reverendally

Love life live lent: have a pancake party!

church resources, Love Life Live Lent, random thoughts

No doubt there will be pancakes at tonight’s fundraising meeting, but just in case, my daughter and I had some for breakfast. In fact, I was woken up especially early “because it’s pancake day!” to give me time to make them.

As I groggily mixed the flour and egg and milk and set the frying pan to heat up, it occurred to me that everyone probably has their own favoured pancake recipe. When I first made pancakes I used the Delia recipe, but these days I don’t weigh or measure anything, I just chuck stuff in a bowl and stir it until it looks right. It generally works, and it suits my personality much better than getting out the kitchen scales and doing things ‘properly’.

Everyone has their own favourite toppings, too. My daughter and I love golden syrup and lemon juice, while one of her friends will only eat pancakes if they are coated in tomato ketchup. One of the tutors at my theological college used to make the most wonderful orange pancake sauce which I’ve never been able to replicate. Our taste in food is as unique as we are, clearly, and some of the best pancake parties I’ve been to have been those with a ‘bring and share topping’ rule – enabling each person to try everyone’s favourites, perhaps enjoying something new, perhaps confirming their own preferences.

Whether it’s syrup, lemon juice, orange, or ketchup, there seems little point in trying to be frugal about pancakes. Their whole function on Shrove Tuesday is to use up some of the luxuries that will be denied during Lent. So making the most of this last ‘feast’ is absolutely related to the way we approach the fast of Lent, whether or not we’re actually going to be giving up a particular food. ‘Deny yourself’ we are often told at the start of Lent. But this isn’t about denying who we are – we are still unique people, with unique tastes, preferences and desires. But Lent is a good time for each of us to reflect on how the person we are impacts on those around us and on the wider world.

So much in Love Life Live Lent is not about denying ourselves, but rather about revisiting who we are; doing things a bit differently in the belief that what we do can profoundly affect who we are, as well as affecting others.

As you eat your pancakes (whatever topping you put on them), think about how the person you are, in all your individuality, makes a difference to the world around you, and how, during Lent, you are going to make that impact even more into something which really does change things for the better.

The Transfiguration

sermons

Some thoughts on Luke 9.28-36

I wonder if you’ve ever had a moment of absolute awe and wonder? A moment when time had no meaning, when it seemed as if the universe was in technicolour, and you were swept up by it, even overwhelmed?

Wedding couples often tell me that their marriage service felt like this – they expected it to feel special, but it surpassed their ability to imagine. For that glorious day, and especially for that glorious 35 minutes or so, they are transported out of their normal existence and are part of something that is far bigger and more magnificent than any of us.

If you’ve been blessed by such a moment, you may well have wanted to hold onto it, to make it last for ever. But such moments tend to be glimpses, slipping through our grasp, or dissolving like mist. Those who experience many such moments may find that they are hugely important to them, crucial in their spirituality and faith. Others may never experience such a moment, and may be acutely aware of missing out on something very special.

Jesus’ disciples saw a lot of things during their time with him, many of them strange, many of them challenging, some of them downright incredible. I wonder how significant it was that when it came to his transfiguration he took only his closest friends with him? This wasn’t just a revelation kept to the disciples rather than the larger crowds who followed Jesus around; it was kept even from the rest of the Twelve. I wonder if they knew that they had missed something significant? And, what was it, precisely, that they had missed? What was it, that Peter, James and John, and actually witnessed?

My experience of reading the gospels and then preaching on them has been that everything that’s included is there for a reason – each verse, each little story, each saying, each event that’s narrated, tells us something about Christ. My confirmation candidate and I tested this theory the other day, by reading just one chapter of Mark and writing down everything about Jesus that we discovered in the chapter.

We used single words, and used them to create a wordle – this is a wordle that represents Mark chapter 1.

If we had read Luke 9 and done the same thing, I wonder if the worldle would have looked very different? It’s a chapter which is rich in stories, sayings, happenings, miracles, arguments, and more; reading it, we learn a great deal about Jesus, just as the crowds and the disciples and his most trusted friends must have done. It’s a chapter in which more of Jesus’ identity is revealed, layer by layer. So what is it that we learn about Christ in this most mysterious of happenings?

It’s as if for one moment the veil comes off, and we see Christ in all his glory, timeless, awe-inspiring. In short, God. That’s what Peter, James and John see. And they want it to last. They’ve been granted a glimpse of heaven, and they want it. As ever, Peter is the one to put his foot in it, talking about making dwellings for the three figures, but he’s only saying what they’re all thinking: if only we could keep this moment, if only we could stay here, in this little patch of heaven, for ever.

