Memorial Service for The Revd Sally Muggeridge

Here's the sermon that I preached today in the Memorial Service for Sally Muggeridge held at St Stephen Walbrook:

The opportunity to minister at St Stephen Walbrook together with Sally was one that I greatly enjoyed and appreciated. I greatly valued having her as a colleague. She was a special colleague with great insight and ideas coupled with real humility and a servant heart. We were very fortunate to have enjoyed Sally’s assistance and ministry at St Stephen Walbrook during her curacy and were particularly grateful for the links she established with the City and with businesses locally.

Her time with us also broke down barriers as she was the first woman to preside at the Eucharist in St Stephen Walbrook. It was a privilege to be at the ‘At Home’ for WATCH during which she celebrated her first Eucharist and became the first woman to celebrate the Eucharist in that church. I also remember with real pleasure our conversations about her uncle Malcolm Muggeridge and his impact as well as all she did to work on his legacy. I will always remember her time with us and all she brought to ministry with deep gratitude.

As we have just heard, Sally had her calling as a priest confirmed to her as she cared for and sat through the night with a lady in Calcutta who was dying while in the care of Mother Teresa’s Sisters of Charity. This remarkable experience culminated with a moment of communication between the two just before the woman died and coincided, in a God-incidence, with the death of Sally’s own mother, who received a call from Desmond Tutu just before she died.

Reflecting on these experiences would have confirmed a priestly call for Sally because they are experiences of being with, something that is at the heart of what priestly ministry involves. Being with is based on the belief that to find the meaning of life we need each other. We need to spend time being present and attentive to others who may be different to us and to ourselves and the world around us. As we do this, we can discover a way to be attentive to God and discover that God is present to us.

This discovery occurs because God has always been with, although never more so than in his incarnation as Jesus. The kingdom of God comes near to us when Jesus comes near because Jesus is God with us. That is what the incarnation, the crucifixion and the resurrection are all about. The Gospel of Matthew begins with the angel's promise that the Messiah will be called Emmanuel - God with us. The Gospel ends with Jesus's promise to his disciples, "Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." In between we get Jesus's promise to the church, "Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there with them." … And, perhaps most significantly of all, the Gospel of John says "The Word was made flesh and dwelt with us." Jesus's ministry is about being with us, in pain and glory, in sorrow and in joy, in quiet and in conflict, in death and in life. God is with us when Jesus comes near, which is, in reality, all the time. That is our witness as Christians and it is also our ministry. If the heart of the Gospel is that God is with us in every circumstance and into eternity, then our task is to be with others in order that they experience God with them.

This was Sally’s experience and was at the heart of her priestly ministry being the key aspect of her ministry about which she spoke when she was profiled by the Financial Times: “My role is now one of pastoral care of stressed City workers. So many seek chats, prayers, a quick discussion [about] a worry about family life and work. A prayer needed, a smile, a service — I can help with examples and encouragement.”'

She was able to do this so well because of the time she had spent in the business world and the experience gained. Being with those who work in the City involves making connections between faith and working life and Sally was able to do that supremely well because of the prior experience that she brought to ministry. Again, this featured in the FT profile where it was noted that: "Throughout her career, Revd Muggeridge has been a vocal advocate of increasing the role of women in business and the church.”

As such, Sally organised a 'Women in the City of London - More than just a place of work' event which highlighted the civic, cultural, charitable and social opportunities in the City of London, including networks as a route to fuller participation. She also contributed to a series of events we ran to explore the place of faith in the world of business. We titled this series as ‘plus+ presentations’ flagging that we were seeking to add value to the experience of being in the City. Sally spoke from personal experience about campaigns to increase the numbers of women on Boards. She also chaired a Volunteers from the City event which explored the benefits of volunteering, preparation, training and support for volunteers, and the part that Corporate Social Responsibility plays in volunteering. These are just a few examples of the links she established for St Stephen Walbrook with the City and with businesses locally. They, and other gatherings, were opportunities to meet and be with the City workers to whom she ministered pastorally.

