You'll Never Walk Alone

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

You’ll Never Walk Alone, along with other songs from musicals, has been included as a hymn in the BBC’s hymn book. Ian Barclay commenting on this in The Guardian wrote that the Songs of Praise programme producers had come to realise that secular songs from shows have taken on some on the status of folk hymns, addressing the spiritual and pastoral needs of many people. Taken out of its context in Carousel, where it is sung by a dead father who has returned to life for one day to the daughter he never knew, it can be sung as a statement of belief that, as Psalm 23 states, God will be with us as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death or through the storms of life.

"When you walk through the storm
Hold your head up high
And don't be afraid of the dark
At the end of the storm
There's a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of the lark

Walk on, through the wind
Walk on, through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and blown
Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone
You'll never walk alone"

Our Gospel reading (Matthew 8: 23 – 27) also speaks about a storm and the way in which God is with those in the storm. The disciples in the boat on Lake Galilee experienced a literal storm but they were also caught up in an event of set of external circumstances that were beyond their control. That is probably the most common way in which we experience storms within our own lives. Circumstances conspire to bring illness or redundancy or debt or breakdown in relationships. We may have made choices that have contributed to the situation – just as the disciples made the choice to go out in the boat – but we end up by finding ourselves in circumstances that are beyond our control and which threaten to overwhelm us.

We tend to think of storms as something to avoid, something to hide or shelter from but in both of these stories God is there in the storm. Although the storm is stilled on the lake, the encounter with God takes place in the storm. To encounter God, we often need to be in the storms of life. And the God that we encounter in the storms of life goes with us through those storms until we find ourselves on the other side. That is the promise of You’ll never walk alone and of Psalm 23; even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil, for God is with us; his rod and your staff, they comfort us.

The God that we encounter in the storm can release the internal storm from with us. In times of crisis and distress we often keep our emotions bottled up inside us until eventually they explode in anger and violence. The God that we meet in the storm can be an escape valve, the person that we can always turn to, the one who is always there to listen and with whom we can pour out all those pent-up emotions releasing the storm within.

The God that we encounter in the storm is also able to still the storm of external circumstances. He holds that power and that is what we often long when we are caught up in the storms of life. I experienced that power after my younger brother Nick died in the crash of a UN plane in Kosovo. With the families of others who had died I was flown to the crash site and saw the scattered and shattered pieces of the plane on the mountainside. That terrible moment brought home the physical reality of what had happened to my brother. It was the height of the storm for me. On landing again at Pristina Airport I was met by some of the people from Tear Fund with whom Nick had been working in Kosovo to rebuild homes destroyed in the fighting there. They told me stories of the impact that Nick had had on their lives and the lives of the Kosovan people with whom they had worked. As we talked and cried together, God brought an assurance into my heart that he had welcomed Nick into his presence with the words, “Well done, my good and faithful son” and in this way I knew the stilling of the storm.

The God that we encounter in the storm is also able to still the storm of external circumstances. And yet, Jesus was disappointed with the reaction of disciples in the storm on Lake Galilee. “How little faith you have,” is what he said to them. What would have happened if they had had more faith? It is likely that they would have rode out the storm in trust that God would see them through. It is likely that Jesus was asleep in the boat not because he didn’t care about their dilemma but because he trusted that God would go with them through the storm and wanted them to have that same trust too.

We may be in the middle of some storm ourselves today as we sit and listen. We may need the internal storm in our lives to be released in peace. We may have come through storms in our lives but still be bearing the scars or wondering where God was at that time. We may need to take this message to our hearts now because there are storms on the horizon. If that is so, we need to know in our hearts that we do not walk alone. That if we look for him we will see God going with us through the storm. That if we trust him we will come to that place of peace where the storm clouds have blown over and we see the golden sky and hear the sweet, silver song of the lark.

Let us pray that we will recognise God with us in the storms of our lives asking for the faith to come through the storm, for release of our internal storms, and for the stilling of our external storms.

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Delirious? - Find Me In The River.

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.

