Month: Oct 2021

Bible · faith · Political · Prayer · suffering

Coercive Silence and Generative Silence

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Some years ago now, I discovered the value of silence, especially in the context of prayer.
My practice of silence as a regular discipline has varied over the years – I’ve been thinking recently that I could do with making more of an effort to build it in to my daily routines.

Generative Silence

Early Experience
I was brought up in the Open Brethren. For all their faults, there was so much that gave me a healthy foundation for my own spiritual life. One of those was the importance of silence in worship. We had no pastor, no paid leaders, and there was a degree of openness that encouraged every member to play their part. (Like many churches – as long as they were male, in those days)
Our morning meeting on a Sunday had no written liturgy, and what happened would be different each week. We would be guided, we prayed, by the Holy Spirit. There would be hymns sung, scripture read, and prayers prayed. No long sermons – maybe a brief thought, usually related to one of the scriptures that had been read. And quite a lot of silence.


The value of silence
I remember particularly a book by M.Basil Pennington – Call to the Centre that helped me establish a way of praying with silence.

The other key moment was watching a series on BBC – The Big Silence – sadly no longer available on BBC iPlayer, but no doubt available on DVD.

Quaker Silence
When on Sabbatical in 2009, and during the time that I was discovering again the value of silence, I attended a Quaker meeting and wrote a bit about it here. The meeting reminded me of my own early experience of church with extended periods of silence. This kind of silence can be generative – lead to new thoughts and actions that work for the good of all. You know the phrase – ‘a pregnant pause?’ I suppose a pause is a kind of silence, and the pregnant pause is one that’s full of meaning, waiting to come out. It reminds me that silence can be generative, and that out of this silence, something new can be born.

Coercive Silence

Those with social privilege have the option to remain silent.
However, not all silence is helpful. The silence experienced by many people will not be chosen but coerced. I remember being a part of conversations where the subjects of religion and politics were outlawed – and yes, they can get boring and unproductive. But part of the reason why these discussions are out of bounds is because the privileged and the comfortably secure don’t want to have their position challenged, and because of their privilege they can choose not to have the debate anyway.

I was listening to a programme on the radio yesterday – ‘Green Inc’. Unpacking the multi-billion-dollar industry that’s rebranding the oil and gas industry as green. Whilst investing huge amounts into prolonging the oil and gas industry, there’s an attempt to persuade us that it’s not so bad after all. One way of silencing others is to shout louder and longer using the best of modern media in an attempt to drown out alternative voices.

Many of us have experienced this in our church life. We’ve heard the dominant voices and wanted to speak, but somehow there hasn’t been a forum for that conversation, or we have lacked the courage. In churches that are led by strong willed clergy, it may be hard for other voices to be heard. Even in more egalitarian faith communities, it’s often the most confident who speak the most, and they may not be the best voices to listen to.

Women, the Gay community, Black voices, the Poor generally – all have struggled to resist the forces that have threatened to silence them. There’s a verse in Exodus chapter 2 that I have mentioned recently in another post, where over many years, the Hebrew voice has been silenced by oppression.
“The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God.”
The period of slavery in Egypt left them voiceless. In desperation they cry out in the hope that someone will hear them. The road to freedom started with that cry, but they would need determination to follow through on that path.

So what about those who do not have a voice – those who are forced in one way or another to stay silent. We may not even realise that it’s happening, but in any situation where one voice, or one set of voices are dominant, it’s likely that other voices are not able to speak.
You may recognise in your own experience times when you have wanted to speak, but not felt able to.
You may remember times when you have tried to speak, but found that your voice is drowned out by others.
Conversely, you may recognise in your own words and actions times when you have prevented others from speaking.

May we move to a place where all voices can be heard and listened to, and that we pay attention especially to the voices that are coming from a different place to our own.

Grace and Peace, and good listening.


Bible · Climate Change

They Groaned In Their Slavery

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In Isaiah 65, when we read about God’s promise of a ‘new heaven and a new earth,’ God says – “Before they call, I will answer.”

But at the start of the Exodus narrative, it seems that it is the cry of the Hebrew people that comes first. They have been in Egypt for 400 years, since the time of Joseph, and their situation has gone from being privileged strangers to slaves.

Their plight is extreme, and in Exodus chapter 2 verse 23, we read “The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out …”

Straight away after those words, we read that God heard their cry for help -“and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God.”

God’s response is to call Moses as God’s human agent to bring about change, that ultimately results in liberation from the life of slavery in Egypt to journey to the land of promise.

But there’s quite a way to go before any of that, notably the 10 plagues that come to Egypt. Walter Brueggemann was asked why did there need to be 10 plagues. His answer was partly to do with the dramatic telling of the story. It’s to build the tension. Will they or won’t they be able to leave Egypt ? We know that kind of tension in storytelling, where you know what’s coming, or at least what should be coming, but again and again there are false starts, because that’s often how life is.

