Seen and Unseen: Peter Howson’s salvation scenes

My latest exhibition review for Seen and Unseen is on Peter Howson's 'Salvation' exhibition at Flowers Gallery:

'these paintings and drawings are deeply relational depictions of the life of Christ. In ‘You must be born again’, Jesus looks at Nicodemus with eyes filled with deep love and infinite longing. He looks at Judas askance and quizzical, as Judas turns to kiss him on the cheek (‘The Kiss of Judas’). The up-close focus on two heads filling the picture frame that is a feature of several scenes emphasises the relationship between Jesus and another, always loving, even when angry, as is the case in ‘Hypocrites!’.'

My interview with Peter Howson can be read here, my review of his retrospective - here, my VCS exhibition including a Howson work - here, and reviews of earlier exhibitions here, and here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

My 14th article was entitled 'Art makes life worth living' and explored why society, and churches, need the Arts.

My 15th article was entitled 'The collective effervescence of sport's congregation' and explored some of the ways in which sport and religion have been intimately entwined throughout history

My 16th article was entitled 'Paradise cottage: Milton reimagin’d' and reviewed the ways in which artist Richard Kenton Webb is conversing with the blind poet in his former home (Milton's Cottage, Chalfont St Giles).

My 17th article was entitled 'Controversial art: how can the critic love their neighbour?'. It makes suggestions of what to do when confronted with contentious culture.

My 18th article was an interview entitled 'Art, AI and apocalypse: Michael Takeo Magruder addresses our fears and questions'. In the interview the digital artist talks about the possibilities and challenges of artificial intelligence.

My 19th article was entitled 'Dark, sweet and subtle: recovered music orientates us'. In the article I highlight alt-folk music seeking inspiration from forgotten hymns.

My 20th article was entitled 'Revisiting Amazing Grace inspires new songs'. In the article I highlight folk musicians capturing both the barbaric and the beautiful in the hymn Amazing Grace and Christianity's entanglement with the transatlantic slave trade more generally.

My 21st article was entitled 'James MacMillan’s music of tranquility and discord'. In the article I noted that the composer’s music contends both the secular and sacred.

My 22nd article was a book review on Nobody's Empire by Stuart Murdoch. 'Nobody's Empire: A Novel is the fictionalised account of how ... Murdoch, lead singer of indie band Belle and Sebastian, transfigured his experience of Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME) through faith and music.'

My 23rd article was entitled 'Rock ‘n’ roll’s long dance with religion'. The article explores how popular music conjures sacred space.

My 24th article was an interview with Alastair Gordon on the artist’s attention which explores why the overlooked and everyday capture the creative gaze.

My 25th article was about Stanley Spencer’s seen and unseen world and the artist’s child-like sense of wonder as he saw heaven everywhere.

My 26th article was entitled 'The biblical undercurrent that the Bob Dylan biopics missed' and in it I argue that the best of Dylan’s work is a contemporary Pilgrim, Dante or Rimbaud on a compassionate journey.

My 27th article was entitled 'Heading Home: a pilgrimage that breaks out beauty along the way' and focuses on a film called 'Heading Home' which explores how we can learn a new language together as we travel.

My 28th article was entitled 'Annie Caldwell: “My family is my band”' and showcased a force of nature voice that comes from the soul.

My 29th article was entitled 'Why sculpt the face of Christ?' and explored how, in Nic Fiddian Green’s work, we feel pain, strength, fear and wisdom.

My 30th article was entitled 'How Mumford and friends explore life's instability' and explored how Mumford and Sons, together with similar bands, commune on fallibility, fear, grace, and love.

My 31st article was entitled 'The late Pope Francis was right – Antoni Gaudi truly was God’s architect' and explored how sanctity can indeed be found amongst scaffolding, as Gaudi’s Barcelona beauties amply demonstrate.

My 32nd article was entitled 'This gallery refresh adds drama to the story of art' and explored how rehanging the Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery revives the emotion of great art.

My 33rd article was an interview with Jonathan A. Anderson about the themes of his latest book 'The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art'.

