>Famous last words

David Herbert1 Comment

>How do we end a letter? Or an email? How much thought goes into the words we will use? I know I spent quite some time coming to the decision that “best wishes” was the most appropriate for me. Some who write to me finish with “Yours in Christ” – that’s nice, but a bit cheesily religious. I’m not saying “best wishes” is good – it’s a cliche and I couldn’t possibly mean every word of that greeting for every person I write to because I would be emotionally exhausted by all that wishing.

I’ve served in two churches dedicated to St Andrew’s – one in Ellesmere Port (now demolished) and the other in Tarvin. Many of us finish our letters with the cross of St Andrew – we think of them as kisses. The same sign was used to seal agreements signifying that the bond would not be broken (as St Andrew’s discipleship led him to his cross). I suppose that the traditional endings of “yours faithfully” and “yours truly” can perhaps be traced back as translations of thast “kiss” and “cross”.

My mother – now quite frail – was talking about a letter from someone she seems to be regarded as a “surprising” friend. She reflected that she is at the stage of her life when people are telling her important things about what she has meant to them – sort of summaries. “I love you” wrote the surprising friend.

This is the bottom line. The last line. There needs to be space at the end of our correspondence for “what do I mean”, “what you have meant to me” – it’s a line to be timed as the truly heartfelt greeting between two people who, when all is said and done, mean the world to one another. “Best wishes” will do for all other correspondence.

St. Andrew’s Cross spider photgraphed in coastal NSW, Australia author – self, TTaylor date- 2005

>Go Between God

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>We are used to referring to the Holy Spirit as the third person. By this we usually mean the third person of the Trinity. But John V Taylor, many years ago, drew attention to the Holy Spirit as the Go-Between God – who is the third person in a very different way. He writes; “the Holy Spirit is the invisible third party who stands between me and the other, making us mutually aware”.
He quotes Martin Buber who wrote: “We are waiting for a theophany about which we know nothing except its place, and that place is called community.”

Love

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When one who professes love is wholly in control of the object of his love, then the falsity of love is exposed. Love ins the activity for the sake of an other: and where the object of love is wholly under the control of the one who loves, that object is no longer an other. It is a part or extension of the professed lover. Where the object of love is truly an other the activity of love is always precarious … it contains no assurance or certainty of completion: much may be expended and little achieved. the progress of love must always be by tentative and precarious steps: and each step that is taken, whether it “succeeds” or “fails”, becomes the basis for the next, and equally precarious, step which must follow. Love proceeds by no assured programme.

W.H. Vanstone; Love’s Endeavour, Love’s Expense p46

Give the kisses

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>What can I give him, poor as I am?
This is the question at the heart of giving. And as we are crunched by the recession this becomes an ever more pressing question, particularly for a middle class which has come to treasure money so highly. It really dismays me when we hear in our churches about giving – and it is always centred on money (or so it seems). What can I give him, poor as I am?

Christina Rossetti discusses this in her poem “In the bleak midwinter“. For her money doesn’t enter into it – and in this recession all of us are questioning the worth of what money will buy (particulalry those of us on their third skip in the process of moving house). Take money out of the equation and what can we give? Those unable to buy off their giving with money perhaps know the answer best. They operate in an economy of gifts aware they can give “their heart”, that they can pay attention, that they can give themselves, that they can for-give, that they can give thanks.

And my own thanksgiving – a woman working on the platform at Crewe Station who was amazingly kind, patient, hospitable and gentle with my mother in helping her find the right train – someone bearing the fruits of the Spirit. British Rail won’t have been paying her for that but some gifts money cannot buy.

Miroslav Volf (in Free of Charge p116)describes the work of the Holy Spirit in terms of gifts. “The Spirit is the gift that gives spiritual gifts”. He writes; “the Spirit opens the doors of our hearts for Christ’s indwelling …. by the power of the Spirit we make ourselves available for Christ to be born in us … The Spirit is the gift that gives Christ”.
“Think of the Spirit as the arms of our hearts that embrace Christ and as the open doors of our energies and skills that welcome Christ in.”

Photo by Logan Antill.

Thomas

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Two of our children bear Thomas in their name. Their grandfather was called Thomas. Thomas is highlighted in our Gospel today. What was he doing on this first day of the week when the other disciples were locked in in fear of the people’s anger? Did he not share the anxiety of the other disciples? Did he have more confidence?

Kate Huey, in the linked article, quotes Michael Williams’s comment about Thomas which contrasts with how Thomas is so often portrayed. He writes: “the only one amonmg the disciples who was not do filled with fear that he was unwilling to leave the disciples’ hiding place.” (see this Sunday’s gospel) Kate quotes Gail O’Day’s observation that “one week after the disciples have been visited by the risen jesus and received Jesuis’ peace and the Holy Spirit, they have once again locked themselves away behind closed doors.” Even after seeing the risen Jesus they still don’t live as an Easter people.

So was Thomas the one didn’t want to be locked away? Was he the one who wasn’t frightened? Was he the free spirit? Have we lost the truth by caricaturing him falsely as “the doubter”? And if he is the odd one out of the twelve? What does he have to say about the rest of them, and the rest of us who are similarly inclined to lock ourselves away (metaphorically) because we fear the people. What was Thomas doing?

Jan Richardson in the Painted Prayerbook has a different take on the locked room – the “secret room” as she calls this painting, and she suggests that every pilgrim needs a secret room.

