Month: December 2021

Ephesians 1.3-14, John 1.1-18

The Second Sunday of Christmas, 2 January 2022, Clapham

“The Word became flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth”

Words on a page can be ignored or neglected. Words which are spoken can be misheard or rejected. Words which are fleshed out will be seen and effective. A famous Christian campaigner for equality once wrote that

“In the beginning … the Creator … made the Earth to be a Common Treasury, [and] Man had Domination given to him, over the Beasts, Birds and Fishes, but not one word was spoken in the beginning, that one branch of mankind should rule over another.” [1] 

If you truly believe the word that all people are equal under God, then how do you flesh out that belief? Is it possible to apply that truth with grace?

The PCC of St Peter’s, Dorchester, voted last year to remove a plaque commemorating an 18th-century slaver, saying that its “unacceptable” use of language, as well as the actions that it commemorates, mean that it is no longer appropriate in the church. The plaque memorialises John Gordon, a plantation owner in Jamaica who is buried in the church grounds. It celebrates his part in the suppression of an uprising in 1760 in which 500 slaves were killed. Whist dismissing the rebels in xenophobic terms, the inscription acclaims Gordon’s “bravery” and “humanity”. [2]

Bishop Andrew Rumsey describes it as ‘an extraordinary epitaph, under which parishioners have murmured their prayers for two-and-a-half centuries.’ Whilst their prayers and readings affirmed that all people are equal under God, the PCC became increasingly conscious that this memorial said something quite contrary.  They set about researching the history of the Jamaican revolt thus recorded, contacted John Gordon’s descendants, finding that he had no direct connection with Dorchester: that was just where he died, and they collaborated with the West Dorset Multicultural Network and the County Museum, to find a solution. 

Dr Rumsey observes that ‘St Peter’s has responded with exemplary good sense. The Museum will in due course be receiving the Gordon plaque for permanent display, not least because of its singular potential for demonstrating how enslaved people were agents of their own freedom, not simply “given” this by enlightened campaigners.’ [3]

The Dorchester decision came in response to regional campaigners who had earlier last year removed the Bristol statue of slaver Edward Colston. Dr Rumsey writes that ’There can be a blazing grace in protest, enabling us to see what we have been blind to for too long.’. 

It was the 17th Century English reformer Gerrard Winstanley who wrote that “Not one word was spoken in the beginning, that one branch of mankind should rule over another.” But it sounds like something the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu may have said, whose life’s work was to reconcile those branches of humankind separated by apartheid, wherein one branch ruled over another.

The announcement of his death on Boxing Day justly described Tutu as ‘One of the great spirits and moral giants of our age … a living embodiment of faith in action, speaking boldly against racism, injustice, corruption, and oppression, not just in apartheid South Africa but wherever in the world he saw wrongdoing, especially when it impacted the most vulnerable and voiceless in society. . . [speaking] with a fierce moral and spiritual authority that faced down his adversaries and slowly won their grudging respect.’ [4]

Tutu’s words continue to inspire. In his struggles against institutionalised racism and homophobia he was convinced that ‘Goodness is stronger than evil; Love is stronger than hate; Light is stronger than darkness; Life is stronger than death; Victory is ours through Him who loves us.’ [5] 

We saw him flesh out these convictions as the chairman of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a job he once said was the hardest of his life, wherein ‘he was castigated by white conservatives who saw it as a witch hunt, and also by many black South Africans who viewed it as a way for the criminals of apartheid, the enforcers of white minority rule, to literally get away with murder. But Tutu was convinced it was the only way forward, insisting that “Only the truth, the acknowledgement of what happened, the anger and the hurt, can bring forgiveness and healing”. [6] 

Desmond Tutu embodied the belief that it is possible to flesh out the truth with grace; showing how in expressing truth through gracious actions, life and light can emerge. ‘There can be a blazing grace in protest, enabling us to see what we have been blind to for too long’. 

