A few years ago, I heard a talk – I think it was by Ray Simpson of the Northumbria Community – about Celtic Christianty.  In the talk he describes showing a film about Celtic Christianity to church and other leaders, in this country and abroad.

Reflecting on the reception the film received, he noted that English audiences were mostly interested in practical ways they might use the new insights they had gained – “How can I use this?” – whilst European (I think especially German ?) audiences wanted to know ‘Is this true ?”

That always struck me as an interesting observation, which I have come across again in the biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Charles Marsh. (Strange Glory pp 115 -118)

In 1930/31, Bonhoeffer spent the best part of a year in the USA, and his impression at the start of this period was that Americans were over concerned about practicalities, and too little about ideas for their own sake.

One of his European friends at the time writes: “We were Europeans who like to reflect before acting, while the American gave us the impression of wanting to act before they reflected.”

(By the way – that makes me think of a prominent American who seems to have difficulty with any kind of reflective thought!)

Bonhoeffer is intially critical of the lack of serious theological underpinning to the sermons that he heard, describing one influential preacher as preaching ‘A Gospel bereft of miracle … with sermons that are reduced to church remarks about newpaper events’

All of this changed for Bonhoeffer when he began to experience the life of Abyssinian Baptist Church – a black church in New York.  Through the early months of 1931, Bonhoeffer had an education into the real lives of black America, with its racism, poverty and oppression.  It was these encounters that led him to write that it was only in the black churches that he had heard powerful preaching, thrilled to joyful singing, and seen true religion.

“For most of his ministry he had traded comfortably on a notion of Christ as inacccessibly transcendent, the God-man in majesty.  Lately he had begun to dwell on Jesus as the one who wandered into distressed and lonely places to share the struggles of the poor as friend and counsellor.”

This will emerge later in Bonhoeffer’s thought as Christ going ‘incognito into the world, and outcast among outcasts, hiding himself in weakness.

His time in the USA also included times spent in the company of Christian Activists including the emerging civil rights movement.

Having arrived in America with his Lutheran foundation of ‘Sola Gratia’ – by grace alone – he reurned to Germany with the conviction that Grace is ‘God’s divine verdict requiring obedience and action.’

Today is Easter Day – a day when we are reminded of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but for me especially of the importance of the ongoing vital neccessity of living the resurrection day by day.

Perhaps we can also experience what Bonhoeffer saw in the suffering black church of 1930’s America that seems to encompass cross and resurrection – ’emotion, intensity and feeling in the sorrowful joy of Jesus’

It’s Palm Sunday 2020

A Palm Sunday like no other.  No Palm Sunday processions. No collective worship. It’s all very strange. Ruth and Heather (our vicar and curate) have sent us through some material on an email to se in Holy Week – for which much thanks.

I think we’re (my wife Bev and I), are going to take a walk later, maybe up to the top of Robinswood Hill, and do our own procession.

Meanwhile, I have made a Palm Cross out of a strip of wrapping paper to put on our front door (One of the ideas we were given)

Latr on, I might also make a poster to say ‘This is Holy Week’

But for now I’m thinking about the Gospel reading Matthew 21 verses 1 to 11.  It tells of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. Hundreds of years before Jesus, the prophet Zechariah had written:

“Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

And now, here is Jesus, entering Jerusalem in that exact same way. It’s not a coincidence – Jesus knew the prophets, and had clearly understood that the prophecy matched the nature of his mission.

A victorious king would normally have ridden in on a war horse.  A donkey doesn’t have the same effect.  So why a donkey ?  Because this victory parade calls for the king to be humble and lowly.

And the crowds are cheering and putting down their cloaks (here in Matthew’s Gospel it’s cloaks, not palms – maybe we should call it ‘Cloak Sunday’ ?)

They are recognising that the quailities that Jesus possesses are just what they are looking for in a leader.  I’m guessing that the people cheering Jesus are mostly drawn from his followers and they know him.

And the quality mentioned here is described as meek or humble or gentle.  How to undestand that word ?

Eugene Peterson in his tranlation of Matthew 21 uses this phrase to translate the word humble as ‘Poised and ready’.

And in the poem ‘Lucky Meek’ by Peterson there is this line – “Each cloud is meek, buffeted by winds it changes shape, but never loses being.”

(From his book of poems ‘Holy Luck)

I love that – changing shape, but never losing being.  There is a strength to this meekness. It’s not describing someone who will let you walk all over them. This meekness, this humility, is strong but always non-violent.

So how to see these few verses today in April 2020 in the midst of lock down ?

The image that comes to my mind is the neighbours on our street and across the country who on thursday at 8 o’clock in the evening were clapping and cheering our NHS workers.  NHS workers who are buffeted by what is going on, but somehow holding fast.

And not just the NHS, but others who in different ways have had to ‘change their shape’, but are still providing the services that we rely on – the ones who take away our bins, bus and train drivers, supermarket workers, farmers, food distributors, and others too many to mention.

