A never ending flow of love from God

Here's the sermon:  (11.00am, 08/03/26, St Catherine’s Wickford)

In baptism we use the symbols of oil, light and water. Here’s a reflection on the significance of these three things.

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.

The poet Malcolm Guite describes the font as ‘A wide womb floating on the breath of God’ because through baptism God is ‘calling us to the life for which we long, yearning to bring us to our birth again.’ Just as at creation when God’s Spirit or breath moved on the waters, when we are baptised the breath of God is again on the waters. 

Malcolm Guite writes:

Come, dip a scallop shell into the font
For birth and blessings as a child of God.
The living water rises from that fount
Whence all things come, that you may bathe and wade
And find the flow, and learn at last to follow
The course of Love upstream towards your home.
The day is done and all the fields lie fallow
One thing is needful, one voice calls your name.

Take the true compass now, be compassed round
By clouds of witness, chords of love unbound.
Turn to the Son, begin your pilgrimage,
Take time with Him to find your true direction.
He travels with you through this darkened age
And wakes you every day to resurrection.

In this poem Malcolm Guite identifies the living water of which Jesus spoke (John 4. 13 & 14) when he said: ‘Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life’ (John 4. 14) with the love of God seen in Jesus. The water of life of which Jesus spoke is his love filling us and welling up with us in order to overflow to others. Jesus said, ‘Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back’ (Luke 6. 38).

This is how God’s love comes into our lives. We drink in a never ending flow of love from God. It is like a tap which is never turned off and always running. As there is no end to God’s love it can fill us and overflow from us to others. As we give love to others, so we can be filled all over again with God’s love. Giving and receiving in God’s economy are intended to be simultaneous events; as we give out, so we receive more. This is why Paul writes in Ephesians that we should go on being filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5. 18) by drinking in huge draughts of the Spirit of God.

Sometimes, though, we cut ourselves off from the flow of God’s love. We can do this in at least two ways. Firstly, by our attitudes if we become selfish rather than generous; this is why the Bible gives us so many lists of contrasting behaviour. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, so the reverse is hate, complaint, violence, frustration, meanness, evil, inconstancy, harshness and uncontrolled. Any or all of these will cut off the flow of God’s Spirit in our lives and church. Secondly, we can also cut off the flow of the Spirit by separating ourselves from some of the channels through which God’s love can regularly reach us – such as social action, church fellowship, Bible reading and prayer.

All this means we need to ask ourselves, what if our job as a follower of Jesus is not to try harder or run faster or get up earlier or rev up your emotions? What if God really is at work in every moment; in every place? What our job is to learn simply not do those things that close us off from the Spirit? Instead of needing to do something else, what if it’s actually about how we keep ourselves aware and submitted so that rivers of living water are flowing through our being? Paul puts it like this and, in some way, the spiritual life is that simple. Just don’t quench the Spirit. The Spirit is already at work. He is bigger than you. He is stronger than you. He is more patient than your failures. He is committed to helping you 24/7, so just don’t get in His way. Don’t quench the Spirit. Don’t grieve the Spirit. We are always either opening ourselves up — walking in the Spirit — or quenching the Spirit. (John Ortberg – ‘A river runs through it’, http://www.biblesociety.org.uk/uploads/files/lyfev2/extra_resources/a_river_runs_through_it.pdf)

If we open ourselves up to God, we can have the raw material of Jesus himself – which is love – flowing out of us. His human body and mind and spirit, alive with the Spirit of God, in us and flowing from us (Stephen Verney, ‘Water into Wine’, Fount, 1985). It might sound a bizarre image; to have a river of life flowing out of you, but it is a big deal to God. The image of a river is used about 150 times in scripture, most often as a picture of spiritual life. And there is good reason. Israel is a desert country where rivers mean one thing: life. To desert people, the river is life.

We sometimes sing the opening words of Psalm 42, “As the deer pants for the water, so my soul pants for you, O God.” Next time you sing it, remember that Israel is desert country. The waters are dried up. This deer is going to die if it doesn’t find water — and that’s you and me. That’s every human being.

