International Times: Dark Intense Music

My latest review to be published by International Times is of 'Down River: In Search of David Ackles' by Mark Brend:

'In Down River Mark Brend tells the story of David Ackles more fully than it has ever been told before. In the book, he identifies why that story and Ackles’ four albums remain worthy of such focused attention. As Bernie Taupin once said, ‘It’s not just that his music was different; he was different’. Through his search for David Ackles, Brend identifies the ways in he and his music were different from all around him and makes a strong argument for a greater appreciation of the value of difference.'

'Ackles’ storytelling songs demonstrate an incarnational ‘being with’ approach to his characters (‘We are all flawed; we have all fallen’), while the cumulative picture painted is of the bleakness of a world which has, as with the stunning ‘His Name is Andrew’, lost its connection with God.'

For more on David Ackles see here and here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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David Ackles - Waiting For The Moving Van.

Ash - a reminder of our origins and our purpose

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

Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return, turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.

Remember you are dust. In the Genesis creation stories we read of God forming human beings from the dust of the ground and breathing life into us, so we become living creatures. In the imagery of these stories, we come from the dust of the earth and then are tasked with tilling the earth and keeping until we return to the ground, for we are dust and to dust we shall return.

My father’s career went from being a sociology lecturer and community work pioneer at Oxford to becoming a landscape gardener in Somerset. His story was an early example of escape to the country and getting back to the soil. One thing he particularly appreciated about the change was a deeper sense of being immersed in the cycle of the seasons, the circle of life.

We will shortly be marked with the sign of the cross in ash on our foreheads as those words, Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return, turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ, are said. The dust forming the cross on our foreheads, is not only a sign of mortality and penitence but is also a reminder of our origins and our purpose. We come from the earth and are on earth to tend and keep it. When we live in the artificial environment and frenetic busyness of towns and cities, it can be easy for us to forget that reality and lose a sense of being one with nature. We won’t all be able to make a similar mid-life change to that of my father, but could each seek new ways to connect more closely with the earth and the natural cycle of life.

Jesus taught that his life would be like a grain of wheat that falls into the earth and dies. He would be like a single grain until he died and was buried in the ground to germinate and bear much fruit – the first-fruit of all who will be resurrected by God. Through his life, death and resurrection he entered into the natural cycle of death and new life calling us to follow him into resurrection life where we are with God, with ourselves, with others and with creation.

By forming the sign of the cross on our foreheads and by being made from burnt palm crosses, the ash or dust is also a reminder to us of Christ’s identification with us in our mortality and our identification with him in his resurrection.

The season of Lent mirrors the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness – a place of dust – in which he spent time with God and with himself deepening his sense of who he was in God to the extent that when tested he could speak with authority about God’s purposes and intentions before then beginning his active ministry. In that active ministry, Jesus regularly used times of returning to the soil for contemplation, such as the moments in this story when he writes in the dust, to find the words and actions that would open new possibilities of encounter with God for those who were constrained by their circumstances.

Lent is a time for us to do something similar by being with God, ourselves, each other and creation more deeply and intentionally in order that we learn to live God’s future now more fully and deeply. Our future is one of being with and enjoying God, ourselves, each other and creation ever more deeply for ever. We prepare for that future by anticipating it in the here and now. Doing so, is what Lent is for.

I, therefore, want to wish you a holy Lent in which you find ways to deepen your being with God, yourself, other and creation as Jesus did during his time in the wilderness. Often on Ash Wednesday you are encouraged to take up or lay down certain activities. I simply want to remind you today of the core purpose for Lent and encourage you to find your own ways to reach the goal of being with God, yourself, each other and creation. You may wish to take those four aspects of Being With and use them to explore how you this Lent you can deepen your ways of Being With in each aspect of your life. My prayer is that the sign of the cross marked on your forehead in the dust of ash will be both a sign of your commitment to reaching that goal and an inspiration for us as we begin.

Remember you are dust formed from the dust of creation for Being With and that to the dust of creation you will return in preparation for eternal Being With, turn away from the sin of being out of relationship and in isolation and be faithful to Christ by being with Christ in the body of Christ.

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Bill Fay - Garden Song.

A mirror in which to see ourselves as we really are

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

“Do you like American music?” That’s a question that one of my favourite bands, the Violent Femmes, ask in a song which as you might expect is called American Music. American music is songs that derive from the ancient ballads of mountain music. Songs, as Bob Dylan has said, that come from legends, Bibles and plagues and that are concerned with mystery and death. The Violent Femmes say that yes, they like American music because it is like an ugly lake that reminds them of themselves.

It might seem a strange reason to give for liking a style of music but it is pertinent to today’s reading from James which says that we need mirrors in which to see ourselves as we really are. Too often we live life, James says, like people who look in the mirror and then immediately forget what we are actually like. Music can be one mirror in which we can sometimes be brought up short and see ourselves as we really are but James says that the best mirror for us is God’s perfect law.

Our NT and Gospel readings today are to do with God’s Law, the commands that God gave to the people of Israel and that are recorded for us in what we now call the Old Testament (Mark 7: 1 - 8, 14 & 15, 21 – 23 & James 1: 17 – end). How can that Law be like a mirror to our lives?

The Law shows us two things. First, it shows us what sin is and that we are sinful people. Paul says in both his letters to the Romans and Galatians that the purpose of the Law is to show what wrongdoing is and, by that, to let us know that we are sinners. This is because the standard set in the Law is the standard of God’s holiness and glory and we all fall short of that. Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount that whoever disobeys even the least important commandment and teaches others to do the same will be least in the Kingdom of Heaven and James says that whoever breaks one commandment is guilty of breaking them all. The standard set is God’s perfection and we all fall short. We see that in the Gospel reading in that the Pharisees who accuse the disciples of sin are shown by Jesus to be guilty of sin themselves.

