International Times: Touching the Void – Communicating with a loved one, post-mortem

My latest interview for International Times is with the artist Alexander de Cadenet:

'I know that art has traditionally held a sacred function to communicate and share something about someone well after they’ve passed – it’s something that comes to mind when you look at a portrait by Rembrandt, Vermeer or van Gogh for example and it’s also a theme inherent within monumental equestrian sculpture designed to honour military heroes and rulers for future generations. The idea of legacy is present within these works. It’s completely possible for the art about someone to become part of their legacy and as an artist you can contribute to their ongoing legacy through your work.'

For more on Alexander de Cadenet see my ArtWay article, Artlyst interview, a conference report, a visual meditation for ArtWay, and three exhibition previews here, here and here.

My earlier pieces for IT are interview with artist, poet, priest Spencer Reece, an interview with the poet Chris Emery, an interview with Jago Cooper, Director of the the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, a profile of singer-songwriter Bill Fay, plus reviews of: 'Down River: In Search of David Ackles' by Mark Brend; 'Headwater' by Rev Simpkins; 'The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art' by Jonathan A. Anderson; 'Breaking Lines' at the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, albums by Deacon Blue, Mumford and Sons, and Andrew Rumsey, also by Joy Oladokun and Michael Kiwanaku; 'Nolan's Africa' by Andrew Turley; Mavis Staples in concert at Union Chapel; T Bone Burnett's 'The Other Side' and Peter Case live in Leytonstone; Helaine Blumenfeld's 'Together' exhibition, 'What Is and Might Be and then Otherwise' by David Miller; 'Giacometti in Paris' by Michael Peppiatt, the first Pissabed Prophet album; and 'Religion and Contemporary Art: A Curious Accord', a book which derives from a 2017 symposium organised by the Association of Scholars of Christianity in the History of Art.

Several of my short stories have been published by IT including three about Nicola Ravenscroft's EarthAngel sculptures (then called mudcubs), which we exhibited at St Andrew's Wickford in 2022. The first story in the series is 'The Mudcubs and the O Zone holes'. The second is 'The Mudcubs and the Clean-Up King', and the third is 'The mudcubs and the Wall'. My other short stories to have been published by International Times are 'The Black Rain', a story about the impact of violence in our media, 'The New Dark Ages', a story about principles and understandings that are gradually fading away from our modern societies, and 'The curious glasses', a story based on the butterfly effect.

IT have also published several of my poems, including 'The ABC of creativity', which covers attention, beginning and creation, and 'The Edge of Chaos', a state of existence poem. Also published have been three poems from my 'Five Trios' series. 'Barking' is about St Margaret’s Barking and Barking Abbey and draws on my time as a curate at St Margaret's. 'Bradwell' is a celebration of the history of the Chapel of St Peter-on-the-Wall, the Othona Community, and of pilgrimage to those places. Broomfield in Essex became a village of artists following the arrival of Revd John Rutherford in 1930. His daughter, the artist Rosemary Rutherford, also moved with them and made the vicarage a base for her artwork including paintings and stained glass. Then, Gwynneth Holt and Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones moved to Broomfield in 1949 where they shared a large studio in their garden and both achieved high personal success. 'Broomfield' reviews their stories, work, legacy and motivations.

To read my poems published by Stride, click here, here, here, here, here, and here. My poems published in Amethyst Review are: 'Runwell', 'Are/Are Not', 'Attend, attend' and 'Maritain, Green, Beckett and Anderson in conversation down through the ages'.

I am among those whose poetry has been included in Thin Places & Sacred Spaces, a recent anthology from Amethyst Press. I also had a poem included in All Shall Be Well: Poems for Julian of Norwich, the first Amethyst Press anthology of new poems.

'Five Trios' is a series of poems on thin places and sacred spaces in the Diocese of Chelmsford. The five poems in the series are:

• 'Barking';
• 'Bradwell';
• 'Broomfield';
• 'Pleshey'; and
• 'Runwell'.

These poems have been published by Amethyst Review and International Times.

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Michael McDermott - The Future.

A positive legacy for future generations

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Mary’s Langdon Hills this morning and will share later at St Peter's Nevendon:

In Jewish society, land belonged first and foremost to God. The land in which the Jews lived was the Promised Land given to them by God when they were a nomadic people. Ultimately, the land was not theirs but God’s. In a sense, they held it in trust.

