Shut the door

Here's the reflection I shared at today's Deanery Mothers' Union Service at St Catherine's Wickford:

From the mid-1920s onwards, Evelyn Underhill became highly-regarded as a retreat conductor and an influential spiritual director. Her first experience of a conducted retreat at the Pleshey retreat house in 1922 transformed her attitude toward church and vocation, and began the process of clarifying her own calling.

Born on 6th December 1875 in Wolverhampton, from an early age she described having mystical insights, and her deep interest in spiritual matters continued throughout her life. Between 1921 and 1924 her spiritual director was Baron Friedrich von Hűgel, who encouraged her to place Jesus Christ more centrally at the heart of her reflections. After his death in 1925 she began taking on a prominent role in the Church of England, leading retreats at Pleshey and elsewhere, and as a spiritual guide to many. Amongst the books she published are ‘Mysticism’ (in 1911) and ‘Worship’ (in 1936). She was one of the first women theologians to give public lectures at English universities, and was the first woman allowed officially to teach Church of England clergy.

Evelyn Underhill is one of the most important Christian mystics of the twentieth century and was one of the first important figures to champion the humility, ordinariness, and indeed “normalcy” of the mystical life. The subtitle of one of her best books, ‘Practical Mysticism’ is “A Little Book for Normal People.” She worked hard to dispel the notion that mysticism only belonged to the super-holy, the super-religious, the super-pious. On the contrary, the contemplative life is the ordinary state for Christian maturity. (http://evelynunderhill.org/three-evelyn-underhill-anthologies/)

In her book on The Fruits of The Spirit, she wrote about today's Gospel passage (Matthew 6.1-6, 16-18) in relation to retreats:

“Christ, who so seldom gave detailed instruction about anything, did give some detailed instruction of that … recollection which is the essential condition of real prayer, real communion with God.

"When you pray, go into a room by yourself - and shut the door." I think we can almost see the smile with which He said those three words, and those three words define what we have to try to do. Anyone can retire into a quiet place and have a thoroughly unquiet time in it - but that is not … the shutting of the door …

Shut the door. It is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do. Nearly everyone pulls it to and leaves it slightly ajar so that a whistling draught comes in from the outer world, with reminders of all the worries, interests, conflicts, joys and sorrows of daily life.

But Christ said shut and He meant shut. A complete barrier deliberately set up, with you on one side alone with God and everything else without exception on the other side. The voice of God is very gentle; we cannot hear it if we let other voices compete. It is no use at all to enter that room, that inner sanctuary, clutching the daily paper, the reports of all the societies you support, your engagement book and a large bundle of personal correspondence. All these must be left outside.

The object … is not intercession or self-exploration, but such communion with Him as shall afterwards make you more powerful in intercession; such self loss in Him as shall heal your wounds by new contact with His life and love.”

Evelyn Underhill was writing specifically for retreatants but Jesus’ words were not originally addressed to those on retreat. Instead, they were addressed to ordinary people going about their everyday lives, so his call to shut the door when praying was not once a year when we are on retreat but each time we pray. Likewise, seeking the opportunity of being alone with God and attending to God in order that we may do His will better in our everyday lives is not intended by Jesus as a once a year opportunity, rather as a regular experience.

The reward that God provides for our private prayers is the multiplication of all that we give, as St Paul says in our reading from 2 Corinthians 9: ‘He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.’

That was the experience of Mary Sumner who, in 1876, wrote her own personal prayer which she then prayed every day for the rest of her life: ‘All this day, O Lord, let me touch as many lives as possible for thee; and every life I touch do thou by thy spirit quicken, whether through the word I speak, the prayer I breathe or the life I live. Amen.’

Later, Mary decided that a new organisation was needed in her parish and the first branch of Mothers' Union was begun. She was spurred into action when her eldest daughter gave birth to her first baby. Mary remembered her feelings of inadequacy as a young mother charged with the terrible responsibility for a new life. She believed that women from every class needed to understand that motherhood was a profession and be equipped to perform it. Motherhood involved more than providing for the physical needs of children. The primary responsibility of mothers was to raise their children in the love of God. Mothers could only do this, she believed, if their lives were firmly rooted in prayer.

Her plan for a new form of mothers’ meeting, bringing together mothers of all classes, did not start auspiciously. Having gathered the women of the parish in the Rectory, Mary could not present her ideas due to nerves. She had to call them together again a week later to explain the objects of the new society and to give out simple cards containing practical suggestions.