My 34th article was an interview with 'Emily Young: the sculptor listening as the still stones speak'.

My 35th article was a profile of New York's expressionist devotional artist, 'Genesis Tramaine: the painter whose faces catch the spirit'.

My 36th article was a concert review of Natalie Bergman at Union Chapel - a soul-soaked set turned personal tragedy into communal celebration.

My 37th article was based on the exhibition series 'Can We Stop Killing Each Other?' at the Sainsbury Centre. In it I explore how art, theology, and moral imagination confront our oldest instinct.

My 38th article article was 'The dot and the dash: modern art’s quiet search for deeper meaning' in which I argue that Neo-Impressionism meets mysticism in a quietly radical exhibition at the National Gallery.

My 39th article was 'From Klee to Klein, Wenders to Botticelli: angels unveiled' in which I explore how, across war, wonder and nativity, artists show angels bridging earth and heaven.

My 40th article was 'When Henry Moore’s Madonna shocked Northampton' in which I explore how a modernist mother and child stirred outrage, then lasting wonder.

My 41st article was 'Turner and Constable: storms, salvation and the sublime' in which I discussed how Tate Britain reveals how rival visions shaped art and spirit.

My 42nd article was 'When converts cracked open the culture’s polished surface' in which I explored how faith’s outsiders disrupted the scene with unexpected force.

My 43rd article 'The Magdalene we rarely see' was about the painting 'Magdalene at the Base of the Cross' by Chris Gollon.

My 44th article was 'U2’s music shows surrender can still sound like joy' which explores the spirituality of U2.

My 45th article was 'Cathedrals, confessionals, and the strange allure of spiritual fiction' about the return of Susan Howatch.

My 46th article was on the exhibition 'Living by the Rule: Contemporary meets Medieval' at the Sainsbury Centre.

My 47th article was a profile of Andrew Rumsey, Andrew Rumsey and the particular places.

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

Joy Oladokun - Kind.

Love - the heart of safeguarding

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

Safeguarding has at its heart a longing for all people to be safe, protected, welcomed and cared for within our churches and in wider society. It is an integral part of the ministry and mission of our churches and a core part of how we are church. But more than this, safeguarding is about love in truth and action. As we seek to love and serve our neighbours in our communities, we are called to be places and spaces where there is a healthy culture of interactions and relationships. We need to take our call to love one another seriously. We also need to take our call to live truthfully seriously.

Over the past few years, the Church of England has been called to account for its Safeguarding failures. As an institution, we are on a journey: there is always more work to be done and more lessons to learn and there is a constant need for us to lament and repent of our failings. As a Church, we need to acknowledge our failings, learn from the past, and listen and respond to victims and survivors with humility. We need to love in truth and action.

As Nicholas Papadopulos, Dean of Salisbury, has said, “There is much for us to open our eyes to. For years, the merest sniff of a question or the first hint of an allegation sent church leaders hurrying to circle the wagons and defend the institution and its staff. Far too often we have reacted with – at best – ostrich-like complacency to those of our own who have posed grave threats to others.” “Terrible things have happened in the churches, as in all our best-loved institutions; we share a responsibility for ensuring that they cannot happen again.”

Those terrible things meant that the Church of England, as with other denominations, has been guilty of the kind of hypocrisy that Jesus criticises in today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 23.27-32). Like those who presented as whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful but inside are full of all kinds of uncleanness, so the Church of England has tried to present itself as being whiter than white, while the reality has been very different, both in terms of those who abused others and those who failed to support the victims of abuse.

As a result, many people in our communities and in our churches live daily with physical, emotional, mental and spiritual scars of abuse. If this sermon prompts any safeguarding concerns or raises any safeguarding issues you would like to discuss, please contact our Parish Safeguarding Officer or get in touch with our Diocesan Safeguarding Team. You can find their contact details on the Diocesan website: www.chelmsford.anglican.org under the safeguarding tab.