Like that Dorchester PCC, when it comes to matters of equality between humans, all of us in the Church of England sit in an uncomfortable tension between on the one hand ‘the story of the Bible with its struggle between “the Kings who had power, and the prophets who preached righteousness”’, and on the other hand the close relationships between ecclesiastical and temporal power which make the Anglican Church ‘a bastion of the status quo in English society’. [7]

On the one hand, the Church is an institution that acts as ‘a glorified networking hub for the British elite’, historically protecting the interests of the wealthy whilst ‘demanding obedience from the majority of the population on supposedly ethical grounds. But on the other hand, the life and teachings of Jesus encourage us to constantly question arbitrary authority, to prioritise mutual care over competition, and to hold up both nature and human life as sacred against a society that treats it as disposable.’ [8] 

The church cannot be neutral on any issue of inequality in our day, be that to do with race or class, gender or sexuality, for as Archbishop Tutu famously said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor”. [9] Maybe acknowledging the dual nature of our church can be a blessing if it helps us to address these issues with a balance of truth and grace.

Desmond Tutu’s legacy is to encourage us that we can flesh out the Word in this way, whether by creating campaigns and acts of protest which enlighten and build fellowship rather than sow discord, or by performing acts of kindness to others known or unknown, or by making it our practice to say a silent prayer for someone we pass in the street, or by taking the time and effort to try to see the world through another person’s eyes.

What can we do today to demonstrate our belief that all people are equal before God? As the late Archbishop once said, 

God places us in the world as his fellow workers – agents of transfiguration. We work with God so that injustice is transfigured into justice, so there will be more compassion and caring, that there will be more laughter and joy, that there will be more togetherness in God’s world. [10]

 

Notes

[1] Gerrard Winstanley (1649), The True Levellers Standard Advanced: Or, The State of Community Opened, and Presented to the Sons of Men.

[2] Maddy Fry, Plaque commemorating an 18th-century slave-owner to be removed from church. Church Times, 2 October 2020. Maddy Fry, Memorial plaque to slave-owner in Dorset church to be reviewed. Church Times, 17 July 2020.

[3] Andrew Rumsey, Faith and identity: Sketches of heavenly things. Church Times, 3 December 2021.

[4]  ‘The Church of Desmond Tutu’ mourns his passing. Church Times, 26 December 2021.

[5] Desmond Tutu, An African Prayer Book.

[6] Mark Austin, Desmond Tutu coined the phrase ‘Rainbow Nation’ and his hope lives on. Sky News, 26 December 2021.

[7] Tony Benn, Tony Benn on Revolutionary Christianity. Tribune, 24 December 2020; Grace Blakeley, Do Unto Others. Tribune, 24 December 2021.

[8] Grace Blakeley, Do Unto Others. Tribune, 24 December 2021.

[9] BrainyQuote.com: Desmond Tutu Quotes.

[10] InspiringQuotes.us: Desmond Tutu.

 

Isaiah 9.2-7, Luke 2.1-14

Christmas Eve 2021, Austwick

Chris Rea sings, “I’m driving home for Christmas; Oh, I can’t wait to see those faces,” and crooners from Bing to Bublé sing “I’ll be home for Christmas; You can plan on me. Please have snow and mistletoe And presents by the tree.” These may be sentimental songs, but they do give voice to something deeply engrained in us: about Christmas being a time for homecomings. 

And when we hear Elvis singing “It’ll be a blue Christmas without you,” then that’s the same thing flipped over, about the profound sense of emptiness and loss felt by those for whom homecomings are not happening this year or may never be again. [1]

There’s always something special about coming home for those whose lives have led us away from that place which nurtured and formed us, where those people we’re closest to still live. A homecoming is a moment for renewing our deepest relationships, a time for resting within them and re-setting ourselves.

That’s one big reason why we value Christmas: as a fixed point in a turbulent year which offers us time for reviewing and renewing that which we most value in our lives. In this sense Christmas itself is a sort of homecoming.

Even those who spend it alone may feel this, as memories of Christmases past resurface to reinforce our sense of who we are and who we want to be. Those who always made us feel at home, though absent now in person, still exist in spirit, particularly at this special time of year. And whilst missing them deeply, we may sense their presence, something numinous and active in our very lives today.

You might consider Joseph and Mary’s trip to Bethlehem on that first Christmas as a homecoming, a family reunion. For whilst the couple lived 90 miles away in Nazareth, Joseph’s family came from Bethlehem. When the Roman governor called a census it was time to make plans to visit the folks back home. [2]

Our nativity plays tend to portray their trip as a last-minute event with the added trauma of Mary being just ‘about to pop’. But there’s nothing of that in the gospels; Luke’s account invites us to imagine that they went to Bethlehem well before her due date, and then, while they were there, Mary gave birth to her child. Plan ahead. That’s what a sensible couple would do. Plan for a childbirth in the family home surrounded by supportive loved ones. 

