3rd December 2019

Today's Adventword is Time. 

I've spent my day creating an office space in my dining room- something we've been planning for six years, since I began training for ministry. The catalyst for doing it now has been the need to replace the hall carpet (thank you dogs). We've had the flooring we're going to lay for eleven years! 

The thing is, those six years since I began training and even the eleven years since we planned to replace the carpet have passed us by pretty quickly. A lot has happened in those years; my kids have turned from toddlers to teenagers, I've become a priest and completed curacy an my husband changed jobs three times. 

Our lives are so full we often don't realise how much time is passing but Advent is a time to slow the pace and to purposefully have moments of space and quiet. For me it's a time to reflect upon what really matters, what I value and what I want to let go of.

2nd December 2019

Advent has started in the way it usually does for me with a week off work, the plan being the get the house and myself organised. There's more to do than usual as the hall carpet needs replacing, meaning major furniture shifting.

Through all the disruption and disorganisation I try to keep my Advent focus. My beautiful friend Tracy gave me a little kit to help me through Advent- it's a tiny brass candle holder and 25 tiny beeswax candles which burn for 20 mins each, giving me 20 mins to set aside for silence and contemplation. 

My other Advent practice this year is following the Northumbria Community pattern of prayer with the December reflections focusing on our inner life. I'm also participating in the Society for St John the Evangelist (SSJE) Adventword- a daily living advent calendar on social media platforms where you post a picture with the hashtag #adventword and the word of the day. Today's word is "visit" and we've had a marvellous time this evening with a pre-Christmas meet up at the rectory with the rest of the ministry team...although after that game of charades I might not be able to look some of them in the eye again!

1st December 2019

It's Advent...going to attempt daily blogging again. I led the 8am service today, proud of my congregation battling through the frosty Flixton plains. My very brief homily was based upon Isaiah 2.1-5 Romans 13.11-end and Matthew 24.36-44

So we find ourselves at the beginning of another church year as Advent begins. Out in our communities we see trees and twinkling lights going up, we hear familiar carols and see the idealised Christmas adverts, but inside the church we hear readings which are contemplating death, judgement, heaven and hell. It’s quite a paradox as to most folk Advent is just a type of calendar, for most people it’s Christmas now. The presents and feasting on Christmas day are the culmination of the celebrations, not their beginning. 

I preached my first sermon on this day 6 years ago, on these readings, so I had a little look back to see if much had changed in those 6 years. The theme of my sermon was anticipation and we heard a lot of things being anticipated in our readings.

The anticipation of the coming of the Kingdom, and a time of unprecedented peace from Isaiah, Paul’s advice to put on the armour of light and the anticipation of salvation, finally we hear Jesus advising the apostles to be ever watchful, to continually anticipate his returning at a time when it will least be expected.

I spoke about anticipation which leads to anxiety or disappointment, particularly as we try to plan that John Lewis advert style perfect Christmas, especially for anyone struggling with debt, illness or loneliness.

I guess the main way I’ve changed in those 6 years is being ok with advent being two different things; that it’s a time for celebrations AND time for prayerful reflection. That’s amazing for us- we get the best of both! We don’t just get to anticipate what I hope for each of us will be a joyful Christmas, we also get to anticipate what that means for us as Christians, what Christmas means as people of Christ. The Advent focus upon the end of all things may make for uncomfortable hearing in between the twinkling lights and tinsel but that’s part of who we are and part of what it means to live our lives as people of Advent Hope. 

The season of Advent draws us in to contemplate the mystery and wonder of the Incarnation, of a God who loves us so much God chose to live our lives and die our death but also to reflect upon how our entire lives as Christians are an Advent, as we live in that place of Hope and Anticipation, urging us to live lives true to the values of Jesus’ teaching, in the knowledge that one day we’ll be at his side.

Bringing balance to the force

Some of the ideas in this sermon have been inspired by this week's daily reflections from Richard Rohr which drop into my in-box each morning. The readings it's based upon are Luke 15.1-10 and 1 Timothy 1.12-17 - oh, and repeated watching of all Star Wars films (yes, even the prequels) over my 41 years on earth.

If you’ve spent more than a few minutes in our vestry at St Michael's you may have noticed a little poster on the wall explaining the Japanese art of kintsugi, which is repairing broken pots with gold. You may very well have heard this analogy before where the repaired pot is often even more lovely from having been broken and then made whole again in such a beautiful way.

It's the process of being made whole that I want to consider this morning. I’m sure that like me there's some Star Wars fans in here today, may the force be with you, and Star Wars gives us a great metaphor for balance and wholeness. In Star Wars mythology there's the light side of the force and the dark side of the force. Now it's not just bad if the dark side dominates, it's bad if the light side does too. We find completeness when both sides are balanced. 

