That the world may believe

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

“They love every one, but are persecuted by all … Their names are blackened and yet they are cleared. They are mocked and bless in return. They are treated outrageously and behave respectfully to others. When they do good, they are punished as evildoers; when punished, they rejoice as if being given new life.”

That is how Christians were described in the Letter to Diognetus which may have been written in the second century. Tertullian, one of the leaders in the early Church, in his 2nd century defense of Christians remarks how Christian love attracted pagan notice: "What marks us in the eyes of our enemies is our loving kindness. 'Only look' they say, 'look how they love one another'" (Apology 39).

This is what Jesus anticipated when he prayed that his disciples would be completely one in order that the world may know that he was sent by God the Father and they are loved by the Father just as Jesus is loved by the Father (John 17.18-23). As Lesslie Newbigin has written “this manifest unity in the one name will challenge the world to recognise that the name of Jesus is not the name of “one of the prophets” but the name of the one sent by the Father to whom all that belongs to the Father has been given.” The sign to the world that Jesus is who he claimed to be is to be, and has actually been at times in the past, the love and unity of the Church.

Therefore, the lack of unity, as expressed in the way discussions are conducted, that is currently found within the Church of England and within the Anglican Communion over issues of sexuality deeply grieves God and has a profound effect on the Church’s ability to witness to the truth of Jesus. It also reveals the extent to which we have not fully understood or received the love of the Father and the Son. It is not that difficult debates cannot go on - they absolutely should - but we need to have such discussions without impacting our unity.  

Jesus’ prayer is that the love which the Father has for the Son will also be in his disciples. It is as we know that love in our lives that we are able to love and be united with the wider Church. The Church is based not on our natural liking of each other instead the Church is based on our being caught up into the love relationship that exists between Father and Son and knowing both ourselves and each other to be loved in precisely the same way.

Richard Burridge has written that, “such unity is rooted in the life of God: ‘as you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us.’ Jesus answered Philip’s desire to see the Father with ‘I am in the Father and the Father in me.’ This unity between the Father and the Son is to be shared through the indwelling of the Spirit with all who love him. Thus the command to ‘love one another’ is ‘new’, because it is no mere moral exhortation, but a sharing in the life of God, ‘as I have loved you’.

Stephen Verney has called this love relationship between the Father and the Son, the dance of love. He describes it like this:

“The Son can do nothing of himself”, [Jesus] says, “but only what he sees the Father doing” … He looks, and what he sees the Father doing, that he does; he listens, and what he hears the Father saying, that he says. The other side of the equation – of the choreography – is the generosity of the Father. “The Father loves the Son, and reveals to him everything which he is doing”, and furthermore, he gives him authority to do “out of himself” all that the Father does, and can never cease to do because it flows “out of himself”. In that dance of love between them, says Jesus, “I and the Father are one.” The Son cries “Abba! Father!” and the Father cries “my beloved Son”, and the love which leaps between them is Holy Spirit – the Spirit of God, God himself, for God is Spirit and God is Love.”

We become part of the love relationship when we become Christians as Burridge reminded us; to love one another is no mere moral exhortation but a sharing in the life of God. So that is the question for us tonight, and for the Church of England and the Anglican Communion at this moment in its life and history, to what extent are we actually sharing in the life of God? To what extent are we participating in the love that exists between God the Father and God the Son? If we are, then both our words and actions towards our fellow Christians will be words and actions of love leading to unity? If we are not, then the reverse will be true.

So, can we today regret our failure to participate more fully in the love that exists between the Father and the Son? Will we today ask to participate more fully in that love? Our answers are vital, not merely for ourselves, but for the witness of the Church to Christ. “Jesus brings together the unity he has with the Father and the love of the disciples for one another – but it is not just to generate warm feelings of togetherness. The purpose is for the continuing mission, ‘that the world may believe that you have sent me’. The world, Burridge writes, does not naturally ponder the internal relationships of the Holy Trinity, but when it sees Christians living this self-sacrificial love then it is challenged to think again. As were the writer of the Letter to Diognetus and those of whom Tertullian wrote:

“They love every one, but are persecuted by all … Their names are blackened and yet they are cleared. They are mocked and bless in return. They are treated outrageously and behave respectfully to others. When they do good, they are punished as evildoers; when punished, they rejoice as if being given new life.”

"What marks us in the eyes of our enemies is our loving kindness. 'Only look' they say, 'look how they love one another'".

May it be so for us. Amen.

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Eternal Ruler Of The Ceaseless Round.

Forget self and carry your cross

Here's the sermon that I shared today at St Mary Magdalene, Great Burstead:

Chapter meetings are the regular meeting for all the clergy and readers in a Deanery. In a previous Deanery we had some sessions where we shared with each other our thoughts and feelings about ministry. At one meeting we shared our motivations for ministry and, at another, we talked about those things that we found threatening in ministry.

Talking about the things we find threatening is itself a slightly threatening thing to do. Think about your life and work for a moment and the things that you find threatening. You might find yourself talking about tensions in relationships, unethical work practices, increasing demands on your time, the possibility of redundancy, mounting debts, nuisance neighbours, racial tensions, or fear of crime, among many other possibilities. Sharing things that we find threatening can open up some very personal things and so we felt vulnerable at that Chapter meeting as we shared together.

But although we felt vulnerable during the meeting, as we shared things that were personal to us, we did not go away from the meeting continuing to feel vulnerable. Instead, as each person shared, we felt a closer identification with each other and were able to support each other by praying together before we left. In that meeting our willingness to be vulnerable moved us to a place of greater understanding and support for each other.

