Interviews update

Since my last Interview Update, I have had interviews published by International Times with artist, poet, priest Spencer Reece and the artist Alexander de Cadenet. As a result, I am updating this index of interviews.

I have carried out a large number of other interviews for Artlyst, ArtWay, Church Times, International Times, Seen and Unseen and Art+Christianity. They provide a wide range of fascinating insights into the approaches and practices of artists, arts professionals, clerics, curators, performers, poets and writers.

They can be found at:

Artlyst

• Michael Petry Discusses In League With Devils with Revd Jonathan Evens
• Sean Scully A Humility Towards Nature
• Winslow Homer: American Passage An Interview With Biographer Bill Cross
• Grayson Perry Tapestries On Show At Salisbury Cathedral
• Sidney Nolan’s Africa: Interview With Andrew Turley
• Ilona Bossanyi: Tate’s Ervin Bossanyi Stained Glass Window Mothballed After 2011 Redevelopment
• Louis Carreon: Sampling Art History
• Modus Operandi - What Makes Successful Public Art: Vivien Lovell Interviewed
• Genesis Tramaine: A Queer Devotional Painter
• Lakwena Maciver: Review-Interview Hastings Contemporary
• Nicola Ravenscroft - Sculpture With A Peaceful Stillness
• Artist Hannah Rose Thomas – Tears of Gold – Interview
• Marcus Lyon: Human Atlas Explorations
• Elizabeth Kwant Interview
• Helaine Blumenfeld: Undulating Structures
• National Gallery Explores ‘Sin’ In New Exhibition – Interview Dr Joost Joustra Curator
• Betty Spackman: Posthumanism Debates
• Christopher Clack: Connecting The Material And Immaterial
• Peter Howson Artlyst Interview
• Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker On The Legacy Of ArtWay
• Alastair Gordon A Testament To His Faith
• Katrina Moss Chaiya Art Awards Interview: Where is God in our 21st century world?
• Apocalypse Now: Michael Takeo Magruder Interviewed
• Jonathan Anderson: Religious Inspirations Behind Modernism
• Caravan – An Interview With Rev Paul Gordon Chandler On Arts Peacebuilding
• Art Awakening Humanity Alexander de Cadenet Interviewed
• Michael Pendry New Installation Lights Up St Martin In The Fields
• Mark Dean Projects Stations of the Cross Videos On Henry Moore Altar

ArtWay

• Painting the Life of Christ – an interview with Francis Hoyland
• “Giving identity to forms” – an interview with Marta Jakobovits
• Jonathan Evens in conversation with Roberta Ahmanson, Siobhán Jolley and Ben Quash
• Interview with Steve Whittle
• Paul Chandler and Brian Whelan: WHITE ROBE: An exhibition celebrating the life of Rev. Dr John Roberts among Native Americans
• TEARS OF GOLD: “The invisible light that radiates from the other” – Jonathan Evens interviews Hannah Rose Thomas
• Stations of the Cross in Hornsea: Jonathan Evens Interviews Artist Matthew Askey
• David Miller - "Form welcomes the formless home"
• Sophie Hacker - The Calling Window
• Peter Koenig interview
• Belinda Scarlett interview

Church Times

• Looking Up by Helaine Blumenfeld
• Proverbs of Micah Purnell, poster painter
• The Calling Window, by Sophie Hacker for Romsey Abbey
• Global Images of Christ: Challenging Perceptions at Chester Cathedral
• Betty Spackman: The art and the conversation

International Times

• Polyphony, poetry and publishing. An interview with Chris Emery
• Jago Cooper: Living art and urgent questions