As Nicholas Papadopulos has also said, “We cannot live out the great commandment to love God and love neighbour if those who would harm their neighbour find a secure hiding-place in our common life … the great commandment … [is] right there … when we do whatever we can to ensure that the vulnerable are kept safe, remembering that any of us can be vulnerable. That, surely, is the bare minimum that loving one another requires of us.”

Through Jesus, God relates to us in love and friendship. And this is how Jesus wants us to relate to others. “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” Jesus’ primary action is to love: not to judge, condemn, criticise, belittle or dismiss. He loves. A love that goes beyond boundaries and that is without agenda. A love that is about equality and mutual respect. A love that refuses power and abuse; that washes tired, dirty feet. A love that lets everyone sit down to eat.

Faithful discipleship is known by love. Jesus calls upon his disciples to mirror the love that God has for him and the love that he has for the Father and for his disciples. To lay down one’s life is to put the needs of others before our own, to live for the good of others, to make time for them, to be present for them in times of trouble and crisis, to listen to them, to witness to their hurts. “Love one another as I have loved you.” Following Jesus means taking love seriously. As the first letter of John stresses: “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us… love one another just as he commanded us… all who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them.”

We are also compelled to live truthfully. This means going beyond addressing issues of harm and abuse and protecting against them. It means being willing to face hard truths, to stand with victims of injustice and - if required – to speak up and out with them and for them. We know that abuse devastates lives, that it has and does take place in the church and that its consequences are profound and long-lasting. The task of Safeguarding is to acknowledge this hard truth and to do everything possible to ensure that abuse no longer happens, now or in the future. In all that we do, particularly in balancing our responsibilities, we must continually seek to place survivors and victims at the heart of our concern.

We long to be a refuge for the hurting and vulnerable, and to do this we must listen to those who feel voiceless and empower everyone in our communities to remain safe, within their families, places of work and of worship. “Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” Jesus’ command to love as he loves is an invitation into relationships of profound mutuality and interdependence.

These kinds of relationships contribute to healthy communities, modelled on the example of Christ’s own humility and sacrifice. This is a way of being that says, who I am is caught up in who you are. We are members together of the same body of people. Whatever affects one of us affects all of us. We are all God’s children; Jesus calls us all friends; we are all brothers and sisters. So, if I am your sister, your brother, I have a responsibility for how I behave towards you and that has implications for the choices I make about how I live and love in the world. This is the kind of integrity that is the reverse of the hypocrisy criticised by Jesus in today’s Gospel reading.

As we reflect, we remember that the kingdom of God is not for the strong but the weak; it is not for the rich but for the poor; it is not for the powerful but for the powerless; it is not for the proud but for the meek. The Church is where the least, the lost and the broken – all God’s children - should be able to find the safest of places in a loving community that lives out its faith in truth and action. May that be true for us, here in Wickford and Runwell. Amen.

(Based on 'love in truth and action' by Venerable Ruth Patten, Archdeacon of Colchester)

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

Howard Hewett - The Journey (Think About It).

Talking the talk and walking the walk

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

If we say that someone talks the talk but does not walk the walk, we mean that they do not act in a way that agrees with the things they say.

In politics, Dan Hodges has written, “there are a multitude of forgivable sins. Cheat on your wife. Lie about your record. Stab your colleague in the back. Lie with your colleague’s back-stabbing wife. The voters will tut, shake their heads, and move on. But there is one offence for which there is no pardon. Never, ever, under any circumstances, get caught preaching one thing at the public while practising another. Incompetence, duplicity, arrogance – each one hurts. Hypocrisy kills.”

Consistency also applies in business. William C. Taylor, author of Practically Radical: Not-So-Crazy Ways to Transform Your Company, Shake Up Your Industry, and Challenge Yourself, has written that, “One of the most ubiquitous aphorisms in business is that the best leaders understand the need to “walk the talk” — that is, their behavior and day-to-day actions have to match the aspirations they have for their colleagues and organization.”

Investors in People argue that “Everybody needs someone to look up to in the workplace. They want role models. This may seem like a daunting responsibility for a manager or employer, but it needn't be. It's largely just a matter of what we call ‘walking the talk’” and leading by example. “A manager's behaviour has an impact on everyone around them, and an effective manager is one who inspires their team by showing the way with their own actions.”