To give the Star Wars writers their due this is pretty good Jungian psychology which in very basic terms speaks of us having our ego, the side we choose to share with the world, and our shadow self, the stuff we keep hidden or unacknowledged. Our shadow self is what we keep locked away, the stuff maybe only we know about ourselves, the stuff we would be ashamed to admit to, the stuff we may even be too fearful to admit to ourselves and may not have even given a name to yet. And we all have a shadow self, because wherever there’s light shadows are cast. Light can't exist without shadow.

You might be wondering what Star Wars, Japanese pots and psychological theory have to do with Jesus’ lost sheep? The parable of the lost sheep and lost coin are incredibly well known, they feature heavily in children's books of bible stories because of the simple imagery and easy to grasp message that God loves us and will do anything to return us to his family. Cyril of Alexandria writing in the 5th century believed that the numbers involved- 100 sheep and 10 coins- are really significant because they represent wholeness or completeness. We're not complete without God, but just as equally God isn’t complete without us.

In the gospel reading there’s a clear difference between how the pious people respond to those who’re identified of falling short of the rules of holy law and how Jesus responds to them. The pious scribes and Pharisees reject the tax collectors and sex workers, whilst Jesus welcomes and loves those who’re rejected. He loves them as they are but our call to holiness is a call to wholeness. If the word repentance means a turning around it's a turning around to face ourselves, to confront what's in our shadow, to reconcile our light side and our dark side to create a new wholeness and a new holiness.

Jesus's response to sin is never rejection, it's patient and loving action, no one is ever written off, the potential of each and every person is seen and given opportunity to flourish, if we're willing to put the work in on our side. We see in the parables of lost things patience, care and diligence in pursuit of what's lost, missing or misplaced. There's never an easy pathway and confronting our own shadows is something we have to be ready to do. It takes insight and courage. 

The effects of what happens if we don't work upon reconciling the light and the dark we have in us can be seen in today’s readings and in the world around us. When the darkness dominates, we can see ourselves as worthless, in this week where we've marked International Suicide Prevention day this is particularly poignant. As well as poor mental health we may find ourselves making choices which are harmful not only to us but to those we share our lives with.

Yet if we embrace the light without acknowledging the darkness within us this can be equally damaging. The pious folk in the temple are so scared of confronting their own shadows that they reject any darkness they see in anyone else, the most extreme example of this is Paul before his own conversion and reconciliation. His extreme persecution in God's name of those identified as not living according to holy law is something we still see today. The persecution, condemnation, imprisonment, torture and even death of those thought to be on the wrong side of the dominant belief of what’s “right" is still seen all over the world. 

It can often be true that those with the power to decide what's good and bad or right or wrong may in fact be railing against the things they see in their own shadow but are too scared to confront. The Irish Christian poet Padraig O Tuama has spoken openly about his experiences of gay conversion therapy in his late teens. He eventually was able to reconcile that being gay was part of who he was and made him no less loved by God but years later he bumped into the man who’d been his therapist- the therapist was attending one of Padraig's recitals with his husband. The man had previously not been able to reconcile his own sexuality and so had gone down a path which led him to persecute it in others.

The things we hate or fear in ourselves can often be the things which we hate or fear in others, often unconsciously. We need the insight and courage to face these things in ourselves if we want to have any chance of beginning to make whole the fractured world around us. So much of the division and hatred we see, the polarising opinions and hate speak, are a direct result of an inability or unawareness to reconcile our ego and our shadow.

Our call to repentance is our call to work upon making ourselves whole, to reconcile the darkness and the light within us. This work, our soul work, is the gold repairing the cracks in the pot, bonding the broken pieces back together to create something beautiful and precious, something transformed. 

Through this journey towards wholeness we have a God, as demonstrated in these parables, prepared to go to any lengths possible to give us the opportunity to become this fully whole, transformed person we’re capable of becoming. And yet wherever we are, whatever stage we’re at in this process, Jesus welcomes us and holds us, and actively works to draw us in. We’re never rejected, and we’re never separated from God’s fathomless, endless love. True wholeness is the reconciliation of all things to God and God to all things.

The M Word

This morning's sermon based upon Luke 12.13-21

Have any of you seen the “M word” adverts that have been on recently? It’s the new marketing campaign from Lloyds Bank; the central idea is that money is now the most taboo subject, much more so than politics, sex, death or religion. It’s not something people are comfortable talking about, even with your closest family, and I think this absolutely true.