For, at the risk of ruining Christmas for those who like the pantomime part of the traditional story, with that series of innkeepers closing their doors on Joseph one by one, there probably wasn’t an inn, not a Game Cock sort of inn, at all. 

The word that Luke uses for ‘inn’ is the very same word he uses, at the end of Jesus’ life, for the upper room, where they held the last supper. The upper room was the place where guests stayed in a family house. Joseph came from Bethlehem. He had lots of family there. So it’s unlikely that he would have needed to stay in an inn or a hotel or a B&B. The couple probably stayed with some members of Joseph’s extended family. 

It’s no big stretch to imagine that because the rest of the family were also returning to Bethlehem for the census, the regular guest quarters, in the upper room of the house, was full. So Joseph and Mary had to stay downstairs, in the family room, where they brought the animals in at night, to keep them warm and fed and protected. Which is why there was a manger. So that’s where Mary gave birth. Not out back, in a shed, in the yard of a random pub, but in a family home, surrounded by her and Joseph’s relatives.

So the first Christmas was a homecoming for Joseph and Mary. And contrary to so many other reports, Jesus was not born homeless, but in a warm and welcoming place, like where most babies are born.

Now, let’s do away with the idea that this family gathering would have been in any way perfect. No-one there wore a halo, just as none of our families do either. You can imagine in that rather crammed house all the usual Christmas tensions between siblings, in-laws, the attention-seeking loud ones and the quiet ones longing for a few minutes peace. Arguments over food. Kids running amok. The matriarchs competing over who would be Mary’s personal midwife when the moment came. But… nevertheless… they were family… Joseph’s family; probably just ordinary people, like you and me. Which is the point really, isn’t it? God’s son, born like any one of us. To a family, like any one of ours. In a house, which any of us might call our family home. 

We all know that homecomings aren’t always easy. For some home is never an easy place, it may even be a dangerous place; for others it is where family demons must be faced over again. Our home lives also always play out before a larger backdrop. Matthew’s nativity story seems so contemporary, with its focus on Herod and the Magi inviting us to think of Mary and Joseph as political refugees fleeing from a ruler embarked on a genocidal mission. Jesus’ family struggled in just the same sorts of global upheavals as the storms which batter us in our day and time.

Similarly, Luke’s story has in its background the decision of the Roman ruler to call a census of all the people, causing a big upheaval in the land. The leader of the country ordering all the citizens to get home and stay there until he says they can go out again: does that sound in any way familiar? [3] But the positive energy in Luke’s story is in the domestic picture he paints, of the couple’s return to their home town, to a family gathering; of the holy birth assisted by everyone staying in that house and witnessed by the shepherds, those most deeply-rooted of local people, some of them likely to be Joseph’s cousins or school-friends.

Is it a comfort to think that Jesus empathises with us not only because he understands what it’s like to undergo upheavals and is well acquainted with the sorts of sufferings we know, but also because he appreciates from his own life, from his very birth, the deep and valued meanings of our homecomings? Do you struggle with your own experience of home whilst carrying the intuition that in Christ you can find your true home, wherever you’re placed, whatever your condition or circumstances? Though uprooted on this earth, do you find belonging in the dream landscape of your faith? [4]

Here, in this place of worship with its own resonances of home, at this fixed point in a turbulent year, may we each experience our own sort of homecoming; a time for reviewing and renewing that which we most value in our lives. 

 

Note

[1] YouTube: Chris Rea, Driving Home For Christmas, Bing Crosby, I’ll Be Home For Christmas, Michael Bublé, I’ll Be Home For Christmas, Elvis Presley, Blue Christmas.

[2] The central (indented) section of this talk is a partial rewrite of Bob Hartman, Christmas – No donkey?! © Bob Hartman/engageworship.org.

[3] Topical lockdown reference…

[4] ‘And you hunger for the time / Time to heal, desire, time / And your earth moves beneath / Your own dream landscape’ U2, A Sort of Homecoming, from The Unforgettable Fire, 1984.