And you can see why. I remember reading C S Lewis’s The Great Divorce when I was a teenager, and falling in love with his vision of heaven, and then crying my eyes out when the central character discovers that his time in heaven had been all a dream and that he has to return to a world that is not only terribly earthly, but also frightening, and dangerous. Peter and the others knew what their world was like, and that it was a very hard place to live and to thrive. They, along with all God’s people, longed for a time when the Messiah would come and save them – for some this was a very practical desire for God to defeat their current oppressors, the Romans, but for others it was a much more eschatalogical hope, that God would finally bring about his heavenly order in the wayward world and that there would be a real and lasting peace with the people of God at the beloved centre of it all.

Can you blame Peter, James and John for wanting that moment to be right then? And for them to have been just the first stage of the salvation of Israel? And then finding out that the whole thing was only a glimpse?

That walk down the mountain must have been a long one. No wonder they were able to avoid talking about their experience with anyone. It may well have been a long time before their disappointment gave way to courage and hope again, and they could recapture the joy and awe of the vision – by the time the story was told and the gospel was written down, they’d had time to interpret what they’d experienced, but at the time…?

So why give them this glimpse? Why show a tantalising snapshot of heaven and then not let them stay? There are probably a million answers to this question, but mine I think has to be this:

Heaven is eternal, beyond time and space. But there are aspects of the character of heaven that can be nurtured on earth. Jesus talks a lot about the Kingdom of God, about how it is already near, but that our own behaviour, our own choices, bring us, and the world around us, closer to heaven, or drive us further from it.

Perhaps the transfiguration is a reminder of the truth of how near heaven is, that it might break through any moment. But perhaps it is also a reminder that our experiences of ecstasy, if we have them, are there not only for our own edification and spiritual growth, but for the transformation of ourselves, inside and out, so that we can be part of what transforms the world. I have no doubt that Peter, James and John, were transformed by their experience on the mountain. But their calling wasn’t merely to be transformed, it was to let their own transformation become something that guided their words and actions, making them part of how God was bringing earth and heaven closer together.

I’m not even going to ask whether coming to Holy Communion constitutes a powerful spiritual experience. Perhaps sometimes it does, and other times it doesn’t. Perhaps it’s to do with whether the sunshine has broken through the clouds by 8.30 to illuminate the chancel, perhaps it’s to do with us arriving with just the right openness of mind and heart, perhaps it’s to do with the quality of the poetry in the epistle, or the quality of the silence just before the Lord’s Prayer – these are all things that can lift the ordinary into something special that can start to transform our mundane souls.

Whether we feel it emotionally and spiritually or not, in a service of Holy Communion we come into contact with something profound, and we receive the grace of God, so we shouldn’t leave church as exactly the same people we were as we came in. And we should be able to take a little of that heaven with us when we go. What will we do with it? With whom will we share it? Not by talking about what it felt like taking communion (remember Jesus told his friends not to talk about what they’d seen) but by letting our closeness with heaven rub off in our dealings with others, and with ourselves. And that’s something that could change our little bit of the world and beyond.

Candlemas

Other cool stuff

With thanks to @fibrefairy, some thoughts on the Feast of the Presentation, which we’re celebrating a day late at St Mary’s…

The Candlemas story is a story of contrasts, and opposites.

It’s clearly part of the Christmas story – Jesus is still a baby (despite us having spent the season of Epiphany jumping around the early part of Jesus’ adult ministry) and this is the day that Mary and Joseph bring their son to Jerusalem, to the Temple itself, so present him to God, as the law required.

But this story is also an early chapter in the Passion story. Already when the Magi visited, they brought hints of Jesus’ future in the form of Myrrh – not only used for healing but also in embalming – a portent of Jesus’ death.

Birth and death – Candlemas is a story of contrasts.

But that’s not the only contrast.

Jesus is presented in the Temple, the very centre and emblem of Jewish identity and faith. It is a reminder that Jesus was born, lived and died as a Jew. And yet the words of Simeon speak not only of the glory of God’s chosen people, but also of a light for all the nations – all the nations.

So this is a story of God’s people, but it’s absolutely about all people. It’s about having roots that run so deep that we can grow branches that stretch far and wide.

Birth and death, inward looking and outward, deep and broad. Contrasts and opposites, yes, but this is a story that draws them together, and there is one more way in which this story draws contrasts together:

The characters in this story come from three generations: the child, the parents, and the elderly, and this one event brings all three together. Can this be a model for us? For the possibility of unity between the generations? In a story with such momentous contrasts being drawn together, this drawing together of the generations may seem to be a small thing, but for our own time when so many people are separated from their extended families, and technological and social changes take place increasingly quickly, real understanding and closeness between different generations is by no means an assumption.

