In Praise of Stop

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

When you use the Lectionary to decide on the Bible reading for a particular service, as we do in this Church, you sometimes wonder what the people who chose the readings were thinking when they made their choices. The Gospel reading for today (Mark 6: 30-34, 53-end) misses out the wonderful stories of Jesus feeding the five thousand and walking on the water which have stimulated thousands of sermons and instead all we get is Jesus travelling around towns, villages and farms meeting large crowds and healing people and, as the preacher, you think; well, how am I going to get a sermon out of that?

One interesting thing about this selection of verses is that we see Jesus attempting to take some time out from ministry together with his disciples and being frustrated in the attempt because the demands of the crowds around them were too great. That continues to be the case in ministry whether we are lay or ordained but the busyness of ministry here in the Wickford and Runwell Team Ministry and in our weekday lives cannot be sustained if it is not fed by regular times of withdrawal for prayer and recuperation.

That was Jesus’ regular practice. We read of him getting up long before daylight, leaving the town and going to a lonely place where he could pray. In order to pray effectively and well he needed to get away from the demands of ministry and away from his disciples too. He needed to be alone with God in order to recharge his batteries for further ministry to come and this is his pattern throughout his ministry; active mission together with others combined with withdrawal for individual prayer and recuperation. It was what he tried to demonstrate to his disciples in today’s Gospel reading and it needs to be our pattern too.

I’m reminded of an exhibition by the artist Micah Purnell which was called In Praise Of Stop . This was an exhibition which reflected on the theme of Sabbath as Resistance by exploring 'the practice of the fourth commandment in a contemporary age.' The exhibition included thought-provoking aphorisms such as ‘Nothing takes practice’, ‘Switch off to connect’, ‘Thou shalt not prepare for tomorrow’ and ‘Everything comes from nothing’. 

In a similar vein is the book written by Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York, which is entitled ‘Do Nothing to Change Your Life: Discovering What Happens When You Stop.’ In this book Cottrell invites us to slow down and stop … and breathe. He asks, ‘When was the last time you had a real day off? Ditched the 'to-do' lists? Switched off the phone? Had a lie-in? Sat in the bath until the water went cold?’ Most of us, he suggests, live at break-neck speed. Busy lives - work, family, friends, endless tasks - leave us with little time to sleep, never mind stopping and reflecting. We urgently need to learn to nurture our inner slob. As Isaiah 30:15 says, ‘In return and rest you shall be saved.’

In a book called 'The city is my monastery', Richard Carter writes that 'Rest is given to us as the culmination of creation’ and that the ‘whole of creation moves towards this time of Sabbath, and our lives have no meaning simply as cycles of survival without this arrival at the place of wonder and rest.’ The rest that is ultimately the culmination of creation is that which we will experience in heaven. Sabbath is our anticipation of that experience in the here and now.

‘Creation is not complete,’ he writes, ‘until God rests on the seventh day and contemplates all creation.’ Therefore, 'God blesses time’ and ‘consecrates it as holy.’ The whole of creation is moving towards this time of Sabbath, ‘and our lives have no meaning simply as cycles of survival without this arrival at the place of wonder and rest.'

‘When we rest, we imitate God - we enter into the rhythm of God's time,' but, more than that, 'if Sabbath is God's time, it does not end in the keeping of the Sabbath - the Sabbath enters into all our time.’ ‘When we keep Sabbath, everything we do can be infused with that sense of God's presence.'

He describes a day on holiday in Kefalonia where he pays attention to every moment of the day – the bread he buys from the bakery, the person who serves him, the wrapping in which it comes, the feel and taste of it. Later in the day, he writes, ‘I sat on the beach and watched people playing in the sea … I swam, ate bread and ripe tomatoes, and these actions were like a prayer.'

So, Richard Carter suggests that Sabbath rest is not simply about stopping but more so about an attitude of the heart which slows us in everyday life to appreciate and enjoy what we encounter in our daily lives.

In lockdown we all experienced an enforced Sabbath. An unattributed poem that was circulated on Facebook at that time suggested that our lockdown experience could be a moment in which we learn how to rest and experience renewal:

For years our land has groaned beneath the grind
Of work, work, work, of pounding feet, of churn;
For years we stopped our ears and would not mind
The gentle voice that urged us all to turn
From endless slog and strain that warps and rends
The sinews of the Spirit, toward rest:
The Sabbath's breathing wisdom God intends
For human flourishing and the land's best.
Now cafes rest, deserted and the shops,
The bank, the bustle, bargain, building, bar,
The tube's hot haggling hustle: it all stops.
Forced into stillness, now we breathe, we are.
Such tragic loss of love, of breath, to prove
How much we need to rest, to breathe, to love.

Our reading today, demonstrates some of the difficulties in regularly finding that time and the attitude Richard Carter described because of the constant demands that ministry makes on us. However, the difficulties involved shouldn’t prevent us from making the attempt to build rest periods and an attitude of slowing down and paying attention into our daily lives. By doing so, we follow in the footsteps of Jesus who specifically carved out times for prayer in the busyness of his ministry years and sought to teach his disciples to do the same. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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Be Still For The Presence Of The Lord.

Living in God and God living in us

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Andrew’s Wickford yesterday.

Where we live says quite a lot about the sort of people we are and the kind of relationships we have. Do we value the place where we were born or did we want to move away from it? Have we remained close to our wider family or are we independent of them? Have we a transient lifestyle by choice or necessity? Have we been able to choose where we live or have circumstances dictated that to us? Are our homes places of welcome to others or castles where we protect ourselves from the world?

Jesus told his disciples on the night before he died that he was going away from them to prepare a place for them to live – a dwelling place for them (John 14: 1 – 14). He gave them the picture of living in God’s house, all of them there together but each with their own specifically prepared room. This was a picture of the way in which, in future, they were going to live in God.

Jesus said that they would not be able to go with him as he left them. That was because he was going to the cross and only he, through his sinless death, could cross the divide between God and humanity and restore the relationship between us. That is why he is able to say that he is the way to the Father. No one else was able to bridge that gap by means of their death, only Jesus.

But when he came back to the disciples after death, through the resurrection, the way back to God from the dark paths of sin was now wide open and the disciples together with each one of us can now go in. The great opportunity that Jesus has opened up for us is that, despite our sin, we can live with God now, dwell in him throughout our lives, and also into eternity.

What is it like to live with God? First, it is a place without worry or fear. It is a place of arrival. Saint Augustine said, our hearts are restless till they find their rest in thee. And this is because it is a place where we are valued for who we are. Jesus spoke about going to prepare a specific place specifically for us and this is a way of saying that God knows us and loves us as we are. We can picture it in terms of rooms in our own homes. We put our mark on our rooms filling them with objects and decorations that reflect who we are and what is important to us. In a similar way, God is saying that he welcomes into him, into his presence, the unique people that we are, you and I.