I was reminded of that this week very powerfully as I listened to the story of John Godsall, who was taken prisoner in Kuwait during the first Iraq war, and spent four and a half months with hundreds of other captives being taken round various military and civil installations in the south of Iraq and used as a human shield. He describes most movingly how time and time again his captors told him that the day for his release had arrived, only for his captors to laugh when it clearly wasn’t going to happen. John buried his traumatic experience for 28 years, appearing to say, as other hostages also said, that they were well treated whilst in captivity. It’s only recently that he has felt able to talk openly about the truth of these dark months.

That real life story shines a light on the way the Exodus story is told, repeatedly giving hope to Moses and his people, and then snatching it away.

This is such a time. We are groaning in our slavery to the system that threatens planet earth. Maybe God has heard that cry, and has sent people like Greta Thunberg, and the activists who have come together under the Extinction Rebellion banner. But time and again we hear promises, but not enough in the way of action.

I read about a conversation that Queen Elizabeth was having at the opening of the Welsh parliament yesterday, where the Queen has been caught on microphone criticising world leaders who “talk” but “don’t do” when it comes to climate change. During a conversation at the opening of the parliament in Cardiff, she told the Duchess of Cornwall and Elin Jones, the parliament’s presiding officer: “Extraordinary isn’t it… I’ve been hearing all about COP[26]… still don’t know who is coming… no idea. We only know about people who are not coming… It’s really irritating when they talk, but they don’t do.”

Another royal, Prince William has something very similar in an interview about the ‘Earthshot Prize’ – where he is clearly speaking about the space race and space tourism when he says: “We need some of the world’s greatest brains and minds fixed on trying to repair this planet, not trying to find the next place to go and live.”

The Exodus story may be an encouragement to keep going, and holding out the hope of a sustainable future for the generations yet to come.

Grace and Peace

Bible · God

I Am Who I Am

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I can’t stop listening to Walter Brueggemann. What he says is so compelling. Just a brief comment from him got me thinking. I’ll have more in the next post about the Exodus story.

I’m listening to him talk about the Exodus – the emancipation of the Hebrew people from Egypt. A significant part of the story is in Exodus chapter 3, where Moses has a life changing experience, encountering God in the burning bush. He asks God ‘What is your name ?’
God does not answer the question directly, but says, essentially, ‘I am who I am’
Is it a name, or not ? Perhaps not in the regular understanding of a name.
Hebrew names have a meaning that says something about who you are. So my name – Jonathan – means gift of God.

I remember visiting a family who were soon to have a child baptised. One of the first things I asked was the child’s name. This particular family had chosen a name that was a combination of the football team they followed and a sporting hero. I’m guessing that this name is unique – and I won’t include the actual name here, because you could google it and find this person straightaway.

The point is, names say something – maybe about us, or about our parents’ hopes and dreams for us. So when God sidesteps Moses’ question, it may be that God isn’t quite ready to reveal their name.

Another aspect of this encounter, is that once you know someone’s name, you have knowledge about them. They have revealed something very personal, and made themselves vulnerable to a degree. When you know someone’s name you have a degree of power over them. You call their name and they turn round to see who it is that wants them. In not revealing a name, maybe God is exercising freedom. I’m not ready for you to know that about me – yet.

As the Old Testament progresses, we hear numerous names for God – because God cannot be contained by one name. Similar to the 99 names for God in Islam. Sometimes, we might want to claim ownership of God. We want to say that we know all there is to know – at least the most important things. But maybe sometimes the most important thing to say is that we don’t know God.

Grace and Peace

Bible · faith · Political

Justice – Another Word For Love ?

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Justice in a passage from Luke’s Gospel

I was working on a sermon earlier this week, on a text from Luke’s Gospel.

Luke 11:37-42

37 While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee invited him to dine with him; so he went in and took his place at the table. 38 The Pharisee was amazed to see that he did not first wash before dinner. 39 Then the Lord said to him, ‘Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. 40 You fools! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? 41 So give for alms those things that are within; and see, everything will be clean for you.

42 ‘But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and the love of God; it is these you ought to have practised, without neglecting the others.

The phrase that caught my eye was this: But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and the love of God.

They are just paying lip service to the command to love their neighbour. It struck me that when Jesus uses that phrase ‘Justice and the love of God,’ he is using another way of summing up the whole law – Love God and love neighbour. In other words, the idea of bringing justice to someone is what it means to love them.

Justice in Psalm 119

‘Coincidentally,’ earlier in the week, I had a part of Psalm 119 in my daily prayers and noticed that word justice again.
Psalm 119 is in 22 sections of 8 verses for each section, each section starting with one of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
The message of the psalm is about the beauty and sufficiency of God’s law. It’s a comprehensive treatment of the importance of God’s law – demonstrated by the way that the psalm is structured using every letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

In each section there are 8 verses, and in each verse there is a word that represents the law. So the law is descibed in the following ways: Promise, Statute, Decree, Commandment, Word, Precept, Ordinance, Ways.

