The prayer of transfiguration

Here's the sermon that I shared during today's Eucharist at St Andrew's Wickford: 

The dictionary definition of transfiguration is: a change in form or appearance or an exalting, glorifying, or spiritual change. Those aspects of transfiguration can be seen in our Gospel reading (Luke 9.28-36), but the story defines the word best.

Sam Wells, the Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, puts it like this: “There’s glory – the glory of the Lord in the face of Jesus Christ. There’s the pattern of God’s story in Israel and the church, a story that finds its most poignant moments in the midst of suffering and exile. There’s the loving, tender, presence and heavenly voice of God the Father – a voice that for the only time in their lives, the disciples hear and understand. And there’s the extraordinary realisation that, even though all this could have gone on without them, the disciples have been caught up in the life of the Trinity, the mystery of salvation, the unfolding of God’s heart, the beauty of holiness.”

The way he describes it, transfiguration involves the glory of seeing a person or event in the bigger story of God’s loving purposes for the world. Up until this point, “the disciples know Jesus does plenty of amazing and wonderful things and says many beautiful and true things, but they still assume he’s basically the same as them.” It’s only as they go up the mountain with him that the veil slips and they’re invited in to a whole other world. A world in which “Jesus is completely at home,” “even when the Father’s voice thunders from above.” “And more remarkably still, it seems there’s a place for them in it, hanging out with the likes of Moses and Elijah. They’ve been given a glimpse of glory. It’s a glory that’s faithful to the story of Israel, a glory that has Jesus at the centre of it, a glory that has God speaking words of love, a glory that has a place for them in it, however stumbling and clumsy they are, and finally a glory in which Jesus touches them tenderly in their fear.“

Sam Wells suggests that this experience, this glimpse of glory, can shape the way we pray by giving our prayers the same extra dimension. In fact, he details three different ways to pray. The first involves Resurrection. “Resurrection prayer is a prayer calling for a miracle. It is prayer of faithful risk. We look to the heavens with tightened fist and say, ‘Sweet Jesus, if you’re alive, make your presence known!’”

The second way to pray is Incarnation. This is “a prayer of presence. It is, perhaps, more silent than a prayer of Resurrection. It is a prayer which recognizes that, yes, Jesus was raised, but that it happened through brokenness. Through Christ, God shares our pain and our frailty. So we pray acknowledging that God suffers with us.”

The third way to pray is Transfiguration. Sam writes, “God, in your son’s transfiguration we see a whole reality within and beneath and beyond what we thought we understood; in … times of bewilderment and confusion, show … father your glory, that [we] may find a deeper truth to … life than [we] ever knew, make firmer friends than [we] ever had, discover reasons for living beyond what [we’d] ever imagined, and be folded into your grace like never before.” “In other words, it is a prayer that, in whatever circumstance, asks God to reshape our reality, to give us a new and right spirit to trust that even in the midst of suffering and hardship, truth can still be experienced and shared.”

“On the mountain, the disciples discovered that Christ was part of a conversation with Israel and God and was dwelling in glory in a way that they had no idea of and could hardly grasp and yet it put everything on a different plane.”

As a result, the prayer of Transfiguration is a different kind of a prayer. “The prayer of resurrection has a certain defiance about it – in the face of what seem to be all the known facts, it calls on God to produce the goods and turn the situation round. It has courage and hope but there’s always that fear that it has a bit of fantasy as well. The prayer of incarnation is honest and unflinching about the present and the future, but you could say it’s a little too much swathed in tragedy … it’s so concerned to face … reality … that there’s always that fear that it’s never going to discover the glory of what lies above.”

The prayer of Transfiguration is different. “Not so much, ‘Fix this and take it off my desk!’ Nor even, ‘Be with me and share in my struggle, now and always.’ But something more like, ‘Make this trial and tragedy, this problem and pain, a glimpse of your glory, a window into your world, when I can see your face, sense the mystery in all things, and walk with angels and saints. Bring me closer to you in this crisis than I ever have been in calmer times. Make this a moment of truth, and when I cower in fear and feel alone, touch me, raise me, and make me alive like never before.’”

Maybe you would like to make the prayer of transfiguration your prayer for yourself at this time, “in the midst of whatever it is you’re wrestling with today.”

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John David - Closer To Thee.

Do you and I walk on holy ground all the time?

Here's the sermon on Exodus 3.1-15 that I shared at St Andrew’s Wickford this morning:

"A man named Moses is tending his sheep in the land of Midian when he comes across a burning bush. He moves closer to see more and hears the voice of God, speaking to him about his people and their need to be delivered from the land of Egypt. God tells Moses to take off his sandals, for the ground he is standing on is holy.” (R. Bell, Velvet Elvis, Zondervan, 2005)

Holy Ground is an art installation by Paul Hobbs which includes a collection of shoes and stories from Christians all around the world. The stories are short statements about what it means for each person to believe in Christ in their particular situation. Among those represented are: a thief, a refugee, the despised, the rejected – people who Jesus specially sought out – as well as those who have known great opportunity, wealth and success. There are those who are beautiful, those who are disabled, those struggling to make a living and raise a family, those who have known great loss and tragedy, and those asking the deep questions of life. All have encountered the living God, arriving at a place of holy ground; where they must, metaphorically at least, remove their shoes in acknowledgement of God’s holiness.

For some the idea of giving up their shoes for this project seemed amusing and culturally odd. For others it was costly to give their only pair of shoes in exchange for another. For some it was an honour to be featured in this way, to have their story told to represent others from their situation. For many, it was an expression of thankfulness to be able to share their stories with others.

At the burning bush, God said to Moses, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground” (Exodus 3/2-5). Similarly, acknowledging God’s holiness is the beginning of life as a Christian. What, I wonder, would your story be of metaphorically taking off your sandals in acknowledgement of God’s holiness?

Here is a very different figure; this time a sculpture by the Canadian artist David Robinson. “Dressed in his finest uniform (suit, tie, pants perfectly pressed) the bronze figure would blend in well with the teeming businessmen of the city. He is tidy. His hair is groomed. Not too young, not too old, he is in his prime, at the top of his game. One expects his head to be held high and it is. Is he, like everyone else, focused on the horizon of his ambition?

Thousands might note in passing that this is no hero, no grand general and no great statesman; in fact the crowds of the morning rush might not find him notable at all. Yet, though in business there is never a minute to spare, allowing him even a moment’s notice would pay off a hundredfold. Would some turn aside and see that he is not rushing as they are? Would anyone take time to look at his hands, to look at his feet?

Bare feet. What has caused this perfectly dressed businessman to humbly remove his shoes? In the stillness of the erect figure, face looking upward, we do not see what he sees but we can perceive a heavenly and personal encounter. Perhaps it is a gesture of repentance that he holds his shoes so lightly?”

These details should bring to mind that “man of another era who similarly, while busy at his workday job, had an encounter which changed his life forever.” As we have heard, “while minding his father-in-law’s sheep in the desert, this man came upon a contradiction: a green bush aflame but not consumed. He could have hastened on his way but for some reason did not.”

