No strangers, only friends you haven’t met yet

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

A central aspect of God's experience as a human being in the person of Jesus Christ was that of rejection. Jesus was, in the words of Isaiah 53, ‘despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account’ (Isaiah 53. 3). We see that rejection here, in this story (Mark 6. 1 – 6), set in his home town at the beginning of his ministry, just as we see it more violently worked out at the end of his ministry when he is crucified.

Rejection is a human experience which we all understand because each us will have experienced rejection at one time or another. It is an experience that God has also shared and therefore understands as we go through our personal experiences of rejection.

But rejection is a human experience which we all understand because it is also something to which each of us is party. As in this story, we find it easy, as human beings, to find reasons to reject other people. It is not so long ago in the history of this country that there were appalling signs in windows saying, 'No Irish, no Blacks, no Dogs'. In our lifetime we have seen whole societies built around the separation of people on the basis of colour, with the Civil Rights and anti-apartheid movements, thankfully, having brought some significant change to those situations of rejection.

Yet, although we have seen change, we continue to see particular groups of people in society demonised, scapegoated and rejected. In the Church today, it is the LGBTI community who have that experience while in society generally, it is migrants, whether refugees or asylum seekers, that are the focus of significant rejection.

When Jesus is rejected, as in our Gospel reading, God is rejected. God, in Jesus, enters in to our experience, as human beings, of rejection. He does so in order to bring to light our constant scapegoating and rejection of others by exposing us to the futility of that way of life. Rejection of others ties us into a cycle of revenge and recrimination locking us in to spirals of violence.

Yet, when we have, as human beings, scapegoated and rejected God himself, what more can we do by way of rejection? The way to free ourselves from these negative cycles is by rejecting the impulse to reject or scapegoat others, in other words by following in the footsteps of Jesus who freely laid down his life for others. It is this to which Christ’s death as a scapegoat on the cross calls us.

Today, while we may not literally see signs saying 'No Irish, no Blacks, no Dogs', similar signs are nevertheless still there is our words and actions although applied to different groups of people at this different time. 'No economic migrants,' even 'No migrants', would seem to be the current cry, while in the Anglican Communion we persist in rejecting people on the basis of their sexuality. For those who follow a God who was scapegoated, reviled and rejected, there can be no scapegoating of others. For those who follow a God who laid down this own life for love of others, there must be a similar breaking of cycles of rejection through our own attitudes, speech and actions.

Instead of being those who reject, we need to become those who invite. The opposite of rejection is not simple acceptance, but active engagement; the invitation to participate in community. The goal of those who are great inviters is “to have everyone participating, giving and receiving gifts.” Abundant community involves welcoming “those on the margins”, “which is the heart of hospitality.” As William Butler Yeats was credited with saying, “There are no strangers here; only friends you haven’t met yet.” May it be so with each one of us. Amen.

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

Manfred Mann's Earth Band - Prayer.

Exhibition: National Society of Painters, Sculptors & Printmakers

The National Society of Painters, Sculptors & Printmakers was formed in 1930 to meet a growing desire among artists of every creed and outlook for an annual exhibition in London, which would embrace all aspects of art under one roof, without prejudice or favour to anyone. This legacy has continued as a guide and inspiration to creative artists ever since, with only a short break between 1940 - 1945. The freedom to experiment and explore new media or techniques has created a society that is very professional while allowing the individual artists to realise their full potential.

To name only a few who have gained worldwide fame: Mark Gertler • Jack B Yeats • L S Lowry • David Bomberg • W Russell Flint • Henry Moore • Bernard Meninsky • William Nicholson • Graham Sutherland • C R W Nevinson • Frank Dobson • Charles Cundall • Bernard Adams. Some of the above artists' highly acclaimed works were first shown in the National Society's Annual Exhibition, and current members now exhibiting may well gain similar recognition in future years.

The National Society is, therefore, a society that offers a challenge to all creative artists of the highest ability from any school of thought. By its very nature it strives to communicate with the widest possible audience, to excite interest and involve the public by showing a broad spectrum of contemporary and innovative painting, sculpture and printmaking.

The National Society is self-supporting and democratic, with officers and council elected from the membership.

The National Society is holding it's second exhibition at St Stephen Walbrook. The exhibition continues until December 2nd. Open weekdays Mon - Fri, 10 am - 4 pm (Weds 11 am - 3 pm).

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

Jon Foreman - You Don't Know How Beautiful You Are.

There are no strangers here; only friends you haven’t met yet

Here is my sermon from today's Choral Eucharist at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

A central aspect of God's experience as a human being in the person of Jesus Christ was that of rejection. Jesus was, in the words of Isaiah 53, ‘despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account’ (Isaiah 53. 3). We see that rejection here, in this story (Mark 6. 1 - 6), set in his home town at the beginning of his ministry, just as we see it more violently worked out at the end of his ministry when he is crucified.

