Month: November 2015

… that man of promise is Jesus. For us, Jesus is the source of all that is just and right. For us, Jesus is the one who brings salvation and keeps us safe. How vital this knowledge is in the world we live in today. A world continuing to promise itself that we are civilised and progressive whilst terror inflicts itself into ordinary people’s lives as never before.  A world promising that endless consumption is the way forward while the forests of Indonesia burn and the waters of Pakistan rise, and the icecaps of Greenland melt. It’s a world we recognise as being very much like the world Jesus described to his disciples in Luke 21.25-36, a world where ‘People … faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens [seem to] be shaken.’

– from my talk for Advent Sunday, Promises, promises: or just empty words? 

Jeremiah 33.14-16, Luke 21.25-36

West Camel, Queen Camel, Weston Bampfylde, First Sunday of Advent, 29/11/2015

 

‘Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away’.

That’s what Jesus said, and who are we to disbelieve his promises?

Well, we are people of our time, and in our time people are inclined to disbelieve promises. 

The promises of politicians: not a week goes by without our hearing of another so-called election pledge u-turn.

The promises of sportsmen: the footballer kissing the badge on his shirt to display his undying loyalty to that club, who then next month signs for a higher-paying rival.

The promises of celebrities: the undermining of public trust in them, following the sex abuse scandals of recent years involving some of our popular culture’s once most-loved entertainers…

In an era of mass-communication where words come too often and too easily, promises are cheap. 

And yet we understand the power of words to transform, to form new worlds from promises made. 

We have heard such words of promise from politicians: Churchill’s promise to the 1940 war government of ‘nothing [..] but blood, toil, tears and sweat’, but ultimately ‘victory’; Martin Luther King’s Promised Land speech.

We have heard such words of transformation from celebrities and sportsmen too: such as Paralympic volleyball player Charles Walker’s description of how the Paralympic Games changed people’s attitudes: ‘People [now] realise that athletes are athletes and people are people,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re Usain Bolt or in a wheelchair, we’re all people’.

Such words have the power to transform the world of those who hear the promises they carry, and believe them.

And there are moments in our lives when we speak such words of promise. Our marriage vows are the obvious ones, or the words spoken for us or by us at our baptism, the oaths we make in a court of law. Words freighted with deep and heavy meaning, words we don’t speak lightly, words which express our promise that the people we once were, will be transformed into different people for the future. Isn’t it interesting that however little we regard ourselves as religious, so many of us feel the need to utter such words of promise in a church or on a bible, in the presence of God.

Recalling these sorts of promises puts us in the right frame of mind to consider the words which Jeremiah recorded:

‘The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfil the promise made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah…’

Our God is a God of certain promise. The hearers of Jeremiah’s words would remember the earlier promises of God, fulfilled – his promise to Noah of mercy and new beginnings for a broken world, his promise to Abraham of a new nation, to Moses and his people of a promised land. And now, they hear God make the promise of a righteous branch to spring up – one who would bring justice and righteousness to an unjust and unrighteous people, one who would bring salvation to Judah and safety to Jerusalem – one they would call The Lord, our righteousness.

For us, that man of promise is Jesus. For us, Jesus is the source of all that is just and right. For us, Jesus is the one who brings salvation and keeps us safe. 

How vital this knowledge is in the world we live in today. A world continuing to promise itself that we are civilised and progressive whilst terror inflicts itself into ordinary people’s lives as never before.  A world promising that endless consumption is the way forward while the forests of Indonesia burn and the waters of Pakistan rise, and the icecaps of Greenland melt. It’s a world we recognise as being very much like the world Jesus described to his disciples in this passage which we heard today, a world where ‘People … faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens [seem to] be shaken.’

We have heard the words of Jesus, week by week in our churches and read them day after day in our homes, and we understand them deeply as words of promise. The Book of Common Prayer repeats one of Jesus’ great promises to us in these lines:

Hear what comfortable words our Saviour Christ saith unto all who truly turn to him. Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.

The comfortable words of Jesus in today’s gospel passage are to impress on us that though the signs of the times seem dark, and we may feel the weight and the burden of them, nevertheless he is coming into the world, and that means that ‘[our] redemption is drawing near’. 