When I saw the passage I had to preach on this morning my heart sank because money is very much a taboo subject in churches, and I’ve got to admit I feel way more uncomfortable talking about money than standing here talking about politics, sex, death or religion; in fact I’m quite happy to talk about all of those things.

We may not feel too warmly towards our banks but I actually think the M Word campaign is great because it’s encouraging us to face something which is clearly difficult. I’ve got a few statistics to mull over;

Half of UK adults find talking about personal money matters is taboo and a quarter have lied to family and friends about their finances.

65% of people have discussed winning the lottery but only a 34% have ever discussed their will.

Over a third of people in a relationship have argued with their partner about money (I thought this would be higher!). Over a fifth have lied to their partner about money; 11% are lying to conceal the amount of debt they have.

61% of people said they feel better when they do open up and talk about their money concerns, so something clearly has to change.

What fascinates me is why it’s so taboo; why we, including me, are embarrassed to talk about these things and the conclusion I’ve come to is down to relationship, its our relationship to money which has to change in some way; we’re not getting it right. 

This won’t happen overnight because just a speculative glance at our bible, whether old or new testament, reveals to us that humankinds relationship to wealth has not been right for thousands of years. So many preoccupations in scripture are about the gap between the rich and the poor, how those with means should respond to those without, yet we’ve also been subject to a dominant interpretation which has told us this was more to do with being spiritually rich and poor.

It’s not. It’s talking about material riches and poverty; but neither is the bible condemning wealth. It’s not sinful or evil to be rich. What becomes problematic are the choices we make about what we do with wealth, this is the criticism laid at the Rich fool in today’s gospel. He’s not a fool because he’s rich, he’s a fool because what he accumulates is wasted when it could have done so much good. Jesus is really clear on this; “just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” and “just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me”. 

If we go back a couple of weeks in our readings it was great that the Good Samaritan was a person of means because if not he couldn’t have afforded to have the injured man cared for in the way he did. What mattered in that parable was his choices.

For me, what I believe is the issue is how we assign worth to things. If we’re assigning worth to money rather than what can be accomplished with money that’s where things go wrong, motivation becomes about acquiring more and more, whether it’s money itself or the symbols of wealth; an outward show of status. If our motivation remains in what can be accomplished if we have the means to do it than money doesn’t become an idol but an agent of change- if you think of people like Bill Gates of Microsoft fame he has an amazing life but has so much wealth he’s still giving away 95% of what he has. 

Now I’m pretty sure there aren’t any tech billionaires living in Flixton - if there were we'd be badgering them about the clocktower - and in fact some of us may be struggling to make ends meet. What I want to challenge us on are the choices we make when choice exists. Small things can accumulate to make a big impact and this is a huge challenge for me to. As I get older and learn more about where I shop or bank and what I buy, the more I feel compelled to attempt to make better choices.

It’s the choice between buying a cleaning product which harms the environment or is more gentle on creation, using financial establishments with a proven ethical record. If I’m going to buy a product online- I hate to say it but from Amazon, do I use Amazon Smile which benefits charities and if so which charities? With all the recent publicity about corruption and practices within the charity sector, who should I be supporting?

Do I buy my weekly shop at a store with good practices regarding their employees? What about their business practices in general? Even if we have very little money there’s power in where we choose to spend it.

Now if you’re anything like me you’re probably feeling super uncomfortable following several minutes of financial chat, this is one of the most uncomfortable sermons I’ve had to write and this is why we need organisations with a big visible presence, like Lloyds bank, helping us face our discomfort and challenge it. Our church and in particular the Archbishop of Canterbury, with his background in the oil industry, has recognised this issue for quite some time. As an organisation we’ve faced some very tricky questions on where our money is invested.

Again, I have to admit I’ve avoided Justin Welby’s teachings on financial issues because I know it may throw up some very difficult questions for me and writing this sermon highlights that I can’t continue avoiding what makes me uncomfortable. 

I’ve started tentatively investigating the Archbishop’s book Dethroning Mammon; Making Money Serve Grace because its tackling exactly these issues; reflecting on the impact of our own attitudes, the pressures that surround us, and how we handle the power of money. At the heart of this he places Jesus, who we believe brings us truth, hope and freedom. 

The archbishop says the problem with materialism… is not that it exists, but that it dominates. It shouts so loudly that it overrides our caring about other things of greater value. He believes our problem, like the rich fool, is that what we measure controls us and what do we measure more than money?

Talking about money, challenging our fears and embarrassment and examining this through the lens of our faith gives us the means to take back that control. Smashing this final taboo frees us to focus on what the real treasure is in our lives.