She also contributed regularly to Start:Stop, our popular ten-minute Tuesday morning reflections, one of several initiatives that created ‘a new pattern of missional engagement at Walbrook.’ These included the uplifting ‘Discover and Explore’ series of services on Mondays, which featured different themes accompanied by the music of the Choral Scholars. This service involved speaking on an eclectic but interesting variety of topics depending on the theme. Among the topics on which Sally spoke were the following: Lanning Roper, Love, the Temple of Mithras, Christopher Wren, George Croly, Hope, Sir John Vanburgh, Chad Varah, John the Baptist, Guidance, Faith, St Paul in Rome, and St Columba. Always, however, with a deep perception of where God was to be found with us in relation to the topic.

In speaking once about architecture, she noted that this impulse: “the planning and specification of buildings, is perhaps as old as man’s wish to build. But we also know we cannot look to any building, however majestic, for permanence. Buildings are by nature, like us, transitory, here today and gone tomorrow. In the search for true permanence and stability, in wishing to build Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land, we must look to God.”

That thought brings us back to the permanent nature of God’s being with us in the reality of life experiences that are changing and transient. As we heard in the reading from Romans, “nothing can separate us from his love.” That remains true in all that we experience as we go through life.

As Sam Wells has said: “God doesn’t spare us from the fire. God doesn’t rescue us from the fire … God is with us in the fire. ‘Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for you are with me.’ ‘When you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.’ That’s the gospel …

Jesus isn’t spared the cross. Jesus isn’t rescued from the cross. Jesus is with God on the cross. The bonds of the Trinity are stretched to the limit; but not ultimately, broken. When we see the cross we see that God is with us, however, whatever, wherever … forever. This is our faith.”

As Henri Nouwen says: “God’s protection is not a promise that nothing will happen to us, but that nothing—absolutely nothing—will separate us from His love.”

As a result, we can say with the Psalmist: “If it had not been the Lord who was on our side … then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us; then over us would have gone the raging waters.” May we know that truth in whatever difficulty we face currently.

Finally, though, God’s being with in the incarnation and in the vicissitudes of life is so that we can be with him forever in the coming kingdom of God where there will be nothing for us to fix and where there will simply be being with God, with each other and with creation. That is now Sally’s experience having come through all that she experienced in this life with the knowledge that Christ was with her in all things.

And, as will be of great importance for someone who was always learning, growing, developing and doing something beautiful for God, that experience of being with will not be static, formulaic and dull but instead will be exploratory as there is always something more to know of love, joy and peace in the never-ending depths of God. Although at rest, Sally remains on her journey of faith, exploring her calling, discovering more of the beauty in God, in others, in herself, and in creation. May the same also be true for us. Amen.

My review of 'Jesus, The Man Who Lives by Malcolm Muggeridge, with an Afterword by Sally Muggeridge, can be read here.

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Heart and Voice recital with The Choral Scholars of St Stephen Walbrook.

Transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope

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

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

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

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

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

In him we see:

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

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

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

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

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The Alarm - Walk Forever By My Side.

Make our scars beautiful like your scars

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

Jesus said, “Look at my hands and feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see …” ( Luke 24. 36b – 48)

During my curacy I knew a lady called Mandy whose arms are a web of scars from having self-harmed for fourteen years from the age of fourteen. At one point she needed 300 internal and external stitches. Her scars, as you can imagine, are so extensive that there is no way she can completely hide or cover them up. Now that she no longer self-harms, she is encouraged and helped by the realisation that Jesus also bears scars on his resurrected body.

When Jesus says to his disciples, “Look at my hands and feet … Touch me and see”, it is the scars (from the nails that were driven into his hands and feet while on the cross and the spear that was thrust into his side) that he is asking his disciples to look at and touch. These scars are part of Christ’s resurrected body.

Why was this important to Mandy? For her this was about identification. She and Jesus are similar because both bear scars. She need not feel different or unusual or excluded because the marks that mark her out as being different from many other people are also borne by Jesus. She feels at one with him, included and accepted by him, because he bears similar marks on his body to those she also bears.

She has expressed it like this: “Having Jesus in my life now has made me look at things in a very different light. You see, to be an anybody, anywhere is to look into the eyes of someone who matters to you and know that they don't care what or who you are, where you have been or what you have achieved. To be an anybody, anywhere is to look into those eyes and know that if you see love there, then you have earned it. Not for being a walking achievement or an interesting case or a social inspiration or a charity case, but just for being you. That is the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ; a loving and understanding heart. Not someone that is looking at what you did, instead he looks at what you will become. I have now found the best friendship and a sense of belonging and the love that I have always longed for. The mask that I had hidden behind for so long has now gone and I am no longer a label but a child of God.”