When is Jesus coming into the world? Always and every day, every moment we open the door of our lives to him.

How can Jesus bring redemption to this world? Through the lives of his followers living out the values of his peaceable, gracious, loving kingdom, through small acts of kindness towards neighbours, friends, and in particular towards our enemies, those who persecute us, and the vulnerable ones around us.

These are the words of promise which Advent brings. Words with the power to lift the heaviness of the world from our shoulders; words which shine light into the world’s darkness as we let them come alive in our lives.

There will be other words of Jesus which are especially helpful or comforting or inspirational to you. In this prayerful time we share this morning, you might bring those special words to mind, those gospel passages and messages which have always encouraged you and helped you on your way.

‘Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away’.

So today, again, with confidence today, hold on to Jesus, and his words of promise to you. 

 

Notes

[1] A revised version of the sermon first preached in Sourton, Advent Sunday 2012.

In this dark and fearful time we’re living through, we're thankful today to have reached the feast of Christ the King. For the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven which Jesus brought into the world encourages us that – despite what the world aggressively tells us – there is another way altogether. Christ the king teaches and shows us that in a world of violence there is a way of peace; that in a world of fear there is a way of love; that in a world of scapegoating and mistrust there is a way of community. That way, we celebrate today.

Our service has the same structure as usual but the words we will be using are based entirely on Jesus' teachings about the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, in the hope that they may help direct us on the way as we go out from here, back into that world, re-envisioned.

– my introduction to worship this morning. Two downloads here for you, should you find them helpful: A Kingdom Communion (for the feast of Christ the King), and A Kingdom Liturgy (for everyday use).

Poignant that the funeral mass for René Girard - the great theorist who taught us so much about violence and the sacred - took place on the same day as Europe reeled with the shock of the terror attacks on Paris. The synchronicity is unsurprising, given the ongoing activities of ISIS and Boko Haram, and (sometimes retaliatory) state-sponsored violence throughout the globe. Rene's legacy is a great body of insight and understanding of how we are all tied into (what Walter Wink coined) the myth of redemptive violence – and how the gospel radically liberates us from it. Girard became a convert when he saw these liberating realities revealed in the scriptures; and his insights continue to shine in a troubled word. In recognition of all this I've re-titled my talk from yesterday, an old favourite reworked for these times: James Bond, ISIS, and the myth of redemptive violence (2015 – Spectre – version).

… Eventually Ray and Vi got to meet all three of the young men convicted of killing their son. Ray said: “When we met all three offenders and told them what it was like for us, and the things we went through and are still going through, and told them about the ripple effect and how it affected everyone from our family to the community, it made them realise the amount of people that were affected by their actions.

“Then to hear them say sorry made us both feel like a ton of coal was taken off our back. We felt free for the first time because we got all we ever wanted. We got answers to our questions and the truth. Now we hope we can leave those questions in the past and move on into the future.” 

Restorative justice as a sign of the kingdom vs. the myth of redemptive violence - from my talk today James Bond, Jesus, and the myth of redemptive violence (2015 – Spectre – version). Quote, in Prisons Week, from the Restorative Justice Council - Ray and Vi’s story.

Hebrews 10.11-25, Mark 13.1-8 

Sparkford, West Camel, Second Sunday before Advent, 15/11/2015

 

The new James Bond film is out now. If you’ve not yet seen it, Spectre, starring Daniel Craig, is still  showing at Cineworld, Yeovil. Now, whether you’ve seen it or not I imagine that you know what you’re going to get in a James Bond film. And sure enough, the plot of Spectre is the familiar mix of attack and counter-attack, intrigue, spectacular shoot-outs and death-defying stunts, flirtatious dalliances and dangerous alliances. As in every Bond movie, Bond’s nemesis traps and tries to kill him, Bond escapes, and thwarts the evil plot by killing his opponent. The key to every James Bond film is this: Bond saves the world from apocalyptic madmen – and he always does it by using violence. [2]

The idea that we can be saved by a hero who overcomes evil by force; the idea that we can be redeemed by an act of violence – this is the plot of virtually every thriller you can think of. Hollywood loves this plot. It uses it all the time: whether Superman, or Tom and Jerry, there’s a good guy with whom we identify, and a bad guy who represents all that is wrong with us. In the story the bad guy gets the upper hand – it looks like the dark side is going to win. But always, by acts of force and aggression, the good guy overcomes, and the world is safe again. 

