a ministry scrapbook
This poem has a lot to say as we get back to work after Christmas, and as we put the decorations away at 12th Night.
“When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.”
Just when I’ve tidied my desk (my concession to the New Year) I’m shown Paul Smith’s desk in an exhibition at the Design Museum in London called My name is Paul Smith. I’m happy that my desk is now tidier than Paul’s.
Paul Smith makes the point that his desk represents his mind. (And my empty desk?). Paul is surrounded by colour, fabrics, toys and many things. They are resources that stir his imagination. They are his findings from his searches and research. This resourcefulness has been immensely productive, as demonstrated in the exhibition.
Paul pays tribute to his wife, Pauline, for the way that she taught him to notice things. Noticing things doesn’t come naturally. It needs practice. So, a New year resolution: notice more. I may have a clear desk, but I do have a mind in which I can store a host of findings. I’ll have to do a lot more research (aka asking questions) to increase that store. And then there’s the question of what I do with those findings. They may not be as colourful or iconic as …..
I was blogging, then I wasn’t. Then Euan Semple reminded me of the importance of sharing thoughts and opinions in his book Organisations don’t tweet, people do. He asks: “how does the world ever change except by people sharing their opinions?”
I was preoccupied with business, forgetting that my business is sharing ideas. My responsibility is to support the (professional) development of ministers, and my mind had flitted from one frame of mind to another – from the frame of mind in which there is organic development through community sharing to the less productive frame of mind governed by the metaphor of the machine. It’s working our way out of one skin into another.
I belong to an organisation that, rightly, takes itself seriously. It cares about risk and dangers – among them the risks involved in social media. Organisations don’t tweet, people do is a powerful argument for overcoming the fear of engagement with social media. One of those reasons is to make the virtual space of the web inhabitable for our children. “If we leave it to the gunslingers and the pornographers it will stay uninhabitable” writes Euan Semple. He continues, “If we want to make it habitable we have to make it so by being in there behaving in productive and positive ways and showing that it can be a tool for good.”
And so it is. I wasn’t blogging, but now I am.
The strapline to the Prologue to John’s Gospel could be “a Word in Edgeways” as John describes Jesus as God’s word “that became flesh and dwelt among us”. It’s important that we get our word in edgeways in as many ways and spaces as possible. None of this is new. Getting our word in edgeways has been a responsibility since we began to use language. Responsible citizens have been using it ever since to name names, to make sense, to work things out, to share opinions and to make peace (and their opposites). There is now a new space for exploration which is the virtual space of the worldwide web. How can we live well there?
The image is from John Sutton’s photostream
Euan Semple’s blog
Today is Holy Innocents Day, when we are called to remember childhood how children have been slaughtered. The focus is on the baby boys Herod slaughtered in Bethlehem at the time of Jesus, but also embraces the children slaughtered throughout history.
Jesus teaches that “unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18) This prompts the question about what childhood is. Is it something about vulnerability, dependence, naively and learning. Jesus added the word “humility”. “Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
And then we grow out of childhood, spending a lot of our time bigging ourselves up, taking ourselves out of reach of that kingdom Jesus spoke about.
I am reading organisations don’t tweet, people do by Euan Semple? He seems to suggest that the qualities that make for childhood are the qualities that are needed for leaders and organisations to be successful as he talks about vulnerability and humility in these terms:
“Being open about your failings isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and wouldn’t be acceptable in every workplace, but just a little more openness about your failings in front of your staff might be just be the best way to improve your working relationships. Being seen not to know, and being willing to ask for help, can be the best way to make other people feel valued. It also signals to them that it is OK not to know everything all the time. This creates the sort of culture where people are willing to open up and share what they know to everyone’s mutual benefit.”
“People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.”
Nature’s brush, with frosty bristles
Daubs a crust to coat the thistles,
Elevates from plain to glory,
Tells a tale, redemption’s story.
Here are some notes for a sermon for the Feast of Christ the King, for the people of Christ the King, Birkenhead, for Sunday 24th November 2013
Today is the Festival of Christ the King.
The feast of Christ the King was announced by Pope Pius XI in 1925 at the time when fascism was growing across Europe, including here in England. It was thought that there should be special emphasis and celebration that Christ is King. It was a political choice. It was intended as a political opposition and challenge to those who were imposing themselves and their grand designs – the Mussolinis and Hitlers.
The Festival of Christ the King comes on the last Sunday of the liturgical year – and next Sunday is the start of a new one.
The Christian year culminates in this assertion that Christ is King, as if through our worship, our reflections, our prayers and our readings we have come to the realization afresh that Jesus Christ is, for us, the King, and as if we want to be subject to his just and gentle rule, and that we prefer to be part of his kingdom than any other Kingdom, “United” or not.
Of course, this day has a particular significance for you. Your church has the lovely dedication of “Christ the King”. You are the church of Christ the King. You stand, sit and kneel realizing that Christ is King, subverting the tyranny of tyrants and representing the hope of those who are their victims – that they will be delivered – that there is another horizon of freedom as opposed to their awful and fearful horizons.