She quotes Phil Cousineau’s The Art of Pilgrimage who writes this:

“Everywhere you go, there is a secret room. To discover it, you must knock on walls, as the detective does in mystery houses, and listen for the echo that protends the secret passage. You must pull books off shelves to see if the library shelf swings open to reveal the hidden room. I’ll say it again, everywhere has a secret room. You must find your own, in a small chapel, a tiny cafe, a quiet park, the home of a new firend, the pew wehere the light strikes the rose window just so. As a pilgrim you must find it or you will never understand the hidden reasons why you really left home.”

Here is sanctuary and indicates the need we all have for “retreat” for all the times when we have a choice of fight or flight and when fighting seems so hopeless. And does Jesus condemn us for locking oursleves away and trying to save our own skin? It appears not. Because to those first Christians locked in fear Jesus came with nothing other than peace. There were no recriminations for them running away or for their betrayal of his trust. All he does when he gets through their defences – past the locked doors is to “offer them greeting and gift” (Kate Huey) – “Peace be with you”.

>Dancing God

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>
Former lapdancer Anna Nobili has converted and become a nun according to this story. She now dances a different dance for prisoners and hospital patients and says:
Jesus is a God who dances, not one who stands still. It’s not a dance we readily understands.

“God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform”

The idea of a dancing God intrigued 20th century song writer Sidney Carter. His classic hymn Lord of the Dance has been for me a test of a good hymn book. For some editors it is too controversial for inclusion.
Cecil Collins painted a wonderful picture of Jesus dancing on the cross. He’s tapping his feet to the music of the clowns’ procession as he turns his gaze on them and away from the well regimented procession of soldiers who take themselves far too seriously.

God of many breasts

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> 
In the news last week was a man who has fathered a child aged 75 and a woman who has given birth – aged 70 (that’s the Mum, not Benjamin Button). Her name is Raji Deva Lohan – and it’s her first child!But that’s nothing compared to the story from Genesis 17 in our worship this week. Abram was 99. His wife Sarai was regarded (and ?despised) as barren, and they suddenly expect their first child. Not just one – but millions of them! It changes their whole life and identity. Abram becomes Abraham (meaning father of many nations) and Sarai becomes Sarah (meaning “princess” – better than being despised any day!) Together they become known as the father and mother of nations which include Jews, Christians and Muslims (see, we really are brothers and sisters).

Kate Huey’s posts are always worth a read. This week she puts together the opinion of experts who reckon that the Abraham and Sarah stories were written at the time of the Exile in the 6th century BC – when the deported Jews sat down “by the rivers of Babylon and wept when they remembered Zion”. They were so desparate they couldn’t even bring themselves to sing the songs of their homeland. They were powerless. This powerlessness is the backdrop to the Genesis story in which the reader is asked to look back and is given a future tense for their lives – hope and direction.

Reading betwen the lines – OK they were all powerless. So was Abram and Sarai. Try as they might they couldn’t have a baby. Yet at 99 – why 99? – presumably to emphasise just how old and knackered they were – they get their baby/babies. Trust God to do the business – and that gave them their future (and us ours).

Kate Huey refers to the name of God in the story – El-Shaddai. Usually translated as “God Almighty” – in other words “all-conquering” there is an alternative which is God of the mountains – and yet again (according to Valerie Bridgeman Davis) “God of many breasts”. Now even if that is not a correct translation it really is worth playing around with because it contrasts the fertility and generosity of God with the barrenness and powerlessness of human nature for Abram, Sarai, the exiled and all those who can’t feel “at home” in their world.

Barbara Brown Taylor’s sermon on this text, “The Late Bloomer,” makes Abraham and Sarah feel like people we know, who find it hard to believe in the promise or the future. “To live by it, day after day, to see it in the night sky and hear it in your name and see it again in your lover’s eyes. It is a hard thing, to believe in a promise with no power to make it come true. Everything is in the future tense. And yet. What better way to live than in the grip of a promise, and a divine one at that?”

Barbara Brown Taylor reflects that living in the meantime calls us “to live reverently, deliberately, and fully awake: that is what it means to live in the promise, where the wait itself is as rich as its end. All it takes are some regular reminders, because as long as the promise is renewed, the promise is alive, as vivid as a rainbow, as real as the million stars overhead” (“The Late Bloomer,”in Gospel Medicine).

The art of conversation

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>The words ‘sermon’ and ‘homily’ seem to get used interchangeably. I always thought that homilies get preached in Catholic churches or are sermons which aren’t long enough to be sermons. I have also always been rather wary of the power relationship between preacher and hearer and its patronising nature.

Timothy Radcliffe reminded me this morning (in ‘Why go to Church’) that the word ‘homily’ comes from a Greek word ‘homilein’ which means ‘to converse’. Aha! Inclusive language. Everyone converses, but not everyone preaches sermons (you have to be qualified for that!). “Conversation is surely the foundation of any society” writes Radcliffe. “It is by talking together that we overcome misunderstandings, receive and offer forgiveness, grow in sympathy and mutual understanding, take pleasure in each other’s company, and develop a shared language and memories.”

What if what we preach is ‘conversation’? It means ‘listening’ and ‘appreciation’ – by all parties. If conversation is something all of us do, then the Sunday homily should be enabling “the real preaching, the community’s conversations” so that Christian faith becomes embedded in the everyday conversation of our communities, the Word thereby becoming flesh and living among us.