Dressing the Sunderland Nativity

I wonder whether you could help me create a life-size walk-in Nativity scene in Sunderland Minster, to be displayed from Sunday 14th December (installed the evening before) until after Sunday 4th January?

The Bridges shopping centre has kindly lent us several mannequins to create our scene, but they need dressing. My hope is that this year we might be able to dress the characters in contemporary clothes that reflect Sunderland today. Although this is a story that took place some 2,000 years ago in Bethlehem, it has long been represented in the costumes of the time and place where the story is being re-told: many of our ‘traditional’ ideas of what the characters look like derive from much later European depictions.

We are looking to dress Joseph, Mary, two or three shepherds, two angels, and possibly three wise men (although these aren’t needed until the New Year).

If you can lend us any clothes, please contact Revd Andrew Dowsett by email – minsterpriest@sunderlandminster.org – or via the Minster office (open Monday-Friday 9am-3pm) on 0191 565 4066. You will need to drop them off at the Minster during office hours, along with your contact details. Anyone whose contribution we use will be credited by name, unless they would prefer not to be.

Joseph

Joseph was a descendant of King David. In a previous time, his future would have been secure as a member of the royal court. But those days had passed, and that future is no longer an option for that family. Joseph is a young man, trying to make his way in the world as a builder. If Joseph were a Mackem, he might come from a long line of miners or ship-builders. That option no longer open to him, he might be an apprentice learning some other trade. He might wear a boiler suit or overalls, with a high-vis vest.

Mary

Mary was a teenage girl, who had just had her first baby. Mary and Joseph were newly-weds, living with his relatives. Space was limited, but family is family. Mary probably dresses like any teenage girl in her culture. Today she might wear clothes that identify her with a particular youth sub-culture, expressing belonging. Her baby might sleep in a makeshift crib, fashioned from a small travel case.

The shepherds

At an earlier time, shepherds were well-regarded. King David started out as a shepherd boy in Bethlehem. But over time, they had become social outcasts, in large part because sheep caused damage to other people’s property. They remind me of the youth of Sunderland, subject to misunderstanding and abuse from people who have forgotten that they were once young themselves. Today the shepherds might wear tracksuits or hoodies, and carry skateboards or even spray cans.

The angels

Forget cute little girls with tinsel halos. The first response of people who encountered them was to be afraid. Angels are large and imposing. They are God’s messengers, and supernatural warriors. Today, they might well wear the uniform of a bouncer or door staff, or army surplus. Shepherds would certainly expect angels to tell them to move along or face trouble, not to give them VIP tickets.

The wise men

The kings or wise men don’t turn up until later. At the Minster, we will mark their visit on Sunday 4th January. They were scholars, and advisors to those in power in distant cultures. Today they might be international postgraduates at the University.

Thank you in advance to anyone who is able to help contribute. I hope that together we will be able to create an experience that will be a valuable part of the Christmas preparations going on in the centre of Sunderland.

Advent Sunday

Readings: Isaiah 64:1-9 and 1 Corinthians 1:2-9 and Mark 13:24-37

This morning I want to speak about something that some of you might feel inappropriate, although it is natural and healthy and the central image of the passage read to us from the book of Isaiah. I want to speak about the menstrual cycle.

We have heard read these words: ‘We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy rag.’ That sounds like a negative image, telling us that human beings are dirty before a clean God, and condemning those who think they are acceptable through works rather than through faith. But is that really the message Isaiah is conveying?

I don’t think so. Indeed, quite the opposite. And that is why the image needs a second and closer look. It is better translated in this way: ‘We have all become like a woman in her monthly confinement, and all our righteous deeds are like a menstrual cloth.’ To understand this image, we need to understand something of Jewish custom.

In Jewish custom, certain people were considered ‘unclean’ at certain times. This included women during their period, and following childbirth. ‘Unclean’ meant that the person was required to withdraw from public life, to be set apart for a certain duration and then welcomed back into everyday life. Orthodox Jewish women still remove themselves from the world, including their closest family, during their period – and consider it a gift, not a punishment.

To say that a woman in her monthly confinement is ‘unclean’ is not to say that biology is dirty, or that reproduction is dirty, or that simply being a woman is dirty – unless by dirty we mean the honest dirt of rolling up our sleeves and engaging with the world, as God does. The confinement of the ‘unclean’ is, rather, a sign, to themselves and to the wider community; a cause to stop and to be reminded of something. A visible sign pointing to an invisible experience.

