Between: relationships

Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts

Sunday, 27 July 2025

A model prayer – beautiful, balanced and brief

The sermon I've been sharing today at St Andrew’s and Holy Cross Basildon and St Peter’s Nevendon is adapted from Discovering Prayer by Andrew Knowles, published by Lion Publishing:

When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, he responded with a model prayer – beautiful, balanced and brief (Luke 11: 1-13). It has come to be known as the Lord’s Prayer. In his book ‘Discovering Prayer’, Andrew Knowles, a former Canon Theologian of Chelmsford Cathedral, simply and succinctly takes us through the different sections of this prayer for life.

We begin with God - Jesus reminds us to whom we’re talking. We’re coming to Almighty God who is also our Father. We aren’t phoning through a big order to a supermarket store which sells everything. Nor are we practising some weird and wonderful thought-process guaranteed to release psychic powers. We’re coming simply, humbly into the presence of our Creator, having received the invitation to do so from Jesus himself.

It’s good to remember that God is ‘our Father’. We belong to a great, trans-national, cross-cultural family, some of whom have already died and some of whom are yet to be born. Wherever we are around the world, and at whatever point in time we live, we own God as our Father and Jesus as our Lord. So when we pray this prayer, we’re sharing with our Christian brothers and sisters, across every division of colour and class, of politics and economics, of time and eternity.

We say ‘yes to God’ - Not only do we begin with God, we also ask that all he wants to do in our lives and in our world may come about. We ask that all he wants to do in our lives and in our world may come about. We ask that men and women everywhere may realise who he is and humble themselves before him.

We ask that God’s kingdom may come - The kingdom of God exists wherever God is King. It isn’t located on a map, nor do we enter it by holding a passport! The exciting truth is that God is already King of millions of lives. He is already acknowledged as Lord in a vast number of situations. We see the effects of his rule when hate is turned to love, when bitterness is dismantled by forgiveness, when disease is overwhelmed by health, and when war gives way to peace.

But we must remember that God is a father and not a dictator. For this reason his kingdom can only come when individual people invite him into their lives and submit themselves to the changes he wants to make.

This phrase, ‘May your kingdom come’, more than any other in the Lord’s Prayer, has a tendency to rebound on the user. If we really want God’s kingdom to come, then we must open ourselves and our circumstances to God, whatever the cost.

And if we’re looking for the kind of changes in the world that only God can make, we may find that he promptly enlists us in his service! We may find ourselves doing anything from bathing an invalid to mailing a cheque for famine relief. We may even find ourselves called to lob in our whole life as the only fitting contribution we can make to the service of God’s kingdom in a particular situation.

We bring our needs to God - In the second half of the Lord’s Prayer we ask God to meet our basic human needs. We ask him for enough to live on, for forgiveness, and for protection.

‘Give us day by day the food we need’ has a strong echo of the days when the Israelites were supplied with manna in the desert. Every day they had ‘enough’, and the Lord’s Prayer asks that we may have the same experience of god’s faithful provision each day as it comes. In an age when many people are run raged by their desire for money and possessions, this is a wonderful promise from Jesus. All the same, we should notice that it is everything we need that God will provide, and not everything we want.

‘Forgive us our sins, for we forgive everyone who does us wrong.’ This reminds us that our standard of living is more than a roof over our head, food on the table and a shirt on our back. Our well-being is intimately tied up with personal relationships – within ourselves, between ourselves, and between ourselves and God. Our recurring need here is for forgiveness. We hurt people by our self-centredness, our anger and our prejudice. We hurt God by going our own way in defiance of his loving law, wilfully defiling all that he intended life in this world to be.

So we ask for forgiveness. We feel the need and we say the words. But it’s no easy matter for God to forgive us. It cost him the life of his only Son to show the reality and consequence of sin. As he died on the cross, Jesus took on himself the results of all our sin. This is the only way by which we can be forgiven and restored to spiritual life. This is the Christian Good News: that life with God – something we can never earn and certainly don’t deserve – is his free gift to us through the death of Jesus. Our sins are not only forgiven but forgotten, and if we mention them to God again he’ll wonder what we’re talking about.

But as we ask God to forgive us, we must check if there is anyone who in turn needs our forgiveness. How do we feel about our worst enemy? Is there any member of the family, or anybody at work, against whom we’re nursing anger, bitterness or resentment? Only as we forgive others can we enter fully into the wonderful experience of God’s forgiveness of us. This is not just a nice idea. It’s a condition for our own forgiveness. Elsewhere Jesus warns that if we don’t forgive, then we in turn shall not be forgiven. This teaching alone, if we take it seriously, will completely change our lives.

‘And do not bring us to hard testing.’ Sometimes this is translated, ‘Lead us not into temptation,’ and we may well wonder when, why and how God could possibly want us to be tempted. And we would be right – he doesn’t. But while God will never lure us into evil, he will sometimes allow us to be tested. Just as we will put ourselves through all kinds of discomfort to get fit or lose weight, so God will allow pressure on us to strengthen our faith or increase our insight.

In the face of this testing, Jesus includes a very human plea that God won’t go over the top in his efforts to refine us. It is encouraging to hear Jesus say this, because he was tempted over a longer period and with greater intensity than we’ll ever know. Enticed by Satan, or daunted by God, we often given in at a very early stage. Our Christian integrity disintegrates and snatches at hypocrisy to cover our shame. But while we often capitulate, Jesus never did so.