In 1885, Bishop Ernest Wilberforce of Newcastle called on Mary to speak to a women's meeting made up of 1000 poor and anxious women at the Portsmouth Church Congress. Despite her initial resistance, as at that time respectable women did not address public meetings, she agreed. Painting a picture of the low moral standards in the country, she asked what could be done to improve the national character. Her answer was that the power for change lay in the hands of mothers. If women united in prayer and committed themselves to a Christian life the nation could be transformed.

The meeting responded to her passion and conviction with a rousing ovation. It was on this wave of public enthusiasm that the Bishop of Winchester decided to make Mothers' Union a diocesan organisation. This decision was destined to change the lives of many far beyond the boundaries of the diocese of Winchester.

The global movement that is the Mothers’ Union began with personal prayer in a room with a shut door and grew as a result of the prayer that underpinned its growth. May our generation commit ourselves to prayer by following the examples of Jesus, Evelyn Underhill and Mary Sumner. Amen.

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Celebrating Evelyn Underhill at the Retreat House with Canon John Howden.

Stolen Lives: Private viewing

Tonight I was at the St Bride Foundation for a private viewing of Stolen Lives, a new web based project which looks at issues of historical and contemporary slavery through music, songs, words, images, film and animation.

Stolen Lives is a collection of 17 freely dowloadable multi-media animations which will be of use to schoolteachers, especially those teaching at Key Stage 3 (ages 11 - 14) and Key Stage 4 (ages 14 – 16), but also to youth groups, museums, music and dance groups, and churches and faith groups. The project is also interactive with the website enabling users to post their own performances or interpretations of the material, allowing for a much broader sharing of ideas and practice.

Stolen Lives is a collaborative, open-educational project, bringing together academics (The Wilberforce Institute - Hull University), musicians (Paul Field and others), artists (Peter S. Smith) and educationalists (Sue James).

Paul Field is composer & Creative Director for the project. He has worked as a Songwriter, Composer, Producer and Performer in the UK and around the world. From the release of his first album 'In your eyes' (with Nutshell) he has written around 800 songs over four decades. He has received an Ivor Novello Award from the British Academy of Songwriters and Composers and a Dove Award (and two nominations) from GMA in Nashville along with numerous other awards from ASCAP in the USA. He has had #1 chart success with his songs in the UK, USA, Holland, South Africa and Germany. He has received many Platinum and Gold records for his work.

Peter S Smith, who created the visuals for the project, is a Painter/Printmaker with a studio at the St Bride Foundation in London. He studied Fine Art at Birmingham Polytechnic and Art Education at Manchester. In 1992 he gained an MA (Printmaking) at Wimbledon School of Art. Examples of his work can be found in private and public collections including Tate Britain and the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. His book 'The Way See It' (Piquant Press) is a visual monograph of contemporary work by a professional artist who is a Christian, which provides an illustrated introduction to the art of engraving.

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Stolen Lives - Midnight Rain.

Stolen Lives: A sense of moral repugnance against modern-day slavery

Stolen Lives is a new web based project which looks at issues of historical and contemporary slavery through music, songs, words, images, film and animation.

‘Stolen Lives’ is a collection of 17 songs and narratives designed to have multiple uses. It is anticipated that the resources will not only be of use to schoolteachers, especially those teaching at Key Stage 3 (ages 11 - 14) and Key Stage 4 (ages 14 – 16), but also to youth groups, museums, music and dance groups, and churches and faith groups. The project is also interactive. It is hoped that users will post their own performances or interpretations of the material that has been put together, allowing for a much broader sharing of ideas and practice.

The pieces provide starting points for discussion and also hope to inspire new creative work in art, dance, drama, images words and music for schools and other groups or individuals interested in the issues. These are all available as a free resource on the Stolen Lives website.

Professor John Oldfield, Director of the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation (WISE) the University of Hull, is the project leader. Kevin Bales the co-investigator. Music is by Paul Field and visuals by Peter S. Smith.