So, if we say that someone talks the talk but does not walk the walk, we mean that they do not act in a way that agrees with the things they say. The phrase “if you’re going to talk the talk, you’ve got to walk the walk” is a modern version of old sayings like “actions speak louder than words” and “practice what you preach.” Another early form of the expression was “walk it like you talk it.” Many people now condense this to “walk the talk.”

All these are essentially versions of James 1. 22, “be doers of the word, and not merely hearers” (James 1.19-27). If we are hearers of the word and not doers, we are like those who look at themselves in a mirror and immediately forget what they were like. “A first century mirror was not the silvered glass one without which no bathroom is complete today. It was beaten bronze and gave a fuzzy image. If you wanted to be sure your face was not dirty a quick glance was not sufficient. You would need to peer intently, work out what was required, then go and find some clean water to do something about it. The same is true of the way we react to encountering God. The real blessing of the Christian faith does not lie in listening to sermons or reciting liturgies, but in dwelling on what is true until it transforms what we do. A genuine encounter with Jesus provokes action.”

The action it produces is “care for orphans and widows in their distress.” Jesus said, in the Parable of the sheep and goats (Matthew 25.31-46), that God’s judgement on us will be based on our actions; giving food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked and visiting those in prison. These actions are to be the end result of our faith. If our looking deeply into God’s word does not result in our doing these things, our faith is not genuine and we are not walking the walk as Christians.

Too often we live life, James says, like people who look in the mirror and then immediately forget what we are actually like. The confession which precedes our Eucharist is our weekly opportunity to acknowledge the reality that we often talk the talk without walking the walk. It is our opportunity to turn away from insincerity and to seek the consistency in our faith to which James calls here. “Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.”

God’s vision for human beings is that we become holy servants. But this is not something that we can do by ourselves. It is something that happens together with God. It is God who has provided the mirror and God who has come into our world to show us in Jesus what living as a holy servant looks like. We see in Jesus’ life what that way of being human looks like in practice. But more than that, in Jesus, God is reaching out to us to show us that we are loved by him and that he sees our potential for change and for beauty.

In Jesus’ story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15. 11-32), the son rejects his identity as a child of his Father and leaves home to waste his life. Finally, when he is eating the food of pigs the son looks in the mirror to see himself as he actually is and decides to return home to his father and ask to become one of his servants. But the Father rejoices at his return and welcomes him home as the son he has always been although for a time he rejected that identity. This is a story about us and God. We reject our rightful identity as children of God living as holy servants. We forget what we really look like in the mirror and live as we choose. But when we come to see ourselves as we truly are and return to God we are welcomed as God’s children with all of our potential for becoming the people that he wants us to be.

David Runcorn has said that “the deepest awakening of all is to the discovery that we are loved with a wild, prodigal love – without condition.” We are then able to become those who love God with all their being and who love their neighbours as ourselves, because God has first loved us.

James says that if we look closely at ourselves in the mirror of God’s perfect law, paying attention and knowing ourselves to be sinners loved by God then we will go on to become the holy servants that God intended all human beings to become. May it be so for each one of us. Amen

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

Against whom should we compare ourselves?

Here is my sermon from today's Eucharist at St Stephen Walbrook:

Against whom should we compare ourselves? Our answer makes all the difference in the world. The Pharisee in Jesus’s parable (Luke 18. 9 - 14) compared himself against other people: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’

This is generally what we do when we make comparisons; we compare ourselves with others and so compare ourselves with those we think are worse than or similar to ourselves. We’ve all heard others and, maybe, ourselves saying ‘I’m alright, Jack!’ or ‘I’m as good as the next person, if not better!’ On the basis of these comparisons we think we are ok; at least no better or worse than others, at best, better than many others around us. On the basis of these comparisons we are comfortable with who we are and see no need to change.