The Lord’s Prayer recognises that temptation is an integral part of our daily life. We’ll never lose it, so we must learn to use it. If we can use the force of temptations to push us closer to the Lord, rather than sweeping us away from him, then we’ll be harnessing their power for our benefit.

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Marvin Gaye - The Lord's Prayer.

Saturday, 10 May 2025

Unveiled: An evening with Neil Tye

An evening with Neil Tye
Friday 4 July, 7.00 pm
St Andrew’s Church, 11 London Road, Wickford SS12 0AN

For the last 25 years Neil Tye has been working professionally, as a physical visual theatre performer, instructor, teacher, and installation artist, and has taken his performances, and teaching skills around the world. Hear stories about his music, performance, and painting.

Part of ‘Unveiled’, the Friday night arts and performance event at St Andrew’s Church

Artist Statement

Neil’s artistic practice is grounded in an intuitive and process-driven approach, wherein the act of painting itself dictates the final composition. Rather than adhering to predetermined concepts, he engages with the canvas through spontaneous mark-making and gestural forms, allowing the work to evolve organically. While his initial engagement with a piece may be sparked by a particular colour or shape, it is the dynamic interplay of movement, texture, and form that ultimately guides its development.

By embracing spontaneity and fluidity, his work exists at the intersection of abstraction and interpretation, inviting viewers to engage with the imagery in a way that is both personal and open-ended. Through this interplay between process and meaning-making, Neil`s paintings function as both intuitive expressions and conceptual explorations of movement, memory, and transformation.

About the artist

Neil Tye (b. 1963, London UK) is a Denmark-based artist with a background in both visual arts and physical theatre. Initially working as a performer and educator in physical theatre, he transitioned into visual expression 15 years ago. He holds an MA in Professional Practice from Middlesex University, London, and has exhibited, performed, and taught extensively across Europe and beyond. His exhibitions include venues such as the arts and culture centre Spinderihallerne (Denmark), the arts centre Banco de Nordeste (Brazil), and The Post Houston TX (USA), among others. Drawing from his multidisciplinary background, Neil’s work explores movement, form, and storytelling through visual mediums. He continues to create from his studio M10 in the Art zone area here in Spinderihallerene.

'The things we carry'

Following its initial display at Spinderihallerene in April, Neil's latest exhibition 'The things we carry' will be shown at Redbud Arts Center, Houston, from 7 - 28 June. This is a collection of mixed media works that centre around the nature of human connection. To mark the opening, Redbud Arts Center will host a special one-night performance by the internationally acclaimed Ad Deum Dance Company. The performance, inspired by themes from Tye's exhibition, will weave movement, storytelling, and live interaction with the artwork, offering audiences a multidisciplinary experience that bridges visual art and contemporary dance.

Neil says of the exhibition: "The title of this exhibition was inspired by reflections I had while creating my recent body of work. The first thought centres on the fundamental nature of human connection—we are not meant to navigate life alone. We rely on one another for support, understanding, and encouragement, whether through conversation, shared experiences, or emotional upliftment. The second thought arose from one particular painting, which evoked the image of an overloaded truck. This visual metaphor led me to consider how, in life, we accumulate and carry various burdens—emotions, worries, frustrations, memories, secrets, hopes, and dreams. These intangible yet weighty elements can become overwhelming, making it evident that we cannot bear them alone. At times, we must find ways to release or share these burdens, but this raises important questions: Where do we turn for relief? To whom do we entrust our heaviest thoughts? And how can we cultivate a sense of communal support to help lighten the loads we all inevitably carry?"

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Josh Garrels - May You Find A Light.

Wednesday, 14 June 2023

Artlyst - Chris Ofili: Exploring Sin at Victoria Miro

My latest exhibition review for Artlyst is on Chris Ofili: The Seven Deadly Sins at Victoria Miro:

'Ofili’s focus is either on moments when sin is conceived – moments which, to be effective as temptations, must be attractive to us – or could represent a reconfiguring of our concept of sin. If heaven, as some theologians have suggested, involves a simple enjoyment of relationships with the divine, other human beings, and the creatures and plants of creation, then isolation becomes the key sin, making Ofili’s imagery fully paradisical without any sense of impending judgement.'

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

Interviews -

Monthly diary articles -

Articles/Reviews -

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Maria McKee - You Gotta Sin To Get Saved.

Sunday, 18 September 2022

Living God's future now

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

Often working people (usually rightly) say that work barely gets a mention in Church yet when you look at the stories Jesus told large numbers of them are to do with work.

Luke 16. 1 - 13 is one of those stories and it may well be the one that it is most difficult to understand. The story and the teaching based on it seem contradictory and it doesn’t seem to fit with other things that Jesus said and taught.

A manager is wasting his employer’s money. He is found out and fired. The beginning of the story makes sense to us. It’s what happens next that causes a problem. The manager then reduces the debts that various people owe to his employer in order to get on good terms with them before he leaves his master’s employment. Although he is again wasting his master’s money, this time the master praises what he has done.

Jesus goes on to say that we should use our money to make friends and that this will help us to be welcomed into eternity. That seems almost the reverse of his saying store up treasures in heaven rather than treasures on earth. Then to compound all the complications he commends faithfulness after having told a story in which the dishonest manager is praised for his dishonesty.