Behind the project is a serious intent, namely to use music and images to promote awareness of modern-day slavery and – just as important – the pressing need to do something about it. Nineteenth-century abolitionists were well aware of the power of music to persuade and inform: indeed, anti-slavery songs were an important part of their opinion-building activities, particularly in the United States. The same is true of images, whether Wedgwood’s famous image of the kneeling slave, or the cross section of the slave ship ‘Brookes’. ‘Stolen Lives’ follows in the same tradition. Put simply, the aim is to use music and images to inform public opinion and, in the process, create a sense of moral repugnance against modern-day slavery and for slavery in all its forms.

We should never underestimate the power of such aids to change attitudes and impact on policy and policymakers.

As William Wilberforce so memorably put it: ‘You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know’.

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Paul Field - Strange Cargo.

Bible Sunday and Give A Bible

Members of St John's Seven Kings took part today in the 'Give A Bible' Bible Year 2011 initiative in the Diocese of Chelmsford to encourage Church members in the Diocese to bring a Bible to church on Bible Sunday with the intention of subsequently giving it to a neighbour, work colleague or friend. This initiative was inspired by a 90-year-old lady in the Havering area who, when she was given a Bible by her parish church, said: “It's been too long since a Bible was in this home.” It is hoped that this 'Give a Bible' initiative might place a Bible back in many other homes.

At St John's, members chose a range of different translations and versions of the Bible to give away to work colleagues, grandchildren, relatives and friends. These included a Polish translation for one work colleague. Several St John's members also bought a children's storyteller version of the Bible to give to Downshall Primary School for future use in their RE lessons.

All these different versions of the Bible were brought to St John's for Bible Sunday where the following prayer was prayed before the Bibles were given away:

This is a Bible – filled with stories of people who have encountered God. Those people are our people. Their stories are our stories. We share these stories so that others will live in these stories with us. We read these stories because we want to remember who God is, who we are and what we believe, so that we will know how to live today. May God’s abundance uphold us and those to whom we give Bibles. May God’s love instruct us and those to whom we give Bibles. May God’s dream motivate us and those to whom we give Bibles. May the Scriptures be made real in our lives and theirs today and in the days to come. God is with us. Amen.

Our other Bible Year 2011 activities have included an Art Competition for children and young people illustrating Bible stories on the theme of hope and HISstory, a session led by Redbridge Area Dean Paul Harcourt, which outlined the big story of salvation told by the Bible. These events and activities have underlined the significance of the Bible for us and for our culture and have inspired us to share the Bible, and the story it tells, more fully with others.

Here is the sermon I preached for Bible Sunday (which makes use of Bible Society materials):

Storytelling has been around as long as human language. Storytelling is what makes us human. Our ancestors probably gathered around the evening fires and expressed their fears, their beliefs and their heroism through oral narratives. This long tradition of storytelling is still evident in ancient cultures such as the Australian Aborigines. Community storytelling offered the security of explanation; how life and its many forms began and why things happen, as well as entertainment and enchantment. Communities were strengthened and maintained through stories that connected the present, the past and the future.

So, from earliest times human beings have told stories and the stories we tell commonly seek, either explicitly or implicitly, to answer questions such as, “How did we get here?”, “Where are we going?”, and “What is the meaning of our existence?” We call these overarching stories metanarratives or worldviews and we live within the meanings which they provide.

For example, a humanist may tell a story of a universe which comes into being by chance leaving human beings free to create their own meanings for life and society. To give another example, the theologian Stanley Hauerwas says: “The story of modernity is the story that you should have no story except the story you chose when you had no story. We call that freedom. But as Christians we believe that we are creatures born into a story that we haven’t chosen.”

Christians are “a people who have been formed by a story that provides them with the skills for negotiating the danger of this existence, trusting in God’s promise of redemption.” In other words, the Church is founded on the premise that the creator God decisively calls and forms a people to serve him through the history of Israel and through the work of Jesus Christ to bring about the redemption of the creation.

We must constantly remember that we are a story formed community and that story is what defines our existence as Christians. This is something that we can see occurring in Nehemiah 8. 1-12, which is one of the rare and exciting public readings of the Scriptures found in the Bible. It shows how inseparable the Bible was from the lifeline of the people. In Nehemiah 8 the people of Israel recognise that the scripture is central to their lifeline and their identity. In fact, it is inseparable from their story. It is their story. The New Testament then shows us that this is true for all of us, Jew or Gentile, who choose to live in relationship with God.