As we go about our daily lives there are many situations in which we can make us ourselves vulnerable. Each time we come to church we publicly confess our sins. If we genuinely do this and genuinely understand the significance of what we are saying and doing together, then we are all publicly acknowledging specific failures in our lives, relationships and witness during the past week. That is, or should be, a place of vulnerability. As we care for others, we experience vulnerability. In a serious illness, we can see a person that we love decline mentally and physically sometimes with little that we can do to prevent that. We are torn up inside but need to stay in that place of vulnerability in order to support that person in their illness. When we witness crime, do we call the Police or intervene? Doing either may also make us vulnerable. In our world, we are faced with significant issues of disadvantage and oppression. If we take a stand on these issues then, again, we can make ourselves vulnerable.

In our Gospel reading (Mark 8: 27 – end) Jesus said that those who follow him must forget self and carry their cross. Those who want to follow him have to lose their lives, he says. This is the ultimate vulnerability and it is what Jesus modelled for us by going to the cross with all the rejection and suffering that that particularly horrific form of death involved. But Jesus is quite clear and specific in what he says. That is what he had to do, anyone who tried to prevent that from happening was doing the Devil’s work (even if that person was Peter, the leader of Jesus’ disciples and the person who had just realised who Jesus actually was), and we are to follow in his footsteps. This is a call into vulnerability coming from a God who deliberately makes himself so weak that human beings can take him and kill him.

It is an incredible statement that contradicts our gut human instinct about the right way to live life. Scientists tell us that life is about the survival of the fittest and what follows from that is that living selfishly by protecting ourselves and our interests is the way to survive in life. That is our gut instinct as human beings about life. We see it in many words and phrases that are in common usage. We’ve all heard people talk about looking after No. 1 or how you’ve got to look out for yourself because if you don’t know one else will. Much of the way we organise society is about reducing our sense of vulnerability through extra security or by minimising pain. Faced with a crime situation many people will simply pass by rather than help and we often try to lead a quiet life rather than take a stand on issues in our community and world.

Jesus says that when we live like that, trying to save our own lives, that actually we lose them. When we live life by thinking of ourselves, protecting ourselves, building barriers between ourselves and others, then we have missed the whole point of life and cannot live a life of real engagement with God, other people and the world in which we live. In other words, when we live selfishly, we are dead to the world and all that is in it.

The alternative that Jesus maps out for us here is scary but it is the way, he says, to real life. “Whoever wants to save his own life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.”

Why is it that vulnerability will lead us into real life? The Chapter meetings I mentioned give us a clue. As we make ourselves vulnerable to others, we find what we share in common (we can’t find that out if we’re only thinking of ourselves) and we find ways in which we can help or support each other and ways in which we can work together for the good of all (we can’t find that out if we only want things for ourselves). Through the experience of vulnerability, we are born into a new world, a new way of life; a shared way of life.

This is an experience of resurrection which is what Jesus promised to those who are prepared to lose their selfish way of life for his sake. It is what Jesus himself knew he would experience: “The Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the Law. He will be put to death, but three days later he will rise to life.” Paul wrote that Jesus’ death has destroyed the diving wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile making one people who are reconciled to God. That is resurrection. That is losing your life in order to find it. That is leaving selfishness through vulnerability in order to find solidarity.

We are called, as followers of Jesus, into this way of life. It is scary, there are no two ways about it. None of us feel comfortable with vulnerability – whether it is emotional, physical or spiritual vulnerability. But it is our willingness, Jesus says, to become vulnerable with others that leads into the experience of unity and solidarity that is a resurrection into the way that life was created to be. We are not created for selfishness we are created to love God and to love others and we only truly live when we do so. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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Adrian Snell - Son 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.

Living and loving in Truth

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Mary's Runwell and St Nicholas Laindon this morning;

Last year was the twentieth anniversary of my ordination. I can still remember well the beginning of my training for ordination and the circumstances, changes and feelings involved for me and my family in the challenges of that new beginning. For me, my ministerial studies involved exploring my faith more deeply through theological study and responding to the challenge of exploring many different understandings of what ordained ministry would involve. I had fears about the impact that my change of vocation would have on my family, as they began to experience what life as a clergy family was going to involve. I was also unsure about the extent to which I could meet the expectations that others might place on me once I put on ‘the collar’.

Our Gospel reading (John 17.6-19) takes us into a similar period of change for Jesus’ disciples. Our reading is part of the prayer that Jesus prayed for his disciples on the night before he died and it is a prayer about vocation for those disciples. Chronologically this prayer comes before Jesus’ Ascension, but, in terms of its content, it is a post-Ascension prayer because Jesus’ 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 today on three aspects of the section of Jesus’ prayer that we have as today’s Gospel reading. The three aspects are unity, protection and sanctification; but before considering those things, I want us to note that the prayer which Jesus began on earth continues in eternity. In Hebrews 7:25 we read that Jesus ‘always lives to make intercession’ for us and, in Romans 8:34, St Paul writes: ‘Christ Jesus … is at the right hand of God [and] intercedes for us.’ Many of us will have experienced the benefit, particularly in times of stress and trial, of knowing that others are praying for us and that we are, therefore, regularly on their minds and in their hearts. These verses assure us that we are constantly and eternally on the mind and heart of God and Jesus is consistently sending his love to us in the form of his prayers. That reality underpins this prayer and can be a source of strength and comfort to us, particularly when times are tough.