Likewise, a menstrual cloth is a sign – and one that reveals what kind of ‘unclean’ person Isaiah refers to. It is evidence of two things: that a woman has the potential to be pregnant; and that she is not pregnant. That a woman has the potential to carry life within her; and that, for now, this remains unrealised potential. Being late is often the clue that a woman might be pregnant. And post the menopause, the potential to bear life draws to an end.

So if our righteous deeds are like a menstrual cloth, that is not to say that our righteous deeds are something negative – how could living in right relationship towards God and our neighbour, the very thing we are called to do, be considered negative? If our righteous deeds are like a menstrual cloth, this is to say that our righteous deeds are a sign that points to something.

To say, ‘We have all become like a woman in her monthly confinement, and all our righteous deeds are like a menstrual cloth’ is to say that Isaiah’s community has become a sign. A sign of the tension between the real potential to experience God’s presence in our midst and the actual experience of God’s absence.

Isaiah is saying that, as we long for God to come to us, we live with the paradox of hope and absence.

But Isaiah is addressing God, and what he is saying to God, around this image, is: please hasten your coming and do not delay; because in the same way that a couple hoping to conceive lose hope that it will ever happen, so people have lost hope; and having lost hope, they have fallen short of the love that contends for the greatest possible good in all circumstances, and have settled for something less.

Which is what is meant by sin.

God, you have hidden yourself from us, and we have settled for less.

Before we move on, I want to say this: that there are times when Scripture employs male pronouns and images to describe God or his people, where only a male image will do; and there are times when Scripture employs female pronouns and images to describe God or her people, where only a female image will do. I know that some people are uncomfortable with one, or the other, but these images are those that are given us by our faith tradition in order to point to deep truths. And they honour male and female, who bear the likeness of God – even if particular individuals we have known do not seem to us to be worthy of honour. Isaiah has given us an image that honours women, and that includes all humanity in a longing that the lived experience of women reveals.

Let us turn from Isaiah to Paul, writing to the church in Corinth. They are waiting for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. And in their waiting, Paul assures them that God will strengthen them to the end, and reminds them that God is faithful.

Paul’s community faces the same tension of hope and absence that Isaiah’s community faced. Isaiah prayed for God to come to his people, and 600 years later, Jesus came into the world. Imagine how much longer it would have taken if God hadn’t listened to Isaiah’s prayer! For the community in Corinth, Jesus had come into the world, but he had ascended to the Father and they were longing for his return.

We experience the same longing, as we look back to the first advent and look towards the second advent of our Lord, of God-with-us.

Let us, then, turn from Paul to Jesus. In our reading from the Gospel According to Mark, Jesus addresses the same theme. The tension of hope and absence, which will become the experience of those who wait. It is, as I hope you will have realised, the theme of the season of Advent, which begins today.

We hope for what we do not yet see, for when we see that which we have put our hope in, hope has served its purpose. Yet hope deferred eventually causes the heart to grow weary, causes us to draw back. Another cycle, another Advent, and Jesus still hasn’t returned.

Jesus says, ‘Keep awake.’ Paul writes, you have been enriched with everything you need, to persevere to the end. Isaiah gives us the poetic image that our being set apart for this period at the start of every new year, along with every act of being in right relationship with our neighbour, is a sign to us and to them that while we do not yet see the one we wait for, hope is still alive. Absence may continue, for now, but hope is renewed.

That is why we need Advent. That is the gift of Advent to us. Let us, then, enter our confinement gladly, and be strengthened by God, so that we may be ready to meet our Lord Jesus Christ on the day when he comes.

Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!

Workplace sermon 5 : Remembrance Sunday

Matthew 25:1-13

This autumn, whenever it has been allocated to me to preach, we have been looking together at work. Today we are reminded that there are times when we are called away from our work, to fight a great battle. Among the war memorials kept for future generations in this building is that one to the men of the flour mill. Called away from their work. And as eight out of every ten soldiers survived the First World War and returned, there were of course other men called away from the flour mill until the battle was done.

