Growing together

A short address from the double vow renewal that was held at St Michael's yesterday

I wasn’t sure if I was going to make an address today, but the more I thought about it this morning, the more appropriate it felt to take a moment during this glorious celebration of marriage and love, for Paula & Wayne, and Nica & Med, a moment to pause and reflect upon these milestones – 25 years for Paula & Wayne and 50 years for Nica & Med – for which this holy and sacred place has played such an important part.

We were looking at Nica and Med’s wedding photos yesterday evening, and it was so glorious not only to see the joy in their youthful and hope-filled faces and some very impressive fashion, but also the evolution of the church – oh and Med’s very impressive hair!

Because everything and everyone evolves over time, 50 years may not feel particularly long in the life of a church building (when some bits of it can be dated back to the 1500s) but there are some significant changes. Each of you will have evolved as people over the course of your marriages, and thank God you’ve grown and changed together when so many of us grow apart in our relationships.

There are 2 trees out the back of the church, near the garden of remembrance, which are so close that even though they’re different species, the way they’ve grown they’re so intertwined that even though you can see that they’re different trees, they’ve grown together to make something new, something beautiful and entirely unique.

The beauty of growing together is clear from each of your relationships – your bond of love and marriage has created something strong and something beautiful. And St Michael’s being part of that means that right from the start of your marriages God was there too, helping the nurturing, the growth and of course the love.

The reading from 1 Corinthians tells us how God loves and gives us a template for how we ought to love each other – with compassion, kindness, humility and patience. With a combined 75 years of marriage between you I think you’re probably doing OK with holding to these qualities, the things which nourish the roots of a relationship.

My prayer for each of you today is that as you continue your lives together, joined in the sacred covenant of marriage, that you continue to grow together in love, upholding and supporting each other through both the joys and challenges of life, and that through all of this you remember that God, who blessed you on your wedding day and blesses you today, is always with you, encircling you with never-ending, unconditional love. Amen.

Love is a many splendored thing

Love is a many splendored thing

Love lifts us up where we belong

All you need is love!

I was made for loving you

I will always love you

I can’t help loving you

The keen eared musical fans in the room may recognise some of the lyrics from the Elephant Love Medley from Moulin Rouge, a mash up of some of the best and most cliched love song lyrics, where our young hero, Christian, tries to convince Satine, a girl he’s literally just met, that love is the only thing that matters.

And he might be right, but that all consuming romantic obsessional love is not what Jesus was referring to in today’s gospel, but maybe it should make us as fired up and willing to devote our entire lives to, that’s certainly what happened in the case of the disciples.

“Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” How do you think we’re doing with that? Do we recognise other Christians by their signs of love, or do we recognise someone as a Christian by them declaring themselves to be one?

I don’t think I’m going to solve the centuries old theological debate of faith vs actions on this sunny May morning, but I do tend to side with the author of the letter from James that, yes faith is enough, but that true faith leads us to live our lives in a particular way, to act towards our brothers and sisters in the world in a particular way, that true faith transforms us into people who perform loving actions.

Not that we always get that right, almost every high-profile Christian we could name off the top of our heads also will have some sort of controversy linked to them or examples which only demonstrate that our humanity, even as loving, faithful children of God, makes each and every one of us messy, well intentioned, contradictions.

Speaking of which, let’s talk about Peter, as usual caught up in some new controversy. Now Luke, writer of the Book of Acts, thinks this episode is so important that he tells it twice.

What I love about Peter is how we see him get things wrong, but then learn and grow, and here we find him in the middle of an early church debate about rules, orthodoxy and what really makes you a follower of the way. And this has come about because people are joining their numbers, and have been since before Jesus died, who aren’t Jewish, who don’t have the same background of faith, customs and most importantly Mosaic law.

It's not going to be too long before the number of non-Jewish followers outnumbers Jewish followers, so these sorts of questions must have been really important.

How can they be one body of Christ, sharing in the eucharistic meal, if they can’t even eat in the same house?

There’s an argument that it’s the Jewish people’s differences that have assured their survival for so long, their laws, customs, strict rules around conversion and marriage, so they kept their identify despite the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, and the Romans. They maintained their identity as set-aside, God’s special people.

