Month: January 2017

My Dear Wormwood,

Be sure that the patient remains completely fixated on politics. Arguments, political gossip, and obsessing on the faults of people they have never met serves as an excellent distraction from advancing in personal virtue, character, and the things the patient can control. Make sure to keep the patient in a constant state of angst, frustration and general disdain towards the rest of the human race in order to avoid any kind of charity or inner peace from further developing. Ensure that the patient continues to believe that the problem is “out there” in the “broken system” rather than recognizing there is a problem with himself.

Keep up the good work, 

Uncle Screwtape

– this and lots about Red Letter Christians, in my talk at tonight's West Camel Methodist Covenant Service (shared by us Anglicans), Red-Letter living in the time of Trump.

… Is it time for us to put away the fears held by recent generations of adults, fears of paying attention to children lest we be accused of some form of deviancy? Is it time for us to assert that, in God’s eyes, in Jesus’ teaching, the deviant is the one who avoids or excludes children, the deviant is the one who in the name of protecting children, isolates them from the rest of society?

Is it time instead for us – sensitively, with openness and accountability certainly, but most of all lovingly – to go out of our way to lift our young ones high? To place our hopes in them and to work with them to help to make their future as bright as it can be? I would say so, because that would be to follow the way of Jesus. And the example of Simeon and Anna.

So in our everyday worship we might lift up the young ones in our homes and families with good listening, positive encouragement, practical help.

In our everyday worship we might lift up the young ones in our community with positive words, acts of kindness, trusting and open attitudes to those we meet.

We read in polls that young people in the UK are concerned, more than anything else, about good, well-paid jobs, about protecting human rights, about well-funded public services and good quality educational opportunities for all. 

It may be that we can help – by offering to share with a younger person some skills or knowledge we have which will help them in their work or their education, caring because Jesus cares for them. 

It may be that we can help – by supporting initiatives for good employment practices in business, for sustained public health services, for affordable education, for the protection of those human rights which are the concern of young people, campaigning and wielding what influence we have alongside young people, so their voices are heard and their concerns lifted high in the public agenda.

It may not always be easy, lifting up the young, in an unequal society heavily weighted towards the older powerful ones, in a fearful society divided by identity – race, creed, sexuality and age. Just as in Simeon’s time when he saw that Jesus’ campaign to ‘lift up the lowly’, in his mother’s words, would involve bringing others down and because of that would create opposition and end up in tragedy. 

But if we are to be true to his words – if we are to follow in his ways – this must be part of who we are. …

– from my sermon today on 'intergenerational equity'. Yes, quoting Ann Morisy, and inspired by an image of Simeon holding high the baby Jesus in the temple: Lifting up the child.

Psalm 24.1-10, Luke 2.22-40

The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, Sunday 29 January 2017

West Camel, Queen Camel 

There’s a theme running through today’s readings, and it’s about lifting and being lifted up.

The Psalmist says,

Lift up your heads, O gates!

    and be lifted up, O ancient doors!

    that the King of glory may come in.

The Psalmist is telling the Temple to prepare for the worship of the people, just like in a different time and place the great bells of [All Saints / St Barnabas] church loudly and tunefully sound across the village and the countryside, inviting the people in to worship. 

The Psalmist, picturing the people lifting their feet to travel upwards to worship; then asks,

Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?

    And who shall stand in his holy place?

… then answers his own question:

Those who have clean hands and pure hearts,

    who do not lift up their souls to what is false,

    and do not swear deceitfully.

And here, the lifting-up is of the people’s souls. It’s a reminder that it’s who we are inside that we bring to worship, it’s who we are inside that God is interested in, it’s who we are inside that we lift up in praise and adoration every time we rise from our beds to remember God’s goodness to us, God’s love for us.

In the delightful little story of the baby Jesus being presented in the temple, and old faithful worshipper Simeon receiving the child, I see another sort of lifting up.

For when the text says, ‘Simeon took him in his arms and praised God’, I picture a man doing what men like to do with babies – lifting up the child, holding him out before him, holding him high as he says, 

‘Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word;

for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,

a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.’

Here is your salvation; lifted up in my very own hands. Here is the light of revelation to all people, who I am elevating right here in this temple. I can go to my grave in peace because in this wonderful moment you have uplifted me. And so I lift up my soul in thanksgiving to you, for this child.

Now, you may have had such moments. As parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, godparents, friends and neighbours, those moments when you’ve taken a child in your arms, when you’ve lifted the child up before you so your eyes meet, when you’ve held the child high in celebration, and when inside, your soul has been uplifted, for all your hopes and dreams for the future are being fulfilled in this tiny little one. Simeon moments; the prophetess Anna had one also, that same day, in that same temple, with Jesus.