Roy McCloughry writes that Jesus “has taken up the marks of disability into himself” and that “his body, in showing how he suffered, offers solidarity with all who remain disabled.” Similarly, Nancy Eiesland says, “Resurrection is not about the negation or erasure of our disabled bodies in hopes of perfect images, untouched by physical disability; rather Christ’s resurrection offers hope that our nonconventional, and sometimes difficult, bodies participate fully in the imago Dei …”

In some ways this is a surprising realisation because we tend to think of resurrection as being our entry into whatever we imagine perfection to be; including, perhaps, the thought that supposed imperfections, like our scars, are healed and removed. Reflecting on some of the reasons why Jesus’ risen body shows the scars of his crucifixion may help us to revise our ideas about resurrection.

Scars are about healing. The formation of a scar is a part of the healing process and where they remain on our bodies they are signs that significant healing has taken place. Christ’s resurrection is only achieved by way of the wounds he gained from the crucifixion. He is for us the risen Christ because he was firstly for us the crucified Christ. In a similar way our wounds inevitably form and shape us. We would not be who we are as we now are without having gone through or having endured those wounding experiences.

Jungian therapy suggests that it is only by being willing to face, consciously experience and go through our wounds that we will receive a blessing from them: ‘To go through our wound is to embrace, assent, and say “yes” to the mysteriously painful new place in ourselves where the wound is leading us. Going through our wound, we can allow ourselves to be re-created by the wound. Our wound is not a static entity, but rather a continually unfolding dynamic process that manifests, reveals and incarnates itself through us, which is to say that our wound is teaching us something about ourselves. Going through our wound means realizing we will never again be the same when we get to the other side of this initiatory process. Going through our wound is a genuine death experience, as our old self “dies” in the process, while a new, more expansive and empowered part of ourselves is potentially born’ (http://www.awakeninthedream.com/wordpress/the-wounded-healer-part-1/).

Scars are also about wounds. In Isaiah 53 we read: “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering … and by his wounds we are healed.” Jesus saves us through his wounds. Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to his disciples at the last supper. Henri Nouwen, who is perhaps best known for applying Jungian thinking on the wounded healer to pastoral ministry, “interprets these acts as symbolising the way in which Jesus was taken by his father, blessed at his baptism, broken on the cross and then given to the world and that the same can be said of people (God’s beloved children according to Nouwen). This means that God reveals to people their chosenness and the blessing of being His beloved children; they are broken by life’s sorrows and the result of their brokenness is to be given to the world as a gift” (Philip Nolte).

That was Mandy’s experience as she shared her story with others and set up support groups which aimed to cut out the pain for those taking part. Mandy’s experience of acceptance in Christ in time led her to a place where she could talk openly about her experiences, particularly if by doing so she could help others cope with their traumas or move beyond the urge to self-harm. Those who are wounded often become wounded healers, with their experience of living with their wounds shaping their ministry to others facing similar experiences and circumstances.

So how could our resurrection lives and bodies not include what is both formative and loving in us, of us and about us? For that to be the case, however, we need to acknowledge that we are all wounded and scarred, to view the wounds we bear as being embraced by Christ, as formative in our lives and as opportunities which create potential in us to minister in future to others. An Easter Day Eucharistic Prayer includes these words, ‘make our scars beautiful like your scars’. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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John & Ross Harding - Yesterday Today Forever.

Lent Courses: St Martin-in-the-Fields and HeartEdge

There are a wealth of options for Lent available through St Martin-in-the-Fields and HeartEdge:

Lent Study Course 2021 - St Martin-in-the-Fields

When I first read Stephen Verney’s book “Water into Wine” it changed the way I read this Gospel. He helped me to see for myself: “heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” Stephen Verney talks about his love affair with John’s Gospel that lasted all of his life and his book helps to enter into that love too- tasting the water which through Christ has become the best wine of all and to understand John’s Gospel in a new way.

This thoughtful, insightful and beautifully written book is the product of a life-time’s immersion in the Gospel; ‘Stephen Verney’s life was a stained-glass window through which St John’s Gospel Light flowed in abundance”.

