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.

Bringing unity to what was previously divided

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

In his book ‘The Idolatry of God’ Peter Rollins writes: 

"There are so many divisions in society, divisions between political parties, religious traditions and social groups. This is perfectly natural, of course. From birth, we experience a pre-existing matrix of beliefs and practices that differentiate us from others.

We discover early on that we have been given a mantle, that we are part of a tribe, one with a rich history, deep hopes and a variety of fears. The world is full of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Some of these divisions have deep histories that span multiple generations, while others are very new. Some are serious and others border on the ridiculous. But, at their most extreme, these divisions can result in local and global conflicts."

Rollins argues that to leave these divisions behind we need to transcend our given identities: "Whether we are Conservative or Labour, rich or poor, male or female, these various bearers of our identification do not fully contain or constrain us and all too often prevent us from truly experiencing our own humanity."

He suggests that that is what St Paul teaches when he writes to the Galatians saying, "there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, between slaves and free people, between men and women; you are all one in union with Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3. 28). 

"Here Paul mentions six distinct tribal identities that were ubiquitous in his time; six identities that can be further subdivided into three, namely the religious (Jew and Gentile), the political (slave and free) and the biological (male and female).

It was not that these different groupings were totally isolated from each other, but the way that each of these groups related to the others was clearly defined and carefully regulated.

These distinctions were justified by the authorities either in terms of a natural law or a divine plan; thus the difference in roles and responsibilities were non-negotiable and were required to maintain social stability."

In Jesus’ ministry though "we find a multitude of references to one who challenged the divisions that were seen as sacred, divisions between Jew and Gentile, male and female, and slave and free. Jesus spoke to tax collectors, engaged with Samaritans and treated women as equals in a world where these were outrageous acts." In our Gospel reading today (Mark 9.38-41) we see Jesus refusing to create an ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ division in relation the person casting out demons in Jesus’ name while not being one of Jesus’ disciples. Instead of creating a division with that person as his disciples wanted, he says that “Whoever is not against us is for us.”

More than this, in the incarnation we are presented with a picture of God coming down to earth as Jesus and being progressively stripped of all his prior identity as God’s Son. In Philippians 2 we read that he "made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross!" (Philippians 2.6-8).

Rollins writes that, "This is called kenosis and describes the act of self-emptying. This is most vividly expressed in the crucifixion, where we see Christ occupying the place of the complete outsider, embracing the life of one who is excluded from the political system, the religious community, and the cultural network."

To do this is to cut through the divisions which exist in society because of our different tribal identities. This is what Jesus means when he says elsewhere he brings a sword into the world. He cuts into "the very heart of all tribal allegiances, bringing unity to what was previously divided":

"There is no change biologically (male or female), religiously (Jew or Greek) or politically (slave or free). Yet nothing remains the same, for these identities are now drained of their operative power and no longer hold us in the way that they once did. These identities no longer need to separate us from each other."

Our "concrete identity continues to exist, but it is now held differently and does not dictate the scope and limitations of one’s being. The singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn puts this wonderfully well in a song called ‘Us All’, which ends with a prayer that is appropriate to our reading and reflection today:

“Here we are, faced with choice / Shutters and walls or open embrace / Like it or not, the human race / Is us all

History is what it is / Scars we inflict on each other don't die / But slowly soak into the DNA / Of us all

I pray we not fear to love / I pray we be free of judgement and shame / Open the vein, let kindness rain / O'er us all”

Amen.

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Bruce Cockburn - Us All.

Valuing passivity and passion over activity and action

Here is the sermon that I preached at today's midweek Eucharist in St Andrew's Wickford, drawing on materials from A Soul Laid Bare, Liz Horwell, Alison Morgan, Randall Nolan and Gregory Wolfe:

“Over thirty years ago, W.H. Vanstone, canon of Chester Cathedral, wrote a book called, The Stature of Waiting. Early in the book, Vanstone talks about Jesus’ betrayal by Judas. The word ‘betrayed’, he says, as when Judas betrayed Jesus, really means ‘handed over’.” He explains that, “The word ‘betrayed’ is used only once in 33 mentions of what Judas did; the other 32 times the phrase ‘handed over’ is used. Where that phrase is used in other contexts of the NT it has no connotation of betrayal – eg the talents are ‘handed over’, Jesus ‘handed over’ his spirit as he died, Paul ‘hands over’ the gospel by preaching it to the Corinthians. The gospel writers use it consistently and automatically; it must have been the stock phrase, perhaps the one Jesus himself used at the Last Supper.”

