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.

The Theologian at the Well- rethinking biblical women

Fun fact! Today’s gospel reading contains the longest conversation that Jesus has recorded with anyone, and it so happens that it’s with a woman, and it’s a theological chat! And it’s not in Luke, who’s our usual commentator when it comes to Jesus interacting with women. 

It feels entirely appropriate to have a woman front and centre this week when we marked International Women’s Day on the 8th March. This is often a day when women-led faith-based organisations lead services celebrating women of faith all over the world. 

65% of our Church of England congregations are female, yet only 28% of our paid clergy are now women and just 23% of senior leadership positions are held by us. When you look at the numbers of self-supporting ministers like myself and Caroline this figure jumps to around 50%.

Change we know is slow, and in the church of England it can at times be glacial. Attitudes to women for centuries have been shaped through the eyes and men, in particular the shaping of our ideas around who and what the women we encounter in the bible are. 

Whilst it might be surprising that Jesus’ longest theological conversation is with a woman, it may be less surprising that centuries of theologians and commentators have told us she’s an immoral women. They’ve been way more interested in her five husbands than Jesus ever was, but it fits the traditional narrative perfectly, and particularly in Lent where the focus is on penitence.

She even tells Jesus “erm, you know you shouldn’t be talking to me…right?” She’s a Samaritan, we know the Jews of this time aren’t fans. She’s a woman, we know a single man shouldn’t be talking to a lone women, and particularly at a well, that old testament meeting place which so often resulted in marriage.

Famously that happened at this well- and it’s still there, where Jacob met Rachel and love blossomed. 

So she’s a Samaritan, she’s out alone, she’s had five husbands – she must be immoral. It makes a much better story as we see her redemption after meeting Jesus.

History loves to make biblical women immoral, we hear that rather than being the mother of nations, Eve is Adam’s downfall, and rather than the likelihood of Mary Magdalene being one of Jesus’ monied benefactors, she’s a prostitute – with no biblical basis, because if a woman has sinned it has to come back to sexual sin. 

I think there’s something far more interesting going on in this story, remember this is the longest conversation Jesus has recorded in the Bible. Like so many of the men Jesus interacts with this woman is an outsider, that’s likely because of the circumstances around her multiple marriages but it’s highly unlikely that this situation was of her own making.

Husbands could abandon their wives for very tenuous reasons, women had no agency and no control. The only way for them to survive after abandonment was to have another man take responsibility for them. This woman is more likely a survivor of abandonment and widowhood. The fact that she’s visiting the well at the hottest part of the day, when most people are indoors or under shelter, means she’s actively avoiding meeting others. She’s been labelled and stigmatised but is just trying to go about her day with as little fuss as possible.

Alice Connor in her book about remarkable biblical women called Fierce describes the encounter like this:

She was the outcast and sometime theologian, proud, put together, and with the sheen of intelligence and sadness in her eyes.

He said to her, as men had said to women for centuries, “give me a drink” and he meant both “I’m thirsty” and “I know the old stories of Jacob and Moses at the well, and I know that question means marriage sometimes, but I really don’t mean that. Mostly.” And he meant “I know you have questions. Quench my thirst and I’ll quench yours.”

She jokes with him- how can you quench my thirst when you don’t even have a bucket? But she’s completely open with him and recognises he’s something special. She wants to get closer to God and asks about worship, Jesus tells her not to worry, worship is going to be blown wide open. 

The place won’t matter because the worship will be spirit-led and for all people, not just the chosen.

She’s amazed, the things he’s saying sound like the Messiah the prophet’s describe. Yeah, says Jesus…about that….

She’s amazed by him. He’s seen her. Really seen her, maybe for the first time in her life, and now, without the fear of being the outcast, forgetting she was there at midday to avoid everyone, she goes back to the town and tells them about the amazing rabbi she’s met, who maybe…just maybe…could be the Messiah. 

Now this is the miracle. They listen. They listen to the outcast, the woman, the five times married woman. Her passion and testimony makes them want to meet this man, and when they do, they too believe. How many of us can say our telling others about Jesus has brought others to Jesus and helped them to experience him for themselves? 

