Living in the dance of love

Photographs by Dean Xolani Dlwati

The Friends of St Martin-in-the-Fields aim to form a link between members of the congregation, those who can no longer participate and visitors attracted by what they find here. There are many reasons why people become members, some have had family connections in the past, some feel drawn to St Martin’s after a visit and want to forge a link with their spiritual home in London, others wish to keep in touch because of the worship and music.

Today was the annual Friends Festival. This year’s theme was Building Relationships and we celebrated the relationships being fostered within the Nazareth Community and the Sunday International Group, and were joined by Very Revd Xolani Dlwati, Dean of the Cathedral of St Mary the Virgin, Johannesburg. 

Here's my sermon from today's Friends Festival at St Martin-in-the-Fields:
"What the world needs now is love, sweet love / It's the only thing that there's just too little of.." are lines from a song with lyrics by Hal David and music composed by Burt Bacharach that was first recorded and made popular in 1965 by Jackie DeShannon.

As Christians we believe that God is love, so our take on the song would be that the world needs more of God in order to build relationships of love. We read that God is love in the first letter of John and our knowledge of God’s love is linked there to Christ’s death on the cross; an understanding of love as sacrifice which we will remember and celebrate together in our Eucharist. However, as last Sunday was Trinity Sunday and we are still using the collect for Trinity Sunday, we are reminded of a different model of God’s love, which is about connection and communication – two key elements in the building of all relationships.

On the night before he died Jesus prayed that his disciples might be one as he is one with God the Father and God the Spirit within the Trinity. Within the Trinity there is community and unity, making the Godhead the wellspring from which we receive love and life. The Greek Fathers called the relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit perichoresis, which “means ‘to dance around one another in relationship’ … peri meaning around, and choreio to dance” (Touching the Sacred, Chris Thorpe and Jake Lever, Canterbury Press).

That is why our Eucharistic Prayer for Sunday included these words: Triune God, in the dance of your love we see your nature as utter relationship. Your three persons gaze in mutual attention, relish each other in deep delight and work together in true partnership. So, at the heart of the Godhead is a community where love is constantly being shared and exchanged between Father, Son and Holy Spirit and this exchange or dance of love holds the three persons of the Trinity together in unity. Divine Love notices and listens. Love speaks out of a desire to share One’s heart honestly and respond to the heart of the Other. Love is deep communication that allows One to take the Other fully into account. Conversation is central to the loving relationships within God.

It was out of the overflow of this love that the world was created. In Genesis 1 we read ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness.’ Creation, therefore, took place in the midst of a divine committee meaning that we are a social people because God is social. As the paraphrase of John 1 that we have had as our Gospel reading puts it, ‘It all arose out of a conversation, conversation within God, in fact the conversation was God. So God started the discussion, and everything came out of this, and nothing happened without consultation.’

It was also out of the overflow of this love that Jesus came into our world to open up a way for us to participate in the relationship of love that is constantly being shared between Father, Son and Spirit. The subject of the conversation, Jesus, came into the world to flesh out the words and invite us to join the conversation. Through Jesus’ incarnation we are given a glimpse of the dance of love - the relationships among Father, Son and Spirit - and what we see is that Father, Son and Spirit are in a constant conversation.

God intends to embrace all creation within the fellowship of the Three. God’s mission is to form communities that reflect and embody the life of the Trinity. If we live in God, we live in love and love lives in us. We become included in the constant exchange of love which exists in the Godhead. That is why we prayed last Sunday, ‘Make your church a community across time and space that enjoys the gift of your life and imitates the wonder of your glory, until we all come into your presence and gaze upon your glory, God in three persons, blessed Trinity.’ For that to happen, God needs us to be in conversation with him so that we can find her for ourselves and actually embody his characteristics and interests ourselves by learning to do right through discussion rather than by rote. As we listen to God and speak with God through each other, the Trinity knits us into the kind of community that Father, Son and Spirit share among themselves.

