Second Sunday of Easter 2017

Acts 2:14a, 22-32 and 1 Peter 1:3-9 and John 20:19-31

This sermon was given as visiting preacher at St Nicholas’ Church, Hedworth.

I wonder whether you have ever felt that you have been misrepresented? And if so, I wonder how that felt? I would suggest that many of the characters we meet in the Gospels have been misrepresented by assumptions made about them down the centuries, and this is certainly true of Thomas. Thomas has been saddled with the title, Doubting Thomas. In fact, the Gospels tell us that all of the disciples doubted: that they doubted the testimony of the women; that they doubted the reliability of their own eyes when presented with the risen Jesus; that their joy was mixed with understandable disbelief at the too-good-to-be-true; that their tentative steps towards worshipping Jesus had to negotiate their doubt that this is what God would want of monotheists. But nowhere do the Gospels single Thomas out as capital-letter-D Doubting.

Instead, the gospel names him Thomas, the Hebrew for ‘Twin’ – and translates the name into Greek – Didymus – for the benefit of Gentile hearers. What is unclear is whether Thomas is his name, or, like the Peter of Simon Peter, a nickname. After all, why would the parents of twins name one of them, Twin? There is a school of thought that claims he was called the Twin because he so closely reflected the person and actions of Jesus. You may remember the moment when Jesus decides to go to Lazarus, and his disciples question his sanity: we came away from there because the religious leaders were trying to stone you; and you’re going back? But Thomas declares, Let us go with him, that we may die too. Or, I’d rather be dead with Jesus than alive without him. Thomas is loyal, and brave.

When Jesus first appears to his disciples, Thomas is not present. And he is not prepared to settle for a second-hand account, to be around on the grounds of other people’s faith. He needs to know that Jesus is risen for himself. A week later, Jesus answers his prayer. And Jesus invites Thomas to move from a place of doubting to a place of believing something new. I don’t think Jesus has a one-time step in mind: rather, I think that Jesus is showing us the process we are being invited into. Doubt is the necessary starting-point in order to believe something new. Unless we have doubts about where we are, we will never go anywhere; unless we doubt our perspective, we’ll never see the world from a different point-of-view.

In fact, this process has already been demonstrated by Thomas, so we might say that – far from chastising him – Jesus is affirming him. Of all the disciples hiding behind a locked door, Thomas was not there. Thomas doubted that they would get very far unless someone was prepared to go out, to contact friends, to return with bread, and wine. Perhaps he doubted that any of the others would be the one to go: after all, it will involve genuine risk, and Thomas has shown that he is not afraid to die. At some point, his doubts are enough to move him beyond the door.

It is doubt that opens us up to move beyond the known, and belief that opens up a whole new territory to us. When he puts his hand in Jesus’ spear-torn side, Thomas steps into a newly-opened space, understanding for the first time that Jesus is his Lord and his God. This same process will carry him beyond the familiar, all the way to the south of India, taking the good news of Jesus Christ to the very end of the world.

And these things are written in order that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

In order that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah – the one sent by God to save us – and the Son of God – and therefore our Lord. That you may believe that Jesus is your Saviour and your Lord: the one who has set you free, and the one whom you have been set free to live for. Because it is in knowing that Jesus is both our Saviour and our Lord that we enter-into, and continue to move further and further into, the fullness of life God hopes for you to know.

The starting place is doubt: is coming to doubt the story of your self-sufficiency, the story in which you are the heroic centre-of-the-universe, the story in which you are the Author of your own Destiny. Such doubt is not the same thing as believing that you, beloved child of God, are worthless: Jesus embraced and defeated death because of your infinite worth in God’s eyes. But it is doubt that moves us to long to see Jesus, if not bodily, in Scripture and prayer, in the bread and the wine; to know him more fully than we have known him before. Doubt, opening into belief; and doubt, opening into belief; and doubt, opening into belief; until the day when, with Thomas, we do see Jesus face-to-face. Indeed, it is this faith-full doubting that you have exercised and continue to exercise in seeing what might come of Messy Church and Café Church. So come: don’t let your doubts hold you back; but, instead, let them take you on an adventure with Jesus. Who knows where you might go together?

Fifth Sunday of Lent 2017

(Ezekiel 37:1-14 and Romans 8:6-11 and) John 11:1-45

Today is the start of Passiontide. It marks a turning-point in the Season of Lent, from following Jesus into the wilderness to walking in his footsteps towards Jerusalem. From here we will journey to Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and, at last, Easter Day: triumphal entry, last supper, trials and crucifixion, burial, rest, and resurrection. Today is the turning-point.

We’ve been asking ourselves, through Lent, who is Jesus to me? And today, I want to ask again, who is this Jesus? Who was he to those who first met him?

