Christmas Day 2020

Christmas Day 2020

Set III readings: Isaiah 52:7-10 and John 1:1-14

 

The theme chosen by the Church of England for Christmas this year has been Comfort and Joy. It has been the message we have held out, to one another and to our neighbours, because comfort and joy have been so very necessary this year, for so many reasons, and because they are something that the Church, of all people, can offer. And if you were listening attentively, you will have heard both words appear in our reading from Isaiah:

‘Listen! Your sentinels lift up their voices, together they sing for joy…

Break forth together into singing, you ruins of Jerusalem; for the Lord has comforted his people…’

Because we have experienced God’s comfort, we can sing for joy.

And of course, we have not been able to sing for almost the whole of the year now; or, at least, not to sing together, not to lift our voices with others. I know that many of you have really missed singing; and that this has been especially hard at this time of year, when, ordinarily, we would have held our carol service and sung familiar carols whenever we came together. But we are allowed to sing outside. To fasten our coats against the wind and the rain, and sing. Is that what it might sound like, for the ruins of Jerusalem to break out into singing? Not the splendour of days past, but the welling-up of faith, of hope, of love, in response to the glory we have seen in the face of Jesus, whose birth we celebrate this day, the One who was and is full of grace and truth?

And so, we shall end our service today by going outside and singing together; and then, we shall go back to our homes and, perhaps, our families; and no, it will not be all that we might have hoped for; and yet, we shall know that there is a light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

 

Christmas Eve 2020

Christmas Eve 2020

Set I readings: Isaiah 9:2-7 and Luke 2:1-20

 

‘The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined.’ Well, it has undoubtedly been a dark year, and there is nothing good to be gained by pretending otherwise. The joy Isaiah points us to is not one that denies the demanding work of gathering-in the harvest or the tragedy of war, nor how draining our own days have been. And yet, we proclaim good news: of One who comes bringing counsel to those in desperate need of wisdom; rescue for those in need of freedom; enduring, loving presence with those in need of comfort; and wellbeing for those who are sore pressed by circumstance. There is hope worth holding on to.

Maybe it is because this year we have had to book our place to come to church on Christmas Eve, but this year I have been struck by the recurring word ‘registered’ or ‘registration’ in our reading from Luke’s Gospel. I do not recall being so struck by them in quite the same way before. But the root of the word means to write one’s name, or enrol; in this case, to enrol on a census for the purposes of taxation by the Roman empire, whose emperor claimed to be the son of a god whose advent brought peace to the whole world. Hardly a voluntary enrolment, or an equitably shared peace.

But enrolment itself is something we do on a regular basis. There has been much made of voting enrolment, and disenfranchisement, in the United States this year. Closer to home, many of you will have voluntarily signed your name to enrol on the Electoral Roll of St Nicholas’ Church. We sign up for something we believe in, want to be part of. We sign up to change the world, to play our part in making it a better place. And, of course, census records are also used to trace our family trees, to discover our roots, to discover something about our ancestors that we might weave into our own story.

And then I am struck by the shepherds, who hear the herald proclamation of peace on earth for those who are blessed by the favour of the God, not in Rome but, in the highest heaven. And who, in response to the announcement, go, from where they are to Bethlehem, not far, but in order to enrol themselves. To sign themselves up.

And then, because the backdrop is one of an enrolment to pay taxes, I am struck by Mary, who treasured all the words that the shepherds spoke. As if their joy was a tax, voluntarily given in order to make the world a better place (isn’t that what paying taxes should be?) and Mary were the tax-collector, on behalf of the King of heaven and earth.

And I wonder what we have signed ourselves up for—if, indeed, we have—and how our glorifying and praising God for all we have seen and heard might play a small part in how Jesus will establish and uphold the kingdom God has conferred upon him, in the place where we are registered, in the coming Year of Our Lord Two-thousand-and-Twenty-one?

 

Fourth Sunday of Advent 2020

The Lord is with you

Lectionary readings: 2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16 and Luke 1:26-38

We have heard read to us two episodes, one from the Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament, and the other from the Gospels. And in each, one person says to another, ‘the Lord is with you.’ And I wonder what it means, to say to someone that the Lord is with them? Mary is quite right: these are perplexing words, and we should ponder what sort of greeting this might be. It is a highly unusual one, but not without precedent, occurring, as far as I can tell, four times in our Scriptures. The first time is when ‘the angel of the Lord’ addresses a young man named Gideon (Judges 6:12). Gideon is not quite, but as good as, a nobody from nowhere; the very last sort of person he (and we) might expect to be sent an angelic messenger. Moreover, Gideon is doing something highly unusual: he is threshing grain in a wine press. I say highly unusual, and in any other year it would have been, but, in a year when his people were sore pressed by a recurring threat that curtailed every aspect of their lives, it was probably just one of any number of adaptive practices constituting a ‘new normal’. In any other year, we, too, would find threshing grain in a wine press highly unusual; and yet, here we are, receiving the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, usually found in bread and wine, ‘in one kind,’ in bread alone.

The next time we come across this phrase in quite the same way is, as we heard in our first reading, when the prophet Nathan says it to king David [though in the form ‘the Lord be with you!’ it is used by David’s ancestor Boaz as a greeting to his harvesters (Ruth 2:4) and by king Saul as a blessing-cum-dismissal to David as he goes to face the Philistine, Goliath (1 Samuel 17:37)]. Whereas the Lord wishes to call out the ‘mighty warrior’ from within Gideon, with David, the Lord has already called him out, from following the sheep to be prince over his people. Surrounding enemies have been subdued—though the Lord has more to do, to establish rest from all [David’s] enemies.

The third time we meet this phrase, it is addressed by the prophet Azariah, to Asa and all Judah and Benjamin: ‘the Lord is with you, while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you abandon him, he will abandon you.’ (2 Chronicles 15:2). Like David, Asa is king. Like Gideon, the territory of his people is broken, over-whelmed and ravaged by am enemy. And whereas David does not get to build, Asa must tear down, must overthrow practices that have come between God’s people and their God. In Asa’s day, they must rediscover their identity, must renew their covenant commitment, and, flowing from that renewal, must experience a new normal in worship.

And last but by no means least, the angel Gabriel addresses these words to Mary, who, like Gideon, is as near to nobody from nowhere as you could care to imagine; who like Gideon and Asa lives among a people whose daily lives are constrained by invasive, occupying, inhumane forces; who is connected, by marriage, into the house of David. ‘Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.’

The thing that runs through each one of these occurrences, carried by these words, is a recurring promise of peace, of living no longer disturbed by enemies. A peace that is enduring, albeit conditional: a seemingly impossible peace that can be embraced, or abandoned, with costly consequence.

Gideon’s response is timid, hoping for reassurances. David’s response is repentant, willing to significantly adapt his plans, for a better vision. Asa’s response is full of zeal, if somewhat misguided, simultaneously taking things too far and not quite far enough. And Mary’s response is, ‘Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ What word? The Lord is with you.