The people in Nehemiah’s day would usually have been very reluctant to have men and women gathering together in an act of worship. Even more so children – even those old enough to understand were likely to have been excluded. But what happened in the square that day was a remarkable and radical worship event. Men, women and children all recognised that, through the Scriptures, God had something transforming to say to them. No one should read the Bible without finding themselves in it. The Bible speaks to all kinds of people, whatever their status, and in all types of situations. If we allow God to speak, he will do – whoever we are! The Bible speaks across gender – to men and women, to everyone old enough to understand – to children too!

What is the story of which we are part? Tom Wright has described the Bible as being like a five act play containing the first four acts in full (i.e. Act 1. Creation, Act 2. Fall, Act 3. Israel, and Act 4. Jesus): "The writing of the New Testament ... would then form the first scene in the fifth act, and would simultaneously give hints (Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 15, parts of the Apocalypse) of how the play is supposed to end ...”

“The church would then live under the 'authority' of the extant story, being required to offer an improvisatory performance of the final act as it leads up to and anticipates the intended conclusion ... the task of Act 5 ... is to reflect on, draw out, and implement the significance of the first four Acts, more specifically, of Act 4 in the light of Acts 1-3 ... Faithful improvisation in the present time requires patient and careful puzzling over what has gone before, including the attempt to understand what the nature of the claims made in, and for, the fourth Act really amount to."

Wright concludes that he is proposing "a notion of "authority" which is ... vested ... in the creator god himself, and this god's story with the world, seen as focused on the story of Israel and thence on the story of Jesus, as told and retold in the Old and New Testaments, and as still requiring completion."

The book of Nehemiah is the story of the people of Israel returning to Jerusalem following exile. After some 70 years of exile in Babylon, many of the people had returned to Jerusalem but all was not well. Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem to lead the people in rebuilding of the walls of the city; dealing with corruption and inequality; boosting morale; carrying out a meticulous census; reforming and re-establishing the priesthood and completing the settlement of land. Scripture was deeply at work driving these reforms. Nehemiah’s social and economic reforms, for example, were guided by the book of Deuteronomy’s restrictions on usury and his anger about indentured slavery was based firmly on the Levitical Laws. God’s Word had so shaped the minds and standards of Nehemiah and Ezra that its deep influence became a basis for social and economic reform.

All this led up to the public reading of God’s Word in our passage today. Despite all that had been achieved, the people knew that something was still missing. It was as though all their efforts for a better society, and the relative stability and prosperity they were starting to experience, revealed a gaping spiritual void which still existed. So when they met in the public square, they asked Ezra to read God’s Word.

Having achieved so much, they could easily have rested on their laurels. But amazingly, they – not Nehemiah – asked for the scriptures to be read. Nehemiah had enforced many reforms, but the people themselves felt the need to hear God’s Word.

It seems clear from our text that more is needed in a nation than real or relative wealth and security. We still need spiritual values guiding all aspects of our lives. This was the challenge for William Wilberforce. Years after Wesley’s great revival in Britain, Wilberforce

was still moved in 1797 to write and distribute his book, A Practical View of Real Christianity, to revive Christian values in all areas of life – in what he described as a ‘reformation of manners’. In the same way, our commitment to God’s Word should lead us to apply ourselves to ways in which we may prayerfully lead people to revive or discover a thirst for the Bible and how it applies to our lives today.

That is how we live in the story today. Let’s end with a story as a practical example. At a trauma workshop in the Democratic Republic of Congo, people displaced by civil war listened to a dramatised reading of Lamentations 5. As they heard the story of the Israelites’

invasion by the Babylonians, they said, ‘This is our story! We had a beautiful land and we lost it. Now we can’t get to our fields. It’s too dangerous.’ A Bible Society trainer who helped lead the programme said these Congolese people ‘felt so similar to the people of Jerusalem’ and realised for the first time that it was acceptable to cry out to God in their pain and grief.

The Bible was never meant to be an alternative telephone directory. It’s far more interested in transformation than in passing on important information. But in order to transform, it really needs to be understood. It is the comprehension that makes all the difference so that we are able to see how we can be part of and live in the big story that the Bible tells.

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The Call - What's Happened to You.

The kingdom of heaven is like ...

“The kingdom of heaven is like this …” That is how many of Jesus’ parables begin and his introduction makes clear that the parables are told not to impart general spiritual truths but to help us recognise the kingdom of heaven when we see it.