Micah 5.2-5a , Luke 1.39-55

The Fourth Sunday of Advent, 19 December 2021, Clapham 

At last week’s Austwick carol service, whilst we were calmly listening to the Choir of St Paul’s Cathedral’s solemn, pious Silent Night, Ava Booth, 8 months and two weeks old, in her mum’s arms on the front row, decided to join in the singing: ‘Sleep in heavenly pe-ace; sle-ep in heavenly…’ ‘WAAAAAAAAAAAAH’

I love moments like that, when the pomp of our traditional services is punctuated by a healthy dose of reality, and in this case a baby reminds us what the first Christmas Night must really have sounded like, as the newborn Jesus screamed for his mother’s milk. “The little Lord Jesus no crying he makes….” Oh really? Each time we sing words like these we distance ourselves further from the vital truth at the heart of Christmas – that Jesus was a baby just like every other, born to an unexceptional mother, and that the real miracle is to be found in just that thing.

Why are we so quick to put a halo on Mary, when the good news would be far better pictured if we put an apron on her, and showed her with her sleeves rolled up doing the ironing with one hand whilst holding in her other arm the child feeding at her breast? Whist most new mums can’t exactly find the time to be looking their best, for some odd reason we call Mary immaculate.

Why are we so keen to distance Mary’s experience from that of every other mother by insisting that her first was a virgin birth? Whether or not it was is a side issue, for the real miracle is far more mundane and thus far more profound.

For Mary herself gives voice to the real good news of Christmas; she expressed it so well in her very own words to Elizabeth, saying “He has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.” The real good news of Christmas is that God comes to earth favouring the lowly, placing an ordinary country girl at the centre of a world about to turn. The power of Mary’s story is that she intuitively grasps that God is in the business of transforming the tired old ways of the world by creating space for light to emerge from the darkness. Mary intuitively gets this, as it dawns on her that God has chosen her, an ordinary teenage girl, to be the model for this transformation. 

One title which is very seldom given to Mary is the name Prophet. But a prophet she certainly is, in a direct relationship with the prophets of old like Isaiah in proclaiming a message of comfort to the troubled broken people of the land; in anticipation of the prophetic ministry of Elizabeth’s child John in announcing the arrival of the One who would bring the salvation of God. A prophet Mary certainly was, for the song she joyfully sang in the house of Elizabeth as both women realised what God was doing through them, this song which we call the Magnificat and dress up in lengthy choral pieces sung in Latin, is a prophecy. She speaks directly, as every prophet does, of the ills of the world and the revelation of the new thing which God is now doing in turning this world around.

For God, she says, in turning her life around, reveals his pattern for the new world coming through his – and her – son. It’s a pattern totally at odds with the world of patriarchy, for it places a young woman at its centre. It’s a pattern completely opposed to the world of privilege for it has the lowly at its heart. And it’s a pattern which reveals the idolatrous lie of meritocracy in showing that being lifted up by God doesn’t mean having to be uplifted from your working-class roots, it means you being absolutely loved, valued, special, just where you are, wherever that is.

Mary’s prophecy is clear-eyed about God’s priority for the poor over the rich, for she comes from poverty but in this moment feels like the wealthiest girl alive. Mary’s prophecy has rung through the ages as a song of hope for every woman longing for change in her damaged world; as an inspiration to every woman seeking the strength to make that change; as a celebration for every woman who has achieved some sort of turning in the world. It’s a song which sings for every woman escaping a violent relationship; which celebrates with every one who breaks a glass ceiling.

Mary’s prophecy has been well-learned and applied by so many through history, from the 15th century peasant farmer’s daughter Joan of Arc inspired by visions to lead the struggle for her country in a time of war, to Dorothy Day, inspired by the self-sacrifice of neighbours during the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 to, in later life, establish the Catholic Worker Movement of pacifist Christian communities helping the poor and homeless, and campaigning with and for them. [1]

Mary’s prophetic vision will, I’m sure, be well known to a young woman called Becky Tyler who the nation has warmly embraced since Grayson Perry selected a painting of hers for display at his Art Club exhibition. Becky has quadriplegic cerebral palsy which means she’s unable to walk or use her mouth to talk, but Grayson Perry has called her a ‘star’, for the digital artwork she creates with eye-tracking technology. Yes, she uses just her eyes to paint with. Becky describes herself as a ‘Christian, teenager, eye gaze artist, gamer, actress, preacher, but mostly very cheeky’. Her voice is digital and with it she has preached to 6,500 people at the annual Greenbelt Christian arts festival. 