This is a positive attitude for all of us to have towards our possessions. Ultimately, our home, our money, our savings, our possessions are gifted to us by God and we are stewards of them. If we think like that then, instead of thinking how can I spend what I have on myself, we start thinking how can I use what I have been given for the glory of God. If we start asking ourselves that question then we are on the way to being good stewards of our resources.

When the people of Israel entered the Promised Land, the land itself had been divided up between the twelve tribes down to the level of households. In that patriarchal society the father was head of the household and ownership of the land passed from the father to the eldest son. But the land was held and used for benefit of the whole family and that was one of the reasons why it was not supposed to be sub-divided between younger members of the family. If the land was continually sub-divided eventually it would no longer support family life.

This is perhaps why Jesus was angry with the request of the man in the crowd that we read about in verse 13 (Luke 12. 13-21). He views it as a greedy request because the man wants the property for himself and that will be to the detriment of the wider family. In the parable of the Prodigal Son, the father does divide the property between both sons. The younger son squanders his half meaning that when he returns everyone has to live on half the property; whereas before they had benefited from the whole property. When you understand that, you understand why the elder brother of the Prodigal Son is so angry with him.

The story that Jesus then tells is a story about greed and living selfishly. The rich man in the story has so much that he can store all he has, stop farming and comfortably live off all he has until the end of his life. This is self-centred because he has decided to do nothing else but to take live easy, eat, drink and enjoy himself. But it is also selfish because he is using up and squandering the inheritance that he should be leaving to his wider family. How will they live in future when he has squandered all his resources on himself and there is no longer a working farm?

Jesus’ punchline then is not just that the rich man will not enjoy his wealth because he will die that night. This parable is a reminder to us of the brevity and uncertainty of life but it is also about the man thinking he can have it all in defiance of the legacy he should leave to his family and then finding because he suddenly dies that the legacy he should have left but didn’t is actually the legacy that his wider family receive. “Who will get all these things you have kept for yourself?” God asks the rich man in the story. The answer is the wider family who should rightfully have received then anyway.

So God is concerned about the legacy that we leave as stewards of all that he has given to us. There are at least two broad implications of these lessons for us in the West where each person consumes about 100 times as much commercially produced energy as an average Bangladeshi and where, in terms of impact on the planet, rich countries are far more overpopulated than poor ones.

The first, is that as good stewards we have a responsibility to share our abundance more equitably with others. The second, is that we need to leave a positive legacy to future generations.

John V. Taylor, a former Bishop of Winchester, published in 1975 Enough is Enough, a book which kickstarted the simple lifestyle movement with its slogan of ‘Live simply, that others may simply live.’ The time since has not yet led us to the point of collectively owning the lifestyle changes we need to make to make a difference. The prophetic cry, from those like Taylor for a greater simplicity of lifestyle, whether from moral choice or economic necessity, is one that has been effectively sidelined during our past prosperity but is one that we, as church and culture, desperately need to hear as we face a global race to exploit scarce resources.

If we were to genuinely hear and respond to their cry for the abandonment of over consumption and the adoption on an ongoing basis of a simpler lifestyle then not only could we learn not to repeat the issues raised by our over consumption but we would be also be returning to Jesus’ command to the Rich Young Ruler that we should use our wealth for the benefit of others.

That statement that, in the light of his coming kingdom, we should sell our belongings and give to the poor comes hot on the heels of this story about the rich man who piled up his riches for himself without reckoning on the crisis of his imminent demise. Just like Jesus’ disciples, we too face a coming crisis which necessitates the adoption of a simpler lifestyle.

If we hear these prophetic cries, if we learn lessons from the over consumption of our Western prosperity, if we take on board the plain meaning of Jesus’ words then, with John V. Taylor, we will say that “enough is enough!” and will seek to turn a temporary to a permanently simpler lifestyle; living simply that others may simply live.

The picture is, of course, by no means, wholly negative. Much of what happens at the grassroots of church life is actually a real challenge to the public perceptions of what Church is about. Many congregations are genuinely seeking to engage with environmental concerns and offer help in living more simply but much more still remains to be done.

The responsibility that Jesus places on us in this passage is not to store up our resources for ourselves and to leave a positive legacy for future generations. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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Youth and Age

I've taken two funerals in the last two weeks. One for someone who died tragically young and the other for someone who lived a long life. This post combines my reflections on age from both services:

‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.’ Those are words first spoken by one who was in his thirties and who would die aged 33. He lived a short life as an obscure itinerant preacher in an obscure part of the Roman Empire, yet his words are remembered today, millions have followed in his footsteps, and his actions have opened relationship with God to all who do so.