But if this is all that we see in the mirror of God’s Law then it is profoundly distressing and depressing. If this is all then the mirror of God’s Law is like the ugly lake that the Violent Femmes say that American music is; something in which all you can see is your own ugliness reflected.

David Runcorn argues that if “we define sin solely in terms of wrong actions or thoughts, we trivialise it [and] our diagnosis does not go deep enough.” He says that the Pharisees trivialised sin in this way by being pedantically obsessed “with external standards of behaviour” and that that is why “Jesus furiously castigated and mocked the religion of his day.”

Runcorn says that “who we are always comes before what we do” and that “our choices, desires and actions … always flow from our sense of personal identity.” This means that “our deepest need is not primarily to stop doing or saying bad things” because the power and significance of sin “lies not so much in what we are doing or saying, but in who we think we are.” Real sin, Runcorn argues, is insisting on being what we are not; the desire for a life other than the one God intended human beings to live. As James puts it, looking in the mirror and then forgetting who we are by being the people we want to be, not the people God wants us to be.

God wants us to be different from the sinful people that we are and so in the mirror of God’s Law we can also see all that God thinks we can be and longs for us to become. James summarises it by saying that “what God the Father considers to be pure and genuine religion is this; to take care of widows and orphans in their suffering and to keep oneself from being corrupted by the world.” God’s vision for human beings is that we become holy servants.

But this is not something that we can do by ourselves. It is something that happens together with God. It is God who has provided the mirror and God who has come into our world to show us in Jesus what living as a holy servant looks like. We see in Jesus’ life what that way of being human looks like in practice. But more than that, in Jesus, God is reaching out to us to show us that we are loved by him and that he sees our potential for change and for beauty. In Jesus’ story of the Prodigal Son, the son rejects his identity as a child of his Father and leaves home to waste his life. Finally, when he is eating the food of pigs the son looks in the mirror to see himself as he actually is and decides to return home to his father and ask to become one of his servants. But the Father rejoices at his return and welcomes him home as the son he has always been although for a time he rejected that identity. This is a story about us and God. We reject our rightful identity as children of God living as holy servants. We forget what we really look like in the mirror and live as we choose. But when we come to see ourselves as we truly are and return to God we are welcomed as God’s children with all of our potential for becoming the people that he wants us to be.

David Runcorn says that “the deepest awakening of all is to the discovery that we are loved with a wild, prodigal love – without condition.” We are then able to become all that God’s Law says we can be – those who love God with all their being and who love their neighbours as ourselves – because God has first loved us.

When I go away on holiday one of the things I like to do is to visit art galleries in the area where I am staying. One of the artists that I found out about when staying in the Vendée was Charles Milcendeau.

Milcendeau grew up in the Northern Vendée at a village called Soullans surrounded by marshes. He was the son of the innkeeper at Soullans but his artistic talents took him to Paris to study in the same class as Georges Rouault and Henri Matisse. Rouault went on to generally be reckoned as the greatest religious artist of the Twentieth Century while Matisse (together with Picasso) was one of the greatest artists per se of that century. Both Rouault and Matisse came to prominence through the Fauve movement which used strong, emotional colours in paintings at the same time as the Expressionists in Germany were doing the same.

Milcendeau would have had the opportunity to have gone in the same direction as his friends but he chose not to. Instead, inspired by Dutch and Flemish art, he returned to his own people, to the Northern Vendée to paint the people of the marsh. His painting of the flagellation of Christ still hangs in his home Church at Soullans and is one of the first paintings in which he modelled the figures in the painting on local people. This painting, which I went to see, is therefore a major milestone in his journey towards his art in which he shows a sustained and loving attention to a poor and unregarded community. His masterpieces not only capture the physical and cultural settings of his day but bring alive to us today the characters and personalities of the ordinary and unregarded people that he painted. To do this he had to pay attention not just to what those people looked like but also to what they were like and then identify how to convey what they were like as he painted what they looked like. Doing this involved sustained and loving attention to them as people.

Milcendeau’s story seems like a parable to me because his encounter with Christ (in the painting of the flagellation) leads on to him showing a sustained and loving attention to others in his paintings.

It maybe that for Milcendeau painting the people around him as the crowd abusing Jesus was his way of looking in the mirror and seeing himself for what he was; a sinner, an abuser of God. But he was also painting Jesus enduring that abuse in order to show God’s love for those who abuse him. After encountering Jesus in this way in his painting his life purpose clarified and he spent his life paying loving attention to his poor and disregarded community in his paintings of their lives and characters.

James says that if we look closely at ourselves in the mirror of God’s perfect law, paying attention and knowing ourselves to be sinners loved by God then we will go on to become the holy servants that God intended all human beings to become. May it be so for each one of us. Amen

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Violent Femmes - American Music.

God so loved ...

Here's the reflection based on John 3. 16 – 21 that I shared at St Andrew's Wickford this morning:

God so loved - love is from God because God is love; pure love, the essence of all that love is and can be. Love that is patient, kind, not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. Love that does not insist on its own way; is not irritable or resentful, does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. Love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love that never ends.

God so loved the world - the heavens and the earth that God created in the beginning, the heavens which declare the glory of God and the sky that displays what his hands have made, humankind that God created in his own image. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. God so loved the world that he created in the beginning.

God so loved the world that he gave – true love involves giving; in fact true love is giving. Our love is often less than this. We speak of those we love as being everything we need or as soul mates who complete us, but rarely talk in terms of giving all we have to others. Yet that is the nature of God’s love, he gives all he has to us.

