Celebrating eucharistic action: Dix’s purple passage

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Fresco of a female figure holding a chalice from Catacomb of Saints Marcellinus & Peter in Rome
Fresco of a woman holding a chalice from Catacomb of Saints Marcellinus & Peter in Rome

“At the heart of it all is the eucharistic action, a thing of absolute simplicity—the taking, blessing, breaking and giving of bread and the taking, blessing and giving of a cup of wine and water, as these were first done with their new meaning by a young Jew before and after supper with His friends on the night before He died. He had told his friends to do this henceforward with the new meaning “for the anamnesis” of Him, and they have done it always since.

Was ever another command so obeyed? For century after century, spreading slowly to every continent and country and among every race on earth, this action has been done, in every conceivable human circumstance, for every conceivable human need from infancy and before it to extreme old age and after it, from the pinnacles of earthly greatness to the refuge of fugitives in the caves and dens of the earth.
People have found no better thing than this to do
  • for sovereigns at their crowning and for criminals going to the scaffold;
  • for armies in triumph or for a bride and bridegroom in a little country church;
  • for the proclamation of a dogma or for a good crop of wheat; 
  • for the wisdom of the Parliament of a mighty nation or for a sick old woman afraid to die; 
  • for a school child sitting an examination or for Columbus setting out to discover America;
  • for the famine of whole provinces or for the soul of a dead lover;
  • in thankfulness because my mother did not die of pneumonia;
  • for a village chief much tempted to return to fetish because the yams had failed; because the Turk was at the gates of Vienna;
  • for the repentance of Margaret; for the settlements of a strike;
  • for a child for a barren woman; for Captain so-and-so, wounded and prisoner of war;
  • while the lions roared in the nearby amphitheatre;
  • on the beach at Dunkirk; while the hiss of scythes in the thick June grass came faintly through the windows of the church;
  • tremulously, by an old monk on the fiftieth anniversary of his vows;
  • furtively, by an exiled bishop who had hewed timber all day in a prison camp near Murmansk;
  • gorgeously, for the canonisation of S. Joan of Arc—one could fill many pages with the reasons why people have done this, and not tell a hundredth part of them.
And best of all, week by week and month by month, on a hundred thousand successive Sundays, faithfully, unfailingly, across all parishes of Christendom, the pastors have done this just to make the plebs sancta Dei— the holy common people of God.”

Dom Gregory Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy, London, 1945, p. 743, with a few changes I’ve made for the sake of a more inclusive language.

Ordination of Deacons

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Image

It is 40 years since I was ordained a deacon at Sheffield Cathedral, and I have the privilege of being present for the ordination of 21 new deacons at Chester Cathedral today. These are people who have listened to God, heard his call, and responded with “here, I am”. These words are a commitment to being “present”, to “lifelong, disciplined attentiveness” according to David Runcorn in Fear and Trust.

Runcorn contrasts the failed leaders of 1 and 2 Samuel (there isn’t a success story among them) and offers the examples of Gandalf (Lord of the Rings) and Dumbledore (Harry Potter).

  • both bring the gifts of widely lived and well processed experience
  • both are significant guides and mentors to younger characters
  • both have taken the time and trouble to enter and understand worlds very different from their own
  • both are able to function peaceably without being the centre of the action
  • both display a combination of gentleness and decisiveness, authority and compassion
  • both are reconciled to their dispensability and accept that when the time comes, the world will continue without them.

That sounds good to me as a summary for ordained ministry and as a guide for theological education.

In the beginning you weep

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In the beginning you weep. The starting point for many things is grief, at the place where endings seem so absolute. One would think it should be otherwise but the pain … Is antecedent to every new opening in our lives.

Belden Lane in The Solace of Fierce Landscapes

David Runcorn uses this quote to introduce the “unexpected starting place” of leadership in 1 and 2 Samuel in Fear and Trust. There patriarchy, represented by Hannah’s husband Elkanah and Eli, the priest at Shiloh. Patriarchal leadership had produced a very barren spiritual landscape. The unexpected starting place is a childless woman who Eli thought was a drunk.

Jesus is a very disruptive influence: a sermon on Matthew 10:34

David Herbert6 Comments

Notes for a sermon for Ashton Hayes for June 22nd 2014

Fresco in the "Visoci Decani" in Kosovo
Fresco in the “Visoci Decani” in Kosovo

Text: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth: I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34)

Teachers are busy writing school reports. Here’s Jesus’ report from the autumn term:

  • Resistant materials – A – excellent in woodwork section, and obviously well supported by the help and stimulation he gets at home.
  • Maths – F – Lacks basics. Keeps muttering about “Three in One” and “I and the Father are one”.
  • Graphic communications – D – Prefers to draw with a stick in the sand than to use pencil and paper.
  • Physical Education – D- Jesus has been a troublemaker. He refuses instruction in swimming, and is surprised that he sinks when he tries to walk on the water.
  • Overall – it saddens us to say that Jesus is a disruptive influence in the class. He flouts uniform regulations by turning up in sandals. He chooses his friends unwisely.