You'll never walk alone

Here's the sermon I shared this morning at St Mary Magdalene Great Burstead:

I wonder if you knew that You’ll Never Walk Alone, along with other songs from musicals, has been included as a hymn in the BBC’s hymn book. Ian Barclay commenting on this in The Guardian wrote that the Songs of Praise programme producers have come to realise that secular songs from shows have taken on some on the status of folk hymns, addressing the spiritual and pastoral needs of many people. Taken out of its context in Carousel, where it is sung by a dead father who has returned to life for one day to the daughter he never knew, it can be sung as a statement of belief that, as Psalm 23 states, God will be with us as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death or through the storms of life.

When you walk through the storm
Hold your head up high
And don't be afraid of the dark
At the end of the storm
There's a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of the lark

Walk on, through the wind
Walk on, through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and blown
Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone
You'll never walk alone

Our Gospel reading (Matthew 8: 23 – end) speaks about two storms and two different ways in which God is with people in those storms. The disciples in the boat on Lake Galilee experienced a literal storm but they were also caught up in an event of set of external circumstances that were beyond their control. And that is probably the most common way in which we experience storms within our own lives.

Circumstances conspire to bring illness or redundancy or debt or breakdown in relationships. We may have made choices that have contributed to the situation – just as the disciples made the choice to go out in the boat – but we end up by finding ourselves in circumstances that are beyond our control and which threaten to overwhelm us.

The storm in the story of the two men in Gadara is different because for them the storm is not external but internal. Many of us experience periods of mental ill health when we feel overwhelmed by feelings and emotions, fears and anxieties which rage inside and threaten to overwhelm us. For some of us, the storm of those emotions becomes a more permanent feature of our lives and begins to affect the way in which we relate to others and the extent to which we are able to participate in society. For some, too, the things we use initially to bring some relief from those emotions – drink, drugs, sex, violence – also end up controlling our reactions and responses and ultimately change who we are as people. The two men in this story seem to have been experiencing that kind of internal storm.

We tend to think of storms as something to avoid, something to hide or shelter from but in both of these stories God is there in the storm. Although the storm is stilled on the lake and the internal storm released from the men in Gadara, the encounter with God takes place in the storm. To encounter God, we often need to be in the storms of life. And the God that we encounter in the storms of life goes with us through those storms until we find ourselves on the other side. That is the promise of You’ll never walk alone and of Psalm 23; even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil, for God is with us; his rod and your staff, they comfort us.

The God that we encounter in the storm can release the internal storm from with us. In times of crisis and distress we often keep our emotions bottled up inside us until eventually they explode in anger and violence. The God that we meet in the storm can be an escape valve, the person that we can always turn to, the one who is always there to listen and with whom we can pour out all those pent-up emotions releasing the storm within.

The God that we encounter in the storm is also able to still the storm of external circumstances. He holds that power and that is what we often long when we are caught up in the storms of life. I experienced that power after my younger brother Nick died in the crash of a UN plane in Kosovo. With the families of others who had died I was flown to the crash site and saw the scattered and shattered pieces of the plane on the mountainside. That terrible moment brought home the physical reality of what had happened to my brother. It was the height of the storm for me. On landing again at Pristina Airport I was met by some of the people from Tear Fund with whom Nick had been working in Kosovo to rebuild homes destroyed in the fighting there. They told me stories of the impact that Nick had had on their lives and the lives of the Kosovan people with whom they had worked. As we talked and cried together, God brought an assurance into my heart that he had welcomed Nick into his presence with the words, “Well done, my good and faithful son” and in this way I knew the stilling of the storm.

The God that we encounter in the storm is also able to still the storm of external circumstances. And yet, Jesus was disappointed with the reaction of disciples in the storm on Lake Galilee. “How little faith you have,” is what he said to them. What would have happened if they had had more faith? It is likely that they would have rode out the storm in trust that God would see them through. It is likely that Jesus was asleep in the boat not because he didn’t care about their dilemma but because he trusted that God would go with them through the storm and wanted them to have that same trust too.

We may be in the middle of some storm ourselves today as we sit and listen. We may need the internal storm in our lives to be released in peace. We may have come through storms in our lives but still be bearing the scars or wondering where God was at that time. We may need to take this message to our hearts because there are storms on the horizon. If that is so, we need to know in our hearts that we do not walk alone. That if we look for him we will see God going with us through the storm. That if we trust him we will come to that place of peace where the storm clouds have blown over and we see the golden sky and hear the sweet, silver song of the lark.