“As the story goes, when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, he called to him from out of the bush by name, saying, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” David Robinson’s sculpture says that, under the bare feet of this everyday man, there is holy ground.

Reflecting on this sculpture Irena Tippett concludes, “So here is the truth: There is no time or place immune to the intrusion (if you will) of the living God. Even in a city strident with buying and selling, God is able to reveal himself to people.” 

American Pastor Rob Bell makes a similar point: "Moses has been tending his sheep in this region for forty years. How many times has he passed by this spot? How many times has he stood in this exact place? And now God tells him the ground is holy?

Has the ground been holy the whole time and Moses is just becoming aware of it for the first time?

Do you and I walk on holy ground all the time, but we are moving so fast and returning so many calls and writing so many emails and having such long lists to get done that we miss it?" (R. Bell, Velvet Elvis, Zondervan, 2005)

So, in the words of Woody Guthrie:

“Take off, take off your shoes
This place you’re standing, it’s holy ground
Take off, take off your shoes
The spot you’re standing, its holy ground

Amen

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).

Meaning, significance, shape and purpose

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

Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist who is best known for creating a hierarchy of needs. ‘This is a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, culminating in self-actualization.’ At the bottom of the hierarchy are the basic needs of human beings; needs for food, water, sleep and sex. Maslow’s model works as a hierarchy because a pressing need must be mostly satisfied before someone will give their attention to the next highest need, which includes our need for our lives to be given meaning and significance.

The stories of the feeding of the four thousand and the five thousand (Matthew 15:29-37) are stories of Jesus meeting the basic needs of the people with him but are also stories about that action having a deeper level of meaning and significance.

The people who were with Jesus had been with him in the wilderness for three days without any significant supplies of food. While some may have brought small supplies of food with them, in essence they had been fasting for much of the time Jesus had been teaching them and, for those of you who have visited the Holy Land, you will know that the Wilderness is unforgiving terrain in which to be without sustenance.

Jesus is concerned for these people and, out of compassion, meets their basic need for food in that testing environment but, just as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs suggests that once our basic needs have been met then our needs for meaning and significance come into play, Jesus’ actions here also have a deeper level of meaning, if we and they are alert to it.

We can see this if we think for a moment about the outline of this story and the extent to which it reminds us of another story. A group of Israelites are in the wilderness and are hungry because they have too little to eat. In response God provides them with bread to eat. That is the outline of the feeding of the four thousand but it is also, in essence, the story of God providing manna in the wilderness to the Israelites when Moses led them from Egypt to the Promised Land. The similarity is deliberate, whether on the part of Jesus or Mark, because through this action Jesus is seen as the new Moses for the people of Israel.

Following the parallels between these two stories through means that the people of Israel are to be seen as being in slavery once again – whether that meant the political oppression of their Roman conquerors or, as St Paul suggests, under the bondage of sin. The Exodus – the salvation of the people of Israel - began with the death of firstborn sons and, in the story of Jesus, our salvation comes through the death of God’s only Son. Jesus leads his people through water – in the original Exodus that was the path through the Red Sea, but, for Jesus’ followers, it is the rite of baptism. They go on a journey through the wilderness – where, as we have seen, they are fed and provided for – and end their journey when they enter the Promised Land – which Jesus spoke about as being the kingdom of God that he initiated but which is still to come in full.

The parallels are plenteous and very close as the people of Jesus’ day were intended to view him as the new Moses. At this deeper level of meaning and significance it is possible, from this one action, to understand the whole of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.

God is also at work in our lives to bring and to reveal meaning, purpose, shape and significance to our lives too, if we are alert to this deeper level of life and our not solely focused on the meeting of our basic needs. We all have a need and a desire for there to be more to our lives than simply the survival of the fittest; the scramble to meet our basic needs. As Maslow’s hierarchy of needs recognises, when we are in genuine need and poverty, it is very difficult to think about anything else other than survival. But, when we are in the fortunate position of having our basic needs met, we have the time and space and inclination to look around us to see the way in which God can bring meaning, significance and purpose into our lives; with that purpose including the development of a compassion, like that of Jesus, which sees the needs of those whose basic needs are not being met and responds to that by sharing at least some of what we have.

Your life is not simply about having enough to survive; the meeting of your basic needs. God wants you to see a deeper level of meaning, significance, shape and purpose to your life. Are you open to see the meaning and significance that he brings or does a focus of getting prevent you from seeing and receiving what he is already giving?

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Neal Morse - The Temple Of The Living God.

The ground we are standing on is holy

Here's the sermon I shared at St Mary's Runwell this morning:

"A man named Moses is tending his sheep in the land of Midian when he comes across a burning bush. He moves closer to see more and hears the voice of God, speaking to him about his people and their need to be delivered from the land of Egypt. God tells Moses to take off his sandals, for the ground he is standing on is holy.” (R. Bell, Velvet Elvis, Zondervan, 2005)

Holy Ground is an art installation by Paul Hobbs which includes a collection of shoes and stories from Christians all around the world. The stories are short statements about what it means for each person to believe in Christ in their particular situation. Among those represented are: a thief, a refugee, the despised, the rejected – people who Jesus specially sought out – as well as those who have known great opportunity, wealth and success. There are those who are beautiful, those who are disabled, those struggling to make a living and raise a family, those who have known great loss and tragedy, and those asking the deep questions of life. All have encountered the living God, arriving at a place of holy ground; where they must, metaphorically at least, remove their shoes in acknowledgement of God’s holiness.

Some contributors are persecuted and despised for their faith, yet retain confidence in the living God. Several people need to be anonymous due to the lack of religious freedom in their lands. For others, anonymity allows them to speak more easily. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 5/10).

For some the idea of giving up their shoes for this project seemed amusing and culturally odd. For others it was costly to give their only pair of shoes in exchange for another. For some it was an honour to be featured in this way, to have their story told to represent others from their situation. For many, it was an expression of thankfulness to be able to share their stories with others.

At the burning bush, God said to Moses, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground” (Exodus 3/2-5). Similarly, acknowledging God’s holiness is the beginning of life as a Christian.

What would your story be of metaphorically taking off your sandals in acknowledgement of God’s holiness?

Hobbs goes on to say that “as a believer follows Jesus Christ, he or she finds that this holy God is also a servant king, humbly and lovingly attending to one’s needs, just as when he washed his disciples feet (John 13/3-5).

As testified in many of the stories, Christians are encouraged to bring this gospel to others with “feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace” (Ephesians 6/14-15) and thus they realise the prophecy of Isaiah, “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation” (Isaiah 52/7).”

So he “trusts that this collection of shoes and stories will show the rich variety of believers across the world, their strength of faith despite hardship, and their joy in knowing Christ. The collection also demonstrates God’s love to all types of people, and is a testimony of how the gospel has spread - often at great cost - throughout the world over the last two thousand years, and how it is reaching every part of the globe.

