Advent word - Listen

As Christian's we're sometimes more inclined to talk than listen - we have something wonderful to share, something we think everyone should know - yet it's more important to listen. Listen to our communities, listen to the people in our parishes. Find out people's stories, find out their needs. If all the church does is talk then what good are we? Our faith should move us into action.

On the cross, exposed and vulnerable, Jesus draws the whole world in a loving embrace. Everything hangs, everyone is the  held here. Jesus holds the people of Charlestown and Ferguson and Baltimore and all around the globe. Jesus listens to the grieving and grappling, the terrorized and troubled, the frightened and crying. Jesus listens to all the heartache, all the questions. On the cross Jesus bears the weight, the weight of the world, holding us all in his wounded hands.

-Br. Luke Ditewig

Advent word - renew

Today's photo was taken on our date day- going to see Fantastic Beasts.
Annual events which are often in many ways unchanging, like the Christmas traditions we enjoy, can shine a spotlight on what has changed for better and for worse over the previous year. There's been quite a lot of change in my marriage in the last 12 months- change of jobs, change of roles, ordination and at times it's been a difficult year.
One complaint you hear a lot in relationships is about change; one partner feels the other has changed and aren't the person they fell in love with. My viewpoint is that change is inevitable and healthy. My husband and I are 38 and 43, we were 17 and 21 when we started dating- how unhealthy would it be for us to still be the same people we were 21 years ago? We've been shaped by relationship, children, joys, disappointments and bereavements.
Change will happen, and it can be scary, but it can also be a renewal, something which breathes new life; something which transforms.

Christ is all in all. He is here symbolically in a stone altar He is here sacramentally in bread and wine. He is here spiritually in hearts lifted up and returned to us renewed, transformed, consecrated.

-Br. Mark Brown

Advent word - Love

Tim Booth sings "love can mean anything", Johnny Bramwell's take is "to be loved is to be divine". If we're honest we probably take a lot of what we think about love from the lyrics of the songs we listen too, in the same way much of our theology is formed by hymns.
My stance is probably somewhere between Booth and Bramwell; love, which can take many forms, does indeed give us a glimpse of what God is like. Most of the metaphors we have are inadequate to explain or understand divine love. Jesus works with the parent/child metaphor, which comes the closest to helping our understanding but which we will still never fully understand.

Falling in love is one of the most profoundly spiritual experiences a person can have. By falling in love we discover our capacity for selflessness. We experience what it means to entrust ourselves, our souls and bodies, to another. When we fall in love as God does, we too will ultimately “stretch out [our] arms of love on the hard wood of the cross,” just as Jesus did.

-Br. James Koester

Advent word - Shine

It's that time of year again so I'm going to attempt daily blogging through Advent, this year following the Society of St John The Evangelist's (SSJE) Advent Word. Each day they give you a word and image, encouraging people to respond with their own image.
The image I've used today is my bedside light. I've been working night shifts so this is mostly what I've seen when I've been at home.
Each day there's a really short reflection which goes with the image and word:

Rather than experiencing the sorrows of our world as a source of desolation, hear the news as a clarion call, as motivation and clarification for what we are to be about as followers of Jesus Christ: to bear the beams of God’s love and light and life, especially to those who wouldn’t otherwise know it.
-Br. Curtis Almquist

The word "shine" in terms of faith always reminds me of the baptism liturgy; after we give a lighted candle we all pray together "shine as a light in the world, to the glory of God the father". This is our prayer for the child, that they will shine in the world and in doing so reflect something of God.
These are uncertain times, maybe if more of us try to "shine" and bring light to others it will bring the comfort that comes when a light is shone in a dark place.

Instagram-Perfect life

Preached at the main service 23rd October 2013 (a healing eucharist) and based upon Luke 18:9-14

Pressure to be perfect is something which I feel permeates our society. Not just to strive for physical perfection but for every aspect of our lives to be picture perfect. I feel the pressure to not only look a certain way but to be a perfect homemaker, expert gardener, top chef, have interesting hobbies, go to the gym, see the newest films, read popular books, be up to date with current TV, current events and politics, listen to the right music, have the newest gadgets and the right things. It’s exhausting.

This obsession with achieving a picture or Instagram perfect life is all about what people see on the outside, it says nothing about who we are inside and what we really think and feel. It creates a separation, a disconnect, from our spiritual self, our lives become all about what’s on the surface, which is what’s going on in our gospel today.

