A moment in which eternity touches time

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

Malcolm Guite writes that ‘the Annunciation, the visit of Gabriel to the blessed virgin Mary, is that mysterious moment of awareness, assent and transformation in which eternity touches time.’ As we reflect on this mystery, through meditations and poems I have written, let us think ‘about vision, what we allow ourselves to be aware of, and also about freedom, the way all things turn on our discernment and freedom.’


Angelic announcement of peace and goodwill
come in the form of the child found
by night workers, swaddled and lying in a manger.
His mother ponders these things -
annunciation, nativity, incarnation - in her heart.


Bethlehem begins.
Here, human hands hold God for the first time.
Here, God is fed from a human breast for the first time.
Here, God is struck on the back,
takes his first breath, utters his first cry.
Here, heaven and earth are rejoined.
Here, humanity is taken into the Godhead.
Here, God becomes vulnerable.
Here, God experiences created life.
Here, God enters his creation.
Here, God moves into our neighbourhood,
Becomes one with human beings.

In a place of forced migration,
Where no room could be found
For a pregnant woman
whose baby was not the child of her betrothed,
In less than ideal circumstances
Here begins peace on earth
Goodwill to all.
Salvation is birthed and named
The King of the Jews is sought and found,
The Messiah is recognised and praised.

Here the dividing wall
Between Jew and Gentile,
Male and female, slave and free,
Begins to be removed.
Here begins salvation, redemption,
Restoration for one and all.
Reconciliation between
the human and divine.


You have come to us wordless Word, flesh of our flesh,
as a small child, with no words but a hungry cry,
the Word that made humanity
crying for a mother’s breast;
gravity making creativity become a child
that can be dropped and left unfed.
This is the greatest of all gifts,
the gift of eternal vulnerable love;
the infinite clings with tiny arms to a mother's neck.
Caress us now with your tiny hands,
embrace us with your tiny arms
and pierce our hearts with your soft, sweet cries.

Let us run to Mary, and, as little children,
cast ourselves into her arms with a perfect confidence.
Let us watch the baby Jesus sweetly sucking
the sweet breasts of his glorious Mother,
laying his hand upon his Mother's bosom,
looking up and smiling at her all joyous and full of rapture,
as she holds him, her Lord,
at once so great and so little, in her arms;
kissing over and over again her little infant.
Blessed is that mouth, blessed are her kisses.
Let us calm and quiet ourselves,
like weaned children with their mother;
like a weaned child, to be content in the God
who desires to gather her children
as, under her wings, a hen gathers her brood.


Guite writes of Mary as: ‘a woman who, like so many others then as now, bore the appalling consequences of decisions made by men of power. She fled with her child as a refugee, she saw her son wrongfully arrested, beaten, and mocked by the occupying military force and then tortured to death on a public cross, in what was intended by the Romans to be shameful humiliation, but has, in fact, become the revelation of the full extent of God’s Love.

So, I find myself drawn again to the compassionate figure of Mary, not just in empathy with her own sufferings, direct and vicarious, but also because I believe that her compassion, the compassion so perfectly sculpted in Michelangelo’s Pietà, continues in and from heaven: that the compassion of Mary the Mother of God is still a force for good in the world.

As I think of the soldiers who call for her protection or cry out for her pity, on both sides of the war in Ukraine, I, too, yearn towards her, and with her, towards heaven, from this, our exile. I think of her, watching her Son’s torment, still steadfast in agonised love, and I sense her solidarity with all the mothers who are currently compelled to feel such pain.’ As he thinks of her in these ways he sees her ‘ holding up, once more, all the grief-stricken, to be folded in the mantle of her prayer.’

 

Jesus meets his mother

Mother,
you bore me
so that I
can bear the world
on my shoulders.

Mother,
you birthed me
so that I
can give birth
to God’s children.

Mother,
you sheltered me
so that others
can find shelter
under my wing.

Mother,
you carried me
so that I
can carry others
into heaven’s kingdom
on earth.

Mother,
you bore me,
birthed me,
sheltered me,
carried me,
to release me
and give me
in broken pieces
to the world.

Mother,
in a little while
you will not see me
and your heart
will break.

Mother,
in a little while
you will see me
and the shattered
shards of your heart
will be gathered up
and restored.


Jesus is taken down from the cross
And a sword pierced her heart,
as the whip flayed his back,
as the cross made him fall,
as the nails pierced his wrists and feet,
as the spear pierced his side,
as she held the limp, lifeless adult body
she had once held, as a newborn babe, to her breast.


Guite concludes:

Jesus meets his mother

This darker path into the heart of pain
Was also hers whose love enfolded him
In flesh and wove him in her womb. Again
The sword is piercing. She, who cradled him
And gentled and protected her young son,
Must stand and watch the cruelty that mars
Her maiden making. Waves of pain that stun
And sicken pass across his face and hers
As their eyes meet. Now she enfolds the world
He loves in prayer; the mothers of the disappeared
Who know her pain, all bodies bowed and curled
In desperation on this road of tears,
All the grief-stricken in their last despair,
Are folded in the mantle of her prayer.

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Malcolm Guite - Annunciation.

Bring me to life

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Peter's Nevendon this afternoon:

Imagine a bed surrounded by the debris of a week’s illness, soiled sheets and slashed pillows, pills and vodka bottles, used condoms and tissues. This is ‘My Bed’ an installation by Tracy Emin was first exhibited in 1999. You’ll probably remember reading about it in the press at the time as it prompted the usual “call that art, my two-year old could have done better” kind of articles. A bed is a powerful symbol of birth and death, sex and intimacy but this controversial installation was perhaps an image of our culture’s sickness and dis-ease surrounded by the remnants of those things through which we seek a cure; sex, alcohol, drugs, tears, aggression. And the bed, like many lives, was empty. The morning after the cure that never came.

Sometimes our lives feel like that installation. Our relationships may have broken down, we may have been abused, we may be anxious, stressed or worried, our work might be under threat or have ended. For all these reasons and many others we can feel as though our lives have closed down becoming barren or dry or dead. Our communities and culture can feel like that too. Many years ago now, at the end of the 1970’s, The Sex Pistols sang about there being no future in England’s dreaming. And many people still think that our society is changing for the worse. When I had a holiday in Spain a few years ago I stayed on a street that was mainly occupied by British people who had left because they didn’t like the changes that they saw in British society. Such people think of Britain as being diseased and dead with no future for them. Being in the Church it is also easy to feel the same. We are regularly told in the press that the Church is in decline and the Church of England continues to deal with major conflicts that threaten to pull it apart. Again, it is easy to feel as though the Church is washed up, dried out and dying.