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son – the Father gives us his Son and the Son gives his life, his whole life, even unto death. Yet, because Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one God, this is a way of saying that what God gives to us is himself, everything he has and is.

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life – God gives himself to us in order that we can become part of him and enter the very life of God himself. Jesus said he came that we might have life and have it to the full. Eternal life is the life of love that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit share within the Godhead and in to which we are called to come and share by the ever-giving love that God the Father shows to us through God the Son.

God’s love has been revealed among us in this way, that God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. We live in the light of this love which reveals all that we can potentially be and become as human beings. We come into the light of Christ by comparing our lives to his.

As we do so, inevitably we find that we fall short; that our capacity to do what pleases him (by living out all goodness, righteousness and truth) is less than his capacity for these things. Generally when we make comparisons, we compare ourselves with others and so compare ourselves with those we think are worse than or similar to ourselves. We’ve all heard others and, maybe, ourselves saying ‘I’m alright, Jack!’ or ‘I’m as good as the next person, if not better!’ On the basis of these comparisons we think we are ok; at least no better or worse than others, at best, better than many others around us. On the basis of these comparisons we are comfortable with who we are and see no need to change.

In the light of the way that Jesus loved, we see our own lack of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, remain in darkness, and there is no truth in us. The true comparison that we make should not be with others, but with God. Jesus challenged us to ‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.’ On the basis of that comparison, we all fall short. As St Paul writes, ‘for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.’

Jesus, through his life and death, showed us the depth of love of which human beings are really capable and, on the basis of that comparison, we come up well short and are in real need of change. It is when we live in the light of Christ, seeing ourselves as we really are that we become honest with ourselves and with God. By coming into that honesty we confess our sins and are purified; as we say in this service, let us confess our sins in penitence and faith, firmly resolved to live in love and peace with all.

As we read in the first letter of John: God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. We have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Saviour of the world. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also (1 John 4. 7 – 21 abridged).

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James Kilbane - Love Is His Way.

Love Life Live Lent

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

It's a funny thing about humility
as soon as you know you're being humble,
you're no longer humble
it's a funny thing about life
you've got to give up your life to be alive
you've got to suffer to know compassion
you can't want nothing if you want satisfaction

it's a funny thing about love
the harder you try to be loved,
the less lovable you are
it's a funny thing about pride,
when you're being proud
you should be ashamed
you find only pain if you seek after pleasure
you work like a slave if you seek after leisure

Some wise words there from the singer-songwriter, T. Bone Burnett, which quote one of the things that Jesus said in today’s Gospel reading (Mark 8: 31-end). Whoever loses his life will find it or you’ve got to give up your life to be alive.

Much of what we do in life is actually about saving our own lives – all the time that we spend thinking about our comfort, security and pleasure and all the time we spend accumulating money and possessions for ourselves. We all do it because it is our normal way of life – scientists such as Richard Dawkins explain that we are born with selfish genes that get us ready to live in a world that is about the survival of the fittest while the Bible speaks about being slaves to sin and doing the things we hate. In different ways, the same thing is being said; that our gut instinct is to look out for ourselves, to look after No. 1.

Jesus turns that way of thinking on its head by saying those who want to save their lives will lose them and that those who lose their lives will save them. He fleshes out that thought by asking does a person gain anything if he wins the whole world but loses his life. We think immediately of the story Jesus told about a farmer with a bumper harvest which he immediately stored so that he could live off it in plenty for the rest of his life and who then died that same night without enjoying any of it. That story was told again in our newspapers a few years ago in the story of a man who had a special coffin built so that he could be buried together with his collection of pornographic magazines. What use they will be to him as both the magazines and his body decay is anyone’s guess!

So, seeking to save your own life doesn’t help you when you are faced with death and it doesn’t deliver what it promises in life either. Since the Second World War, economists tell us that in this country our GDP (or Gross Domestic Product) has shot up by leaps and bounds while the happiness of the population has stagnated. Despite economic growth, happiness in the West has not grown in the last 50+ years. All that seeking after material pleasures and possessions, all that looking after No. 1, is not actually making any of us any happier. As Jesus said, whoever wants to save his own life will lose it.

If Jesus is right about that half of the equation, then maybe he’s also right about the other; you've got to give up your life to be alive. After all, that is what he did for each one of us by going to the cross. He gave up his own life in order that we could get out of slavery to sin and really live. This is what he began to teach his disciples at the beginning of today’s Gospel reading; “The Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected … He will be put to death but three days later he will rise to life.”

Peter was like us he couldn’t see it. It sounded like Jesus had got things all the wrong way round. Peter didn’t want Jesus to die and so he rebuked him. But it was Jesus who actually understood the right way of living life – that we come alive when we give ourselves away – and so he rejected Peter’s arguments as coming from the Devil himself.

What is life like when we give ourselves away? What is life like when we lose our life for Jesus and the Gospel? One way of thinking about those questions might be to look online for the Church of England’s 'Love Life Live Lent' booklets. These are a past Lent initiative but the booklets are still available. The initiative was based on the idea of Lent as a time to step back from daily life and think about bigger things. The Live Lent Booklets help us turn towards God's love and kingdom. The booklets help us change the world for the better during Lent one small action at a time!

They do so by giving fifty suggestions for actions people can take during Lent, including ideas for environmental conservation and improving personal relationships. They encourage us to reject consumerism and materialism and instead embrace generosity and kindness, for example by leaving money in shopping trolleys, giving people hugs, giving up a place to someone who is in rush in traffic or a queue and doing chores for others.