Rejection is a human experience which we all understand because each us will have experienced rejection at one time or another. It is an experience that God has also shared and therefore understands as we go through our personal experiences of rejection.

But rejection is a human experience which we all understand because it is also something to which each of us is party. As in this story, we find it easy, as human beings, to find reasons to reject other people. It is not so long ago in the history of this country that there were appalling signs in windows saying, 'No Irish, no Blacks, no Dogs'. In our lifetime we have seen whole societies built around the separation of people on the basis of colour, with the Civil Rights and anti-apartheid movements, thankfully, having brought some significant change to those situations of rejection.

Yet, although we have seen change, we continue to see particular groups of people in society demonised, scapegoated and rejected. In the Church today, it is the LGBTI community who have that experience while in society generally, it is migrants, whether refugees or asylum seekers, that are the focus of significant rejection.

When Jesus is rejected, as in our Gospel reading, God is rejected. God, in Jesus, enters in to our experience, as human beings, of rejection. He does so in order to bring to light our constant scapegoating and rejection of others by exposing us to the futility of that way of life. Rejection of others ties us into a cycle of revenge and recrimination locking us in to spirals of violence.

Yet, when we have, as human beings, scapegoated and rejected God himself, what more can we do by way of rejection? The way to free ourselves from these negative cycles is by rejecting the impulse to reject or scapegoat others, in other words by following in the footsteps of Jesus who freely laid down his life for others. It is this to which Christ’s death as a scapegoat on the cross calls us.

Today, while we may not literally see signs saying 'No Irish, no Blacks, no Dogs', similar signs are nevertheless still there is our words and actions although applied to different groups of people at this different time. 'No economic migrants,' even 'No migrants', would seem to be the current cry, while in the Anglican Communion we persist in rejecting people on the basis of their sexuality. For those who follow a God who was scapegoated, reviled and rejected, there can be no scapegoating of others. For those who follow a God who laid down this own life for love of others, there must be a similar breaking of cycles of rejection through our own attitudes, speech and actions.

Instead of being those who reject, we need to become those who invite. The opposite of rejection is not simple acceptance, but active engagement; the invitation to participate in community. The goal of those who are great inviters is “to have everyone participating, giving and receiving gifts.” Abundant community involves welcoming “those on the margins”, “which is the heart of hospitality.” As William Butler Yeats was credited with saying, “There are no strangers here; only friends you haven’t met yet.” ('The Abundant Community' by John McKnight & Peter Block)

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

Sixpence None The Richer - A Million Parachutes.

There is a need for models of sacrifice in society

Madeleine Bunting highlights the ideas of theologian Sarah Coakley in today's Guardian. Coakley argues that sacrifice needs to be restored as a central biological, ethical and theological principle. Far from sacrifice being an outmoded ritual, it is central to human experience:

'She cites recent evolutionary theory that puts sacrificial co-operation on a par with mutation and selection as a fundamental "principle" of evolution. "Individual evolutionary loss can be group evolutionary gain," she says.

Rather than imagining our genes as selfish, struggling in a race for the survival of the fittest, we can see evolution as requiring ceaseless sacrifices, small and large, to ensure the survival of the group ...

What makes Coakley's ideas so challenging is that, as she suggested in her 2012 Gifford lectures, "there is a need for models of sacrifice in a society" – that the existence of people dedicated to an "altruism beyond calculation" plays a critical role in challenging, inspiring and provoking the social order around them ...

We are living in an age of sacrifice on a near apocalyptic scale: a great extinction is under way with hundreds of species being eliminated as their habitats are destroyed. Looking at another dimension of this age of sacrifice, we have developed a global economy in which people's wellbeing and communities are routinely sacrificed for the sake of economic growth and efficiency – strange gods built on fantasies that allege rationality.

This is the ugly sacrifice that consumer capitalism attempts to conceal with its glamorous illusions and ideology of desire and entitlement, of self-fulfilment and self-expression. Capitalism offers speed, convenience and choice, but behind all of these lies sacrifice, from the poor working conditions of an exhausted workforce to the water-stressed cotton fields.

The urgency of us grasping the importance of sacrifice in human experience must surely be a vital part of any sustainable future.

Any proposal to slow down or reverse our destructive impact on the natural environment leads to talk of sacrifice on the part of consumers in western developed economies. Only when we understand how sacrifice can be a force for good have we any hope of restraining our destructive capabilities.'