And here we are, in the days before Christmas, at the tail end of a year in which our lives, communally and personally, have been deeply disrupted by a global pandemic; in which our political leaders are playing the kind of brinkmanship, with our neighbours in Europe, that turns friends and allies into enemies; and, to the West, a polarised United States totters on the brink of civil war. May it not be so. Gideon, David, Asa, and Mary are given to us, to learn how (and how not) to orientate and reorientate our lives, as a people set free by the Prince of Peace, not at war with one another but reconciled to God, our neighbour, and one another. Even in the most unlikely circumstances.

This Christmas, despite everything, may you know peace. The Lord is with you.

 

Third Sunday of Advent 2020

 

Joy

Lectionary readings: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 and John 1:6-8, 19-28

Cousin John came as a witness to testify to the light. Note that when another John, the gospel-writer, tells us this he repeats it, underlines it for emphasis: he came to testify to the light.

Writing to the church in Thessalonica, Paul exhorts them: rejoice always…give thanks in all circumstances…hold fast to what it good…

Testify to the light. To our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom we rejoice, whether the circumstances we are living through are desirable or undesirable; for in him we see goodness and beauty, and in him we share in that goodness and beauty even as we are being made like him by the God of peace.

Our theme for Advent this year is Comfort and Joy. Last Sunday, we thought about the comfort that comes from God, and today we reflect on the joy that comes from God. And the question is, what is giving you joy, in these days? Where have you seen the light?

I have been walking the streets of the parish, dropping Comfort and Joy baubles through every letterbox. Several of you have helped in this, along with several friends of mine from the running club. And it has been joyful to hear back the responses of so many people who have been profoundly moved at receiving their bauble, a small gift with a disproportionally large impact. It has been a joyful thing to go from letterbox to letterbox, and a joy to see the willingness of those who have given of their time to get this giveaway complete. In a dark year, I testify to the light, to the light of Christ illuminating hearts and reflecting back from feet and hands and faces.

 

Second Sunday of Advent 2020

 

Comfort

Lectionary readings: Isaiah 40:1-11 and Mark 1:1-8

What a year it has been. Relentless. We’ve reached the environmental tipping-point into another mass extinction; the perfect unbalanced conditions to unleash a new viral strain that has impacted all our lives, taken loved ones from us and left others with life-long health issues, and hit our economy harder than anything for four hundred years; and we’re about to find ourselves an island nation with no trade deals with our neighbours. And our theme for today is God’s Comfort. Are you having a laugh?

The first people to hear these words from Isaiah knew what it was to live through multiple crises. Within the space of a generation, they’d lived through the siege and fall of Jerusalem (not the first siege they’d lived through, by the way), the destruction of the temple, the removal of the royal court—of the monarchy and government and civil service—into exile. Those left behind found themselves in a ruined land, vulnerable to raids on whatever remained by surrounding peoples. The institutions that formed and sustained identity—the temple, the nation, the land—not just places, but beliefs about those places and themselves as a people—were stripped away or fallen apart. This was a people who had experienced, and were still experiencing, trauma. And into this moment, God speaks: Comfort, comfort my people.

To whom is God speaking? Not to Isaiah, the prophet, who is simply reporting what he has been permitted to see and hear. No, Yahweh, the God of the Israelites, the god of a people in exile in the territory of other gods, is addressing the assembly of the gods, the angelic and demonic beings. It is Yahweh who has permitted his people to be humbled, in judgement for their dogged commitment to injustice. It is on account of Yahweh’s justice, not powerlessness, that these things have come to pass; and it is on account of Yahweh’s mercy that now he decrees, ‘Enough!’ Enough, now. It is time to rebuild.

It begins in the wilderness, in the place of encounter with God, in the place where corrupted institutions are stripped away. In the place of exodus from slavery in Egypt. In the place of exile from captivity to self-deception and false security in Jerusalem. It begins, as it always begins when God is doing a new thing, in the wilderness. And it proceeds with a levelling of uneven ground, in order to achieve a uniting of all peoples on equal standing which goes hand-in-hand with the glory of the Lord being made visible.

This is not yet achieved, in Isaiah’s vision, or in ours. There is a tension, a paradox: that it shall be achieved is inevitable, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken; and yet, its fulfilment also requires the active participation of the gods and mortals. Our God does not work alone, nor by coercion.

What, then, is the comforting message? All people are grass. Excuse me? That’s it? That’s what you’ve got? All people are grass? How is that good news? Well, when you are already withered and faded, and you see others in all their glory, here is a reminder that this is not blind chance, nor the inevitable outcome of human initiative or lack of initiative, but God’s agency, God’s generative and ongoing sustaining activity within the world; and, therefore, we ought to view ourselves and others with humility and appreciation, perhaps even delight. All people are grass…and grass is actually incredibly resilient; it grows back; it also binds the earth (soil) together to prevent erosion, to prevent further loss. Individual blades of grass may be small, but grass is nonetheless significant; it feeds, well, directly or indirectly, everything.

The angelic beings are called to comfort God’s people. And, in response, God’s people are called to be the herald of good tidings. God’s people in exile; God’s people who have come through crisis and are yet to experience the return, the building back. God’s people, in the midst of all the peoples, in God’s world. Tidings of Comfort and Joy. To proclaim the good news that God comes to right injustice and embody mercy.

What, then, is the word for today, the word to us and the word for others through us, on this Second Sunday of Advent at the tail end of 2020? It is, surely, that in Jesus, God is with us, to feed, to gather up, to carry, to gently lead. To fill empty stomachs and hunger for justice; to hold anxious children in the emotional security of reliable love; to carry the exhausted and hurting ones who just can’t carry on; to walk with parents and teachers and employers and the self-employed and those in positions of responsibility who feel lost and alone right now. This is what the Church should look and feel like.

And what is the word for tomorrow? That crises reveal judgement on injustice and inequality, on disregard for the most vulnerable; and, once the crisis is over, what emerges must be more just, more merciful. The vision begins from the margins, the grassroots. We have a world to rebuild, and a role to play, not alone, nor by coercion, but alongside comforting angels. John the baptiser—not an angelic messenger, but a human one—took God’s imperative to the divine assembly upon himself. Will we?

 

Second Sunday before Advent 2020

 Audio file

Lectionary readings: 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 and Matthew 25:14-30

Our Gospel reading today is commonly referred to as the Parable of the Talents. It is, I think, a relatively well-known parable, and it is usually taken as a story to illustrate that God has given talents to each one of us, and expects a return on his investment. I do believe that God has given each one of us gifts with which to play our part in making the world more harmonious, or at least no more chaotic than we found it. And I do believe that God does, and will, hold us accountable, and that it will not do to say, “we never asked for such responsibility in the first place”. I believe these things based on all manner of stories that I read in the Bible, but not on the basis of this parable of a harsh and unjust ruler who sees people as fundamentally wicked, lazy and worthless unless he profits from them. I want to suggest, instead, that this is a parable of the darkness of the world into which God is about to act decisively. It is preceded by the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, in which the bridegroom is delayed and some of those awaiting his arrival find themselves unprepared; and followed by the parable of the sheep and the goats, a parable of judgement on the nations surrounding Israel for how they have treated God’s people, who are identified as the marginalised (though note that though the relationship between the symbol and the signified is not wholly arbitrary, they are not interchangeable: those who are marginalised are not, automatically, the people of God).