On the surface of things the Pharisee is a good man, a holy man, an upstanding member of society. He’s middle class. He appears to be doing all the right things; praying, fasting and giving to charity, but there’s that disconnect. His contempt for the outcasts- thieves, rogues, adulterers and the tax-collectors- reveals that his is a superficial faith, concerned with how he appears to be. He thinks that he’s morally better, and if we’re looking at the surface of things we might be inclined to agree. “I’m holy” he says, “not like these people”.

Next to him we have a tax collector, a sinner, a self-confessed sinner, and that’s the big difference between the two men. The tax collector is honest about who he is, and he’s honest with God. He’s not interested in trying to make himself look better, or compare himself to others whose offences are worse. “God, be merciful to me a sinner”. He knows himself, what he is and never tries to hide that from God. His petition is honest and raw.

Jesus tells us that it’s this second man who finds favour with God, not the man who appears Holy. The tax-collector doesn’t try and present a sanitised view of himself to God, he brings everything that he is, including his brokenness and puts himself into God’s hands. This is something which is really important as we think about wholeness and healing today.

There’s a saying that I’ve heard- do you want your church to be a museum of saints or a hospital for sinners? I think most of us come to church not because we consider ourselves to be holy or righteous but because we know that we aren’t. We love God, we want to be the people he created us to be, but we keep getting it wrong- I know I do.

You start your day with the best of intentions- today will be a good day, today I won’t slip up. I won’t shout at the kids, I’ll be productive, I’ll be patient with my colleagues, I won’t be sarcastic, I’ll treat my spouse gently and I’ll do everything lovingly. It only takes one little perceived failure in this to make us think we’ve failed at it all. So we start again the next day- striving to be a more perfect version of ourselves.

But what if God doesn’t want us to be perfect? He created us a diverse and imperfect people. What if the most important thing for us to achieve a more whole relationship with God is for us to simply be honest with him?

There’s an initiative in the US called The Hearth which aims to help people build community and address suffering by sharing stories. It’s director, a man called Mark Yaconelli, says that we as Christians are reluctant to share our stories unless it’s something that’s behind us, something where we can identify where God was at work. The stuff we’re still grappling with, the things we haven’t figured out, the things we really need to confront now are the things which we don’t share and aren’t honest about. But we can’t hide our true selves from God, even the things we particularly don’t like or wish we could conceal.

We don’t know what happened to the tax collector after today’s gospel story, whether he went on sinning, but his honesty and his cry for mercy meant that he had a much more rounded and whole relationship with God than the Pharisee.

Healing in any relationship can only come when there’s honesty and acknowledgement of wrongdoing. Only then can there be true reconciliation. I’ve been reminded a lot in recent weeks for various reasons of the Truth and Reconciliation commission set up in South Africa after the abolition of apartheid and chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Hearings started in 1996 with a mandate of restorative justice, to bear witness to, record, and in some cases grant amnesty to the perpetrators of crimes relating to human rights violations under the former political regime, as well as attempting to repair and rehabilitate. This was about restoration, not reprimand. To repair a country almost destroyed by a system of division and hate.

This was in sharp contrast to the Nuremberg trials set up after the collapse of Nazism. There’s a lot of criticism of the commission, a lot of which is tied to our human ideas of what justice is. Our own justice system is based on ideas we perceive as biblical; crimes require judgement which results in punishment, but our interpretation is filtered through the legal and philosophical lens of both the time the biblical books were written and the times they were interpreted.

I can’t help but wonder if the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was one human construct which has got the closest to maybe how God does things, in line with Jesus’ teaching from today’s gospel.

Acknowledgement of the things we do that aren’t what God would want, and a call for mercy creates a bridge between ourselves and God. It opens us up to his reconciling ways. There’s no sign the tax collector turned from his way of life, but he did acknowledge it and that’s what God wants from us.

As theologian Jane Williams puts it: if God really is loving and teasing and forgiving, like he is in the stories Jesus tells, then we all have a chance. You have to want God, just God, offering the chance for God to see you as you really are and love you.

This is where healing begins; being fully ourselves before God, the good and the bad, and realising that we’re still loved in our imperfect state. This acknowledgment begins the healing of our relationship with ourselves, the healing of our relationship with God and the healing of our relationships with each other.

God doesn’t want perfection, he wants us to be the people he created us to be, aware of our imperfections, and most importantly aware of our need for him.

Love Isn't Control

Short Evensong homily based on Ezra 1 and John 7:14-36

There’s a lot of confusion in this evening’s gospel reading as people are trying to figure out who Jesus is- is he the Messiah? The Jewish people, and the temple officials are both puzzled by this man, not knowing how he knows the things he does when he’s just some bloke from Nazareth. How could he possibly be the messiah?