Today, the Gospel – or, good news – begins with a family, a brother and two sisters, Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. I love the way in which they are introduced into the story, because it is clear that this family is well-known to, and well-loved by, the community John is writing for. You know Mary, he writes; the one who anointed Jesus feet with perfume. That hasn’t happened yet, in the story. John doesn’t recount that event until the next chapter. But the people he wrote for, the first hearers of his telling of the good news, know exactly who he is speaking of. Why? Because this family are so close to Jesus, so loved by him. This family who had opened their home to Jesus when he passed through Bethany, when he visited neighbouring Jerusalem. A love for one another so deep that the sisters do not even need to name Lazarus: he, and they, are known by their identity as those whom Jesus loved. And in their hour of need, they send to Jesus.

We find Jesus himself in a very low place – geographically and emotionally. He has gone from Jerusalem, up in the hills, down to River Jordan near where it empties into the Dead Sea, the lowest place on the surface of the Earth. He has gone to the region where David hid, centuries earlier, when King Saul was searching for him to kill him; and he has gone for the same reason. In Jerusalem, very recently, an influential lobby had feared him so much that they had been willing to risk the wrath of Rome by carrying out the death penalty, stoning Jesus to death. He has made a strategic retreat. Almost certainly the Psalms of David penned in similar circumstances will be on his lips. And in this place of grief, he hears news that a dear, an oh-so-loved, friend is seriously ill.

I wonder how he felt. I wonder whether you can relate: that sense of kicking-a-man-when-he-is-down; that sense of it-never-rains-but-it-pours; that sense of is-there-really-any-need-for-so-much-sorrow-at-once? Through the storm, he hears the still, small voice: wait, rest in me.

He waits. He rests. And then he turns his face towards Jerusalem. And the disciples ask, Are you out of your mind? Don’t you remember why we left there? If you go back, they will kill you. But Jesus is going back, is going to be with his grieving friends. And Thomas makes a decision: Let us also go, that we may die with him. I’d rather be dead with Jesus than alive without him. Come what may, being where he is, is where I need to be. (That, by the way, is why Thomas struggles so much when he alone of the disciples, brave enough to go out in search of supplies when they are hiding behind a locked door in fear for their lives, misses being there when Jesus, risen from the dead, stands in their midst.) In this place, where the world as we have known it has already come to an end, what we need is Jesus.

When Martha hears that Jesus is on his way, she goes out to meet him. He is the hope that she is holding on to: had he been present, Lazarus would not have died; and now that he is present, even now God will give him whatever he asks. Yes, she knows that there will be a Day when God makes all things right; but Jesus makes all the difference in the here-and-now, whatever comes, because he is God come to be with us, come to lead us into tomorrow.

Jesus wants to see Mary, also; here, privately, away from the crowds. She comes to him; but others follow. Mary comes to Jesus, kneels in front of him, and washes his feet with her tears. She’ll do the same again, at a later time, a dinner given in their home in his honour. Undone by emotion: grief now; thankfulness mingled with fearful anticipation then. She does not hold back in his presence, and he can take it. He is not embarrassed; does not feel awkward; will accept no apology from her, as those who weep often feel pressure to offer. Jesus is deeply moved. And so are those who look on. And this is messy: for John tells us that those who came to comfort Mary ad Martha were ‘the Jews’ which is his shorthand for the influential group centred on the life of the temple, many of whom wanted Jesus dead. In other words, his friends’ friends were his enemies. How does that feel?

Jesus asks to be taken to his friend’s tomb, and as they tell him, ‘Come and see’ – echoing the words with which he invited two of John the Baptist’s disciples to follow him right back at the beginning of the Gospel – something inside him breaks. Jesus began to weep. To weep for his loss. To weep for his friends’ loss. To weep because of the complexity of a world in which among those good enough to care for Mary and Martha were those evil enough to want him dead – some of whom will be transformed from enemies to friends in what will unfold; others of whom will double their enmity, seeking not only to kill Jesus but to kill Lazarus, to put his sisters through pain-upon-pain. Jesus began to weep, with those who weep and those who were angry or cynical or perplexed. Jesus was greatly disturbed and deeply moved, in solidarity with us all.

A tomb – a cave, with a stone covering the entrance. Take away the stone. God’s glory is not seen in keeping death behind a closed door, in Moving On or Getting Over It. Jesus calls Lazarus out, gives instruction for him to be unbound. And I believe. I believe that this took place, that Jesus raised Lazarus from the grave; that this was a miracle that helped prepare us for his own death and burial and resurrection. But I also know that this is the exception, not the rule. That in time Lazarus did die again. That everyone we love must die. That grief is common to all humanity. That this is the context in which we listen to this good news.

