Month: January 2014

By a quirk of their new subscription system I have been sent an extra issue of Delayed Gratification #12, and – with the blessing of the magazine's staff – I'm offering it to you, reader: first come, first served (contact me via the Comments box below).

It's a wonderful magazine, great to look at , excellent in concept – the concept being that of 'Slow Journalism'. Each quarterly Delayed Gratification revisits the news stories of  three months ago, those we've perhaps forgotten or which seem somewhat different when the writer applies the 'long view' to them. It's the perfect antidote to the  immediacy and rapid obsolecence of most other media. Its other great selling point is its look. With a beautiful, original, cover, each issue also features terrific infographics which illustrate aspects of social, political, sporting and cultural life (look at these examples). It even arrives in the post in a neat custom card envelope. My spare could be yours…

According to The Echo, having just completed their online test, I am 100 per cent Scouse. This is heartening, in many ways, because it tells me that despite all the wanderings in my life, I will always have this place which roots and grounds me. But when I took The Echo's Scouseometer Challenge I had to guess at a couple of answers (eg, I've never been called, or thought to call anyone a 'lid', but I guessed it meant 'mate') and felt a bit wobbly in parts, because I really don't feel 100 per cent Scouse these days. To the extent that in my latest bookshelf-purge-before-house-removal I've bundled up a large collection of books on Liverpool's history and culture* – it's time now to immerse myself in Somerset life and lore.

I'm also working on a possible book collecting together my writings from over the years, and in the process I've uncovered this one, which is perhaps too Scouse to make it into a publication aimed at a general readership – but for the initiated, here's my Liverpool Poem (my entry into the Liverpool Poem 800 competition in 2007, first blogged here and revised slightly today)….

If I were to write a Liverpool poem

It would have to contain the compulsory
word play
flipping syllables
juggling syntax
being wittily ironic.
It would probably pay homage to the city fathers:
Drummond, McCulloch, Cope
And the city mothers:
Kitty, Casey, Simey.
It might reference a famous saying by John Lennon:
“Gerrard's a concept
by which we measure our pain”
or do something involving Batman appearing on Canning Place
dressed like Adrian Henri.

If I were to write a Liverpool poem
It would celebrate the excellence 
of our two great football teams:
Everton and Marine.
It would stand on Crosby beach with those metal men staring out to Wales;
It would stand on Upper Park Street mourning the demise of the lovely Welsh streets;
It would repent of something
Then do it again.

If I were to write a Liverpool poem
I wouldn’t do it now.
I’d have to do it in the sixties
when I could take it to a Happening
and let it happen,
Or in the eighties
whilst seated at a table at the Armadillo
as a pained Erics punk
on my lunch hour.

If I were to write a Liverpool poem
I wouldn’t publish it, of course:
I’d have to perform it
whilst standing on a node of esoteric power
(Not the manhole on Mathew Street, that’s been overdone: Everton Brow's my preference)
Or seated on the original Superlambanana
Wherever that is now.

If I were to write a Liverpool poem
It wouldn’t be over sentimental
And it wouldn’t have many regrets.

*This collection is now for sale on the secondhand shelves of News from Nowhere. I'm selling other titles through My Amazon Storefront.

Today it was announced that the Bishop of Taunton has appointed me as Rector of Cam Vale Benefice, a group of six rural churches within a five mile radius of each other, either side of the River Cam just east of Yeovil. 

It is a delight to be called to serve God in a lovely part of Somerset, and (from the impression gained during our two days of orientation and interview) among some lovely people, in a benefice which is quite 'mature' (ie. they've been working together for 26 years and are happy to continue doing so). (More in the Parish Profile pdf)

‘He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him' … We might consider that verse in terms of today, Jesus coming to his own people here in the UK, where almost 60 per cent of us describe ourselves as Christian, but most don’t practice our faith by church attendence. ‘He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him.’ Why? Is it because a gap has opened up between the Jesus we think we know through two millenia of Christendom, and who the scriptures say he really is?

 - from my talk this week in flood-soaked Somerset, He came to his own, which is a briefer rerun of last Sunday's sermon, minus Holly Willoughby.