And that leads us on to the next characteristic of living with God which is expanse. Jesus says that there are many rooms in his Father’s house, so it is expansive and needs to be because it is open to all – people of every race, language, colour, creed, gender, sexuality, class, nation, whatever. There is room for all. Living with God is about acceptance – we can stop searching and rest because we have been found, we are accepted and loved as the unique person that each of us is and we are part of a wider worldwide family that can encompass us all.

But living with God is not the end of the story. There is more because God also comes to live with us. In verse 11 we hear Jesus says that he is in the Father (he lives or dwells in God, as we now can as well) and that the Father lives in him. And this is what can happen to us too. In the second half of chapter 14 Jesus speaks about the Holy Spirit coming to stay with us (v16). Then he says that he himself will be in us (v20) and finally in verse 23 he says that both he and the Father will live with us.

That is the incredible news that is central to Christianity. Not only can we live in God but he himself comes and lives in us. We are in him and he is in us. Think about the wonder and privilege of it for a moment. Think of how you would feel if the person you most admire in the world lived with you – whether that’s David Beckham, Julia Roberts, the King, Nelson Mandela or whoever. We know that that is unlikely to happen but the reality of our lives and faith is that the God who created the universe and who saved humanity wants to live in your life.

What would you do if the person that you most admire was coming to your home? I bet you would have a massive spring clean and get your house looking just as you would ideally like to have it looking. Shouldn’t we do the same because God is living in our lives? The Bible talks about our bodies being a temple of God’s Holy Spirit – in other words, a place where God lives - and because God lives in us then we should keep our bodies healthy and pure. But not just our bodies, our minds and feelings and actions too. Because we have the huge privilege of having the creator of the universe, the saviour of humanity living in us we need to clean up our act, get on with that spring cleaning, and make our lives the sort of place that is fit for a King.

So there is both challenge and comfort in our Gospel reading today. The way is open for us to live in God and receive his love and acceptance and for God to live with us, which also means acting to clean up mess that there is in all our lives. Where are you living this morning? Have you come to live in God or would you like to take that step this morning? And how does God feel about living in you are there things that you need to change about the home that you are providing for God?

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Gregory Porter - Dry Bones.

Restful service

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

A yoke is a wooden crosspiece that is fastened over the necks of two animals and attached to the plough or cart that they are to pull. It doesn’t sound like something which is light or easy to wear, so in what sense might Jesus be using this farming image to talk about rest for those who come to him (Matthew 11. 28 – 30)?

Jesus would have been very familiar with ploughs and yokes as both are implements made by carpenters. Two animals, usually either oxen or donkeys, would wear the yoke and pull the plough guided from behind by the farmer. Their task was to break up the ground for sowing.

Jesus was speaking in a context where the Pharisees took the 613 commandments in the Torah – the Law of Moses – which were to do with all aspects of life - shaving, tattoos, clothing, work, food and drink, farming, money and so on – and multiplied these commandments by creating detailed instructions about the ways in which each of these commandments was to be kept. Keeping all of these additional rules was indeed a heavy burden for all who tried to do so.

Jesus, by contrast, taught that love was the fulfilling of the Law. Instead of keeping the endless detail of the regulations created by the Pharisees, Jesus said that we should simply love God, ourselves and our neighbours and that all the Law of Moses is actually designed to that end. This was liberating teaching which brought rest for those weighed down by the burden of trying to keep hundreds of commandments and thousands of additional regulations. On the basis of Jesus’ liberating teaching, St Augustine was able to write: ‘Love, and do what you will’ because when the ‘root of love be within’ there is nothing that can spring from that root, but that which is good.

I wonder whether you are ready to leave behind the heavy burden of rules and regulations in order to be accepted or justified and instead open your life to the liberating and restful law of love.

The oxen or donkeys undertaking the ploughing were guided by the farmer using the yoke. As they followed that guidance the yoke sat lightly on their shoulders and the ploughing proceeded apace. If they ignored the guidance of the farmer and pulled in different directions then the yoke would feel heavy and would chafe the neck causing sores or other injuries.

By using this image Jesus is arguing that we have choices about the way in which we live life. We can go off in our own direction pulling away from other people and from God but, when we do so, we are pulling against the way of life for which we have been designed and created. It is when we submit to God’s way of life – the law of love - that we find rest through being in the right place at the right time and living in the right way. When this happens we have a sense of everything coming together and fitting into place which is both profoundly satisfying and restful.

I wonder whether you are prepared to surrender control of your life to the one who created you in all your uniqueness and explore instead how to live in the way for which human beings were created; to live according to the law of love.

Finally, there is the task to which we are called. This image of pairs of oxen ploughing with the use of a yoke fits closely with the task Jesus gave to his disciples when he sent them out in pairs to go to villages and towns ahead of him in order to prepare people for his arrival when he would sow among them the seed of the Word of God.

He said, therefore, that this task - the role of a disciple – although it seems challenging to take up, is actually hugely rewarding as well as being restful in the sense that we are doing God’s will and it is God who does the work, not us. We read in Luke 10, for example, that the seventy disciples Jesus sent out in pairs returned from their mission with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!”

I wonder whether you are prepared to undertake the challenging, yet strangely restful, task of a disciple of Jesus; that of preparing the ground by sharing the message of love, so that others might receive the Word of God?

Jesus said: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” 

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Andre Crouch - The Promise.

Saturday Solace: Beautiful Scars

Here's the reflection I shared during Saturday Solace at St Andrew's Wickford this morning:

Bible reading:

While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, ‘Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.’ And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence. (Luke 24.36-43)

Meditation: Beautiful scars

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

Christ’s resurrection is only achieved by way of the wounds he gained from the crucifixion. He is for us the risen Christ because he was firstly for us the crucified Christ. In a similar way our wounds inevitably form and shape us. We would not be who we are as we now are without having gone through or having endured those wounding experiences.

In Isaiah 53 we read: “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering … and by his wounds we are healed.” Jesus saves us through his wounds. Those who are wounded often become wounded healers, with their experience of living with their wounds shaping their ministry to others facing similar experiences and circumstances.

We are all wounded and scarred, that is reality for all of us, but the marks of our pain can be turned into beautiful scars if we view the wounds we bear as being embraced by Christ, as formative in our lives and as opportunities which create potential in us to minister in future to others.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, who carries on his body the scars of our salvation, make our scars beautiful like your scars. May wounds in our lives, which at one time were signs of harm, become signs of care for others as our experience of living with our wounds comes to shape our ministry to others as wounded healers. We pray for this resurrection experience and ask that what was once harmful and destructive in our life be transformed to become life-giving for us and for others. Amen.

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Merry Clayton - Beautiful Scars.

Take my yoke upon you

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

A yoke is a wooden crosspiece that is fastened over the necks of two animals and attached to the plough or cart that they are to pull. It doesn’t sound like something which is light or easy to wear, so in what sense might Jesus be using this farming image to talk about rest for those who come to him (Matthew 11. 28 – 30)?

