Imagine a bed surrounded by the debris of a week’s illness, soiled sheets and slashed pillows, pills and vodka bottles, used condoms and tissues. This is My Bed an installation by Tracy Emin was first exhibited in 1999. You’ll probably remember reading about it in the press at the time as it prompted the usual “call that art, my two-year old could have done better” kind of articles.
A bed is a powerful symbol of birth and death, sex and intimacy but this controversial installation was perhaps an image of our culture’s sickness and dis-ease surrounded by the remnants of those things through which we seek a cure; sex, alcohol, drugs, tears, aggression. And the bed, like many lives, was empty. The morning after the cure that never came.
Our Old Testament reading from Ezekiel 37. 1-10 suggested something very similar about the people of Israel. Ezekiel saw a valley of dry bones and God said to him that the people of Israel were like those bones, dried up without any hope and with no future.
Sometimes our lives feel like these two pictures - dried up, no future, diseased, empty, dead. Our relationships may have broken down, we may have been abused, we may be anxious, stressed or worried, our work might be under threat or have ended. For all these reasons and many others we can feel as though our lives have closed down becoming barren or dry or dead.
Our communities and culture can feel like that too. Many years ago now, at the end of the 1970’s, The Sex Pistols sang about there being no future in England’s dreaming. And many people still think that our society is changing for the worse. When I had a holiday in Spain a few years ago I stayed on a street that was mainly occupied by British people who had left because they didn’t like the changes that they saw in British society. Such people think of Britain as being diseased and dead with no future for them.
Being in the Church it is also easy to feel the same. We are regularly told in the press that the Church is in decline (although many of the Churches in the Deanery suggest otherwise) and my Church, the Church of England is dealing with major conflicts over women bishops and gay clergy that threaten to pull it apart. Again, it is easy to feel as though the Church is washed up, dried out and dying.
Whatever we think of those issues and views, the God that we worship is in the resurrection business. And that is where we need to be too. In Ezekiel God promised that he would put his breath into the people of Israel and bring them back to life and in our Gospel reading (John 11. 1-45) Jesus said that he is the resurrection and the life and demonstrated this by bringing Lazarus back to life. Jesus was the fulfillment of God’s promise to Ezekiel that he would bring the people of Israel back to life. In Jesus, Israel lived life as God had intended and fulfilled Israel’s mission of bringing light to the rest of the world. In this way, Jesus resurrected a society and culture transforming the entire world as he did so.
He calls us to follow in his footsteps by looking for the places where our society and culture is dried up or dying and working for its transformation and resurrection. This is why it is important for us to support the work of the Church Urban Fund during Lent as their funding helps disadvantaged people escape their disadvantage. It is why it is important for us to live and work with people of other faiths, as we have been thinking about through our evening Lent course, so that we can escape the dead-end of racial conflicts. It is also why it is important for us to be involved in the regeneration of our area and borough. The beginning of this week saw a deanery meeting on Redbridge and Regeneration held here at St John’s and the end of the week the first public meeting of the Take Action for Seven Kings group.
Each of us can do the same as Jesus through our work and community involvements and we need to be asking ourselves how God wants to use us, through those involvements, to transform parts of our society and culture.
Raising Lazarus from death was a sign of what would happen after Jesus’ own death on the cross. By rising from death himself, Jesus conquered death for all people enabling us to enter in to eternal life after our physical death. This is good news for us to share with other people around us wherever we are - in our families and among our friends, neighbours and work colleagues.
After Easter we plan to run another Alpha course. Courses like Alpha provide great opportunities for us all to share our faith. There maybe someone that you can invite and bring along to the course or you may be able to help with running the course by helping with refreshments or setting up the room or helping in a discussion group (see me for more details after, if you can help or would like to come on the course). Think for a moment about the people and places where you can share the good news of life after death through our Lord Jesus.
Jesus also resurrected lives before physical death came. Look for a moment at John 11 with me. In the first section of that chapter from verses 1 to 16 we see the disciples struggling to understand what Jesus is saying and doing. He is wanting them to see how God is at work in Lazarus’ illness and death. They keep looking only at their physical and material circumstances - if Jesus goes back to Judea then he will be killed, if Lazarus is asleep then he will get better, and so on. Jesus wants them to see that God can work even through death and in verse 16 he draws out of them the commitment to go with him even though they may die with him.