There must have been a real fear amongst the Jewish followers because everything in their history and experience up until this point has told them they are not like the gentiles that they must remain set-apart, yet the waters were muddied by Jesus himself who began ministering to non-Jewish followers, Romans, Samarians, Greeks, and inviting them to follow him.

So questions were asked – should the gentiles convert to Judaism, should they be circumcised, and should they follow the food laws. Peter tells them of his experience, and the words which have been so important to me personally “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” God has created all things, all people, so there is nothing on the earth that doesn’t have its beginning in scared holiness.

What Peter demonstrates, with God’s stamp on it, is a living out of the commandment to love, which I try and apply to every area of my understanding of God, Jesus and the living out of my faith in the world. Does it come form love?

God is love and love is God. Did it feel like love to abide by the strict rules of their tradition, or did it feel like love to share food with a fellow believer? When we see contradiction in the bible, in theology, in dogma, in practice, we need to ask ourselves what feels like love?

Peter and the early church are coming to realise what we hear in John’s vision in the reading from revelation: “See, I am making all things new.”

What is developing is neither Judaism nor an assimilation of the customs of the various gentile groups, but something completely new. A new commandment, a new way of being, a new faith, whose followers have a personal, intimate relationship with God because God has walked beside them, broken bread with them, died for them, invited them to touch his wounds, and loved them. Through their flaws and imperfections – through our flaws and imperfections – God loves us because God has made us and that makes us Holy.

To return to recognising Christians by our love of other people, Jesuit professor Bruce Morrill, writes:

“What distinguished the followers of Jesus and successive generations of Christians was their outreach to the poor and sick, the practical love they demonstrated in openly forming fellowship groups (local churches) that actively reached out in service to the poor, the hungry, and the sick.”

And we still see that in the world today. Our systems of healthcare have their roots in our loving faith. Our faith is based in caring for others, in building relationships and being in fellowship with one another. To love each other we don’t have to agree on everything, but we do need to put loving people before rules. Also central to our tradition is how it evolves with our understanding.

Jesus and the early church invited those who were different, not accepted under the law, had terrible pasts or who were in other ways social outcasts because God loves them. We have evolved over the past few decades to marry those who’re divorced, ordain women, actively invite LGBTQ people to be in full communion with us because God loves them.

We’re now allowed to bless same-sex unions, even if the move that doesn’t go far enough in my eyes, because God loves them.

As I started with song lyrics I’m going to end with them too. The reading from revelation always puts in my mind a song I play every year at the end of our Good Friday Footsteps to the Feast Service – Trusty & True by Damien Rice.

We can't take back what is done, what is past

So let us start from here

If all that you are is not all you desire, then come

come alone, come with fear, come with love

Come with friends, come with faults

Come with me, and let go

Come so carefully close

Come with sorrows and songs

Come with yourself below

Come however you are

Just come

That’s all we need to do, come however we are to this new amazing thing God has gifted to us, to drink from the spring of the water of life so freely given, but not just to drink but to share it, to invite others to come, to offer them what is given to each and every sacred and holy person who desires it.

Because love dictates that this is way too good to keep to ourselves, it’s our job to share God’s love with each and every person we meet, whether they return love is up to them. Let our actions be loving so we can be known by our love, not by hate, disapproval or rules.

And we don’t just share that love with those we agree with, who look like us or act like us, that love, that invitation, our faith, is for each and every holy and sacred person in creation. Amen.

First Lesson: Acts 11:1-18

1Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. 2So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, 3saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” 4Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying, 5“I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance, I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners; and it came close to me. 6As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. 7I also heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ 8But I replied, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ 9But a second time the voice answered from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ 10This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven. 11At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. 12The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. 13He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; 14he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’ 15And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. 16And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 17If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” 18When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”

Second Lesson: Revelation 21:1-6

1Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; 4he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” 5And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” 6Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.

Gospel: John 13:31-35

31When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. 32If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.33Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now, I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ 34I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

It''s That Simple

It was a cool morning, although the first rays of sun appearing were a sign it wouldn’t remain that way. I can remember thinking – wondering I suppose – where I might be walking to without the generosity of Joseph, the Arimathean – for a member of the Sanhedrin it was a dangerous act to provide us with a tomb, but who knows where I would have been heading if he hadn’t.