Lives don’t need to be long to have impact when those who die young have been those that have loved family, friends and life itself deeply in the time that they have been with us.

X is one of those whose life has been short yet whose impact on our lives has been deep and wide and therefore will be long lasting. That is because of three reasons. The first of those was character. He was central to his group of friends and to his family because of the love that was apparent in his character. We have all experienced that and have heard examples of it in the tributes and eulogy given today. The Beatitudes is a reading about character; about those who practice meekness, righteousness, mercy, purity, peacemaking, and endurance in the face of suffering. Those who do so practice love and live love because their focus is on others, rather than themselves.

The second reason was his endurance in the face of suffering. Like all those with sickle cell he experienced periods of excruciating pain; pain of which those of us who are not sicklers do not know. He rode out the periods of pain that he suffered just like those who endure persecution for righteousness’ sake. They could do so because they knew that there was a better future – the kingdom of heaven – ahead. He knew that he could look forward to pain-free periods in which to enjoy and appreciate life to the full if he could ride out the periods of pain.

The third reason was his appreciation of life’s changes and his determination to live life deeply and fully in the periods when he was free of pain. That is the attitude that we see set out in the passage read from Ecclesiastes. Life is bittersweet in its mix of joys and traumas. We need to accept and understand that that is so in order to appreciate the times of laughter, dancing, embracing, healing, planting and keeping.

We can honour his memory best by following in his footsteps, adopting his attitudes, and mirroring his character. Lives don’t need to be long to have impact when those who die young have been those that have loved family, friends and life itself deeply in the time that they have been with us. We will have honoured X’s memory best if those things are what is said about us after we have died, however long or short our lives.

What does it mean to live well? Life can’t be measured in years alone, although X lived a long life, but perhaps life is measured by the legacy we leave for others; primarily the love we have shown and shared.

St Paul’s classic description of love is often shared at weddings and therefore serves often as a foundation to the forming of family life which is the principal forum in which love is learnt, shared, tested and developed. This description of love is one that it is very appropriate to use as we look back on a long life well lived. It's often only as we look back that we appreciate with fresh insight the love we received at an earlier stage in our lives as at that earlier stage such love was simply what normal life felt like. So, children can now say that they appreciate just how lucky they were to grow up with their parents.

St Paul’s description of love is somewhat generic but we have heard today stories of love expressed in specific ways. We can therefore rewrite 1 Corinthians 13 for your actual experience of family life together. Love is the sharing of interests and enthusiasms - of cycling, ballet and opera, love is the memory of a first kiss, love is dawn bike rides as a family to time trials, love is being taught to swim, pitch a tent and play chess, love is gifts of sticky buds, catkins and pussy willow, love is whole house renovations, love is unblocking drains, maintaining boilers, cleaning and repairing a local church, love is leading the project to redevelop and renovate that church building. Love is also the devotion and care shown by one partner to the other that meant they were able to spend their remaining years of marriage at home together.

There are many stories about X because of his caring character and because he had a long life in which to express that care. Methuselah is a well-known Bible character because of the length of his life. Interestingly those, like Methuselah, who are listed in Genesis as having lived long lives are listed there because their lives were shorter than those supposed to have been lived by kings of the tribes surrounding them. Long lives were claimed for those kings as a signs of their supposed divinity. So the lists included in Genesis were to demonstrate that Israel’s ancestors were ordinary working people like shepherds and not semi-divine kings. From what I know of X he would have been happy to stand with the likes of Methuselah on that basis.

Memories and stories are what we need to tell today because they remind us of all the ways in which X impacted our lives. As we do so, we realize that our lives have been richer for knowing him and that it is only because he was part of our lives and brought so much into our lives that we mourn him as much as we do today. And so it is that, as we remember all the good that we received from him, we focus on giving thanks that he was a part of our lives.

Our Bible reading also speaks of another way in which X lives today, as it speaks of the Christian hope for the future. Life is like looking through a grubby pane of glass. That’s essentially what St Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13. When we look out through a dirty window we can see but we can’t see clearly. That, he says, is our experience in this life.

Why? Because none of us are perfect and therefore we don’t love others as we should. We don’t fully love in the way that he describes in this passage. Are we always long-suffering, kind, unenvying, unself-seeking, not puffed up and not easily provoked? Do we always think no evil, bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, and endure all things? The short and honest answer is no. We do not experience perfection in this world and therefore do not see love perfected.