In these parables (Matthew 13. 31-33, 44-52) Jesus tells us that the kingdom of heaven is like a seed, a portion of yeast, a hidden treasure, a fine pearl, a fishing net, and a storeroom containing both new and old items. As a result, in this post I’ll be saying that the kingdom of heaven like the growth of the Church, the influence of William Wilberforce, the development of Redbridge Voluntary Care and the Redbridge Night Shelter, providing the St John's Children’s Holiday Club and Community BBQ free of charge, and the diversity of the Anglican Communion.

The parables of the mustard seed and the yeast are both to do with small things that have a big impact. Jesus describes the mustard seed as being the smallest of seeds but it grows to become the biggest of plants; a tree in which birds can make their nests.

The phrase a ‘mustard seed’ has entered our language as a little idea that grows into something bigger and that is of course literally what happened with the Jesus movement itself. It was a relatively small grouping of obscure people that died when its founder, Jesus died, but which, following his resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost grew to become the largest religion in history and also within the world currently.

The story of the yeast gives us a different way of understanding the kingdom of God through a growth that is not just in terms of size but also in terms of influence. The yeast does not become large but its effect in the dough is to cause it to rise. In this story the kingdom of God, although small, is the catalyst for change and development. One example of this would be the work of William Wilberforce and his friends to abolish slavery, something we looked at in last year’s Lent course. There a small number of people inspired by their Christian faith caused a large effect in the world and the lives of those in slavery through their sustained campaigning work over many years. Redbridge Voluntary Care and the Redbridge Night Shelter, both of which grew from small beginnings cradled in churches in this borough (including our own) have grown to become independent organisations contributing more widely to the life of the borough. They, too, are examples of these parables in action.

Next, we read parables in which the kingdom of God needed to be searched out and in which to gain the kingdom of God involved giving everything we have. In these parables the kingdom of God is like a treasure and a fine pearl; both precious and beautiful. How can we understand this aspect of the kingdom? We could say that the kingdom is both precious and beautiful because it is the place where people live as God intended us to live. It is a place of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self-control” (Galatians 5. 22-23). It is a place where there will be “no more death, no more grief or crying or pain” (Revelation 21. 4).

Such a place is indeed worth searching for and giving everything for. In fact, it can only be gained by giving up everything we have. As Jesus said on a number of occasions, “whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it” (Luke 17. 33). We only find and enter the kingdom of God when we give up our selfish grasping after life for ourselves and what we can get out of it. That is why for us to provide a holiday club and community BBQ in the coming week for free is a sign of the kingdom of God. We are not just saying to the local community that we care about the community and want to do things in it and for it but are also modelling a different way of living based on giving what we have to create signs of the kingdom of God in our world and community.

Finally, Jesus tells two parables that show the inclusivity of the kingdom of God. In the parable of the fishing net, the kingdom includes both the good and the bad; while in the parable of the storeroom the kingdom of God contains both the old and the new. You might say, “that’s all well and good but the parable of the fishing net is about the good being kept and the bad thrown away.” You would be right, but it is important to note that that judgement is God’s judgement and is carried out at “the end of the age.” In the meantime good and bad are both in the net together and we don’t know which is which. So, we have to trust God’s future judgement and not attempt to pre-judge people now.

In this parable, and the parable of the weeds, Jesus is commending here the aspect of Anglicanism that, it seems to me, has always been its great strength and glory; its holding together from its inception of ‘catholics’ (with a small ‘c’) and protestants and in more recent centuries its holding together of the diverse streams that have developed within those traditions – anglo-catholicism, evangelicalism, liberalism, the charismatic movement and so on. By holding these things together now we show our humility (in that we know we can’t judge rightly ourselves) and trust in God’s ability to judge rightly (and perhaps surprisingly) in future.

These parables suggest that the kingdom of God has small beginnings but major influence and effects. They suggest that kingdom of God reveals how human life should be lived but requires us to give up our selfish ways of life in order to find it. And they suggest the kingdom of God is found in communities that are inclusive, humble and trusting. The Christian Church and this church of St John’s have at their best been signs of the kingdom of God in the world and this community. The challenge for us is to learn from those good examples of the past and present and continue to do what Jesus did and create signs of the kingdom of God in our own day and time.

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Sixpence None The Richer - Melody Of You.