In her sermon she says, ‘I used to feel that God didn’t love me as much as other people because I am in a wheelchair. And nearly all the disabled people in the bible get healed by Jesus; so they were not like me. Then my mum showed me Daniel 7, verse 9 which says, ‘As I looked, the Ancient of Days took his throne. His clothing was as white as snow; the hair of his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze.’ Its wheels were all ablaze! Yeah! God’s throne has wheels. God has a wheelchair! So now I know that God loves me a lot!’ [2]

In Becky’s story I hear echoes of Mary’s song. I hear it also in young women of other faiths and backgrounds who entirely evoke the spirit of her words, whether Malala Yousafzai campaigning for women’s education or Greta Thunberg calling for stronger action on climate change, here are two lowly ones now lifted up as pioneers of worldwide movements in their causes; here are two who all generations may not universally call blessed, but whose voices no-one can ignore. [3]

Mary’s prophecy echoes through women’s music of the ages. From the mystical compositions of the 12th Century polymath Hildegard of Bingen to the rallying songs of the Suffragettes; from Billie Holiday pausing for prayer before closing her shows with Strange Fruit to the women of Greenham Common and those at #MeToo vigils uniting across the years in renditions of We Shall Overcome, this song of a girl in Nazareth continues to convey the power for everyday women to envision a different, better world, and in the very act of envisioning it, to begin to bring it about. [4]

The lives and testimonies of working-class women have been largely obscured in history mostly by being ignored or condescended to, or in Mary’s case, by being elevated to the other-worldly, the Queen of Heaven, not a normal human. [5] But Mary’s prophecy sings out in defiance of all that. 

Let us listen now to Canticle of the Turning, a ‘vigorous paraphrase of the Magnificat which presents Mary as a country girl who is more than a meek maiden’. [6]

 

Notes

I’m dedicating this sermon to Revd Lynne Cullens, self-described ‘Working-class, single mother and C of E priest’, chair of the National Estate Churches Network and the next Bishop of Barking, in thankfulness for her essay Some notes on class, relevance and the Church, from her blog, 15 February 2019.

[1] Wikipedia: Joan of Arc; Wikipedia: Dorothy Day; The Catholic Worker Movement.

[2] Ruth Iredje, The star student who creates art with her eyes. BBC News, 10 December 2021; Preaching at Greenbelt – Becky’s message. Livability website, 27 October 2017; YouTube: Becky preaching at Greenbelt’s Communion Service 2017.

[3] Wikipedia: Malala Yousafzai; Wikipedia: Greta Thunberg.

[4] Wikipedia: Hildegard of Bingen; Wikipedia: Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday’s performances and recordings; Wikipedia: Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp; Wikipedia: #MeToo Movement.

[5] E.P. Thompson in The Making of the English Working Class speaks of recovering the lives of the poor from ‘the enormous condescension of history’. See also Lynne Cullens, Some notes on class, relevance and the Church, blog, 15 February 2019.

[6] Canticle of the Turning. Paraphrase of Luke Chapter 1, adaptation & arrangement: Rory Cooney. Tune: Star of the County Down, Irish traditional. YouTube: Canticle of the Turning – Rory Cooney performed by Rory Cooney, Gary Daigle & Theresa Donohoo from ‘Safety Harbor’, 1990. Quotation from the sleeve notes of John L. Bell and the Wild Goose Collective, ‘This is God’s World’, 2020. 

 

CANTICLE OF THE TURNING

 

1. My soul cries out with a joyful shout that the God of my heart is great,

and my spirit sings of the wondrous things that you bring 

to the ones who wait.

You fixed your sight on your servant’s plight 

and my weakness you did not spurn

so from east to west shall my name be blest. 

Could the world be about to turn?

 

MY HEART SHALL SING OF THE DAY YOU BRING.

LET THE FIRES OF YOUR JUSTICE BURN.

WIPE AWAY ALL TEARS, FOR THE DAWN DRAWS NEAR,

AND THE WORLD IS ABOUT TO TURN.

 

2. Though I am small, my God my all, you work great things in me,

and your mercy will last from the depths of the past 

to the end of the age to be.

Your very name puts the proud to shame; 

and to those who would for you yearn,

you will show your might, put the strong to flight, 

for the world is about to turn.

