Unity, protection and sanctification

Here's my reflection from today's lunchtime Eucharist for St Martin-in-the-Fields:

Our Gospel reading today (John 17.11-19) is part of the prayer that Jesus prayed for his disciples on the night before he died. Chronologically this prayer comes before Jesus’ Ascension, but, in terms of its content, it is a post-Ascension prayer because his concern is for his disciples once he has left them. Many of his disciples had been on the road with him for three years and had sat at his feet as disciples listening to his teaching, observing his example and imbibing his spirit. Following his Ascension, he would leave them and they would have the challenge of continuing his ministry without him there. He knew that that experience would be challenging and therefore he prayed for them to be supported and strengthened in the challenges they would face. I want us to reflect on three aspects of this section of Jesus’ prayer; unity, protection and sanctification.

Jesus prays that his disciples may be one, as he is one with God the Father and God the Spirit. In other words, we have to understand the unity that is the Godhead, before we can understand the unity that Jesus wants for his disciples. As God is one and also three persons at one and the same time, there is a community at the heart of God with a constant exchange of love between the Father, the Son and the Spirit. That exchange is the very heartbeat of God and is the reason we are able to say that God is love. Everything that God is and does and says is the overflow of the exchange of love that is at the heart of the Godhead. Jesus invites us to enter into that relationship of love and to experience it for ourselves. That is his prayer, his teaching and also the purpose of his incarnation, death and resurrection.

Earlier in his farewell discourse, Jesus gave the command that we should love one another as we have been loved by God. It is in the sharing of love with each other that we experience unity and experience God. Unity, then, does not come from beliefs or propositions. It is not to do with statements or articles of faith. It does not involve us thinking or believing the same thing. Instead, unity is found in relationship, in the constant, continuing exchange of love with others within community; meaning that unity is actually found in diversity. Jesus prays that we will have that experience firstly by coming into relationship with a relational God and secondly by allowing the love that is at the heart of the Godhead to fill us and overflow from us to others, whilst also receiving the overflow of that love from others.

The second aspect of Jesus’ prayer is his prayer for our protection. Our need for protection is often physical and immediate. That is certainly the case for those who were featured in this year’s Christian Aid Week campaign affected, as so many are today, by Covid-19, but for them in the context of crippling poverty. Their need to be protected is one that can, to some extent, be met by aid and medical provision, underpinned by prayer. Similarly, there are many known to our community in need of tangible protection at this time. A member of our Sunday International Group, who gave his testimony in Sunday’s service, has said that St Martin’s has been a ‘shelter from the stormy blast’ for him.

In his prayer Jesus asks that we will be protected in a different way, by being protected in God’s name. God’s name has been given to him, he says, and he has then given that name to his disciples. In our day, we have lost much of the depth and richness that names held in more ancient cultures. Names in Jesus’ culture and earlier were signs or indicators of the essence of the thing named. When we read the story of Adam naming the animals in the Book of Genesis that is what was going on; Adam was identifying the distinctive essence of each creature brought before him and seeking a word to capture and articulate that essential characteristic. It is also why the name of God is so special in Judaism – so special that it cannot be spoken – as the name of God discloses God’s essence or core or the very heart of his being. Jesus prayed that we might be put in touch with, in contact with, in relationship with, the very essence of God’s being by knowing his name. That contact is what will protect us. If we are in contact with the essential love and goodness that is at the very heart of God then that will fill our hearts, our emotions, our words, our actions enabling us to live in love with others, instead of living selfishly in opposition to others. Jesus prays that the essential love which is at the heart of God will transform us in our essence, meaning that we are then protected from evil by being filled with love.

The third aspect of Jesus’ prayer is to do with sanctification. Sanctification is the process of becoming holy. Jesus prays that we will be sanctified in truth, with the truth being the word of God. The Prologue to John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus himself is the Word of God. Therefore Jesus’ prays for us to become holy in Him. It is as we live in relationship to him, following in the Way that he has established, that we are sanctified. This is what it means for us to know Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the Life. It is vital that we note that we are not sanctified by the Truth, meaning that sanctification is not about knowing and accepting truths that we are to believe. Instead, we are sanctified in the Truth, meaning that we are made holy as we inhabit, experience, practice and live out the Truth; with that truth being Jesus.