We might not have been called away from our work to fight battles with guns and mortar shells; but many of us have been called away from our work to fight battles. Against cancer. Against depression. Or to fight for the freedom of a close relative whose interior landscape is being invaded by dementia. And then again, for some, to rebuild their lives after the death of their partner or son or daughter in a more recent theatre of war, whether as a soldier or a civilian.

Some of these battles, we will overcome and return to our everyday work, albeit changed by the experience. In some of these battles, we will ultimately lose our lives, or the life of a loved one we have fought for.

In these times, we experience the dark night of the soul. Our beloved Jesus, who in times past might have felt so close, is experienced as in another place, delayed in coming to us. In that dark night, which seems more than we can bear, and where sleep comes as a blessed temporary relief, we need the oil of hope.

Hope is something the value of which is not recognised in our society. We have traded it for a cheaper alternative. We say ‘I hope that it won’t rain tomorrow’ or ‘I hope you are feeling better soon’. We use the word to mean a vague and general wish, which has no power in the world. It has nothing in common with the hope of a new beginning that sustained our parents and grandparents through War. It has nothing in common with the hope that might sustain us as we battle terminal illness.

Our Christian hope is this: that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8). No matter what we go through, and no matter how we feel; no matter how dark the night or how long the fight; and no matter whether we live or die: we are not abandoned.

Hope is not based on the strength of our will, but on God’s promises, which are in turn grounded in his character.

The oil of hope can be found in the midst of the dark night of the soul, but that is a risky place to find ourselves in. Better to store up hope when we do not need it, to remind ourselves daily of God’s promises – to soak ourselves in them, so that they stain into us – so that the reservoir is at hand when we find ourselves needing to draw on them. Then we do not need to fear the darkness. After all, it is only in the night that a lamp serves any purpose.

Workplace sermon series 4 : Philippians 4:1-9

Philippians 4:1-9

We are continuing with our series on the workplace. To recap, we are defining work as what we do, as an expression of ourselves, for the common good. That might be paid or voluntary, formal or informal, and it certainly includes the regular activities of the retired. We have taken a look at the common experience of frustration in our work, and experiencing grace in our work. And we have posed the questions in what ways has the work we have done been the place where we have encountered the risen Lord Jesus? and in what ways does our work invite others to consider his call?

This morning, I want to speak about being peace-makers in the places we work; interceding for our co-workers and exercising a ministry of reconciliation between them when people fall out with one another.

Much of the New Testament is a collection of letters, written by people to people. That might sound obvious, but it isn’t. Because ‘we’ as the Church possess the letters, we easily forget that they were not written for us. They are personal. Paul’s letter to the Christians in Philippi is a record of a deep personal relationship, the concern of a very young community of believers for a man who shared their life for a few weeks before he was taken from them, and who they now hear is in prison; and he, in turn, is concerned for them. It is all that remains of a correspondence between friends. And in the course of that correspondence, this little community has shared with Paul their concern for two of their number. Euodia and Syntyche have had a falling out. And it is having an impact on everyone. In part because it puts others in an awkward position: when you don’t want to take sides in your friends’ quarrel, but by not taking her side each accuses you of taking the side of the other. But also out of genuine concern for the cost of the falling out to these two loved friends and co-workers.

Paul’s plea to them, to be reconciled, surely comes from personal experience. You will remember the close friendship and working partnership between Paul and Barnabas, the man who first took a risk on Paul when no one else would trust him. Their shared history was a beautiful thing. But they had fallen out, over John Mark. Mark had accompanied them on their journey, but had abandoned them when the going got tough. Barnabas felt that it was important that Mark be given another chance, but Paul disagreed. Now, let us take a moment to consider what is going on here. Mark would later go on to write the Gospel According to Mark, and according to Church tradition he is the un-named young man who fled naked from the garden when Jesus was arrested. That this is handed down as tradition suggests that it was known among the early Christian community; and that would make his abandoning Paul and Barnabas a second running away. I want to suggest that Barnabas and Paul both had Mark’s best interests at heart: that Barnabas was concerned that if he didn’t get back on the bicycle, so to speak, he’d never risk riding again; whereas Paul was concerned that should he fall off a third time, he’d never get back on. A difference of opinion – and one over which they could not reach agreement, and, apparently fell out. We know that at a later point, Paul and Mark were reconciled; but we have no such assurance that Paul and Barnabas were reconciled, and I think that must have weighed heavy on Paul’s heart.