Another report was found by Monty Python.

Pupil’s name: God

  • Biology – 28% – weak, thinks he knows it all. Constantly rude about Darwin.
  • Domestic Science – 54% – a useful cook, the pillar of salt will come in handy for a long time.
  • Games – will not row, hates games and once parted the waters of the swimming pool during a match against the old boys which was both unsporting and dangerous. He can still do press ups.
  • Progress and conduct: “I am afraid that I am severely disappointed in God’s work. He has shown no interest in rugger, asked to be excused prayers and moves in a mysterious way. His attentions to the carpentry teacher’s fiancée caused her to leave a term early, and there are several nasty rumours flying around.

There is no getting round the fact that Jesus is a disruptive influence. As he says himself in today’s gospel reading: “I didn’t come to bring peace. I  came to bring a sword.” (Matt 10:34)

Here’s trouble and an affront that we overlook at our peril. This is challenging behaviour.

His mother was no better. Her song (from Luke’s songbook and gospel), Luke 1:46-55, aka Magnificat, was banned for many years. The authorities in British ruled India, and in 1980’s Guatemala and Argentina banned the words from being read out loud because they were too revolutionary.

Mary knew that Jesus was not good news for everyone. For every blessing that she sang there was an answering curse on those who thought they had it all. She sang of the one who looks with favour on the lowly, and who scatters those who are proud in their innermost thoughts, the one who lifts up the lowly, but brings down rulers from their thrones, who fills the hungry with good things, but sends the rich away empty.

Woe betide us if we become proud, rich and powerful. According to her song, we will be scattered, brought down and sent away empty.

Mary too is disruptive and dangerous for the authorities. It is no wonder that she is silenced by the authorities from time to time. Jesus takes after his mother and father. Blame the parents, if you like.

50 years ago, this weekend, three young men went to investigate a church that had been burnt out. The church was Mount Zion Methodist Church in Neshoba County in Mississippi. This was a building that was being used to register black voters in the States in what was called Freedom Summer, 50 years ago, in 1964 in the civil rights movement.

The state authorities were bitterly opposed to the voter registration campaign, believing that blacks shouldn’t be able to vote. You can feel the authorities bristling with the arrival of these three men: Michael Schwermer, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman. The authorities were sheltering the culprits of the chapel burning. Their crime was about to be exposed by these men who had come to disrupt their peace.

Deputy Sherriff Cecil Price followed the men as they drove back to their home in Lauderdale County. He intercepted them just on the county line and ordered them into his car. He then drove them to a deserted piece of land where they were met by two cars full of Ku Klux Klan members. They beat, shot and killed the three men, 50 years ago this weekend, June 21st 1964.

The lives of the three are commemorated in a stained glass window in the chapel of Cornell University. Their faith is celebrated in the words of the gospel song made famous by Pete Seeger and Joan Baez – “we shall overcome”.

Are they martyrs for us? Or were they disruptive and dangerous? What do we think? Are we on the side of the Klansmen, or the poor of the earth?

Those three didn’t bring peace. Neither did they bring a sword. They brought beatings, shootings, burnings and violence. They didn’t bring those things themselves. They brought those things on themselves. They engaged the powers and suffered their might.

Does this help us to understand what Jesus said when he said, “I didn’t come to bring peace, I came to bring a sword”? In the cold light of day these words strike us as difficult. They challenge us and disrupt us. The more we burn with passion, the hotter we get under the collar, the more our hearts burn within us, the more understandable they become.

What good is gentle Jesus, meek and mild in a world that is crying out for disruption? The prophet Jeremiah complains about the false prophets who claim that there is peace when there is no peace. (Jer 6:14)

No, Jesus comes with a sword. He is disruptive and he is divisive. The authorities expected him to go one way, and he went the other – to the lost, the last and the least. His words were salvation to some, but offensive to others.

The words of Mary’s song provide commentary on Jesus as well as his father: he looked with favour on the lowly, and scattered those who are proud in their innermost thoughts, lifting up the lowly, while bringing down rulers from their thrones, filling the hungry with good things, while sending the rich away empty.

He never used the sword.