I wonder if it might be part of our mission in life, our witness as Christians, part of our everyday worship, to be people who lift up little ones? Who elevate children? Who raise youngsters high?

After all,  it was the grown-up Jesus who once placed a child among the disciples, and said, ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.’ [1]

And it was Jesus who said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.’ [2]

And isn’t it the case, when we look at our world today, that among those people who really need lifting-up the most, the forgotten and misunderstood ones, the ones with the least power and influence, the ones whose voice is often edited out of public conversation, it’s the children, it’s the young people who are always there.

So I say again, do you see it as part of your mission in life, your witness as Christians, part of your everyday worship, to lift up little ones? To elevate children? To raise youngsters high?

Is it time for us to put away the fears held by recent generations of adults, fears of paying attention to children lest we be accused of some form of deviancy? Is it time for us to assert that, in God’s eyes, in Jesus’ teaching, the deviant is the one who avoids or excludes children, the deviant is the one who in the name of protecting children, isolates them from the rest of society?

Is it time instead for us – sensitively, with openness and accountability certainly, but most of all lovingly – to go out of our way to lift our young ones high? To place our hopes in them and to work with them to help to make their future as bright as it can be? I would say so, because that would be to follow the way of Jesus. And the example of Simeon and Anna.

So in our everyday worship we might lift up the young ones in our homes and families with good listening, positive encouragement, practical help.

In our everyday worship we might lift up the young ones in our community with positive words, acts of kindness, trusting and open attitudes to those we meet.

We read in polls that young people in the UK are concerned, more than anything else, about good, well-paid jobs, about protecting human rights, about well-funded public services and good quality educational opportunities for all. [3] 

It may be that we can help – by offering to share with a younger person some skills or knowledge we have which will help them in their work or their education, caring because Jesus cares for them. 

It may be that we can help – by supporting initiatives for good employment practices in business, for sustained public health services, for affordable education, for the protection of those human rights which are the concern of young people, campaigning and wielding what influence we have alongside young people, so their voices are heard and their concerns lifted high in the public agenda.

It may not always be easy, lifting up the young, in an unequal society heavily weighted towards the older powerful ones, in a fearful society divided by identity – race, creed, sexuality and age. Just as in Simeon’s time when he saw that Jesus’ campaign to ‘lift up the lowly’, in his mother’s words, [4] would involve bringing others down and because of that would create opposition and end up in tragedy. 

But if we are to be true to his words – if we are to follow in his ways – this must be part of who we are. Especially now, for, to quote the community theologian Ann Morisy, 

[These days] we have less and less confidence that progress can flow into the future and embrace future generations. Instead, the trajectory points towards life getting tougher for younger and future generations. This disadvantaging of younger age groups is a rare occurrence in the history of western societies; in fact it is a rarity in the history of humankind. [5]

A baby boomer herself, Ann Morisy recognises that ‘it seems that I have had an uninterrupted stream of benefits throughout my life’, but also that these benefits are now drying up, and far less likely to be enjoyed by the young. She calls for what she calls ‘intergenerational equity’ – those of the older generation who have done comfortably well from the system in their lifetime, making a priority to reach out to the younger generations. [6] She does so as a Christian, seeing, in the behaviour and teachings of Jesus, ‘valuable clues about how to unfurl justice, mercy and grace, both today and into the future’. [7] 

It may be that you share her passion for this subject and that this may be the year – by small steps or large – where we act on our convictions and reach out in new ways to our young ones, seeking to lift them up, seeking to hold them high.

Notes 

[1] Matthew 18.2-4.

[2] Matthew 19.14.

[3] Nick Gutteridge, Reducing immigration NOT among public’s top priorities for Brexit deal says shock poll, Express, 23 Jan 2017.

[4] Luke 1.46-55.

[5] Ann Morisy, Borrowing from the Future: A Faith-Based Approach to Intergenerational Equity, p.2.

[6] Ann Morisy, p.1.

[7] Ann Morisy, p.6.

Isaiah 49:8-16, Matthew 6:24-34

Methodist Covenant United Service, West Camel, 29 January 2017

‘No one can serve two masters,’ said Jesus. ‘For he will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other.’

