The good news encapsulated in one chapter

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

Romans 8 is one of the most important chapters in the whole of scripture. It begins with the wonderful reminder us that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. What Christ does for us on the cross frees us from the effects and consequences of sin. This is the fundamental good news of Christianity!

Next, we are told that we are children of God and therefore heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. Not only are we saved from sin but we are accepted, loved, valued and welcomed by God. The good new of Christianity gets better and better!

Then, we read that being revealed as the children of God is not only good news for us but also good news for the planet because the creation is waiting with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God. Instead of the selfish and wasteful exploitation of creation’s resources – the domination and abuse – which characterises human engagement with the world, we are intended to creatively realise the inherent possibilities, the essential goodness, of creation through our imaginative ability as those who notice and name. We are able to do this because we have left our old, selfish way of life behind and have been adopted by God as his children, becoming brothers and sisters of Jesus, co-heirs with him of all he possesses.

Unfortunately, large numbers of people in our world have yet to realise that they are God’s children and live selfishly as a result. That impacts our world in many ways which are detrimental to it and, as we wait for further change, we can often feel inadequate to the work of realising the essential goodness of our world and therefore feel lost for words in praying for our world and its transformation.

I wonder how often you find yourself lost for words. While some of us are more garrulous than others, it is an experience that comes to us all, particularly when we have experiences that either raise us to the heights or plunge us into the depths.

I wonder how often you have had that the experience of being lost for words as you pray. In prayer, it is possible that we might feel inadequate as we have heard others pray publicly and think that we are unable to pray as eloquently, so may not pray at all. Equally, we may experience what artists and writers experience, that is the difficulty of beginning – of putting words together or making marks on a pristine page. Equally, in prayer, we may have the experience of feeling that our words cannot match the experience we are having, whether or exaltation or depression. Whatever the reason, we are promised in today’s New Testament reading that the Holy Spirit will help us in such moments.

St Paul acknowledges in this passage that such times come; that there are times when we find it hard to pray. We do not know how to pray he writes to the Church in Rome (Romans 8. 26) but in those times the Holy Spirit himself comes to help us by pleading with God for us in groans that words cannot express.

We are often quite restrained in our relationship with God and in our praying. Therefore, we will often praise God and say that we will obey or follow him but we rarely argue, protest, complain or question him, at least not publicly. Yet here Paul is saying that the Holy Spirit wishes to help us express our deepest feelings – the groans that words cannot express - to God. Doing so is part of our coming to know God more deeply.

Words, themselves, are sometimes inadequate to express how we feel, which may be why St Paul speaks here of groans that words cannot express. We will all have heard, for example, of the practice in some cultures of Keening.

Keening can mean making any long, sad, or wailing sound but is, most famously, the act of making a loud, high-pitched lament for the dead in the Gaelic tradition of Ireland and Scotland. As a ritualized form of mourning involving crying, wailing, and singing over a deceased person, it recognises that words cannot express our grief in the moment of death and that what is needed to feel adequate to the moment are groans that words cannot express.

I had a similar experience following the untimely death of my brother when, at the airport in Pristina towards which the plane on which he had been travelling had been headed, I heard stories of the impact he had had on people in the Disaster Response Team with which he had been working in Kosovo and on the Kosovan people whom he had been helping to rebuild their homes following the conflict in their country. As those stories were told, all I could do was to cry continually; both at the sense of loss and because of a sense that God had received my brother Nick into his presence saying ‘Well done, good and faithful servant’. On that occasion, my tears were the groans that words cannot express.

I had the opposite experience as a young Christian when, following a service, I spent along time confessing by sins to God and then felt an overwhelming sense of joy that meant I was laughing continuously without being able to stop. I was at a campsite at the base of the Malvern Hills at the time and spent the evening wandering around that beautiful site laughing uncontrollably because of the sense of joy that words could not express that God had put into my heart that night.

Being lost for words is not a problem when it comes to prayer, instead it can be an opportunity for us to become open to God in a new way that allows emotions, whether of joy or grief, to flow through us and from us in ways that touch both the depths and heights of our emotions.