To be cut off from the Spirit of God means a life of perpetual unsatisfied desires, spiritual dryness, emotional death. Jesus is saying that receiving from God in this way and giving to others in this way is vital to our life and survival because where the river flows, life will flourish but where a river dries up, life does as well. The river is gift, the river is grace, the river is life, the river is love. It is what we need and all we need, so are you getting and giving all you can? Are you open to God or quenching the flow of his Spirit?

Remember, ‘One thing is needful, one voice calls your name.

Take the true compass now, be compassed round
By clouds of witness, chords of love unbound.
Turn to the Son, begin your pilgrimage,
Take time with Him to find your true direction.
He travels with you through this darkened age
And wakes you every day to resurrection.’

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As The Deer.

Open to the flow of the Spirit

Here's the reflection I shared in today's Choral Eucharist at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

Some years ago I read a book called ‘Written In My Soul’, a series of interviews with some of the most well-known singer-songwriters from the 1950s onward, and was struck by the extent to which these great artists – Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Van Morrison and others - felt that their songs were given to them in moments of revelation, that their songs were already written and ‘came through them as though radio receivers – without much conscious effort or direction.’

As example, Neil Young said, ‘My best work just comes through me. A lot of times what comes through me is coming from somewhere else.’ Similarly, Dylan has spoken of songs coming through the writer and cited Van Morrison’s ‘Tupelo Honey’ as a song that had always existed and Morrison the vehicle through which it came. In his interview Morrison confirmed that that was the only way he wrote songs; the only way he could write.

This happens to artists too, not just to musicians. I recently reviewed the retrospective of sculptures by Isamu Noguchi which is currently at the Barbican and was fascinated to discover that Noguchi viewed spirituality as a flow and artists as those who ‘come with less obstruction’ to this flow. He viewed inspiration as something flowing from a spiritual source and thought that the way to create great art was to open oneself more and more fully to that flow.

To my mind, these are experiences of the Holy Spirit coming, although it is not always recognised as such. The Spirit comes and makes connections, bringing clarity, making sense. That is not just something for artists, or even for preachers, it is something that can happen for us all and not just in major life-changing moments of revelation but also in minor everyday epiphanies.

It is also an example of what Jesus spoke about in today’s Gospel reading (Luke 21. 12 -19) when he said that his disciples would be called to testify but should make up their minds not to prepare a defence in advance; for he would give words and a wisdom that no opponents would be able to withstand or contradict. Just as the musicians and artists mentioned experienced, we too can open our lives, hearts, minds and spirits to receive inspiration and ideas from the Holy Spirit.

How can we experience a similar openness to the flow of the Holy Spirit in our own lives? Jesus makes two suggestions in the block of teaching to his disciples of which today’s Gospel reading is an extract. First, he says be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life. The cares and trials of life can distract us from a focus on God and his coming kingdom. When they weigh us down by clouding our view, they prevent us from looking to God and receiving from God. Similarly, Isamu Noguchi wrote that to be open to flow, artists try to ‘overcome barriers’ such as ‘habit and convenience and fear and accommodation’ or ‘barriers of the self and what everyone thinks about art’.

It is not that Jesus wants us to ignore the trials and tribulations of life, however. In this block of teaching, he is clear that his disciples will encounter all sorts of troubles in the near future. What he wants for them, however, is that they look for signs of the coming kingdom of God and contemplate those prayerfully because, as they focus their hearts and minds and spirits on those things, they will become attuned to what the Spirit is saying to them in the midst of the troubles they face.

What Jesus was commending to his disciples in unprecedented times where there was no script or instruction manual that could be followed was improvisation. He knew that he was going to leave them (as happened at the Ascension) and that he would then send the Holy Spirit to them (as happened on the Day of Pentecost). The Spirit will teach them everything and remind them of all that Jesus had said to them and the result will be that they will do greater things than him.

To understand this more fully, it’s helpful to reflect further on the artistic practice of improvisation. When actors improvise, it is in the context of a wider story within which they create a new story that fits within the wider story. When jazz musicians improvise, they begin with a musical theme that they develop in new directions before returning to the original theme in order to conclude. In both examples, those improvising need to be immersed in the wider theme or story in order to be able to improvise in ways that make sense within that wider theme or story.