Please pray for people like these – many of whom make great sacrifices and take great risks to follow Christ where they live.” In this way he reminds us of those, such as Christians in North Iraq at present, who need our prayers, our giving and our action on their behalf. He says, “I am struck, in looking at these shoes, by Jesus’ words, “Many who are first will be last, and the last first” (Mark 10/31).”

Here is a very different figure; this time a sculpture by the Canadian artist David Robinson. Irena Tippett writes: “Dressed in his finest uniform (suit, tie, pants perfectly pressed) the bronze figure would blend in well with the teeming businessmen of the city. He is tidy. His hair is groomed. Not too young, not too old, he is in his prime, at the top of his game. One expects his head to be held high and it is. Is he, like everyone else, focused on the horizon of his ambition?

Thousands might note in passing that this is no hero, no grand general and no great statesman; in fact the crowds of the morning rush might not find him notable at all. Yet, though in business there is never a minute to spare, allowing him even a moment’s notice would pay off a hundredfold. Would some turn aside and see that he is not rushing as they are? Would anyone take time to look at his hands, to look at his feet?

Bare feet. What has caused this perfectly dressed businessman to humbly remove his shoes? In the stillness of the erect figure, face looking upward, we do not see what he sees but we can perceive a heavenly and personal encounter. Perhaps it is a gesture of repentance that he holds his shoes so lightly?”

These details should bring to mind that “man of another era who similarly, while busy at his workday job, had an encounter which changed his life forever.” As we have heard, “while minding his father-in-law’s sheep in the desert, this man came upon a contradiction: a green bush aflame but not consumed. He could have hastened on his way but for some reason did not.”

“As the story goes, when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, he called to him from out of the bush by name, saying, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”

It is by no means certain that everyone would catch the allusion to Moses’ powerful call in the wilderness or know how in that place he met the living God face to face. Nevertheless, David Robinson’s sculpture speaks clearly. Today, under the bare feet of his everyday man, there is holy ground.

Like Barbra Streisand in her song ‘On Holy Ground’ we’re much more comfortable with the concept of God’s being limited to churches or other sacred spaces. Yet the universal message of the sculpture is clear: the whole world is potentially holy ground. Look how the globe extends beneath those shoeless feet.”

Reflecting on this sculpture Irena Tippett concludes, “So here is the truth: There is no time or place immune to the intrusion (if you will) of the living God. Even in a city strident with buying and selling, God is able to reveal himself to people. And a corollary is this: There is no one immune to an encounter with him. Through Jesus Christ God’s great mercy extends to all who hear his voice.”

American Pastor Rob Bell makes a similar point: "Moses has been tending his sheep in this region for forty years. How many times has he passed by this spot? How many times has he stood in this exact place? And now God tells him the ground is holy?

Has the ground been holy the whole time and Moses is just becoming aware of it for the first time?

Do you and I walk on holy ground all the time, but we are moving so fast and returning so many calls and writing so many emails and having such long lists to get done that we miss it?" (R. Bell, Velvet Elvis, Zondervan, 2005)

One of my favourite quote comes from David Adam. You will no doubt have heard me use it before, but it bears repeating: “If our God is to be found only in our churches and our private prayers, we are denuding the world of His reality and our faith of credibility. We need to reveal that our God is in all the world and waits to be discovered there – or, to be more exact, the world is in Him, all is in the heart of God. Our work, our travels, our joys and our sorrows are enfolded in His loving care. We cannot for a moment fall out of the hands of God. Typing pool and workshop, office and factory are all as sacred as the church. The presence of God pervades the work place as much as He does a church sanctuary.” (Power Lines: Celtic Prayers about Work, SPCK, 1992)

So, in the words of Woody Guthrie:

“Take off, take off your shoes
This place you’re standing, it’s holy ground
Take off, take off your shoes
The spot you’re standing, its holy ground

These words I heard in my burning bush
This place you’re standing, it’s holy ground
I heard my fiery voice speak to me
This spot you’re standing, it’s holy ground

That spot is holy holy ground
That place you stand it’s holy ground
This place you tread, it’s holy ground
God made this place his holy ground

Take off your shoes and pray
The ground you walk it’s holy ground
Take off your shoes and pray
The ground you walk it’s holy ground

Every spot on earth I trapse around
Every spot I walk it’s holy ground
Every spot on earth I trapse around
Every spot I walk it’s holy ground

Every spot it’s holy ground
Every little inch it’s holy ground
Every grain of dirt it’s holy ground
Every spot I walk it’s holy ground”

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The Klezmatics - Holy Ground.

Celebrating motherhood in its messy reality

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

Whether she’s mum, mummy, mam or mother, this Mother’s Day we will have been encouraged to find a card or gift to tell our mother just how much we care and love her.

The cards we found on offer will likely have contained messages such as this:

God made a wonderful mother,
A mother who never grows old;
He made her smile of the sunshine,
And He moulded her heart of pure gold;
In her eyes He placed bright shining stars,
In her cheeks fair roses you see;
God made a wonderful mother,
And He gave that dear mother to me.

It's a lovely thing to be able to bless and encourage mothers with those kinds of sentiments and messages but what do we do when our mother's haven't met that ideal or haven't been there for us in that way? How do mother's feel about that kind of idealised image being held up for admiration and how do those who haven't had the experience of motherhood feel on Mothering Sunday as a result?

This is a complicated day for many and not necessarily a day of simple celebration. In the Church, some will say, put the focus on Mother Church rather than human mothers but, if, for example, you are LGBTIQA+, then Mother Church will still feel less than welcoming of you at present.

The Bible, however, does not give us an idealised view of motherhood or family life. Our readings today are from the early days of Moses who led the People of Israel out of Egypt to the Promised Land (Exodus 2: 1-10) and of Jesus who became the Saviour of all people everywhere (Luke 2: 33-35). These are the great heroes of our faith, yet life for their mothers was far from easy and their family lives were complicated and far from the idealised picture found in that Mother's Day poem.

Moses's mother Jochebed had to give him up to an adoptive mother from the regime that oppressed her people in order to save his life. She became his nurse having to hide her true role as his mother. Mary, the mother of Jesus, endured that most terrible of experiences for mother's, of seeing your child die before you. No wonder Simeon spoke of a sword piercing her heart! As one bringing up a child known to have been conceived before her marriage to her husband, she would, no doubt, have lived with considerable opprobrium from those who didn't understand the way in which she had faithfully obeyed God.

So, the Nativity story sets out the unconventional and non-idealised relationships which God chose to use at the beginning of Jesus’ life; a conception outside of marriage, a relationship on the brink of divorce, a foster-father, a birth in cramped and crowded circumstances, an immediate threat to life followed by refugee status. When these are added to the fact that, during his ministry, Jesus called his followers to leave behind their family obligations in order to follow him, said that families would be divided because some would respond to him and others not, while, on one occasion, when told his family were outside, said: "Who is my mother? Who are my brothers? … Whoever does what my Father in heaven wants is my brother, my sister, and my mother", we see that conventional structures for family life were not really a major priority in Jesus’ thinking or praxis. Jesus’ emphasis in his teaching was on his followers as his family, rather than his blood and adoptive relatives, while his death was for the entire family of God - all people everywhere.