Whatever we think of those issues and views, the God that we worship is in the resurrection business. And that is where we need to be too. In our Gospel reading (John 11: 1-45) Jesus said that he is the resurrection and the life and demonstrated this by bringing Lazarus back to life. Through his ministry, Jesus resurrected a society and culture transforming the entire world as he did so. He calls us to follow in his footsteps by looking for the places where our society and culture is dried up or dying and working for its transformation and resurrection. Each of us can do the same as Jesus through our work and community involvements and we need to be asking ourselves how God wants to use us, through those involvements, to transform parts of our society and culture.

Raising Lazarus from death was a sign of what would happen after Jesus’ own death on the cross. By rising from death himself, Jesus conquered death for all people enabling us to enter in to eternal life after our physical death. This is good news for us to share with other people around us wherever we are - in our families and among our friends, neighbours and work colleagues.

Jesus also resurrected lives before physical death came. Look for a moment at John 11 with me. In the first section of that chapter from verses 1 to 16 we see the disciples struggling to understand what Jesus was saying and doing. He wanted them to see how God was at work in Lazarus’ illness and death. They kept looking only at their physical and material circumstances - if Jesus went back to Judea then he would be killed, if Lazarus was asleep then he would get better, and so on. Jesus wanted them to see that God can work even through death and in verse 16 he drew out of them the commitment to go with him even though they might die with him.

Then in verses 17 to 27, Jesus helped Martha move beyond her theoretical belief in the resurrection to a belief that Jesus himself is the promised Messiah. Finally, in verses 38 to 45, he helped all those present to move beyond their focus on physical realities to believe in God’s ability to do the supernatural. Throughout, Jesus was challenging all the people he encountered to move beyond their comfort zones, to step out in faith, to encounter and trust God in new ways. He wants to do the same with each one of us. Wherever our lives have got stuck, have become dried up or closed down or have died he wants to challenge and encourage us to move out of our comfort zones and to encounter him and other people in new and risky ways. He wants us to come alive to God, to the world, to other people and to life itself in new ways.

Jesus is in the resurrection business. Whether it is transforming society, sharing the good news of eternal life or encouraging us to step out in faith, Jesus wants to bring us to life. How will you respond to Jesus this afternoon? Is there an area of your life that he can bring back to life? Will you commit yourself to join in sharing the good news of eternal life with others and transforming society where you are?

As you think about that challenge let us pray together briefly, using the words of a song by Evanescence: Lord Jesus, we are frozen inside without your touch, without your love. You are the life among the dead, so wake us up inside. Call our names and save us from the dark. Bid our blood to run before we come undone, save us from the nothing we’ve become. Bring us to life. Amen.

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Evanescence - Bring Me To Life.

Transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope

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

My family recently celebrated my mother’s 89th birthday. My niece, her granddaughter, had made a photograph album showing all the different stage of Mum’s life. We all enjoyed looking through the album with Mum as she remembered the people and times shown in the photographs.

Remembering, both in the sense of bringing back to mind and also of re-enacting is central to who we are as people. As Katherine Hedderly has highlighted, “The community of the church has a special place in this work because it is a community of remembrance and resurrection. “‘Do this’ in remembrance of me.” We remember what Jesus did and we act upon it in the present. We are witnesses to the living memory of Jesus in the world, to God’s living presence with us, as we are re-membered, or reformed, as a community together. Holding in our midst with love those who no longer have their memory, must be a special task for the church, because we know in a very special way what it means to know who we are because someone remembered us; Jesus Christ, the same, yesterday, today and tomorrow.”

Jesus remembered his mother while on the cross. On Mothering Sunday, we remember those who, for good or ill, are foundational to our lives, experiences and memories. We were reminded that the simplest things we see and do can often be the most profound and those that touch us in the deepest places.

Jesus' remembering of his mother occurred while he was undergoing the most extreme agony personally. For some of us, to remember our mothers might involve complex and conflicted memories which bring back to mind some of our more painful moments in life. Jesus ministered in and through and out of his pain; remembering particular people (his mother and John, his disciple), forgiving those who tortured and mocked him, and dying for the salvation of all.

In him we see:

 
Love in the midst of torture
Care in the midst of pain
Life in the midst of death
Wounded reconciler
Wounded healer
Wounded carer

It is from reflection on those experiences and actions of Jesus, that the idea of the wounded healer has come. This is the idea that our own pain and difficulties - our wounds - do not necessarily preclude us from ministry but may provide a resource or source from which our ministry can flow.

Henri Nouwen in his book The Wounded Healer reminds us: "We are not the healers, we are not the reconcilers, we are not the givers of life. We are sinful, broken, vulnerable people who need as much care as anyone we care for." Yet, to remember and reach out to support, sustain and strengthen others whilst remaining wounded ourselves may be, as was the case for Jesus, among the deepest and most profound of our ministries to others. Nouwen also writes that: “a shared pain is no longer paralyzing but mobilizing, when understood as a way to liberation. When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope.”

The forgiveness and love that we receive from Jesus comes out of his experience of the agony and torture of death. It comes out of the wound of crucifixion and this is why it is of significance that his resurrected body continues to bear the marks of those wounds. We do not need to become perfect in order to be accepted and loved by God nor do we need to recover from weakness, hurt and difficulty in order to minister to others. Sometimes it is the willingness and openness to share our own experience of pain and suffering, not in order to burden another, but as an act of empathy with another that is just the support and healing that that other person needs.

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The Alarm - Walk Forever By My Side.

You obey the law of Christ when you offer each other a helping hand

Here's the Mothering Sunday reflection that I shared at St Mary's Langdon Hills, St Andrew's Wickford and St Gabriel's Pitsea this morning:

Mothering Sunday was traditionally a day in the middle of Lent when people who worked were able to have time off to visit their mothers and their ‘mother’ church, where they might have been baptised.

One of the readings regularly used on this day is John 19: 25- 27, in which Jesus creates a new community of support for his grieving mother when he connects her with the disciple John, who takes her into his home as his mother. Just as John became a support for Mary and vice versa, in life it’s not necessarily just our mothers who give us ‘motherly’ or parental care. There are so many people, especially in church families, who form a community around us to help support us and give us strength.