What Jesus prays in today’s Gospel reading, he continues to pray in eternity, so let’s think now about the first aspect of Jesus’ prayer for us, which is unity. 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. 

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 caught up in conflict around our world currently. Their need to be protected is one that can be met by ceasefires, provision of aid and then home building, underpinned by prayer. Similarly, church communities can provide tangible protection. I remember hearing a guest of the Sunday International Group at St Martin-in-the-Fields say that that church had 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. Jesus said that God’s name had been given to him and that he had 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. That 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.

It was in my ordination training that I discovered and experienced the reality of these things in a new way for myself. Through debate and discussion with others on my course I was able to re-examine my faith while also being held by the sense of unity that we quickly developed despite our differences. Those relationships have proved extremely strong and necessary as our ordained ministries have later been lived out. My fears about my personal inadequacy and the pressures there would be for my family were eased through a sense that we were on an unfolding journey of discovering God’s love which protects and sanctifies.

I moved from an understanding of God as being there for us – the one who fixes us and who fixes the world for us – to an understanding that we are in God – that in him we live and move and have our being. Because we are with God and in God and God in us, we can and will act in ways that are God-like and Godly. That happens not because we hold a particular set of beliefs or follow a particular set of rules, instead it 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 his love. Jesus prays constantly 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. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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The Call - Everywhere I Go.

Look how they love one another

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

“They love every one, but are persecuted by all … Their names are blackened and yet they are cleared. They are mocked and bless in return. They are treated outrageously and behave respectfully to others. When they do good, they are punished as evildoers; when punished, they rejoice as if being given new life.”

That is how Christians were described in the Letter to Diognetus which may have been written in the second century. Tertullian, one of the leaders in the early Church, in his 2nd century defense of Christians remarks how Christian love attracted pagan notice: "What marks us in the eyes of our enemies is our loving kindness. 'Only look' they say, 'look how they love one another'" (Apology 39).

This is what Jesus anticipated when he prayed that his disciples would be completely one in order that the world may know that he was sent by God the Father and they are loved by the Father just as Jesus is loved by the Father (John 17.18-23). As Lesslie Newbigin has written “this manifest unity in the one name will challenge the world to recognise that the name of Jesus is not the name of “one of the prophets” but the name of the one sent by the Father to whom all that belongs to the Father has been given.” The sign to the world that Jesus is who he claimed to be is to be, and has actually been at times in the past, the love and unity of the Church.

Therefore, whenever there is a lack of unity in the Church it deeply grieves God and has a profound effect on the Church’s ability to witness to the truth of Jesus. It also reveals the extent to which we have not fully understood or received the love of the Father and the Son. Jesus’ prayer is that the love which the Father has for the Son will also be in his disciples. It is as we know that love in our lives that we are able to love and be united with the wider Church. The Church is based not on our natural liking of each other instead the Church is based on our being caught up into the love relationship that exists between Father and Son and knowing both ourselves and each other to be loved in precisely the same way.

Richard Burridge has written that, “such unity is rooted in the life of God: ‘as you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us.’ Jesus answered Philip’s desire to see the Father with ‘I am in the Father and the Father in me.’ This unity between the Father and the Son is to be shared through the indwelling of the Spirit with all who love him. Thus the command to ‘love one another’ is ‘new’, because it is no mere moral exhortation, but a sharing in the life of God, ‘as I have loved you’.

Stephen Verney has called this love relationship between the Father and the Son, the dance of love. He describes it like this: “The Son can do nothing of himself”, [Jesus] says, “but only what he sees the Father doing” … He looks, and what he sees the Father doing, that he does; he listens, and what he hears the Father saying, that he says. The other side of the equation – of the choreography – is the generosity of the Father. “The Father loves the Son, and reveals to him everything which he is doing”, and furthermore, he gives him authority to do “out of himself” all that the Father does, and can never cease to do because it flows “out of himself”. In that dance of love between them, says Jesus, “I and the Father are one.” The Son cries “Abba! Father!” and the Father cries “my beloved Son”, and the love which leaps between them is Holy Spirit – the Spirit of God, God himself, for God is Spirit and God is Love.”

We become part of the love relationship when we become Christians as Burridge reminded us; to love one another is no mere moral exhortation but a sharing in the life of God. So today we need to ask ourselves to what extent are we participating in the love that exists between God the Father and God the Son? If we are, then both our words and actions towards our fellow Christians will be words and actions of love leading to unity? If we are not, then the reverse will be true.

“Jesus brings together the unity he has with the Father and the love of the disciples for one another – but it is not just to generate warm feelings of togetherness. The purpose is for the continuing mission, ‘that the world may believe that you have sent me’.” The world, Burridge writes, does not naturally ponder the internal relationships of the Holy Trinity, but when it sees Christians living this self-sacrificial love then it is challenged to think again. As were the writer of the Letter to Diognetus and those of whom Tertullian wrote:

“They love every one, but are persecuted by all … Their names are blackened and yet they are cleared. They are mocked and bless in return. They are treated outrageously and behave respectfully to others. When they do good, they are punished as evildoers; when punished, they rejoice as if being given new life.”

"What marks us in the eyes of our enemies is our loving kindness. 'Only look' they say, 'look how they love one another'".

May it be so for us. Amen.

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Blessid Union of Souls - I Believe.

