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The Road to Compostela

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Yesterday, I met two women, both Methodist ministers, who have walked the road from St Jean Pied de Port to Compostela.  It’s a pilgrim route, 500 miles long.

They walked it last May, taking everything except a tent with them, and it took them 5 weeks.  They described the hardships of the walk:  blisters, tiredness, the weather (torrential rain), lack of food.  It wasn’t as if there were supermarkets to shop in.  Sometimes they just went without food if there was no shop in the village where they slept. They stayed in hostels, in rickety bunk beds, surrounded by snoring travellers. (Germans and Koreans were the worst offenders).  Hostels sometimes offered food, but you get fed up with steak and chips after a few days.  On one occasion, tired at the end of the day, and with no food, a local family gave them some bread and a bottle of wine.
I get the feeling that walking the pilgrim route in this way would be incredibly challenging.  You cannot book a bed ahead of time at these hostels, so you just have to hope that there is a bed when you get there.  If someone passes you on the route, you ask yourself if they will get the last bed in the hostel, which is an encouragement not to slow down too much.
I said to them ‘After all these hardships, you must have had a great sense of satisfaction when you finally arrived at Compostela’  
They answered that it was not the arriving, but the journey that was important.  The first morning after they arrived at Compostela, they felt like they should be walking again.  Having spent 5 weeks walking day after day, it didn’t seem right not to walk.  They even described a feeling of bereavement having finished the pilgrimage.
Another reflection that they shared with me was this.  For many Christians, faith is about arriving at our final destination (heaven) – We are saved for heaven.  The Christian message is often explained in terms of having sins forgiven so that when we die we can go to heaven.  For them, the pilgrimage made them realise that however important the destination is, it’s the journey that teaches us and shapes us.  Being ‘saved’ is about life and living, here and now.
Thanks  to Sue and Bev
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The Scribes Mark 2:6-12

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Mark 2:6-12


‘The Scribes and the Pharisees’ will appear more and more as Mark’s Gospel continues.  But this is their first appearance, and it’s the first sign of conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders.  We had a hint in an earlier incident, when the people in the synangogue comment that Jesus is not like the scribes (the scribes were the acknowledged experts in the religious law).


In this exchange, the scribes object to Jesus telling a paralysed man that his sins are forgiven.  (Only God can forgive sin)  Jesus responds by healing the man, as if to say – ‘You want to know if I have authority to forgive sin, well yes I do!’


The scribes thought that they knew what religion was all about.  Thier job was to know the scriptures and to interpret them.  But for them it had become a set of rules to follow rather than a relationship to grow in. When religion has become just a set of rules or rituals, rather than a relationship, then we have lost it. 


It happens in all areas of life, not just religion. And some people stick to rules not just for themselves, but so that they can control others. But it is especially dangerous when people use God, or rules about religion, to exercise control over others.

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Wilberforce Way

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During the 2007 celebrations that marked the 200th anniversary of the passing of the Slave Trade Act, a waymarked path was established linking Hull (The birthplace of William Wilberforce) to Pocklington (Where he went to school) and then on to  York.  (Wilberforce was an independent member of parliament for Yorkshire)

The Yorskshire and Humber Faiths Forum organised three days of walks along the Wilberforce way this week, and I’ve just been on day two, a nine mile circular walk around the Market Town of Pocklington, North Yorkshire.
It was an amazing day for me, with so many links to things that are buzzing around in my head.  I’m going to save the detailed posts for another time, but I learned some interesting facts about modern day trafficking, and cities of refuge; met two people who did the Compastela pilgrimage last year, 500 miles in  five weeks; heard about a modern day presentation of the Passion that took place in Malton, North Yorkshire, learned some things about being an army chaplain; chatted with a bishop, and ended the day with a tour of the Buddhist Centre in Pocklington, complete with meditation and soup.
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At home. Mark 2:1-5

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Mark 2:1-5

After Jesus’ tour round Galilee, he comes back home.  (Living with Simon and Andrew’s family ?)  News of his reappearance soon spreads, and the crowds are there again.  Jesus was making a big impact wherever he went.

On this occasion, he is teaching in the house.  (he spoke the word – logos – to them).  Then four people arrive, carrying a paralysed man on a mat.  They can’t get in.  In desperation they go up on to the top of the house, and unroof the roof!

When they lower him down, Jesus saw their faith and said to the paralysed man ‘Your sins are forgiven’

The focus of this part of the encounter is not to do with the man’s presenting need, being paralysed, but to do with a deeper need to know forgiveness.

The old rhyme – ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me’ isn’ true.  And in the same way that words can do deep damage to our soul, they can also bring deep healing.  In our churches, we have often imagined that our first task is to make people realise how sinful they are, so that they then seek God’s forgiveness. If we go on about sin long enough, people will realise how worthless they are and turn to God!?