Let us pray that we will recognise God with us in the storms of our lives asking for the faith to come through the storm, for release of our internal storms, and for the stilling of our external storms. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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Katherine Jenkins - You'll Never Walk Alone.

A walk through the Park and Music for a Summer Evening

There are two great events coming up at St Andrew's Wickford this week:

A walk through the Park: A talk by Kim Oakes & Janet Dunn of Friends of Wickford Memorial Park
Friday 23 June, 7.00 pm
St Andrew’s Church, 11 London Road, Wickford SS12 0AN
Part of ‘Unveiled’, the fortnightly Friday night arts and performance event at St Andrew’s Church

SATURDAY, JUNE 24, 2023 AT 7:30 PM
Allegro Choir: Music for a Summer Evening
St Andrew's Church
The aim of Allegro is to have fun rehearsing a wide repertoire of music and to present high quality concerts which raise funds for charities. Tickets (£10 adults, free for children) are now on sale at the Allegro Box Office (01268 751303) or can be purchased at St Andrew's. Tickets can also be purchased on the door. The Programme will include a selection from My Fair Lady and South Pacific shows as well as some wonderful solos, duets and traditional and new choral arrangements with Allegro’s usual mix of music from traditional choral arrangements to popular modern composers and hit musicals.

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Audrey Hepburn - I Could Have Danced All Night.

Art and faith: Decades of engagement - 1970s

This is Part 9 in a series of posts which aim to demonstrate the breadth of engagement there has been between the Arts and religion within the modern period and into our contemporary experience. The idea is to provide a brief introduction to the artists and initiatives that were prominent in each decade to enable further research. Inevitably, these lists will be partial as there is much that I don’t know and the lists reflect my interests and biases. As such, the primary, but not exclusive, focus is on artists that have engaged with the Christian tradition.

The introduction and the remainder of the series can be found at: Introduction, 1880s, 1890s, 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s.

• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1970) and Heinrich Böll (1972) are awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
• Ed Rice’s biography of Thomas Merton, The Man in the Sycamore Tree, is published in 1970.
• In 1970, Corita Kent designs the cover for Daniel Berrigan’s The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, his free-verse play about his trial and conviction for burning draft files with napalm at the Catonsville, Maryland, draft board in 1968. In 1971, she completes her monumental Rainbow Swash gas tank design.
• In 1970 Colin McCahon completes Practical religion: the resurrection of Lazarus showing Mount Martha and celebrates his long but intermittent friendship with James K. Baxter in ‘Walk (Series C)’ also undertaking set designs for a festival of four of Baxter’s plays at Wellington.
• Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell are performed for the first time in 1971.
• The Rothko Chapel in Houston Texas, commissioned by Dominique and John de Menil, is completed in 1971 and dedicated in 1973.
• In 1971, Henk Krijger paints The Annunciation. The Institute of Christian Art moves to Toronto, Canada, and the Patmos Workshop and Gallery in Toronto is opened.
• Between 1971 and 1976, Larry Norman releases his album trilogy of Only Visiting this Plant, So Long Ago the Garden, and In Another Land.
• In March 1972, the retrospective Colin McCahon/a survey exhibition opens at the Auckland City Art Gallery before touring New Zealand. The exhibition of 72 works covering the years 1938–1971 is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue for which McCahon writes the commentary. Critical reaction is positive, with the exhibition hailed as evidence that clearly justifies McCahon’s reputation as New Zealand’s pre-eminent artist.
• In 1972, Béla Kondor paints a monumental oil painting entitled 'Procession of the Saints into Town.'
• In 1972 Arvo Pärt converts from Lutheranism to Orthodox Christianity.
• Sadao Watanabe’s works exhibited in the Modern Print Show at the 1972 Winter Olympics, Sapporo, Japan and holds a one-man show at the Grace Cathedral, San Francisco.
• In 1973, 'The Icon of Divine Light' by Cecil Collins is unveiled at Chichester Cathedral.
• In the winter of 1973/74 Paul Thek is a guest of the Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg and his expansive environment Ark, Pyramid – Christmas (The Manger) fills a whole room. It is a development of his installation at documenta 5 in Kassel (1972). Also, in 1972, A Station of the Cross in Essen and, in 1973, Ark, Pyramid-Easter at the Kunstmuseum Luzern.
• In 1976, Dennis Potter’s Brimstone and Treacle is broadcast.
• The Alpha Band forms in July 1976 from the remnants of Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue, with T-Bone Burnett, Steven Soles, and David Mansfield joining forces to create some unique, intriguing and utterly wonderful music together for three releases before disbanding. Burnett writes brutally honest and, at time, provocative and satirical lyrics deriving from a Christian worldview.
• In 1977, Tony Harrison’s The Mysteries is performed for the first time at the National Theatre.
• In 1977, Riding Lights Theatre Company is founded in York by Murray Watts, Nigel Forde and Paul Burbridge.
• In 1977, Marian Bohusz-Szyszko becomes artist-in-residence for the St Christopher’s Hospice and in 1980 married Dame Cicely Saunders, the founder of the modern hospice movement.
• In 1977, the Perceptions of the Spirit in 20th-Century American Art exhibition is held at LACMA.
• The Nevelson Chapel at St Peter’s Lexington Avenue New York is the only remaining, permanent, fully intact sculptural environment by Louise Nevelson. At the Chapel's dedication in 1977, John Dillenberger, historian, theologian and Union Seminary Professor, wrote of her work: ‘This meditation chapel, however, is the only work in which she has had the opportunity to form the total environmental ambience.’ From its dedication, the Chapel of the Good Shepherd has been heralded as a jewel in New York. An “oasis,” as the artist defined it, providing solitude and respite from the harried pace of the city.
• John Tavener is received into the Russian Orthodox Church in 1977.
• Based on interviews with Nobel Prize winner Czeslaw Milosz, Alexsander Wat’s My Century is published in 1977. A story of spiritual struggle and conversion - describes the artistic, sexual, and political experimentation --in which Wat was a major participant-- that followed the end of World War I: an explosion of talent and ideas which, he argues, in some ways helped to open the door to the destruction that the Nazis and Bolsheviks soon visited upon the world.
• In 1978, Jackson Hlungwani experiences a vision; Christ and two figures appear to him and make three promises: that he would be healed of his then current injuries, that he would see God and that he would become a preacher. This vision becomes the defining moment of his life, and his career as an artist. Hlungwani develops a visual language that integrates traditions of Tsonga-Shangaan wood carving, Southern African spirituality, popular culture and biblical narratives.
• In 1978, the New Zealand Government marks Australia’s Bicentennial by presenting Colin McCahon’s Victory over Death 2 1970 to ‘the Government and people of Australia’. James Mollison, the Australian National Gallery’s first Director, says that Victory over Death 2 is ‘one of the most important paintings to have been made in the southern hemisphere in recent times.’
• In 1978, a stained glass window by Marc Chagall is unveiled at Chichester Cathedral, based on the theme of Psalm 150 '...let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.'
• In 1979, John F. Deane founds Poetry Ireland – the National Poetry Society – and The Poetry Ireland Review.
• Arts Centre Group (1971), Greenbelt Festival (1974), Asian Christian Art Association (1978) and Christians in the Visual Arts (1979) are founded.
• Bill Fay ‘Time of the Last Persecution’ (1971), Marvin Gaye ‘What’s Going On’ (1971), Aretha Franklin ‘Amazing Grace’ (1972), Al Green ‘The Belle Album’ (1977), The Staple Singers ‘Be What You Are’ (1973), Bruce Cockburn ‘Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaw’ (1979), Bob Dylan ‘Slow Train Coming’ (1979), and Van Morrison ‘Into the Music’ (1979) release Christian-influenced albums.
• John Berryman’s Love & Fame (1970), Muriel Spark’s The Driver’s Seat (1970), The Abbess of Crewe (1974) and The Takeover (1976), Heinrich Böll’s Group Portrait with Lady (1971), Walker Percy’s Love in the Ruins: The Adventures of a Bad Catholic at a Time (1971), Julien Green’s L'Autre (1971), Geoffrey Hill’s Mercian Hymns (1971) and Tenebrae (1978), Peter Levi’s Death is a Pulpit (1971) and Good Friday Sermon (1973), George Mackay Brown’s Greenvoe (1972) and Magnus (1973), Alice Thomas Ellis’ The Sin Eater (1977), and Shusaku Endo’s Volcano (1978) are published.

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Bill Fay - Time Of The Last Persecution.