Gratutious, extravagent generosity

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

As a child my faith was impacted by a musical drama of the life of Christ using scripture drawn from Genesis to Revelation which was called Yesterday Today Forever and was staged in Oxford in the mid-1970s. It was an ambitious production with three complete stage sets, a complicated lighting system, quadraphonic sound, a 50-piece choir, a 12-piece band, dance, narration, a great variety in music, and a back projected film. I was impressed by the integration of the Arts and scripture in a way that I had not seen prior to that point.

Included in the show was a beautiful ballad based on this story of Mary of Bethany anointing Jesus’ feet and wiping them with her hair (John 12. 1 - 8). Called ‘Remember Mary’, the song imagines Mary’s thoughts as she carries out this extravagant gesture:

“I cannot look at your face - I dare not - for I have sinned so much and you know my heart. I want to look at you Jesus, but I have not the power to lift my eyes for I am guilty - oh so guilty. What can I do? For I am lost and yet you care - even for me. So I will pour this ointment upon your feet, dear Lord. The ointment smells so sweet; smells so. sweet; and yet I am a broken creature, I'm only but dust, only dust …”

Jesus responds: “You have done a beautiful thing to me Mary, in pouring this ointment on my body, you have prepared me for burial. Your sins are forgiven, for you have loved much.”

The way in which Mary gives to Jesus in this story could perhaps be summed up in a verse from 2 Corinthians 9: “You should each give, then, as you have decided, not with regret or out of a sense of duty; for God loves the one who gives gladly.” (2 Corinthians 9. 7)

It was her decision to pour ointment over Jesus’ feet and to dry her feet with her hair. No one expected her action – it was not done out of duty - and at least one person criticised her severely for it. It was her entirely her decision, her personal way of giving to Jesus.

Giving in this way involved giving generously from her possessions because the ointment that she used was expensive (imported from countries such as India) and extravagant (half a litre was an enormous amount to use in this way). It also involved giving generously of herself, as Jewish women traditionally kept their hair tied up in public and only unloosened their hair in the presence of their husbands. What Mary did in wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair was the ultimate sign of her love for and commitment to Jesus. She did all this, not with regret or out of a sense of duty, but gladly and generously.

In fact, her gift to Jesus is a response to the love that Jesus has shown towards her. She gives because Jesus has first given extravagantly and generously to her. This is the pattern that we see repeated in God’s dealings with human beings throughout scripture and which we see summed up in the most famous verse of scripture, John 3: 16: “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son …” God so loved that he gave.

Love is the reason for giving, not duty, not regret, but love. In Jesus’ life, death and resurrection God gave everything he had for us. Philippians 2 tells us that, of his own free will, Jesus “gave up all he had, and took the nature of a servant. He became like a human being and appeared in human likeness. He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death – his death on the cross.” This is the extravagant nature of Jesus’ love for us, that he would give up all he had in order to walk the path of obedience all the way to his death on the cross.

‘This is what Mary saw in Jesus and why she responded by giving extravagantly and generously to him. God does not need us; yet he created us out of his gratuitous love. Jesus astonished the disciples by giving Mary the highest commendation anyone receives in the pages of the Gospels:

“Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.” (Mark 14:6 -9)’

In reflecting on this story the artist Makoto Fujimura has said that he prays that, ‘there will be a new aroma in the air: an aroma of Mary of Bethany, who in response to Jesus’ tears in John 11 and 12 brought her most precious belonging, her most gratuitous, expensive nard. I pray that in the days to come, this aroma will fill the air whenever the words of Gospel are spoken, that outsiders to faith will sense this extravagant air and feel it, particularly for them. I pray that when our children speak of faith, this gratuitous, intuitive aroma of the love of Christ will be made manifest in their lives.’

Fujimura sees an analogy between the extravagance of Mary’s gesture and the extravagance of art. He prays ‘that artists will no longer have to be on the defensive as was Mary in that aroma-filled room while disciples grumbled that her perfume could have been sold to feed the poor. “What a waste,” they said. What a waste. Is our art wasteful, too?

Art is gratuitous. Art is extravagant. But so is our God.’ And we need to learn a similar extravagance in our response to Jesus.

Oliver O'Donovan writes that, “Generosity means: not staying within the limits which public rationality sets on its approval of benevolence. An extravagant, unmeasured goodness, corresponding to God’s own providential care, defies the logic of public expectation.”

David Dark writes that, “Extravagant kindness of action … amounts to apocalyptic disruption of whatever norms currently crown themselves as “realistic,” “prudent,” or “appropriate.” “These confrontations bring onto the scene an indiscriminate generosity that will often appear supernatural and scandalous as they necessarily go beyond what has appeared previously available or reasonable.” In this way, such actions expand “the sphere of what’s considered historically possible” and “testify to a transcendence in everyday activity with an earth-bound agility that interpenetrates all that appears mundane and insignificant.”

Perhaps, most incredibly of all, what Mary gave was a blessing and help to Jesus. Jesus had been explaining for some time that he was shortly to die but no one believed him or accepted what he was saying. Famously, Peter had told Jesus that he would try to stop that from happening and Jesus rebuked him by saying, “Get behind me, Satan.”

But here, Mary anoints Jesus for burial. She understands. She accepts what is going to happen and she prepares Jesus for it. What a blessing that must have been to Jesus that someone understood and supported him in what he was about to do. And, in just the same way, we bless and encourage God when we give generously of our time, talents and treasure to God.

Judas didn’t understand the love and generosity in Mary’s gifts and this seems to have been because his motives were selfish, not loving. In criticising Mary’s gift, he purported to be concerned about the poor but actually wanted to help himself to some of the money. Today it is still easy for us to find reasons not to give. We will all have heard people give a whole string of reasons for not giving – excuses like the money is spent on administration or wasted through corruption rather than going to those that it is meant to benefit. While these are valid issues that need to be addressed, the end result of people’s reasoning is that their money stays in their bank accounts and pockets to be spent on themselves rather than others. As a result, their motivations for not giving can be viewed as selfish, as was the case for Judas too.

Giving to God does not mean ignoring the poor. Jesus said that we show our love for God by loving our neighbours as we love ourselves. He calls us to commit our lives, our time, our talents, our treasure to God for the transforming of our communities and the treasuring of our environment.

So, together with Makoto Fujimura, let us offer a ‘prayer and invitation to encounter the mystery of the Gospel, one which is still filled with the aroma of Mary of Bethany.’ Let us ‘pray that this aroma will invade us too with love and hope.’ May our lives and work ‘witness in some way to this extravagance of the Gospel’; ‘without reduction, in the grace of this encounter, let us continue our work in the extravagance’ of God’s love.

As we do so, out of love rather than duty, we will be following in the footsteps of Mary as she anointed the feet of Jesus and dried his feet with her hair.

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John and Ross Harding - Yesterday Today Forever.

Seen and Unseen: Art makes life worth living

 My latest article for Seen & Unseen is entitled 'Art makes life worth living' and explores why society, and churches, need the Arts:

'Churches feature within these arguments because they often host or organise cultural events, exhibitions, installations and performances which contribute towards the economic, social, wellbeing and tourism impacts achieved by the arts and culture. The Arts are actually central to church life because, as well as being places to enjoy cultural programmes such as concerts and exhibitions and also being places to see art and architecture, many of the activities of churches take place within beautiful buildings while services combine drama, literature, music, poetry and visuals.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Mavis Staples - High Note.