The booklet was originally produced by the Diocese of Birmingham where 70,000 copies were given out. Commending the booklets Archbishop John Sentamu said; “I would urge as many people as possible to join in with the proposed programme of generous actions that encourage kindness to ourselves, our neighbours and our planet. Recent research has shown that generosity is a key ingredient in making neighbourhoods flourish and I think this Lent programme could help us become a more generous church – individually and as the body of Christ. The programme will not be easy but it will be fun and I am sure it will start to change our lives as God calls us onward in a corporate pilgrimage of faith, transforming us and building his kingdom of love, peace and justice.”

Living life by giving yourself away, by losing your life, is a wonderful thing. There is nothing to be ashamed of in a lifestyle like that. It makes sense in a world where the problems caused by a ‘me first’ attitude are becoming all too apparent. It is about really loving life and living it to the full by overflowing with generosity and kindness. It is to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, to live out his new way of being human, and to make an evolution against evolution. “If anyone wants to come with me,” Jesus said, “he must forget self, carry his cross, and follow me.” We have often thought about that in terms of self-denial but what ‘Love Life Live Lent’ helps us see is that it is actually about generosity, giving ourselves away. If you are not sure whether you can make that change wholesale, why not look at the booklet, try out some of the suggestions for a day at a time and see if they don’t seriously affect you and the world we live in.

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T. Bone Burnett - Trap Door.

The fundamental human problem is isolation

Here's the sermon that I shared in tonight's Healing Eucharist at St Andrew’s Wickford:

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 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.

Maciej Hoffman’s new exhibition in St Andrew’s shows us what this experience of isolation from God leads to, in the experiences of trauma and conflict that he depicts so powerfully. His paintings confront people with the reality of sin in human life. Alongside his paintings, we have also unveiled David Folley’s equally powerful descent from the cross, which shows what Jesus needed to endure as he entered into to the full reality of a sinful world in order to bring change and healing.

Jesus’ whole life was 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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Moral Support - Sin.

Excuses, excuses!

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

Excuses, excuses! There were certainly plenty of them in the story that Jesus told (Matthew 22. 1-14) and we hear plenty as we go about our daily lives too.

Have you heard about the notice that was on display in a works office which read: “All requests for leave of absence on account of bad colds, headaches, sick relatives, funerals, weddings etc. must be handed to the Head of Department before 10.00am on the morning of the match”?

Or what about the mother trying to get her son up and out of bed in time to go to church:

MOTHER: Son, it’s getting late. You must get up and go to church!
SON: I don’t want to go to church.
MOTHER: Give me two good reasons why you shouldn’t go to church.
SON: First, I don’t like the people. Second, the people don’t like me.
MOTHER: I don’t care. It’s getting late, now get up and go to church!
SON: Give me two good reasons why I should go.
MOTHER: First, you are 50 years old, and second, you are the vicar.

They say, don’t they, that there are always two reasons why we do things; the good reason and the real reason!

The people Jesus identified as making excuses in his story were the people of God; in his case the Israelite leaders and the many people who followed them. Tom Wright has described well what was going on in Jesus’ story. He says that Israel’s leaders in Jesus’ day and the many people who followed them were like guests invited to a wedding – God’s wedding party, the party he was throwing for his son. But they had refused to come to the party. Jesus had spent lots of time travelling around Galilee spreading the news about this invitation but, for the most part, people had refused to come. Now he was in Jerusalem and, again, people were refusing the invitation as well. God was planning the great party for which they had waited so long. The Messiah was here, and they didn’t want to know. They abused and killed the prophets who tried to tell them about it, and the result was that their city, Jerusalem, would be destroyed.

As a result, God was sending out new messengers to the wrong part of town to tell everyone and anyone to come to the party. And the good news was that they were coming in droves. We don’t have to look far in Matthew’s gospel to see who they were. The tax collectors, the prostitutes, the riff-raff, the nobodies, those who were blind or lame, the people who thought they had been forgotten by others and rejected by God. They were thrilled that God’s message was for them after all.

But there was a difference between this wide-open invitation and the message that many would like to hear today. Sometimes, we want to hear that we are all right exactly as we are; that God loves us as we are and doesn’t want us to change – that our behaviour and actions are excused. People often say this when they want to justify particular types of behaviour, but the argument doesn’t work. When those who were rejected by others came to Jesus, he didn’t simply say, ‘You’re all right as you are’. Instead, he forgave sins, healed people, and set them off on a new path. His love reached people where they were, but his love refused to let them stay as they were. Love wants the best for the beloved so their lives were transformed, healed, changed.

And that is the point of the end of the story, which is otherwise very puzzling. God’s kingdom is a kingdom of love, justice, truth, mercy and holiness. There are many places in the Bible where it speaks of us wearing dirty clothes, stained with blood and these being cleansed and washed clean by the blood of Christ, so that instead of standing in the shame we deserve we stand in the shining white garments of righteousness. These images are saying that it is Christ who makes the difference for us, who gives us garments of righteousness – which doesn’t simply mean that we are forgiven but also means that we now actively pursue love, justice, truth, mercy and holiness – but we still have to put these garments on and live in them. These are the clothes that we must put on if we are to be at the wedding party that God throws for his son. And if we come but refuse to put them on, then we are saying that we don’t really want to stay at the party at all. That is the reality and if we don’t acknowledge them then, once again, we are making excuses.

God cares about all people including those of us that do evil. But the point of God’s love and care is that he wants us to change. He hates what we do when we sin and the effect that that has on others too. That is why his love reaches us where we are but refuses to let us stay as we were. But if we accept the invitation and then don’t change, there is a problem and this story suggests that, if that is genuinely the case, the person who is refusing to change, refusing to put on the wedding clothes is saying that he or she does not wish to be a part of the party and will not be able to remain.