Goodies and Baddies

I used this short homily at both our 8am and 6pm services today. It's based upon Luke 10.25-37 (The Parable of the Good Samaritan).

I’m not sure if any of you are familiar with the Austin Powers films? They’re a spoof on the classic James Bond films with our super-spy hero battling super-villains. We have our goody and our baddy. If we had any doubts who we should be rooting for our baddy is called “Dr Evil”, so it’s pretty clear. 

In one memorable scene a henchman, who must be evil because he works for Dr Evil, is mowed down by a steam roller, driven by our hero, and killed. What happens next is played for laughs but is ridiculously clever. We cut to a women happily baking in her kitchen. The phone rings and it’s The Evil Corporation sadly informing her of her henchman husband’s death. We learn the henchman was a model husband and step-dad and his loss devastates his family.

How many films have we watched where nameless “baddies” were killed off by the heroes? But it’s ok because they were the baddies. Films very often have this very black and white approach to who’s good and who’s bad, often relying on our own prejudice to help us root for the hero. In Die Hard the baddy is German, in Back to the Future the baddies are Libyan, in other films they may be Russian, ugly or scarred, or in the Case of Star Wars, English. Sometimes they’re even a priest.

The thing is we all have prejudice however subtle, and much of the time it can be cultural, as with the people Jesus was living amongst hating Samaritans. If in first century Palestine you’d put the words “good” and “Samaritan” together in a Jewish community they would’ve been outraged. It’s hard for us to get our heads around how radical Jesus was being here because “Samaritan”, through our familiarity with the parable represents compassion, kindness and goodness. 

The Jews hated Samaritans. Hated. In the words of retired bishop and theologian Tom Wright Samaritans were wrong. Everything about them was wrong. Wrong worship, wrong theology and wrong behaviour. Religious division going back centuries caused this particular people to be despised by the Jewish community more than any other. 

Now not only is this man from a despised people portrayed as the goody of our story, but the upright Jewish people – the priest and Levite – are the baddies. This would have been outrageous to the listeners. 

Now I don’t believe the priest or the Levite were bad, they were just misguided in how to serve God. They were trying to keep the law, stay undefiled, by not touching what was potentially a dead body. and yet in the Samaritan we see grace and love and mercy. We see God reflected in this despised man who asked no questions about who the victim was or how he got to be there. He cared for him and ultimately saved his life. 

So we have to ask the uncomfortable question, who do I have any prejudice or preconceived ideas against? Because they are our neighbours. Are we antisemitic? The Jews are our neighbours; Islamophobic? The Muslims are our neighbours; Homophobic? The LGBTQ+ community are our neighbours; Misogynist? Women are our neighbours; Xenophobic? All races are or neighbours; anti-immigration? Immigrants are our neighbours? Faithful? Atheists are our neighbours; Atheist? People of faith are our neighbours…and the list goes on and on.

I said in my sermon last week there is no “us” and “them” just a universal “us” as a whole, every person we meet is our neighbour, everyone we connect with or interact with is made in God’s image and loved.

If we are people who profess to love Jesus and follow his teachings we can't ignore any person we meet in need, no matter what our perceptions of them, no matter whether we judge them as being “good” or “bad”. This really is one of the most radical things Jesus has taught us, and one of the most difficult to live out.

More Than Sunday

Sermon based upon Luke 10.1-11, 16-20, from the main morning service.

Who in this room would describe themselves as an evangelist? Are there people here who feel comfortable with me using that term? Or uncomfortable with me using it? I think it’s a word which our tradition has an uneasy relationship with, a word I have an uneasy relationship with, and I think it’s down to our need to label things and how we associate words with particular meanings, and those meanings can evolve over time.

I’ve had to make my peace with the word “evangelism” and explore what it really means because one of the nine criteria you’re examined upon and have to reflect upon when training for the priesthood and throughout curacy is evangelism, poor Huw and Alex over the past few years have had to write reports on me and one of the areas they’ve had to reflect upon was sub-headed “mission and evangelism”, because we do like to lump these together. 

This is probably, once again, revealing way too much about myself but when I first started coming to St Michael’s the word Evangelist or Evangelical would conjure up a picture of a certain type of Christian with a particular set of beliefs. It was a word with negative connections, a word which summoned up men stood on the corner of Market Street telling me I’m going to hell, a word which often rejected my calling as a woman to the priesthood and a word which rejected and condemned my LGBT family and friends. A word more concerned with what we should be thinking rather than what we should be doing.