Then in verses 17 to 27, Jesus helps Martha to move beyond her theoretical belief in the resurrection to a belief that Jesus himself is the promised Messiah. Finally, in verses 38 to 45, he helps all those present to move beyond their focus on physical realities to believe in God’s ability to do the supernatural. Throughout, Jesus is challenging all the people he encounters to move beyond their comfort zones, to step out in faith, to encounter and trust God in new ways. He wants to do the same with each one of us. Wherever our lives have got stuck, have become dried up or closed down or have died he wants to challenge and encourage us to move out of our comfort zones and to encounter him and other people in new and risky ways. He wants us to come alive to God, to the world, to other people and to life itself in new ways.
Jesus is in the resurrection business. Whether it is transforming society, sharing the good news of eternal life or encouraging us to step out in faith, Jesus wants to bring us to life. How will you respond to Jesus this morning? Is there an area of your life that he can bring back to life or will you commit yourself to join in sharing the good news of eternal life with others and transforming society where you are? As you think about that challenge let us pray together briefly, using the words of a song by Evanescence:
Lord Jesus, we are frozen inside without your touch, without your love. You are the life among the dead, so wake us up inside. Call our names and save us from the dark. Bid our blood to run before we come undone, save us from the nothing we’ve become. Bring us to life. Amen.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Evanescence - Bring Me To Life.
Monday, 10 March 2008
Friday, 7 March 2008
There were giants in those days (1)
It is said that, ‘Of the making of lists there is no end’ and, as it hasn’t done any harm to Nick Hornby’s career, I shall begin with three lists myself. Lists that group together a number of the significant British-based artists in the first half of the twentieth-century.
List one includes C. S. Lewis, Dorothy L. Sayers, J. R. R. Tolkien and Charles Williams. Lewis is the link person within this group: he, Tolkien and Williams met weekly in Oxford from 1939 to 1945 through the meetings of The Inklings; Sayers corresponded and met with both Lewis and Williams; Lewis and Sayers both developed a role as ‘popular theologians’; while Lewis, Sayers and Tolkien each contributed essays to what became the posthumous volume, Essays Presented to Charles Williams.
The second list or grouping revolves around T. S. Eliot and includes Christopher Fry, David Jones, Sayers and Williams: Eliot published and wrote introductions to the work of Jones and Williams; Eliot, Sayers and Williams shared a common love of, and wrote on, the work of Dante; Eliot, Fry, Sayers and Williams all wrote drama for the Canterbury Festival; Eliot, Fry and Williams were part of the Verse Drama movement; while, Jones and Williams shared a love of the Arthurian legends – Jones critiquing Williams’ work in The Arthurian Torso.
The final list or group has Eric Gill at its centre and includes, Desmond Chute, Philip Hagreen, Edward Johnston, Jones and Hilary Pepler. Gill, later followed by Johnston and Pepler, moved to Ditchling, Surrey in 1907 and this move led directly to the formation by Chute, Gill and Pepler of the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic in 1920. The Guild was a community of artists and craftspeople living, working and worshipping as Dominican Tertiaries. Jones joined the community in 1921 and then, in 1924, moved with Gill and Hagreen to Caldey in Wales as part of an attempt to establish a similar Guild there.
The links that I have briefly outlined are sufficient to establish that we have here three distinct groups – formed around Eliot, Gill and Lewis – plus a significant amount of overlap and linkage in personnel, ideas and forms between the groups – with Jones, Sayers and Williams emerging as the principal individuals linking the three groups.
Within their own time some of these groupings and links were recognised. Kenneth Pickering has noted that Sayers “was particularly conscious that she was one of a group of Christian writers who were under attack from both radical Christian and agnostic critics”. She wrote of indignation being “reserved for a small group of Anglicans, such as Charles Williams, C. S. Lewis … and, of course, T. S. Eliot …”.
George Bell, as Dean of Canterbury and then as Bishop of Chichester, initiated the Canterbury Festival where, as we have heard, plays by Eliot, Fry, Sayers and Williams, among others, were commissioned and performed. Bell also held several conferences on art and the church and again Eliot, Sayers and Williams were involved.