The way to unity is through diversity

Here's the sermon I shared in the 8.00 am service at St Mary Magdalene, Great Burstead, this morning:

In the culture of Jesus’ day, those with disabilities were often excluded from their community because of their disability. We see this in the Gospels in references to disabled people living outside villages and towns and being beggars on the streets. Those who were Jews, were excluded from worship at the Temple because of their disability. Jesus’ acts of healing were, therefore, acts of inclusion because, as a result, those healed were reintegrated into their community. For those who were Jews, we often read of these people being sent to authorities after their healing in other that they can return to their communities.

Despite this, as the theologian John Hull has noted, many disabled people rightly ‘claim the Bible and Christian faith are not so much part of the answer but part of the problem.’ He notes that ‘many Christians still persist with a literal concept of miracle, and the imitation of Christ is sometimes thought to involve healing miracles for disabled people.’ In addition, ‘the Bible itself depicts many disabilities in a negative way.’ ‘He gives blindness as one example, due to his personal experience of this condition, which ‘is frequently used as a metaphor for sin and unbelief.’ This is a metaphor taken from the world of sighted people and used to marginalise and demean the world of blind people. The result of these negative features of the [Christian] tradition’, John Hull says, ‘is that disabled people usually find better things to do on a Sunday morning than go to church’ (https://faithinhealth.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/theology-of-disability-health-and-healing-conference.pdf and http://www.johnmhull.biz/A%20Spirituality%20of%20Disability1.htm).

That situation is the reverse of Jesus’ intent when he healed. He intended to include disabled people in the community, culture and worship of his day but some aspects of the Christian tradition which he began have resulted in disabled people experiencing exclusion. As John Hull has said, ‘The true miracle … is when disabled people are fully integrated into Church life and accepted exactly as they are’ (http://www.johnmhull.biz/ChurchTimesInterview3rdMay2013.doc).

This is why it is vital that we address access issues as a church. We inhabit buildings which visual treasure chests, particularly here at Great Burstead with your medieval wall paintings. We rightly value the wonderful architecture and the beauty of our churches. However, if those who are blind are unable to also appreciate what we see in our churches and those with mobility impairments cannot access the spaces in order to see while those who can access and see the glories of these spaces accept that others cannot, we are actually a places and communities of exclusion. Instead, we need to creatively imagine how we can include those who are currently excluded.

Jesus, in order to communicate with the man in our Gospel story (Mark 7. 31 – 37), uses touch and gesture. There are several different theories as to why Jesus acts in ways that seem very strange to us; putting his fingers in the man’s ears, spitting before putting his fingers on the man’s tongue and looking up to heaven. The simplest explanation would seem to be that touch and gesture were the ways in which communication could take place. The starting point for inclusion for us, as for Jesus, is to enter to some extent the world of the other person, in this case the man who was deaf and who had a speech impediment.

It can only be as we connect with the different world that others inhabit that understanding can come from which inclusion can develop. John Hull says: ‘The major disabilities create a distinctive world of experience, so different from the world in which the majority live as to constitute different human worlds. The powerful majority often create a world which is assumed to be the only world. Those who do not share this world are regarded as being without a world and are pitied or patronised. This idea of multiple worlds is of great political and social significance. If you do not understand my world, how can we relate to each other with mutual respect? If we rush too soon to a single world, we create an exclusive domination. The only way to create a unity of the human species is to go through multiplicity. The way to unity is through diversity … We must also include the different human worlds of experience, such as the disabled worlds we have been thinking about. Just as the Church can’t be holy or catholic without the equal ministry of women with men, so it cannot be holy or catholic without the equal prophetic and sacramental ministry of disabled people with the able-bodied.’

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Carleen Anderson - Let It Last.

ArtWay - Ervin Bossanyi: A vision for unity and harmony

Remembering Ervin Bossányi was an event held at the Liszt Institute in June 2022 dedicated to Hungarian-born artist Ervin Bossányi, best known for his stained glass windows at Canterbury Cathedral.

Art historian Monica Bohm-Duchen, founding director of Insiders/Outsiders, led a panel discussion with family members, stained glass experts and others to explore the extraordinary life and unique cultural contribution of this still too little-recognised artist. I was on the panel with: Ilona Bossányi: granddaughter of Ervin Bossányi; Alfred Fisher MBE: stained glass artist, who worked with Bossányi; and Caroline Swash: stained glass artist and author of The 100 Best Stained Glass Sites in London.

The talk that I gave has been published by ArtWay as Ervin Bossanyi: A vision for unity and harmony. The talk is about 'the context in which Bossanyi’s work and vision needs to be placed in order to be understood and appreciated as a unique contribution to the spiritual and religious art created in this period and one having synergies with the work of his peers':

 

'In Europe and the United States this was a time of a modernist preoccupation with religion and spirituality to which Bossanyi and other émigré artists made an immense contribution, despite the challenges they faced through enforced migration and the loss of work. Bossanyi contributed a vision for unity and harmony embracing all peoples and all faiths whilst being based on the fundamental interactions of human life.'

I first got to know Ilona Bossanyi as a result of a Church Times article that attracted her interest, being based on a conference held at St John's Waterloo that raised awareness of the threat to works by Hans Feibusch and other émigré artists. That article can be found at - https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2021/11-june/features/features/debt-owed-to-jewish-refugee-art. See also my Artlyst articles on Refugee Artists: Learning from The Lives Of Others and Polish Art In Britain: Centenary Marked At London’s Ben Uri Gallery.

I then interviewed Ilona for Artlyst. That interview about her grandfather can be found at: Ilona Bossanyi: Tate’s Ervin Bossanyi Stained Glass Window Mothballed After 2011 Redevelopment.