“The gospels show a marked change from activity to passivity, action to passion, at the point where Jesus was ‘handed over’ – a phrase [which was] in common Christian currency in the first century.” According to John’s account … when Judas leaves the Last Supper to set in train the handing over of Jesus, John tell us ‘that it was night’… which must mean that the ‘daylight’ period is over and that the time foreseen by Jesus has come - the time at which ‘no one can work’, the time at which ‘working’ must give place to ‘waiting’…and is also associated, in a most striking way, with the end of Jesus’ freedom from restraint by human hands … ”from working to waiting and from freedom to constraint.” “The handing over of Jesus was His transition from working to waiting upon and receiving the works of others, from the status and role of subject to that of object, from ‘doing’ to ‘being done to’.”

“Jesus moves from being active to being passive in the Garden of Gethsemane when Judas hands him over.” “Until Gethsemane … Jesus had chosen to spend the whole of his ministry ‘demonstrating God’s kingdom’ both to individuals and to the people as a whole. And his ‘demonstrating’ invited people to respond. He longed for them to respond by choosing to deepen their relationship with God and work in the cause of justice: but that was their choice, it could never be obligatory.”

Vanstone “tells us that the word ‘passion’ comes from a Greek word meaning ‘suffer’: or ‘allow events to happen’.” It means, being passive. “The emphasis is … on being the subject not the object; being a patient.” “The passion then describes the time in Jesus’ life when he stopped taking control of the situation and simply allowed people to respond to him as they chose.” “So Vanstone says: ’The passion is not the pains he endured or the cruel manner in which he was treated by the hands of men but simply the fact that he was exposed to those hands and whatever those hands might do.’”

“This point is important because many people see God as ALWAYS taking control, always active, never passive; yet if Jesus is the perfect revelation of God’s character, Jesus’ passion demonstrates that being passive is also God-like.” “So Vanstone argues that Jesus’ death was the result of his passion, his ‘allowing events to happen’”: ”It wasn’t Jesus’ death that brought us benefits … It was his willingness to spare himself nothing, not even his own life, in the cause of winning the nation to the discipleship of God’s kingdom. He sought from the nation’s leaders that which could not be compelled: the response of discipleship.” “So, when Jesus prays in Gethsemane he still hopes that the priests might respond positively, though he knows it’s unlikely. He prays that God might be able to find him another way through this, another way for his message of love to be heard and understood. And until the moment when the priests come into the garden mob-handed there’s still the slim chance they’ll turn themselves around and support him. But in the garden they make their choice and he’ll accept it for what it is: their choice.”

“Jesus did the only thing that love can do: it can only offer itself out and wait for a response. With love, action must give way to passion, to waiting for a choice to be made. Because, as we know, Love is not possessive: it doesn’t insist on its own way; it never uses force. God offers such a love to us: an abundant, free-flowing, bountiful, love: and he waits longingly for us to want to love him in return. Jesus shows us that God’s love is not only active in showing itself, but passive in allowing us to choose what our response will be.” “The activity of love is always precarious … Herein lies the poignancy of love, and its potential tragedy. The activity of love contains no assurance or certainty of completion: much may be expended and little achieved. The progress of love must always be by tentative and precarious steps: and each step that is taken, whether it 'succeeds' or 'fails', becomes the basis for the next, and equally precarious, step which must follow.” “Love proceeds by no assured programme. In the care of children a parent is peculiarly aware that each step of love is a step of risk; and that each step taken generates the need for another and equally precarious step.”

