Seventh Sunday of Easter 2022

 

Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened.

The Acts of the Apostles 16:26

‘Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.’

Jesus, The Gospel According to John 17:24

Every life is built on foundations. That is, of course, a metaphor; but every life is built on things we trust to be dependable, to bear the weight of living. And, I would suggest, those metaphorical foundations are laid not in stone and mortar but in story. Often those foundational stories are as invisible to us as are physical foundations. There’s the narrative of science, often proclaimed as fact but nonetheless presented as a story, or stories that will one day be woven together into one grand unifying story. There are the tall tales of economics, such as the great myth of the free market, which bestows ever-increasing wealth on each successive generation, and to any given individual if they are prepared to work hard and—myth of the lone hero—pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. We see the myth of the free market shaken and exposed in our reading from Acts, wealthy and powerful men exploiting a vulnerable woman, stirring up mob violence, and exploiting the legal system to injustice. What happened two thousand years ago still happens today. And, of course, there are alternative economic stories, such as the end of history in the liberation of the working classes. There are the stories of family, of blood being stronger than water, except, of course, when family stabs us in the back. So many foundations, so many events that shake them, from mortality to recession to betrayal. A life built on faith in Jesus as our Lord and God, the one who shall return to judge the living and the dead, is also built on a foundation laid down in story. The question is not, what remains when all the stories we tell are taken away, but which story will I build my life on? Which is the most compelling?

This place, the Minster Church of St Michael & All Angels with St Benedict Biscop, is a case in point. There has been a place of Christian worship on this site, at the heart of Bishopwearmouth, since 930AD. The structure has been taken apart and rebuilt many times, reimagined, come back from the dead. The tower was set on fire by Vikings, rebuilt, set on fire by Scots, rebuilt again. The Georgian church, that had partially replaced the Mediaeval one, was sinking, its foundations undermined by excavating coal; the nave was reordered, floating foundations under our feet, the stone pillars and timber roof you are sitting within raised up towards the heavens in the years between the Great and the Second twentieth-century Wars. Why? Because the stones are only an outward expression of a story.

We might tell the story like this [with debt to Samuel Wells]: that God is full, unending, undiminishing relationship—the Three who are One; the One who is Three—and of God’s own fullness desired to enjoy that same relationship with us. That creation is the expression of this desire that is God’s by nature, the groundwork for God entering the world to be with us in Jesus, the one who was God and with God in the beginning and who came to us, sharing the divine glory with those who did not turn away in fear but welcomed him as their own. That glory is the visible manifestation of love, the love of the Father for the Son, from before the foundation of the world. Indeed, that love is the foundation on which the world was created, into which the Son was sent—for God so loved the world. This foundation, alone of all foundations, cannot be shaken by anything within all creation, for it exists before and beyond all that is limited by time and space. And Jesus’ desire is to be with the Father, and that his disciples be with him, with the Father. Not removed from the world, but in it, within time and space as well as beyond time and space.

So, we might encounter the love that is God’s glory in this place, and in the lives of the people whom God has given Jesus in this place, who are both the body and the bride of Christ.

Every other foundation will experience its earthquake, the birth-contractions of a new reality. So, the Philippian gaoler comes into being with God, and with Jesus’ friends Paul and Silas, when his life is shaken to the core, to the extent that he prepares suicide before Paul holds out hope. Paul himself, of course, has had his foundations—the Law, and Jewish heritage—shaken to the core on the road to Damascus, some years earlier. And when foundations are shaken, chains are broken, and we are set free by love, to love. To be with God and with our neighbour. At the Minster, where the people have reimagined the building over and over, we are open to every foundation that can be shaken, being shaken, in order that the foundation that cannot be shaken be revealed. That will inevitably include things that are very dear to us, and stories we have built on as self-evident that, increasingly, look shaky. That is why our mission statement is ‘Open to God, Open to All.’

Immediately after this service, we will be holding our Annual Church Parochial Meeting. There are many people to thank for their service, built on the sure foundation of the love that was before there was anything else. They have built well, and with the precious material of God-given gifts, things that will last. They have also built provisionally, in temporary measures, things that are for a season. Inevitably, they have also built with some materials that won’t survive the earthquake: our motives are always mixed, and our insecurities will be shaken, so that the familiar cells and chains that hold us might be unlocked and unfastened.

Along with people to thank, there are also challenges to be faced, building on that same sure foundation, perhaps dismantling certain things to create space for the new things God is doing, safe in the knowledge that the foundations will hold. As we emerge from the rubble left by the earthquakes of Brexit and Covid and the present war in Ukraine, may we see the glory of the risen, ascended Lord Jesus, and may we respond with generous hearts, serving Christ encountered in the most vulnerable.

Here, then, are some questions our readings from Acts and John might cause us to ponder:

Is this a compelling story? And, if so, how will you/we build your/our life on it?

Is this a disturbing story? And, if so, what foundations does it shake?

Where have you/we known love unlock doors and unfasten chains that have kept you/us bound?

What does Jesus’ glory look like? How is it manifest in your/our world?

 

Ascension Day 2022

 

This week saw the first showing of the final episode of This Is Us, an American drama that, for six seasons, has told the story of one family, the Pearsons. It is a stunning exploration of trauma, and the possibility of healing, and the finest television storytelling I have had the pleasure to know. And in the wake of its passing, I shall know bereavement, for I am the better for having witnessed the alienation and restoration of these relationships. Yes, they may be fictional characters, but all humanity is held here.