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T. Bone Burnett - River Of Love.

Unity, protection and sanctification

Here's my reflection from today's Communion Service at St Andrew's Wickford:

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 and there are many around our world and within our community who are in need of tangible protection at this time. In his prayer, however, 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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Duke Ellington - Is God A Three Letter Word For Love.

CTiW Solidarity Resources booklet

Churches Together in Westminster has prepared a Solidarity Resources booklet for churches. Here is my letter introducing the booklet to our members:

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the lives of all people across the globe. We, in the wealthy countries of the G20, need to recognise and take responsibility for the fact that our progress, quality and way of life is at the expense of the people of the least developed countries.

The coronavirus pandemic is not a great equaliser as some have claimed. This pandemic has reminded us that we are all connected, and that to be well and healthy we depend on others, and on our communities. In fact, unequal systems of power double down in a crisis.

The danger is that, even with a vaccine, for some time to come our focus in the UK will shift almost entirely to domestic issues and to our own recovery. This will not be a quick process but has already led to claims that we cannot afford to support the most vulnerable countries at the level we did before, thus casting them adrift.

Pope Francis has said, ‘We exist only in relationships: with God the Creator, with our brothers and sisters as members of a common family, and with all of God’s creatures within our common home.’ As a global Christian family we need to embody Pope Francis’ prophetic words as we unite to
pray and take action for our common home during this season of global pandemic.

Lucy Olofinjana writes for Churches Together in England & Wales that we need to:

‘Unite with Christians from all continents to ask for a coronavirus response that embraces sharing, not plundering. Learn the importance of living out Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians 12, ‘If one part of the body suffers, all the other parts suffer with it; if one part is praised, all the other parts share its happiness.’ Let’s seek to make this a reality as we go about life as part of God’s family. Let’s ‘rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn’ (Romans 12:15) – being real and honest with one another, and truly being there for each other, in the good times and the bad. Because, after all, we are family.’

This resource booklet has been prepared by Churches Together in Westminster to help our members focus on those in developing countries who are suffering from the COVID-19 Pandemic. We hope we will all encourage our congregations to engage actively with Christian organisations worldwide in their work with vulnerable communities. This should surely be a part of our response to the universal gift of God that we remember and celebrate in Christmastide.

This booklet has been arranged as a series of daily readings around key themes:

• Day One Impact of coronavirus on people in fragile countries
• Day Two Health, shelter and survival
• Day Three Poverty and livelihoods
• Day Four Education and children
• Day Five Violence against women and girls, and gender inequality
• Day Six Impact on those with disabilities
• Day Seven Loss of rights and freedoms
• Day Eight Impact on peace processes and conflict

We encourage you to make the booklet available to your congregations and consider holding a Solidarity Sunday service to introduce the booklet and encourage support for the organisations listed in the booklet’s appendix. Solidarity Sunday is about reminding ourselves and each other that there is so much good we can do - through giving, through prayer and through powerful demonstrations of unity.

A celebration of solidarity organised by Farm Street Church with CTiW can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=XvJ4mE5C3AY. The service includes a sermon preached by Revd Tricia Hillas, Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons, testimony and readings from homeless guests of the Central London Catholic Churches service at Farm Street, and prayers from Churches Together in Westminster.

We hope you will organise your own Solidarity Sunday service and will be happy to provide any support, ideas or advice that would assist.

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World Day of the Poor 2020 - Churches Together in Westminster.

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.

Living and loving in truth

Here's the sermon that I preached this morning at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

Yesterday Sarah Mullally was installed at St Paul’s Cathedral as Bishop of London. This history-making service was a wonderful welcome to Bishop Sarah and an opportunity to give thanks for all that she will bring to the Diocese as the person that she is and as the first female Bishop of London. In her sermon, on the theme of ‘being subversive for Christ’, Bishop Sarah also recalled her first calling to follow Christ; to know him and make him known to the world. Earlier in the week Bishop Sarah had shared her vision for vocations at a wonderful Study Day for clergy in the Two Cities organised by Katherine Hedderly.

At this Study Day, I was reminded of my own call to ordination as the telling of our own stories of calling was part of the small group discussions. I was taken back particularly to the beginning of my training for ordination and the circumstances, changes and feelings involved for me and my family in the challenges of that new beginning. For me, my ministerial studies involved exploring my faith more deeply through theological study and responding to the challenge of exploring many different understandings of what ordained ministry would involve. I had fears about the impact that my change of vocation would have on my family, as they began to experience what life as a clergy family was going to involve. I was also unsure about the extent to which I could meet the expectations that others might place on me once I put on ‘the collar’.

Our Gospel reading (John 17. 6-19) takes us into a similar period of change for Jesus’ disciples. Our reading is part of the prayer that Jesus prayed for his disciples on the night before he died and it is a prayer about vocation for those disciples. Chronologically this prayer comes before Jesus’ Ascension, but, in terms of its content, it is a post-Ascension prayer because Jesus’ 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 today on three aspects of the section of Jesus’ prayer that we have as today’s Gospel reading. The three aspects are unity, protection and sanctification; but before considering those things, I want us to note that the prayer which Jesus began on earth continues in eternity. In Hebrews 7:25 we read that Jesus ‘always lives to make intercession’ for us and, in Romans 8:34, St Paul writes: ‘Christ Jesus … is at the right hand of God [and] intercedes for us.’ Many of us will have experienced the benefit, particularly in times of stress and trial, of knowing that others are praying for us and that we are, therefore, regularly on their minds and in their hearts. These verses assure us that we are constantly and eternally on the mind and heart of God and Jesus is consistently sending his love to us in the form of his prayers. That reality underpins this prayer and can be a source of strength and comfort to us, particularly when times are tough.