So, “the hallmarks of the creator’s love for his creation [are] an endless love that must always shift with circumstances to see to the good of the beloved. And a vulnerable love that cannot force a response from the beloved but must watch and wait and hope for a response, whether it comes or not.” “Theologian that he is, Vanstone could not help feeling that these were the characteristics of God’s love for us — a self-emptying (kenosis) love that is always attempting to find out how to address the welter of circumstance that is every individual life.” “In the kenosis, or self-emptying of Christ, nothing is held back, nothing unexpended (Phil. 2:7). In this we recognize God’s love as unlimited. God’s love is also vulnerable. The Lord risks rejection at the hands of His own creatures and is pained by our refusal to accept love. And lastly, God’s love is precarious. By the humble condescension of the Lord, we have power to determine whether His love succeeds or fails in its communication, or its intended effect.” “The vulnerability of God means that the issue of His love as triumph or tragedy depends upon His creation.” This is the form of authentic love. If we want to know 'what love ought to be', we need enquire no further than what the love of God is.

“We live in a world which values activity and action over passivity and passion. We have lost [our understanding of what it means to be ‘handed over’]; but perhaps we should recover it, and in recovering it find our human dignity enhanced, our powerlessness removed – for so we can be like God himself, attaining the dignity which is ours because we share in his being, and reconnecting with some of the values we overlook in our emphasis on doing over being.”

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Adrian Snell - Betrayal.

The buried message of Christianity: power is divested

Giles Fraser has a superb column in today's Guardian exploring the implications of the incarnation. He begins with the American theologian Thomas JJ Altizer's work on Christian atheism:

'Altizer’s account of the Christian God being in a gradual process of divesting himself of His God-ness is a pretty good way of recapturing some of the puzzlement and shock value of the original Christmas story. “He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant,” is how St Paul described the incarnation in a letter to new Christians at Philippi ...

the astonishing assertion of the Christmas story is that the God who comes as a pathetic child is all the more God-like for the total evacuation of power. It’s a birth story at one with what would become the central message of His teaching: the first will be last and the last first. It sounds like a phrase from the French revolution, with the mighty being pulled off their thrones and the weak being held up high. But it’s the buried message of Christianity, extravagantly heralded in the festival we know as Christmas. At Christmas, God becomes a child. Power is divested. Might and right no longer nestle comfortably together.'

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Bruce Cockburn - Cry Of A Tiny Baby.

Julian Meditation 2

Here is the second collage of words from Julian of Norwich which I have compiled as part of reflecting on the her writings, particularly as used in the DVD featuring Alan Oldfield's paintings. They are intended to put Julian's words in new combinations while retaining her overall meaning:

There were times when I wanted to look away from the Cross, but I dared not.

The huge, hard, hurtful nails pulled the wounds wide open

The body sagged with the weight of its long hanging

Fair skin was driven deep into the tender flesh

Harsh striking all over the sweet body

The nails wrenched it as the weight of the body pulled against it

Shaken in sorrow and anguish and tribulation

As a cloth is shaken in the wind

The weeping and wailing of the soul

Bearing the loss of every kind of comfort except the deep, quiet keeping of God

I knew that while I gazed on the Cross I was safe and sound.

The holy joining made in heaven. God's son fell with Adam

Adam's old shirt - narrow, threadbare and short - our mortal flesh that God's son took upon him

So joined in love that the greatness of our love caused the greatness of his grief

The shame, the despising, the utter stripping he accepted

All the bodily and spiritual pains and passions of his creatures

Our Lord Jesus made nothing for us and we made nothing with him

In our joining together in love lies the life of all who shall be saved

In falling and rising again we are held close in one love

For our falling does not stop him loving us

I dared not look away. I was not willingly going to imperil my soul.

Flee to our Lord and we shall be comforted. Touch him and we shall be made clean.

Cling to him and we shall be safe and sound from every kind of danger.

For our courteous Lord wills that we should be at home with him

as heart may think or soul may desire .

Our soul rests in God its true peace, our soul stands in God its true strength,

and is deep-rooted in God for endless love.

He did not say 'You shall not be tempest-tossed, you shall not be work-weary,

you shall not be discomforted'.

But he did say, 'You shall not be overcome.'