The Pharisee in this story lived in a simplistic world of legalism where he could look down on those like the publican because he kept certain rules and fulfilled certain practices. Therefore he could say, I am not like other people because I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all my income. For him, there was no wrestling with difficulty and no struggling with conscience but the world he inhabited was, ultimately, a harsh world without understanding, without compassion, without forgiveness. Our common response as human beings to our own fallibility and failure is that, instead of acknowledging our own shortcoming, we attempt to distract attention away from our selves by identifying a scapegoat and angrily pointing out that person’s many failings. We are often very successful in covering up our own shortcomings when we adopt this tactic but, of course, the reality is that we are being hypocritical.

The true comparison that we make should not be with others, but with God. Jesus challenged us to ‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.’ On the basis of that comparison, we all fall short. As St Paul writes, ‘for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.’ Jesus, through his life and death, showed us the depth of love of which human beings are really capable and, on the basis of that comparison, we come up well short and are in real need of change. In the light of Jesus’ self-sacrifice, we see our inherent selfishness and recognise our need for change. Those are the kind of comparisons that the publican in the parable was making when he stood far off, not even looking up to heaven, beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’

In the light of the way that Jesus lived his life, we see our lack of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, remain in darkness, and there is no truth in us. But when we live in the light of Christ, seeing ourselves as we really are, then we become honest with ourselves and with God. By coming into that honesty we confess our sins and are purified; as we say in this service, we make our humble confession to Almighty God truly and earnestly repenting of our sins.

That honesty undermines the simplistic legalism of the Pharisee’s world by revealing the hypocrisy at its heart. The reality is that each one of us has broken the Law and each one of us is a sinner. If that is so, on what basis can one sinner presume to judge or condemn another? To do so is a gross act of hypocrisy which multiplies one sin upon another. The publican, by contrast, lives in a world of without condemnation because he lives in a world where second chances and fresh starts are available.

On Ash Wednesday the sign of the cross is marked in ash on our foreheads and these words are said: "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel." In that service, we acknowledge both our sinfulness and our mortality recognising the link between the two – that the wages of sin are death. The ash mark on our forehead is a public acknowledgement of our sinfulness but, because it is formed as a cross, it is also a sign of the forgiveness we have received. We are saying that we no longer live in the legalistic, unforgiving world of the Pharisaical Law where we compare ourselves with others in order that we come out best; instead, like the publican, we are those who compare themselves against God only to then realise that we have been accepted and welcomed into the world of love by Jesus himself.

Against whom should we compare ourselves? Our answer makes all the difference in the world. Jesus said one of the two men went down to his house justified; and it certainly wasn’t the Pharisee!

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

Kindred Spirit - Ask Me No Questions.

Actions speak louder than words

Here is the text of my most recent sermon preached at St Stephen Walbrook (click here to listen to this sermon on the London Internet Church site):

Actions speak louder than words. This proverb can be traced at least as far back as a speech made by J. Pym in Parliament in 1628 in which he said: ‘A word spoken in season is like an Apple of Gold set in Pictures of Silver,’ and actions are more precious than words.’

The proverb is, however, ultimately based on Biblical ideas and phrases such as 1 John 3. 18 where we read: ‘let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.’ This teaching probably then derives from Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 7. 15 – 21) where he argues that we are known by our fruits, meaning our actions, and that simply saying ‘Lord, Lord’ without then acting on that confession is not enough to guarantee our salvation.

In the Parable of the sheep and goats Jesus emphasises that it is actions, not words, that will count in the final judgement, when he says: ‘‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’

St Francis of Assisi summed up this aspect of Jesus’ teaching well, when he said: ‘Preach the gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.’

Despite this we all know how easy it is to be a ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ by saying one thing and doing another. We also know how much those who are found out in their hypocrisy, most recently Lord Sewel, are then criticised. Christians are often criticised on the basis of hypocrisy by those who think we have a holier-than-thou attitude. However, Christians should actually be those who are most aware of their fallibilities and failings because of our recognition of our need to regularly confess our sins, as we will do later in this service when we say, in the general Confession: ‘We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness.’