How can we find a way in to a set of teaching that seems contradictory and confused? It may be that the key is Jesus’ statement that we should make friends for ourselves. Although the dishonest manager remains dishonest there is a change that occurs in the story. And we can see that change most clearly if we think about the manager’s work-life balance.

At the beginning of the story, friendships and responsibility seem low on his list of priorities. He is managing his employer’s property but wasting his employer’s money. It is likely then that his life is focused around work and money. However, when his job comes under threat, he suddenly realises that relationships – friendships – are actually more important than work and money and figures out a quick way of building friendships. At the end of the story, if we return to his work-life balance, work will have decreased in importance to him while friendship and responsibility for his own future will have increased.

The teaching that follows the story makes it clear that Jesus does not condone dishonesty; if this manager is dishonest in small matters then he will also be dishonest in large ones. The manager’s fundamental dishonesty does not change but the priority he places on relationships does. In other teaching Jesus sometimes uses the formula; if someone who is bad can do X then how much more should you or how much more will God do X. He uses it, for example, when he talks about God giving the Holy Spirit: if fathers who are bad, he says, know how to give good gifts to their children, how much more will God give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.

What Jesus does in this story is similar. He is saying that if shrewd, worldly people, like the dishonest manager, can come to see the importance of relationships, then how much more should we do the same. Not following the example of the manager in using dishonesty to build relationships but following his example of learning to prioritise relationships in life and in work.

Why is this so important? Jesus throws out a hint when he says “make friends for yourself … so that … you will be welcomed in the eternal home.” Jesus seems to be hinting that the relationships we form now in some way continue into eternity. Paul says something similar in 1 Corinthians 13 when he writes that faith, hope and love remain using a word for ‘remain’ which suggests that acts of faith, hope and love continue into eternity. Building relationships Jesus and Paul suggest may not just be good for the here and now but may also have eternal implications. All the more reason then for us to learn from this story and, whether we are at home, at work, or in our community, to prioritise the building of good relationships with those around us.

So, prioritising relationships, Jesus says, is about preparing for eternity and he specifically tells us this story that we might be welcomed into the eternal homes. Why is this so? Well, the answer is very simple. In heaven there will be nothing to fix, nothing to solve, and therefore no work to be done. In heaven there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will have passed away. In heaven there will be nothing we can do for others, because God will have done everything for us. So, what will there be to do? Heaven is all about our relationships; being with God, with ourselves, with others, and with creation. Heaven is all about enjoying our relationships to the full for what they are.

In Philippians 3 we are told to imitate those who set their minds on heavenly things because our citizenship is in heaven. Citizenship is all about belonging to a particular community together with all the other members of that community. In relation to heaven, it is about being in relationship with God’s people. So, if heaven is about anything at all, it is about relationship.

Jesus wants us to prepare for heaven. The writer to the Philippians wants us to set our minds on our citizenship in heaven. They are calling us to live God’s future now, to anticipate what heaven will be like in the here and now, in the present. We do that by doing what Jesus told this parable to encourage; prioritising relationships – prioritising our being with God, being with ourselves, being with others and being with creation now.

That is what incarnational mission and ministry is all about. After all, Jesus spent 90% of his incarnation in Nazareth being with his friends and family. He prioritised relationships in his life and wants us to do the same in ours.

Queen Elizabeth provides us with an example of one who did this. Throughout her 70-year reign, the Queen met and spoke to thousands of ordinary people up and down the country. She shared a unique relationship with her subjects and worked tirelessly to serve us to the best of her ability. Those sharing their memories of the Queen at this time have consistently noted this aspect of her life saying things like: “I expected her to be aloof, but she was the opposite – compassionate and understanding” or “She was incredibly easy to talk to and the twinkle in her eye when she smiled is a sight I’ll never forget” or “She was genuinely interested in what everybody doing.”

When we prioritise relationships in life, we anticipate heaven and live God’s future now.

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Delerious? - Now Is The Time.

Friday, 6 November 2020

Preparing for heaven

In his teaching Jesus sometimes uses the formula; if someone who is bad can do X then how much more should you or how much more will God do X. He uses it, for example, when he talks about God giving the Holy Spirit: if father’s who are bad know how to give good gifts to their children, how much more will God give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.

What Jesus does in this parable from Luke’s Gospel is similar (Luke 16. 1-9). Here he says that if shrewd, worldly people, like this dishonest manager or steward, can come to see the importance of relationships, then how much more should we do the same. Not following the example of the manager in using dishonesty to build relationships but following his example of learning to prioritise relationships in life and in work.

Thinking about the work-life balance of the Manager helps us to see what is really going on in this story. At the beginning of the story, friendships and responsibility seem low on the Manager’s list of priorities. He is managing his employer’s property but he’s also wasting his employer’s money. It seems likely that his life is focused primarily around his work and money. However, when his job comes under threat, he suddenly realises that relationships – friendships – are actually more important than work and money and then figures out a quick way of building friendships. At the end of the story, if we return to his work-life balance, work will have decreased in importance to him while friendships and responsibility for his own future will have increased.

Prioritising relationships, Jesus says, is about preparing for eternity. He specifically tells us this story that we might be welcomed into the eternal homes. Why is this so? Well, the answer is very simple. In heaven there will be nothing to fix, nothing to solve, and therefore no work to be done. In heaven there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will have passed away. In heaven there will be nothing we can do for others, because God will have done everything for us. So, what will there be to do? Heaven is all about our relationships; being with God, with ourselves, with others, and with creation. Heaven is all about enjoying our relationships to the full for what they are.

