Immersed in the story

Here's the sermon I shared at St Mary’s Runwell this morning:

The favourite Christmas story of the Archbishop of York concerns a two-year-old called Miriam at a church on the edge of Chichester where he was then parish priest.

The red brick rectangular church seated about 80 and was full to overflowing for the Christmas Day service. As every space was taken, the crib scene had been placed under the altar. During the service Miriam wandered into the sanctuary and stood for a while observing the nativity scene. It was a large nativity set and so the characters in the scene were about the same size as the two-year-old. After observing the scene for a while, Miriam carefully climbed in under the altar making her way around the characters to sit in a space within the crib scene where she then remained for the rest of the service.

What she did was essentially an acted parable to the congregation because she became part of the story. That is what happens – it is what we are doing – when we become Christians. In other words, for many of us, it is what is going on when we are baptised.

Baptism is our immersion in the Christian story; a story which begins with God’s creation of the universe and life on earth. It continues with our rebellion as human beings. Our saying to God that we know who we are and what we need to do and, therefore, will go ahead and do our own thing. We all live with the consequences of that right now.

But in the story which the Bible tells, God does not leave us simply to do our own thing. First, he chooses the people of Israel and through his special relationship with them seeks to call all people back to their true identity and purpose and then he sends his own Son, Jesus, to reach out in rescue and return us to him. He does this so that each one of us can find our identity and purpose in God and play our part in bringing the kingdom of God in full on earth as it is in heaven.

When Jesus was baptised, he was saying that he would immerse himself in this story and play his special, unique part within it (Luke 3. 15 – 17, 21 – 22). As he made that commitment, God the Father affirmed him in his identity and purpose by saying, “You are my own dear Son. I am pleased with you.”

As we do what Miriam did and enter the story, then we are also affirmed by God in just the same way. St Paul writes in Romans 8. 14 – 17 that:

“Those who are led by God's Spirit are God's children. For the Spirit that God has given you does not make you slaves and cause you to be afraid; instead, the Spirit makes you God's children, and by the Spirit's power we cry out to God, “Father! my Father!” God's Spirit joins himself to our spirits to declare that we are God's children. Since we are his children, we will possess the blessings he keeps for his people, and we will also possess with Christ what God has kept for him; for if we share Christ's suffering, we will also share his glory.”

What he is saying is that as we enter the story we are adopted by God as his children and become brothers and sisters of Jesus, co-heirs with him of all he possesses.

You may remember the wonderful words of Philippians 2. 6 – 11 which say that Jesus gave up the equality he had with God the Father in heaven in order to be born as a human being, living and dying as our servant in order to save us:

“For this reason God raised him to the highest place above
and gave him the name that is greater than any other name.
And so, in honour of the name of Jesus
all beings in heaven, on earth, and in the world below
will fall on their knees,
and all will openly proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.”

That same glory, St Paul says, is shared with us as we enter the story, join the family of God and play our part with the story. The incredible message of Christianity is that our rightful identity as human beings is that of being God’s own dear children with whom he is greatly pleased.

How do we play our part? That all depends on our coming to know the story and what happens within it. New Testament scholar Tom Wright has described Holy Scripture as being like a five-act play containing the first four acts in full (i.e. 1. Creation, 2. Fall, 3. Israel, 4. Jesus). “The writing of the New Testament,” he says, “would then form the first scene in the fifth act, and would simultaneously give hints (Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 15, parts of the Apocalypse) of how the play is supposed to end ... The church would then live under the 'authority' of the extant story, being required to offer an improvisatory performance of the final act as it leads up to and anticipates the intended conclusion ... the task of Act 5 ... is to reflect on, draw out, and implement the significance of the first four Acts, more specifically, of Act 4 in the light of Acts 1-3 ... Faithful improvisation in the present time requires patient and careful puzzling over what has gone before, including the attempt to understand what the nature of the claims made in, and for, the fourth Act really amount to.”

So, we start by looking at what we know of the story to date – the things God has done in and through Israel, Jesus and the Church – and we also look at the hints we have about the way the story will end with the coming in full of the kingdom of God on earth as in heaven. Then we say to ourselves, ‘What is it that people do in this story? How do they act and behave? And then we start to do and say similar things, as we have the opportunity. As Christians we are never given a script which has all our lines and actions printed on it. Instead, we have to improvise our part on the basis of what we know of the story so far, on the basis of the example provided by those who have lived in the story before, and on the basis of the opportunities provided in the places where we are and among the people that we know.

Living in the Christian story, therefore, is a challenge – something we should know anyway from looking at the life and death of Jesus – but it comes with the affirmation that we are part of God’s family; his dearly loved children, brothers and sisters of and co-heirs with Jesus himself. When we know this, we can relax because whatever happens to us we are accepted, forgiven, loved and gifted by the God who created all things and who will bring all things to their rightful end.

When we do that, we are like Miriam climbing in under the altar to become part of the crib scene. When we do that, we become part of God’s story which makes us his children and gives us identity, purpose and meaning. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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Iona - Edge Of The World.

Made complete in everything good

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

The writer to the Hebrews ends his letter with a Benediction: Now may the God of peace, who brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, make you complete in everything good so that you may do his will, working among us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen. (Hebrews 13: 16-21)

What does it mean, I wonder, for us to be made complete? Following the feeding of the five thousand (John 6.1-14), Jesus asked his disciples to gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost. So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. Similarly, through our offering of ourselves to God, Jesus provides a means by which what is disparate and fragmented within our lives can gathered up, unified and completed.

That was certainly my experience in offering for ordained ministry. In my working life I had experience of partnership working to create employment opportunities, with a particular focus on assisting disabled people in finding and keeping work. In my church life I had involvement in setting up a church-based day care business and a detached youth work project reaching out to disaffected young people. In my personal life I was writing and painting and finding a limited range of opportunities to share my creative work.

I realised, as I went through the selection process for ordination and then my ministerial training, that ordained ministry could hold and utilise all these disparate experiences and, as a result, could provide a frame within which all these disparate fragments of my life could be gathered up, held together and unified. And so it has proved, as each context for my ministry to date has provided unique opportunities to make connections between faith, work, art and social action through partnerships and projects. That has, of course, been even more the case since discovering the HeartEdge mission model which integrates congregation, culture, commerce and compassion.