Just as Jesus remembered his mother while on the cross, today we remember those who, for good or ill, are foundational to our lives, experiences and memories. We are reminded that the simplest things we see and do can often be the most profound and those that touch us in the deepest places.

By way of example, I want to tell you about a mother, not from the Bible, but one who lives in Guyana today. Her name is Lena and she needed help to look after her family but is now a Parenting Group Facilitator with The Mothers’ Union. She says:

The Mothers' Union parenting programme is a special ministry and has touched over 200 lives through the six groups I have facilitated. One woman who was recently been deported back to Guyana heard about the programme and joined my group. Before in the other country she stole, shoplifted, prostituted and used drugs. She even went to jail and her first daughter was born in prison. She felt so low that she wanted to commit suicide and kill her daughter when she was deported back to Guyana once she was released from prison.

When she joined the parenting group she felt so supported by all the other parents and carers there. She started to sell snacks, her local priest assisted her with a house and this led her to start assisting others in greater need. In this parenting group all the members provide emotional and practical support and also financial if it is needed. This support has enabled her to develop her little business and it is now very successful. She also works with the local youth to clean up their local environment. Her daughter is now in high school and doing well. This is just one story of many where the programme has provided a supportive and nurturing environment where people are encouraged to reach their full potential.

Sometimes mothers need people to help them as well as them helping us. Mothers’ Union helps many mothers to care for their family by sharing with them useful ways of being a good parent and encouraging the parents to support and help each other.

To help celebrate and give thanks for mothers and other caring figures in our lives, we can pray using an item that is always with us. Touch a button that is on your clothing as you listen to this reflection.

Buttons hold things together:

Who do you look to to help you when things are busy and stressful? Who can help you to figure out what to do when you are confused about how to keep going? Who helps when it feels as if your world is falling apart? Think of them and say thank you to God for them.

Buttons are strong:

Think about the times when you have felt sad, upset or afraid. Who has helped you to be strong. Who is the strongest person you know? Thank God for those people.

Buttons come in different shapes and sizes:

Those who care for us and keep us safe might be mothers, but they also might be other people in our lives. Try and count in your head how many different people have helped you during the past week. Thank God for each one of them.

When buttons are missing, we notice and things don’t hold together as well as they did before.

Some of the caring figures in our lives may have died and we miss the fact that they are no longer here. Take a moment to remember them and the love they shared with you. Thank God for them.

As we close, let’s remember a verse reminding us of what God says about helping people: “You obey the law of Christ when you offer each other a helping hand.” Galatians 6:2 (Contemporary English Version)

We come here today to thank God for mothers and carers around the world who obey the law of Christ by offering others a helping hand. It takes a very special love to care for a family. Today we celebrate that love and thank God for his own perfect love for us all.

We’re not all mothers ourselves but we all have a mother, whether or not they are still with us, and we are all children of God. He is our loving Father but is also the one who remembers and comforts us as a mother comforts her child, and draws us close as a hen protects her chicks.

Let us pray: Thank you, Jesus, for a mother’s unfailing love, for her unstinting devotion and steadfastness, for her wisdom and support, and for always ‘being there’ in times of happiness and stress. Thank you for love and forbearance, for laughter enjoyed and sorrow shared. Thank you, Jesus, for the comfort of a close friend; for the sharing of life and our deepest selves along the Way. Thank you for peace given to each other sincerely, and received beautifully; for open arms in which the love of God shone. Help us remember your gifts and be glad to give you praise; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Sing We Of the Blessed Mother.

Ways in which young and old can minister to each other

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Catherine's Wickford, St Mary's Runwell and St Gabriel's Pitsea this morning:

The film ‘The Road’ stars Viggo Mortensen in an epic post-apocalyptic tale of the survival of a father and his young son as they journey across a barren America that was destroyed by a mysterious cataclysm. Reckoned to be a masterpiece, the film imagines a future in which people are pushed to the worst and the best that they are capable of and a future in which a father and his son are sustained by love.

It is a film in which an older person supports and encourages someone younger, as in the story of the presentation of Jesus in the Temple, where Simeon and Anna recognised and encouraged the potential in the baby Jesus (Luke 2: 22-40). 

This story is a wonderful example of the way in which young and old can minister to each other. It is the older folk in this story who see and encourage the potential in the young child Jesus. They spoke about and praised God for Jesus’ potential in ways that amazed his parents despite all the revelations that they themselves had already received. It may well be that they had begun to settle into the usual and ordinary pattern of care for their baby and had therefore lost their focus on the special nature of their child.

For teenagers it can often be difficult to accept that older people have something positive to contribute to their lives. They are often at the stage in life where they are testing things out for themselves and wanting to blaze their own trail through life. But those around them who are older in their family or church and at school can all be a positive influence as they recognise and encourage what they may have to offer.

That was certainly the case for me, as I look back on my teenage years. Like the boy in the film, I was inspired and encouraged by my dad who has remained a big influence on my life, but I was also encouraged in creative writing by a teacher at my school and brought back to faith by a youth leader at my youth club. So, if you are a young person here today, be on the lookout for adults who see your potential and encourage it, as Simeon and Anna did for the young Jesus, and if you are a person of years and experience look out for young people that you can encourage and affirm.

Every child is a unique combination of personality and possibilities that will lead to a life that will never be repeated. However, for many children their potential and their possibilities are never fully identified and explored and when this is the case their unique potential is often expressed in destructive activities. In our churches and communities, it can often be those who are older that have the wisdom and time to see the potential that lies latent in young people.

One of the most exciting pieces of youth work that I ever saw came when a youth worker arranged for small groups of young people to go to after-school groups in the homes of elderly people from their church. At these groups there was time to think about the Bible and time for the older people to teach skills of cookery and art to the young people. Deep friendships were formed between young and old and the whole family of one of the young people became Christians as a result of this initiative.

And this kind of initiative is not only one way. It is not just about older folk sharing their skills and time with the young. Young people are able to give much in return to those who are older. Think how blessed Simeon and Anna were by their encounters with the baby Jesus. Simeon had waited all his life for this moment having been promised that he would not die until he had seen the Lord’s promised Messiah. “Now, Lord,” he says, “you have kept your promise, and you may let your servant go in peace.” What a wonderful conclusion this was to Simeon’s life; the fulfilment of all his hopes, dreams and prayers.