There is, in these three parables, a progression or development of idea: prolonged unfulfilled expectation, set against deepening darkness; the apparent rewards of pursuing wealth and power, or deeds done in the darkness; and a coming light that brings judgement to the deeds done in the darkness. The parable in the middle is a parable told to encourage those who are fearful—who are afraid of the dark—to hold on a little longer, because divine judgement and, crucially, their divine vindication, is now imminent.

This is the good news: that we are not forgotten, even when the powers of this world have written us off. As the story continues to unfold, we discover that God, who in Jesus will identify with the discarded, will, in this same Jesus, establish a reign of justice and mercy. But that is to jump ahead of ourselves. Here, with this parable, Jesus, the master storyteller, is building up the dramatic tension. As we pause at the end to catch our breath, we want to know what happens next: what will happen to the man removed for disloyalty? and who, if anyone, can outsmart the tyrant?

Advent is an annual season of preparing our lives for Christ’s return, to judge the living and the dead. Today is the Second Sunday before Advent: a moment for adjusting our eyes to see in the dark. Stand outside in the evenings at this time of year, in a place where there are no streetlights, and you will know that after some minutes what was pitch dark and disorienting becomes more recognisable and, with care, navigable.

In light of this reality, Paul writes to the saints in Thessalonica, ‘therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.’ Specifically, he speaks of putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and the helmet of hope of salvation. Choosing to respond to the state of the world in faith and love protects our hearts, our choice-making. Choosing to hold out hope protects our minds, the thoughts and feelings that affect our choice-making.

In light of the story by which Jesus locates us, in which light Paul invites us to orientate and reorientate our lives, I shall end on this: what would it look like, to ‘encourage one another and build up each other’ today? Discuss.

 

All Saints' Day 2020

 

Lectionary readings: Revelation 7:9-17 and 1 John 3:1-3 and Matthew 5:1-12

By now I am sure that you will have heard the news that, as of one minute past midnight on Thursday, we will be going back into a lockdown. As in the first time around, it looks most likely that church services will be suspended, and we must prepare ourselves for that to happen.

This has been a hard year, and Lockdown 2 comes as a bitter, if not entirely unexpected, blow. If lockdown heading into summer was hard, lockdown heading into winter will be harder. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Based on her observations of people experiencing grief, Elizabeth Kübler-Ross identified five emotional stages. These have since been somewhat discredited, in that there is no empirical evidence that everyone goes through all of them, or in any particular order, or that we ever get beyond loss. Nonetheless, they are recognisable to us. Denial: don’t worry, things will have changed again by Thursday, it won’t happen. Anger: the students are to blame for this! Yet more incompetence from the government! Bargaining: we should be recognised as an essential service; perhaps there is a loophole we can exploit? Depression: we know mental ill health has risen this year, due to sustained uncertainty exacerbated by isolation. Acceptance: or at least resignation, though they are not the same. Perhaps you recognise some or all of these emotional states, in yourself or in those around you.

William Worden focused not on the emotional responses to grief but, rather, on the four tasks of grieving. These four tasks do not necessarily follow on one after the other, but they may give purpose to mourning. The first task is to accept the loss. Whether the death of a loved one, or being made redundant, or retirement, or the empty nest when children leave home, loss is an inevitable part of life, and something we need to wrestle with God through the night if we are to receive blessing.

The second task is to acknowledge the pain of the loss. All loss involves pain, even if little losses are less painful that major losses. The biblical template for acknowledging the pain of loss is lament. Our Scriptures are full of lament. There is no place for the English stiff-upper-lip holding back of tears. If the doors of our churches are to close, even for a month, even if they will then reopen, there is a pain to that, which it is right and proper to recognise.

The third task of grieving is to adjust to a new environment. What does it mean to be the church, when we cannot gather together in this place and share holy communion? The newspaper headlines are speculating that Christmas could be cancelled this year. Well, it won’t be. But, yes, we won’t be able to mark it the way we have become accustomed to. We will need to adjust to a new reality. Likewise, we won’t be able to mark Remembrance Sunday as we have become used to. We can expend energy on outrage, or, we can choose to remember; perhaps, get back to the heart of remembrance, which is to move towards reconciliation and peace.

The fourth task of grieving is to reinvest in the reality of a new life. And right now, to be honest, we might not have the energy to do so. One of my deepest regrets of 2020 is that earlier in the year our church buildings were only closed for three months. You see, across the country, we just buckled down to ride it out until we could return to business as usual. But there is no going back, only pressing onward.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. What does that look like? Well, in part, it looks like holding on to the hope that there will be a reckoning beyond this life, beyond what we see now, when God will wipe away every tear. But what about the present? For now, the Church is called to be a foretaste of that hope, a testimony to what—and who—we hope in. We are called to be those who comfort the mourning; and those who, in our own mourning, know ourselves to be blessed, to be the happy ones. What does it look like? It looks like participation in the tasks of grieving, the conspiracy between the circumstances of our lives and the God who loves us beyond measure to draw us ever deeper into the mystery of knowing life in its fullness, its richness.

If All Saints’ Day reminds us of anything, it is that we have a long history of doing this. This might be the first pandemic you and I have lived through, but it is not the first time that the Church has been here. As we look to the men, women, and children whose faithful lives inspire our own, we are challenged and invited to step up and do likewise.

So, our doors will shut, and what we will be won’t look like what it has done, on the outside. But now is a time to press into our identity as children of God, to purify ourselves, that just a glimpse of what we hope in might be seen by those around us. That, as we say in Durham Diocese, we might bless our communities, for the transformation of us all.

 

Feast of St Luke 2020

 

Lectionary readings: 2 Timothy 4:5-17 and Luke 10:1-9

This Sunday we are marking the Feast of St Luke. Luke was a travel-companion of the apostle Paul, and his own lasting gift to the Church was his biography of Jesus (the Gospel According to Luke) and biography of the early Church (the Acts of the Apostles). The book of Acts (chapters 13-28) gives us a record, or timeline, of Paul’s missionary journeys, into which Paul’s own letters to churches and personal friends might be dropped. There are three sections of Acts where Luke the biographer switches from third person narration (he, they) to first person narration (we), indicating that he was one of Paul’s travel-companions at these three times; and all three (Acts 16; 20, 21; 27, 28) relate specifically to times when Paul was travelling by sea.