Seen and Unseen

• Emily Young: the sculptor listening as the still stones speak
• Critics and curators are missing this about contemporary artists: An interview with Jonathan Anderson
• Interview: Alastair Gordon on the artist’s attention
• Art, AI and apocalypse: Michael Takeo Magruder addresses our fears and questions
• Matthew Krishanu: painting childhood
• How to look at our world: Aaron Rosen interview
• The Devil's perspective: Jonathan Evens interviews author Nicholas Papadopulos
• Finding the human amid the wreckage of migration: Shezad Dawood’s multimedia Leviathan exhibition at Salisbury Cathedral
• Charm in tunes on the eastern edge: Musician and priest Rev Simpkins discusses how music is an expression of humanity and his faith

Art+Christianity

• Interview: Richard Kenton Webb by Jonathan Evens
• David Hawkins interviewed by Jonathan Evens

Also see my interviews with artist Henry Shelton here and here and David Hawkins, former Bishop of Barking, here, here and here.

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Van Morrison - Love, Lover & Beloved.

International Times: Scrappy and unconventional and paradoxical

My latest interview for International Times is with artist, poet, priest Spencer Reece:

'So long ago, a scared, insecure American, studying at the University of York for a one-year graduate MA on the work of the Metaphysical poets, I stumbled into the life and work of George Herbert and it left a permanent mark on me. He is my hero. A guide. I wanted, and I don’t even really understand why completely, to be him. And here we are, at sixty-two, and I have become both poet and priest in the most secular time ever. I believe in the church, and I believe in poetry and I still feel George Herbert close to me, talking to me.'

For more on Spencer Reece, read my review for Stride Magazine, of his latest poetry collection, 'Acts' - https://stridemagazine.blogspot.com/2024/06/spiritual-suitcases.html.

My earlier pieces for IT are an interview with the poet Chris Emery, an interview with Jago Cooper, Director of the the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, a profile of singer-songwriter Bill Fay, plus reviews of: 'Down River: In Search of David Ackles' by Mark Brend; 'Headwater' by Rev Simpkins; 'The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art' by Jonathan A. Anderson; 'Breaking Lines' at the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, albums by Deacon Blue, Mumford and Sons, and Andrew Rumsey, also by Joy Oladokun and Michael Kiwanaku; 'Nolan's Africa' by Andrew Turley; Mavis Staples in concert at Union Chapel; T Bone Burnett's 'The Other Side' and Peter Case live in Leytonstone; Helaine Blumenfeld's 'Together' exhibition, 'What Is and Might Be and then Otherwise' by David Miller; 'Giacometti in Paris' by Michael Peppiatt, the first Pissabed Prophet album; and 'Religion and Contemporary Art: A Curious Accord', a book which derives from a 2017 symposium organised by the Association of Scholars of Christianity in the History of Art.

Several of my short stories have been published by IT including three about Nicola Ravenscroft's EarthAngel sculptures (then called mudcubs), which we exhibited at St Andrew's Wickford in 2022. The first story in the series is 'The Mudcubs and the O Zone holes'. The second is 'The Mudcubs and the Clean-Up King', and the third is 'The mudcubs and the Wall'. My other short stories to have been published by International Times are 'The Black Rain', a story about the impact of violence in our media, 'The New Dark Ages', a story about principles and understandings that are gradually fading away from our modern societies, and 'The curious glasses', a story based on the butterfly effect.

IT have also published several of my poems, including 'The ABC of creativity', which covers attention, beginning and creation, and 'The Edge of Chaos', a state of existence poem. Also published have been three poems from my 'Five Trios' series. 'Barking' is about St Margaret’s Barking and Barking Abbey and draws on my time as a curate at St Margaret's. 'Bradwell' is a celebration of the history of the Chapel of St Peter-on-the-Wall, the Othona Community, and of pilgrimage to those places. Broomfield in Essex became a village of artists following the arrival of Revd John Rutherford in 1930. His daughter, the artist Rosemary Rutherford, also moved with them and made the vicarage a base for her artwork including paintings and stained glass. Then, Gwynneth Holt and Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones moved to Broomfield in 1949 where they shared a large studio in their garden and both achieved high personal success. 'Broomfield' reviews their stories, work, legacy and motivations.