I’ve just been reading a challenging book by the Christian writer Keith Giles. It’s called Jesus Untangled, and what he is saying seems to be totally against the spirit of the age we’re living in, especially in his part of the world, North America. [1] Jesus Untangled argues that Christians should separate ourselves completely from politics. Which might be news to the gospel singer Vicki Yohe who last week suggested that with Donald Trump as President, Jesus is back in the White House. [2] And might be news to those who for similar reasons, celebrate an Anglican vicar’s daughter being in 10 Downing Street. [3] 

Ever since the Roman emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in the year 312AD, Christianity has taken up the flag along with the cross, Christians have trusted politicians of each and every persuasion to do God’s work for them in the world, assuming that worldly rulers are divinely appointed to deliver justice and mercy for God on our behalf. We have put our trust in the rulers of the earth. Forgetting that Jesus once taught his followers, 

‘No one can serve two masters, for he will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other.’

So Keith Giles is saying, if we disentangle ourselves from our faith in politicians, and focus completely on our faith in Jesus Christ, then we will be more truly able to make a difference in the world, by living as Jesus taught and showed us, as the gospels record. As he says,

The Gospel of Jesus is still the most effective weapon against evil, corruption, violence, hate, fear, and every other sin known to mankind. If you really believe that, don’t give in to the fear-based rhetoric that threatens to distract you. Instead, start sharing the Good News of the Kingdom. Let everyone know that Jesus is the best Leader anyone could ever have. [4]

What’s the alternative? That we continue to put our trust in politicians who fail to deliver on their promises to do the right things – in America the Christian Moral Majority put all its weight behind presidents who promised to deliver on abortion, but who once in office, never did; here in the UK I spent much of the 1990s campaigning with Church Action on Poverty and warmly welcomed the stated intention of Tony Blair’s New Labour government to end child poverty, in which, again, they and subsequent governments absolutely failed.

I’m minded of the great book by C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, in which Screwtape, a senior devil, writes to his apprentice Wormwood, letters of encouragement about how to keep the Christians from living out their faith effectively. One letter goes like this:

My Dear Wormwood,

Be sure that the patient remains completely fixated on politics. Arguments, political gossip, and obsessing on the faults of people they have never met serves as an excellent distraction from advancing in personal virtue, character, and the things the patient can control. Make sure to keep the patient in a constant state of angst, frustration and general disdain towards the rest of the human race in order to avoid any kind of charity or inner peace from further developing. Ensure that the patient continues to believe that the problem is “out there” in the “broken system” rather than recognizing there is a problem with himself.

Keep up the good work, 

Uncle Screwtape. [5]

So Jesus Untangled is not suggesting that Christians should absolute separate ourselves from political life and action, not advocating that Christians should retreat from the hard realities of living in a pagan empire, and not be involved in programmes and protests for change. But rather the book is addressing what Jesus himself always addressees: the question of what is in our heart – what is our deepest motivation for our actions in the world. Is it our desire for political influence or our desire to follow Christ? This is challenging at the deepest level – whether to a Christian ‘social activist’ or to anyone daring to vote or wave a flag whilst also claiming to be following Christ. But it is completely in tune with what Jesus himself taught:

‘No one can serve two masters, for he will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other.’

I think this is a fitting verse for us to contemplate as we renew our Covenant vow today. [6] It raises the question for us of how do we best serve Jesus in our world today – serve him, and him alone. One direction in which we might consider going is for each of us to become a Red Letter Christian.

What is a Red Letter Christian? Well, I wonder if you have a bible like this one [demonstrates] – one in which the words which Jesus spoke are all printed in red?

A Red Letter Christian is quite simply one who most of all, before anything else, takes Jesus seriously by trying to live out His teachings as set forth in Scripture, and especially embracing the lifestyle which prescribed in the Sermon on the Mount.

Red Letter Christians commit themselves first and foremost to doing what Jesus said. Jesus calls us away from the consumerist values that dominate our society (remember that when Jesus spoke about serving two masters he went on to say, ‘you cannot serve God and money’). Instead, he calls us to meet the needs of the poor. He also calls us to be merciful, which has strong implications in terms of war and punishment. After all, when Jesus tells us to love our enemies, he probably means we shouldn’t kill them. [7]

Now, if you commit to being a Red Letter Christian you’re released from so many of life’s anxieties and tensions. Remember those Red Letter words we just heard, from the Sermon on the Mount: 

‘Do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.’

As The Father feeds the birds of the air, so He feeds us. And as The Father clothes the lilies of the field, so He clothes us. So we don’t need to listen to those voices demanding that we consume more and more, that we keep on looking for the perfect outfit, for we will be given all we need by God. Neither do we need to support politicians who make promises to improve our well-being, for The Father’s promise is sufficient; nor do we need to defend politicians who will exploit the earth’s resources or take up arms against other peoples in the cause of material gain, for all we need The Father gives us. So Jesus’ words teach us.