In our first reading we hear an extract from Paul’s second letter to Timothy. Timothy was another of Paul’s travel-companions, co-workers, and co-author of several letters to churches. Paul appears to have met Timothy at around about the same time as he met Luke. But at the point where Paul is writing these words, he is in Rome, wrestling with a sense of coming to the end of his life; and Timothy is in Ephesus, where he is Paul’s successor as overseer of the church; and Paul longs to see Timothy one last time. Do your best to come to me, he writes. Of all my companions and partners in mission, only Luke is with me now.

I am struck by this great man, this pioneer who has carried the gospel all around the eastern Mediterranean, planting churches, mentoring leaders of churches, overseeing a growing network of partnership in the gospel. At the end, he is essentially alone; even speaks of having been deserted; his experience mirroring that of Jesus, abandoned and betrayed and denied. And yet, like Jesus, he does not come across as bitter or resentful. His former companions have scattered, sent out, moving the unfolding story on, like those sent out by Jesus in Luke chapter 10. True, Paul describes Demas as being in love with this present world; but the context is that Paul has largely come to terms with his own imminent death, and in this context, I think Paul is implying that Demas still feels that there is more for him to do before his own end: yes, Paul feels deserted, and I don’t want to dismiss that pain, but Demas has gone to one of the churches they planted, to look for Jesus among the living rather than the dead, to borrow a phrase; he hasn’t abandoned the faith. Likewise, Crescens has gone, possibly to the Galatian churches, possibly carrying the gospel further west than Paul had gone, to Gaul (geographically, opposite ends of the Mediterranean, but connected ethnically by migration). Titus, also, is carrying the gospel onwards, west, last spotted (sorry) in Dalmatia. Only Luke is with Paul, for now. Paul longs for Timothy to join them, and to bring with him Mark, who at an earlier time had deserted Paul and been the cause of the great dividing of the ways between Paul and his first closest colleague, Barnabas. At some point in the intervening years, Paul and Mark have been reconciled, and found a way to work together again. Bring him with you, Timothy. (Mark does, indeed, end up in Rome, where he will write down the memoir of the apostle Peter, also on trial and soon to be executed; the result being the Gospel According to Mark.) Do not worry about leaving the church in Ephesus, Timothy; I am sending Tychicus to fill in for you while you are away. First, though, head north to Troas, and reclaim the cloak I left with Carpus, and my books and parchments.

And then, Paul mentions Alexander, the one person in this list who has truly harmed him; but even here, Paul leaves Alexander’s fate in God’s hands. Beware him, Timothy, steer clear; do not seek to avenge me.

I am struck by Paul, who has faithfully followed Jesus from Jerusalem to Rome, in life and soon enough now in death, in companionship and disciple-making and desertion. Paul, aware of the presence of Jesus, who has been through it all before him, standing by him and giving him strength, to face his own suffering and to forgive those who were not brave enough to face it with him. Paul, aware that Jesus will rescue him in this life to the very end, and then rescue him in death so that though he will die, he will not perish.

But this occasion is the Feast of St Luke, and I am struck that Luke is there with Paul. Traditionally, the Church has identified Luke as a physician. Personally, I believe that to be a case of mistaken identity, a conflation of Luke the biographer and another Luke, the physician. Regardless, I am sure that Luke being there with Paul was healing for him; that Luke ministered to him, both in body and soul. But I also think that it is far more likely, based on the depth of expert knowledge Luke brings to his accounts of Paul’s sea journeys, that Luke was an experienced merchant sailor. That he was an expert guide on those transitions between one destination and another, a broker who advised Paul on ships and captains, and who on occasion gave better advice than the captain was willing to take. And I am struck that it is Luke who remains with Paul as he contemplates his next and last journey, to another shore. No doubt recording Paul’s biography, that would in time make up so much of the Acts of the Apostles, but, also, perhaps, helping Paul put his estate in order. We need to get Timothy here now, before it is too late. We need to cement the reconciliation with Mark, so that he knows he has your approval. We need to gather the few possessions that really matter, and determine who to leave them to.

This year has been marked by journeys into the unknown. As well as our own personal and communal raw grief at the death of loved ones, we are buffeted by extended uncertainty and constantly and rapidly changing rules. We were made aware of the crisis-conditions facing frontline NHS workers earlier in the year; conditions that may well be even worse over the coming winter months. These are professionals, working in unfamiliar conditions. We ourselves, as a church community, have had to navigate whole new ways of being and doing church. Perhaps, at first, we thought of these things as a stop gap, a holding of things together until we could return to the familiar. It is becoming increasingly obvious that, at least for many churches, there will be no going back, only a pressing on, through an uncertain sea to an as yet unknown land.

How should we mark the Feast of St Luke this year, and how might it help us? Might it help us sustain prayer and our response to human need, to imagine our physicians—our doctors and nurses and all who work on the frontline of the NHS—as sailors on a stormy sea, under a dark and rainbow-less sky?

What would happen if we were to imagine Luke as a guide on the journey we face, to pray with him and perhaps through the lens of his story? How might the idea of short hops between safe harbours, or even shipwreck and loss, help us reimagine church, and, as church, contribute to a reimagining of wider society?

What would happen if we were to imagine Luke not as the physician who restores Paul to health but as the expert guide who assists him in dying well, by putting his affairs in order? How might that help us in forming our response to the death that awaits us all, in supporting our neighbours and our communities in this essential task and act of life?

Might Luke hold out for us the possibility of being, for one another, the still, centred place in the face of the gale force hurricane, simply by being present?

What do you need to do, in response, to prayerfully participate in the Feast of St Luke? What do you need to put in order? Who do you need to call, or forgive, or ask for help?

One small suggestion: why not write your response to the Feast of St Luke—it might be in the form of a prayer—on a sheet of paper, fold it into a paper boat, and set it sail on a stream through one of the local parks, or even, if you can get to the bank safely, the river Wear? Then watch as it is carried downstream. Note where it gets stuck in an eddy, or runs aground, or even capsizes, or perhaps until it disappears from view. Continue to pray, thanking God for faithful presence and companions in the past, and bringing to God your hopes and dreams and fears in the present.

And may the God of St Luke be beside you, giving you strength, and guiding you with wisdom…

 

Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity 2020

Lectionary readings: Exodus 32:1-14 and Philippians 4:1-9 and Matthew 22:1-14

One of the things that I love about Jesus’ parables is that they, quite deliberately, mess with your head. Today’s parable, of the Wedding Banquet, is a case in point. Jesus says, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. In other words, we are invited to draw similarities and differences. There are at least two ways in which this parable might be viewed, and each will undermine our worldview. Here is a tale of an unpopular king, egocentric, a megalomaniac who, when slighted, has a city wiped off the face of the earth. Here is a Herod. Here is a populist ruler, snubbed by the elites, calling out crowds in support. Here is Donald Trump. And here is one man who refuses to play the game, and who ends up humiliated and discarded in the municipal rubbish tip. Here is Jesus.