An un-thought but by no means malicious word from me, that looks like I have exposed your secret insecurity. That thing about you that grates me, because it reflects back to me that thing about myself that I don’t like. It is easy to fall out. In fact, I think it is inevitable. Anyone can do it – even the closest of friends. But it is harder to reconcile – and for that, we need someone to stand with us, to help us, to struggle with us to take hold of the life that has taken hold of us, when death tries to claim us back.

So how might we act as peace-makers between our co-workers? As Paul concludes his letter he writes down his ‘and finally’ – the last words, the if-you-forget-everything-else-I’ve-said-don’t-forget-this words. Finally, beloved. Beloved. See yourself and one another – including that person you have fallen out with – as loved by God. Warts and all, beloved. Take account of whatever is true, honourable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable. If there is anything about that person which is excellent or worthy of praise, take account of that too.

When someone speaks ill of a third party, rather than agreeing, help them to take account of the good things. That isn’t to say that there aren’t things about us that are false or dishonourable or unjust or impure or displeasing or reproachable: there are. And the media trains us to express moral outrage against everyone. But we are called to train our response to be different, by disciplining ourselves to take into account the good.

Yes, Euodia and Syntyche, you have fallen out, and perhaps even with fair cause. But take into account the times you have been there for one another, the things you have gone through together, the love your community has for you both, the concerns of all who know you, the life to which you have been called.

In a world that daily provokes us to put ourselves in the place of the wronged and others in the place of the wrong-doer, being a peace-maker is both simple and hard. It is simple to insist that we look at the good in others. It is simple to call into question the attention-grabbing headlines and political conference sound-bites. And it is hard. Hard to take a stand as peace-maker, when everyone is stirring-up division. And so Paul has some other advice too: celebrate God’s goodness, trust that he is near, pray rather than worry, live guarded by God’s peace. Do it together.

Peace-makers help people to make peace with one another. Peace-makers can also help people to make peace with themselves – something plenty of people struggle with. And peace-makers help people to make peace with God. It may just be that being a peace-maker is the most significant work you can do in the place where you work, the most important focus of your intercession. And so this morning I would like to give to you a bookmark with the words of Philippians 4:8 written on it, to take away, and to place somewhere where you will come across it frequently in the days ahead, as a reminder of those things peace-makers take account of.

Jesus said, ‘Blessed are the peace-makers, for they will be called children of God.’ May it be so of us. Amen.

Workplace sermon series 3

Philippians 3:4b-14

On Monday evening, a good number of us went out for a meal together to celebrate our patronal festival, the Feast of St Michael and All Angels. We were treated to a lovely meal in a great setting, and we shared with one another the gift of conversation and company, a giving of ourselves. Our bodies were fed, and so were our hearts and minds and souls.

That meal looks somewhat different, these several days later. The potato-peelings and carrot-peelings and cauliflower leaves are, hopefully, rotting in a compost bin. They will become something rich again, but right now they are probably wet with condensation and crawling with slugs breaking them down further. As for the food we ate, our bodies will have extracted the goodness, and whatever was left has long since been flushed down the sewer.

Of course, there was more to the meal than the food. We were nourished by the company. But that night has passed, and we can’t point back to it as evidence of our companionship if we are not to join together at the Lord’s Table afresh today.

Today we heard read to us Paul’s reflections on his background – those things over which he had no say, for we do not get to choose our inheritance – and some of his notable achievements – those things to which he contributed effort and exerted some control, though the possibilities open to him were shaped by his background. Paul describes these things as rubbish, and as what the rather censorial translators have coyly termed loss. The point is not that these things were never of any worth, but rather that these things have been used by God to nourish him, but are not themselves the main thing.

The main thing is the call of Jesus Christ, to become united with him, to grow into what it looks like to have been made his own, to press on into the fullness of what he intends for us, knowing that we have not yet achieved this. For our true self is not located in our family background or in the strength of our Curriculum Vitae, but is hidden in Christ, and is revealed to us and to the watching world by the processes of dying to self and experiencing resurrection.