In Philippians 3 we are told to imitate those who set their minds on heavenly things because our citizenship is in heaven. Citizenship is all about belonging to a particular community together with all the other members of that community. In relation to heaven, it is about being in relationship with God’s people. So, if heaven is about anything at all, it is about relationship.

Jesus wants us to prepare for heaven. The writer to the Philippians wants us to set our minds on our citizenship in heaven. They are calling us to live God’s future now, to anticipate what heaven will be like in the here and now, in the present. We do that by doing what Jesus told this parable to encourage; prioritising relationships – prioritising our being with God, being with ourselves, being with others and being with creation now.

That is what incarnational mission and ministry is all about. Jesus spent 90% of his incarnation in Nazareth being with his friends and family. Just as he prioritised relationships in his life, so he wants us to do the same because that is how we anticipate heaven and live God’s future now.

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Nickel Creek - Reason's Why.

Thursday, 2 July 2020

The fundamental human problem is isolation

Here's the reflection I shared in today's lunchtime Eucharist for St Martin-in-the-Fields:

A group of people brought a paralyzed man lying on a bed to Jesus and Jesus responded to their faith (Matthew 9. 1-8). We often read of Jesus responding to people’s faith when he heals and also of Jesus limiting his healing in places like Nazareth where a lack of faith was shown. A lack of faith would have meant that people simply didn’t ask Jesus to help them. Faith, by contrast, opened up the possibility of change, of something new or different occurring. In Hebrews we read that without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

Those who brought this man to Jesus believed and were rewarded but not initially in the way they anticipated. They came to Jesus hoping for healing but Jesus responded by forgiving the man’s sins. At the time illness and sin were often equated those who were ill were accused of being punished by God for their sins. Jesus, however, on another occasion, specifically rejected that argument. As a result, we can be sure that Jesus is not making that connection here.

Instead, he could be saying that, for each of us, addressing our sinfulness is of more importance than any other issue or aspect of lives. Whatever the presenting issue in our lives, even something as significant as total paralysis, each pales into insignificance compared to the issue of sin which ultimately cuts us off from relationship with God. Sin is fundamentally living without God. It is being in that place where we don’t have faith, don’t believe and therefore close off the possibility of relationship. Sin means we cannot be know we are with God, because we don’t believe, and without God we are ultimately cut off from all that is good. Paralysis is an appropriate metaphor for this experience because, when you are paralyzed, you cannot go to be with anyone else. Paralysis is, therefore, an isolating experience unless others come to you or, as in this instance, bring you to others.

Jesus’ whole life is geared around reversing sin and the isolation it causes. Through his incarnation and nativity he became one of us, moving into our neighbourhood to be Emmanuel, ‘God with us.’ As Sam Wells has stated, “Jesus gives everything that he is for the cause of being with us, for the cause of embracing us within the essence of God’s being.” Ultimately, on the cross, he takes our sin and isolation onto himself to the extent that he loses his own being with God the Father. When he cries out on the cross, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,’ Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, was choosing between being with the Father or being with us. Here is astonishing good news; at the central moment in history, Jesus chose us. “That is the epicentre of the Christian faith and our very definition of love.”

As a result, Jesus can forgive and overcome sin and isolation for each one of us. He can restore us to relationship with God, because he has broken down every barrier that stood between ourselves and God. His incarnation, death and resurrection give him authority to restore relationship with God for all who are separated from God. That is what he offers to the paralyzed man, that is what he debates with the scribes, and that is what he demonstrates by returning to the paralyzed man the ability to overcome isolation by proactively going to be with others.

“If the fundamental human problem is isolation,” Sam Wells argues, “then the solutions we are looking for do not lie in the laboratory or the hospital or the frontiers of human knowledge or experience. Instead the solutions lie in things we already have — most of all, in one another.” Instead of needing others to be with him, the previously paralyzed man can now: be “with” people in poverty and distress even when there is nothing he can do “for” them; be “with” people in grief and sadness and loss even when there is nothing to say; be “with” and listen to and walk with those he finds most difficult rather than trying to fob them off with a gift or a face-saving gesture.

In other words he can bring the kingdom of heaven to others. That is a heaven which is worth aspiring to, “as it is a rejoining of relationship, of community, of partnership, a sense of being in the presence of another in which there is neither a folding of identities that loses their difference nor a sharpening of difference that leads to hostility, but an enjoyment of the other that evokes cherishing and relishing.” “The theological word for this is communion.” That is what the previously paralyzed man has been enabled to achieve.

To what extent, I wonder, is that something to which we aspire or seek? Does sin paralyze and isolate us or are we freed up to be with others in relationship?

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T. Bone Burnett - Trap Door.

Saturday, 28 July 2018

Encounter: St Martin-in-the-Fields Autumn Lecture Series 2018

I wonder how you have been changed by the people, places and events you have encountered?

‘Come and see,’ Jesus says to his first disciples in John’s Gospel; and they do just that. In the Gospel accounts, Jesus’ disciples witness his face-to-face encounters with a remarkable diversity of people - those of other nations, tribes, faiths, religious leaders, sinners seeking forgiveness, those possessed by evil, those seeking healing, those who betray him, and those whose lives will be forever transformed by his presence. It is not only those who encounter Jesus who are changed, but also those who witness those encounters, passing them on to others, retelling his stories.