But, as we have reflected, we do see love in part; particularly in our close family relationships. As we reflect on X’s life today, we are remembering the ways in which he loved and in which we received love from him. He knew love and gave love in his life. But whatever he knew and gave of love in this life has now been exceeded in the next. Now he sees love perfected because he sees Jesus face to face. What was partial has been left behind and what is perfect is now his experience.

More than this, Paul says that faith, hope and love abide or remain. He seems to be saying that we can take something with us when we die. That all our acts of faith, hope and love from this life continue and are perfected in our future life. And this means that funerals are important times for us to reflect on our own lives. Are we modelling our lives on what we know of Jesus? Are our lives characterised by acts that are full of faith, hope and love? If not, then we will enter eternity with very little. But what a joy there is when someone can take much that was of love into their future life together with God.

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Sufjan Stevens - Mystery Of Love.

Abraham - The Legacy

Tonight I had the pleasure of giving the final reflection in the Lent Study Programme at St Martin-in-the-Fields. In this year's course we studied Meg Warner's book Abraham: A Journey Through Lent, where the final chapter considered 'Abraham - The Legacy':

Meg Warner writes in the final chapter of our Lent book that with Abraham's death, we are in a position to explore his legacy. Abraham grew during his life, both in maturity and in faithfulness to God. Over time he seems to have 'become' the special person God chose him to be. His obedience has long-term consequences which apply not just to Abraham and his immediate descendants but to the whole world. That is his legacy, and I want to briefly explore three aspects of that legacy now.

First, that the maturing of Abraham’s relationship with God included learning to be in conversation, in dialogue, in debate and in argument with God, in order that Abraham could find God for himself and actually embody God’s characteristics and interests. We see this most dramatically in Genesis 18. 16-33 where Abraham argues and negotiates with God in relation to saving people who live in Sodom. God chose Abraham to “direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just”. Abraham throws that phrase, “what is right and just” back in God’s face in the course of their argument – “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” - “Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice?". Through their debate, God teaches Abraham to argue passionately for what is right and what is just. As he learns to do so, Abraham becomes more able to do what is right and just with his children and household.

The former Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, says that the legacy of this is that there then began that ‘dialogue between Heaven and Earth which has not ceased in 4,000 years’; a dialogue in which God and human beings find one another. Only thus, he suggests, ‘can we understand the great dialogues [found in Scripture] between God and Abraham and Moses and Jeremiah and Job.’ As with those key figures in scripture, arguing or debating with God in prayer can also be a vital and vitalizing part of the maturing of our relationship with God.

A second part of Abraham’s legacy relates to the story of the sacrifice of Isaac. Here the key to understanding its legacy is the realisation that child sacrifice was the norm in the religions of the day and that the reason Abraham obeys God so unquestioningly may have been because, horrific and distasteful as it seems to us, there was nothing at that time unusual about the idea that the gods required human sacrifices in order to be appeased. The stories in Genesis about Abraham are foundational stories for the People of Israel. Imagine for a moment that you want to create a foundational story for a group of people that will change their understanding of sacrifice from the understanding with which they have grown up to one which is completely different from the religious practices of all the people that surround them. What kind of story might you tell? It may be that you would tell a story in which the person founding this new nation is taken all the way to the brink of child sacrifice and then dramatically and suddenly pulled back from taking that step.

The legacy of the story of the sacrifice of Isaac, the philosopher and anthropologist René Girard has suggested, is that Israel developed a system of animal sacrifice that continued until shortly after the crucifixion of Jesus. Jesus’ crucifixion, Girard suggests, was both about God identifying himself with all the 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.

The final area of legacy that I want to briefly explore is in relation to the common origins of Jewish, Christian and Muslim peoples; all descended, as Meg Warner reminds us, from one ancestor, Abraham. In his book Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence Jonathan Sacks examines our common origins in the story of Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac and gives us a reading of these stories which ‘is an ingenious and often moving turning upside down of a rhetoric of “chosenness.”’

Sacks notes ‘the extraordinary length to which the text goes to insist that Ishmael will be blessed by God.’ He notes too that because of the way the story is written ‘our imaginative sympathies are with Hagar and her child’. ‘That is what gives the story its counter-intuitive depth’. Further, he notes that Isaac spends time at Beer Lahai Roi, the place of Hagar in the desert, and that Ishmael and Isaac are together when Abraham is buried. Finally, he makes us aware of a Rabbinic tradition based on these aspects of the story to the effect that Keturah, who Abraham marries after the death of Sarah, is actually Hagar returned to Abraham by Isaac as his wife.

