Month: June 2020

Jeremiah 28.5-9, Matthew 10.40-42

The Third Sunday after Trinity, 28 June 2020 – churches closed

Jesus said, “Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones – will be rewarded.”

On the night of the Grenfell Tower fire, three years ago, the Reverend Alan Everett, vicar of St Clement’s, Notting Dale, was woken up at 3am by a priest who lives in the tower, and immediately went down to the church, opened the doors and turned the lights on. It all began from there. People started coming in out of the dark – often passersby looking to help. And the first thing they did was to get the water on. Water to salve the people’s scorched throats; water to wash away the taste of smoke from their tongues. Kettles on to bring calming cups of tea and coffee to traumatised souls. [1] 

“Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones – will be rewarded.”

In the gospel of Matthew Jesus talks a lot about the ‘little ones’. 

“Whoever welcomes one such little child in my name welcomes me.” [2] 

“Do not put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me.” [3]

“Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.” [4] 

As the little ones of the world are the focus of Jesus’ attention, so he draws our attention to the little ones of our society. He teaches that the way we act towards them defines our relationship with him. The way we treat these people is the way we treat him.

Jesus describes the ‘little ones’ in Matthew 25. The hungry and the thirsty; the stranger and those in need of clothes; the sick and the imprisoned. The community is called to meet those needs, no matter how small or humble; our central purpose is caring for the “least of these my brothers and sisters”. By meeting needs, bringing healing, showing compassion, to the lowest and the least, Jesus modelled to his followers the way we should behave. [5]

And Jesus’ ‘little ones’ also include those in our society who we might call the ‘belittled ones’ – those we reject, whose concerns are dismissed, whose voice is usually ignored. Think of the women who found in Jesus at last a man who listened and understood and who released them from that which oppressed them; think of the ostracised lepers and blind beggars given a new start by his healing hand; the despised tax collectors and hated Samaritans who Jesus lifted up and shared bread with. By opening his life to such as these Jesus draws us towards the powerless, the weak, the hurting, the abused and the abandoned as those we should give priority to in our place, in our way. Notice how these Gospel values invert the usual human values which marginalise the least.  

In a world suffering from a deficit of empathy, a culture where competition is privileged over collaboration, the little ones are always the first to lose out. In his Sunday morning sermon following the Grenfell Towers fire, Fr Robert Thompson, an assistant priest in St Clement’s and a local councillor, channelled his anger, saying: 

“The people on the lowest incomes of this parish simply do not feel listened to, either this week or in previous years, by those in power. Worse than that, what the whole issue of the cladding and the lack of sprinklers may well highlight is that some people have simply become excess and debris on our neoliberal, unregulated, individualistic, capitalist and consumerist society.” [6]

The way of Jesus is to act on those feelings we get when we understand the situation of the little ones in our midst, and propel ourselves to do something about it. In time, this might become the story of our church.

The church of St Clement, Notting Dale was built in 1867 by a philanthropist vicar with deep pockets and a compassion for the poor, and now each year the church’s community centre helps thousands of local people into work or university. The parish is trusted locally. The vicar explained, “We are called to share in the brokenness and the forgottenness of the people we serve.” [7]

That is our calling too, although on the surface our circumstances look very different than theirs. It’s always more difficult to identify who are the little ones closer to home. In my experience even in the poorest parishes, people are reluctant to acknowledge the poverty. And in the better-off  parishes, many find it hard to admit where a poverty of spirit, a loneliness of heart, financial troubles, abuse, and other forms of social deprivation prevail beneath the respectable surface. Besides the children among us, the other ‘little ones’ in our parishes may only reveal themselves slowly over time and through good listening, genuine care, active empathy by each of us disciples.

Then there are those who are excluded: the dismissed or sidelined, neglected ones, by definition the people we don’t usually notice. One way we might recognise them is to ask – who would we personally invite to our next big social event – who are those people we are drawn to, who we feel comfortable with and who we think of as likely potential supporters of our church or our cause? And then to ask the tougher question: look around our place again, take a close look, road by road, farm by farm, house by house – who are the ones we left out? 

This may not seem to be an urgent or even relevant question in a quiet respectable-feeling area such as ours, where the story we tell of ourselves, of our neighbourliness, does have some foundation. But we should attend to our times, for despite the upbeat rhetoric of politicians we are  now in plague years, in a “severe recession” on an unprecedented scale. [8] People close to here, and in places close to here within our deanery and diocese, are now, and will be, struggling. You and yours might be struggling. It’s time to start reopening our churches. And it’s time to get the water on.