When we find ourselves where Mary, Martha, Jesus, Thomas found themselves, the good news we need is Jesus coming to us: Jesus, who brings God’s glory to the most unpromising of circumstances; Jesus bringing something of the future into the present; Jesus, who rescues us; Jesus unashamedly letting us wash his feet with our tears; Jesus weeping with us; Jesus unafraid to have us take out our loved one – even if we are afraid of what we might find – and unwrap their memory, and set them free, over and over again. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

Some of us know this; and some of us are yet to know it; and some of us need to know it today. That is why we return here, together, year on year. That is why we wait, and weep, and help one another to believe, and step into the light, and bind up broken hearts and unbind the constriction of unhelpful expectations, in the precious name of our Saviour, Jesus, and to the glory of God. Amen.

Second Sunday of Lent 2017

Genesis 12:1-4 and Romans 4:1-5, 13-17 and John 3:1-17

Last week, Stuart posed us the question, ‘Who is Jesus to me?’ My answer is this: Jesus is the Lord of my life. He is the call of God on my life. He speaks, and I listen. He leads, and I must follow.

This morning I’d like to do three things. First, I want to offer meaning for several key words in the short reading we have heard from Genesis, concerning what the Lord is going to make of Abram. Then, I want to tell something of my own story. And after that, I want to leave you with some questions to reflect on this week.

The first word I want to note is ‘great.’ The Lord will make of Abram a great nation, which is to say that God has a bigger vision than family ties. And the Lord will make Abram’s name – his identity – great. In fact, the name Abram already means ‘Great Father’ or ‘Exalted Ancestor’ – and he was childless. In his old-age, there remains an unfulfilled call on his life that God wants to address.

The second word is ‘bless’ or ‘blessing’ or ‘blessed.’ This word describes being released into fullness of life, like we first see in Genesis chapter 1. It is an expansive thing. Paul sees it as giving life to the dead and calling into existence the things that do not exist. Jesus calls the dynamics of receiving and extending blessing ‘seeing the kingdom of God,’ and compares the release of blessing to giving birth to a new life, with all its possibilities.

The third word is ‘curse’ or ‘curses.’ This word describes freedom being constrained, but constrained for a specific purpose. Long or short, God’s curses or punishment or penalty are for a limited period (poetically described as to three or four generations) and in order that together we might come into fuller blessing (The Lord’s steadfast love is poetically described as extending to a thousand generations, or being beyond measure). Curses can be God’s ‘Not yet’ or ‘Someone else ahead of you’ answers to our prayers. Sometimes they are the consequences of our actions, or the actions of others. They are real, but they are not intended to define us for ever.

The fourth word I want to note is ‘Haran.’ Haran is a place. Abram had set out with his father Terah from Ur heading for Canaan; but when they reached Haran, about half-way-there, they stopped. Back in Ur, Terah had lost a son, and Abram a brother, called Haran. As it happens, the roots of the two names are unconnected; but the similarity in sound was enough. Grief can be like that. It can hit us at unexpected times and in unexpected places. Reminded of his greatest loss or disappointment, Terah is unable to move on, unable to fulfil his dream. But after Terah dies, God will not allow Abram to be defined by half-measures or second-bests or lengthy detours or the pain of past losses. The Lord calls him to leave what has been and step into what will be. And he will use blessing, and curses, and even ‘Haran’ to make something great.

With these words in mind, let me tell you part of my story.

To set the scene. Jo and I met at university in Sheffield, where we both took Biblical Studies. At the start of our third year, we got together; and as we approached the end of our degrees we knew that we wanted to be together, and thought that we would like to stay in Sheffield, but didn’t know what we would do. One day as I was walking along the street, the voice in my head that I had come to recognise as belonging to Jesus said, ‘I want you to get ordained; but not yet.’ So I shared that with Jo and with our vicar; and stayed on in the department to write a PhD, while Jo joined the staff team at church as an administrator; and we got married. After I graduated, we tried to leave Sheffield but it didn’t work, and I also joined the church staff, initially part-time working with international students, and eventually full-time in various roles. Some years later, there were changes in the team; but we felt that we were part of the continuity, rooted there, long-term. Then one day, again as I was walking along the road, Jesus said, ‘I want you to leave this place and go to the place I will show you.’ Just like Abram.

We shared that with the team, and while they didn’t want us to go, they felt that it was what God was saying. Someone on the staff knew a vicar in Australia who we might talk to, and so we did, and he invited us to go out to Perth and see what might happen, with absolutely no guarantee of anything at all.

