Second Sunday of Christmas 2022

 

Second Sunday of Christmas 2022

Lectionary readings: Jeremiah 31:7-14 and Ephesians 1:3-14 and John 1:10-18

We are still in the Season of Christmas, and Christmas is a time for the telling of wonderful stories. On the last day of 2021, my family and I made a trip to the cinema to see Steven Spielberg’s new version of West Side Story. Given that it was first staged on Broadway in 1957, and first adapted for the big screen in 1961, I am going to assume at least an awareness of this classic tale, based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, translating the action to the mid-1950s turf wars between White and Puerto Rican gangs in New York’s Upper West Side. Theirs is not only a contested territory, but also a condemned one, the working-class slum housing being cleared to make way for gentrification. Everything about West Side Story is wonderful, from Leonard Bernstein’s music to Stephen Sondheim’s words to Jerome Robbins’ choreography, and Spielberg’s retelling successfully walks the line between knowing irony and adoring tribute in pinpointing the location to the very blocks demolished to create the Lincoln Centre, home to the New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera, and New York City Ballet, among other resident arts organizations.

The Jets are the last remaining working-class Whites in the neighborhood, and they feel abandoned by their own community, those who have upped and left for a better life elsewhere and by the city authorities who, in the 1950s, were carving up established-but-poor neighborhoods to create landscaped parks and parkways for automobiles. These are the demonized poor, and they know it.

The Sharks are the latest in a long line of immigrants, arrived from Puerto Rico. The Free Associated State—or, Commonwealth—of Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the United States. Her people have been US citizens since 1917, but that doesn’t make them equal in the eyes of the Jets. The Sharks represent yet another community who have upped and left in hope of a better life elsewhere, only to find life hard in different ways, and salt in the wounds of the Jets who refuse to leave their native island behind but who feel it being taken from them. Scapegoats, to be sacrificed.

Within and around the Jets we meet Riff, trying to hold his world together as it falls apart; his best friend and former-Jet Tony, trying to move on from a life that was heading in the wrong direction, but still tied to his community; and Anybody’s, born a girl, identifying as a boy, rejected by her family, desperately wanting to be accepted and find a new home, a new family, within the Jets. When you’re a Jet, | You’re a Jet all the way | From your first cigarette | To your last dyin’ day. | When you’re a Jet, | If the spit hits the fan, | You got brothers around, | You’re a family man. | You’re never alone, | You’re never disconnected. | You’re home with your own— | When company’s expected, | You’re well protected!

Within and around the Sharks we meet Bernardo, a hard-scrabble fighter with a fearsome reputation; his lover Anita, longing for a better life in America and worried that Bernardo will jeopardise that; and Maria, Bernardo’s little sister, stifled by his over-protection and dreaming of her future. When Maria and Tony meet, sparks will fly. And all around them, everything is set up for there to be only losers, and no victors, in a fight for life that cannot be won. And yet, the dream remains. There’s a place for us, | Somewhere a place for us. | Peace and quiet and open air | Wait for us, somewhere. | There’s a time for us, | Some day a time for us, | Time together with time to spare, | Time to learn, time to care. | Some day, | Somewhere, | We’ll find a new way of living, | We’ll find a way of forgiving. | Somewhere, | Somewhere…

The themes and issues explored in West Side Story are timeless. Writing from the rubble of a Jerusalem that had been swallowed up by the Neo-Babylonian Empire, most of its prominent citizens having been relocated to Babylon, the prophet Jeremiah helps his community imagine a world in which their identity and future are secured, not through their own efforts but through the covenant-loyalty of the Lord. On his account, their mourning will turn to joy: he will comfort them and exchange their deep and complex sorrow for gladness.

Or think of Paul of Tarsus, a first-century Roman citizen of Jewish heritage, writing to a Christian community made up of two distinct ethnic and cultural communities living alongside one another in the city of Ephesus (where ‘Gentile’ is as umbrella a term as ‘White,’ and ‘Jew’ as un/welcome as ‘Puerto Rican’). Paul reframes Jeremiah’s themes of identity and a future in terms of adoption and an inheritance, and adds a new theme, that this is achieved through the shed blood of Jesus, the one caught in the crossfire of our enmity and striving for what we cannot hold on to.