Jesus would have been very familiar with ploughs and yokes as both are implements made by carpenters. Two animals, usually either oxen or donkeys, would wear the yoke and pull the plough guided from behind by the farmer. Their task was to break up the ground for sowing.

Jesus was speaking in a context where the Pharisees took the 613 commandments in the Torah – the Law of Moses – which were to do with all aspects of life - shaving, tattoos, clothing, work, food and drink, farming, money and so on – and multiplied these commandments by creating detailed instructions about the ways in which each of these commandments was to be kept. Keeping all of these additional rules was indeed a heavy burden for all who tried to do so.

Jesus, by contrast, taught that love was the fulfilling of the Law. Instead of keeping the endless detail of the regulations created by the Pharisees, Jesus said that we should simply love God, ourselves and our neighbours and that all the Law of Moses is actually designed to that end. This was liberating teaching which brought rest for those weighed down by the burden of trying to keep hundreds of commandments and thousands of additional regulations. On the basis of Jesus’ liberating teaching, St Augustine was able to write: ‘Love, and do what you will’ because when the ‘root of love be within’ there is nothing that can spring from that root, but that which is good.

I wonder whether you are ready to leave behind the heavy burden of rules and regulations in order to be accepted or justified and instead open your life to the liberating and restful law of love.

The oxen or donkeys undertaking the ploughing were guided by the farmer using the yoke. As they followed that guidance the yoke sat lightly on their shoulders and the ploughing proceeded apace. If they ignored the guidance of the farmer and pulled in different directions then the yoke would feel heavy and would chafe the neck causing sores or other injuries.

By using this image Jesus is arguing that we have choices about the way in which we live life. We can go off in our own direction pulling away from other people and from God but, when we do so, we are pulling against the way of life for which we have been designed and created. It is when we submit to God’s way of life – the law of love - that we find rest through being in the right place at the right time and living in the right way. When this happens we have a sense of everything coming together and fitting into place which is both profoundly satisfying and restful.

I wonder whether you are prepared to surrender control of your life to the one who created you in all your uniqueness and explore instead how to live in the way for which human beings were created; to live according to the law of love.

Finally, there is the task to which we are called. This image of pairs of oxen ploughing with the use of a yoke fits closely with the task Jesus gave to his disciples when he sent them out in pairs to go to villages and towns ahead of him in order to prepare people for his arrival when he would sow among them the seed of the Word of God.

He said, therefore, that this task - the role of a disciple – although it seems challenging to take up, is actually hugely rewarding as well as being restful in the sense that we are doing God’s will and it is God who does the work, not us. We read in Luke 10, for example, that the seventy disciples Jesus sent out in pairs returned from their mission with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!”

I wonder whether you are prepared to undertake the challenging, yet strangely restful, task of a disciple of Jesus; that of preparing the ground by sharing the message of love, so that others might receive the Word of God?

Jesus said: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

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Blessid Union of Souls - Lucky To Be Here.

My yoke is easy, and my burden is light

Here is the reflection I shared at yesterday's lunchtime Eucharist at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

A yoke is a wooden crosspiece that is fastened over the necks of two animals and attached to the plough or cart that they are to pull. It doesn’t sound like something which is light or easy to wear, so in what sense might Jesus be using this farming image to talk about rest for those who come to him (Matthew 11. 28 – 30)?

Jesus would have been very familiar with ploughs and yokes as both are implements made by carpenters. Two animals, usually either oxen or donkeys, would wear the yoke and pull the plough guided from behind by the farmer. Their task was to break up the ground for sowing.

Jesus was speaking in a context where the Pharisees took the 613 commandments in the Torah – the Law of Moses – which were to do with all aspects of life - shaving, tattoos, clothing, work, food and drink, farming, money and so on – and multiplied these commandments by creating detailed instructions about the ways in which each of these commandments was to be kept. Keeping all of these additional rules was indeed a heavy burden for all who tried to do so.

Jesus, by contrast, taught that love was the fulfilling of the Law. Instead of keeping the endless detail of the regulations created by the Pharisees, Jesus said that we should simply love God, ourselves and our neighbours and that all the Law of Moses is actually designed to that end. This was liberating teaching which brought rest for those weighed down by the burden of trying to keep hundreds of commandments and thousands of additional regulations. On the basis of Jesus’ liberating teaching, St Augustine was able to write: ‘Love, and do what you will’ because when the ‘root of love be within’ there is nothing that can spring from that root, but that which is good.

I wonder whether you are ready to leave behind the heavy burden of rules and regulations in order to be accepted or justified and instead open your life to the liberating and restful law of love.

The oxen or donkeys undertaking the ploughing were guided by the farmer using the yoke. As they followed that guidance the yoke sat lightly on their shoulders and the ploughing proceeded apace. If they ignored the guidance of the farmer and pulled in different directions then the yoke would feel heavy and would chafe the neck causing sores or other injuries.

By using this image Jesus is arguing that we have choices about the way in which we live life. We can go off in our own direction pulling away from other people and from God but, when we do so, we are pulling against the way of life for which we have been designed and created. It is when we submit to God’s way of life – the law of love - that we find rest through being in the right place at the right time and living in the right way. When this happens we have a sense of everything coming together and fitting into place which is both profoundly satisfying and restful.

I wonder whether you are prepared to surrender control of your life to the one who created you in all your uniqueness and explore instead how to live in the way for which human beings were created; to live according to the law of love.

Finally, there is the task to which we are called. This image of pairs of oxen ploughing with the use of a yoke fits closely with the task Jesus gave to his disciples when he sent them out in pairs to go to villages and towns ahead of him in order to prepare people for his arrival when he would sow among them the seed of the Word of God.

He said, therefore, that this task - the role of a disciple – although it seems challenging to take up, is actually hugely rewarding as well as being restful in the sense that we are doing God’s will and it is God who does the work, not us. We read in Luke 10, for example, that the seventy disciples Jesus sent out in pairs returned from their mission with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!”

I wonder whether you are prepared to undertake the challenging, yet strangely restful, task of a disciple of Jesus; that of preparing the ground by sharing the message of love, so that others might receive the Word of God? Jesus said: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

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St Martin's Voices - Gloria.

Find rest for your souls

Here's the reflection on Matthew 11. 28 – 30 I shared during today's lunchtime Eucharist for St Martin-in-the-Fields:
A yoke is a wooden crosspiece that is fastened over the necks of two animals and attached to the plough or cart that they are to pull. It doesn’t sound like something which is light or easy to wear, so in what senses might Jesus be using this farming image to talk about rest for those who come to him?

Jesus would have been very familiar with ploughs and yokes as both are implements made by carpenters. Two animals, usually either oxen or donkeys, would wear the yoke and pull the plough guided from behind by the farmer. Their task was to break up the ground for sowing.