To read my poems published by Stride, click here, here, here, here, here, and here. My poems published in Amethyst Review are: 'Runwell', 'Are/Are Not', 'Attend, attend' and 'Maritain, Green, Beckett and Anderson in conversation down through the ages'.

I am among those whose poetry has been included in Thin Places & Sacred Spaces, a recent anthology from Amethyst Press. I also had a poem included in All Shall Be Well: Poems for Julian of Norwich, the first Amethyst Press anthology of new poems.

'Five Trios' is a series of poems on thin places and sacred spaces in the Diocese of Chelmsford. The five poems in the series are:

• 'Barking';
• 'Bradwell';
• 'Broomfield';
• 'Pleshey'; and
• 'Runwell'.

These poems have been published by Amethyst Review and International Times.

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Spencer Reece - The Upper Room.

The boundary-breaking call of Jesus

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Ocean Blue - Between Something And Nothing.

The kingdom of Christ the King

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

Jesus and Pilate
head-to-head
in a clash of cultures.
Pilate is
angular, aggressive, threatening
representing
the oppressive, controlling
Empire of dominating power,
with its strength in numbers
and weaponry,
which can crucify
but cannot
set free.
Jesus is
curves and crosses,
love and sacrifice,
representing
the kingdom of God;
a kingdom of love,
service and self-sacrifice
birthing men and women
into the freedom
to love one another.

The way of compassion
or the way of domination;
the way of self-sacrifice
or the way of self;
the way of powerlessness
or the way of power;
the way of serving
or the way of grasping;
the kingdom of God
or the empires of Man.

Stephen Verney, a former Bishop of Repton, in ‘Water into Wine’ his commentary on John’s Gospel, notes the way in which this Gospel consistently speaks about there being two different levels or orders to reality. What he means by this are different patterns of society, each with a different centre or ruling power. He gives as an example, the difference between a fascist order and a democratic order: “In the fascist order there is a dictator, and round him subservient people who raise their hands in salute, and are thrown into concentration camps if they disobey. In the democratic order … there is an elected government, and round it persons who are interdependent, who share initiatives and ideas.”

So, what are the two orders that he sees described in John’s Gospel? In the first, “the ruling principle is the dictator ME, my ego-centric ego, and the pattern of society is people competing with, manipulating and trying to control each other.” In the second, “the ruling principle is the Spirit of Love, and the pattern of society is one of compassion – people giving to each other what they really are, and accepting what others are, recognising their differences, and sharing their vulnerability.”

When Jesus says that his kingdom is not from here (John 18. 33-37), in this world, he means that it is not a kingdom of the ego dictated by the needs and insecurities of the one in power, instead his kingdom, which comes from elsewhere, from God, is a kingdom of compassion, acceptance, difference and vulnerability.

When John writes of Jesus as faithful witness in the Book of Revelation (Revelation 1. 4b-8), he means that Jesus, as witness, revealed to us the very image of God as he was God in human form. His actions and teaching together are the fullest expression of God that can be given and seen in a human being.

As firstborn of the dead, he was both the first to rise from death with a resurrected body and then the one who leads us into that same experience so we can also rise from death and live forever in God’s presence in a new heaven and earth that are joined together to become one.

As ruler of the kings of the earth, he is pre-eminent over all earthly monarchs because as God’s Son he precedes them all, being involved in the creation of the world and all that exists, and, through his life, death and resurrection, sits at the right hand of God and has the name that is above all other names and before which every knee in heaven and on earth must bow.

His death is the act by which we see that we are loved absolutely by God because he does not hold his only Son back from the sacrifice of his own life, breaking for a time the bond between Father and Son. Both were necessary for that to happen in order that we might come to know the depth of love that both have for us as human beings.

Whenever we respond to that love, we become part of his kingdom of love in which his people are his priests because they worship by living lives based on the example of Christ the King. A king and a kingdom where “the ruling principle is the Spirit of Love, and the pattern of society is one of compassion – people giving to each other what they really are, and accepting what others are, recognising their differences, and sharing their vulnerability.”