And in our Gospel reading, John pushes the boundaries in his overture to the Life of Jesus, foreshadowing questions of whether this Jesus will be received into community or not accepted; and whether community is formed and sustained by rules (spoken and unspoken) or by grace and truth found in seeing the invisible God made visible in the face of this ‘Other’ whose coming into our world changes everything. Today, the world was just an address, | A place for me to live in, | No better than all right, | But here you are | And what was just a world is a star | Tonight!

It isn’t hard to see the appeal of the Jets. To believe our community to be let down by those in authority, in the Church and in wider society. Even the face of the Church, here in Sunderland, is increasingly Brown or Black, not White. Increasingly immigrant, not native-born. And if the future is presented as shiny, it may be hard to see where we fit in to that picture—even as those whom we imagine we are being moved aside in favour of wonder how long they must wait until they are seen as equals. It is easy to think that we must do whatever it takes to hold on to what is left to us, however far it may have fallen from glory. And yet, as Jesus put it, those who strive to save their lives always end up losing their lives—and not only their own lives, but the lives of those they love. Then, of course, there are those who see their only hope in establishing a rival gang of their own: the Church or the neighbourhood might go down, but we won’t go down with it! And then there are those who long to be a Jet, or a Shark, and are denied…

We are still in the Season of Christmas, and Christmas is a time for the telling of wonderful stories. Stories in which communities struggle with questions of identity—what makes them who they are—and the impossible possibility of a future—what that could look like and how it might be secured. Stories in which these things are, ultimately, given, received, experienced through grace. Stories in which those who find themselves on the margins, pushed out, unwelcome, come to discover family, a place of belonging. (That one is being written all the time and remains to be written.) Stories of tragedy transformed into Somewhere for the Anybody’s. Stories of grace and truth, and the invisible God made visible in the face of Jesus and in the eyes of his sisters and brothers. Stories that point us back to him, again and again, the light that shines in the darkness—of the world, and the Church, and of our hearts—and is not overwhelmed by it but shines all the brighter. Stories that never grow old, and that we never outgrow needing to hear. In God’s mercy, may they help us to walk in Christ’s light and dwell in his love that we may know the fullness of his joy throughout the year ahead. Amen.

 

Christmas Day

 

A few years ago, my parents very sensibly downsized, from the family home in the West End of Glasgow to a ground floor apartment in Milngavie. When we visit, there is not room for us to stay with them, and so we make use of the Premier Inn a five-minute’s walk away. This is a popular Premier Inn, the starting point for tourists from all over the world who come to walk the West Highland Way from Milngavie to Fort William.

My mother-in-law is a widow. She lives in a two-bedroom ground-floor barn conversion. When we visit her, some of us might get to sleep in the guest bedroom, but if we all go at the same time, some combination must sleep on the living room floor.

Contrary to popular belief, Jesus was not born in a stable round the back of a fully booked inn, Premier or otherwise. Jesus was born in a family home, almost certainly the home of relatives of Joseph, quite possibly his parents’ home. Families in Bethlehem lived in what was essentially a one-room dwelling. Plenty of people lived in just that way here in the UK, even post- the Second World War, though we, in our comfortable houses, have largely forgotten such a world. Families in Bethlehem slept on the floor of the communal room, with their small herd of goats corralled at one end or on a slightly lower level at night, providing safety for the animals and warmth for the people, just as families have lived in crofts in the Scottish Isles or chalets in the Swiss Alps. But these homes also had a room or place for guests: the ‘katalyma,’ inaccurately rendered the ‘inn’ in several English translations. The lodging for guests might be on the flat roof, no more than a canopy on wooden poles; or else a small room directly off the family room, at the opposite end from where the animals were kept. In an urban home in nearby Jerusalem, a home that might welcome pilgrims several times each year, Jesus would eat a meal with his disciples on the night of his arrest in just such a katalyma, or upper room; but in Bethlehem, guest rooms were smaller.

