Evensong, First Sunday after Trinity 2022

 

Lectionary: Genesis 24:1-27 and Mark 5:21-43

First person, Rebekah.

Mine is a story of human migration, of family connection across vast distances. You might say I am a vulnerable young woman, taken from my father’s house by a stranger, bought with trinkets. I say to you that I possess a genuine agency of my own—and initiative—not only to shape my future and move my story on, but also to help other people move our story forward together. In truth, the big story of God’s covenant with Abraham had stalled: stalled but had not been derailed. As every migrant and every diaspora community knows, God’s steadfast love is proved afresh when we embody continuity with the past, married to a radically new, uncertain, future. Heritage is the union of history and hope, of the known and unknown. This is our faith, our story. Our society can charter as many convoys as it likes, but for the people of God, championing forced transportation is self-hatred as much as hatred of the Other.

Second person, Jesus.

With several other young men, you have crossed a dangerous body of water in a small boat. (A second crossing, despite almost capsizing and drowning the first time. Who profits from this reckless action?) The public face of our national religion believes that you bring with you a fuller manifestation of the kingdom of heaven, here on earth: something true and good that was hitherto lacking; that, he claims, we were unable to do for ourselves. He claims you are a gift to be received, and not a threat. But you should know, this public face does not speak for public opinion: you, and those other men with you, have made a wasted journey and should be turned back. It is beneath dignity even to entertain you. Go on your way, elsewhere.

Third person, the unnamed woman whose story threatens to derail the story of Jairus’ family.

For twelve years, her life had been lived behind closed doors. At first, the door was on a respectable street, but over time the money ran dry, until the door opened onto a smaller room further away from the heart of the town. The psychological room she took up shrank, too, withdrawing into herself, receding from her neighbours’ minds, though some, of course, would still bring food to her door. Every so often, her plight resurfaced, a character in someone else’s story—the claim (always later disproved) of some doctor to have found a cure; the crazy old woman no one ever saw, conjured up to scare children into obeying their mother. There, but for the grace of God, etc. Until, one day, she heard a whisper on the wind that had carried a man called Jesus to the shore and carried on inland, through the streets, the windows. She’d heard his name carried on the wind before, tales of people healed—actual, lasting wholeness restored. And that is when she made up her mind, wrapped herself in a cloak by which she hoped to pass through the streets unnoticed. If she could only touch the hem of his robe, surely that would be enough? Surely then she would be healed. And that is what she did.

He felt the power go out from him straight away. ‘Who touched me?’ he asked, turning round, scanning the crowd pressing around him. ‘What do you mean?’ his friends asked. ‘Can’t you see the crowd for the people? Any one of them might have pushed you, shoved you.’ ‘No,’ he replied, ‘Someone touched me. That is, I was touched by their plight. Without knowing one another, we were brought together, and in that meeting both of us were changed.’ Summoning up all her courage, hardly daring to believe it possible, the woman stood up, taller than she’d done in years; was seen, was heard. The crowd were shocked, drew breath to shout her down. But this man, Jesus, stood with her, affirmed her, reintroduced her to the community. And in that moment a community that had been drained of compassion for years, until it was barren, discovered a healing of its own. Or, at least, the possibility, for those who were prepared to stop, when touched by the plight of another, and not move on until they knew that God was with us in this moment, and what that meant.

 

Trinity 2022

 

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

Wisdom is the overflow of God’s nature. Of that overflow, all creation springs into being, and is empowered to exist in harmony, without God’s nature being in any way diminished. And this giving-away, and its fruit, delights God. For humans to seek wisdom is not to gather and possess abstract knowledge, but to be known and to know, to respond to delight with joy, to join in rejoicing in God’s inhabited world—inhabited by every living creature—and to delight in the human race. Any learning that causes us to look down on others, or envy others, is not wisdom but to be schooled by folly.

Today, as every day, is an invitation to enter more fully into a relationship with God, our neighbour, and indeed our self-understanding, that is defined by rejoicing and delighting. By breath-taking joy, found as we look in the face of the other. This is not to deny the sorrows of life, or the wounds inflicted by folly, but to triumph over despair. To tread lightly, and in awe and wonder.

People are amazing, and what they are doing all around us today makes this world liveable, as God intended. And if you are not sure that you are amazing, all that you need to (be) know(n) is available to you, a gift given to you by God, along with the Holy Spirit. So, what aspects of human nature or endeavour are giving you joy and delight today?