Those of you who are grandparents know all about this – the joy that comes into your lives through your grandchildren but, in Church we don’t need to be grandparents to receive this joy if we share in the ministry of Simeon and Anna by using our wisdom and time to see and encourage the potential that lies latent in young people.

Then, be aware that it may take time for that potential to be fully realised. Simeon and Anna recognised Jesus’ potential when he was only a baby and Mary, his mother, remembered the things they said and treasured them in her heart. But it was thirty years later that Jesus began the ministry which was to fulfil the potential they had seen in him. And for those first thirty years of his life, he lived a very ordinary life. Over those years, his parents might well have wondered when are the things that Simeon and Anna spoke about going to happen? When is the potential that they saw in Jesus going to be realised?

TV talent shows suggest that our hopes and dreams can be achieved overnight but life doesn’t always develop in the way that we expect and it is important not to get frustrated when our hopes and dreams may not be realised instantly. Many people need significant life experience before their potential can be fully realised and we therefore need to persevere in order to get to a place in our lives where that occurs. The time it took for Jesus' potential to be realised in the way predicted by Simeon and Anna can therefore be an encouragement to patience in our lives as we wait for our potential to come to fruition.

Simeon and Anna also had to watch and wait themselves in order to see the Lord’s promised Messiah. Because they were prepared to watch and wait, they saw for the new thing that God was about to do for Israel and for the world. Anna was in the Temple every day looking and listening for all that God would reveal to her. Simeon, too, was alert to the prompting of the Holy Spirit who led him into the Temple to see Jesus. As we wait for our prayers to be answered, are we looking and listening to see and hear what God is wanting to reveal to us in our waiting.

We often need to wait for the right time for God’s purposes to come about. When we pray, God may well answer our prayers by asking us to wait. Waiting can be frustrating as when we are waiting for a bus in the rain or part of a long queue that seems to be taking forever. But we have a choice about what we do as we wait; will we just while away the time or will we look around us and see what there is to see as we wait.

W. H. Vanstone wrote a wonderful book called The Stature of Waiting in which he argued that it is only to human beings as we wait that “the world discloses its power of meaning” and we become “the sharer with God of a secret – the secret of the world’s power of meaning.” For many of us because we don’t stop and reflect the world exists for us simply as a “mere succession of images recorded and registered in the brain” but when we do stop, wait, look and listen then we “no longer merely exist” but understand, appreciate, welcome, fear and feel.

So, watching and waiting is vital if we are to understand and not simply receive the answers to prayer that God longs to give to us. It may well be that it was because of the length of his wait that Simeon was able to identify Jesus as the Lord’s promised Messiah.

As we watch and wait we can grow in our understanding of our world and we can see the potential and possibilities in the young. These are important ministries in which we can share. Someone in your youth did this for you. Now is the time when we can do this for others. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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Mumford and Sons - I Will Wait.

Mary's fiat

Here's the sermon I shared at St Catherine’s Wickford and St Gabriel’s Pitsea this morning:

The Revd Matthew Askey has said of Mary: “Mary, the mother of Jesus, who is one of the most significant, but neglected, figures in our shared cultural story. Mary was remarkable for the time and she has many things to show us and inspire us with today. She was an unmarried teenage mother, on the run, a refugee really, and at the same time through both her vulnerability and her determined strength she embodies so many positive characteristics of motherhood and what it means to be a woman today. Mary ultimately said ‘yes!’ to life, and gave herself into the hands of God’s love, and this is something that resulted in the life of the most inspiring person who has ever lived, Jesus, and then the birth of the world-wide Church that followed. The Church has 2 billion members today world-wide, is still growing, and about 32% of the world’s population are involved in some way with its acts of charity and life-transforming message of forgiveness and love for all people. Mary is right at the root and start of this movement of love.”

Mary was engaged to Joseph when the annunciation occurred. As she was found to be with child before they lived together, Joseph planned to dismiss her quietly. He had his own meeting with Gabriel which changed that decision but, if the man to whom she was betrothed, could not believe her without angelic intervention, then it would be no surprise if disbelief and misunderstanding characterised the response to Mary wherever she went.

We can learn much from Mary’s faith, trust and persistence in the face of disbelief, misunderstanding and probable insult. Our experience in times of trouble and difficulty will be similar as, on the one hand, God asks us to trust and persevere while, on the other, he will provide us with moments of support and strengthening. So, let’s look at some of her experience in more detail.

‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord,’ said Mary, ‘let it be with me according to your word.’ Mary said ‘Yes’ to God. As we have already begun to reflect, there is much more to saying that simple one syllable word ‘yes’ than we might at first imagine.

The poet-priest Malcolm Guite describes the Annunciation as follows:

‘a young girl stopped to see
With open eyes and heart. She heard the voice;
The promise of His glory yet to be,
As time stood still for her to make a choice;
Gabriel knelt and not a feather stirred,
The Word himself was waiting on her word.’

Victoria Emily Jones has reflected that ‘When Gabriel came to Mary to tell her she would bear a son, she was at first troubled, afraid, guarded. How was it possible that she, being a virgin, could become pregnant? But with the angel’s words of reassurance and promise, she yielded to the divine plan …” This is known as Mary’s fiat (Latin for “let it be”)—her consent to become the mother of God—and it’s celebrated by the church as the moment at which God became flesh, setting salvation in motion.

Theologians have debated the nature of Mary’s fiat—whether she really had a choice in the matter. After all, Gabriel comes speaking in terms of what will happen, without mentioning any conditions. However, most believe in the criticality of Mary’s “yes,” of her willing bodily and spiritual surrender. Between the angel’s ‘Hail’ and Mary’s ‘Let it be’ was a moment of supreme tension, one that Luci Shaw explores in her poem ‘The Annunciatory Angel’:

‘… We worry that she might faint.
Weep. Turn away, perplexed and fearful
about opening herself. Refuse to let the wind
fill her, to buffet its nine-month seed into her earth.
She is so small and intact. Turmoil will wrench her.
She might say no.’’