What Jesus prays in today’s Gospel reading, he continues to pray in eternity, so let’s think now about the first aspect of Jesus’ prayer for us, which is unity. 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.

As Katherine shared last week, 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 featured in this year’s Christian Aid Week campaign whose homes have been destroyed by storms. Their need to be protected is one that can be met by aid and home building, underpinned by prayer. Similarly, our community here can provide tangible protection. Just this week a guest of our Sunday International Group said that this church 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. Jesus said that God’s name had been given to him and that he had 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. That 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.

It was in my ordination training that I discovered and experienced the reality of these things in a new way for myself. Through debate and discussion with others on my course I was able to re-examine my faith while also being held by the sense of unity that we quickly developed despite our differences. Those relationships have proved extremely strong and necessary as our ordained ministries have later been lived out. My fears about my personal inadequacy and the pressures there would be for my family were eased through a sense that we were on an unfolding journey of discovering God’s love which protects and sanctifies.

I moved from an understanding of God as being there for us – the one who fixes us and who fixes the world for us – to an understanding that we are in God – that in him we live and move and have our being. Because we are with God and in God and God in us, we can and will act in ways that are God-like and Godly. That happens not because we hold a particular set of beliefs or follow a particular set of rules, instead it 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 his love. Jesus prays constantly 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.

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Bruce Cockburn - Strong Hand Of Love.

Taizé refound, 40 years on…..

Here's a guest post from Rev Hilary Oakley, Associate Priest, St Mary’s Hitchin:

I first visited Taizé in 1970. I was 16, and the Taizé community was just about to enter its heyday, when tens of thousands of young people came to witness this place of reconciliation and share in its life. I was deeply touched by the worship, in the large concrete Church of the Reconciliation, constructed in 1962. It was not so much the spirituality as the participation of people of different traditions, saying the Lord's Prayer next to me in French, Spanish, German or Dutch, and discovering that I too could use their words to praise God in the multi-lingual chants of the Taizé liturgy. My eyes were open to traditions, people and languages beyond my own, and I began to understand the importance of ecumenism, as well as my responsibilities as a European citizen.

In the second week of Easter, I visited Taizé again, after 40 years. The 1960s concrete church was still the same, but larger, with three waves of wooden extension at the west end. Beyond 60 or so adults, there were around 2,000 young people, many German, whose energy and exuberance brought Taizé alive, as it had done 40 years before. The numbers were smaller than I remembered, but the languages were more extensive, and now included Polish, Bulgarian, Swahili, Chinese, reflecting a wider Europe, greater mobility, and our engagement with a bigger world. It was challenging in a number of sometimes contradictory ways. The perspective was wider, the different traditions less important, the variety greater, the numbers smaller.

I came away wondering just how far as a Christian community we can continue to afford the luxury of division, divergence or mutual suspicion, as we struggle to afford to maintain separate buildings and church infrastructures in parallel. Taizé has nudged me to find a renewed enthusiasm for ecumenism, an energy to enable us to address and overcome those challenges that so constrained the previous generation of ecumenists, and lost us the last 40 years. As Taizé founder, Brother Roger, so simply put it: “Make the unity of the Body of Christ your passionate concern.”

Our country is also hugely divided as politicians struggle to find the Holy Grail of a Brexit that suits everybody. Yet on this biggest of all issues facing our national life, we the church have so little to say. Perhaps we just don't want to rock the boat, a stance so alien to the way of Christ. Perhaps we need to refind our commonality of faith and liturgy with our European friends and neighbours. Perhaps while the politicians argue, we should be building bridges across the Channel, a new European Christianity, an integration, a reconciliation. Perhaps we can find a vision of a future where we can speak together, and speak out, about the issues that concern us all.

I think this is a good time for us to refind Taizé and share its vision with our young people, tomorrow’s church and tomorrow’s world, those in whom we need to be investing now. If you would like to take a group pf young people to Taizé this summer, you can make contact directly with Brother Paolo at brpaolo@taize.fr., or else drop me a note at hilaryoakley@hotmail.com, and I will make the contact for you.

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Taizé - Stay With Me.

Start:Stop - Exchanges of Love

Bible reading

As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

“Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17. 21 – 26)

Reflection

At several points in John’s Gospel we hear Jesus speaking about his relationship with God the Father and with God the Holy Spirit. When he speaks in this way it is as though Jesus is pulling back the veil which prevents us from seeing God and giving us, thereby, a glimpse of God as Trinity. For example, he says that God the Spirit takes what belongs to God the Son and declares it to us. All that belongs to God the Son, he says, also belongs to God the Father. So, all that Jesus has belongs equally to the Spirit and the Father. Therefore, we have a picture of God the Father giving to God the Son who gives to God the Holy Spirit who gives to us. What is being pictured for us is an exchange of love within the Godhead.

Similarly, when Jesus prayed that his followers might all be one, he prayed this on the basis that his followers might be in God as he is in the Father and the Father is in him. The united relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit means that, at the very heart of God is a dynamic relationship in which a constant exchange of love is underway. Jesus prayed that we, who follow in his footsteps, would experience the same oneness with God and each other that he enjoys with God, his Father. In essence, his prayer is that we will experience unity, because unity is what is at the very heart of God.