What we might now call Mother Church was, therefore, the key family relationship which was at the fore-front of Jesus’ teaching and practice. Within this, he seems less interested in particular structures for our relationships and more interested in those relationships being ones which nurture those who are in relationship, whilst also being open to support others in need through that same relationship. On this basis, it does not really matter whether we are in a nuclear family, single parent family, same-sex family, extended family etc. What matters is the quality of relationships within that family and our openness to others.

So, in seeking to understand what life might have been like for Jochebed and for Mary, we can perhaps see that 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. As a result, we need to celebrate motherhood in its messy reality rather than an idealised version of it, “understand that many of us are (and have) mothers in the non-biological sense, honour foster parents, affirm unconventional relationships, celebrate same-sex parents, and - sadly - recognise that not all experiences of mothering are positive. If we can do that, then Mothering Sunday becomes a dynamic means of embracing people where they are, rather than a sentimental celebration of unrealistic expectations.” (https://opentable.lgbt/our-blog/2022/3/27/mothering-sunday-mothers-day-ancient-tradition-or-modern-invention).

I have seen how losing a son pierces a mother’s heart, as that is what happened to my mum when my younger brother died in a plane crash. My love for and appreciation of my mum grew through seeing her response to sharing the same experience as that of Mary. Some of you have, I know, fostered the children of others, some may have been through the experience of letting your children be fostered or adopted, as was the experience of Jochebed. These are experiences from which we should all seek to learn, seeing them, as was the case for Jochebed and Mary, as being bound up in God’s good purposes for humanity; even, as in their stories, as the seedbed for the greatest acts of liberation in human history.

I end with a sonnet for Mothering Sunday by Malcolm Guite which is a thanksgiving for all parents, especially those who bore the fruitful pain of labour, but, more particularly, in this poem he singles out for praise those heroic single parents who, for whatever reason, have found themselves bearing alone the burdens, and sharing with no-one the joys of their parenthood. As with all those whose care we celebrate today, in their lives God’s kingdom is reflected and Christ shares with them the birth-pangs of that Kingdom.

Mothering Sunday

At last, in spite of all, a recognition,
For those who loved and laboured for so long,
Who brought us, through that labour, to fruition
To flourish in the place where we belong.
A thanks to those who stayed and did the raising,
Who buckled down and did the work of two,
Whom governments have mocked instead of praising,
Who hid their heart-break and still struggled through,
The single mothers forced onto the edge
Whose work the world has overlooked, neglected,
Invisible to wealth and privilege,
But in whose lives the kingdom is reflected.
Now into Christ our mother church we bring them,
Who shares with them the birth-pangs of His Kingdom.

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U2 - Tomorrow.

Interfaith Sacred Art Forum and Sacred Art in Collections pre-1900 Network

The National Gallery has established two networks for the exploration, research, and enjoyment of sacred art, centred around sacred art in their permanent collection.

This initiative is part of their Art and Religion designated research strand, which is supported by Howard and Roberta Ahmanson. The first network, for faith community leaders and theologians, is the Interfaith Sacred Art Forum. The second, for curators and art historians, is the Sacred Art in Collections pre-1900 Network. Each year, both networks focus on a theme and two paintings in their collection as a foundation for wide-ranging events and activities that make new connections with sacred art, interfaith dialogue, and public life.

The 2021–22 theme has been Crossing Borders and the two paintings were 'The Finding of Moses' (early 1630s) and 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' (c.1620), both of which were painted by Orazio Gentileschi. 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' has been on loan to the National Gallery from Birmingham Museums Trust for the duration of the project and emphasises the importance that they place on partnerships with regional museums.

In 2022–23, the theme is The Art of Creation and the two paintings, around which conversations and activities will be based, are: Rachel Ruysch’s 'Flowers in a Vase' (1685) and Claude Monet’s 'Flood Waters' (1896).

In my role at St Martin-in-the-Fields I was involved in the discussions leading to the establishment of these networks and was a contributor to the first London Interfaith Sacred Art Symposium. This event brought together a cohort of 12 people from Jewish, Muslim and Christian backgrounds to share sacred texts - from Rumi's poetry and the Quran to Christina Rossetti and the Talmud. Participants included Fatimah Ashrif (Randeree Charitable Trust), Deborah Kahn-Harris (Leo Baeck College), and Jarel Robinson-Brown (St Botolph's-without-Aldgate Church). Download the programme, texts and reflections, and speaker biographies [PDF].

My paper utilised the following texts:

‘Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, so that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and chariot drivers.” So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at dawn the sea returned to its normal depth. As the Egyptians fled before it, the Lord tossed the Egyptians into the sea. The waters returned and covered the chariots and the chariot drivers, the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea; not one of them remained. But the Israelites walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left.

Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore.’

Exodus 14. 26-30

‘And that the King was so emphatical and elaborat on this Theam against Tumults, and express'd with such a vehemence his hatred of them, will redound less perhaps then he was aware to the commendation of his Goverment… Not any thing, saith he, portends more Gods displeasure against a Nation, then when he suffers the clamours of the Vulgar to pass all bounds of Law & reverence to Authority. It portends rather his displeasure against a Tyrannous King, whose proud Throne he intends to overturn by that contemptible Vulgar; the sad cries and oppressions of whom his Royaltie regarded not. As for that supplicating People, they did no hurt either to Law or Autority, but stood for it rather in the Parlament against whom they fear'd would violate it.’

John Milton, Eikonoklastes, IV. Upon the Insolency of the Tumults.

The paper I presented was as follows:

In responding to The Finding of Moses I am seeking to use the approach to visual criticism described by Cheryl Exum in her book Art as Biblical Commentary, which includes identification of an interpretive crux. Exum says that ‘staging a meaningful conversation between the text and the canvas is often a matter of identifying an interpretative crux - a conundrum, gap, ambiguity or difficulty in the text, a stumbling block for interpretation or question that crops up repeatedly in artistic representations of it - and following its thread as it knits the text and painting together in complex and often unexpected ways.’

I want to suggest that decisions made by Orazio regarding the gender and class of those depicted provide an interpretive crux relating to the arc of the story as it bends towards liberation. The liberation found in the Moses story is that of the Exodus itself, with one of my source texts - Exodus 14. 26-30 – depicting a key moment in that story, the crossing of the Red Sea. Liberation in the setting of the painting involves the English Revolution for which John Milton’s Eikonoklastes is a key text. Both these texts see liberation, in part, as involving freedom from an oppressive monarch.

Exploring the commissioning of the painting and its effect on the decisions Orazio Gentileschi made about where the scene is set and how the characters look helps in identifying this interpretative crux. Orazio was commissioned to paint The Finding of Moses for the wife of King Charles I, Queen Henrietta Maria. The painting was almost certainly intended to celebrate the birth of their son and heir, the future Charles II. This leads to the setting which is an idyllic English landscape with gentle slopes and lush green trees. Orazio knew that the painting would be hung in the Queen’s House at Greenwich, on the banks of the Thames, where he also decorated the ceiling in the Great Hall. The setting of the painting therefore is in accord with the setting where it was to be hung.