Wednesdays 6.30 – 8.45pm (online)
17, 24 February, 3, 10, 17, 24, 31 March

• 17 February – Ash Wednesday: Come and See
• 24 February – Water into Wine- An Introduction (John1-2.11)
• 3 March- Born from Above (John 2.12-4.45)
• 10 March- Healing (John 4.46-9)
• 17 March- Freedom (John10-12.50)
• 24 March- Transformative Love (John 13-17)
• 31 March- Life through Death (John 18-20, 1.1-18)

Click here to book your place



Inspired to Follow: Who is my neighbour?

A course which journeys through Lent by exploring different dimensions of the question, ‘Who is my neighbour?’

Inspired to Follow: ‘Who is my Neighbour? – A journey through Lent’ – Sundays in Lent, 14:00 (GMT), Zoom meeting.

Register here to receive a zoom invitation - https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/inspired-to-follow-who-is-my-neighbour-tickets-133589749537.

‘Inspired to Follow: Art and the Bible Story’ helps people explore the Christian faith, using paintings and Biblical story as the starting points. The course uses fine art paintings in the National Gallery’s collection as a spring board for exploring questions of faith.

• Sunday 21 February: Session 1 - Being Waited on by Angel Neighbours
• Sunday 28 February: Session 2 - Being a Neighbour to Those Close to Us
• Sunday 7 March: Session 3 - Giving Hospitality to Strangers
• Sunday 14 March: Session 4 - Standing Up for the Oppressed
• Sunday 21 March: Session 5 - Carrying Another’s Load (Simon of Cyrene)
• Sunday 28 March: Session 6 - Being a Neighbour to Those on the Road

Lent Course: Creating a New Communion

Lent 2021 at HeartEdge

Tuesdays @ 10.00am GMT for 90 minutes

23 February, 02 March, 09 March, 16 March, 23 March

Register for a zoom invite at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lent-course-creating-a-new-communion-tickets-138238445913.

Creating a New Communion

Exploring how generosity, gratitude, giving and fundraising call us into communion with God and with one another.

Suitably for clergy and lay leaders

Inspired by Henri Nouwen and his wonderful book The Spirituality of Fundraising join this five-session free online study and discussion series, hosted by HeartEdge, and facilitated by the Dioceses of Hereford and York.

Through Lent we’ll explore together Nouwen’s deep conviction that the ground of our common humanity and our life’s work is to accept the “call to be deeply, deeply connected with unconditional love, with our own fragile humanity, and with brothers and sisters everywhere.” What does this mean for you? For your ministry? For the church of today? For generosity, gratitude, giving and fundraising?

Here are the contributors:

Jo Beacroft Mitchell, Generous Giving Team Leader, Diocese of York – Having worked extensively with churches as they develop their mission and funding programmes, Through the course, Jo is keen to explore how the often necessary and challenging discussions around our practical needs as communities of faith, can in fact lead to transformative discussions about what we are ‘for’ as a church and what it means to live out an incarnational and practical faith in community with others.

Stewart Graham, is Director of Fundraising at The Archbishop of York Youth Trust. An experienced fundraiser in individual giving, legacies and donor relationships and partnerships, he focuses on changing cultures to inspire and engage people to fundraise and to look at how they can help change the world!

Richard Jones is Lead Parish Giving Adviser within the Diocese of Hereford. He is currently negotiating the challenges of emigration to the USA amidst politics and pandemic! He has previously served within two dioceses within the Church in Wales; altogether working with matters of generous giving and stewardship for eighteen years. He is passionate about resourcing the mission and ministry of the church, especially the rural church – which is fortunate as he now serves in the most rural diocese within all of the Church of England!

Mark Simmons is Parish Giving Adviser (Ministry Development) within the Diocese of Hereford and brings a wealth of experience from his many voluntary and paid roles including his role as Chair of the UK & Ireland board of the Community of the Cross of Nails. He is an experienced mediator and negotiator, he has worked mostly in peace building, international development, human rights, and educational leadership, notably in youth leadership programmes in North Africa, the Middle East and Europe. He has spent the last two years training for local licensed ministry and is a serving Churchwarden at his local village church in rural Herefordshire.

Pre-session reading of ‘The Spirituality of Fundraising’, by Henri Nouwen although not essential, is recommended.