We sold our house in two weeks, without an estate agent, through word-of-mouth. The mother of the boyfriend of the daughter of a friend had got divorced, and needed somewhere to live. Our house was perfect. The only thing she wasn’t happy about was the price. She felt we weren’t asking enough, as we’d get more on the open market, and she would be making us homeless. We explained that we were making ourselves homeless and that if she wanted to spend more, she’d have to buy from someone else, as we were asking what we were asking. And in the end she relented. So we were blessed by a buyer, and our buyer was blessed through us.

We packed our lives into shipping containers and, with two small children in tow, flew to the other side of the world on a year-long visa, excited to discover what God had in store for us. And when we got there, God went silent. (Or almost silent. The one thing I heard Jesus say was ‘This is not the thing I have for you’ in relation to an invitation to explore a possibility.) We could only stay for 90 days at a time and had gone out, initially, until Christmas. Had we known that we would only be there for three months, we would have had a great holiday, a sabbatical to recharge. But we didn’t know that. Everyone we met, we were asking, ‘Is this why we are here, Lord? Is this the door you are opening?’ Had we heard Jesus rightly? Had we sold our house for nothing? It was emotionally draining. Unseasonably, it rained the whole time. We could only hang on in trust. And cry, a lot. But as the time came to leave, with nothing to come back for, we decided to return to Sheffield and push the door to ordination.

We returned to Sheffield with no house, no work, and no school place for Susannah, right up against her starting date. Quite miraculously, the door opened for her to start at the always-oversubscribed school several friends were starting at, just one day behind them. Just as miraculously, the church pre-school, undersubscribed for the first time in years, had a place for Noah: they were an answer to our prayer, and we were an answer to theirs. And we found a house newly offered to rent, just a few doors away from some good friends. The owner wanted to try out apartment-living instead, while keeping a fall-back: again, the Lord blessed us through someone to whom we were in turn a means of blessing.

God did something in us out in Australia. To this day, I can’t name it; but I’m sure it would not have been enough to have had a nice holiday. And in our coming home, the Lord revealed his glory through his steadfast love and great faithfulness.

There is far more I could say. Abram is the father of all those who live by faith, and I could tell you stories of recurring patterns of God making something of our lives through the same processes by which he shaped Abram. I could tell of the curse of not finding a place to go to beyond curacy, and how a door opened-up to come here. And while there would be overlap, in telling her story, Jo would tell you our story from a different perspective. In fact, she tells it better, so you should ask her to do so.

You’ve heard my story, or at least a small part of it. What about yours? Here are some questions to think about and to talk about with at least one other person this week:

Where have you known blessing, from the Lord and through others?

Can you tell of ways the Lord has been able to bless someone through you?

In what ways have you experienced curse? Can you think of examples where this has in time opened into greater blessing? Is there something in your life right now where you are asking, ‘How long, O Lord?’

What is Jesus calling you to? Is there a past disappointment holding you back? Will you set out anyway?

Ash Wednesday 2017

John 7:53-8:11

‘Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.’ These are the words that accompany the Imposition of Ashes. They are beautiful words, full of grace and truth.

‘Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’ Words that remind us of our frailty, and of our deep connection with all creation; words that point to a day when all broken and divided things will be reconciled within the love of God that is revealed in Jesus.

‘Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.’ Words that remind us that even though we wander far from God, far from our neighbour, even try to turn our back and walk away from ourselves, that the bridge between us does not get burned; that we might yet turn and find ourselves brought to life once more by the presence of God-with-us.

In our reading from the Gospel of John, we see an example of what this looks like.

First, let us consider the backdrop to our Gospel passage. Jesus has been in Jerusalem attending the Festival of Booths. This was the third of the three annual pilgrimages, and it had a dual-focus. It was a harvest festival, reminding the people of their connection to the land. And it was also a time to remember the time when the Israelites wandered in the wilderness, when they had no land to farm, when they were totally dependent on God. The backdrop to our Gospel reading is a week-long reminder that we are intimately connected to the earth, and dependent on God for our very life. In the words of our funeral services, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust: in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ…

During the Festival of Booths, everyone slept in temporary shelters, recalling both the shelters used at harvest-time, and the tents the Israelites lived in, in the wilderness. Along with other pilgrims, Jesus has been camping in a makeshift shelter on the Mount of Olives, across the valley from the temple. But the festival had come to its end. Early the next morning, the pilgrims get up and set off for home. But Jesus does not go home. Jesus returns to the temple. There, he sits down to teach, and those who also found themselves in the temple on that early morning gather to hear him. This is not a great crowd of pilgrims; they have gone home. This is something smaller, more intimate.