The Jesus whose kingdom is not from this world is Christ the King, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. He came into the world to testify to the truth and everyone who belongs to the truth listens to his voice. He loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood making us to be a kingdom, priests serving God his Father forever. To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

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Crown Him With Many Crowns.

Index of Interviews

I've recently had interviews published with artist-priest Matthew Askey and poet and publisher Chris Emery. So, I am updating this index of interviews. My interview with Matthew is here and with Chris here.

I have carried out a large number of other interviews for Artlyst, ArtWay, Church Times and Seen and Unseen. They provide a wide range of fascinating insights into the approaches and practices of artists, arts professionals, clerics, curators, poets and writers.

They can be found at:

Artlyst

• Sean Scully A Humility Towards Nature
• Winslow Homer: American Passage An Interview With Biographer Bill Cross
• Grayson Perry Tapestries On Show At Salisbury Cathedral
• Sidney Nolan’s Africa: Interview With Andrew Turley
• Ilona Bossanyi: Tate’s Ervin Bossanyi Stained Glass Window Mothballed After 2011 Redevelopment
• Louis Carreon: Sampling Art History
• Modus Operandi - What Makes Successful Public Art: Vivien Lovell Interviewed
• Genesis Tramaine: A Queer Devotional Painter
• Lakwena Maciver: Review-Interview Hastings Contemporary
• Nicola Ravenscroft - Sculpture With A Peaceful Stillness
• Artist Hannah Rose Thomas – Tears of Gold – Interview
• Marcus Lyon: Human Atlas Explorations
• Elizabeth Kwant Interview
• Helaine Blumenfeld: Undulating Structures
• National Gallery Explores ‘Sin’ In New Exhibition – Interview Dr Joost Joustra Curator
• Betty Spackman: Posthumanism Debates
• Christopher Clack: Connecting The Material And Immaterial
• Peter Howson Artlyst Interview
• Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker On The Legacy Of ArtWay
• Alastair Gordon A Testament To His Faith
• Katrina Moss Chaiya Art Awards Interview: Where is God in our 21st century world?
• Apocalypse Now: Michael Takeo Magruder Interviewed
• Jonathan Anderson: Religious Inspirations Behind Modernism
• Caravan – An Interview With Rev Paul Gordon Chandler On Arts Peacebuilding
• Art Awakening Humanity Alexander de Cadenet Interviewed
• Michael Pendry New Installation Lights Up St Martin In The Fields
• Mark Dean Projects Stations of the Cross Videos On Henry Moore Altar

ArtWay

• David Miller - "Form welcomes the formless home"
• Sophie Hacker - The Calling Window
• Peter Koenig interview
• Belinda Scarlett interview

Church Times

• Looking Up by Helaine Blumenfeld
• Proverbs of Micah Purnell, poster painter
• The Calling Window, by Sophie Hacker for Romsey Abbey
• Global Images of Christ: Challenging Perceptions at Chester Cathedral
• Betty Spackman: The art and the conversation

International Times

• Jago Cooper: Living art and urgent questions

Seen and Unseen

• The Devil's perspective: Jonathan Evens interviews author Nicholas Papadopulos
• Finding the human amid the wreckage of migration: Shezad Dawood’s multimedia Leviathan exhibition at Salisbury Cathedral
• Charm in tunes on the eastern edge: Musician and priest Rev Simpkins discusses how music is an expression of humanity and his faith

Also see my interviews with artist Henry Shelton here and here and David Hawkins, former Bishop of Barking, here, here and here.

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Depeche Mode - Higher Love.

Valuing the God-bearers

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

Maude Royden, Elsie Chamberlain, Isabella Gilmore, Betty Ridley, Una Kroll, Christian Howard, Monica Furlong, Joyce Bennett, Florence Li Tim-Oi, Constance Coltman, Margaret Webster. Have you heard of any of them? I found out about these women through the website of Women and the Church (or WATCH) who point out that though they were all icons in the campaign to get women ordained, as with many women’s lives, they are in the ‘hidden gallery’ of history.