Our Autumn Series of lectures at St Martin-in-the-Fields will focus on this theme of encounter. How are we changed by the people, events or objects when we meet them face to face? How do prejudices shift? How are new insights born? What inspires us to new ways of being and relating to God and to others? How do we become who we truly are through those we meet? How do we encounter God in our lives? In each of these lectures prominent and inspirational leaders, thinkers and practitioners will be speaking from a personal but also public perspective about the way such encounters have changed the course of their lives.

This lecture series will be supported by an exhibition, Encounters, in St Martin’s foyer and lightwell by the artist Nicola Green. This series of portraits powerfully expresses a series of historic meetings Green was privileged to witness between spiritual leaders around the globe, from Popes to the Dalai Lama to Chief Rabbis, Grand Muftis, Archbishops and Swamis. Encounters is accompanied by the launch of academic book Encounters: The Art of Interfaith Dialogue.

Come and see: Encounters an Exhibition by Nicola Green,
St Martin’s Foyer and Light Well, from 17 September-19 November

Click here for more information about the Autumn Lecture Series.

- Revd Richard Carter

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M Ward - For Beginners.

Sunday, 16 October 2016

Reality reshaped by disability

Day two of Prophets & Seers, a weekend of events exploring disability and church at St Martin-in-the-Fields began with a Eucharist and healing service for St Luke’s Day reflecting on the themes of the weekend and using liturgy written by St Martin’s Disability Advisory Group and Healing Team. The service included the laying on of hands and anointing with oil, accompanied by prayers for healing for individuals, someone else or the wider world. A screening of the acclaimed documentary film Notes on Blindness also took place in St Martin’s Hall. The film is based on John Hull’s audio diaries, as he reflected on his journey into blindness. Joining us for the screening were the filmmakers and Marilyn Hull.

Here is my sermon from the St Luke's Day Eucharist:

Our symbol for this year's weekend of events exploring disability and church is that of ripples on a lake. This weekend we are celebrating five years of conferences on disability and church organised by St Martin's and Inclusive Church, whilst also celebrating the profound influence of the theologian John Hull, who spoke in past years at the conference, and who died last year. The image of ripples was chosen to represent the rippling out of influences from the conference, John Hull and our own Disability Advisory Group.

I want to use that same image in a different way this morning. In the novel ‘The Book of Questions’ by Edmond Jabès, a rabbi speaks of ripples on a lake as representing a face with marks, wrinkles or wounds which reflects the face of God. If we understand the image of ripples in that way then we can make a connection between the image and the story of Jacob, from today’s Old Testament reading (Genesis 32. 22 - 32). Jacob’s story is of a journey from a selfish and ambitious focus on himself to a place of valuing relationships and the founding of a nation, where the moment of transition involves a disabling experience after wrestling with God. He carried the marks of that experience with him as he limped into a period of his life that had significance for the many, rather than the few. His disability reflected the work of God in his life.

This morning I want to explore how our reality can be reshaped by disability by comparing and contrasting the story of Jacob with that of two writers who both wrestled with God in relation to their experience of disability. The first of these, Jack Clemo, was one of the most extraordinary poets of the twentieth century. Although not as widely recognised as he should be, the 100th anniversary of his birth, in the heart of Cornwall’s China Clay Country, has been rightly celebrated this year.

Jack became deaf at the age of nineteen and blind in his thirties. These experiences of disability which combined with his rural location and his strong Evangelical faith, which was at odds with an increasingly secularized Britain, all served to make him an isolated outsider calling out ‘from the margins.’ His is a poetry which has power as he finds words to articulate his condition and convictions in his experience of marginalisation.

He used the landscape of the clayworks where he lived for much of his life - a landscape that had been violently shaped by industrial working - as a metaphor for the invading Gospel of Christ. His focus was on ‘the innate sinful condition of ‘nature,’ sin having warped nature just as much as humankind, with only God’s intervention able to restore the intended state of grace. As a result, he ‘believed his own suffering’ (for that was how he viewed his disabilities) ‘was necessary, but only as evidence for the crucial purification of original sin.’ So he declared that suffering (meaning his experience of disability) ‘in itself had taught me nothing; it had merely created the conditions in which joy could teach me, and so it could never be the last word or even the vitalizing word in my Christian adventure.’

Jack believed that God would invade his isolation by giving him the threefold happiness of healing, marriage and success as an Evangelical poet. As a result, he made few attempts to live with his disabilities, refusing to learn braille for example, and wrote some poetry which seems critical of those who chose to live with the experience of disability rather than seeking cure through God's invasive power. He achieved a measure of success as a poet and also married in his 50’s, but, despite much prayer for healing over many years and many moments when he thought healing had come, never experienced the physical healing which he fervently sought. His biographer, Luke Thompson, writes that ‘However we interpret Jack’s beliefs about the role of God in his life, they seem wrong. Over and over again, his statements and expectations were disproved; the signs and patterns perceived were incorrect; God’s promises were broken. It would be possible to construct a picture of a divinity working through Jack’s life, but it would require a complete renegotiation of the terms.’ That is, in part, because Jack only valued his disabilities as an arena in which God could demonstrate his healing powers to an unbelieving world.