Jesus was speaking in a context where the Pharisees took the 613 commandments in the Torah – the Law of Moses – which were to do with all aspects of life - shaving, tattoos, clothing, work, food and drink, farming, money and so on – and multiplied these commandments by creating detailed instructions about the ways in which each of these commandments was to be kept. Keeping all of these additional rules was in deed a heavy burden for all who tried to do so.

Jesus, by contrast, taught that love was the fulfilling of the Law. Instead of keeping the endless detail of the regulations created by the Pharisees, Jesus is saying that we should simply love God, ourselves and our neighbours and that all the Law of Moses is actually designed to that end. This was liberating teaching which brought rest for those weighed down by the burden of trying to keep hundreds of commandments and thousands of additional regulations. On the basis of Jesus’ liberating teaching, St Augustine was able to write: ‘Love, and do what you will’ because when the ‘root of love be within’ there is nothing that can spring from that root, but that which is good.

I wonder whether you are ready to leave behind the heavy burden of rules and regulations in order to be accepted or justified and instead open your life to the liberating and restful law of love.

The oxen or donkeys undertaking the ploughing were guided by the farmer using the yoke. As they followed that guidance the yoke sat lightly on their shoulders and the ploughing proceeded apace. If they ignored the guidance of the farmer and pulled in different directions then the yoke would feel heavy and would chafe the neck causing sores or other injuries.

By using this image Jesus is arguing that we have choices about the way in which we live life. We can go off in our own direction pulling away from other people and from God but, when we do so, we are pulling against the way of life for which we have been designed and created. It is when we submit to God’s way of life that we find rest through being in the right place at the right time and living in the right way. When this happens we have a sense of everything coming together and fitting into place which is both profoundly satisfying and restful.

I wonder whether you are prepared to surrender control of your life to the one who created you in all your uniqueness and explore instead how to live in the way for which human beings were created.

Finally, there is the task to which we are called. This image of pairs of oxen ploughing with the use of a yoke fits closely with the task Jesus gave to his disciples when he sent them out in pairs to go to villages and towns ahead of him in order to prepare people for his arrival when he would sow among them the seed of the Word of God.

He is saying, therefore, that this task - the role of a disciple – although it seems challenging to take up, is actually hugely rewarding as well as being restful in the sense that we are doing God’s will and it is God who does the work, not us. We read in Luke 10, for example, that the seventy disciples Jesus sent out in pairs returned from their mission with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!”

I wonder whether you are prepared to undertake the challenging, yet strangely restful, task of a disciple of Jesus; that of preparing the ground so that others might receive the Word of God?

Jesus says: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

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The Byrds - Lay Down Your Weary Tune.

The desert in the city: Sabbath

Here's my reflection on Sabbath for tonight's Lent Course session at St Martin-in-the-Fields, based on Richard Carter's book 'The city is my monastery':

‘Living God’s future now’ will be the title for the next HeartEdge conference, but it is also a very effective description of what Sabbath is all about.

Discussions about the Sabbath often centre around moralistic laws and arguments over what a person should or should not be able to do either the Jewish Sabbath or on Sundays in the Christian tradition. Those of you who are my age or older will recall what Sundays were like before the introduction of Sunday trading in 1994. Sunday’s then commonly began with church worship, followed by roast lunch with the family and time at home together. Some people now miss the fact that Sunday is little different to other days in the week and the enforced slow down and battery recharge that the old Sundays had. For some the introduction of Sunday trading has eroded family time with a consequent deleterious effect on society. Others remember detesting Sundays as everything was either closed or seriously curtailed and think it's much better now with everything open and little curtailment. A French novelist in the 1950s had a retired British Army officer character declare that: ‘If England has not been invaded since 1066, it is because foreigners dread having to spend a Sunday there.’

Such debates about ways to keep a particular day are ultimately distractions from the deeper meaning of Sabbath. In tonight’s Word from the Edge (Hebrews 4. 1-10) we hear repeatedly the assertion that the promise of entering God’s rest is still open, it remains open for some to enter God’s rest and that a sabbath rest still remains for the people of God. The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews is saying that the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian practice of gathering for worship on Sunday are no more than stages on the way to the real Sabbath which will be experienced in heaven. They are rehearsals for the reality that we will experience then and that is why we can talk about seeking to live God’s future now.

In order to understand how to really live Sabbath as a rehearsal for the reality of heaven, we need to understand key characteristics of heaven itself. The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews highlights particularly the idea that those who enter God’s rest also cease from their labours as God did from his.

In his writings about being with, Sam Wells has introduced us to the four categories of: being with, being for, doing for and doing with. He has challenged us and others with the thought that we spend much of our time, effort, energy and activism on doing things for or being for others, instead of being with others. When we are being for or doing things for others, we are in problem solving mode because there are things that we think we can fix and it is our activity that will provide or contribute to the solution. Heaven challenges our propensity to do and be for others because in heaven there is nothing to fix. In heaven God wipes every tear from our eyes, death is no more, mourning and crying and pain will be no more. In heaven there is no being for or doing there is just being with. We cease from our labours as God did from his and simply enjoy God, each other, the world around us and ourselves for who we are.

We prepare for that reality, as Sam says, by learning to live with everybody now and receive their unexpected gifts with imagination and gratitude in recognition that these are the people with whom we’ll be spending eternity, lucky and blessed as we all are to be there. So, we’d best use these earthly years as a time for getting in the mood.

That means that Sabbath moments are primarily those times of appreciation, revelation and understanding towards God, others, creation and ourselves. ‘The City is my monastery’ is a book that gets us in the mood for heaven by taking us deeper into moments of realisation and wonder. Richard Carter writes that 'Rest is given to us as the culmination of creation’ and that the ‘whole of creation moves towards this time of Sabbath, and our lives have no meaning simply as cycles of survival without this arrival at the place of wonder and rest.’ The rest that is ultimately the culmination of creation is that which we will experience in heaven. Sabbath is our anticipation of that experience in the here and now.

‘Creation is not complete,’ he writes, ‘until God rests on the seventh day and contemplates all creation.’ Therefore, 'God blesses time’ and ‘consecrates it as holy.’ The whole of creation is moving towards this time of Sabbath, ‘and our lives have no meaning simply as cycles of survival without this arrival at the place of wonder and rest.'

‘When we rest, we imitate God - we enter into the rhythm of God's time,' but, more than that, 'if Sabbath is God's time, it does not end in the keeping of the Sabbath - the Sabbath enters into all our time.’ ‘When we keep Sabbath, everything we do can be infused with that sense of God's presence.'

He describes a day on holiday in Kefalonia where he pays attention to every moment of the day – the bread he buys from the bakery, the person who serves him, the wrapping in which it comes, the feel and taste of it. Later in the day, he writes, ‘I sat on the beach and watched people playing in the sea … I swam, ate bread and ripe tomatoes, and these actions were like a prayer.'