The writer Walter Wink calls this storyline the myth of redemptive violence [3]. The idea that a final violent act can save the world for us. And this is not just a Hollywood thing. He says that our modern world believes this myth more than any other. He says that “Violence is the ethos of our times. It is the spirituality of the modern world.” And though its devotees are not aware of it, violence is a religion to them. 

The leaders of nations believe it. Hence the violence reigned on Iraq after 9/11 in the faith that this would redeem the West; the pursuit to the death of Osama bin Laden, in the belief that his death would atone for the deaths in the United States and put things right again. The violence of ISIS today is rooted in the very same sort of beliefs as this. [4]

This myth of redemptive violence is in fact the oldest story of all. Way before Christianity, way before Babylon, the very first people believed in a story of a god who by brutally killing his mother brings about creation. Evil came first but – by violence – good overcame it, and the world was born. In every culture, every religion, ever since, this myth has provided stories of creation, and also stories of the end times, sometimes called apocalyptic or millenarianism, the belief that the current society and its rulers are corrupt, unjust, or otherwise wrong, and so they will soon be destroyed by a powerful force. In this popular storyline, a disaster or battle to come will be followed by a new, purified world in which the true believers will be rewarded. Society will be transformed; after this change all things will be better than they are now.

Apocalypticism has infected our religious communities. It is popular in some Christian circles to believe that we are living in a time when prophecies of a final divine judgment are coming to pass. And in the best-selling Christian novel by Frank Peretti, called This Present Darkness [5], the people of a small town fight a New Age plot to subjugate them by using the power of prayer to conjure up an avenging angel who – by acts of violence – saves them. The statement which ISIS made yesterday in support of the actions of their suicide bombers in Paris was heavy with apocalyptic certainty: ‘Allah conquered through their hands and cast in the hearts of the Crusaders horror in the middle of their land,’ the statement read. [6]

The myth of redemptive violence affects us all. But many are uncomfortable with it, many question it. Think of those ex-servicemen deeply troubled by their memories of killing another human being. Picture, at the war memorial on Remembrance Sunday, the ex-serviceman standing there out of duty and respect but feeling deeply torn inside, burdened with unresolved guilt, recalling the consequences of his actions, whose tears during the two minutes’ silence may not be just for those whose names are etched on the memorial, but also for those whose names he never knew. [7]

People like these servicemen are often told that the sacrifices they made in war were for the good of all, but their hearts cry for a different sort of atonement altogether. [8]

In Jesus’ time people were as concerned as we are to find a hero who would overcome evil and transform the world. And they were as liable as we are to look for that hero in the wrong place, to search for a hero who would redeem the world by aggressively erasing all the evil people from it. 

Jesus challenged his followers to be very, very careful that they didn’t get caught in that trap. He told those closest to him not to be led astray by people who come as Messiah, or some sort of saviour, saying ‘I am the one!’. Jesus wants his followers to understand that his own coming will not be like this at all. There will be no doubt about his coming, but he won’t be coming like an air chief marshal, like an avenging angel, like a suicide martyr, like a 007. 

Now, when things are in crisis, when the signs of the times we see alarm us, we long for a hero of this sort to come and dramatically save us. But Jesus urges us to step back from this state of anxiety. He says, 

‘When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be alarmed; 

this must take place, but the end is still to come…’

Jesus says, don’t let these wars, battles and portents alarm you. These violent events will not redeem the world. They are in no way acts of God. And this speaks directly to the questions of our day.

The attacks on the World Trade Center – were they God’s judgment on a greedy rich nation? Jesus says, don’t be tempted to think in that way. The execution of Saddam Hussein – was that God’s way of bringing about justice and peace for the people of Iraq? Jesus says, such thoughts are not God’s thoughts. 

Of course, such things are going to happen, and Jesus knows very well that there will be wars, and nation will rise up against nation: he predicts the coming violence in his part of the world that will result in the destruction of the Temple in the year 70AD. 