But the world does a pretty good job already of telling us that we are not worthy.  The visual images that accompany the the advert that tells us ‘You’re worth it’, just tell us the opposite.  Maybe if we have that beautiful hair and waif like figure we are worth it.  But witness the alarming rates of suicide in young men; the illnesses connected to self image; the effects of redundancy; the drug and alcohol culture.  All of these are signs that we don’t feel ‘worth it’

What the church can and must offer, in word and action, is an experience in community of acceptance and forgiveness that can go beyond ideas of self worth to a realisation that we are loved, immeasurably loved.

Love – George Herbert.

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack’d anything.

“A guest,” I answer’d, “worthy to be here”;
Love said, “You shall be he.”
“I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.”
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
“Who made the eyes but I?”

“Truth, Lord, but I have marr’d them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.”
“And know you not,” says Love, “who bore the blame?”
“My dear, then I will serve.”
“You must sit down,” says Love, “and taste my meat.”
So I did sit and eat.

Triggered by an article in Third Way magazine: Love Trying To happen by Sebastian Moore.

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Wrath

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As someone who plans and leads worship, and as a musician, I have a keen interest in the hymns and songs that we sing in church.  And being brought up in a conservative evangelical tradition, hymns and songs about the cross featured heavily in my experience of worship.  Whilst the Cross of Christ is clearly a central feature of Christianity, it has become in some traditions, the only feature in a landscape that surely contains the life and ministry of Jesus, and the resurrection. (To name two other landmarks).


Songs about the cross usually point in one of two ways … to the great love of God, that inspires us to worship, or to the work of Christ as paying for sin.

A contemporary example of the former would be ‘I will offer up my life’, which has the refrain,  

Jesus what can I give, what I bring, 
to so faithful a friend to so loving a king, 
Saviour what can be said, what can be sung, 
as a praise of your name for the things you have done.  
O my words could not tell, not even in part, 
of the debt of love that is owed by this thankful heart

An example of the latter would be ‘In Christ alone’ in which one verse says: 

In Christ alone, Who took on flesh,

Fullness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones He came to save.
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied;
For ev’ry sin on Him was laid—
Here in the death of Christ I live.


I can remember some years ago, being in a service with other clergy, and looking round as we sang this verse, seeing several people frown and shake their heads at the 6th line of that verse.  I understood their unwillingness to sing that line, because I felt it too, although I think I still joined in and sang it.

In many ways, it’s a great example of a modern hymn, but I now find I can’t sing that line about the wrath of God being satisfied.  Yet in the same hymn, we have the fantastic line ‘Light of the world by darkness slain’.  It was the forces of evil that Jesus challenged, and it was evil and not God that crucified him.  So, do we still sing the hymn ?  Have we the right to leave out that verse, or amend it ?  

It is our sung worship that often shapes the way our congregations think about God and the world. (As much as other parts of our liturgy). If we are to be happy for that to happen, then good theology must also shape our sung worship. 
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Redemptive Violence

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I read thrillers for entertainment.  I like reading them, but I don’t like that I read them.  I’m watching ’24’ for entertainment.  I enjoy watching it, but I don’t like that I watch it.

The hero stands up for ordinary people, for freedom, for security.  But the hero uses exactly the same means as the villain in order to bring the freedom and the security.  Robert Crais writes thrillers that feature two such heroes: Elvis Cole (private detective) and Joe Pike (ex marine, ex L.A. police officer, killer).  They are on the side of the good.  But they use the same methods as the ‘evil’ criminals and terrorists whom they oppose. 
Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) in ’24’ does the same job.  He’s intrinsically a nice guy.  You trust him.  But he is willing to torture and kill in order to expose the oppressor and the terrorist. However, in series 7, I’m not sure what 24 is saying, because there are now voices that are challenging Jack’s methods.  An anti Jack Bauer US senator (unsympathetic character) and President Taylor’s Chief of Staff both express their disdain for his methods.  Even Bill Buchanan, Jack’s ex colleague from CTU (the counter terrorist unit) baulks at torture.
Are we meant to go along with Jack in the end ?  And am I still going to watch ’24’ and read Robert Crais, knowing that they shape the way we think about how to deal with evil.  Knowing that they perpetuate the myth that ‘good men’ can use violence to defeat evil ?
A quote from Ched Myers –  “As René Girard and his followers have long argued, the myth of redemptive violence empowers not redemption, but only more violence”

Perhaps the most chilling example of this in recent years has been the whole Iraq thing; the invasion, the subsequent violence, both anti the West and sectarian between Shiite and Sunni; Guantanamo …  
Going back now (here it comes!) to the cross and the atonement theory of Penal Substitution.  I fear that this is just another face of redemptive violence.  The idea that punishing Jesus (who although innocent, actually stands for the guilty) achieves anything.
If we see God punishing the innocent Jesus, we’re back to cosmic child abuse (see earlier post).
If we see God punishing the guilty through Jesus, we’re accepting that violence is an acceptable way to deal with evil.  (Which it isn’t)
As long as Christians hold on to this theory of the cross, any commitment to non violence will be contradictory and empty.
And, conversely, as long as Christians support the methods of redemptive violence in the world’s affairs, it will be impossible to regain a true understanding of the cross.
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Informed or Uninformed ?