Orazio paints Pharoah’s daughter and her attendants as though they were a Stuart Queen with her courtiers. The women’s gowns are exquisitely depicted in the style of the time and of the court, with the woman in the magnificent yellow gown embellished with jewels being Pharaoh’s daughter painted as an equivalent of Henrietta Maria.

Two aspects of the story to do with gender and class are highlighted by these decisions. The most striking and obvious element of this painting is the group of nine life-size female figures who crowd around the basket at the heart of the composition. Orazio’s decision not only reflects the significance of his patron and her courtiers but also points us to the significance of women in the story of Moses’ birth from the role of the Hebrew midwives to that of Moses’ sister and mother, and of Pharoah’s daughter herself-. Orazio’s decision to focus primarily on female figures may also prompt renewed reflection on his own story as a father who taught his daughter Artemisia to the extent that she had a career as an artist in a profession that was, at that time, predominantly male. Artemisia may have assisted him in painting the ceiling in the Great Hall at Greenwich, as she briefly joined him in London in the late 1630s. Additionally, Orazio defended Artemisia in court after her rape by Agostino Tassi, a fellow artist in Rome. The lengthy trial resulted in Tassi’s conviction and Artemisia’s departure for Florence but his defence of his daughter in this way, unusual at that time, may also have compromised his career prospects in Rome leading to his need to find employment in England.

As a result of Orazio’s focus, we see the significance of women in the biblical story and in Orazio’s personal story in ways that fit the arc of the story towards liberation from oppression – in this case patriarchal oppression - whilst also recognising the extent to which both stories still remain within patriarchal settings. In Orazio’s depiction of the scene this is made apparent by the fact that all the female characters are looking at or pointing to the one male character in the painting, who is both central to the image and to the story.

Second, our attention may turn to the contrasts within this scene which revolve around power or class dynamics. These are apparent primarily in the clothing of Miriam and her mother in contrast to that of Pharoah’s daughter and her attendants and also in the irony of the contrast between Moses born into slavery and Charles II born into royalty. Power, privilege, and wealth all reside in the royal characters depicted in this scene and yet the baby that is central to the image and the story will be the catalyst for the liberation of his enslaved people through plagues on Egyptian society and destruction of the Egyptian army. Again, the arc of the story bends towards liberation, which is somewhat ironic in the light of the fact that the image was painted to celebrate the birth of a royal baby who would see his father beheaded in a revolution and who would spend nine years in exile himself.

So, the decisions Orazio makes in depicting gender and class within this image bring a renewed focus on the arc of the story as it bends towards liberation while simultaneously highlighting the forces, both in the story and his own time, that were ranged against such liberation. For example, the focus that we see in this image on the agency of the women depicted is clearly predicated on wealth and position and not open to all, while also making the one male character central to the image. The liberation from monarchical oppression that Milton celebrated in Eikonoklastes and at which the painting also hints by equating Henrietta Maria with the Pharoah’s daughter whose world will be overturned by Moses, is then reversed by the restoration of the monarchy that followed the English Revolution. The Restoration not only brought Charles II to the throne but also enabled Henrietta Maria to reclaim The Finding of Moses as her personal property keeping it thereafter in her private apartments. This image, therefore, is a bend on the road towards a fuller liberation still to be achieved. The painting gestures towards the future crossing of boundaries in relation to gender and class without realising them fully in the present.

Orazio’s decisions around gender and class provide the kind of interpretive crux that Exum says she seeks; a conundrum, gap, ambiguity or difficulty, a stumbling block for interpretation or question that crops up repeatedly, and which, when we follow the thread knits the text and the painting together in complex and often unexpected ways. Orazio’s decisions highlight hidden aspects of the story and image that point towards the possible undermining of monarchical rule. Would this have been a deliberate strategy on the part of Orazio? We have no way of knowing, expect that the unusual support he gave to Artemesia suggests that he may have been a man living somewhat at odds with the societal assumptions made in his day and time.

Applying Exum’s approaches to visual criticism enable us to identify this interpretative crux to the story in a way that, I hope, also accords with her interest in exposing and undermining, in the interest of possible truth, interpretations that maintain and privilege the patriarchal cultural assumptions that underpin many Biblical texts. Her approach may enable us to picture Orazio as, to some degree, standing with Milton and the writer of Exodus in seeking to do the same.

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Moya Brennan - To The Water.

Vocation: interests, insecurities and arenas

Here's the sermon I preached today at St Catherine's Wickford:

In the film ‘Chariots of Fire’, Eric Liddell says “God made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure.” Liddell was one of the most famous athletes of modern times and the Olympic glory of Scotland. He was also a Christian who refused to compete on Sunday and refused to compromise. And yet, more than anything else, Eric Liddell believed that “God made me for China.” After the Olympics in 1924 Liddell went to China to serve as a missionary teacher. He remained in China until his death in a Japanese civilian internment camp in 1945. In the Weihsien Internment Camp he was forced into a foretaste of hell itself but there he became legendary and his witness for Christ astounded even many of his fellow Christians.

We currently have another 100 metres runner who feels free when he runs, just as he does when he sings for God in church. Jeremiah Azu, bronze medallist in the 100 metres at the European Championships, puts his sporting success down to his faith in God. “My faith is massive for me. For me, it means athletics isn’t the be all and end all. It helps me take the pressure off myself by knowing I’ve got God on my side. I know there’s nothing to worry about.” The prophet Jeremiah is someone he says he would have liked to have met as he has his name, but also thinks there’s a lot of stuff in that book that relates to him. He says he prays most that God’s will is done in his life.

So, here are two people who believe, like Jeremiah, that they were born to do what they do for God, in their case to run. How do they know that? As the appropriately named Jeremiah Aze says, there is much in the Book of Jeremiah with which we can identify, not least the story of his calling. Let's look at that story now to see three ways in which we can identify our own individual callings and be confident that, like Jeremiah, we, too, are born to do the things we do for God (Jeremiah 1:4-10).

First, our calling is to be found in the unique people we are. Jeremiah was told by God, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Now, we might think that God has never said anything similar to us. If that is so, then I suggest reading Psalm 139 which begins: “O Lord, you have searched me and known me. / You know when I sit down and when I rise up; / you discern my thoughts from far away. / You search out my path and my lying down / and are acquainted with all my ways. / Even before a word is on my tongue, / O Lord, you know it completely.” The Psalmist continues: “it was you who formed my inward parts; / you knit me together in my mother’s womb. / I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. / Wonderful are your works; / that I know very well. / My frame was not hidden from you, / when I was being made in secret, / intricately woven in the depths of the earth. / Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. / In your book were written / all the days that were formed for me, / when none of them as yet existed.”