For me, and my family, Jo and I have been working in our garden, trying to bring order and beauty to something that has been neglected for some time. We are no experts, but we’re learning. With our son, our last remaining child living at home fulltime, we’ve been enjoying some great tv series, displaying a vast array of skills, enormous crews of people working together to tell a story to the best of their ability. Last weekend, we joined with many others in enjoying the concert for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, everyone invited to a party, to lift our spirits.

Think of that song that never fails to put a smile on your face when it comes on the radio. Or that feat of incredible engineering, or stunning architecture, that you find yourself compelled to stop and admire, and enjoy. To delight in.

Yesterday, I was at Sunderland Pride. There was a real festival atmosphere down at Sunniside, full of joy and delight, in being human in humanity’s diversity. The Minster had a stall, giving away button badges and key rings and lollipops, reminding people that God loves them, hearing their stories, receiving their hopes and their anxieties and promising to hold them before God in prayer. Most of the people I spoke with were my children’s generation. Some from homes that had made them feel judged and rejected; some there with parents who made them feel loved. And over all the vulnerable emerging works of creation—human beings made in the image of God; and works in progress—the Spirit of God was hovering, watching, delighting, desiring to lead them into all wisdom, to know themselves and to know the God who is fully revealed in Jesus, in whom heaven and earth dwell together in harmony. What might these young people do, as they offer their lives to the world?

Perhaps the greatest folly of the past three hundred years has been the false dichotomy of the sacred and the secular. Secular refers to any human activity, however mundane, occurring within time and space. Sacred refers to the claim that God is connected to, and takes interest in, anything, everything. We’ve swallowed the lie that God is only interested in our turning up to church on a Sunday morning; or that what matters is the life beyond this one. The revelation of Wisdom held out to us in Proverbs is that every secular activity is a sacred activity. That every human activity in this world is meant to be a joyful partnership with the God who is fully revealed in the joiner—the master housebuilder—of Nazareth.

What will Jesus and you delight in together today?

 

Pentecost 2022

 

Lectionary readings: Acts 2:1-21 and John 14:8-17, 25-27

Once [according to the historian Josephus] there were two brothers, named Anilai and Asinai, part of the Jewish diaspora living within the Parthian empire. They were poor, fatherless boys, and their widowed mother found them apprenticeship to a weaver. Whether they were indolent, or their master unjust, who can now say; but when he punished them for laziness, they ran away to become outlaws, hiding out in the marshlands of the great Euphrates River. Other discontented Jewish boys flocked to them, and they organised themselves to extort protection money from the semi-nomadic shepherds of that region, in time establishing a small bandit state.

This displeased the Parthian governor of Babylonia, who determined to defeat them by means of a surprise attack on the Sabbath. It may be clear by now that these were not the most devout of Jews, and they fought back regardless, humiliating their attacker. Impressed, the Parthian king Artabanus III, having had enough of putting down rebellions among his own satraps, made a treaty with the brothers, recognising their control over the territory they anyway occupied.

And so, it might well have continued, had Anilai not married the gentile widow of a Parthian general he had killed in battle. This divided his camp, even coming between the brothers themselves. For Asinai was vocal in condemning his brother’s actions; so much so that the general’s widow murdered her bandit brother-in-law by poisoning him. Anilai limped on, alone, until his resources ran out. Around 33AD—as, in far-off Jerusalem Peter was addressing a crowd of gathered diaspora pilgrims—the bandit state came to an end. Of course, that state did not represent most of the Parthian Jews, but nonetheless its presence had kept them safe, after a fashion. With its demise, Babylonian discontent with their Jewish neighbours rose-up with renewed vigour, the diaspora community fleeing, yet again, in search of peace.

Some of those Parthian Jews were there on the day of Pentecost.

In truth, similar stories and more could be said of all the territories and diaspora peoples listed that day: the Parthians, Medes, and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene; visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes; Cretans and Arabs. In every direction around Jerusalem, contested lands, contested identities. Surrounding nations who had enslaved the Jewish people: the exodus from Egypt, the Babylonian exile. Tribes of distant relatives we don’t speak about in polite company. Nations, such as Rome, who had invaded and occupied the long-promised land. This is not so much a list of tricky place names or exotic holiday destinations as a summary of every ebb and flow of the story of God’s people, and every high tide mark they had washed up on.