“Whoever moves out of their comfort zone to give time and attention and care to one of these little ones – will be rewarded.” 

“Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.” 

John Davies

 

 

Notes

This sermon is a rewrite of Bringing Water to The Little Ones: Consolatory Empathy under Grenfell Tower, preached in Somerset, 2017.

[1] Giles Fraser, After the Grenfell fire, the church got it right where the council failed, Guardian, 22 June 2017.

[2] Matthew 18.5.

[3] Matthew 18.6.

[4] Matthew 25.40.

[5] Matthew 25.34-36. Michael Hardin and Jeff Krantz, PreachingPeace.com (Proper 8A – page now removed) in Paul Nuechterlein, Girardian Lectionary, Reflections, Proper 8A. Adapted.

[6] Giles Fraser, After the Grenfell fire.

[7] Giles Fraser, After the Grenfell fire.

[8] Anna Mikhailova and Amy Jones, UK facing recession on unprecedented scale as Chancellor warns of ‘more hardship to come’, Telegraph, 19 May 2020

Romans 6.1b-11, Matthew 10.24-39

The Second Sunday after Trinity, 21st June 2020 – churches closed

Living in a time of the coronavirus means learning to cope with contradictions. The paradox most commented on, and probably most keenly felt, is the way we’ve been showing our care for those we love by avoiding them – thus shielding each other from potential infection.

Then we’ve been applauding the likes of binmen and delivery drivers, and other previously-disregarded operatives now exalted as our key workers. And this week we’re adjusting to the odd scenario of the so-called people’s game – football – proceeding without any people present. [1]

Whilst we’ve heard how living under lockdown has damaged people’s mental health, an interesting twist on this is evidence that many people’s anxiety levels have improved during the crisis. This has even been given a name: ‘lockdown relief’, describing how 

‘People who are driven by keeping up appearances, productivity, showing up to everything, achieving lots, being visible and being there for everyone have found themselves feeling relief at not having to perform any more.’ No fear of missing out while there was nothing happening to miss out on. [2] 

A football-fanatic poet friend of mine has just penned these lines:

I’m not looking forward to football again
Not missing the beautiful game
My team are unbeaten since I don’t know when
I’m glad to be free of the strain [3]

So if ‘lockdown relief’ does us good, could it be that ‘normal’ life is what makes us ill? [4] It’s a tantalising teaser for our times.

Now, Christians are used to living with contradictions, because we follow the teachings of One who was fond of saying things like ‘the greatest among you will be your servant’ – and when we apply that maxim to our key workers we start to understand the power it carries. ‘It is better to give than to receive,’ he said: a paradox felt by many in lockdown, ceasing being consumers for a while and enjoying instead, finding caring and creative ways to reach out to others.

Some of Jesus’ sayings were so counterintuitive that even his devoutest followers have struggled to obey them: ‘Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you’ – is one of the hardest; and in a world rent apart by all forms of social division how radical a statement this is. Loving one’s enemy requires a change of heart of the deepest kind; one that most of us are reluctant to begin. Reflecting on the reason why this may be, the African-American author James Baldwin wrote “I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.” [5]

How we deal with the pain which we – as a people – have visited on other people – is at the heart of current debates about whether and how we should make reparations for our slave trade past; whilst also attending to the pain of those who today are enslaved – the between 21 and 46 million people in forced labour worldwide. [6]  Then there is the pain of the loss of Empire which has haunted the British psyche for much of the past century, and the question of how a ‘faded old country’ can be reborn. [7]

“Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced,” wrote James Baldwin in 1962. [8]

Baldwin was brought up Christian and maybe the roots of that statement were inspired by Jesus’ most fundamentally paradoxical proposition,  ‘Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it’.  

What does it mean to lose one’s life for his sake, so that we can find it? Is it about opening one’s heart to the possibility that the way of Jesus is the route to fulfilment, joy, life in all its fullness – and being prepared to face the pain of giving up some things about ourselves to make space for something better?