Knowing God is, therefore, like diving ever deeper into a bottomless ocean where there is always more to see and encounter. We are within that ocean – the truth of relationship with Jesus – and can always see and uncover and discover more of the love of God because the reality of God is of an infinite depth of love. God created all things and therefore all things exist in him and he is more than the sum of all things, so it is impossible for us with our finite minds to ever fully know or understand his love. However profound our experience of God has been, there is always more for us to discover because we live in and are surrounded by infinitude of love. St Augustine is reported to have described this reality in terms of God being a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.

Jesus is constantly praying for a continual and continuing immersion in relationship with Him so that we will experience unity by sharing love, protection by experiencing the essence of God and holiness through living in Him. Because we are with God and in God and God in us, we can and, increasingly, will act in ways that are God-like and Godly. That happens because we are so immersed in God and in his love that his love necessarily overflows from us in ways that we cannot always anticipate or control. Essentially, we learn to improvise as Jesus did, because we are immersed in his ways and love. That is Jesus’ prayer for us. We pray Amen, may it be so.

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Peteris Vasks - Presence.

Looking Up: The vision of Helaine Blumenfeld

My latest review for Church Times is of Helaine Blumenfeld's 'Looking Up' exhibition at Canary Wharf:

'On the opening day of the exhibition, she says, “I saw people pausing and reflecting on the work and the world.” That is what she had hoped for, as she believes that if we are able to approach a work of art open to its effect, then we can have a revelation.

It is also, she believes, a very timely show. Over the past months, she has “felt increasingly concerned that society was moving towards a precipice caused by isolation, lack of empathy, the breakdown in trust, and absence of leadership”. She had originally planned to call the show “Towards the Precipice”. The exhibition is both warning and antidote, with works depicting broken edges reflecting the precipice but with other works showing connection and relationship. That is how we can come out of this, she believes: through community, spiritual values, and acknowledgement that we are all human. In doing so, we will have to learn look at the world in a different way; by looking up to see a spiritual dimension and also by acknowledging the crisis of our climate.'

Helaine Blumenfeld's exhibition can be viewed online at https://hignellgallery.com/exhibitions/29/works/. The exhibition featured in my recent Thought for the Week at St Martin-in-the-Fields.

My earlier pieces about her work can be found here and here. Other of my pieces for Church Times can be found here. 

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Pēteris Vasks - The Fruit Of Silence.

HeartEdge: Growing Community Online

This week HeartEdge has been sharing some of what St Martin-in-the-Fields and other churches have been doing online since lockdown by means of a HeartEdge workshop on ways to grow community online for church congregations. Sally Hitchiner and Adrian Harris from St Martin's took part together with Rev Lorenzo Lebrija from TryTank, one of HeartEdge's US partners.

This online workshop generated lots of discussion and debate among those watching on the HeartEdge facebook page as Sally, Adrian and Lorenzo shared examples and ideas about livestreaming services, congregation facebook pages, companion groups and more. There was lots of discussion about the numbers watching services, whether large or small, and what viewing figures on facebook and other platforms were actually recording.

People watching said that their online worship is connecting them with people who just aren't able to get to church - housebound and others - and has proved a boon to such people enabling them to feel more part of the community. One person commented, 'I'm ashamed to say that until now we've not provided for them on a Sunday morning.'

There were lots of practical ideas such as using the comments for people to make their prayer requests and to share the peace. Others mentioned use of WhatsApp groups and other things outside worship - thought for the day, baking, film club, parish quiz night etc. There was a recognition that some members of the congregation are really relying on what is being offered in order to get through lockdown.

The workshop can be viewed online here.

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The Beatles - Come Together.