The gratuitous, intuitive aroma of the love of Christ

Here's the reflection I shared at St Andrew's Wickford this evening:

As a child my faith was impacted by a musical drama of the life of Christ using scripture drawn from Genesis to Revelation which was called Yesterday Today Forever and was staged in Oxford in the mid-1970s. It was an ambitious production with three complete stage sets, a complicated lighting system, quadraphonic sound, a 50-piece choir, a 12-piece band, dance, narration, a great variety in music, and a back projected film. I was impressed by the integration of the Arts and scripture in a way that I had not seen prior to that point.

Included in the show was a beautiful ballad based on this story of Mary of Bethany anointing Jesus’ feet and wiping them with her hair (Luke 7.36 – 8.3). Called ‘Remember Mary’, the song imagines Mary’s thoughts as she carries out this extravagant gesture:

“I cannot look at your face - I dare not - for I have sinned so much and you know my heart. I want to look at you Jesus, but I have not the power to lift my eyes for I am guilty - oh so guilty. What can I do? For I am lost and yet you care - even for me. So I will pour this ointment upon your feet, dear Lord. The ointment smells so sweet; smells so. sweet; and yet I am a broken creature, I'm only but dust, only dust …”

Jesus responds: “You have done a beautiful thing to me Mary, in pouring this ointment on my body, you have prepared me for burial. Your sins are forgiven, for you have loved much.”

It was Mary’s own decision to pour ointment over Jesus’ feet and to dry his feet with her hair. No one expected her action – it was not done out of duty - and at least one person criticised her severely for it. It was entirely her decision, her personal way of giving to Jesus.

Giving in this way involved giving generously from her possessions because the ointment that she used was expensive (imported from countries such as India) and extravagant (half a litre was an enormous amount to use in this way). It also involved giving generously of herself as Jewish women traditionally kept their hair tied up in public and only unloosened their hair in the presence of their husbands. What Mary did in wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair was the ultimate sign of her love for and commitment to Jesus. She did all this, not with regret or out of a sense of duty, but gladly and generously.

In fact, her gift to Jesus is a response to the love that Jesus has shown towards her. She gives because Jesus has first given extravagantly and generously to her. This is the pattern that we see repeated in God’s dealings with human beings throughout scripture and which we see summed up in the most famous verse of scripture, John 3: 16: “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son …” God so loved that he gave.

Love is the reason for giving, not duty, not regret, but love. In Jesus’ life, death and resurrection God gave everything he had for us. Philippians 2 tells us that, of his own free will, Jesus “gave up all he had, and took the nature of a servant. He became like a human being and appeared in human likeness. He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death – his death on the cross.” This is the extravagant nature of Jesus’ love for us that he would give up all he had in order to all the path of obedience all the way to his death on the cross.

‘This is what Mary saw in Jesus and why she responded by giving extravagantly and generously to him. Jesus then astonished the disciples by giving Mary the highest commendation anyone receives in the pages of the Gospels:

“Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.” (Mark 14:6 -9)’

In reflecting on this story the artist Makoto Fujimura has said that he prays that, ‘there will be a new aroma in the air: an aroma of Mary of Bethany, who in response to Jesus’ tears in John 11 and 12 brought her most precious belonging, her most gratuitous, expensive nard. I pray that in the days to come, this aroma will fill the air whenever the words of Gospel are spoken, that outsiders to faith will sense this extravagant air and feel it, particularly for them. I pray that when our children speak of faith, this gratuitous, intuitive aroma of the love of Christ will be made manifest in their lives.’

May that be our prayer this day and throughout our lives.

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John and Ross Harding - Yesterday Today Forever.

Subverting the scapegoat mechanism

Here's the talk I gave this lunchtime at Billericay Methodist Church's Holy Week Midday Meditation Service: 

Isaiah speaks of new things declared before they spring forth (Isaiah 42:1-9). They involve God’s servant on whom God’s Spirit is put and who will faithfully bring forth justice. God’s servant is given as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners who sit in darkness in the dungeon. He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth. Although originally spoken about Israel and its divine commission to be a light to the nations, Christians have often seen parallels with the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, who saw his mission as that of fulfilling the commission originally given to Israel.

At the beginning of Holy Week, I hope to provide a big picture view of what it was that Jesus was doing as he walked towards the cross and the empty tomb. I want to suggest that the insights of the French anthropologist René Girard explain how Jesus achieves the things mentioned in Isaiah’s prophecy and then suggest a way of responding to all that Jesus has done, through our reading from John’s Gospel (John 12:1-11).

Girard suggested that, as human beings, we all act on the basis of mimetic desire leading to conflict and violence which we resolve by the expulsion or sacrifice of scapegoats [R. Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightening (NY: Orbis Books, 2001)]. Mimetic desire is basically a kind of jealousy, but with a twist as we learn what is desirable by observing what others find desirable. Having ‘caught’ our desires from others in a context of scarcity where everyone wants what only some can have (i.e. the survival of the fittest), this results in a struggle to obtain what we want. This, in turn, produces a generalised antagonism towards the individual or group that seems to be responsible for this disappointment. That person or group become our victim as the vicious riddance of the victim has the potential to reduce our eagerness for violence. The removal of the victim or victims – the lambs to the slaughter - gives a temporary re-assurance of the crisis disappearing, and the sensation of renewed possibility. This is a description of cheap solidarity and cheap hope.

Girard claims that, as a result, societies and cultures are originally based on founding murders where this victim or scapegoating mechanism is in operation. He points to Cain’s murder of Abel as being the Biblical story which reveals this basis to human culture: “What has happened since the foundation of the world, that is, since the violent foundations of the first culture, is a series of murders like the Crucifixion. These are murders founded on violent contagion, and consequently they are murders occurring because of the collective error regarding the victim, a misunderstanding caused by violent contagion” [R. Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightening (NY: Orbis Books, 2001), pp. 85 & 86].

The story of Cain and Abel reveals the way in which we consistently act, as human beings. We desire something that is possessed by someone else and become disturbed through our longing for what we don’t have. We resolve our disturbance by creating a scapegoat of the person or people who appear to have or prevent us from having what it is we desire. When the scapegoat is killed, we can gain what we desire and also release the sense of disturbance that we feel. Over time, Girard argues, this mimetic process is disciplined by ritual into sacrificial systems which repeat the founding murder. So, this pattern becomes expressed in religions involving human sacrifices as scapegoats to appease their gods. It is out of such religions that Abraham was called to form a people who do not sacrifice other human beings, but instead use animals as their scapegoats and sacrifices.

After the Fall, God wished to communicate his love to us, human beings intent on personal or group survival. As he had given us free will, he had to communicate in and through the social and cultural structures which we had now created (i.e. sacrificial systems Girard writes about) but, in order to reveal his loving self, had to do so in a way that engaged in an internal dialogue and critique of these same systems. Accordingly, he gave his chosen people, who had recent and personal experience of being scapegoats and victims, a founding story - the story of the sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22. 1-19) - in which human sacrifice is emphatically rejected in favour of animal sacrifice.