 
As Christians we have become part of the story of how God relates to human beings and his creation by bringing into being the kingdom of God, with the story of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension being the best expression of that wider story. It is as we immerse ourselves in that story through prayerful contemplation of it, that we allow it to begin shaping our thoughts, ideas, reactions and responses to life and in this way become open to the prompting, movement and flow of the Holy Spirit within.

This is what prayer, bible reading, and other spiritual disciplines are seeking to achieve in and through us. That we begin to inculcate in our lives the life of the kingdom by acting in ways that mirror the activity, attitudes and ethos of that kingdom. In this way we open ourselves to the spirit of that kingdom, the Holy Spirit which animates all those who seek to follow Jesus.

We need to turn away from our natural human inclination to focus on ourselves and our issues and ills, in order to focus primarily on Jesus and the kingdom he brings. As we do so, not only do we increasingly allow the attitudes and actions of the kingdom of God to fill our heart, mind and spirit so that they begin to come readily to mind amongst the opportunities and challenges of daily life, but we also attune ourselves to hearing and responding to the promptings of God’s Spirit as it helps us improvise on the kingdom of God within our lives. In these ways, we too can experience what Jesus taught in today’s Gospel reading, what his disciples experienced in their lives and ministries following the Day of Pentecost when the Spirit first came to them, and what artists of all kinds also experience in terms of inspiration, through an often unconscious but nonetheless spiritual openness to what is beyond them.

Jesus calls us to prayerfully contemplate the signs of his kingdom that we might receive words and a wisdom that no opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Van Morrison - Haunts of Ancient Peace.

Start:Stop - Working in the Spirit

Bible reading

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”

So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” (Genesis 1. 26 - 28)

Meditation

Today's meditation used reflections from UCB's Word for Today - click here and here to read the meditation.

Prayer

Creator God, we thank you for those moments when we experience flow: when we’re immersed in a significant task that’s challenging, which matches up well to our highest abilities; when we’re so caught up in an activity that time somehow seems to be altered; when our attention is fully focused without our having to work at it; when we’re deeply aware, without being self-conscious; when we’re being stretched and challenged, but without a sense of stress or worry; when we have a sense of engagement or oneness with what we are doing; when we’re swept up by something outside ourselves. We pray for more of these moments and for more of these moments this week.

May we experience flow in our work this week and know that we are being swept up by your Spirit.

We pray that the work we do this week will in some way create value on the earth. Show us how to invest our abilities to plant and build and write and organise and heal and invent ways that bless people and cause God’s kingdom to flourish here on earth. May we also share this great spiritual act of service by asking those with whom we work whether they are experiencing flow in their work, and by helping them experience it even more.

May we experience flow in our work this week and know that we are being swept up by your Spirit.

Give us the attitude that whatever we do, we do it with a thankful heart, as though You were our boss. Bring us alive, as we work with that attitude. May we recognise that when each of us is doing what You designed and called us to do, the world around us is enriched. May we acknowledge that all skill is God-given, and that you invite us to live in conscious interaction with the Holy Spirit as we work, so that we can develop the skills You give us.

May we experience flow in our work this week and know that we are being swept up by your Spirit.

Blessing

Planting, building, writing, organising, healing, inventing ways that bless people and cause God’s kingdom to flourish here on earth. May those blessings of almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, rest upon you and remain with you always. Amen.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Moby - Saints.

Anne Creasey: A mystic's métier

Anne Creasey is a multi-talented artist who has worked with great skill in a variety of media including textiles. She has, I believe, recently found her true mystical métier in a new style of painting which is expressive of the interconnectivity of reality. Siloam (above) is an early example of her new style which can be seen, along with a second new work, in commission4mission's Inspire: art as spiritual exploration exhibition at St Stephen Walbrook from 18th - 29th November.

I visited Anne today to collect her work for the exhibition. Although brief today, visiting Anne is always a source of real pleasure and insight because of her open discussion of her spiritual experience. She speaks of being released into this new phase of her work. There is a sense of flow within these new compositions as in her ability to realize the linkages within these interconnected images. As Van Morrison once sang, she ventures in the slipstream between the viaducts of her dream.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John Tavener - Ikon Of Light.