We are continuing with our sermon series on work [albeit in truncated form this morning, due to it being a service of Baptism as well as the Eucharist], and this morning I want to ask the question: In what ways is our work an invitation to consider the call of Jesus Christ?

In what ways has the work we have done been the place where we have encountered the risen Lord Jesus? Or in what ways does our work invite others to consider his call? Nursing, as both participation in and signpost to his compassion and healing. Law, as both participation in and signpost to his justice. Teaching, as both participation in and signpost to his wisdom. And as we come to baptise Kenaniah, who knows what will be added to his background, as the context within which he will encounter Jesus, and respond?

This morning we will be fed, by word and by sacrament, by the water of baptism and the sharing of the bread and the wine. Immediately after the service, the water in the font will become rubbish, will be poured down the sink: but being baptised into the family of God … that lies open ahead of us, an ongoing going and growing with Jesus. May we keep on pressing on …

Action on Dementia Sunderland

Isaiah 61:1-4

¹The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
    because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
    to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
    and release to the prisoners;
² to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour,
    and the day of vengeance of our God;
    to comfort all who mourn;
³ to provide for those who mourn in Zion—
    to give them a garland instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
    the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.
⁴ They shall build up the ancient ruins,
    they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
    the devastations of many generations.

Matthew 5:1-12 

¹When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. ² Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

³ ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

⁴ ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

⁵ ‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

⁶ ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

⁷ ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

⁸ ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

⁹ ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

¹⁰ ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

¹¹ ‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

The theme for this year’s World Alzheimer’s Month is ‘Dementia: Can we reduce the risk?’ And a growing body of evidence suggests that we can, indeed, reduce the risk of dementia, by fostering a ‘brain-healthy lifestyle’ built on the six pillars of regular exercise, a healthy diet, mental stimulation, quality sleep, stress management, and an active social life. ‘Lifestyles’ are best fostered in community. We all have a part to play. This afternoon I would like contribute to that debate from a faith perspective, being grounded in a particular faith community, seeking to serve our wider society.

Our first reading was from the prophet Isaiah. Throughout the Bible, we find accounts of people crying out to God to come and rescue them from circumstances that have become unbearable; and time and time again, we see God come to rescue his people. Isaiah’s imagination was caught up by God’s compassion for the oppressed and broken-hearted. I use the word ‘compassion’ advisedly, because compassion is always expressed in action. These words are not just fine poetry, but find expression in being sent, to bring about a change. And the change is nothing short of a transformation.

It is a vision of a community where people experience healing. Now, healing is not the same as cure. Cure has to do with physical conditions. Healing has to do with relationship. Certain conditions can isolate individuals from the community, to the detriment of both. Healing happens when such individuals are restored to community. We wait for a cure, but in transformed attitudes towards those with dementia or indeed at risk of dementia, healing can be part of our experience even as we wait.

It is a vision that recognises such honoured-and-so-healed people as ‘oaks of righteousness’. Oaks are among the most amazing ecosystems on earth, but only when they are mature. What does aging reveal, that youthful vigour is only a preparation for? What does passing through loss teach us about right relationships, that our society has yet to value?

And it is a vision of a process of decay - of breaking down - reversed: where what has been devastated becomes the very building-blocks for a good future. It speaks of a dismantling of our pride and achievement; and of a God who is then able to rebuild our lives.

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus quotes these verses from Isaiah, to declare how he understood himself, as one caught up by the same vision, as the one who had come to usher-in such a community. The Beatitudes are Matthew’s version of the same declaration: an account of Jesus making the same claim in a different way. Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn – not because your condition is a good one, but because God has heard your cries and has responded. Compassion.

And this is why I believe that the Church has a role to play in shaping how we relate to those living with dementia, whether those who have dementia or those who love them. This is why I believe that even as dementia robs us of what we understand to be our personal and relational identity, God’s heart is to heal, to create something beautiful among us. And this is why – while affirming all of that – I believe that the Church as a role to play in reducing the risk of dementia; because while God has heard and responded, dementia itself is still a crushing circumstance.

So let us return to the challenge of fostering a ‘brain-healthy lifestyle’ built on regular exercise, a healthy diet, mental stimulation, quality sleep, stress management, and an active social life.