For some it may be about accepting and embracing the wounded parts of us, so as to become more understanding of the whole… to broker a truce between the damaged and broken bits and the bits we feel more comfortable with… to increasingly understand that we are works in progress and we’ll inevitably make mistakes… and to accept more easily that we get things wrong. [9]

One observer of the way that the lockdown changed us says that ‘We are all acutely aware of our own soft-bellied human vulnerability at this moment. It’s OK to not be OK, and to say so.’ [10]

Losing one’s life for Jesus’ sake, so that we can find it, may involve ‘worrying less about how we are  perceived by others… learning how to turn self-loathing into self-care… finding compassion for ourselves as feelings of condemnation fade…’ [11]

This is the language of modern psychology. And in the language of scripture St Paul puts it this way: ‘If we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him’. 

In later life James Baldwin’s Christianity morphed into a wider outlook on faith, and he said this: ‘If the concept of God has any use, it is to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God can’t do that, it’s time we got rid of him.’ [12]

We are here in prayer today because we believe that God can make us larger, freer, and more loving. 

May his Spirit enable us each day to ‘engage with ourselves and others openly, honestly, prayerfully and graciously, to treat ourselves and others with respect and dignity’, [13] confident that Christ will help us use the paradoxes in our lives as a force for good.

 

Notes

[1] Premier League’s return: How fans, players and pundits found the new normal. BBC, 18 June 2020.

[2] Farrah Jarral, The lockdown paradox: why some people’s anxiety is improving during the crisis. Guardian, 29 April 2020

[3] Paul Cookson, I’m not looking forward to football again. Quoted in Steve Stockman, Football is back – why am I not excited? 17 June 2020.

[4] Farrah Jarral, The lockdown paradox.

[5] James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son.

[6] Wikipedia: Slavery in the 21st century.

[7] Simon Kuper, How to get over losing an empire. Financial Times, 22 January 2014.

[8] Baldwin quoted in Beverly Daniel Tatum, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? p.xix

[9] Adapted from The Reach Approach: Living with our contradictions – Covid 19 (Part 5)

[10] Farrah Jarral, The lockdown paradox.

[11] The Reach Approach: Living with our contradictions – Covid 19 (Part 5). Adapted.

[12] Wikipedia: James Baldwin. Quote referenced from Kimberly Winston, Blacks say atheists were unseen civil rights heroes. USA Today, 23 February 2012.

[13] The Methodist Church, A model statement on Living with Contradictory Convictions. Prepared for the 2016 Conference by the previous Marriage and Relationships Task Group. Adapted.

Romans 5.1-8, Matthew 9.35-10.8 

The First Sunday after Trinity, 14th June 2020 – churches closed

“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

We’ve done without crowds for a season – but it couldn’t last too long. For we’re made to gather, we are born to crowd.  We can exist in tiny bubbles for a while but we have this inbuilt need to also come together in larger groups; it’s part of who we are as people. Many of us have missed being in friendly crowds – family gatherings, village occasions, big shopping trips, coming together with hundreds of fellow-followers of sports teams or concert hall and theatre audiences. Our children are aching and longing now for playtime with their school friends. 

There’s an energy in a crowd which can lift you – we sense that, when we consider how odd it will feel to those footballers playing out their remaining matches in empty stadiums. But sometimes, that can feel like a negative energy. Not everyone is comfortable in crowds – if you’ve lived in the country all your life, or chosen to escape the city to be here, you may be one of those for whom a crowd brings anxiety, fear even. I’m guessing that not many have missed having to squeeze onto overcrowded trains commuting to work these past weeks. 

There’s nothing more exhilarating than giving yourself over to the passion of a crowd which is celebrating – like when crushing together on a pavement on a royal occasion; but there’s nothing more frightening feeling out of control in a crowd whose mood has turned sour – aggression at a football match, anger at a protest march.

Crowds can get a bad press, and we who are distanced from them can all too easily condemn, particularly in this time of the coronavirus: the behaviour of people on bank holiday beaches; the fear of contagion spreading through Black Lives Matter rallies; the madness of massive Ikea queues. There’s no Appleby Horse Fair this year but if there had been those crowds would be widely criticised too; it’s part of the annual ritual, and it illustrates the observation that if it’s not our crowd, then we probably won’t like it. 

I don’t think Jesus was that keen on crowds. Being a country boy, from out in the sticks, there’s plenty of times in the gospels where we see him retreating from his vast audiences – away into the hills or across to the other side of the lake. Perhaps he was anxious to avoid creating a ‘Jesus Crowd’ – one which followed him to the exclusion of all others, like a devoted Yorkshire Cricket Club crowd follows their team to the exclusion of all Lancastrians. 