But through all of this Jesus wants his disciples to tread carefully, and to dissociate ourselves from the myth of redemptive violence. For his kingdom is distinct from the kingdoms which are founded on such violence. His story denies the myth which underlies the James Bond stories. As the writer of Hebrews tells us, Jesus is not asking us to make ‘sacrifices that can never take away sins’. For, ‘Christ has offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins’. [9]

The great questions of our day are easily answered by people championing merciless aggression. What do we do about youth disorder? Lock them up; Terrorism? Bomb their countries; Asylum-seekers? Travellers? Move them on, send them away. But Jesus warns us, ‘beware that no one leads you astray’. He offers a different kind of moral leadership altogether.

Jesus urges us to disbelieve all rapid and dramatic solutions to the problems of the world. He urges us to embrace the good news that the kingdom of God is here – but will emerge slowly and almost unnoticed. And he invites us to contribute to its coming, for the kingdom of God will emerge through tiny acts of grace and love, through modest lives lived faithfully; it will develop by means of a community of faith whose members encourage and provoke each other to love and good deeds, it will grow each time we do something which demonstrates our love for enemies, each time we offer prayers for those who persecute. Through the gentle witness of Jesus’ followers the new kingdom will come, slowly and almost silently, to all nations. [10]

The Christian watches for signs of God’s kingdom emerging as we try to engage graciously with the hard questions of our time. Today – Prison Sunday – marks the beginning of Prisons Week in the UK [11], where the church people working with prisoners ask us to consider carefully current issues around crime and punishment, and respond to them with nuance. It is a difficult task, working out what salvation might mean for the prisoner, the victim of that prisoner’s crime and the society which deals with each of them, and we are asked to pray about these things this week. 

The myth of redemptive violence tells us that salvation comes to the victim of crime when they eliminate the perpetrator; but Government research shows that when victims choose to participate in restorative justice programmes – to meet face-to-face with those who committed the crime against them – a vast majority of victims find satisfaction there; and the frequency of re-offending drops by 14% [12]. 

Ray and Vi Donovan’s son Christopher was killed by a gang on a night out in 2001. Three of the fourteen gang members who had attacked Christopher were arrested. A year later these young men – aged 15, 16 and 19 – were given life sentences. 

In 2003, Ray and Vi were contacted by one of the offenders who said that he wanted to meet them and say sorry. The meeting never took place, but it prompted the Donovans to write to all three young men offering their forgiveness, and suggesting that one day they might meet.

Nine years after Christopher’s murder, the Donovans were put in touch with a restorative justice group, who were able to facilitate a meeting with one of the boys who had murdered their son. Ray and Vi were finally able to sit down with one of the people who had caused them so much pain.

Ray said: “When he walked into the room, I put my arms around him – he wouldn’t let go of me. He kept whispering ‘Sorry’ and ‘Thank you’. He said: ‘I was a fifteen year old coward. I left your son on the road, and for that, I’m sorry.’ And that meant the world to us. We got answers to our questions.”

For Vi, the encounter was equally moving: “I surprised myself, and I hugged him. Because I heard the word ‘sorry’, I heard the word I wanted to hear all those years ago in the court. He admitted what he’d done to us, and that was fantastic, to hear the truth. He released me. And I released him because I told him that I want him to forgive himself, and I forgive him.”

Eventually Ray and Vi got to meet all three of the young men convicted of killing their son. Ray said: “When we met all three offenders and told them what it was like for us, and the things we went through and are still going through, and told them about the ripple effect and how it affected everyone from our family to the community, it made them realise the amount of people that were affected by their actions.

“Then to hear them say sorry made us both feel like a ton of coal was taken off our back. We felt free for the first time because we got all we ever wanted. We got answers to our questions and the truth. Now we hope we can leave those questions in the past and move on into the future.” [13]

This brings us a long, long way from Spectre – and Iraq, and ISIS – but somewhat closer to Mark’s gospel.

James Bond is a great hero. He offers rip-roaring entertainment. But the follower of Jesus keeps a critical distance from the James Bond myth that a final violent act will save the world for us. We look for a different sort of salvation altogether – which comes through Jesus, the gentle and peaceable myth breaker – and we celebrate where we see signs of his kingdom displaying themselves in the world, restoring people’s lives, turning faceless enemies into people we can forgive. 