The first thing I felt was confusion – as soon as I entered the garden, I knew something wasn’t right – you get that feeling sometimes, don’t you? That first hint, the slightest perception, of things not being as they should be.

After the confusion, or maybe alongside it, was the fear, seeing that huge boulder moved from the entrance – something that took a dozen of us to put in place – I knew for certain then – thought I knew – that our Lord’s body had been taken, stolen away, only God knows for what end.

I was too churned up to look inside, terrified of what I might see, without knowing what any of us could do I ran back to where we were lodged (praise God for our protectors) and I saw Simon Peter and John speaking by the door.

I must have looked like a wild woman, completely incoherent, I no idea what I might say to them.

Peter asked “Mary, what is it, what’s happened?!”

Barely able to speak, something just burbled out between the tears. John of course wrote it down later:

‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.’ He reports I exclaimed, between the sobs.

Once they’d taken this in, they looked at each other with the same panicked expression that must have been on my face, touched my arm, and ran back in the direction I’d come from.

At this point I could barely catch my breath, but I turned and followed them back, my chest and calves burning, unable to keep up with them at all. I could see that John had got ahead of Peter, but when I eventually caught up, I could see John just standing at the entrance, finding himself unable to enter.

For once I was thankful for Peter’s impulsive nature, he overcame our collective fears to enter the tomb, whilst John and I seemed rooted to the spot, although in all honestly, I was so exhausted from running there and back that I’d sunk down to ground by this point, my breathing loud and laboured as my body recovered.

Peter emerged so quietly, a look of incomprehension on his face. He told us how the linen wrappings were just lying there, and that the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head was separate, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself.

This is where John had to see for himself, also entering the tomb, seeing that all was as Peter had said. Now, you must understand that despite everything we’d experienced with the teacher, everything we’d been told and witnessed, none of us yet understand the scripture that told us He must rise from the dead.

With no understanding of what this meant or where Jesus’ body might be, the men left, returning to the house.

And I sat, and I wept. I wept from fear, I wept from confusion and frustration, but mostly I wept from grief, and from love. I wept because I was confronted with the reality of Jesus’ death, and now I couldn’t even mourn his body, or honour him with our traditions.

Between my sobs, I felt compelled to look for myself, to see what the men had seen, to know with my own eyes that it was true. I heaved my exhausted body from the ground and stooped to look inside the tomb. But I didn’t see what Peter and John had seen.

I’ll probably sound like a mad woman – probably this whole story makes me sound like a mad woman – but I don’t care, I saw what I saw, and I believe what I saw.

When I looked inside the tomb, I saw what I can only describe as two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They must have been angels, there were certainly not of the earth. And they spoke to me, or at least I heard the words inside my head, it’s hard to explain when you’ve encountered angels!

They asked me: ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ and I’m sure I repeated the words John tells me I said to him: ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’

I often wonder what they might have replied if I hadn’t at that point become aware of someone standing behind me. Not knowing if it was of the men returned, another disciple come to grieve or a soldier alerted by our comings and goings, I turned sharply to see the gardener in front of me, or the person I presumed was the gardener by his appearance.

He repeated the words of the angels – making me think for a moment I’d imagined them and this man had been saying the words all along. ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ – a ridiculous question to a woman visiting a tomb! Before I could answer he questioned ‘For whom are you looking?’

Beginning to retain some semblance of rational thought – despite all I’d experienced before the sun was even fully risen – it struck me that this man may have seen something, if he tended to this place, he would maybe know who had come and gone, or maybe even he’d been paid or instructed to move Jesus by the authorities?

I took a breath, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ I looked into his eyes, silently pleading.

His response was just one word, ‘Mary’. And in an instant I knew. He said my name, as He had done so many times, but this time I felt it’s resonance through my entire body. With one word my eyes were opened, and I saw Jesus stood before me, and I knew more than ever that my soul and body would for the rest of my life be a living sacrifice to him.