By contrast we can consider the experience of the John Hull who, in the early 1980s, after decades of steady deterioration, lost his sight. ‘To help him make sense of the ensuing upheaval in his life, he began to keep an audio diary. Across three years, he created a unique testimony of loss, rebirth and renewal, excavating the interior world of blindness.’ ‘Based on these original recordings and his published diaries ‘Touching the Rock’, [the film] Notes on Blindness recreates his ‘journey through emotional turmoil and spiritual crisis to a renewed perception of the world and the discovery of ‘a world beyond sight’.’

In the book and film we travel with John Hull ‘farther and farther into the world … of blindness, until finally he comes to a point where he can no longer summon up memories of faces, of places, even memories of the light. This is the bend in the tunnel: beyond this is “deep blindness.” And yet at this … darkest … point, there comes a mysterious change—no longer an agonized sense of loss … but a new sense of life and creativity and identity. “One must recreate one’s life or be destroyed,” Hull writes, and it is precisely re-creation, the creation of an entirely new organization and identity, which [he] described ... At this point … [he] wonders if blindness is not “a dark, paradoxical gift” and an entry—unsought … but to be received—into a new and deep form of being.’ In reflecting on the nature of that gift, John said that, ‘After living with it and meditating on it for some time, I realized that blindness is not just a loss but it is one of the great human states which have characteristics of its own.’

‘My works,’ he wrote, ‘are … a yearning to overcome the abyss which divides blind people from sighted people. In seeking to overcome that abyss I've emphasized the uniqueness of the blind condition—blindness is a world. I've also sought to show that it's one of a number of human worlds. That sight is also a world. And that to gain our full humanity, blind people and sighted people need each other’. As a result, before his untimely death last year, John called on disabled people to challenge the church with a distinct prophetic ministry based on their own lived experience.

Both Jack Clemo and John Hull wrestled with God as a result of their experiences of disability. Jack increasingly wrestled with the reality that he had not been healed. His struggle was with God’s failure to grant to him the supernatural transformation that he desired and this desire and struggle left him isolated and lacking in solidarity with other disabled people. Because he viewed his disabilities as an arena in which God would demonstrate his power to cure, he did not explore the dimensions of the worlds of blindness and deafness that he inhabited or their potential for relationship preferring to remain waiting independently for rescue from those worlds. As a result, he was personally dependent on those around him and his poetry became strident and simplistic when he reasserted his belief in a cure that he was not receiving.

John, by contrast, recognised that he had been given the gift of experiencing the world of blindness realising that it is a world to inhabit, not to seek to leave, and his wrestling with God was the wrestle to reshape his reality, to receive a new and right spirit to trust that in the midst of the world of blindness, truth will be experienced and shared. He realised that, as a result of his twin experiences, he was able to speak into the worlds of blind and sighted people and emphasise their need of one another.

How do these stories relate to Jacob’s experience of wrestling with God? Jacob divided his family on the basis of his own ambition buying his elder brother Esau’s birthright and tricking his dying Father into giving a blessing that also belonged by right to his brother. While primarily selfish in a way that was not the case for Jack Clemo, his independent isolation does have similarities with Jack’s isolation and independent vocation. Jacob then wanted to be reconciled to Esau but was worried that Esau’s reaction toward him would be aggressive, so he set up a series of gifts for Esau and spent an anxious night wrestling with God. His experience of wrestling with God was a liminal moment in his life, a rite of transition from an essentially self-centred individualistic existence to become forefather to a people who, like the sand on the seashore, could not be numbered. This change involved crossing a boundary (the river Yabbok), struggling (with God) and naming (as Jacob became known as the Patriarch to Israel, the people who struggle with God). He limped away from this experience but went with God’s blessing, so his experience of change and transition was both disabling and a blessing. His reality was reshaped, enabling him to receive the generous act of reconciliation which his brother afforded him the next day.

Like John Hull, Jacob found his disabling experience to be one through which he gained a greater understanding of himself, his role, his destiny, his people, his world and his God. The result, as for John, was renewed relationships. Unlike Jack, who thought cure would demonstrate God’s reality and who, therefore, separated himself from other disabled people, Jacob and John experienced disability as the threshold to re-creation, renewal and relationship. That is a deeper, fuller experience of healing and a greater demonstration of God’s reality and presence. To return to the image with which we began, the marks of their experiences reflected the face of God.

John Hull taught that blind people and sighted people, disabled people and non-disabled people need each other. That realisation begins as disabled people challenge the church with a distinct prophetic ministry based on their own lived experience. The Greek poet Tasos Leivaditis has described just such a moment of realisation and so I end with his prose-poem ‘The Blind Man and the Lamp’:

‘IT WAS NIGHT and I had made the greatest decision of
the century — I would save humanity — but how? — as
thousands of thoughts were tormenting me I heard footsteps,
opened the door and beheld the blind man from the opposite
room walking down the hallway and holding a lamp — he
was about to go down the stairs — ‘What is he doing with
the lamp?’, I asked myself and suddenly an idea flashed
through my mind — I found the answer — ‘My dear brother,’
I said to him, ‘God has sent you,’
and with zeal we both got down to work . . .’

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Mahalia Jackson - There Is A Balm In Gilead.

Saturday, 17 September 2016

St Martin-in-the-Fields Autumn Lecture Series Introduction

Autumn Lecture Series Intro

With the UK voting to leave the European Union and with increasing division, xenophobia, and confusion over future national and international relationships, the St Martin-in-the-Fields Autumn Lecture Series examines the crucial question: Who is my Neighbour?