 

Notes 

[1] This is a rewrite of a sermon preached at Good Shepherd, Liverpool, 19/11/2006 (when the new Bond release was Casino Royale) and again in Devon, 18/11/2012 (Spectre). It followed a day where ISIS suicide-bombers had killed 127 civilians across Paris.

[2] Wikipedia: James Bond and Millenarianism. 

[3] Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers; Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination. 

[4] This analysis owes a great deal to John Gray, Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia.

[5] Frank Peretti, This Present Darkness.

[6] ISIS claim responsibility for Paris terror attacks in online statement, joe.co.uk, 14 November 2015.

[7] Ted Harrison, Whom and what are we remembering? Church Times, 9 November 2012.

[8] See Richard A. Koenigsberg, The Soldier as Sacrificial Victim, for more on this.

[9] Hebrews 10.11-12.

[10] My concluding analysis of kingdom response to myth of redemptive violence, owes much to this week’s Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary, particularly the James Alison passages. 

[11] Prisons Week website.

[12] Restorative Justice Council – What is Restorative Justice: Criminal Justice.

[13] Restorative Justice Council – Ray and Vi’s story.

One of our greatest contemporary prophets, the philosopher René Girard, who died this week, once wrote, 

"Violence is a slavery; it imposes upon people a false conception of God as well as everything else. This is why is is a closed kingdom. To escape from violence would mean to escape from this kingdom to enter another kingdom that most of us cannot even imagine: the kingdom of love which is also the kingdom of the true God, this father of Jesus of whom the prisoners of violence don't have the slightest idea".

– from What did they bring back from the war? (The Jonah version), my Remembrance Sunday talk.

 

Jonah 3.1-10, Mark 1.14-20

Remembrance Sunday (The Third Sunday before Advent), 8 November 2015

West Camel, Weston Bampfylde

 

What did they bring back from the war? (Those who did return, who are among those we remember today).

Some came back with heroic stories, of bold actions which won battles and rewarded medals.

Some returned with stories of the camaraderie and comradeship they had found in battle – a new community which for many stretched across enemy lines, with a sense of solidarity with the troops from the other side too.

Some brought back from the war a heightened sense of right and wrong, a politicised view of life, as never before critical of God and of State.

Some brought back forms of madness, shell-shock, despair, anger which would never heal.

And yet others brought back silence; as if all they had experienced had numbed them. And the families of these combatants developed the skill of listening to the gaps, learning from what went unspoken.

My great-grandfather was one of these. The man for whom I was named, John Cyril Davies, was a First World War Survivor. A ship’s carpenter on the Cunard passenger liner Lusitania which was torpedoed by a German U-boat off the coast of Ireland in May 1915.

1,198 passengers and crew lost their lives that day, but my great-grandfather was one of the 764 survivors. 

The historian Patrick O’Sullivan later wrote that ’The world was shocked in 1912 by the loss of the Titanic to an iceberg, but the shock bore no parallel to that felt by the loss of the Lusitania, which was needlessly sacrificed to the insatiable gods of war.’ [1]

I’m told that my great-grandfather hardly ever spoke of the events; but he did have a totem, an item which he brought home with him – a lock of a young woman’s hair, which he kept in a box in the attic but, again, never told the story of whose it was or how he came to have it. 

If I had not been a preacher but a novelist I might have seized on this detail and constructed a story on it – maybe of heroism, his rescue of a young girl floundering in the drowning seas, or maybe of unrequited love, she lost to the sinking ship never to be seen again, leaving him with just the lock of hair to contemplate what might have been.

But I am a preacher and so my task is to give voice to one of the unspoken questions raised in my great-grandfather’s silences: where was God in all this?

Well, let’s just turn that question around a moment. Where is the Devil in all this? Some say that the devil is in the detail. 