“Teacher!” I exclaimed and dropped to my knees. I needed to touch him, to kiss his feet, to anoint them with my tears which were now tears of joy, but he stepped back from my reach.

“Do not hold on to me Mary, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”

And then, I don’t know if he was gone or if I turned, but I was running once more back to the town and to the others, still so confused but with a surety of what I needed to do for our Lord, our Jesus, our rabbi – our Christ, The Messiah! Oh my God, my God! It was all true. He is my God.

I’ll never know why He chose me as the first witness – as the first to share the news and make sense of his teachings. In three days he had risen again, he told us so many times this would be so but until this moment we had never truly understood.

I banged on the door of our lodging house – I didn’t care if I was seen or heard, not anymore. I told them quite simply “I have seen the Lord”, then recounted all these things I have told you here.

They heard my testimony, and they believed, and that belief spread. We told people the good news – that we have a God who knows us, who came to live alongside us, who has shared our joys and our griefs, who has shared our food, who knows what it is to strive - who knows no one is holy enough to obey all the laws of moses and so gives us the most simple instruction; to love.

To love God and each other. It’s that simple. Our God is the God of love.

Amen

Sermon based upon John 20:1-18

20Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.’ 3Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went towards the tomb. 4The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10Then the disciples returned to their homes.

11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look a into the tomb; 12and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ 14When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ 16Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, b ‘Rabbouni!’ (which means Teacher). 17Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” ’ 18Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

Becoming Ourselves

Won't get the chance to preach this today as I'm isolating at home with Covid, but as it was written I thought I'd share it.

Well, today’s readings take us on quite a journey, and perhaps take us to places we’re not entirely comfortable with. 

In Deuteronomy we have a prophet promised, a text we might interpret as referring to Jesus, and then some uncomfortable reading about the fate of false-prophets. 

From Revelation we have mystical, mysterious and mythical verses. John’s writing in this book can never be taken at face value, but again our interpretation would be that this poetic birth refers to Jesus.

And then in the Gospel we have Jesus beginning his ministry, he’s been baptised, spent his time in the wilderness and now he’s ready to go public. Mark’s account of this, as we heard this morning, includes a demonic possession and exorcism, and whilst our contemporary interpretations with our modern, scientific minds would try and interpret demonic possession as something more worldly, we do a disservice to the gospel when we don’t acknowledge that the world we’re shown here is one that does believe in demons, there’s 4 exorcisms in Mark even though it's the shortest of the gospels. This probably leaves us, like those present in the synagogue, asking “what is this”.

But I’m not, you’ll hopefully be glad to hear, planning on analysing the nature of biblical possession this morning. I must admit when I read the texts for today I was thinking, like the synagogue congregation, “what is this” and more pressingly, what does this say to us today, on this final Sunday of Epiphany as we come to the end of the Christmas season? 

The mystery and joy of the Incarnation and of the Christmas story are intimately woven through these readings. We have Moses promising a prophet from amongst God’s own people, our very human Messiah, but then we have John’s poetic, mystical retelling of God being born of a human woman, a child who escapes evil and returns to God.

The Gospel reading brings these two things together and shows us the reality of what the incarnation means as Jesus stands up to publicly declare his ministry has begun, and is immediately confronted with something we’d interpret as evil. An evil which immediately identifies who Jesus is, and an evil which Jesus immediately overcomes.

The possessed man is restored to who he was or who he should be, which is what I think a relationship with Jesus, the incarnate God, does for us. We each have a concept of God the Father, or the creator, whichever language you find the most helpful, and for me that aspect of God is awesome and endless and everywhere, so vast and entwined in everything, for all time, that it can be hard to comprehend.

In Jesus God becomes knowable, relatable, and we have a person with whom it becomes more comprehendible that we can have relationship with them, a relationship God wants to have with us, the ultimate goal of which is for God to delight in us and for us to delight in God. It’s a relationship of healing and restoration where, as it deepens, we get closer to seeing ourselves as God sees us, and move closer to fulfilling our potential as the people the creator created us to be.

Jesus restored a demon-possessed man to his true self.  Our demons might not be quite so literal but this is God’s deepest desire and yearning for our lives. Whilst we might not believe in evil as it’s presented to us in today’s gospel there’s many things in the world and in our lives we would perhaps call evil.