There is a network of people calling themselves Red Letter Christians. They are simply Christians committed to first and foremost following the teachings of our Lord. Anyone can join them. This is what they say:

The words of Jesus are authoritative and compel us to believe:

1 All people are made in the likeness and image of God.

2 Jesus is the lens through which we understand the Bible… and through which we understand the world in which we live.

3 Doing Jesus’ work leads to personal growth and greater understanding.

4 Freedom comes through serving others – not power, politics or materialism.

5 Diversity and collaboration make us stronger, not weaker.

6 Wherever your power and influence might lie, it is magnified when shared and held by those who are poor, oppressed and looked over by society.

7 Questioning cultural norms is healthy and can lead to wholeness.

8 We respect and fight for the well-being of all people as children of God – especially those with whom we differ.

9 We embrace and work alongside people of different faiths, erasing the lines of ‘us vs. them.’ [8]

It’s a challenge, living as a Red Letter Christian. But isn’t it just the challenge Jesus gave us when he said, 

‘No one can serve two masters, for he will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other.’

It’s a challenge, living as a Red Letter Christian. But it isn’t just a challenge, it’s the way which leads to joy, and eternal life. 

Notes

[1] Keith Giles, Jesus Untangled: Crucifying Our Politics to Pledge Allegiance to the Lamb.

[2] Charity Gibson, Singer Vicki Yohe Apologizes for Pro-Donald Trump, Jesus in White House Post, The Christian Post (online), 23 January 2017.

[3] Sam Hailes,  3 ways Theresa May’s private Christian faith impacts her public politics, Premier Christianity blog, 11 July 2016.

[4] Keith Giles, Jesus Untangled: Crucifying Our Politics to Pledge Allegiance to the Lamb, p.185.

[5] C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters: Letters from a Senior to a Junior Devil.

[6] The Methodist Covenant Prayer:  “I am no longer my own but yours. Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will; put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me be employed for you or laid aside for you, exalted for you or brought low for you. Let me be full, let me be empty, let me have all things, let me have nothing. I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal. And now, glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you are mine and I am yours. So be it. And the covenant made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.” The Methodist Church in Britain: The Covenant Service.

[7] Red Letter Christians: What is RLC? Adapted.

[8] Red Letter Christians: What is RLC?

For Speakeasy, I've been reading a review copy of Keith Giles' Jesus Untangled: Crucifying Our Politics to Pledge Allegiance to the Lamb. Here's what I think…. 

As someone who has long asserted there can be no splits between faith and politics, I found the first few chapters of Jesus Untangled difficult reading, for Keith Giles appears to be suggesting that Christians should absolutely separate ourselves from political life and action. He comes close to this but eventually his deeper message sinks in: he's not advocating that Christians should retreat from the hard realities of living in a pagan empire, he’s not promoting non-involvement in programmes and protests for change. But rather he is addressing what Jesus himself always addressees: the question of what is in our heart – what is our deepest motivation for our actions in the world. Is it our desire for political influence or our desire to follow Christ? This is challenging at the deepest level – whether to a Christian ‘social activist’ or to anyone daring to vote or wave a flag whilst also claiming to be following Christ.

Being British I come at this material from a different perspective, which is that of belonging to a Church which is still structurally welded to the State (and which continues to studiously avoid any serious debates about disestablishment). But Keith Giles's revelations about the ineffectiveness of US politics to achieve the work of God's kingdom, bring UK parallels to mind (one recent example from the centre-left here: the absolute failure of the Tony Blair New Labour government in its stated intention to end child poverty).

It's about a lynching: today's talk Strange Fruit: The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world links the Billie Holiday song which Rebecca Ferguson was not allowed to sing at Trump's Inauguration, with "The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world"…..

1 Corinthians 1.1-9, John 1.29-42 

The Second Sunday of Epiphany, 15 January 2017

Sutton Montis , West Camel 

“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

They loved their theatre in ancient Corinth, and what a wild form of theatre it was. Corinth was a centre of the cult of Dionysus, the god of the vine, the grape harvest, of wine and winemaking, of ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. And at festivals and in theatres dedicated to Dionysus, sure enough the wine flowed, the dancers danced, the revellers got all bacchanalian – and – this is the part which we might struggle with – the crowd onstage made sacrifices to the god Dionysus in the ripping-apart of animals, sometimes even humans, and the eating of their dismembered flesh. [1]

Now, this isn’t the sort of theatre you’re likely to pay to see in the West End today. But our theatre is rooted in Greek theatre of this kind. We’ve evolved away from ritual sacrifices into far subtler kinds of performance, but – this is a question for today – have we left Dionysus behind? 