Among other excellent Easter-themed coverage is John Dugdale's listing of 10 key Easter scenes to be found in writers ranging from Shakespeare to Yeats and Goethe to Tolstoy.

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

Linda Perhacs - The Soul Of All Natural Things.

Beyond Airbrushed from Art History: Theology and Modern Irish Art

In Theology and Modern Irish Art Gesa E. Thiessen explores central issues in the dialogue between theology and art, paying special attention to the spiritual aspects of a number of modern Irish painters. Those artists whose work she discusses are:

Mainie Jellett: 'In her search for truth and vision as a painter, Mainie Jellett became a seminal figure and leader of the Irish modernist movement ... Jellett’s work was based on biblical themes, as she herself was a religious and spiritual person. She was influenced by the work of the early Renaissance artist Fra Angelico, celebrated for his beautiful frescos, which gave an emotive and serene quality to religious themes. Jellett’s ‘compositions’, as many of her religious paintings were entitled, contain figurative elements, often presented in ambiguous, non-representational, symbolic ways, such as Abstract Composition (c.1935), housed in the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork.'

Jack B. Yeats: 'There can be little doubt that the dominant figure in Irish painting of the twentieth century is Jack B. Yeats (1869-1957). The son of an outstanding painter and the brother of Ireland’s pre-eminent poet, he would have had every excuse if he had felt overwhelmed by their combined gifts and as a result had failed to realise his full potential as an artist. And in fact Jack Yeats was a very modest, man, private and unassuming where his poet-brother was very much a public figure His rise as a painter was slow and though his early work has plenty of vitality, his great period as a colourist did not begin until the late 1920s, when he was already middle-aged. His work is a unique fusion of realism and imagination, of the everyday and the visionary, and his nervous brushstrokes and broken, irridescent colour were far in advance of their time particularly in relatively provincial Ireland.'

Louis le Brocquy: 'Contrary to a generally held view, I think that painting is not in any direct sense a means of communication or a means of self-expression. When you are painting you are trying to discover, to uncover, to reveal. I sometimes think of the activity of painting as a kind of archaeology - an archaeology of the spirit.' 

'Like the Celts I tend to regard the head as this magic box containing the spirit. Enter that box, enter behind the billowing curtain of the face, and you have the whole landscape of the spirit.'

Gerard Dillon: Gerard Dillon and Mainie Jellett 'shared an interest in Irish legend and Celtic iconography.  Dillon had visited the Boyne Valley and explored the monastic ruins at Mellifont and Monasterboice.  He was much taken by the Irish high crosses and subsequently these would appear regularly in his work.'

'The artist held his first solo show in 1942 in the country shop, Dublin. Opened by Mainie Jellett, other works from this period are characteristically naïve and contain a Christian theme; Forgive us Our Trespasses, An Aran Funeral, and Dust to Dust. The images are depicted with humour in a simple and child like manner with disproportionate perspective to enhance symbolism often evoking a message.'

Colin Middleton: 'At times these paintings achieve an intense and almost visionary sense of union with the landscape, evoking its power, its rhythmic energy and its colors.'

Mary Magdalene and the Holy Trinity 'is one of the few of this time to make a religious reference in its title or subject. The titles of many post-war paintings used Biblical quotations which matched the emotional pitch of those works, but the works in this first exhibition are more ambiguous and witty in their expression of ideas.'

Patrick Collins: 'Patrick Collins’ landscapes are primarily influenced by his childhood memories of the rural surroundings in Co. Sligo. He approaches the landscape in a philosophical, ethereal way. He is not just depicting the land – he is also searching to capture the emotive memory and experience of a place. The landscapes go beyond the literal to present a dreamlike vision, an illusive quality, recalling how Collins felt as a child inhabiting the landscape. ‘In Collins’s work there is [a] constant and ambiguous shift between what is seen and what is known, what is present and what is absent, what is felt and what is remembered.’ ...

During the 1950s, Collins’ paintings focused on religious themes, affording him the opportunity to bring figurative elements into his work. He embarked on a journey from Dublin to Donegal to study the depictions of the stations of the cross in various parish churches. The paintings are simplistic and childlike in their treatment of the figure, telling the story of the crucifixion of Christ. Once again, Collins focuses on the emotive element of the story through compositional devices, isolated figures, sparse backgrounds and limited colour to create an atmosphere and mood. One of his paintings, entitled Crucifixion (After a Child’s Drawing) (1964), was a direct response to viewing his daughter Penelope’s drawing of the scene, capturing a child’s feelings and interpretation of the story.'

Tony O'Malley: 'O’Malley treated religion with respect, but was drawn more to a simple spirituality. He inherited some of his father’s West of Ireland pre-Christian ideas. In Callan, he loved the mystic Abbey well which was deemed to have curative properties.