Why might Mary have said ‘No’? In the same poem Luci Shaw suggests there was a ‘weight of apprehension’ at the Annunciation because what had to be announced would ‘not be entirely easy news.’ As a result, Alan Stewart, in an Annunciation monologue, has Mary say ‘I said yes to my God / And I have come to question those words / For I did not know where they would lead’:

It was a day like any other day
Kneading bread. Lost in my thoughts
And then from behind
This light
An amazing light that filled the room
I turned round, holding my hand to my eyes
Backing away from it
And from inside this light, the figure of a man
Standing there. Looking at me
I felt I should run
I wanted to run
But his gaze fixed me to the spot
Like some rabbit charmed by a fox
But actually
His eyes were kind
And I felt strangely safe
‘is this an angel?’ I suddenly thought
have I sinned?
Has he mistaken me for someone?
Someone of importance
And then he spoke
‘Mary’
he knew my name
‘Mary’, he said ’don’t be afraid’
‘I have news for you’
‘in 9 months you will have a child and you are to call him Jeshua; God saves’
before I knew it, I was speaking
‘but I’m not married yet, I don’t…’
‘the child will be fathered by the Holy Spirit and he will save his people
the lord God will give him the throne of his father David’
the Saviour?, the Messiah?
I knelt down
And whispered
Simply
‘may it be to me as you have said’
I said yes
I said yes to my God
And I have come to question those words
For I did not know where they would lead

Where they led was to an immediate future of gossip, rumours and insult from those who thought of Jesus as illegitimate and in the longer term to a life of gathering gloom, ultimately one of sorrowing and sighing before a stone-cold tomb after the experience of viewing her son’s torture and cruel death; which was like a sword piercing her heart.

And yet, although she did not know it and could not have articulated it, there is a sense that she accepted all this when she accepted the challenge that the angel Gabriel brought from God. It may also have been that for having Jesus as her son she was, like many parents, more than glad that she had said yes, accepting the trauma, the gossip, the exile, the insults that she might bear her child, the promised Saviour.

Mary could have said ‘No’ but her ‘Yes’ was a ‘Yes’ to new life, to growth, to new birth. As we have already noted, Matthew Askey says that: ‘Mary ultimately said ‘yes!’ to life, and gave herself into the hands of God’s love, and this was something that resulted in the life of the most inspiring person who has ever lived, Jesus, and then the birth of the world-wide Church that followed. The Incarnation was predicated on the willingness of the teenage Mary to respond to God’s call.’ Mary, he says, is right at the root and start of this movement of love. This means that every act of Mary is an act of love:

Love is saying yes to God without knowing what that choice entails.

Love is waiting for your man to realise that what you have said is true and to support you.

Love is enduring the arch looks and snide comments from those who know you are bearing a child conceived out of wedlock.

Love is support from your cousin, your child leaping in your womb, and your magnifying God.

Love is enduring the discomfort of travel to your husband’s hometown when you are close to full-term.

Love is accepting a stable when there is no room at the inn.

Love is laying your newborn child in a manger when there are no extended family around to support you.

Love is being welcoming when shepherds unexpectedly arrive in the night soon after you’ve given birth.

Love is treasuring all their words and pondering them in your heart.

Love is giving your child the name an angel requested.

Love is fleeing to another country knowing that the life of your newborn child is under threat.

Love is making a life to bring up your child separated from friends and family.

Love is saying yes to God without knowing what that choice would entail
and it is that choice which creates a cannonball of love that,
from that first Christmas ever onwards,
explodes love throughout the Universe and in us.

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The Angel Gabriel from heaven came.

Seven Good Joys of Mary

Here's the homily that I shared tonight in the Beauchamps High School Carol Service held at St Catherine's Wickford:

‘Seven Good Joys’ is a traditional carol about Mary's happiness at moments in the life of Jesus, probably inspired by the Seven Joys of the Virgin in the devotional literature and art of Medieval Europe. I came across this carol through its inclusion on Kate Rusby’s excellent Christmas album While Mortals Sleep.

The carol has a simple, repetitive but beautiful structure:

“The first good joy that Mary had,
It was the joy of one
To see her blessed Jesus
When He was first her Son.
When He was Her first Son, Good Lord;
And happy may we be,
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
To all eternity”

That structure is repeated for all seven joys. There are different British and US versions of the carol which taken together give more than seven joys but the basic joys of Mary of which the carol speaks are to see her own Son Jesus: suck at her breast bone; make the lame to go; make the blind to see; read the Bible o'er; bring the dead alive; upon the crucifix; and wear the crown of heaven.

These seven joys take us from the nativity of Christ (suck at her breast bone) through his ministry (make the lame to go; make the blind to see; read the Bible o'er; bring the dead alive) to his death (upon the crucifix), and on to his resurrection and ascension (wear the crown of heaven).

Part of the reason this carol resonates, besides its beauty, is that it links Christmas with Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. It even dares to list the Crucifixion as one of Mary’s joys, an incomprehensible idea unless viewed with the eyes of faith.

So the singing of a carol like this can help us more fully explain the meaning of Christmas and save it from mere sentimentality because, as the carol describes, Christ is born into our world to save us by his life, death, and resurrection. That is the ultimate lesson of every true Christmas tradition and the source of all our joys as Christians, as well as those of Mary. May that be our experience this Christmas as we sing carols and hear, once again, the Christmas story told.

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Fine Lads feat. Randy Matthews - Seven Joys of Mary.

Advent Resources

 

This year, in addition to Advent resources with which I have been involved, I also want to share information about resources from HeartEdge.

Advent HeartEdge Group Online

In December HeartEdge will be running an on-line group using the HeartEdge Advent Resource.

You are invited into a journey of hope, abundance and incarnation. Rooted in the mystery of God becoming flesh we explore what it means to make space for Christ where life is fragile, hidden yet full of possibility.

Mondays December 1st, 8th, 15th and 22nd at 10.30am.

Register Here

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. By registering you will be able to attend any or all of the meetings.

Advent Calendar Online

A version of the Advent Calendar that has been adapted by the Franciscans is now available on line.

Franciscan Advent Calendar

Making room for Christ through Advent

This Advent, HeartEdge invites individuals, families, and communities to pause, reflect, and make space. Heartbeat of the Incarnation brings together three distinct but deeply connected Advent resources designed to help us live into the mystery of God with us – Emmanuel – in ways that are hopeful, and rooted in everyday life.