But nevertheless, Jesus didn’t avoid crowds, and he let them gather to him when he preached,  proclaimed and healed. Maybe Jesus understood how crowds behave ‘as one’, and how that unified behaviour can exclude or scapegoat those from other crowds [2]; but also that within each crowd there are individual people… with stories to tell… stories about things in their lives which led them to crowd together with others with whom they share common ground, common purpose.  

“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

In Jesus’ eyes the crowds needed caring for. He saw that their well-being, their physical and  spiritual health, was not being tended to. Vulnerable individuals, each member of the crowd was searching for help; and a model to follow, a vision to seek. 

It’s easy to condemn a Black Lives Matter protest if we distance ourselves from the stories. But compassion might come if we listen – to stories like that of Anthony Bryan, the 62-year-old who left Jamaica as an eight-year-old to join his mother who was working as a seamstress in London, and stayed: attending school, working as a painter and decorator and a taxpayer, helping to bring up his children and seven grandchildren: who was suddenly confronted by the government’s ‘hostile environment’ policy in 2015 when the Home Office tried to remove him from the country, a humiliating, painful process which lost him his job, his home and came at great emotional cost. [3]

Compassion might come if we listen: maybe also a sense of injustice which we feel compelled to act on.

Jesus decided to go about tending the needs of the crowds by sending his friends and followers into the towns and villages, to work for him, giving them authority to heal diseases both physical and spiritual. He told them to proclaim the good news that the kingdom of heaven has come near. And he said that they’d be doing it for nothing: ‘Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.’

This Jesus Crowd was a group of people who were to stick together and follow his mission – to tend the needs of the other crowds, to bring healing to them. Whatever this Jesus Crowd did would help the other crowds to see and feel and know the goodness of God at work among them. This Jesus Crowd was a good crowd, one which embraced all people, which people would appreciate having around. 

We all take part in crowds. We all belong to them: families or church or social groups; from time to time we all take part in crowds who flock to town to shop or be entertained. Maybe even to protest, seeking change. For all crowds are driven to seek better. Like sheep without a shepherd we are all looking for safety, security and comfort. We all want stability, good health and food on the table. We seek belonging together. We are the crowds. 

So today and every day let’s keep the crowds in our prayers; all of them, particularly those crowds which trouble us. And as members of the Jesus Crowd let’s open our eyes and ears and hearts to these others, seeking the same compassion that Jesus had for the people in the crowds he saw. 

 

 

Notes 

[1] A rewrite of Matthew 9: On Crowds preached in Liverpool in 2008. 

[2] For more on the ‘mimetic’ behaviour of crowds see Michael Hardin and Jeff Krantz, Preaching Peace, Proper 6A, as referenced in Paul Nuechterlein, Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary, Proper 6A.

[3] Amelia Gentleman, ‘My mum said, “Why are the police arresting you? You must have done something”: the scandal behind TV’s new Windrush drama. Guardian, 27 May 2020.

2 Corinthians 13.11-13, Matthew 28.16-20

Trinity Sunday, 7 June 2020 – churches closed

Wash your hands often – it’s the best form of protection. So we are told, and it’s good advice. But today I’d like to invite you to join me in an appreciation of the works of Alexander Carmichael, a Scottish civil servant and antiquarian who died on 6 June 1912 after a lifetime spent travelling the Hebridean islands collecting folklore and local traditions, among them many of the prayers which the islanders said day by day. These were prayers they spoke, not whilst gathered in churches, but whilst in their own homes, going about their day. Many of these prayers seek God’s protection.

So – I invite you to join an island crofter making her morning prayers as she pours water into her wash bowl. Taking a palmful of water in her hands she says:

A palmful for thine age

A palmful for thy growth,

A palmful for thy throat,

A flood for thine appetite.

You can picture her, with each line of this prayer, splashing water over her face, her neck, her throat, awakening herself to a day when God will be present, protecting her. She continues:

The three palmfuls

Of the Secret Three,

To preserve thee

From every envy,

Evil eye and death;

The palmful of the God of Life,

The palmful of the Christ of Love,

The palmful of the Spirit of Peace,

Triune

Of Grace. [2]

Now scholars reckon that Alexander Carmichael tidied up many of these prayers, theologised them a bit. But they still retain a sense of coming from people living inseparably with the soil, the creatures and the elements, and with the spirits of the earth too; and there’s a very strong sense that the three people of the Godhead, Father Son and Holy Spirit, were as close to them as the family who shared their simple homes. Listen to this fire-lighting prayer:

I will kindle my fire this morning

In presence of the holy angels of heaven,

Without malice, without jealousy, without envy,

Without fear, without terror of any one under the sun,

But the Holy Son of God to shield me.