Through HeartEdge, I have also experienced the way in which mission and ministry in, from and outside the church provides a framework, forum or context in which all of our skills, experiences, interests and failures can be gathered up, integrated and used for God’s glory and in God’s service. My personal experience of that reality has been in relation to ordained ministry but, again, the HeartEdge model of mission is clear that this gathering up of all that we offer applies to us all, whether lay or ordained.

Later in John 6, Jesus gives a cosmic or eschatological twist to this phrase we are considering when he says it ‘is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day’ (John 6. 37 – 40). These words come in the middle of Jesus’ teaching about being the Bread of Life which followed the feeding of the 5,000. When Jesus gave thanks over the bread, the word used is ‘eucharistesas’, the word which gives us ‘Eucharist’. Jesus shared the bread around in communion, then, when everyone was satisfied, he instructed his disciples to pick up the fragments using that same phrase, ‘so that nothing may be lost.’ Just as none of this ‘eucharisticized’ bread was lost after the feeding, so, because ‘Jesus is the bread of life, [those who] see and believe in him … receive eternal life [and] become a fragment which he will gather up on the last day.’ (John, Richard Burridge, BRF 1998)

Christ’s was a once-for-all action that is then re-presented and re-membered in and through the Eucharist. The Eucharist being our most significant and meaningful form of Remembrance. We bring the broken fragments of our lives to the one whose own body was broken on the cross but who endured that experience out of love for us to bring us through brokenness into reconciliation and resurrection. In return we receive his body and blood into our lives through a fragment of bread and a sip of wine. Our life is joined to his. The broken fragments of our lives are gathered up and incorporated into the story of God’s saving work with humanity. The fragments of our lives are accepted – overaccepted – and unified or completed as we are brought together to form a new body - the body of Christ – in which all things find their place and where all shall be well and all manner of thing be well.

God takes us and our offerings and places them in a far larger story than we ever could have imagined by giving them a sacred story and making them sacred actions. As we retell and re-enact what Jesus did at the Last Supper, we also remember what God did to Israel in ‘taking one special people, blessing them, then breaking them in the Exile before giving them as a light to the nations to bring the Gentiles to God.’ ‘In the telling of those stories and the performance of those actions we are transformed into God’s holy people.’ That’s what the regular celebration of the Eucharist is about. When the Eucharist is served, each of us offers all that we uniquely are at the altar and we receive from God everything we need to follow him by being a blessing to others in our daily lives.

This teaching also tallies with the use made elsewhere of Harvest imagery for the Last Judgement – a sense that all can be safely gathered in - and is reinforced for us in the Letter to the Colossians where it is stated that in Christ all things hold together, as through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. Christ came to gather up and reconcile to God all the disparate fragments of our lives that none should be lost, even through death. That is why he gave us parables of lost things being found. It is why he states that there is room for all – many rooms - in his Father’s house and that he goes there to prepare places for us. It is also why St Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 13 that faith, hope and love remain. The word he used for remain hints that such actions continue beyond the grave into eternity i.e. that we can take something with us when we die, that the fruit or acts of faith, hope and love grown in this life continue into, and continue to bear fruit in, the next. In other words, our deeds of faith, hope and love are not lost with our death in this life but continue into eternity where they are completed.

As a result, we have, I think, a basis for saying with Walt Whitman that: ‘Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost, / No birth, identity, form — no object of the world, / Nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing; / Appearance must not foil, nor shifted sphere / confuse thy brain. / Ample are time and space — ample the field and / nature. / The body, sluggish, aged, cold — the embers left / from earlier fires, / The light in the eye grown dim shall duly flame / again; / The sun now low in the west rises for mornings / and for noons continual; / To frozen clods ever the spring's invisible land / returns, / With grass and flowers and summer fruits and / corn.’

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Walt Whitman - Continuities.

A conversation that explores how we shall now live and who it is that is our neighbour

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

St Paul began a discussion when he stood before the Areopagus and spoke about an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god’ (Acts 17.22-31). The Areopagus was the rock of Ares in Athens, a centre of temples, cultural facilities and high court, and also the name of the council that originally served as the central governing body of Athens, but came to be the court with jurisdiction over cases of homicide and other serious crimes. In speaking to the Areopagus Paul was giving a guest lecture, whilst also being, in some senses, on trial.

Pope John Paul II likened the modern media to the New Areopagus, where Christian ideas needed to be explained and defended anew, against disbelief and the gold and silver idols of consumerism. Understanding how St Paul did so in the original Areopagus can assist in understanding how we might initiate or contribute to debate and dialogue in our own day and time, whether virtually or in person.

Paul began where people were by referring to the altar to an unknown god which was to be found amongst the cluster of temples around him. He didn’t criticize those to whom he was speaking. Instead, he commended the breadth of their engagement with religion. He didn’t tell them they were wrong by suggesting they were pagans worshipping the wrong god or gods. Instead, he overaccepted their religious story fitting it into the larger story of what he believed God was doing with the world. Nor did he dismiss their culture. Instead, he made it clear that he had heard and appreciated their poets by making connections between those poets and the message he had come to share. In these ways, he began a dialogue with them about the nature of faith and its engagement with their lives and culture. We read that some scoffed but others said, ‘We will hear you again about this’, and some joined him and became believers.

Paul was able to be in Athens because he had a trade – tentmaking – which enabled him to be supported financially as he travelled and which opened doors and provided contacts that might not otherwise have been open to him. In each place to which he travelled he formed new congregations led by those who came to faith. In each place that he visited he went to the synagogue and sought to speak with those at the heart of the Jewish community, but also welcomed those who were on the edge, often Gentiles, slaves and servants.

Over the past year we have been making use of the HeartEdge model of mission in this parish. It’s called the 4Cs – compassion, culture, commerce and congregation. It is a pattern for ministry that we share with other churches throughout the UK, and the world, through the movement to renew the church that is called HeartEdge. HeartEdge is about churches developing these 4Cs. Generating finance and impacting communities via social enterprise and commerce. Culture, in the form of art, music, performance, that re-imagines the Christian narrative for the present. Congregations that develop welcoming liturgies, worship, and day-to-day communal life while also addressing social need and community cohesion. Nurturing each of these is essential for renewal of the church.