We can be part of the constant exchange of love in God; a love which involves the continual giving and receiving of affirmation and authority. 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 and are, therefore, constantly loved no matter what else is going on in our lives.

The exchange of love at the heart of the Trinity creates an environment of acceptance and affirmation in which authority is constantly shared by being given and received. Our participation in that exchange, as God’s children, then compels us, to make the attempt to create similar exchanges within the communities, organisations and networks of which we are part; whether that is family, workplace, church or community.

How might that work in practice? We could think briefly of the contrast between places where co-operation exists and those where it does not. I can think of one person I know who was recently working in an environment where self-promotion and active criticism of those with whom they worked seemed to be rewarded and the experience of being in that workplace was one of tension, strained relationships, walking on eggshells. Conversely, I know someone who has doubts and questions about the existence of God but whose experience of the quality of relationships in the church she attends has been such a positive contrast with her experience of relationships in society generally that she has found God in her experience of being welcomed, accepted and affirmed for the person that she is. Her experience has been of an exchange of love which connects to that occurring in the Godhead, while the other person’s experience was of a workplace full of suspicion and tension because what was exchanged was gossip and critique rather than love.

I wonder to what extent we can create everyday exchanges of love as a result of our encounter with the love that is constantly being exchanged by God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

Prayer

Holy Trinity, as we enter our workplaces may we bring your presence with us. May we speak your peace, your grace, your mercy, and your perfect order in our offices. May the work that we do and the way we do it bring faith, joy, and a smile to all that we come into contact with today. May everything we do today bring hope, life, and encouragement to those around us.

In our everyday exchanges, may we know and share your exchange of love.

Enable us to maintain good relations within our workplaces by minimising scope for conflict or blame and by promoting respect for others. Enable us to go beyond minimum standards of behaviour by showing love to those with which we work.

In our everyday exchanges, may we know and share your exchange of love.

Loving God, you showed us what all-out love looks like when you sacrificed yourself for others. Enable us to love you and others with all our being and in word and deed. Help us to explore what that might mean in our workplaces.

In our everyday exchanges, may we know and share your exchange of love.

Blessing

Bring the presence of God, maintaining good relations, minimising scope for conflict, promoting respect, loving in word and deed, speaking peace, bring hope, life, and encouragement, sharing exchanges of love. May all those blessings of almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, rest upon you and remain with you always. Amen.

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Van Morrison - Street Choir.

The Dance of Love: Living the prayer of Jesus

Here is the sermon that I preached at St Martin-in-the-Fields today:

If you knew you had roughly eighteen hours to live and could use that time to talk and pray with your nearest and dearest, I wonder what you would say and do? It is likely that whatever you did and said in that time it would all be to do with what was of central importance to your life and thought.

That was the situation in which Jesus found himself in the hours before his crucifixion and we know that he used that time to share acted parables and key messages with his disciples, as well as to pray. His prayer at that time, a part of which forms today’s Gospel reading (John 17. 20 - 26), was for the unity of his current and future disciples – that they might be one. So, why was unity of such central importance to Jesus’ thinking and praying at that most significant moment in his life - the time of his death? If we can answer that question, we can reach into the very heart of Jesus’ being and thinking.

When Jesus prayed that his followers might all be one, he prayed this on the basis that his followers might be in God as he is in the Father and the Father is in him. He was praying that we, who follow in his footsteps, would experience the same oneness with God and each other that he enjoys with God, his Father. In essence, his prayer is that we will experience unity, because unity is what is at the very heart of God.

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). Stephen Verney, a former Bishop of Repton, explored this idea in several of his books (e.g. The Dance of Love, Fount) writing about “the dance of love of the Trinity in which they give place to each other.” “This is the glory revealed in Jesus, as the Father and the Son give authority to each other in mutual interdependence, and as the creator and the creation interpenetrate each other.” Similarly, David Runcorn has described “the Holy Trinity as a dancing community of divine poverty. Each eternally, joyfully, dispossessing themselves; emptying, pouring themselves out to the favour and glory of the other. Nothing claimed, demanded or grasped. They live and know each other in the simple ecstasy of giving” (Choice, Desire and the Will of God, SPCK). At the heart of the Godhead is a relationship of love where love is constantly being shared and exchanged between Father, Son and Holy Spirit and this exchange or dance of love holds them together in unity.

Verney goes on to say that the eternal dance of the Trinity in heaven is reflected in creation and we are invited to join in because it was out of that relationship of love at the heart of the Godhead that Jesus came into our world to open up a way for us to participate in the eternal dance of love constantly shared between Father, Son and Spirit. We are familiar with the idea that God’s love for us is shown in Jesus’ sacrifice of himself for us by becoming human and then dying for us on the cross. We are, perhaps, less familiar with the idea that we can be part of the constant exchange of love in God of which we have been speaking and which Jesus’ once-for-all sacrifice of himself enables us to experience. 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 and are, therefore, constantly loved no matter what else is going on in our lives.

In the words of Paul Simon, we could respond to this by saying ‘So beautiful or so what’. It’s all very well picturing a beautiful dance at the heart of the Trinity but what difference does that make to us or anyone else?

Firstly, it says to us that we are 100% loved by God, surrounded by and filled by love, and that the more we experience of God, the more we can come to know love for ourselves. I wonder, do we allow the reality that we are accepted and loved by God to seep into the depths of our being where it can and will address our insecurities and anxieties? Do we know this for ourselves? Do we accept it for ourselves? Because ultimately our deepest need is to know with absolute confidence that we are loved and that is what is assured for us through the sacrifice of Jesus and the dance of love which is the Trinity.