John 1.10-18 (Matthew 1.1-17, Luke 3.23-38)

Davis Hall, West Camel, 10 January 2014

‘He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him … But to all who did receive him, he gave power to become children of God.’

 Among the many pleasures I’ve found in rural ministry are the phonecalls or emails I  regularly receive from people wanting to know the location of their great-great-great Uncle William’s burial plot in one of our churchyards. And with those enquiries come fascinating conversations about the lives those people are researching. 

Family history research is increasingly popular today – the internet has greatly helped those driven by a desire to discover the truth about their forebears. Or those seeking to locate lost relatives they hope are still alive.

 Last March, for the very first time, I met a second cousin of mine, Brian, who as it turns out was living just 35 miles from us in Devon. It was an unexpected email to my mother two years ago which led to Brian and I meeting, and it was a special day for us. You may have had similar experiences yourself, and cherish the memory of that first meeting. 

 ‘He came to his own, and his own received him’ … and it was a very precious moment  indeed.

But we know that for every story of a happy family reunion there are other stories: of people who have tried for years to locate a relative, but failed to find them; or who, on making contact with them, discover that all is not well in their relationship, and, as their search ends in rejection, pain and heartache follow.

‘He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him.’ Today, when we hear those words, we tend to think of Jesus being rejected by the people of Nazareth. Why would they do that? Is it because they thought they knew his family history and as far as they could see there was no room for a messiah in it?

We might also consider that verse in terms of today, Jesus coming to his own people here in the UK, where almost 60 per cent of us describe ourselves as Christian, but most don’t practice our faith by church attendence. ‘He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him.’ Why? Is it because a gap has opened up between the Jesus we think we know through two millenia of Christendom, and who the scriptures say he really is?

It’s a question which should encourage us back to the scriptures, to help us to grow clearer and more confident about who this Jesus is who we claim as our own.   

Hidden away in the gospel narratives of Jesus’ birth, usually forgotten in Christmas sermons, are two passages which can help Jesus’ own people of today to accept him with our eyes newly opened to the reality of who he is. They are genealogies. 

Matthew’s genealogy portrays Jesus as descended from David, their great King and forerunner of the messiah. So, in a world where the King of the Jews, Herod Antipas, wields fierce political and military power, Matthew’s Jesus is the alternative King of the Jews, overturning expectations about the One who will bring salvation – as our Jesus might, if we see him that way. As a peaceable king who rules not by force or coercion but by the persuasiveness of his self-giving love.

And Luke’s genealogy connects Jesus all the way back to Adam, ‘son of God’. In a world where only the Roman emperor could be called the ‘Son of God’, Luke puts across the divine heresy that Jesus is the alternative Son of God. Luke’s Jesus challenges the authority of the powers-that-be, the empire of his day – as our Jesus might, if we see him that way. As one who instils in us the confidence that the world doesn’t have to stay the way it is. [2]

‘He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him …’ Imagine how that feels.

‘… But to all who did receive him, he gave power to become children of God.’ Now – imagine how that feels. 

And this is the greatest thing to learn from the genealogies of Matthew and Luke. The good news that Jesus is fully bound up with us in human history. And that when we accept him, when we embrace him, he adds our names to HIS family line. So that, just as we take the characteristics of our forbears and our families, into our own ways of life, so too God’s Spirit enables us to walk in His way, every day. To experience ‘from his fullness …  grace upon grace,’ as John puts it.

‘He came to his own…’

This New Year, may we open our eyes afresh to the Jesus who comes to us, may we accept him again, and more keenly, more deeply. And in accepting him, may we know the power which enables us to live as children of God in the world today, and tomorrow. 

Notes

[1] Based on last Sunday’s talk, Holly Willoughby’s nightmare (is God’s nightmare too) – see there for further expansion on these themes, and more detailed footnotes.

[2] ‘Joy comes from the confidence that the world doesn’t have to stay the way it is.’ – Shane Claiborne blog, 14 Hopes for 2014, January 6, 2014.