Accordingly, A. N. Wilson, in his biography of Lewis, suggests that there were giants in the Church of England in those days and cites Eliot, Lewis, and Sayers as examples.
However, it was not only in the Anglican Church that artistic giants existed. The group gathered around Gill, together with Tolkien, were all part of the Roman Catholic Church and there too a similar pattern can be seen. Kathleen Raine, for example, has stated that Gill and Jones were part of “a remarkable flowering of Catholic culture”.
Finally, the links between this group and the Anglican grouping have been noted by Gregory Wolfe who includes Eliot, Gill and Jones in his list of Religious Humanists from this period.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
King Crimson - In The Court Of The Crimson King.
List one includes C. S. Lewis, Dorothy L. Sayers, J. R. R. Tolkien and Charles Williams. Lewis is the link person within this group: he, Tolkien and Williams met weekly in Oxford from 1939 to 1945 through the meetings of The Inklings; Sayers corresponded and met with both Lewis and Williams; Lewis and Sayers both developed a role as ‘popular theologians’; while Lewis, Sayers and Tolkien each contributed essays to what became the posthumous volume, Essays Presented to Charles Williams.
The second list or grouping revolves around T. S. Eliot and includes Christopher Fry, David Jones, Sayers and Williams: Eliot published and wrote introductions to the work of Jones and Williams; Eliot, Sayers and Williams shared a common love of, and wrote on, the work of Dante; Eliot, Fry, Sayers and Williams all wrote drama for the Canterbury Festival; Eliot, Fry and Williams were part of the Verse Drama movement; while, Jones and Williams shared a love of the Arthurian legends – Jones critiquing Williams’ work in The Arthurian Torso.
The final list or group has Eric Gill at its centre and includes, Desmond Chute, Philip Hagreen, Edward Johnston, Jones and Hilary Pepler. Gill, later followed by Johnston and Pepler, moved to Ditchling, Surrey in 1907 and this move led directly to the formation by Chute, Gill and Pepler of the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic in 1920. The Guild was a community of artists and craftspeople living, working and worshipping as Dominican Tertiaries. Jones joined the community in 1921 and then, in 1924, moved with Gill and Hagreen to Caldey in Wales as part of an attempt to establish a similar Guild there.
The links that I have briefly outlined are sufficient to establish that we have here three distinct groups – formed around Eliot, Gill and Lewis – plus a significant amount of overlap and linkage in personnel, ideas and forms between the groups – with Jones, Sayers and Williams emerging as the principal individuals linking the three groups.
Within their own time some of these groupings and links were recognised. Kenneth Pickering has noted that Sayers “was particularly conscious that she was one of a group of Christian writers who were under attack from both radical Christian and agnostic critics”. She wrote of indignation being “reserved for a small group of Anglicans, such as Charles Williams, C. S. Lewis … and, of course, T. S. Eliot …”.
George Bell, as Dean of Canterbury and then as Bishop of Chichester, initiated the Canterbury Festival where, as we have heard, plays by Eliot, Fry, Sayers and Williams, among others, were commissioned and performed. Bell also held several conferences on art and the church and again Eliot, Sayers and Williams were involved.
Accordingly, A. N. Wilson, in his biography of Lewis, suggests that there were giants in the Church of England in those days and cites Eliot, Lewis, and Sayers as examples.
However, it was not only in the Anglican Church that artistic giants existed. The group gathered around Gill, together with Tolkien, were all part of the Roman Catholic Church and there too a similar pattern can be seen. Kathleen Raine, for example, has stated that Gill and Jones were part of “a remarkable flowering of Catholic culture”.
Finally, the links between this group and the Anglican grouping have been noted by Gregory Wolfe who includes Eliot, Gill and Jones in his list of Religious Humanists from this period.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
King Crimson - In The Court Of The Crimson King.
Thursday, 6 March 2008
Images for Easter
----------------------------------------------------------------------------Pops Staples - Nobody's Fault But Mine.
Wednesday, 5 March 2008
Two memes
I've been tagged by Paul and Sam on two different memes, so here are my responses:
1. What translation of the Bible do you like best?
I agree with Paul on this one. Having read the Bible throughout my life and, therefore, having a familiarity with many passages that can be dulling, I find that The Message often brings passages alive in new ways.