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Indelible Grace - All Must Be Well.

Incarnation

The length of the journey become part of the gift,
beauty lying in discovery.
The privileges of deity exchanged
to take the status of a slave;
coming from heaven as helpless babe,
equality left with God.
Artist as self-portrait, creator as creation;
I and Thou, God and man
dying each other’s life,
living each other’s death,
descending into danger, depression,
despair, dismay, distress,
hopelessness, loneliness, homelessness.
Gift, come down to share our plight,
lift us into your love and light.

Flesh knowing what spirit knows.
Forgiveness in flesh,
the loss of life for the saving of life -
others he saved, himself he could not save -
life given that we might live, exchange.
I live as Christ lives in me,
his nature received as he took mine,
the burden of oppressive evil borne in God.
Burdens become light
in the exchange of burdens,
trespasses forgiven as we forgive.
The wealth of self
as the health of self exchanged.
Not Thou, yet Thou;
I and Thou exchanged, changed.
The length of the journey become part of the gift,
beauty lying in discovery.

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Mavis Staples - You Are Not Alone.

The Servant King

It is an interesting question to consider why most societies in human history have had some form of monarchy? In some respects, it seems a strange thing to do because it involves the majority of people voluntarily giving wealth and power to one person – the King.

Why would we allow one person to monopolise power and wealth in that way? Well, it seems to have happened because the King then organised and led the army with the aim of ensuring peace and prosperity for their subjects. Simply put, it was a quid pro quo arrangement on the basis that, if you protect us, we’ll allow you to lord it over us and enjoy a better quality of life.

Today we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King but, of course, we are not celebrating Christ as the usual type of human King. We are not even celebrating Christ as a greater type of monarch than our current Queen – god-fearing as she is and with greatly curtailed powers compared with many of her forbears. Instead, we celebrate Christ as a King who turns the notion of Kingship on its head; who, as our reading today (Luke 23. 33 - 43) makes clear, is seen as King at the point when he is least powerful and most vulnerable – at his own death.

The sign saying the King of the Jews hung over Jesus’ head as he was dying on the cross was, for Pilate, a statement of the charge against him. For the crowd on Golgotha, it was a source of mockery – ‘Save yourself, if you are the King of the Jews!’ For the second thief, it was a future hope – ‘Remember me, Jesus, when you come as King!’ For Jesus it was a present reality. The second thief asked ‘Remember me … when you come as King’ and Jesus replied, ‘today you will be in Paradise with me.’ Jesus was saying, ‘Today, not tomorrow or in the future, is when I am King.’ 

What kind of King deliberately becomes a victim and allows himself to killed though? It is the total reverse of what we expect from a King. In Philippians 2 we read of Jesus letting go – stripping himself – of everything which made him equal with God in order to become a human being like us in order to serve us. On Maundy Thursday, in particular, we celebrate Jesus’ decision to become a servant to those he had created when we re-enact his washing of the disciples feet and his words that ‘You call me Teacher and Lord, and it is right that you do so, because that is what I am. I, your Lord and Teacher have just washed your feet.’ Our Lord and King is also a servant. In fact, service of others is the true vocation and measure of Kingship.

More than this, his service of others, as their King, leads all the way to his death on the cross – the laying down of his own life for the sake of others. As Philippians 2 puts it, ‘He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death – his death on the cross.’ The true King lays down his own life for the love of his people (all people). Jesus is that true King who turns the meaning of Kingside upside down. No longer is Kingship to be understood in terms of garnering wealth and power for oneself in other to defend others. Now it is understood to be about service; giving your life that others might live. Jesus, as the servant King, says to us, ‘I, your Lord and Teacher, have just washed your feet. You, then, should wash one another’s feet. I have set an example for you, so that you will do just what I have done for you.’ 

Peter said to Jesus, ‘Never at any time will you wash my feet!’ Jesus answered, ‘If I do not wash your feet, you will no longer be my disciple.’ Some of us, on Maundy Thursday, are like Peter and don’t wish to have our feet washed. For whatever reason, we find it difficult to publicly expose our feet and have someone else wash them. How much more difficult, then, do we find it to genuinely follow Christ’s example of service by laying down our lives for the sake of others? 