God knows each one of us intimately and prepares us for our calling before we are born, so we need to trust that our interests, skills and talents are gifts from God to be used for his glory. Then, as St Paul wrote to the Colossians, “whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3.17). Whatever our task, he wrote, we are to put ourselves into it, as done for the Lord (Colossians 3.23). The poet George Herbert wrote that this way of thinking is the “famous stone / That turneth all to gold.” So, this is where we begin with our calling, looking carefully at our natural interests, abilities and talents and putting them to use where we are doing what we do in the name of the Lord Jesus and for his glory.

Second, we consider our insecurities and look to increase our trust in God to resource as we need it. Like many of us and, like Moses before him, Jeremiah lacked confidence in his ability to speak publicly. He said, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” God responds, “I have put my words in your mouth.” So, God promises to give him the words to speak. We see the same happening with Moses when he is called. Moses has at least four objections based on his insecurities, including being “slow of speech and slow of tongue.” Again, God promises, “I will be with your mouth and will teach you what you shall do” (Exodus 3 & 4). Jesus makes the same promise to his disciples, including us, when he says to them: “When they bring you before the synagogues, the rulers, and the authorities, do not worry about how or what you will answer or what you are to say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that very hour what you ought to say.” (Luke 12.11-12) So, God promises to give us resources that we don’t think we have in the moment as we step out in faith by using the gifts and talents we have in God’s service and to God’s glory.

I’ve certainly found this to be true in relation to my ministry. As I went through training, I wondered how I would continually find new things to say in sermons about the same passages. I thought I would at some stage need to get up in the pulpit and say, well, I’ve got nothing new to say about this particular passage. That hasn’t happened yet. In practice, have found that God always provides new thoughts and insights as they are needed.

Finally, God gives Jeremiah a task to perform using the gifts and talents with which he was born and the insights and resources that God provides along the way. That task is to “pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.” It sounds dramatic but it’s primarily about discerning what needs to stop and what needs to start; a task which is ever new and always relevant. Jeremiah took on that role for a whole people which made him a prophet but we can all contribute in someway to reflection on what has reached the end of its useful life and what needs to begin as a replacement.

So, ask yourself what you are able to see in regard to those two things? Are you someone with the courage to say that something has come to its natural end? Are you someone with the vision to start something new? Then, ask yourself whether there is an arena in which you can see or sense these things more readily. If that’s in relation to your own life and family, then your ministry will be primarily around home-making. If in relation to the church, then church leadership, whether lay or ordained. If in relation to your work, then you should probably be looking for some kind of managerial role. If in relation to the wider community, then you’re likely to be an effective community activist, and, if in relation to the wider society, then politics is going to be your sphere.

So, Jeremiah’s call provides us with some areas for reflection and questions that we can all explore including: identification of our natural interests, gifts and talents; insecurities that can hold us back from realising our God-given potential; and those arenas in which can discern most clearly what needs to be started and what needs to stop. I invite you to think about those three areas for reflection in the course of this week and then fill in our church questionnaire which in many respects is asking for your views on these things, including ways in which you can contribute to the ongoing mission and ministry of our Team Ministry.

Once you find your answers to these three aspects of calling, you will be able to say, with Jeremiah, Eric Liddell and Jeremiah Azu, I was born to do this and, when I do it well, I feel God’s pleasure.

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Delerious? - Find Me In The River.

National Gallery - Crossing Borders (8 September, 6-7:30 pm)

You are invited to a National Gallery public event: Crossing Borders.

This exciting and free public event, held at the National Gallery and livestreamed online, celebrates the Gallery’s new networks for the exploration, study, and enjoyment of sacred art.

Thursday, 8 September 2022
6.00 – 7.30pm (BST)

Sainsbury Wing Lecture Theatre, The National Gallery. Entrance via the Sainsbury Wing.

This event is generously supported by Howard and Roberta Ahmanson.

To learn more about the programme and book your free ticket for in-person or remote attendance, please click below.

Book tickets

Crossing Borders

Focusing on the theme ‘Crossing Borders’ and Orazio Gentileschi’s 'The Finding of Moses', this exciting free event includes a panel conversation with eminent curators and art historians, and a new film presenting different voices discussing the painting in relation to young people, contemporary art, and migration.

The event will be introduced by Dr Gabriele Finaldi, Director of the National Gallery, and will be hosted by the National Gallery’s Ahmanson Fellow in Art and Religion.

Image credit: Orazio Gentileschi, The Finding of Moses, early 1630s The National Gallery, London.

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Larry Norman - Moses In The Wilderness.

Seeing the gifts God is giving

Here's the reflection I shared in today's Choral Eucharist at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

In today’s Old Testament reading (Exodus 17.1-7), we're with the People of Israel after the Exodus in the midst of the wilderness where there is no water. The sun is beating down and we're dehydrating. We're also complaining - quite understandably, because the situation is dire, and it looks as though we're likely to die. We want to go back to Egypt because, although we were slaves there, ill-treated and exploited, at least we knew where our food and drink was coming from.

But at the point when all seems lost and hope is exhausted, God reveals the hidden spring of water within this wilderness landscape. As a result, it looks as though God was somewhat late in arriving on the scene. The singer songwriter Sam Phillips writes that:

'Help is coming, help is coming
One day late, one day late
After you've given up and all is gone
Help is coming one day late'

She continues:

'Try to understand, you try to fix your broken hands
But remember that there always has been good
Like stars you don't see in the day sky
Wait till night

Life has kept me down
I've been growing under ground
Now I'm coming up and when time opens the earth
You'll see love has been moving all around us, making waves

So help is coming, help is coming
One day late, one day late
After you've given up and all is gone
Help is coming one day late'

In her song, help, goodness, life and hope are all around but hidden or overlooked, as was the vital spring of water in the wilderness. Maybe, the issue is not one of God turning later than we expect but instead that how we perceive things needs to change in order that we start to see what is in fact already there.

As Christians, we don’t have to look far for a mission statement for the church. ‘I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.’ (John 10.10) Living abundant life. That’s what the Father intends, the Son embodies, the Spirit facilitates. God is a God of abundance who is continually giving us all we need even in the midst of scarcity and trouble; perhaps, especially, in the midst of scarcity and trouble.

Our problem is that we don’t always recognise and receive the gifts that God is giving. In order to see what God is giving us, our mindset needs to change from a deficit mindset which sees problems to an asset mindset which looks for resources. The Israelites had a deficit mindset as they were focused on the problems they were experiencing and that was what led them to complain. It meant they weren’t looking around them to see what assets there were where they were. When we develop a habit of looking for assets, we then begin looking at our situation widely and broadly and notice what is ordinarily hidden to us by being on the edge.

I wonder whether the experience of the Israelites in undercovering the hidden spring of water in the wilderness is not somewhat similar to the experience many of us have had in the pandemic; of help, of goodness, of life, of hope being there in plain sight within our local communities but only seen, appreciated and valued when we were forced to stop and look and reflect. Community like never before. Kindness at its proper level. These were some of the discoveries of the first lockdown. Qualities that were always there within our communities but only revived and received in the adversity of the pandemic.