The sword is metaphorical. It is an effect. The sword is what happens as a consequence of his love. People turn on one another and on him. Even families and friends turn against each other. He is disruptive and unsettling for us all.

He didn’t bring a sword but he brought a sword on himself. The political and religious authorities got him in the end. Jesus never drew a sword – he loved through the challenge and disruption. And he told his followers to put their sword away, as we recall from the incident in the Garden of Gethsemane. (Matt 26:51ff)

When Jesus said “I haven’t come to bring peace, but a sword” he was preparing his followers for mission, so that they might be disruptive in a world crying out for disruption. He was preparing them for a dangerous mission which could bring disruption, persecution and even death.

What is true of Jesus is true of the church.

Just some times we have to stand against the crowd – like those who were conscientious objectors in the war 100 years ago, like those who protest when they see injustice being done, like when we side with the scapegoat, the sick, the prisoner, the stranger.

It just might be that we have to stand alone – our friends may desert us, our families may turn on us, we may lose our cherished place in the community.

We stand for love and we overcome evil with good. We can’t pretend there is peace where there is none. We haven’t come to bring peace, but a possible sword on ourselves.

So I wonder what it will say on my final report. Will it say that I have been a troublemaker? Will it say that my behaviour has been challenging? Will it say that I have been disruptive for the sake of those who suffer in the way things are?

Or will it say, “he was just nice”? What good is that, only being nice? Being nice just doesn’t cut it does it?

References:

Thanks to http://www.pleacher.com/forwards/forwards/jcreport.html for Jesus’ school report.
Thanks to http://www.churchinacircle.com/2013/12/29/marys-subversive-song/ for the ideas about Mary’s subversive song.

Trust in the slow work of God

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The 10,000 year clock, part of the Long Now Project

“Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.”

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Here’s more about the 10,000 year clock and the Long Now Project.

Leaving us for good – a sermon for Ascension Day

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Notes for a sermon preached at Holy Trinity, Gee Cross.

Introduction

Our two readings come from the end of Luke’s Gospel and the beginning of the Book of Acts. (Acts 1:1-11 and Luke 24:44-53)

Luke ends his Part One and begins his Part Two with a celebration of Jesus’ Ascension.

At first glance it looks like these two volumes are addressed to a particular person called Theophilus.  But Theophilus is a strange name. Translated, it means “God lover” – which leaves us with a question. Are these two books addressed to one person called Theophilus, or to all “God lovers”, including ourselves?

And the story of the Ascension is one that causes us all sorts of difficulties. It’s a story that stretches the dimensions of our lives, where earth and heaven connect – a tall story that is difficult to fathom.

40 days and nights have passed since Easter Day (40 days and nights!). Those 40 days were packed with Jesus’s appearances and his talk of the kingdom of God. The 40 days  end with this – a blessing, a promise and a withdrawal as Jesus was carried into heaven, carried out of the sight of the disciples on a cloud.

So what?

Flight paths

It seems like only yesterday that we were landing at Heathrow after visiting our son and his girlfriend in the Philippines. It is actually 40 days and nights – we landed on Easter Day, having been on a plane for 17 hours. The flight path reads like a where’s where of the world’s trouble spots.

Bosnia, Beirut, Bangkok, Iraq, Pakistan, Vietnam, Cambodia etc etc – flying into Manila, regarded as the second most dangerous city in the world.

How weird was it? Flying 38000 feet in the airspace above those trouble spots, with all their tensions, sufferings, betrayals, poverty and uncertainty, as if they weren’t there. We were flying over deep divides and no go areas as if they didn’t exist. We were like birds flying over reality and missing all that counts in human life. It was as if we were travelling in a totally different dimension.

(Another example would be our city’s flyovers)

For the last 40 days and nights it has been back to earth with a bang!

Which, I suspect is where we belong. We are, after all, Adam – humans made from the earth, to walk the earth, with our feet of clay. And for that, we believe that God loves us – and we may believe that is where God wants us to be – down to earth, earthy and earthed.  That seems to be the message that Luke is leaving us “God lovers” as he describes Jesus’s goodbye to his disciples, as he leaves them us to be “witnesses … to the ends of the earth”.

Grounded as birds without wings

I don’t know whether any of you have read Birds without Wings by Louis de Bernieres. I’ll try to describe the story without giving anything away for any of you who want to read it.

The story is set in innocence at the turn of the 20th century in a town called Eskibahce in south-western modern-day Turkey, then a part of the waning Ottoman Empire. The village potter, Iskander, a Muslim, makes clay bird whistles for his son, Abdul, and his Christian friend, Nico. Their whistles make different bird song. One is a blackbird, and the other is a robin. They take on the nicknames of their birdsong – Blackbird and Robin.