Making such unity a reality requires that all generations learn to acknowledge both the past and the future, to face the hope of life and the certainty of death and to draw from their roots to grow branches that spread wide and encompass more than we ever thought would be comfortable. When we do all this, we are witnesses to that fact that, against all the odds, there really can be peace between heaven and earth, and that what seems irreconcilable can be brought together.

What do those words look like in real life?

sermons

I wonder how many of us have ever had that feeling after reading or hearing a Bible passage, that it was ‘all about me’ – you know, that feeling that it was somehow either fate or God’s plan that that particular reading was read on that particular day, with you sitting there hearing it, and realising how much it applied to you? That it challenged you in just the way you needed to be challenged? That it brought you the exact words of comfort that you most needed to hear? That it gave you that bit of guidance that set you on the path that God had in mind for you? Often it’s bible passages that are very familiar to us that can strike us differently and unexpectedly at such moments. We may have heard a verse a hundred times, but the hundred and first time it hits us between the eyes, and we think, ‘That verse was written for me, today.’

Jesus must have had that feeling a lot. While he was in the wilderness he had relied hugely on scripture – as a witness to God’s enduring love and faithfulness – to withstand the temptations of the Devil. Now, he’s back in civilisation, in fact, he’s back in his home town, and it’s another well-known passage from the Hebrew Bible that happens to be set for that day, and Jesus is the one whose turn it is to read.

Jesus is full of the Holy Spirit – still from his baptism, and then again from his wilderness experience. And he reads Isaiah’s words ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me’ and knows at once that this passage doesn’t just feel like it’s written for him. It really is for him, and about him. It’s another of those moments (and those moments are now coming thick and fast in Jesus’ life) when his sense of identity as the Messiah is deepened, strengthened, broadened. Those words from Isaiah are for him. They are part of what will help him set the agenda for the next three years – for the whole of his earthly ministry.

So what Isaiah goes on to write next is of crucial importance, because it’s Jesus’ manifesto, it’s his vocation. He is to be one who brings good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and freedom for the oppressed, and who is to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.

So, Jesus reads the words of Isaiah, and already as he reads it seems as if some of the congregation realise that there is more going on here – that this is more than just another reading, this is something else. He confirms it – his first sermon begins by telling the people that Isaiah’s prophecy is now being fulfilled . In him. No wonder all their eyes are fixed on him.

These are the words that turn Jesus turns from carpenter’s son to Rabbi, from local boy to itinerant preacher and healer, from ordinary man to Son of Man. These are the words that set him on his way. These are the words that must have reminded him, again and again, of the nature of his calling: freedom, healing, the favour of the Lord, good news…. These are the words that come to life in Jesus’ own life, and these are the words that he uses to start his work of transforming the world. It was as if he said to the people gathered in that Nazareth synagogue, “You’re about to see what Isaiah’s words look like in real life.”

It seems right that Jesus’s ministry begins in his own home town, especially since Nazareth wasn’t a particularly important or nice town, it was no Jerusalem, it had no track record of producing great leaders and teachers. It was ordinariness itself. It is in keeping with the God who chose to become a human being that he also chose to set out the manifesto of the Messiah in a downmarket provincial town, and that the people who heard it were just those faithful gathered that particular Sabbath.

There are Nazareths all over the world. Certainly all over England. Ordinary places, full of ordinary people, who know that all the exciting things happen Somewhere Else, and who do not expect the Messiah to appear in their midst. If that’s us, then this gospel reading should stir us up a bit. Especially if we put it together with today’s epistle, which speaks of the church as the Body of Christ.

Why? Because in the gospel reading we start to see the first stage of Jesus’ transformation – the body of Christ gradually turns from being the physical body of a carpenters’ son and eventually becomes the metaphorical worldwide body of the church, who meets in Christ’s name and undertakes to continue his work. There is absolutely continuity between the work of God that Jesus started and the work of God that we are supposed to be doing, right now. If Isaiah has set out Jesus’ manifesto, then he’s also set out ours.

And that’s another reason why it’s good that all this happened in Nazareth. Because Nazareth is here. It’s Huntingdon, it’s St Neots. It’s all the places that most people would say probably aren’t the centre of the universe. An ordinary place is where Jesus started his work, and this ordinary place is where we are to begin our work.

Jesus went out from that place and spent three years seeking out those who needed healing, three years proclaiming the good news, three years helping people find freedom from the many things that were oppressing them, and ultimately on the cross, enacted the good news of the sacrificial love of God in his own body, experiencing death so that we could might never be captive to it again.