Let’s make that love normal by praying for eyes to see and ears to hear, that we might receive all that God, in his abundance, wishes to give us; receiving those gifts in the form in which they are given to us. Amen.

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Sam Phillips - One Day Late.

Thought for the Week: On holy ground

Here's my Thought for the Week at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

The logo created to advertise Telling Encounters, this year’s Disability conference, features the burning bush. This story of Moses turning aside to see a bush that is burning and God telling him to take off his sandals for the ground he is standing on is holy, is also one of the readings for our Eucharist this week.

In the story Moses takes off his sandals because he realises that the ground on which he is standing is holy. Sometimes we may need to take off our sandals in order to realise that the ground on which we stand is holy.

I’m reminded of a sculpture by David Robinson called ‘On Holy Ground’ in which a suited and booted businessman stands on a globe with his feet bare and his shoes in his hands. Shoes are designed for movement and travel. We take our shoes off when we come to rest, to stop, to linger. That is what the businessman in sculpture has done and it is in those moments when our busyness ceases that we may realise that all the ground on which we stand is holy.

Rob Bell writes: "Moses has been tending his sheep in this region for forty years. How many times has he passed by this spot? … Has the ground been holy the whole time and Moses is just becoming aware of it for the first time? Do you and I walk on holy ground all the time, but we are moving so fast and returning so many calls and writing so many emails and having such long lists to get done that we miss it?" (R. Bell, Velvet Elvis, Zondervan, 2005)

So, as we reflect on Telling Encounters this autumn, let us remember the words of the folk singer Woody Guthrie: ‘Every spot on earth I traipse around / Every spot I walk it’s holy ground … Take off, take off your shoes / This place you’re standing, it’s holy ground.’

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The Klezmatics - Holy Ground.

God desires love, not sacrifice

Here's my reflection given during today's lunchtime Eucharist for St Martin-in-the-Fields:

The scribe said to him, ‘You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that “he is one, and besides him there is no other”; and “to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength”, and “to love one’s neighbour as oneself”,—this is much more important than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices.’ When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’ (Mark 12.28–34)

Allow me for a moment to take you on a journey through the scriptures to explore the reasons why, in the kingdom of heaven, love for God, others and ourselves is much more important than offerings and sacrifices.

We begin where the Bible begins, in Genesis, with acts of human sacrifice made to appease the gods. People, often children, killed because, when trouble or tension arose in society, the belief was that, by sacrificing one or a few as a scapegoat, order would be restored by the gods for the many. That was the culture which Abraham was called to leave when he left Ur of the Chaldees to found a people that would become God’s people. As a way to create a decisive break with that culture, God took Abraham through a dramatic experience where it seemed that he was, as Abraham would have expected, demanding the sacrifice of Abraham’s firstborn son Isaac. At the very point of sacrifice, God made it clear to Abraham that he did not desire human sacrifice and provided an animal as an alternative. This became part of the founding story for the people of Israel, a people whose ritual sacrifices were of animals and not human beings.

If we then move forward in time, we can pause again for a moment at Mount Sinai and the giving of the Law to Moses. The Law received by Moses contained detailed instructions regarding the sacrifice of animals but also contained the commands quoted by Jesus and the Scribe in our Gospel reading. In addition to the system of sacrifice it introduced, the Law did two things. First, it gave minimum standards for the maintenance of good relations within society – do not murder, do not steal, do not covet etc. Second, in the greatest commandment, it set love for God, others and oneself as the goal to which all the other laws, including those concerning sacrifices, pointed. The Law was given not that people became of obsessed with the keeping of its minutiae but that people moved from the base point of not harming others to the point or goal of the Law, to love God, others and oneself.

We know that many paid lip service to the Law while ignoring it and others did become obsessed with following the minutiae of the letter of the Law and thereby missed the point of the Law. The prophets were the ones used by God to point this out to the people and their rulers. The message of the prophets can in many respects be summed up by these words from the prophet Amos through whom God said: ‘I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.’ Amos was essentially saying, ‘Love God, others and yourself.’

When God’s people ignored God’s messengers, God eventually took matters into his own hands and, in Jesus, showed us, by entering our world and being with us for 33 years, that what he desires is love and relationship. He longs to be with us and enjoy us for who we are, as we also enjoy him. That is the message of the incarnation. It is a demonstration of love.

Yet we still did not understand and, as we have been doing for millennia, made Jesus a scapegoat to excise us of our troubles and tensions, sacrificing him to relieve our fears and anxieties. The God who does not desire sacrifice became the ultimate sacrifice to show that once God has been scapegoated and sacrificed there is really nowhere else to go. There is now no god to be appeased because God does not desire sacrifice and God himself has been sacrificed. This is the end of sacrifice. The curtain was torn in the Temple at the point of Christ’s death because there was no longer any need for sacrifice and the system of sacrifice, the system that began at Mount Sinai, was itself ended in AD70 when, as prophesied by Jesus, the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed.

‘The Kingdom of God is justice and peace, And joy in the Holy Spirit!’ Like the Scribe we have come close to that kingdom when we realise that God is one, and “besides him there is no other”; and “to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength”, and “to love one’s neighbour as oneself”,—this is much more important than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices.’ ‘God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them’ (1 John 4. 16). That is the story of scripture. That is the place to which all scripture leads. It simply remains for us to pray, ‘Come, Lord, and open in us the gates of your Kingdom!’ Amen.

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GSNY Music - The Sun Will Rise.

Paying Attention: Emotions

Here is my second address from our Silent Retreat:

Paying Attention: Emotions

Many of the great figures in the Bible seem to have viewed prayer as being more like a constant conversation with God than they did a scheduled time for making requests. In some ways there seems to be a greater understanding of this in Judaism than in Christianity. I’ve been helped and challenged by some of what Jonathan Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi, has said about this understanding of prayer in a fascinating lecture called Judaism, Justice and Tragedy - Confronting the problem of evil.

He sees Abraham as being the starting point in scripture for this kind of dialogue between God and human beings and said that “there begins a dialogue between Heaven and Earth which has not ceased in 4,000 years”. He calls it the dialogue in which God and Man find one another and says that the mood of these dialogues between the prophets and God has been a never-ending feature in Judaism.

Have a look at the conversation between God and Abraham in Genesis 18. 16-33 and see what goes on there. The first thing to see in verse 17 is that God invites the conversation. He could have hidden his thoughts and plans from Abraham but he chooses not to. Instead he shares with Abraham and invites not just conversation but challenge from Abraham. Because that is what Abraham does in this conversation – he challenges God. What Abraham says to God, recorded for is in verse 25, is stunning - "God forbid that You should do such a thing! To kill the righteous with the wicked so that the righteous should have the same fate as the wicked, God forbid! Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice?" It sounds blasphemous that a human being, who as Abraham says of himself in verse 27 is “nothing but dust and ashes”, should speak in this way to his creator. It sounds blasphemous until we remember that God chose to initiate this conversation and this challenge.