To give you a very brief flavour of some of their stories: Elsie Chamberlain was the first female full chaplain in the RAF; Una Kroll famously shouted, ‘We asked for bread and you gave us a stone’ (a reference to Matthew 7:7-11) when in 1978 the General Synod refused to allow women to be ordained, creating the momentum for the Movement for the Ordination of Women to be formed; and Florence Li Tim-Oi was the first female Anglican priest, ordained during the war to serve behind Japanese lines in China.

WATCH argue that, although women have been a majority in the church, their ministries have mostly been hidden in the background, carrying out children’s work, making tea, cleaning, in the office, caring for neighbours, letting the vicar know when someone needs a visit. In other words, fulfilling the sort of role that Martha was playing in our Gospel reading today (Luke 10. 38 – end).

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

When Jesus sent out his disciples to prepare the way for him to come to towns and villages on the way to Jerusalem, he told them to look out for and stay with those, like Martha, who would welcome them. So, Jesus’ words to Martha are not a denigration of the role she is fulfilling, which has a vital place in Middle Eastern culture, but point instead to an alternative role which has led to the point that we have currently reached in the Church of England of seeking to ordain women, not just as priests, but as bishops.

Mary sat at Jesus’ feet listening to what he said. This was the usual posture of a disciple of any teacher in the ancient world. But disciples were usually male, so Mary would have been quietly breaking the rule that reserved study for males, not females. Martha was possibly not merely asking for help but demanding that Mary keep to the traditional way of behaving. Jesus, though, affirms Mary in the place and role of a disciple: “Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

Jesus refused to be sidetracked by issues of gender when faced with women in any kind of need and consistently put people before dogma. Luke’s Gospel not only reports that Jesus had female disciples, but specifically names them in Luke 8. 1-3. Throughout his Gospel Luke pays particular and positive attention to the role of women; presenting women, not only as witnesses to the events surrounding the birth and resurrection of Jesus, but also as active participants in God's Messianic purposes.

This sense of the equality of men and women in God's plan of salvation and their equal importance in the new community that was the Church, has inspired women throughout Church history to active service of our Lord and to leadership roles within his Church. Ultimately, this has led to the point that we have reached relatively recently in the Church of England of ordaining women as priests and bishops. This includes the many women whose ministries we can celebrate and remember in relation to the history and current ministry of our churches.

In our Gospel reading today, Mary shows all of us the importance of making Jesus the central focus of our life and learning while Martha shows us all the value of welcome, hospitality and service. Our Lady is “the prime God-Bearer, bearing for us in time the One who was begotten in eternity, and every Christian after her seeks to become in some small way a God-bearer, one whose ‘yes’ to God means that Christ is made alive and fruitful in the world through our flesh and our daily lives, is born and given to another” (Malcolm Guite). Saint Catherine of Alexandria was persecuted for her Christian faith after protesting against the treatment of her fellow Christians at the hands of Maxentius, Roman Emperor from 306 to 312 AD. She was among the most venerated female saints of medieval England and is the patron saint of young girls, students, philosophers, and craftsmen working with wheels.

We can rightly add to those inspirational women, others associated with our churches such as Christine McCafferty, Tara Frankland, Jane Freeman, and, currently, our own Sue Wise and Emma Doe. Additionally, there are a large number of lay women who have and continue to support and lead within our churches. These, and other women (including those named by WATCH), are examples to all of us of what real commitment to Christ entails and involves. This is particularly so because the campaigns to see women take their place alongside men as bishops and at every level in the Church of England have not been about women gaining an ascendency which men have had in the past but, instead, about the full equality of women and men in the Church as part of God's will for his people, and as a reflection of the inclusive heart of the Christian scripture and tradition.