The legacy of the story of the sacrifice of Isaac, Girard suggests, is that Israel developed a system of animal sacrifice that continued until shortly after the crucifixion of Jesus. Jesus was later born into this people who had subverted the existing practice of scapegoating and he further subverts this practice because, as he is crucified, God becomes the scapegoat that is killed. Jesus’ crucifixion, Girard suggests, was both about God identifying himself with all victims – the scapegoats – who have been sacrificed down through the centuries and also, because in Jesus God himself was scapegoated and sacrificed, the ultimate demonstration of the reality that, as Hosea first stated and Jesus then repeated, God requires mercy, not sacrifice.

As a result, Girard traces a movement away from the dynamic of scapegoating through the Old into the New Testaments. This was something he identified through his anthropological and literary analysis of scapegoating in Judeo-Christian texts and it was this that contributed to his own conversion to the Christian faith. His analysis of the Bible led him to conclude that: Jesus is the final scapegoat; the New Testament is on the side of Jesus, the scapegoat; the scapegoat in the Gospels refuses to let death be the final word and rises again triumphant; and the followers of the scapegoat re-enact the seizing of the scapegoat and the scapegoat’s triumph over death in Eucharistic celebration. 

The Gospels are unusual as literature because they encourage people to see the world through the eyes of the scapegoat. The Bible can then be seen as the record of a conversation between God and a human race which has, as a whole, rejected this conversation but which, in a remnant (mainly Israel and the Church), continues to oscillate between dialogue and independent rejection. 

The life, death and resurrection of Jesus is so decisive, Girard writes, because “Jesus’ ‘strategy’ as the ambassador from a loving, non-violent Father is to expose and render ineffective the scapegoat process so that the true face of God may be known … in the scapegoat, or Lamb of God, not the face of a persecuting deity.” So, at the Last Supper, Christ calls us to follow him in serving others, while his Crucifixion reveals the foolishness of scapegoating others and the necessity of concern for all who are victims.

The crucifixion is also the logical outcome of the incarnation. Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, has explored in his book ‘The Nazareth Manifesto’ that God is not simply 'for' victims. Instead, God is 'with' victims, because God is a victim. God is not simply 'for' the excluded. God is 'with' the excluded, because God is excluded. God is not simply 'for' those who are scapegoated. God is 'with' scapegoats, because God is a scapegoat. When God is scapegoated, there is no longer any god to appease and the necessity for scapegoating at all is superseded, subverted and eradicated.

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

Girard has described this radical reversal in terms of God first taking the side of the victim and then, in Christ, becoming the victim: “The desire that lives through imitation almost always leads to conflict, and this conflict frequently leads to violence. The Bible unveils this process of imitative desire leading to conflict, and its distinctive narratives reveal at the same time that God takes the part of victims. In the Gospels the process of unveiling or revelation is radicalized: God himself, the Word become flesh in Jesus, becomes the victim … The New Testament Gospels are the starting point for a new science or knowledge of humanity. This new knowledge begins with faith in Christ the innocent victim, and it becomes the leaven that will work itself out and expand to the point that the concern for victims becomes the absolute value in all societies moulded or affected by the spread of Christianity” (J. G. Williams, ‘Foreword’ in R. Girard, I see Satan fall like lightning, Orbis Books, 2001).

So, "Girard brings our attention to three facts without which we will never make sense of our lives, our world or our faith, namely: the role violence has played in cultural life, the role mimesis plays in psychological and social life, and the role the Bible plays in revealing both of these things and showing us how to deal with them." Girard reveals how the developing dialogue and narrative of scripture can critique, deconstruct and expose societal norms such as the scapegoat mechanism. In this way, Girard's thesis gives us an understanding of the way in which the narrative of scripture can speak to our world today.

How should we respond to God’s dismantling of the scapegoating mechanism by taking the side of victims and by becoming a victim for us? I want to suggest that we should respond as Mary did in our Gospel reading. Mary poured ointment over Jesus’ feet and dried his feet with her hair. Giving in this way involved giving generously from her possessions because the ointment that she used was expensive (imported from countries such as India) and extravagant (half a litre was an enormous amount to use in this way). It also involved giving generously of herself as Jewish women traditionally kept their hair tied up in public and only unloosened their hair in the presence of their husbands. What Mary did in wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair was the ultimate sign of her love for and commitment to Jesus. She did all this, not with regret or out of a sense of duty, but gladly and generously.

Her gift to Jesus was also a response to the love that Jesus had shown towards her. She gave because Jesus had first given extravagantly and generously to her. That is the pattern that we see repeated in God’s dealings with human beings throughout scripture and which is summed up in the most famous verse of scripture, John 3: 16: “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son.” God so loved, that he gave. Love is the reason for giving; not duty, not regret, but love. In Jesus’ life, death and resurrection God gave everything he had for us. Philippians 2 tells us that, of his own free will, Jesus “gave up all he had, and took the nature of a servant. He became like a human being and appeared in human likeness. He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death – his death on the cross.” This is the extravagant nature of Jesus’ love for us that he would give up all he had in order to walk the path of obedience all the way to his death on the cross.

‘This is what Mary saw in Jesus and is why she responded by giving extravagantly and generously to him. Jesus then astonished the disciples by giving Mary the highest commendation anyone receives in the pages of the Gospels: “Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.” (Mark 14:6 -9)’

In reflecting on this story, the artist Makoto Fujimura has said that he prays that, “there will be a new aroma in the air: an aroma of Mary of Bethany, who in response to Jesus’ tears in John 11 and 12 brought her most precious belonging, her most gratuitous, expensive nard. I pray that in the days to come, this aroma will fill the air whenever the words of the Gospel are spoken, that outsiders to faith will sense this extravagant air and feel it, particularly for them. I pray that when our children speak of faith, this gratuitous, intuitive aroma of the love of Christ will be made manifest in their lives.” May that be our prayer this day and throughout our lives.

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Julie Miller - How Could You Say No.

Seeing is Receiving: The art of contemplation (3)

2. Sustained

Hidden away at the end of a lane leading from Five Oaks Green Road, set among fields and Kentish Oast houses, is a pretty, compact country church which dates to the beginning of the seventh century, although most of what can be seen today is from the 18th century.

The brick tower and marbled ceiling of All Saints’ Tudeley date from around 1765 while the North aisle was added in 1871. The interior was substantially re-ordered in 1966, creating a greater sense of space and light. It was what came next, however, that created a wow factor; something that is astonishing both in its physical impact and in the uniqueness of its nature.

On my sabbatical pilgrimage I’ve arrived at a church which is one of the UK’s finest examples of religious art and a moving example of the crucifixion as a conduit for a very personal tragedy. As I walk into Tudeley Parish Church I am immediately immersed in intense colours – ‘rich and deep marine blue, with blends of burgundy and bottle green’ – because, as James Crockford has described, every window in the church ‘from great big panes of light, to tiny peep holes’ was designed by the Russian-Jewish artist Marc Chagall. Chagall’s designs swirl with emotive colour and evocative movement. This is stained-glass that shines and glows ‘with a glory that hits you’ through ‘the energy of light and life that bursts or glows through.’[i]

These windows were installed between 1967 and 1985; the east window being followed by the five north windows and two south ones dedicated in 1974 and then finally the four chancel windows installed in 1985. Chagall was initially reluctant to take on the commission, but was eventually persuaded, and when, in 1967, he arrived for the installation of the east window and saw the church, he said, 'It's magnificent. I will do them all.' Over the next 15 years, he designed all the remaining eleven windows, collaborating as usual with glassworker Charles Marq of Reims.