 

3. From the halls of power to the fortress tower, 

not a stone will be left on stone.

Let the king beware for your justice tears 

every tyrant from his throne.

The hungry poor shall weep no more, 

for the food they can never earn;

there are tables spread, every mouth be fed, 

for the world is about to turn.

 

4. Though the nations rage from age to age, 

we remember who holds us fast:

God’s mercy must deliver us from the conqueror’s crushing grasp.

This saving word that our forebears heard 

is the promise which holds us bound,

’til the spear and rod can be crushed by God 

who is turning the world around.

 

Paraphrase of Luke Chapter 1, adaptation & arrangement: Rory Cooney. Tune: STAR OF THE COUNTY DOWN, Irish traditional. Copyright © 1990 GIA Publications. Performed by Rory Cooney, Gary Daigle & Theresa Donohoo from ‘Safety Harbor’, 1990.

Zephaniah 3.14-20, Luke 3.7-18

The Third Sunday of Advent,

12 December 2021,  Keasden

Where does the expression ‘Jacob’s Join’ come from? I was in conversation about this recently and we couldn’t find a conclusive answer. It’s been lost in the mists of time and Northern English folklore. But because it’s often churches who host these occasions – which are elsewhere called ‘Potluck Suppers’ or ‘Faith Suppers’ or ‘Bring-and-Shares’ – it got us thinking about the Jacob of the Bible. Turns out that his main culinary episode (in Genesis 25) was to offer a lentil stew to his hungry brother Esau in exchange for Esau’s birthright, a wily act far from the spirit of a shared meal to which everyone contributes. 

The other incident involving food (in Genesis 42) was at a time of famine in his land when the elderly Jacob sent his sons to Egypt having heard that grain was available there. We know that they returned not just with grain but with news of an unexpected reunion with their brother – Joseph – who they’d left for dead years before and whose fortunes had since revived in the court of Pharaoh.

The thing about a Jacob’s Join is that we all bring something to the table. There are those who think nothing of putting together a massive pot of steaming stew or curry; others who may bake a loaf or biscuits or a cake; and people like me, in my single days, who’d have to make a last-minute trip to the Co-op to find something to take along (and surreptitiously, sheepishly, remove the packaging on arrival). Some might bring something different you’ve never tried before, which you taste, and love.

We all bring something to the table. And whatever we bring is welcome. It’s a metaphor for the Church itself, the community of people who gather around this shared life of love, hope and faithful practice. In the Church of England there’s a general air of respectability, our people tend to bring friendliness and niceness along, church is a place to be comfortable. But there is also room in the church for those who are given less to comfortableness and are more driven – the activists, the agitators, the John the Baptists.

Imagine sharing a Jacob’s Join with John the Baptist. What could he bring to the table but locusts and wild honey; and more to the point, if he sat next to you, you’d not be talking about the weather or the state of your health. He’d be straightaway into the state of your soul, and whether you were living the way that God requires. If you were a tax-collector he’d be checking that you were collecting no more than you should; if you were a soldier he’d be making sure you weren’t extorting money from anyone, and were satisfied with your wages. John was all about making sure that people got themselves right with God by righting themselves with others. He wouldn’t rest until he’d got his point across, he really wouldn’t ever rest, for the fire in his belly in the end got him imprisoned and gruesomely executed for casting judgement on the goings-on in the court of King Herod. 

Now, we are thankful of course for friends who help us feel the comfort of belonging, who we can relax and be ourselves with, who we know accept and value us as we are. But today we might also take a moment to give thanks for the John the Baptists among us, those who may make us feel uncomfortable by their challenging words and behaviour, in recognition that there’s highly likely something life-affirming, something of God, to be found where that discomfort starts. We might take a moment to give thanks for the activists, the evangelists, the agitators for change. 

So we are thankful for those who will take a plate of warm food to their neighbour in a power cut; and for those who will spend their days chasing the Electric Company to get things fixed as quickly as possible.

We are thankful for those who donate to Foodbanks; and for those who volunteer at them. And we’re grateful for those who train to be counsellors helping people to get themselves out of debt, and those who tackle the Government on unjust social policies, who challenge businesses about low wages and harmful practices, and who hold the church to account on issues of poverty and justice.