The poet Mary Oliver wrote that ‘Attention without feeling is only a report.’ To fully feel life course through us we must befriend our own attention, that ‘intentional, unapologetic discriminator.’ The philosopher, Simone Weil wrote that: ‘Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love. Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.’

That is true Sabbath - not a particular day or a particular set of actions (helpful as those can be) – but absolute unmixed attention presupposing faith and love. This is a style of prayer originally practised by the Celtic saints in this country and passed down the generations in Gaelic regions, in prayers said while undertaking daily tasks. In more recent years a renewal of interest in Celtic Christianity has revived this style of prayer for many.

Richard writes in ‘The city is my monastery’ that this is possible even in the midst of trouble, difficulty and challenge. He writes of time spent in hospital and says, 'It's sometimes only when we are a little stripped down, like this in your hospital night-gown, and tubes coming out of your arm, that God’s presence is once again uncovered.' He then tells of a conversation with a homeless man who was coming regularly to Morning Prayer:

‘Have you always been so faithful in your prayers?’ I asked him. ‘No,’ he said, ‘only when I am in trouble.’

‘Where did you learn to pray?’ He is silent for a moment. And then he tells me quietly: ‘In prison that’s when I realized I needed him most.’

‘Well,’ said Richard, ‘I learnt to pray again in hospital.’

I wonder whether, as with Richard and that homeless man, our current troubles – this enforced Sabbath - could be a moment in which we learn to pray again living God’s future now by practicing faith, love and thankfulness through prayerful attention. There is an unattributed poem circulating currently on facebook which suggests this might be so:

For years our land has groaned beneath the grind
Of work, work, work, of pounding feet, of churn;
For years we stopped our ears and would not mind
The gentle voice that urged us all to turn
From endless slog and strain that warps and rends
The sinews of the Spirit, toward rest:
The Sabbath's breathing wisdom God intends
For human flourishing and the land's best.
Now cafes rest, deserted and the shops,
The bank, the bustle, bargain, building, bar,
The tube's hot haggling hustle: it all stops.
Forced into stillness, now we breathe, we are.
Such tragic loss of love, of breath, to prove
How much we need to rest, to breathe, to love.

Open my heart that I might contemplate your presence in everyone and everything you have made; all that is good, all that is beautiful and all that is true. May wonder and awe at your goodness draw me closer to you and lead me to a sense of eternity now. Amen.

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Bruce Cockburn - No Footprints.

I AM that I AM

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

At the end of John’s Gospel, the writer of the Gospel says, I have written about the signs performed by Jesus “so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.” At the beginning of the Gospel “he carefully writes ‘the Word was God’, divine, personal, existing in the unity of the Godhead and yet somehow distinct—for ‘the Word became flesh and dwelt among us’ (1:14).” That is the wonderful story which John sets out to tell us and at the centre of that story he has Jesus make “an absolute and unmistakeable claim to exist in the eternal being of God.” “Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.’” (John 8. 46 - 59)

Stephen Verney explains that, “When Jesus says I AM he is affirming his humanity – the whole of himself, from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. He accepts what he is, now, at this present moment – his body, his passions, his intellect, his spirit. He is totally self-conscious.

At the same time he is using the name of God: I AM. When Moses asked God, “What is your name?” God answered, “I AM, that is who I AM. Tell the Israelites that I AM has sent me to you.

The heart of the consciousness of Jesus is I AM, God/human being. Human being/God. In his consciousness … earth and heaven, flesh and Spirit become one as they interact with each other.”

Malcolm Guite says that scholars agree that there is no confusion of tenses here, “but rather a proclamation by Jesus that he is indeed the great I AM, the one who disclosed himself to Moses at the Burning Bush as the God of Abraham and who named himself ‘I AM’. We know that this is how his first hearers interpreted this saying, for they heard it as blasphemous and tried to stone Jesus for having said it (John 8:59).”

Jonathan Arnold notes that “there are three different types of “I am” sayings [in John’s Gospel]. Firstly, the metaphorical (“I am the bread of life, light of the world” etc.) … where Jesus identifies himself in comparison to something else, often following an action or miracle, which becomes a sign, an identification, of who Jesus is and an explanation of Jesus’s actions.

Secondly, we have the self-identification sayings (“I am he, I and the Father are one, I am from above”, and so on). These sayings identify Christ in relation to his Father and usually follow some kind of inquiry, when Jesus is in discussion and his identity is called into question or needs verifying, either for the person with Jesus, or for us the reader.

The third kind of statement is the simple statement of existence and this only occurs once in 8.58: “Verily, verily I say to you, ‘Before Abraham was I am’.”

So what is the point of all these ‘I am’ sayings. Is John labouring the point somewhat? Well, if we consider the opening lines of the gospel: “In the beginning was the word” etc. then we have a gospel that is fundamentally Christological in its purpose. John is writing in order to explain that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.”

Guite goes on to say that “for those of us who accept that Jesus is the great I AM, that revelation is the very root of our faith”: “The first and primal reality, the foundation of the Cosmos, is ‘I AM’, not ‘it is’. The deepest reality is not a collection of meaningless objects, but a personal God who speaks in the first person and shares the gift of personhood with us. When we turn to Christ we turn towards the great I AM, the source and origin of our own little ‘I-Amness’. Turning and returning to that source is always a great refreshment. No longer do we toil to ‘make ourselves’, no longer are we anxious about who we are, we simply receive our being as what it has always been: a gift. As Verney notes, the good news of John’s Gospel affirms that “The heart of the consciousness of Jesus is I AM, God/human being. Human being/God. The Gospel writer “then declares that his consciousness can become ours. Jesus offers it to us as a free gift.”

Oh pure I AM, the source of everything,
The wellspring of my inner consciousness,
The song within the songs I find to sing,
The bliss of being and the crown of bliss.
You iterate and indwell all the instants
Wherein I wake and wonder that I am,
As every moment of my own existence
Runs over from the fountain of your name.

I turn with Jacob, Isaac, Abraham,
With everyone whom you have called to be,
I turn with all the fallen race of Adam
To hear you calling, calling ‘Come to me’.
With them I come, all weary and oppressed,
And lay my labours at your feet, and rest.

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Jonathan Evens - I AM who I AM.

Rest from inner conflict

Here's my homily from the 8.00am service at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

Jesus calls us to be 100% for God in our lives. In his summary of the Law he says, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind (Mark 12. 30 - 31). When we fail to do so, we experience internal division. It is, for example, why Jesus insists that we cannot love God and Mammon (Luke 16. 13).

St Paul describes this state of internal conflict when he writes in the Letter to the Romans: 'I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!' (Romans 7. 19 - 25)

In our Gospel passage (Luke 11.14-28) this internal dialogue, debate and division is described in the language of demon possession. We don’t find rest or peace from this internal conflict until we finally and fully surrender to God. Once that surrender has occurred, then we need to nurture and protect it in order that we do not revert back to the state of internal chaos and conflict but instead remain in the peace and rest of being given over to God.