The way Jesus deals with this is not in an authoritarian way but an encouragement to get people to think about who he is and what he’s doing. Is he just Mary and Joseph’s son or is there more to him? He tells us he’s a product of where he’s from and the one who sent him, meaning he’s more than a simple man from Nazareth.

He’s learned much, I’m sure, from his mum and dad but his real power, the tools he needs to fulfil his ministry and purpose, are from God. Jesus is saying “look at me, I’m a simple man from an insignificant village so how can the things I’m saying or doing be from anyone else but God? I’m not educated, I’m not rich, I’m not anyone. Draw your own conclusions. Look at the evidence and you decide who you think I am”. Jesus rarely spoon feeds us.

There is so much we can learn about God from this. Firstly the encouragement to doubt, reason and think for ourselves. Institutions of religion and Christianity in the past have attempted to supress this. It’s been about rules and control, much like the Pharisees, and so far-removed from what I believe God intends for us.

God wants us to engage our minds. Religion which operates just within a set of overly-prescribed rules, or at the other end of the spectrum just attempts to engage our emotions, is not a true reflection of God. We’re designed to be curious, inquisitive and questioning. It’s the only way we can fully engage with God.

Ours is a relationship of love. If a relationship is built upon control that is not love. If any of you, like me, are fans of The Archers you’ll probably be aware of a recent change in the law which now defines coercive-control as abuse, for which you can be prosecuted. Jesus opposes the Pharisees control and his encouragement to think and question makes our relationship with the divide more rounded and whole.

Secondly it’s an encouragement to not judge people by how they appear but by the fruit they bear. If we look at the basic facts Jesus is an uneducated man from an insignificant place, but when we look at what he achieves we know he is much more than that. We can’t judge anyone on face value, but on the fruit the bear, evidence of God at work through them by what they produce in the world.

We may see people claim to have no faith and yet clearly see God reflected in them. Others may claim to lead a devout and god-focused life and yet their behaviour and choices say otherwise, like the Pharisees.  We can examine ourselves in this way- how do I appear, what do I want people to think of me? Is this reflected in the fruit I bear and the choices I make?

Finally it’s a reminder that all we need comes from God. We see this in the passage from Ezra where God sees people in a position to achieve what he needs them too and he stirs them up, giving them the ability to pull together and do what needs to be done. Everything Jesus needed to fulfil his ministry came from God, not his upbringing, education or the place he was from.

So God gives us everything we need to bear fruit in the world, but also to keep questioning, looking for the signposts of where He’s at work, and how we can be part of that.

Breaking the rules

This sermon was preached this morning at St Michael's Flixton. The readings were Isaiah 58:9b-14, Psalm 103:1-8, Hebrews 12:18-29 & Luke 13:10-17.