And yet, at the same time, here is the heavenly King, planning the wedding banquet of his Son and the Bride. Here is a foretaste of the union between Christ and the Church. Here is a familiar response, of people turning away from that invitation, into themselves, into their own pursuit of a meaningful life, whether family or place or money, and in some cases prepared to turn to violence in order to protect their self-interests. Here is a God who gives them over to the destruction they crave. Here is a man who is set against gratitude, who has set himself against entering into the joy of a fellow human being, who makes the unsubtle statement ‘I am here under duress’ and who finds themselves in the ultimate destination of self-centredness, which is to say bound in darkness, tormented by the weeping and animal aggression of others in the same beached boat.

As I said, the parables mess with our heads. They trick us into thinking of ourselves as the hero, the plucky under-dog defying all that is wrong in the world, only to reveal our nakedness, the reality that we are entirely complicit in the ways of the world. In the kingdom of heaven, the radical new way of life Jesus invites us into, we see a God who identifies with the victims and survivors, and who extends forgiveness to the truly penitent. For the truth that shines on our lives reveals that we are, all, a little bit of each: the potential for good and evil running through us, and made manifest in our lives, in various ways, according to the habitual choices we make. We are all saints and sinners, if not equally so.

In the reading from Exodus 32, we see creativity, skill, and community leadership all employed to the bending of people away from the God who has freed them from slavery. They make the image of a calf from gold, and declare, ‘Here are your gods.’ In the worldview of the Egyptians, who had enslaved this people for generations, the Apis bull calf was the herald of the local god, and intermediary between the gods and mortals. With Moses missing in action, they sought a new intermediary, one that was familiar, and that took them back towards captivity to forces that sought to destroy them. In this passage we also see Moses interceding on behalf of the people, acting as a true intermediary, very much not missing in action. And we see that God takes that deeply ingrained tendency of human beings to turn towards death and destruction very seriously; but that his justice is tempered with mercy. Justice and mercy are rooted in God’s nature and reputation, and it matters that God’s reputation, whether positive or negative in the eyes of others, should accurately reflect God’s nature.

Elsewhere, of course, we see the Israelites turn towards Yahweh, and elsewhere, Moses entertain their destruction. The potential for good and for evil run through us all; and God acts with justice and mercy, holding out restitution where we are sinned against, restoration where we have sinned against others, and reconciliation between our divided lives—and the challenging invitation to work these gifts out in the complex reality of our communities, our congregations.

In our reading from Philippians, we hear Paul’s closing remarks, his last words, his advice for building lives that work against self-centredness. Stand firm in the self-giving love of the Lord Jesus Christ. Be reconciled to one another, where division has got between us. Rejoice. Really learn what it means to enter into one another’s joy. Handle one other with care. Instead of cultivating worry, attend to prayer, cultivating gratitude. Look for, and meditate on, the good in all things. Keep on going on in this manner.

It is, of course, a summary list. A reminder of the way of life that Paul himself had modelled for them, imperfectly but committedly. A series of disciplines that, like any pursuit, is hard at first but comes with practice. We love because love has set us free to love. We practice reconciliation because we have been reconciled to God. We rejoice, because this world, this life is such a wonderful gift. We seek to embody gentleness, because we know that we are all wounded, and that we have all wounded others; and because we know that God is at work to heal our wounds, and to forgive our guilt and cleanse our shame at wounding others. We learn to say ‘no’ to worry and ‘yes’ to gratitude, because life is not a competition. We look for God, because all things are made good, and yet all things have been marred. We keep going, together. We fail, and are reminded and encouraged, and get up again, one day at a time.

This week, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) has published its Report on the Anglican Church in England and Wales. It makes for salutary reading. In the Executive Summary, the Inquiry notes (p. vi) ‘As we have said in other reports, faith organisations such as the Anglican Church are marked out by their explicit moral purpose, in teaching right from wrong. In the context of child sexual abuse, the Church’s neglect of the physical, emotional and spiritual well-being of children and young people in favour of protecting its reputation was in conflict with its mission of love and care for the innocent and the vulnerable.’ We have failed the victims and survivors of abuse, and done so in ways that have multiplied their wounds.

And this week, we read again the parable of the wedding banquet. A parable first told to a religious elite, weighing them and finding them wanting. A parable in which a man at the pinnacle of privilege, and his protegee, court praise and support; aided and abetted by the troops at their disposal, and the tendency of others—perhaps deeply genuine people, who desire nothing more than to go about their business—to make light of the scheming. A parable in which those who are perceived to have slighted the Establishment are silenced and disposed of; and a patronage within which good and bad are tightly interwoven. A parable in which the whistle-blower is humiliated and rejected and excluded, and weeping and anger are all that is left in the darkness. In the darkness where Jesus is, with the ostracized. A parable where the heavenly king prepares to celebrate the wonderful union between his Son and the Church, where those who will respond are welcome—those who know themselves to be both saints and sinners, dependent on God for favour and forgiveness—but where those who had previously known status, and those who resist entering into the king’s joy, are excluded. Where the golden calves are thrown down, a tragic and salutary episode in the life of God’s people.

Who, and where, we find ourselves in the parable is relative, dependant on our choices and on the actions of others towards us. But the Church is called to live as if the banquet was already in full swing. Presenting self-conscious victims and survivors with special garments of honour, and expelling wolves in sheep’s clothing. Interceding with Moses, exhorting with Paul. May God grant us true repentance, and the time to amend our lives, so that all may be glad, to the glory of God. Amen.

 

Harvest Thanksgiving 2020

 

Harvest Thanksgiving 2020

Lectionary readings: Deuteronomy 8:7-18, 2 Corinthians 9:6-15 and Luke 12:16-30

Today is our Harvest Thanksgiving. Our Old Testament reading from the Law of Moses, and our New Testament reading from the letters of Paul, both remind us of God’s goodness. Both stand as an invitation to participate fully in divine generosity. Both stand in contrast to the fool, who, in the parable Jesus told in our Gospel reading, sought to keep abundance for himself instead of sharing it with others. I am struck by the words God said to him: This very night your life is being demanded of you. These are, I would suggest, the words that God says to every one of us, not only at the hour of our death but every day of our lives: your life is being demanded of you. By God, by our neighbours and all creation, by our own deepest being. Not to be consumed by many demands, but set free by this sole demand: that we turn up, not as spectators, and give our lives away in love, in response to Love. As Isaac Watts put it, were the whole realm of nature mine, that were an offering far too small; love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.

Although today we are celebrating Harvest, I want to talk about Christmas. This has been a hard year, not only for those for whom we are stocking up the food bank shelves ahead of winter, but for all of us. This Christmas will be a strange one, in which Covid-19 restrictions will prevent us from gathering as extended families, prevent us from joining together with neighbours at carol services, nativities and Christingles as in previous years. This Christmas, we will live with the strange mix of the numbness of loss and the longing for the sort of celebration that strengthens our bones to get through the cold, dark months. And this year, with this tension in mind, the Church of England’s Christmas theme is Comfort and Joy.