The influential theorist René Girard, who died a year ago, didn’t think we had. 

“In the sinister cult of Dionysus”, he wrote, “the protagonist is the entire community transformed into a violent mob. They believe that an isolated individual threatens them, who is often a foreigner, and they spontaneously massacre the visitor.” Girard struggled to find a French term to describe “this sudden, convulsive violence, this pure crowd phenomenon,” he said. “The word that comes most readily to the lips is an Americanism, ‘lynching’.” [2] 

Now lynching is never far from the news. This week came reports that the British singer Rebecca Ferguson has pulled out of Donald Trump’s inauguration after the organisers denied her request to perform Strange Fruit – the 1930s Billie Holiday song which protests at racism and particularly the lynching of black people. She said, “I requested to sing Strange Fruit as I felt it was the only song that would not compromise my artistic integrity and also as somebody who has a lot of love for all people, but has a special empathy as well for African American people and the Black Lives Matter movement, I wanted to create a moment of pause for people to reflect.” [3]

But from the West Front of the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., next Friday, back to the cult of Dionysus over a thousand years BC. The cult’s bloody rituals originated in the very disturbing tale that when he was just newly-born, Dionysus was murdered by a crowd of Titans, who ate everything but his heart, and the very astonishing story that Dionysus’ father Zeus used the heart to recreate his son, making him ”the twice-born”. [4]

The story seems to tell us that even the gods can’t escape being lynched, or sacrificed, by the crowds, for the sake of the greater good. But also that the gods have the power to be reborn.

And so to John the Baptist, announcing the coming of Jesus the Messiah with these words, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

And the term ‘Lamb of God’ is a reference to human sacrifice. John saw what Jesus later taught, that just like Dionysus, in time the people would demand the blood of Jesus.

And so they did – at the start of his ministry in Nazareth when the crowds tried to throw him over a cliff [5]; at various flash points in the temple when the pharisees tried to stone him [6] and at the end of his ministry in Jerusalem where those who wanted rid of him wound up the crowd to collectively press for his execution; Jesus’ death was a kind of lynching.

So Jesus and Dionysus shared the same story; even the radically anti-Christian German philosopher

Friedrich Nietzsche saw it clearly. In his famous book The Will to Power, in a section headed  Dionysus versus the Crucified Nietzsche explained how he saw the equivalence between the collective murder of Dionysus and the passion of Jesus. There is a difference between the two, he said, but “It is not a difference in regards to their martyrdom – it is a difference in their meaning of it.” [7]

So when Dionysus dies his brutal sacrificial death and is reborn, all that happens is that the cycle of violence picks up again and carries on as before. The work of the Titans is never done. Dionysus always wants our blood. Lynchings are still being performed today. What name shall we give this endless cycle of sacrifice to our angry vengeful gods, of this steady stream of lynchings and expulsions of our scapegoats who don’t fit in? We might call it ‘the sin of the world’.

But when Jesus the Lamb of God dies and is reborn, John proclaims “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” 

What is the meaning of that?

The way that most of us have been taught, the meaning of Jesus being the Lamb of God is that ‘God is in his heaven, and he demands that someone pays the bill for all the evil in the world. Jesus pays the bill, and the rest of us are let off.’ That’s the sacrifice; that’s the “Lamb of God.” [8] 

But doesn’t that sound a bit Greek to you? You know, the Jewish people couldn’t understand the Greeks’ obsession with human sacrifice – for they had abandoned that themselves way, way back in their story, when God saved Abraham’s son Isaac from sacrifice. Abraham moved from the sacrifice of his son to something less troubling.  And Jewish people today can’t understand why Christians insist on the theory that God, angry at our sins and ready to punish us for them, sent his Son in order to take the rap himself, and for us.

The Jews have a point when they say this looks like reversing the Abrahamic move. They say, ‘You Christians look like you’re going in the other direction: you see God sacrificing his Son.’

The problem for this atonement theory is that it leaves in place a vengeful God who demands that someone be punished for sin. This is not a God who conforms to the God revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. [9]

Isn’t this God revealed in Jesus, the Father who loves his Son unconditionally? [10] 

Isn’t this Jesus the Son who taught his disciples, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.”? [11]

And isn’t this Jesus the Lamb of God, who comes from the Father and returns to the Father? [12]

Now, as Paul put it in his letter to them, those first Christians in Dionysian Corinth found themselves ‘enriched in Jesus Christ’ as they embraced these great new truths about the nature of God. [13] Enriched in Jesus Christ as they asked themselves the sorts of question we must ask ourselves if we, too, seek enrichment of our hearts and minds.