Without malice, without jealousy, without envy,

Without fear, without terror of any one under the sun

But the Holy Son of God to shield me. [3]

What would that crofter do first thing, besides washing and lighting the fire? Maybe make her bed: and so consider for a moment this bed, likely the bed she was born in, the bed her mother, and her mother before her slept in. The bed of her daughters to come. The prayer she says as she plumps the pillows and smooths the sheets is this:

I make this bed

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost,

In the name of the night we were conceived,

In the name of the night that we were born,

In the name of the day we were baptised,

In the name of each night, each day,

Each angel that is in the heavens. [4]

To that crofter, God is there in that intimate moment and place, of conception, birth and baptism (for women baptised their own children on those islands where priests were scarce). God is invoked for the protection of that space for that day and every day: for these folk were keenly aware of their mortality, the hazardous nature of their lives lived in a harsh environment, at the mercy of natural forces beyond their control. And so we also find farmers’ prayers for the protection of the cattle, and prayers which fishermen made for the protection of their boat at sea. 

Now, these are anxious days we’re living through. Anxieties about our own health and that of others; about coming out of lockdown and all the attendant risks; about the shape and security of life going forward. As a people we’re more aware now than we’ve been for a long time of just how deeply connected we are to the rest of nature; not dominators after all; for we’re learning how nature adapts our disruptive activities, mutating them into climate patterns and viral forms which threaten us. [5] 

So what better way to spend our days than invoking the protection of God in our hearts and homes, on our journeys and at our places of work. Protection against our harmful states of mind, too: meaning learning to be humble partners in the life of the earth. These prayers of our ancient forebears might become our prayers too: asking the Father to secure us as we begin our days, asking the Son to shield us in all our ways, asking the Spirit to guide us away from harmful activities to learn to live together in ways where we, the earth and others flourish.

And these are lonesome days we’re living through. Despite a recent loosening of restrictions we’re still by necessity more apart from each other than we’ve ever been. So there’s a strength in living each hour conscious that we’re united together with all the believers, and the saints and angels, in the company of The Three in One God. 

Until that day when we can once again greet each other with a holy kiss (as St Paul invites us to); until that time we can once again go out and make disciples (following Jesus’ direction), we can still commune, in the safety and security of the God of love and peace.

A final ancient Gaelic prayer, which Carmichael called a Charm Against Venom:

Be the eye of God between me and each eye,

The purpose of God between me and each purpose,

The hand of God between me and each hand,

The shield of God between me and each shield.

The desire of God between me and each desire.

The bridle of God between me and each bridle,

And no mouth can curse me.

 

Be the pain of Christ between me and each pain.

The love of Christ between me and each love.

The dearness of Christ between me and each dearness,

The kindness of Christ between me and each kindness,

The wish of Christ between me and each wish.

The will of Christ between me and each will.

And no venom can wound me.

 

Be the might of Christ between me and each might,

The right of Christ between me and each right.

The flowing of Spirit between me and each flowing,

The washing of Spirit between me and each washing,

The bathing of Spirit between me and each bathing,

And no ill thing can touch me. [6]

 

Notes

[1] This talk draws on my earlier sermon, John 17 – God’s Protection, preached in Devon, 2012.

[2] Alexander Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica: Hymns and Incantations from the Gaelic. ‘Bathing Prayer’, p.61. 

[3] Alexander Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica. ‘The Blessing of the Kindling’, p.231.

[4] Douglas Hyde, Religious Songs of Connacht, Vol. 2, ‘I make this bed’. p. 207.

[5] “The coronavirus epidemic can be seen as an assemblage of a (potentially) pathogenic viral mechanism, industrialised agriculture, fast global economic development, cultural habits, exploding international communication, and so on. The epidemic is a mixture in which natural, economic and cultural processes are inextricably bound together.” Slavoj Žižek, Pandemic! Covid-19 Shakes the World. p.117.

[6] Alexander Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica. ‘Charm Against Venom‘, p.57.