Christ challenges all of us, myself included, to let go of the things that prevent us from serving others just as he left all that he had with God in heaven. To allow the force of challenge that Christ as the Servant King poses to us we have to be prepared for the Holy Spirit to question the extent to which we serve others now. Each of us do currently serve and support others in and through this Church as well as in our family, community and work commitments but, equally, each of us, myself included, place constraints on the extent to which we serve others and may use our service of some to mean that we are critical of others. To be true to the revelation of Christ as Servant King, we need to allow God to challenge the extent to which those constraints and attitudes are where he wants us to be.

Christ’s example of service is a constant challenge to us to confront those areas of our lives where we currently hold back from giving ourselves in service of others. We naturally find it difficult to follow that example of service by fully laying down our lives for the sake of others. But that is what we have to move towards if we are to continue to experience his rule and reign – his Kingship - in our lives. Jesus said to Peter, ‘If I do not wash your feet, you will no longer be my disciple.’ because if we're not allowing him to serve us then we certainly won't be able to follow in his footsteps by serving others:

“This is our God, the Servant King, / He calls us now to follow him, / To bring our lives as a daily offering / Of worship to the Servant King … So let us learn how to serve, / And in our lives enthrone him; / Each other’s needs to prefer, / For it is Christ we’re serving.”

In what ways does the example Christ sets as our King challenge each of us today in this area of serving others? That is the true meaning of the feast of Christ the King.

‘After Jesus had washed their feet, he put his outer garment back on and returned to his place at the table. “Do you understand what I have just done to you?” he asked. “You call me Teacher and Lord, and it is right that you do so, because that is what I am. I, your Lord and Teacher have just washed your feet. I, your Lord and Teacher, have just washed your feet. You, then, should wash one another’s feet. I have set an example for you, so that you will do just what I have done for you. I am telling you the truth: no slave is greater than his master, and no messenger is greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know this truth, how happy you will be if you put it into practice.’

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Graham Kendrick - The Servant King.

Nothing and everything

In the fertile desert
In the presence of absence
In the stillness of chatter
In the sounds of silence
In infinite simplicity
In the simplicity of the infinite
Life laid down in order to live
Leaving in order to arrive
Kenosis in incarnation
Embodiment in abandonment
Life in death
The possession of nothing
Coincidence of opposites
The first last and last first
All become One
Coinherence
Deification
One with the Son
Being fulfilled in the Word
Speech completed in silence
Unity which is nothing
and everything
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Arcade Fire - Black Mirror.

Boundary Breaker VI

The world is full of divisions -
political, religious, national, personal -
‘them’ and ‘us’ - Jew and Gentile,
slave and free, male and female.
Tribal identities, given at birth,
with rich histories constraining love.
I am I, not you. You are a mystery to me.

Stripped, self-emptying, not counting
equality something to be grasped and held,
become nothing, become human,
become obedient to death,
crucified by my own creation.
Stepping beyond identity, renouncing
my inheritance, heritage and lineage.

I in you, you in me, one with you,
you with me, breaking boundaries,
becoming other, other becoming me.
The scapegoat removing mimesis,
the cross road uniting nations,
lion and lamb lying down together.
All roads lead to heaven,
a pilgrim people
in a new Canterbury Tale,
unresting till they enter
the green and pleasant land
of New Jerusalem.

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Hubert Parry - Jerusalem.

Life lived as gift

Forty years after the Israelites had been freed from slavery in Egypt they stood on the brink of the Promised Land ready to cross over the River Jordan and live in the land that God had promised to them.

They were a people who had no land of their own. Their ancestors were wandering Arameans who had no land and who took their families to live in Egypt. In Egypt they had no land because they were slaves. Rescued by God, they wandered in the wilderness without a home for forty years before coming to the Promised Land.

The Promised Land was a gift to them from God and because this land which became their home was not actually theirs but God’s, so they were to give back to God out of thankfulness for all that they had been given. Their life and the land – everything that they had and were – was a gift from God and to show this when the arrived in the Promised Land they were to place in a basket the first part of each crop that they harvested and to offer it to God at the place of worship.