The ministries of each one of us can be enhanced by reflecting on the examples that both provide and, through that, the recognition that the saints are not special, super-human people but: sisters, like Martha and Mary, who become frustrated with each other’s choices; engaged women, like Mary, challenged to obey God in ways that put their relationships under strain; and students, like Catherine, who bravely debate with scholars, philosophers, and orators. What we see through their lives and examples is that each one of us are saints; whatever our gender and ministry, its prominence or hiddenness. The only saints to feature in the New Testament are each and every member of a local church. The saints are simply those who are church members whether in Ephesus, in Jerusalem, in Rome, or wherever including, today, those of us here in Wickford and Runwell.

In Christ’s Church and kingdom there should be no gender divide in how we serve and follow him. So, like Martha, each of us (male and female) can practise and value the ministries of welcome, hospitality and service of all and, like Mary, each of us (female and male) can practise and value making Jesus the central focus of our lives and learning as his disciples. May we be inspired by their examples and those of other women we have mentioned and the same time that we support all those women who lead us so well within our Team Ministry currently recognising that these are they who are God-bearers, “those whose ‘yes’ to God means that Christ is made alive and fruitful in the world through our flesh and our daily lives, is born and given to another” (Malcolm Guite).

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Carolyn Arends - All Flame.

Alastair McKay - Priesting

Great to be at my colleague Alastair McKay's priesting (together with Kath Duce, Debbie Hore and Jeffrey Lake) this afternoon at St Stephen Rochester Row. The service was led by Bishop Nigel Stock and featured the parish's liturgical dance group.

Alastair designs and leads adult learning and training along with providing a range of consultancy services to church ministers and lay leaders. He is also serving a half-time curacy at St Martin-in-the-Fields, following ordination in July 2015.

Alastair spent 20 years developing and leading Bridge Builders, handing over leadership in March 2015. Prior to that he worked as a civil servant in the Department of the Environment, in Westminster. He started out his career as a secondary school teacher in West Yorkshire.

Alastair has a Doctor of Ministry degree from the University of Wales and an MA in Conflict Transformation from Eastern Mennonite University. His doctoral research explored how disagreement is handled, and what use is made of facilitation skills, in church staff meetings.

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Eastern Mennonite High School Choir - The Size Of Your Heart.

Tony Benn: Prophets vs Priests

The Guardian has published two excellent pieces (here and here) exploring the Christian influences on the life and thought of Tony Benn:

'He stood in a high-minded tradition that went back to Keir Hardie, co-founder of the Labour party, George Lansbury, its leader in the early 1930s, and the historian RH Tawney, its most important intellectual influence in the early 20th century. It went still further back to Victorian figures such as Thomas Hughes, author of Tom Brown's Schooldays, and Charles Kingsley, author of The Water Babies, and even to the Old Testament. "For Benn," David Powell, an early biographer wrote, "the entire socialist venture is rooted in history, a continuum reaching back in time to its biblical roots".'

Giles Fraser writes: 'His big thing was that the Bible was the story of the battle between the kings (and their priestly lackeys) and the prophets – the priests, in his book, being the establishment baddies and the prophets being the social-justice-seeking goodies. And it's not a bad interpretive lens through which to understand a lot of the Biblical action.

For Benn, the priests were the theological justifiers of monarchy. They cemented the conservative relationship between an eternal and unchanging God and a static social order. The prophets, on the other hand, were a total pain in the arse, forever railing against those who thought that the ceremonies of the temple were more important than the purposes for which the temple existed. He was a bit like Amos: "I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!"'

Benn's understanding is one that Walter Brueggemann has unpacked in greater depth. For example, Sam Norton highlights Brueggemann writing that: “… in 1 Samuel 8, Samuel is in deep dispute with Israel over the function and nature of public leadership. Israel wants a king, in order to be “like the other nations.” Samuel, here the reliable voice of Yahweh, refuses them a king, on the grounds that human kingship is an act of distrust in Yahweh … This interpretive tradition, suspicious of concentrations of power, anticipates that the centralized government is in principle exploitative, usurpatious, and self-serving. We may say that this recognition is fundamental to a biblical critique of power.”