Joseph is from Bethlehem, but he has been away in Nazareth, working his dowry to marry Mary, whose relatives are from around Bethlehem but whose immediate family had moved north. So, Joseph, who is a builder by trade, has not had time to complete the home in which he and Mary will start out in their married life. And like many couples since, they begin their married life living with his parents. Probably.

Now, they are family, but they would be offered the guest room, for space and a little privacy. But when Mary comes to give birth, while they are there, there is not a secure space for her in the guest room. Perhaps it is on the roof, and in the later stages of pregnancy she could no longer get up and down the ladder. Perhaps it is simply a room that is too small for a woman to give birth in, attended to by the women of the home and the village midwives. In any event, there is not the necessary space, and Jesus—like both of my sons, as it happens—was born in the main room of the house, in the heart of the home. And laid in the manger, probably a bowl carved out of the stone floor, just the right size to cradle a baby.

The theme chosen by the Church of England for Christmas this year is ‘the heart of Christmas.’ And at the heart of the Christmas story is the birth of Jesus, at the heart of a home, into the heart of a family, in the heart of Bethlehem, in the heart of God’s people in the heart of their history. Jesus is at the heart.

Perhaps you have family living with you this Christmas. Or perhaps you hope, Covid restrictions permitting, to travel to stay with relatives. And it may be that room must be found, or made, psychologically as well as physically, internally as well as externally. For others, this time of year is one spent painfully aware of being alone, estranged from fellow humans, not least by bereavement, perhaps estranged from God. For others still, it is a time of demanding work to serve the stranger, with heart and mind and soul and strength, for love—embodied love—of God and neighbour. Room must be found, for forgiveness, or compassion, for ourselves as well as for others. One way or another, there always seems to be so much riding on this time of year, and our resources and our imagination are flexible, but only to a point.

And it is into the actual circumstances of our lives that Jesus is born, again. Not some nostalgic Nativity play where we pretend to be an innkeeper or a donkey, an angel or shepherd, or want to be Mary. But in the very heart of your life, and mine. Whether it feel too empty a room without him or impossibly full of other things, he comes, in his good time, not ours. This Christmas, may you know the joy that he brings, at the heart, to the heart. Joy that washes away our tears of pain and sweat of exhaustion, our fears, and our sense of inadequacy or of not being ready (you’ll never be ready). And may his felt presence come in time to transform every part of your life, from the heart out. Not as guest but as kin. Happy Christmas!

 

Christmas Eve

 

On the twenty-first of July 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong placed a two-foot-wide array of 100 retroreflectors on the surface of the Sea of Tranquillity. A mirror on the moon. The crews of Apollo 14 and 15 also left mirrors at locations on the moon, and in addition to these three there are two further sets of mirrors on Soviet Union unmanned Luna mission robotic rovers parked on the moon’s surface. By firing lasers at these mirrors, scientists have been able to trace the moon’s orbit with remarkable accuracy.

We might imagine the opening move of John’s Gospel as firing a laser at mirrors left on the surface of Genesis chapter 1—‘In the beginning…’—and counting how long it takes for the light to be received back.

‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

‘And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.’

(John 1:1-5, 14)

Our home planet is one of eight that orbit our home sun, flung out on the Orion Arm of a spiral galaxy, the Milky Way. Our home sun is one of some 40 billion suns in our home galaxy, which is in turn one of 100,000 galaxies in our home Supercluster, the Laniakea (“immense heaven”) Supercluster. These, in turn, are just some of the trillions of galaxies in the universe.

For all the vast, awe-inspiring grandeur of the universe, it is local place where we find meaningful personal connection to God. Often, when I meet with a family to plan a funeral, I am told that dad, or mum, was christened at ‘my’ church, they were married there, that they were always proud of the place and their connection to it mattered deeply to them. They may not have connected with organised religion week by week, but through their whole life long they knew that they could connect with God while this building stood open.