I suggest that in the majority of the great wars of modern times the devil has been in our unquestioning devotion to the Nation State, an invention of modernity which has replaced God with nationalism as the focus for people’s faithfulness, and the driving force behind most of the major conflicts of the past two hundred years. The historian Karen Armstrong suggests that ‘The secular war for the nation had given some of the participants experiences associated with the religious traditions: an ekstasis, a sense of liberation, freedom, equanimity, community and a profound relationship with other human beings, even the enemy’. [2]

I suggest that the devil has been in the timeless pursuits of religious and political utopias, led by those convinced that the use of force is necessary to ensure the power of the good; pursuits which could never be achieved but which have led to the slaughter of millions – whether by twentieth-century communism or national socialism, or by Isis today, and if we are circumspect about such things, as we should be, whether also by the nations driving towards the world domination of western style free-market democracy – with the effect of wholesale destruction in Iraq, the dislocation of millions of people worldwide, the destruction of the planet itself. [3] 

And so, if the world’s peoples are to work out how to live in peace in the future we need to address these sobering propositions, that the nation is now our idol, that utopias are our idol, that the belief in the power of redemptive violence is our idol.

The most devilish detail of all is the mistaken view of God as one who supports such idolatries. The notion of an angry, vengeful God who demands blood sacrifices of his subjects and judges in blood and fire – the God of the old scriptures, the God before the Gospels, the God of violence. 

One of our greatest contemporary prophets, the philosopher René Girard, who died this week, [4] once wrote, 

“Violence is a slavery; it imposes upon people a false conception of God as well as everything else. This is why is is a closed kingdom. To escape from violence would mean to escape from this kingdom to enter another kingdom that most of us cannot even imagine: the kingdom of love which is also the kingdom of the true God, this father of Jesus of whom the prisoners of violence don’t have the slightest idea”. [5]

So where is God in all this? I propose that it is not the devil, but God who is in the detail.

For I put it to you that our God is a God of small things, who stood alongside people in their suffering in the trenches and other arenas of war, who then accompanied them home. Who stood with those at home, waiting anxiously for their loved ones’ return.

I put it to you that our God is a God of modest things, whose great skill is to help humans to learn to be humane in the everyday exchanges of ordinary life.

I suggest that our God is a God whose kingdom is very much of this earth, as taught by Jesus to ordinary people in everyday places – the dining table, the mountainside, the sea shore. See how he called the fishermen Simon and Andrew, James and John to join him in proclaiming the good news of this kingdom, a new way of life which he inaugurated at that time, to grow like a mustard seed from that very moment on, and last for all time.

It is God who is in the detail. A God whose kingdom is a peaceable kingdom, built on self-giving grace.

In the rip-roaring tale of Jonah – common to the Jewish, Christian and Islamic scriptures – the only violence in the story surrounds the self-serving reluctance of the prophet Jonah, who didn’t want to help save Nineveh’s people, and reacted badly when they changed their ways. Did Jonah prefer to do nothing to save them so as to let an angry God wreak his violent judgement on Nineveh? Was Jonah angry with God because he chose to save rather than destroy them?

At the very end of the book of Jonah God says, ‘Should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left…?’ [6] 

The king of Nineveh said, ‘All [of us] shall turn from [our] evil ways and from the violence that is in [our] hands.’ [7] This is good news for every society – ever – caught up in the devilish deceits of violence; the king and the people of Nineveh had caught a glimpse of a different kingdom, a new way for them, and they grasped it gratefully.

What did they bring back from the war, those we remember today, those whose blood our poppies represent? 

Many of them brought a desire to move on, to learn how to turn from violence and to live now in peace. To find love, to make a home, to build families, to apply themselves to neighbourliness and community.

I believe that God was with them in those details, as they went about the humble, but noble, task of making the peace. Because these are the details, these are the values, of the kingdom of God.

I believe that God was with my great-grandfather as he overcame the trauma of the Lusitania and set about building a life for himself – building a home and family which eventually included me. 

And so I invite you now, to take a few moments to consider the lives we are commemorating today, and other lives whose memories have been rekindled for you in this hour.

Consider how we might, to honour their memory and embrace their spirit, turn away from violence and commit our lives in peacetime to the humble, but noble, task of making and keeping the peace.