Now, the form of teaching Jesus and his listeners were familiar with was much more interactive than our sermons. People would ask questions, and the teacher would respond. Interruptions weren’t seen as rude, but as part of the learning process. Even respectful debate could get quite heated. Into this moment step a group of scribes and Pharisees; and we need to understand who they are. The Pharisees were a group within the Jewish faith of the time who held to interpreting the Written law of Moses through the on-going tradition of the Oral law. In contrast, another group, the Sadduccess, who controlled the temple community, recognised only the Written law. This difference of approach meant that in many respects the Pharisees were more liberal – or, lateral – in their interpretation of the law, while the Sadducees were more literal. Moreover, the two sects did not get on, despite needing to co-exist.

With some of their number (voiced by Nicodemus in the preceding passage) seeking to discover truth, but the majority seeking to uncover an offence – to expose Jesus – the Pharisees bring before him a woman who had been caught in adultery.

Here I must make a confession: I have always assumed that this woman had been entrapped, that she had been dragged from bed and hauled in front of Jesus, trying to cover her nakedness with the bedsheet, frightened for her very life. But the text doesn’t say that. We are told that she had been caught in the very act of adultery, but we aren’t told when. We assume that it has only just happened, because we assume that those who were so caught were put to death in punishment, as the law of Moses commanded. (Note that the Written law does not specify stoning as the means, but does specify that the man and the woman both be killed, Leviticus 20:10.) But this law was not applied literally in Jesus’ day, and certainly the Pharisees did not call for it to be so taken. Rare anyway, it had become impossible under Roman rule. They have no intention of stoning this woman, but of finding grounds on which to discredit Jesus, and perhaps even have him arrested for inciting a riot.

Therefore, it is not only possible but indeed more likely that this is a woman who has been judged and mistrusted and shunned by her neighbours for some considerable time, who has lived a living death, cut off from full participation within the community. The woman means no more to the Pharisees than the occasion for a hypothetical debate; whereas for her, life is attenuated. If she had attended the Festival at all, it would have been in secret (as, indeed, Jesus initially attended it in secret).

If Jesus condemns the woman, he defies the Roman governor. If he acquits the woman, he insults the temple authorities. Pressed to pass judgement, Jesus begins to stir the dust with his finger. Unlike stone, dust is malleable; and Jesus is writing it a new script. ‘Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.’

Eventually, Jesus reads out his decision - “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” – before returning to his writing.

Remember. Return. Turn away. Be faithful.

Remember, scribes and Pharisees, that you are one with this woman; that in condemning her, you condemn yourselves. Return, for this is a moment for neither condemnation nor self-condemnation, but a moment in which reconciliation might be possible – or, at least, begun. Turn away, for before we can step towards the other in love, we must first step back from hatred. Be faithful, living out the law that supports and enables life to flourish, (particular, actual) lives to flourish.

Remember, O woman caught in adultery, that this dry dust can be brought to life. Return, take your place in community once more, for this is as true of corporate dust as it is of personal dust. Turn away, from all that separates, because in the grace of God you can. Be faithful, because God has kept faith with you.

And what of you? What of me? Come, Pharisee; come, adulteress. Come, in our compromised and divided state, in hope of healing. Come and receive the mercy and grace of God.

Presentation of Christ in the Temple, 2017

Luke 2:22-40

Last Sunday we reflected on the frequent experience of being overwhelmed. Today, I want us to focus on the Holy Spirit. Before we look to our Gospel reading, I want us to circle around it with reference to two other stories from the Bible.

The first is far older, from the early chapters of Genesis, and the account of the flood. The cradle of civilisation has been overwhelmed by floodwaters from horizon to horizon. Noah and his wife and their sons and daughters-in-law have been cooped-up in the ark for forty days of rain falling, and a further one hundred and fifty days of flood, and forty more days of floodwater receding. Noah sends out a raven, that flies to and fro, and a dove. The dove finds nowhere to land, and so returns to Noah, who waits another seven days and sends the dove out again. This time, the dove returns with an olive leaf in its beak. Noah waits yet another seven days and sends the dove out again. This time the dove does not return, and Noah understood that it was at last time to go out from the ark and for life to begin again.

The second story is set some thirty years after our Gospel reading. Jesus is now an adult, and comes to the Jordan to be baptised by his relative, John. As Jesus comes up out of the waters that have overwhelmed him, the heaven opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” The Spirit then led Jesus in the wilderness, and then through Galilee.

So now let us turn to our Gospel lesson, the account of Jesus’ parents bringing their recently-born son to the temple for the first time, in order to fulfil the requirements of the law. And here we are introduced first to Simeon, and then to Anna.