It is a given in the Bible that God created the world and everything in it. But I do not believe that Genesis 1 is concerned with this. Rather, I believe this to be a text, from the time of the Babylonian exile and the return from exile, that is concerned with the Temple in Jerusalem—for the Jewish people, the very centre of the cosmos—and which describes its catastrophic destruction, and God’s initiative to restore Jerusalem and have the Temple rebuilt.

By the time John writes, that second Temple has been desecrated by the Greeks, retaken and reconsecrated, massively extended by Herod the Great, and—between the Jesus event and the time of John’s writing, and, therefore, being read aloud to congregations—destroyed again by the Romans.

John’s Gospel begins with a statement of intent, that God is, once again, about to restore the meeting-place between God and God’s people. But this will not be a Temple of stone, that, impressive though it may be, will be thrown down. When John writes, of Jesus, that he lived among us, the word he chooses is ‘tabernacled,’ recalling the tent of meeting, the place where God was present in the very midst of the people while they lived in the wilderness, between the exodus from Egypt and their entering the promised land. A touchstone for the displaced.

This, then, is the account of the cosmos being restored, from its very centre. *

Those scientists with their lasers discovered that the moon is spiralling away from us at a rate of 3.8 cm per year. Imperceptible to the human eye. In Jesus, on the other hand, God is moving towards us. At times, this too may be invisible to the naked eye. But over the years, mirrors have been left that reflect the light—our holy places are such mirrors, as are moments such as the ‘Midnight Mass’ on Christmas Eve. As are our lives, even when our buildings are closed, temporarily, by pandemic, or when, for whatever reason, we feel unable to come. The light and the mirror and the time between pointing to Jesus, God-with-us, full of grace and truth, in the dark dying days of the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty-one. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. May you rest confident in that and may your sense of wonder be renewed.

 

*As John would later record Jesus as saying, “For God so loved the cosmos that he sent his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish away but have enduring life.” (John 3:16). See also the death and resurrection of Jesus, alluded to by Jesus himself as a destruction and rebuilding of the Temple.

 

Third Sunday of Advent 2021

 

Lectionary readings: Zephaniah 3:14-20 and Philippians 4:4-7 and Luke 3:7-18

‘Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away the judgements against you, he has turned away your enemies. The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more.’

Zephaniah 3:14, 15

‘Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.’

Philippians 4:4-7

‘As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, ‘I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’

‘So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.’

Luke 3:15-18

On the Third Sunday of Advent, the Church remembers John the Baptist, who prepared the way for Jesus, and in keeping with this, the readings set for this day are full of joy. Luke quotes John as saying, of Jesus, that, “His winnowing-fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” Good news, right? Well, yes, it is. Really good news. Here’s why.

This is an image taken from the harvest, when a local community gathered in the grain that would feed them until the harvest next year. Grain is composed of a nutritious inner heart, the kernel, and a protective outer casing, the husk. Some of the grain would be set aside for planting, to produce next year’s harvest; and the husks would prevent the grain from rotting in the barn. But the husk is inedible, and before you can turn the grain into flour for making bread, must be removed. This was done on a threshing-floor, a flat area of exposed rock. Grain would be poured onto the floor, and a threshing-sledge dragged back and forth over it: a heavy wooden bar with iron teeth on the underside, pulled by animal-power. This process broke the husks open. Then someone would take a threshing-fork and throw the grain into the air. The heavier kernels would fall back to the ground; and the light husks, now known as chaff, would be blown away by the breeze. Not far, but far enough to sweep off to the side, and pile up for fuel for the fire. Waste not want not. So, this is an image of Jesus separating the husks from the kernels. But what has this to do with joy? As it happens, everything.