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Water Into Wine Band - I Have Seen The Lord.

HeartEdge: December Mailer

HeartEdge is an international ecumenical movement of churches and other organisations developing mission focused on commercial activity, congregations, cultural engagement and compassion.

Our monthly Mailer is a "smorgasbord of ideas, inspiration and resource focused around HeartEdge 4 C's."

This month:

• "If the cafés are open on Christmas Day, then the churches should surely be. And we should not be celebrating a sort of 'Narnia' Christmas, fantasizing about the good old days, whenever they were. We are celebrating Christmas this year in a world at war, full of uncertainty, inequality and injustice." Lucy Winkett on being open for Christmas.
• Plus - a Christmas group work resource, a look at community meals, and the Library of Things
• Also - Henri Nouwen, 'Spirit Level' authors Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett on social status, Simon Sinek on power dynamics, 2019 trends and Chine McDonald on identity politics.

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Gungor feat. All Sons & Daughters - Oh Light.

The inexhaustible, unlimited motherly and fatherly love of God

Here is my sermon from today's Eucharist at St Stephen Walbrook:

Henri Nouwen was a bestselling author and pastor of a L’Arche community in Toronto, a community of people with learning difficulties. One of his best loved books is The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming. The book reflects on the parable of the Prodigal Son by way of a painting; Rembrandt’s Prodigal Son.

In the book Nouwen describes his thoughts as he first saw that image as a large poster pinned to a colleague’s door: “I saw a man in a great red cloak tenderly touching the shoulders of a dishevelled boy kneeling before him. I could not take my eyes away. I felt drawn by the intimacy between the two figures, the warm red of the man’s cloak, the golden yellow of the boy’s tunic, and the mysterious light engulfing them both. But, most of all, it was the hands – the old man’s hands as they touched the boy’s shoulders that reached me in a place where I had never been reached before.”

Through reflection on the painting and through L’Arche, Nouwen became familiar with the home of God within him. That place where, “I am held safe in the embrace of an all-loving Father who calls me by name and says, ‘You are my beloved son, on you my favour rests.’ Looking back he sees that his intense response to the father’s embrace of his son told that he was desperately searching for that inner place where he too could be held as safely as the young man in the painting. It maybe that we are each one searching for that place and embrace.

For Nouwen it all began with the father’s hands: “The two are quite different. The father’s left hand touching the son’s shoulder is strong and muscular … That hand seems not only to touch, but, with its strength, also to hold. Even though there is a gentleness in the way the father’s left hand touches his, it is not without a firm grip. How different is the father’s right hand! This hand does not hold or grasp. It is refined, soft, and very tender … It lies gently upon the son’s shoulder. It wants to caress, to stroke, and to offer consolation and comfort. It is a mother’s hand …As soon as I recognised the difference between the two hands of the father, a new world of meaning opened up for me. The Father is not simply a great patriarch. He is mother as well as father. He touches … with a masculine hand and a feminine hand. He is, indeed God, in whom both manhood and womanhood, fatherhood and motherhood, are fully present.

Then there is the great red cloak. With its warm colour and its arch-like shape, it offers a welcome place where it is good to be. At first, the cloak … looked to be like a tent inviting the tired traveller to find some rest. But as I went on gazing at the red cloak, another image came to me: the sheltering wings of the mother bird. They reminded me of Jesus’ words about God’s maternal love: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem … How often have I longed to gather your children, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.” Day and night God holds me safe, as a hen holds her chicks secure under her wings. Even more than … a tent, the image of a vigilant mother bird’s wings expresses the safety that God offers her children. They express care, protection, a place to rest and feel safe …

For most of my life I have struggled to find God, to know God, to love God. I have tried hard to follow the guidelines of the spiritual life … and to avoid the many temptations to dissipate myself. I have failed many times but always tried again, even when … close to despair. Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realised that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. The question is not “How am I to find God?” but “How am I to let myself be found by him?” The … question is not “How am I to love God? But “How am I to let myself be loved by God?” God is looking into the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home … God is the father who watches and waits for his children, runs out to meet them, embraces them, pleads with them, begs and urges them to come home. It might sound strange, but God wants to find me as much as, if not more than, I want to find God …

Many people live their lives never fully sure that they are loved as they are. Many have horrendous stories that offer plausible reasons for their low self-esteem. The parable of the prodigal son is a story that speaks about a love that existed before any rejection was possible and that will still be there after all rejections have taken place. It is the first and everlasting love of a God who is Father as well as Mother. It is the foundation of all true human love, even the most limited. Jesus’ whole life and preaching had only one aim: to reveal this inexhaustible, unlimited motherly and fatherly love of his God and to show the way to let that love guide every part of our daily lives. In his painting of the father, Rembrandt offers us a glimpse of that love. It is the love that always welcomes home and always wants to celebrate.”