Weekly Group Study THE ADVENT HEARTBEAT COURSE

The four-week Bible study series is written for small groups, churches, and HeartEdge communities. It can be used during Advent or in the weeks leading up to it. Each session explores a key theme of incarnation and belonging:

• Saying ‘Yes’: Making Space in a World of Scarcity
• The Womb as Holy Ground: Finding God in Hidden Places
• The Cost of Love: Mary’s Labour, God’s Compassion
• Birthing Christ Today: Church on the Edge

Daily Reflections 25 DAILY ADVENT WONDERINGS

The day-by-day journey through Advent draws inspiration from the mystery of pregnancy and the hidden development of Christ in the womb. Each day includes:

• A reflection grounded in the developmental stages of pregnancy
• A wondering
• A reflective action – inviting heart, mind, and body to prepare room for Christ

This is more than a countdown to Christmas. It’s a call to transformation, to slow down and notice where Christ is already gestating in our midst – especially at the edges of our lives.

The books are available at £10 Please email heartedge@smitf.org to order with details of a postal address and HeartEdge will post and send an invoice with details of how to pay by BACS.

Come, Lord Jesus, Come 

'Come, Lord Jesus, Come' is an Advent devotional (booklet & slideshow) by Victoria Emily Jones based on an Advent meditation written by myself. Each line of the meditation focuses on one aspect of Christ’s coming. To promote deeper reflection on all these aspects, Victoria has selected twenty-four art images to lead the way in stoking our imaginations and to provide entry points into prayer. She has taken special care to present art from around the world and, where possible, by modern or contemporary artists so that we will be stretched beyond the familiar imagery of the season.

Victoria writes: 'Art is a great way to open yourself up to the mysteries of God, to sit in the pocket of them as you gaze and ponder. “Blessed are your eyes because they see,” Jesus said. Theologians in their own right, artists are committed to helping us see what was and what is and what could be. Here I’ve taken special care to select images by artists from around the world, not just the West, and ones that go beyond the familiar fare. You’ll see, for example, the Holy Spirit depositing the divine seed into Mary’s womb; Mary with a baby bump, and then with midwives; an outback birth with kangaroos, emus, and lizards in attendance; Jesus as a Filipino slum dweller; and Quaker history married to Isaiah’s vision of the Peaceable Kingdom.'

Through 'Come, Lord Jesus, Come' you are invited to consider what it meant for Jesus to be born of woman—coming as seed and fetus and birthed son; the poverty Jesus shared with children around the world; culturally specific bodies of Christ, like a dancing body and a yogic body; how we are called to bear God into the world today; and more.

Victoria writes: 'Advent takes us back and brings us forward. In preparing us to celebrate Christ’s first coming, it places us alongside the ancient prophets, who awaited with aching intensity the fulfilled promise of a messiah, and Joseph and Mary, whose pregnancy made the expectation all the more palpable; it also strengthens our longing for Christ’s second coming, when he will return to fully and finally establish his kingdom on earth ... May God bless you this Advent season as you ponder the amazing truth of the Incarnation.'

Love is ...

My 'Love is ...' meditation for Advent can be found by clicking here. This meditation ponders the love Mary demonstrated at various points along the way from the announcement of Jesus’s conception to her and her family’s resettlement in Egypt.

Alternative Nine Lessons 

Additionally, I have a series of poetic meditations which draw on the thinking of René Girard in interpreting the Bible readings traditionally used in services of Nine Lessons and Carols. This set of Alternative Nine Lessons and Carols meditations can be found by clicking here.

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Steve Bell - O Come, O Come Emmanuel (featuring Malcolm Guite).

Charlecote Park and Fry Art Gallery

 

This week I've visited Charlecote Park in Warwickshire and the Fry Art Gallery at Saffron Walden.

Charlecote Park, a family home for more than 900 years, was transformed in the 1800s into one of the finest examples of Elizabethan Revival style by its owners Mary Elizabeth and George Hammond Lucy.

Overlooking the river Avon on the edge of Shakespeare’s Stratford, it is a place of surprising treasures, which reflect the tastes and memories of the Lucy family.

The exceptionally well preserved working spaces, the laundry, brewhouse and kitchen, give a taste of past activity, while the stables still hold the family carriage collection.

In the parkland, Jacob sheep and fallow deer roam across the landscape designed by 'Capability' Brown, while the formal parterre and shady woodland garden that Mary Elizabeth loved so dearly are a haven for pollinators.

'The Library of Memories' is a brand-new display situated in the upstairs room of the House and open to the public from March 2025. It showcases the writing of Mary Elizabeth Lucy, who lived at Charlecote Park in the Victorian era, and draws on themes of making and sharing memories. We seek to inspire visitors to share their memories with us, and with each other, and find new ways to relate to Charlecote’s past residents. The display focuses on a book from the library written by Mary Elizabeth Lucy, Grandmamma's Chapter of Accidents, that has not previously been displayed.

The Fry Public Art Gallery was opened in 1987 and houses an impressive number of paintings, prints, illustrations, wallpapers and decorative designs by artists of the 20th century and the present day who have local connections and have made a significant contribution to their field. There is an emphasis on those who for a variety of reasons settled in Great Bardfield between the early thirties of the last century and the death in 1983 of John Aldridge RA who had lived in the village for fifty years.

The Great Bardfield artists were a community of artists who lived and worked in and around the village of Great Bardfield in Essex from the 1930s to the 1970s. The community included artists like Edward Bawden, Eric Ravilious, Charlotte Bawden, and Tirzah Garwood, among others. Their work often depicted the local countryside and village life, and the Fry Art Gallery was established to showcase their artistic contributions. 

The Gallery is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year and is delighted to have as guest curator of the exhibition in the main gallery Ella Ravilious, with a celebration of art and design depicting or made for the domestic space ‘Finding a Home at the Fry’. In the Gibson Room they are presenting an opportunity to view and buy a selection of works by Richard Bawden from the later period of his life in Hadleigh, Suffolk. ‘Richard Bawden: the Hadleigh Years’: runs from Saturday 26th July to Sunday 26th October 2025.

A statue of the Great Bardfield artists by Ian Wolter has recently been placed outside the Fry Art Gallery in Saffron Walden, Essex. The statue serves as a welcoming feature for visitors to the gallery, which houses a collection of art by these artists.