We are thankful for those farming friends who help out when their neighbours find people have been fly-tipping on their land or when they have stock or equipment stolen. And we’re grateful to those like NFU reps who campaign on issues of rural crime, taking these issues to decision-makers in the police and government.

Now, let’s be clear, we don’t all have to be activists, if that’s not our gift or calling.  Particularly in these uncertain and confusing times in which many of us are finding it just exhausting simply living right now. We don’t all have to be activists, but we might pray for, listen to, and appreciate those who are.

I’m in conversation these days with a friend whose stance on Covid-19 is very different from mine. He’s an active anti-vaccination campaigner and much of what he says disturbs and challenges me. But I want to engage, to learn to appreciate another’s point of view. Turns out that there are deep personal reasons behind his stance; one member of his family died after having a severe reaction to a vaccine many years ago; another was disabled for life after a similar injection. No wonder he’s cautious at the very least. He’s been doing the science on this for years; some of what he says seems to border on the quack conspiracy side of things and I’m not convinced of the ethics of herd immunity or natural immunity, but nevertheless I’m grateful to be learning from him. 

We all bring something to the table. And whatever we bring is welcome. So when we encounter those John the Baptists of today whose challenging words are not what we would say, whose extraordinary behaviour is not what we would do, let us open our hearts to them, in expectation that by listening well we will find something life-affirming, something of God, in them. 

‘So, with many other exhortations, John proclaimed the good news to the people,’ writes Luke. Rejoice, for the good news comes in many forms, and often from the most unexpected sources.

Malachi 3.1-4, Luke 3.1-6

Second Sunday of Advent, 5 December 2021, Eldroth, Clapham

What makes someone a prophet? Is it that they speak the words of the Lord, proclaiming the messages of God to the people?

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius you would expect that the one who received the Word of the Lord would have been the emperor himself, as God’s representative on earth as far as he was concerned. Or maybe God would speak through those those high and mighty ones Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea, or Herod, ruler of Galilee, or channel his divine message through those other rulers Philip or Lysanias. Or you might expect to hear God’s message spoken authoritatively in the Temple through the great high priests Annas and Caiaphas.

Well, perhaps surprisingly, there was not a prophetic word from any of these, for Luke’s gospel tells us from the very start that the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. Now John wasn’t born among kings, he was far from high and mighty; he was devout for sure but not in the same way as his father, who was an ordinary priest serving in the Jerusalem Temple. John was likely one of the Essenes, a sect who took to the desert to practice a communal ascetic life, daily ritually immersing in water, eating and praying together, doing  charitable acts; and John wandered the byways of Judea urging anyone who would listen to take to the waters of baptism in repentance to be saved, to ‘Prepare the way of the Lord’, as he ominously put it, announcing that One was coming along after him who John was sure would straighten out the world once and for all. [1]

It would seem then, that if we’re looking for a prophet, someone whose words will reveal to us God’s own perspective on things, then we have to search outside the usual places where we tend to learn our values, and to ready ourselves for encounters with outsiders. It’s a vital aspect of our faith that ‘God acts among outsiders,’ Rowan Williams says. The scriptures show us that ‘Those who have no assurance of their right to a welcome or a hearing are those who turn out to be most welcome. The person who ‘does not fit’, is the person who reminds me of my own limits, and spoils the satisfying outline of my life.’ [2]

When an oddball like John gives us the Word of the Lord it can make us uncomfortable, the same way we may feel whenever we find ourselves listening for once to an outsider, someone quite unlike us, whose ‘otherness’ ‘questions our treating our perspective as if it were God’s’. Like the poet whose words spark fresh ways of seeing life, like the musician whose sounds provoke new sensations in us, like the lover who makes demands on us we never knew we could meet, the outsider may reveal to us ‘that we do not live in the world we think we live in’.  [3]

That we do not live in the world we think we live in, is at the heart of any prophet’s message. In scripture we often find prophets saying that the world is far worse than we think. According to one learned rabbi, the prophet Malachi ‘describes a priesthood that is forgetful of its duties, a Temple that is underfunded because the people have lost interest in it, and a society in which Jewish men divorce their Jewish wives to marry out of the faith’. [5] It sounds uncomfortably like a Daily Telegraph editorial on the state of the Church of England in multicultural Britain.