2. Old or New Testament?
Both! I love the counter-story in the OT which then emerges in the NT as the story of God's kingdom in the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus. My favourite quote on this is from Josipovici: “It’s a magnificent conception, spread over thousands of pages and encompassing the entire history of the universe. There is both perfect correspondence between Old and New Testaments and a continuous forward drive from Creation to the end of time: ‘It begins where time begins, with the creation of the world; it ends where time ends, with the Apocalypse, and it surveys human history in between, or the aspect of history it is interested in, under the symbolic names of Adam and Israel’. Earlier ages had no difficulty in grasping this design, though our own, more bookish age, obsessed with both history and immediacy, has tended to lose sight of it. Neither theologians nor biblical scholars have stood back enough to see it as a whole. Yet it is a whole and quite unlike any other book.”
3. Favorite Book of the Bible?
John's Gospel - which I read together with Stephen Verney's Water into Wine commentary.
4. Favorite Chapter?
Ephesians 4 - which I hope is what characterises my ministry. It has certainly been my inspiration for ministry.
5. Favorite Verse? (feel free to explain yourself if you have to
Romans 5. 8 - the verse that, as a teenager and still today, assures me that I am loved and accepted by God as I am.
6. Bible character you think you’re most like?
Like Paul, I want to be like Jesus (although I don't kid myself that I am!). My gut answer to this question would be Luke.
7. One thing from the Bible that confuses you?
Revelation - the Book of!
8. Moses or Paul?
I identify strongly with Moses in his reticence and arguing with God but plump for Paul at his inclusive height - no difference between Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free, men and women, all are one in union with Christ!
9. A teaching from the Bible that you struggle with or don’t get?
Those sections that commend/condone exclusion.
10. Coolest name in the Bible?
Jonathan.
I tag Huw, Jim and Philip with this thread.
Sam's meme was this:
Rule 1) List three reasons for your blogging.
Rule 2) List these rules.
Rule 3) Tag three others with the thread.
Reason 1 - I want to share discoveries of people and things that inspire me to live creatively in the tension of the now and the not yet. Reason 2 - I need to write and therefore also need an outlet for the writing I do. Reason 3 - As Sam says, blogging is a conversational activity that invites response and debate.
I tag Painter of Blue, Paul and Huw with this thread.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Dylan - Blind Willie McTell.
1. What translation of the Bible do you like best?
I agree with Paul on this one. Having read the Bible throughout my life and, therefore, having a familiarity with many passages that can be dulling, I find that The Message often brings passages alive in new ways.
2. Old or New Testament?
Both! I love the counter-story in the OT which then emerges in the NT as the story of God's kingdom in the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus. My favourite quote on this is from Josipovici: “It’s a magnificent conception, spread over thousands of pages and encompassing the entire history of the universe. There is both perfect correspondence between Old and New Testaments and a continuous forward drive from Creation to the end of time: ‘It begins where time begins, with the creation of the world; it ends where time ends, with the Apocalypse, and it surveys human history in between, or the aspect of history it is interested in, under the symbolic names of Adam and Israel’. Earlier ages had no difficulty in grasping this design, though our own, more bookish age, obsessed with both history and immediacy, has tended to lose sight of it. Neither theologians nor biblical scholars have stood back enough to see it as a whole. Yet it is a whole and quite unlike any other book.”
3. Favorite Book of the Bible?
John's Gospel - which I read together with Stephen Verney's Water into Wine commentary.
4. Favorite Chapter?
Ephesians 4 - which I hope is what characterises my ministry. It has certainly been my inspiration for ministry.
5. Favorite Verse? (feel free to explain yourself if you have to
Romans 5. 8 - the verse that, as a teenager and still today, assures me that I am loved and accepted by God as I am.
6. Bible character you think you’re most like?
Like Paul, I want to be like Jesus (although I don't kid myself that I am!). My gut answer to this question would be Luke.
7. One thing from the Bible that confuses you?
Revelation - the Book of!
8. Moses or Paul?
I identify strongly with Moses in his reticence and arguing with God but plump for Paul at his inclusive height - no difference between Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free, men and women, all are one in union with Christ!