 

Other sculptures to be found nearby include:

• The 'Children of Calais' by Ian Wolter, which is a life-sized sculpture of six children in poses echoing 'The Burghers of Calais' by Auguste Rodin but dressed in contemporary clothing. One of the figures holds a life jacket in place of the city key held in Rodin’s original. The piece is designed to provoke debate about the inhumanity of our response to the children caught up in the current refugee crisis.
• 'Mary' by Tessa Hawkes. This sculpture at St Mary's Saffron Walden portrays Mary as a young and vulnerable woman, receiving the news from the angel Gabriel that she is to be the mother of Jesus, God's Son. The artist originally intended to portray Mary at a very early stage in the annunciation of a young girl completely bewildered but the eventual sculpture is of a later stage in the annunciation, one of acceptance whilst still a little bewildered.

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The Fire Theft - Heaven.

The boundary-breaking call of Jesus

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

This story of Mary and Martha has often been interpreted in terms of being and doing (Luke 10.38-42). The Wikipedia entry on the story of Martha and Mary summarises the usual way in which it is interpreted: “Mary chose listening to the teachings of Jesus over helping her sister prepare food. Jesus responded that she was right because only one thing is needed, “one thing” apparently meaning listening to the teachings of Jesus… To simplify, this is frequently interpreted as spiritual values being more important than material business, such as preparation of food.”

Yet, Martha had opened her home to Jesus and his disciples and providing hospitality and welcome to strangers was of vital importance within Judaism and in Middle Eastern culture generally. The rabbis taught that Abraham left off a discussion with God and went to greet guests when they arrived at his camp. He ran to greet them during the hottest day on record and served them the best food he could put together. Based on that example, the rabbis said that taking care of guests is greater than receiving the divine presence.

When Jesus sent out his disciples to prepare the way for him to come to towns and villages on the way to Jerusalem, he told them to look out for and stay with those, like Martha, who would welcome them (Luke 10). So, Jesus’ words to Martha, while they can appear critical, were not intended as a denigration of the role she was fulfilling, which, as we have thought, has a vital place in Middle Eastern culture.

Jesus had already affirmed Martha's hospitality by welcoming and receiving all she offered. However, he also wanted to affirm Mary’s action as well because Mary's action points to an alternative role for women which could only begin to be realised as a result of his affirmation.

Mary sat at Jesus’ feet listening to what he said. That was the usual posture of a disciple of any teacher in the ancient world. But disciples were usually male, so Mary would have been quietly breaking the rule that reserved study for males, not females.

Tom Wright notes that: “To sit at someone’s feet meant, quite simply, to be their student. And to sit at the feet of a rabbi was what you did if you wanted to be a rabbi yourself. There is no thought here of learning for learning’s sake. Mary has quietly taken her place as a would-be teacher and preacher of the kingdom of God.

Jesus affirms her right to do so. Jesus’ valuation of each human being is based on the overflowing love of God, which, like a great river breaking its banks into a parched countryside, irrigates those parts of human society which until now had remained barren and unfruitful. Mary stands for all those women who, when they hear Jesus speaking about the kingdom, know that God is calling them to listen carefully so that they can speak it too.”

Martha was possibly not merely asking for help but demanding that Mary keep to the traditional way of behaving. Jesus, though, affirmed Mary in the place and role of a disciple: “Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." Martha, Ayla Lepine suggests, “wrapped up in the anxieties of hospitality in relation to rank and status, is ‘distracted by many things.’ Jesus tenderly invites her to dare to offer loving attention that is not transactional – Jesus expects nothing in return for the wisdom and love he offers.”

Jesus refused to be sidetracked by issues of gender when faced with women in any kind of need and consistently put people before dogma. Luke’s Gospel not only reports that Jesus had female disciples, but specifically names them in Luke 8.1-3. Throughout his Gospel, Luke pays particular and positive attention to the role of women; presenting women, not only as witnesses to the events surrounding the birth and resurrection of Jesus, but also as active participants in God's Messianic purposes.

As a result, Tom Wright suggests: “We would be wrong, then, to see Martha and Mary, as they have so often been seen, as models of the ‘active’ and the ‘contemplative’ styles of spirituality. Action and contemplation are of course both important. Without the first you wouldn’t eat, without the second you wouldn’t worship. And no doubt some people are called to one kind of balance between them, and others to another. But we cannot escape the challenge of this passage by turning it into a comment about different types of Christian lifestyle. It is about the boundary-breaking call of Jesus.”

This counter-balance to the patriarchy of the time was necessary in order to signal the value of both women and men in God's plan of salvation and their equal importance in the new community that was the Church. Ultimately, this led to the point that we have reached relatively recently in the Church of England of ordaining women as priests and bishops.

In our Gospel reading today, Mary shows us the importance of making Jesus the central focus of our life and learning while Martha shows us the value of welcome, hospitality and service. The ministries of each one of us can be enhanced by reflecting on the examples that both provide and, through that, the recognition that the saints are not special, super-human people but: sisters, like Martha and Mary, who become frustrated with each other’s choices; and engaged women, like Mary, challenged to obey God in ways that put their relationships under strain.

May we be inspired by their examples and also by all women who have followed in their wake as saints and leaders, and more recently as priests and bishops. May we be inspired by saints such as, in our/my Parish, Catherine, who bravely debated with scholars, philosophers, and orators and was persecuted for her Christian faith after protesting against the treatment of her fellow Christians at the hands of Maxentius, Roman Emperor from 306 to 312 AD. Also, Our Lady Mary, “the prime God-Bearer, bearing for us in time the One who was begotten in eternity” remembering that “every Christian after her seeks to become in some small way a God-bearer, one whose ‘yes’ to God means that Christ is made alive and fruitful in the world through our flesh and our daily lives, is born and given to another” (Malcolm Guite).

We can add to those inspirational women, others associated with our churches or Deanery, [in our team, women such as Christine McCafferty, Tara Frankland, Jane Freeman, and, currently, our own Sue Wise and Emma Doe] [such as your own Jacqui Moss and elsewhere Trudy Arnold, Carol Ball, Ruth Dowley, Margaret Fowler, Christine Williams, Karen White and Sue Wise]. Additionally, there are a large number of lay women who have and continue to support and lead within our churches. Each are examples to all of us of what real commitment to Christ entails and involves. This is particularly so because the campaigns to see women take their place alongside men as bishops and at every level in the Church of England have not been about women gaining an ascendency which men have had in the past but, instead, about the full equality of women and men in the Church as part of God's will for his people, and as a reflection of the inclusive heart of the Christian scripture and tradition.