Dates:

19 September - Rowan Williams
3 October - Michael Northcott
17 October - Sarah Teather
24 October - Sarah Coakley
31 October - Stanley Hauerwas
14 November - Sam Wells

Find out more:

http://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/press-releases/who-is-my-neighbour-the-ethics-of-global-relationships/

http://stmartininthefields.eventbrite.com/
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Great Sacred Music - A Hymn for St Cecilia.

Thursday, 1 September 2016

Tools for transformation: empowering women and men to live in just relationship

The Start:Stop meditation that I prepared based on Luke 10. 38 - 42 has been included on the page within the Anglican Communion website which is gathering a variety of ‘tools for transformation’ to help Anglicans around the Communion to join in the work needed to empower women and men to live in just relationship. Click here to read the meditation.

The page begins with the following quote from Susan Durber: “To reflect before God on gender ... is to think about what it means that we are male and female. It is to ask what it would mean to experience our being gendered as gift rather than danger, a source of life and hope rather than oppression or fear, as something to be received gratefully from God, rather than experienced as a source of strife.”

Other resources on this website page include: toolkits; bible studies; manuals; videos; and theological reflections.

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Ēriks Ešenvalds - Stars.

Tuesday, 2 August 2016

Who is my neighbour? The Ethics of Global Relationships

Who is my neighbour? The Ethics of Global Relationships - September – November 2016

With the UK voting to leave the European Union and with realisation of increasing division, xenophobia, and confusion over future national and international relationships, the St Martin-in-the-Fields Autumn Lecture Series examines the crucial question: Who is my Neighbour?

What does the Christian commandment to love one’s neighbour as oneself actually means for us today. Lectures by renowned theologians and thinkers will reflect on this subject in relation to issues of ecology, immigration, fear and discrimination, the present political climate both in UK, Europe and the USA and how that the lives of our poorest neighbours may in fact be God’s gift to us as a Church and as a Nation.

Rowan Williams who gives the first lecture in this series writes:

“The way that our world works, as many people have said in recent years, seems to be a way in which the boundaries and barriers are rising higher between different parts of the human race. It is a world in which very few voices are saying that the death of a child in Africa or the suffering of a woman in Syria, diminishes the reality of the child or woman in Britain, or the other way round. And if the church is not saying that, God forgive us, and God help us. That’s unity. There is our calling to let the Son of God be revealed in us, to be a sign of a unity that brings alive that deep sense of connectedness in the human world…. Each person is diminished by the pain of another and each person is enriched by the holiness of another”

All lectures from 7.00pm-8.30pm at St Martin-in-the-Fields, and are free and open to all.

To ensure a place please book a free ticket on Eventbrite

Monday 19 September, 7.00pm
Rowan Williams: Who is my neighbour? The Ethics of Global Relationships

Monday 3 October, 7.00pm
Michael Northcott: My neighbour and the ecological crisis

Monday 17 October, 7.00pm
Sarah Teather: My neighbour the refugee

Monday 24 October, 7.00pm
Sarah Coakley: My neighbour beyond fear and discrimination

Monday 31 October, 7.00pm
Stanley Hauerwas: My neighbour, my nation and the presidential election

Monday 14 October, 7.00pm
Sam Wells: My neighbours, God’s gift

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Bruce Springsteen - How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live.

Thursday, 28 July 2016

The Parable of the Dishonest Manager

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

Often working people (usually rightly) say that work barely gets a mention in Church but that is actually surprising because, when you look at the stories Jesus told, large numbers of them are to do with work. This is one of those stories and it may well be the one that it is most difficult to understand (Luke 16. 1 - 13). The story and the teaching based on it seem contradictory and it doesn’t seem to fit with other things that Jesus said and taught.

A manager is wasting his employer’s money. He is found out and fired. The beginning of the story makes sense to us. It’s what happens next that causes a problem. The manager then reduces the debts that various people owe to his employer in order to get on good terms with them before he leaves his master’s employment. Although he is again wasting his master’s money, this time the master praises what he has done.

Jesus goes on to say that we should use our money to make friends and that this will help us to be welcomed into eternity. That seems almost the reverse of his saying to store up treasures in heaven rather than treasures on earth. Then to compound all the complications he commends faithfulness after having told a story in which the dishonest manager is praised for his dishonesty.

How can we find a way in to a set of teaching that seems contradictory and confused? It may be that the key is Jesus’ statement that we should make friends for ourselves. Although the dishonest manager remains dishonest there is a change that occurs in the story. And we can see that change most clearly if we think about the manager’s work-life balance.

At the beginning of the story, friendships and responsibility seem low on his list of priorities. He is managing his employer’s property but wasting his employer’s money. It is likely then that his life is focused around work and money. However, when his job comes under threat, he suddenly realises that relationships – friendships – are actually more important than work and money and figures out a quick way of building friendships. At the end of the story, if we return to his work-life balance, work will have decreased in importance to him while friendship and responsibility for his own future will have increased.

The teaching that follows the story makes it clear that Jesus does not condone dishonesty; if this manager is dishonest in small matters then he will also be dishonest in large ones. The manager’s fundamental dishonesty does not change but the priority he places on relationships does. In other teaching Jesus sometimes uses the formula; if someone who is bad can do X then how much more should you or how much more will God do X. He uses it, for example, when he talks about God giving the Holy Spirit: if father’s who are bad, he says, know how to give good gifts to their children, how much more will God give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.

