Harmony & Disruption

I don’t know if any of you have ever had to do a Myers Briggs test? This is a sort of personality or trait test. Some Businesses like to do it and in ministry training they like us to see what boxes we vaguely fit it. Huw and I had to do it together when he became my training incumbent and it might surprise no one to hear our results were polar opposites- now this isn’t a bad thing as we actually complement each other really well I think, and this speaks to our Body of Christ model of church where it takes many people with many differences to make the whole thing work and do God’s work in the world.

Now I’m not actually a massive fan of Myers Briggs but there is another system I could talk about for hours, although I promise I won’t! It’s something called the Enneagram, ministers usually love or loathe it, but I’ve actually found it really helpful in understanding how I tick and also understanding the people around me in my life.

I won’t go into too much detail, but honestly I really could, if you have any interest in this just ask me later, but essentially of the 9 types I’m a 9, the Peacemaker. This means my strongest desires are for peace and harmony, for inner stability and peace of mind. This underpins how I instinctively behave, this can mean I avoid change or conflict at all costs and like to stick my head in the sand, but it can manifest in good ways, as I want harmony in my life I actively encourage that in the situations I find myself in.

This brings me to the day of Pentecost, and the purpose of the Holy Spirit.

Now you have to really feel for the disciples at this point. The last few weeks have been quite a ride, they’ve been through Jesus laying some incredible teaching on them as he prepared them for his death, the trauma of his arrest and execution, the confusion, joy and scariness of his coming back to them, more teaching, and then, after telling them not to worry because someone else is on their way, he literally vanishes from their sight.

Now I don’t know how the last 50 or so days have been for you, but thankfully for me it’s been a bit less dramatic.

They’re confused and afraid, not as much as after Jesus’ death, but this is a lot to process. In both the accounts we heard this morning- from John and the Book of Acts, the disciples are back in the upper room, clueless of what will happen next, and whatever did happen next in that room, which had become their sanctuary, each of them was filled with the Holy Spirit, and emboldened to head out into the world, each equipped for the individual ministries and paths where God was sending them next.

We have 2 very distinct but very clear images of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament; there is the Dove which rested above Jesus at his baptism; the symbol of peace, gentleness and harmony. 

Then we have the symbolism of 2 often destructive elements- wind and flame, telling us of the Spirit’s disruption in our lives: Harmony and Disruption. 

And you might guess from what I shared about my personality type I’m a bit more comfortable with the harmony than the disruption. Although I would also like to throw out there that maybe each one of here is far more comfortable with the peace, wisdom and harmony the Spirit brings to our life and faith than with the disruption and pushing us outside of what we feel comfortable with.

But this is why Jesus sent us the Spirit in the first place, he knew we would need comfort and solace, but he knew we needed guidance, gentle pushing, and sometimes even a bit of a rocket up our bum!

The Day of Pentecost is a day to particularly invoke the Spirit of God to fall afresh upon us and renew us, but do we know what we’re really asking?

Veni Sancte Spiritus

Come, Holy Spirit,

and send down from heaven

the ray of your light.

Come, father of the poor,

come, giver of gifts,

come, light of the hearts.

Best consoler,

sweet host of the soul,

sweet refresher.

Rest in work,

cooling in heat,

comfort in crying.

O most blessed light,

fill the innermost hearts

of your faithful.

Without your power

nothing is in humankind,

nothing innocent.

Clean what is dirty,

water what is dry,

heal what is wounded.

Bend what is rigid,

heat what is cold,

lead what has gone astray.

Grant to your faithful

who trust in you,

your sevenfold holy gift.

Grant us the reward of virtue,

grant us final salvation,

grant us eternal joy.

Words of comfort and harmony in this updated translation of the traditional plain-song chant. But then we remember what invoking the Holy Spirit might cost us, after all when the spirit fell upon Jesus he spent 40 days in the wilderness and in the wilderness we come face to face with ourself as we truly are. 

We want the Spirit to transform our hearts and minds but with that comes the disruption, the move away from peace before the harmony can be found, because harmony equals equality, harmony means we have to see where the problems are, the injustice, the prejudice, the misuse of church, money, power and politics. 

The Holy Spirit compels us, like the Disciples, to leave behind the familiar and comfortable and to seek out where God it at work, and to jump in with both feet to help.

And even me, with my need for inner peace knows this disruption must happen, so I welcome it, because the only way for me to have peace in my heart and the harmony the spirit brings is for that to be available to all God’s people. We find peace on the other side of the disruption- the still voice of calm after the earthquake, wind and fire.

Edwina Gateley sums up our longing to say yes to the disruption of the Spirit in her poem Called to Say Yes.

We are called to say yes

So that rich and poor embrace

And become equal in their poverty

Through the silent tears that fall.

We are called to say yes

That the whisper of our God

Might be heard through our sirens

And the screams of our bombs.

We are called to say yes

To a God who still holds fast

To the vision of the Kingdom

For a trembling world of pain.

We are called to say yes

To this God who reaches out

And asks us to share

His crazy dream of love.

Deon Johnson follows this with: We are called to say “yes” to allow the Spirit of the Living God to fall afresh on us and unlock the doors that keep us from loving our neighbours. God’s crazy dream of love calls us to stand with and work for the homeless, the working poor, the outcast, the refugee, the persecuted, the put-down and the putout. Our sisters and brothers, Jesus in disguise, can no longer be simply petitions in our prayers but persons deserving of dignity, justice, and love.