So, this story presents each of us with a challenge as we reflect on the extent to which our lives have changed as a result of responding to love of God that we have found in Jesus. Total change does not happen overnight and God understands the difficulty we experience in making fundamental changes to our lives. This story is not speaking about that situation. What it does speak about is our will, our intent. Are we seeking ongoing change in our lives, praying for it to come, reflecting on our failures and seeking to learn from them, being inspired by examples of love, justice, truth, mercy and holiness to want to act in these ways ourselves? If we are, then we are, at the very least, seeking to put on those wedding clothes and wishing to be at the party.

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Gungor - Please Be My Strength.

Against whom do we compare ourselves?

This morning I took the 8.00 am Eucharist at St Mary Magdalene, Great Burstead. 

The Churchyard contains some early 17th century headstones and an ancient yew tree. Unusually, St Mary’s has two porches. Enter by the north porch and in the stonework over the 14th century doorway are the heads of a King and Queen and a scene depicting the Annunciation. There is a stoup in the porch. Watch the steps down, your first impression is of white walls, a light and a spacious interior crowned by a wonderful array of 15th century king post trusses supported by heavy tie beams. A spiral staircase in the choir vestry leads up the bell tower to the ringing chamber.

The only remaining part of the Norman structure is the nave which has a narrow Norman window, and further along is a squat Tudor window. In the chancel is a blocked in door and in the other wall a piscina, now used as an Aumbry.

An arcade of five bays separates the nave from the south chapel, which again, has beautiful roof timbers. This 16th century chapel contains the Tyrell family tombs and ten 16th century carved pews. It has a 13th century piscina with a drain and close by on the wall is a 15th century painted altar curtain. The windows here contains some ancient glass and there is a Royal Coat of Arms with an unusual crouching lion. The Font is 15th century.

Go out through the 16th century south porch and look for the medieval scratch dials (Primitive sundials) on the stonework of the doorway. To come to Burstead to see these lovely things would be enough but there is more. A 12th century oak Crusader chest, Registers which tell of the burning at the stake, in Chelmsford, of a local man and the marriage of Christopher Martin, who sailed to America on the Mayflower. The most recently discovered treasures are early 14th century wall paintings in the south aisle including the Nativity, the Annunciation, and St Catherine on her wheel.

Here's the sermon that I preached:

Against whom do we compare ourselves? Our answer makes all the difference in the world. The Pharisee in Jesus’s parable (Luke 18: 9-14) compared himself against other people: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this publican. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’

This is generally what we do when we make comparisons; we compare ourselves with others and so compare ourselves with those we think are worse than or similar to ourselves. We’ve all heard others and, maybe, ourselves saying ‘I’m alright, Jack!’ or ‘I’m as good as the next person, if not better!’ On the basis of these comparisons we think we are ok; at least no better or worse than others, at best, better than many others around us. On the basis of these comparisons we are comfortable with who we are and see no need to change.

The Pharisee lived in a simplistic world of legalism where he could look down on those like the publican because he kept certain rules and fulfilled certain practices. Therefore, he could say, I am not like other people because I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all my income. For him, there was no wrestling with difficulty and no struggling with conscience but the world he inhabited was, ultimately, a harsh world without understanding, without compassion, without forgiveness. 

Our common response as human beings to our own fallibility and failure is that, instead of acknowledging our own shortcoming, we attempt to distract attention away from our selves by identifying a scapegoat and angrily pointing out that person’s many failings. We are often very successful in covering up our own shortcomings when we adopt this tactic but, of course, the reality is that we are being hypocritical.

The true comparison that we make should not be with others, but with God. Jesus challenged us to ‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.’ On the basis of that comparison, we all fall short. As St Paul writes, ‘for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.’ Jesus, through his life and death, showed us the depth of love of which human beings are really capable and, on the basis of that comparison, we come up well short and are in real need of change. In the light of Jesus’ self-sacrifice, we see our inherent selfishness and recognise our need for change. Those are the kind of comparisons that the publican in the parable was making when he stood far off, not even looking up to heaven, beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’

In the light of the way that Jesus lived his life, we see our lack of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, remain in darkness, and there is no truth in us. But when we live in the light, seeing ourselves as we really are, then we become honest with ourselves and with God. By coming into that honesty we confess our sins and are purified; as we say in this service, we make our humble confession to Almighty God truly and earnestly repenting of our sins.

This reality undermines the simplistic legalism of the Pharisee’s world by revealing the hypocrisy at its heart. The reality is that each one of us has broken the Law and each one of us are sinners. If that is so, on what basis can one sinner presume to judge or condemn another? To do so is a gross act of hypocrisy which multiplies one sin upon another. The publican, by contrast, lives in a world of without condemnation because he lives in a world where second chances and fresh starts are available. 

On Ash Wednesday the sign of the cross is marked in ash on our foreheads and these words are said: "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel." In the Ash Wednesday service, we acknowledge both our sinfulness and our mortality recognising the link between the two – that the wages of sin are death.

The ash mark on our forehead is a public acknowledgement of our sinfulness but, because it is formed as a cross, it is also a sign of the forgiveness we have received. We are saying that we no longer live in the legalistic, unforgiving world of the Pharisaical Law where sin automatically leads to death; instead, like the publican, we have been accepted and welcomed into the world of love by Jesus himself. 

Jesus says to us what he said to the woman caught in adultery, "I do not condemn you … Go, but do not sin again." Those words are spoken to us all whether we are the accused or whether we are those who accuse others. Whichever we may be, we are called to turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.

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Bruce Cockburn - Orders.