Messy stories of human lives, both personal and collective. People doing whatever it takes to get by. And of God, who is not impressed by our heroic adventures, nor it transpires repulsed by our shabbiest dealings, but who sees us and who wants to be with us, wherever we find ourselves. Who, by God’s very nature, comes as Jesus to save us, to restore us, to bless us, by God’s own transformative presence, being with us—and to send us out to be a blessing, God’s own transformative presence in every place, however broken and full of ghosts it may be.

You must go looking for the stories, or else stumble across them by chance, of lives transformed by the Holy Spirit poured out on all flesh, such that the elderly sowed dreams of a future worth hoping for, and the young generation spoke truth to power in the face of whatever stood opposed to that dream. Though most of the stories are lost to time, held only now by God. But the Spirit has been poured out continuously since that day, giving rise to dreams that birth visions that mature into dreams that birth vision anew, in unbroken succession down to our own day, and far beyond.

Every Spirit-empowered, Spirit-encouraged, dream-vision-movement-reality that has changed the face of the world by drawing those on the margins, the oppressed and left-behind, to be enfolded and honoured; these are the works of Jesus, done through his sisters and brothers, of which he said, ‘these works are greater than the ones I began with.’ No longer confined to one forgotten corner of a now long-dead empire: freedom for slaves, civil rights recognised, equality for women, inclusion for those with disabilities, healing for the sick, a welcome home for the refugee. Precious things that cannot be taken for granted, and work yet still to do—new visions and dreams rising in every generation; new crises of judgement to be faced, by which all that opposes the love of God in Christ Jesus is humbled and all that shares in his glory is honoured. And all with the purpose that as Jesus is with the Father, so, by the Spirit, the Father and the Son are with us. God with us. What a time to be alive. Come, Holy Spirit.

 

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?

 

Second Sunday of Easter 2022

 

Second Sunday of Easter 2022

John 20:19-31

[1] Twice in this passage we are told that the doors were shut closed. The word door is not only a literal description but was also used as a metaphor for an opportunity. The disciples have missed the opportunity to encounter the risen Jesus. Mary Magdalene alone has seen the Lord. Simon Peter and the other disciple who ran with him to the empty tomb missed it because they went home. The other disciples didn’t even go. And now Thomas has missed the opportunity yet again. He has really blown it.

[2] We are told that the doors were locked because of fear. These Galileans were afraid of the Judeans who had handed Jesus over to the Romans. The Judeans had done so out of fear of the Galileans. Not long before, some ill-prepared Galileans had revolted against Rome, and the Romans had crucified thousands all along the road to Jerusalem. Not just the rebels themselves, but innocent civilians, a show of military might. And now, again, Galileans were stirring, filling Jerusalem with dangerous talk. Better that one man die and the people be spared. But what can break this crushing cycle?

[3] Jesus stands among them and gives them the key that unlocks fear. That key is forgiveness: If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained. The word translated sins is that term from archery of missing the mark, a metaphor for failings. The contrasting words to forgive and to retain are taken from the ownership of slaves: to release a slave and send them away free, or to hold on to control over their lives. How often do we seek to control the lives of others out of fear that they might let us down?

[4] Thomas has missed the opportunity, again. And he insists that he will not believe unless he is able to send out his arm, his hand, his outstretched finger, and find the mark made by the nails, the mark made by the spear. Unless he literally find the mark. Thomas is not prepared to believe unless he can do so perfectly, without failure. Note that Jesus does not tell him that this is unnecessary, indeed impossible. Jesus meets Thomas where Thomas is, gives him the opportunity—that he thought he had missed—to hit the mark; and it is in this grace-filled moment that Thomas realizes that he does not need to perform, to achieve. All he needs is Jesus.

[5] The person or persons writing it down add this: it is not possible to record everything that Jesus did. It is not possible to hit the mark every time. We had to accept that a lot fell short. But our hope is that what we did manage to write down might serve this purpose: that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Son whom the Father sent into the world, and that as you believe you may know life in all its fullness, in him.

Are you living with regret, believing that you have missed your opportunity?

What fears constrain your life? Whom, or what circumstances, do you need to exercise control over? Whom, or what circumstances, do you find hard to let go of?

Do you, like Thomas, need to be beyond reproach, putting on a perfect mask in front of others, overcompensating for failures in the past?

Jesus comes and stands in our midst, here, in this room, and says, Peace be with you. Peace be with you. Receive the Holy Spirit. Peace be with you.