There’s the big things like war in the Middle East, child soldiers, institutional racism and misogyny, human trafficking and climate destruction, all huge evils in our world, but what I’m reflecting upon today is more personal, more everyday. Things which touch us personally. What are the evils in our everyday life that interfere with our relationship with God? 

Each of us have to deal with things which can prevent us from fully leaning into our relationship with God. Things that are preventing us from being the “us” God knows we can become. Some are bigger than others, such as addiction or illness, chronic pain or mental health concerns. But there’s also the more mundane, the things we think are a barrier between us and God, and because we believe they are a barrier, they are.

Short tempers, bad parenting choices, bad financial choices, sexual shame. The evil in these things can be how our less than ideal choices make us feel about ourselves, or how we judge others we see exhibiting them. A bad choice doesn’t make us a bad person, but we can convince ourselves that we are, and that makes the barrier between us and God.

One of the things Huw wanted to instil in us when he arrived is that it’s ok to be vulnerable and it’s ok to make mistakes. It’s all part of being human, and in many cases it’s how we grow and learn. I can’t help thinking about how in today’s gospel Jesus expels evil from within a congregation, a community which probably had complexities, relationships and came together in ways not too dissimilar to our own.

The life Jesus models for us – the life the Trinity models for us – is one of community. We’re not just called to be vulnerable and break down the walls between ourselves and God, but also with each other. To grow as God intends is to grow personally but also communally. 

Growing together is how we work towards a world where those bigger evils simply cannot exist, to model a way of living and being in the world that rejects evil by accepting each other, with our flaws and idiosyncrasies, knowing that with Jesus as our companion through life we’re standing with the source of all love and all power, we stand with a God who chose to come and stand here, with us, and share our lives, to live as we live.

As these last few days of the Christmas season pass by and we head so quickly this year into Lent, we go from Jesus standing by us in our wilderness, negotiating day-to-day life, to us standing by him in his wilderness, along with all the evil he was confronted by. This is what it means to be in relationship, to journey together, to share the highs, lows, sadness and celebrations, and as we live and grow, with Jesus and each other, we move ever closer to that revelation of hopefully seeing ourselves, and each other, as God sees us, fully ourselves, fully loved by God and knowing there is no evil that in that relationship, the eternal dance of love, cannot be silenced and cast out.

Inspired, Nourished and Well Fed

Today is Bible Sunday, a day in our church calendar set aside to celebrate our scriptures and perhaps reflect a little upon their importance in our own lives. We’ve had two examples in our readings this morning of how and why this collection of writings is still important when so many say otherwise.

In Isaiah we have this wonderful invitation to the abundant life God has to offer us, an invitation which lets us know that everyone has a seat at the table, that God’s deepest wish is to feed and nourish us in such a way that we live the most fulfilling lives we can.

In the reading from John, Jesus reminds us that by reading and understanding scripture we know God by understanding God’s relationship with humanity and woven throughout them is the knowledge of who Jesus is, the living and breathing Word of God.

Rev. Janet Morely writes “There’s a well-known saying whose author I haven’t succeeded in tracking down. The internet claims it is by either Karl Barth or an anonymous African woman. ‘There are plenty of other books I can read – but the bible is the only book that reads me.’ …the bible can pose questions it is going to take a lifetime for me to answer, if I ever do. [the Isaiah reading asks of us] What exactly does nourish and satisfy my heart?”

What I find most remarkable about the bible is the sheer breadth of the writings it contains. I truly believe is reflects almost all of human experience: love, betrayal, politics, spirituality, poetry, sexuality, family life, nature, law, wisdom, myth, lament, correspondence…and all bridging about 1000 years of human history- that’s truly remarkable.

So I feel the worst, most disrespectful thing we can ever do is take these writings at face value. We say at the end of our readings “this is the word of the Lord” but that’s never sat well with me. We can’t ignore the human factor; scripture can be God inspired and Spirit breathed but was still written by men- almost exclusively male- at a particular point in time for a particular purpose. It’s the humanity of the bible that I believe makes it come to life.