The American professor of social work, Brené Brown, states, “When we lose our tolerance to be vulnerable, joy becomes foreboding.” When we lose our tolerance to be vulnerable, joy becomes foreboding. Brown continues, “In moments of joy, we try to beat vulnerability to the punch, by dress-rehearsing tragedy.” What does she mean? Joy is an intense, overwhelming emotion. Those of us who are parents may have experienced joy as we look at our sleeping child. Or perhaps you have experienced joy looking up at the night sky, or when you come upon a particularly pleasing tree, or on seeing old friends for the first time in a long time. But we need to be vulnerable to experience joy: it cannot coexist with anything defensive such as cynicism. Yet we all know what it is to lose our tolerance to be vulnerable. We’ve all been hurt, and perhaps you reach the point where you promise yourself that you won’t allow yourself to be hurt again. We all have our defence-mechanisms against vulnerability, and the cost of that, Brown notes, is that we reach a point where joy becomes foreboding. That is, the moment we experience that intense joy emotion, our response is to contain it. To say, it won’t last. To imagine losing the thing that has given rise to that joy.

There is a neuroscience to foreboding, or the fear of disaster. The more we go down that path, the more well-worn that path becomes in our brain. There is nothing that gives me greater joy than being with my wife, Jo. We are such a good fit, we often have the same thoughts at the same moment, join in to finish one another’s sentences in unison, and laugh at the simple wonder of it. And when Jo is out longer than I expect, I find myself literally pacing up and down the room and wondering how long it is reasonable to wait before calling round all the hospitals to ask whether there has been a serious accident on the A19 and if she is lying on a resuscitation table with a crash team fighting to save her life. It bears no connection to reality, causes me anxiety, and tempts me to withdraw when I am with Jo so that it won’t hurt so much if it happens—though the real tragedy is that nothing can protect you from the loss of a loved one, and pre-emptive withdrawal only robs you of the present. And you can laugh at me, or feel sorry for Jo, but such scenarios are played out in countless minds.

And I am really glad that Jesus comes to break open the protective husks of the grain of my heart and mind, that he gathers up the kernels of joy, and that he has an unquenchable fire so that the chaff is consumed and need not blow grit into my eyes and the eyes of those around me. That really is good news.

There is also a neuroscience to joy, and it is possible to disciple the brain by habitual practices, to enter more often and more fully into the joy Jesus hopes for us (on the night he was arrested, he prayed that the joy his disciples knew might be made complete). Again, Brené Brown notes that those people whose lives are joyful have one thing in common: they regularly practice gratitude. Not some vague ‘attitude of gratitude,’ but actual, concrete disciplines, practices, such as writing down three things each day for which you are grateful; or going round the family at the dinner table and everyone sharing one thing they are grateful for today; or asking friends on Facebook to share something they are grateful for this week. The apostle Paul had a gratitude practice of praying for the churches he knew, calling to mind—with his travel companions—specific people and specific things about them that he was grateful for. And then he wrote letters to let them know he was thinking of them, with deep gratitude, and, therefore, great joy.

Gratitude is the threshing-sledge that breaks us open to vulnerability and transforms foreboding into joy. As we choose to be grateful, Jesus is then able to step in with his winnowing-fork, dealing with the chaff, the defensive mechanisms, the trust issues that prevent us from knowing joy made complete. So, if you want to know the joy of the Lord, take up a practice of gratitude. Try one you like the sound of, or which you think might work well for you in your life right now and give it a go, between now and Christmas, and see how you get on. And then, perhaps in addition to writing down three things every day that you are grateful for, or whatever it may be, you might choose to pause, any time you experience joy, and, instead of catastrophising, respond with gratitude: thank you, God, for this moment, for this sunrise, for this person in my life; I’m grateful for this gift.

I say this not as an expert witness who has got it all worked out, but as one who needs to hear the good news, yet again, on this Third Sunday of Advent as we prepare ourselves for Jesus to come in glory. As one who has habitual patterns of thought that need re-wiring, but who knows that this is possible, by the grace of God and the wonder of the mind and the decision to follow Jesus and be a disciple, to live a disciplined life, a joyous life. Come, Lord Jesus! Amen.