Now I’m not saying this as a criticism or to make us feel bad but maybe looking at this encounter with fresh eyes, not looking at the woman as a sinner in need of redemption, the story we’ve so often been fed, but as an amazing evangelist and disciple-maker. Maybe as part of our journey through Lent we can reflect upon Paul’s words and see how we can be more boastful in our faith.

Like the Hebrew people in the desert and the women at the well our world is thirsty for something that quenches more than momentary thirst. 

What is the good news we have to share about our faith? What keeps you coming here? 

I’m not expecting you to go and start shouting about Jesus in the middle of Urmston, but I think it would help us all to reflect upon why we’re here this morning. What keeps us being Christians, what is it about Jesus? Does he satisfy that thirst in us we’ve not been able to find anywhere else?

Why should we still come? I love Jesus, but I also love this community. When I first started coming here there were two things which kept me coming; strong female leadership and the importance and prominence of women within this parish. I have never once, as a member of the congregation or in ministry, within this community been made to feel I was ever less than because of my gender. 

The inter-generational support and bonds and work of the women within this community, alongside our brothers, you matter too guys, kept me coming. I could name so many of you but I won’t embarrass you, you know who you are, and there are as well the sisters who are no longer with us. Like the woman at the well you have shared your faith with me and inspired me to seek Jesus for myself.

So it's my job, our job, sisters and brothers, to keep that going, to share our passion and love for Jesus, to remember what quenched our thirst, and to keep being the woman at the well for the next generation. Amen.

Gaudete! Rejoice!

3rd Sunday of Advent, based upon readings: Isaiah 35.1-10; James 5.7-10; Matthew 11.2-11

Gaudete, gaudete Christos est natus

Ex Maria virginae, gaudete.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Christ is born of the Virgin Mary: rejoice!

I won’t attempt the rest of the Latin but it translates as:

The time of grace has come, This that we have desired;

Verses of joy, Let us devoutly return.

God has become man, Nature marvelling;

The world has been renewed, By the reigning Christ.

The closed gate of Ezekiel is passed through;

Whence the light is born, Salvation is found.

Therefore let our gathering, ow sing in brightness

Let it give praise to the Lord: Greeting to our King.

Today is Gaudete Sunday, the day we light a rose candle and not a more sombre purple one. It’s a counterpart to Laetare Sunday in Lent which you might have heard called Refreshment Sunday, or maybe more commonly Mothering Sunday. The Latin names come form the entrances which would have been sung on those Sundays at the start of the roman catholic mass. 

In Lent it’s a day where the fasting is relaxed, the same is true in Advent, and I guess would have made a lot more sense in to our forebears who would have celebrated a 40 day Advent, beginning after St Martin’s day on the 11th November. Our Orthodox siblings still observe this tradition, with Advent being marked from the 15th November. 

And I’m a big fan of a 40 day Advent, I think the 3 and a bit to 4 weeks that has become our tradition just isn’t enough to get your teeth into. And of course our Advent looks very different to how it would have been when these traditions first evolved. 

40 days to prepare our hearts and minds, 40 days of penitence and prayer. In the deep depths of winter. Cold, dark and austere. There really would have been a need for Gaudete; for the reminder of hope and promise of light and salvation, so close now, as we draw towards Christmas Day.

Our readings this morning are centred around this hope. When I first started to do work with the hospital chaplaincy, I was told the most important books of the bible when it comes to caring for people are Matthew and James, and we have both of those this morning, I’m always excited when that happens. Let’s start with the gospel; John the Baptist is locked in prison and after hearing reports of what Jesus has been up to, he asks the question I’m sure we must all ask when we experience difficulties in our lives, or see the suffering of others: “Are you the one who is to come”. 

Jesus is there, John has met and baptised him, been witness to the Spirit descending and the divine voice "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased". Jesus’ reply has echoes of Isaiah as he tells John: the things that were promised would reflect the coming of God’s kingdom are happening. 

 

Jesus gives hope to John’s disciples, telling them that even though no one greater than John has ever existed, in God’s kingdom everyone will be even greater. 

In the reading from James, the community are being advised to be patient, and are told what good waiting looks like; they’re reminded that waiting is not time wasted. When we’re waiting for Christmas or Easter we almost double down on our efforts, any extra focus we have on God through these seasons isn’t to merely pass the time, it’s to work on ourselves and our relationship with God. 

