Monk in the Marketplace

Bowthorpe Church

Ray Simpson, and the Community of St Aidan and St Hilda, of which he was one of the founders, have become one of the obvious places to look these days when considering what we can learn from and experience with Celtic spirituality. Ray has written widely and his recently published autobiography, Monk in the Marketplace, is a fascinating account of his life and ministry, but with many insights from Celtic spirituality. Though by no means the only places he has worked, a lot of the book focusses on his ministry in Bowthorpe, Norwich, and the founding of a ground-breaking ecumenical partnership there, and his subsequent ministry in and from Holy Island (Lindsifarne).

I was particularly interested in the Bowthorpe reflections, as that was part of my ‘patch’ as Moderator of the Eastern Synod of the URC, and I have preached there a few times. We also once had a great holiday on Holy Island, so reading something of the spiritual perspective of Ray and his colleagues was fascinating.

He reflects perceptively on what we need to do to be church today in a relevant way. “In a twenty-four-hour society, people relate better to seven days a week churches. In a multi-choice society people look to churches that offer facilities for a range of temperaments, cultures and ages. In the cafe society churches are eating places as well as praying places. In a visual, sound-byte age people resort to churches that use different media – poetry as well as pulpits, storytelling as well as sermons. In an age of mass travel, when people look for B&Bs and hostels that they can relate to, churches provide accommodation – in their grounds, or on their websites. They once again link up with hostel and guest house movements. In a multi-ethnic society people expect to find within the wider church services that are culturally Muslim or Sikh in style. In an orphaned society, when mentors, life coaches and growth buddies are in demand in the worlds of business, fitness and AIDS care, people seek out spiritual homes where they can find soul friends and mentors. In a packaged, pressured society, suffering from data overload and stressful bureaucracy, people make a bee line for churches where they can chill out, be themselves, have space. In a world where equality of regard is written into statutes few people under forty any longer wish to be defined by a protest movement of 450 years ago called the Reformation, but are drawn to churches that are transcending the Protestant or Catholic label.”

He is clear that we need to find space for God, and so we do. “If we never get off the treadmill of life we may become prisoners of the treadmill. Generally, I have felt drawn to pilgrim places where nobodies became somebodies because they lived for God and loved people.”

One final point of note for me was his connection with Ash Barker and Winson Green. I was minister of Winson Green URC for four years in the nineties and am fascinated by the interesting work that Ash is doing, including the church in a yurt to which Ray refers – “I also maintained contacts with Ash Barker and friends who, following years living in Bangkok slums, developed in his revolutionary new ministry at Newbigin House, Birmingham, near the prison. He leads a Fresh Expression of Church in a yurt in the garden. His wife Anji heads up the multiple activities of Newbigin Community Trust, and they oversee the School for Urban Leadership. He invited me back to give a Celtic blessing on the yurt. This was it: May each person who enters this yurt Receive from You a big spurt To fight for right and overcome wrong To laugh and dance and sing your song.”

Lesslie Newbigin, left, me, centre, and others signing an agreement between the Church of England and the United Reformed Church at Winson Green

Walk Tall, Walk Well, Walk Safe, Walk Free

A recently enjoyed read is Graham Usher’s The Way Under Our Feet: A Spirituality of Walking. Graham is now Bishop of Norwich, and so was an ecumenical colleague during the latter part of my time as Moderator of Eastern Synod. Graham clearly has a great love of walking and frequently enjoys it as a spiritual experience. He writes: “Walking refreshes me and slows me down. The gentle movement relaxes my body, while the rhythm gives me time to think, so that those complex thoughts and worries that spin around my mind are sieved and sifted, memories are filed and my head becomes somewhat clearer,” adding, “Walking helps me to pray and leads me to encounter God: it’s as if I have a companion at my side, or up in front leading me on, or whispering from behind, encouraging me to take the step I dare not, but need to take.”

Usher recognises the value of walking in all sorts of ways, not least as he sees the model that Jesus offers and the challenge that he brings. “Jesus entrusted a small community that he had shaped to go out and walk his message. Those disciples’ walk would change the world as that message ‘gained legs’. Within a few years of his death, the words of Jesus would be walked to the ends of the known world, and as people were baptised, so the wet footprints of the totally immersed could be seen going in every direction! Acknowledging this, St Paul echoed a phrase of the prophet Isaiah ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’ (Rom. 10.15). He could see the power of walking in telling the story of what God has done for the whole world in the birth and life, passion and death, resurrection and ascension of his son, Jesus Christ.”

Walking can certainly play a helpful role. “We may be heartened by this prayer from South Africa: Walk tall, walk well, walk safe, walk free and may harm never come to thee. Walk wise, walk good, walk proud, walk true and may the sun always smile on you. Walk prayer, walk hope, walk faith, walk light, and may peace always guide you right. Walk joy, walk brave, walk love, walk strong and may life always give you song.”