As far as I can see, nearly every verse in the psalm (with just a few exceptions) includes one of the words above, and interestingly I noticed the word justice crops up in two sections. (Below)

148 My eyes are awake before each watch of the night,
    that I may meditate on your promise.
149 In your steadfast love hear my voice;
    O Lord, in your justice preserve my life.
150 Those who persecute me with evil purpose draw near;
    they are far from your law.

Salvation is far from the wicked,
    for they do not seek your statutes.
156 Great is your mercy, O Lord;
    give me life according to your justice.
157 Many are my persecutors and my adversaries,
    yet I do not swerve from your decrees.

On these two occasions, I wonder if justice is intended as another word to stand in for ‘law’ etc. to remind us that justice is central to God’s law.

So, meditating on these instances of the word justice led me to the thought that justice is central to the law of love.

So what do we mean by justice ?

Walter Brueggemann has spoken about justice as “Sorting out what belongs to whom, and returning it to them.”

The word return implies that people have had things taken away from them, or do not have what rightly they should have.

The plight of the Palestinian People

A few years ago now, we became aware of the reality of life for the Palestinian people.  A key part of their story goes back to May 14th 1948, when at midnight the British mandate of Palestine ended, and the State of Israel was proclaimed. Over a short time, this resulted in over 700,000 Arabs either fleeeing or being expelled from their homes.

There are families who two generations later, still have the key of the door to the house that they lived in. Maybe grandparents have handed the key on to successive generations to keep alive the hope that one day justice may come, and they will be able to return. To mark this period of time in the history of the Palestinian people, May 15th became a annual reminder of this forced expulsion, and was named Nakba Day. (Nakba means catastrophe)

Justice is about sorting out what belongs to whom and returning it to them, but the injustice of land grabbing is still happening today in many parts of the world, including Israel, where Israelis are illegally taking land from Palestinian people that has been theirs for generations, to build Israeli settlements.

The Skyline Drive

In 2009, I had a sabbatical, and spent part of the time studying at Eastern Mennonite University doing some of their Summer School modules. I was fortunate enough to also be able to spend 10 days with my wife and son travelling around the state of Virginia in the USA.

One day, we found ourselves driving on the Skyline Drive, a 105 mile route that runs through the Shenandoah National Forest, from Front Royal in the north to Waynesboro in the south.  In order to set up the national park back in the 1930’s, the federal government had to buy the land, which involved resettling hundreds of people who were living in the area.  Many of these people did not want to move, and there were numerous court cases as they challenged the right of the government to move them off their land.  

Justice is about sorting out what belongs to whom and returning it to them. Sadly, those families lost their homes and in many cases their livelihoods. Even though they were resettled, they had been forcibly uprooted from homes they had known in some cases for generations.

The widow, the orphan and the stranger

Another take on justice runs right through the Old Testament. It’s not so much about giving people back what they have lost, but enabling them to enjoy what everyone else enjoys. The current word is ‘agency’ – justice is when the poor have agency to access the things that I take for granted – food, shelter, lack of violence, work, community, healthcare ….

In the Old Testament the people who most often need justice were widows orphans and strangers. That’s because they were the people who did not have anyone to speak on their behalf.

In that patriarchal society, a married woman would need her husband to get justice, but a widow is on her own in that world; an umarried woman would have her father to speak for her, but an orphan is on their own. They have no one to speak for them.  Similarly a stanger – that is, a foreigner living within Israel would be on their own.

It is these people, above all, who should be cared for.  The way to show that we love neighbour is how we treat the weakest in our society, those who have no one to advocate for them.

What comes to mind now, are the people in my community who are working for justice:
Gloucester City Mission, who work with those who have no home to call their own. At one time, they did have a home, but for whatever reason, they are now on the street or in temporary accommodation.  GCM are working to return a home for the homeless.
Emmaus Communities are also working for justice for the homeless – to help people in getting back what we should all have as a human right – a home.
Gloucester Food Bank. I pray for the day when all the food banks will have closed.  When there will be no one who is going without another human right – food to sustain them. But until that day, we thank God for those who are working for justice for the hungry. To give back what has been taken away
And lastly GARAS – Gloucestershire Action for Refugees and Asylum Seekers. They are working with those who have had so much taken away from them.  Country, Community, Home, Job, Family, Dignity … Justice is about giving back to them what every human being should enjoy by right.

For Jesus, justice and love are part of the same law. The command to uphold justice for the weakest is central to the DNA of the church. Without justice we are empty, we have nothing. Without justice we are just making a noise

But when we work for justice, we are serving those who have no protection, no one to speak for them, the ones without a voice – working to include them and embrace them so that they, like us can share in the bounty that God has given us all to enjoy.

Grace, Peace and Justice.