Jo and I decided that we would try something, to share some comfort and joy. Jo had the original idea of putting a Christmas decoration through every letterbox in the parish, to create a community-wide Christmas tree; and to invite people to take a photo of their bauble, on their tree or hanging in their window, and post them on the church Facebook page, to curate a record. I asked around, and approached a local business, who made up some samples, and on Friday we placed an order for 7,000 laser-cut baubles that each say Comfort and Joy.

The cost is underwritten. But the idea does not stop there. We wanted to find ways in which we might invite other people into the fun of spreading hope, bringing good news, proclaiming tidings of comfort and joy. We started to tell our friends the story of what we hoped to do, and how they could get involved.

Could they donate towards the production costs (£1,750, for 7,000 baubles at 25p each), through the Just Giving page I had set up? The link is:

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/comfort-and-joy

Did they have any ribbon in their craft boxes, for which they had no use? Our baubles would need ribbon to hang them from: 7,000 strips, 15-20cm long and 3mm-(max.)10mm wide; of any colour.

And, nearer the time, could any local friends help us deliver these gifts across the parish?

Straight away, people started responding. Within one day, they had already donated almost £300; while others had let us know that they would go through their craft or sewing boxes in search of ribbon we could have, which they would either drop round or post to us. Simply in response to telling a story and asking for help to tell it wider.

Writing to the church in Corinth, Paul observed that God loves a cheerful giver. The Greek is the word from which we derive our word hilarious: it is the joyful giving of one who is already persuaded, won over. God loves to see a joyful giver, because God is a joyful giver, and we are created to bear God’s image. A joyful giver is someone who is living and moving in the love of God, a person fully alive. And, being made in God’s likeness, people love to give, generously; and do so whenever they are won over, whenever a cause sparks joy. They sow the seed of joy, and it bears a plentiful harvest of joy. Out there, across our parish, and far beyond. Indeed, right around the world.

God knows the needs of our souls and bodies, what is needful for our comfort in mourning and in order to share in the joy that revives us, spiritual and material provision. The fool said to his soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God, alone, is the Giver of true rest and re-creation; of true food and drink, for our earthly pilgrimage and our heavenly banquet; of true victory over the trials of life. Everything that the fool looked for elsewhere: which, of course, is what made him a fool. That is not to say that life is easy, but that, whatever comes, God is so, so good.

Christmas and Harvest might look different this year, but perhaps this is because God is at work to pull down our barns, in order to build bigger ones, not for ourselves alone but to share an abundance with more of our neighbours? And the things we have prepared, whose will they be? Might we dare to imagine?

 

Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity

Lectionary readings: Exodus 17:1-7 and Philippians 2:1-13 and Matthew 21:23-32

We are fully six months into our experience of a global pandemic. And while, earlier in the year, we may well have hoped that we would be through this and out the other side by Christmas, it is becoming clearer that, at best, we are only a third of the way through this crisis. We have made it through the first stage, not without loss of life and considerable toll on the mental and emotional and financial resources of those of us who are still here; but now, from this weakened starting point, we need to face the next stage. And whereas we saw an initial coming together of communities, that has proved hard to sustain and has, increasingly, fractured into personal survival instincts. Indeed, we may be able to relate to the Israelites in Exodus 17, who found themselves some way into a testing time, descending into quarrelling and questioning whether Moses or God or anyone else had their welfare at heart. Alongside that, we might also note Jesus’ short parable in our reading from Matthew 21, contrasting a father and son whose initially opposed wills converge, with the father and his other son, whose wills, initially and perhaps superficially in agreement, diverge. And that is all that I want to say about those readings, before turning to the reading from Philippians 2, and focusing on the first two verses:

‘If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.’ (Philippians 2:1-2)

It is, perhaps, worth taking a moment to set the context. Paul is writing, from prison, to the church in Philippi, a Roman colony city in Macedonia, largely populated by retired army veterans, and with an historic association to the elite Praetorium guard. Paul wants them to know that what has happened to him—being under house arrest, or, we might say, under a personal form of lockdown restrictions—has actually helped to spread the gospel, in particular among serving members of the Praetorium guard. And Paul urges the believers in Philippi to, likewise, live in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, in the context of hardship.

In keeping with the life experience of the Philippian church, and indeed of the people in Rome with whom he is having daily conversations about the gospel, Paul employs military images. He speaks of encouragement in Christ, literally, Jesus coming alongside us and, through his actions, strengthening our courage at the very point where it is draining away. He speaks of being consoled, which, from a civilian perspective may seem soft, but, when you listen to veterans who have seen and lived through traumatic events, there is something deep there that they can testify to experiencing from one another or to be in need of experiencing and often not receiving from society at large. To encouragement and consolation, Paul adds sharing or fellowship, the sense of mutual help; along with gut-level compassion, and deep empathy for someone else’s difficult circumstances. These very ideas, I would suggest, provide motivation and underpinning for veterans’ charity organisations, and perhaps especially some of the newer ones.

But, for Paul, these things are rooted in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Spirit.

And if we have known this encouragement, this consolation, this sharing, this compassion, this sympathy, then, Paul exhorts us, we have everything that we need in order to experience joy, to be aware of God’s favour upon our lives, whatever our circumstances. And being so aware of God’s favour, we are empowered to be channels of that favour upon the lives of others, as we live out—again, in terms readily grasped by those of a military background—a common (united) mind of service, a common love, a common identity; specifically, all centred on Christ Jesus. Or, at least, we are empowered to work towards those goals, the convergence of our lives, personally and communally, with the mind of Christ, the love of Christ, the Body of Christ.

How, then, might these verses help us, who for the main part are not veterans, face months 7-12 of pandemic? Here are some questions to reflect on, alongside Paul’s words:

[1] Through whom is Jesus coming alongside you and encouraging you at present? And, how?

[2] Conversely, what voices are causing you feelings of anxiety or enmity towards others, and how might you reduce their influence?

[3] In line with the capacity you have at the moment (which may be small, and may even be non-existent for now), how might you console someone else today? (it could be as simple as sending them a text message)

[4] How might the local church model a sense of belonging to one another for the wider community? And vice versa.

(Think in terms of concrete practices, as much as possible. These might include ways of listening to people’s different experiences, patterns of prayer, practical support or projects, advocacy, re-organising how we do what we do…think also how we might build on the community goodwill of earlier this year, rather than just attempt to recover it: what is needed now, and moving forward? Recognise that we might not be able to answer this question yet, and that answers might emerge organically in time, but also that this will not happen in a sustainable manner without regular reflection.)

 

 

Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity

Lectionary readings: [Philippians 1:21-30 and] Matthew 20:1-16

[In our first reading, we hear Paul reflect on absence and presence, departing and remaining, fruitful labour, sharing abundantly in what Christ Jesus has done, and, included in all that, the call to suffer with Christ and not be intimidated by opponents. I do not intend to focus on these verses, but instead to view them as a lens through which to look at the Gospel.]