We are told that the Holy Spirit rested on Simeon, that the Holy Spirit revealed something to Simeon, and that the Holy Spirit guided Simeon. We are not explicitly told the same thing in the same words about Anna, and yet all of these acts of the Holy Spirit are implied in her story too.

Here is an old man who has lived through overwhelming, devastating events in the life of the people of Jerusalem; and an old woman who has experienced such things at a very personal level. They have both gone through the flood, as it were. And as the floodwaters begin to recede, God’s Holy Spirit searches for somewhere to land, somewhere to rest on the face of the earth – a resting-place – and finds Simeon, finds Anna. And the Holy Spirit rested on them, as on an olive branch, as – later – on Jesus. And the Holy Spirit reveals to them a word that speaks of Jesus, a word that brings forth peace within them, peace whatever happens, because God’s salvation has come. Come what may. And the Holy Spirit guides them to see that salvation for themselves, to experience it first-hand, and so to proclaim it to others.

Simeon and Anna. And elderly man, and an elderly woman. We have one or two of those in our midst. And you, like them, were created to be a resting-place for God’s Holy Spirit on the face of the earth. As it is, you are made from the dust of the earth and animated by the breath of the Spirit; you are sustained by the Spirit; but this was always intended to be a relationship, marked by resting and working together, by our being drawn deeper into the mystery of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

So how might we invest in that relationship? What might we learn from Simeon and Anna? Their lives are shaped by devoting themselves to being in unbroken relationship, as far as it depended on them, with others, choosing to love God and their fellow human beings (righteous and devout; fasting and prayer and praise).

We are told that Simeon was ‘looking forward to the consolation of Israel.’ That is, even though – or perhaps because – things weren’t good, he held on to God, held on to hope, and pointed to that hope. Like an olive tree on the side of a submerged mountain. Perhaps, like the cross that is erected on Tunstall Hill each Easter, overlooking the city of Sunderland; a hill that was once under a prehistoric sea.

Simeon is looking forward, to the consolation of Israel. And when it comes, or rather when he comes, Jesus brings peace, even in the midst of turmoil and the face of opposition and the costly reality of soul-piercing pain. Jesus brings light in the dark places, that brings revelation to all peoples and glory to the people of God. And it may be as messy and perilous as life spilling out of the ark to flourish again, but this is how God has chosen to make all things new. As the Collect for the Season of Epiphany expresses it: ‘Almighty God, in Christ you make all things new: transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace, and in the renewal of our lives make known your heavenly glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.’

What might it look like for the Holy Spirit to rest on us, to reveal things to us, to guide us? I think that if we are to discover the answer, the discovery begins in prayer. Prayer for the people of Sunderland, and beyond: that those who mourn might know consolation; that those who are facing the end of life might know a peaceful end; that those in darkness might see God’s glory reflected in our faces. Prayer that moves us to action, to console, to be peace-makers, to be light-bearers. And action that brings us back to prayer, because we cannot be any of these things apart from the animating power of the Holy Spirit.

At the beginning of Lent, over 2nd-5th March, bishops from all over the northern province are coming to Durham Diocese with the Archbishop of York to join us in a mission we are calling Talking Jesus. The Anglican churches across Sunderland will be hosting a wide range of regular activities and special events, as an opportunity to speak to people about Jesus, either informally or in more formal presentations. Activities we will be hosting include showing the film ‘I, Daniel Blake’ at the university media centre on the Friday evening, followed by a discussion on the issues the film addresses; taking the Archbishop of York on a city-centre walkabout on the Saturday – I’m sure he will drop in on our craft and vintage fair – and our Fairtrade Fortnight ceilidh on the Saturday evening; and our Sunday morning services, followed by a Lent lunch.

Between now and then, I’d invite you to pray for the mission, for all the different ways the churches of Wearmouth Deanery will be finding to listen to people speak about their lives – their losses and challenges and hopes – and to speak about our lives, and to talk about Jesus, God’s salvation. To pray every day between now and then, that is for four weeks.

And I’d invite you to come along, to one thing or another; and to ask the Holy Spirit who you might invite to come with you. Together, let’s learn how to share simple testimony about what we have seen and known – not answers to all the unanswerable questions life throws up! – so that like Simeon, like Anna, we might speak about Jesus to those who are in need to consolation, peace, and light. Amen.

Third Sunday of Epiphany

Isaiah 9:1-4 (and 1 Corinthians 1:10-18) and Matthew 4:12-23

Some years ago, Disney Pixar made a film about my life. As always with films that are “based on true events” there was some artistic licence employed. Yes, I lost (misplaced) my son. No, I am not a fish. No, my wife had not been brutally murdered; she was away at a conference. Be that as it may, yes, she does call me Marlin.