What we see through their lives and examples is that each one of us are saints; whatever our gender and ministry, its prominence or hiddenness. The only saints to feature in the New Testament are each and every member of a local church. The saints are simply those who are church members whether in Ephesus, in Jerusalem, in Rome, or wherever including, today, those of us here in Wickford and Runwell / Pitsea.

In Christ’s Church and kingdom there should be no gender divide in how we serve and follow him. So, like Martha, each of us (male and female) can practise and value the ministries of welcome, hospitality and service of all and, like Mary, each of us (female and male) can practise and value making Jesus the central focus of our lives and learning as his disciples.

May we be inspired by their examples and those of other women we have mentioned and at the same time may we support all those women who lead us so well within our churches currently, recognising that these are they who are God-bearers, “those whose ‘yes’ to God means that Christ is made alive and fruitful in the world through our flesh and our daily lives, is born and given to another” (Malcolm Guite).

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The Ocean Blue - Between Something And Nothing.

Gratutious, extravagent generosity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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John and Ross Harding - Yesterday Today Forever.

Weekly Sermon: An Enduring Love.

This week I have recorded the weekly sermon for the Diocese of Chelmsford which is for Mothering Sunday, Sunday 30 March, titled ‘An enduring love’. All the weekly sermons can be found on the Diocesan YouTube page in the 'Weekly Sermon Videos' playlist. The recording of this sermon is above and the text is below:

At the back of Aston Parish Church in Birmingham is a small memory garden planted in memory of my brother, who died tragically in a plane crash in 1999. Most years, my sister takes our Mum to the memory garden on the anniversary of Nick's death to tend the garden and to remember. Last year, because Mum was staying with us at the time of that anniversary and because Nick had served in the armed forces and died as a result of doing relief work following the Bosnian conflict, we went to the local arboretum, the Living Memorial at Rettendon, and prayed in their chapel.

Such experiences parallel those found in the choice of readings used for Mothering Sunday. These include Moses born into slavery and only able to survive as his mother finds a way to have him adopted by the Egyptian royal family (Exodus 2.1-10), as well as Hannah praying into the experience of childlessness and then dedicating her firstborn to serve God in the Temple (1 Samuel 1.20-28). The Gospel readings including Simeon prophesying that Mary's heart will be pierced through her experiences as the mother of Jesus (Luke 2.33-35), a prophecy fulfilled when Mary sees Jesus die on the cross, and Jesus, on the cross, asking John, his disciple, to care for Mary after his death (John 19.25-27).

These stories and experiences take us into the heart of the mix of pain and pleasure involved in first, carrying, then giving birth to, and then supporting a child through life. The experiences and emotions involved are so many and so varied, even where the tragedy of a shortened life is not involved, that it would take a series of novels to really do justice to all that is involved.

At the heart of these stories is the understanding that, at its best, a mother's love will endure through all the challenges that being in a deep relationship with another human being will inevitably bring and that that love will adapt and change in order to be there for their child whatever circumstances may be. That is why motherhood can be used as a parallel for the love of God towards us, a parallel that we celebrate particularly on Mothering Sunday.

While, our personal experience of receiving parenting may not have had that same degree of consistency or care, the reminder that comes to us on Mothering Sunday is that God's love is like that of mothers whose love for their children endures through all the vicissitudes and changes of life, including the challenge of your child dying an early death, as was the experience of both Mary and my mother. The Bible celebrates love expressed in the challenges posed by the messiness of real life, rather than presenting us with an ideal from which we will always fall short.

I have seen, at first hand, how losing a child pierces a mother’s heart, as that is what happened to my Mum when my younger brother died. My love for and appreciation of my Mum grew through seeing her response to sharing the same experience as that of Mary. These are experiences from which we should all seek to learn, seeing them, as was the case for Mary, as being bound up in God’s good purposes for humanity; even, as in her story, as the seedbed for the greatest acts of liberation in human history.

Jesus remembered his mother while he was undergoing the most extreme agony personally. For some of us, to remember our mothers in the way we have just been discussing, might involve complex and conflicted memories which bring back to mind some of our more painful moments in life. Jesus ministered in and through and out of his pain; remembering particular people (his mother and John, his disciple), forgiving those who tortured and mocked him, and dying for the salvation of all.

It is from reflection on those experiences and actions of Jesus, that the idea of the wounded healer has come. This is the idea that our own pain and difficulties - our wounds - do not necessarily preclude us from ministry but may provide a resource or source from which our ministry can flow. To remember and reach out to support, sustain and strengthen others whilst remaining wounded ourselves may be, as was the case for Jesus, among the deepest and most profound of our ministries to others.

In bringing his mother into a mother-son relationship with one of his disciples, Jesus was extending our understanding and concept of what constitutes family life. For John to view Jesus' biological mother as his mother and for Mary to view John as her son, went beyond ties of blood into other forms of relationship. We could talk in terms of adoption (although in our day and time that word has a legal definition that is narrower than what is happening here) or we could talk in terms of extended families (a more helpful phrase, which we have, in part, lost sight of in a time when we still think primarily of nuclear families). However, we choose to categorise what Jesus did here, we need to recognise that he was initiating a family relationship which was not based on ties of blood and that this necessarily opens up space in which a range of family structures and family ties become possible.

In Jesus’s life and teaching there is less of a focus on the structures of our relationships and more of an emphasis on relationships which are characterised by qualities of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. These are qualities with which one of New Testament readings for Mothering Sunday (Colossians 3. 12 - 17) calls us to clothe ourselves. These are qualities that we can easily associate with motherhood but which are applicable to all of us as Christians. In Colossians 3 we are called to bear with one another, forgive each other; clothe ourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony, and let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts, to which we were called in the one body. These are all actions which are consistent with what we understand mothers, at their best, to do for their children. But the call, here, is to practice these qualities not just in our families and among our blood relatives, but with all those we encounter and, especially, here in Church. They are, perhaps, then, maternal qualities for application in Mother Church.

These are the qualities we need to practice and express if we are to share God's love in ways that endure through all the vicissitudes and changes of life as was the case for Mary and my own mother whose love for their children endured through the tragedy of their children’s shortened lives. May we learn from their example and follow in their footsteps. Amen.

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U2 - Iris (Hold Me Close).