This means that a full and consistent meshing of our words and our actions is often more than we can manage, which still remaining something towards which we strive.

The Bible gives us at least two sources of help in doing so. The first can be noted in the very first Psalm which uses the image of good fruit growing on a tree in order to say that good fruit grows in our lives when we delight in the law of the Lord and meditate of that law day and night. Regular meditation on scripture feeds our ability to better integrate our words and actions.

Our second source is found in Galatians 5 where the fruit that we are called to produce is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The originator of these behaviours in us is the Holy Spirit. The fruit are of the Spirit whenever and however they show up in our lives and actions.

Being led by the Spirit and regularly meditating on the scripture are the two keys to a closer meshing of words and actions in our lives.

What kind of fruit – behaviours leading to actions – are evident is our lives? Do we, like Lord Sewel, effectively lead a double live in which we live out the reverse of those things we say in public? The honest place for us to be is to acknowledge and state that there is often a gap between our words and our actions. In other words that we acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness while also asking for and allowing the Spirit and scriptures to combine in bring change within our lives.

In this way we, can avoid becoming one who says ‘Lord, Lord’ but does not do the will of our Father in heaven. In this way, we can avoid becoming those who are wolves in sheep’s clothing and will become like good trees which bear good fruit.

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

Belle & Sebastian - My Wandering Days Are Over.

Transparency and authenticity

Today's sermon at St Stephen Walbrook was entitled Transparency and authenticity. The podcast of this sermon can be found in the sermon section of the London Internet Church website:

In May I will be leading the Memorial Service for Robert Fell at St Martin-in-the-Fields. In 1974 Fell became the first Chief Executive of the Stock Exchange and later went on to help regulate Hong Kong Securities.

He writes in his memoirs: “My first meeting … was on the consequences of the Burmah oil collapse. The next day, my first full council meeting was about how to deal with the financial crisis. Two days later, on January 6th … was the day of the City’s Epiphany Service. I attended with the Chairman and Deputy Chairman. As we walked down the aisle the Deputy remarked that he did not see Burmah Oil on the Order of Service. But when we reached our pew no three men ever knelt in more fervent prayer … As I knelt I could hardly have anticipated that my regulatory experience (over the next decade) would encompass the ‘hammering’ of one major London firm and the suspension of two others, the murder of a banker, three suicides … the jailing of two exchange chairmen and an assortment of bankers and, as a last straw, the sentencing to eight years imprisonment of the Crown Prosecutor who dealt with most of the commercial crimes I had uncovered.”

Most of what he was referring to happened whilst he was in Hong Kong. A cartoon published in Hong Kong depicted him as a knight in shining armour riding to the rescue of the banking system. He was called ‘a one-man cavalry’ who brought corruption into the light, even when it was dangerous to do so, and by doing so saved Hong Kong’s financial reputation from international oblivion.

In today’s epistle (Ephesians 5.1-14) a similar level of transparency is being commended for our own personal lives: ‘… you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light … and find out what pleases the Lord.’

Jesus, our Lord, is the light of the world. He is God fully revealed in human form, so shows us what God is actually like as well as revealing all that we, as humans, can become. We come into the light of Christ by comparing our lives to his. As we do so, inevitably we find that we fall short; that our capacity to do what pleases him (by living out all goodness, righteousness and truth) is less than his capacity for these things. Our reality, as our Gospel reading states, is that we are divided people. As St Paul so accurately states in Romans 7: ‘… what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.’

So coming into the light of Christ initially reveals our fallibilities and failures to be Christ-like. As a result, if we are to be transparent in the light of Christ, we make our humble confession to Almighty God truly and earnestly repenting of our sins.

But the light of Christ does not just expose and make visible our fallibilities. When we learn what pleases our Lord (which is all goodness, righteousness and truth; or, as our confession says, intending to lead a new life by following the commandments of God, walking in his holy ways and living in love and charity with our neighbours) we are then illuminated by him and become a light to others. This is what Jesus means when he tells us to let our light shine before others, that they may see our good deeds and glorify our Father in heaven.