Climate Sunday

 

Beside the 'Mungo Mural' on the way to Glasgow Cathedral

I was delighted to be part (in a very small way) of today’s Climate Sunday service at Glasgow Cathedral. In about eight weeks Glasgow will be hosting the important COP 26 conference – and this was an opportunity to pray for that and to reflect on it and the issues it will be considering. Climate change is undoubtedly the single biggest issue facing the planet, and it needs critical attention if we are to avoid climate catastrophe. The preacher, Christian Aid CEO Amanda Khozi Mukwashi, gave a powerful message reminding us of the importance of getting our relationship with God right and, having established that basis, also our relationship with the planet and with other human beings.

A number of church leaders, and others, particularly young people, contributed a range of insightful prayers and comments, some in person and others on pre-recorded video. We were reminded that we were in the city of St. Mungo and of his love of nature. I was especially struck by the commitment to these issues expressed by the Lord Provost of Glasgow. His description of Glasgow’s aim to be at the cutting edge of city responses to environmental issues was both encouraging and challenging. This was certainly an important occasion of which to be part.

Borders and Belonging - Lessons from Ruth

“Borders and Belonging: The Book of Ruth: A Story For Our Times” by Pάdraig Ó Tuama and Glenn Jordan offers a fascinating look at Ruth and many interesting links to contemporary times.

In particular, they emphasise lessons of kindness, so often missing from our experience – “the contrast between this biblical narrative of kindness and compassion couldn’t be starker when compared to the bear pit of politics and civic discourse in recent years on the issue of the EU. But maybe that is exactly why Ruth is important for us today when kindness and compassion seem to be in such short supply. This apparently simple book situates itself at the very places where the tectonic plates of conflicted communities threaten to crack and split apart whole nations and societies. Perhaps it offers us a way towards the healing of our fractures and the building of new and healthy relationships in the aftermath of trauma.”

There are a number of references to Brexit, very current when the book was written, but in a way that runs deep and fits numerous politically turbulent times. There is a strong push to remember the vulnerable and the marginalised. “The book of Ruth reminds us to look to the margins and to ask about who is being affected by these global eruptions. The bright and shiny baubles of Brexit, for instance, are overwhelmingly powerful, but they can also distract us from what is going on behind the loud exterior. Ruth reminds us that there will always be those driven back by the noise, pinned down by the tumult, who will be seeking mediating voices to speak to them words of comfort and inclusion and assure them they have not been forgotten.”

Another key point they raise is around the risks and damaging elements of stereotyping. “The book of Ruth is also a radical theological act. It recognizes that the national stereotype of Moabites is overcome by a new story; indeed, it is an acknowledgement that new stories are always possible. And these new stories are not told on the level of nation states or whole people groups but through personal and human encounter. In this way the book demonstrates the enduring and transforming power of incarnation.” We should always be looking for the contribution that different folk can make, and so the different stories that they are telling.

And, of course, there is a reference to migration, its challenges and contributions, and the blinkered approach that we often take. “The story of the world is a story of migrating peoples. For millennia, people have moved across seas and over mountain ranges. Empires seized lands and created borders. With borders and empires came the idea of policing the permission to move, and the era of Christianist empires introduced the imagination that you only have to be in a country a few hundred years before you become the ones with the right to be there, policing other people who are seeking to arrive as your recent forebears did, only a generation – or three or four – before. This book of Ruth is an intervention into the story.”

Scotland's Soul

I really enjoyed reading Harry Reid’s The Soul of Scotland: Celebrating Scotland’s Spiritual Richness. It is a fascinating selection of pieces exploring Scotland’s religious heritage in a variety of ways, and I found it far more interesting than I had expected.

Reid recognises the challenges of a secular society, but also the depth of Christian faith that has been part of Scottish history. I love the comment that: “Scottish Christianity is neither dead nor dying; it may just be having a wee nap before it rises and flourishes once more.”

Reid is clear that it has flourished in the past, and contributed a great deal. Different articles talk about people, places and literature. So, for instance, he says of George MacLeod – “I think of George MacLeod as a world-class troublemaker, and a frequently inspirational one. His legacy may be slightly misty (as Iona often is), but I suspect that it may become more important in time,” and of William Barclay, my first New Testament teacher at the University of Glasgow – “one genuinely great, and utterly natural, television communicator had emerged. This was the perhaps unlikely figure of Professor William Barclay of Glasgow University, a brilliant Biblical scholar possessed of a pleasant, if rather hoarse – and very Scottish – voice, a broadcasting manner that somehow managed to combine gruffness and charm, and the supreme gift of interpreting the teachings of Jesus – and in particular his parables – in a way that was lucid, intelligent and couthy all at once. Barclay was an authentic and very clever scholar, but he was never an aloof academic.”

But perhaps I was most fascinated by his writings about Scottish novels, and their contribution – which set me to reading John Buchan’s “Witch Wood.”