What Jesus does in this story is similar. He is saying that if shrewd, worldly people, like the dishonest manager, can come to see the importance of relationships, then how much more should we do the same. Not following the example of the manager in using dishonesty to build relationships but following his example of learning to prioritise relationships in life and in work.

The Relationships Foundation sounds like it is likely to be a dating agency but is actually an organisation founded and run by Christians that believes that a good society is built on good relationships, from family and community to public service and business. They study the effect that culture, business and government have on relationships, create new ideas for strengthening social connections, campaign on issues where relationships are being undermined and train and equip people to think relationally for themselves. They are one example of an organisation that is seeking to prioritise relationships in life and in work as Jesus encouraged us to do.

Why is this so important? Jesus throws out a hint when he says “make friends for yourself … so that … you will be welcomed in the eternal home.” Jesus seems to be hinting that the relationships we form now in some way continue into eternity. Paul says something similar in 1 Corinthians 13 when he writes that faith, hope and love remain using a word for ‘remain’ which suggests that acts of faith, hope and love continue into eternity. Building relationships Jesus and Paul suggest may not just be good for the here and now but may also have eternal implications. All the more reason then for us to learn from this story and, whether we are at home, at work, or in our community, to prioritise the building of good relationships with those around us.

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Blessid Union of Souls - My Friend.

Saturday, 2 July 2016

Doing greater things than Jesus!

This morning, at the invitation of the Chaplain, Fr Paul Trathen, I gave the address during the annual Service of Commemoration held at Forest School. This service commemorates the good work of those who founded the School, celebrates its continuing development, and congratulates those students whose time at the School is drawing to a close. In my address I said the following:

Jesus said, 'The person who trusts me will not only do what I’m doing but even greater things.' (John 14. 1 - 14)

Jesus said many amazing things that people still repeat regardless of whether they follow him or not. But these words must be among the most amazing because Jesus says that those who follow him will do greater things than him. When you think how amazing Jesus’ own actions were – his teaching, his healings, his miracles, his sacrificial death, and his resurrection - it is hard to imagine how people like us could do greater things than that. So what could he possibly have meant?

I think Jesus was articulating something that I imagine all good teachers think and feel; the sense that all the time he had spent with his disciples and invested in them was not so they would be clones of him, simply repeating the things he did and said, but instead that he had equipped, empowered and enabled his followers to follow him by using their own gifts and abilities and initiative which would inevitably mean that they would do and say different things from him but still with his Spirit and based on all they had learnt from him.

He was saying that each one of us is a unique combination of personality, abilities and potential and, therefore, each of us can make a unique mark on the world. His followers can do and have done greater things than Jesus in the sense that they have done different things from him while still in his name and through his Spirit – things that only they can do for him because they are that unique package of personality, ability and potential.

That, I imagine, is also what your teachers here wish for you. That you will use what you have learnt here and the abilities you have developed here to make your own mark on the world and to continue learning, particularly about the meaning of life itself, and, as a result, to do things that your teachers themselves cannot do as they have a different set of abilities and different tasks to accomplish.

What will be the mark that you will make? Well, we probably can’t accurately make that prediction at this time, although you all hopefully have plans in place for the next stage in your learning, growth and development and, as you leave this place and this stage in your learning, you go with our very real good wishes and prayers for God’s blessing on your plans.

One thing that I would say, however, in reflecting on this passage is that you should take care not to fall into the trap of viewing greatness in terms of becoming famous or making pots of money. Many of the most significant things that people do in the course of their lives don’t make the headlines and don’t build our bank balances! For example, forming faithful, committed relationships is one of the most challenging but meaningful things we can do in life but that won’t feature in the press and media or improve your bank balance. Yet, many of you, later in life, are likely to become parents and will know the joys and struggles of supporting your own children in their development and growth. That is one of the most significant things we can do over the course of our lives; something that is a real act of greatness, being both extraordinary and profoundly ordinary at one and the same time. At the end of the day, Jesus shows us through his teaching and crucifixion that true greatness involves sacrificial love and service of others.

Leaving secondary education is the point at which your choices and decisions about the future begin to come into play and begin to be followed through. You do so at a time of profound uncertainly and soul-searching within the life of our nation where much that was familiar seems likely to change in ways that none of us can accurately predict. The way to respond is always to face the reality of where we are and grasp the opportunities available. None of us chose to be born or to live in such an age; but we can choose to let its problems challenge us, its discoveries exhilarate us, its injustices anger us, its possibilities inspire us and its vigour renew us for the sake of God’s kingdom's.

My prayer for you therefore is what Jesus prayed for his disciples that you will go on to do greater things than your teachers by making your unique mark on the world and that you will go ever deeper into truth by continuing to learn throughout your life.

Let us pray for God’s blessing on your leaving, your doing, and your learning:

We thank you, Lord, for each one of these your people - for their unique combination of personality, abilities and potential, for all they have learnt while here and for all the friendships they have formed. We pray for your blessing on them as they leave this place and for you to be with them in grasping new patterns of independent learning and growing life skills as adults. We pray for your guidance as they seek to make their mark on the world by using all they have learnt here together with their unique combination of personality, abilities and potential. We pray that they might do great things, things that we cannot do and cannot yet predict. We pray for them the blessing of committed, sustained friendships and relationships and the blessing of ongoing, lifelong learning. Most of all we pray that the blessing of God almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit will rest upon and remain with each one of them now and forever. Amen.

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John Rutter - The Lord Bless You And Keep You.