In our culture we no longer think like this. In our culture we tend to think that the things we have are ours because we have earned them. We may have bought the freehold on our home with money that we have earned though our own work, time and talents. The salary that we earn is paid into our bank account to do with as we choose because we were the ones who worked to earn that money. We no longer think of land, home, money and possessions as gifted to us because we think of them as earned by us.

This means that we think we can live independently. Our way of life in a market economy is based on quid pro quo, always getting something in exchange for what we give. We are then free to purchase commodities with no strings attached making our market economy impersonal and leaving us thinking we can pursue personal gain in total disregard for the community as a whole.

At the time that the Israelites lived in the Promised Land because they worked the land for a living they knew that their life did not depend solely on their own efforts. It was not enough that they worked to sow their crops in order that those crops grew. They knew that the soil was needed to nurture their seeds, that rain was needed to water those seeds, that sunshine was needed for the growth of those seeds. They knew that their life, their survival was not simply down to them. Life itself was a gift. Today we are disconnected from the land and from the natural cycle of the seasons and it is much harder for us to acknowledge that life is a gift.

When life is viewed as gift, we can give to others without expecting anything in return and this has the opposite effect of establishing and strengthening the relationships between us, connecting us one to the other. This kind of living recognises the delicate balance of interdependence and responsibility. It means an awareness of how we, as individuals, fit into the life of the whole. Living in this way – as part of a gift economy – develops a sense of interdependence, engenders attitudes of compassion and generosity, forces us to reappraise the way in which we think about and measure value, and reminds us of the interconnection of our lives to other human lives, to non-human lives, and to the non-living world.

When Jesus was tempted he too was in the wilderness and the temptations with which he was confronted were the same temptations to which our culture succumbs. Jesus was tempted to provide for his own material needs by turning stones into bread; he was tempted to gain prestige and celebrity for himself by throwing himself from the highest point of the Temple and surviving; and he was tempted to gain all the power and wealth of the world for himself.

In other words, he was tempted to live independently of God and refuse to view life as being God’s gift to him. Jesus rejected these temptations and, like the people of Israel leaving the wilderness for the Promised Land, continued to thank God for the gift of life by living his life as a means of thanking God for all his gifts to us. He did this through humility, service and finally death, not by a devilish seeking after power and status.

David Runcorn says that “the life of God is non-possessive, non-competitive, humbly attentive to the interests of the other, united in love and vision.” To be God-like, he writes, “is not to be grasping” and so “Jesus pours himself out ‘precisely because’ he is God from God.” The Biblical word for this is kenosis, the self-emptying of God. But Runcorn goes on to point out that this self-emptying or kenosis characterises every member of the Trinity and argues that Jesus’ incarnation “offers us a mysterious and astonishing vision”:

“the Holy Trinity as a dancing community of divine poverty. Each eternally, joyfully, dispossessing themselves; emptying, pouring themselves out to the favour and glory of the other. Nothing claimed, demanded or grasped. They live and know each other in the simple ecstasy of giving.”

Today, we have the opportunity to do the same; to reject the temptation to think of all that we have as our own, to view our lives and all that we have as a gift from God, and to participate in the dance of the Holy Trinity. When we do that, we are acting as stewards because stewards have the job of looking after something that belongs to someone else. As Christians, we are stewards of all that God has given to us – our life, our talents, our time, our money, our possessions, our family, our community, and the world in which we live.

The people of Israel gave the first part of their harvest to God. Giving back to God was the first thing on their agenda, their first consideration. We should each give, the Apostle Paul says, as we have decided, not with regret or out of a sense of duty; for God loves the one who gives gladly.

As they came to the worship place the Israelites reminded themselves that it was God who had rescued them and God who had given them the land he had promised. We should also remember that God has rescued each of us from sin and gifted us with time, talents, treasure, people and the world in which we live. Let us, as a result, view life as a gift and give back to God generously and joyfully.

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Marvin Gaye - God Is Love.