Lent exhibition: The city is my monastery

‘The city is my monastery’ is an exhibition created by the artists and craftsperson’s group at St Martin-in-the-Fields for Lent that will be on show in the Foyer of the Crypt from 26 February - 10 April.

St Martin-in-the-Fields is home to several commissions and permanent installations by contemporary artists. We also have an exciting programme of temporary exhibitions, as well as a group of artists and craftspeople from the St Martin’s community who show artwork and organise art projects on a temporary basis. One of the initiatives from this group is a changing display of work by the group members or artists linked to the group. Each month a different artist shows examples of their work, so, if you are able, do return to see the changing display.

For Lent 2020 the group have created an exhibition to accompany the Lent Course at St Martin-in-the-Fields – ‘The Desert in the City.’ Using Revd Richard Carter’s new book ‘The City is my Monastery: A contemporary rule of life’ as its inspiration, this exhibition focuses on how we might deepen our lives of contemplation and action at the heart of the city. Seeing a need for monastic values in the centre of the city, Richard founded the Nazareth Community. Its members gather from everyday life to seek God in contemplation, to replenish stressed lives, to acknowledge their dependence on God's grace and to learn to live generously.

Charles de Foucault once famously remarked that if we need to go to the desert to find God, then everyone trying hard to survive in a bustling city would need to have a little strip of desert with them. We need he said ‘to create the desert in the heart of the city… contemplation in the streets that is our task.’ How can we become more attentive to the continuous presence of God and create the space to bring our lives before God? Through this exhibition the artists and craftspeople at St Martin’s are seeking to explore our own spiritual paths: the places of encounter, forgiveness, nurture, compassion, generosity and growing depth, and the challenging discovery of the Word made flesh in one another.

The exhibition explores themes of: cities, monasteries, prayer, contemplation, community, silence, sacraments, study, sharing, service, steadfastness (staying with), and sabbath.

Lois Bentley's ‘Our Childhood’s Pattern’, an assemblage of torn printed roundels in primary colour, with graphite drawing on layers of deserted paper, red velvet ribbon, began by playing with the seven S’s of invitation in Richard Carter’s book:

Letting the letters weave around each other, until
they settled into pattern and circle
from a mug of tea, into
three fresh ink prints,
layered on the detritus
and reward of this city life.

Rosalind Beeton's 'Landscape' is also accompanied by a poem:

Walk softly, walk gently into the new,
oh hallowed beginnings…
may a fresh spring flourish in your heart
and new buds flower in your being
with His healing presence to breathe you…

your compassion and love will warm the world
your sacred footsteps tread All Hallows holy ground…
walk softly and silently into His grace and peace…

Alice Bree's ‘The Golden Thread of Silence’ is similarly accompanied:

gold is precious,
silence is precious
we wait on God in silence and stillness,
listening in each moment as we pray. 

Nicola Ravenscroft's 'to dance the canticle' comes with the following lyric:

she sang the Magnificat for me
on the day her child was due,
and i asked her to rejoice, and swing
the tilt and lean of womanhood ..
and with arms stretched wide
and loving as a crucifix,
she danced the canticle
and cried with me ..

i held her in my hands with her unborn son
in clay ..
and together,
we gave thanks

Sheila Walcott Chambers writes that 'in experiencing ‘the city as my monastery’ I sought to consider the lived experience of this woman (‘Louise in Our Midst’) who begged at the foot of the steps up into Waterloo Station. While at service in St Martin’s, I honoured that homeless young woman by placing her inside the iconic ovoid cross both literally and metaphorically. Then I drew her image as if she was suffused with importance.'

Asanka Lekamalage reminds us through ‘Paradise in the City’ that, 'even in London, there are parks and woodlands where you can walk in silence, yet hear the sound of birds singing.' 'It reminds me, he writes, 'of my childhood in Sri Lanka.' 'To put these memories in a painting is another way of finding sacred space in silence, and sharing it with others.'

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Philip Bailey - The Wonders Of His Love.