… Whilst preparing this talk, a vision came to me which I have called Holly Willoughby’s Nightmare. It is this. That at the climax of one of her Surprise Surprise shows, when the long-lost brother from New Zealand and the family who thought they’d never see him again, make the walk towards each other on the stage, the family turn to each other and say, ‘That’s not him, is it? I don’t recognise him. He hasn’t got the family look’, and turn away and reject him.

The only tears in the TV studio in this scenario would be the deep, wrenching tears of rejection felt by the man who had travelled across the world with great hopes and anticipation in his heart, only to be so publicly and horribly spurned.

Holly Willoughby’s Nightmare is God’s nightmare too.  

‘He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him …’ Imagine how that feels.

‘… But to all who did receive him, he gave power to become children of God.’

Imagine how that feels. …

– from today's talk, Holly Willoughby’s Nightmare (is God’s nightmare too)

John 1.10-18 (Matthew 1.1-17, Luke 3.23-38)

Waterloo United Free Church

Second Sunday of Christmas, 5 January 2014

‘He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him … But to all who did receive him, he gave power to become children of God.’

 You may be familiar with the popular ITV weekend show Surprise Surprise, hosted originally by ‘Our Cilla’ and recently revived with Holly Willoughby as the presenter. It’s an hour’s entertainment full of the ‘feel-good factor’, in which members of the audience who have done something special for others – being a carer, doing charity work or fundraising, are surprised by Holly and given a treat; and others for whom life has been a struggle, perhaps for health reasons, are surprised with a special appearance by their favourite singer or sports star. The show always climaxes with a real tear-jerker, when people who have not seen each other for many, many years are reunited – people whose childhood friendship ended when they were evacuated during the second world war, brothers and sisters who have spent the whole of their adult lives on different continents… 

It’s done in a way which raises the emotions, and by the time that the long-lost brother from New Zealand and the family who thought they’d never see him again, make the walk towards each other on the stage, to share a long, deep embrace, there’s barely a dry eye in the house – and by that I mean, our house. It gets me every time. ‘He came to his own, and his own people received him’: it’s wonderful life-affirming stuff.

And it’s the search for moments like this, though untelevised, more private moments, which drive many people to research their family history. The desire to locate lost relatives, the drive to discover the truth about one’s forebears, is increasingly popular today – in fact some sources suggest that genealogy is one of the most popular topics on the Internet [1]. 

The Internet has made it so much easier to research family history and to communicate with people across the world. And through the exchange of emails like those, come experiences like the one I had in March last year when I met, for the very first time, a second cousin of mine, Brian, who as it turns out was living just 35 miles from our home in Devon, one of a number of cousins on that side of the family who have found each other and arranged get-togethers over the past couple of years. You may have had similar experiences yourself. Or you may have in your heart a desire to find someone in your life who you know is out there – somewhere – and you’d love to meet.

When I’ve been vicar of churches with churchyards I have had at least two or three calls or emails a week from different people wanting to know the location of their great-great-great Uncle William’s burial plot – occasionally it’s someone with a mobile phone standing in the churchyard and expecting an immediate response. And with those enquiries come fascinating conversations about the lives the people are researching.  

Similarly, when I’ve met families of someone who has died, to talk over the funeral service and the eulogy, so very often the conversation about the person has widened out into a discussion of their parents, grandparents, the lives they all led, and I’ve come away educated and enthralled by that family’s particular and distinctive story. 

Sometimes the most interesting parts of a family’s history are where a surprise is unearthed. The BBC series  ‘Who Do you Think You Are?’ features various celebrities finding out about their ancestors – and the twists and turns of their family fortunes over the years, the illegitimate births, the tragic early deaths, the ups and downs of property and fortune. These are the things which define us, which in deep ways help shape the people we are. No wonder so many are so keen to uncover them, and prepared to deal with the sometimes painful realities which might be revealed. 

It’s not just about trying to find lost relatives. People do genealogies for other reasons too. Some are looking for evidence of historical family wealth which might be tapped into. For others it is about a kind of moral status: desiring to discover that their personal history involves someone who has achieved great things or overcome great odds, proving themselves to be exceptional. Some pursue family history from a desire to carve out a place for their family in the larger historical picture, some from a sense of responsibility to preserve the past for future generations. [2]

Some, from whatever of these motives or some other, notice how genealogies can be carefully adjusted to suit whatever claims they would like to make for themselves – so an illegitimate line is carefully forgotten, or very hard work is done to tease out a very tenuous link to royalty or wealth. 