The introduction of the festival of Christ the King was a political act to oppose the growing power of the fascists in Europe. As the Church of Christ the King we are all called to be a political act. The church is political – we must never overlook that, and you, whose focus is on Christ the King, have a particular vocation to live that.
We have a king who rides a donkey. Have you ever sung that?
Our king, who rides into town on a donkey, contrasts and contradicts the power of the Roman emperor who arrives in town with all the cavalry and military trimmings. The Roman Emperor arrives in power to impress his power and to keep people down. Our king comes into town dishevelled and on a donkey. It’s a joke and a mockery of the superpowers who parade their strengths in their great squares. For Jesus, power is not for parading. Jesus has no need to impress, he is not like the leaders who ask “do I look big in this?”. The donkey was political act and political choice. He could have, as the story of the temptations show us, exercised his power very differently.
When it comes to horsepower God chooses the donkey. His intent was not to keep people down, but to bring them together as a kingdom of heaven, as a kingdom of God.
God and his people have always challenged the unjust rulers. That opposition goes back as far as to the times of Pharoah, from whose unjust rule God liberated his people through Moses. The opposition includes opposition to fascist tyranny and reaching to today, to the warlords, the drug barons, the local tyrant and the playground bully.
In the Old Testament we hear the voice of the prophets opposing the kings when they mislead Israel, and when their rule becomes unjust and corrupt. For example, Amos denounces those who have built “stone houses” off the backs of the poor. He says “there are those who oppress the innocent and take bribes and deprive the poor of justice in the courts”.
Similarly, in our reading from Jeremiah (23:1-6), the prophet condemns the misleading leaders of his day, the shepherds who lead the people astray, who have scattered the flock and driven them apart, who have not attended to their needs and have only looked after Number One. He reports “The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety.”
There are leaders and kings in the Old Testament who were more interested in themselves than their subjects. The prophets rail against them. That is politics. And it is compassion for those who are neglected by the rulers.
This is what we stand and kneel for. We stand to welcome Christ as our king, to assent to the rule of heaven. We kneel to pray for the coming of the kingdom, on earth as in heaven. This is a political act.
I don’t know how well people of Birkenhead know this building, and that it is named “Christ the King”. That dedication is relatively recent, isn’t it? Until 1990 the church was dedicated to St Anne. Why choose “Christ the King” for the dedication? It is a choice with political connotations. The naming was a political act that favours the poor and challenges the tyrannies of the community.
Christ the King as a building isn’t obvious. There is no spire dominating the landscape. You have been saddled with a spire, but as spires go it is quite unassuming. You have to look to find it. It’s not on the main drag. It is tucked into its community.
That seems quite appropriate to me. You don’t have to look big and impressive. You are a people tucked into your communities to share in the just and gentle rule of Christ, to exercise the responsibility we all share as the subjects of the kingdom of God – the responsibility to bring people together on the side of justice – to be trusted not to put people down, or let people down.
Christ as King isn’t obvious either, is he? He doesn’t force himself on us. He doesn’t stamp his authority everywhere. Our gospel reading reminds us of his rejection by crucifixion. He is the love that was promised by Jeremiah and longed for by so many. He is tucked into community, as the good shepherd, for bringing scattered and opposed people together, not for putting people down or letting people down as self-serving leaders do.
Other references include the painting Cast our Crowns by Jim Janknegt, the book God and Empire by John Dominic Crossan and Matthew 20:25
Russell Brand is always worth listening to. He is passionate and outraged. He is intelligent, and, he admits to being “fucked up and naive”. He gave voice to his outrage in an interview with Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight. Simon Kelner described the scene in the Independant. “On one side was a rather effete figure with an unruly beard who found it hard to take anything seriously, and on the other side was Russell Brand.”
Since then Russell Brand has been reflecting on developments since that interview. They are published in today’s Guardian. He is passionate about change and connects with the new movements such as Occupy. He writes of his commitment:
Well I am naïve and I have fucked up but I tell you something else. I believe in change. I don’t mind getting my hands dirty because my hands are dirty already. I don’t mind giving my life to this because I’m only alive because of the compassion and love of others. Men and women strong enough to defy this system and live according to higher laws.
He has seen the Apocalypse:
The less privileged among us are already living in the apocalypse, the thousands of street sleepers in our country, the refugees and the exploited underclass across our planet daily confront what we would regard as the end of the world. No money, no home, no friends, no support, no hand of friendship reaching out, just acculturated and inculcated condemnation.
and he has glimpsed the revolution at the Watford Gap:
One night late at the Watford Gap I got chatting to a couple of squaddies, one Para, one Marine, we talked a bit about family and politics, I invited them to a show. Then we were joined by three Muslim women, all hijabbed up. For a few perfect minutes in the strip lit inertia of this place, that was nowhere in particular but uniquely Britain, I felt how plausible and beautiful The Revolution could be. We just chatted.
Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organise the people – they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress.
Paulo Freire. Pedagogy of the Oppressed
We have become obsessed with effectiveness which, according to Parker Palmer, means that we take on smaller tasks. For the bigger tasks, like love, mercy and peace we need a different measure. That measure is faithfulness.
From effectiveness to faithfulness from Center for Courage & Renewal on Vimeo.
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Grits and Grains 