“I’m a Pantheist at heart”, he said proudly. From an early age, he wanted to get behind the seeming reality of things to probe hidden meanings. When asked about his conception of God some years ago, he replied: “God is that ash tree outside, the birds singing, and also the magpie competing with other birds for a grub in the clay”. He felt it was important to be at one with nature. “Children have this sense of wonder before the school system kills it”, he opined.
This communion with nature and the spiritual dimension to his life informed much of his painting.'

Patrick Scott: 'Patrick Scott developed a type of Minimalism, using unprimed canvas together with tempera and gold leaf, in restrained, mathematically organised, modular arrangements, with a contemplative spiritual quality. He drew back from the machine ethic of the American artists who had pioneered Minimalism during the 1950s, preferring the handcrafted element of the application of gold leaf.'  

Patrick Graham: 'Art historian, writer and curator Peter Selz ... says that Graham “confronts the viewer with drawings and paintings of shattering force … [he] makes us aware that great painting has a presence and a future.” Art historian John Handley notes that Graham’s work “addresses the timelessness of time, the repetition of history, and the continuous cyclical nature of silence, abandonment, and redemption in the creative process.” In the artist’s own words, “The silence becomes the painting, the painting comes from silence. It is the moment when painting is no longer an act of doing or making but of receiving.” ...

Graham’s inspiration is deeply rooted in the Irish landscape, in vistas and places that hold deep meaning for him. The Irish affinity for nature, combined with profound experiences of both oppression and repression, has led to extraordinary artistic expressions in poetry, music, and dance. This cultural and artistic milieu formed Graham’s visual expression. His work incorporates ambiguous symbolic forms and scripted phrases that resonate like fragments of traditional song and lyrical poetry which spring from a unique historical consciousness; through them he explores the elemental processes of life and the existential journey. Among the realities he acknowledges in a sensitive voice is the Irish religious experience, particularly of the Catholic faith, yet his work has universal appeal to those who struggle with issues of identity, freedom, or faith.'

Patrick Hall: 'The sense of religion is very strong in me, it's indefinable ambiguities, the timeless infinitude of space. My father's family was Protestant and my mother's family was Catholic so that helped. That also puts me slightly on the edge of society, or maybe I have chosen to be on the edge, but that is one part of my history that removes me from the centre, edges feed me. Gradually as I got older these things became very meaningful for me and have remained very meaningful for me. They were doors to transcendence, to stepping outside of myself, towards otherness. Religion I suppose is a kind of window to the sky. I did an exhibition of paintings of clouds and the cloud represents a kind of unknowing. There's a thing called the cloud of unknowing, so religion is about not knowing. Religion is really a bad word, inaccurate. Otherness matters more than anything.'

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

Energy Orchard - King Of Love.

Patrick Scott: Image Space Light

I was first introduced to the work of Patrick Scott, who died on Friday one day before the opening of his retrospective at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, by Gesa E. Thiessen's Theology and Modern Irish Art, a study of the work and life of ten leading modern Irish painters from a theological perspective: Mainie Jellett, Jack Yeats, Louis le Brocquy, Gerard Dillon, Colin Middleton, Patrick Collins, Tony O’Malley, Patrick Scott, Patrick Graham and Patrick Hall.

Reviewing this book Cyril Barrett accurately states: 'All artists had a religious upbringing, the majority a Catholic one and all, with two exceptions, gave up the practice of their faith for more or less the same reasons at a fairly early age. The exceptions were Yeats and Jellet, both Church of Ireland, who continued to go to church. Post Tridentine Catholicism does not seem to appeal to artists. Art took its place.

On the other hand, though almost all rejected institutional religion and much of Christian doctrine, they were never antagonistic (except, perhaps, to the clergy) and retained many Christian beliefs.
Interestingly, most of them developed a naturalistic religion, seeing God in nature and feeling that reality is not limited to our field of vision or our sensory experiences. Besides the residue of Christian
belief, many of these artists were interested in pagan and Celtic religions and Zen Buddhism.'

Patrick Scott has been a defining figure of Irish art for over 70 years and the retrospective exhibition now open is testament to his extraordinary career, life and achievements as an artist. Barrett notes that 'Paganism is suggested in Patrick Scott's work in the form of pre-Celtic and Celtic sun worship, an optimistic pursuit in the Irish climate but probably all the more devoutly pursued as a consequence.' He also says that 'Thiessen ... is right to see a religious, if pagan, significance in Scott's 'Gold paintings'.' The early Gold Paintings from 1964 onwards, are arguably Scott’s best known expression.

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

Van Morrison - In The Garden.