But it starts here. In the place that we are. In these familiar streets, with these familiar people. So it is also our calling to proclaim the good news we have heard, and not only that but to live it out, as Jesus did. To be people, and to be a church, which will bring healing, peace and reconciliation, that will fight for justice and freedom for those who are oppressed in any way, or held captive by their own condition or by the actions of others, that will show by how we live that this is the year of the Lord’s favour, that God’s love for the world is real and active, and that his blessings are manifold. We, too, need to show the world what Isaiah’s words look like in real life.

This is what it means to be the Body of Christ. No less. But crucially it is by being who we are, in our ordinary situations, that we can do this best. Jesus’ manifesto was made public in the most ordinary place. So, in whatever ordinary places we find ourselves today and tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year, let us pray that God would help us to see how we might be the Body of Christ and continue Christ’s work of transformation, healing, renewal and love in our ordinary corner of the world. For when we do that, there are no ordinary places, and there are no ordinary people.

The truth shall set you free

random thoughts

In ministry and in my personal life I’m confronted again and again by these gospel words, and every time I find them just as challenging.
Perhaps it’s because on some level of wishful thinking I believe that if only I really did have all the facts I would be able to make all the right choices, and pick my way better through the minefield of small and large decisions (and their consequences) that face me, as they do us all, each day. Maybe it’s because I so often find myself dealing with people’s expectations that I will know what to do, that I’ll have access to some crucial wisdom or insight. Maybe it’s because I’ve almost started believing that this might be the case?
But most of all think it’s because, while I’ve always told myself and others that I value my doubts, and that uncertainty is ok, even healthy, there is some part of me that wants to know the whole truth about myself. I want to know what my motivations really are, whether my memories of things I’ve done and things that have been done to me or for me are as inaccurate and subjective as I fear they are. I want to be able to be wholly honest about who I am, and what I am. I want to be able to see myself as I really am, so that I can smile at the good and repent of the evil, safe in the knowledge that there’s nothing I have missed.
Can any of us ever really become that self aware? Is it possible to dig deep enough to find a truth that is beyond the scope of our self-deception?
When I was at school, I clearly remember an incident when someone had flushed paper towels down the loo and the whole school was kept in detention after assembly until the guilty pupil would own up. It only took about two minutes for me to convince myself that it had been me, even though I also knew in my mind that I was innocent. But equally there are other times in my life where I have been guilty as hell, and I’ve instead told myself lies about mitigating circumstances and how it wasn’t really as bad as it looked, until I’ve ended up believing my own spin. How hard it is to recover truth once we’ve started the process of lying to ourselves!
Reaching truth is like peeling a many-layered onion, we can peel off each painful tearful layer thinking that we’ve finally got to the centre, only to find another layer and another round of tears. Is there ever a point where it’s right to stop, when to go further would be ‘too much truth’? Or if we find that the layer we have reached is not, in fact, setting us free at all, have we rather not gone deep enough?
In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C S Lewis writes of an incident in which a rather unpleasant child is turned into a dragon, and while he desperately wants to scratch off the scaly dragon skin to rediscover his human self, each time he does so there is another layer of scales beneath. He simply cannot scratch deeply enough to reach who he really is. He is finally helped by the lion, Aslan, whose claws are sharper and longer, and who scratches so deeply that when the Dragon skin finally cones off the boy feels small and vulnerable, and the sensation of the fresh water on this skin as the lion throws him in a pool nearby is painful for an instant. But he is himself again. Or is he? For the child who emerges from this ordeal is not the same as the one who turned into the Dragon; he has been reborn, and the child he is now is less the spoiled, objectionable brat that he was before and is closer to being the human being that God created him to be. When Aslan strips off the Dragon skin, he also strips off some of the other layers of the boy that were also not part of who he was created to be. In the search for himself, the boy found Aslan – God- and also found a different self from the one he expected to get back.
For St Augustine, the quest for truth about himself was inextricably bound up with what turned out to be a quest for God, as he related in his autobiographical Confessions. For he discovered that ‘You were within me, but I was outside myself’ – that it was impossible to know the truth about himself without learning to see himself in the context of God. It’s a sort of theocentric anthropology.
I want to see myself as God sees me, but even having got as far as that realisation is not enough to enable me actually to do so. I am left with the only viable option being to pray continually to the only one who can really see me, in all my happy successes and dismal failings, and still love me, and ask him to keep on transforming me, whether I notice or not, and even if I might sometimes object to the pain of the process.
Will I ever in this life know the whole truth about myself? I don’t think so. But God does. And he is working on me. And maybe that will have to do.

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