prophets.” The Hebrew phrase translated as "acted out" means "a silent mime, an enactment, or judgment". The prophets used drama rather than the lyrics, music and dance used by David but their impulse was the same to point the people to God through the Arts even if they looked ridiculous in the process.

Today, St John’s Seven Kings has been visited by a prophet who uses the Arts with the same heart for God that we have seen in David and the prophets.

Bishop David, the Bishop of Barking, is well known for his visualisations of the Gospel message which remain in people’s memories and hearts long after his visits. Over the years in church at various confirmation services we have seen him release live doves, wash and iron clothes, pitch a tent and boil a kettle on a camping gaz stove, use a leaf blower to fill the sails of a full-size sailing dinghy, bake a cake, build a wall and burn straw. At my first training weekend as a curate he did a handstand to demonstrate the way in which Jesus, through his teaching in the beatitudes, turns our understanding of life upside down. Through these acted parables we remember not only the visual image but also the point that was being made. Yet there are some who feel that this is not an appropriate way for a Bishop to behave and who criticise, in private, his actions and approach.

Bishop David has said that he loves to use surprise, shock, mirth and amusement in order to make what are hopefully memorable spiritual and theological points because our insistence on using far too many words often goes right over people’s heads and a picture can say more than a thousand words. Jesus also used visuals in his very concrete teaching, so he feels he’s in good company in using everyday objects to make connections for others.

The relationship between Church life and music has sustained through the centuries but the connection been Church and theatre has suffered. There is also great scope for dance and drama in Church, as well as the visual arts. There is great scope for recovering those connections that have fallen into decline.

So, he agrees with Rowan Williams that the Church needs more artists and “that artists are not special people but every person is a special kind of artist.” He thinks that there is great scope in the Church encouraging creative expression in everyone as this is a way of helping us to be fully human. Where appropriate that flowering of artistic expression can be expressed - as we have seen King David, the prophets, and the Bishop himself doing - in Church as, for example, an outflow of worship. We are fellow-creators with God and need to remember that He is creator as well as redeemer.

What David shows us is that all this stems from having our heart in the right place - in everything we do, to give thanks and praise to the Holy Lord, the Most High loving our Creator and singing praises to him with all our heart.

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J. Moss - Psalm 150.