HeartEdge churches are seeking to begin and develop a conversation with our communities and nations, as Paul sought to do in Athens. As one example, St Mark’s Church in Pennington, within the Diocese of Winchester, used their churchyard hedge as a site for yarn bombing to focus the attention of their community on Holocaust Memorial Day, Holy Week and Easter, and the VE Day anniversary. Organising online community events and services combined with the organisation of knitting and crochet work for the different yarnbombs placed St Mark’s at the heart of their community while connecting many who were isolated because of the Covid-19 lockdown. St Mark’s demonstrated that the boundaries of ‘church’ should be much more porous than they had previously imagined. Rachel Noel, the Vicar of St Mark’s, said she hoped that we will all get so used to worshipping with, and being led by, a variety of people, that we will always seek to find ways to include and value diversity and richness.

As with Paul in Athens and HeartEdge churches like St Mark’s Pennington, we are seeking to connect compassion, culture, commerce and congregation to draw all engaged in those forms of community into a conversation that explores how we shall now live and who it is that is our neighbour.

What we have done over the past year has begun a conversation where the ‘good news’ of community compassion and culture, with church at the heart and on the margins, can be heard and is being valued. We are inviting others to join that conversation, to have their say, so that the margins can speak to the centre that we might encounter God in everyone.

As we do so, we will together find a story which connects a series of otherwise inexplicable circumstances, begin to live in that story and then act our part within it. In this way, like those who joined Paul in Athens, we, too, may discover it is the story of what God is doing with the world that reveals where we are and what we are to do.

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Pissabed Prophet - Waspdrunk.

Short story: The New Dark Ages

International Times, the Magazine of Resistance, have just published my short story The New Dark Ages, a story about principles and understandings that are gradually fading away from our modern societies.

This is the third of my stories to be published by IT. The others are: The Mudcubs and the O Zone holes, the first of three about Nicola Ravenscroft's mudcub sculptures which were recently exhibited at St Andrew's Wickford, and The curious glasses, a story based on the butterfly effect.

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Mark Heard - Treasure Of The Broken Land.

Story: The Mudcubs and the O Zone holes

International Times, the Magazine of Resistance, have just published my short story entitled 'The Mudcubs and the O Zone holes.' 

This story is the first of three about Nicola Ravenscroft's mudcub sculptures, which we are currently exhibiting at St Andrew's Wickford. I have been writing a range of pieces (stories, poems and reflections) in response to Nicola's works. Click here for a poem published by Stride Magazine that was inspired by Nicola's series of 'in the language of angels' images, here for my Artlyst interview with Nicola, and here for an ArtWay Visual Meditation on her work.

mudcubs… touching earth, bringing peace
5 September – 31 December 2022
St Andrew’s Church, 11 London Road, Wickford, Essex SS12 0AN

St Andrew’s Church is usually open: Saturdays from 8.30 am to 12.30 pm; Sundays from 9.30 am to 12.00 noon; Mondays from 1.30 to 3.45 pm; Tuesdays from 1.00 to 4.30 pm; Wednesdays from 10.00 am to 12.00 noon; and Fridays from 10.00 am to 1.30 pm.

See http://wickfordandrunwellparish.org.uk/whats-on.html for fuller information.

Children pay attention to the world finding wonder in it. A child’s journey from the front of the house to the back will ‘be full of pauses, circling, touching and picking up in order to smell, shake, taste, rub, and scrape’, ‘every object along the path will be a new discovery’ because ‘the child treats the situation with the open curiosity and attention that it deserves’ (Sister Corita Kent). That is why the children are our future and can lead the way into a better future. This is also why Jesus said a child is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

. . mudcubs . . are Earth’s messenger-angels: they silently call us to live in PEACE .. with nature and with each other.

Previously exhibited at St Martin-in-the-Fields, St John’s Cambridge, HSBC global headquarters Canary Wharf, Churchill College Cambridge, Cambridge University Faculty of Education and coming to us from the Talos Art Gallery’s ‘Natural Elements’ exhibition where they spent three months outdoors standing guard at the base of an old tree, these are sculptures to touch and feel and cherish. Nicola says: “Earth’s children are life’s heartbeat: they are her hope, her future ... they are breath of Earth herself. Creative, inquisitive and trusting, children are Earth’s possibility thinkers. They seek out, and flourish in fellowship, in ‘oneness’, and being naturally open-hearted, and wide-eyed hungry for mystery, delight and wonder, they embrace diversity with the dignity of difference.”

Nicola Ravenscroft is a British sculptor and songwriter whose sculpture has a lifegiving presence and a peaceful stillness. A graduate of Camberwell School of Art, London, UK she has owned and run a sculpture gallery and, as an art teacher, has nurtured many young people into celebrating their inherent creativity and thinking beyond the walls. Her sculpture installation With the Heart of a Child was part of a project exploring what the arts in transdisciplinary learning spaces can contribute to primary education. Nicola has been commissioned to create the Westminster National bronze memorial, honouring the sacrifice of NHS and careworkers on the covid front line.

Web: https://nicolaravenscroft.com / https://nicolaravenscroft.com/mudcubs/.

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Raphael Ravenscroft - "... and a little child shall lead ..."

Michael Morpurgo: Lecture, Book & Sand Sculpture

This weekend we are very pleased to be hosting a sand sculpture in the foyer at St Martin-in-the-Fields depicting the main character from Michael Morpurgo’s new book Boy-Giant Son of Gulliver. The sculpture will be in the foyer until Thursday next week.

Michael Morpurgo is our guest speaker for Monday evening’s Autumn Lecture – The Quality of Mercy in Story.

The Shop is selling copies of the book, get there early on Monday for a signed copy!

A stunning new story of hope, humanity and high-seas adventure for children and adults everywhere from Sir Michael Morpurgo, the nation’s favourite storyteller and multi-million copy bestselling author of WAR HORSE.

“We were the truth of our own story.