Second, we see that love involves the continual giving and receiving of affirmation and authority. The dance of love is not a solo with the spotlight firmly fixed on an individual who garners all the glory for his or herself. It’s not even a picture of the kind of intuitive interaction which we see in ballroom dancing and which has been popularised on TV by ‘Strictly Come Dancing’. We are talking here of reciprocal love or giving which cannot be manipulated by ego, because the gift always moves beyond the reach of the one who first gives it. That is one of the reasons why it is so important that God is Trinity, three persons who are also one.

Lewis Hyde notes in his book called ‘The Gift’ that when giving is reciprocal: "The gift moves in a circle, and two people do not make much of a circle. Two points establish a line, but a circle lies in a plane and needs at least three points.” It is only “When the gift moves in a circle [that] its motion is beyond the control of the personal ego, and so each bearer must be a part of the group and each donation is an act of social faith.” That is what we see in the Trinity and what we are called to replicate in our own relationships. “The Dance of Love,” Verney writes, “is the glory in God’s heart, but it is also the pattern which is reflected in everything he has created.” The more we live according to God’s pattern for life, the more we know in our lives the love and unity of the Trinity itself.

In his prayer Jesus makes a contrast between giving which can be controlled by personal ego or one pair of gift partners and giving which is genuinely reciprocal. He states that the world does not know his Righteous Father and, earlier in the prayer, that the world hates his disciples because they do not belong to the world, just as he does not belong to the world.

When Jesus uses this language of separation in John’s Gospel between his disciples and the world, Verney suggests that he is speaking about two different levels or orders to reality. What he means by this are different patterns of society, each with a different centre or ruling power. In the first, “the ruling principle is the dictator ME, my ego-centric ego, and the pattern of society is people competing with, manipulating and trying to control each other.” In the second, “the ruling principle is the Spirit of Love, and the pattern of society is one of compassion – people giving to each other what they really are, and accepting what others are, recognising their differences, and sharing their vulnerability.” Runcorn puts it like this, “the life of God is non-possessive, non-competitive, humbly attentive to the interests of the other, united in love and vision.” To be God-like, “is not to be grasping” and so “Jesus pours himself out ‘precisely because’ he is God from God.”

These two orders or patterns for society are at war with each other and we are caught up in the struggle that results. Choosing our side in this struggle is a key question for us as human beings, the question being “so urgent that our survival depends on finding the answer.” Verney writes that: “we can see in our world order the terrible consequences of our ego-centricity. We have projected it into our institutions, where it has swollen up into a positive force of evil. Human beings have set up prison camps where they torture each other for pleasure. We are all imprisoned together, in a system of competing nation states, on the edge of a catastrophe which could destroy all life on our planet.”

I was reminded of these words when reading a recent interview that Neil McGregor gave to The Observer. In this interview he made some typically insightful contributions to the current debate about the EU referendum based on research for his book ‘Germany: Memories of a Nation’. He said, for example, that: “German people see the whole purpose of a political leader is to make successful alliances. The proper use of sovereignty is all about pooling it to achieve your aims. The British idea that you should entirely do these things on your own and try to assume total control over your environment is unthinkable.”

Similarly, President Obama suggested, during his recent visit to Europe, that “the people of Europe … are more secure and more prosperous because we stood together for the ideals we share.” As a Guardian article commenting on this speech noted this message runs counter to Europe’s growing populism; “the self-glorification of national egos, the distrust towards outsiders, and the reflex of putting up walls or closing down borders.”

In the UK we are at the very heart of this discussion as the last few years have seen us engaging in considerable political debate about the benefits of collaboration versus independence. From 2010 – 2015 we had our most recent experience of coalition government and, for all the complications inherent in coalitions, many would see that period as preferable to the licence that a majority Conservative Government has had to pursue austerity cuts on those with the least influence and political power in our society. In 2014 Scots voted narrowly to remain part of the United Kingdom rather than choosing independence and this year we are asked vote on essentially the same issue but in relation to the European Union.

Jesus’ focus on unity at the time of his death and the dance of love within the Trinity which is the basis for that focus, would suggest that, as his followers, we should favour collaboration, coalition, alliances and unions over independence, in the way that Neil suggests the German people have come to do. Yet we know, too, that a focus on unity at all costs also can silence voices of dissent and conscience and that power can accrue in unhelpful or unaccountable ways the larger or all-embracing an organisation or union may be.

Here at St Martin’s we know how difficult and complex it can be to create and sustain a community that is both unified and inclusive. We also know how valuable it is to make the attempt and to grapple with the complexities. I know that I have been both impressed and impacted by the way in which St Martin’s grapples with these issues and realise that I need to make changes in my thinking and practice as a result. These issues and complexities are, of course, magnified when it comes to working them through in the context of a union of nations, as we can by being part of the EU.

Nevertheless, the dance of love at the heart of the Trinity and our participation in that dance, as God’s children, compels us, I think, to make that attempt within the communities, organisations and networks of which we are part; whether that is family, church, local community, nation or union of nations. In doing so, we come to know ourselves firstly as surrounded by and filled by the love which overflows from the Trinity, then understand 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. Like the Holy Trinity, we strive to be a dancing community of divine poverty. Each eternally, joyfully, dispossessing themselves; emptying, pouring themselves 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 for which Jesus prayed.

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K.D. Lang - Jericho.