Our reading from Matthew is, properly, an unbroken continuation of the preceding verses. To back up a little further still, a rich young man had come to Jesus and asked what good thing he needed to make happen in order to hold on to a lasting sense of being alive that so far eluded him. We might say that, like many people today, this young man saw himself as a good person, trying to be the best version of himself; but Jesus deconstructs his assumptions around what it is to be ‘good.’ Goodness, just as much as life, is a share in what God gives to us; that is, to others. Jesus invited him to be free of the hold things had over him

(the man is literally possessed)

by surrendering his prosperity to God, in exchange for God’s greater riches. The young man, who already owned much property

(though hardly the whole world, to trade for his soul),

weighs up the proposition, and walks away in anguish; and Jesus observes how hard it will be for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Peter—who always represents the Church—points out that, in contrast to the rich young man, he and the others with him have left everything and followed Jesus; yet, betraying the same concerns as that young man, asks, “What then will we have?” In response, Jesus declares a coming renewal of how things are, in which the Church will model God’s justice for the watching world [1]. It is in this context that Jesus employs this parable.

It is a parable that makes use of familiar tropes, and unfamiliar suspects:

the landowner is (a relentless) God;

the vine and the vineyard, the descendants of Israel planted in the promised Land;

the labourers, those who do the will and work of God (which implies that being part of God’s chosen people—whether the Jews or the Church—is not, in itself, the same as being one who does the will of God); note: no-one else wants or values them;

the manager, one entrusted with oversight and service (presbyter and deacon?), a role the religious establishment saw as theirs, but which, arguably, Jesus claimed as his own in his parables.

And at the culmination of the day, this landowner ensures that every day labourer has received the day’s wages, that all have what they need to live. There is, here, concern for equity over equality. There is a plentiful harvest, within which all can find fruitful labour, and all can share in the abundance.

And at the end of the day, there is a confrontation, in which the landowner asks, “Or are you envious because I am generous?” Or, in the Greek, are you giving me the evil eye, since I am intrinsically good? [2]

And here, Jesus the storyteller is referring to the Jewish folk belief in the ‘good eye’ and the ‘evil eye’ [3]. The ‘good eye’ looks at what it has with contentment and at what others have with modest celebration, recognising that God has blessed that person in this way. To give the ‘evil eye’ means to look at another, motivated by jealousy, in such a way as to unleash a magical power against them. Its biblical roots are found in the way Sarah looked at Hagar and despised her; or in the jealousy of Joseph’s brothers towards him. Such was the concern about the ‘evil eye’ that you needed to know how to deal with it. Ideally, one ought to live so as not to attract its attention in the first place—this was Jacob’s folly in singling-out one son with preferential honour. Thou shalt not be too extravagant. Thou shalt not, for example, pay a day’s wage for an hour’s labour. But once the ‘evil eye’ had been deployed against you, you could still counteract it by a variety of means: bouncing it back with a mirror; wearing a magical amulet; reciting the correct formulary; distracting the demonic angel summoned against you with some bright colour. In Jesus’ parable, the landowner’s ‘good eye’ is enough to protect him—and his short-day labourers—from the ‘evil eye’ [4].

Surely, we no longer believe in such superstitious nonsense as the ‘evil eye’? Well, Jesus acknowledged it as an issue, the malevolent power unleashed by jealousy. It is telling that the ‘evil eye’ appears in this parable in response to the seeds of envy Peter has for the rich young man who chose to keep his possessions, however much pain they brought him [5]. Do not multiply woe by adding your own curse to the pain he has brought upon himself. And, surely, we are not so naïve as to believe that coveting what others have for ourselves isn’t a driver of tragedy on a global scale?

But a parable is not information to file under ‘Things Jesus Said’; it is a story Jesus gives to inform our formation.

There is a disciplined rhythm to this parable. The landowner is up while it is still dark, and out to the labour exchange. Throughout the day we see him move between his vineyard and the labour exchange, towards the end of every three-hour shift, at nine, and noon, and three; and then, because he believes that he can get in one more visit before the end of the working day, again at five in the afternoon. Back and forth, absent, present. His concern is not exploitation of unprotected workers, but reaching agreement: on what they need; on a just reward; on a stake in the vision; with the aim of bringing as many as possible into the joy of his generosity, of goodness, reimagined.

What might it look like for us to be shaped by such a parable, as we gather, present, in this place, and disperse, absent to one another, following the heavenly landowner?

How might it shape our disciplined engagement in the public square, as it relates to equity of access to material resources, to wage security, especially in Covid 19 times? [6]

Or how about, as the public square pertains to spiritual hunger? [7]

Or to the complexities of human sexuality? [7]

Or geo-politics? [7]

How might the disciplined rhythm of the landowner shape our patterns of prayer, throughout the day?

Or how we look back over the day, with its burden and its gift, and build celebration into our lives, thanksgiving for what God has done for us and for what God has given others?

How might that train us away from greed and envy, and how, accumulatively, might that enable liberation for the natural environment we are so intent on destroying?

This is not simply a parable for our time (and every time), but a parable of the kingdom of heaven that speaks to every arena of our lives. There are so many ways we could discern how to live it out, personally and communally.

Let me suggest one concrete example. The run-down space in front of the Minster has been reimagined and newly opened as Minster Park. This week, I have spent time sitting in that space, praying, dreaming, having spatially distanced conversations with other people enjoying this public park. Residents of the tower blocks, who have no garden of their own. Students. City centre workers reading a book on their lunch hour. Friends meeting up—though for now, the local lockdown restricts that. Skateboarders (I am aware that there have been some skaters who have been inconsiderate towards others, including residents of the Alms Houses; but, also, that there have been friendlier, considerate skaters too). Various people who are making the space their own, as is right. A neighbouring space (or, neighbouring-space) we do not have possessive rights over, but in which we have a public stake. And I am aware that God has brought these various neighbours near to us, to bless—and as a blessing (rather than a curse). I am aware that various interested parties could become Us v. Them stories; or, could become an expanded Us, to the benefit of us all, depending on how we choose to respond. Might we, as a Minster community, commit to going out into Minster Park at regular times of the day, (once lockdown is lifted) to seek agreement with whomever we find there, both young and old and everything in between? Might that be the place to start discovering in what way the kingdom of heaven is like this parable that Jesus told?

 

[1] It could be argued that this is fulfilled in the victory of Christianity over the pagan gods of the Greco-Roman world, and the consolidation of Christendom; though alongside this we would have to speak of the seduction of wealth and power, of apostasy and judgement on the Church, and of our living, today, on the far side of the rule Jesus depicted.

[2] Intrinsic goodness being the matter in hand.

[3] As he has done before, in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6:22, 23.

[4] Ultimately, God’s ‘good eye’ will counteract the effect of the ‘evil eye’ by raising Jesus from the dead, and with him, those who believe in his name.