This sustained series of stained glass – inspiration sustained over 15 years and filling all 12 windows in the building - was inspired by Psalm 8, especially verses 4—8:

‘What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honour.

You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.’

There’s a dilemma on entering as the East window draws your attention but the surrounding windows lead up to it. That’s where the flocks and herds, beasts, birds and fish of creation from the Psalm are to be found, so do you begin with the culminating experience - the east window with its depiction of crucifixion and drowning – or the preparatory experience of the Psalm inspired windows? Wherever you begin sustained viewing of this series, which sets death in the context of creation while brightly bathing the building in vibrant colour, is to have an experience of profound spirituality.

The east window is a magnificent memorial tribute to Sarah d'Avigdor-Goldsmid who died aged just 21 in a sailing accident off Rye. Sarah was the daughter of Sir Henry and Lady d'Avigdor-Goldsmid; the family then lived at Somerhill, a Jacobean house situated nearby. As Sarah had shown an early interest in contemporary art and had, with her mother, seen Chagall’s designs for windows in the synagogue of the Hadassah Medical Centre in Jerusalem. Sir Henry and Lady d'Avigdor-Goldsmid commissioned Chagall to design the east window.

Crockford has reflected on what Chagall offers to us through sustained viewing of this visionary series: ‘What I think Chagall offers us so well is a vision that holds together the devastation of a painful tragedy with a vision of hope and renewal. He suggests the real possibility of the transformation of human loss, a loss that seems pretty integral to humanness; yet there is no glimmer of forgetting or diminishing the gravity and depth of that suffering. We see here an invitation to let our suffering be a sharing in his [Christ’s] sufferings, a way of becoming like him, just as, in suffering, he becomes like us. The stories of our lives are drawn up into the reality of Christ: that includes our death and our life, our fear and our freedom, our shame and our glory.’[ii]

Tudeley’s remoteness necessitates giving time to visit and Chagall’s art rewards slowing down to look and linger, to sustain our looking in order that we truly see. As with the art historian who went nose-to-nose with Leonardo's The Musician staying for about 10 minutes before then repeating the exercise twice. The art historian’s looking was sustained, just as Chagall’s creation was sustained, yet, as adults, we rarely look in a sustained manner.

Sister Corita Kent suggested that children can give adults lessons in looking:

‘Ask [a] child to come from the front of the house to the back and closely observe her small journey. It will be full of pauses, circling, touching and picking up in order to smell, shake, taste, rub, and scrape. The child’s eyes won’t leave the ground, and every piece of paper, every scrap, every object along the path will be a new discovery.

It does not matter that his is all familiar territory – the same house, the same rug and chair. To the child, the journey of this particular day, with its special light and sound, has never been made before. So the child treats the situation with the open curiosity and attention that it deserves.

The child is quite right.’[iii]

The reason that the child is right is that things ‘constantly change and we may have seen an object only five minutes ago and thought we knew it – but now it is very different.’ Visiting Tudeley on a sunny day is highly recommended and, yet, it doesn't really matter whether the sun is shining or not because, if we really look, something new will be seen in every viewing under differing conditions of light. Such changes are only noticed if our looking is sustained. That is something which children instinctively practice.

Kent therefore describes life as a succession of moments and says that to live each one is to succeed. For us to do so we must become ‘able to adjust to these subtle differences’ which means ‘looking anew’; repeated and sustained looking ‘with what new materials we have gathered up inside ourselves – as well as noting what changes have taken place within the object.’ In this way Kent suggests, we become ‘aware of what we don’t yet know.’ Henri Matisse suggested that, to look in this way, to repeatedly look at something ‘as though you had never seen it’ requires ‘great courage.’[iv]

My colleague at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Richard Carter built the concept of steadfastness or staying with into the rule of life for the Nazareth Community he set up there. Staying with is about sustained contemplation; returning again and again to God because it is so easy and so quick to ‘become disorientated and separated from the source of our being.’[v] He used the image of a swimmer returning to the pool because, whatever the weather, the pool is there. Similarly, whether the sun is shining or not, we can return on a sustained basis to the practice of slowing down in order to see contemplatively.

Staying with - sustained looking and praying – also enables us in the context of uncertainties, mysteries and doubts. Carter notes the use of the phrase ‘negative capability’ by John Keats ‘to characterize the human potential to pursue a vision of beauty even when it leads through intellectual confusion or uncertainty.’ He argues that there ‘is an importance in staying with the discomfort of the unknown, fear and the unresolved, because it is in that place that we reach the borders of what we are and discover what we could become.’[vi] It is as we sustain our contemplation over time through a multiplicity of reflections on all that is uncertain, confusing or challenging within our world and experiences that we come to see where beauty might lie within our brokenness. That is the basis on which Tudeley’s stained glass was created, both in the tragic events memorialised and Chagall’s meditative response.

Makoto Fujimura's work is a slow art requiring sustained looking which enables us to see beauty in brokenness. Fujimura combines the traditional Japanese painting technique of Nihonga with Abstract Expressionism. Both influences prioritise surface in the work. Nihonga, as it uses ground minerals such as azurite, malachite and cinnabar mixed with animal hide glue applied to handmade paper. Abstract Expressionism, as it has no external reference existing purely as pigment on canvas.

Fujimura describes letting: ‘The layers of azurite pigments, spread over paper as I let the granular pigments cascade. My eyes see much more than what my mind can organize. As the light becomes trapped within pigments, a "grace arena" is created, as the light is broken and trapped in refraction.’[vii] His minerals, ‘when layered in the correct manner, can refract, as each individual granule acts as a prism, so the surface traps light.’ He says that this ‘subtle, quiet way of capturing light’ intrigues him.

At first glance the malachite surface looks green: ‘But if the eye is allowed to linger on the surface—it usually takes ten minutes for the eye to adjust—the observer can begin to see the rainbow created by layer upon layer of broken shards of minerals. Such a contemplative experience can be a deep sensory journey toward wisdom. Willingness to spend time truly seeing can change how we view the world, moving us away from our fast-food culture of superficially scanning what we see and becoming surfeited with images that do not delve below the surface.’[viii]

Fujimura sees ‘in the very process of painting a parable of life: how our lives, too, need to be refractive of light as people created in God’s image.’ How often, he asks, ‘do we experience grace in the midst of trial (as our lives are being “pulverized” to reveal inner beauty)?’[ix] The minerals he uses ‘must be pulverized to bring out their beauty’.