It’s the kind of waiting that helps us to look both inwards at the inner work we need to do but also outwards, to see how the changes in ourselves effect the way we see and interact with the world, hopefully leading to positive changes which benefit every part of our lives and help shape the communities we’re part of. This is the patient waiting James encourages, one which deepens our faith.

Finally, as the ultimate promise of hope, we have the Isaiah reading; a promise of what the kingdom of God on earth will look like. There’s that very jarring line “your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution” which frankly sounds terrifying, but then it’s followed by “he will come to save you” and we hear that divine retribution is so far beyond our human understanding; When God’s kingdom comes, the whole of creation will be healed and made holy. 

Our Advent is generally not as austere and penitential as in the past, there may not be the same need for Gaudete Sunday as a pause from Advent, but as we look around us there is still, I believe, a need to have days dedicated to joy and hope, and to remind us that just as God came to earth, God’s kingdom will come and heal all things, but also to remind us of the joy we have in waiting for that, because our job is to reflect the spirit and hope of the kingdom here and now. 

It's worth pointing out that the Isaiah reading is completely out of place with everything around it in the book of the prophet. The chapters either side are doom laden, filled with despair and devastation. The world is in a difficult place right now, and you or people you love may be suffering as a result; the cost of living is so high, there’s a war in a country not too far away and not too different from our own, and far right ideology is rising, you may feel there’s more hate than hope evident. It’s easy to get stuck in a loop of despair…but our work, as we patiently long for better days, is to stick out, like the Isaiah passage, to be the hope, healing and holiness rising above the despair.

Leonard Zander Vee writes:

Sometimes, like John, we wonder if the crucified Jesus is the one.

We thought maybe he’d make our lives easy, but he calls us to live more deeply.

We thought he’d erase our suffering, but we discovered him next to us in our pain.

We thought he’d put us on top, but he tells us to identify with those on the bottom.

We thought he’d make us strong, but he calls us to learn strength through our weakness.

We thought he’d destroy our enemies, but he asks us to love them.

We thought he’d make us leaders, but he invites us to be servants

Our God turns everything on its head, inverting all we think we know as humankind. What other narratives are there where God has been born defenceless, as one of God’s own people? Stories of god’s and divine beings are usually about strength and power, not weakness and vulnerability. But we believe in a God whose idea of vengeance is to heal all things and take away our pain.

The translation of the Gaudete I read earlier was from the popular song often sung in Advent or at Christmas. The entrance to the Latin mass would be more accurately be:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Let your forbearance be known to all, for the Lord is near at hand; have no anxiety about anything, but in all things, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God. 

If we believe in God, and in the Christ who came amongst us, and in the Spirit who resides within us there is always a spark of joy and hope to be found somewhere. So as we focus on that spark of hope, the flickering of our rose candle, Gaudete! Rejoice! Amen!

 

Save Yourselves?

The feast of Christ The King is a relatively new invention, introduced by pope Pius 11th in 1929, it’s adoption into Anglicanism is even more recent. In 1970 the feast was moved from October to the last Sunday of the church year- just before we enter Advent.

In the gospel we see Jesus almost at his death. We hear him mocked as the “King of the Jews” as the occupation and political system allow him to be put to death. Those watching have a very worldly idea of what power is, of what a King is. Jesus appeared to be a threat to the stability of the area, a threat to local power and a threat to the power of the empire. They can’t see past the importance placed on earthly power and authority, there’s no interest in Jesus wielding a different kind of power. 

In the Roman Empire we see the embodiment of how worldly power is perceived and this is also still true of our society- in money and politics, in wielding control over others, exploiting those who are weaker and on the margins. Jesus tells us he’s not that sort of King. His Kingdom isn’t about its location but its character and at the heart of this is God’s power which comes in truth and love. Jesus’ kingship is characterised by mercy, justice and peace. 

This is the kingdom that we’re called to mirror and build upon, this is the kingdom God wants us to bring to our lives in the here and now.