In 1992 the World Council of Churches published a short but influential book by Raymond Fung called ‘The Isaiah Vision’. In this book Fung set out a simple but profound agenda for social action based on the vision in Isaiah 65 for God’s new heaven and earth. In this vision: infants survive into adulthood with good health; older people live in dignity; there is decent housing for everyone; work is there for all who want it; and different kinds of people live together in harmony. The main features of this vision are good health and long productive lives, shelter, food, work that benefits the worker, and peace. In the Isaiah vision for the world no one would have power over another in such a way that the less powerful are deprived. It is a vision of a settled, creative and fulfilled community and, as such, one where people are released from struggle to focus better on their spiritual lives and their devotion to God.

Sam Wells has spoken of a similar vision in relation to St Martin’s and our vision of church renewal through HeartEdge and our other partnership initiatives. He has said that: “What the world needs more than anything else is communities of trust and support and love that show what kind of life is possible when we believe that God is sovereign, when we place our trust and security there. We need people and communities that believe in the power of God, that believe in the role of the church, and that are content to live through no other power than the means of grace God has given us. We need people who will believe in God’s gifts and remind us why we practise them.”

In conversation with God we, and our partners, can become recognisable communities of hope, embodying a liberating story of reconciliation and grace. In conversation with God, we, and our partners, can become distinctive congregations whose life is shaped and renewed through the energy and gifts of those ‘on the edge’. In conversation with God we, and our partners, can become faithful disciples who have discovered how God is made known in times of adversity and who thus walk with the dispossessed in order to be close to God. In conversation with God we, and our partners, can become fertile centres of creative and artistic flourishing through which people apprehend beauty in the world and talent in themselves and in one another. In conversation with God we, and our partners, can be thriving churches that are seen as an unqualified blessing by their neighbourhoods and nation.

St Martin’s has already generated many inspiring embodiments of such renewal, both within the congregation and in our wider community of organisations. Our fledgling Nazareth Community crystallises what it means to build relationship with God by growing deeper as a community of faith in commitment to silence, sacrament, study, service and sharing. The Nazareth Community, already 48-strong, promises to become a model of integrating personal devotion with humble encounter, generous welcome, diverse community and corporate commitment – and thus provides a template of what congregational renewal looks like.

Our Sunday International Group is a dynamic ministry which aims to provide a place of welcome, hospitality and sanctuary for foreign nationals who are destitute in London. Alongside the practical help, it offers an opportunity for members of the congregation to sit alongside people and build relationships. As one volunteer said, “We do not glamorise their need. It is acute and often heartbreaking. But, for a few hours, we live side by side. We hand out food and clothes, sure. But over time, we listen, eat and laugh together. And Christ, too, is with us.” In this way the Sunday International Group has brought marginalised people to faith and membership of the congregation and galvanised fringe church attenders into energised believers. As Friends you support this work financially and many of you by volunteering.

We have also seen an exciting renewal in our partnership with St Mary’s Cathedral Johannesburg following Dean Xolani’s visit here in 2015. When Richard Carter and Mike Wooldridge then visited St Mary’s in 2016 to share in the life and ministry of the Cathedral, they discovered a church with a rich history of prayer and resistance during the apartheid era, but now facing new challenges: worshipping in the centre of Johannesburg with difficult access and an intimidating atmosphere and crime. Since the Dean arrived the congregation has grown in size and commitment, and there is a desire to draw more people into the Cathedral to share its story of hope. An action-packed small choir visit in May 2017 built further strong relationships. Music provides a common language to cut across cultural division and celebrate the riches of our faith and traditions. The Dean and four members of St Mary’s then came on a return visit in June. They were introduced to the whole St Martin’s community, learning from our business, our work with homeless people, HeartEdge, and cultural programming in and beyond St Martin’s. Now Dean Xolani, together with his daughter, is with us on sabbatical and in the autumn our Choir will visit with support from you, the Friends. In these ways we are building up our partnership that through a richer understanding of each other we may all grow in knowledge and love of God.

