Praying for Brexit

It was good to be at Chelmsford Cathedral and to share leading prayers for Brexit with Stephen Cottrell, Bishop of Chelmsford, and Nicholas Henshall, Dean of Chelmsford Cathedral this morning. When originally arranged, it was thought that this would be the day after the UK had left the EU. That is not the case, and nobody can, at the moment, be really sure as to what will happen. However, even when it became clear that Brexit was not going to happen yesterday, it seemed right to proceed with the prayers, perhaps needed more than ever. As +Stephen pointed out, whatever happens, we need to retain good relationships with our sisters and brothers in the EU; we need to prayerfully remember our MPs, many of whom have been subjected to unacceptable hate mail and the like, as they shoulder responsibilities of leadership and decision-making; and we need to build a more united society. Whether we voted ‘leave’ or ‘remain’ should not be what defines us, but our commitment to a better and fairer nation and world.

We Need Each Other

Just finished reading Jean Vanier’s “We Need One Another”, full of little bits of insight as to how God cares for us, and just what that might mean in terms of how we relate to each other as human beings. Here are the things that I wrote down as I read it, each saying something that is both challenging and inspiring:

“When a baby is born, the baby is vulnerable, easily wounded, fragile, and without any kind of defence. This child, held lovingly in the arms of the mother, learns through the tone of her voice, the tenderness of her touch, and her unfailing attention that he or she is loved. The child is not frightened of being vulnerable; he or she learns that it is okay to be weak and to have no defences because he or she knows, I am loved.”

“There is a beauty and vulnerability in each person.”

“Do not be afraid to give voice to your fears. The danger lies in letting our fears control us and in not learning to walk with them. Our fears may not be eliminated, but we do not have to be controlled by them.”

“To love someone is to reveal to them that they are precious; it is to listen to them.”

“God is present in the weakest and in the most vulnerable.”

“Community is about building a body, and we all need one another. Weakness is about accepting who we are, accepting our vulnerabilities and our poverty.”

“Jesus has a vision for our world, to bring people together in love.”

“We are human beings with wounded hearts, and we must take care of our hearts.”

“When you live in a society full of competition, where you find yourself seeking only your own success, you may gain power and money, but you will end up losing what is most valuable in becoming human: to be in relationship, open to another person. This is the vision of Jesus and the work of peace: to discover that every person is unique, whatever their disabilities, whatever their tribe, country, culture, or religion.”

“Forgiveness is not just the recognition that I am broken; it is also the recognition that I have broken others and that I have hurt them and helped prevent them from opening to the grace of God. The great mystery of Jesus is that he came to forgive, not just all that is broken in me, but all that I have broken in others. This is forgiveness.”

“Society is not a pyramid but a body, and in that body each part is important.  There are no parts that are the best or better than others.”

Merciful Humility

I have just read Jane Williams’ The Merciful Humility of God. It is a great reminder, in so many different ways, of how God loves and values us and how God wants us to recognise that. The very title of the book, including mercy and humility, is a powerful reminder that God’s approach is very different from what we find elsewhere. She uses the image of the shepherd to remind us of this, and it is worth our remembering that shepherds would have been regarded as outcasts.

“God has always had a soft spot for shepherds, from David onwards, and the child whom the shepherds came to worship grew up to describe himself, quite often, as one of them, preferring that description to ‘king’ or ‘messiah’. There is something about shepherding that lies close to the heart of how God works; shepherds feed and care for sheep, who can give them little in the way of understanding or affection in return; shepherds protect the weak sheep against the strong predators all around; shepherds risk their own comfort and safety for the sheep. No wonder God invites them to Bethlehem.”

She carefully and rightly reminds us not to go with expectation. Too often we get caught up in thinking how things should be and we use our conventions. The book carries a clear warning against that.

“God’s activity may sometimes look wasteful, inefficient or even lacking in potency. ,,,, God’s timescale may not be ours, but that means that we have something to learn, rather than that God should change. …. God’s action is sometimes spacious, slow and hard to comprehend in its apparent lack of force, but it seems that God is to be trusted. God may work quietly, humbly, apparently at the mercy of greater forces and even accidents of history, but this is still God at work, and love is still God’s meaning.”

“Almost the first thing Jesus does at the start of his ministry is to gather around himself a disparate group of friends, and to start to offend the people who might have been able to promote his agenda. He seemed to have a clear strategy, but one that is baffling by most ordinary standards.”

She reminds us that the world’s standards and expectation will send us in the wrong direction. It may not fit with what anyone is likely to expect but, actually, God’s different way sets things up as they should be.