But it’s important to consider that the likes of Jeremiah, John and Malachi were by no means entirely prophets of doom. Sure, they took a very dim view of the state of things as they were, and uncompromisingly challenged the people to change their ways. But having done so, their mission was then to open people’s eyes to a better, more hopeful world already coming into being, with God at its heart. Look at how today’s extract from Malachi ends: with ‘the offering(s) of Judah and Jerusalem being pleasing to the Lord’ once again.

It’s notable that Jesus was an outsider from a small Galilean town, who resisted every effort to exalt him as a king; as God generally chooses not to speak through rulers of state. Jesus was a prophet who spoke for the Father, addressing the situation in his time and place. That was the worsening conflict between the Jewish people and their Roman oppressors. He prophesied about the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple, which did take place in AD70. His message was that although the Temple falls, he is the new Temple – in other words, he is the new way to God. [5] 

When the Temple goes, God can no longer be found in just one place, through the mediation of priests; but here and now, through Jesus, God will come into our lives whenever we turn to him. Although the ‘temples’ of our day are falling, and will fall, in Christ we will find new ways to live.  

Our faith demands that we see that we do not live in the world we think we live in; that the time is up for oil; that democracy is broken; that the god of endless growth is an emperor without clothes. And that we accept the plainly obvious: that the established church like so many other institutions of state, plays diminishingly less part in people’s lives, is shrinking fast and must adapt, re-form, re-shape for the future. Which it can, for we live in the light of the prophetic revelation that Jesus comes into our world each and every moment we open our hearts to him.  And that he will help us find our ways towards creating a better, more hopeful world.

We can look to the many outsiders of our faith to find inspiration to shape a sustainable, hopeful future. Those who today live in peaceable devout communities close to the earth like the Amish and the Bruderhof; those prophetic movements for unity, like Taizé, birthed in the heart of Europe during the Second World War. We look back to the radicals like the first-century Essenes and the seventeenth-century Diggers who, inspired by the egalitarianism they found throughout scripture, rejected property and lived close to the land for a season; and we can look to the present day experiments of parish churches opening up their land for community allotments, some providing food for foodbanks and schools, or revisiting their ancient churchyards as places to bring together people interested in local history and wildlife; for the Forest Church movement; and for places like Touchstone, a house in central Bradford where Christian hospitality is practiced towards all-comers, where people who are radically different listen to each other and creatively share life and faith together. Each of these creating new communities exploring a spirituality for our times. [6]

We do not live in the world we think we live in: but we can shape a new and better world according to the inspiration God gives us. Like every outsider-prophet Jesus calls us to listen: for he speaks; to watch: for he acts in our current situation, in our time and place. Who knows what joys he will lead us into when we do?

The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; let us put on the Lord Jesus Christ. [7]

 

Notes

[1] Wikipedia: John the Baptist, Zechariah (New Testament figure), Essenes.

[2] Rowan Williams, Christ On Trial – How the Gospel Unsettles Our Judgement, paraphrased by Robert Gallagher and again by me here.

[3] Rowan Williams, Christ On Trial – How the Gospel Unsettles Our Judgement, op. cit.

[4] Rabbi W Gunther Plaut, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi: Back in the Land.

[5] See my sermon for Advent Sunday, Listen: for he speaks; watch: for he acts in our time and place, and Paul Nuechterlein, My Core Convictions, Part 3 on his Girardian Lectionary website, outlining N. T. Wright’s ‘groundbreaking work on Jesus as a Jewish apocalyptic prophet. Luke 21, as a parallel to Mark 13, is a key passage for Wright’s thesis. For almost a century, New Testament scholars have assumed along with Albert Schweitzer and Rudolf Bultmann that either Jesus or the evangelists or both were wrong about the end times – namely, that they expected them to arrive within a generation. Wright challenges this entire line of thinking, hypothesising instead that Jesus was predicting the cataclysmic events of the Roman defeat and destruction of Judea, which did happen within that generation.’

[6] Wikipedia: Amish, Bruderhof Communities, Taizé Community, Diggers. There are many examples of parish churches creating community allotments, including my previous parish St Barnabas Queen Camel, Somerset. The National Churches Trust encourage churches to share their churchyards to bring together people interested in local history and wildlife; Forest Church; Touchstone.

[7] Romans 13.8-14, Epistle for the First Sunday of Advent, The Book of Common Prayer. Adapted.