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 -

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

Monthly diary articles -

• The Art Diary June 2023
• The Art Diary May 2023
• The Art Diary April 2023
• The Art Diary March 2023
• The Art Diary February 2023
• Surveying New Exhibitions With A Spiritual Twist January 2023 Art Diary
• Christmas: The Art Of Faith December 2022 Diary
• Soulages And Strange Clay November 2022 Art Diary
• Alexander de Cadenet And Michael Forbes October 2022 Diary
• Spiritual Joseph Beuys Plus More: September Diary
• Holiday Snaps – End Of Summer Art Diary
• Art Search: August 2022 Diary
• Re-imagining Essex July 2022 Diary
• Art Illuminating spirituality June 2022 Diary
• Venice To London May 2022 Diary
• Jacob Epstein, Louis Carreon, Titus Kaphar, Betty Spackman – April 2022 Diary
• Audrey Flack Carlo Crivelli And Robert Indiana – March Diary
• My Art Diary And Other Thoughts February 2022
• And On An Art Note: End Of Year Diary 2021
• International Autumn Art Exhibition Reviews
• And On An Art Note: End Of Year Diary 2021

Articles/Reviews -

• Ai Weiwei - The Artist of Resistance - The Design Museum
• Saint Francis of Assisi A Timely Exhibition - National Gallery
• Why Critics Have A Problem With The Pre-Raphaelites?
• Religion and Spirituality in Post Impressionism National Gallery
• Black Artists From The American South Royal Academy
• Donatello: The Divine Fused With The Human V&A
• Lucian Freud And His Circle Surveyed In Two London Exhibitions
• A Question Of Clay: Strange Clay – Hayward Gallery
• William Kentridge: Merging Politics With Aesthetics – RA
• Winslow Homer: Beyond The Sea – National Gallery
• Hidden Depths: The Woman in the Window – Dulwich Picture Gallery
• Heavenly Visions: Churches As Spaces For Contemporary Art
• In The Black Fantastic London’s Best Summer Exhibition
• Hew Locke And The Christian Roots Of Carnival – Tate BritainLes Lalanne, Schütte And Gursky London Spring Exhibition Highlights
• Sensuous Sickert and Philpot Two Major UK Solo Exhibitions
• Raphael The Human And Divine – National Gallery
• Damien Hirst The Visceral Reality Of Death
• Ali Cherri: Artist in Residence National Gallery
• Surrealism Outside The Usual Story – Tate Modern
• Marcus Lyon Creates Fields of Vision At St Martin-in-the-Fields London
• Van Gogh Self Portraits The Infinite And The Ordinary
• Marvellous Icons: The London Jesuit Centre
• Albrecht Dürer Travels Of A Renaissance Artist – National Gallery London
• Diasporan Identities: Life Between Islands Caribbean British Art – Tate Britain
• Isamu Noguchi: Socially Engaged Art – Barbican Centre
• Pablo Bronstein: A This-World Vision Of Hell
• Bosco Sodi: In The Beginning Of Wisdom
• George Condo Lockdown Works Hauser & Wirth
• Theaster Gates Clay As A Profound Metaphor
• Mark Rothko: Mesmerising And Intimate Works On Paper
• Roger Cecil: A Once In A Generation Welsh Painter
• Tino Sehgal: Location, Nature And Pandemic – Blenheim Palace
• Michael Armitage And The Power Of Art – Royal Academy
• Marie Raymond And Post-War Avant Garde Painting In Paris
• Rachel Kneebone: A Complex Tableau Of Organic And Geometric Forms
• Rodin: Suffering And Conflict – Tate Modern
• Barbara Hepworth: Symbols Of Art & Life – Hepworth Wakefield
• 20th Century Women Artists Challenging Conventions In Britain
• Chaiya Art Awards 2021 Gallery OXO
• Marc Chagall’s Exquisite Stained Glass Window Commissions
• George Gittoes Equal parts artist and warrior
• Keith Haring: Personal Spiritual Imagery
• Sean Scully: Philosophical Poetic Pastoral The 12 / Dark Windows
• Arthur Jafa: The Art Of Cutting And Pasting
• Blackpentecostal Breath: Spirit-Led Movement Jumps From Music To Visual Art
• Made in USA Ed Ruscha An American Perspective
• Robert Smithson: The Archetypal Nature Of Things
• If Jesus Is A Man Of Colour Why Did We Make Him Aryan?
• Cosmic Patches And Quilts Five Exhibitions
• Everyday Heroes: Southbank Exhibition Celebrates Low-paid Key Workers
• Entwining Spiritualism And Art – Three Shows
• Of Church And The Visual Arts
• Has The Word Master Reached Its Sell-By Date?
• The People Behind Community Is Kindness Billboard Campaign
• André Daughtry: Art, Rebellion And Racial Justice
• Salisbury Cathedral 800 Years Of Art And Spirit
• Home Alone Together Twenty Five Artists
• Botanical Mind Online: Art, Mysticism and the Cosmic Tree
• Salvador Dalí The Enigma of Faith
• Art And Faith A Time For Seeing
• Andy Warhol: Catholicism His Work, Faith And Legacy
• Kiki Smith: Embodied Art
• Art and Christianity Awards A Positive New Millennium Legacy
• Arnulf Rainer: 90th Birthday Exhibition Celebrated At Albertina Museum
• A Belonging Project And Exiles Loss and Displacement
• Robert Polidori: Fra Angelico Opus Operantis
• Art, Faith, Church Patronage and Modernity
• Contemplating the Spiritual in Contemporary Art
• Mat Collishaw Challenges Faith Perspectives With Ushaw Installation
• Waterloo Festival Launches At St. John’s Waterloo
• John Bellany Alan Davie Spiritual Joy and Magic
• RIFT Unites 17 Art and Science MA Graduates At Central St Martins
• Visionary Cities: Michael Takeo Magruder – British Library
• Van Gogh’s Religious Journey Around London
• William Congdon Holy Sites And The Kettle’s Yard Connection
• Mark Dean Premieres Pastiche Mass At Banqueting Hall Chelsea College of Arts
• John Kirby: The Torment
• Underlying The Civilised Facade
• Curating Spiritual Sensibilities In Changing Times
• Homeless Highlighted: New Beau Exhibition At St Martin-in-the-Fields
• Ken Currie: Protest Defeat And Victory
• Bosco Sodi: A Moment Of Genesis
• Bill Viola And The Art Of Contemplation
• Art In Churches 2018: Spiritual Combinations Explored
• Sister Wendy Beckett – A Reminiscence
• Guido Guidi: Per Strada Flowers Gallery London
• Peter Howson: The play is over – Flowers Gallery
• Camille Henrot: Scientific History And Creation Story Mash Up
• Nicola Green Explores Recent And Contemporary Religious Leaders – St Martin-in-the-Fields
• Art And The Consequences Of War Explored In Two Exhibitions
• Helaine Blumenfeld Translating Her Vision
• Sam Ivin: Physically Scratched Portraits Of Asylum Seekers Exhibited
• Sacred Noise: Explores Religion, Faith And Divinity
• Bill Viola: Quiet Contemplative Video Installation St Cuthbert’s Church Edinburgh
• The ground-breaking work of Sister Corita Kent
• Picasso To Souza: The Crucifixion Imagery Rarely Exhibited
• Michael Takeo Magruder: De / coding the Apocalypse – Panacea Museum
• Giorgio Griffa: The Golden Ratio And Inexplicable Knowledge
• Arabella Dorman Unveils New Installation At St James Church Piccadilly
• Can Art Transform Society?
• Art Awakening Humanity Conference Report
• Central St Martins in the Fields Design Then And Now
• The Sacramental And Liturgical Nature Of Conceptual Art
• Polish Art In Britain: Centenary Marked At London’s Ben Uri Gallery
• Refugee Artists: Learning from The Lives Of Others
• The Religious Impulses Of Robert Rauschenberg
• The Christian Science Connection Within The British Modern Art Movement
• Artists Rebranding The Christmas Tree Tradition
• Art Impacted - A Radical Response To Radicalisation
• The Art of St Martin-in-the-Fields
• Was Caravaggio A Good Christian?