“To hate is to be shaped by what is hated; paradoxically, it gives power to what is hated to continue to shape life and choices. …. Whereas forgiveness brings freedom and new possibilities.”

“The humble God makes the world bigger, because God’s humility notices and includes those who do not fit the dominant narrative of the world. Those who will never be ‘successful’, as success is commonly measured, ‘succeed’ in being loved by God.”

“In Jesus, we see God’s humility lived out in the world, not claiming power or prestige or approval or safety; and we come to discover that this is a mercy and a blessing for us. We no longer have to be measured by failure or success, and so to face the fact that we all fail.”

Grasping at Hints ... Going Off at Tangents

Yesterday, 16^th March, I marked the 40^th anniversary of my ordination. Back in 1979 in the west of

Celebratory Cup Cakes

Scotland, I was ordained, and inducted as the minister of Beith E U Congregational Church. Yesterday was our Synod meeting and Synod generously marked the occasion, not least with cup cakes!

I am not quite sure how I got to this milestone, but doing so has inevitably led me to reflect on some of what got me here, and part of that has been thinking about how it all began and the influences on my early ministry.

With my parents on my ordination day 

One of my ‘heroes’, if that’s the right word, of the time was a Roman Catholic priest called Michael Hollings, and not least because he had written a book on ministry, entitled ‘Living Priesthood’. I recently dug out my copy and found myself revisiting a passage from the book that I marked when I originally read it. Hollings wrote: “it is .. only possible to come to the core-meaning of [ministry] by being nebulous and diffuse, grasping at hints, going off at tangents, rather than coming to centre points. There is only one centre point – Christ.  For Christ whom we are following, the one high priest, emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave.”

Beith E U Congregational Church

I was so glad to reread that. I have spent so much time in ministry grasping at hints and going off at tangents – but when I think about it, I find that I agree with Hollings. That is OK.  That is what it’s about.  God doesn’t expect us to save the world.  That’s God’s job, and best left to God. If we try to do it all, we will end up feeling, as Hollings comments: “pretty desolate and frustrated, shallow and unused.” However, he adds that if we are “prepared to be emptied, to become everybody’s slave, fulfilment and joy will creep up … unawares.”

So, bring on the next bunch of hints and tangents – that might just be where God wants me to be.

Phoebe

I have just finished reading Paula Gooder's Phoebe. Drawing on Romans 16:1-2, where Phoebe is identified as the individual who carried Paul's letter to the Roman Christians, Gooder, using a creative mix of imagination and scholarship, describes what that might have felt like. She creates a great story which took me into the heart of the early Roman church.

She descibes life as, most likely, it would have been, but also introduces a range of theological themes as the characters in the story wrestle with issues like reconciliation, persecution, status and evangelism.

I found it a helpful approach, and that is reinforced in the second part of the book when, chapter by chapter, she explores the range of things that are mentioned, an approach that I prefer to interrupting the text with copious footnotes, but which provides the scholarship that supports the story.

I felt I had got to know Phoebe by the end of the book, and found myself both inspired and challenged by her.

Crazy Christians

Michael Curry's Crazy Christians is the kind of exuberant expression of the Christian faith that you would expect from Bishop Curry, Presiding Bishop of the US Episcopal Church and the first African American to hold that post. (Curry, of course, hit the UK headlines with his powerful sermon on love at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.) His enthusiasm has much to commend it, as does his clarity of thought - "being a Christian is not essentially about joining a church or being a nice person, but about following in the footsteps of Jesus, taking his teachings seriously, letting his Spirit take the lead in our lives, and in so doing helping to change the world from our nightmare into God's dream."

I have to say that I find Curry refreshingly straightforward. I think we need to put the challenge to be disciples out there and encourage our church folk to really make a difference. The apostle Paul talks about our being 'fools' for Christ's sake. Curry talks about our being crazy.

"What the Church needs, what this world needs, are some Christians who are as crazy as the Lord. Crazy enough to love like Jesus, to give like Jesus, to forgive like Jesus, to do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God - like Jesus."

Curry reminds us that, essentially, discipleship is about what we do. It can look difficult, but we need to remember that God promises to accompany us. There is plenty of Biblical evidence for God asking what might seem impossible. Noah, Abraham and Sarah, and Esther could all tell stories about that. Other prime examples are David, as he faced Goliath, and the pregnant Mary. Bishop Curry reminds us - "We can be part of that impossible-sounding mission, especially and only because we are part of something greater than ourselves", adding, "discipleship is really about what you do with your feet."