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Keith Green - The Prodigal Son Suite.

Beautiful scars

This is the first sermon that I have preached in the 10.00am service at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

Jesus said, “Look at my hands and feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see …” (Luke 24. 36 - 49)

I have a friend called Mandy whose arms are a web of scars from having self-harmed for fourteen years from the age of fourteen. At one point she needed 300 internal and external stitches. Her scars, as you can imagine, are so extensive that there is no way she can completely hide or cover them up. Now that she no longer self-harms, she is encouraged and helped by the realisation that Jesus also bears scars on his resurrected body.

When Jesus says to his disciples, “Look at my hands and feet … Touch me and see”, it is the scars (from the nails that were driven into his hands and feet while on the cross and the spear that was thrust into his side) that he is asking his disciples to look at and touch. These scars are part of Christ’s resurrected body.

Why was this important to Mandy? For her this was about identification. She and Jesus are similar because both bear scars. She need not feel different or unusual or excluded because the marks that mark her out as being different from many other people are also borne by Jesus. She feels at one with him, included and accepted by him, because he bears similar marks on his body to those she also bears.

She has expressed it like this: “Having Jesus in my life now has made me look at things in a very different light. You see, to be an anybody, anywhere is to look into the eyes of someone who matters to you and know that they don't care what or who you are, where you have been or what you have achieved. To be an anybody, anywhere is to look into those eyes and know that if you see love there, then you have earned it. Not for being a walking achievement or an interesting case or a social inspiration or a charity case, but just for being you. That is the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ; a loving and understanding heart. Not someone that is looking at what you did, instead he looks at what you will become. I have now found the best friendship and a sense of belonging and the love that I have always longed for. The mask that I had hidden behind for so long has now gone and I am no longer a label but a child of God.”

Roy McCloughry writes that Jesus “has taken up the marks of disability into himself” and that “his body, in showing how he suffered, offers solidarity with all who remain disabled.” Similarly, Nancy Eiesland says, “Resurrection is not about the negation or erasure of our disabled bodies in hopes of perfect images, untouched by physical disability; rather Christ’s resurrection offers hope that our nonconventional, and sometimes difficult, bodies participate fully in the imago Dei …”

In some ways this is a surprising realisation because we tend to think of resurrection as being our entry into whatever we imagine perfection to be; including, perhaps, the thought that supposed imperfections, like our scars, are healed and removed. The kind of state, perhaps, which was described in our reading from Acts where Peter stated that the man who had been healed had been given perfect health (Acts 3. 13 - 21).

That, however, would be to overlook the fact that this man, though healed at that moment, remained, as is each one of us, on a continuum between illness and wellness which will eventually end in his death. His healing did not remove him from the continuum of illness and wellness but simply placed him at a different point on it. That is reality for all of us, we are all on this same continuum whether or not we have some form of diagnosis through the medical profession, or not. The perfect health that Peter spoke about was an experience for that moment; it did not mean that this man would not later become unwell or grow old or at, some stage, die.

This realisation is, I think, of help to us in thinking about the resurrection as it calls into question of our ideas of the resurrection life and of what our resurrected bodies may be like. Reflecting on some of the reasons why Jesus’ risen body shows the scars of his crucifixion may help us to revise our ideas about resurrection.

Scars are about healing. The formation of a scar is a part of the healing process and where they remain on our bodies they are signs that significant healing has taken place. Christ’s resurrection is only achieved by way of the wounds he gained from the crucifixion. He is for us the risen Christ because he was firstly for us the crucified Christ. In a similar way our wounds inevitably form and shape us. We would not be who we are as we now are without having gone through or having endured those wounding experiences.