The people of Israel, in the course of the rest of their history, were going to endure many examples of monarchs who were self-serving and who exploited their position and power for their own ends. What God said, through Samuel, would occur did occur on many occasions in the subsequent history of the people of Israel.

But that is not all that this passage or the Bible, as a whole, says on the subject because God and Samuel, despite their misgivings and predictions, all the people of Israel to have what they want. Why do they do this? In part, because there is another, more positive, strand of thinking in the Bible about monarchs. This is the strand which sees David and, initially, his son Solomon as great Kings under whose reign Israel was at the peak of its prosperity and influence.  

Brueggemann notes that the kind of kingship that we see David and initially Solomon exercise: “had the establishment and maintenance of justice as its primary obligation to Yahweh and to Israelite society. This justice, moreover, is distributive justice, congruent with Israel’s covenantal vision, intending the sharing of goods, power, and access with every member of the community, including the poor, powerless, and marginated.”

This is what Brueggemann thinks the Bible sees as key to any form of public leadership: “The claim made is that power – political, economic, military – cannot survive or give prosperity or security, unless public power is administered according to the requirement of justice, justice being understood as attention to the well-being of all members of the community.”

Brueggemann writes about this in terms of the core testimony and the counter testimony. The core testimony is structure legitimating; that is to say it is about order and control – everything in its rightful place and a rightful place for everything. The counter testimony is pain embracing; that is to say it is about hearing and responding to the pain and suffering which is found in existence. The core testimony is “above the fray” while the counter testimony is “in the fray”.

The wonderful thing, it seems to me, about the Christian scriptures is that this debate and dialogue is resolved in favour of the counter testimony. René Girard writes that, in the Gospels, “God himself, the Word become flesh in Jesus, becomes the victim … The New Testament Gospels are the starting point for a new science or knowledge of humanity. This new knowledge begins with faith in Christ the innocent victim, and it becomes the leaven that will work itself out and expand to the point that the concern for victims becomes the absolute value in all societies molded or affected by the spread of Christianity.”

Similarly, Gerd Theissen writes that in the life, teaching and death of Jesus of Nazareth:

“religion takes an unprecedented turn, and becomes instead an agency of healing for the wounded. In the religion of the prophets, and in the religious commitment for which Jesus lived and died, we see the distillation of faith in a God who is on the side of the downtrodden rather than their oppressors, and who seeks to bring a new, supernatural order of justice and peace out of the natural laws of selection and mutation which spell death for the weak and powerless.”

Finally, Rowan Williams says that:

“All human identity is constructed through conversations, in one way or another. The gospel adds the news that, in order to find the pivot of our identity as human beings, there is one inescapable encounter, one all-important conversation into which we must be drawn. This is not just the encounter with God, in a general sense, but the encounter with God made vulnerable, God confronting the systems and exclusions of the human world within that world – so that, among other things, we can connect the encounter with God to those human encounters where we are challenged to listen to the outsider and the victim.”

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Billy Bragg - Upfield.

Come to the feast of life

'The Lord says,

“Come, everyone who is thirsty —
    here is water!
Come, you that have no money —
    buy grain and eat!
Come! Buy wine and milk —
    it will cost you nothing!
Why spend money on what does not satisfy?
    Why spend your wages and still be hungry?
Listen to me and do what I say,                                                                                                        and you will enjoy the best food of all.

“Listen now, my people, and come to me;
    come to me, and you will have life!

(Isaiah 55. 1 - 9)

The Lord says, "Come." No strings attached. No pre-conditions. Just simply, come. Love bids 
us welcome, as the great Anglican poet George Herbert, whose feast day was this past week, 
wrote.

We see this in the parables Jesus told about banquets. In these stories, invitations to the party 
are sent to all and sundry, including those who never get invited out, those from the wrong side 
of the tracks, the homeless and poor; all are invited and those who don’t come are those who 
choose to exclude themselves by making excuses because the one condition is that you don’t 
everything to come there and then.