Reforming the Kirk

I have just finished reading Doug Gay’s Reforming the Kirk: The Future of the Church of Scotland, (based on the 2017 Chalmers Lectures), a fascinating, but also extremely challenging, read. Gay is very clearly writing to and for the Church of Scotland context and there is much that is specific to that; but there is also a great deal that can easily be applied to my own United Reformed Church context, either directly or with just a little thought as to the differences. Indeed, Doug Gay has served as a URC minister and seeks to apply some of what he learned there to the ‘Kirk’ context.

He is writing into the situation of decline which challenges the vast majority of mainline traditional denominational Christianity in the UK in these days. As he says of the Church of Scotland context, but it applies much more widely: “From the 1960s, membership began to decline, numbers of church weddings declined, numbers of infant baptisms declined and attendances at worship declined. That such decline has been a painful and dispiriting experience for hundreds of thousands of Scots is beyond question. Some of the ministers retiring now or who retired in the past decade, especially those who were ordained in the 1970s, have spent their whole ministries with declining congregations.”

He is concerned to suggest possible solutions for a refreshing of the Kirk. As he says: “Increasingly, institutional survival will come only through missional renewal. The tide is going out too fast for it to be otherwise. Sessions which had functioned reasonably well as administrative or pastoral bodies are experiencing new and unsettling challenges as urgent questions about missional leadership are put to them.”

I am fascinated by some of what he says about eldership, ministry and church organisation – but exploring that would take too much space here. What can certainly be agreed is that there is a crisis. He talks of the Kirk seeing the threat of congregationalism but, I think, suggests we need to reduce the amount of centralisation. He says: “Without compromising on generosity and solidarity, we need to reinvigorate local motivations to be sustainable and adventurous. Our current highly centralised systems are strong on pooling and sharing, but they look increasingly less well suited to motivating local giving. The acute missional challenges facing the Kirk over the period to 2030 call for a new financial imagination which will maintain a powerful commitment to smart, creative and empowering expressions of national sharing while incentivising a new era of local responsibility and offering greater local and regional flexibility.“  That same debate is very live in the URC, as we, too, struggle with the balance between emphasising the local, the regional (presbytery/Synod) and the denomination, despite those points where he cites us as being a good example. Though many colleagues would disagree with me, I, too, wonder if we have become, and continue to become, too centralised.

Incidentally, I really like his idea of commissioned elders, not replacing, but going alongside the traditional ordained for life model. He suggests: “The Kirk would introduce a new form of eldership alongside the old. Commissioned elders, as I suggest we call them, would be set aside to serve for periods of three years, with that three-year commission capable of being extended indefinitely, subject to concurrence on both sides. The decision to be commissioned or ordained would lie with the prospective elder and they would be asked to make it on the basis of discerning whether they understood their calling to the office in terms of a lifelong consecration or a time-limited assignment. No judgement would be made about depth of faith or degree of commitment, the discernment of vocation would be related to what Moltmann describes as the ‘charismatic freedom’ of the church, recognising that after one or more terms of commissioned eldership, a woman or man might feel called to a different sphere of service. Both forms of eldership would be eligible to fulfil exactly the same functions within the courts and councils of the Church of Scotland. The advantage of this reform would be that without diminishing, altering or undercutting the status of those already ordained to eldership, or preventing others being ordained in the future, new avenues of ministry could be opened up to church members who have the gifting and calling to serve, but have not felt called to be ‘ordained’ to this office for life.”

Could we possibly pull that off?

Discernment

Henri Nouwen has, of course, long been one of my favourite and go-to authors. My latest exploration of his insights came in reading his book Discernment, one of a number of books put together posthumously from his notes and records of his lectures and speaking. As always, there is lots of value.

Discernment is not necessarily easy, or something that helps us find a way of avoiding difficult things. As the book’s introduction says – “In Henri’s view, discernment should proceed from a person’s grounded, ordinary life. He did not want people to think that our goal is to escape from our everyday stresses and conflicts. Instead, we should invite the Holy Spirit into our direct experience, into our thoughts, memories, worries, and plans. Instead of seeking a life free from pain and suffering, we should trust that Jesus is present in our pain and suffering.”

Nouwen points out that discernment is about discovering where God wants us to be. “To discern means first of all to listen to God, to pay attention to God’s active presence, and to obey God’s prompting, direction, leadings, and guidance.”

He adds: “When we are spiritually deaf, we are not aware that anything important is happening in our lives. We keep running away from the present moment, and we try to create experiences that make our lives worthwhile. So we fill up our time to avoid the emptiness we otherwise would feel. When we are truly listening, we come to know that God is speaking to us, pointing the way, showing the direction. We simply need to learn to keep our ears open. Discernment is a life of listening to a deeper sound and marching to a different beat, a life in which we become “all ears.””

God is there for us, but it is all too easy not to notice that – if we lack discernment. It is important to notice that we are valued by God. As Nouwen puts it – “Claiming our belovedness does not come easily for many of us. There are competing voices we hear. When one voice says we’re nothing but a sinner and another voice says we are the beloved of God, we are called to discern the spirits and follow the inner voice of love.” Yes, we matter!