The conversations that we share and the people whose lives interweave with ours in these groups and partnerships are not just verbal conversations – they are conversations of actions, of silence, of prayer and of justice. They are conversations of journey and the investment of relationship. In these conversations we come to know ourselves as surrounded by and filled by the love which overflows from the Trinity, understanding that such love involves the continual giving and receiving of affirmation and authority as we seek to live in and through the dance of love in the complexities of human relationships, alliances, coalitions, collaborations and unions. Within the Holy Trinity, we strive to be a dancing community of divine poverty. Each eternally, joyfully, dispossessing ourselves; emptying, pouring ourselves out to the favour and glory of the other. Nothing claimed, demanded or grasped; living and knowing each other in the simple ecstasy of giving, which is the unity and community of the Triune God (D. Runcorn, Choice, Desire and the Will of God, SPCK).

As Friends of St Martin’s you exist to communicate the vision and support the mission of St Martin’s. That means saying that what the world needs now is love, sweet love. What the world needs now are communities of trust and support and love that show what kind of life is possible when we believe that God is sovereign, when we place our trust and security there. What the world needs now are people and communities that believe in the power of God, that believe in the role of the church, and that are content to live through no other power than the means of grace God has given us.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Holy Cross Choir - Umoya Wami.

Sermon: Homelessness Sunday

Here is the sermon I preached today for Homelessness Sunday at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. This passage from Isaiah (9. 1 - 4) which we have heard throughout Advent and Christmas provides a paradigm through which we can consider our current experience of homelessness. It enables us to reflect on the journey that those leaving the streets make from darkness to light and to consider what the breaking of the yoke of oppression in a nation in order that all people experience abundance and joy might mean today for those who are homeless.

To be homeless is in a very real sense to walk in darkness. Those who are rough sleeping are exposed and vulnerable in the darkness of the night. It is difficult to avoid slipping into hopelessness and despair. In the dark you are invisible and that cloak of invisibility is what seems to cover people who embarrass society (us) with their need, their lack of a place to be, their unbelonging. Our Christmas Appeal told the story of Richard, whose story shows how quickly and easily people can move from relative stability and security into the dark place that is homelessness. Two and a half years ago Richard was a stay at home dad living in a nice apartment, in a nice complex in a very nice part of town. His relationship with his wife broke down and he started sleeping rough over the road from where he had been living so he could look after his children and take them to school. From that point onwards, he says, “Things started going downhill.”

When people are in this dark place it is very hard to then move back into the light. It has taken Richard over two to get to the point where he is leaving the support of The Connection at St Martin’s in order to stand on his own two feet. With the help of staff at The Connection, Richard is now living in Building Prospects, affordable housing managed by The Connection in Westminster, where he sees his children regularly. He has also worked hard to gain skills, completing the Build a Bike course, passing the European Computer Driving Licence and completing a year-long course in massage therapy – all to be able support himself in the future, as his eyesight declines. He has also sought solace by working in the Art Room, alongside Mark, Art Tutor at The Connection. “I do a lot of art,” he said, because “you have to do something which takes things out of your head… I now do it four mornings a week and it helps. It really does.” Richard’s next step is to work as a trainee in a hostel for homeless women, putting into practice some of the skills he’s learnt while at The Connection.

Richard’s story is of a slow but steady return from the darkness but the experience of trying to leave the darkness is not always so consistent. I recently talked and prayed with another homeless man who has had support from The Connection and from our church. He has had periods of getting clean from drugs and as a result being able to find accommodation and hold down jobs, as well as periods where he has relapsed and lost the positive progress he had earlier achieved. This man was very aware of how easy it is to relapse and of the extent to which he was in a situation where the temptation to relapse was very strong and surrounded him constantly. It was for that reason he had sought prayer and the support of a regular worshipping community.