Me, and the two tiny people on my shoulder, in the middle of the sea…”

War has forced Omar and his mother to leave their home in Afghanistan and venture across the sea to Europe. When their boat sinks, and Omar finds himself alone, with no hope of rescue, it seems as if his story has come to an end.

But it is only just beginning.

Because in the end, a little hope makes a big difference…

A thrilling adventure inspired by the classic story of Gulliver’s Travels, this is also a gripping modern narrative of rescue and refuge, from a writer at the height of his powers. A book about breaking down walls, at a time when many are trying to build them. And a timeless reminder of humanity’s infinite capacity for good… even when those humans are very small indeed

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War Horse Original Cast Recording - Only Remembered.

The Quality of Mercy

I wanted to let you know about the exciting Autumn Lecture Series 2019 at St Martin-in-the-Fields: The Quality of Mercy and invite you to attend any of the lectures that you are able to.

In a time of increasing conflict, division and blame this series will explore the concept of mercy in our world today and what part it needs to play in issues of race, equality, truth and justice and how literature, music, poetry and drama can help shift perspectives and help us see the wider world through others’ eyes. In this series St Martin’s brings together renowned writers, artists, theologians and speakers to address how and if we can discover a mercy that will lead to a deeper humanity and true transformation. The lectures will be followed by the chance to ask questions and a reception in the café in the crypt for further discussion.

For those able to attend we look forward to welcoming you and those you know who may be interested in coming. It is free and open to all and you can reserve a place with Eventbrite: stmartininthefields.eventbrite.com

In addition, as we did last year, all the lectures are being professionally filmed and will be uploaded to the St Martin’s YouTube channel soon after the event has taken place. This is intended to enable churches unable to attend to use the series as part of their own programming. We will also prepare an accompanying study guide for the Lecture Series. In the guide, each lecture will have a Bible passage for reflection, and some wondering discussion points, to enable individuals, as well as groups, to engage with the lecture. We hope that you will be able to use these resources in your own churches and different contexts, so that more than just those who come each evening, are able to benefit from this excellent line up of speakers.

For those able to come to St Martin's there is also the opportunity to see our accompanying exhibition. In a world where retaliation and revenge grab all the headlines, The F Word: Stories of Forgiveness Exhibition tells the stories of people whose lives have been shattered by violence, tragedy and injustice and who are learning to forgive, reconcile or move on. The exhibition is the brainchild of British journalist Marina Cantacuzino and photographer Brian Moody who have collected numerous accounts from across the globe. The exhibition has been seen in more than 550 venues, across 14 countries, to an audience of over 70,000 people.

The F Word aims to open up a dialogue and promote understanding. The Forgiveness Project believes that by listening to the voices of people who have experienced reconciliation and renewal after trauma and unrest, it is possible to see alternatives to endless cycles of conflict, violence, crime and injustice. The remarkable stories in The F Word aim to do just this. See theforgivenessproject.com for more information.

We also have a wonderful programme and great contributors lined up for the annual HeartEdge conference, which is in Edinburgh on 2 and 3 October. 'On Earth as it is in Heaven' features US theologian Winnie Varghese and Asset-based community worker Cormac Russell. Our two-day gathering of the HeartEdge community includes Sam Wells delivering the annual Chalmers Lecture series.

Arrive for the evening of 1 October for Sam’s lecture on ‘Entertaining Angels Unawares: It is More Blessed to Receive’. The two-day intensive then starts the following morning on 2 October prioritising practical input, ideas and resources. We’ve kept costs down and there’s a subsidised rate for HeartEdge members – we hope you’ll make it along. Register here for members rates. More details here, here and here.

Advance news regarding resources is that an additional Inspired to Follow Advent Course (Advent Wreath characters) will be added this Autumn, with a Lent Course (Who is my Neighbour?) following in the New Year. More information about these new resources will follow shortly. See https://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/life-st-martins/discipleship/inspired-to-follow/ for the current Inspired to Follow resources. Other future HeartEdge events will be in Milton Keynes and Norwich.

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Marvin Gaye - Mercy, Mercy Me.

Re-imaging faith & contemplating art

I'm looking forward to speaking at St Luke's Maidenhead on Thursday 27 September at 7.45pm. I'll be giving an illustrated presentation on 'Visual Art: re-imaging the Christian story'. Details here.

In my talk I'll be arguing that the Gospel story needs to be told afresh for every generation. Art used by the church similarly needs to be re-imaged and re-imagined for each generation. My ordained ministry has provided a wide range of opportunities to engage with such re-imaging and I therefore want to share some examples from the churches with which I have been associated to explore the benefits to the Church of engaging with this re-imaging.

In the talk that I gave last Thursday at the HeartEdge church & culture event on visual art at St Cuthbert's Edinburgh argued that the kind of looking that is needed to view art has significant synergies with the practices of prayer and contemplation in the Christian tradition. In the talk I highlighted the ways in which slowness, stillness and silence aid contemplation in both contexts and suggested that paying attention begins with an immersion in dimensions and details before considering sources, context and responses.

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Michael McDermott - Carry Your Cross.

Imaging the Story: Rediscovering the visual and poetic contours of salvation

Imaging the Story: Rediscovering the visual and poetic contours of salvation aims to create imaginative encounters with the salvation story by bringing images and poetry into conversation with the Bible in ways that spark creativity in readers or course participants.

In my review of the book for Church Times, I say:

'This is a book full of ideas, theological and artistic. The wealth of material within its pages is structured in terms of content through ten themes that take us from Creation to Consummation, while exploration of each theme is structured in terms of reading (of the biblical texts), responding (questions using “visuo divina”), reflecting (theological reflection with images and poetry), and making (artistic exercises leading to an exhibition).'

A complementary resource to Imaging the Story is Inspired to Follow: Art and the Bible Story, a free resource to help people explore the Christian faith, using paintings and Biblical story as the starting points which has been created by St Martin-in-the-Fields in partnership with the National Gallery.

There’s an opportunity to experience one of the sessions of Inspired to Follow and to learn how to make the most of the resource at a short workshop on Monday 5 February. There’s no substitute to experiencing a session led by the course developer.