Sacks concludes his chapter on the story of Ishmael and Isaac by saying this: ‘On the surface, the story of Isaac and Ishmael is about sibling rivalry and the displacement of the elder by the younger. Beneath the surface, however, the sages, heard a counter-narrative telling the opposite story: the birth of Isaac does not displace Ishmael. To be sure he will have a different destiny. But he too is a beloved son of Abraham, blessed by his father and by God.’

The futures of the two brothers diverge, ‘but there is no conflict between them, nor do they compete for God’s affection, which encompasses them both.’ ‘This reading becomes all the more powerful when, in the Midrash, it is extended to the relationship between Judaism and Islam.’ ‘Brothers can live together in peace’ this counter-narrative implies and Sacks notes that it perhaps ‘needed the twenty-first century, with its ethic and religious conflicts, to sensitise our ear to the texts’ inflections and innuendoes’ and to then grasp this aspect of Abraham’s legacy.

Through this Lent Course and Meg Warner’s book, we have seen Abraham undertake a significant journey. The whole way along the journey he struggled with his faith in the God who had chosen him so unexpectedly. At the same time as all of those struggles, Abraham appeared to grow in his responsibilities and in his relationship with God, so that by the end of the journey he had become the person God chose him to be – a true patriarch, whose faith and obedience had consequences for everybody around him. In a similar way, we can benefit from struggling with these three aspects of Abraham's legacy, as they constantly need claiming and reclaiming, both in our individual lives and our world, particularly because of the ways in which populism and nationalism are currently being used to shape politics and social structures.

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T. Bone Burnett - Every Time I Feel The Shift.

St Martin-in-the-Fields Lent Programme 2017 – Abraham: A Journey Through Lent

This year at St Martin-in-the-Fields, using Dr Meg Warner as our guide, we will be journeying with Abraham, through his challenges, doubts, false turns and unbelievable promises. Our Lent Study will begin on Wednesday 8 March with an informal Eucharist in which Meg Warner will be joining us to introduce her book, Abraham: A Journey through Lent, followed by simple Lenten supper and study groups.
The cost of the course is £15 which includes a copy of the book and the study materials (or £8 if you already have the book). Join us for the 6 week programme: March 8, 15, 22, 29, April 5, 12.

Week one – An Introduction with Meg Warner
8 March: The Call: Genesis 12.1-18 (Chapter 1)

Week two
15 March: The Promise: Genesis 15 (Chapter 2)

Week three
22 March: The Visitors: Genesis 18.1-15 (Chapter 3)

Week four
29 March: The ‘Other': Genesis 21.1-21 (Chapter 4)

Week five
5 April: The Choice: Genesis 22.1-19 (Chapter 5)

Week six
12 April: The Legacy: Genesis 26 (Chapter 6)

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John Coltrane - Spiritual.

Scriptural Reasoning: Using God's gifts

Our Scriptural Reasoning group considered our use of God's gifts this evening. This is what I said in introducing the Christian text:

Paul’s main role after his conversion was to start new churches in different parts of the Roman Empire. His practice when he arrived in a new city was to preach - either in the synagogue or public square or both. While he continued preaching, he also met with converts in their homes and taught them how to be church. He appointed people in these new churches to be leaders of the church and then moved on to a new area.

So what he means by having laid the foundation for the church at Corinth is that he began the church by preaching and teaching about Jesus, with the teachings about Jesus and the experience of knowing Jesus being the ultimate foundation for the church. He then moved on and the people that he left in charge are the ones who are now building on the foundation that he laid. In other words, they are the ones taking the church forward now.

However, Paul doesn’t leave them behind altogether. He hears news of how they are getting on and he writes to them with advice and further teaching to try to ensure that they develop in the way that he thinks best.

That is the immediate context for the passage. What can it say to us about the use of the gifts that God has given us?

First, Paul is saying that, although the work that we may do is significant, ultimately the work is God’s not ours. We see this in two ways. First, the foundation laid is Jesus. The basis of the work we do for God is God. We are only working for God if we are building on the foundation of God’s revelation of himself. Second, we never complete the work. There is always more to be done and people who will follow us and build on what we have done. This is important as it brings a sense of perspective to what we do. We are working for the long-term not the short-term and we need the input and perspectives of others.

At times in his writings Paul can seem directive and domineering but this tendency is also reigned in to some extent by his awareness that it is God’s work that counts and that he cannot achieve solely by himself and his own resources (which is one reason why he generally travelled with a team of people and created teams of leaders in the churches he established).