Next time you encounter that sense of being lost for words when you are praying ask the Spirit to help you in your weakness, as you do not know how to pray as you ought, and the very Spirit will intercede in you with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, will know what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

The fact that God is with us in this way is a confirmation that, despite the challenges of life and the depressing effects of conflict and climate change in our world, nothing can separate us from the love of God and nothing will separate us because, as Julian of Norwich, all shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of thing be well. As St Paul writes: ‘I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.’

So, here is the good news of Christianity encapsulated in one chapter. There is no condemnation for us as welcomes us into his family as his children, giving us all that Jesus also possesses. Our world too can and will be transformed and changed as more are revealed as children of God and live as children of God. While we wait for that change to come God speaks in and through us as his Spirit prays in us for that time of transformation to come. This reality is confirmation that the selfishness we see impacting our world currently is not the final story and will not ultimately dominate life of this planet. Instead, our world will know transformation through the love of Christ which ultimately overcomes and changes all that stands in its way. Love wins! Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. All shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of thing be well. Amen.

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Jonathan Evens - Meditation on Alan Oldfield's Revelations of Divine Love of Julian of Norwich.

Top 10 2016

A bit later than usual and in no particular order, these are the albums I've most enjoyed listening to in 2016:

'You Want It Darker could be addressed to fans pining for a return to [Leonard] Cohen’s bleakest songwriting; or a lover, or a higher power. As befits a lifelong spiritual seeker, born into a storied Jewish family, but well versed in scripture and Buddhism, the love songs have religious overtones, and the spiritual passages pack a lover’s passion.'

'Featuring production by M. Ward and boasting songwriting credits from Nick Cave, Neko Case, Justin Vernon, and others, Mavis Staples' Livin' on a High Note is a happy record. Its beneficent energy is refreshing after the cloistered prayer of last year’s Your Good Fortune and two thoughtful Jeff Tweedy-produced records.'

Coulson, Dean, McGuiness, Flint - Lo and Behold: 'Cynical ("Open the Door Homer") and idealistic ("The Death of Emmett Till"), self-pitying ("Sign on the Cross") and self-reliant ("Let Me Die in My Footsteps"), but always tough and intelligent. And let us not forget funny.'

Violent Femmes - We Can Do Anything: 'This is an instantly familiar mix of anti-folk, post-punk, phantasmagorical country and alternative rock, delivered via an equally recognisable blend of raw acoustic guitars, thrumming acoustic bass and rattling snare, garnished with Gano’s petulant whine ... It’s classic Gano – simultaneously funny, transgressive and deeply unsettling.'

Gregory Porter - 'Take Me to the Alley sounds fantastic, but that’s down to the warm spontaneity of an album that seems to have been recorded in six days. His own compositions proudly display his gospel roots – not the first genre you’d think of flaunting were you desperate for mainstream success. The title track offers up a parable about the second coming of Christ, its sternness at odds with the pacific piano playing and Alicia Olatuja’s pillowy backing vocals; In Heaven undercuts the small hours loveliness of its muted trumpet with a lyric by Porter’s cousin about death and redemption.'

Van Morrison: 'In his 70th year, the singer has created an album that’s not only one of his most gorgeous, but also one of his most humble. Keep Me Singing glows with soft, quiet ballads, kissed by strings and lilting with keyboards. Hard blues, soul and R&B take a back seat to pop tunes with an elegant turn. Some of the lyrics may deal with the pain of pining but they’re delivered with unfiltered vulnerability.'

Low - Ones & Sixes: 'The spectre of apocalypse has often lingered on the fringes of Low’s music. Their 11th record sounds as if the cataclysm has finally been, leaving a reeling dystopia in its wake. “Gentle” opens with frayed industrial drums and profoundly deep synthetic bass, the effect conjuring an army trudging across a snowy wilderness. You’d imagine Trent Reznor or Tim Hecker to have produced. Similarly, “The Innocents” shudders gravely as Parker intones, “All you innocents better run for it.” Throughout, she and Sparhawk seem to turn their regrets and sacrifices into warnings for those who can still run.'