In today’s business terms we would call this being transparent. One business dictionary definition of transparency is a “lack of hidden agendas or conditions, accompanied by the availability of full information required for collaboration, cooperation, and collective decision making.” That is essentially what Bob Fell brought to his work in the City and in Hong Kong. The true purpose of transparency is not simply to appease regulators, to increase profits, or to please shareholders. The true purpose of transparency is authenticity. This is the quality of being genuine, and ultimately of being trusted, which allows your message to be heard and believed.

The Church of England has recently been accused in the press of hypocrisy – a lack of authenticity – over its statements on the Living Wage. When told that the Church was full of hypocrites, Stephen Cottrell, the Bishop of Chelmsford, replied, "Not full – there's still room for one more." Of course the Church doesn't always live up to the standards of the Gospel. That’s why we regularly and consistently confess our sins and shortcomings.

But, as Canon Dr Angus Ritchie has written, “I'm glad the Church is speaking out on these issues. If it wasn't for the lead of our Bishops – and the powerful grassroots work of churches … many more people would earning poverty wages and living at the mercy of Britain's loan sharks … It would be a disaster if the Church stopped speaking out, silenced by fear of the next negative headline.”

May we, like Bob Fell and our Bishops, continue to practice transparency and authenticity, while acknowledging our own shortcomings, and do so even in the face of accusations of hypocrisy.

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

Crux Fidelis Kng John IV of Portugal.

Closing the gap between beliefs and actions

Simone Weil was a French Jewess who, in the opinion of Malcolm Muggeridge, was the most luminous intelligence of the twentieth century and who was reckoned by others to have had the most powerful mind of those in her generation. She was a Marxist who experienced Christ taking possession of her. Throughout her life she sought to close the gap between her beliefs and her life.

After completing her studies, instead of becoming an academic, as those with her abilities were expected to do, she began working on the production line of a factory to identify with working people. She later fought in the Spanish Civil War, worked on the land during World War II. Each of these decisions and actions affected her health and her life later ended because, while in hospital in England, she would only eat what those in the Resistance were able to eat and, as a result, starved herself to death. She has been an inspiration to many, partly for his writings but also for the committed, and even extreme, way in which she attempted to eliminate the gap between what she believed and how she lived.

That gap is there for all of us, which is one reason why it is so important that the letter from James, of which we have heard an extract this morning, is included in the Bible. James argues that if we allow the gap between what we believe and what we do to grow too great, then our faith is dead:

“Dear friends, do you think you'll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, "Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!" and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you?” “In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” (James 2. 14-17)

This letter is arguing that we must consistently re-examine the gap between what we believe and what we do in our lives because our tendency as human beings is to say the right things and then do something completely different. Our tendency can even be to deceive ourselves about the way that we live our lives. Church can be used as part of that process of deception so that, for example, we might subconsciously think that by coming to church – praying the confession, reciting the creed and so on – we have done our Christian duty and can therefore relax and be ourselves for the rest of the week before coming to church again to, in a sense, baptise our hypocrisy once again.

Now, don’t get me wrong here. I’m not saying that this is a particular fault of people here at St Johns but I am saying that it is something that applies to some extent to all Christians. At the end of the day, we generally aren’t prepared to do what Simone Weil did and die for our beliefs. Some sort of gap always exists between the demands that our faith makes of us and what we are prepared to do. That what the letter of James points out and that is perhaps what Jesus was testing out in our Gospel reading when he was so awkward with the Phoenician women. What he discovered by way of his unhelpful and discouraging responses was that her faith was not just words but was real.

One way in which we are able to re-examine our lives and the extent to which we still need to marry up our faith and our lives is through Stewardship. In thinking about Stewardship we think about the way in which we use our time and talents for God, the extent that we give financially towards God’s work plus our involvement in the community and our care of the environment. Stewardship is about going through the self-examination process of which I have been speaking together and seeing what results. Let us pray for good results as each of us re-examine our lives and actions to ensure that our faith is not dead because it continues to result in action.

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

Philip Bailey - I Am Gold.