Second, our work will be tested. Fire refines or consumes. It burns up wood, hay and straw so it is as though these things never existed but it refines/purifies gold and silver. In Paul’s thinking the test comes at the end of time on the day of judgement but we could also understand testing to be an ongoing, ever-present reality as those around us question and critique what we are doing and the motivations for it. This passage, therefore, seems to encourage us to understand questions and critiques positively as things which can help to refine and better shape the ways in which we use our gifts in God’s service.

In this life the ultimate test is the test of time. What kind of legacy will we leave? Will we, the things we do or the things we make be remembered for any length of time? Will the things we do in the here and now enable other things to occur in the future? Will we have leave a legacy or will the things we do now prove to be ephemeral?

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The Swell Season - Low Rising.

Covenant of Noah: Conditions for life

What legacy will we pass on to those we leave behind? In what way can we hand on the torch of faith to future generations? What does my life say to others and what do I want it to say? These are all questions from sermons preparing us for Lent and questions that will recur as we study our Lent course ‘Handing on the Torch’ together.

In 2008 the Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks gave some remarkable answers to questions of this sort in an address to the Lambeth Conference based, in large part, on today’s Old Testament reading (Genesis 9. 1 - 17). What he had to say has not been given sufficient attention although it unpacks a neglected part of the story told within the Bible and so I want to share with you today some of what he said.

He began by speaking about power and wealth. The state is about power, the market is about wealth, and they are two ways of getting people to do what we want them to do. One way is to force them to do it – the way of power; the other one is to pay them to – the way of wealth.

Imagine, for a moment, you have total power, and then, in a fit of craziness you decide to share it with nine other people. How much power do you have left?  You have 1/10 of what you began with. Suppose you have a thousand pounds and you decide to share it with nine other people. How much do you have left? 1/10 of what you had when you began.

But now suppose that you decide to share, not power or wealth, but love, or friendship, or influence, or even knowledge, with nine others. How much would you have left? Would you have less than when you began? No, you would have more; and why is that - because love, friendship and influence are things that only exist by virtue of sharing them with others? These are what we can call covenantal goods – covenantal goods are the goods that, the more I share, the more I have. And that makes covenant different from wealth and power.

In the short term wealth and power are zero-sum games. That means if I win, you lose. If you win, I lose. Covenantal goods are non-zero-sum games, meaning, we both win; the more I give away the more I have – we both win. And that has huge consequences.

Because you can see with wealth and power, economics and politics, the market and the state, they must be arenas of competition but covenantal goods are different because they are arenas of co-operation.

And the question is where will we find covenantal goods like love, like friendship, like trust, like influence? You won’t find them in the state, you won’t find them in the market, but you will find them in marriages, in families, in congregations, in communities – you will find them in society, so long as you remember that society is something different from the state. If we're searching for the big society, this is where we will find it.

Another way of thinking about this is to think about the difference between a contract and a covenant. A contract is an agreement between two or more individuals, each pursuing their own interest, and they come together to make an exchange for mutual benefit. So you get a commercial contract that creates the market, and you get the social contract that creates the state.

A covenant is something different. In a covenant, two or more individuals, each respecting the dignity and the integrity of the other, come together in a bond of love and trust, to share their interests, sometimes even to share their lives and, by pledging their faithfulness to one another, to do together what neither of them can do alone.

And that is not the same as a contract at all. A contract is a transaction but a covenant is a relationship or, to put it slightly differently, a contract is about interests but a covenant is about identity. And that is why contracts benefit, but covenants transform. Economics and politics are about the logic of competition, covenant is about the logic of co-operation.

Now let’s turn to our passage from Genesis 9. The world had been almost destroyed by a flood. All humankind, all life, excluding Noah's Ark, shared the same fate. God says to all those who survive, those who will build a new world: “I promise I will never again destroy the world. But I cannot promise that you will never destroy the world – because, you see, I gave you free will. All I can do is teach you how not to destroy the world.” 

How? Well, the answer is found in the covenant about which we read in Genesis 9. 1 – 17, a covenant of human solidarity, which is known as the covenant of Noah or the Noahide covenant.

The covenant of Noah has three essential dimensions. Number one: “If anyone takes human life, he will be punished ... [because] Human beings were made like God”; that is about the sanctity of human life. As creator, God is universal. We are all in God's image, formed in His likeness.

Number two: look carefully at Genesis 9 and you will see that there are five times in that one chapter emphasizing that the covenant of Noah is not merely with humanity alone, but with everything that lives on the face of earth. Five times; the covenant is not just with human beings but with all of nature. So the second element of the covenant of Noah is the integrity of the created world; what today we call the Environment. As human beings, we are fellow citizens of the world God made and entrusted to our care.