Michael McDermott - Willow Springs: 'It opens with the autobiographical and confessional six minute plus title track, McDermott in full alliteration-heavy early Dylan mode, before moving on to the uptempo strum, gospel handclaps and tumbling chords of These Last Few Days, an acknowledgement of his self-destructive past that manages to namecheck Judas, Godot and Sisyphus as he sings about having “a tourniquet around my heart to keep it from falling apart.”'

Deacon Blue - Believers: '[Ricky] Ross says, “This album is about the journey we all take into the dark. You come to that point in your life where – whatever you’ve been told, whatever the evidence you’ve been presented with – you just don’t know what the answer is. At which point you can only rely on instincts of your heart. You either take the leap or you don’t.”'

George Harrison - 'The heart of All Things Must Pass resides in its songs of spiritual acceptance. The title was thought to refer, among other things, to Harrison's former band, the likely subject also of the elegiac "Isn't It a Pity." The haunting "Beware of Darkness" suggests the inner fears -- "The hopelessness around you in the dead of night" -- that Harrison's religious searching was meant to calm. And "Awaiting on You All," the title track and "My Sweet Lord" (for which Harrison was successfully sued for "subconsciously" plagiarizing the Chiffons' "He's So Fine") capture the sweet satisfactions of faith.'

And here are the books I've most enjoyed reading:

The Blind Man with the Lamp, originally published in Greek in 1983, is the first English translation of a complete collection of poetry by [Tasos] Leivaditis. A pioneering book of prose-poems, Leivaditis here gives powerful voice to a post-war generation divested of ideologies and illusions, imbued with the pain of loss and mourning, while endlessly questing for something wholly other, indeed for the holy Other.

Born in the heart of Cornwall’s China Clay Country poet, Jack Clemo (1916-94) was one of the most extraordinary poets of the twentieth century. Luke Thompson has published the first full length biography of Jack Clemo, entitled Clay Phoenix. Luke’s biography reveals Clemo’s life and writing in a new light, showing how Clemo used the china clay mining country as a metaphor for his faith and his disease.

The Third Inkling by Grevel Lindop offers a fascinating and completely new view of the shadowy figure of poet, theologian, magician and, fantasy-writer Charles Williams. Charles Williams—novelist, poet, theologian, magician and guru—was the strangest, most multi-talented, and most controversial member of the Inklings.

A vibrant critical exchange between contemporary art and Christianity is being increasingly prompted by an expanding programme of art installations and commissions for ecclesiastical spaces. Rather than 'religious art' reflecting Christian ideology, current practices frequently initiate projects that question the values and traditions of the host space, or present objects and events that challenge its visual conventions. In the light of these developments, Art and the Church: A Fractious Embrace Ecclesiastical Encounters with Contemporary Art by Jonathan Koestlé-Cate asks what conditions are favourable to enhancing and expanding the possibilities of church-based art, and how can these conditions be addressed?

Merton and Friends: A Joint Biography of Thomas Merton, Robert Lax and Edward Rice by James Harford. Thomas Merton, Robert Lax, and Edward Rice were college buddies who became life-long friends, literary innovators, and spiritual iconoclasts. Their friendship and collaboration began at Columbia College in the 1930s and reached its climax in the widely acclaimed magazine, which ran from 1953 to 1967, a year before Merton's death.

Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax tells the story of Merton's best friend and early spiritual inspiration. Written by a close friend of Lax, Pure Act gives an intimate view of a friendship and a life that affected Merton in profound ways. It was Lax, a daringly original poet himself, who encouraged Merton to begin writing poetry and Lax who told him he should desire to be a saint rather than just a Catholic. To the end of Merton's life, Lax was his spiritual touchstone and closest friend.