[5] It is salutary to reflect that the Church, once seated to administer justice, became ensnared by entitlement—and still is, in many ways, despite loss of status.

[6] For example, for me, this parable provides theological rootedness for my belief that, as a society, we should replace most present welfare benefits with an unconditional Universal Basic Income, or citizen’s income.

[7] Or anything else for which there is a market place. And what does it mean, in practice, to be—as we proclaim—‘Open to God, open to all?’

 

Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity 2020

Lectionary Gospel reading: Matthew 18:21-35

In the Gospel reading set for this Sunday, Peter (representing the Church) tries to assert his moral superiority. Jesus responds with a parable that reveals God’s nature as merciful, and calls on God’s people to make that mercy manifest in the world. In this parable, everyone is equal before God; they are all slaves of the king. And this parable of the merciless slave has particular relevance in a year in which we have seen the international rise—and backlash against—the Black Lives Matter movement; and, closer to home, the toppling of statues honouring slave traders. Because, you see, Jesus tells a story, and invites the Church to the work of discerning how to apply it within our community in any given historical context. But as with the preceding verses (indeed, as with so many of Jesus’ parables) those who believe they are more wronged than in the wrong, more sinned against than sinning, are being led into a trap.

Into the story, Jesus introduces a certain slave who is summoned to an audience with the king. On can presume that this slave appears before the king with a certain degree of confidence. After all, to date the king has lent this slave ten thousand talents. A talent was worth more than fifteen years’ wages of a labourer; and so, we can say that this sum was the equivalent of fifteen years’ unpaid labour by 10,000 slaves. This man is, himself, a slave—he is no different, inherently, to anyone else—and yet he is living a life that is unimaginably removed from his fellow slaves. Indeed, as we shall see, he believes himself to be de facto king over them. But the actual king has summoned him to ask that the loan be re-payed.

The slave protests that this is quite impossible. And so, the king determines that the slave be sold, along with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment be made. This clearly implies a broader redistribution of concentrated wealth and power; and has consequences for successive generations. And as the king in this parable represents God, such a solution should be understood to be perfectly just. But the slave pleads for patience to repay—apparently it is only hard, not in fact impossible—and the king, motivated by compassion, moves to write off the man’s debt entirely.

No sooner had the slave departed, but he meets a fellow slave who owes him a hundred denarii, the equivalent of three-and-a-half month’s unpaid labour by one slave (contrasted with fifteen years’ unpaid labour by 10,000 slaves). There is a power dynamic at play. For the slave who lent the money, it is a trivial sum; but not for the one who borrowed. He cannot pay off the outstanding debt in one go—who can survive for three-and-a-half months on no money at all?—and this slave is doubly enslaved paying back the interest on his loan. Now, because the first slave has neither compassion nor empathy, he is about to be triply enslaved, thrown into debtor’s prison, with some physical violence and psychological terror thrown in for good measure.

When his fellow slaves saw what happened, they were greatly distressed. They went before the king and reported the injustice, and, because the king was just, he acted justly. Because the slave who had known the king’s mercy had not participated in the king’s mercy, he would now know the king’s justice. His participation in the king’s justice would be to experience torture until he would pay his entire debt. This, then, Jesus concluded, is what it will be like for those who do not participate in mercy.

In 1791, the French-owned Haitian slaves revolted. In order to prevent territorial loss to the British, the French Republic abolished slavery in 1794, restoring it in 1802. Throughout the 1790s, Britain, who had recently lost her American colonies, fought to capture French territory in the Caribbean and re-establish slavery there, while also crushing slave revolts on her own islands (including the genocide of men, women and children), spending £4 million and losing between 50,000-100,00 men in battle or to yellow fever. In 1804, two years after Napoleon reinstated slavery in French colonies, the Haitians declared independence and abolished slavery. Three years later, in 1807, a bruised British parliament passed the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act. Not until 1833, and after ongoing slave rebellions, was this followed by the Slavery Abolition Act. As part of this process, the 1837 Slave Compensation Act paid out £20 million (an estimated £17 billion in today’s money) to former slave owners “compensating the Persons at present entitled to the Services of the Slaves to be manumitted and set free by virtue of this Act for the Loss of such Services”. Freed slaves did not receive any compensation.

The British government—or, the British taxpayers; including the descendants of the slaves—finally ‘paid off’ the loan in 2015. The families of slave owners and the families of investment bankers have been benefitting from slavery from its abolition until the present. Meanwhile, France extorted a debt of 91 million gold francs for the loss of property which Haiti finally paid off in 1947; and Britain systematically exploited her colonies and former colonies; and has treated those we asked to fight for us in two world wars and then to come and help rebuild the motherland after the Second World War utterly shamefully, to this day. This is not history, separate from current affairs.

If I were to announce that, this year, we will not be marking Remembrance Sunday, there would be uproar. If I were to suggest that ‘it all happened a long time ago, and we just need to move on,’ angry letters would be written to my bishop and I would be the subject of hostile articles in the press. But ‘it all happened a long time ago, and we just need to move on’ is the argument I hear again and again (not seven times but seventy times seven) in relation to slavery, despite the legitimate calls of Caribbean Heads of State for a program of reparations there, and of Black British voices calling for justice here. It strikes me as ironic that, despite the fact that no one alive today fought in the First World War we habitually claim that ‘we’ won the war; but that when it comes to the reckoning of debts relating to slavery, we cannot be held responsible as it all took place before we were born.

But the consequent injustice is ongoing; and for that, we are called to take responsibility. We cannot move on, until justice is done. Regardless of whether wider British society can accept this, the Church of England should. The thing that strikes me most about Jesus’ parable of the merciless servant is the line, ‘When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed.’ They were greatly distressed at the injustice they witnessed. I wonder whether we are even capable of such a response, to the pain of injustice felt by our Black sisters and brothers.

We don’t remember the First World War because ‘if we forget we will repeat the mistakes of the past’—our government hosts the world’s largest arms fair and we profit economically from ensuring instability across the world, while refusing to take responsibility for the lives ruined, let alone for our own veterans. No, we remember the First World War to recognise a communal trauma, passed down the generations; and, increasingly over recent years, to reassert ourselves over others. And, before you write to my bishop, we shall mark Remembrance Sunday. But we are called to recognise the communal trauma, passed down the generations, of our fellow slaves; and to recognise that we are not inherently superior but inherently equal: and to repent of sin and make material redress for injustice, though it be to our cost. Black Lives Matter because our society repeatedly demonstrates that they do not matter, dismissing justice by labelling people Marxists, looters, terrorists, criminals, lazy, disruptive—and allies as naïve self-haters.

The alternative is that we find ourselves tortured until we pay off our entire debt, not to the enslavers and their descendants but to the wrongly imprisoned and their descendants. We do not torture ourselves, but we do bring it upon ourselves. Where we reject mercy, justice demands it. As with all of Jesus’ parables, we ought rightly to be troubled.