I have just been watching Keir Starmer, the new leader of the Labout party, being interviewed on the Andrew Marr Show, and talking about the changes that must come after coronavirus – we cannot go back to ‘business as usual’.  We now know who the key workers are.  They have been ‘the last’ and now must be ‘the first’

We applaud you – we pray for you. Especially when you are argued with, shouted at, spit upon, cursed – as I know many of you are.

You may have to change your shape, the way you are working, but we pray that you will not lose your being.  Poised and ready for whatever comes next.

Amen

Thought for Passion Sunday 2020.  Ezekiel 37; Romans 8; John 11.

Hi, thanks for coming today … on this short video I’ll be thinking about change and the idea that every change can first be experienced as a loss.

When asked in an interview what was at the heart of the Christian Faith, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury said that the possibility of change was central to Christian faith.  The reference point for this in Christianity is the resurrection – which is the most powerful demonstration that change is possible, for someone to die – properly die, and then two days later be resurrected.

But that example of change, transformation – the resurrection – could only happen because Jesus died.  You can’t have resurrection without death, and the coming two weeks, culminating in Holy week and Easter for Christians is a time when we reflect on the death and resurrection of Jesus, and what it means for us today. 

So to take this thought further I want to think about loss. The losses that are a part of our everyday lives. Some of them small, but some of them life changing.  Falling out with a friend; losing a precious possession; losing our job; getting ill; adjusting to living with disability; bereavement.  Living with the daily effects of the current coronavirus.

There are times when the things, the people, the daily things that we took for granted and that we have relied on fail us.  This is such a time.  Maybe even a time when our faith fails us.  That sounds like bad news, like defeat.  All our gods have failed us, we have no answers and no solutions. But remember the idea that I started with that every change can first be experienced as a loss.

Which is where I start to think about Good Friday – where Jesus takes things to the absolute limit.  Where he willingly goes to the cross. There are a number of ways of trying to see what the death of Jesus might mean.  One that doesn’t get talked about much is centred around the cry of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel – ‘My God, My God, why have you abandoned me.’  This is utter desolation.  The one who delighted in calling God his father now dies abandoned – total dereliction.  And it’s not a game where Jesus is secretly thinking – this is all going to be OK.  At this point in time all is lost.  Finished. Over.  And here is the mystery of the cross, and the mystery of God.

For Jesus – this absence of God has to be experienced before resurrection can come.  Maybe for us it is letting go of everything that gives us security that will open the door us to find God.  We do like to be in control – to have answers, to have certainty, and to solve problems.  It’s easy to think of God as someone who gives us the answers, solves the problems.

But then we have reduced God to just being cleverer than the cleverest person we can think of, or more powerful than the most powerful person we can think of. 

If that’s your idea of God – just let go of it.  let go of the need for answers, let go of the need to solve everything. We must all lose our lives in order to find them.

And if we can’t get our heads around the mystery that is God, we look at Jesus – because here is hope – that somehow this God who is beyond us comes to us – embodied, enfleshed.  He comes to us in Jesus, and sits with us; weeps with us; comes to set us free from whatever binds us – it might be unbelief.  It might be a belief that is too easy, too certain.  He comes to set us free from no faith to faith. From misdirected faith in a God that doesn’t exist, from small faith, from mean faith, to something more expansive, more real, more grounded.

I’m using the readings in the Daily Lectionary for Holy Communion.

Today is
Ezekiel 37:21-28 – extract below

‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will take the Israelites out of the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their own land ….
I will establish them and increase their numbers, and I will put my sanctuary among them forever. 

Jeremiah 31:10-13 – extract below

‘He who scattered Israel will gather them
    and will watch over his flock like a shepherd.’

 Gospel of John 11:45-end – extract below

The high priests and pharisees said “Here is this Jesus performing many signs. ⁴⁸ If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.”

Caiaphas (The Chief Priest) replied – “Don’t you know anything? Can’t you see that it’s to our advantage that one man dies for the people rather than the whole nation be destroyed?” He didn’t say this of his own accord, but as Chief Priest that year he unwittingly prophesied that Jesus was about to die sacrificially for the nation, and not for the nation alone, but so that he might gather into one the scattered children of God.

The common themes that run through these scriptures passages are – Land + Nation, and Temple. 

 The desire to have and own land is very strong. In the Old Testament (around 600 B.C.), the people are taken into exile and scattered – and the hope of once again returning to their land is a regular theme of the later books of the Old Testament.

We see the power of the land and nation in the return to Israel of Jews after WW2, with the particular history of persecution and the Holocaust in the Jewish memory.

But in the Gospel passage there is the promise that the mission of Jesus goes beyond the boundaries of Nation and Temple, ‘not for the nation alone, but to gather into one the scattered children of God.’

 My question is – what are the equivalent things that motivate us today.  I would suggest it’s often the same.  Nationalism and Religion.  These are two of the biggest things that divide people today.

And, how might Jesus break those boundaries today ?

In the current situation of Covid-19, we need people of all faiths to work together – not just for their own communities but for all.  And we need leaders of all the nations to put aside their differences and competitiveness to seek a solution in the form of vaccine and a common approach that will eliminate this disease.

At the same time, we need to be asking questions about what after ?  What can we learn about working together as one.