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Pärt, Glass and Martynov 's Silencio.

Ministry and withdrawal, ministry and moving out

Here is my sermon from yesterday's lunchtime Eucharist at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

Mark’s Gospel begins a little like an action movie. Before we have completed the first chapter John the Baptist has preached, Jesus has been baptised, tempted in the desert, called the disciples, and healed a man in the synagogue. The pace of action is breathtaking. Read it at home and see for yourself! We are still in the first chapter with today’s Gospel reading (Mark 1. 29 - 39) and, although that is the case, have here ten verses that show us the pattern of Jesus’ whole ministry. Mark tells us stories that sum up what the whole of Jesus’ mission and ministry were about, so that we can follow in Jesus’ footsteps by doing the same.

The first pattern that we see in this story is the balance been ministry and spirituality. Mark describes an intense period of ministry. Jesus returns from the synagogue where he has just healed a man to find that Simon’s mother-in-law is unwell. He heals her and then spends the evening healing many “who were sick with all kinds of diseases and drove out many demons.” We know how busy and exhausted we can feel through the ministry we do in our workplaces, homes, community, and here at St Martin’s. We can imagine how Jesus would have felt following this ministry.

In the morning, everyone is again looking for Jesus but he is nowhere to be found. Long before daylight he had got up, left the town and gone to a lonely place where he could pray. In order to pray effectively and well to needed to get away from the demands of ministry and away from his disciples. He needed to be alone with God in order to recharge his batteries for further ministry to come and this is his pattern throughout his ministry; active mission together with others combined with withdrawal for individual prayer and recuperation. It needs to be our pattern too.

The busyness of ministry here at St Martin’s and in our weekday lives cannot be sustained if it is not fed by regular times of withdrawal for prayer and recuperation. The two are clearly separated in Jesus’ life and ministry and he is prepared to disappoint people, as in this story, in order to ensure that he has the times of prayer and recuperation that he needs in our to sustain his active ministry. This is why prayer and spirituality is prioritised here at St Martin’s, as can be seen with our current adverts for the Silent Retreat and Lent Course; but also in many other ways.

The second pattern that we find in this story is that of ministry and moving on. Jesus has this time of active ministry with the people at Capernaum and then he moves on to preach in the other villages across the whole of Galilee. The people don’t want him to go. The disciples tell Jesus that everyone is looking for him. They want more of what he has already given them. But he refuses them and moves on to preach to others. There are two aspects to the pattern of Jesus’ ministry here. First, is his concern for all to hear. That is why he has come, he says, that he should bring God’s message to all. We need that same motivation. The message of salvation cannot stay wrapped up inside this building or our congregation but must go out from here. That is the motivation behind the HeartEdge network of churches we are currently building and other partnership and mission activities with which we are involved.

This also needs to happen for our own growth and development. We grow as Christians not by staying where we are and being ministered to but by getting up and following in Jesus’ footsteps ourselves; by becoming active ministers of the Gospel ourselves. That is why Jesus constantly challenges his hearers to take up their cross and follow him. It is not that he wants to condemn all of us to suffering and a hard life instead he wants us to become people who learn how to give more than we receive.

William Temple famously said, “The Church is the only society that exists for the benefit of those who are not its members.” What he meant is that the Church is not about us members getting our needs and wants satisfied; it is instead about equipping and motivating us, the members, to bless others in the love of Christ. That is what Jesus sought to achieve by moving from town to town, village to village and challenging his disciples to go with him.

We need to mirror these patterns of ministry and withdrawal, ministry and moving out in our lives and our Church. St Martin’s is a society that exists for the benefit of those who are not its members. As we follow Christ, we cannot simply be about getting our needs and wants satisfied but need to be about being equipped by God through times of prayer and recuperation to be signs of Christ outside of this building, outside of our congregation, out where it makes a difference, out in our community and workplaces.

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John Dunstable - Quam Pulchra Es.

Rest in the law of love

Here is my sermon (based on Matthew 11. 28 – 30) from today's lunchtime Eucharist at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

A yoke is a wooden crosspiece that is fastened over the necks of two animals and attached to the plough or cart that they are to pull. It doesn’t sound like something which is light or easy to wear, so in what sense might Jesus be using this farming image to talk about rest for those who come to him?

Jesus would have been very familiar with ploughs and yokes as both are implements made by carpenters. Two animals, usually either oxen or donkeys, would wear the yoke and pull the plough guided from behind by the farmer. Their task was to break up the ground for sowing.

Jesus was speaking in a context where the Pharisees took the 613 commandments in the Torah – the Law of Moses – which were to do with all aspects of life - shaving, tattoos, clothing, work, food and drink, farming, money and so on – and multiplied these commandments by creating detailed instructions about the ways in which each of these commandments was to be kept. Keeping all of these additional rules was indeed a heavy burden for all who tried to do so.

Jesus, by contrast, taught that love was the fulfilling of the Law. Instead of keeping the endless detail of the regulations created by the Pharisees, Jesus said that we should simply love God, ourselves and our neighbours and that all the Law of Moses is actually designed to that end. This was liberating teaching which brought rest for those weighed down by the burden of trying to keep hundreds of commandments and thousands of additional regulations. On the basis of Jesus’ liberating teaching, St Augustine was able to write: ‘Love, and do what you will’ because when the ‘root of love be within’ there is nothing that can spring from that root, but that which is good.

I wonder whether you are ready to leave behind the heavy burden of rules and regulations in order to be accepted or justified and instead open your life to the liberating and restful law of love.

The oxen or donkeys undertaking the ploughing were guided by the farmer using the yoke. As they followed that guidance the yoke sat lightly on their shoulders and the ploughing proceeded apace. If they ignored the guidance of the farmer and pulled in different directions then the yoke would feel heavy and would chafe the neck causing sores or other injuries.

By using this image Jesus is arguing that we have choices about the way in which we live life. We can go off in our own direction pulling away from other people and from God but, when we do so, we are pulling against the way of life for which we have been designed and created. It is when we submit to God’s way of life – the law of love - that we find rest through being in the right place at the right time and living in the right way. When this happens we have a sense of everything coming together and fitting into place which is both profoundly satisfying and restful.

I wonder whether you are prepared to surrender control of your life to the one who created you in all your uniqueness and explore instead how to live in the way for which human beings were created; to live according to the law of love.

Finally, there is the task to which we are called. This image of pairs of oxen ploughing with the use of a yoke fits closely with the task Jesus gave to his disciples when he sent them out in pairs to go to villages and towns ahead of him in order to prepare people for his arrival when he would sow among them the seed of the Word of God.