They are birds who fly over the hills overlooking their town. They play at flying, but, of course they can only fly in their imagination.

Reality soon becomes quite different, as the population of the town gets caught in events. They find themselves caught in the tensions between Greek nationalism and Turkish nationalism which destroyed the fabric of the town. The boys are of course, birds without wings, and they are caught up in the violence of the conflict. There is no way that they can fly over their divisions. They are earthy and they are earthed – and they suffer the consequences of down to earth historical realities. Such realities can only be overcome by living through them.

We all have flights of fancy, don’t we? But at the end of the day there is no escaping the day to day challenges of our lives. We cannot rise above them, but have to engage with them. We can’t ignore them, because that would be irresponsible and careless.  We have to live with our circumstances, and through the events of our lives.

That is what Jesus leaves us to do. That is what Jesus leaves us for.

Left behind for good

The picture that Luke paints for us is a farewell scene, which might remind of us other partings, and snapshots of farewell greetings with the waving of hands, the dabbing of tears, the heartache and the parting words.

Jesus is saying goodbye to his friends, but this goodbye scene is so different. It is not tinged in sadness, but explodes with joy, because Jesus’ parting words are full of promise. The promise is that the disciples, the God lovers, would receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon them. That promise must have helped them to look forward with hope instead of looking backwards with sadness. The gift of the Holy Spirit transforms all our partings and farewells since that good bye described by Luke and celebrated by us today on this Ascension Day. The gift of the Holy Spirit is a blessing for all those who mourn. It is the help we need to live through what seems to be the dead ends of our lives. It is the comfort to ….. It is the strength to overcome.

The disciples were indeed left behind, but left with joy “continually in the temple blessing God”. They were left behind for good.

The good they were left behind for was surely to live through their lives as witnesses, in a way that God’s blessing shone through. Their lives weren’t easy. They faced hardships, imprisonment, persecution and death. They were hard pressed on every side, but they lived through those times.

The good they were left behind for was to convey the spirit of Jesus, to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to prisoners, to help the blind to see and to let the oppressed go free. (Luke 4:18f)

The good they were left behind for was to live through all of this, to keep their feet to the ground, to take the long walk through difficulties to freedom, down to earth, with feet of clay.

Like those God lovers, we have the same blessing – treasure in clay, earthenware pots. Is the challenge that Luke addressing to his dear readers just this: to be down to earth witnesses for all the earth by living through the tensions and challenges of our lives.

Have we been left behind for good? Has the church been left behind for good?

But this isn’t saddening. There is no reason to lose heart because of it.

This is the great farewell. This is the goodbye that gives all goodbyes hope and joy. This is the goodbye which spells out its meaning. “God be with you”, his spirit is with us.

Therefore, we go. We go in peace to love and serve the Lord, realising that it is now up to us.

Adapting a prayer of St Teresa of Avila:

Christ has no body but us,
no hands, no feet on earth but ours.
Ours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world,
ours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
ours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Ours are the hands, ours are the feet,
ours are the eyes, we are his body.
Christ has no body now but us,
no hands, no feet on earth but us,
Ours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but us.

We are left behind for good, with his blessing and spirit.

Cerezo Barredo’s weekly gospel illustration

Maya Angelou as one touched by an angel

David Herbert2 Comments

Maya Angelou died yesterday, aged 86. She was born poor and black and her gifts were born out of pain and hardship. She knew why the caged bird sings. Her son, Guy, writes: “she was a warrior for equality, tolerance and peace.” She helped many through the passion, hope, humour and compassion of her autobiographies and poetry. She is a wise woman of our age, and eminently quotable. On this Ascension Day I choose her poem Touched by an Angel to remember a woman who had a love with the power to live and see through so much.

Touched by an Angel

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from  our timidity
in the flush of love’s light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and all will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

Through Jesus Christ – various openings: a sermon for Easter 4A

David Herbert1 Comment

20140511-093944.jpg

A sermon for Easter 4A at St Alban’s Church, Offerton.

We were lucky enough to be able to go to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in Barnsley last weekend.

This is one of the photos I took. It does reflect the beauty of the landscape, at bluebell time. I thought it would help us to think about today’s gospel which is about openings and doorways.

There were a lot of sheep and lambs around at the Sculpture Park – in the pasture outside this walled and sheltered area. There is a gateway here for the sheep to find shelter if they need it – and I can think of many cold Yorkshire days when they would need the shelter of that stone wall.