Why do we come to church? Is it something you ever think about? Do we come out of a sense of duty- something we feel we should or ought to do? Or do we come out of ritual or habit- it’s what we’ve always done? Do we come for community- to be part of something bigger, to get a sense of belonging? Or do we come because we feel we’ll experience something of God in this place?
Whatever your own reasons are, they probably contain a little bit of each of these, and of course it’s scriptural.
In Hebrews chapter 10 we hear of the importance of meeting together and encouraging each other; Matthew 18 contains Jesus famous words that when 2 or 3 are gathered in his name, there he is; In Acts 2 the apostles gather for prayer, teaching and breaking bread.
It was also scriptural for the Jewish people that Jesus is teaching in front of in today’s gospel to attend structured worship. There were a lot of rules around the Sabbath laid down in Levitical law. We know that Levitical law was and is extensive and contains instruction on every area of life.
Yet in today’s gospel we see Jesus, the same Jesus who said he hadn’t come to abolish the Law, break one of the Sabbath rules. Healing was classed as work, which may seem odd to us. The definitions in Jewish teaching about what is and isn’t work have been pondered and debated by scholars and rabbis for thousands of years. I’ve nursed orthodox Jewish patients who couldn’t press their nurse call button on the Sabbath because using something electrical was forbidden under their understanding of the Law.
The minutiae of these definitions may be baffling- even to Anglicans with our rules and rituals- but there are reasons for it. Keeping the Sabbath, to this people, was all about putting a special time aside to remember and be with God. Even though the extent of the Law reached every part of life, the Sabbath was the time when all other things were put aside and it was about God and only God.
Following the law to the letter stemmed from the exile- The Hebrews believed they were sent into exile as a punishment for not following the rules and so there was a fear of “not getting it right” and being punished again.
This might help frame just how controversial it was for Jesus to break the rules. And it wasn’t the first time. At this point Jesus has already allowed his disciples to pick grain on the Sabbath, because they’re hungry, and has healed a man’s withered hand, also in a synagogue on the Sabbath. In the next chapter he does it again, healing a man with dropsy.
This repeated rule breaking tells us one thing, whatever point Jesus is making here it’s an important one, and it’s not about healing. Those of you who’ve heard me speak about healing miracles before may remember my belief that whenever we see a healing miracle in the gospels it’s never about the healing, it’s always about something Jesus is trying to reveal to us about God.
In the narrative we see a synagogue leader so keen on rules he could very well be part of the CofE! He says:
"There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day."
He’s a proper jobsworth! But Jesus points out the hypocrisy of it, that there are other things, none of which reveal anything of God, which people do on the Sabbath for mere practical reasons- who would deny their animal water because of the Sabbath rules? None of them. Yet Jesus’ revelation of the power of God in healing the women is not condoned.
This is where we find something marvellous to celebrate in our Anglican tradition. It can be a bit fuzzy to define what we, the Anglican communion are. Those who’ve thought about these things have defined it as a triangle, with each side of the triangle having an equal share in what defines us. Those three sides, and you probably will have heard this before, are Scripture, Tradition and Reason.
This trinity, like the eternal trinity, are held in tension together, forever dancing and circling each other, intertwining to help us figure out our beliefs and our theology.
In this story of Jesus healing a woman in the synagogue we have tradition and scripture on one side, telling us that he’s broken the rules, done the wrong thing, but then reason comes in and puts a twist on whole situation.
The reasonable question to ask is what does each situation reveal of God? On one hand we have the rules, set in scripture and carried through tradition, and on the other we have a women healed in a place where people have gathered to learn about God.
The attempted enforcement of the rules here makes God seem small, confined and constricted. The healing reveals a God of power, a God who can’t be confined or defined by us and our institutions. God isn’t defined by the church, we should be defined by God.
It’s built into the DNA of the church of England to give equal weighting to reason, tradition and scripture even when these things are at odds with each. 30 years ago I wouldn’t have been stood here, with this collar on, preaching to you. Tradition and Scripture were quite clear: women lived under the authority of men, and as such were not authorised to be ordained. It wasn’t our place.
Yet reason leads us to re-examine scripture for the time and place we find ourselves. The bible isn’t a holy rule book. It’s the story of humanity’s relationship with God, and revelation of God through Jesus Christ. This revelation isn’t closed off or finished, it’s ongoing, through re-examining scripture in our own context. Through this process has been born liberation theology, black theology, feminist theology, queer theology.
Ongoing revelation means the voiceless have found their voices, and found their place in God’s kingdom.
By accepting that what’s contained in scripture is an ongoing conversation between the text and our context we accept that it’s not about trying to define or restrict God with a set of rules but seeing where he’s at work in the world. This has been brought to the fore in recent years as we’ve seen scripture and tradition under debate in regards to sexuality, which made headlines again recently as a priest from our diocese resigned his position and married his male partner.
Tradition says one thing, reason another, and scripture is interpreted and re-interpreted by those on both sides of the debate. Are we, in these debates, trying to contain God? Make him small, make him conform to our image of him? Or are we looking beyond our beliefs and expectations? Opening our eyes to where God is revealed right before us?
At the end of today’s gospel reading the people who witness Jesus’ miracle aren’t siding with the religious leader, they’re rejoicing at the miracle they’ve witnessed. My challenge to us is to do the same- look for where God is moving in the world and celebrate it!
The writer of Hebrews tells us we’re receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Nothing that humankind can say or do can shake God or God’s kingdom- he’s way bigger than that. Rules, Ritual and even the church can’t define God, or know God’s mind or will. He’s not made in our image, we’re made in his, and he is indeed a consuming fire.
A fire of power, a fire of joy and a fire of love.
To go back to my opening question, I come to church to try and catch a bit of that fire, having that Sabbath focus of time just for God. If we can each leave this place with a bit of that fire within us, it lights us up in the world.
When we re-examine scripture we see that the Sabbath isn’t about the rules or traditions, it’s about seeing where God is and shifting our focus to that place, shifting our focus away from all distractions and for a short time delighting in God, celebrating God, worshipping God, and most importantly, expecting to encounter God.