As a result, he argues that: ‘The Japanese were right in associating beauty with death … Art cannot be divorced from faith, for to do so is to literally close our eyes to that beauty of the dying sun setting all around us. Every beauty also suffers … Prayers are given, too, in the layers of broken, pulverized pigments. Beauty is in the brokenness, not in what we can conceive as the perfections, not in the "finished" images but in the incomplete gestures. Now, I await for my paintings to reveal themselves. Perhaps I will find myself rising through the ashes, through the beauty of such broken limitations.’[x]

Perseverance in prayer is commended by Jesus in the Parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge (Luke 18.1-8) and the Friend at Midnight (Luke 11.1-13). I wonder whether that practice, which is about sustained prayer in which we stay with the one for whom we pray, is not so much about our needing to change God’s mind and more about our coming to see the ways in which beauty is to be found in brokenness and redemption in desolation. For many of us, this is also our regular experience of the depth of scripture; that we can return again and again to the same passage or story and find something new each time. Sustained attention, praying or reading all enable to see

It may only be as we sustain our looking, praying or reading that such revelations come. Chagall looked for 15 years, the art historian looked for half an hour, Fujimura thinks ten minutes is necessary for our eyes to adjust and see the prismatic nature of his slow art. The specific length of time our looking can be sustained is not the primary issue; the issue is how we see and the extent to which we surrender to what we see.

Explore

The Art Stations of the Cross began in 2016 in London with an exhibition in 14 iconic destinations that enabled the Passion to be experienced as a pilgrimage for art lovers. For Christians, the Stations of the Cross represent 14 moments in Jesus’ journey through Jerusalem, from condemnation to crucifixion and burial. Across the chasm of two thousand years, this tortured path resonates with current events for people of many faiths and cultures. In particular, it calls to mind the hazardous journeys of refugees from today’s Middle East.

The exhibition invited people of all backgrounds to experience London as a ‘new Jerusalem.’ It told the story of the Passion in fresh ways, provoking passions by using existing masterpieces and new commissions by Jewish, Christian, and Muslim artists. Those visiting all 14 destinations had to sustain a journey through London and let the Stations sustain them.

The project has been sustained further by being replicated in other parts of the world and through a website which collates each version of the Art Stations. Exploring this website enables sustained reflection on different aspects of each Station as there have now been five different manifestations of the project with little replication of specific artworks. The website, therefore, asks us to look at each Station from a range of different perspectives thereby offering the opportunity for sustained reflection.

Dwelling in the Word is a simple, but profound way of reading the bible in community, based on Lectio Divina while being subtly quite different from that ancient practice. Dwelling in the Word is a spiritual practice of reading and dwelling in the biblical text by listening deeply to God and to one another. Reading for spiritual formation involves patiently allowing the text to intrude into our lives, address us, and enable our being encountered by the God of mystery.

There is a significant difference between approaching God’s Word through informational reading and formational reading. Formational Reading involves: living in the same text for a period of time; multi-layered reading with depth that changes our quality of being; receiving the Word as a servant; being formed and transformed by the text; being with the Word humbly and willingly; and being open to the God of mystery addressing us.

Dwelling in God’s Word in community enables a focus on new insights and understandings through a process of sharing with others; not seeing only what we heard or read about the particular text or what we already think we know about it. As such, it involves slow, sustained and conscious reading.

Dwelling in the Word in community invites the Living Word to penetrate to the innermost being of our personal and communal lives because it is here that God desires to dwell.

Wonderings

I wonder when you last had an experience of being so captured by something that you were unable to look away.

I wonder what has been the most sustained commitment or relationship in your life.

I wonder what benefits you have found from an experience of staying with.

Prayer

All-knowing God, you look at me so intently that you can count the hairs on my head. Help me to see as you see; to look at people, creatures, and the world in which we live, with lingering gaze of love. You looked and all you saw was good. Captivate the eyes of my heart that I look and look again until I see what you see. Amen.

Spiritual exercise

Think of something in your home of which you have more than four examples (e.g. books, family photos, objects you collect etc.). Bring together a good selection of these items and spread them out wherever you can. Take time to look at and handle them. Remember why you have them, where they came from, when they came into your possession. Turn those memories into prayers (whether of thanksgiving or healing) and sense what God is saying to you about the sustained place that they have in your life.

Art actions

View the Chagall windows online at https://www.tudeley.org/chagallwindows.htm and plan a visit.

Discover more about the Art Stations of the Cross and Dwelling in the Word at https://www.coexisthouse.org.uk/stations2016.html and https://churchmissionsociety.org/resources/dwelling-word/

[i] J. Crockford, ‘Chagall at Tudeley’, Sermon preached at University Church, Oxford, 7th April 2019 - https://www.universitychurch.ox.ac.uk/sermons/chagall-tudeley?fbclid=IwAR3hxj1Lah8A5Uq2yYjggxw1rafwJlxq-4V86olsvwSdpyoLAJ11kKNvKAc

[ii] J. Crockford, ‘Chagall at Tudeley’, Sermon preached at University Church, Oxford, 7th April 2019 - https://www.universitychurch.ox.ac.uk/sermons/chagall-tudeley?fbclid=IwAR3hxj1Lah8A5Uq2yYjggxw1rafwJlxq-4V86olsvwSdpyoLAJ11kKNvKAc

[iii] C. Kent & J. Steward, Learning by Heart, Allworth Press, 2008, p.14

[iv] C. Kent & J. Steward, Learning by Heart, Allworth Press, 2008, p.12

[v] R. Carter, ‘The City is my Monastery: A contemporary rule of life’, Canterbury Press, 2019, p. 219

[vi] R. Carter, ‘The City is my Monastery: A contemporary rule of life’, Canterbury Press, 2019, p. 224

[vii] https://www.makotofujimura.com/writings/beauty-without-regret/

[viii] M. Fujimura, Silence and Beauty: Hidden Faith Born of Suffering, IVP, 2016

[ix] https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/the-fate-of-the-arts/articles/interview-with-artist-makoto-fujimura

[x] https://www.makotofujimura.com/writings/beauty-without-regret/

Click here for the other parts of 'Seeing is Receiving'. See also 'And a little child shall lead them' which explores similar themes.

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U2 - Stay (Faraway, So Close).

The gratuitous, intuitive aroma of the love of Christ

Here's my reflection for today's lunchtime Eucharist at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

As a child my faith was impacted by a musical drama of the life of Christ using scripture drawn from Genesis to Revelation which was called Yesterday Today Forever and was staged in Oxford in the mid-1970s. It was an ambitious production with three complete stage sets, a complicated lighting system, quadraphonic sound, a 50-piece choir, a 12-piece band, dance, narration, a great variety in music, and a back projected film. I was impressed by the integration of the Arts and scripture in a way that I had not seen prior to that point.

Included in the show was a beautiful ballad based on this story of Mary of Bethany anointing Jesus’ feet and wiping them with her hair (John 12: 1-8). Called ‘Remember Mary’, the song imagines Mary’s thoughts as she carries out this extravagant gesture:

“I cannot look at your face - I dare not - for I have sinned so much and you know my heart. I want to look at you Jesus, but I have not the power to lift my eyes for I am guilty - oh so guilty. What can I do? For I am lost and yet you care - even for me. So I will pour this ointment upon your feet, dear Lord. The ointment smells so sweet; smells so. sweet; and yet I am a broken creature, I'm only but dust, only dust …”

Jesus responds: “You have done a beautiful thing to me Mary, in pouring this ointment on my body, you have prepared me for burial. Your sins are forgiven, for you have loved much.”