Jesus talks about this gateway in our gospel reading (John 10:1-10). He talks about the sheep being sheltered, and the sheep finding pasture – the gateway is for their comings and goings, for their to-ing and fro-ing.

But it’s not quite an open gateway. An open gateway would be dangerous. There is a gate. Jesus says “I am the gate”, “I am the door”. Perhaps you can picture Jesus in that gateway in the photo. For me, I see him sat on the ground, sideways on, with his back to the gatepost, one leg bent up and one leg stretched along the ground, looking out for danger and looking in with care.

Today is known as Good Shepherd Sunday. This image of Jesus which John has given us in his gospel is what we celebrate and love as the Good Shepherd.

It is an image that captures our imagination. For example, there is a Hospice in Chester called The Hospice of the Good Shepherd – a name which may have appealed to its founders because of their faith that Jesus guards the door in and out of life, and the promise that if we go through Jesus Christ, our Lord we enter into life that is fulfilling, complete and in which we want for nothing.

And that is how we say our prayers isn’t it? Our prayer to God is “through Jesus Christ, our Lord” …..

Jesus is the door, the gate. He is the way, the truth and the life…….. If we let him.

This next image is of the famous painting by Holman Hunt called the Light of the World. The painting is in the Manchester Art Gallery.

This is a painting about another door – the door is the door to our lives, the door to our soul. It is a long time since that door has been opened. Look at all the weeds that have grown round the door.

The painting is a reminder of what Jesus said. “Behold I stand at the door and knock. If you hear me call and open the door, I’ll come right in and sit down to supper with you.”

He knocks and waits. The door has no handle on the outside. There is no way in for the light of the world until the door is opened from the inside.

Are we going to open up?

We have been talked into a fearful way of life in which we lock our homes away from others.

It is a long time since we dared to leave our back door open. We’ve put some extra bolts on as well – and alarms. And there’s a code for getting in, and a code for getting out. We triple lock things.

But do we lock ourselves away as well?

Are we too busy to respond to our neighbours when they are in trouble? Sometimes we’d rather not know. We don’t want strangers knocking on the door. We don’t want people selling us things. We don’t want political canvassers – and we don’t want religious callers. No thank you. That door is going to stay closed, and if we hear anyone knocking we are going to pretend that we’re not in.

Jesus stands at the door and knocks.

Where there was once openings there is now just brick walls, dead ends, no go areas.

But that has always been the case, back to the day when Adam hid himself in the garden, back to the day of resurrection when the disciples locked themselves in because they were afraid of who might come looking for them. Jesus stood at those doors and knocked, though that time couldn’t wait for them to open up for him.

Where there was once openings there is now just brick walls, dead ends, no go areas. And that has always been the case.

But where there was just dead ends, brick walls and no chance, there is every chance, possibility and new openings. And that has always been the case as well.

Fists that are clenched are being opened. Minds that are closed are being opened. Hearts that have hardened are being softened. And it is happening all the time. We are amazed when we see it happening, aren’t we?

Yesterday, I was just pulling out from a parking space in Ellesmere Port when someone cut in to the space in front of me. I thought he’d come in tight – and then drove off. Then I saw the driver of the car run to the corner where I was turning, signalling me to pull over. He told me that he had damaged my car. He needn’t have gone to that trouble. He used that moment well. I told him that I appreciated what he had done.

These are the moments to write home about. These are the openings that we have in our lives. These are moments of grace and opportunity.

I was amazed.

Similar amazement is written all over our first reading (Acts 2:42-47) because of the devotion and fellowship of those who followed the apostles teaching. All that they managed to do, the way they shared everything, their generosity of heart amazed everyone. They had the goodwill of all the people.

There may well have been a lot of comings and goings in our lives, and it is understandable that many people become less trusting, even bitter ……. as a result.

But, it doesn’t have to be like that. There is a way out. That way out is offered by Jesus as the door, as the Good Shepherd.

Jan Richardson offers a way of blessing for this day. She says:

Press your hand to your heart.
Rest it over that place in your chest that has grown closed and tight, where the rust, with its talent for making decay look artful, has bitten into what you once held dear.
Breathe deep. Press on the knot and feel how it begins to give way, turning upon the hinge of your heart.
Notice how it opens wide and wider still as you exhale, spilling you out into a realm where you never dreamed to go, but cannot now imagine living this life without.

Why be our own doorkeepers and safekeepers when Jesus Christ offers himself as our gateway? As the Psalmist says, “The Lord will watch over your going out and your coming in, from this time on and for evermore.” (Psalm 121:8)

Through Jesus Christ we have amazing grace. Through Jesus Christ we have new openings, all the time and any time.