When we think about the meaning of The Lamb of God, we must ask ourselves, who is offering the lamb to be sacrificed? And who is the lamb being sacrificed to? Who is the one demanding blood sacrifices?

What if we have had it all the wrong way around for so long – that the Lamb of God is not the people’s offering to a wrathful God – it would be more accurate to call that lamb the Lamb of Man; but rather that the Lamb of God is God’s offering to the people; for it is humanity who demand sacrifice. 

The Lamb of God is not the lamb of the human community given to God, but is the Lamb of God given to the sacrificial human community. We are the ones who lynch; we are the ones who demand sacrifices of the weak and outsiders. We can’t blame it on God. We can no longer say God wanted that sacrifice. The passion story of Jesus exposes the sin of the world as humanity’s addiction to human sacrifice. [14]

“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

So how does Jesus’s blood save us? By revealing to us, uniquely, how we’re bound into an endless cycle of sacrifice – and releasing us from it, by breaking that cycle himself. For he is the innocent victim whose death opens our eyes to our sinfulness; but there is no vengeance in him, towards us, just pure entirely giving love.

We can sense the truth in this when we remember how firmly Jesus opposed the lynchings of crowds when he saw them – that time he saved the woman caught in adultery from a stoning, for example. [15]

We can see how awareness of this salvation has seeped into our culture, for unlike the ancients the gospel has made the world aware of how we make victims, of how we create scapegoats as sacrifices for the good of our community – as Rebecca Ferguson’s stance this week well shows.

We can live this good news ourselves by standing alongside those who we feel are being victimised in our village, scapegoated in our school, vilified in social media, being prepared for expulsion and punishment by those soliciting our popular support. 

We might ask, when we see society expecting our young people to sacrifice the possibility of good work, their own homes, a safe environment – what god does that sacrifice serve?

You can find yourself ‘enriched in Christ’ by training yourself to be more aware of when sacrifices come into play in daily life – if you feel you’re being pressured to make a sacrifice of some sort – that could be a sign of a pagan god at work; in January it’s the gods of the body, the health-and-fitness gods who crush us with their demands for sacrificial eating, extra exercise to atone for the sins of the Christmas season. … 

But if you find yourself making a sacrifice for someone else’s sake, out of love – that’s surely a wonderful sign of our Father God at work.

In our church calendar we travel this year with the gospel of John. The theologian John Fenton says that 

John [the Evangelist] is one of those comparatively rare people who are dissatisfied with the way their contemporaries are living and horrified at the second-rate quality of what they find acceptable. He believes passionately that we could do better; and this dissatisfaction colours not only his view of those who are not believers, but also his attitude to the contemporary churches. Darkness and death are at work not only in the world, but among the faithful. 

[In his gospel] John jettisons so much of the traditional religious baggage. Jesus did not come to offer a sacrifice for sin, or to found a church, or to teach people how to keep the old law, or to give them a new law; he came to be himself. What he does, he does by… being here.… This is the meaning of the I AM sayings – everything that is needed for the real and full life, is available here and now. [16] 

“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” – let us let our hearts to embrace him anew as the world turns through the start of this new year.

Notes

[1] Wikipedia: Dionysus, Theatre of Dionysus and related pages. I was pulled in this direction by Paul Nuechterlein’s Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary, Reflections, Year A. Epiphany 2A, regarding Robert Hamerton-Kelly, “A Girardian Interpretation of Paul: Rivalry, Mimesis and Victimage in the Corinthian Correspondence,” Semeia 33: René Girard and Biblical Studies (1985), pp. 65-81. Nuechterlein notes that ‘A feature that Hamerton-Kelly lifts up is the fact that Corinth was a centre of the Dionysian cult, an important foil for Girard – first in Violence and the Sacred, but also later in his treatment of Nietzsche (many places).’ 

[2] René Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, p.63-64. This book informs much of the wider discussion here, as does Girard’s paper “Dionysus versus the Crucified”, MLN Vol. 99, No. 4, French Issue (Sep., 1984), pp. 816-835.

[3] Rebecca Davison and Chris Summers, Singer Rebecca Ferguson PULLS OUT of performance at Trump’s inauguration in feud over her decision to sing anti-lynching protest song, Mailonline, 10 January 2017.

[4] Wikipedia: Birth (and infant death and rebirth).

[5] Luke 4.14-30.

[6] John 8.59, John 10.31-33.

[7] Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, p.542-43.

[8] Paul Nuechterlein, Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary, Reflections, Year A. Epiphany 2A.

[9] Paul Nuechterlein, Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary, Reflections, Year A. Epiphany 2A.