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Maria McKee - You Gotta Sin To Get Saved.

Free from lies and enslavements

Here's the reflection I shared this evening at Evensong in St Catherine's Wickford:

In this passage (John 8.31-38,48-59) we are given two definitions of what it means to be free. Jesus gives these two definitions to people who were living under Roman rule and where, therefore, a conquered and oppressed people.

The first definition is about living a life in which we are free from entanglements of lies because we know the truth. An article in ‘Psychology Today’ states that “when it comes to the core challenges of adult life—career, money, sexual identity and marriage—fooling yourself can have devastating consequences.”

The article continues: “In each of these domains—think of them as the four horsemen of self-deception—we face situations that require us to make difficult decisions in the face of doubt and uncertainty. The result is anxiety and a strong temptation to hide from the truth. “People keep secrets from themselves because to acknowledge the information would be extremely anxiety-producing,” says New York City psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Gail Saltz. Self-deception and worry reinforce each other, making it harder and harder to face the facts.”

The way out of this situation is to know and accept the truth about ourselves – “accepting our flaws alongside our strengths” as that “provides a bulwark against excessive self-deception” as also “does coming to peace with our own internal contradictions and learning to withstand difficult feelings, such as doubt and fear.” Acknowledging the truth about ourselves sets us free from anxiety, free to leave in peace with ourselves.

Jesus spoke this truth to people who were living a lie. The people say to him: “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?” Yet, they are people living under the rule of an invading power – the Roman Empire - so are not free. Jesus’ challenge to know the truth about themselves and be set free through that knowledge is, therefore, particularly pertinent to them. In what ways are we also hiding from the truth about ourselves?

The second definition is to do with sin. Jesus identifies sin here with enslavement; in other words, some other power or force that controls us. Such a power could be external, as with the occupying Roman Empire, or it could be internal, as with the kind of lies about ourselves we have been considering which come to define who we are and how we act. The Bible speaks about love of money and various kinds of addictions in those terms and uses the idea of idolatry to describe such forces or powers that come to control us and compromising the freedom that we find in God.

Jesus says that our primary identity, within which we are free from the control of others, is that of being a child of God. When other forces or powers control us, then our identity as God’s child is compromised and we experience separation from both God and the freedom that we find in God’s presence. In what ways do we experience enslavement in our lives? What are the factors or forces that control our behaviours and actions? 

Jesus is saying that when we know and affirm and make central to life our identity as a child of God, then self-deception and other internal or external controls fall away and we are free to become the people we were created by God to be. Fully realising that freedom involves a lifelong journey which reaches its culmination in heaven when we are finally and fully free to be the people we are in God’s presence and to enjoy others for who they are. In the challenges he poses to us through today’s Gospel reading, we are called to begin that process of self-discovery that is also God-discovery by seeking to free ourselves from lies and enslavements by inhabiting our true identity as children of God.

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The Call - What's Happened To You.

Inspired to Follow: Art and the Bible Story - Sin

Here's the reflection from today's 'Inspired to Follow: Art and the Bible Story' session based on the National Gallery's 'Sin' exhibition:

‘Inspired to Follow: Art and the Bible Story’
Session 3: Sin

Text: Song of Songs 7
Image: Bronzino. An Allegory with Venus and Cupid. About 1545. © The National Gallery, London

Reflection:

There’s a lot of sex in scripture, as there is, too, in the ‘Sin’ exhibition. In many people’s minds sin and sex have become irretrievably intertwined. 1 Corinthians 6.8 tells us to flee from sexual immorality and for many in our culture, that might sum up their understanding of Christianity’s view of sex; one that is sexually repressive in the extreme. Yet, the Bible includes reference to a wide range of consensual and non-consensual sexual activity. The Bible often reflects the norms of the patriarchal society in which its stories and laws were first made while, at other points, challenges patriarchy and advocates mutuality and equality within relationships.