In biblical times genealogies were important too. And they were similarly treated as stories, parables, to show someone in a certain light. They were written to substantiate claims which people made to help strengthen their status in society. And so, for instance, Caesar Augustus, emperor of Rome at the time Jesus was born, claimed a millennium-old descent from the goddess Venus, who according to legend, protected her son Julius as he escaped the doomed city of Troy and eventually reached Italy, to establish the Julian line. And in the Aenid, the foundational epic of the Roman Empire, the high god Jupiter pronounces that ‘From this noble line shall be born the Trojan Caesar [Augustus], who shall extend his empire to the ocean, his glory to the stars.’ [3]

Augustus’ genealogy showed him to be the adopted son of Julius Caesar, who was regarded as divine, and this permitted Augustus to claim the title ‘Son of God’. [4]

He came to his own – and whenever he did, his people worshipped Augustus, for they knew where he had come from, they had his genealogy in their heads and their hearts.

And so it was with other rulers in those times; they employed genealogies which gave them status as King of the Jews, as messiahs, as Sons of God.

Now when we hear that verse today, ‘He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him’, we tend to think of Jesus being rejected by the people of Nazareth – why? for they thought they knew his family history and as far as they knew there were no messiahs in it. 

We might also think of it in terms of today, Jesus coming to his own people here in the UK, who even now still overwhelmingly describe themselves as Christian (almost 60 per cent at the 2011 census) but who for the most part don’t practice their faith by church attendence. ‘He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him’ – is it because their idea of Jesus fails to match who the scriptures say he really is, is it because a gap has opened up between the Jesus they think they know through two millenia of Christendom, and the Jesus who the gospel writers portray?

Hidden away in the narratives of Jesus’ birth in Matthew and Luke, usually forgotten in Nativity stories and Christmas sermons full of stars and angels, wise men and shepherds, are two passages which might just prove to be very important to us as we try to find ways to help Jesus’ own people of today to accept him with their eyes newly opened to the reality of who he is. They are genealogies.

Look at this:

Matthew 1.1-17

An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, ³and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Aram, ⁴and Aram the father of Aminadab, and Aminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, ⁵and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, ⁶and Jesse the father of King David.

And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, ⁷and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, ⁸and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, ⁹and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, ¹⁰and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, ¹¹and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.

12 And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Salathiel, and Salathiel the father of Zerubbabel, ¹³and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, ¹⁴and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, ¹⁵and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, ¹⁶and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.

17 So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations. 

Right at the very start of his gospel, Matthew gives us Jesus’ family history. And he does it for a very clear reason. In a world where the King of the Jews, Herod Antipas, wielded fierce political and military power, Matthew puts across the heresy, the beautiful, dangerous, divine heresy, that Jesus is descended from Abraham, the founder of the Jewish people, and David, the great King of their tradition, the forerunner of the messiah, so Jesus is the alternative King of the Jews. Matthew’s Jesus challenges the expectations of his day about the character of the One who will bring salvation – as ours might, if we see him that way. 

This tells us the story of Jesus’ birth in a way which connects with the story of Herod and the Magi, a story which Matthew, and only Matthew, tells – of a new king born to bring in a new kingdom. 

And look at this from Luke: 