On Ascension Day, we hear again the story of Jesus’ return to the one he called Father, in heaven. In fact, we hear the story told and retold, told twice, by the same storyteller, Luke. This story, so important that it demands to be heard again, is the bridge between Luke’s first and second volumes, the Gospel According to Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. This story is the bridge between Jesus’ excruciating torture and dying, and death-confounding resurrection, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. This story is the bridge between the revealed committed desire of God to be in relationship with human beings expressed through the promises to Abraham and Moses and David—the people from among whom God enters into our lives in the person of Jesus—and the revealed committed desire of God to be in relationship with all humanity expressed through the commissioning of the disciples as witnesses to the ends of the earth by Jesus—a people called out from every tribe and nation to know God and to follow where Jesus has shown the way, to be with the Father, in full and unbroken union, for ever.

This is the moment that holds within itself all moments, past, present, and future. Eternity as a fixed point in time and space. In Jesus, fully God and fully human, lifting-up his hands in blessing and being lifted up.

And two witnesses, whom we have not met before now and do not meet again hereafter, testify, ‘This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.’

It will become clear that the disciples, and those who received their testimony, fully expected this Jesus to return within their lifetime, at least within the lifetime of the last remaining original witness. And, equally clearly, this was not to be. Which calls into question the testimony of the two men in white robes, and, indeed, of all who believed them. It is not for you, Jesus tells his disciples, to know the timescale on which the things you long to see restored will be restored; rather, it is yours to bear witness that God is, indeed, restoring all things through and in and with Jesus, and to invite everyone to enter-in through repentance and forgiveness. Repentance, our coming back to being with God, with our neighbour, with our undivided self, our heart and mind and soul and strength held together by love. And forgiveness, God—fully, now—and our neighbour and our self—ultimately—agreeing, yes! Yes, to the restoration of God’s desire to be with us, and us with God. But does it have to take so long?

Samuel Wells, vicar of St Martin-in-the-fields in central London, suggests that the answer to that question is that whatever will be gained then does not outweigh what would be lost: the joy of seeing new life birthed as men, women and children come to faith all over the world; the world-confounding peace of the Holy Spirit with us in our sorrow. Not to mention centuries of art, music, architecture, literature, advances in science. Not to mention the love and wonder known in countless human lives.

That thesis would bear out in the life of the local church here in Sunderland, where we have been blessed to have with us sisters and brothers from Iran, Afghanistan, from many corners of the world, most recently from Ukraine. We enter God’s restoration, while waiting for restoration that is yet unseen.

We trust that Jesus will return, will come again, in person, to be with us, to dwell with us. Until he comes, we look back and look forward, in the present moment that holds all moments. We worship in the holy place, and we go out to witness that every heart may be drawn home, to worship and to witness, to find our lives centred on Jesus, and, with him, with God. Never, again, alone, whether in persecution or vindication, suffering or rejoicing. Finding our place in a restoration far greater than anything we could imagine.

That is a story worth listening to twice over. More, this is a story that heals the heart. We Have not yet reached the final episode of the Last Chapter yet, but, for now and always, this is us.

 

Fifth Sunday of Easter 2022

 

Lectionary readings: John 13:31-35 and Acts 11:1-18

‘You will look for [zéteó] me…Where I am going, you cannot come.’ Jesus

‘…when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized [diakrinó] him, saying, ‘Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?’’ Acts 11:2, 3

In our Gospel reading, Jesus tells his disciples that they will seek for him, by careful inquiry, but will discover that where he has gone ahead of them, they are not able to follow. In our reading from the Acts of the Apostles, the gathered church investigates Peter’s actions thoroughly, with the intention of separating themselves from him, and certainly from the Gentiles he had eaten with.

Peter had gone to the home of the Roman, Cornelius. A man in dazzling white had appeared to Cornelius; Cornelius had taken him to be an angel, a messenger from God. And certainly, we meet angels in bright white at the empty tomb; but we have also seen Jesus in dazzling white at his transfiguration. Directly or indirectly, Jesus has gone ahead of Peter to the home of a Gentile.

But Jesus must help Peter overcome that which stops him from following, from going where Jesus has gone. Peter is unable to step beyond the laws that separate Jews from Gentiles. Jesus is firm, and gracious, and Peter gets there in the end. But now he is being judged harshly for it.

When Jesus tells his disciples that where he is going, they cannot follow, he is setting out the pattern for the Church: that Jesus goes ahead of us, where we are not yet able to go. Beyond our comfort zone. Beyond our identity markers. Beyond things that matter deeply to us. Jesus is the pioneer of our faith. But he is also the perfector of our faith, and Jesus gives his disciples the means to follow him: love one another. Put the other before yourself. Desire their flourishing.

There is no love on display among the gathered church, for Peter, or for Cornelius—whom, of course, they have not met. It is easier to not love people you haven’t met. [‘The Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas said the only thing that really converts people at a deep level is seeing “the face of the other”. Welcoming and empathizing with the other leads to transformation of the whole person. This interchange is prepared to transform both persons—the seer and the seen. In a sense, we need the stranger for our own conversion from our individualism, self-centeredness and our tendencies towards self-preservation and exclusion.’ Brad Brisco, Facebook 15 May 2018] Peter addresses their concerns, point by point, and even then they fail to grasp Peter’s conversion. It isn’t long before they are insisting that these new Gentile believers must adopt their Jewish identity markers.

We haven’t moved beyond this tension between love and criticism, and we never shall. We get it right, we get it wrong. We get it right again, and wrong again. We get it right, we get it wrong, we get it wrong, we get it wrong, and by God’s grace, through repentance, we get it right again. We get it wrong again, we get it right, we get it right, we get it right, and, just as we are feeling we are getting the hang of this, we get it wrong again. We don’t grow beyond this pattern, because we never arrive at the full extent of God’s love, but Jesus never stops drawing us deeper into it.

Where do we discern Jesus, in our neighbourhood, gone ahead of us to others, to whom we cannot yet follow him?

What does it feel like to get to know strangers with the intention of becoming friends?