It contradicts itself in places as we do, lets us know its ok to debate these things and that we can see things from many angles- why else include a gospel narrative from four perspectives? Or include lament psalms where the writer is raging at God’s perceived abandonment?

The bible shows us even chosen people are flawed and get it wrong- David, Solomon, Moses, the disciples…they all show us their worst, warts and all traits but God chooses and uses them anyway, again showing that we each have a place at the table.

Taking scripture at face value, as inerrant and literal truth is a very modern concept, born out of a backlash to enlightenment thinking in the 19th century and pushing this agenda has led to what I feel is the rejection of The Bible as a source of wisdom and nourishment. 

When something is peddled as literal truth it’s the agenda of those setting what those absolute truths are which get taught. The Isaiah reading reminds us that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and God’s ways are not our ways, but as humans we repeatedly fall into the trap of forgetting we’re the ones made in God’s image, not the other way round. If we are preaching the bible literally and have fixed an idea of God made in our own image we preach a narrow gospel and a narrow God.

And indeed the bible has inexcusably been used to control, punish and traumatise. And this still goes on today.

Whilst we aren’t innocent of this, the joy of our Anglican tradition is allowing scripture to live and breathe and take its place in relationship with our tradition and with our ever-changing world. 

Whilst training for ministry I spent several months on placement at St Peter’s House, the Manchester University chaplaincy and church. At the end of bible readings instead of “this is the word of the Lord” they posed the question “what does this mean for us today?”. This has become my own question whenever I’m preparing a sermon or trying to discern the value of any portion of scripture, and I guess it’s a question that today we might ask of the whole Bible; what does this mean for us today?

Is it something that will entice us to pull up a seat at the table, something that can nourish and satisfy us?

For me, as with so many matters of faith, it becomes about relationship. I see the Old Testament as the documentation of humanity’s relationship with God in all it’s up and downs, our repeated turning away from God and God’s constancy, never abandoning us no matter how many times we fail, mess up or turn away. God always loves us through whatever we throw God’s way.

The New Testament documents God living amongst us in the person of Jesus in order to help us better understand who God is; to enable us to deepen and continue that relationship of love. It’s a record of how we tried to interpret what we learned from that experience.

Through all of this collection of writings, I think the overall purpose or meaning or intention is to have a document which, in a messy and human way because the human factor makes it messy, because we’re messy, a document which is hoping to teach us how to love as God loves, that asks the big questions of us – reads us – in order to draw us to the invitation of abundant life and help us take our seat at the table.

Inspired, nourished and well fed.

Based upon:

Isaiah 55:1-11

An Invitation to Abundant Life

Ho, everyone who thirsts,
   come to the waters;
and you that have no money,
   come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
   without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
   and your labour for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
   and delight yourselves in rich food.
Incline your ear, and come to me;
   listen, so that you may live.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
   my steadfast, sure love for David.
See, I made him a witness to the peoples,
   a leader and commander for the peoples.
See, you shall call nations that you do not know,
   and nations that do not know you shall run to you,
because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel,
   for he has glorified you.

Seek the Lord while he may be found,
   call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake their way,
   and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
   and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
   nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
   so are my ways higher than your ways
   and my thoughts than your thoughts.

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
   and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
   giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
   it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
   and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

John 5.36b-end

But I have a testimony greater than John’s. The works that the Father has given me to complete, the very works that I am doing, testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself testified on my behalf. You have never heard his voice or seen his form, and you do not have his word abiding in you, because you do not believe him whom he has sent.

‘You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. Yet you refuse to come to me to have life. I do not accept glory from human beings. But I know that you do not have the love of God in you. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; if another comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is God? Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; your accuser is Moses, on whom you have set your hope. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But if you do not believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?’

Celtic Lent Day 2

Earth's crammed with heaven,
and every common bush afire with God;
but only he who sees takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I think the thing is to not only see God in every common bush and wonder in it but see God in those blackberries too. I believe there is no sacred/secular divide, all things belong to God as God is in all things, making our entire lives sacred and miraculous.

Scripture

When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ Then he said, ‘Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.’
Exodus 3:4-5