George Herbert included some of the excuses we commonly make in his third poem about 
love. We draw back, he suggests, because of our sense of guilt, our sense that we are 
unworthy, unkind and ungrateful, that we have made mistakes with the gifts we have been given, 
and only deserve to serve not to be served.

I identify strongly with this poem because it expresses how I felt as a teenager having come to 
faith but then being very aware of my faults and failings and so feeling like a hypocrite who did 
not deserve God’s love. I had to come to a point of realizing that God loved me regardless of 
whether I was good enough or not and whether I felt good enough or not. The moment of 
realization came for me when a youth leader took the time to listen to me and then showed me 
Romans 5. 6 – 8 which says this:  

"For when we were still helpless, Christ died for the wicked at the time that God chose. It is a 
difficult thing for someone to die for a righteous person. It may even be that someone might 
dare to die for a good person. But God has shown us how much he loves us — it was while we 
were still sinners that Christ died for us!"

As the old hymn says, "I love Him because He first loved me." He didn’t wait for me to become 
deserving of his love, instead he showed his love for me while I was still far away from him. So, 
there is nothing I have to do to earn or deserve his love.

That’s what he was saying when he spoke about the Galileans that Pilate had killed and the 
people in Siloam who were killed when the tower fell on them. Don’t look at other people and 
think they are worse sinners than you. Instead, look at yourself and acknowledge your failings 
but then recognize that God always gives us a second chance, just like the gardener does with 
the fig tree.

So, Jesus simply says, "come" and all I have to do to enter into his love is simply come. That is 
what George Herbert’s wonderful poem is all about: 

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
                                                            Guilty of dust and sin.
                        But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
                                                            From my first entrance in,
                        Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
                                                            If I lacked anything.

                        A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
                                                            Love said, You shall be he.
                        I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
                                                            I cannot look on thee.
                        Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
                                                            Who made the eyes but I?

                        Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
                                                            Go where it doth deserve.
                        And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
                                                            My dear, then I will serve.
                        You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
                                                            So I did sit and eat.

Whoever comes simply, like a child, accepting God’s invitation as it is, are those who sit and 
eat, who become saints and priests, who become Christ. For "little Christ" is all that ‘Christian’ 
means. The meal, the feast, the banquet, the party to which we are invited is communion; 
sharing in the body and blood of Christ as a precursor to the coming in full of the kingdom of 
God on earth as in heaven. 

This table, the table of Jesus is our place of gathering: here you are welcomed, wanted, loved, 
here there is a place set for you; come, come to the feast of life. This is the table, not of the 
Church, but of the Lord. It is made ready for those who love him and who want to love him more. 
So come, you who have much faith and you who have a little, you who have been here often and 
you who have not been for a long time, you who have tried to follow and you who have failed. 
Come, not because I invite you: it is our Lord, it is his will that those who want him should meet 
him here.

Come. Come to the feast of life that the Lord Almighty prepares for all peoples. A feast of rich 
food, the best of meats, the finest of aged wines, and water from the spring of life itself. A 
banquet at which tears are wiped away, disgrace removed, where death, grief, crying and pain 
are no more as God himself sits down to eat with his people.

Come, all you who thirst;
come, all you who are weary;
come, all you who are poor;
come, all you who are bitter;
come, all you who grieve;
come, all you who are sinners;
come, all you who are oppressed;
come, all you who are traitors;
come, all you who are sick;
come, all you who are lost.

Why spend money on what does not satisfy? Why spend your wages and still be hungry? Listen 
to me and do what I say, and you will enjoy the best food of all. Listen now, my people, and 
come to me; come to me, and you will have life!

Come to be saints;
come to be priests;
come to be Christians;
to be "little Christs."
Come to sit and eat
at the feast of life.

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The Staple Singers - If You're Ready (Come Go With Me).