The workshop runs from 2.30-4.30pm at St Martin-in-the-Fields. It will be led by Alastair McKay, who developed the resource. Please aim to arrive at 2.15pm, for a hot drink before we start.

The workshop is being offered by the HeartEdge network, and is free to HeartEdge members. If you’re not yet a member of the Network, the cost is £10 per person. We are restricted to 24 participants, so do book soon.

If you’d like to attend the workshop, please contact me at jonathan.evens@smitf.org or phone 020 7766 1127.

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The Band - When I Paint My Masterpiece.

Time of Lies

Time of Lies is a darkly comic political thriller by Douglas Board which is also a terrifyingly believable portrait of an alternative Britain.

Douglas has written about the book in a post for the Student Christian Movement which explores why Christians should set to work creating encounters across divides and building a cohesive, empathetic society one year after the divisive Brexit vote.

He ends his post by saying that novels would have been important to Jesus:

'This much we do know: he saw story as central to how we come to understand and share our identities as children of one God, and citizens of a place where the glass walls of class have been transcended.'

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Violent Femmes - Lies.

One shall tell another

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

‘One shall tell another
And he shall tell his friend
Husbands, wives and children
Shall come following on
From house to house in families
Shall more be gathered in
And lights will shine in every street
So warm and welcoming

Come on in and taste the new wine
The wine of the kingdom
The wine of the kingdom of God’

One Shall Tell Another (The wine of the Kingdom) is a hymn by Graham Kendrick from the 1980's, but one which accurately describes what happens in today's Gospel reading (John 1. 35 - 42).

John the Baptist tells Andrew and another disciple that Jesus is the coming Messiah. The two disciples spend the day with Jesus and then Andrew tells his brother Peter that Jesus is the Messiah. John tells Andrew and his fellow disciple, Andrew tells Peter, and so it goes on. One shall tell another and he shall tell his friend. This is how the Good News spreads. In our day and time, we call it gossiping the Gospel.

But what is it that we tell? What is it that we pass on? What is it that we gossip? There are times in our journey as Christians when he don't share our faith with others - perhaps because we are afraid to do so in what seems a hostile culture or, perhaps, because we are afraid of saying the wrong thing. In some churches courses are run to encourage people to share their faith and to know the right thing to say. But that is not what we see happening here. These disciples simply pass on the news that Jesus is the expected Messiah. They point others to him and tell others what they have experienced in meeting him.

The missiologist Lesslie Newbigin says that this is the mark of a true witness; “the function of a witness is not to develop conclusions out of already known data, but simply to point to, report, affirm” the new reality that the witness has seen and heard. This is also what John’s Gospel, as a whole, sets out to do and what it wants those who read it, like us, to become. Newbigin writes: “[John] points his hearers to Jesus (e.g., 1:29ff., 36ff.; 3:27ff.); Jesus draws his hearers to himself. But these hearers will in turn become witnesses through whom others may believe (15:27; 17:20; 20:31), for the purpose is that not some but all … may come to faith.”

So we are to be witnesses like the writer of the Gospel, like John the Baptist, like Andrew, like Peter, this is our calling as Christians. And this is essentially a simple task. We are not asked to become fluent in all the doctrines of the Christian faith or to have an answer for every question that people ask about Christianity. We don’t have to understand or be able to explain the key doctrines of the Christian faith. We don’t have to be able to tell people the two ways to live or to have memorized the sinner’s prayer or to have tracts to be able to hand out in order to be witnesses to Jesus. All we need to do is to tell our story.

We are to be witnesses to what we have seen and heard about Jesus; to be “a witness to the living God, traces of whose presence and actions have been granted in the events which are recounted.” Witnesses are those who have seen or experienced a particular event or sign or happening and who then tell the story of what they have seen or heard as testimony to others.

That is what Jesus calls us to do; to tell our stories of encountering him to others. No more, no less. The focus is not on us and our lives but on him and what we know of him and have experienced of him in our lives. So instead of needing to memorize a Gospel presentation, all we need to do to be a witness is to tell our story; this is how I came to know Jesus and this is what he has come to mean to me.

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Larry Norman - Sweet Song Of Salvation.

Discover & explore: Promises

Today's Discover & explore service at St Stephen Walbrook was on the theme of Promises and featured music from the Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields including several movements from Fauré's Requiem and God be in my head by Walford Davies. The next Discover & explore service will be on Monday 7 November at 1.10pm and will explore the theme of Safety.

Here is the reflection from today's service:

Promises are like pie-crust writes Christina Rossetti; easily broken. As a result, she suggests that she and her friend make no promises to each other, as these could become bonds or ties on their relationship, and instead simply enjoy their time together for what it is.

Rossetti is speaking of human promises, of course. As a committed Christian, it is unlikely that she would have thought of God’s promises in the same way. And yet, we do have the experience of feeling that God has broken his promises towards us.

In a recent sermon at St Martin-in-the-Fields, I told the story of the blind and deaf Cornish poet Jack Clemo, who believed that God would invade his isolation by giving him the threefold happiness of healing, marriage and success as an Evangelical poet. As a result, he made few attempts to live with his disabilities, refusing to learn braille for example, and wrote some poetry which seems critical of
those who chose to live with the experience of disability rather than seeking cure through God's
invasive power.

He achieved a measure of success as a poet and also married in his 50’s, but, despite much prayer for healing over many years and many moments when he thought healing had come, never experienced the physical healing which he fervently sought. His biographer, Luke Thompson, writes that ‘However we interpret Jack’s beliefs about the role of God in his life, they seem wrong. Over and over again, his statements and expectations were disproved; the signs and patterns perceived were incorrect; God’s promises were broken. It would be possible to construct a picture of a divinity working through Jack’s life, but it would require a complete renegotiation of the terms’ (Clay Phoenix, Ally Press, 2016). Jack struggled with God’s failure to grant to him the supernatural transformation that he desired and this desire and struggle left him isolated and lacking in solidarity with other disabled people.

Jack believed that he had been given a personal threefold promise by God and, understandably, struggled when parts of that promise were not fulfilled. In understanding that situation, and others which may be similar, we need to question whether we have correctly understood what God says about promises in scripture.