9. A teaching from the Bible that you struggle with or don’t get?
Those sections that commend/condone exclusion.
10. Coolest name in the Bible?
Jonathan.
I tag Huw, Jim and Philip with this thread.
Sam's meme was this:
Rule 1) List three reasons for your blogging.
Rule 2) List these rules.
Rule 3) Tag three others with the thread.
Reason 1 - I want to share discoveries of people and things that inspire me to live creatively in the tension of the now and the not yet. Reason 2 - I need to write and therefore also need an outlet for the writing I do. Reason 3 - As Sam says, blogging is a conversational activity that invites response and debate.
I tag Painter of Blue, Paul and Huw with this thread.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Dylan - Blind Willie McTell.
Tuesday, 4 March 2008
Eastertide courses
The LENT & EASTERTIDE SCHOOLS are a collection of education, training and skills events across the Diocese of Chelmsford during Lent and Eastertide each year. Subjects covered are as diverse as art & theology, pastoral care, leading small groups, healing & wholeness and evangelism. The courses are open to anyone.
Module Easter 5: The Big Picture 2
How can Christians respond to controversial art: protest or engagement? How have Christian artists expressed their faith through popular culture? How has Christianity influenced popular culture? How does popular culture portray or critique Christianity? These are some of the questions the course will explore using multi media resources with plenty of opportunity for discussion and practical response. Tutors: Revds Philip Ritchie, Jon Evens & Paul Trathen. Tuesday Evenings 7.30-9.30pm. St Lawrence, Ninefields, Waltham Abbey. April 15, 22, 29, May 6, 13.
Module Easter 8: Living with Other Faiths
This course helps people explore why we should engage with other faith communities and how we can go about doing so. The course objectives are to identify biblical principles for engaging with other faith communities; to develop an understanding of the beliefs and sensitivity to the practises of other faiths and to consider a range of ways of engaging with other faith communities and to identify particular approaches appropriate to your situation. Tutors: Revd Jonathan Evens & Canon David Driscoll. Friday Mornings 10am-12pm. Cathedral Learning Centre, Chelmsford. April 25, May 2, 9, 16, 23.
Module Easter 11: Living with Other Faiths
The course uses Bible studies to explore reasons why we should engage with people of other faiths and ideas on how we can do this. It gives brief desciptions of the beliefs and practises of the main faith communities in the UK. Information on their locations and advice about making initial contact. It includes ideas/case studies for a range of ways in which people can engage with faith communities. Tutor: Revds Sean Connolly & Angus Ritchie. Monday Evenings 7.30-9.30pm. St Margaret's Catholic Church, Barking Road. E16. April 14, 21, 28, May 5, 12.
For brochures and booking forms please contact: Liz Watson. Diocesan Office, 53 New Street, Chelmsford, Essex. CM1 1AT. Tel: 01245 294449 email: lwatson@chelmsford.anglican.org .
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric Bibb - Angels Singing.
Sunday, 2 March 2008
Good Friday devotional
Station 1: Jesus is condemned to death
Station 2: Jesus takes up his cross
For this year’s Good Friday Devotional Service at St John's I will be using meditations and images from Hertford stns; a Stations of the Cross for Hertford.
The ‘Stations of the Cross’ is a guided meditation through the final hours of Jesus’ life, beginning with the moment he is condemned to death and ending with his body being laid in the tomb. Jesus’ ‘Passion’ or journey towards the cross is recreated in a series of fourteen ‘stations’ (in some versions a fifteenth station of ‘the resurrection’ is also included). The majority of these ‘stations’ are recorded in scripture, although some belong more to Church tradition. It is thought that it was St Francis of Assisi who first created this devotional re-enactment of Christ’s last hours, to aid pilgrims who could not make the long and dangerous journey to Jerusalem themselves
Usually the Stations of the Cross are represented pictorially, either in paintings or images carved in relief, and displayed on the walls of a church. For each station there is an accompanying prayer and reflection designed to help us meditate upon the significance of what happens, both for Christ and for ourselves; the lengths that His love has gone to and our response to that love.