The Courage for Truth: The Letters of Thomas Merton - Famed Trappist monk Thomas Merton corresponded with an extraordinary range of writers, among them Evelyn Waugh, Henry Miller, Jacques Maritain, Walker Percy and William Carlos Williams. He spoke out boldly against political oppression, social injustice, racism and nuclear weapons, and expressed solidarity with Boris Pasternak, Czeslaw Milosz and James Baldwin. His letters to Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal and to Argentine feminist Victoria Ocampo reflect his deep love of Latin American culture. Spanning the years from 1948 to Merton's death in 1968, this fourth volume of his correspondence shows the crystallization of his belief that speaking the truth is an obligation which ultimately brings persons of integrity into confrontation with power structures and vested interests.

In Modern Art and the Life of Culture Anderson and Dyrness bring their different backgrounds together to argue that modernist art is underwritten by deeply religious concerns. They assert that there were actually strong religious impulses that positively shaped modern visual art. Instead of affirming a pattern of decline and growing antipathy towards faith, the authors contend that theological engagement and inquiry can be perceived across a wide range of modern art and through particular works by artists such as Gauguin, Picasso, David Jones, Caspar David Friedrich, van Gogh, Kandinsky, Warhol and many others.

An engaging, moving, and surprisingly light-hearted account of a life that had its share of sorrow, Lucky to Be an Artist by Unity Spencer is an account of an unconventional family and the birth of an artist, as well as the tale of a woman who refused to be held back by early trauma and insisted on forging her own artistic path.

I'll Take You There: Mavis Staples, the Staple Singers, and the Music That Shaped the Civil Rights Era by Greg Kot is the untold story of living legend Mavis Staples—lead singer of the Staple Singers and a major figure in the music that shaped the civil rights era. One of the most enduring artists of popular music, Mavis and her talented family fused gospel, soul, folk, and rock to transcend racism and oppression through song. Honing her prodigious talent on the Southern gospel circuit of the 1950s, Mavis and the Staple Singers went on to sell more than 30 million records, with message-oriented soul music that became a soundtrack to the civil rights movement—inspiring Martin Luther King, Jr. himself.

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Violent Femmes - Holy Ghost.

Expressing what was possible but not yet realized

William Nicholson's latest novel 'The Lovers of Amherst' tells the story of an affair between Emily Dickinson’s brother Austin and the wife of a colleague, seen alongside a contemporary story, also involving a love affair. Nicholson says, 'Austin Dickinson’s passion for Mabel Todd is fascinating because it was so defiant of all convention – so much so that in order to justify what he was doing he concluded that his love must come from God. Tracking his affair, and Emily’s part in it, led me to reflect on Emily’s own attitude to sex and passion; and from there to my own attitudes. The result is a many-layered meditation on passionate love, with all its self-generated delusions as well as its glories.'

Speaking about Emily Dickinson in The Observer, Nicholson says: 'I’ve always loved her poems. I’ve always been interested in religious subjects and relationships, and here was a woman struggling with issues of loneliness, meaninglessness, value and beauty, excitement and wonder, all in such a tiny compass. A lot of people in this country don’t know her and I felt quite missionary about it.'

The novel is in some ways: 'my love letter to the poet Emily Dickinson, who I first encountered over forty years ago. Her poems shock and thrill me as much today as they did then. She herself is so unfathomable that I’ve been shy of writing about her, though over the years I’ve accumulated a great deal of knowledge about her, as well as a first edition of her poems, published in 1890. Then when Polly Longhurst published her edited edition of the letters and diaries of Emily’s brother Austin, relating his passionate adulterous affair with the wife of a colleague, I became fascinated by the world of the Dickinsons. The result is my new novel.'

'A poet who took definition as her province, Emily Dickinson challenged the existing definitions of poetry and the poet’s work. Like writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman, she experimented with expression in order to free it from conventional restraints ... To make the abstract tangible, to define meaning without confining it, to inhabit a house that never became a prison, Dickinson created in her writing a distinctively elliptical language for expressing what was possible but not yet realized.'

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Emily Dickinson - I'm Nobody! Who Are You?