And number three: the sign of the covenant is a rainbow; the white light of God fragmented into all the colours of the spectrum  or as Sacks puts in the title of one of his books ‘The dignity of difference’. The miracle of monotheism is that unity up there creates diversity down here. 

And so these three elements - the sanctity of human life, the integrity of the environment and respect for diversity - are the three elements of the global covenant that God made with Noah and still makes with us.

All three elements of this global covenant are currently in danger. The sanctity of human life is being ravaged by political oppression and by terror. The integrity of creation is being threatened by environmental catastrophe. And respect for diversity is imperilled by what one writer has called a clash of civilisations. 

So Sacks says that the call of God in our times is to renew this global covenant, the covenant that began with Noah. We have to honour this covenant now, in our time, in order that future generations will be able to live. To come back to the questions with which we began, Sacks is saying that: we will not have a legacy to pass on to those who come after us; we will not be able to hand the torch of our faith on to others; our lives will not have anything to say to others, if the sanctity and diversity of life is not respected and if environmental catastrophe occurs. The covenant of Noah precedes the covenants made with Abraham and Moses and precedes the New Covenant made through Jesus. This covenant creates the conditions in which life and faith can flourish because before we can live any faith we have to be able to live and this covenant is about the fundamentals of life itself; the sanctity of life in all its diversity. 

Sacks is saying that there are fundamental moral truths that lie at the basis of God's covenant with humankind: that co-operation is as necessary as competition, that co-operation depends on trust, that trust requires justice, and that justice itself is incomplete without forgiveness. Morality is not simply what we choose it to be. It is part of the basic fabric of the universe, revealed to us by the universe's Creator, long ago.

He is also saying that the nature of covenant shows how to fulfil the covenant of Noah: respect for the dignity and the integrity of the other, coming together in bonds of love and trust, sharing our interests and our lives, pledging faithfulness to one another in order to do together what none of us can do alone.

What legacy will we pass on to those we leave behind? In what way can we hand on the torch of faith to future generations? What does my life say to others and what do I want it to say? When we pass on covenantal goods we fulfil the covenant of Noah.

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Peter Case - Put Down the Gun.

A Falling Mantle: What Legacy Are You Leaving?

This Sunday I shared with our congregation at St John's Seven Kings a condensed version of a sermon by Leighton Ford which I found on the internet and which was first preached at Wee Kirk, Linville, North Carolina, on August 13, 2006.

I found the way in which Leighton Ford interwove personal and other stories with the content of his two texts (Mark 4:26-33, 2 Kings 2:1-14) to be moving and profound. I was intrigued by his identification of the biblical story as one of a legacy passed on from generation to generation, in faithfulness to God’s kingdom – and sometimes, tragically, of a legacy wasted. I was challenged by the questions he posed: What do your heirs expect and want from us? What are we called to pass on to them? And will we do it with faith and faithfulness, and confidence in God?

Ford's focus on the passing on of a legacy is of particular relevance to us as we shortly begin our Lent course Handing on the Torch.

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The Barratt Band - Your Love.

Slavery-Free London pledge

With less than a year to go before the start of the London 2012 Olympic & Paralympic Games, Anti-Slavery International are launching a new campaign for a Slavery-Free London to draw attention to the potential risk of an increase in modern slavery connected to the 2012 Games, and ensure more is done to stop it in the run up to and during the event.
While human trafficking and forced labour are ongoing problems in London and accross the UK, Anti-Slavery International is concerned that the 2012 Games could exacerbate the current situation.

The mass influx of tourists could fuel a greater demand for cheap, temporary labour in jobs already vulnerable to the use of forced labour, including hotel cleaning, food packaging in factories, construction, and catering. It is likely criminal gangs may use the Games to lure people to the UK for jobs that don't exist, only to exploit them elsewhere. Traffickers forcing children to beg or pick pocket may also see the Games as a business opportunity, focusing their activities in locations with large crowds. And workers overseas making Olympic-branded sportswear and souvenirs available on our high streets are also at risk of forced labour.

The eyes of the world will be on London during the summer of 2012. Let's make sure it's Slavery-Free!

If you support that aim, please sign the Slavery-Free London pledge to help Anti-Slavery International call on the Government to ensure one of the positive legacies of the Games includes greater action against modern slavery. Find out more at www.antislavery.org/slaveryfreelondon.
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Vangelis - Chariots Of Fire.

Olympic Park tour

The Barking Area Regeneration Group toured the Olympic Park this afternoon to see and hear at first hand the Olympic Legacy plans.