During Lent in 2008, Hertford & District Churches Together have created their own ‘Stations for Hertford’. Through artist workshops, they have made six artworks inspired by six of the stations, in various different media. The remaining eight stations have been produced by local artists. These artworks are then being sited around the town in different places of worship and in other more public, civic and outdoor locations to create a pilgrimage around the stations for Holy Week (17th - 23rd March). I have written meditations for each of the Hertford Stations and these will be available for those making the pilgrimage in a printed guide to aid their spiritual journey.
It is these meditations and images that I will be using in our Good Friday Devotional Service and so I invite you to accompany me as we retrace Christ’s footsteps by following the stations that led him to the cross and the tomb. In doing so, we will remember his words that unless a grain of wheat (meaning his body) falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. We are among the many seeds that have sprouted from the ground in which his body was buried. In our gratitude for the new life we have received, let reflect on the lengths to which Jesus went in love to make that new life possible for each and every one of us.
Station 5 - Simon helps Jesus carry his cross
Blessed are you
when you recognise the agony of an other.
Blessed are you
when you respond to pain with relief.
Blessed are you
when you share the shame endured by an other.
Blessed are you
when you are reviled for the sake of an other.
Blessed are you
when you lift a burden from an other’s shoulders.
Blessed are you
when you enable an other to regain their footing.
Blessed are you
when you assist an other to arise.
Blessed are you
when you take up an other’s cross.
Station 6 - Jesus meets Veronica
Your face, set like flint,
set towards Jerusalem,
bears the mark of the cross.
You carry the cross
in the resolution
written on
your features.
Death is the choice,
the decision,
the destiny,
revealed
in the blood,
sweat and tears
secreted from
your face
in prayerful questions,
prophetic grief,
pain-full acceptance,
then
imprinted on
Veronica’s veil.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ben Harper - Picture of Jesus.
Healing & reconciliation
Here is today's sermon for St John's based on John 19. 25 - 27:
Jesus is dying in agony as he hangs on the cross. You would think that all his remaining energies and focus would be on himself and his imminent end. That is not the case. The Gospel accounts, taken as a whole, record seven separate statements made by Jesus from the cross, many of which reflect his concern for others instead of concern for himself.
That is the case here, when he sees his mother and “the disciple whom he loved” (traditionally identified as being John) at the foot of the cross. His concern is that both will be bereft following his death and so he specifically gives them one to the other as a support to each other. In this we can see something of the depth of Christ’s love for us as individuals; that even in this moment of personal agony and torture his concern is directed towards the wellbeing of others. In this way, these words and this action are like a little vignette or parable revealing the purpose of his death which is reconciliation and love.
The death of a loved one can, in itself, be a trigger for acts of reconciliation and support within families and wider networks. Where there is a period of illness prior to death, people will gather together to visit their loved one and that person may have specific instructions, advice or encouragement that they wish to share with individuals or the wider family or group. Even where that has not been the case, because death is sudden and unexpected, the funeral can also be a focal point for those who have not been in regular contact with each other to gather.
We see in this story that Jesus has a concern for his family and friends to support each other following his death and his words are designed to facilitate that support. As a direct result of Jesus’ words, Mary comes to live with John. I have been part of funeral arrangements and services where something similar has been the outcome and, on occasion, where these words of Jesus have played a part in creating that understanding.
A death throws into stark relief the need that we all have for support in our lives through our families and friends but we don’t have to wait for a death to occur to take seriously the importance of sustaining those relationships and healing them where they have broken down.
Communion is a regular reminder to us of the death of Christ and, therefore, can also be a moment for that kind of reflection. Jesus made this explicit in his teaching when he said: “if you offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there at the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5. 23 & 24)
A second reflection that emerges from this story is the possibility of being what Henri Nouwen has called being a “wounded healer”. Each of us has areas of weakness, hurt or difficulty in our lives and it is possible for us simply to think of these things in the negative terms that those words imply. However, Jesus’ incarnation and death show us that God accepts and takes on weakness, hurt and difficulty in order to effect healing and reconciliation. If we follow that example, then there is the possibility of a changed understanding for us of those things that we think of as weakness, hurt or difficulty in our own lives and of these becoming points of connection and help for others.
Henri Nouwen says: “a shared pain is no longer paralyzing but mobilizing, when understood as a way to liberation. When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope.”