But the problem wasn’t the word, the problem was my own prejudice and how I associated the word, because this, when stripped back is a beautiful word. The Greek word it derives from has the same root as the word angel, the Evangelist is someone who brings a good message, like the angels- isn’t that beautiful? And that’s why it was something we Christians wanted to call ourselves as what’s better than the good news we have of the love of God in the person of Jesus Christ? 

The word mission is subject to a similar fate in recent times as it becomes absorbed into Christianese as a “buzz” word and one which many a priest and PCC comes to groan at the mention of as we’re pushed to share our “Mission Action Plans” or attending “MAPping” events. A Mission statement has become something that a business or organisation has and can feel a very long way from it being the “Missio Dei” or work of God, as we try and figure out what and how we do God’s work in our communities. 

To strip this right back to basics we have this morning’s gospel reading, where Jesus is sending out 70 disciples, we have no idea who, to do God’s work and spread God’s message in the world. Mission and Evangelism. The details of how they did this aren’t really for me the important bit, the instructions they’re given are something we can reflect upon but were meant for this particular group of 1st century Palestinians. If we’re looking to this passage to inspire how we should be in the world I think the important thing is looking at the spirit of how they were told to go about their work.

There’s a beautiful simplicity to it, they don’t go out burdened with things or with any gimmicks, all they have is the teachings Jesus has equipped them with so they can help others understand what God’s like, and an instruction to care for those they meet who need their help. There’s also a relentless positivity to it, an instruction to keep looking forward and don’t worry when people don’t want to hear it. Offer your peace and this message to everyone, but if they don’t want to hear it just shake it off and move on. You’ll have lost nothing.

But as with all scripture, and in particular The Gospels, we have to ask “what does this mean for us”, in particular those of us who might want to run a mile when we hear the words “evangelism” or “mission”?

A report came out a couple of years ago called Setting God’s People Free or SGPF, it was commissioned by the Church of England but undertaken by an organisation called LICC, the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, who I’ve had an interest in for a long time as their area of expertise is supporting Churches and individuals to live out their lives as Christians Monday to Saturday, outside of what happens in Sunday church.

Central to the Setting God’s People Free 

initiative is the recognition of the power we have to show God’s love in our everyday lives, and in our own very individual ways to be evangelists in the truest sense of the word. Jesus says “the labourers are few” and I think the current statistic is less than 6% of people in the UK attend church once a month or more. When we’re all together it can feel like there’s a lot of “them” – out there- and not many of “us” – in here- but when we’re scattered and dispersed in our Monday to Saturday lives just think about all those diverse places we are where we’re reflecting the love of God; in hospitals, prisons, supermarkets, offices, law courts, schools, universities, football stadiums, kitchens, cafes, sports halls, playgrounds…the list really is endless. There shouldn’t be any “us” in here and “them” out there, there’s just “us” as a whole, every person we meet is our neighbour, everyone we connect with or interact with is made in God’s image and loved.

Now I don’t want anyone to be filling with anxiety thinking that the church is asking us to proselytise in Sainsburys, what it wants to do is empower us, for us to have a confidence in ourselves and a deeper understanding of how our entire lives are an offering to God and how that can shape all that we do and, as a response, as we see our whole lives as a reflection of the love God has for us, how that begins to shape what happens around us. People see God reflected in us and that’s infectious. We all know or will have known people who just seem to overflow with the Holy Spirit and how that makes us feel to be alongside them.

Many years ago I had to write a reflection on how I was an evangelist in my work as a nurse. I wrote that first and foremost we spread our message by demonstration, we live out the gospel in who and how we are, remembering that we’re first of all servants of God but we serve our professions too. Many of us work in vocational roles where our profession is one of service and at times of sacrifice.

It may not seem like the most conventional form of evangelism, but I believe we reveal the gospel in who we are and how we live our lives, and our mission is to be God’s people and love God’s people with and through our entire lives.

Last week Manchester Diocese launched a new campaign which has evolved from the Setting God’s People Free report. It’s called More Than Sunday and it’s going to run for the next 12 months. Now we can all get a bit cynical about things like this but I’m seeing this a truly positive step. I see this as a recognition of the power ordinary church goers have, stripped back from complex theology I can’t get my head around, and a move away from the debate and division which seem to dominate us as an organisation. It’s a recognition that those who lead our church at the highest levels have faith in your faith. You matter and you always have.

One final thing I’d like to say about the gospel reading is whilst we have the details about how the 70 were sent out there’s not much written about the results. Our encouragement to be whole life Christians isn’t about getting bums on seats or pennies in the bank, it’s all about the message and, like the disciples, caring for those we meet on the way. We should have confidence in the message we have, because it’s a really good message, it’s a message of love, belonging, inclusion, community and equality. That's a message I want to share.