Sam Wells helpfully writes that, ‘When something awful happens or we get some terrible news, we experience this question in an extreme form. Why? Why me? Why now? How can I go on? What’s the point? Finding a way to live, and especially coming to terms with a damaging accident or horrible setback, is about identifying some kind of a story that traces together a series of otherwise inexplicable circumstances. Once you’ve done that, you then set about locating where you are in that story. And then you act your part in that story. You could pretty well summarise the human quest as simply as this: searching for a story to live by, discovering one’s place in that story, and living into that place in the story.

And that’s exactly what the Bible is. It’s a story that ties together all things, from creation to the
end, and an invitation to discover our place in that story and take up our part in it.’

There are ‘three questions the Bible asks us – the questions of whether there is a story, where we are in it, and how to play our part in it – and holds our gaze until we give the answers. And these are the three questions. Do you believe the world was created so that we might share in a banquet and be God’s companions forever? Do you believe that through Jesus and at great cost the invitation to that banquet was extended to you and many others by amazing grace? Do you believe that the way to answer God’s invitation is to allow the Holy Spirit to fashion your life so that when you are called to the banquet you clearly belong there because you’ve been living the life of the banquet and sharing the company of those invited to the banquet long before you were finally a guest there? It could be that those three questions are the most important ones anyone will ever ask you.’

The answers to these questions are all ‘yes’ in Jesus. He demonstrates that there is a story, he tells us about our place in the story and he enables us to play our part in the story. God promised when the world was created that we might one day be restored to relationship with him, sharing in an eternal banquet and being his companions forever. He worked to fulfil that promise, firstly by engaging with all those he had created, then by focussing on the People of Israel and finally by sending his own Son Jesus. It is through Jesus that he has kept his promise to us and this is why, in Jesus, all God’s promises are ‘yes’.

This is of particular importance today as we celebrate All Souls by remembering and giving thanks for all who have gone before us into glory. It is because of Jesus, that we have hope that our loved ones are living the life of the banquet and sharing the company of those invited to the banquet long before we were finally a guest there. It is because Jesus said ‘yes’ to God and became the answer to God’s promises to restore us to relationship with him, sharing in the eternal banquet and being his companions forever.

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Jeff Buckley - Grace.

Theological reflection: End of Life with Dementia

Here is the theological reflection that I shared last night as part of the evening on End of Life with Dementia held at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

In her book, ‘My Year with a Horse: Feeling the fear but doing it anyway,’ Hazel Southam writes of facing the daunting task of telling her dad that he isn’t coming home: ‘I visit him as soon as I’m back and … sit down and tell him the truth. This is his home now. He’s not well enough to come home. And he won’t be getting better. This team of carers can look after him properly and we simply can’t. I am very, very sorry. He looks me in the eye and under­stands. We hold hands and cry. He never cries.

We have the kind of conversation that you have before someone dies. We talk of love and laughter, God, cats, The Guardian, and cricket. I remind him of the village where we all grew up, of its orchards, his football team. He asks, “Where do I live?” and “Where is my house?” a great deal these days. I used to try explaining, but as none of it makes any sense to him — the past 75 years having been wiped out — I talk about the village instead. That he remembers.

I feel, as my mother often says, like a wrung-out piece of rag. There are things that you don’t want to tell your parents: my A-level results aren’t very good; I’ve left my job with the big publishing company; I’ll be reporting from a war zone. But “You’re not coming home” is by far the worst. I comfort myself with the thought that, however bleak this moment, it won’t come again. Daddy knows now, and whilst we may discuss it in the future, it won’t be like this. Only, of course, it is. The next day and the day after and every day for years he will ask when he’s coming home and I will have to tell him the freshly shocking news that he won’t be. Every time it will be new to him, as five minutes later he will have forgotten it entirely. It is my own personal hell, and his, too, probably.’

Nicci Gerrard, from John’s Campaign, puts it like this: ‘When people are in the last stages of dementia, we who love them (we whom they have loved) may bend over them, trying to find in the sounds they are making some words, sentences, a form of communication and a kind of meaning. Even a syllable is precious now. It is a bit like a parent straining to hear language emerging from their baby’s babble of sound – but with a baby this emergent language marks the beginning of the great formation of the self, and is full of hope and possibility.

With the person who lives – and who dies – with dementia, the language that connects us to others is disappearing, the self is being broken up. An entire world is being un-made. We come to darkness, silence, the radical slowing of death: dementia’s long goodbye.’

Gerrard notes that this long goodbye occurs because ‘Telling stories is part of what makes us human’: ‘With stories, we make sense of the world and impose a kind of order on to chaos. We continually edit our own lives into a narrative that will give it a coherent meaning: without this, we’re lost.

And people with advanced dementia become lost: lost to us and lost themselves. They can no longer speak themselves and without memory to bind the pieces of their life together, they are trapped in an endless present.‘

That was Hazel Southam’s experience too, but, she instinctively found a way of sparking memories in her father by retelling part of his story: ‘I used to try explaining, but as none of it makes any sense to him — the past 75 years having been wiped out — I talk about the village instead. That he remembers.’

Healthcare professionals are increasingly recognising that ‘Storytelling sparks memories, encourages verbalization and promotes self-esteem among those with dementia.’ The Contented Dementia Trust who advocate the SPECAL method explain the significance of story in this way: ‘A person with dementia will experience random, intermittent and increasingly frequent memory blanks relating to the facts around recent events. However, some memories of past events are always available and can be readily recalled by the person, given the right circumstances.

The SPECAL method uses selected intact memories from the person’s pre-dementia past and links these to their activities in the present. This means that the person is able to maintain a relatively content life in the present, drawing on their own memories of situations and activities which may have occurred many years ago but still have useful meaning for them in their life today.’

Narrative theology says that, as human beings, we are storytellers, and, as Christians, we blend our story with God’s story. Roger Olson helpfully summarises the main aspects of narrative theology. The Bible, he writes, tells ‘the great story of God whose central character (for Christians, at least) is Jesus Christ.’ ‘Therefore, all must be interpreted in light of that story and its purpose—to reveal the character of God through his mighty acts leading up to and centering around Jesus Christ.’