It was Mary’s own decision to pour ointment over Jesus’ feet and to dry his feet with her hair. No one expected her action – it was not done out of duty - and at least one person criticised her severely for it. It was entirely her decision, her personal way of giving to Jesus.

Giving in this way involved giving generously from her possessions because the ointment that she used was expensive (imported from countries such as India) and extravagant (half a litre was an enormous amount to use in this way). It also involved giving generously of herself as Jewish women traditionally kept their hair tied up in public and only unloosened their hair in the presence of their husbands. What Mary did in wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair was the ultimate sign of her love for and commitment to Jesus. She did all this, not with regret or out of a sense of duty, but gladly and generously.

In fact, her gift to Jesus is a response to the love that Jesus has shown towards her. She gives because Jesus has first given extravagantly and generously to her. This is the pattern that we see repeated in God’s dealings with human beings throughout scripture and which we see summed up in the most famous verse of scripture, John 3: 16: “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son …” God so loved that he gave.

Love is the reason for giving, not duty, not regret, but love. In Jesus’ life, death and resurrection God gave everything he had for us. Philippians 2 tells us that, of his own free will, Jesus “gave up all he had, and took the nature of a servant. He became like a human being and appeared in human likeness. He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death – his death on the cross.” This is the extravagant nature of Jesus’ love for us that he would give up all he had in order to all the path of obedience all the way to his death on the cross.

‘This is what Mary saw in Jesus and why she responded by giving extravagantly and generously to him. Jesus then astonished the disciples by giving Mary the highest commendation anyone receives in the pages of the Gospels:

“Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.” (Mark 14:6 -9)’

In reflecting on this story the artist Makoto Fujimura has said that he prays that, ‘there will be a new aroma in the air: an aroma of Mary of Bethany, who in response to Jesus’ tears in John 11 and 12 brought her most precious belonging, her most gratuitous, expensive nard. I pray that in the days to come, this aroma will fill the air whenever the words of Gospel are spoken, that outsiders to faith will sense this extravagant air and feel it, particularly for them. I pray that when our children speak of faith, this gratuitous, intuitive aroma of the love of Christ will be made manifest in their lives.’
May that be our prayer this day and throughout our lives.

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11:59 - Psalm 107 Let Us Thank The Lord.

'Silence' - Endo, Scorsese, Fujimura, Yancey & Kraus

“My personal encounter in the late 1980s with fumi-e displayed at the Tokyo National Museum led me to read Endō’s masterpiece, Silence,” writes Makoto Fujimura in his new book Silence and Beauty. “As I write this, the novel is being made into a major motion picture by the master filmmaker Martin Scorsese. A good friend of mine introduced me to Scorsese, and my conversation with him compelled me to write this book."

"Only Mako Fujimura could have written this book," Philip Yancey writes in the foreword to the book:

"Bicultural in upbringing and sensibility, he understands the nuances of Japan, and his knowledge of the language sheds light on Endō’s original source material. At the same time, Mako’s years of living in New York have given him a contemporary, global perspective ... Informed by both East and West, Mako guides the reader on excursions into Japanese art, samurai rituals, the tea ceremony and Asian theology, even while relying on Western mentors such as Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, J. S. Bach, Vincent van Gogh and J. R. R. Tolkien."

Yancey continues:

"Shūsaku Endō described Japan as a swampland for Christianity, and missionaries who have served there tend to agree. Other Asian countries have seen explosive growth—the megachurches of the Philippines and South Korea, the massive unregistered church in China—while in Japan, the average church numbers less than thirty. A nation that copies nearly everything Western, from management practices to McDonald’s, baseball and pop music, curiously avoids religion. Most puzzling, as Mako mentions, is that so many values in the culture already reflect the way of the New Testament. Why, then, do so few Japanese convert?

That question troubled Shūsaku Endō too, who ultimately concluded that the failure stemmed from the Western emphasis on God’s fatherhood. Mother love tends to be unconditional, accepting the child no matter what, regardless of behavior. Father love tends to be more provisional, bestowing approval as the child measures up to certain standards of behavior. According to Endō, Japan, a nation of authoritarian fathers, has understood the father love of God but not the mother love ...

For Christianity to have any appeal to the Japanese, Endō suggests, it must stress instead the mother love of God, the love that forgives wrongs and binds wounds and draws, rather than forces, others to itself. (“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing!”) “In ‘maternal religion’ Christ comes to prostitutes, worthless people, misshapen people and forgives them,” says Endō. As he sees it, Jesus brought the message of mother love to balance the father love of the Old Testament.

This insight helps answer a common question about Silence: Why did Endō express his own  deeply felt faith through a story of betrayal? ...

Endō explains that he centers his work on the experiences of failure and shame because these leave the most lasting impact on a person’s life ... The entire Bible can be seen, in fact, as a story of betrayal, beginning with Adam and proceeding through the history of the Israelites, culminating in the cross ... Our only hope is the forgiving gaze of the betrayed Savior, the still point of Endō’s novel."

In sessions that I led in the past at North Thames Ministerial Training Course we explored many of these same issues involved in cross-cultural communication of the meaning of the Atonement by looking at examples of missionary work in Japan through the writings of Endō and the approach of C. Norman Kraus as summarised in Recovering the Scandal of the Cross (Green & Baker, 2000).

Endō's writings depict both the anguish of faith and the mercy of God. A central theme of his writings has been the clash between Japanese culture and a very Western mode of religion. Novels like Silence and The Samurai suggest that Christianity must adapt itself radically if it is to take root in the “swamp” of Japan.

In assessing Christ’s atoning work, Kraus suggests that a Japanese “shame” culture is a less distorting lens through which to read the New Testament than a Western “guilt” culture. The “atonement theory” which emerges from Kraus’s reading centers more on “solidarity” than on “substitution.”

Among the questions we explored in these sessions were:

• What are the cultural factors that Ferreira in Silence thinks have prevented the Christian message from taking root in Japan?
• What other factors in the success or failure of this mission to Japan can be identified in Silence?
• Ferreira says that “the God whom those Japanese believed in was not the God of Christian teaching”. Assuming for the moment that he was right, do you think this matters and why?
• What are the cultural factors in Japan that Kraus takes into account in developing a theology of the atonement for Japan?
• How do these factors influence the theology of the atonement that he develops?
• In your view, is Kraus’ theology of the atonement consistent with the Biblical concepts and images of the atonement? 
• In what ways does your discussion of The Samurai link to Kraus’ atonement theology for Japan? Are there cultural issues that are common to both? Are there understandings of the atonement that are common to both?
• Does Kraus’ theology answer the issues raised by Ferreira in Silence?
• From your understandings of Japanese culture, which of the Biblical concepts or images of atonement would you emphasise in mission to Japan, and why? 
• What factors do you think need to be taken into account when communicating the god news of the atonement in a culture that is not your own (whether this is the culture of another country or a sub-culture within your own culture)?