There is a scene in Finding Nemo where Marlin finds himself in a deep, dark trench. Disoriented, he moves from desperation to despair. And then, a light appears; but I’ll avoid any spoilers.

We all know that fish don’t talk. But we also know that Finding Nemo isn’t about fish. There are layers to the story, which is why it can engage children and adults. I’ve never been in a deep, dark trench at the bottom of the ocean; but then again, perhaps I have.

In the world of the Bible, everything has symbolic meaning as well as a literal one. You see, the purpose of scripture is not simply to enable us to see the world as it is, but as it really is, beneath the surface, behind the curtain. So, for example, in the Bible ‘the land’ symbolises order and blessing, and ‘the sea’ symbolises chaos and curse. ‘Light’ means more than just light, and ‘darkness’ means more than just darkness.

Isaiah describes the territory that had been allotted to the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali after God’s people had crossed into the Promised Land as ‘the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.’

Isaiah declares that God has chosen to make this territory glorious. Many centuries later, Matthew takes up these words – ‘on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles’ – and declares that God makes this place glorious in and through Jesus. But where is this place? These landmarks are features of a physical geography – Jesus moves to Capernaum on the shore of the Sea of Galilee – but they are also features of a spiritual geography.

The way of the sea, or the road by the sea, runs along the edge where the land and the sea meet. At the level of physical geography, Matthew makes it the shore of the lake. The Sea of Galilee is large enough to be tidal, and so this border is always shifting: the land and the sea taking turns in making marginal gains neither can hold. The road by the sea is that place where life is lived on the fine line between coping and being overwhelmed. You may have seen images on the news last week, of massive spring tide waves, and evacuated homes. That too is an outward illustration of an inner reality. If I can be honest with you, and if you can hear what I am saying, this is where I live. I’m not talking about Sunderland – though I suspect that I am not alone in living on the road by the sea.

The description continues: the land beyond, or across, the Jordan; Galilee of the nations, or Gentiles. Beyond or across the Jordan places it in the Promised Land. As the hymn has it: When I tread the verge of Jordan, bid my anxious fears subside; death of death, and hell’s destruction, land me safe on Canaan’s side. But, something has gone wrong. Galilee has been claimed by the nations, by the Gentiles, those who were not God’s chosen people. In Isaiah’s time, the Assyrian Empire swallowed it up, later followed by others. In the time of Jesus and Matthew, there are Greek towns and Roman towns there. Everything good that has been called out to flourish by God has been overwhelmed, or at least compromised. Things haven’t turned out as expected. Life is confusing, draining.

Isaiah addressed those who walked in darkness, who lived in a land of deep darkness. But by the time Matthew writes about, things have got even worse. In his retelling, ‘the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.’ They’re no longer walking, no longer moving around: they’ve given up and sat down. Because it is hard to move around in the dark. You can only do so very slowly, and only for so long.

And to the people who sat in darkness, Jesus comes doing something truly remarkable. He walked by the Sea of Galilee, and he saw two sets of brothers. At the surface level, there is nothing remarkable about seeing fishermen as you walk along the shore; but that is not the point. Here is one so glorious, so luminous, that he can walk confidently along the shifting border between blessing and chaos, and call people to follow him.

To underline the point, the first people he calls are fishermen, whose lives are lived right on the edge. They draw life out of chaos, in the sense of harvesting food from the water, but also in caring for the stock of fish in the lake, balancing the needs of today with the needs of tomorrow. They also know that the sea makes widows and orphans: it always has done. Jesus says, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’

As the story unfolds, sometimes we find them on the beach, and sometimes we find them in their boats in the shallows. Some days we find ourselves more-or-less on solid ground, and some days we find ourselves just about keeping afloat. Sometimes Jesus takes the disciples further inland, and sometimes they are out-of-their-depth far from land on the middle of the lake. Some days we know ourselves to be blessed, and some days we feel like we are drowning. But for over half of the Gospel According to Matthew, the sea and its shore is the central setting we keep coming back to: the darkness where the light of Christ shines.

I am not a Christian because God has seen to it that my life is victorious, has moved me from being one of life’s losers to one of life’s winners. I am a Christian because I live on the road by the sea, because I live with rising and falling anxiety all the time, and depression some of the time, and in that place I find myself drawn to the light of Jesus. I am a Christian because some days I have only the strength to turn to face that light – that turning is what it means to repent – and some days I have the strength to walk in the light; and because I see in the stories about Jesus that he intends for these things to be done with other people, not on our own. I am a Christian because, with others before me and around me, I can testify that I need Jesus, I need his light, that I have no other hope, that he is glorious and his glory is enough. My testimony is that his light has dawned on me.