We haven’t always got that right in the church, our notions of worldly and heavenly power have become muddled, we’ve used the notion of God’s rule to impose our own; religion is at its absolute worst when used as a means of control, and it’s not entirely a thing of the past as we see groups claiming Christian values both here and in other parts of the world, even if those groups are very far from demonstrating those indicators of God’s kingdom; truth, mercy, justice and peace.

Jesus is urged “save yourself” if he truly is powerful and who he claims to be. But that, again, is not God’s way. This speaks to us as the post-Christendom Christians, fighting to save our church, our values, our buildings in the face of less money, more costs, and less bums on seats. 

Our institution and its structures are man-made, and it may be that one day we have to let it go so something new can be born. Death and resurrection are central to our beliefs.

This actually gives me comfort and hope. Whilst we live in hope of a return to a glorious past maybe we don’t need to scramble to “save ourselves”. God knows what God is doing, and God’s in charge. What we need to concentrate on are kingdom-shaped communities and kingdom shaped mission. As long as all we do reflects those indicators of truth, mercy, justice and peace, flowing from a place of God’s love, how can we ever go wrong?

God Lives in You

It’s rather marvellous that we’ve got a baptism today when one of our readings culminates with the baptism of Lydia and her whole household- a lovely coincidence, and then in our gospel reading we heard Jesus helping to prepare the disciples for his leaving them and the coming of the Holy Spirit. 

In tradition it was believed the Holy Spirit entered you at your baptism, so you needed a good soaking to give out a little gasp and that was how the Spirit got in! I think now we would recognise that each person is a beloved child of God, whether we realise it or not, and that each one of us has the Spirit within us. I think what makes the difference in our lives is our ability to recognise that.

It's something I often pray with people in my chaplaincy work- as I pray for the person I’m with I call them a “beloved child of God” because I think that it’s something we each need reminding of, particularly when God feels very distant. It’s easy for us to see how Edward is adored by God but do we also recognise that within ourselves? Do we remember that like a child who can lie in their parent’s arms for comfort, or when distressed, or when they just need to feel someone close, do we remember that we can be that vulnerable with God?

It’s difficult isn’t it as an adult? So much about life teaches us to toughen up, be more resilient, to push our feelings down but whatever is going on inside, however we try to mask, God knows our feelings, our thoughts, our joys and our heartaches, because as is clear from what Jesus tells his closest companions in the gospel, if we belong to God then God abides within us, lives in us, through the Spirit.

God came as a man, Jesus, to lives with us, alongside us, to be one of us, but in the Spirit God comes to live within us. Baptism I believe is our acknowledgement of that.

It’s a reminder that no matter where we are in our lives, however wonderful or however messy things are, God never waits for us to come to God, God always, always, comes to meet us where we are…and then just waits for us to realise it. God makes a dwelling-place within us until that time when we’re ready for the dwelling place prepared for us. It’s a life long journey of relationship and like most relationships there’s times when it’s easier to feel close and times it’s more difficult to feel connected to one another. It takes time, patience and love.

Now for Edward this doesn’t begin today, when he’s baptised, it began at birth, but this is the day that we acknowledge it, and give thanks for it. A sacrament, which baptism is, is the outward show of an internal grace, something of the mystery of God which isn’t necessarily tangible but can be celebrated, marked and blessed.

Today we recognise and give thanks that God lives in Edward. But my prayer for each one of us on such a joy filled day is for our ability to acknowledge ourselves, however we find ourselves, as, beloved children of God, as dwelling places for the Holy Spirit, and that through recognising this, the knowledge that we are loved exactly as we are by the creator of all that has been and all that will be, that through this we can find that beautiful, deep peace Jesus speaks of to his disciples. And that through finding this are able to help others to see that they too are loved, valued dwelling places of God. In order to, as the end of the baptism liturgy tells us- shine as a light in the world. Amen.

Extravagant Embodied Love

I’m not sure I should admit this but when I come across this gospel reading I hear Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar; “Woman, your fine ointment, brand new and expensive, should have been saved for the poor! Why has it been wasted? We could have raised maybe three hundred silver pieces or more. People who are hungry, people who are starving matter more than your feet and hair!!”

The musical is staged a little differently from John’s writings…and it’s a different Mary…but what’s clear in both is the difference between Judas and Mary and how they each respond to Jesus in what will be the last week of his life.