There’s a verse in the hymn “All my hope on God is founded” that sums this up:

Human pride and earthly glory,
sword and crown betray his trust;
what with care and toil he buildeth,
tower and temple, fall to dust.
But God’s power,
hour by hour,
is my temple and my tower.

 Plagues.

I’m reading about the experience of the Hebrew people living in Egypt around The time of the pharaohs. It’s a central story in the old Testament of deliverance from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the promised land. Moses is told by the Lord to go to Pharaoh and announce that unless  Pharaoh lets the Hebrews go, God will visit on the Egyptians a plague. Time and time again, pharaoh relents when each successive plague comes along, and says that the people may go into the wilderness to worship their God. But time and time again he changes his mind once the plague stops.

It’s always risky to draw parallels between an ancient text like this and our current situation, but I do see some thing very contemporary here in the struggle between the people of Israel who are poor, enslaved in Egypt and the wealthy and powerful Egyptians who have everything.

 It seems to me that we, who are  the wealthy, secure and powerful in today’s world are being challenged as the planet cries out in pain over the way we have mistreated and abused our world and the poor of this world. Will we like pharaoh go back to our old ways once the plague goes away, Or can we learn a lesson and change in order to care for this fragile world and the poorest of the world.

I like this.  It comes from Paul Langham’s translation of the New Testament.

From the book of Titus.

God has commissioned me (Paul) to tell everyone the wonderful truth that because of Jesus Christ, there is hope for life after death and power to live God’s way here and now.  God made this promise before time began, and he always keeps his word.

N.T. Wright says a similar thing when he sums up the good news of the Christian hope with something along these lines … In the resurrection of Jesus, God has declared that Jesus is the Messiah of Israel and the Lord of the universe.

Frederick Buechner in ‘Now and Then’ talks about the terrible responsibility that comes with being a preacher.  To have the audacity to get up, week after week, in front of a group of people hungry for God and presume to feed them !!

He also says that in the end the preacher must be clear about their task …. which is not about people believing in the preacher or even the words that they say – the result of preaching must be that people are drawn to a deeper faith in God

Amen to that !

About a year ago, I had to do a review as part of my work.  As is usual these days, I had to set some targets for the year ahead.

At the time, I knew that we would be moving south to Hoddesdon, which is on the River Lea – which goes all the way to London.  I decided that one of my targets would be to walk the footpath to London.  Not an amazing feat, but a longer walk than I’ve done for a long time.

So – today was the day.  We had planned to do the 21 miles in two days, and today we did 15 miles to Tottenham Hale Station.

15 was enough for today.  Tomorrow we catch the train to Tottenham Hale and then walk the rest of the way, past the Olympic Park and to Limehouse Basin where the River Lea meets the Thames.

On the way we saw barges, rowing boats, cyclists, walkers, (many of them with dogs), anglers (all men apart from two women), as well as thousands of swans and geese and ducks.

I noticed that there were numerous men on their own – walking, barge-ing, (?) and cycling.  So I decided to put barge-ing in with ‘men with sheds’ and also river fishermen.  Men who just like being on their own.

I wonder if this is (probably this is well known to everyone apart from me) because men are hard wired from an evolutionary point of view to be solitary – hunting, gathering food, looking after sheep and goats etc ….  while women were back at home with the children – much more social as a way of life.

Apparently women are more likely to use social media than men, so maybe there’s something in it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about mission.  Since Easter, we have had a reading from the book of Acts every Sunday.  These readings have brought home to me two things –  the missionary activity of the church; the guiding hand of God.

Emil Brunner said ‘The church exists by mission as a fire does by burning’ – no mission, no church.

I imagine a church that has seen no growth from new Christians for a long time … eventually all its members will die … and the church will have to close.

But that church actually died long before it closed.  It died when it ceased to be a missionary church.

Recently someone was recounting to me an experience that they had one Christmas – the church had some great services, with many visitors.  At the end of the Christmas services, they were feeling really great that so many visitors had come.  However, the response from one person was this “You Have ruined my Christmas this year, because we had so many strangers in church”

A came across a great illustration for the centrality of mission to the church.

Think about a game of football – why do people play … well, most people play because they enjoy it. (Some play for money) But the heart of football is the competitive element – winning games.

And you don’t win games without scoring goals.  It’s as simple as that.  No goals, no results.  And in the end if there were never any goals scored, it would be a pretty boring and pointless game.

The youtube clip here gives me a sense of the joy of being a Christian, and being part of a church in mission.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSR001CaB7w

I’m reading a book by Alan and Eleanor Kreider, “Worship and mission after Christendom.”  Also listening to Stuart Murray Williams talking about mission in a post Christendom era.

It was probably back in the 90s that we started thinking more carefully about moving from maintenance to mission, but I wonder whether we have really got to grips with this.

Stuart Williams uses a phrase that I find very powerful, probably not his own phrase but I don’t know where it comes from. It comes out of his understanding that God is primarily a missional God.

He challenges us to move from ‘the Church of God has an mission’ to ‘The God of mission has a church’

He also talks about worship being the goal of mission.  This reminds me of Moses talking To Pharoah. ‘God says, let my people go that they may worship me in the wilderness.’