In one such session we identified the following:

Issues for cross-cultural communication of the Atonement 

• Unholy alliances of politics, economics and religion and no consultation with the indigenous peoples
• Our religion is embedded in our culture - difficulties of disentangling the two (can we do this?)
• Perceived conflict between different religions i.e. Western Catholicism and Japanese Buddhism
• May be exporting our denominational, and other, divisions
• Need for understanding of social structures i.e. hierarchies
• Need for understanding of cultural norms i.e. shame
• Suspicious personal motives and suspicion of motives
• Suspicion of ‘outsiders’
• Shaming or threatening people through lack of cultural understanding
• Causing threat through the undermining of cultural hierarchies
• Concerns over Empires following on the heels of missionaries
• Disruption of a ‘closed’ cultural system through ‘outside’ ideas
• Violence accompanying ‘mission’
• Lack of respect for the indigenous culture and religion
• Discounting of indigenous cultures
• Clash with indigenous religious understandings e.g. Velasco’s passion and the Buddhist sense of ‘not desiring’

Ideas for cross-cultural communication of the Atonement 

• Importance of outsider’s showing care
• The giving of honour to all whatever their place within cultural hierarchies
• The giving of help rather than the bringing of oppression
• Exposure to Christian selflessness across cultural hierarchies
• Recognising the examples of service seen in indigenous peoples e.g. Yozö’s example of dedicated service being an image of Christ
• The experience of cultural rejection leading to identification with Christ
• The stripping away of culture leaving people exposed to revelation
• Identification with Christ through experience of sorrow
• Tapping into a universal sense of longing
• Seeing the universal in the particular
• Drawing metaphors from within the culture
• Salvation as being saved from the consequences of cultural norms and practices e.g. Christ above the “karma of man”, identification with Christ once shamed

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Bruce Cockburn - Tokyo.

Mary of Bethany: the gratuitous, intuitive aroma of the love of Christ

Here my sermon for today's Eucharist at St Vedast-alias-Foster:

As a child my faith was impacted by a musical drama of the life of Christ using scripture drawn from Genesis to Revelation which was called Yesterday Today Forever and was staged in Oxford in the mid-1970s. It was an ambitious production with three complete stage sets, a complicated lighting system, quadraphonic sound, a 50-piece choir, a 12-piece band, dance, narration, a great variety in music, and a back projected film. I was impressed by the integration of the Arts and scripture in a way that I had not seen prior to that point.

Included in the show was a beautiful ballad based on this story of Mary of Bethany anointing Jesus’ feet and wiping them with her hair (John 12. 1 - 8). Called ‘Remember Mary’, the song imagines Mary’s thoughts as she carries out this extravagant gesture:

“I cannot look at your face - I dare not - for I have sinned so much and you know my heart. I want to look at you Jesus, but I have not the power to lift my eyes for I am guilty - oh so guilty. What can I do? For I am lost and yet you care - even for me. So I will pour this ointment upon your feet, dear Lord. The ointment smells so sweet; smells so. sweet; and yet I am a broken creature, I'm only but dust, only dust …”

Jesus responds: “You have done a beautiful thing to me Mary, in pouring this ointment on my body, you have prepared me for burial. Your sins are forgiven, for you have loved much.”

The way in which Mary gives to Jesus in this story could perhaps be summed up in a verse from 2 Corinthians 9: “You should each give, then, as you have decided, not with regret or out of a sense of duty; for God loves the one who gives gladly.” (2 Corinthians 9. 7)

It was her decision to pour ointment over Jesus’ feet and to dry her feet with her hair. No one expected her action – it was not done out of duty - and at least one person criticised her severely for it. It was her entirely her decision, her personal way of giving to Jesus.

Giving in this way involved giving generously from her possessions because the ointment that she used was expensive (imported from countries such as India) and extravagant (half a litre was an enormous amount to use in this way). It also involved giving generously of herself as Jewish women traditionally kept their hair tied up in public and only unloosened their hair in the presence of their husbands. What Mary did in wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair was the ultimate sign of her love for and commitment to Jesus. She did all this, not with regret or out of a sense of duty, but gladly and generously.

In fact, her gift to Jesus is a response to the love that Jesus has shown towards her. She gives because Jesus has first given extravagantly and generously to her. This is the pattern that we see repeated in God’s dealings with human beings throughout scripture and which we see summed up in the most famous verse of scripture, John 3: 16: “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son …” God so loved that he gave.

Love is the reason for giving, not duty, not regret, but love. In Jesus’ life, death and resurrection God gave everything he had for us. Philippians 2 tells us that, of his own free will, Jesus “gave up all he had, and took the nature of a servant. He became like a human being and appeared in human likeness. He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death – his death on the cross.” This is the extravagant nature of Jesus’ love for us that he would give up all he had in order to all the path of obedience all the way to his death on the cross.

‘This is what Mary saw in Jesus and why she responded by giving extravagantly and generously to him. God does not need us; yet he created us out of his gratuitous love. Jesus astonished the disciples by giving Mary the highest commendation anyone receives in the pages of the Gospels:

“Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.” (Mark 14:6 -9)’

In reflecting on this story the artist Makoto Fujimura has said that he prays that, ‘there will be a new aroma in the air: an aroma of Mary of Bethany, who in response to Jesus’ tears in John 11 and 12 brought her most precious belonging, her most gratuitous, expensive nard. I pray that in the days to come, this aroma will fill the air whenever the words of Gospel are spoken, that outsiders to faith will sense this extravagant air and feel it, particularly for them. I pray that when our children speak of faith, this gratuitous, intuitive aroma of the love of Christ will be made manifest in their lives.’

Fujimura sees an analogy between the extravagance of Mary’s gesture and the extravagance of art. He prays ‘that artists will no longer have to be on the defensive as was Mary in that aroma-filled room while disciples grumbled that her perfume could have been sold to feed the poor. “What a waste,” they said. What a waste. Is our art wasteful, too?

Art is gratuitous. Art is extravagant. But so is our God.’ And we need to learn a similar extravagance in our response to Jesus.

Oliver O'Donovan writes that, “Generosity means: not staying within the limits which public rationality sets on its approval of benevolence. An extravagant, unmeasured goodness, corresponding to God’s own providential care, defies the logic of public expectation.”

David Dark writes that, “Extravagant kindness of action … amounts to apocalyptic disruption of whatever norms currently crown themselves as “realistic,” “prudent,” or “appropriate.” “These confrontations bring onto the scene an indiscriminate generosity that will often appear supernatural and scandalous as they necessarily go beyond what has appeared previously available or reasonable.” In this way, such actions expand “the sphere of what’s considered historically possible” and “testify to a transcendence in everyday activity with an earth-bound agility that interpenetrates all that appears mundane and insignificant.”

Perhaps, most incredibly of all, what Mary gave was a blessing and help to Jesus. Jesus had been explaining for some time that he was shortly to die but no one believed him or accepted what he was saying. Famously, Peter had told Jesus that he would try to stop that from happening and Jesus rebuked him by saying, “Get behind me, Satan.”

But here Mary anoints Jesus for burial. She understands. She accepts what is going to happen and she prepares Jesus for it. What a blessing that must have been to Jesus that someone understood and supported him in what he was about to do. And in just the same way we bless and encourage God when we give generously of our time, talents and treasure to God.