[10] John 3.35.

[11] John 15.9.

[12] John 16.28.

[13] 1 Corinthians 1.5.

[14] Paul Nuechterlein, Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary, Reflections, Year A. Epiphany 2A.

[15] John 8.1-11.

[16] John Fenton, Finding The Way Through John, p.143. Thanks, Robert Gallagher, for this reference.

Question for those of us who think we know all there is to know about God and kings and life and death: are we open enough to hear what people from outside our worldview have to say? Believing that God might just be using them to open our eyes to whole new ways of seeing?

Statement for those who do not regard themselves as having yet arrived, but like these wise travellers as being still on a journey of discovery – the baby Jesus is ready to welcome you, the adult Jesus is longing to walk with you, as you go on your way.

– the conclusion of my talk today, with a nod towards John Berger, Their gifts revealed their wisdom: the wise men’s new ways of seeing.

Isaiah 60.1-6, Matthew 2.1-12

Epiphany Sunday 8 January 2017

West Camel, Corton Denham

The visit of the wise men. This is the strangest and most wonderful of stories, and only Matthew tells it. It’s full of mystery and symbolism which our Christmas carols capture beautifully.

We’re only guessing there were three of them because Matthew doesn’t tell us – only that they pulled three sorts of gifts from their treasure-chests. Gifts full of meaning. Gold for a king, Frankincense for a God, and Myrrh for a death.

Why do we call them wise? As we chew that one over let’s take a look at the three gifts and their meaning. With the help of the carol we sang earlier on.

Born a King on Bethlehem’s plain

Gold I bring to crown Him again

King forever, ceasing never

Over us all to reign [1]

Gold for a king. Question is, what wise men would want to honour a king? After all, the wisdom of the scriptures warns against our putting our faith in kings. When the people of Israel wanted a king so that they could be like all the other nations around them, this is what God told them:

‘A king will take your sons and make soldiers of them, or to labour on his farms, or to making weapons of war. He’ll take your daughters to work in his palaces. He’ll take your best fields, vineyards, and orchards, your prize workers and best animals for his own use. He’ll tax your crops to support his extensive bureaucracy. He’ll tax your flocks and you’ll end up no better than slaves’. [2]

And sure enough, from Saul onwards, Israel’s kings were each at best flawed, and at worst their lust for power, possessions and military might was satisfied at the expense of the poorest and most vulnerable in the land. When Jesus was born King Herod the Great, voracious for power and wealth, was embarked on a great city-building expansion programme fed by high taxation, land possession and slave labour, making this a time of great struggle for the mass of ordinary people in the land. And despite his great wealth and power King Herod’s insecurities made him fear the baby the wise men told him about, so much that he ordered all the newly firstborns in the land be killed. [3]

Gold for a king? A priceless irony. Unless these wise men’s wisdom was in looking for a king with no interest in gold or power games, who instead chooses to struggle alongside and for the mass of ordinary people in the land. For that is what they found in Jesus – the One whose kingdom embraced good news for the poor, whose idea of power was about giving it away, saying “The first shall be last and the last shall be first”, who put open-minded children before adults obsessed with their status, the One who said “The love of money is the root of all evil” and who warned about storing up treasure on earth, the One who went out of his way to question the ways of Empire, who mocked royal pretensions by riding into Jerusalem on a donkey while at the other end of town the king pranced around on prize horses, the One who only ever wore one crown – a crown of thorns. 

Frankincense to offer have I

Incense owns a Deity nigh

Prayer and praising, all men raising

Worship Him, God most high [4]

Frankincense for a God. Question is, what kind of a God would these wise men honour? There were gods-a-plenty in the time these wise travellers made their westward journey. They tended to be angry judgemental gods, jealous gods, quick to accuse, quick to judge, quick to condemn anyone who wronged them in any way, and then quick to exercise their wrath in blood and fire and storm and other forms of divine rage. Scary gods, who demanded sacrifices from people to keep their wrath under wraps. Funny – these gods acted very like the kings of the nations, who also guarded their power jealously and exercised it viciously. Funny, because the kings of the time often demanded that they had godlike status – that the people should revere them as gods and make sacrifices to them, through taxes and hard labour – and on the battlefield, with their very lives. 

Frankincense for a God? Something doesn’t smell quite right. Unless these wise men’s wisdom was in looking for a God who wasn’t like the other gods at all. One who could be found in the shape of a vulnerable little baby, One who could be seen in the form of a good shepherd, One who only had two commands, and they were both about love – to love God and love one’s neighbour, One who this little child would call his ‘Father’, the human God, the God who judges in compassion and grace. The One whose only relationship with wrath was to be on the receiving end of the wrath of the jealous powers of his day when they meted out their ultimate punishment on him.

Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume

Breathes of life of gathering gloom

Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying

Sealed in the stone-cold tomb [5]

Myrrh for a death. Question is, why would wise men bring death ointment to a newborn child? Death was what people avoided, health-obsessed just like we are, anxious about their fitness with their Roman baths and spa treatments, food-obsessed just like we are, anxious about their diet with their olives, pears, figs and various vegetables, their lovely breads and honeyed wines, sex-obsessed just like we are, anxious about their social status with easily available divorce enabling men to move from partner to partner to ensure that children came along so that their family line would not die. The threat of death was one of the prime weapons in the armoury of the ruling powers. Death was to be feared.

Myrrh for a death? What were these wise travellers thinking? Unless these wise men’s wisdom was in looking for One who didn’t fear death, wasn’t threatened by death, who wouldn’t spend all his time trying to avoid death but who – over and over again – predicted his death and when it came, embraced it. Maybe they were wise enough to understand that this child was outside of death, this child held the key to what he later coined ‘eternal life’. Maybe they saw that this king-like-no-other-king would so rattle the actual kings and rulers of the land that they would use death to be rid of him, that this God-like-no-other-gods would so challenge the image of the wrathful sacrifice-demanding gods and replace it with the image of a loving all-embracing Father not at all affected by death but totally given to life, in all its fullness.

Now the writer of our carol uses this line: ‘Sealed in the stone-cold tomb’. But we know with hindsight, the good news that he wasn’t sealed for long. Could our wise travellers see, in their special wisdom, that in later life the child, though dead, would not be held by death?

One final thing about these wise travellers. They were outsiders. They came from a different place with a different set of beliefs and values. They brought their wisdom with them. With their symbolic gifts they offered their understanding of who this baby was now, and who he would grow to be. And they were welcomed by those they visited.

You may have heard me quote this before, it’s worth repeating. The great Hindu peacemaker Ghandi asserted that ‘Jesus belongs not solely to Christianity, but to the entire world’, for the message of peace which he brings: ‘Love God, love your neighbours, love your enemies, pray for your persecutors.’ [6]

Question for those of us who think we know all there is to know about God and kings and life and death: are we open enough to hear what people from outside our worldview have to say? Believing that God might just be using them to open our eyes to whole new ways of seeing? [7]

Statement for those who do not regard themselves as having yet arrived, but like these wise travellers as being still on a journey of discovery – the baby Jesus is ready to welcome you, the adult Jesus is longing to walk with you, as you go on your way.

Notes

[1] John Henry Hopkins, Jr., We Three Kings of Orient Are, 1857

[2] 1 Samuel 8.11-17 (The Message, edited)

[3] This paragraph is based on part of my sermon, Jesus – killing the king, raising the Kingdom, preached at Llanasa,  November 2013

[4] John Henry Hopkins, Jr., We Three Kings of Orient Are, 1857

[5] John Henry Hopkins, Jr., We Three Kings of Orient Are, 1857

[6] Walter Wink, The Human Being: Jesus and the Enigma of the Son of the Man, p.336, note 3. See these other sermons for more on this: Becoming Human: the shepherds’ instinct, the magis’ hunch (Christmas 2015), The global enterprise with a different set of values (January 2016)

[7] Preached in the week of the death of John Berger, whose Ways of Seeing I pulled off my bookshelf to revisit after 30 years – a seminal book by the celebrated Marxist writer which opened my eyes to see life outside the constraints imposed by the rulers….

Nick Spencer suggests that while Christians are involved in the liturgy of worship, the songs and creeds and familiar prayers of church, we are also involved in what he calls a “social liturgy”.

We not only resolve to respond to the goodness of God in our public worship, we also resolve to respond to the goodness of God through our public charitable activity. Thus, Mr Spencer writes, our social liturgy is just “another way of worshipping God in public”.

Our church liturgy comes when we resolve to attend services and give our hearts and voices back to God in remembrance of his goodness to us.

Our social liturgy comes when we resolve to give not just our church attendence, not just our money, but our time, and our talents, too, back to God, in remembrance of all that the Lord has done for us.

Look at the amount of Christians involved in social liturgy, and Christianity in the UK today looks to be in good health. 

And so, may this be our resolution, a good one which we can repeat daily and which can become habit-forming. To live out a social liturgy where we are in 2017.

– drawing on the Theos report, Doing Good: A Future for Christianity in the 21st Century, in my talk Resolved to remember, and acting on that remembrance: a New Year’s call to Social Liturgy.