Now I love Mary of Bethany- I’m quite fond of women who disrupt the norms. I love her passion, her vulnerability and her willingness to go against what society expects of her, and we also see her deep love for Jesus, who’s like another brother to her, Martha and Lazarus. When Jesus stayed with the family previously it was Mary who sat at Jesus’ feet, listening to his teaching, rather than attending to household tasks.

Jesus now returns to stay with the family at a time he needs to rest, to gather his thoughts and to prepare for what lies ahead, his entire journey from this moment is lading towards the cross, but it’s important to put this visit in the context of what has happened right before; Lazarus has just been raised from the dead.

This meal is a celebration, a thank you, and Mary processes the events of the previous days, those extreme emotions from the grief at her brother’s death to the joy at the miracle of his rising from the dead. She’s also processing the things she’s heard Jesus preach and teach, the things he’s said only to his most intimate circle, and she’s overcome by emotion and realisation. I don’t know how much of this is conscious thought and there’s certainly something of a prophet about Mary.

She grabs the expensive oil of nard- this would have cost an average person’s yearly wage so it’s possible it may have been intended as part of her dowry- but that doesn’t matter now. She falls at Jesus’ feet overwhelmed by love, gratitude and the realisation of who this man is and what lies ahead. She thanks him, blesses him and cries for him, anointing his feet as if for burial and in meeting her need to express these emotions she also sees a need in Jesus, the need of an exhausted man on the verge of something unspeakable, the need for his human body to be soothed and rested, in a place which for him offered rest and safety.

She rejects whatever’s appropriate, what’s expected, what’s proper, and expresses herself from a place of raw emotion, anointing Jesus’ feet with the oil, the spicy fragrance filling the whole room and afterwards prompting Judas’ sneering response. 

You may think Judas has a point, how often do we scrutinise the way our community spends money? How many times do we think our limited funds could be put to better use? This oil was an asset that if traded could have done a whole lot of good, but it was used in an extravagant, physical act of love. We can weigh the cost in silver pieces but what price do we place on acts of love and acts of healing? Is there a price in attempting to show love to God in the way that God shows love to us?

God’s love for us is so extraordinarily lavish, how could we ever show such extravagant love in return? As Judas is calculating the price of acts of faith in his head, Mary is showing extravagant love and faith with her entire body and it’s shocking to everyone except Jesus.

The way our faith has been received by us over the centuries means in many ways we’ve become a people who value the intellectual over the physical. We’ve developed such a complicated relationship with our bodies that we forget that our fleshiness matters. We know this because Jesus chose flesh. The divine eternal Christ chose incarnation in a human body. And yet we still think of bodies as being less than holy, we’re ashamed of our physicality functions of our body.

This is of course until are bodies are in need of healing. Despite this deep-rooted belief that our souls are good and our bodies are bad, our belief around health flips this around- bodily health is given more value than mental health or spiritual health.

Our church services centred around healing are almost always prefixed by the word “wholeness”; wholeness and healing. We may come to these services at a time when we or those we love are suffering from physical illness, but the shape and aim of our prayers is to facilitate (to quote clever theologians) 'the enabling of a person to function as a whole in accordance with God's will for them'. To allow us to more fully become who God intends us to be.

We often come like Mary, falling at Jesus’ feet and offering all we have because it’s the only thing we can think of to do. Praying for healing is not an act of faith we've intellectually calculated, it’s an extravagant act of love as we place all of our trust in God. We don’t come expecting miracles, we probably don’t know what we expect, but what we receive is something extraordinary. Healing means something different to each of us, but I believe at its very heart, healing is about the completeness of our relationship with God- and what could be more extraordinary than that?

The theology we've inherited has contributed to a disconnect between our minds and our bodies, the aim of healing is to reconnect us, body, mind and soul, both to ourselves and to our creator; to invite us deeper into the relationship of love and healing that exists within the Trinity. To deepen this relationship, strengthen us and allow each of us to see reflected back the person God knows us to be, wants us to be, and through that reconnection understand how we can love the Lord our God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our mind and with all strength, particularly at those times when strength is so hard to find. Amen.