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I’m back on how we read stuff.  I’ve already written about how I need to remind myself that reading scripture, for me as a Christian is a potentially dangerous thing, and something I need to do carefully.

I’ve read a couple of things in the last week about bloggers and journalists and particularly the future of news reporting.
In the Church Times (8th May 2009) Andrew Brown writes in his column that none of our national papers has a reporter at the Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Jamaica.  He makes the point that if there are no journalists there, the only reports that we will get are heavily biased.  Maybe some of us would say that no news reporting is unbiased, nothing is truly objective, but we do hope that our media reporters are at least attempting to give us a fair account.
In a piece on the radio yesterday, I was listening to a conversation about the future of newspapers in the internet age, and the down turn in advertising revenue for newspapers.  If the cover price does not make for a profitable business, and advertising revenue continues to fall, does the printed press have a future ?
In his piece on 1st May, Andrew Brown writes about informed and uninformed opinion.  Brown comments on another columnist, Timothy Garton Ash: He is well informed.  “His views are worth having because he knows more than  his readers about the subjects on which he writes.  There will be of course, some readers who know more than he does, but they won’t think he’s writing from another planet”
Garton Ash – “I can look through a hundred comments, and only two will tell me anything I don’t know;  that’s because they will have links”
Some blogs are well informed and worth reading.  I have a couple that I look at.  But uninformed opinion is pretty worthless.  I pray that I will be able to tell the difference between the two, and that informed opinion continues to have a place.
 
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Compassion and Change

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Mark 1:40-45


A man with leprosy comes to Jesus and is healed.  But the end of the incident is just as striking.  Jesus warns the man not to tell anyone what has happened, but the man can’t keep quiet and as a result Jesus goes into hiding.  Why does Jesus say this ?  Was it because he didn’t want all the attention from the people who needed him ? Was it because he was already aware of how the authorities viewed him, and didn’t want to draw attention to himself for that reason ? 

Or was it more to do with a tension in Jesus himself ? We already had a similar scenario when Jesus is pressured to stay with the people of Capernaum.  Jesus’ response to that pressure was to move on, saying that he needed to ‘proclaim the message … for that is what I came to do’

It seems as though there are two things going on in Jesus.  On the one hand there is his awareness that his mission is to ‘proclaim the message’ and on the other hand we see his compassion for those in need.

Maybe Jesus knew that however many people he healed, his core mission was to do with transforming lives.  Earlier in Chapter one, Jesus says “The time has come.  The kingdom of God is is near.  Repent (change) and believe the good news.”

At the Greenbelt Arts Festival a few years ago, I remember Rowan Williams, who had just been announced as the next Archbishop of Canterbury, being asked what for him was at the heart of the Christian faith.  His answer was – ‘Change’.  The possibility that individuals and situations can change.

Jesus is moved with compassion, but he is also concerned with change.  I think we are also learning that it’s not enough to put on a bandage, or give water to the thirsty, but we must also address the reasons why people are sick and thirsty, and give attention to changing the structures that cause poverty in the first place.


The Collect for the Second Sunday of Epiphany:

   

Almighty God,
in Christ you make all things new:
transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace,
and in the renewal of our lives
make known your heavenly glory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.  Amen

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Be Careful

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We must take care how we read … whether it’s a news report, or a blog, or the scriptures.

Before I go back into Mark’s Gospel, I remind myself that it is important how I read these words.   I come to these words believing that they speak with authority.  I pray that through God’s Spirit, the words of the scriptures will shape my life.
When we come with our agenda to much to the fore, it can easily distort, or obscure what the scriptures are saying to us.  We can easily then make the scripture say just what we want it to.  For example, christians have often made the mistake of reading the scriptures asking only what it says to me as an individual, about salvation for example.  The result is a very individualised form of religion that in the end is human centred, and not God centred, and is only concerned with whether we go to heaven or not.
I am trying to read Mark’s Gospel with issues of injustice, oppression etc in mind.  And that’s fine.  We can’t read the Bible in a vacuum.  But I must be careful to let God’s word speak to me on its own terms, and not on mine.
I use this prayer a lot, because it makes God the centre of action in shaping our lives and our worship.
Faithful One, whose word is life, come to free our praise, inspire our prayers and shape our lives, according to the kingdom of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.
(From Common Worship in the Church of England)