So I invite you today to say yes. Like the disciples we have no idea what that will mean or where it will take us, but it’s central to Gods purpose for our lives. Maybe our eyes will be opened to something we can’t ignore, but wherever it takes us, we can be certain that the Spirit goes with us. Amen.

Our Relationship Begins Here

I had the honour of preaching at the Ascension Day service

When I first started to come to St Michael’s Mike and I sat in this side aisle, so each week we were looking directly at the Ascension window. It was probably the first thing within the fabric of the church that I ever used for prayerful contemplation. It’s so beautiful, and the colours so vivid. When the sun shines through it, it takes on a magical and mystical quality, which I’m sure is what the artist was aiming for. I never, back then, thought much about the meaning of the Ascension, but of the ethereal beauty of the window.

The Ascension itself is nothing if not magical and mystical. It’s probably one of the most if not the most supernatural elements of the gospels, and that’s understandable as Jesus moves from the earthly realm to the heavenly one. And yet it’s quite tricky to get your head around. What we see in our window and in other art is the artists earth-bound imagination trying to literally depict a holy mystery, but kind of ends up looking more like Mary Poppins, floating above the clouds.

I think part of the problem is the linear way we think about heaven and earth. Heaven is above and earth is below. God up there and mere mortals down here. Up is good and down is bad. Even further down in this linear thinking is hell, super bad. It’s no exaggeration that the first astronauts thought they might glimpse heaven as they ascended beyond the earth’s atmosphere.

Celebrating Ascension day is a good thing because it’s a time be reminded of and ponder upon several things. 

Firstly, it’s a reminder that Jesus’ story and ministry in the gospels don’t end at the cross or even with the resurrection. He spent anther 40 days preparing the disciples for what lay ahead of them, and their stories will continue way beyond this. And our relationship with Jesus is only beginning here.

Secondly, as Jesus disappears from view it’s a reminder that there is so much about God which remains a holy mystery. Yes, our God is the God who became incarnate and dwelt among us, but there is, as David Bryant writes, a built-in invisibility, incomprehensibility, and otherness about God.

Finally it gives us an opportunity to contemplate what it means to have Jesus having been fully human, living amongst us, suddenly return to his place as the eternal Christ at God’s right hand, and the good news is that the last thing it makes Jesus is absent from us.

To understand this we need to stop thinking of heaven as a physical place up there. Heaven is God’s realm and exists alongside us. When Jesus was earthbound as a human man it revealed to us so much of what God and God’s realm are like, but during that time he was subject to the rules of time and space which God has built into creation. He lived amongst us but was limited to being present to such a small number of people.

In ascending, David Bryant continues, Jesus is no longer time-bound, culturally limited, and lumbered with the ethics and thought-forms of his day. He has taken on cosmic significance, and become universal, transcendent, and beyond time.

It’s by ascending that Jesus becomes accessible to each and every one of us. Far from being absent, the Jesus who has lived amongst us now sits and intercedes for us in God’s realm. The Jesus who has lived our lives, knows our joys and our sorrows takes all those joys and sorrows back to our Father and creator.

If we think of the readings we have at Michaelmas we have Jacob’s dream – the ladder between heaven and earth, then we have the Gospel where Jesus states he is now that ladder, the link between the earthly realm and the Heavenly realm.

In the ascension we have this revealed to us in an incredibly  dramatic and poetic way. It’s not just Jesus waving goodbye, it’s his anointing and his coronation, as he takes his place in the heavenly realm as King, High Priest, and Intercessor.

The light shines in the darkness

I wrote a short article for the church newsletter:

I sit writing this in the aftermath of the horrifying events in Manchester this week, where people who went on a night out never came home, or returned home changed forever. When talking to my children about what had happened I encouraged them to focus on the response; the first responders, the helpers, those who draw together to provide a message of hope, love and unity. Our own cathedral staff, locked out of their building, took to the street to offer prayer and support- a visible sign of faith in a city which refuses to be a victim. 

The last twelve months since I was ordained as deacon, to serve here at St. Michaels, have had their ups and downs; moments of joy and of sadness. Our strength has come through how we’ve come together- both at times of joyful celebration and through grief and mourning. This is what being a community of faith is, this is how we reflect the light of Christ to the world around us. 

As I reflect upon what it means to be ordained as a priest on the 24th June, to serve this parish alongside my work at Christie Hospital, what I feel more than ever is the gospel we must proclaim is of Christ's inclusivity, of his drawing to himself the marginalised and outcast, broken and bereaved. 

We must also recognise the face in God in those who are different from us, those whose actions, motives and beliefs we can never understand, because we are all, without exception, made in the image of God and that can be uncomfortable reading when we know someone has committed an unspeakable act of violence. 

The bible verse I have seen more than any other this week is John 1:5

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

There’s light within each and every one of us but there is, I’m sure, darkness too. As we begin June with Pentecost it’s a reminder that whatever our struggles, both internal and external, God as Holy Spirit dwells within. The Chinese Christian teacher and leader Watchman Nee wrote:

Many saints cannot distinguish inspiration from emotion. Actually these two can be defined readily. Emotion always enters from man’s outside, whereas inspiration originates with the Holy Spirit in man’s spirit.

Whilst sometimes our emotions overpower us and lead our response, as Christians we must listen to the inspiration of the Spirit, placed within us to guide and to counsel, to lead and to teach. I pray the Spirit leads each of us to a place where we are a united body of Christ, moving forwards in hope.