There are other reasons to be a Christian, of course. For you, it might be that in Jesus you have found forgiveness, or healing, or companionship, or direction and purpose. These are all aspects of his glory; and it is his glory that draws us to this place. Whatever your circumstances, whatever your story, let us rejoice in that glorious light today. And let us follow Jesus along the shore, and invite those we find there to turn towards him too.

Second Sunday of Epiphany 2017

Evensong, Second Sunday of Epiphany 2017

Ezekiel 2:1-3:4 and Galatians 1:11-24

John Swinton is Professor of Practical Theology and Pastoral Care in the University of Aberdeen. I’m currently reading Dementia: Living in the Memories of God, for which he won the 2016 Michael Ramsey Prize, which ‘celebrates the most promising contemporary theological writing from the global Church.’

At one point, Swinton suggests that ‘to be human is to be (1) dependent and contingent, (2) embodied, (3) relational, (4) broken and deeply lost, and (5) loved and profoundly purposeful. [and in what follows] The key underlying principle is that the experiences of people with dementia matter for the ways in which we understand humanness.’ (p. 161)

I think that it would be possible, and indeed beneficial, to re-read both our readings – from Ezekiel and Galatians – in the light of Swinton’s observations.

First, to be human is to be dependent and contingent. Ezekiel is dependent on God to stand up on his feet, he is dependent on God for his sustenance. In other words, he is dependent on God for his very life. In the same way, God is the source of Paul’s life, his beginning and his end. Such dependency does not strip us of dignity, but opens us to mystery.

Second, to be human is to be embodied. Swinton quotes the farmer, poet, novelist and essayist Wendell Berry, who writes:

‘The formula [for ‘man-making’] given in Genesis [2:7] is not man = body + soul; the formula there is soul = dust + breath … God did not make a body and put a soul into it, like a letter into an envelope. He formed man of dust; by breathing his breath into it, he made the dust live. Insofar as it lived, it was a soul. The dust, formed as man and made to live, did not embody a soul; it became a soul. “Soul” here refers to the whole creature. Humanity is thus presented to us, in Adam, not as a creature of two distinct parts temporarily glued together, but as a single mystery.’

(Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry, p. 313, cited by Swinton, p. 167)

In relation to dementia, Swinton notes that loss of cognition does not equate to loss of humanness. We are not body stripped of soul, not zombies. We are animated earth which contains the very breath of God, in order that we might be with God. This is ongoing and life-long, as we see when God breathes his spirit into Ezekiel; and extends grace to Paul – a call, moreover, which has nothing to do with the supposed merits of his highly developed critical capacities, but which is expressed through the suffering of his body.

Third, to be human is to be relational. We are created to experience God’s love and to love one another like God does. Hence, God sends Ezekiel to his people, despite their long history of turning away from that love. Hence, Paul visits Peter – not to hear the gospel from him, but to share in the gospel with him – and why the churches of Judea glorified God because Paul had been brought from persecuting to proclaiming the faith. To be fully human is not to compete and triumph, but to love and to receive love – which, significantly, is not dependent on being known by sight.

Fourth, to be human is to be broken and deeply lost. We see this in the rebellion of the people Ezekiel is sent to, in the imagery of briers and thorns and scorpions, where the land should speak of God’s goodness. We see it in Paul’s striving, that leads him only to violence and to try to destroy others. We see – at least in moments of lucidity – that this is part of what it is to be human; but not the totality, not the final word.

Fifth, to be human is to be loved and profoundly purposeful. God will not abandon his people, whether they hear or refuse to hear. And God provides for Ezekiel, sustenance that is good, and sweet as honey, despite looking unpalatable. More than that, God shares his very words: gives himself, his love for us, his purpose for us. Word that ultimately becomes flesh, as Jesus. Jesus, who appears to Paul, who loves even one who persecutes him, who graciously reveals a purpose God had set Paul aside for before he was even born.

Swinton has sought to re-describe dementia, to tell a counter-story that, rather than being entirely negative – while acknowledging the losses and challenges dementia brings – equips us to see dementia both as a very particular expression of the calling to be human and as a reminder to us all of what it means to be human.

It seems to me that his insights resonate with those revealed through Ezekiel’s calling as a prophet, and Paul’s calling as an apostle. And that our calling is to come together, to remind one another and the people to whom we are sent what it means to be human, and to respond faithfully. As we discover our dependence and contingency; embrace our whole bodies rather than prioritise our mind; hold one another in relationship; face our brokenness and acknowledge our lost state; and find ourselves kept in the knowledge and love of God, that sends us out with profound purpose to love and to serve the Lord; may we be filled with the breath of God, and may he be glorified in and through our lives. Amen.