Luke 3.23-38

23 Jesus was about thirty years old when he began his work. He was the son (as was thought) of Joseph son of Heli, ²⁴son of Matthat, son of Levi, son of Melchi, son of Jannai, son of Joseph, ²⁵son of Mattathias, son of Amos, son of Nahum, son of Esli, son of Naggai, ²⁶son of Maath, son of Mattathias, son of Semein, son of Josech, son of Joda, ²⁷son of Joanan, son of Rhesa, son of Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, son of Neri, ²⁸son of Melchi, son of Addi, son of Cosam, son of Elmadam, son of Er, ²⁹son of Joshua, son of Eliezer, son of Jorim, son of Matthat, son of Levi, ³⁰son of Simeon, son of Judah, son of Joseph, son of Jonam, son of Eliakim, ³¹son of Melea, son of Menna, son of Mattatha, son of Nathan, son of David, ³²son of Jesse, son of Obed, son of Boaz, son of Sala, son of Nahshon, ³³son of Amminadab, son of Admin, son of Arni, son of Hezron, son of Perez, son of Judah, ³⁴son of Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham, son of Terah, son of Nahor, ³⁵son of Serug, son of Reu, son of Peleg, son of Eber, son of Shelah, ³⁶son of Cainan, son of Arphaxad, son of Shem, son of Noah, son of Lamech, ³⁷son of Methuselah, son of Enoch, son of Jared, son of Mahalaleel, son of Cainan, ³⁸son of Enos, son of Seth, son of Adam, son of God. 

You’ll notice that it is a different genealogy from Matthew’s. Luke starts where Matthew finishes: with Jesus and Joseph. And while Matthew’s line begins with Abraham, Luke goes all the way back to Adam, ‘son of God’. In a world where people dare call no-one but the emperor the Son of God, Luke puts across the heresy, the beautiful divine heresy, that Jesus is alternative Son of God. Luke’s Jesus challenges the powers-that-be, the empire of his day – as ours might, if we see him that way.

This tells us the story of Jesus’ birth in a way which connects with the story of the shepherds, and of humble Zechariah and Elizabeth, faithful Simeon and Anna, of modest Mary, all stories which Luke, and only Luke, tells – of God’s new kingdom being born to those on the fringes, on the outside.

These genealogies are not factual lists of carefully researched findings – how could they be, they’re different? We should treat them more like parables – stories which point us towards greater truths, and spend time with them, contemplating what they tell us about Jesus.

 Contemplating, perhaps, why Matthew’s genealogy contains four women – an unprecedented thing to do – Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, the wife of Uriah, and Mary. Women who came from outside – four of them Gentiles, one of them, Mary, a poor country girl. Women who in different ways had God intervene in childbirth, and who God used to show his love and purposes to others. 

Contemplating what this might say to us today about the role and value of women in our society and others, about God’s deep involvement with the poor and the outsiders in this and every age, about the sorts of people He uses to bring his Kingdom in.

Contemplating, perhaps, what Luke’s genealogy means by this line: ‘He was the son (as was thought) of Joseph’, empathising the connection Jesus had with his father, as one who nurtured him in his early years, while also acknowledging Jesus’ divine birth. Contemplating the value of fatherhood, of parenthood, of living out our responsibilities to others, of our everyday struggle to bring human things and divine things together in our lives, through prayer and faithful service.

Whilst preparing this talk, a vision came to me which I have called Holly Willoughby’s Nightmare. It is this. That at the climax of one of her shows, when the long-lost brother from New Zealand and the family who thought they’d never see him again, make the walk towards each other on the stage, the family turn to each other and say, ‘That’s not him, is it? I don’t recognise him. He hasn’t got the family look’, and turn away and reject him.

The only tears in the TV studio in this scenario would be the deep, wrenching tears of rejection felt by the man who had travelled across the world with great hopes and anticipation in his heart, only to be so publicly and horribly spurned.

Holly Willoughby’s Nightmare is God’s nightmare too.  

‘He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him …’ Imagine how that feels.

‘… But to all who did receive him, he gave power to become children of God.’

Imagine how that feels. And this is the greatest thing to learn from the genealogies of Matthew and Luke. That Jesus is fully bound up with us in human history. That when we accept him, when we embrace him, our names are added to HIS family line. And that, just as we take the characteristics of our parents, our forbears, our ancestors, into our own ways of life, so too God’s Spirit enables us to walk in His way, every day.

This New Year, may we open our eyes afresh to the Jesus who comes to us, may we accept him again, and more keenly, more deeply; and in accepting him, may we know the power which enables us to live as children of God in the world today, and tomorrow. 

Notes

[1] Wikipedia: Genealogy

[2] Wikipedia: Genealogy

[3] Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Teach Us About Jesus’s Birth, p.95-98

[4] Wikipedia: Son of God, Imperial titles