Many of you know about my own experience of grief both in the death of my younger brother and the recent death of my father. For me, in my ministry, these experiences can help me in understanding and sharing with others who are grieving and, in this way, they can become positive experiences. That is not to say that I stop grieving for my brother and father or that the sense of loss I feel becomes less. It is not that I have in some way ‘recovered’ from grief that means I can minister to others, rather it is the fact that I continue to feel the wound of grief that makes that ministry possible.
The forgiveness and love that we receive from Jesus comes out of his experience of the agony and torture of death. It comes out of the wound of crucifixion and this is why it is of significance that his resurrected body continues to bear the marks of those wounds. We do not need to become perfect in order to be accepted and loved by God nor do we need to recover from weakness, hurt and difficulty in order to minister to others. Sometimes it is the willingness and openness to share our own experience of pain and suffering, not in order to burden another, but as an act of empathy with another that is just the support and healing that that other person needs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Emmylou Harris - Here I Am.
Jesus is dying in agony as he hangs on the cross. You would think that all his remaining energies and focus would be on himself and his imminent end. That is not the case. The Gospel accounts, taken as a whole, record seven separate statements made by Jesus from the cross, many of which reflect his concern for others instead of concern for himself.
That is the case here, when he sees his mother and “the disciple whom he loved” (traditionally identified as being John) at the foot of the cross. His concern is that both will be bereft following his death and so he specifically gives them one to the other as a support to each other. In this we can see something of the depth of Christ’s love for us as individuals; that even in this moment of personal agony and torture his concern is directed towards the wellbeing of others. In this way, these words and this action are like a little vignette or parable revealing the purpose of his death which is reconciliation and love.
The death of a loved one can, in itself, be a trigger for acts of reconciliation and support within families and wider networks. Where there is a period of illness prior to death, people will gather together to visit their loved one and that person may have specific instructions, advice or encouragement that they wish to share with individuals or the wider family or group. Even where that has not been the case, because death is sudden and unexpected, the funeral can also be a focal point for those who have not been in regular contact with each other to gather.
We see in this story that Jesus has a concern for his family and friends to support each other following his death and his words are designed to facilitate that support. As a direct result of Jesus’ words, Mary comes to live with John. I have been part of funeral arrangements and services where something similar has been the outcome and, on occasion, where these words of Jesus have played a part in creating that understanding.
A death throws into stark relief the need that we all have for support in our lives through our families and friends but we don’t have to wait for a death to occur to take seriously the importance of sustaining those relationships and healing them where they have broken down.
Communion is a regular reminder to us of the death of Christ and, therefore, can also be a moment for that kind of reflection. Jesus made this explicit in his teaching when he said: “if you offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there at the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5. 23 & 24)
A second reflection that emerges from this story is the possibility of being what Henri Nouwen has called being a “wounded healer”. Each of us has areas of weakness, hurt or difficulty in our lives and it is possible for us simply to think of these things in the negative terms that those words imply. However, Jesus’ incarnation and death show us that God accepts and takes on weakness, hurt and difficulty in order to effect healing and reconciliation. If we follow that example, then there is the possibility of a changed understanding for us of those things that we think of as weakness, hurt or difficulty in our own lives and of these becoming points of connection and help for others.
Henri Nouwen says: “a shared pain is no longer paralyzing but mobilizing, when understood as a way to liberation. When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope.”
Many of you know about my own experience of grief both in the death of my younger brother and the recent death of my father. For me, in my ministry, these experiences can help me in understanding and sharing with others who are grieving and, in this way, they can become positive experiences. That is not to say that I stop grieving for my brother and father or that the sense of loss I feel becomes less. It is not that I have in some way ‘recovered’ from grief that means I can minister to others, rather it is the fact that I continue to feel the wound of grief that makes that ministry possible.
The forgiveness and love that we receive from Jesus comes out of his experience of the agony and torture of death. It comes out of the wound of crucifixion and this is why it is of significance that his resurrected body continues to bear the marks of those wounds. We do not need to become perfect in order to be accepted and loved by God nor do we need to recover from weakness, hurt and difficulty in order to minister to others. Sometimes it is the willingness and openness to share our own experience of pain and suffering, not in order to burden another, but as an act of empathy with another that is just the support and healing that that other person needs.
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Emmylou Harris - Here I Am.
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