 

Christ the King 2021

 

Christ the King 2021

Lectionary readings: Daniel 7:9-10, 13, 14 and Revelation 1:4b-8 and John 18:33-37

Today is the Feast of Christ the King, the culmination of the Church year. Next Sunday, Advent Sunday, marks the new year, the beginning of a new cycle through the story of Jesus and his people in season and out of season, feasting and fasting, and in the ordinariness of our days. To proclaim that Christ is King is to acknowledge that he has been appointed by God as both Lord of the Church and Judge of the Nations. In our Gospel reading today we are reminded that Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world, but it is in this world, at work, according to a different value-system and despite appearances. The Bible ends with Revelation, which is not a forecasting of a far-distant future but (like parts of Daniel) an apocalypse, a pulling back the veil to reveal what is really going on beneath the surface in the present, as John writes his coded message to encourage a Christian community heavily persecuted towards the end of the reign of the Roman emperor Domitian. But what does it mean, for us, to declare that Christ is King? What difference does it make, and how do we see that reality worked out in the world?

We are part of Durham Diocese, a family of around 300 Anglican churches in this part of the northeast, between the Tyne and the Tees, the Dales, and the Sea. Our mission, together, is to ‘bless our communities in Jesus’ name for the transformation of us all.’ And we listen together, to one another, to discern what it is that Jesus is calling us to do, through which his kingship is manifest. Together we have discerned our common priorities, as Durham Diocese, for 2021-26. Together, and in partnership with others, we will challenge poverty, energise growth, care for God’s creation, and engage with children, youth and 18-25s. We will seek to do this by rising awareness, responding practically, and working together to reform the wider context of each of our four priorities.

We are committed to challenging poverty by working together to address child and youth poverty; responding to isolation, particularly among the elderly; and reaching out and responding to the needs and gifts of asylum seekers and refugees.

We are committed to energizing growth by growing in reach and influence, transforming our communities through the transformation of our churches; growing in depth, strengthening discipleship, serving Jesus by using our gifts in his mission in every part of life; and growing in breadth and number, growing the number of people identifying as Christian.

We are committed to caring for God’s creation by cultivating a shared Christian vision for God’s creation and our call to steward, nurture, protect it, in Jesus’ name, for the good of everyone, everywhere; promoting responsible consumption, choices and behaviour as individuals and churches; and working together to challenge wider environmental indifference and injustice.

We are committed to engaging with children, youth and 18-25s by: developing pathways for more children to become lifelong disciples of Jesus; resourcing youth for mission (and extending our engagement with them); and extending the engagement of 18-25s.

Clearly, what that looks like will vary from local church to local church, depending on context, opportunity, and resources. The kingship of Christ is not a monoculture, where every community looks the same, but an ecosystem within which unity is expressed in diversity flourishing in mutual harmony. So, all our local churches are called to challenging poverty, energizing growth, caring for God’s creation, and engaging with children, youth and 18-25s, recognizing that this will look different from place to place, and that for any given local church one or other of those four priorities may take the lead. For example, Sunderland Minster has a well-established ministry of reaching out and responding to the needs and gifts of asylum seekers and refugees; whereas St Nicholas’ is well-placed to respond to isolation, particularly among the elderly.

These four priorities are not about driving us to do more but helping us clarify what we do and focus on what Christ the King is doing in and through us, and so to set aside distraction. And so, having looked at what it means in practice to proclaim that Christ is King in our context, let us draw on what John wrote to the churches at the turn of the first century. He writes:

‘Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come’ [that is, Jesus] ‘who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.’

Christ is King, and we are his kingdom, a kingdom began, continued, and brought to completion in Jesus’ acts of loving us, freeing us from all that holds us back from that love, and making us into something we were not, previously. “God loves you” is a key part of the Gospel, but it is not the whole Gospel: God loves you, brings freedom to you, and makes you into something new. He makes us all priests for the world—to bless our communities in Jesus’ name, for the transformation of us all, as we say in Durham Diocese—and within that royal priesthood we believe, in keeping with many but by no means all Christians, he calls some to be priests for the church. But we are all loved and freed and made to serve God as priests, proclaiming blessing in word and service.