We need to remember that God has made us with a body, and that, while God will one day make our body new, we will still be embodied. Jesus said that the whole of God’s law was summed up as to love God with heart and mind and soul and strength, and our neighbour as ourselves. We are embodied, and every part of our identity is integrated. It should be no surprise that attending to – or neglecting - our heart or our mind or our soul or our strength has an impact on the other dimensions. At times, parts of the Church have struggled to hold these parts of our created being as being of equal importance; but, of all communities, the Church ought to recognise this.

And we do, albeit far from perfectly. Up and down the land, churches are increasingly creating space for exercise classes, for lunch clubs, for interest groups and opportunities to discover new things, many of these things aimed at an aging population. And then there are our worship services. The provision of old, familiar liturgies that create paths to the past, and new creative liturgies that open up paths into the future, can both play a role in stimulating the mind – and, indeed, the heart and soul and even our physical bodies.

Studies are suggesting that faith is good for us. From a Christian faith perspective, that belonging to a grounded, local, faith community; as well as the far wider Church; and an awareness of God’s presence with us by his Holy Spirit, is good for us. That it can have an impact on the quality of our sleep, and help stress management, and provide us with an active social life.

And where these things are not at present true of the Church, they can and ought to be. Where these things are not at present true of the wider society to which we belong, the Church can speak to that too; can play a part in building something that provides shelter for life to be lived, where the shelters of previous generations have fallen apart and been abandoned.

And in so far as these things are evident in our wider society, the Church can champion them. I am delighted that we can support the work of Action on Dementia Sunderland through these annual services, through prayer, and through raising awareness of your Lunch Club and network of Memory Cafés. Thank you for all you do: we honour you, and the families you support, today. I am also delighted that you are one of the Mayor’s charities this year. And I want to say to the Mayor, thank you: thank you for being an advocate for all those living with dementia in Sunderland. We know that the Council has had to cut services, including the kinds of community services that can help prevent dementia, and we understand that you have had to take difficult decisions you would not chose to take in better circumstances. But we will work together, and in a climate of bad news we will share the good news stories that connect people to hope.

Within our churches, and beyond, the God who has heard our cry and has responded is doing something. So let us join in, and let us spread the word.

Taken ... Blessed ... Broken ... Given ...

Taken … Blessed … Broken … Given …

One of the images St Paul employs in his letters, to help some of the earliest congregations of the Church to understand their new identity, is that they are ‘the body of Christ’ … Over several months, I have spent time with members of the congregation of Sunderland Minster, in the places where they are to be found throughout the week. As I watched them working and listened to their experiences, I was drawn to their hands, eyes and mouths … and to the tools that act as extensions of our hands, eyes and mouths … as well as to the ways in which the workplace overlapped with the home, and home-life spilled into work … The image that came to the fore was of the body of Christ: Taken and Blessed, as we gather together Sunday by Sunday and encounter Jesus in Word and Sacrament … and then Broken and Given, as we are sent back out into the world in ones and twos to love and serve the Lord and our neighbour … to be taken up again … At first I had intended to exhibit one photograph of each person I visited, as a means of celebrating ‘ordinarily extraordinary’ people … but as I looked through the images I had taken, the project became a series of photographs in groups of three. Like the body of Christ, these particular images are part of an ongoing work-in-progress, which will be added to over time …

the artist … Sarah

I visited Sarah at her home, where she showed me several pieces she had made, in different media. I was drawn to a pot she had fashioned from clay. The clay was scarred, and fired, and these processes had made it a thing of beauty. The pot itself was empty, a vessel, full of potential, waiting to be filled. The artist and her creation resonated with the rich biblical images of humanity … resonate with our humanity.

the solicitors … Hollie and Graeme

Husband-and-wife Graeme and Hollie work together at Hardings Solicitors, where Hollie is one of the Directors and Graeme is office manager. Hollie specialises in matters relating to Property and to Wills … our connections to place, and across time … Here professional and personal relationships are woven together … toys brought-in and left-behind by their sons … there is a sense of ‘family’ to the firm … And a commitment to justice as a universal righteous principle, and not a commodity to be bought by wealth.