‘Theology is our best human attempt to understand the biblical drama-story’ and that is done by ‘“living the story” together with a community of faith shaped by the story.’ ‘The task of the church is to “faithfully improvise” the “rest of the story.” Christians are not called simply to live in the story; they are called to continue the story in their own cultural contexts. First they must be grounded in the story. They must be people for whom the story “absorbs the world.” Second, they must together (communally) improvise the “rest of the story” faithfully to the story given in the Bible.’

These two stories - the personal story of the person with dementia and the meta-narrative of salvation history – should intertwine throughout our lives as Christians, but, perhaps, never more significantly as we approach death. One common experience for clergy after funerals or memorials is to hear people say, I wish the person we had been remembering could have heard those tributes while they were alive. That could always have been the case, if we had been more intentional about hearing, re-calling and celebrating the story of that person. In the case of those with dementia, to do so is even more vital as it sparks past memories which may have useful meaning for today but even at the point of death, although the person may be unable to respond, there may nevertheless be an ability to hear and take comfort from the celebration of their life through storytelling.

As Christians, we can do more because our personal story can be blended with God’s story. This is particularly so in relation to the Eucharist, where the key events in God’s story are re-enacted and re-membered. It has been my experience, in taking communion to parishioners with dementia, that this celebration has been the moment in the visit when those I have been visiting have become most engaged, most participative and most present as they remember and join in with familiar words and phrases, recalling the prayers and re-inhabiting the story.

As Christians, our hope is also that this story and our being blended with it does not end. This hope has, I think, been articulated well by scientist and priest, John Polkinghorne, who says that "the immensely complex ‘information-bearing pattern’ (memories, character, etc) carried at any one time by the matter of my body ... is the soul and, though it will dissolve with the decay of my body, it is a perfectly sensible hope that the faithful God will not allow it to be lost but will preserve it in the divine memory in order to restore its embodiment in the great divine act of resurrection."

For all these reasons I agree with Nicci Gerrard, who ends the article from which I have quoted, by saying: ‘The question of how we care for those with dementia is also a question of how we live and how we die. It is about what it means to be human. We are all human. We all have stories.’

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Leonard Cohen - You Want It Darker.

Sermon: Becoming part of the story

My Christmas and Epiphany sermons at St Stephen Walbrook are up on the London Internet Church site and my sermon on 'The Revolutionary Magnificat' has been uploaded to the St Martin-in-the-Fields site. Here is the sermon from today's Eucharist at St Stephen Walbrook:

The favourite Christmas story of Stephen Cottrell, Bishop of Chelmsford, concerns a two year old called Miriam at a church on the edge of Chichester where he was parish priest. The red brick rectangular church seated about 80 and was full to overflowing for the Christmas Day service. As every space was taken, the crib scene had been placed under the altar.

During the service Miriam wandered into the sanctuary and stood for a while observing the nativity scene. It was a large nativity set and so the characters in the scene were about the same size as the two year old. After observing the scene for a while, Miriam carefully climbed in under the altar making her way around the characters to sit in a space within the crib scene where she then remained for the rest of the service.

What she did was essentially an acted parable to the congregation because she became part of the story. That is what happens – it is what we are doing – when we become Christians. In other words for many of us, it is what is going on when we are baptised. Baptism is our immersion in the Christian story; a story which begins with God’s creation of the universe and life on earth. It continues with our rebellion as human beings. Our saying to God that we know who we are and what we need to do and, therefore, will go ahead and do our own thing. We all live with the consequences of that right now.

But in the story which the Bible tells God does not leave us simply to do our own thing. First, he chooses the people of Israel and through his special relationship with them seeks to call all people back to their true identity and purpose and then he sends his own Son, Jesus, to reach out in rescue and return us to him. He does this so that each one of us can find our identity and purpose in God and play our part in bringing the kingdom of God in full on earth as it is in heaven.

When Jesus was baptised he was saying that he would immerse himself in this story and play his special, unique part within it. As he made that commitment, God the Father affirmed him in his identity and purpose by saying, “You are my own dear Son. I am pleased with you.” As we do what Miriam did and enter the story, then we are also affirmed by God in just the same way. St Paul writes in Romans 8. 14 – 17 that: “Those who are led by God's Spirit are God's children. For the Spirit that God has given you does not make you slaves and cause you to be afraid; instead, the Spirit makes you God's children, and by the Spirit's power we cry out to God, “Father! my Father!” God's Spirit joins himself to our spirits to declare that we are God's children. Since we are his children, we will possess the blessings he keeps for his people, and we will also possess with Christ what God has kept for him; for if we share Christ's suffering, we will also share his glory.” What he was saying is that as we enter the story we are adopted by God as his children and become brothers and sisters of Jesus, co-heirs with him of all he possesses.

How do we then play our part in the story? That all depends on our coming to know the story and what happens within it. We start by looking at what we know of the story to date – the things God has done in and through Israel, Jesus and the Church – and we also look at the hints we have about the way the story will end with the coming in full of the kingdom of God on earth as in heaven. Then we say to ourselves, ‘What is it that people do in this story? How do they act and behave? And then we start to do and say similar things as we have the opportunity. As Christians we are never given a script which has all our lines and actions printed on it. Instead, we have to improvise our part on the basis of what we know of the story so far, on the basis of the example provided by those who have lived in the story before, and on the basis of the opportunities provided in the places where we are and among the people that we know.

Living in the Christian story, therefore, is a challenge – something we should know anyway from looking at the life and death of Jesus – but it comes with the affirmation that we are part of God’s family; his dearly loved children, brothers and sisters of and co-heirs with Jesus himself. As we said last week, when we know this we can relax because whatever happens to us we are accepted, forgiven, loved and gifted by the God who created all things and who will bring all things to their rightful end.

When we do that we are like Miriam climbing in under the altar to become part of the crib scene. When we do that we become part of God’s story which makes us his children and gives us identity, purpose and meaning.

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Cristóbal de Morales - Et Factum Est Postquam.