Judas didn’t understand the love and generosity in Mary’s gifts and this seems to have been because his motives were selfish not loving. In criticising Mary’s gift, he purported to be concerned about the poor but actually wanted to help himself to some of the money. Today it is still easy for us to find reasons not to give. We will all have heard people give a whole string of reasons for not giving – excuses like the money is spent on administration or wasted through corruption rather than going to those that it is meant to benefit. While these are valid issues that need to be addressed, the end result of people’s reasoning is that their money stays in their bank accounts and pockets to be spent on themselves rather than others. As a result, their motivations for not giving can be viewed as selfish, as was the case for Judas too.

Giving to God does not mean ignoring the poor. Jesus said that we show our love for God by loving our neighbours as we love ourselves. He calls us to commit our lives, our time, our talents, our treasure to God for the transforming of our communities and the treasuring of our environment.

So, together with Makoto Fujimura, let us offer a ‘prayer and invitation to encounter the mystery of the Gospel, one which is still filled with the aroma of Mary of Bethany.’ Let us ‘pray that this aroma will invade us too with love and hope.’ May our lives and work ‘witness in some way to this extravagance of the Gospel’; ‘without reduction, in the grace of this encounter, let us continue our work in the extravagance’ of God’s love.

As we do so, out of love rather than duty, we will be following in the footsteps of Mary as she anointed the feet of Jesus and dried his feet with her hair.

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11:59 - Psalm 107: Let Us Thank The Lord.

Art is gratuitous. Art is extravagant.

Makoto Fujimura's Acceptance Speech for the 2014 American Academy of Religion Award in Religion and the Arts is 'a prayer uttered in the liminal zone between art and religion, a prayer to repair the schism between the two':

'Art is gratuitous. Art is extravagant. But so is our God. God does not need us; yet he created us out of his gratuitous love. Jesus astonished the disciples by giving Mary the highest commendation anyone receives in the pages of the Gospels:

“Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.” (Mark 14:6 - 9)

I pray that in the days to come, this aroma will fill the air whenever the words of Gospel are spoken, that outsiders to faith will sense this extravagant air and feel it, particularly for them. I pray that when our children speak of faith, this gratuitous, intuitive aroma of the love of Christ will be made manifest in their lives.

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Patti Smith Group - Easter.

Three Faiths Forum: Faith and Visual Art

Last night I was the Christian speaker at the East London Three Faiths Forum meeting on Faith and the Visual Arts. My fellow speakers were Abed Bhatti and Rabbi Nancy Morris. Abed spoke about his wide-ranging interests and practice as a Muslim who is an artist and academic. Nancy surveyed Jewish approaches to the arts from Bezalel to the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design.

This was my contribution to the discussions:

What is Christian Art? Well, we all know the answer to that! It is cathedrals, icons, the Sistine Chapel ceiling and stained glass. It is Chartres, Michelangelo, Rublev and Sir Christopher Wren. Iconic images, buildings and artists which suggest that Christian art is soaring architecture built to the glory of God combined with biblical stories created with glass or paint.

But do our stereotypes of Christian Art hold up when we examine them more closely? Let’s take a look. Some people answer the question ‘What is Christian Art’ by saying it is art made by Christians but, if that is the answer to the question, then there is much that we are ruling out.

Fernand Léger’s mural at Assy, Henri Matisse’s Chapel at Vence, and Le Corbusier’s Church at Ronchamp are some of the most interesting art works and architecture created for churches during the twentieth century and all were by artists who made no claim to be Christians. In fact, all these commissions came about because of an approach to commissioning art for churches which argued that Christian art could be revived by appealing to the independent masters of the time with churches commissioning the very best artists available, and not quibbling over the artists' beliefs. If all ‘Christian Art’ is art made by Christians then we rule all this out.

So, maybe, ‘Christian Art’ is art commissioned by the Church. Yet, again, this seems too limiting a definition. 

For instance, Mark C. Taylor has noted that "From the beginning of modern art in Europe, its practitioners have relentlessly probed religious issues. Though not always immediately obvious, the questions religion raises lurk on or near the surface of even the most abstract canvases produced during the modern era.” Yet relatively little of that art was commissioned by and for the Church. He concludes that, “One of the most puzzling paradoxes of twentieth-century cultural interpretation is that, while theologians, philosophers of religion, and art critics deny or suppress the religious significance of the visual arts, many of the leading modern artists insist that their work cannot be understood apart from religious questions and spiritual issues."

Re-thinking again, is it art which uses Biblical/Church images, stories or themes? Once again, this is too narrow a definition which would not capture, for example, the images that the deeply Catholic Georges Rouault produced of prostitutes. William Dryness has described these as “painted as penetrating types of the misery of human existence” but with grace also seen, as “divine meaning is given to human life by the continuing passion of Jesus Christ.” Nor would we capture the semi-abstractions created by the Evangelical Christian Makoto Fujimura who uses semi-precious minerals in the Nihonga style to create paintings that tend to only hint at recognizable subjects.

So let’s take a different approach altogether. At the centre of Caravaggio's Supper at Emmaus and at the centre of the story it depicts is a very simple and ordinary action; breaking bread or tearing a loaf of bread into two pieces. Although it is a simple and ordinary thing to do, it becomes a very important act when Jesus does it because this is the moment when Jesus’ two disciples realise who he is. They suddenly realise that this stranger who they have been walking with and talking to for hours on the Emmaus Road is actually Jesus himself, risen from the dead. They are amazed and thrilled, shocked and surprised, and we can see that clearly on the faces and in the actions of the disciples as they are portrayed in this painting.

Something very simple and ordinary suddenly becomes full of meaning and significance. This simple, ordinary action opens their eyes so that they can suddenly see Jesus as he really is. That is art in action! Art captures or creates moments when ordinary things are seen as significant.

When our eyes are suddenly opened to see meaning and significance in something that we had previously thought of as simple and ordinary that is called an epiphany. Caravaggio’s painting is a picture of an epiphany occurring for the disciples on the Emmaus Road but it is also an epiphany itself because it brings the story to life in a way that helps us see it afresh, as though we were seeing it for the first time.

The disciples realise it is Jesus when the bread is broken because Jesus at the Last Supper made the breaking of bread and the drinking of wine (the Eucharist) into a sacrament. A sacrament is a visible sign of an inward grace and so it is something more than an epiphany. An epiphany is a realisation of significance, while a sacrament is a visual symbol of an inner change. For Christians the taking of bread and wine into our bodies symbolises the taking of Jesus into our lives. Art (or the visual) then can also symbolise inner change.

For Christians this understanding of epiphany and sacrament is based on the doctrine of the Incarnation; the belief that, in Jesus, God himself became a human being and lived in a particular culture and time. Jesus was and is the visible image of the invisible God.

This belief has two main implications for the visual arts which have been explained well by Rowan Williams. First, “God became truly human in Jesus … And if Jesus was indeed truly human, we can represent his human nature as with any other member of the human race.” When we do so “we’re not trying to show a humanity apart from divine life, but a humanity soaked through with divine life … We don’t depict just a slice of history when we depict Jesus; we show a life radiating the life and force of God.”

Second, “if we approach the whole matter in prayer and adoration, the image that is made becomes in turn something that in its own way radiates [the] light and force” of God. Visual images are “human actions that seek to be open to God’s action” and which “open a gateway for God.” Christian art is therefore characterised by epiphany and sacrament. 

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James Macmillan - Kiss On Wood.