Our reading from Isaiah promises the light of hope, the lifting of burdens and the smashing of oppression. Homeless individuals can be supported into new homes, as we have heard, and vulnerable people prevented from becoming homeless. That is a message which has been part of our history here at St Martin’s as well as being part of our ongoing ministry. Our worship on Homeless Sunday is an opportunity to celebrate work that tackles the problem of homelessness and the stories of people who are no longer struggling with their housing. Here, at St Martin’s, we particularly celebrate the work of The Connection, the Vicar’s Relief Fund and the Sunday International Group which is differing ways bring the light of hope into the lives of those who are their users and guests. The Connection helps by providing a range of specialist services, all under one roof, which enable people to address their homelessness and make the necessary steps away from the streets so they can re-enter society and live ‘normally’ again. The Vicar’s Relief Fund provides a rapid response service by awarding small but essential grants to help alleviate housing difficulties for vulnerable people in their time of need helping prevent homelessness happening in the first place and our Sunday International Group provides hospitality to those who have no recourse to public funds.

This means that our engagement here with homelessness is extensive and significant, but the paradigm provided by our passage from Isaiah suggests that by themselves these organisations and services are not enough to prevent homelessness occurring. For that to happen, our society and our social and political structures need to be transformed in ways that prevent homelessness happening in the first place. The passage says that before a sense of abundance and joy in which all can share can be seen and felt within the nation, a yoke or rod of oppression has to be broken. That yoke or rod of oppression is the social and political structures which cause homelessness within our society. The extreme growth in the numbers rough sleeping across the UK and in Westminster is not attributable simply to the individuals themselves but also to political policies that have left those individuals unable to remain in the security and stability of their homes.

Shelter recently claimed that two families in London are made homeless every hour. Their prediction, based on government homeless statistics, is that 1,260 families in the capital will lose their home in the next month and 7,370 over the next six months - the equivalent of a household every 34 and 35 minutes respectively. The number reported sleeping rough in England has more than doubled between 2010 and 2015. In 2015, the last year for we currently have figures, the increase was 30%. There was a time in the UK when rough sleeping seemed to have been nearly eradicated but we know, only too well, from our own experience here in Westminster that that is now far from being the case.

What has changed in that time? The government’s reforms surrounding Welfare have included caps to the local housing allowance, possible reductions in the amount paid to supported accommodation providers, individual sanctions and caps on the total amount of benefit for individual households. The effects of these Welfare reforms have been wide-ranging and impactful. While welfare reform is certainly a threat to increasing homelessness, cuts to revenue budgets in local authorities, with consequences for staffing levels in homelessness services, social work and related departments have also bitten hard. On Friday it was announced that Sunderland’s budget for homelessness services is facing a 100% cut. In the next round of austerity cuts other councils will be forced to take similar measures. The pressures of cuts in local authority budgets don’t just affect the homelessness service itself. They are being felt in lots of areas which meet (or should meet) the needs of homeless people, such as mental health care, substance abuse and recovery services, educational welfare services etc.

Welfare reforms and austerity cuts have been introduced at a time when we are not building enough new places for people to live: ‘Current rates of housebuilding in England are below half the level needed to meet existing and anticipated demand for new homes’. A further factor in this mix of government policies is the fact that migrants from the Eastern EU countries must first work for 12 months before they qualify for any state benefit. Should someone from one of those countries become unemployed, they are therefore at greater risk of becoming street homeless. This is reflected in the fact that 36% of rough sleepers came from one of those countries; a 188% increase since 2009/10.

While political policies are not the only factor causing homelessness in the UK, the combined effect of welfare reforms, austerity cuts, immigration controls and a lack of affordable housing has come at a time when there has been a considerable increase in rough sleeping across the country and especially here in Westminster. Therefore I do see this combination of government policies as a yoke of oppression causing homelessness and making the journey back from darkness to light more difficult to achieve. As Isaiah states, the yoke of oppression must be broken before there is any widespread prospect for rough sleepers and sofa surfers to experience abundance or joy within our nation.