The Christmas Revolution

'Because the Christmas story has been told so often for so long, it’s easy even for Christians to forget how revolutionary Jesus’ birth was. The idea that God would become human and dwell among us, in circumstances both humble and humiliating, shattered previous assumptions. It was through this story of divine enfleshment that much of our humanistic tradition was born ...

We Christians would do well to remind ourselves of the true meaning of the incarnation. We are part of a great drama that God has chosen to be a participant in, not in the role of a conquering king but as a suffering servant, not with the intention to condemn the world but to redeem it. He saw the inestimable worth of human life, regardless of social status, wealth and worldly achievements, intelligence or national origin. So should we.' (Peter Wehner, NY Times)

For more on the revolutionary nature of the Christmas story, see my sermon on 'The Revolutionary Magnificat'.

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Bruce Cockburn, with Lou Reed & Roseanne Cash - Cry Of A Tiny Babe.

@OurCofeE

The Church of England in 140 Characters is an exciting year long project on Twitter to tell the story of the Church of England through the eyes of its people, providing a daily insight into modern faith in action.

Each week, followers of the account will be given an insight into all the work that goes on into the day to day running of a church community from schools to chaplaincies to cathedrals. Followers will be able to peek behind the curtain of church life and see behind the scenes as they get a feel for daily life in parishes. In addition to daily life there will be a glimpse of the inevitable unusual and unexpected events that come with being part of the Church of England. Through it all the account will seek to show through thousands of tweets how God is at work in His Church each day.

From 21-27 December Katherine Hedderly from St Martin-in-the-Fields will be the host for the Church of England’s Twitter project, that tells the story of the church through the eyes of its communities around the country. She will be tweeting about the St Martin’s community each day. Do follow @OurCofE and re-tweet to share the life of St Martin’s at Christmas far and wide.

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John Telfer and Clive Hayward - I See You.

If Christ is born in you, the whole story will be transformed

At St Stephen Walbrook we have been hosting concerts, parties and services over the Advent and Christmas season for: Arthur J. Gallagher; Central London Samaritans; City of London Magistrates; Columbia Threadneedle; International Animal Rescue; Michael Varah Memorial Fund; Christ's Hospital Old Blues Association; Sir Robert McAlpine; and The Worshipful Company of Gardeners.

Tomorrow at 12.30pm our Organist, Joe Sentance will give an Organ Recital. On Christmas Eve (Thursday 24 December) at 11.30pm we will celebrate Midnight Mass by Candlelight with the Choir of St Stephen Walbrook with Organist, Joe Sentance. The setting will be Schubert in Bb and the Choir will sing 'The shepherd’s farewell' by Berlioz. The service will be followed by mince pies and hot drinks.

Here is the reflection I shared at tonight's Carol Service for Arthur J. Gallagher:

At the beginning of Monty Python’s Life of Brian there is a great scene where the Wise Men overlook Jesus’ birthplace and worship the baby Brian before, realising their mistake, they take back their gifts to give them to the actual baby Jesus. Although an amusing scene setting sketch for the rest of the movie, it is, nevertheless, based on the reality that, surprising as it seems, Jesus has always been overlooked at Christmas.

Think about the Christmas story for a moment; Jesus spent his first night sleeping in an animal’s feeding trough because there was no room for him in the guest room of the home in Bethlehem where his family were staying, the Shepherds needed a fanfare of angels before they knew of his birth, while the Wise Men looked for him in a palace when he was actually to be found in an ordinary home. So it is no surprise that today many people still overlook the person at the heart of Christmas in the busyness of life and Christmas preparations and others overlook him by creating supposedly PC festivals like Winterval.

Jesus has always been overlooked at Christmas and one of the reasons for that is that he came to be one of us, God with us, which is what the name Emmanuel means. Born in an obscure village, working in a carpenter’s shop, never writing a book, never holding an office, never having a family or owning a house, never going to college, never travelling two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He did none of the things we usually associate with greatness. He is God become an ordinary person just like us. And therefore he is easy to overlook.

But just as the Shepherds and Wise Men did seek him out and find him, those who genuinely look for Jesus this Christmas will find him. And if you are prepared to seek him out, I can guarantee that you will find he is the greatest gift that any of us can receive, both at Christmas and any other time in our lives.

As a result, the story of Jesus’ birth that you have listened to today will have real meaning as you take it to heart. The 17th century German mystic, Angelus Silesius, warns us:

Though Christ a thousand times
In Bethlehem be born
If he’s not born in thee,
Thou art still forlorn.

If Christ is not born in you as you listen and sing, this time together will be pleasant but not life changing. But if Christ is born in you then the whole story will be transformed. It will become your story. You will be able to say:

Christ born in a stable
is born in me.
Christ accepted by shepherds
accepts me.
Christ receiving the wise men
receives me.
Christ revealed to the nations
be revealed in me.
Christ dwelling in Nazareth
You dwell in me.

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Annie Lennox - See Amid The Winter's Snow.

East London Three Faiths Forum Tour of the Holy Land: Reports

In summing up the East London Three Faiths Forum Tour of the Holy Land, I wrote:

The word that has been on everyone's lips has been 'memorable' and that was certainly how it felt for me. The mix of sites from our scriptures and subsequent histories combined with the experience of the current political and cultural situation was fascinating and opened up many new perspectives for future reflection. To have these experiences with a group of people committed to their beliefs but seeking to understand and appreciate that of others was often deeply moving. For me it reinforced a sense that God is often to be found less in the basic tenets of our faiths and more in the stories we tell from our scriptures and the ensuing discussion and debate as we seek to ascertain what those stories might be saying to us, for us and in us.

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Sheva - The Prophets Dance.

East London Three Faiths Forum Tour of the Holy Land: Day 7

Our Tour ended at Yad Vashem where among the various quotations and installations was an excerpt from the book The Last of the Just by Andre Schwarz-Bart. As a result of this visit I wrote the following poem which I present in a similar collaged style to the excerpt from The Last of the Just:

Clouds mass. And praised. Over Yad Vashem. Be. Last stop. The Lord. Of Tour. And praised. End of. Be. Dry season. The Lord. Rain falls. And praised. Lightning flashes. Be. God cries. The Lord. Real tears. Amen.

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John Williams & Itzhak Perlman - Schindler's List Theme.