Heavenly Mother

This sermon was written for yesterday, but never preached due to covid finally paying a visit to our household 

I’m always keenly aware that today isn’t a joyful day for everyone and always hope that I can find something to say which honours mothers, mother figures and our mother church, without disrespecting those for whom today is difficult. 

Whilst I was doing the reading I always do to prepare for a sermon, I came across a phrase I don’t think I’ve heard before- “fictive families”. A Fictive Family isn’t brought together by shared DNA or marriage but shared experience or community. Shared lives can cause individuals or groups to become emotionally bonded to each other and form pairings or groups which have many of the same characteristics or functions as kinship. 

We see an example of this in our Old Testament reading where Pharoah’s daughter chooses to make a Hebrew child a member of her family. We also see it throughout the New Testament as Jesus, though he has his blood family with him, also calls others to help him, and builds a community around himself so close that after his death his mother Mary and disciple John become their own family unit. 

We would probably see our church community as a fictive family; I think faith communities are about the only place we form meaningful inter-generational friendships outside of our families and many of us help each other in similar ways to that which families do. 

In our gospel reading Mary hears the words from Simeon which at first must have amazed her- to be reminded of how important her son was going to be, to be told by a complete stranger the significance Jesus’ future holds, but then comes the sting in the tail “and a sword will pierce your own soul too”. Was this the first inkling that Mary had that her sweet baby boy, although he had a great destiny ahead of him, might be destined to suffer and that seeing his pain would in turn lead to her own suffering? 

I’m often very relived that we can’t see into the future, I think knowing the difficult things that lie ahead would stop us from living our lives fully, as God intends us to, so it amazes me that Mary is able to let Jesus go ahead and do the things he needs to, knowing it will probably end with his suffering. 

What really struck me on studying this morning’s readings together is that our readings involve people, indeed mothers, who are either living in occupied lands or suffering under racial oppression, the Hebrew family Moses was born into lived as slaves under Pharaoh and Jesus’ family lived in an occupied Judea. Both Miriam and Mary have to make difficult decisions for the future of their children. Miriam knows she has to give up her son if he’s to survive and Mary knows Jesus must follow the path set before him even though it may be painful for them both. 

It brings me back to the stark reality of what the people of Ukraine are facing right now, how families and communities are torn apart, how parents are suffering seeing their children go to fight and are themselves caught up in the war. We’ve seen the emotive pictures of maternity hospitals and newborn babies caught up in the destruction. I cannot imagine the decisions parents of small children are having to make right now, both in Ukraine and other areas of occupation, war or oppression. 

Do they wish they had known what was to come and what is yet to come? Would it have been better or worse to know what lay ahead? I’m sure we all wish we could see how or when this might end. I also wonder with what communities are being formed through this horror, among those fighting together and those trying to survive together? We also see people in other countries reaching out to make Ukrainian refugees part of their own families and it reminds me that not everything feels hopeless right now. 

It could almost make it seem frivolous that today is a day of joyful celebration here in the UK, a pause from our Lenten fasting, and at a time when we so needed something to celebrate after two years of postponed-Mother’s Day activities. 

And yet maybe this sadness in our world and all the uncertainties are just the reason why we should be marking today; to respect and honour the maternal figures in our families and communities and as a reminder that the mother church herself should be a place of safety, nurture and teaching to all who need it, that at times like this the church needs to be a place of mothering to all. As a nurturing, loving community it’s our place to see how we can meet the needs we see in the world and come together as the fictive family we are to figure out together how can help. 

Mothering Sunday in the church calendar is always something much bigger than celebrating mums, but that is important too. We can have a nurturing spirit for our world and celebrate the maternal figures who have meant so much to us- our mums, grans, aunts, sister, friends and nieces, mums who are safe with God, mums who couldn’t fulfil what was asked of them, the men being both mum and dad, the amazing strong women who have taught, led, guided, hugged and healed us, those who let us down and those who chose us. We pray for each and every one of them. 

And it’s a reminder that as well as Heavenly Father God is our Heavenly Mother. In the words of Julian of Norwich: "As truly as God is our father, so just as truly is God our mother. In our father, God Almighty, we have our being; in our merciful mother we are re-made and restored. Our fragmented lives are knit together and made perfect. And by giving and yielding ourselves, through grace, to the Holy Spirit we are made whole." 

Amen.