Jungian therapy suggests that it is only by being willing to face, consciously experience and go through our wounds that we will receive a blessing from them: ‘To go through our wound is to embrace, assent, and say “yes” to the mysteriously painful new place in ourselves where the wound is leading us. Going through our wound, we can allow ourselves to be re-created by the wound. Our wound is not a static entity, but rather a continually unfolding dynamic process that manifests, reveals and incarnates itself through us, which is to say that our wound is teaching us something about ourselves. Going through our wound means realizing we will never again be the same when we get to the other side of this initiatory process. Going through our wound is a genuine death experience, as our old self “dies” in the process, while a new, more expansive and empowered part of ourselves is potentially born’.

Scars are also about wounds. In Isaiah 53 we read: “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering … and by his wounds we are healed.” Jesus saves us through his wounds. Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to his disciples at the last supper. Henri Nouwen, who is perhaps best known for applying Jungian thinking on the wounded healer to pastoral ministry, “interprets these acts as symbolising the way in which Jesus was taken by his father, blessed at his baptism, broken on the cross and then given to the world and that the same can be said of people (God’s beloved children according to Nouwen). This means that God reveals to people their chosenness and the blessing of being His beloved children; they are broken by life’s sorrows and the result of their brokenness is to be given to the world as a gift” (Philip Nolte).

This was Mandy’s experience as she shared her story with others and set up support groups which aimed to cut out the pain for those taking part. Mandy’s experience of acceptance in Christ in time led her to a place where she can talk openly about her experiences, particularly if by doing so she can help others cope with their traumas or move beyond the urge to self-harm. Those who are wounded often become wounded healers, with their experience of living with their wounds shaping their ministry to others facing similar experiences and circumstances.

Mandy’s wounds at one time were signs of harm but now are signs of care for others. That change seems to me to be a profoundly resurrection experience. What was once harmful and destructive in Mandy’s life has become life-giving for her and others. If that is so, how could our resurrection lives and bodies not include what is both formative and loving in us, of us and about us?

Steven Curtis Chapman and Madonna both have songs entitled ‘Beautiful Scars’ which between them sum up something of what I have been trying to say. Curtis Chapman sings of Jesus:

“Beautiful scars, Your beautiful scars
Reminders of the wounded love
That had carried us this far
Beautiful scars
Turning the marks of our pain
Into beautiful scars …

Our wounded Healer
Suffered to set us free”

Madonna asks:

“Take me with all of my beautiful scars …
I come to you with all my flaws
With all my beautiful scars …

Accept me, although I'm incomplete
My imperfections make me unique”

We are all wounded and scarred, that is reality for all of us, but the marks of our pain can be turned into beautiful scars if we view the wounds we bear as being embraced by Christ, as formative in our lives and as opportunities which create potential in us to minister in future to others. On Easter Day our Eucharistic Prayer included these words, ‘make our scars beautiful like your scars’. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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Steven Curtis Chapman - Beautiful Scars.

Seeing us all as bearers of the divine image

In speaking about his Head over Heels series Gerald Folkerts writes; “The homeless, the poor, the sick, the young, the age – the very ones whom we often tend to ignore, or at least overlook – their stories seemed worth telling. Such stories are often difficult to hear … Yet these are often the stories that need to be heard most desperately. … why not focus on the face and the feet? They might reveal a great deal about the journey of one’s life, the road on which one has travelled.”

In Imago's E Magazine we read: 'The people found in these paintings are people that the artist took time to get to know. The subjects are burdened in one way or another but the artist depicts them possessing grace and dignity. These important human traits also characterized the artist. He has carried out his artistic calling, deeply shaped by his faith. His work is that of a truth-teller and in the midst of the difficulties of life his faith-ful artist’s eye discerns threads of hope. His work nurtures the human spirit and calls us to view the world and others in it through a lens of justice and compassion, seeing us all as bearers of the divine image.'

Calvin Seerveld said, “Folkerts has the wisdom to let his Christian faith subtly percolate in the spirit of his painterly art by showing compassion for the problematic figures he treats.”

Similarly, on her website Helen Morley quotes the Dutch priest and author Henri J.M. Nouwen who observed: ‘In this crazy world, there’s an enormous distinction between good times and bad, between sorrow and joy. But in the eyes of God, they’re never separated. Where there is pain, there is healing. Where there is mourning, there is dancing. Where there is poverty, there is the kingdom.’