Song of Songs, also known as The Song of Solomon, encapsulates some of this ambiguity being an erotic love song which has often been neutered by being viewed as an allegory of God’s love for his people. The reference to Solomon is unlikely to relate to its creation, although the wedding of Solomon is described. It reminds us, however, of some of the ways in which Bible stories link sex and sin. Solomon was born from the adulterous relationship between King David and Bathsheba which resulted in David commanding the murder of Bathsheba’s husband. Solomon was known both for his wisdom and for his 700 wives and 300 concubines. The Book of Kings claims that these relationships led Solomon into idolatry. Song of Songs is set at the beginning of a relationship and expresses open sexual longing and desire in the context of a first coming together. Yet we also find references to concubines and violence meaning that this poem is not entirely free of patriarchy and power.

A similar combination of ambiguity about sex and sensuality is apparent in Bronzino’s Allegory with Venus and Cupid. Bronzino was the leading painter of mid-16th-century Florence and is classed as a Mannerist. The refined and stylish artificiality associated with Mannerism can be best appreciated in this 'Allegory' but his frescoes and other religious paintings are also stylish, carefully designed works. An example is his 'Madonna and Child' in the National Gallery’s Collection, where the pose of the Virgin and Child chastely mirrors the sensuality of Venus and Cupid in the Allegory. As a result, the Allegory has been called the ‘anti-Virgin and Child’.

The Allegory is one of Bronzino’s most complex and enigmatic paintings. Its intended meaning is not entirely certain. It is likely to be the painting mentioned in Vasari’s ‘Life of Bronzino’ of 1568: ‘He made a picture of singular beauty, which was sent to King Francis in France; in which was a nude Venus with Cupid kissing her, and on one side Pleasure and Play with other Loves; and on the other, Fraud, Jealousy, and other passions of love.’ The erotic yet erudite subject matter of the painting was well suited to the tastes of King Francis I of France, who was notoriously lecherous. It was probably sent to him as a gift from Cosimo I de‘ Medici, ruler of Florence, who employed Bronzino as a court painter.

The picture contains a tangle of moral messages, presented in a sexually explicit image. Venus, goddess of love, steals an arrow from her son Cupid’s quiver as she kisses him on the lips. Venus holds the golden apple which Paris presented to her as the most beautiful of all goddesses. Cupid squats with his bare buttocks provocatively thrust out and fondles Venus’ breast, squeezing her nipple as he returns her kiss, while attempting to steal her crown. The masks at Venus’ feet suggest that she and Cupid exploit lust to mask deception. The smiling little boy with the anklet of bells is foolish Pleasure, who is about to shower the pair with rose petals. He doesn’t seem to notice the thorn piercing his right foot – Pleasure is frequently followed by Pain. Fraud or Deceit, the pretty girl behind Pleasure, offers Cupid a honeycomb. However, her concealed serpent’s body suggests that her offer of sweetness literally has a sting in its tail. In the background is winged Father Time, identified by his hourglass. He holds a blue cloth with which he attempts either to conceal or reveal this series of deceits. He glares towards another figure in the background whose head appears to have no back or contents and who may represent Oblivion, also holding the cloth. Time may be attempting to stop Oblivion from concealing Venus and Cupid’s actions.

The figure clutching their head behind Cupid has been variously identified as Suffering, Jealously and Syphilis, displaying some of the symptoms of the disease. However, such an overt reference to syphilis would have been inappropriate in a painting for the French king – the illness was known at the time as ‘the French disease’ because it was believed to have been brought to Italy by French troops. The painting’s message may have been about Beauty curbing Passion to protect us from Jealousy, Fraud and Folly, and enabling Time to combat the Oblivion that Passion entails. Equally it may be about the painful consequences of unchaste love, presided over by pleasure and deceit. Unravelling the painting’s meaning would have been part of its appeal – a pleasure to both the eye and the intellect – a duality frequently referred to in Bronzino’s poetry.

Bronzino’s image is complicated in the same way that the inclusion of Songs of Songs in scripture is complicated. Neither depict sex as simply or wholly sinful and yet they recognise that desire can lead to deceit or violence as easily as to union and love. Exploring and unravelling are part of the pleasure of paintings and passages that while seeming to reveal all actually leave much that is still to be teased out if we are genuinely to understand our human desires one for the other.

The next Inspired to Follow course is an Advent Course which takes us through Advent in terms of the candles on ‘The Advent Wreath,’ exploring the Patriarchs, the Prophets, John the Baptist, and Mary. Register at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/inspired-to-follow-advent-course-tickets-126549205079.

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

• Sunday 29 November: The Patriarchs - Genesis 12:1-10.‘The Departure of Abraham’; Workshop or imitator of Jacopo Bassano, about 1570-90, NG2148.
• Sunday 6 December: The Prophets - Isaiah 53:1-12. ‘The Forerunners of Christ with Saints and Martyrs’ probably by Fra Angelico, around 1423-4, NG663.3.
• Sunday 13 December: John the Baptist - Mark 6:14-29. ‘Salome receives the Head of John the Baptist’ Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, about 1609-10, NG6389.
• Sunday 20 December: Mary - Matthew 2:1-15. ‘The Flight into Egypt’ Workshop of Goossen van der Weyden, about 1516, NG1084. 

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Ryan Malone - Song Of Songs.