And we do so as those who know both grace and peace. Grace, the gift given us by Jesus; the gift we are, given to others, to the church and the world. And peace, that centering wholeness that guards over our hearts and minds, that keeps our will aligned with Jesus’ will (which is perfectly aligned with his Father’s will) and enables us to see as he sees and hear what he hears. As we work out what it looks like in this local context to challenge poverty, energise growth, care for God’s creation, and engage with children, youth and 18-25s, the knowledge of grace and peace—or of a growing distance from them when we lose focus—will keep us rooted in Christ the King.

Today is the Feast of Christ the King. We end the Church year reminding one another that, despite all appearances to the contrary, whether disunity within the Church or rising tides of secularism and nationalism in the world around us, God is at work through Christ in and through us. Reminding one another that there is much to celebrate, and the need to be strengthened in word and sacrament for the much more yet to come. Reminding ourselves that he who began a good work in us will bring it to completion. And next Sunday we turn once again to Advent and preparing our hearts to be ready for his coming again in glory.

Today is the Feast of Christ the King. The table is set. Come, all who are hungry. Come, you who are thirsty. Come, and be satisfied. Christ is the host, in every sense. So, come.

 

Remembrance Sunday 2021

 

Hebrews 10:24

‘And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.’ (NRSVA)

‘And let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds.’ (NIV)

‘And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works.’ (KJV)

Recently Jo and I went away for a couple of nights to celebrate our silver wedding anniversary. The weather wasn’t great, and we spent some of the time sitting in the hotel lounge reading novels. Every so often a member of the hotel staff would come in, poke the fire into life, and go away again. After a while, the fire would die back down and, before it went out completely, the member of staff would appear again, prod it back into flame, and disappear once more.

We live in a time when our collective anger is regularly poked, lest it should die down and go out. We know what it is to be provoked by the sight of other people, whom we are trained to see as a threat. All the necessary conditions are in place, that lead us into conflict; past, present, or future. But the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews employs the striking image of provoking to love and good deeds, or, literally, to making something beautiful. What might that look like?

The word translated ‘to provoke’ means to jab, such that the person being jabbed has no option but to respond. The NIV expresses it well with the image of spurs. The King James Version draws out another aspect: not, let us consider how we might provoke one another to love and to making something beautiful, but let us consider one another, not as threats to provoke anger but as examples to inspire us to love and to make the world a more beautiful place. When we look at one another, let us do so through eyes of love that see beauty.

Many of you know that Jo and I are members of the Sunderland Strollers running club. We run in packs, according to ability. But sometimes we have whole-club sessions. Once a month through October to February we run the Winter Handicap, a whole club 5km (or just over 3 miles) along the sea front between Roker and Seaburn. Runners set off at 30-second intervals, the slowest starting first and the fastest, last (the first shall be last and the last shall be first). We set off from Sue’s Café and run along to Grannie Annie’s, then turn back on ourselves and head up the steep bank to the Bungalow Café on the road above. There, we turn right and head down the long gradual hill to Seaburn and the House of Zen restaurant. By the time I get there, I don’t feel very Zen. There we turn round and retrace our steps, up the long drag to the bus stop opposite the entrance to Roker Park, and on to the Bungalow, sharp left turn and down the steep bank, keep going to Grannie Annie’s and then turn back on ourselves for the final effort back to Sue’s Café.

Because we set off at a stagger, and because it is an out-and-back, for the whole of the run, runners are passing one another, catching up or being caught, slower runners passing you on their way back as you approach half-way, faster runners approaching that mark as you are now making your way back up the hill. And whenever we pass one another, we call out encouragement. Faster runners say something like, “Well done! Keep going!” to the slower runners; and slower runners say something like, “Keep going! You’re flying!” to the faster runners.

No-one says, “Huh, they’re not very good; they shouldn’t be in our club” or “They are so much better at this than I will ever be, I’m thoroughly discouraged”. As we consider one another, we choose to be inspired by one another, to share in love between us—and these really are some of the best friends I have—and together to create something of beauty (albeit not obvious beauty at the end of the run, as I gasp to draw breath).