He said, therefore, that this task - the role of a disciple – although it seems challenging to take up, is actually hugely rewarding as well as being restful in the sense that we are doing God’s will and it is God who does the work, not us. We read in Luke 10, for example, that the seventy disciples Jesus sent out in pairs returned from their mission with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!”

I wonder whether you are prepared to undertake the challenging, yet strangely restful, task of a disciple of Jesus; that of preparing the ground by sharing the message of love, so that others might receive the Word of God? Jesus said: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

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City of London in Your Pocket: A Workers Guide to Rest and Play in the Square Mile

Start:Stop at St Stephen Walbrook features in a new workers guide to rest and play in the Square Mile entitled City of London in Your Pocket.

Make the most of the City around you. It’s easy to get from station to office to sandwich bar to office and home again without really getting the most out of what’s around you. From peaceful City gardens to free art galleries, historic pubs to chic cocktail bars, yoga classes to free lectures, discover new, favourite places to eat, shop and relax throughout your working week.

Visit the City Information Centre next to St Paul's Cathedral to pick up a free copy, or download the ‘City of London Guide’ app for Android andiPhone .

Keep your guide handy for inspiration and in its pages, look for special recommendations from project partners.

For bulk orders (subject to availability, postage/delivery to be met by requester) email visit@cityoflondon.gov.uk.

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Saint Etienne - London Belongs To Me.

Start:Stop - In praise of stop

Bible reading

‘Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work — you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.’ (Exodus 20. 8 - 11)

Meditation

Micah Purnell is a Graphic Designer and Conceptual Artist who is currently showing new work at St James & Emmanuel in Manchester. In Praise Of Stop is an exhibition which reflects on the theme of Sabbath as Resistance by exploring 'the practice of the fourth commandment in a contemporary age.' The series includes thought-provoking aphorisms such as ‘Nothing takes practice’, ‘Switch off to connect’, ‘Thou shalt not prepare for tomorrow’ and ‘Everything comes from nothing’.

In a similar vein is the book written by Stephen Cottrell, the Bishop of Chelmsford, which is entitled ‘Do Nothing to Change Your Life: Discovering What Happens When You Stop.’ In this generous, life-affirming book, full of practical wisdom, Stephen Cottrell invites us to slow down and stop … and breathe. He asks, ‘When was the last time you had a real day off? Ditched the 'to-do' lists? Switched off the phone? Had a lie-in? Sat in the bath until the water went cold?’ Most of us, he suggests, live at break-neck speed. Busy lives - work, family, friends, endless tasks - leave us with little time to sleep, never mind stopping and reflecting. We urgently need to learn to nurture our inner slob. As Isaiah 30:15 says, ‘In return and rest you shall be saved.’

By running Start:Stop once a week we are seeking to suggest that even a little rest or short breaks on a regular basis can be a life-saver in a frantic world where our endless tasks can easily consume us 24-7. As well as stopping for ten minutes of quiet reflection once a week, why not also, once a week, view an art exhibition, listen to a recital or take communion in your lunch break – all opportunities to stop and reflect that we, and other churches, offer regularly? As Micah Purnell says, doing nothing takes practice and, when we slow down, stop and breathe by doing nothing, we are practising the fourth commandment in our contemporary age.

Prayer

Lord God, we ask you to be our Pace Setter, enabling us not to rush. Make us stop and rest for quiet intervals and provide us with images of stillness which restore our serenity. Let us do nothing to change our life and discover what happens when we stop.

Leads us in ways of efficiency, through calmness of mind; for your guidance is peace. Even though we have a great many things to accomplish each day, enable us not to fret for your presence is with us; your timelessness and all-importance will keep us in balance. Let us do nothing to change our life and discover what happens when we stop.

Prepare refreshment and renewal in the midst of our activity, by anointing our heads with your oils of tranquillity. May our cup of joyous energy overflow, as harmony and effectiveness become the fruit of our hours, as we walk in the pace of our Lord and dwell in your house for ever. Let us do nothing to change our life and discover what happens when we stop.

Blessing

The Lord is my Pace Setter, I shall not rush. He makes me stop and rest for quiet intervals. He provides me with images of stillness which restore my serenity. He leads me in ways of efficiency,
through calmness of mind; and his guidance is peace. Even though I have a great many things to accomplish each day, I will not fret, for his presence is here. His timelessness, his all-importance will keep me in balance. He prepares refreshment and renewal in the midst of my activity, by anointing my head with his oils of tranquility, my cup of joyous energy overflows. Surely harmony and effectiveness shall be the fruit of my hours, for I shall walk in the pace of my Lord, and dwell in his house for ever. May those blessings of God almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, rest upon you and remain with you now and always. Amen.

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The Harbour Lights - Five Senses.

Discover & explore: Leisure

The recent announcement in the Budget of plans to allow larger stores to open for longer on Sundays by giving local authorities powers to relax national law on Sunday trading has reignited debate about the place of rest in what has become a 24-7 society.

Witold Rybczynski suggests, in his book Waiting for the Weekend, that there is conceptual confusion in our society about what leisure is. ‘Leisure,’ he suggests, is the most misunderstood word in our vocabulary. Kathleen Norris has said that we are ‘free,’ it seems, to have anything but a nurturing leisure. We know this because ‘I have so little time,’ is our frequently heard lament.

Paul Heintzman, in his book on Leisure and Spirituality, has described how: ‘In preindustrial societies, time was viewed cyclically; that is, time was rooted in the rhythms of the natural world. People’s lives revolved around sunrise and sunset, the change of seasons, and the planting and harvesting of crops. They were unlikely to separate work and leisure within their daily life, and the demands of work were often lightened by songs and storytelling … As a result, notions of work and leisure blended together.

The Industrial Revolution (1760–1830), however, changed everything … Work was situated in space at the factory and structured in time as the worker had to be at the work place at a certain time to perform work duties. Facilitated by the development of clocks, work could be assigned to specific times, and work time could be measured precisely. Time began to be viewed mechanically, and this linear notion of time began to influence and change people’s understanding of leisure. Time away from work was free of the often unpleasant demands of the workspace, so it was called “free time.”’

The Guildhall Art Gallery’s Guide to its Collection adds to this picture that ‘Prior to the nineteenth century, the concept of leisure had been reserved for the aristocracy.’ The Victorian period ‘saw an unprecedented upsurge in leisure pursuits among all classes of society. This ‘Leisure Revolution’ was possible due to the increased availability of some disposable income and free time.’ Paintings in the Guildhall Art Gallery depict some of these newly accessible activities such as pubs, music hall, public parks, sports clubs, museums, day trip to the seaside and boating plus country walking expeditions.

Giles Fraser, in a piece responding to the Budget announcement, argues that these developments have resulted in shopping having now become our leisure experience par excellence and, more than that, our religion. In counteracting that development he suggests going back to Biblical understandings of rest. Paul Heintzman agrees and quotes a textbook of leisure education which notes that ‘the church has many thousands of years’ experience in helping people from all social strata find life and find it more abundantly.’