the voluntary sector coordinator … Gillian

At the time I photographed her, Gillian was working for Age UK. She has since retired … Her team of volunteers made regular phone calls to elderly people at home, who might not otherwise have had that human contact. Encroaching isolation might be experienced as, to borrow a biblical image, entanglement in the cords of death. The play of hand with telephone cord suggests God’s intervention to set free … Conversely, the same action recalls another biblical image, our being knitted together by God in the womb … life, cherished …

the archaeologists … Becca and Chris

Daughter-and-father, Becca oversees a team of archaeologists, Chris volunteers on her dig … one generation serving, supporting, the next … and the past serving the present, by giving-up its stories, its wisdom and folly, offering corrective to the stories we tell in our search to be earthed … I joined them for one day, learning to patiently reveal pottery from the ground, from the ash and clay … bringing us full circle.

text and photographs … Andrew Dowsett

Workplace sermon series 2 : Feast of St Matthew

Matthew 9:9-13

Last Sunday, I introduced a five-part sermon series on work. Today, I’d like us to think about a particular aspect of work that came up again and again in the conversations I’ve had as I’ve spent time with some of you, and that is frustration. Frustration at not being able to do as much as you would like to do, to serve and to bless others through your work – often because of a bureaucratic burden in addition to your primary focus, or as a result of the cutting of funds or some other resource. And perhaps a frustration that what you do is not really understood, its value is not appreciated by others.

One of Jesus’ closest friends wrote an account of their friendship, and today we’ve read the excerpt where Matthew recalls their first significant meeting. It took place at Matthew’s place of work.

Matthew was a tax collector. Now, the people were living under a puppet-king, who raised taxes, who sat under the patronage of the Roman Emperor, who also raised taxes. It is likely that Matthew was one of the tax collectors for the local ruler rather than the imperial occupiers; but nonetheless, tax collectors were hated. Everyone knew that tax collectors took a cut for themselves – just like everyone knows that all politicians are liars, or that teachers work short days and have long holidays but still complain about their work conditions. I’m suspicious of things that ‘everyone knows’, but there we are …

Jesus takes the time to notice him. Not as a tax collector but as a person. And then Jesus makes him an intriguing offer: ‘Follow me.’

Where is Jesus going? To eat a meal. To share bread, from which we get the word companion. With other people like Matthew. People that respectable people worked hard not to notice. Only, now they can’t help but notice, and they demand to know what is going on.

One of the big ideas in the Bible is that of being a sinner. It is such a big idea that it is explored – that attempts are made to express it – in many different ways. There is wilful rebellion against God, certainly; but it is much bigger than that. A big part of it has to do with falling short of a target – of our own target as much as God’s. One time, Paul writes of his utter frustration at not being able to do the good things he desires to do, and cries out, who will set me free from this body of death? – thanks be to God, who has done something about it, sending Jesus!

And while the Bible speaks of how God transforms us so that we are drawn less and less to that wilful rebellion, there is a really positive sense to being a sinner. We see it in that short story Matthew recounts for us. It is the recognition that we are not self-sufficient, the recognition that we cannot do what we are called upon to do in our own strength. And it is those who recognise themselves as sinners who are open to that encounter with Jesus. Those who believe that they are doing just fine have no need for him. The Pharisees had learnt only to see sin in negative terms, and so it was hard for them to receive grace.

Like the other Gospel writers, Matthew took all the stories he might have told about Jesus and thought about which ones to include, and which ones he would have to leave out, and what order to put them down in. They aren’t strictly chronological. And he records the time Jesus invited him to supper right in the middle of a collection of accounts of Jesus healing people and restoring them to their loved ones, to their community. Indeed, Jesus even uses the analogy of a doctor here. You see, the grace of being recognised and of being blessed with companionship is a healing, albeit not a physical one.

We are sinners, and – whether people recognise that description of themselves or not – that is the only kind of person there is. We will always have that frustration of not being able to do all that we would like to do to serve and to bless others through our work. We know what it is like to have 10 things to do today and only manage to get 8, or 6, or sometimes 3 of them done … and for the back-log to accumulate so that we fall further and further behind. We know what it is like to get it all done, only for someone else to add number 11 to the list. But when we own our sinfulness, we also get to be saints: friends of Jesus, companions at the table, experiencing rest from our labour, experiencing the recreation that empowers us to work well and to God’s glory.

Frustration, and grace. May the one bring us to the other.

I’m going to invite Richard up now, and interview him about his experience of work. [Here followed a short interview with Richard Davison.]