That might seem like a very small and insignificant illustration, but it is the repeated small habits that train us, over time, to be provoked to anger or to be provoked to love; to view others as threat or as persons whose presence in the world makes it a more beautiful place.

Who can you recall who by their life inspires you to love better, and to strive to make the world more beautiful?

And is there anyone in your life who is, in turn, inspired to love more fully by your example?

Why not contact them today, and so encourage one another?

 

Third Sunday before Advent 2021

 

Lectionary readings: Jonah 3:1-5, 10 and Hebrews 9:24-28 and Mark 1:14-20

Our Gospel reading today is the summary statement of Jesus’ ministry, and the mission he calls his followers into. Jesus proclaims, the time is fulfilled. You will recall from the account of the wedding at Cana, the first of the great signs recorded in John’s Gospel, that when Jesus’ mother asks him to intervene, he says, my time has not yet come. Why not? Because it is still John the forerunner’s time. But now his cousin John has been handed over, and Jesus’ moment, Jesus’ opportunity birthed of this crisis, has come.

The time has come, the opportunity is here: the sovereignty of God has drawn near. John’s arrest is not evidence that the world is going to hell in a handcart; not only is God still on the throne of heaven, but God is here, now: you are ushered into God’s presence. Therefore, repent, and believe the good news.

Repent means to change one’s mind, and because of changing one’s mind, to act in a different way. We see this in the Old Testament reading for today, from the story of Jonah. God sends Jonah to proclaim to the citizens of Nineveh that they have been judged and found wanting, and in forty days from Jonah’s proclamation, Nineveh would be destroyed. When they hear this, the king of Nineveh leads his people in repentance: they express that, outwardly, according to the customs of the time, in putting on sackcloth and ashes, and fasting. And in response to their repentance, God also repents: God changes his mind about his decision to act in judgement, and changes his intended actions, so that the city is spared. Mercy triumphs over the consequences of judgement. This dynamic is intended to mark our relationship with God, repentance, a changing of mind, on both sides, for that is how genuine relationship and meaningful partnership is possible at all.

Repent, and believe in the good news. To believe means, have confidence in. And when Jesus says, have confidence in the good news, he means—as we see straight away in his calling Simon and Andrew and James and John to follow him and fish for people—he means, change your mind, and have confidence in proclaiming the good news.

And that is the very heart of what we need to hear today. Have confidence in proclaiming the good news. Why? Because in Jesus, the opportunity is here, and the sovereign God draws near, to the men and women and children we meet day to day.

Therefore, repent, change your mind. Why? Because we have lost confidence in the goodness of the good news, have lost confidence that anyone is interested. We have told ourselves that there is no point in proclaiming the good news, because people aren’t interested in hearing it today.

We have told ourselves that faith is a personal and private matter, and that it is not my place to impose my faith on anyone else. And yes, there is a kernel of truth in that: we are not called to impose anything upon anybody. But if we claim that Jesus is Lord and Saviour, the one in whom we are reconciled to God, then we are called to proclaim the good news that is embodied in him.

Or we tell ourselves that we aren’t qualified to tell others, that doing so is the vicar’s job. Indeed, we experience, in our churches, a profound crisis of confidence, which is a crisis of belief, not out there in the world but here, in our hearts and minds. And yet, while it is true that more and more people are outside of the church, it is nonetheless also true that many people are coming of returning to faith, are changing their minds about God and life and what truly matters, are gaining or regaining confidence in God’s faithfulness towards them. And as the Bishop of Durham never tires of saying, do not despise the day of small beginnings.

It may transpire that the moment of crisis is the only kind of moment which is opportune. In the wake of John’s arrest, Jesus calls some seemingly unqualified followers to an enigmatic task, and over the following years they grow in confidence until they are proclaiming the good news boldly before all who will listen.

Perhaps it is not so much about learning a formula, far less imposing a one-size-fits-all claim, as taking the opportunity to introduce people to Jesus.

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe the good news.