What is God doing then through this conversation? Let’s go back to what God said about Abraham before beginning this conversation. In verse 19, God says that Abraham has been chosen to “direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just”. Remember that phrase, “what is right and just” because it the phrase that Abraham throws back in God’s face – “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” - “Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice?". Through their conversation, God is teaching Abraham to argue passionately for what is right and what is just. As Abraham learns to do this he becomes more able to righteousness and justice to his children and household.

In the same way, God wants us to be in conversation, in dialogue, in debate, in arguments with him so that we can find him for ourselves and actually embody his characteristics and interests ourselves. He wants us to learn to do right through discussion rather than by rote. If all we do as Christians is to learn a set of rules then we will never be able to apply those rules to real life. Because in order to do right we need to apply the Spirit of the Law, not the letter of the Law. Jesus did this constantly and his application of the Spirit of the Law continually brought him into conflict with the religious leaders of his day who were concerned with the letter of the Law. A good example is the story of the woman caught in adultery in John 8. 1-11.

We can see this acted out for us by the people of Israel at Mount Sinai. Let’s look quickly at Exodus 19. In verse 6 we read of God saying that the Israelites “will be for him a kingdom of priests and a holy nation”. Priests in Israel were the people who went into the holy place, into God’s presence. So God is saying that he wants all the people of Israel to come into his presence and to speak with him face-to-face. But turn over the page to Chapter 20.19 and you’ll find the people of Israel saying to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die”. In other words, they are saying we’ll obey God’s rules but we won’t speak with him face to face. They appoint Moses to be their mediator, to go into God’s presence on their behalf.

Moses learns to mirror God from his conversations and debates with God. So much so, that his face begins to shine with the reflection of God’s glory. But the people never really learn what God is like because they will not speak with him face to face. They keep him at arms length by using Moses as the mediator and by trying to keep rules which they know but don’t understand. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3.18 that we, like Moses, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are to be transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. That transformation comes as we dialogue, debate, argue and converse with God.

Other people in the Bible who have these kind of conversations with God include: Jacob; Samuel; Job; Jeremiah; Jonah; Habakkuk; Jesus and Paul. The Psalms though are where most of the conversations between people and God are recorded. Virtually all the Psalms are conversations where it is assumed that the hearer is either God or the people of Israel. Some of the Psalms are actually written as conversations though e.g. Psalm 12. In verses 1-4 the Psalmist cries out to God for help, in verses 5-6 God answers and in verses 7-8 the Psalmist responds by expressing confidence in God. Psalm 77 is the record of a similar conversation with God. In verses 1-6 the Psalmist tells us how he cried out to God, in verses 7-9 he tells what he cried out, in verses 10-12 he tells us how God answered his cry, and in verses 13-20 he tells us of his response to God’s answer.

This approach to prayer is one that a number of Christian poets have picked up and used over the centuries:

•             Dialogue – George Herbert

•             Love III – George Herbert

•             Bittersweet – George Herbert

•             Thou art indeed just, Lord – Gerard Manley Hopkins

The conversations with God that are recorded for us in the Psalms are one’s that involve a whole range of different emotions. You might like to read through some Psalms and identify what is the emotion being expressed. Once you’ve done that then choose three of these different emotions that connect with you and think, if you were to have a conversation with God which involved that emotion, what you would be talking about with him and what you would be wanting to say to him. 

We are often quite restrained in our relationship with God and in our praying. Therefore, we 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. Would today be a good opportunity to start including some of these more difficult emotions in your prayer life?

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Mark Heard - Strong Hand Of Love.

Start:Stop - Faces shining with God's glory

Bible reading

Now if the ministry of death, chiseled in letters on stone tablets, came in glory so that the people of Israel could not gaze at Moses’ face because of the glory of his face, a glory now set aside, how much more will the ministry of the Spirit come in glory? …

Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness, not like Moses, who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside … when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3. 7 - 18)

Meditation

After Moses has been in the presence of God on Mount Sinai to receive the Law, his face shone with the light of God; so much so, that he put a veil over his face whenever he was not speaking with the Israelites. The experience of being in the presence of God irradiated Moses in a way which meant that he reflected something of God’s light.

At Mount Sinai the Israelites, as a whole, had been given the chance to become a nation of priests enjoying the kind of intimate, direct relationship with God that Moses developed. Moses learnt to mirror God from his conversations and debates with God; so much so, that his face began to shine with the reflection of God’s glory. But the people of Israel never really learnt what God is like because they would not speak with him face to face. They kept him at arms-length by using Moses as their mediator and by trying to keep rules which they knew but didn’t fully understand. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 3.18 that we have the opportunity to be like Moses, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. That transformation comes as we dialogue, debate, argue and converse with God.

Many of the great figures in the Bible seem to have viewed prayer as being more like a constant conversation with God than they did a scheduled time for making requests. Other people in the Bible who had these kinds of conversations with God include: Abraham, Jacob, Samuel, Job, Jeremiah, Jonah, Habakkuk, Jesus, and Paul. Jonathan Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi, sees Abraham as being the starting point in scripture for this kind of dialogue between God and human beings and says that there begins with Abraham “a dialogue between Heaven and Earth which has not ceased in 4,000 years”. He calls it the dialogue in which God and Man find one another.

When we find God in this way that is when we, like Moses, with unveiled faces, will see the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, and will be transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another so that our faces begin to shine with the reflection of God’s glory.

Prayer

Great God, you said, ‘Let there be light,’ and light came into being. Your light is most clearly seen in Jesus, who is the light of the world. Enable each one of us, with unveiled faces, to see his glory as though reflected in a mirror, and be transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.

Great God, you said, ‘Let there be light,’ and light came into being. May our lives reflect your life and our faces shine with the light of Christ.

Like Moses may we enter into the dialogue in which God and human beings find one another. May we learn to dialogue, debate, argue and converse with you. With the poet-priest George Herbert, may we pray, ‘Ah my dear angry Lord, / Since thou dost love, yet strike; / Cast down, yet help afford; / Sure I will do the like. / I will complain, yet praise; / I will bewail, approve: / And all my sour-sweet days / I will lament, and love.’

Great God, you said, ‘Let there be light,’ and light came into being. May our lives reflect your life and our faces shine with the light of Christ.

We recognise that much of life in the city is struggle: the struggle to keep the children from crime; the struggle to make the money last the week; the struggle to find energy after a heavy day at work; the struggle to keep the house decent; the struggle to find quiet space in overcrowded rooms. And especially, the struggle to find space to be conscious of your presence: energy to live out your loving forgiveness. Yet somehow your blessing is discovered in the struggle, just as Jacob wrestled and struggled with you. And although he was left with a limp, your deeper blessing never left him. Lord, we pray for our friends and neighbours that they may know your blessing in this struggle of living and their faces shine as a result.

Great God, you said, ‘Let there be light,’ and light came into being. May our lives reflect your life and our faces shine with the light of Christ.

Blessing

Seeing God’s glory, dialoguing, debating, arguing and conversing with God, blessing in struggle, faces shining with God’s light. May those blessings of almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, rest upon you and remain with you always. Amen.

  

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Van Morrison - In The Garden.