Our reading from Hebrews states that ‘a sabbath rest still remains for the people of God; for those who enter God’s rest also cease from their labours as God did from his.’ While Psalm 23 promises the restoration our soul in green pastures and beside still waters leading to our dwelling in the house of the Lord our whole life long. The principle of Sabbath rest is reflective of the Old Testament idea of a rhythm to life which supports a view of leisure as non-work time or activity that refreshes and restores, while the concept of rest as being reflective of the quality of life offered in Jesus Christ provides support for the view of leisure as a state-of-being. Josef Pieper, a twentieth-century Roman Catholic theologian and philosopher has defined leisure as “a mental and spiritual attitude . . . a condition of the soul . . . a receptive attitude of mind, a contemplative attitude” in his book Leisure: The Basis of Culture.

However, we also need to consider Biblical understandings of rest in relation to society and not just as individuals. Giles Fraser explains that in the Bible ‘the seventh day of the week corresponded to the seventh day of creation, when God rested – and from this derives: 1) rest on the seventh day; 2) rest for the land on the seventh year …; and 3) the forgiveness of all debts – the jubilee – on the seventh times seventh year.’ This last is the big one, he writes, ‘the so-called “year of the Lord’s favour”. It’s what the Jubilee Debt Campaign referred back to when it called for the eradication of developing-world debt. It’s also what Jesus refers to in his very first sermon: “I come to bring good news to the poor, freedom to the captive … and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

‘The jubilee is not debt-restructuring. It’s out-and-out, full-on debt forgiveness.’ Jesus appropriates this concept to himself and his ministry, saying that it is fulfilled through his life, ministry, death and resurrection. He gives us a vision of a world in which the forgiveness and rest which he makes available extends across the whole of human society. This is the Sabbath rest which is still to come and connects to the Isaiah vision of a future society that we explored in relation to the theme of Home.

In the meantime, Leland Ryken has helpfully written in Redeeming the Time: A Christian Approach to Work and Leisure, that ‘All leisure . . . is a gift from God that, when used wisely, “provides rest, relaxation, enjoyment, and physical and psychic health. It allows people to recover the distinctly human values, to build relationships, to strengthen family ties, and to put themselves in touch with the world and nature. Leisure can lead to wholeness, gratitude, self-expression, self-fulfilment, creativity, personal growth, and a sense of achievement. So leisure should be valued and not despised.’

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W.H. Davies - Leisure.

#Tutu: a man at prayer, at work, at rest

St Margaret with St Columba, Leytonstone will be celebrating Black History month with a photographic exhibition by Sumaya Hisham. #Tutu, a man at work, a man at prayer and at rest, celebrates South Africa's beloved "Arch" Desmond Mpilo Tutu.These images capture moments from his very busy daily life and offer us a glimpse into the world that is Desmond Tutu.

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Ladysmith Black Mambazo - Xigubu.

Julian Meditation 2

Here is the second collage of words from Julian of Norwich which I have compiled as part of reflecting on the her writings, particularly as used in the DVD featuring Alan Oldfield's paintings. They are intended to put Julian's words in new combinations while retaining her overall meaning:

There were times when I wanted to look away from the Cross, but I dared not.

The huge, hard, hurtful nails pulled the wounds wide open

The body sagged with the weight of its long hanging

Fair skin was driven deep into the tender flesh

Harsh striking all over the sweet body

The nails wrenched it as the weight of the body pulled against it

Shaken in sorrow and anguish and tribulation

As a cloth is shaken in the wind

The weeping and wailing of the soul

Bearing the loss of every kind of comfort except the deep, quiet keeping of God

I knew that while I gazed on the Cross I was safe and sound.

The holy joining made in heaven. God's son fell with Adam

Adam's old shirt - narrow, threadbare and short - our mortal flesh that God's son took upon him

So joined in love that the greatness of our love caused the greatness of his grief

The shame, the despising, the utter stripping he accepted

All the bodily and spiritual pains and passions of his creatures

Our Lord Jesus made nothing for us and we made nothing with him

In our joining together in love lies the life of all who shall be saved

In falling and rising again we are held close in one love

For our falling does not stop him loving us

I dared not look away. I was not willingly going to imperil my soul.

Flee to our Lord and we shall be comforted. Touch him and we shall be made clean.

Cling to him and we shall be safe and sound from every kind of danger.

For our courteous Lord wills that we should be at home with him

as heart may think or soul may desire .

Our soul rests in God its true peace, our soul stands in God its true strength,

and is deep-rooted in God for endless love.

He did not say 'You shall not be tempest-tossed, you shall not be work-weary,

you shall not be discomforted'.

But he did say, 'You shall not be overcome.'

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Indelible Grace - All Must Be Well.

Ready, steady, slow

Ready, steady, slow. Hit the ground kneeling. Do nothing to change your life. Discovering what happens when you stop. These are all titles or phrases from publications by our Bishop, Stephen Cottrell, in which he asks questions such as, when was the last time you had a real day off? Ditched the 'to do' lists? Switched off the phone? Had a lie-in? Sat in the bath until the water went cold?

Most of us live at break-neck speed. Busy lives - work, family, friends, endless tasks - leave us with little time to sleep, never mind stopping and reflecting. We urgently need to stop imagining everything is so urgent. We need to learn to slow down, Bishop Stephen writes, and stop ... and breathe. I could certainly do with taking that message on board, although it is easier said than done. Even Bishops, given their busy schedules, could benefit from the practice and not just the theory!

August is one point in the year when it may seem slightly easier to stop and reflect, although school holidays and holidays per se are not without their stresses and strains. What a good holiday should do, however, is take us out of our usual routine and away from the constant notification of new tasks that characterizes our working lives. Even this is becoming more difficult to achieve as mobiles and the internet enable us to be contacted virtually wherever we happen to be.

Isaiah 30.15 - "In returning and rest you shall be saved" – is one passage that Bishop Stephen quotes. What kind of rest will you experience this summer and will it save you? The letter to the Hebrews suggests that we are made for rest; that the purpose of salvation is to enter into the experience that God had of resting on the seventh day: “… there still remains for God’s people a rest like God’s resting on the seventh day. For those who receive that rest which God promised will rest from their own work, just as God rested from his. Let us, then, do our best to receive that rest, so that no one of us will fail …” (Hebrews 4. 9-11)

Our summer breaks can be pointers to or reminders of this greater (eternal) rest that we can experience in God, perhaps as we trust him more fully with our lives or ultimately as we enter eternity. In an article for our parish magazine, I've asked the folk at St John's Seven Kings to reflect on how we can be saved by rest as they (hopefully) take some kind of well-earned summer break? Although that is the pot calling the kettle black, I will try to as well. It may even be that we can learn to manage our busyness and business differently in future as a result.

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The Kinks - Sunny Afternoon.