Yet our reading insists that the light of hope remains. Where can that light be found in relation to our current political and social situation? Our worship on Homeless Sunday is intended as an opportunity to take our engagement with homelessness a step higher. How can we do that? Our newest initiative funded by our Christmas Appeal is the St Martin’s Frontline Network, through which we are seeking to find ways of transforming the social and political structures which cause the increase in rough sleeping that we see all around us.

The Frontline Network is the network of support workers who request grants from the Vicar’s Relief Fund on behalf of their clients. These support workers are on the frontline working with vulnerable housed people across the UK and they are, as a result, able to identify the issues and policies which cause homelessness to occur. The Frontline Network seeks to harness the ideas, energy and experience of those at the frontline working alongside homeless and vulnerably housed people in order to make a positive change in reducing homelessness in the UK. I wonder, therefore, whether we, at St Martin’s, can work together with the Frontline Network to build relationships, develop ideas and communicate the experience of the frontline to policy makers so that our social and political structures can be transformed in ways which prevent homelessness happening in the first place.

Were that to happen, we would see in our own day and time the light of hope, the lifting of burdens and the smashing of oppression of which Isaiah spoke. We would enable the journey, from darkness to light, that those sleeping rough, like Richard, have to travel, to become less burdensome and difficult. The story Richard told for the Christmas Appeal ended with him saying, that “in the next couple of weeks, I’ll be out of The Connection … [but] everything I’ve learned here, everything to get into work, everything for the skills is down to this place.” If the yoke of oppression caused by current government policies were to be broken, more rough sleepers would be able to say the same and the flow of people joining them on the streets would reduce. May that become our experience as we support not only The Connection, the VRF and the Sunday International Group but now also the Frontline Network too.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sinead O'Connor - Streets Of London.

Grief & Hope: reflecting on the refugee crisis

Grief & Hope: reflecting on the refugee crisis began with Michael Takeo Magruder sharing his interest in working with a range of digital technologies and physical materials to blend new and old, aligning contemporary art and theological study, creating new ways of looking at ancient texts and making them relevant for modern audiences

For Stations of the Cross 2016 he was commissioned to create an artwork for the 13th station, in which Christ’s body is taken down from the cross. His work, Lamentation for the Forsaken, “offers a lamentation not only for the forsaken Christ, but others who have felt his acute pain of abandonment. In particular, he evokes the memory of Syrians who have passed away in the present conflict, weaving their names and images into a contemporary Shroud of Turin”

Dionne Gravesande explained how Christian Aid work with partners in the ACT Alliance and other agencies to support practical and political action to help those fleeing conflicts, and address the longer term issues. Christian Aid urge governments to play a full and constructive role in efforts to find safe routes, and provide adequate support for refugees world-wide. And we appeal to them to meet fully their own international, legal obligations to all those affected, respecting their universal rights and demonstrating care and compassion rather than just being driven by alarmist headlines at home. To support refugees in Europe and to help people in the countries they are fleeing from, please donate to Christian Aid's Refugee Crisis Appeal here.

Revd Richard Carter spoke of the way in which many at St Martin-in-the-Fields have been coming to see, listen and learn more about the people that are very much part of our congregation. They are not “homeless people”, they are people, real people with such gifts to share. At the Sunday International Group which offers welcome and hospitality to foreign nationals facing destitution in London, they have met people from more than 26 different countries and have been enriched by each other. Many people talk about this meeting being the highlight of the week and that includes both guests and hosts. Why? Richard believes it to be because they discover in one another how we all long to belong and the joy of both giving and receiving. It is not an exaggeration to say that in this meeting they discover our humanity.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Michael Takeo Magruder - Apocalypse Now?