Morley explains that her work is informed by police mugshot images of addicts but they become at the end, autobiographical: 'I see in them our brokenness and need, which invites in either death or Grace. My practice involves developing the right ‘feel’ which is created with action and attitude. Through drawing, music, dance and seeking the intuitive signals of truth, I paint with joy and gesture: whole glooping armfuls of it. In this way I achieve a surrender, and make things I did not know I could do.'

She writes: 'My proposal is that when an artist makes work using their intuition throughout, then they achieve a kind of loving and tender detachment from the piece, a suspension of expectation of a fixed outcome. As this process unfolds, there is opportunity and room for Grace to become evident or operational and this is generational, evolutionary. The end result is a painting that has the potential to be far more than decorative: it can be transcendent.'

Morley is part of the Creative Recovery group, a charitable organisation set up by four people in recovery from alcoholism, drug addiction and eating disorders. Their belief is that 'creativity challenges us to try new things, brings wellbeing, and helps us be open to change.' They provide a rolling programme of different things to try and encourage members to share their creative skills. They state, 'We do not believe that arts and crafts or ‘wellbeing’ activities alone can get us clean, but being with other people trying to get well, sharing in a positive community and making something practical is beneficial as we grow in recovery together.'

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King Crimson - Peace - An Ending.

Healing & reconciliation

Here is today's sermon for St John's based on John 19. 25 - 27:

Jesus is dying in agony as he hangs on the cross. You would think that all his remaining energies and focus would be on himself and his imminent end. That is not the case. The Gospel accounts, taken as a whole, record seven separate statements made by Jesus from the cross, many of which reflect his concern for others instead of concern for himself.

That is the case here, when he sees his mother and “the disciple whom he loved” (traditionally identified as being John) at the foot of the cross. His concern is that both will be bereft following his death and so he specifically gives them one to the other as a support to each other. In this we can see something of the depth of Christ’s love for us as individuals; that even in this moment of personal agony and torture his concern is directed towards the wellbeing of others. In this way, these words and this action are like a little vignette or parable revealing the purpose of his death which is reconciliation and love.

The death of a loved one can, in itself, be a trigger for acts of reconciliation and support within families and wider networks. Where there is a period of illness prior to death, people will gather together to visit their loved one and that person may have specific instructions, advice or encouragement that they wish to share with individuals or the wider family or group. Even where that has not been the case, because death is sudden and unexpected, the funeral can also be a focal point for those who have not been in regular contact with each other to gather.
We see in this story that Jesus has a concern for his family and friends to support each other following his death and his words are designed to facilitate that support. As a direct result of Jesus’ words, Mary comes to live with John. I have been part of funeral arrangements and services where something similar has been the outcome and, on occasion, where these words of Jesus have played a part in creating that understanding.

A death throws into stark relief the need that we all have for support in our lives through our families and friends but we don’t have to wait for a death to occur to take seriously the importance of sustaining those relationships and healing them where they have broken down.
Communion is a regular reminder to us of the death of Christ and, therefore, can also be a moment for that kind of reflection. Jesus made this explicit in his teaching when he said: “if you offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there at the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5. 23 & 24)

A second reflection that emerges from this story is the possibility of being what Henri Nouwen has called being a “wounded healer”. Each of us has areas of weakness, hurt or difficulty in our lives and it is possible for us simply to think of these things in the negative terms that those words imply. However, Jesus’ incarnation and death show us that God accepts and takes on weakness, hurt and difficulty in order to effect healing and reconciliation. If we follow that example, then there is the possibility of a changed understanding for us of those things that we think of as weakness, hurt or difficulty in our own lives and of these becoming points of connection and help for others.

Henri Nouwen says: “a shared pain is no longer paralyzing but mobilizing, when understood as a way to liberation. When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope.”

Many of you know about my own experience of grief both in the death of my younger brother and the recent death of my father. For me, in my ministry, these experiences can help me in understanding and sharing with others who are grieving and, in this way, they can become positive experiences. That is not to say that I stop grieving for my brother and father or that the sense of loss I feel becomes less. It is not that I have in some way ‘recovered’ from grief that means I can minister to others, rather it is the fact that I continue to feel the wound of grief that makes that ministry possible.

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

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Emmylou Harris - Here I Am.