The Olympic Park Legacy Company's aim is that the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park will be at the centre of London’s growth this century, and a vibrant focal point for events, sport and leisure. Its connections, sporting facilities, parkland, waterways and family housing will form a unique mix – building on the best of London’s traditions to create a ‘21st Century garden city’ and liking into surrounding neighbourhoods to promote convergence, regeneration and prosperity in east London.

The Park site will be developed into two distinct areas: a vibrant, urban south plaza akin to London's South Bank and a green, scenic north park. The south plaza, adjacent to Westfield Stratford City, will be a crossroads for sport, culture and quality design with a rolling programme of events starting from 2013. Home to the Olympic Stadium and the iconic Aquatics Centre, the plaza will also feature the 115m tall ArcelorMittal Orbit designed by Anish Kapoor and Cecil Balmond - a unique, global attraction and the UK's tallest sculpture.

The north of the Park will include extensive revitalised waterways and landscaped parklands with an emphasis on sport and leisure. Visitors will enjoy cycle paths, play areas and use of the Velodrome and neighbouring Eton Manor sports complex, both of which will be owned and managed by Lee Valley Regional Park Authority after the 2012 Games.

In addition, a new campus-style business district will be developed in the north-west of the Park. Focused on creative and innovative industries, the area will offer affordable and flexible office space to encourage the successful businesses already based in East London to grow. The stated need from local residents is for real jobs and opportunities to build careers across a range of business sectors. The Park and its key employment hubs will aim to address this need by creating 8-10,000 jobs located in these modern workspaces within an inviting parkland setting.

The neighbourhoods of the Park will provide residents with a range of homes in a location that it is hoped will become one of London’s most celebrated places over the next ten years. These neighbourhoods will include vital community facilities such as schools, shops, places to relax, play and exercise as well as faith, health and community centres.

As the gateway to the Olympic Park, Westfield Stratford City is part of one of the largest urban regeneration projects ever undertaken in the UK. Stratford City and the Olympic Park together form a 700-acre development. Seventy per cent of spectators will pass through Westfield Stratford City en route to the Olympic Park Games venues, and Visit London has forecast that the London 2012 Games will contribute an additional £1.3 - 2.2 billion to London tourism over the period 2007-2017.

InSpiration will be the faith zone in the biggest urban shopping centre in Europe, Westfield Stratford City. Designed as a worship and prayer area and also as a quiet space, InSpiration is a facility which will be used by people of all faiths and none. Located on the 3rd floor near the Food Court, it will have an open area used for collective activities and a smaller area with armchairs and tables for private prayer, quiet time, one-on-one conversations and small groups. There is currently an opportunity for people to staff the facility in a variety of time slots. InSpiration will be open 11am to 7pm Mondays to Saturdays, and 11am to 5pm on Sundays.

The 2012 Games provides a unique opportunity for UK churches to be seen for what they really are.
By playing their part in the programmes of outreach, hospitality and service every church can help tell a different story. And waken fresh interest in who it is who makes us different and how they can know him for themselves. More Than Gold exists to enable the UK churches to engage with the 2012 Games.

As churches and communities nationwide are preparing to put on special events to celebrate the Games, a prayer composed by Reverend Christopher Woods has been issued by the Church of England:

A prayer in preparation for the 2012 Games

Eternal God,
Giver of joy and source of all strength,
we pray for those
who prepare for the London Olympic and Paralympic games.
For the competitors training for the Games and their loved ones,
For the many thousands who will support them, For the Churches and others who are organising special events and who will welcome many people from many nations.
In a world where many are rejected and abused,
we pray for a spirit of tolerance and acceptance, of humility and respect
and for the health and safety of all.
May we at the last be led towards the love of Christ who is more than gold, today and forever. Amen

Perhaps, in light of the above, a prayer is also needed for the Olympic Legacy:

Our Father, in praying your kingdom come on earth as in heaven,
we pray for the hopes and dreams
invested in the Olympic Legacy to be realised.
For the formation of uniquely mixed neighbourhoods,
the attraction of innovative industries creating employment,
spaces to relax, play, exercise, pray and serve,
affordable family housing combined with vital community facilities.
May we build on the best traditions
of convergence, regeneration
and sustainability in east London
to seek to create a garden city
which is a crossroads for sport, culture and design
and come to see in our human striving to achieve this vision
a sign of your kingdom coming. Amen.

Click here for my earlier visit to the Olympic Park site.

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Bjork - Oceania.