Consider how we might embrace the new kingdom into our hearts – the peaceable kingdom of God – in which loving God, loving our neighbour, loving our enemies are our way, and the teachings of Jesus on the mountainside are our guide:

[Close by saying The Beatitudes together – Matthew 5.1-12]

 

Notes

Based on the sermon What did they bring back from the war? Reflection for ‘Till the Boys Come Home’ preached at Corton Denham, 30  November 2014.

[1] Patrick O’Sullivan, The Sinking of the Lusitania, p.29. See my other writings on this topic: The silence of John Davies, my great-grandfather, Lusitania survivor.

[2] Karen Armstrong, Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence p.274

[3] ‘Blair believes in the power of force to ensure the triumph of the good.’ John Gray, Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia, p.137.

[5] Cynthia Haven, Stanford professor and eminent French theorist René Girard, member of the Académie Française, dies at 91, Stanford Report, November 4, 2015

[6] René Girard, Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, p.197, paraphrase.

[3] Jonah 4.11

[4] Jonah 3.8

 

 

On this All Saints Day we recall all those ghosts saints and souls we hold in blessed memory:

 

We recall those first signs of our first human ancestors,

200,000 years ago, in what we now call the Rift Valley, Kenya;

the Mesolithic People, the first ‘Britons’ in a land

we would recognise, after the last Ice Age, 11,000 years ago:

 

We recall Abraham and Sarah, and Isaac, about 4,000 years ago, of 2000 BC,

journeying into the unknown, with just Trust in a Hunch;

and beginning the Story of Faith that is the Bible;

to become Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and

the Renaissance, the Human, Social and the Political Sciences:

 

We recall Naomi and Ruth, Isaiah and the ‘discovery’ of  YAHWEH

by the powerless people of Israel:

John The Baptist and all the Prophets,

who spoke God’s truth no matter the cost:

We recall Mary, full of grace, called to be the singer of the song

of the poor, and the mother of the lord of the dance:

We recall the Men of the Disciples, who came to understand

WHAT HE HAD DONE FOR THEM;

for the Women, the first to ‘UNDERSTAND’:

 

We recall George, Anthony and Margaret of Antioch

and all who embraced THE DRAGON:

We recall Columba, Cuthbert, and the Venerable Bede of Jarrow

for guarding the sacredness of these Celtic British Lands:

We recall John of the Cross and the ‘Cloud of Unknowing”,

and all those who dared to show the dark face of God:

 

We recall Arthur Pendragon, King of the Britons;

Llywelyn of the Welsh, Robin Hood, Rob Roy MacGregor; King Edward The Confessor,

And all those who become the stuff of legend and myth:

We recall all the risk-takers, peacemakers and martyrs of our own time:

among them Abraham Lincoln, Mary Secole, Mahatma Ghandi, Dag Hammarskjöld:

 

We recall all those prophets and ‘saints’ of the Church across the ages;

Augustine; Ignatius; Francis; Thomas Aquinas;

Søren Kierkegaard, Meister Eckhart, Pope John the twenty-third,

Michael Ramsey, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, William Temple, Mother Teresa, Brother Roger of Taizé;

William Wilberforce, George McLeod of Iona, Martin Luther King Jr, Billy Graham, Nelson Mandela.

 

We recall all poets and prophets, writers and singers, scientists, philosophers and artists 

whose works have inspired us: William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, J.R.R.Tolkien, 

Leo Tolstoy, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky; Charles Darwin, John and Charles Wesley;

We recall Thomas Tallis, Leonardo da Vinci; Ludwig Von Beethoven, Jean Sibelius;

Glen Miller, Lennon and McCartney, Johnny Cash; Bono, the Edge and Mark E. Smith;

R.S.Thomas; T.S.Eliot, Roger McGough and Stewart Henderson; 

Morecambe and Wise, Tommy Cooper and Spike Milligan.

We recall our sporting heroes of different eras and codes; Harvey-Kendall-Ball; 

We celebrate all who gave heart to us by giving their heart.

 

We recall all the heroes, holy ones, saints, and souls

remembered by us alone, or God alone : the saints of our own lives 

who invested teaching, friendship and trust in us;

We recall all those of our own minds and hearts,

who were of us, and informed our spirit for our way.

 

– this Roll of Honour prefixed my All Saints Day services today; based on a wonderful original by Robert Gallagher, November 2015